FOOTNOTES:

"When young and old come forth to playOn a sulphurous holiday,Tell how the darling goblin sweat(His feast of cinders duly set),And belching night, where breathed the morn.His shadowy flail hath threshed the cornThat ten day-labourers could not end."

But we will press the example closer. On a green knoll above that plain of the Arve, between Cluses and Bonneville, there was, in the year 1860, a cottage, inhabited by a well-doing family—man and wife, three children, and the grandmother. I call it a cottage but, in truth, it was a large chimney on the ground, wide at the bottom (so that the family might live round the fire), with one broken window in it, and an unclosing door. The family, I say, was "well-doing," at least, it was hopeful and cheerful; the wife healthy, the children, for Savoyards, pretty and active, but the husband threatened with decline, from exposure under the cliffs of the Mont Vergi by day, and to draughts between every plank of his chimney in the frosty nights. "Why could he not plaster thechinks?" asks the practical reader. For the same reason that your child cannot wash its face and hands till you have washed them many a day for it, and will not wash them when it can, till you force it.

I passed this cottage often in my walks, had its window and door mended, sometimes mended also a little the meal of sour bread and broth, and generally got kind greeting and smile from the face of young or old; which greeting, this year, narrowed itself into the half-recognizing stare of the elder child and the old woman's tears; for the father and mother were both dead,—one of sickness, the other of sorrow. It happened that I passed not alone, but with a companion, a practised English joiner, who, while these people were dying of cold, had been employed from six in the morning to six of the evening for two months, in fitting the panels without nails, of a single door in a large house in London. Three days of his work taken, at the right time, from the oak panels, and applied to the larch timbers, would have saved these Savoyards' lives. He would have been maintained equally (I suppose him equally paid for his work by the owner of the greater house, only the work not consumed selfishly on his own walls;) and the two peasants, and eventually, probably their children, saved.

There are, therefore, let me finally enforce and leave with the reader this broad conclusion,—three things to be considered in employing any poor person. It is not enough to give him employment. You must employ him first to produce useful things; secondly, of the several (suppose equally useful) things he can equally well produce, you must set him to make that which will cause him to lead the healthiest life; lastly, of the things produced, it remains a question of wisdom and conscience how much you are to take yourself, and how much to leave to others. A large quantity, remember, unless you destroy it, must always be so left at one time or another; the only questions you have to decide are, not what you will give, and what you will keep, but when, and how, and to whom, you will give. The natural law of human life is, of course, that in youth a man shall labour and lay by store for his old age, and when age comes, should use what he has laidby, gradually slackening his toil, and allowing himself more frank use of his store, taking care always to leave himself as much as will surely suffice for him beyond any possible length of life. What he has gained, or by tranquil and unanxious toil, continues to gain, more than is enough for his own need, he ought so to administer, while he yet lives, as to see the good of it again beginning in other hands; for thus he has himself the greatest sum of pleasure from it, and faithfully uses his sagacity in its control. Whereas most men, it appears, dislike the sight of their fortunes going out into service again, and say to themselves,—"I can indeed nowise prevent this money from falling at last into the hands of others, nor hinder the good of it, such as it is, from becoming theirs, not mine; but at least let a merciful death save me from being a witness of their satisfaction; and may God so far be gracious to me as to let no good come of any of this money of mine before my eyes." Supposing this feeling unconquerable, the safest way of rationally indulging it would be for the capitalist at once to spend all his fortune on himself, which might actually, in many cases, be quite the rightest as well as the pleasantest thing to do, if he had just tastes and worthy passions. But, whether for himself only, or through the hands and for the sake of others also, the law of wise life is, that the maker of the money should also be the spender of it, and spend it, approximately, all, before he dies; so that his true ambition as an economist should be, to die, not as rich, but as poor, as possible, calculating the ebb tide of possession in true and calm proportion to the ebb tide of life. Which law, checking the wing of accumulative desire in the mid-volley,[120]and leading to peace of possession and fulness of fruition in old age, is also wholesome in that by the freedom of gift, together with present help and counsel, it at once endears and dignifies age in the sight of youth, which then no longer strips the bodies of the dead, but receives the grace of the living. Its chief use would (or will be, formen are indeed capable of attaining to this much use for their reason), that some temperance and measure will be put to the acquisitiveness of commerce.[121]For as things stand, a man holds it his duty to be temperate in his food, and of his body, but for no duty to be temperate in his riches, and of his mind. He sees that he ought not to waste his youth and his flesh for luxury; but he will waste his age, and his soul, for money, and think it no wrong, nor the delirium tremens of the intellect any evil. But the law of life is, that a man should fix the sum he desires to make annually, as the food he desires to eat daily; and stay when he has reached the limit, refusing increase of business, and leaving it to others, so obtaining due freedom of time for better thoughts. How the gluttony of business is punished, a bill of health for the principals of the richest city houses, issued annually, would show in a sufficiently impressive manner.

I know, of course, that these statements will be received by the modern merchant, as an active Border rider of the sixteenth century would have heard of its being proper for men of the Marches to get their living by the spade instead of the spur. But my business is only to state veracities and necessities; I neither look for the acceptance of the one, nor promise anything for the nearness of the other. Near or distant, the day will assuredly come when the merchants of a state shall be its true "ministers of exchange," its porters, in the double sense of carriers and gate-keepers, bringing all lands into frank and faithful communication, and knowing for their master of guild, Hermes the herald, instead of Mercury the gain-guarder.

And now, finally, for immediate rule to whom it concerns.

The distress of any population means that they need food, houseroom, clothes, and fuel. You can never, therefore, be wrong in employing any labourer to produce food,houseroom, clothes, or fuel: but you are always wrong if you employ him to produce nothing (for then some other labourer must be worked double time to feed him); and you are generally wrong, at present, if you employ him (unless he can do nothing else) to produce works of art, or luxuries; because modern art is mostly on a false basis, and modern luxury is criminally great.[122]

The way to produce more food is mainly to bring in fresh ground, and increase facilities of carriage;—to break rock, exchange earth, drain the moist, and water the dry, to mend roads, and build harbours of refuge. Taxation thus spent will annihilate taxation, but spent in war, it annihilates revenue.

The way to produce houseroom is to apply your force first to the humbler dwellings. When your bricklayers are out of employ, do not build splendid new streets, but better the old ones: send your paviours and slaters to the poorest villages, and see that your poor are healthily lodged before you try your hand on stately architecture. You will find its stateliness rise better under the trowel afterwards; and we donot yet build so well as that we need hasten to display our skill to future ages. Had the labour which has decorated the Houses of Parliament filled, instead, rents in walls and roofs throughout the county of Middlesex; and our deputies met to talk within massive walls that would have needed no stucco for five hundred years,—the decoration might have been better afterwards, and the talk now. And touching even our highly conscientious church building, it may be well to remember that in the best days of church plans, their masons called themselves "logeurs du bon Dieu;" and that since, according to the most trusted reports, God spends a good deal of His time in cottages as well as in churches, He might perhaps like to be a little better lodged there also.

The way to get more clothes is,—not necessarily, to get more cotton. There were words written twenty years ago which would have saved many of us some shivering had they been minded in time. Shall we read them?

"The Continental people, it would seem, are 'importing our machinery, beginning to spin cotton and manufacture for themselves, to cut us out of this market and then out of that!' Sad news indeed; but irremediable;—by no means. The saddest news is, that we should find our National Existence, as I sometimes hear it said, depend on selling manufactured cotton at a farthing an ell cheaper than any other People. A most narrow stand for a great Nation to base itself on! A stand which, with all the Corn-Law Abrogations conceivable, I do not think will be capable of enduring.

"My friends, suppose we quitted that stand; suppose we came honestly down from it and said: 'This is our minimum cotton-prices. We care not, for the present, to make cotton any cheaper. Do you, if it seem so blessed to you, make cotton cheaper. Fill your lungs with cotton-fuzz, your hearts with copperas-fumes, with rage and mutiny; become ye the general gnomes of Europe, slaves of the lamp!' I admire a Nation which fancies it will die if it do not undersell all other Nations, to the end of the world. Brothers, we will cease toundersell them; we will be content toequal-sell them; to be happy selling equally with them! I do not see the use of underselling them. Cotton-cloth is already two-pencea yard or lower; and yet bare backs were never more numerous among us. Let inventive men cease to spend their existence incessantly contriving how cotton can be made cheaper; and try to invent, a little, how cotton at its present cheapness could be somewhat justlier divided among us. Let inventive men consider, Whether the Secret of this Universe, and of Man's Life there, does, after all, as we rashly fancy it, consist in making money?... With a Hell which means—'Failing to make money,' I do not think there is any Heaven possible that would suit one well; nor so much as an Earth that can be habitable long! In brief, all this Mammon-Gospel of Supply-and-demand, Competition, Laissez-faire, and Devil take the hindmost" (foremost, is it not, rather, Mr. Carlyle?) "begins to be one of the shabbiest Gospels ever preached." (In the matter of clothes, decidedly.) The way to produce more fuel is first to make your coal mines safer, by sinking more shafts; then set all your convicts to work in them, and if, as is to be hoped, you succeed in diminishing the supply of that sort of labourer, consider what means there may be, first of growing forest where its growth will improve climate; then of splintering the forests which now make continents of fruitful land pathless and poisonous, into faggots for fire;—so gaining at once dominion sunwards and icewards. Your steam power has been given you (you will find eventually) for work such as that; and not for excursion trains, to give the labourer a moment's breath, at the peril of his breath for ever, from amidst the cities which you have crushed into masses of corruption. When you know how to build cities, and how to rule them, you will be able to breathe in their streets, and the "excursion" will be the afternoon's walk or game in the fields round them. Long ago, Claudian's peasant of Verona knew, and we must yet learn, in his fashion, the difference between via and vita. But nothing of this work will pay.

No; no more than it pays to dust your rooms or wash your doorsteps. It will pay; not at first in currency, but in that which is the end and the source of currency,—in life (and in currency richly afterwards). It will pay in that which is more than life,—in "God's first creature, which was light," whosetrue price has not yet been reckoned in any currency, and yet into the image of which all wealth, one way or other, must be cast. For your riches must either as the lightning, which,

"begot but in a cloud,Though shining bright, and speaking loud,Whilst it begins, concludes its violent race,And, where it gilds, it wounds the place;"

or else as the lightning of the sacred sign, which shines from one part of the heaven to the other. There is no other choice; you must either take dust for deity, spectre for possession, fettered dream for life, and for epitaph, this reversed verse of the great Hebrew hymn of economy (Psalm cxii.):—"He hath gathered together, he hath stripped the poor, his iniquity remaineth for ever." Or else, having the sun for justice to shine on you, and the sincere substance of good in your possession, and the pure law and liberty of life within you, leave men to write this better legend over your grave: "He hath dispersed abroad. He hath given to the poor. His righteousness remaineth for ever."

The present paper completes the definitions necessary for future service. The next in order will be the first chapter of the body of the work.These introductory essays are as yet in imperfect form; I suffer them to appear, though they were not intended for immediate publication, for the sake of such chance service as may be found in them.[Here the author indicated certain corrections, which have been carried out in this edition. He then went on to say that the note on Charis (p. 274) required a word or two in further illustration, as follows:—]The derivation of words is like that of rivers: there is one real source, usually small, unlikely, and difficult to find, far up among the hills; then, as the word flows on and comes into service, it takes in the force of other words from other sources, and becomes itself quite another word—even more than one word, after the junction—a word as it were of many waters, sometimes both sweet and bitter. Thus the whole force of our English "charity" depends on the guttural in "Charis" getting confused with the "c" of the Latin "carus;" thenceforward throughout the middle ages, the two ideas ran on together, and both got confused with St. Paul'sὰγάπη, which expresses a different idea in all sorts of ways; our "charity," having not only brought in the entirely foreign sense of almsgiving, but lost the essential sense ofcontentment, and lost much more in getting too far away from the "charis," of the final Gospel benedictions. For truly it is fine Christianity we have come to, which professing to expect the perpetual grace of its Founder, has not itself grace enough to save it from overreaching its friends in sixpenny bargains; and which, supplicating evening and morning the forgiveness of its own debts, goes forth in the daytime to take its fellow-servants by the throat, saying—not "Pay me that thou owest," but "Pay me that thou owest me not."Not but that we sometimes wear Ophelia's rue with a difference, and call it, "Herb o' grace o' Sundays," taking consolation out of the offertory with—"Look, what he layeth out, it shall be paid him again." Comfortable words, indeed, and good to set against the old royalty of Largesse—"Whose moste joie was, I wis,When that she gave, and said, 'Have this.'"Again: the first root of the word faith being far away in——(compare my note on this force of it in "Modern Painters," vol. v., p. 255), the Latins, as proved by Cicero's derivation of the word, got their "facio," also involved in the idea; and so the word, and the world with it, gradually lose themselves in an arachnoid web of disputation concerning faith and works, no one ever taking the pains to limit the meaning of the term: which in earliest Scriptural use is as nearly as possible our English "obedience." Then the Latin "fides," a quite different word, alternately active and passive in different uses, runs into "foi;" "facere," through "ficare," into "fier," at the end of words; and "fidere," into "fier" absolute; and out of this endless reticulation of thought and word rise still more finely reticulated theories concerning salvation by faith—the things which the populace expected to be saved from, being indeed carved for them in a very graphic manner in their cathedral porches, but the things they were expected to believe being carved for them not so clearly.Lastly I debated with myself whether to make the note on Homer longer by examining the typical meaning of the shipwreck of Ulysses, and his escape from Charybdis by help of her fig-tree; but as I should have had to go on to the lovely myth of Leucothea's veil, and did not care to spoil this by a hurried account of it, I left it for future examination; and three days after the paper was published, observed that the reviewers, with their usual useful ingenuity, were endeavouring to throw the whole subject back into confusion by dwelling on the single (as they imagined) oversight. I omitted also a note on the sense of the wordλυγρὸν, with respect to the pharmacy of Circe, and herb-fields of Helen (compare its use in Odyssey, xvii. 473, etc.), which would further have illustrated the nature of the Circean power. But, not to be led too far into the subtleness of these myths, respecting them allI have but this to say: Even in very simple parables, it is not always easy to attach indisputable meaning to every part of them. I recollect some years ago, throwing an assembly of learned persons who had met to delight themselves with interpretations of the parable of the prodigal son (interpretations which had up to that moment gone very smoothly) into high indignation, by inadvertently asking who the prodigal son was, and what was to be learned by his example. The leading divine of the company (still one of our great popular preachers) at last explained to me that the unprodigal son was a lay figure, put in for dramatic effect, to make the story prettier, and that no note was to be taken of him. Without, however, admitting that Homer put in the last escape of Ulysses merely to make his story prettier, this is nevertheless true of all Greek myths, that they have many opposite lights and shades: they are as changeful as opal and, like opal, usually have one colour by reflected, and another by transmitted, light. But they are true jewels for all that, and full of noble enchantment for those who can use them; for those who cannot, I am content to repeat the words I wrote four years ago, in the appendix to the "Two Paths"—"The entire purpose of a great thinker may be difficult to fathom, and we may be over and over again more or less mistaken in guessing at his meaning; but the real, profound, nay, quite bottomless and unredeemable mistake, is the fool's thought, that he had no meaning."

The present paper completes the definitions necessary for future service. The next in order will be the first chapter of the body of the work.

These introductory essays are as yet in imperfect form; I suffer them to appear, though they were not intended for immediate publication, for the sake of such chance service as may be found in them.

[Here the author indicated certain corrections, which have been carried out in this edition. He then went on to say that the note on Charis (p. 274) required a word or two in further illustration, as follows:—]

The derivation of words is like that of rivers: there is one real source, usually small, unlikely, and difficult to find, far up among the hills; then, as the word flows on and comes into service, it takes in the force of other words from other sources, and becomes itself quite another word—even more than one word, after the junction—a word as it were of many waters, sometimes both sweet and bitter. Thus the whole force of our English "charity" depends on the guttural in "Charis" getting confused with the "c" of the Latin "carus;" thenceforward throughout the middle ages, the two ideas ran on together, and both got confused with St. Paul'sὰγάπη, which expresses a different idea in all sorts of ways; our "charity," having not only brought in the entirely foreign sense of almsgiving, but lost the essential sense ofcontentment, and lost much more in getting too far away from the "charis," of the final Gospel benedictions. For truly it is fine Christianity we have come to, which professing to expect the perpetual grace of its Founder, has not itself grace enough to save it from overreaching its friends in sixpenny bargains; and which, supplicating evening and morning the forgiveness of its own debts, goes forth in the daytime to take its fellow-servants by the throat, saying—not "Pay me that thou owest," but "Pay me that thou owest me not."

Not but that we sometimes wear Ophelia's rue with a difference, and call it, "Herb o' grace o' Sundays," taking consolation out of the offertory with—"Look, what he layeth out, it shall be paid him again." Comfortable words, indeed, and good to set against the old royalty of Largesse—

"Whose moste joie was, I wis,When that she gave, and said, 'Have this.'"

Again: the first root of the word faith being far away in——(compare my note on this force of it in "Modern Painters," vol. v., p. 255), the Latins, as proved by Cicero's derivation of the word, got their "facio," also involved in the idea; and so the word, and the world with it, gradually lose themselves in an arachnoid web of disputation concerning faith and works, no one ever taking the pains to limit the meaning of the term: which in earliest Scriptural use is as nearly as possible our English "obedience." Then the Latin "fides," a quite different word, alternately active and passive in different uses, runs into "foi;" "facere," through "ficare," into "fier," at the end of words; and "fidere," into "fier" absolute; and out of this endless reticulation of thought and word rise still more finely reticulated theories concerning salvation by faith—the things which the populace expected to be saved from, being indeed carved for them in a very graphic manner in their cathedral porches, but the things they were expected to believe being carved for them not so clearly.

Lastly I debated with myself whether to make the note on Homer longer by examining the typical meaning of the shipwreck of Ulysses, and his escape from Charybdis by help of her fig-tree; but as I should have had to go on to the lovely myth of Leucothea's veil, and did not care to spoil this by a hurried account of it, I left it for future examination; and three days after the paper was published, observed that the reviewers, with their usual useful ingenuity, were endeavouring to throw the whole subject back into confusion by dwelling on the single (as they imagined) oversight. I omitted also a note on the sense of the wordλυγρὸν, with respect to the pharmacy of Circe, and herb-fields of Helen (compare its use in Odyssey, xvii. 473, etc.), which would further have illustrated the nature of the Circean power. But, not to be led too far into the subtleness of these myths, respecting them allI have but this to say: Even in very simple parables, it is not always easy to attach indisputable meaning to every part of them. I recollect some years ago, throwing an assembly of learned persons who had met to delight themselves with interpretations of the parable of the prodigal son (interpretations which had up to that moment gone very smoothly) into high indignation, by inadvertently asking who the prodigal son was, and what was to be learned by his example. The leading divine of the company (still one of our great popular preachers) at last explained to me that the unprodigal son was a lay figure, put in for dramatic effect, to make the story prettier, and that no note was to be taken of him. Without, however, admitting that Homer put in the last escape of Ulysses merely to make his story prettier, this is nevertheless true of all Greek myths, that they have many opposite lights and shades: they are as changeful as opal and, like opal, usually have one colour by reflected, and another by transmitted, light. But they are true jewels for all that, and full of noble enchantment for those who can use them; for those who cannot, I am content to repeat the words I wrote four years ago, in the appendix to the "Two Paths"—

"The entire purpose of a great thinker may be difficult to fathom, and we may be over and over again more or less mistaken in guessing at his meaning; but the real, profound, nay, quite bottomless and unredeemable mistake, is the fool's thought, that he had no meaning."

FOOTNOTES:[104]"The ordinary brute, who flourishes in the very centre of ornate life, tells us of unknown depths on the verge of which we totter, being bound to thank our stars every day we live that there is not a general outbreak and a revolt from the yoke of civilization."—Timesleader, Dec. 25th, 1862. Admitting that our stars are to be thanked for our safety, whom are we to thank for the danger?[105]Our politicians, even the best of them, regard only the distress caused by the failure of mechanical labour. The degradation caused by its excess is a far more serious subject of thought, and of future fear. I shall examine this part of our subject at length hereafter. There can hardly be any doubt, at present, cast on the truth of the above passages, as all the great thinkers are unanimous on the matter. Plato's words are terrific in their scorn and pity whenever he touches on the mechanical arts. He calls the men employed in them not even human,—but partially and diminutively human, "ανθρωπίσκοι," and opposes such work to noble occupations, not merely as prison is opposed to freedom, but as a convict'sdishonoured prison is to the temple (escape from them being like that of a criminal to the sanctuary), and the destruction caused by them being of soul no less than body.—Rep., vi. 9. Compare "Laws," v. 11. Xenophon dwells on the evil of occupations at the furnace (root ofβάναυσος), and especially their "ἀσχολία, want of leisure"—Econ. i. 4. (Modern England, with all its pride of education, has lost that first sense of the word "school," and till it recover that it will find no other rightly.) His word for the harm to the soul is to "break" it, as we say of the heart.—Econ. i. 6. And herein also is the root of the scorn, otherwise apparently most strange and cruel, with which Homer, Dante, and Shakespeare always speak of the populace; for it is entirely true that in great states the lower orders are low by nature as well as by task, being precisely that part of the commonwealth which has been thrust down for its coarseness or unworthiness (by coarseness I mean especially insensibility and irreverence; the "profane" of Horace); and when this ceases to be so, and the corruption and the profanity are in the higher instead of the lower orders, there arises, first, helpless confusion; then, if the lower classes deserve power, ensues swift revolution, and they get it: but if neither the populace nor their rulers deserve it, there follows mere darkness and dissolution, till, out of the putrid elements, some new capacity of order rises, like grass on a grave; if not, there is no more hope, nor shadow of turning, for that nation. Atropos has her way with it.So that the law of national health is like that of a great lake or sea, in perfect but slow circulation, letting the dregs fall continually to the lowest place, and the clear water rise; yet so as that there shall be no neglect of the lower orders, but perfect supervision and sympathy, so that if one member suffer, all members shall suffer with it.[106]"ὀλίγης, καὶ ἄλλως γιγνομένης."The bitter sentence never was so true as at this day.[107]Thetic, or Thesmic, would perhaps be a better term than Archic; but liable to be confused with some which we shall want relating to Theoria. The administrators of the three great divisions of law are severally Archons, Merists, and Dicasts. The Archons are the true princes, or beginners of things; or leaders (as of an orchestra); the Merists are properly the Domini, or Lords (law-words) of houses and nations; the Dicasts properly the judges, and that with Olympian justice, which reaches to heaven and hell. The violation of archic law isἁμαρτία(error)πονηρία(failure),πλημμέλεια(discord). The violation of meristic law isἀνομία(iniquity). The violation of critic law isἀδικία(injury). Iniquity is central generic term; for all law isfatal; it is the division to men of their fate; as the fold of their pasture, it isνόμος; as the assigning of their portion,μοῖρα.[108]These laws need revision quite as much respecting property in national as in private hands. For instance: the public are under a vague impression, that because they have paid for the contents of the British Museum, every one has an equal right to see and to handle them. But the public have similarly paid for the contents of Woolwich Arsenal; yet do not expect free access to it, or handling of its contents. The British Museum is neither a free circulating library, nor a free school; it is a place for the safe preservation, and exhibition on due occasion, of unique books, unique objects of natural history, and unique works of art; its books can no more be used by everybody than its coins can be handled, or its statues cast. Free libraries there ought to be in every quarter of London, with large and complete reading-rooms attached; so also free educational institutions should be open in every quarter of London, all day long and till late at night, well lighted, well catalogued, and rich in contents both of art and natural history. But neither the British Museum nor National Gallery are schools; they are treasuries; and both should be severely restricted in access and in use. Unless some order is taken, and that soon, in the MSS. department of the Museum (Sir Frederic Madden was complaining of this to me only the other day), the best MSS. in the collection will be destroyed, irretrievably, by the careless and continual handling to which they are now subjected.[109]Two curious economical questions arise laterally with respect to this branch of law, namely, the cost of crime and the cost of judgment. The cost of crime is endured by nations ignorantly, not being clearly stated in their budgets; the cost of judgment patiently (provided only it can be had pure for the money), because the science, or perhaps we ought rather to say the art, of law, is felt to found a noble profession, and discipline; so that civilized nations are usually glad that a number of persons should be supported by funds devoted to disputation and analysis. But it has not yet been calculated what the practical value might have been, in other directions, of the intelligence now occupied in deciding, through courses of years, what might have been decided as justly, had the date of judgment been fixed, in as many hours. Imagine one half of the funds which any great nation devotes to dispute by law, applied to the determination of physical questions in medicine, agriculture, and theoretic science; and calculate the probable results within the next ten years.I say nothing yet, of the more deadly, more lamentable loss, involved in the use of purchased instead of personal justice,—ἐπακτῷ παρ’ ἄλλων—ἀπορίᾳ’ οἰκείων.[110]Compare Chaucer's "villany" (clownishness)."Full foul and chorlishe seemed she,And eke villanous for to be,And little coulde of nortureTo worship any creature."[111]"Supply-and-demand,—alas! For what noble work was there ever any audible 'demand' in that poor sense?" ("Past and Present"). Nay, the demand is not loud even for ignoble work. See "Average earnings of Betty Taylor," inTimes, of 4th February, of this year [1863]: "Worked from Monday morning at 8 a.m., to Friday night at 5.30 p.m., for 1s.5½d."—Laissez faire.[112]See Bacon's note in the "Advancement of Learning," on "didicisse fideliter artes" (but indeed the accent had need be upon "fideliter"). "It taketh away vain admiration of anything, which is the root of all weakness: for all things are admired either because they are new, or because they are great," etc.[113]Ames, by report of Waldo Emerson, expressed the popular security wisely, saying, "that a monarchy is a merchantman, which sails well, but will sometimes strike on a rock, and go to the bottom; whilst a republic is a raft, which would never sink, but then your feet are always in the water." Yes, and when the four winds (your only pilots) steer competitively from the four corners,ὡς δ’ ὅτ’ ὀπωρινὸς Βορέης φορέησιν ἀκάνθας, perhaps the wiser mariner may wish for keel and wheel again.[114]The passage of Plato, referred to in note p. 280, in its context, respecting the slave who, well dressed and washed, aspires to the hand of his master's daughter, corresponds curiously to the attack of Caliban on Prospero's cell, and there is an undercurrent of meaning throughout, in the "Tempest" as well as in the "Merchant of Venice"; referring in this case to government, as in that to commerce. Miranda ("the wonderful," so addressed first by Ferdinand, "Oh, you wonder!") corresponds to Homer's Arete: Ariel and Caliban are respectively the spirits of freedom and mechanical labour. Prospero ("for hope"), a true governor, opposed to Sycorax, the mother of slavery, her name, "Swine-raven," indicating at once brutality and deathfulness; hence the line—"As wicked dew as e'er my mother brushed, with raven's feather,"—etc. For all dreams of Shakespeare, as those of true and strong men must be, are "φαντάσματα θεῖα, καὶ σκιαὶ τῶν ὄντων," phantasms of God, and shadows of things that are. We hardly tell our children, willingly, a fable with no purport in it; yet we think God sends His best messengers only to say fairy tales to us, all fondness and emptiness. The "Tempest" is just like a grotesque in a rich missal, "clasped where paynims pray." Ariel is the spirit of true liberty, in early stages of human society oppressed by ignorance and wild tyranny; venting groans as fast as mill-wheels strike; in shipwreck of states, fearful; so that "all but mariners plunge in the brine, and quit the vessel, then all afire with me," yet having in itself the will and sweetness of truest peace, whence that is especially called "Ariel's" song, "Come unto these yellow sands"—(fenceless, and countless—changing with the sweep of the sea—"vaga arena." Compare Horace's opposition of the sea-sand to the dust of the grave: "numero carentis"—"exigui;" and again compare "animo rotundum percurrisse" with "put a girdle round the earth")—"and then take hands: court'sied when you have, and kiss'd,—the wild waves whist:" (mind it is "courtesia," not "curtsey") and read "quiet" for "whist" if you want the full sense. Then may you indeed foot it featly, and sweet spirits bear the burden for you—with watch in the night, and call in early morning. The power of liberty in elemental transformation follows—"Full fathom five thy father lies, of his bones are coral made." Then, giving rest after labour, it "fetches dew from the still-vex'd Bermoothes, and, with a charm joined to their suffered labour, leaves men asleep." Snatching away the feast of the cruel, it seems to them as a harpy, followed by the utterly vile, who cannot see it in any shape, but to whom it is the picture of nobody, it still gives shrill harmony to their false and mocking catch, "Thought is free," but leads them into briars and foul places, and at last hollas the hounds upon them. Minister of fate against the great criminal, it joins itself with the "incensed seas and shores"—the sword that layeth at it cannot hold, and may, "with bemocked-at stabs as soon kill the still-closing waters, as diminish one dowle that's in my plume." As the guide and aid of true love, it is always called by Prospero "fine" (the French "fine"—not the English), or "delicate"—another long note would be needed to explain all the meaning in this word. Lastly, its work done, and war, it resolves itself to the elements. The intense significance of the last song, "Where the bee sucks," I will examine in its due place. The types of slavery in Caliban are more palpable, and need not be dwelt on now: though I will notice them also, severally, in their proper places;—the heart of his slavery is in his worship: "That's a brave god, and bears celestial liquor." But, in illustration of the sense in which the Latin "benignus" and "malignus," are to be coupled with Eleutheria and Douleia, not that Caliban's torment is always the physical reflection of his own nature—"cramps" and "side-stitches that shall pen thy breath up"—"thou shalt be pinched as thick as honeycomb:" the whole nature of slavery being one cramp and cretinous contraction. Fancy this of Ariel! You may fetter him, but yet set no mark on him; you may put him to hard work and far journey, but you cannot give him a cramp.Of Shakespeare's names I will afterwards speak at more length: they are curiously—often barbarously—mixed out of various traditions and languages. Three of the clearest in meaning have been already noticed. Desdemona, "δυσδαιμονία," "miserable fortune," is also plain enough. Othello is, I believe, "the careful"; all the calamity of the tragedy arising from the single flaw and error in his magnificently collected strength. Ophelia, "serviceableness," the true lost wife of Hamlet, is marked as having a Greek name by that last word of her, where her gentle preciousness is opposed to the uselessness of the churlish clergy—"A ministering angel shall my sister be when thou liest howling." Hamlet is, I believe, connected in some way with "homely," the entire event of the tragedy turning on betrayal of home duty. Hermione (ἕρμα), "pillar-like" (ἥ εἴδος ἔχε χρυσῆς Ἀφροδίτης). Titania (τιτήνη), "the queen;" Benedict and Beatrice, "blessed and blessing;" Valentine and Proteus, enduring (or strong) (valens) and changeful. Iago and Iachimo have evidently the same root—probably the Spanish Iago, Jacob, "the supplanter." Leonatus, and other such names are interpreted, or played with, in the plays themselves. For the interpretation of Sycorax, and reference to her raven's feather, I am indebted to Mr. John R. Wise.[115]In the present general examination I concede so much to ordinary economists as to ignore all innocent poverty. I assume poverty to be always criminal; the conceivable exceptions we will examine afterwards.[116]I say nothing yet of the quality of the servants, which, nevertheless, is the gist of the business. Will you have Paul Veronese to paint your ceiling, or the plumber from over the way? Both will work for the same money; Paul, if anything, a little cheaper of the two, if you keep him in good humour; only you have to discern him first, which will need eyes.[117]By his heart he may; but only when its produce, or the sight or hearing of it, becomes a subject of dispute, so as to enable the artist to tax the labour of multitudes highly, in exchange for his own.[118]I have not hitherto touched on the subject of interest of money; it is too complex; and must be reserved for its proper place in the body of the work. (I should be glad if a writer, who sent me some valuable notes on this subject, and asked me to return a letter which I still keep at his service, would send me his address.) The definition of interest (apart from compensation for risk) is, "the exponent of the comfort of accomplished labour, separated from its power;" the power being what is lent: and the French economists who have maintained the entire illegality of interest are wrong; yet by no means so curiously or wildly wrong as the English and French ones opposed to them, whose opinions have been collected by Dr. Whewell at page 41 of his Lectures; it never seeming to occur to the mind of the compiler any more than to the writers whom he quotes, that it is quite possible, and even (according to Jewish proverb) prudent, for men to hoard, as ants and mice do, for use, not usury; and lay by something for winter nights, in the expectation of rather sharing than lending the scrapings. My Savoyard squirrels would pass a pleasant time of it under the snow-laden pine-branches, if they always declined to economize because no one would pay them interest on nuts.[119]Compare Chaucer's feeling respecting birds (from Canace's falcon, to the nightingale, singing "Domine labia "—to the Lord of Love) with the usual modern British sentiments on this subject. Or even Cowley's:—"What prince's choir of music can excelThat which within this shade does dwell.To which we nothing pay, or give,They, like all other poets, liveWithout reward, or thanks for their obliging pains!'Tis well if they became not prey."Yes; it is better than well; particularly since the seed sown by the wayside has been protected by the peculiar appropriation of part of the church rates in our country parishes. See the remonstrance from a "Country Parson," in theTimesof June 4th (or 5th; the letter is dated June 3rd, 1862):—"I have heard at a vestry meeting a good deal of higgling over a few shillings' outlay in cleaning the church; but I have never heard any dissatisfaction expressed on account of the part of the rate which is invested in fifty or 100 dozens of birds' heads."[120]καὶ πενίαν ἡγουμένους εἷναι μὴ τὸ τὴν οὐσίαν ἐλάττω ποιεῖν, ἀλλὰ τὸ τήν ἀπληστίαν πλείω.—"Laws," v. 8.Read the context and compare. "He who spends for all that is noble, and gains by nothing but what is just, will hardly be notably wealthy, or distressfully poor."—"Laws," v. 42.[121]The fury of modern trade arises chiefly out of the possibility of making sudden fortune by largeness of transaction, and accident of discovery or contrivance. I have no doubt that the final interest of every nation is to check the action of these commercial lotteries. But speculation absolute, unconnected with commercial effort, is an unmitigated evil in a state, and the root of countless evils beside.[122]It is especially necessary that the reader should keep his mind fixed on the methods of consumption and destruction, as the true sources of national poverty. Men are apt to watch rather the exchanges in a state than its damages; but the exchanges are only of importance so far as they bring about these last. A large number of the purchases made by the richer classes are mere forms of interchange of unused property, wholly without effect on national prosperity. It matters nothing to the state, whether if a china pipkin be rated as worth a hundred pounds, A has the pipkin, and B the pounds, or A the pounds and B the pipkin. But if the pipkin is pretty, and A or B breaks it, there is national loss; not otherwise. So again, when the loss has really taken place, no shifting of the shoulders that bear it will do away with the fact of it. There is an intensely ludicrous notion in the public mind respecting the abolishment of debt by denying it. When a debt is denied, the lender loses instead of the borrower, that is all; the loss is precisely, accurately, everlastingly the same. The Americans borrow money to spend in blowing up their own houses. They deny their debt; by one third already, gold being at fifty premium; and will probably deny it wholly. That merely means that the holders of the notes are to be the losers instead of the issuers. The quantity of loss is precisely equal, and irrevocable; it is the quantity of human industry spent in explosion, plus the quantity of goods exploded. Honour only decides who shall pay the sum lost, not whether it is to be paid or not. Paid it must be and to the uttermost farthing.

[104]"The ordinary brute, who flourishes in the very centre of ornate life, tells us of unknown depths on the verge of which we totter, being bound to thank our stars every day we live that there is not a general outbreak and a revolt from the yoke of civilization."—Timesleader, Dec. 25th, 1862. Admitting that our stars are to be thanked for our safety, whom are we to thank for the danger?

[105]Our politicians, even the best of them, regard only the distress caused by the failure of mechanical labour. The degradation caused by its excess is a far more serious subject of thought, and of future fear. I shall examine this part of our subject at length hereafter. There can hardly be any doubt, at present, cast on the truth of the above passages, as all the great thinkers are unanimous on the matter. Plato's words are terrific in their scorn and pity whenever he touches on the mechanical arts. He calls the men employed in them not even human,—but partially and diminutively human, "ανθρωπίσκοι," and opposes such work to noble occupations, not merely as prison is opposed to freedom, but as a convict'sdishonoured prison is to the temple (escape from them being like that of a criminal to the sanctuary), and the destruction caused by them being of soul no less than body.—Rep., vi. 9. Compare "Laws," v. 11. Xenophon dwells on the evil of occupations at the furnace (root ofβάναυσος), and especially their "ἀσχολία, want of leisure"—Econ. i. 4. (Modern England, with all its pride of education, has lost that first sense of the word "school," and till it recover that it will find no other rightly.) His word for the harm to the soul is to "break" it, as we say of the heart.—Econ. i. 6. And herein also is the root of the scorn, otherwise apparently most strange and cruel, with which Homer, Dante, and Shakespeare always speak of the populace; for it is entirely true that in great states the lower orders are low by nature as well as by task, being precisely that part of the commonwealth which has been thrust down for its coarseness or unworthiness (by coarseness I mean especially insensibility and irreverence; the "profane" of Horace); and when this ceases to be so, and the corruption and the profanity are in the higher instead of the lower orders, there arises, first, helpless confusion; then, if the lower classes deserve power, ensues swift revolution, and they get it: but if neither the populace nor their rulers deserve it, there follows mere darkness and dissolution, till, out of the putrid elements, some new capacity of order rises, like grass on a grave; if not, there is no more hope, nor shadow of turning, for that nation. Atropos has her way with it.So that the law of national health is like that of a great lake or sea, in perfect but slow circulation, letting the dregs fall continually to the lowest place, and the clear water rise; yet so as that there shall be no neglect of the lower orders, but perfect supervision and sympathy, so that if one member suffer, all members shall suffer with it.

So that the law of national health is like that of a great lake or sea, in perfect but slow circulation, letting the dregs fall continually to the lowest place, and the clear water rise; yet so as that there shall be no neglect of the lower orders, but perfect supervision and sympathy, so that if one member suffer, all members shall suffer with it.

[106]"ὀλίγης, καὶ ἄλλως γιγνομένης."The bitter sentence never was so true as at this day.

[107]Thetic, or Thesmic, would perhaps be a better term than Archic; but liable to be confused with some which we shall want relating to Theoria. The administrators of the three great divisions of law are severally Archons, Merists, and Dicasts. The Archons are the true princes, or beginners of things; or leaders (as of an orchestra); the Merists are properly the Domini, or Lords (law-words) of houses and nations; the Dicasts properly the judges, and that with Olympian justice, which reaches to heaven and hell. The violation of archic law isἁμαρτία(error)πονηρία(failure),πλημμέλεια(discord). The violation of meristic law isἀνομία(iniquity). The violation of critic law isἀδικία(injury). Iniquity is central generic term; for all law isfatal; it is the division to men of their fate; as the fold of their pasture, it isνόμος; as the assigning of their portion,μοῖρα.

[108]These laws need revision quite as much respecting property in national as in private hands. For instance: the public are under a vague impression, that because they have paid for the contents of the British Museum, every one has an equal right to see and to handle them. But the public have similarly paid for the contents of Woolwich Arsenal; yet do not expect free access to it, or handling of its contents. The British Museum is neither a free circulating library, nor a free school; it is a place for the safe preservation, and exhibition on due occasion, of unique books, unique objects of natural history, and unique works of art; its books can no more be used by everybody than its coins can be handled, or its statues cast. Free libraries there ought to be in every quarter of London, with large and complete reading-rooms attached; so also free educational institutions should be open in every quarter of London, all day long and till late at night, well lighted, well catalogued, and rich in contents both of art and natural history. But neither the British Museum nor National Gallery are schools; they are treasuries; and both should be severely restricted in access and in use. Unless some order is taken, and that soon, in the MSS. department of the Museum (Sir Frederic Madden was complaining of this to me only the other day), the best MSS. in the collection will be destroyed, irretrievably, by the careless and continual handling to which they are now subjected.

[109]Two curious economical questions arise laterally with respect to this branch of law, namely, the cost of crime and the cost of judgment. The cost of crime is endured by nations ignorantly, not being clearly stated in their budgets; the cost of judgment patiently (provided only it can be had pure for the money), because the science, or perhaps we ought rather to say the art, of law, is felt to found a noble profession, and discipline; so that civilized nations are usually glad that a number of persons should be supported by funds devoted to disputation and analysis. But it has not yet been calculated what the practical value might have been, in other directions, of the intelligence now occupied in deciding, through courses of years, what might have been decided as justly, had the date of judgment been fixed, in as many hours. Imagine one half of the funds which any great nation devotes to dispute by law, applied to the determination of physical questions in medicine, agriculture, and theoretic science; and calculate the probable results within the next ten years.I say nothing yet, of the more deadly, more lamentable loss, involved in the use of purchased instead of personal justice,—ἐπακτῷ παρ’ ἄλλων—ἀπορίᾳ’ οἰκείων.

I say nothing yet, of the more deadly, more lamentable loss, involved in the use of purchased instead of personal justice,—ἐπακτῷ παρ’ ἄλλων—ἀπορίᾳ’ οἰκείων.

[110]Compare Chaucer's "villany" (clownishness)."Full foul and chorlishe seemed she,And eke villanous for to be,And little coulde of nortureTo worship any creature."

[111]"Supply-and-demand,—alas! For what noble work was there ever any audible 'demand' in that poor sense?" ("Past and Present"). Nay, the demand is not loud even for ignoble work. See "Average earnings of Betty Taylor," inTimes, of 4th February, of this year [1863]: "Worked from Monday morning at 8 a.m., to Friday night at 5.30 p.m., for 1s.5½d."—Laissez faire.

[112]See Bacon's note in the "Advancement of Learning," on "didicisse fideliter artes" (but indeed the accent had need be upon "fideliter"). "It taketh away vain admiration of anything, which is the root of all weakness: for all things are admired either because they are new, or because they are great," etc.

[113]Ames, by report of Waldo Emerson, expressed the popular security wisely, saying, "that a monarchy is a merchantman, which sails well, but will sometimes strike on a rock, and go to the bottom; whilst a republic is a raft, which would never sink, but then your feet are always in the water." Yes, and when the four winds (your only pilots) steer competitively from the four corners,ὡς δ’ ὅτ’ ὀπωρινὸς Βορέης φορέησιν ἀκάνθας, perhaps the wiser mariner may wish for keel and wheel again.

[114]The passage of Plato, referred to in note p. 280, in its context, respecting the slave who, well dressed and washed, aspires to the hand of his master's daughter, corresponds curiously to the attack of Caliban on Prospero's cell, and there is an undercurrent of meaning throughout, in the "Tempest" as well as in the "Merchant of Venice"; referring in this case to government, as in that to commerce. Miranda ("the wonderful," so addressed first by Ferdinand, "Oh, you wonder!") corresponds to Homer's Arete: Ariel and Caliban are respectively the spirits of freedom and mechanical labour. Prospero ("for hope"), a true governor, opposed to Sycorax, the mother of slavery, her name, "Swine-raven," indicating at once brutality and deathfulness; hence the line—"As wicked dew as e'er my mother brushed, with raven's feather,"—etc. For all dreams of Shakespeare, as those of true and strong men must be, are "φαντάσματα θεῖα, καὶ σκιαὶ τῶν ὄντων," phantasms of God, and shadows of things that are. We hardly tell our children, willingly, a fable with no purport in it; yet we think God sends His best messengers only to say fairy tales to us, all fondness and emptiness. The "Tempest" is just like a grotesque in a rich missal, "clasped where paynims pray." Ariel is the spirit of true liberty, in early stages of human society oppressed by ignorance and wild tyranny; venting groans as fast as mill-wheels strike; in shipwreck of states, fearful; so that "all but mariners plunge in the brine, and quit the vessel, then all afire with me," yet having in itself the will and sweetness of truest peace, whence that is especially called "Ariel's" song, "Come unto these yellow sands"—(fenceless, and countless—changing with the sweep of the sea—"vaga arena." Compare Horace's opposition of the sea-sand to the dust of the grave: "numero carentis"—"exigui;" and again compare "animo rotundum percurrisse" with "put a girdle round the earth")—"and then take hands: court'sied when you have, and kiss'd,—the wild waves whist:" (mind it is "courtesia," not "curtsey") and read "quiet" for "whist" if you want the full sense. Then may you indeed foot it featly, and sweet spirits bear the burden for you—with watch in the night, and call in early morning. The power of liberty in elemental transformation follows—"Full fathom five thy father lies, of his bones are coral made." Then, giving rest after labour, it "fetches dew from the still-vex'd Bermoothes, and, with a charm joined to their suffered labour, leaves men asleep." Snatching away the feast of the cruel, it seems to them as a harpy, followed by the utterly vile, who cannot see it in any shape, but to whom it is the picture of nobody, it still gives shrill harmony to their false and mocking catch, "Thought is free," but leads them into briars and foul places, and at last hollas the hounds upon them. Minister of fate against the great criminal, it joins itself with the "incensed seas and shores"—the sword that layeth at it cannot hold, and may, "with bemocked-at stabs as soon kill the still-closing waters, as diminish one dowle that's in my plume." As the guide and aid of true love, it is always called by Prospero "fine" (the French "fine"—not the English), or "delicate"—another long note would be needed to explain all the meaning in this word. Lastly, its work done, and war, it resolves itself to the elements. The intense significance of the last song, "Where the bee sucks," I will examine in its due place. The types of slavery in Caliban are more palpable, and need not be dwelt on now: though I will notice them also, severally, in their proper places;—the heart of his slavery is in his worship: "That's a brave god, and bears celestial liquor." But, in illustration of the sense in which the Latin "benignus" and "malignus," are to be coupled with Eleutheria and Douleia, not that Caliban's torment is always the physical reflection of his own nature—"cramps" and "side-stitches that shall pen thy breath up"—"thou shalt be pinched as thick as honeycomb:" the whole nature of slavery being one cramp and cretinous contraction. Fancy this of Ariel! You may fetter him, but yet set no mark on him; you may put him to hard work and far journey, but you cannot give him a cramp.Of Shakespeare's names I will afterwards speak at more length: they are curiously—often barbarously—mixed out of various traditions and languages. Three of the clearest in meaning have been already noticed. Desdemona, "δυσδαιμονία," "miserable fortune," is also plain enough. Othello is, I believe, "the careful"; all the calamity of the tragedy arising from the single flaw and error in his magnificently collected strength. Ophelia, "serviceableness," the true lost wife of Hamlet, is marked as having a Greek name by that last word of her, where her gentle preciousness is opposed to the uselessness of the churlish clergy—"A ministering angel shall my sister be when thou liest howling." Hamlet is, I believe, connected in some way with "homely," the entire event of the tragedy turning on betrayal of home duty. Hermione (ἕρμα), "pillar-like" (ἥ εἴδος ἔχε χρυσῆς Ἀφροδίτης). Titania (τιτήνη), "the queen;" Benedict and Beatrice, "blessed and blessing;" Valentine and Proteus, enduring (or strong) (valens) and changeful. Iago and Iachimo have evidently the same root—probably the Spanish Iago, Jacob, "the supplanter." Leonatus, and other such names are interpreted, or played with, in the plays themselves. For the interpretation of Sycorax, and reference to her raven's feather, I am indebted to Mr. John R. Wise.

Of Shakespeare's names I will afterwards speak at more length: they are curiously—often barbarously—mixed out of various traditions and languages. Three of the clearest in meaning have been already noticed. Desdemona, "δυσδαιμονία," "miserable fortune," is also plain enough. Othello is, I believe, "the careful"; all the calamity of the tragedy arising from the single flaw and error in his magnificently collected strength. Ophelia, "serviceableness," the true lost wife of Hamlet, is marked as having a Greek name by that last word of her, where her gentle preciousness is opposed to the uselessness of the churlish clergy—"A ministering angel shall my sister be when thou liest howling." Hamlet is, I believe, connected in some way with "homely," the entire event of the tragedy turning on betrayal of home duty. Hermione (ἕρμα), "pillar-like" (ἥ εἴδος ἔχε χρυσῆς Ἀφροδίτης). Titania (τιτήνη), "the queen;" Benedict and Beatrice, "blessed and blessing;" Valentine and Proteus, enduring (or strong) (valens) and changeful. Iago and Iachimo have evidently the same root—probably the Spanish Iago, Jacob, "the supplanter." Leonatus, and other such names are interpreted, or played with, in the plays themselves. For the interpretation of Sycorax, and reference to her raven's feather, I am indebted to Mr. John R. Wise.

[115]In the present general examination I concede so much to ordinary economists as to ignore all innocent poverty. I assume poverty to be always criminal; the conceivable exceptions we will examine afterwards.

[116]I say nothing yet of the quality of the servants, which, nevertheless, is the gist of the business. Will you have Paul Veronese to paint your ceiling, or the plumber from over the way? Both will work for the same money; Paul, if anything, a little cheaper of the two, if you keep him in good humour; only you have to discern him first, which will need eyes.

[117]By his heart he may; but only when its produce, or the sight or hearing of it, becomes a subject of dispute, so as to enable the artist to tax the labour of multitudes highly, in exchange for his own.

[118]I have not hitherto touched on the subject of interest of money; it is too complex; and must be reserved for its proper place in the body of the work. (I should be glad if a writer, who sent me some valuable notes on this subject, and asked me to return a letter which I still keep at his service, would send me his address.) The definition of interest (apart from compensation for risk) is, "the exponent of the comfort of accomplished labour, separated from its power;" the power being what is lent: and the French economists who have maintained the entire illegality of interest are wrong; yet by no means so curiously or wildly wrong as the English and French ones opposed to them, whose opinions have been collected by Dr. Whewell at page 41 of his Lectures; it never seeming to occur to the mind of the compiler any more than to the writers whom he quotes, that it is quite possible, and even (according to Jewish proverb) prudent, for men to hoard, as ants and mice do, for use, not usury; and lay by something for winter nights, in the expectation of rather sharing than lending the scrapings. My Savoyard squirrels would pass a pleasant time of it under the snow-laden pine-branches, if they always declined to economize because no one would pay them interest on nuts.

[119]Compare Chaucer's feeling respecting birds (from Canace's falcon, to the nightingale, singing "Domine labia "—to the Lord of Love) with the usual modern British sentiments on this subject. Or even Cowley's:—"What prince's choir of music can excelThat which within this shade does dwell.To which we nothing pay, or give,They, like all other poets, liveWithout reward, or thanks for their obliging pains!'Tis well if they became not prey."Yes; it is better than well; particularly since the seed sown by the wayside has been protected by the peculiar appropriation of part of the church rates in our country parishes. See the remonstrance from a "Country Parson," in theTimesof June 4th (or 5th; the letter is dated June 3rd, 1862):—"I have heard at a vestry meeting a good deal of higgling over a few shillings' outlay in cleaning the church; but I have never heard any dissatisfaction expressed on account of the part of the rate which is invested in fifty or 100 dozens of birds' heads."

Yes; it is better than well; particularly since the seed sown by the wayside has been protected by the peculiar appropriation of part of the church rates in our country parishes. See the remonstrance from a "Country Parson," in theTimesof June 4th (or 5th; the letter is dated June 3rd, 1862):—"I have heard at a vestry meeting a good deal of higgling over a few shillings' outlay in cleaning the church; but I have never heard any dissatisfaction expressed on account of the part of the rate which is invested in fifty or 100 dozens of birds' heads."

[120]καὶ πενίαν ἡγουμένους εἷναι μὴ τὸ τὴν οὐσίαν ἐλάττω ποιεῖν, ἀλλὰ τὸ τήν ἀπληστίαν πλείω.—"Laws," v. 8.Read the context and compare. "He who spends for all that is noble, and gains by nothing but what is just, will hardly be notably wealthy, or distressfully poor."—"Laws," v. 42.

[120]καὶ πενίαν ἡγουμένους εἷναι μὴ τὸ τὴν οὐσίαν ἐλάττω ποιεῖν, ἀλλὰ τὸ τήν ἀπληστίαν πλείω.—"Laws," v. 8.

Read the context and compare. "He who spends for all that is noble, and gains by nothing but what is just, will hardly be notably wealthy, or distressfully poor."—"Laws," v. 42.

[121]The fury of modern trade arises chiefly out of the possibility of making sudden fortune by largeness of transaction, and accident of discovery or contrivance. I have no doubt that the final interest of every nation is to check the action of these commercial lotteries. But speculation absolute, unconnected with commercial effort, is an unmitigated evil in a state, and the root of countless evils beside.

[122]It is especially necessary that the reader should keep his mind fixed on the methods of consumption and destruction, as the true sources of national poverty. Men are apt to watch rather the exchanges in a state than its damages; but the exchanges are only of importance so far as they bring about these last. A large number of the purchases made by the richer classes are mere forms of interchange of unused property, wholly without effect on national prosperity. It matters nothing to the state, whether if a china pipkin be rated as worth a hundred pounds, A has the pipkin, and B the pounds, or A the pounds and B the pipkin. But if the pipkin is pretty, and A or B breaks it, there is national loss; not otherwise. So again, when the loss has really taken place, no shifting of the shoulders that bear it will do away with the fact of it. There is an intensely ludicrous notion in the public mind respecting the abolishment of debt by denying it. When a debt is denied, the lender loses instead of the borrower, that is all; the loss is precisely, accurately, everlastingly the same. The Americans borrow money to spend in blowing up their own houses. They deny their debt; by one third already, gold being at fifty premium; and will probably deny it wholly. That merely means that the holders of the notes are to be the losers instead of the issuers. The quantity of loss is precisely equal, and irrevocable; it is the quantity of human industry spent in explosion, plus the quantity of goods exploded. Honour only decides who shall pay the sum lost, not whether it is to be paid or not. Paid it must be and to the uttermost farthing.

TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:1. Footnotes have been renumbered and moved to the end of the chapters.2. The original text includes some Greek characters, the transliterations for which can be seen with mouse-over popups. Position your cursor over the following Greek textβto see its transliteration.3. Obvious misprints and punctuation errors have been silently corrected in this HTML version.4. Other than the changes listed above, printer's inconsistencies in hyphenation and ligature usage have been retained.

1. Footnotes have been renumbered and moved to the end of the chapters.

2. The original text includes some Greek characters, the transliterations for which can be seen with mouse-over popups. Position your cursor over the following Greek textβto see its transliteration.

3. Obvious misprints and punctuation errors have been silently corrected in this HTML version.

4. Other than the changes listed above, printer's inconsistencies in hyphenation and ligature usage have been retained.

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