The Catholic World Volume Ii Part 112

Moreover, religious faith, far from decreasing, is actually progressing, and, if it has not yet recovered all the ground it had lost, its gains since the commencement of the present century have been far greater than its losses.

It is not difficult to detect the vice of the first proposition. It consists in a.s.suming that Christian faith is dead, while it has only been lessened; that it has lost all authority over the intelligent, while, in fact, it continues to exercise, directly or indirectly, such an empire over them that its principles are universally regarded as the foundation and support of the social edifice itself.

But not contented with a.s.suming that Christianity is dead, the positivists go further, and pretend that it cannot be restored to life, because its dogmas are found to be incompatible with the discoveries of science. This is not {734} a fact distorted, not a fact invented, and for which no proof is offered or attempted to be offered. We have in vain sought in the writings of Messrs. Comte and Littre even the semblance of a reason of any sort in support of the allegation. The positivists announce it, affirm it, but make no effort even to prove it, or at most only stammer out by the way the name of Galileo, as if it had not been a thousand times answered, at first, that the sacred writers must have spoken the language of their times, which after all is still the language of our times; afterward that Copernicus dedicated, in 1545, to Pope Paul III., his great work, in which he sets forth and defends the new or heliocentric system of the universe; that nearly a century elapsed before any censure of it intervened; that Galileo, although technically condemned, was neither loaded with chains nor cast into a dungeon; in fine--and it is the important point--that the holy office which condemned him, though possessing great and legitimate authority, is not the Church, and has no claim to infallibility. [Footnote 114]

[Footnote 114: This was written before the Encyclical of the Holy Father, dated December 8, 1864, otherwise the n.o.ble author might have modified his expression so as not even to seem to incur its censure. Without raising any question as to the infallibility of the pontifical congregations when they render a dogmatic Judgment approved by the Holy Father, it is evident that the judgment rendered in the case of Galileo was not a dogmatic judgment in the understanding of even Rome herself, for she has since rescinded it, and has permitted the theory to be taught in her schools as science.

The judgment was disciplinary, not dogmatic, and a.s.suming, therefore, that Galileo held the scientific truth, it offers no evidence of the incompatibility of Catholic _dogma_ with science, any more than the condemnation of an unwarrantable insurrection in a monarchical country in favor of democracy would prove that the Church is hostile to liberty.--TRANSLATOR. ]

Unable to produce any facts to support their thesis, the positivists resort to historical induction. They argue that the sciences have been in a state of continuous progress for three centuries; but during the same three centuries they say faith has been in a state of continual decline; there is, therefore, an intimate correlation between the two facts, so intimate that we may a.s.sert the former as generating the latter. But to a legitimate induction, all the facts on which it depends should be carefully observed and reported, which in this case is not done.

It is not true that faith has declined in a fatal and continuous manner; nor is it true that the sciences have made their greatest progress in those epochs in which faith has most declined. Ask history. In the beginning of the sixteenth century occurred Luther's revolt; It produced in the Christian world a universal shock. During several years heresy made every day new progress, and a part of Europe was detached from the centre of unity; but very soon the movement was arrested, and before the end of that same century a reaction against it had begun, followed by a religious revival or re-birth which produced one of the grandest epochs in the history of mankind. In the eighteenth century a new attack, more formidable than the first, is made on faith; it triumphs, and seems to be on the point of destroying all truth. Yet from the beginning of the next century a second religious restoration is effected, of which it may be as yet too early to determine the full bearing on the future, but which has already had too serious results to allow its great importance to be questioned.

Thus out of four centuries there are two, the sixteenth and the eighteenth, in which faith has declined, and two, the seventeenth and the nineteenth, in which faith has revived and increased. There is not then a fatal and continuous march of faith in a certain direction.

There are two contrary currents that meet and combat each other, without its being lawful as yet from the point of view of science to say which will ultimately triumph.

But at least they are the centuries of doubt and unbelief in which science has made her greatest progress? Not at all. Precisely the contrary is the fact. The sixteenth century did hardly anything for science, but the seventeenth century, the age of the {735} Catholic revival, was the age of the Galileos, the Pascals, the Des Cartes, the Newtons, the Leibnitzes--the age in which not only philosophy, letters, the arts, were carried to their highest degree of splendor, but the great principles of modern science were discovered and established--principles from which have resulted all subsequent discoveries, which, it is well to remark, have been only an affair of application and patience, not of invention and genius.

But the positivists insist again that, granting there is no absolute incompatibility between science and faith, since the masters of science have been decided believers, and are so still; granting also that there is no direct relation between the progress of science and the decline of faith, since the periods in which science has grown are not coincident with those in which faith has diminished--still the general result of three centuries of activity is that science has gained and faith has lost, and it is difficult, therefore, to suppose that these two facts are wholly foreign one to the other.

We reply that if this were proposed as a mere hypothesis, it might pa.s.s, and there would be no inconvenience in admitting that the progress of science may have indirectly, and so by way of reaction, had some influence in weakening religious beliefs. In all progress, in every increase of power, there is danger. Man is naturally weak, and as soon as he feels himself in possession of a new force he suffers himself to be dazzled by it, attributes to himself all its merits, and soon comes to believe that he can suffice for himself, and dispense with all aid from above. Consider what takes place in our days.

Certainly, it is impossible to conceive in what respect steam, chloroform, electricity, or photography conflicts with any Christian dogma. Religion, instead of standing aghast at these discoveries in the application of science, applauds them, and sees in them new and more efficient means of doing her own work, of ameliorating the condition of a large number, of propagating the Gospel, and drawing closer the bonds of unity throughout the world. Yet such is not the impression which they produce on all minds. Certain persons, at sight of so many marvels, are so carried away with enthusiasm as to conclude that man is on the eve of becoming G.o.d. The impression will, no doubt, soon wear away, but till it does, the intoxication continues, and hearts are inflated. In this way science may come to the aid of unbelief; not by itself, nor by the results it gives; but by the presumptuous confidence with which it too often fills the mind. As it is not and cannot be the princ.i.p.al and efficient cause of the success of unbelief, we must seek that cause elsewhere, in the unloosing of the pa.s.sions, always impatient of the restraints of faith. History in fact teaches us that the great revolts of the intellect are contemporary with those of the will and the senses; that it was in the scandals of the revival of ancient learning in the fifteenth century that Protestantism was conceived; that more lately it was the _les pet.i.ts soupers_ of the Regency and under the impure inspirations of the Pompadours and the Du Barrys that was spun and woven the conspiracy against the G.o.d of Calvary. Modern unbelief may boast of the independence it has acquired, but a.s.suredly not, if it has any self-respect, of its shameful cradle.

So we see that the very propositions which serve as a pretext to the positivist system are belied by the historical facts in the case. Far from being ready to perish, religion is every day making new progress, and none of its dogmas have as yet been contradicted or weakened by any of the real discoveries of science.

The positivist system itself, it will be recollected, is based on the a.s.sumption that no doctrine can henceforth obtain the a.s.sent of the intelligent, save on condition of being positive, {736} that is, as rigidly demonstrable as are the physical sciences. Such a theory hardly needs refuting, so contrary is it to common sense and the universal beliefs of the race. But as it has been set forth at length in a series of huge volumes, maintained and lauded in an important political journal, counts still many adepts, has been recalled not long since to the public attention by a work written by one of their number who has the honor of being a member of the Inst.i.tute [and as it is gaining no little ground, under its philosophical aspect, in Great Britain and the United States--TR.], it is not permissible to neglect it, and we feel it necessary, if not to combat it directly, at least to point out the levity and inconsistency of its originators and adherents, who claim to be reformers of the human race, and with imperturbable gravity pretend that for six thousand years mankind has been the dupe of the grossest error, and that before their advent there were only illusion and falsehood in the world.

The a.s.sumption from which the system proceeds is that the real, the positive, is restricted to the world of the senses, or the material universe, and that what transcends the material order is for us at least unreal--a thesis directly opposed to that of Des Cartes, who taught that thought is the phenomenon the most real, the most positive of all. Now which is right, the author of the "Discourse on Method" or M. Comte? No great effort is needed to prove that it is Des Cartes, and that the existence of spiritual phenomena is not only more certain than that of physical phenomena, but more positive and more easily proved, because the knowledge of spiritual phenomena is direct and immediate, while that of sensible phenomena is only indirect and mediate. All knowledge, rational or sensible, is a spiritual phenomenon. Matter may be the occasion or medium of it, but can never produce it, for it is always spirit or mind that knows even in sensation or sentiment. We may be deceived as to the meaning of the phenomenon, but never as to its existence. [Footnote 115]

[Footnote 115: As a subjective fact, there can be no doubt of its existence: but this, with all respect to M. de Chalambert, is nothing to the purpose. All phenomena are subjective, and therefore mental, if you will, spiritual; but is there an objective spiritual reality revealed by these spiritual phenomena?

This is the question, and I need not say it is a question not answerable on the Cartesian principle or method. Few persons outside of France regard Des Cartes as worth citing as an authority in philosophy, for, beginning with thought as a psychological phenomenon, he never did and never could attain scientifically to any objective existence, either spiritual or material. The error of Des Cartes was in seeking to settle the question of method before settling that of principles; the principles determine the method, not the method the principles, as M. Cousin, misled by his veneration for Des Cartes, pretends: and the principles are necessarily _a priori_, prior to experience--as without them experience is not possible--given, intuitive, and therefore objective. The real existence of the spiritual or supersensible order, superior to and distinct from the material, is certain from the demonstrable fact that the sensible has its root only in the supersensible, and the material in the spiritual, both as to the order of knowledge and as to the order of being.

The author maintains the truth against the positivists, but his reasoning is not conclusive, because he is misled by the Cartesian method, which is the method of the positivists themselves.

Malebranche followed in one direction the Cartesian method, and lost the material world; the Abbe Condillac followed it in another direction, and lost the spiritual world; the positivists follow it in both, and lose all reality, and, with Sir William Hamilton, make truth purely relative; that is, subjective, and as pure subjectivity is impossible, thus positivism is positive nihilism.

The author proceeds to refute, on the Cartesian method, the denial by the positivists of the existence of spirit, of the absolute, of G.o.d, and the immortality of the soul; but as I do not regard his reasoning, though in defence of the truth, conclusive, I omit it, and pa.s.s to his exhibition of the inconsistencies and absurdities of positivism, in which he is admirable and perfectly successful.--TRANSLATOR. ]

Nevertheless, after having denied all the truths or principles which are the basis of all moral and intellectual life, the positivists pretend to pa.s.s from negation to affirmation, and undertake in their turn to dogmatize. But to affirm any doctrine whatever it needs a method, and we have shown that on the purely negative method which they commence with, they can never legitimately affirm anything. What then can they do? They invent another method, which they call induction, because they pretend that it is from the observation of the facts of history that they induce or draw their doctrine; but the process they adopt has none of the characters of a real induction.

{737} To induction three things are necessary; the principle of causality, general notions, and particular facts. [Footnote 116]

[Footnote 116: I transfer the word _notion_, although no notion is or can be general, because French writers frequently use it when they really mean not _notion_, but the object or thing noted. I do not approve of this use either in French or English. We may have notions of the general, but not general notions; a notion, if you will, as has been previously said, of the absolute (though absolute is itself a bad term for necessary, eternal, immutable, and infinite being), but not absolute notions. The _notion_ is subjective, the _noted_ is objective. To all legitimate induction there is necessary causality, the general--the universal, as say the schoolmen--and the particular, and unless the mind has _a priori_ knowledge or intuition of them, no induction is possible. This is what the author evidently means, and it is undoubtedly true.--TRANSLATOR.]

Experience gives the particular facts, and, by the aid of the principle of causality, we determine by way of induction their laws; that is, by means of particular facts we determine the general notions. .h.i.therto confused and vaguely perceived [that is, refer them to their respective genera or species.---TRANSLATOR.] The positivists, then, who recognize no principle [of causality, and deny all general notions or notions of the general prior to the particular facts.--TRANSLATOR.]

can make no induction, and have no scientific basis, no logical nexus for their theories, and are left to the caprices of their own imagination. Imagination, and imagination alone, is the new method they employ.

The human mind, according to the positivists, is radically incapable of knowing causes, and if it attempts to know them it exhausts itself with fruitless efforts. This is wherefore they treat as illusions all the causes which philosophers a.s.sign to phenomena. They deny the metaphysical being, G.o.d as cause; yet they subst.i.tute the metaphysical being humanity, and not content with affirming it, they even define it, both as principle and cause, to be a great collective beings-- living a life of its own, and advancing continually through the ages from progress to progress, and from whom all individual existences proceed as their beginning, and to whom they all return as their end.

Nor is this all. After having defined this metaphysical being, they explain it, and pretend to know what it has been, what it is, and what it will be--they, who declare that Plato, Aristotle, St. Augustine, St. Thomas, Des Cartes, and Leibnitz have done nothing, because in attempting to penetrate the mystery of human life these master minds broke against an insolvable problem--they, we say, do not hesitate to raise the veil, and to give us the complete solution of the far more formidable mystery of human destiny. They know its origin. Humanity has begun in fetichism; M. Littre, however, has discovered, since the death of his master, that prior to fetichism there was a state in which man like the brute sought only to satisfy his physical wants; but he maintains that at any rate, if fetichism was not the first it was at least the second state of humanity. If we ask him what proofs he has of this, he confesses that if direct facts are demanded he has none; but he has arguments, and here is the way in which he argues:

In America and the unexplored regions of Africa savage tribes are found who were and still are fetich wors.h.i.+ppers, _therefore_ so was it with all men in the beginning! Such is the positivist induction.

[Footnote 117]

[Footnote 117: How know the positivists that these savage tribes do not represent the degenerate man, rather than the primitive man--man cut off from communion with the central life of humanity, not man in his first developments?--TRANSLATOR.]

Positivism continues: From fetichism humanity pa.s.sed to polytheism, and then from polytheism to monotheism. But it forgets that it is not permitted to take the part for the whole, and if Europe became Christian after having been pagan, it has not been the same with all the world, for on one side we find the people Jewish, who have always believed in the unity of G.o.d, and, on the other side, we find many nations still remaining immersed in the darkness of idolatry. But we must not be too exacting with the positivists. They have here really some partial facts which they can use, though not legitimately as the basis of an argument. [Footnote 118]

[Footnote 118: Truth is older than error, and man began not in error, but in the truth, the sole principle of life and growth.

Monotheism preceded, historically, both fetichism and polytheism, and the earliest and most authentic historical doc.u.ments that we have prove that all the world began by believing in and wors.h.i.+pping one G.o.d. Polytheism bears evident traces of a prior religion which a.s.serted the unity of G.o.d, of being not a development of fetichism, but a corruption of monotheism, as positivism bears unmistakable traces of its being a corruption of Christianity; a conclusive evidence that it never could have originated in a society that had never known and believed the Christian religion.--TRANSLATOR.]

As to the future, who can doubt that humanity will be positivist? Can any one prove the contrary? Is not the future a domain open to all, and where each may imagine for himself the part that pleases him? And yet, even in regard to the future, it is necessary to be circ.u.mspect.

Young as positivism is, it has had the pain of seeing more than one of its predictions falsified by the event. In 1850 M. Littre a.s.sured us that the race had arrived at that degree of civilization that rendered war henceforth impossible, and that the republic was definitively established in France. What does he think of either prediction now? He would have obliged us if he had given us his explanations of these predictions in his last publication. The first would, perhaps, have embarra.s.sed him; the second would give him less trouble, because the destruction of the republic of 1848 by the empire accords only too well with the positivist hostility to a really representative government.

It is useless to press the matter further. There is in the positivist induction no trace of a rational process, and positivism in the last a.n.a.lysis is simply the product of pure imagination. Moreover, M.

Littre is so well aware of it that he has taken in advance his precautions against all unfavorable criticism. It may say what it pleases, he will not hear or heed it; he professes to be a positivist, and positivist he will live and die. His decision is made. Beside, no one who has not taken his degree of doctor in the mathematical, astronomical, physical, and chemical sciences, understands or can understand anything of positivism, and is incompetent to its discussion. But if instead of opposing one is disposed to accept it, he is very accommodating, and by no means exacts so laborious and painful an initiation. He requires only one thing--namely, the denial of the supernatural order. To be received into the positivist school it is not necessary to affirm or to believe anything--simple denial suffices.

We must in concluding make a single reference to M. Taine. As the positivists, M. Taine denies metaphysics, all metaphysical (spiritual) beings, G.o.d, and the human soul, and like them he subst.i.tutes for these others of his own fas.h.i.+oning. From Messrs. Comte and Littre he separates only on a single point. To the cause _humanity_ he prefers the cause _nature_. There is no disputing about tastes. We add merely a word on one of the fundamental maxims of M. Taine's method. The philosopher, he says, must be in the study of science perfectly disinterested, and even to the degree of forgetting that he is a father, a son, a husband, a citizen. He must take account only of the facts furnished by observation, and in no respect trouble himself about their practical consequences. Were the facts observed to prove that paternal love, filial respect, conjugal tenderness, and devotion to one's country are empty words or dangerous illusions, he must not hesitate to immolate these sentiments on the altar of reality--or science. We do not discuss such a doctrine. The irreflection of the author (we can suppose nothing else) is so great that we need only indicate it. Does not M. Taine comprehend that the disinterestedness or indifference of the philosopher must consist not in abjuring the eternal principles of the just, the true, the good, the beautiful, and the n.o.blest sentiments of the human heart, but simply in silencing within {739} him the voice of prejudice and pa.s.sion, so as to leave his understanding free and unbiased? Knows he not that to know a fact he must study it first in himself and in its essence, and then in its manifold applications? The chemist a.s.serts a substance only after, having resolved it into its elements, he has experimented on it in all its effects; in like manner, it is not enough for the philosopher to have studied a doctrine in its principle, he must go further, and establish that in its applications it conforms to the laws of the just, the true, and the beautiful. It is, in fact, this accordance that is, all things considered, the surest test of its truth. The moral is the counter-proof of the intellectual. M. Taine and his school recognize, it is true, no principles anterior to facts, and therefore want, as M. Comte avows, a type-law, a term of comparison, which may serve as the criterion of the judgment of facts themselves; but is there a more manifest mark of the falsity of a theory than that it leaves the human mind without any means of determining the significance of phenomena, without a touchstone to determine whether the metal be gold or copper?

But it is time to close. It is a.s.suredly a grave fact, and one that merits more attention than it receives, that a doctrine so thoroughly materialistic and atheistic can be produced in our age, that it can obtain adherents, and be recognized by important and widely influential public journals, which, without openly displaying its flag, insinuate its principles, and strive to infuse it into the minds of their readers. Yet this fact is nothing new. There are always atheists in the world; even in the time of the Prophet King the impious said: There is no G.o.d. _Non est Deus_. But we discover in the positivist system a sign or symptom, if not graver at least more alarming, in the manifest enfeeblement in our time of reason, and the rational faculties of the soul, which it supposes. We know that society is not responsible for all that is said or done in its bosom, but we know also that people are in general treated as they deserve to be treated, and that writers, journalists, and system-mongers, when they believe they are addressing a community accustomed to think, to reason, to reflect, and to render an account to themselves of what is addressed to them, are on their guard and weigh carefully what they say. They may a.s.sign bad reasons, but they will at least a.s.sign reasons of some sort, and take great pains to do it, as the thing most essential to their success. There have always been sophists, but the sophist of former times reasoned; the sophist of to-day reasons not, he simply imagines. Do not attempt to refute him; he will not listen to you, for he understands not the language you speak; he denies or affirms with a.s.surance, with audacity, even at the command of his pa.s.sions or his caprices; he seeks not to convince, but to startle, to astonish, and neither proves nor cares to prove anything. Things have come to such a pa.s.s that Voltaire himself, if he could return, would blush with shame for his children. He might still smile approvingly on their blasphemies; his good sense would be shocked with the incoherence and extravagance of their theories; and he would say to them. Continue, my children, to deny, to crush _l'infame_, all that is well, but do have the grace not to attempt to put anything in place of what you deny. You are not equal to that, and can only render yourselves ridiculous.

The evil is very real and very great, but it has already been denounced by an authority so high, and with so much eloquence, that I need not any further insist on it. I would simply add that it calls for a prompt remedy, since the peril is great and imminent. When faith grows weak in souls, and reason remains, there is hope; for reason well directed leads back to faith, since human reason is the child of the divine reason, and {740} cannot persist in denying her mother; but when reason in her turn goes, and leaves only imagination in her place, there is no ground of hope; and everything is to be feared, for no means of salvation remain. Imagination is, indeed, one of the powers and one of the grandeurs of the human mind, which it elevates and adorns; but if it comes to predominate alone, without supporting itself on reason, it loses its virtue and its beauty, and is proper only to dazzle, to pervert, to bewilder and mislead. It sheds darkness, not light, or if it emits still some gleams, it is only to gild with a last and false splendor a dying civilization. When the barbarians thundered at her gates, Rome still imagined, but she had long since ceased to reason.

COUNT VICTOR DE CHALAMBERT

From Chambers's Journal.

PLAIN-WORK.

"Thank goodness, Lizzie! you were taught to work."

My husband is constantly repeating this sentiment to me, and I decidedly agree with him that it is a great cause for thankfulness. I may say, in pa.s.sing, that I don't believe I should ever have married my husband at all if I had not been able to work, for one of his very first questions to me upon our becoming acquainted, was as to what occupation I took most pleasure in, and upon my answering "Plain-work," a pleased smile came over his face. From that moment, he has since confessed to me, he made up his mind that I should be his wife. I am now the mother of a large family, with constant demands upon my needle, and what I should do, if I had not early acquired the use of it, I cannot think. I made a point of teaching my own girls as soon as ever they became old enough to handle their needles, and if they don't all turn out good plain-workers, it certainly won't be my fault.

I look upon occupation as the true secret of happiness, and surely there is no occupation so well suited to a woman, whether she is the wife of a gentleman or a laborer, as needle-work. I would encourage the taste for it as early as possible in a girl, as I think it has such an influence for good on her character in making her womanly and sensible. It has also the effect of producing tidy habits, for no girl who can thoroughly use her needle will be content to go about the house with her frock torn or a rip in her petticoat; but, upon the first appearance of a hole, she will sit down and carefully mend it.

When still quite young, she works for her doll; a little older, for some poor child in the village, or her own younger brothers and sisters. In either case, she is learning to be loving and kind, and the habit of working for others and being useful is good for her.

You wish probably to fit your daughter for her future career in life, and you naturally look forward to her marriage as the aim and object of your most ardent desires. I know _I_ do with regard to my own girls, for, being a happy and married woman myself, I cannot bear the idea of their becoming old maids. Well, if you want her to marry, and you desire to train her to be a good wife, teach her to work; you are laying the foundation of much future happiness, and her husband will bless you for it. Say she marries a man not too well off, who is constantly engaged in his profession, and she is in consequence forced to spend {741} many hours of her day alone. This is very trying to her at first, fresh from a happy home and the bosom of a large family. She turns to her needle as her companion and solace during her husband's absence, and finds her greatest interest and pleasure in working for him. She keeps his clothes in good repair, and he never finds his socks in holes or his s.h.i.+rts minus their b.u.t.tons. Very likely--and happy I consider it for her if it is so--his wedding outfit may have been small. In that case, she can employ herself in making him a new set of s.h.i.+rts; whilst her odd moments may be profitably spent in knitting him a set of warm socks against the coming winter. Depend upon it, he will never find any s.h.i.+rts that fit him so well, or any socks so comfortable, as those made for him by his wife during the early days of their married life. This gives her so much occupation during her day that she has no time to be dull or discontented. She gladly puts away her work when she expects her husband's return, and she meets him with a cheerful smile, being happy in her own mind and feeling that she has been praiseworthily engaged. She is also ready to enter into his interests and pursuits, in which she finds an agreeable relaxation.

Then there's the coming baby to work for. What mother does not remember the delights of working for her first baby! The care and thought bestowed first upon purchasing the materials, then upon cutting them out to the best advantage, followed by many months of happy employment in making them up. The little articles, when finished, are carefully put away in a drawer set aside for the purpose, and bunches of lavender are placed amongst them.

The first baby is born, and others follow, and the cares of a family come rapidly upon your child. She now feels the real use of her needle, and she learns to thank you accordingly for the pains you took with her. Not only can she sew well, but she knows how to cut out; and she has such a first-rate eye, from long practice, that she can take her patterns from the shop-windows. She makes the best use of her powers of observation. That which makes men good soldiers, doctors, engineers, literary men, artists, and naturalists, makes her a good plain-worker. In her own line, she is not to be beaten. Perhaps she is a little proud of her talent; but she uses it to good advantage, and her husband has the comfort of seeing his children well clothed, and of finding his bills comparatively small. Constant practice has also given her a capital knowledge of the value of materials, and she understands thoroughly the textures of different cotton, linen, and woollen fabrics, so that it would be very difficult to impose upon her.

I have taken it for granted that your daughter marries a poor man, as poor men unfortunately predominate in this world, and it is always as well to be prepared for the worst. But her husband may be rich or, at all events, well enough off to render it unnecessary that his wife should be a slave to her needle. You will still find that you have done your girl no injury by imposing upon her the early habit of using that instrument. You have, at all events, given her the power of superintending her servants, and seeing that their work is properly done; and she will not so easily be taken in by her dressmaker, or trampled upon by her nurse, who will soon find out that "missis" knows how to work for her own children, and will respect her accordingly.

But supposing that your daughter does not marry at all, still her knowledge of plain-work will not be thrown away upon her. If left poorly off, she has her own clothes to make and mend, and if not, surely there are plenty of claims upon her. There is her more fortunate sister, who married young, and is now a widow, with six children on her hands--think of the comfort and use her needle may be to them! Then her brothers are {742} most of them married with families, and Aunt Susan's work is invaluable, If she has no brothers or sisters, but is left entirely alone in the world, and so well off that she does not require to work for herself, let her turn to the poor, and give them the use of her needle; she will certainly find a never-ending field amongst them. By the time she has worked for all the babies in the parish, and helped the mothers about the clothes for the elder children, she will find she has occupation enough for her fingers to keep her mind happy and interested, and to prevent her from dwelling upon her own loneliness. She can also spend some time profitably in instructing the girls in the village-school how to cut out and sew. The ignorance upon these points in some schools is perfectly lamentable. I took a nursery-maid for my eighth baby straight from a national school. She was a fine healthy girl of sixteen. It will hardly be credited that she could not hold her needle properly! She doubled it up in her hand, and pushed it into her work in the most extraordinary manner. I tried in vain to teach her by every means in my power, but if the knack of holding the needle is not learned in early life, it is rarely acquired afterward. Although so very awkward about her work, that girl had been taught to crochet ridiculous watch-pockets, and to knit impossible babies' shoes, with such wonderful pointed toes that no infant I ever saw could get his feet into them. At length I was obliged to part with her on this account, though a tidy, active girl, and satisfactory in many ways.

She is not the only case I have had in my house of ignorance on the subject of plain-work. Some of my servants have been able to sew well enough, but have not had the remotest idea of cutting-out and placing their work. I have often thought, if I had only time to spare, how much I should like to teach the rising generation the little I myself know of the art of plain-work.

In these days of sewing-machines people think much less of needle-work than they did formerly. I don't approve of sewing-machines myself. My husband accuses me of being jealous of them, but in this he is unjust to me. I don't approve of them simply because I think that the work produced from them--though I grant that the st.i.tches may be regular enough--cannot be compared to good hand-work, particularly when employed upon fine materials. I have seen machine-work in every stage, and from the very best sewing-machines, and I never could consider it equal to good hand-work. I feel convinced in my own mind that sewing-machines will have their day, and that when that day is over, plain-work done by hand will be at as high a premium again as ever.

Even pillow-lace is now gradually recovering the place it once occupied in public estimation, and from which it was temporarily ousted by lace produced from that unutterable abomination, the _machine_, and which used to be called "Nottingham lace."

I acknowledge machine-work may be all very well for cloth clothes, and useful in families where there are many boys; but my ten children are mostly girls, and I don't at all covet a machine. My husband offers me one periodically, and I as often refuse it. I could not bear to have one in the house, it would be going so entirely against my own principles.

It is most important, when a girl is learning to work, that great care should be taken with her to prevent her from acquiring bad habits; such habits, I mean, as clicking her needle with her thimble, pinning her work to her knee, biting the end of her thread, and sticking her needle into the front of her dress. These habits once gained will probably stick to her all her life, and she will find the greatest difficulty in overcoming them. It is therefore advisable that she should be taught to work by her mother, rather than be left to the instruction of servants. A {743} ladylike manner of working is essential, and should be carefully cultivated, for work may be executed both neatly and rapidly without the acquirement of any of these vulgar peculiarities. A great point to be learned connected with plain-work, and one that I consider quite indispensable, is the art of cutting out accurately and without waste of material. Far too little importance is attached to that branch of work, and many women go to their graves without acquiring it, having been dependent all their lives upon their servants or some kind friend for having their work cut out and placed for them. When this is the case ladies are apt to be too much under the thumb of their ladies' maids or nurses, who are not slow to profit by their own superior knowledge, and domineer over their mistresses accordingly.