Unto This Last and Other Essays on Political Economy Part 18

And indeed this Hydra seems so unslayable, and sin sticks so fast between the joinings of the stones of buying and selling, that "to trade" in things, or literally "cross-give" them, has warped itself, by the instinct of nations, into their worst word for fraud; for, because in trade there cannot but be trust, and it seems also that there cannot but also be injury in answer to it, what is merely fraud between enemies becomes treachery among friends: and "trader,"

"traditor," and "traitor" are but the same word. For which simplicity of language there is more reason than at first appears; for as in true commerce there is no "profit," so in true commerce there is no "sale."

The idea of sale is that of an interchange between enemies respectively endeavouring to get the better of one another; but commerce is an exchange between friends; and there is no desire but that it should be just, any more than there would be between members of the same family. The moment there is a bargain over the pottage, the family relation is dissolved;--typically "the days of mourning for my father are at hand." Whereupon follows the resolve "then will I slay my brother."

This inhumanity of mercenary commerce is the more notable because it is a fulfilment of the law that the corruption of the best is the worst. For as, taking the body natural for symbol of the body politic, the governing and forming powers may be likened to the brain and the labouring to the limbs, the mercantile, presiding over circulation and communication of things in changed utilities is symbolized by the heart; which, if it harden, all is lost. And this is the ultimate lesson which the leader of English intellect meant for us (a lesson, indeed, not all his own, but part of the old wisdom of humanity), in the tale of the "Merchant of Venice"; in which the true and incorrupt merchant,--kind and free, beyond every other Shakespearian conception of men,--is opposed to the corrupted merchant, or usurer; the lesson being deepened by the expression of the strange hatred which the corrupted merchant bears to the pure one, mixed with intense scorn--

"This is the fool that lent out money gratis; look to him, jailor,"

(as to lunatic no less than criminal); the enmity, observe, having its symbolism literally carried out by being aimed straight at the heart, and finally foiled by a literal appeal to the great moral law that flesh and blood cannot be weighed, enforced by "Portia" ("Portion"), the type of divine Fortune,[98] found, not in gold, nor in silver, but in lead, that is to say, in endurance and patience, not in splendour; and finally taught by her lips also, declaring, instead of the law and quality of "merces," the greater law and quality of mercy, which is not strained, but drops as the rain, blessing him that gives and him that takes. And observe that this "mercy" is not the mean "Misericordia," but the mighty "Gratia," answered by Grat.i.tude (observe Shylock's leaning on the, to him detestable, word gratis, and compare the relation of Grace to Equity given in the second chapter of the second book of the "Memorabilia"); that is to say, it is the gracious or loving, instead of the strained, or competing manner, of doing things, answered, not only with "merces" or pay, but with "merci," or thanks. And this is indeed the meaning of the great benediction, "Grace, mercy, and peace," for there can be no peace without grace (not even by help of rifled cannon),[99] nor even without triplicity of graciousness, for the Greeks, who began with but one Grace, had to open their scheme into three before they had done.

[98] Shakespeare would certainly never have chosen this name had he been forced to retain the Roman spelling. Like Perdita, "lost lady," or "Cordelia," "heart-lady," Portia is "fortune-lady." The two great relative groups of words, Fortune, fero, and fors--Portio, porto, and pars (with the lateral branch, op-portune, im-portune, opportunity, etc.), are of deep and intrinsic significance; their various senses of bringing, abstracting, and sustaining, being all centralized by the wheel (which bears and moves at once), or still better, the ball (spera) of Fortune,--"Volve sua spera, e beata si G.o.de:" the motive power of this wheel distinguis.h.i.+ng its G.o.ddess from the fixed majesty of Necessitas with her iron nails; or [Greek: ananke], with her pillar of fire and iridescent orbits, fixed at the centre. Portus and porta, and gate in its connexion with gain, form another interesting branch group; and Mors, the concentration of delaying, is always to be remembered with Fors, the concentration of bringing and bearing, pa.s.sing on into Fortis and Fort.i.tude.

[99] Out of whose mouths, indeed, no peace was ever promulgated, but only equipoise of panic, highly tremulous on the edge in changes in the wind.

With the usual tendency of long-repeated thought to take the surface for the deep, we have conceived their G.o.ddesses as if they only gave loveliness to gesture; whereas their true function is to give graciousness to deed, the other loveliness arising naturally out of that. In which function Charis becomes Charitas[100] and has a name and praise even greater than that of Faith or truth, for these may be maintained sullenly and proudly; but Charis[101] is in her countenance always gladdening (Aglaia), and in her service instant and humble; and the true wife of Vulcan, or Labour. And it is not until her sincerity of function is lost, and her mere beauty contemplated, instead of her patience, that she is born again of the foam flake, and becomes Aphrodite; then only capable of joining herself to War and to the enmities of men, instead of to Labour and their services. Therefore the fable of Mars and Venus is, chosen by Homer, picturing himself as Demodocus, to sing at the games in the Court of Alcinous. Phaeacia is the Homeric island of Atlantis; an image of n.o.ble and wise government, concealed, how slightly! merely by the change of a short vowel for a long one in the name of its queen; yet misunderstood by all later writers, even by Horace in his "pinguis, Phaeaxque," etc. That fable expresses the perpetual error of men, thinking that grace and dignity can only be reached by the soldier, and never by the artizan; so that commerce and the useful arts have had the honour and beauty taken away, and only the Fraud[102] and Pain left to them, with the lucre.

Which is, indeed, one great reason of the continual blundering about the offices of government with respect to commerce. The higher cla.s.ses are ashamed to deal with it; and though ready enough to fight for (or occasionally against) the people,--to preach to them,--or judge them, will not break bread for them; the refined upper servant who has willingly looked after the burnis.h.i.+ng of the armoury and ordering of the library, not liking to set foot into the larder.

[100] The reader must not think that any care can be misspent in tracing the connexion and power of the words which we have to use in the sequel. Not only does all soundness of reasoning depend on the work thus done in the outset, but we may sometimes gain more by insistence on the expression of a truth, than by much wordless thinking about it; for to strive to express it clearly is often to detect it thoroughly; and education, even as regards thought, nearly sums itself in making men economise their words, and understand them. Nor is it possible to estimate the harm that has been done, in matters of higher speculation and conduct, by loose verbiage, though we may guess at it by observing the dislike which people show to having anything about their religion said to them in simple words, because then they understand it. Thus congregations meet weekly to invoke the influence of a Spirit of Life and Truth; yet if any part of that character were intelligibly expressed to them by the formulas of the service, they would be offended.

Suppose, for instance, in the closing benediction, the clergyman were to give its vital significance to the word "Holy," and were to say, "the Fellows.h.i.+p of the Helpful and Honest Ghost be with you, and remain with you always," what would be the horror of many, first, at the irreverence of so intelligible an expression, and, secondly, at the discomfortable entry of the suspicion that (while throughout the commercial dealings of the week they had denied the propriety of Help, and possibility of Honesty) the Person whose company they had been asking to be blessed with could have no fellows.h.i.+p with knaves.

[101] As Charis becomes Charitas [see next page], the word "Cher,"

or "Dear," pa.s.ses from Shylock's sense of it (to buy cheap and sell dear) into Antonio's sense of it: emphasized with the final i in tender "Cheri," and hushed to English calmness in our n.o.ble "Cherish."

[102] While I have traced the finer and higher laws of this matter for those whom they concern, I have also to note the material law--vulgarly expressed in the proverb, "Honesty is the best policy." That proverb is indeed wholly inapplicable to matters of private interest. It is not true that honesty, as far as material gain is concerned, profits individuals. A clever and cruel knave will, in a mixed society, always be richer than an honest person can be. But Honesty is the best "policy," if policy means practice of State. For fraud gains nothing in a State. It only enables the knaves in it to live at the expense of honest people; while there is for every act of fraud, however small, a loss of wealth to the community. Whatever the fraudulent person gains, some other person loses, as fraud produces nothing; and there is, besides, the loss of the time and thought spent in accomplis.h.i.+ng the fraud; and of the strength otherwise obtainable by mutual help (not to speak of the fevers of anxiety and jealousy in the blood, which are a heavy physical loss, as I will show in due time). Practically, when the nation is deeply corrupt, cheat answers to cheat, every one is in turn imposed upon, and there is to the body politic the dead loss of ingenuity, together with the incalculable mischief of the injury to each defrauded person, producing collateral effect unexpectedly. My neighbour sells me bad meat: I sell him in return flawed iron. We neither of us get one atom of pecuniary advantage on the whole transaction, but we both suffer unexpected inconvenience;--my men get scurvy, and his cattle-truck runs off the rails.

Farther still. As Charis becomes Charitas on the one side, she becomes--better still--Chara, Joy, on the other; or rather this is her very mother's milk and the beauty of her childhood; for G.o.d brings no enduring Love, nor any other good, out of pain, nor out of contention; but out of joy and harmony.[103] And in this sense, human and divine, music and gladness, and the measures of both, come into her name; and Cher becomes full-vowelled Cheer, and Cheerful; and Chara, companioned, opens into Choir and Choral.

[103] "[Greek: ta men houn alla zoa ouk echein aisthesin ton en tais kinesesi taxeon oude ataxion, hoi de rhuthmos onoma kai harmonia hemin de ous eipomen tous theous]

[Apollo, the Muses, and Bacchus--the grave Bacchus, that is---ruling the choir of age; or Bacchus restraining; 'saeva _tene_, c.u.m Berecyntio cornu, tympana,' etc.]

[Greek: sunch.o.r.eutas dedosthai, toutous einai kai tous dedokotas ten enruthmon te kai henarmonion aisthesin meth' edones ... chorous te onomakenai para tes charas emphyton unoma.]"--"Laws," book ii.

And lastly. As Grace pa.s.ses into Freedom of action, Charis becomes Eleutheria, or liberality; a form of liberty quite curiously and intensely different from the thing usually understood by "Liberty"

in modern language; indeed, much more like what some people would call slavery; for a Greek always understood, primarily, by liberty, deliverance from the law of his own pa.s.sions (or from what the Christian writers call bondage of corruption), and this a complete liberty: not having to resist the pa.s.sion, but making it fawn upon, and follow him--(this may be again partly the meaning of the fawning beasts about the Circean cave; so, again, George Herbert--

Correct thy pa.s.sion's spite; Then may the beasts draw thee to happy light)--

not being merely safe from the Siren, but also unbound from the mast.

And it is only in such generosity that any man becomes capable of so governing others as to take true part in any system of national economy. Nor is there any other eternal distinction between the upper and lower cla.s.ses than this form of liberty, Eleutheria, or benignity, in the one, and its opposite of slavery, Douleia, or malignity, in the other; the separation of these two orders of men, and the firm government of the lower by the higher, being the first conditions of possible wealth and economy in any state,--the G.o.ds giving it no greater gift than the power to discern its freemen, and "malignum spernere vulgus."

The examination of this form of Charis must, therefore, lead us into the discussion of the principles of government in general, and especially of that of the poor by the rich, discovering how the Graciousness joined with the Greatness, or Love with Majestas, is the true Dei Gratia, or Divine Right, of every form and manner of King; _i.e._, specifically, of the thrones, dominations, princedoms, virtues, and powers of the earth;--of the thrones, stable, or "ruling," literally right-doing powers ("rex eris, recte si facies:") of the dominations, lordly, edifying, dominant, and harmonious powers; chiefly domestic, over the "built thing," domus, or house; and inherently twofold, Dominus and Domina; Lord and Lady: of the Princedoms, pre-eminent, incipient, creative, and demonstrative powers; thus poetic and mercantile, in the "princeps carmen deduxisse"

and the merchant-prince: of the Virtues or Courages; militant, guiding, or Ducal powers; and finally of the Strengths and Forces pure; magistral powers, of the more over the less, and the forceful and free over the weak and servile elements of life.

Subject enough for the next paper involving "economical" principles of some importance, of which, for theme, here is a sentence, which I do not care to translate, for it would sound harsh in English, though, truly, it is one of the tenderest ever uttered by man; which may be meditated over, or rather through, in the meanwhile, by any one who will take the pains:--

[Greek: Arh oun, hosper hippos to anepistemoni men encheirounti de chresthai zemia estin, houto kai adelphos hotan tis auto me epistamenos encheire chresthai, zemia esti?]

IV.

LAWS AND GOVERNMENTS: LABOUR AND RICHES.

It remains, in order to complete the series of our definitions, that we examine the general conditions of government, and fix the sense in which we are to use, in future, the terms applied to them.

The government of a state consists in its customs, laws, and councils, and their enforcements.

I.--CUSTOMS.

As one person primarily differs from another by fineness of nature, and secondarily, by fineness of training, so also, a polite nation differs from a savage one, first by the refinement of its nature, and secondly by the delicacy of its customs.

In the completeness, or accomplishment of custom, which is the nation's self-government, there are three stages--first, fineness in method of doing or of being;--called the manner or moral of acts: secondly, firmness in holding such method after adoption, so that it shall become a habit in the character: _i.e._, a constant "having"

or "behaving"; and, lastly, practice, or ethical power in performance and endurance, which is the skill following on habit, and the ease reached by frequency of right doing.

The sensibility of the nation is indicated by the fineness of its customs; its courage, patience, and temperance by its persistence in them.

By sensibility I mean its natural perception of beauty, fitness, and rightness; or of what is lovely, decent, and just: faculties dependent much on race, and the primal signs of fine breeding in man; but cultivable also by education, and necessary peris.h.i.+ng without it.

True education has, indeed, no other function than the development of these faculties, and of the relative will. It has been the great error of modern intelligence to mistake science for education. You do not educate a man by telling him what he knew not, but by making him what he was not.

And making him what he will remain for ever: for no wash of weeds will bring back the faded purple. And in that dyeing there are two processes--first, the cleansing and wringing out, which is the baptism with water; and then the infusing of the blue and scarlet colours, gentleness and justice, which is the baptism with fire.

The customs and manners of a sensitive and highly-trained race are always vital: that is to say, they are orderly manifestations of intense life (like the habitual action of the fingers of a musician).

The customs and manners of a vile and rude race, on the contrary, are conditions of decay: they are not, properly speaking, habits, but incrustations; not restraints, or forms, of life; but gangrenes;--noisome, and the beginnings of death. And generally, so far as custom attaches itself to indolence instead of action, and to prejudice instead of perception, it takes this deadly character, so that thus

"Custom hangs upon us with a weight Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life."

This power and depth are, however, just what give value to custom, when it works with life, instead of against it.

The high ethical training, of a nation being threefold, of body, heart, and practice (compare the statement in the preface to "Unto This Last"), involves exquisiteness in all its perceptions of circ.u.mstance,--all its occupations of thought. It implies perfect Grace, Pitifulness, and Peace; it is irreconcilably inconsistent with filthy or mechanical employments,--with the desire of money,--and with mental states of anxiety, jealousy, and indifference to pain. The present insensibility of the upper cla.s.ses of Europe to the aspects of suffering, uncleanness, and crime, binds them not only into one responsibility with the sin, but into one dishonour with the foulness, which rot at their thresholds. The crimes daily recorded in the police courts of London and Paris (and much more those which are unrecorded) are a disgrace to the whole body politic;[104] they are, as in the body natural, stains of disease on a face of delicate skin, making the delicacy itself frightful. Similarly, the filth and poverty permitted or ignored in the midst of us are as dishonourable to the whole social body, as in the body natural it is to wash the face, but leave the hands and feet foul. Christ's way is the only true one: begin at the feet; the face will take care of itself. Yet, since necessarily, in the frame of a nation, nothing but the head can be of gold, and the feet, for the work they have to do, must be part of iron, part of clay;--foul or mechanical work is always reduced by a n.o.ble race to the minimum in quant.i.ty; and, even then, performed and endured, not without sense of degradation, as a fine temper is wounded by the sight of the lower offices of the body. The highest conditions of human society reached hitherto, have cast such work to slaves;--supposing slavery of a politically defined kind to be done away with, mechanical and foul employment must in all highly-organized states take the aspect either of punishment or probation. All criminals should at once be set to the most dangerous and painful forms of it, especially to work in mines and at furnaces,[105] so as to relieve the innocent population as far as possible: of merely rough (not mechanical) manual labour, especially agricultural, a large portion should be done by the upper cla.s.ses;--bodily health, and sufficient contrast and repose for the mental functions, being unattainable without it; what necessarily inferior labour remains to be done, as especially in manufactures, should, and always will, when the relations of society are reverent and harmonious, fall to the lot of those who, for the time, are fit for nothing better. For as, whatever the perfectness of the educational system, there must remain infinite differences between the natures and capacities of men; and these differing natures are generally rangeable under the two qualities of lordly (or tending towards rule, construction, and harmony) and servile (or tending towards misrule, destruction, and discord); and, since the lordly part is only in a state of profitableness while ruling, and the servile only in a state of redeemableness while serving, the whole health of the state depends on the manifest separation of these two elements of its mind: for, if the servile part be not separated and rendered visible in service, it mixes with and corrupts the entire body of the state; and if the lordly part be not distinguished, and set to rule, it is crushed and lost, being turned to no account, so that the rarest qualities of the nation are all given to it in vain.[106] The effecting of which distinction is the first object, as we shall see presently, of national councils.

[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."--_Times_ leader, 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 pa.s.sages, 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, "[Greek: anthropiskoi]," and opposes such work to n.o.ble occupations, not merely as prison is opposed to freedom, but as a convict's dishonoured 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 of [Greek: banausos]), and especially their "[Greek: ascholia], 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 coa.r.s.eness or unworthiness (by coa.r.s.eness 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 cla.s.ses 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 gra.s.s 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] "[Greek: oliges, kai allos gignomenes.]" The bitter sentence never was so true as at this day.

II.--LAWS.

These are the definitions and bonds of custom, or, of what the nation desires should become custom.

Law is either archic[107] (of direction), meristic (of division), or critic (of judgment). Archic law is that of appointment and precept: it defines what is and is not to be done. Meristic law is that of balance and distribution: it defines what is and is not to be possessed. Critic law is that of discernment and award: it defines what is and is not to be suffered.

[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 h.e.l.l. The violation of archic law is [Greek: hamartia] (error) [Greek: poneria] (failure), [Greek: plemmeleia] (discord).