Scenes and Portraits

Transcriber's Notes
The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.
In addition to a few minor typographical errors which have been silently corrected, the following changes were made:
MATRI CARISSIMAE
SCENES AND
PORTRAITS
BY FREDERIC MANNING
AUTHOR OF THE VIGIL OF BRUNHILD
LONDON
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W.
1909
It is a necessity of the human mind to give everything a name, thus recognising a difference between one thing and another, and recording it. Science, which is the highest development of this necessity, recognises, and records systematically, all the facts of experience, distinguishing one from another, by the most minute analysis. The Maoris even go so far as bestow on their greenstone clubs, on their tikis , and on almost every separate article, a distinct name, as if recognising an individuality, much as the old myth-makers spoke of the sword Excalibur; but the average man is usually very loose in his application of terms. Renan in his preface to Dialogues Philosophiques writes: La grande majorité des hommes ... se divise en deux catégories, à égale distance desquelles il nous semble qu' est la vérité. 'Ce que vous cherchez est trouvé depuis longtemps,' disent les orthodoxes de toutes les nuances. 'Ce que vous cherchez n'est pas trouvable,' disent les positivistes pratiques (les seuls dangereux), les politiques railleurs, les athées. Having thus differentiated his own position, from that of either school, one is a little surprised to find Matthew Arnold saying of him, that the greatest intellect in France has declared for materialism. One recognises how pernicious the loose application of terms may be, and is a little irritated to discover a fine English critic lapsing into the vice, even in an unguarded moment. Really, thought, or at least any thought that justifies its existence, is too subtile and fluid a thing to be settled in this off-hand way; and the apparently childish custom of the Maoris is more scientific, since, at least, it recognises individuality.