J. McCarthy's two last volumes[[45]] are not equal to the first, but you will be interested in reading them. But here is post-time, and I cannot say one-half.
Tegernsee Sept. 27, 1880
It is not easy to add to the panegyric pronounced on St. Hilaire by a too zealous friend in Friday's Pall Mall. That gratifying description is not quite satisfactory. The writer affirms that St. Hilaire is an Orientalist of the first rank, and a Greek scholar unsurpassed in France. He knows Greek thoroughly for working purposes, but not exquisitely as a scholar; and he has done little, on the whole, for his idol Aristotle in the way of consulting the manuscripts and improving the unsettled text. And although he has studied Eastern religions deeply, I do not believe that he is a master of Eastern languages. Nor does he live on a third floor in that good street the Rue d'Astorg. He does not live there at all, but three miles away, in a charming little bachelor's house at Passy. His rooms, formerly in the Rue d'Astorg, were "au fond de la cour au premier," and his maid-servant is not (and was not) elderly, but young, though ill-favoured. And it is not fair to say, with obvious purpose, that he never deserts the Thiers dinner-table except for the Germans. I made his acquaintance at a dinner at Lord Lyons's.
From all which I conclude that the letter is a vehement endeavour to recommend the new Minister abroad. Last summer St. Hilaire gave me the three big volumes of his Aristotelian Metaphysics, and, when I remonstrated, said, "Vous me le rendrez un jour, d'une autre façon." That is what I am doing at this moment, when I tell you how very highly I rate the man.
St. Hilaire is quite at the top of scholars and philosophers of the second class. Not a discoverer, not an originator, not even clever in the sense common with Frenchmen, not eloquent at all, not vivid or pointed in phrase, sufficient in knowledge, but not abounding, sound, but not supple, accustomed to heavy work in the darkness, unused to effect, to influence, or to applause, unsympathetic and a little isolated, but high-minded, devoted to principle, willing, even enthusiastic, to sacrifice himself, his comfort, his life, his reputation, to public duty or scientific truth. He is not vain, so much as didactic; there is a method about him that is a little severe, a solidity that wants relief. His character has been shaped by long devotion to a cause that was hopeless, by which there was nothing to gain except the joy of being a pioneer of ideas assured of distant triumph. So that he is disinterested, consistent, patient, tolerant, convinced, and brave. Indeed, courage, contempt of death, is the one thing I have heard him speak of with something like display. The Republican party, to which he belonged even under Charles X., and of which he is the patriarch, had a good deal of dirty work to wash off; and I have observed that he was not communicative when, in an interest which it were superfluous to mention, I have tried to learn the secret history of Republicanism under the monarchy. There are few of them who never touched pitch. But he and Littre are distinct from most others by their hard work and their voluntary poverty.
This makes him peculiarly hateful to opponents. A legitimate Marquis said to me: "C'est un honnête homme, qui nous coupera la tête de la manière la plus honnête du monde." People who admit that he is unstained by the gross vices of his party, speak of him as an enthusiast, and a dupe, and no doubt expect him to acquiesce, like Pilate, in all manner of wrong that he will not initiate.
I do not feel that there is no truth at all in these imputations. I have found that he thinks accurately, that he is even penetrating, but not impressive. He told me the speech he had prepared against the Jesuits, which, I believe, he never delivered. The argument was: The conscience of man is his most divine possession. Jesuits give up conscience to authority, therefore they forfeit the rights of men, which are the rights of conscience, and have no claim to toleration. I won't undertake to refute this argument; but it is pre-eminently unparliamentary, and smells of the oil he burns all day. St. Hilaire does not believe in the Christian religion, but he has Descartes's philosophic belief in God, and the elevated morality of the Stoics. Not the least of his merits is that having spent his life on Aristotle, he told me that he thought more highly of Plato; and in his Introduction to the Ethics he shows the weakness of his hero's attack on Platonism. In saying this he overcame a strong temptation. Scientifically his great achievement is the transposition of the several books of the Politics—which were in hopeless confusion before him. All Germany accepts the arrangement he proposed, and as the work is the ablest production of antiquity, this is no small matter. As a moderate, unambitious, totally dispassionate Republican, he belongs to the Thiers Centre. He thinks Jules Simon the most eminent public man in France, so that he is scarcely to the Left of Freycinet. He despises and detests Laboulaye, the oracle of the Centre Gauche. I often heard, but am not sure, that St. Hilaire turned the scale, and made Thiers adopt, and enforce, Republicanism.
Forgive me for writing so soon and so confusedly.
Tegernsee October 3, 1880