PART III. CIVILISATION.
"This country, which has given to the world the example of physical liberty, owes to it that of moral emancipation also; for as yet it is but nominal with us. The inquisition of public opinion overwhelms, in practice, the freedom asserted by the laws in theory."
Jefferson.
The degree of civilisation of any people corresponds with the exaltation of the idea which is the most prevalent among that people. The prominent idea of savages is the necessity of providing for the supply of the commonest bodily wants. The first steps in civilisation, therefore, are somewhat refined methods of treating the body. When, by combination of labour and other exercises of ingenuity, the wants of the body are supplied with regularity and comparative ease, the love of pleasure, the love of idleness, succeeds. Then comes the desire of wealth; and next, the regard to opinion. Further than this no nation has yet attained. Individuals there have been, probably in every nation under heaven, who have lived for a higher idea than any of these; and insulated customs and partial legislation have, among all communities, shown a tendency towards something loftier than the prevalent morality. The majesty of higher ideas is besides so irresistible, that an involuntary homage, purely inefficacious, has been offered to them from of old by the leaders of society.
"Earth is sick,
And Heaven is weary of the hollow words
Which States and Kingdoms utter when they talk
Of truth and justice."
Though, as yet, "profession mocks performance," the profession, from age to age, of the same lofty something not yet attained, may be taken as a clear prophecy of ultimate performance. It shows a perception, however dim, a regard, however feeble, from which endeavour and attainment cannot but follow, in course of time. But the time is not yet. In the old world, the transition is, in its most enlightened parts, only beginning to be made, from the few governing the many avowedly for the good of the few, to governing the many professedly for the good of the many. The truth and justice under whose dominion every man would reverence all other men, would renounce himself for the sake of others, and feel it to be the highest destiny "not to be ministered unto, but to minister," are still "hollow words." The civilisation of the old world still corresponds with the low idea, that man lives in and for the outward, in and for what is around him rather than what is within him. It is still supposed, that whatever a few individuals say and do, the generality of men live for wealth, outward ease and dignity, and, at the highest, lofty reputation. The degree of civilisation corresponds with this. There is scarcely an institution or a custom which supposes anything higher. What educational arrangements there are, are new, and (however praiseworthy as being an actual advance) are so narrow and meagre as to show how unaccustomed is the effort to consider the man as nobler than the unit of society. The phrase is still the commonest of phrases in which parents, guardians, schoolmasters and statesmen embody their ambition for their wards—that any such ward "may become a useful and respectable member of society." The greater number of guardians would be terrified at the idea of their wards becoming anything else; anything higher than "useful and respectable members of society," while it is as clear as noon-day that room ought to be left,—that facilities ought to be afforded for every one becoming whatsoever his Maker has fitted him to be, so long as it appears that the noblest men by whom the earth has been graced, have been considered in their own time the very reverse of "useful and respectable members of society." The most godlike of the race have been esteemed "pestilent fellows" in their day and generation. No student of the ways of Providence will repine at this order of affairs, or expect that any arrangement of society can be made by which the convictions and sympathies of the less gifted should be enabled suddenly to overtake those of the more gifted. He will not desire to change the great and good laws by which the chosen of his race are "made perfect through sufferings," and by which the light of reason is ordained to brighten very gradually from dawn into day. He will only take note of the fact, that it is a low state of civilisation which presupposes specified and outward aims, and relies with such confidence on the mechanical means of attaining them as to be shocked, or anything but gratified, at the pursuit of singular objects by unusual methods. The observer will rightly judge such to be a low state of civilisation, whatever lamentations or exultations he may daily hear about the very high point civilisation has reached, when the schoolmaster is abroad, when people can travel at the rate of fifty miles an hour, and eminent cooks are paid 1,200l. a-year. While truth and justice remain "hollow words," so far as that men cannot live for them, to the detriment of their fortunes, without being called mischievous and disreputable members of society, no one can reasonably speak of the high civilisation of the country to which they belong.