Some Observations Upon the Civilization of the Western Barbarians, Particularly of the English / made during the residence of some years in those parts.

by John B. Swazey

The explanation is familiar to us. In our Flowery Kingdom, the master teaches the rules, and the artificer puts them in practice. We call him an Artisan who has knowledge of an Art: we call him who knows how things ought to be done, and who examines into things so as to comprehend the best modes of doing, simply a teacher, or master. We do not see that his knowledge, without actual performance, makes him a great man—a man of Science (as the Barbarians have it). Indeed, if a man do a thing merely mechanically, as a horse turns a mill, no doubt he is an ignorant artisan. Still, this stupidity does not exalt, in any degree, the nature of the knowledge of a brighter man: this one is only an intelligent artisan. On the whole, then, it seemed to me that the Barbarians, for the most part very ignorant, were easily imposed upon by those who, having leisure, mastered the multiform terms (or some of them) used by the teachers of Natural History in its various departments. These, too, idle and with some ambition to be known, easily fancied that the dry knowledge of words was knowledge; and discovering with surprise at first, but soon with great complacency, how very little one need to know to be ranked with men of Science, at length prided themselves upon the very trivialities which otherwise would have been unvalued. In fact, finally imposed upon themselves as they imposed upon others, and really believed those trifles to be important, because confined to those who paraded them as Scientific. These busy, idle triflers in words become the men of Science.

This is very laughable, and shows how mankind, everywhere, constantly repeat the same follies. In our Illustrious annals men like these have appeared and disappeared; founded schools, been admired, had disciples, then passed into oblivion; their works, often voluminous, never met with; or occasionally dug out of mouldy bins and reproduced in some parts to show up the pretensions of a new charlatan—to show how much better the same things were explained, or the same terms used by an old and forgotten author, 5,000 moons ago!

These men, as with us, constantly overrate the value of their labours; the world really can get on without them. Getting together in Congresses [Bed-la-mi], they pay (or affect) great respect to each other, and put on an air of abstraction; they are supposed to be pondering upon the care of men and things, and feel the weight of responsibility. Other men may be trivial; but to those upon whom rests the due ordering of Nature, Care should be a genius and Dignity a presence.

In these Meetings, nothing is worthy of debate unless it be Scientific. A plain paper, directed to a simple, useful object, and stating in ordinary and intelligible language the rules useful to the end, is not satisfactory. There should be something novel and obscure, or it is unlikely to come within the desired category. In truth, high and mighty principles on which man and the gods exist and move and flourish, or upon a disregard of which decay and dissolution follow—these are alone the proper objects of philosophers and men of Science; and involved in the profound investigation of principles, the Congress disappears from the common eye, and is lost even to itself!

On the whole, the value of these scientific men to the world did not seem to me to be considerable. I mean as scientific men—without any of the pretension or cant [Bo-zhe] of their class, individuals may be useful, and would be more useful without the false glamour of class-vanity. A man of brain and who really thinks and examines, if he have anything to say will say it, and it will be judged by its merit. But when men having time and not knowing what to do with themselves, and having some knowledge of words and but little brains, see an opening for imbecility, and are received and praised and dubbed Scientific, because they devote time and waste a large quantity of paper to give the world their thoughts—it is doubtful whether the more harm or the more good be done. To be sure, the idle and empty man may be rendered supremely happy in his vanity, and may have been saved from some personal degradation or vicious inclination—but the world could have been well spared his Catalogue of the Parasites on the Lobster, or his Notes on the Habits of the Barn Swallow, or his Suggestions as to the proper use of smoke, or his Hints upon the hybernation of Eels. No great harm is done, for nobody reads these things but the men of Science, who are obliged to keep up to the work of busy idleness, in reading for debate with each other and at the Congress.

This body professes to teach the proper rules for physical improvement, and its members are natural philosophers. They do not, however, confine themselves to the investigation of natural phenomena—they range over the whole broad field of speculation as well, demanding to know the cause of all things, and the very essence, object, and end. Those who take upon themselves this wider inquiry, assume a dignity far above the mere Scientists—these deal with mere visible forms; but those with the laws which underlie the forms, and with the source of Law, its origin, its object, and its end! These are Philosophers! and when a man is a man of Science and a philosopher, then no more is possible to human exaltation!

I have sufficiently referred to the works of these in another place. They cannot be wholly useless, if there really be a brain, honest and strong, at work. For to such patiently, humbly, earnestly, full of grateful recognition and conscious of the limitations of knowledge and of inquiry; seeking and looking out, with sad eyes, upon the vast world; to such, some new evidence of the grand order, some new and brilliant ray of divine illumination may come—not to show cause nor purpose, but to delight and tranquillise, to give new assurance of the Beneficent and Infinite Wisdom!

The English Barbarians have true men of Science. They are those to whom the people are indebted for nearly all of the useful discoveries and inventions. Men, who, engaged in some pursuit, apply a patient investigation and thoughtful experiments to see if they cannot improve the existing means to ends. In these investigations, they discover a new source or a new way of power; and, in the experiments, new applications and uses of it. When these men fall into the hands of the Scientists and Philosophers, and, leaving their work-shops, shine with the gods, at the Congresses—they usually end in that glamour—their light is no longer an illumination!

Of the musical Art, some things may be said. There is a wonderful variety of instruments—not many at all like ours.