The Progress of Nations.
[Footnote 277]
[Footnote 277: Essays on Mm Progress of Nations, in Civilization, Productive Industry, Wealth, and Population. By Ezra C. Seaman. First and Second Series, 12 mo. PP. 645, 659. New York: Charles Scribner & Co. 1868.]
The first series of the Essays which compose these two stout volumes appeared as long ago as 1846, and has now been revised, amended, and enlarged, and, after being long out of print, republished in connection with a second collection similar in character and general design. Mr. Seaman's purpose has been to inquire into the principal causes of the welfare of nations, such as morality, education, personal and political liberty, commercial, mechanical, and agricultural development, and those natural conditions of climate and geographical position which man has no power to modify, and to show how these causes have operated at various times and in various countries. To the adequate treatment of so vast a theme, there should be brought the labor of a life-time, the learning of a ripe scholar, and the intellect of a philosopher. Mr. Seaman, we must frankly say, has brought neither of the three. He has attempted what not one man in a thousand would be wise to attempt; and if he has failed, he has at any rate failed in very respectable company. The essays are crude and fragmentary. They lack a sustained train of thought and logical connection; they are encumbered with commonplaces and repetitions; and the statistical and historical illustrations with which they are thickly interwoven have the disadvantage of being borrowed from sources that convey no weight of authority. Citations from incompetent witnesses carry no force, but rather weaken the effect of an author's statements.
The fundamental fault of Mr. Seaman's work is not its raggedness, however; but it is the misapprehension, with which he starts, of the meaning of his subject. He understands "Progress" merely as material prosperity. "Civilization" means nothing in his mind but "Productive Industry, Wealth, and Population." That people is the most advanced which owns the most money and wears the best clothes. The destiny of man is commerce and manufactures. The end of civil society is the acquisition of wealth. Liberty is good because it leaves man free to invent telegraphs and railroads. Government is good because trade would be impossible without it. Education is valuable because it stimulates production and regulates industry. Religion is respectable because it develops the intellectual faculties, and teaches us to restrain the appetites whose free indulgence would undermine the constitution or injure our fellow-man. We do not mean to say that Mr. Seaman teaches these doctrines in so many words. He does not know that he teaches them at all. If he ever sees this article, he will no doubt be shocked at our interpretation of his argument. Yet, pushed to their fair and by no means remote conclusions, these are the teachings to which his essays amount. He seems to forget that man was created to know and love God and promote the divine glory, and that is the highest state of civilization in which he most perfectly fulfils the end of his creation. There is no true progress except toward this end. There is no real prosperity, where this heavenly destiny is lost sight of. There is no education which keeps it not constantly in view. Mr. Seaman treats religion merely as an agency for the development of civilization, whereas it is the very essence of civilization itself. He thinks of the worship of God as a useful mental exercise, which sharpens a man's wits and makes him keener at a bargain. One who has practised his brain in theological controversy must of necessity be the clearer-headed when he has to decide between free-trade and protection, or calculate the rate of exchange and the fluctuations of stocks. But theology is not worship. Religion is a matter of the affections as well as the intellect. The unlettered peasant can praise God, and is bound to praise God, no less than the scholar. A purely intellectual religion could not be of divine origin, since it would only be suitable for a small minority of the human race; it could not be the great business of every man's life, as religion must be, if it is worth anything at all. "Happiness, in a future world as well as in this," says Mr. Seaman, "is the sovereign good of man, and constitutes the end and chief purpose of his existence." That statement may pass if you understand happiness to consist in the promotion of the divine glory; but not if you place it in bank-notes and steam-engines. These seem to be the goal of progress in our author's eyes, and he looks at nothing beyond them.
With his false conceptions of the nature of society and religion, it is not surprising that Mr. Seaman should thoroughly misapprehend the work and purpose of that divinely organized church to which we owe all the true civilization there is in the world, and all the progress we have ever made. The only thread of thought which can be clearly discerned running through his essays, is the idea that Catholicism is the great enemy of civilization. We wish it were quite as clear by what line of argument he purposes to prove it. In one chapter, the church is an enemy to education because she does not teach the people enough. In another she is the enemy of free thought because she teaches them too much. Now her offence is neglect, now it is overmuch care. We don't see how it can be both.
"A part," he says, "and one of the most efficient parts of government in all civilized countries, consists in the education of the people." And he argues the necessity of education from the fact that "the great mass of mankind … are guided by imitation, precedent, and the instruction of others." They have very few ideas except those which are put into their heads by better educated people, or are derived directly from the senses. "Such people in all countries are under the influence and control … of the aristocracy, the clergy, the members of the learned professions, and the military and civil officers of government." The policy of the pope and the priesthood, he complains, is to retain the masses in a state of ignorance. "The Bible is kept from them; they are denied the right to read, and exercise their own individual judgments in matters of religion, but must allow their priests to read, think, and judge for them, and to form their opinions; and no efforts are made by the priests to establish common schools, or to teach the common people anything beyond the catechism, and the ceremonies and dogmas of religion, and absolute, unconditional submission in all things to their priests and rulers. Their whole efforts in matters of education are directed to founding colleges and high-schools, for training up young men for the priesthood, and instructing and breathing their opinions into the children and youth of the aristocracy and the wealthy classes." Now, before we go any further, let us prick a few of the mistakes in this paragraph. There are so many we hardly know how to begin.
1. The Bible is not kept from the common people. It is freely circulated in the vernacular, and our current English version is older than the translation of King James. From the time, in fact, when Bishop Ulphilas in the fifth century translated the Bible into the Gothic tongue, down to our own day, it has been the constant practice of the church to supply the faithful with correct translations of the Holy Scriptures. The use of false and garbled versions is indeed forbidden; but that is another matter altogether.
2. Catholics are not forbidden to read (!), nor do their priests claim the right to read and think for them, or to form their opinions. Mr. Seaman's statements on these points are so preposterous that in his cooler moments we suppose he is sorry for having made them.