Chapter III: Part II (3)

One immense step more, however,—and it is our last, brings to “the outskirts of creation,” as the Essayist calls it,—the _Nebulæ_: and here we find him once more confronted by his indefatigable and implacable opponent. We must therefore take our biggest and best mental telescope to behold these two Specks intellectual, so far off in infinitude, wrangling about a faint cloud vastly further off than themselves. Do you see how angry one of them looks, and how provokingly stolid the other? ’Tis all about the nature of that same cloud, or Nebula; and if we could only hear what they said, we might catch a chord or two of the music of the spheres! The Essayist is required, by his brother speck, to believe that the faintly-luminous patch at which they are gazing—a thousandth part of the visible breadth of our own Sun—contains in it more life than exists in as many such systems as the unassisted eye can see stars in the heavens on the clearest winter night:—a view of the greatness of creation so stupendous, that the astounded speck, the Essayist, asks for a moment’s time to consider the matter. “We are entitled to draw the conclusion,” says the other, “that these _Nebulæ_ are clusters of stars, at such an immense distance from our own system, that each star of which they are composed is the sun or centre of a system of planets; and that these planets are inhabited—like our Earth, the seat of vegetable, animal, and intellectual life:”[114] that all the Nebulæ are resolvable into stars; and appear as Nebulæ only because they are more distant than the region in which they can appear as stars.[115] The conclusion, however, at which the Essayist arrives, after an elaborate examination of evidence, and especially of the latest discoveries in this dim and distant region by Sir John Herschell and the Earl of Rosse, is—that “Nebulæ are vast masses of incoherent or gaseous matter, of immense tenuity, diffused in forms more or less irregular, but all of them destitute of any regular system of solid moving bodies.... So far, then,” he concludes, “as these Nebulæ are concerned, the improbability of _their_ being inhabited appears to amount to the highest point that can be conceived. We may, by the indulgence of fancy, people the summer clouds, or the beams of the aurora borealis, with living beings of the same kind of substance as those bright appearances themselves; and in doing so, we are not making any bolder assertion than when we stock the Nebulæ with inhabitants, and call them, in that sense, inhabited worlds.”[116] The Essayist contends that the argument for the vastness of the scheme of the Universe, suggested by the resolution of the Nebulæ, is found to be untenable:—inasmuch as the greatest astronomers now agree in believing Nebulæ to have _distances of the same order_ as Fixed Stars. Their filmy appearance is a true indication of a highly attenuated substance: so attenuated as to destroy all probability of their being inhabited worlds. With this opinion as to the tenuity of Nebulæ agrees the absence of all _observed_ motion among their parts; while the extraordinary spiral arrangement of many of them, prove that nevertheless many of them really _have_ motion, and suggests modes of calculating their tenuity, and showing how extreme it is. “It is probable,” said Lord Rosse, in a paper which we ourselves heard him read not long ago, from the chair of the Royal Society, “that in the Nebular systems, motion exists. If we see a system with a distinct spiral arrangement, all analogy leads us to conclude that there has been motion; and that if there has been motion, that motion still continues.”... “Among the Nebulæ,” he says, “there are vast numbers, much too faint to be sketched or measured with any prospect of advantage: the most powerful instruments we possess showing in them nothing of an organised structure, but merely a confused mass of nebulosity, of varying brightness.”[117] The Essayist makes powerful use, moreover, of Sir John Herschell’s celebrated observation of the Magellanic Clouds, lying near the South Pole; exhibiting the coexistence, in a limited compass, and in indiscriminate position, of stars, clusters of stars, nebulæ regular and irregular, and nebular streaks and patches, things different not merely to us, but in themselves: nebulæ, side by side with stars and clusters of stars; nebulous matter resolvable, close to nebulous matter irresolvable;—the last and widest step by which the dimensions of the Universe have been expanded, in the notions of eager speculators, being checked by a completer knowledge, and a sager spirit of speculation.[118] In discussing such matters as these, he finely observes—“It is difficult to make men feel that so much ignorance can lie close to so much knowledge; to make them believe that they have been allowed to discover so much, and yet are not allowed to discover more.”[119]

In alluding to the Nebulæ, as subjects of our most powerful telescopic observation, the Essayist speaks in a tone of sarcasm concerning the “_shining dots_,”—the “_lumps of light_” which are rendered apparent amidst them: asking, what are these lumps? (1.) How large? (2.) At what distances? (3.) Of what structure? (4.) Of what use?—adding, he must be a bold man who undertakes to answer the question, that each is a Sun, with attendant systems of planets. Sir David, exceedingly irate, says, “We accept the challenge, and appeal to our readers:”—(1.) The size of the dot, or lump, is large enough to be a Sun. (2.) He cannot answer this, for want of knowing ‘the apparent distance between the centres of the dots.’ (3.) Like our Sun—‘It will consist of a luminous envelope, enclosing a dark nucleus.’ (4.) Of no conceivable use, but to give light to planets, or to the solid _nuclei_ of which they consist. In his turn, he asks the Essayist—what is the size, distance, structure, and use of the dots, upon his hypothesis? The Essayist, he observes, is silent;[120] but in his Essay, he had said, distinctly enough, “Let us not wrangle about words. By all means let these dots be stars, if we know about what we are speaking: if a star mean, merely, a luminous dot in the sky. But that these stars shall resemble, in their nature, Stars of the First Magnitude, and that such stars shall resemble Our Sun, are surely very bold structures of assumption, to build on such a basis. Some nebulæ are resolvable into distinct points: but what would it amount to? That the substance of all nebulæ is not continuous; separate, and separable into distinct luminous elements:—nebulæ are, it would then seem, as it were of a curdled or granulated texture; they have run into _lumps_ of light, or been formed originally of such lumps.” And then follow some very ingenious and refined speculations, into which we have not space to enter; and indeed we may be well content with what we have done, having travelled from a tolerable depth in the crust of our own little planet, past planet after planet, star after star, till we reached the nebulous “outskirts of creation;” accompanied by two Mentors of Infinitude,—whispering into our ear—one, that life, animal, intellectual, moral, was swarming around us at every step; the other, that that life ceased with our own Earth, as far as we were able to detect its existence, and giving us very solemn and mysterious reasons why it should be so.

Our Essayist, however, is not exhausted by the efforts he has made in his destructive career. If he be a “proud setter down” of cosmological systems, he determines, in turn, to be a “putter up:” and so presents us with his own _Theory of the Solar System_; and an explanation of the mode in which all appearances in the Universe beyond may be reconciled with it. “It may serve” he says, “to confirm his argument, if he give a description of the system which shall continue and connect his views of the constitution and peculiarities as to physical circumstances of each of the planets. It will help us in our speculation, if we can regard the planets as not only a collection, but a scheme;—if we can give not an Enunciation only, but a Theory. Now, such a SCHEME, such a THEORY, appears to offer itself to us.”[121] The scope of this scheme, or theory, is, as we some time ago saw, to make our earth, in point of astronomical fact and reality, the largest Planetary Body in the solar system; its domestic hearth; the only part of the frame revolving round the Sun which has become a “WORLD.” We must, however, make short work of it.

The planets exterior to Mars—especially Jupiter and Saturn—appear spheres of water, or aqueous vapour. The Earth has a considerable atmosphere of air and of vapour; while on Venus or Mercury—so close to the sun—we see nothing of a gaseous or aqueous atmosphere; they and Mars differing little in density from the earth.

THE EARTH’S ORBIT, according to the Essayist’s theory, IS THE TEMPERATE ZONE OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM, where only the play of hot and cold, moist and dry, is possible. Water and gases, clouds and vapours, form, mainly, the planets in the outer part of the solar system; while masses, such as result from the fusion of the most solid materials, lie nearer the Sun, and are found principally within the orbit of Jupiter. After a further exposition of his “theory,” the Essayist observes that it agrees with the nebular hypothesis, SO FAR as it applies to the _Solar System_; exactly, and very sternly, repudiating that hypothesis as it applies to the Universe in general.[122] “If we allow ourselves,” says he, “to speculate _at all_ on physical grounds respecting the origin of the Earth, the hypothesis, that it has passed through a fluid and a gaseous condition, does not appear more extravagant than any other cosmogonical hypothesis: not even if we suppose that the other bodies of the Solar System have shared in the like changes. _But_, that all the stars and the nebulæ have gone, or are going through, a series of changes such as those by which the Solar System has been formed,—the nebular hypothesis, as it applies to the _Universe_ in general, is precisely the doctrine which I here reject, giving my reasons.”[123]

The whole of the Chapter devoted to “the Theory of the Solar System,” is distinguished by remarkable ingenuity and originality. It is, however, that entitled _the Argument from Design_, which, independently of all connection with the speculations of the author as already laid before our readers, is worthiest of consideration, by all interested in Natural Theology. It touches many topics which must have occupied the profoundest thoughts of mankind, and touches them with the utmost caution and delicacy. In the 34th Section will be found a passage of singular boldness and imaginative eloquence; but liable, in our opinion, to serious misconception, and susceptible of misrepresentation—by those, at least, who are either unable, or indisposed, to weigh the entire chapter, and ascertain its real value and tendency. Some expressions have startled us not a little, when reflecting that they relate to the possible mode of action of Omniscient Omnipotence; and we shall be gratified by seeing them vindicated or explained in the next edition of his “Essay.”

Each of our speculators closes his book with a chapter devoted to “The Future.” The ideas of Sir David concerning the duration of the human race upon the earth (which Inspiration tells us is so awfully uncertain, and will be cut short suddenly—in a moment—in _the twinkling of an eye_), seem to be curiously definite; for we have seen that in his sixth chapter he states that “from the birth of man to the extinction of his race, the Solar System to which he belongs will have described but an infinitesimal arc in that grand cosmical orbit in which it is destined to move.” Without pausing to ask who told him this, let us intimate, that in his final chapter he says that the scientific truths on which depends the plurality of worlds are intimately associated with the future destiny of man: he turns to the future of the sidereal systems, as the hallowed spots in which is to be spent his immortal existence. Scripture has not spoken articulately of the future locality of the blest; but Reason has combined the scattered utterances of Inspiration, and with an almost oracular voice declared that the Maker of the worlds will place _in these_ the beings of his choice. In what region, reason does not determine; but it is _impossible_ for man, with the light of Revelation as his guide, to doubt for a moment that on the celestial spheres his future is to be spent in lofty inquiries; social intercourse; the renewal of domestic ties; and in the service of his Almighty benefactor. The Christian’s future, not defined in his creed, enwrapt in apocalyptic mysteries, evades his grasp: it is only Astronomy that opens the mysterious expanse of the Universe to his eye, and creates an intelligible paradise in the world to come: wherefore, says Sir David, we must impregnate the popular mind with the truths of natural science; teaching them in every school, and recommending, if not illustrating, them from every pulpit: fixing in the minds and associating in the affections, alike of age and youth, the great truths in the planetary and sidereal universe, on which the doctrine of More Worlds than One must respectively rest—the philosopher scanning with a new sense the sphere in which he is to study; and the Christian the temples in which he is to worship.—Such, in his own words, is Sir David Brewster’s final and authoritative exposition of the CREED of the philosopher, and the HOPE of the Christian:—of such a nature are to be the _new heavens and the new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness_; and such, henceforth, as he has indicated, becomes the duty of the Christian teacher in the Family, in the School, in the Pulpit! So absolutely and irrefragably, it seems, are demonstrated the stupendous facts of astronomical science on which this Creed and this Faith depend: so unerring are our telescopes and other instruments, that he who does not receive this “Creed” is no philosopher, nor he who rejects the “Hope” a Christian. But, in the mean time, how inconceivably embarrassing to such a philosopher, and to such a Christian, is the possibility that many, or a few years hence, such immense improvements may be made in telescopes, or in other modes of acquiring a knowledge of the celestial structures, as to demonstrate to the sense, as well as reason, of us impatient and presumptuous tenants of the earth, that the planets are _not_ inhabited! that the fixed stars are not suns, and have not a planet a piece—no, not even a solitary planet among them! Thus rendering our astounded and dismayed philosopher homeless and creedless, and the Christian helpless and hopeless:—the former one of those who _professing themselves to be wise become fools_;[124] the latter, _likened unto a foolish man which built his house upon the sand_.[125]

The “_Future_” of the Essayist is of a different kind, and adumbrated with becoming humility and diffidence. “I did not,” he says, “venture further than to intimate, that when we are taught, that _as we have borne the image of the Earthy, we shall also bear the image of the Heavenly_, we may find, in even natural science, reasons for opening our minds to the reception of the cheering and elevating announcement.”[126]

We have now placed before our readers the substance of the arguments for and against a plurality of worlds, so far as developed in the essays of Dr Whewell and Sir David Brewster. The former is a work so replete with subtle thought, bold speculation, and knowledge of almost every kind, used with extraordinary force and dexterity, as to challenge the patient and watchful attention of the most thoughtful reader; and that whether he be, or be not, versed in astronomical speculations. Great as are the power and resources of the author, we detect no trace of dogmatism or arrogance, but, on the contrary, a true spirit of fearless, but patient and candid, inquiry. It is a mighty problem of which he proposes a solution, and he does no more than propose it: in his Preface declaring that, to himself at least, his arguments “appear to be of no small philosophical force, though he is quite ready to weigh carefully and candidly any answer which may be offered to them.”

We feel grateful to the accomplished Essayist for the storehouse of authentic facts, and the novel combination of inferences from them, with which he has presented us; and we are not aware that he has given us just reason to regret confiding in his correctness or candour. And in travelling with him through his vast and chequered course, we feel that we have accompanied not only the philosopher and the divine, but the gentleman: one who, while manifestly knowing what is due to himself, as manifestly respects his intelligent reader. In several of his astronomical assumptions and inferences we may be unable to concur, particularly in respect of the nebulous stars. We may also well falter at expressing a decisive “Aye” or “No,” to the great question proposed by him for discussion, on scientific grounds, and independently of Scriptural Revelation; yet we acknowledge that he has sensibly shaken our opinion as to the validity of the reasons usually assigned for believing in a plurality of worlds. He remorselessly ties us down to EVIDENCE, as he ought to do; and all the more rigorously, because the affirmative conclusion, at which many heedless persons are disposed to jump, is one which, if well founded, occasions religious difficulties of a grave character among the profoundest and perhaps even devoutest thinkers. To suppose that Omnipotence may not have peopled already, or contemplate a future peopling of the starry spheres with intelligent beings, of as different a kind and order as it is possible for our limited faculties to conceive, yet in some way involved in physical conditions, altogether inexplicable to us, would be the acme of impious presumption. When we look at Sirius, in his solitary splendour in the midnight sky, pouring forth _possibly_ fifty times the light and heat of our sun, upon a prodigiously greater planetary system than our own, it is natural to conjecture whether, among many other _possibilities_, it may be the seat of intelligence, perhaps of a transcendent character. Here the imagination may disport itself as it pleases: yet we shall feel ourselves compelled—those who can _think_ about the matter—to own, that our imaginations are, as it were, “cabined, cribbed, confined,” by the objects and associations to which we are at present restricted; and as the late eminent Prussian astronomer, Bessel, observed, those who imagine inhabitants in the moon and planets, “supposed them, in spite of all their protestations, as like to _men_, as one egg to another.” But when we proceed further, and insist on likening these supposed inhabitants to ourselves, intellectually and morally, then it is that both philosophy and religion concur in rebuking us, and enjoining a reverent diffidence. We have probably read as much on these subjects as many of our readers, and that with deep interest and attention; but we never met with so cogent a demonstration as is contained in this Essay, of the theological difficulties besetting the popular doctrine of a plurality of worlds. Had God vouchsafed to tell us that it was so, there would have been an end of the matter, and with it all difficulty would have disappeared, to one whose whole life, as the Christian’s ought to be, is one continued act of faith; but God has thought fit to preserve an awful silence concerning his dealings with other scenes of physical existence: while He has as distinctly revealed that of spiritual beings whose functions are vitally connected with man, as he exists upon the earth, the subject of a sublime economy, which, we are assured by Inspiration, that _the angels desire to look into_. The Christian implicitly believes that there IS a HEAVEN, where the presence of the adorable Deity constitutes happiness, to the most exalted of His ministers and servants, perfect and ineffable: happiness in which He has solemnly assured us that we may hereafter participate: _for since the beginning of the world, men have not heard, nor perceived by the ear, neither hath the eye seen, O God, beside Thee, what He hath prepared for him that waiteth for Him_.[127] This, our Maker has told us; he has not told us the other, nor anything about it: no, not when He visited the earth, unless we can dimly see such a significance in the words, “In my Father’s house (οἰκίᾳ) are many _mansions_ (μοναι): if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place (τόπον) for you.” The word μονη is used twice in the New Testament, and in the same chapter:[128] in the verse already quoted, and in the 23d—“If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode (μονὴν) with him.” Here are the three words in the same verse, οἰκια, μονη, τοπος. In my Father’s house there are μοναὶ πολλαὶ, many places of _abode_. Heaven is the οικια, our common place, and it has many subdivisions, room enough for angels, as well as for the spirits of just men made perfect. It is possibly an allusion to the temple, God’s earthly house, which had many chambers in it. But who shall require us to believe that this μονη, was a star, or planet? It may be so, it may not; there can be no sin in a devout mind conjecturing on the subject; but the Essayist does not meddle with these solemn topics: confining himself to the physical reasons for conjecturing, with more or less probability, that the stars are habitations for human beings. We take our leave of him with a quotation from his Dialogue, couched in grave and dignified terms:—

“_U._ But your arguments are merely negative. You prove only that we
do not know the planets to be inhabited.

“_Z._ If, when I have proved that point, men were to cease to talk as
if they knew that the planets _are_ inhabited, I should have produced
a great effect.

“_U._ Your basis is too narrow for so vast a superstructure, as that
all the rest of the universe, besides the earth, is uninhabited.

“_Z._ Perhaps; for my philosophical basis is only the earth—the only
known habitation. But on this same narrow basis, the earth, you build
up a superstructure that other bodies ARE inhabited. What I do is, to
show that each part of your structure is void of tenacity, and cannot
stand.

“It is probable that when we have reduced to their real value all the
presumptions drawn from physical reasoning, for the opinion of planets
and stars being either inhabited, or uninhabited, the face of these
will be perceived to be so small, that _the belief of all thoughtful
persons on this subject will be determined by moral, metaphysical, and
theological consideration_.”[129]

“More Worlds than One” will not, we are constrained to say, in our opinion, add to the well-earned reputation of Sir David Brewster. It is a hasty and slight performance, entirely of a popular character; and disfigured throughout, not only by an overweening confidence and peremptoriness of assertion, but by tinges of personality and outbursts of heat that are indeed strange disturbing forces in a philosophical discussion. Dr Whewell’s Essay is a work requiring, in a worthy answer, great consideration; and we do not think that “More Worlds than One” evidences a tithe of such consideration. Nor does Sir David show a proper respect for his opponent; nor has he taken a proper measure of his formidable proportions as a logical and scientific disputant, one who should be answered in a cold and exact spirit; or it were much better to leave him alone. Sir David must forgive us if we quote a sentence or two from devout old John Wesley, a man who had several points of greatness in him:—

“Be not so _positive_, especially with regard to things which are
neither easy, nor necessary to be determined. When I was young, I was
_sure_ of everything. In a few years, having been mistaken a thousand
times, I was not half so sure of most things as before. At present, I
am hardly sure of anything, but what God has revealed to me!... Upon
the whole, an ingenious man may easily flourish on this head. How much
more glorious is it for the great God to have created innumerable
worlds than this little globe only!... Do you ask, then, what is This
Spot to the great God? Why, as much as millions of systems. GREAT and
LITTLE have place with regard to us; but before Him, they vanish
away!”[130]

Fontenelle has much to answer for, if we may judge from what has been said concerning the extent and nature of the influence he has exercised on thoughtless minds. That flippant but brilliant trifler, Horace Walpole, for instance, declared that the reading Fontenelle had made him a sceptic! He maintained, on the supposition of a plurality of worlds, the impossibility of any revelation! That the reception of this opinion was sufficient, with him, to destroy the credibility of all revelation![131] This ground he has, if this report be true, the honour of occupying with Thomas Paine.

Let us, however, think and speak and act differently, remembering fearfully, how often _the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God_. Is it, indeed, consistent with even mere worldly wisdom, on the ground of an assumption with regard to inhabited planets, to reject a belief founded on direct and positive proofs, such as is the belief in the truths of Natural and Revealed Religion?

“Newton,” says Dr Chalmers, in his discourse on the Modesty of True
Science, “knew the boundary which hemmed him. He knew that he had not
thrown one particle of light on the moral or religious history of
these planetary regions. He had not ascertained what visits of
communication they received from the God who upholds them. But he knew
that the fact of a Real Visit to THIS PLANET had such evidence to rest
upon that it was not to be disposted by any aerial imagination.” Let
this noble and devout spirit be in us: both Faith and Reason assuring
us, that we stand, in Scriptural Truth, safe and immovable, like _a
wise man, which built his house upon a rock_.[132]

KING OTHO AND HIS CLASSIC KINGDOM.

The actual condition of Greece is a disgrace to the political civilisation of Europe. There is hope for the Othoman Empire, for the Turks are sensible that they have much to learn; but for the kingdom of Greece there is no hope, unless the modern Hellenes lay aside the self-conceit which induces them to boast of their superior orthodoxy when the question relates to their practical ignorance. Englishmen and Russians, despots and demagogues, princes and people, Europeans and Americans, all agree in pronouncing King Otho’s kingdom a satire on monarchical institutions, constitutional legislation, and central administration. The valour and patriotism displayed by the Albanians of Suli and Hydra, and by the Greeks of Messolonghi and Psara, were the theme of well-merited praise, and were rewarded by liberal gifts of money and other supplies from the friends of Greece in Germany, Switzerland, France, England, and the United States of America. Greece has great obligations to the people of Western Europe, whom she now stigmatises as hostile Latins. It was the voice of the people that moved the Cabinet of London to take the initiative in the negotiations which caused the battle of Navarino, and conferred on Greece the rank of an independent kingdom by the treaty of 1832.

No political experiment during the present century—fruitful as the period has been in producing new States—excited higher expectations or warmer wishes for its success. Twenty-two years have now elapsed since Greece became a kingdom under the sceptre of Prince Otho of Bavaria. He was then a minor, and he was selected to fill the new throne more for his father’s merits than from any promise of superior talent in his own person. King Louis of Bavaria loved art, and his want of political capacity and military power removed any feelings of jealousy on the part of the greater powers in Europe to the addition thus made to the dignity of the house of Wittelsbach. King Otho was known to be a youth of very moderate attainments; but his natural deficiencies being fortunately united to an amiable disposition, it was expected that he would prove a docile monarch, and listen to good counsellors. It has proved otherwise. His limited capacity has not been more remarkable than his obstinacy and perverseness in following a line of policy which has inflicted serious injury on Greece. Notwithstanding a natural love of justice, and a good moral character, his misgovernment has degenerated into corruption, though it has not assumed a character of systematic tyranny. On the whole, his incapacity to perform the duties of his station, and his silly eagerness to assume the appearance of being a despotic sovereign, while he was unable to make any use of the greater part of the prerogatives willingly conceded to him by his subjects, have made him a very apt regal type of the anarchical and rapacious nation he rules. The result is, that the hopes of ardent Philhellenes, the expectations of enthusiastic scholars, and the wishes of cautious statesmen, have all been utterly disappointed by the government of King Otho. More than this, while the King of Greece has shown himself a bad monarch, the Greeks have displayed extreme ignorance in all their attempts to supply his deficiencies. Instead of suggesting better principles for his guidance, they have become the steady supporters of his system whenever he condescended to purchase their support by places and pensions. It seems as if the Bavarian monarchy had infused a morbid lethargy into Romaic society, so rapidly has the central administration of Athens quenched the fervour of patriotism throughout liberated Greece. The Albanian population has lost its valour and perseverance; the Greek has sunk back into that normal condition of rapacious imbecility which has characterised the Hellenic race ever since the time of Mummius.

The revolution which freed Greece from the Turkish yoke broke out early in the year 1821, so that the inhabitants of the kingdom have now enjoyed the advantages of political independence for thirty-three years. A generation has grown up to manhood in possession of a greater degree of freedom than is possessed by most of the continental nations of Europe. Municipal institutions existed, to some extent, under the Turks, and they acquired considerable importance during the revolutionary war. The fullest exercise of the liberty of the press has prevailed ever since the first year of the revolution. Nor has this liberty been greatly abused, though it has often been misused—a circumstance not to be wondered at in a country so torn by faction as Greece has been ever since she commenced her struggle for independence. This fact must be weighed against the many vices and corruptions of the Greeks which it will be our task to notice, for it affords decisive evidence that there still exists among the mass of the population a sound basis of public opinion.

The establishment of free and orthodox Greece as an independent State, under the protection of Great Britain, France, and Russia, was a conception of George Canning’s genius, and it received the sanction of the Duke of Wellington. After Canning’s death, his enemies made it a subject of reproach. It is said that, when his statue was erected in Palace Yard, a royal duke, walking beside it with the late Lord Eldon, began to pour out a diatribe of harmless accusations against the honoured dead, which he summed up, saying, “He caused the battle of Navarin, Eldon, and he was not nearly so big as that statue;” to which the great Lord Chancellor, whose patience had been long tried, expanded his bushy eyebrows, and exclaimed, “No, truly—nor so green:” the statue being then, as some of our readers may remember, more remarkable for the verdant colour of its patent verdigris than for its size. Whether the battle of Navarin was absolutely necessary to save Greece from Ibrahim Pasha and his Arabs, may still admit of dispute; but unquestionably it was the battle of Navarin which did save Greece. When, however, the business of selecting a king, and of organising the institutions of a central administration on monarchical principles came to be performed, the genius of Canning was represented by the torpor of Aberdeen, and the sagacity of Wellington by the belligerent amenity of Palmerston.

The Russian sympathies of Capodistrias succeeded in delaying the final settlement of the Greek question, with the hope of placing Greece in a state of vassalage to the Czar. Lord Aberdeen combated the policy of the Corfiote feebly and unsuccessfully. He barely succeeded in preventing the execution of the Russian schemes, when the dagger of Mavromichalis opened the way for making Greece an independent kingdom by the assassination of Capodistrias.

The only candidate worthy of the throne of Greece was Leopold of Saxe-Cobourg, the present King of Belgium. He was compelled to resign his pretensions on account of the mutilated form of the territory offered to him by Lord Aberdeen and the Duke of Wellington. Lord Palmerston improved the territorial position of Greece by giving it a better frontier than Lord Aberdeen, but it remained still a very bad one, as Colonel Leake pointed out at the time. In 1832, moreover, Lord Palmerston administered his antidote to an improved frontier, in the shape of a Bavarian prince, whom, for some years, he supported with his usual vigour and contempt of consequences. King Otho being a minor, a regency accompanied him from Bavaria to Greece in 1833, to govern in his name. This regency consisted of three statesmen of purblind views—men of the limited political intelligence which distinguishes the artistic city of Munich. Yet Lord Palmerston, in concert with the other protecting powers, consented to strangle the Greek Chambers, in order to vest unlimited power in the hands of these Bavarian regents. Count Armansperg was chosen to do the honours, M. Maurer was intrusted with the duty of organising the civil administration, and General Heideck was allowed to sketch uniforms for the Greek army, and instructed to paint pictures for the cabinet of King Louis. These three statesmen soon quarrelled among themselves, and, with Teutonic _bonhomie_, called in the Greeks as spectators of their contests. The foreign policy of the regency was quite as ill-judged as their domestic behaviour. M. Maurer, who got the upper hand for a year, was ultra-Gallican; Count Armansperg, who at last succeeded in getting him shipped off to Bavaria, was ultra-Anglican. The follies of the regency, however, did not prevent the three protecting powers from heaping benefits on the Greek nation. A large loan, amounting to two million four hundred thousand pounds, was placed at the disposal of the Royal government. The object which the protectors of Greece had in view, was to remove any difficulties which the finances of Greece might have offered to a reform in the general system of taxation, and at the same time to afford facilities for immediately commencing the construction of roads, and other necessary improvements. The Greek treasury was rendered completely independent of the receipts of the annual revenues for the period necessary to effect a thorough reorganisation of every branch of the public service, civil, military, naval, and judicial. Greece had everything done for her which her friends could desire. But the Greeks, instead of employing their energies, and making use of the liberty of the press to restrain the Bavarians from wasting the loan, aided them to dissipate it in every way by which they could profit. The whole force of public opinion, it is true, was employed in driving the Bavarians from profitable employments; but when success attended the clamours of the Greeks, instead of abolishing the offices which they had previously declared to be useless, they installed themselves in the vacant places, and employed the influence thus acquired to diminish even the scanty sum devoted to national improvements by the Bavarians. Accordingly, we find that the Bavarians did as much for improving Greece during their short period of power, as the Greeks during their long subsequent administration. Yet every traveller hears the Greeks constantly declaring that all the evils in the country are caused by foreign interference. The only truth in their observation is, that they were and are utterly unfit to be trusted with the administration of any money beyond what they levy on themselves in the way of taxation. Nothing, indeed, shows the moral obliquity of the Greeks more than the ingratitude with which they receive every public and private gift.

We consider _that_ ingratitude a sufficient excuse for recapitulating some of the favours which the British Government has conferred on them since Otho the beloved ascended the Hellenic throne. Nothing but the blindest self-conceit, or the blackest ingratitude, can prevent their acknowledging that the English Cabinet has done infinitely more for advancing the commercial prosperity and extending the agricultural industry of Greece, than King Otho’s ministers or the Greek Chambers. The personal interest which several members of our Government took in the success of the kingdom they had contributed to found, induced them to conclude a reciprocity treaty with the King’s government at an early period. To the same feeling we may ascribe the early repeal of the duty on currants imported into the British dominions from the Greek kingdom. This change of duty, by placing the currants, a most important product of the Morea, on the same footing as those of Zante, was a direct boon to the currant-growers of Achaia, a bounty on the cultivation of fruit in the Greek kingdom, a premium to commerce at Patras, and a considerable gift to King Otho’s treasury. Lord Palmerston was Foreign Secretary during these changes, and we therefore request the public writers at Athens, when they think fit to reproach him for quarrelling with their beloved monarch, whom they believe is ever ready to sacrifice his throne for their orthodoxy, to bear in mind that these measures have done more for the agricultural and commercial prosperity of Greece, than any which King Otho or the Greek Chambers have adopted since they freed themselves from foreign domination.

For nearly five years—that is, from the beginning of 1833 to the end of 1837—the Bavarians continued to waste the loan granted by the three powers, partly in large salaries to themselves, and partly in creating places and jobs for the Greeks, to induce the most influential and clamorous to consent to their mode of dissipating the public money. Notwithstanding this, there can be no doubt that Greece received some permanent benefit from the regency. The Greeks were not in a condition to establish an equitable system of laws. M. Maurer endowed the country with this invaluable boon. To him Greece owes its excellent judicial organisation, and its code of civil procedure. Whatever were the defects of M. Maurer as a statesman, he was an able legislator, practically conversant with every detail of legal administration. The judicial system he planted in Greece was so complete in all its parts, that it has become an element in the political civilisation of the kingdom; and it affords the strongest grounds of hope to those who look forward to the Greek nation as the instrument for extending political civilisation in the East. Count Armansperg governed Greece much longer than M. Maurer, but his improvements were not so beneficial. He made court balls and political bribery national institutions.

During the whole of the Bavarian domination, a well-filled treasury, a number of foreign officers and native councillors of state, political sycophants, dressed in handsome uniforms and speaking good French, a hired press, and a liberal distribution of King Otho’s Order of the Redeemer of Greece, with its ribbon and star, to foreign diplomatists and English peers, concealed from Western Europe the discontent, civil wars, and brigandage that fermented in the little kingdom. The bands of robbers that infested Greece during this period became so numerous as to give their system of plunder the character of a civil war. In the year 1835, during the administration of Count Armansperg, a body of about 500 brigands remained for more than a month levying contributions under the walls of Lepanto, in which it kept the garrison blockaded until relieved by a general from Athens with a strong detachment of Bavarian and Greek regular troops. These armed bands repeatedly resisted the central government, which drew all the money of the country to the capital without making any improvements in the provinces. Several foreign officers were charged with the task of re-establishing order. Generals Schmaltz, Gordon, and Church, each made a campaign against the brigands, who rendered Messenia, Etolia, Acarnania, Doris, and Phthiotis in turns the scene of their skirmishes with King Otho’s troops. Besides this extensive system of brigandage, a regular civil war was caused in Maina by the same central rapacity and want of judgment on the part of the Regency. In Maina, the Bavarian troops were defeated, and a considerable number were compelled to lay down their arms.

During the whole of the Bavarian domination, the Greeks enjoyed the liberty of the press. M. Maurer placed the newspapers under some reasonable restraints, and Count Armansperg made one or two feeble demonstrations against them, for he was timid in everything but emptying the Greek treasury. His attacks were easily repulsed, and the Greeks have the honour of retaining the liberty of the press by their own exertions, though they have hitherto not rendered the privilege of much use to the nation. At length, in the month of December 1837, the Chevalier Rudhart, the last Bavarian prime-minister, resigned his office, and from that time King Otho has governed his kingdom with Greek or Albanian prime-ministers. This office has been more than once held by men who could hardly read or write; but the individuals have invariably been persons of some mark in the factions that divide the place-hunters of Athens. The ignorance and want of education of his ministers, which is often made a reproach to King Otho, ought to be considered as a national disgrace, for the court would never have selected men so destitute of administrative knowledge, had they not possessed considerable influence and a numerous following.

Ever since the commencement of the year 1838, the Greeks have possessed a predominant influence in King Otho’s cabinet. They are entirely responsible for the faults of his government from that time; for if the Greek ministers had used their power with a very little honesty, and one single grain of patriotism, they might have retained the direction of the internal administration in their own hands, and effected every improvement the nation could desire. Indeed, if they had ever shown a wish to improve the material condition of the population, it is probable King Otho would have given them his support in their endeavours. But when the King saw them intent only on profiting by office to enrich themselves and create places for their partisans, in order to perpetuate their tenure of office, he very naturally looked about for means to form a royal party, and thus render the court independent of the ministers. We shall soon explain to our readers how effectually his Hellenic Majesty accomplished this object. The Greek ministers never made any serious effort to diminish the weight of taxation, either by economy or by improving the barbarous manner in which the agricultural taxes are collected; they thought only of appropriating the national lands, and creating new places to reward their supporters. Instead of establishing systematic regulations for securing a respect to seniority and merit in civil, judicial, and military appointments, they destroyed the system the Bavarians had established, and disposed of the highest offices in the most arbitrary and unprincipled manner. Judges have been appointed in violation of the law, and men have been made generals who had never served in a military capacity. Worthless politicians and intriguing secretaries were decorated with military titles in order to enrich them with high pay. These men may be seen at the balls in King Otho’s palace, flaunting in vulgar embroidery, and imitating with Greek pertness the sumptuous Albanian dress and Mussulman gravity of the chiefs who filled the halls of Ali Pasha of Joannina. The Greeks alone have enjoyed the profits of the corruption which has reigned in the administration since the year 1838; they are consequently not entitled to throw the blame on foreigners.

In consequence of the misconduct of the Greek ministers and the servility of a council of state filled with official sycophants, the Greek government became such a scene of corruption that the patience of all ranks was exhausted, and an attempt was made to reform the vicious system by a revolution in the year 1843. A representative chamber and an imitation of Louis Philippe’s senate of officials, called in France a House of Peers, were constituted. The deputies were chosen by universal suffrage, but the election of the municipal authorities was left subject to the oligarchical restrictions imposed by the Regency. Ten years have now elapsed since the constitutional system was established, so that for ten years the Greeks have made their own laws and voted their own budgets. At the same time, the enjoyment of the fullest liberty of the press, and the existence of sixteen newspapers at Athens, have enabled every party and class to criticise the acts of the government with unrestrained license. If corruption and venality have been the leading features of political society in Greece during this period, it is evident that the nation has been a party to the abuses, from its refusal to punish the offenders. The mass of those whose superior knowledge and rank have obtained for them the direction of public opinion in political matters, have sacrificed the interests of the nation to advance their own personal schemes of profit. The Greeks ought not to feel surprised at the low estimation in which they are now held. It is entirely their own fault. They have hawked about their nationality at Munich, Paris, and St Petersburg, for illicit gains in a falling market at a very unpatriotic price.

Yet we collect from the newspapers published at Athens, that a considerable number of well-educated men of all parties, while they acknowledge the degraded state of their country, assert that the whole blame ought to be ascribed to the three protecting powers. Many of these patriots, it seems, are nevertheless in the receipt of large salaries from the public treasury; yet, though they feel that they are themselves destitute of the patriotism necessary to lighten the burdens of their country, they take the liberty of supposing that Lord Palmerston had the power of making all Greeks honest men by the magic of a protocol. We are not going to waste the time of our readers, as the Greek Senate and House of Representatives have wasted the resources of the country, by exposing the childishness of modern Greek political logic. If the descendants of Lucian’s contemporaries can find relief in their present degradation, by swallowing any dose of vanity they can mix for themselves, we have no wish to deprive them of the solace. But we cannot refrain from advising them to try some other remedy to remove the evils that are undermining the national strength and character. Instead of seeking for apologies to excuse their vices, they had better commence reforming their vicious habits.

Nothing has so much retarded the progress of the Greek race as the inconceivable vanity and unbounded presumption of the class who make letters a profession. Those who believe in the unmixed purity of the Hellenic blood might cite this besotted pride, after two thousand years of national degradation, as a proof that the Greeks of the present day are lineal descendants of those who sold their country to the Macedonians and the Romans, as they have lately attempted to sell it to the Russians. An admixture of foreign blood would probably have infused into the people a wish to look forward to a glorious future, instead of leaving them to gaze at a reflection of the past, distorted by their own senile visual orbits, at moments when action, not contemplation, is their business.

The strange manner in which the modern Greeks misrepresent history for the gratification of their national vanity, is well displayed in their ecclesiastical history. We will select one anecdote from the _History of the Patriarchs of Constantinople_, written by Malaxos, one of the Greek _logiotatọi_ of the sixteenth century. His work was first published by Martin Crusius in his _Turco-Græcia_, and has lately been reprinted in the new edition of the Byzantine historians, in the course of publication at Bonn.

The Greeks are in the habit of boasting that their Church preserved their nationality under the Turks. Considering the subserviency of the great body of the Greek clergy during that period, and the readiness with which they acted as spies and policemen for the Othoman government, we own that we entertain a very different opinion. We think it would be nearer the truth to assert that the people, having perpetuated their existence by the toleration of their conquerors, preserved their nationality by their municipal organisation, and that this preservation of their nationality was the cause of their ecclesiastical establishment surviving. Mohammed II. reconstituted the patriarchate of Constantinople, after he had conquered the city, merely as a branch of the Othoman administration. Mr Masson and other enthusiasts fancy they can discern Presbyterian doctrines in the Greek Church. It may be the case. We have heard that chemists find gold in strawberries; but the gold rarely sits heavy on the stomachs of those who eat strawberries, and we opine that the Presbyterian doctrines of the Greek Church never prevent its votaries from worshipping images. So, in the anecdote we are going to extract from the Patriarchal History, we find that the Greeks regard violations of truth and honour as venial offences, if not absolutely meritorious acts, whenever they are supposed to have turned to the profit of their ecclesiastical establishment.

“During the reign of the Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, when Toulphi Pasha was grand vizier,[133] the attention of the Sublime Porte was called to the circumstance that the duty of the caliph of the Mohammedan faith required the destruction of all places of worship belonging to Infidels in every city which the true believers had taken with the sword. Now, as Mohammed II. had taken Constantinople by storm, it was the sultan’s duty to destroy all the Christian churches within the walls; and all the plagues and fires which had desolated the city, and which, it was observed, generally consumed more Turkish than Greek property, evidently arose from the Divine anger at the neglect of this important command of the Prophet. Sultan Suleiman was said to have consulted the mufti on the necessity of only tolerating places of worship for the Christians without the walls; and it was believed that the mufti had delivered a fetva, authorising the destruction of all the Greek churches in Constantinople. Sultan Suleiman then issued an order to his grand vizier, commanding him to carry the fetva into execution. At this time Jeremiah was patriarch of Constantinople.

“The patriarch heard the report, and, terrified at the news, mounted his mule, and hastened to the palace of the grand vizier, who received him with kindness. The two dignitaries discussed the matter of the sultan’s order, and concerted together a mode of evading its execution. A meeting of the divan was held, at which the grand vizier made a public communication of the imperial decree to the patriarch Jeremiah. But the head of the Greek Church gravely observed, that the circumstances of the mufti’s fetva were not applicable to the city of Constantinople. He declared that before Mohammed II. entered Constantinople, the Emperor Constantine, finding the place no longer tenable, had gone out of the city and presented the keys to the Sultan, who had admitted him to do homage as a subject for himself and the Greek people, before the gates were thrown open to admit the conqueror. On this ground he pleaded that all the concessions made by Mohammed II. to the patriarchs and to the Greek Church were lawful. Well might all the members of the divan wonder at this strange tale concerning the conquest of Constantinople. But many had received large presents from the patriarch, and many waited to hear the opinion of the grand vizier before pretending to doubt its accuracy. The grand vizier declared that the question was so important that it would be proper to adjourn the business to a grand divan on the following day.