Chapter XVIII: Section III: Riches (3)

And Plato's notable sentence in the third book of
"Polity":--"Tell them they have divine gold and silver in
their souls for ever; that they need no money stamped of
men--neither may they otherwise than impiously mingle the
gathering of the divine with the mortal treasure, for
through that which the law of the multitude has coined,
endless crimes have been done and suffered; but in theirs is
neither pollution nor sorrow." At the entrance of this place
of punishment an evil spirit is seen by Dante, quite other
than the "Gran Nemico." The great enemy is obeyed knowingly
and willingly; but this spirit--feminine--and called a
Siren--is the "Deceitfulness of riches," [Greek: apate
ploutou] of the gospels, winning obedience by guile. This is
the Idol of Riches, made doubly phantasmal by Dante's seeing
her in a dream. She is lovely to look upon, and enchants by
her sweet singing, but her womb is loathsome. Now, Dante
does not call her one of the Sirens carelessly, any more
than he speaks of Charybdis carelessly, and though he had
only got at the meaning of the Homeric fable through
Virgil's obscure tradition of it, the clue he has given us
is quite enough. Bacon's interpretation, "the Sirens, or
pleasures," which has become universal since his time, is
opposed alike to Plato's meaning and Homer's. The Sirens are
not pleasures, but Desires: in the Odyssey they are the
phantoms of vain desire; but in Plato's vision of Destiny,
phantoms of constant Desire; singing each a different note
on the circles of the distaff of Necessity, but forming one
harmony, to which the three great Fates put words. Dante,
however, adopted the Homeric conception of them, which was
that they were demons of the Imagination, not carnal (desire
of the eyes; not lust of the flesh); therefore said to be
daughters of the Muses. Yet not of the muses, heavenly or
historical, but of the muse of pleasure; and they are at
first winged, because even vain hope excites and helps when
first formed; but afterwards, contending for the possession
of the imagination with the muses themselves, they are
deprived of their wings, and thus we are to distinguish the
Siren power from the Power of Circe, who is no daughter of
the muses, but of the strong elements, Sun and Sea; her
power is that of frank and full vital pleasure, which, if
governed and watched, nourishes men; but, unwatched, and
having no "moly," bitterness or delay mixed with it, turns
men into beasts, but does not slay them, leaves them, on the
contrary, power of revival. She is herself indeed an
Enchantress;--pure Animal life; transforming--or
degrading--but always wonderful (she puts the stores on
board the ship invisibly, and is gone again, like a ghost);
even the wild beasts rejoice and are softened around her
cave; to men, she gives no rich feast, nothing but pure and
right nourishment,--Pramnian wine, cheese and flour; that is
corn, milk, and wine, the three great sustainers of life--it
is their own fault if these make swine of them; and swine
are chosen merely as the type of consumption; as Plato's
[Greek: huon polis] in the second book of the "Polity," and
perhaps chosen by Homer with a deeper knowledge of the
likeness of nourishment, and internal form of body. "Et quel
est, s'il vous plait, cet audacieux animal qui se permet
d'etre bati au dedans comme une jolie petite fille?"

"Helas! chere enfant, j'ai honte de le nommer, et il ne
foudra pas m'en vouloir. C'est ... c'est le cochon. Ce n'est
pas precisement flatteur pour vous; mais nous en sommes tous
la, et si cela vous contrarie par trop, il faut aller vous
plaindre au bon Dieu qui a voulu que les choses fussent
arrangees ainsi: seulement le cochon, qui ne pense qu' a
manger, a l'estomac bien plus vaste que nous, et c'est
toujours une consolation." ("Histoire d'une Bouchee de
Pain," Lettre ix.) But the deadly Sirens are all things
opposed to the Circean power. They promise pleasure, but
never give it. They nourish in no wise; but slay by slow
death. And whereas they corrupt the heart and the head,
instead of merely betraying the senses, there is no recovery
from their power; they do not tear nor snatch, like Scylla,
but the men who have listened to them are poisoned, and
waste away. Note that the Sirens' field is covered, not
merely with the bones, but with the skins of those who have
been consumed there. They address themselves, in the part of
the song which Homer gives, not to the passions of Ulysses,
but to his vanity, and the only man who ever came within
hearing of them, and escaped untempted, was Orpheus, who
silenced the vain imaginations by singing the praises of the
gods.

It is, then, one of these Sirens whom Dante takes as the
phantasm or deceitfulness of riches; but note further, that
she says it was her song that deceived Ulysses. Look back to
Dante's account of Ulysses' death, and we find it was not
the love of money, but pride of knowledge, that betrayed
him; whence we get the clue to Dante's complete meaning:
that the souls whose love of wealth is pardonable have been
first deceived into pursuit of it by a dream of its higher
uses, or by ambition. His Siren is therefore the Philotime
of Spenser, daughter of Mammon--

"Whom all that folk with such contention
Do flock about, my deare, my daughter is--
Honour and dignitie from her alone
Derived are."

By comparing Spenser's entire account of this Philotime with
Dante's of the Wealth-Siren, we shall get at the full
meaning of both poets; but that of Homer lies hidden much
more deeply. For his Sirens are indefinite, and they are
desires of any evil thing; power of wealth is not specially
indicated by him, until, escaping the harmonious danger of
imagination, Ulysses has to choose between two practical
ways of life, indicated by the two rocks of Scylla and
Charybdis. The monsters that haunt them are quite distinct
from the rocks themselves, which, having many other
subordinate significations, are in the main Labour and
Idleness, or getting and spending; each with its attendant
monster, or betraying demon. The rock of gaining has its
summit in the clouds, invisible and not to be climbed; that
of spending is low, but marked by the cursed fig-tree, which
has leaves but no fruit. We know the type elsewhere; and
there is a curious lateral allusion to it by Dante when
Jacopo di Sant' Andrea, who had ruined himself by profusion
and committed suicide, scatters the leaves of the bush of
Lotto degli Agli, endeavouring to hide himself among them.
We shall hereafter examine the type completely; here I will
only give an approximate rendering of Homer's words, which
have been obscured more by translation than even by
tradition--

"They are overhanging rocks. The great waves of blue water
break round them; and the blessed Gods call them the
Wanderers.

"By one of them no winged thing can pass--not even the wild
doves that bring ambrosia to their father Jove--but the
smooth rock seizes its sacrifice of them." (Not even
ambrosia to be had without Labour. The word is peculiar--as
a part of anything offered for sacrifice; especially used of
heave-offering.) "It reaches the wide heaven with its top,
and a dark-blue cloud rests on it, and never passes; neither
does the clear sky hold it in summer nor in harvest. Nor can
any man climb it--not if he had twenty feet and hands, for
it is smooth as though it were hewn.

"And in the midst of it is a cave which is turned the way of
hell. And therein dwells Scylla, whining for prey: her cry,
indeed, is no louder than that of a newly-born whelp: but
she herself is an awful thing--nor can any creature see her
face and be glad; no, though it were a god that rose against
her. For she has twelve feet, all fore-feet, and six necks,
and terrible heads on them; and each has three rows of
teeth, full of black death.

"But the opposite rock is lower than this, though but a
bow-shot distant; and upon it there is a great fig-tree,
full of leaves; and under it the terrible Charybdis sucks it
down, and thrice casts it up again; be not thou there when
she sucks down, for Neptune himself could not save thee."

The reader will find the meaning of these types gradually
elicited as we proceed.

This disease of desire having especial relation to the great art of Exchange, or Commerce, we must, in order to complete our code of first principles, shortly state the nature and limits of that art.

As the currency conveys right of choice out of many things in exchange for one, so Commerce is the agency by which the power of choice is obtained; and countries producing only timber can obtain for their timber silk and gold; or, naturally producing only jewels and frankincense, can obtain for them cattle and corn. In this function commerce is of more importance to a country in proportion to the limitations of its products and the restlessness of its fancy;--generally of greater importance towards Northern latitudes.

Commerce is necessary, however, not only to exchange local products, but local skill. Labour requiring the agency of fire can only be given abundantly in cold countries; labour requiring suppleness of body and sensitiveness of touch only in warm ones; labour involving accurate vivacity of thought only in temperate ones; while peculiar imaginative actions are produced by extremes of heat and cold, and of light and darkness. The production of great art is limited to climates warm enough to admit of repose in the open air, and cool enough to render such repose delightful. Minor variations in modes of skill distinguish every locality. The labour which at any place is easiest, is in that place cheapest; and it becomes often desirable that products raised in one country should be wrought in another. Hence have arisen discussions on "International values," which will be one day remembered as highly curious exercises of the human mind. For it will be discovered, in due course of tide and time, that international value is regulated just as inter-provincial or inter-parishional value is. Coals and hops are exchanged between Northumberland and Kent on absolutely the same principles as iron and wine between Lancashire and Spain. The greater breadth of an arm of the sea increases the cost, but does not modify the principle of exchange; and a bargain written in two languages will have no other economical results than a bargain written in one. The distances of nations are measured not by seas, but by ignorances; and their divisions determined, not by dialects, but by enmities.

Of course, a system of international values may always be constructed if we assume a relation of moral law to physical geography; as, for instance, that it is right to cheat across a river, though not across a road; or across a lake, though not across a river; or over a mountain, though not across a lake, etc.:--again, a system of such values may be constructed by assuming similar relations of taxation to physical geography; as, for instance, that an article should be taxed in crossing a river, but not in crossing a road; or in being carried over a mountain, but not over a ferry, etc.: such positions are indeed not easily maintained when once put in logical form; but one law of international value is maintainable in any form; namely, that the farther your neighbour lives from you, and the less he understands you, the more you are bound to be true in your dealings with him; because your power over him is greater in proportion to his ignorance, and his remedy more difficult in proportion to his distance.

I have just said the breadth of sea increases the cost of exchange. Exchange or commerce, as such, is always costly; the sum of the value of the goods being diminished by the cost of their conveyance, and by the maintenance of the persons employed in it. So that it is only when there is advantage to both producers (in getting the one thing for the other), greater than the loss in conveyance, that the exchange is expedient. And it is only justly conducted when the porters kept by the producers (commonly called merchants) look only for pay, and not for profit. For in just commerce there are but three parties--the two persons or societies exchanging and the agent or agents of exchange: the value of the things to be exchanged is known by both the exchangers, and each receives equivalent value, neither gaining nor losing (for whatever one gains the other loses). The intermediate agent is paid an equal and known percentage by both, partly for labour in conveyance, partly for care, knowledge, and risk; every attempt at concealment of the amount of the pay indicates either effort on the part of the agent to obtain exorbitant percentage, or effort on the part of the exchangers to refuse him a just one. But for the most part it is the first, namely, the effort on the part of the merchant to obtain larger profit (so called) by buying cheap and selling dear. Some part, indeed, of this larger gain is deserved, and might be openly demanded, because it is the reward of the merchant's knowledge, and foresight of probable necessity; but the greater part of such gain is unjust; and unjust in this most fatal way, that it depends first on keeping the exchangers ignorant of the exchange value of the articles, and secondly, on taking advantage of the buyer's need and the seller's poverty. It is, therefore, one of the essential, and quite the most fatal, forms of usury; for usury means merely taking an exorbitant sum for the use of anything, and it is no matter whether the exorbitance is on loan or exchange, in rent or in price--the essence of the usury being that it is obtained by advantage of opportunity or necessity, and not as due reward for labour. All the great thinkers, therefore, have held it to be unnatural and impious, in so far as it feeds on the distress of others, or their folly.[97] Nevertheless attempts to repress it by law (in other words, to regulate prices by law so far as their variations depend on iniquity, and not on nature) must for ever be ineffective; though Plato, Bacon, and the First Napoleon--all three of them men who knew somewhat more of humanity than the "British merchant" usually does--tried their hands at it, and have left some (probably) good moderative forms of law, which we will examine in their place. But the only final check upon it must be radical purifying of the national character, for being, as Bacon calls it, "concessum propter duritiem cordis," it is to be done away with by touching the heart only; not, however, without medicinal law--as in the case of the other permission, "propter duritiem." But in this, more than in anything (though much in all, and though in this he would not himself allow of their application, for his own laws against usury are sharp enough), Plato's words are true in the fourth book of the "Polity," that neither drugs, nor charms, nor burnings, will touch a deep-lying political sore, any more than a deep bodily one; but only right and utter change of constitution; and that "they do but lose their labour who think that by any tricks of law they can get the better of these mischiefs of intercourse, and see not that they hew at a Hydra."

[97] Hence Dante's companionship of Cahors, Inf., canto xi.,
supported by the view taken of the matter throughout the
middle ages, in common with the Greeks.

And indeed this Hydra seems so unslayable, and sin sticks so fast between the joinings of the stones of buying and selling, that "to trade" in things, or literally "cross-give" them, has warped itself, by the instinct of nations, into their worst word for fraud; for, because in trade there cannot but be trust, and it seems also that there cannot but also be injury in answer to it, what is merely fraud between enemies becomes treachery among friends: and "trader," "traditor," and "traitor" are but the same word. For which simplicity of language there is more reason than at first appears; for as in true commerce there is no "profit," so in true commerce there is no "sale." The idea of sale is that of an interchange between enemies respectively endeavouring to get the better of one another; but commerce is an exchange between friends; and there is no desire but that it should be just, any more than there would be between members of the same family. The moment there is a bargain over the pottage, the family relation is dissolved;--typically "the days of mourning for my father are at hand." Whereupon follows the resolve "then will I slay my brother."

This inhumanity of mercenary commerce is the more notable because it is a fulfilment of the law that the corruption of the best is the worst. For as, taking the body natural for symbol of the body politic, the governing and forming powers may be likened to the brain and the labouring to the limbs, the mercantile, presiding over circulation and communication of things in changed utilities is symbolized by the heart; which, if it harden, all is lost. And this is the ultimate lesson which the leader of English intellect meant for us (a lesson, indeed, not all his own, but part of the old wisdom of humanity), in the tale of the "Merchant of Venice"; in which the true and incorrupt merchant,--kind and free, beyond every other Shakespearian conception of men,--is opposed to the corrupted merchant, or usurer; the lesson being deepened by the expression of the strange hatred which the corrupted merchant bears to the pure one, mixed with intense scorn--

"This is the fool that lent out money gratis; look to him, jailor," (as to lunatic no less than criminal); the enmity, observe, having its symbolism literally carried out by being aimed straight at the heart, and finally foiled by a literal appeal to the great moral law that flesh and blood cannot be weighed, enforced by "Portia" ("Portion"), the type of divine Fortune,[98] found, not in gold, nor in silver, but in lead, that is to say, in endurance and patience, not in splendour; and finally taught by her lips also, declaring, instead of the law and quality of "merces," the greater law and quality of mercy, which is not strained, but drops as the rain, blessing him that gives and him that takes. And observe that this "mercy" is not the mean "Misericordia," but the mighty "Gratia," answered by Gratitude (observe Shylock's leaning on the, to him detestable, word gratis, and compare the relation of Grace to Equity given in the second chapter of the second book of the "Memorabilia"); that is to say, it is the gracious or loving, instead of the strained, or competing manner, of doing things, answered, not only with "merces" or pay, but with "merci," or thanks. And this is indeed the meaning of the great benediction, "Grace, mercy, and peace," for there can be no peace without grace (not even by help of rifled cannon),[99] nor even without triplicity of graciousness, for the Greeks, who began with but one Grace, had to open their scheme into three before they had done.

[98] Shakespeare would certainly never have chosen this name had
he been forced to retain the Roman spelling. Like Perdita,
"lost lady," or "Cordelia," "heart-lady," Portia is
"fortune-lady." The two great relative groups of words,
Fortune, fero, and fors--Portio, porto, and pars (with the
lateral branch, op-portune, im-portune, opportunity, etc.),
are of deep and intrinsic significance; their various senses
of bringing, abstracting, and sustaining, being all
centralized by the wheel (which bears and moves at once), or
still better, the ball (spera) of Fortune,--"Volve sua
spera, e beata si gode:" the motive power of this wheel
distinguishing its goddess from the fixed majesty of
Necessitas with her iron nails; or [Greek: ananke], with
her pillar of fire and iridescent orbits, fixed at the
centre. Portus and porta, and gate in its connexion with
gain, form another interesting branch group; and Mors, the
concentration of delaying, is always to be remembered with
Fors, the concentration of bringing and bearing, passing on
into Fortis and Fortitude.

[99] Out of whose mouths, indeed, no peace was ever promulgated,
but only equipoise of panic, highly tremulous on the edge in
changes in the wind.

With the usual tendency of long-repeated thought to take the surface for the deep, we have conceived their goddesses as if they only gave loveliness to gesture; whereas their true function is to give graciousness to deed, the other loveliness arising naturally out of that. In which function Charis becomes Charitas[100] and has a name and praise even greater than that of Faith or truth, for these may be maintained sullenly and proudly; but Charis[101] is in her countenance always gladdening (Aglaia), and in her service instant and humble; and the true wife of Vulcan, or Labour. And it is not until her sincerity of function is lost, and her mere beauty contemplated, instead of her patience, that she is born again of the foam flake, and becomes Aphrodite; then only capable of joining herself to War and to the enmities of men, instead of to Labour and their services. Therefore the fable of Mars and Venus is, chosen by Homer, picturing himself as Demodocus, to sing at the games in the Court of Alcinous. Phaeacia is the Homeric island of Atlantis; an image of noble and wise government, concealed, how slightly! merely by the change of a short vowel for a long one in the name of its queen; yet misunderstood by all later writers, even by Horace in his "pinguis, Phaeaxque," etc. That fable expresses the perpetual error of men, thinking that grace and dignity can only be reached by the soldier, and never by the artizan; so that commerce and the useful arts have had the honour and beauty taken away, and only the Fraud[102] and Pain left to them, with the lucre. Which is, indeed, one great reason of the continual blundering about the offices of government with respect to commerce. The higher classes are ashamed to deal with it; and though ready enough to fight for (or occasionally against) the people,--to preach to them,--or judge them, will not break bread for them; the refined upper servant who has willingly looked after the burnishing of the armoury and ordering of the library, not liking to set foot into the larder.

[100] The reader must not think that any care can be misspent
in tracing the connexion and power of the words which we
have to use in the sequel. Not only does all soundness of
reasoning depend on the work thus done in the outset, but
we may sometimes gain more by insistence on the expression
of a truth, than by much wordless thinking about it; for
to strive to express it clearly is often to detect it
thoroughly; and education, even as regards thought, nearly
sums itself in making men economise their words, and
understand them. Nor is it possible to estimate the harm
that has been done, in matters of higher speculation and
conduct, by loose verbiage, though we may guess at it by
observing the dislike which people show to having anything
about their religion said to them in simple words, because
then they understand it. Thus congregations meet weekly to
invoke the influence of a Spirit of Life and Truth; yet if
any part of that character were intelligibly expressed to
them by the formulas of the service, they would be offended.
Suppose, for instance, in the closing benediction, the
clergyman were to give its vital significance to the word
"Holy," and were to say, "the Fellowship of the Helpful and
Honest Ghost be with you, and remain with you always," what
would be the horror of many, first, at the irreverence of so
intelligible an expression, and, secondly, at the
discomfortable entry of the suspicion that (while throughout
the commercial dealings of the week they had denied the
propriety of Help, and possibility of Honesty) the Person
whose company they had been asking to be blessed with could
have no fellowship with knaves.

[101] As Charis becomes Charitas [see next page], the word "Cher,"
or "Dear," passes from Shylock's sense of it (to buy cheap
and sell dear) into Antonio's sense of it: emphasized with
the final i in tender "Cheri," and hushed to English
calmness in our noble "Cherish."

[102] While I have traced the finer and higher laws of this matter
for those whom they concern, I have also to note the
material law--vulgarly expressed in the proverb, "Honesty is
the best policy." That proverb is indeed wholly inapplicable
to matters of private interest. It is not true that honesty,
as far as material gain is concerned, profits individuals. A
clever and cruel knave will, in a mixed society, always be
richer than an honest person can be. But Honesty is the best
"policy," if policy means practice of State. For fraud gains
nothing in a State. It only enables the knaves in it to live
at the expense of honest people; while there is for every
act of fraud, however small, a loss of wealth to the
community. Whatever the fraudulent person gains, some other
person loses, as fraud produces nothing; and there is,
besides, the loss of the time and thought spent in
accomplishing the fraud; and of the strength otherwise
obtainable by mutual help (not to speak of the fevers of
anxiety and jealousy in the blood, which are a heavy
physical loss, as I will show in due time). Practically,
when the nation is deeply corrupt, cheat answers to cheat,
every one is in turn imposed upon, and there is to the body
politic the dead loss of ingenuity, together with the
incalculable mischief of the injury to each defrauded
person, producing collateral effect unexpectedly. My
neighbour sells me bad meat: I sell him in return flawed
iron. We neither of us get one atom of pecuniary advantage
on the whole transaction, but we both suffer unexpected
inconvenience;--my men get scurvy, and his cattle-truck runs
off the rails.

Farther still. As Charis becomes Charitas on the one side, she becomes--better still--Chara, Joy, on the other; or rather this is her very mother's milk and the beauty of her childhood; for God brings no enduring Love, nor any other good, out of pain, nor out of contention; but out of joy and harmony.[103] And in this sense, human and divine, music and gladness, and the measures of both, come into her name; and Cher becomes full-vowelled Cheer, and Cheerful; and Chara, companioned, opens into Choir and Choral.

[103] "[Greek: ta men houn alla zoa ouk echein aisthesin ton
en tais kinesesi taxeon oude ataxion, hoi de rhuthmos
onoma kai harmonia hemin de ous eipomen tous theous]
[Apollo, the Muses, and Bacchus--the grave Bacchus, that
is---ruling the choir of age; or Bacchus restraining;
'saeva _tene_, cum Berecyntio cornu, tympana,' etc.]
[Greek: sunchoreutas dedosthai, toutous einai kai tous
dedokotas ten enruthmon te kai henarmonion aisthesin
meth' edones ... chorous te onomakenai para tes charas
emphyton unoma.]"--"Laws," book ii.

And lastly. As Grace passes into Freedom of action, Charis becomes Eleutheria, or liberality; a form of liberty quite curiously and intensely different from the thing usually understood by "Liberty" in modern language; indeed, much more like what some people would call slavery; for a Greek always understood, primarily, by liberty, deliverance from the law of his own passions (or from what the Christian writers call bondage of corruption), and this a complete liberty: not having to resist the passion, but making it fawn upon, and follow him--(this may be again partly the meaning of the fawning beasts about the Circean cave; so, again, George Herbert--

Correct thy passion's spite;
Then may the beasts draw thee to happy light)--

not being merely safe from the Siren, but also unbound from the mast. And it is only in such generosity that any man becomes capable of so governing others as to take true part in any system of national economy. Nor is there any other eternal distinction between the upper and lower classes than this form of liberty, Eleutheria, or benignity, in the one, and its opposite of slavery, Douleia, or malignity, in the other; the separation of these two orders of men, and the firm government of the lower by the higher, being the first conditions of possible wealth and economy in any state,--the Gods giving it no greater gift than the power to discern its freemen, and "malignum spernere vulgus."

The examination of this form of Charis must, therefore, lead us into the discussion of the principles of government in general, and especially of that of the poor by the rich, discovering how the Graciousness joined with the Greatness, or Love with Majestas, is the true Dei Gratia, or Divine Right, of every form and manner of King; _i.e._, specifically, of the thrones, dominations, princedoms, virtues, and powers of the earth;--of the thrones, stable, or "ruling," literally right-doing powers ("rex eris, recte si facies:") of the dominations, lordly, edifying, dominant, and harmonious powers; chiefly domestic, over the "built thing," domus, or house; and inherently twofold, Dominus and Domina; Lord and Lady: of the Princedoms, pre-eminent, incipient, creative, and demonstrative powers; thus poetic and mercantile, in the "princeps carmen deduxisse" and the merchant-prince: of the Virtues or Courages; militant, guiding, or Ducal powers; and finally of the Strengths and Forces pure; magistral powers, of the more over the less, and the forceful and free over the weak and servile elements of life.

Subject enough for the next paper involving "economical" principles of some importance, of which, for theme, here is a sentence, which I do not care to translate, for it would sound harsh in English, though, truly, it is one of the tenderest ever uttered by man; which may be meditated over, or rather through, in the meanwhile, by any one who will take the pains:--

[Greek: Arh oun, hosper hippos to anepistemoni men encheirounti
de chresthai zemia estin, houto kai adelphos hotan tis auto me
epistamenos encheire chresthai, zemia esti?]

IV.

LAWS AND GOVERNMENTS: LABOUR AND RICHES.

It remains, in order to complete the series of our definitions, that we examine the general conditions of government, and fix the sense in which we are to use, in future, the terms applied to them.

The government of a state consists in its customs, laws, and councils, and their enforcements.

I.--CUSTOMS.

As one person primarily differs from another by fineness of nature, and secondarily, by fineness of training, so also, a polite nation differs from a savage one, first by the refinement of its nature, and secondly by the delicacy of its customs.

In the completeness, or accomplishment of custom, which is the nation's self-government, there are three stages--first, fineness in method of doing or of being;--called the manner or moral of acts: secondly, firmness in holding such method after adoption, so that it shall become a habit in the character: _i.e._, a constant "having" or "behaving"; and, lastly, practice, or ethical power in performance and endurance, which is the skill following on habit, and the ease reached by frequency of right doing.

The sensibility of the nation is indicated by the fineness of its customs; its courage, patience, and temperance by its persistence in them.

By sensibility I mean its natural perception of beauty, fitness, and rightness; or of what is lovely, decent, and just: faculties dependent much on race, and the primal signs of fine breeding in man; but cultivable also by education, and necessary perishing without it. True education has, indeed, no other function than the development of these faculties, and of the relative will. It has been the great error of modern intelligence to mistake science for education. You do not educate a man by telling him what he knew not, but by making him what he was not.

And making him what he will remain for ever: for no wash of weeds will bring back the faded purple. And in that dyeing there are two processes--first, the cleansing and wringing out, which is the baptism with water; and then the infusing of the blue and scarlet colours, gentleness and justice, which is the baptism with fire.

The customs and manners of a sensitive and highly-trained race are always vital: that is to say, they are orderly manifestations of intense life (like the habitual action of the fingers of a musician). The customs and manners of a vile and rude race, on the contrary, are conditions of decay: they are not, properly speaking, habits, but incrustations; not restraints, or forms, of life; but gangrenes;--noisome, and the beginnings of death. And generally, so far as custom attaches itself to indolence instead of action, and to prejudice instead of perception, it takes this deadly character, so that thus

"Custom hangs upon us with a weight
Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life."

This power and depth are, however, just what give value to custom, when it works with life, instead of against it.

The high ethical training, of a nation being threefold, of body, heart, and practice (compare the statement in the preface to "Unto This Last"), involves exquisiteness in all its perceptions of circumstance,--all its occupations of thought. It implies perfect Grace, Pitifulness, and Peace; it is irreconcilably inconsistent with filthy or mechanical employments,--with the desire of money,--and with mental states of anxiety, jealousy, and indifference to pain. The present insensibility of the upper classes of Europe to the aspects of suffering, uncleanness, and crime, binds them not only into one responsibility with the sin, but into one dishonour with the foulness, which rot at their thresholds. The crimes daily recorded in the police courts of London and Paris (and much more those which are unrecorded) are a disgrace to the whole body politic;[104] they are, as in the body natural, stains of disease on a face of delicate skin, making the delicacy itself frightful. Similarly, the filth and poverty permitted or ignored in the midst of us are as dishonourable to the whole social body, as in the body natural it is to wash the face, but leave the hands and feet foul. Christ's way is the only true one: begin at the feet; the face will take care of itself. Yet, since necessarily, in the frame of a nation, nothing but the head can be of gold, and the feet, for the work they have to do, must be part of iron, part of clay;--foul or mechanical work is always reduced by a noble race to the minimum in quantity; and, even then, performed and endured, not without sense of degradation, as a fine temper is wounded by the sight of the lower offices of the body. The highest conditions of human society reached hitherto, have cast such work to slaves;--supposing slavery of a politically defined kind to be done away with, mechanical and foul employment must in all highly-organized states take the aspect either of punishment or probation. All criminals should at once be set to the most dangerous and painful forms of it, especially to work in mines and at furnaces,[105] so as to relieve the innocent population as far as possible: of merely rough (not mechanical) manual labour, especially agricultural, a large portion should be done by the upper classes;--bodily health, and sufficient contrast and repose for the mental functions, being unattainable without it; what necessarily inferior labour remains to be done, as especially in manufactures, should, and always will, when the relations of society are reverent and harmonious, fall to the lot of those who, for the time, are fit for nothing better. For as, whatever the perfectness of the educational system, there must remain infinite differences between the natures and capacities of men; and these differing natures are generally rangeable under the two qualities of lordly (or tending towards rule, construction, and harmony) and servile (or tending towards misrule, destruction, and discord); and, since the lordly part is only in a state of profitableness while ruling, and the servile only in a state of redeemableness while serving, the whole health of the state depends on the manifest separation of these two elements of its mind: for, if the servile part be not separated and rendered visible in service, it mixes with and corrupts the entire body of the state; and if the lordly part be not distinguished, and set to rule, it is crushed and lost, being turned to no account, so that the rarest qualities of the nation are all given to it in vain.[106] The effecting of which distinction is the first object, as we shall see presently, of national councils.

[104] "The ordinary brute, who flourishes in the very centre
of ornate life, tells us of unknown depths on the verge of
which we totter, being bound to thank our stars every day we
live that there is not a general outbreak and a revolt from
the yoke of civilization."--_Times_ leader, Dec. 25th, 1862.
Admitting that our stars are to be thanked for our safety,
whom are we to thank for the danger?

[105] Our politicians, even the best of them, regard only the
distress caused by the failure of mechanical labour. The
degradation caused by its excess is a far more serious
subject of thought, and of future fear. I shall examine this
part of our subject at length hereafter. There can hardly be
any doubt, at present, cast on the truth of the above
passages, as all the great thinkers are unanimous on the
matter. Plato's words are terrific in their scorn and pity
whenever he touches on the mechanical arts. He calls the men
employed in them not even human,--but partially and
diminutively human, "[Greek: anthropiskoi]," and opposes
such work to noble occupations, not merely as prison is
opposed to freedom, but as a convict's dishonoured prison is
to the temple (escape from them being like that of a
criminal to the sanctuary), and the destruction caused by
them being of soul no less than body.--Rep., vi. 9. Compare
"Laws," v. 11. Xenophon dwells on the evil of occupations at
the furnace (root of [Greek: banausos]), and especially their
"[Greek: ascholia], want of leisure"--Econ. i. 4. (Modern
England, with all its pride of education, has lost that
first sense of the word "school," and till it recover that
it will find no other rightly.) His word for the harm to the
soul is to "break" it, as we say of the heart.--Econ. i. 6.
And herein also is the root of the scorn, otherwise
apparently most strange and cruel, with which Homer, Dante,
and Shakespeare always speak of the populace; for it is
entirely true that in great states the lower orders are low
by nature as well as by task, being precisely that part of
the commonwealth which has been thrust down for its
coarseness or unworthiness (by coarseness I mean especially
insensibility and irreverence; the "profane" of Horace); and
when this ceases to be so, and the corruption and the
profanity are in the higher instead of the lower orders,
there arises, first, helpless confusion; then, if the lower
classes deserve power, ensues swift revolution, and they get
it: but if neither the populace nor their rulers deserve it,
there follows mere darkness and dissolution, till, out of
the putrid elements, some new capacity of order rises, like
grass on a grave; if not, there is no more hope, nor shadow
of turning, for that nation. Atropos has her way with it.

So that the law of national health is like that of a great
lake or sea, in perfect but slow circulation, letting the
dregs fall continually to the lowest place, and the clear
water rise; yet so as that there shall be no neglect of the
lower orders, but perfect supervision and sympathy, so that
if one member suffer, all members shall suffer with it.

[106] "[Greek: oliges, kai allos gignomenes.]" The bitter
sentence never was so true as at this day.

II.--LAWS.

These are the definitions and bonds of custom, or, of what the nation desires should become custom.

Law is either archic[107] (of direction), meristic (of division), or critic (of judgment). Archic law is that of appointment and precept: it defines what is and is not to be done. Meristic law is that of balance and distribution: it defines what is and is not to be possessed. Critic law is that of discernment and award: it defines what is and is not to be suffered.

[107] Thetic, or Thesmic, would perhaps be a better term than
Archic; but liable to be confused with some which we shall
want relating to Theoria. The administrators of the three
great divisions of law are severally Archons, Merists, and
Dicasts. The Archons are the true princes, or beginners of
things; or leaders (as of an orchestra); the Merists are
properly the Domini, or Lords (law-words) of houses and
nations; the Dicasts properly the judges, and that with
Olympian justice, which reaches to heaven and hell. The
violation of archic law is [Greek: hamartia] (error)
[Greek: poneria] (failure), [Greek: plemmeleia] (discord).
The violation of meristic law is [Greek: anomia] (iniquity).
The violation of critic law is [Greek: adikia] (injury).
Iniquity is central generic term; for all law is _fatal_; it
is the division to men of their fate; as the fold of their
pasture, it is [Greek: nomos]; as the assigning of their
portion, [Greek: moira].

If we choose to class the laws of precept and distribution under the general head of "statutes," all law is simply either of statute or judgment; that is, first, the establishment of ordinance, and, secondly, the assignment of the reward or penalty due to its observance or violation.

To some extent these two forms of law must be associated, and, with every ordinance, the penalty of disobedience to it be also determined. But since the degrees and guilt of disobedience vary, the determination of due reward and punishment must be modified by discernment of special fact, which is peculiarly the office of the judge, as distinguished from that of the lawgiver and lawsustainer, or king; not but that the two offices are always theoretically and, in early stages, or limited numbers, of society, are often practically, united in the same person or persons.

Also, it is necessary to keep clearly in view the distinction between these two kinds of law, because the possible range of law is wider in proportion to their separation. There are many points of conduct respecting which the nation may wisely express its will by a written precept or resolve; yet not enforce it by penalty; and the expedient degree of penalty is always quite a separate consideration from the expedience of the statute, for the statute may often be better enforced by mercy than severity, and is also easier in bearing, and less likely to be abrogated. Farther, laws of precept have reference especially to youth, and concern themselves with training; but laws of judgment to manhood, and concern themselves with remedy and reward. There is a highly curious feeling in the English mind against educational law; we think no man's liberty should be interfered with till he has done irrevocable wrong; whereas it is then just too late for the only gracious and kingly interference, which is to hinder him from doing it. Make your educational laws strict, and your criminal ones may be gentle; but, leave youth its liberty, and you will have to dig dungeons for age. And it is good for a man that he wear the yoke in his youth; for the yoke of youth, if you know how to hold it, may be of silken thread; and there is sweet chime of silver bells at that bridle rein; but, for the captivity of age, you must forge the iron fetter, and cast the passing bell.

Since no law can be in a final or true sense established, but by right (all unjust laws involving the ultimate necessity of their own abrogation), the law-sustaining power in so far as it is Royal, or "right doing";--in so far, that is, as it rules, not mis-rules, and orders, not dis-orders, the things submitted to it. Throned on this rock of justice, the kingly power becomes established and establishing, "[Greek: theios]," or divine, and, therefore, it is literally true that no ruler can err, so long as he is a ruler, or [Greek: archon oudeis hamartanei tote hotan archon e] (perverted by careless thought, which has cost the world somewhat, into "the king can do no wrong"). Which is a divine right of kings indeed, and quite unassailable, so long as the terms of it are "God and my Right," and not "Satan and my Wrong," which is apt, in some coinages, to appear on the reverse of the die, under a good lens.

Meristic law, or that of tenure of property, first determines what every individual possesses by right, and secures it to him; and what he possesses by wrong, and deprives him of it. But it has a far higher provisory function: it determines what every man should possess, and puts it within his reach on due conditions; and what he should not possess, and puts this out of his reach conclusively.

Every article of human wealth has certain conditions attached to its merited possession, which, when they are unobserved, possession becomes rapine. The object of meristic law is not only to secure every man his rightful share (the share, that is, which he has worked for, produced, or received by gift from a rightful owner), but to enforce the due conditions of possession, as far as law may conveniently reach; for instance, that land shall not be wantonly allowed to run to waste, that streams shall not be poisoned by the persons through whose properties they pass, nor air be rendered unwholesome beyond given limits. Laws of this kind exist already in rudimentary degree, but needing large development; the just laws respecting the possession of works of art have not hitherto been so much as conceived, and the daily loss of national wealth, and of its use, in this respect, is quite incalculable.[108] While, finally, in certain conditions of a nation's progress, laws limiting accumulation of property may be found expedient.

[108] These laws need revision quite as much respecting property
in national as in private hands. For instance: the public
are under a vague impression, that because they have paid
for the contents of the British Museum, every one has an
equal right to see and to handle them. But the public have
similarly paid for the contents of Woolwich Arsenal; yet do
not expect free access to it, or handling of its contents.
The British Museum is neither a free circulating library,
nor a free school; it is a place for the safe preservation,
and exhibition on due occasion, of unique books, unique
objects of natural history, and unique works of art; its
books can no more be used by everybody than its coins can be
handled, or its statues cast. Free libraries there ought to
be in every quarter of London, with large and complete
reading-rooms attached; so also free educational
institutions should be open in every quarter of London, all
day long and till late at night, well lighted, well
catalogued, and rich in contents both of art and natural
history. But neither the British Museum nor National Gallery
are schools; they are treasuries; and both should be
severely restricted in access and in use. Unless some order
is taken, and that soon, in the MSS. department of the
Museum (Sir Frederic Madden was complaining of this to me
only the other day), the best MSS. in the collection will be
destroyed, irretrievably, by the careless and continual
handling to which they are now subjected.

Critic law determines questions of injury, and assigns due rewards and punishments to conduct.[109]

[109] Two curious economical questions arise laterally with
respect to this branch of law, namely, the cost of crime and
the cost of judgment. The cost of crime is endured by
nations ignorantly, not being clearly stated in their
budgets; the cost of judgment patiently (provided only it
can be had pure for the money), because the science, or
perhaps we ought rather to say the art, of law, is felt to
found a noble profession, and discipline; so that civilized
nations are usually glad that a number of persons should be
supported by funds devoted to disputation and analysis. But
it has not yet been calculated what the practical value
might have been, in other directions, of the intelligence
now occupied in deciding, through courses of years, what
might have been decided as justly, had the date of judgment
been fixed, in as many hours. Imagine one half of the funds
which any great nation devotes to dispute by law, applied to
the determination of physical questions in medicine,
agriculture, and theoretic science; and calculate the
probable results within the next ten years.

I say nothing yet, of the more deadly, more lamentable loss,
involved in the use of purchased instead of personal
justice,--[Greek: epakto par' allon--aporia' oikeion].

Therefore, in order to true analysis of it, we must understand the real meaning of this word "injury."

We commonly understand by it any kind of harm done by one man to another; but we do not define the idea of harm; sometimes we limit it to the harm which the sufferer is conscious of, whereas much the worst injuries are those he is unconscious of; and, at other times, we limit the idea to violence, or restraint, whereas much the worse forms of injury are to be accomplished by carelessness, and the withdrawal of restraint.

"Injury" is, then, simply the refusal, or violation of any man's right or claim upon his fellows: which claim, much talked of in modern times, under the term "right," is mainly resolvable into two branches: a man's claim not to be hindered from doing what he should; and his claim to be hindered from doing what he should not; these two forms of hindrance being intensified by reward, or help and fortune, or Fors on one side, and punishment, impediment, and even final arrest, or Mors, on the other.

Now, in order to a man's obtaining these two rights, it is clearly needful that the worth of him should be approximately known; as well as the want of worth, which has, unhappily, been usually the principal subject of study for critic law, careful hitherto only to mark degrees of de-merit, instead of merit;--assigning, indeed, to the deficiencies (not always, alas! even to these) just fine, diminution, or (with the broad vowels) damnation; but to the efficiencies, on the other side, which are by much the more interesting, as well as the only profitable part of its subject, assigning in any clear way neither measurement nor aid.

Now, it is in this higher and perfect function of critic law, enabling as well as disabling, that it becomes truly kingly or basilican, instead of Draconic (what Providence gave the great, old, wrathful legislator his name?); that is, it becomes the law of man and of life, instead of the law of the worm and of death--both of these laws being set in everlasting poise one against another, and the enforcement of both being the eternal function of the lawgiver, and true claim of every living soul: such claim being indeed as straight and earnest to be mercifully hindered, and even, if need be, abolished, when longer existence means only deeper destruction, as to be mercifully helped and recreated when longer existence and new creation mean nobler life. So that what we vulgarly term reward and punishment will be found to resolve themselves mainly into help and hindrance, and these again will issue naturally from true recognition of deserving, and the just reverence and just wrath which follow instinctively on such recognition.