by John Ruskin
LECTURE II.
_TRAFFIC._
(_Delivered in the Town Hall, Bradford._)
My good Yorkshire friends, you asked me down here among your hills thatI might talk to you about this Exchange you are going to build: butearnestly and seriously asking you to pardon me, I am going to donothing of the kind. I cannot talk, or at least can say very little,about this same Exchange. I must talk of quite other things, though notwillingly;--I could not deserve your pardon, if when you invited me tospeak on one subject, I wilfully spoke on another. But I cannot speak,to purpose, of anything about which I do not care; and most simply andsorrowfully I have to tell you, in the outset, that I do _not_ careabout this Exchange of yours.
If, however, when you sent me your invitation, I had answered, 'I won'tcome, I don't care about the Exchange of Bradford,' you would have beenjustly offended with me, not knowing the reasons of so blunt acarelessness. So I have come down, hoping that you will patiently let metell you why, on this, and many other such occasions, I now remainsilent, when formerly I should have caught at the opportunity ofspeaking to a gracious audience.
In a word, then, I do not care about this Exchange,--because _you_don't; and because you know perfectly well I cannot make you. Look atthe essential circumstances of the case, which you, as business men,know perfectly well, though perhaps you think I forget them. You aregoing to spend 30,000_l._, which to you, collectively, is nothing; thebuying a new coat is, as to the cost of it, a much more important matterof consideration to me than building a new Exchange is to you. But youthink you may as well have the right thing for your money. You knowthere are a great many odd styles of architecture about; you don't wantto do anything ridiculous; you hear of me, among others, as arespectable architectural man-milliner: and you send for me, that I maytell you the leading fashion; and what is, in our shops, for the moment,the newest and sweetest thing in pinnacles.
Now, pardon me for telling you frankly, you cannot have goodarchitecture merely by asking people's advice on occasion. All goodarchitecture is the expression of national life and character; and it isproduced by a prevalent and eager national taste, or desire for beauty.And I want you to think a little of the deep significance of this word'taste;' for no statement of mine has been more earnestly or oftenercontroverted than that good taste is essentially a moral quality. 'No,'say many of my antagonists, 'taste is one thing, morality is another.Tell us what is pretty; we shall be glad to know that; but preach nosermons to us.'
Permit me, therefore, to fortify this old dogma of mine somewhat. Tasteis not only a part and an index of morality--it is the ONLY morality.The first, and last, and closest trial question to any living creatureis, 'What do you like?' Tell me what you like, and I'll tell you whatyou are. Go out into the street, and ask the first man or woman youmeet, what their 'taste' is, and if they answer candidly, you know them,body and soul. 'You, my friend in the rags, with the unsteady gait, whatdo _you_ like?' 'A pipe and a quartern of gin.' I know you. 'You, goodwoman, with the quick step and tidy bonnet, what do you like?' 'A swepthearth and a clean tea-table, and my husband opposite me, and a baby atmy breast.' Good, I know you also. 'You, little girl with the goldenhair and the soft eyes, what do you like?' 'My canary, and a run amongthe wood hyacinths.' 'You, little boy with the dirty hands and the lowforehead, what do you like?' 'A shy at the sparrows, and a game atpitch-farthing.' Good; we know them all now. What more need we ask?
'Nay,' perhaps you answer: 'we need rather to ask what these people andchildren do, than what they like. If they _do_ right, it is no matterthat they like what is wrong; and if they _do_ wrong, it is no matterthat they like what is right. Doing is the great thing; and it does notmatter that the man likes drinking, so that he does not drink; nor thatthe little girl likes to be kind to her canary, if she will not learnher lessons; nor that the little boy likes throwing stones at thesparrows, if he goes to the Sunday school.' Indeed, for a short time,and in a provisional sense, this is true. For if, resolutely, people dowhat is right, in time they come to like doing it. But they only are ina right moral state when they _have_ come to like doing it; and as longas they don't like it, they are still in a vicious state. The man is notin health of body who is always thirsting for the bottle in thecupboard, though he bravely bears his thirst; but the man who heartilyenjoys water in the morning and wine in the evening, each in its properquantity and time. And the entire object of true education is to makepeople not merely _do_ the right things, but _enjoy_ the rightthings--not merely industrious, but to love industry--not merelylearned, but to love knowledge--not merely pure, but to love purity--notmerely just, but to hunger and thirst after justice.
But you may answer or think, 'Is the liking for outside ornaments,--forpictures, or statues, or furniture, or architecture,--a moral quality?'Yes, most surely, if a rightly set liking. Taste for _any_ pictures orstatues is not a moral quality, but taste for good ones is. Only hereagain we have to define the word 'good.' I don't mean by 'good,'clever--or learned--or difficult in the doing. Take a picture byTeniers, of sots quarrelling over their dice: it is an entirely cleverpicture; so clever that nothing in its kind has ever been done equal toit; but it is also an entirely base and evil picture. It is anexpression of delight in the prolonged contemplation of a vile thing,and delight in that is an 'unmannered,' or 'immoral' quality. It is 'badtaste' in the profoundest sense--it is the taste of the devils. On theother hand, a picture of Titian's, or a Greek statue, or a Greek coin,or a Turner landscape, expresses delight in the perpetual contemplationof a good and perfect thing. That is an entirely moral quality--it isthe taste of the angels. And all delight in art, and all love of it,resolve themselves into simple love of that which deserves love. Thatdeserving is the quality which we call 'loveliness'--(we ought to havean opposite word, hateliness, to be said of the things which deserve tobe hated); and it is not an indifferent nor optional thing whether welove this or that; but it is just the vital function of all our being.What we _like_ determines what we _are_, and is the sign of what we are;and to teach taste is inevitably to form character. As I was thinkingover this, in walking up Fleet Street the other day, my eye caught thetitle of a book standing open in a bookseller's window. It was--'On thenecessity of the diffusion of taste among all classes.' 'Ah,' I thoughtto myself, 'my classifying friend, when you have diffused your taste,where will your classes be? The man who likes what you like, belongs tothe same class with you, I think. Inevitably so. You may put him toother work if you choose; but, by the condition you have brought himinto, he will dislike the other work as much as you would yourself. Youget hold of a scavenger, or a costermonger, who enjoyed the NewgateCalendar for literature, and "Pop goes the Weasel" for music. You thinkyou can make him like Dante and Beethoven? I wish you joy of yourlessons; but if you do, you have made a gentleman of him:--he won't liketo go back to his costermongering.'
And so completely and unexceptionally is this so, that, if I had timeto-night, I could show you that a nation cannot be affected by any vice,or weakness, without expressing it, legibly, and for ever, either in badart, or by want of art; and that there is no national virtue, small orgreat, which is not manifestly expressed in all the art whichcircumstances enable the people possessing that virtue to produce. Take,for instance, your great English virtue of enduring and patient courage.You have at present in England only one art of any consequence--that is,iron-working. You know thoroughly well how to cast and hammer iron. Now,do you think in those masses of lava which you build volcanic cones tomelt, and which you forge at the mouths of the Infernos you havecreated; do you think, on those iron plates, your courage and enduranceare not written for ever--not merely with an iron pen, but on ironparchment? And take also your great English vice--European vice--vice ofall the world--vice of all other worlds that roll or shine in heaven,bearing with them yet the atmosphere of hell--the vice of jealousy,which brings competition into your commerce, treachery into yourcouncils, and dishonour into your wars--that vice which has rendered foryou, and for your next
neighbouring nation, the daily occupations ofexistence no longer possible, but with the mail upon your breasts andthe sword loose in its sheath; so that, at last, you have realised forall the multitudes of the two great peoples who lead the so-calledcivilisation of the earth,--you have realised for them all, I say, inperson and in policy, what was once true only of the rough Border ridersof your Cheviot hills--
'They carved at the meal With gloves of steel, And they drank the red wine through the helmet barr'd;--
do you think that this national shame and dastardliness of heart are notwritten as legibly on every rivet of your iron armour as the strength ofthe right hands that forged it? Friends, I know not whether this thingbe the more ludicrous or the more melancholy. It is quite unspeakablyboth. Suppose, instead of being now sent for by you, I had been sent forby some private gentleman, living in a suburban house, with his gardenseparated only by a fruit-wall from his next door neighbour's; and hehad called me to consult with him on the furnishing of his drawing room.I begin looking about me, and find the walls rather bare; I think suchand such a paper might be desirable--perhaps a little fresco here andthere on the ceiling--a damask curtain or so at the windows. 'Ah,' saysmy employer, 'damask curtains, indeed! That's all very fine, but youknow I can't afford that kind of thing just now!' 'Yet the world creditsyou with a splendid income!' 'Ah, yes,' says my friend, 'but do youknow, at present, I am obliged to spend it nearly all in steel-traps?''Steel-traps! for whom?' 'Why, for that fellow on the other side thewall, you know: we're very good friends, capital friends; but we areobliged to keep our traps set on both sides of the wall; we could notpossibly keep on friendly terms without them, and our spring guns. Theworst of it is, we are both clever fellows enough; and there's never aday passes that we don't find out a new trap, or a new gun-barrel, orsomething; we spend about fifteen millions a year each in our traps,take it all together; and I don't see how we're to do with less.' Ahighly comic state of life for two private gentlemen! but for twonations, it seems to me, not wholly comic? Bedlam would be comic,perhaps, if there were only one madman in it; and your Christmaspantomime is comic, when there is only one clown in it; but when thewhole world turns clown, and paints itself red with its own heart'sblood instead of vermilion, it is something else than comic, I think.
Mind, I know a great deal of this is play, and willingly allow for that.You don't know what to do with yourselves for a sensation: fox-huntingand cricketing will not carry you through the whole of this unendurablylong mortal life: you liked pop-guns when you were schoolboys, andrifles and Armstrongs are only the same things better made: but then theworst of it is, that what was play to you when boys, was not play to thesparrows; and what is play to you now, is not play to the small birds ofState neither; and for the black eagles, you are somewhat shy of takingshots at them, if I mistake not.
I must get back to the matter in hand, however. Believe me, withoutfarther instance, I could show you, in all time, that every nation'svice, or virtue, was written in its art: the soldiership of earlyGreece; the sensuality of late Italy; the visionary religion of Tuscany;the splendid human energy and beauty of Venice. I have no time to dothis to-night (I have done it elsewhere before now); but I proceed toapply the principle to ourselves in a more searching manner.
I notice that among all the new buildings that cover your once wildhills, churches and schools are mixed in due, that is to say, in largeproportion, with your mills and mansions and I notice also that thechurches and schools are almost always Gothic, and the mansions andmills are never Gothic. Will you allow me to ask precisely the meaningof this? For, remember, it is peculiarly a modern phenomenon. WhenGothic was invented, houses were Gothic as well as churches; and whenthe Italian style superseded the Gothic, churches were Italian as wellas houses. If there is a Gothic spire to the cathedral of Antwerp, thereis a Gothic belfry to the Hotel de Ville at Brussels; if Inigo Jonesbuilds an Italian Whitehall, Sir Christopher Wren builds an Italian St.Paul's. But now you live under one school of architecture, and worshipunder another. What do you mean by doing this? Am I to understand thatyou are thinking of changing your architecture back to Gothic; and thatyou treat your churches experimentally, because it does not matter whatmistakes you make in a church? Or am I to understand that you considerGothic a pre-eminently sacred and beautiful mode of building, which youthink, like the fine frankincense, should be mixed for the tabernacleonly, and reserved for your religious services? For if this be thefeeling, though it may seem at first as if it were graceful andreverent, you will find that, at the root of the matter, it signifiesneither more nor less than that you have separated your religion fromyour life.
For consider what a wide significance this fact has; and remember thatit is not you only, but all the people of England, who are behaving thusjust now.
You have all got into the habit of calling the church 'the house ofGod.' I have seen, over the doors of many churches, the legend actuallycarved, '_This_ is the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.'Now, note where that legend comes from, and of what place it was firstspoken. A boy leaves his father's house to go on a long journey on foot,to visit his uncle; he has to cross a wild hill-desert; just as if oneof your own boys had to cross the wolds of Westmoreland, to visit anuncle at Carlisle. The second or third day your boy finds himselfsomewhere between Hawes and Brough, in the midst of the moors, atsunset. It is stony ground, and boggy; he cannot go one foot fartherthat night. Down he lies, to sleep, on Wharnside, where best he may,gathering a few of the stones together to put under his head;--so wildthe place is, he cannot get anything but stones. And there, lying underthe broad night, he has a dream; and he sees a ladder set up on theearth, and the top of it reaches to heaven, and the angels of God areascending and descending upon it. And when he wakes out of his sleep, hesays, 'How dreadful is this place; surely, this is none other than thehouse of God, and this is the gate of heaven.' This PLACE, observe; notthis church; not this city; not this stone, even, which he puts up for amemorial--the piece of flint on which his head has lain. But this_place_; this windy slope of Wharnside; this moorland hollow,torrent-bitten, snow-blighted; this _any_ place where God lets down theladder. And how are you to know where that will be? or how are you todetermine where it may be, but by being ready for it always? Do you knowwhere the lightning is to fall next? You _do_ know that, partly; you canguide the lightning; but you cannot guide the going forth of the Spirit,which is that lightning when it shines from the east to the west.
But the perpetual and insolent warping of that strong verse to serve amerely ecclesiastical purpose, is only one of the thousand instances inwhich we sink back into gross Judaism. We call our churches 'temples.'Now, you know, or ought to know, they are _not_ temples. They have neverhad, never can have, anything whatever to do with temples. They are'synagogues'--'gathering places'--where you gather yourselves togetheras an assembly; and by not calling them so, you again miss the force ofanother mighty text--'Thou, when thou prayest, shalt not be as thehypocrites are; for they love to pray standing in the _churches_' [weshould translate it], 'that they may be seen of men. But thou, when thouprayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, prayto thy Father,'--which is, not in chancel nor in aisle, but 'insecret.'
Now, you feel, as I say this to you--I know you feel--as if I weretrying to take away the honour of your churches. Not so; I am trying toprove to you the honour of your houses and your hills; I am trying toshow you--not that the Church is not sacred--but that the whole Earthis. I would have you feel, what careless, what constant, what infectioussin there is in all modes of thought, whereby, in calling your churchesonly 'holy,' you call your hearths and homes profane; and have separatedyourselves from the heathen by casting all your household gods to theground, instead of recognising, in the place of their many and feebleLares, the presence of your One and Mighty Lord and Lar.
'But what has all this to do with our Exchange?' you ask me,impatiently. My dear friends, it has just everything t
o do with it; onthese inner and great questions depend all the outer and little ones;and if you have asked me down here to speak to you, because you hadbefore been interested in anything I have written, you must know thatall I have yet said about architecture was to show this. The book Icalled 'The Seven Lamps' was to show that certain right states of temperand moral feeling were the magic powers by which all good architecture,without exception, had been produced. 'The Stones of Venice,' had, frombeginning to end, no other aim than to show that the Gothic architectureof Venice had arisen out of, and indicated in all its features, a stateof pure national faith, and of domestic virtue; and that its Renaissancearchitecture had arisen out of, and in all its features indicated, astate of concealed national infidelity, and of domestic corruption. Andnow, you ask me what style is best to build in; and how can I answer,knowing the meaning of the two styles, but by another question--do youmean to build as Christians or as Infidels? And still more--do you meanto build as honest Christians or as honest Infidels? as thoroughly andconfessedly either one or the other? You don't like to be asked suchrude questions. I cannot help it; they are of much more importance thanthis Exchange business; and if they can be at once answered, theExchange business settles itself in a moment. But, before I press themfarther, I must ask leave to explain one point clearly. In all my pastwork, my endeavour has been to show that good architecture isessentially religious--the production of a faithful and virtuous, not ofan infidel and corrupted people. But in the course of doing this, I havehad also to show that good architecture is not _ecclesiastical_. Peopleare so apt to look upon religion as the business of the clergy, nottheir own, that the moment they hear of anything depending on'religion,' they think it must also have depended on the priesthood; andI have had to take what place was to be occupied between these twoerrors, and fight both, often with seeming contradiction. Goodarchitecture is the work of good and believing men; therefore, you say,at least some people say, 'Good architecture must essentially have beenthe work of the clergy, not of the laity.' No--a thousand times no; goodarchitecture has always been the work of the commonalty, _not_ of theclergy. What, you say, those glorious cathedrals--the pride ofEurope--did their builders not form Gothic architecture? No; theycorrupted Gothic architecture. Gothic was formed in the baron's castle,and the burgher's street. It was formed by the thoughts, and hands, andpowers of free citizens and soldier kings. By the monk it was used as aninstrument for the aid of his superstition; when that superstitionbecame a beautiful madness, and the best hearts of Europe vainly dreamedand pined in the cloister, and vainly raged and perished in thecrusade--through that fury of perverted faith and wasted war, the Gothicrose also to its loveliest, most fantastic, and, finally, most foolishdreams; and, in those dreams, was lost.
I hope, now, that there is no risk of your misunderstanding me when Icome to the gist of what I want to say to-night--when I repeat, thatevery great national architecture has been the result and exponent of agreat national religion. You can't have bits of it here, bits there--youmust have it everywhere, or nowhere. It is not the monopoly of aclerical company--it is not the exponent of a theological dogma--it isnot the hieroglyphic writing of an initiated priesthood; it is the manlylanguage of a people inspired by resolute and common purpose, andrendering resolute and common fidelity to the legible laws of anundoubted God.
Now, there have as yet been three distinct schools of Europeanarchitecture. I say, European, because Asiatic and African architecturesbelong so entirely to other races and climates, that there is noquestion of them here; only, in passing, I will simply assure you thatwhatever is good or great in Egypt, and Syria, and India, is just goodor great for the same reasons as the buildings on our side of theBosphorus. We Europeans, then, have had three great religions: theGreek, which was the worship of the God of Wisdom and Power; theMediaeval, which was the Worship of the God of Judgment and Consolation;the Renaissance, which was the worship of the God of Pride and Beauty;these three we have had--they are past,--and now, at last, we Englishhave got a fourth religion, and a God of our own, about which I want toask you. But I must explain these three old ones first.
I repeat, first, the Greeks essentially worshipped the God of Wisdom; sothat whatever contended against their religion,--to the Jews a stumblingblock,--was, to the Greeks--_Foolishness_.
The first Greek idea of Deity was that expressed in the word, of whichwe keep the remnant in our words '_Di_-urnal' and '_Di_-vine'--the godof _Day_, Jupiter the revealer. Athena is his daughter, but especiallydaughter of the Intellect, springing armed from the head. We are onlywith the help of recent investigation beginning to penetrate the depthof meaning couched under the Athenaic symbols: but I may note rapidly,that her aegis, the mantle with the serpent fringes, in which she often,in the best statues, is represented as folding up her left hand forbetter guard, and the Gorgon on her shield, are both representativemainly of the chilling horror and sadness (turning men to stone, as itwere,) of the outmost and superficial spheres of knowledge--thatknowledge which separates, in bitterness, hardness, and sorrow, theheart of the full-grown man from the heart of the child. For out ofimperfect knowledge spring terror, dissension, danger, and disdain; butfrom perfect knowledge, given by the full-revealed Athena, strength andpeace, in sign of which she is crowned with the olive spray, and bearsthe resistless spear.
This, then, was the Greek conception of purest Deity, and every habit oflife, and every form of his art developed themselves from the seekingthis bright, serene, resistless wisdom; and setting himself, as a man,to do things evermore rightly and strongly;[3] not with any ardentaffection or ultimate hope; but with a resolute and continent energy ofwill, as knowing that for failure there was no consolation, and for sinthere was no remission. And the Greek architecture rose unerring,bright, clearly defined, and self-contained.
Next followed in Europe the great Christian faith, which was essentiallythe religion of Comfort. Its great doctrine is the remission of sins;for which cause it happens, too often, in certain phases ofChristianity, that sin and sickness themselves are partly glorified, asif, the more you had to be healed of, the more divine was the healing.The practical result of this doctrine, in art, is a continualcontemplation of sin and disease, and of imaginary states ofpurification from them; thus we have an architecture conceived in amingled sentiment of melancholy and aspiration, partly severe, partlyluxuriant, which will bend itself to every one of our needs, and everyone of our fancies, and be strong or weak with us, as we are strong orweak ourselves. It is, of all architecture, the basest, when base peoplebuild it--of all, the noblest, when built by the noble.
And now note that both these religions--Greek and Mediaeval--perished byfalsehood in their own main purpose. The Greek religion of Wisdomperished in a false philosophy--'Oppositions of science, falsely socalled.' The Mediaeval religion of Consolation perished in false comfort;in remission of sins given lyingly. It was the selling of absolutionthat ended the Mediaeval faith; and I can tell you more, it is theselling of absolution which, to the end of time, will mark falseChristianity. Pure Christianity gives her remission of sins only by_ending_ them; but false Christianity gets her remission of sins by_compounding for_ them. And there are many ways of compounding for them.We English have beautiful little quiet ways of buying absolution,whether in low Church or high, far more cunning than any of Tetzel'strading.
Then, thirdly, there followed the religion of Pleasure, in which allEurope gave itself to luxury, ending in death. First, _bals masques_ inevery saloon, and then guillotines in every square. And all these threeworships issue in vast temple building. Your Greek worshipped Wisdom,and built you the Parthenon--the Virgin's temple. The Mediaevalworshipped Consolation, and built you Virgin temples also--but to ourLady of Salvation. Then the Revivalist worshipped beauty, of a sort, andbuilt you Versailles, and the Vatican. Now, lastly, will you tell mewhat _we_ worship, and what _we_ build?
You know we are speaking always of the real, active, continual, nationalworship; that by which men act while they l
ive; not that which they talkof when they die. Now, we have, indeed, a nominal religion, to which wepay tithes of property, and sevenths of time; but we have also apractical and earnest religion, to which we devote nine-tenths of ourproperty and six-sevenths of our time. And we dispute a great deal aboutthe nominal religion; but we are all unanimous about this practical one,of which I think you will admit that the ruling goddess may be bestgenerally described as the 'Goddess of Getting-on,' or 'Britannia of theMarket.' The Athenians had an 'Athena Agoraia,' or Minerva of theMarket: but she was a subordinate type of their goddess, while ourBritannia Agoraia is the principal type of ours. And all your greatarchitectural works, are, of course, built to her. It is long since youbuilt a great cathedral; and how you would laugh at me, if I proposedbuilding a cathedral on the top of one of these hills of yours, takingit for an Acropolis! But your railroad mounds, prolonged masses ofAcropolis; your railroad stations, vaster than the Parthenon, andinnumerable; your chimneys, how much more mighty and costly thancathedral spires! your harbour-piers; your warehouses; yourexchanges!--all these are built to your great Goddess of 'Getting-on;'and she has formed, and will continue to form, your architecture, aslong as you worship her; and it is quite vain to ask me to tell you howto build to _her_; you know far better than I.
There might indeed, on some theories, be a conceivably good architecturefor Exchanges--that is to say if there were any heroism in the fact ordeed of exchange, which might be typically carved on the outside of yourbuilding. For, you know, all beautiful architecture must be adorned withsculpture or painting; and for sculpture or painting, you must have asubject. And hitherto it has been a received opinion among the nationsof the world that the only right subjects for either, were _heroisms_ ofsome sort. Even on his pots and his flagons, the Greek put a Herculesslaying lions, or an Apollo slaying serpents, or Bacchus slayingmelancholy giants, and earth-born despondencies. On his temples, theGreek put contests of great warriors in founding states, or of gods withevil spirits. On his houses and temples alike, the Christian putcarvings of angels conquering devils; or of hero-martyrs exchanging thisworld for another; subject inappropriate, I think, to our manner ofexchange here. And the Master of Christians not only left his followerswithout any orders as to the sculpture of affairs of exchange on theoutside of buildings, but gave some strong evidence of his dislike ofaffairs of exchange within them. And yet there might surely be a heroismin such affairs; and all commerce become a kind of selling of doves, notimpious. The wonder has always been great to me, that heroism has neverbeen supposed to be in anywise consistent with the practice ofsupplying people with food, or clothes; but rather with that ofquartering oneself upon them for food, and stripping them of theirclothes. Spoiling of armour is an heroic deed in all ages; but theselling of clothes, old, or new, has never taken any colour ofmagnanimity. Yet one does not see why feeding the hungry and clothingthe naked should ever become base businesses, even when engaged in on alarge scale. If one could contrive to attach the notion of conquest tothem anyhow? so that, supposing there were anywhere an obstinate race,who refused to be comforted, one might take some pride in giving themcompulsory comfort; and as it were, 'occupying a country' with one'sgifts, instead of one's armies? If one could only consider it as much avictory to get a barren field sown, as to get an eared field stripped;and contend who should build villages, instead of who should 'carry'them. Are not all forms of heroism, conceivable in doing theseserviceable deeds? You doubt who is strongest? It might be ascertainedby push of spade, as well as push of sword. Who is wisest? There arewitty things to be thought of in planning other business than campaigns.Who is bravest? There are always the elements to fight with, strongerthan men; and nearly as merciless. The only absolutely andunapproachably heroic element in the soldier's work seems to be--that heis paid little for it--and regularly: while you traffickers, andexchangers, and others occupied in presumably benevolent business, liketo be paid much for it--and by chance. I never can make out how it isthat a knight-errant does not expect to be paid for his trouble, but apedlar-errant always does;--that people are willing to take hard knocksfor nothing, but never to sell ribands cheap;--that they are ready to goon fervent crusades to recover the tomb of a buried God, never on anytravels to fulfil the orders of a living God;--that they will goanywhere barefoot to preach their faith, but must be well bribed topractise it, and are perfectly ready to give the Gospel gratis, butnever the loaves and fishes. If you chose to take the matter up on anysuch soldierly principle, to do your commerce, and your feeding ofnations, for fixed salaries; and to be as particular about giving peoplethe best food, and the best cloth, as soldiers are about giving them thebest gunpowder, I could carve something for you on your exchange worthlooking at. But I can only at present suggest decorating its frieze withpendant purses; and making its pillars broad at the base for thesticking of bills. And in the innermost chambers of it there might be astatue of Britannia of the Market, who may have, perhaps advisably, apartridge for her crest, typical at once of her courage in fighting fornoble ideas; and of her interest in game; and round its neck theinscription in golden letters, 'Perdix fovit quae non peperit.'[4] Then,for her spear, she might have a weaver's beam; and on her shield,instead of her Cross, the Milanese boar, semi-fleeced, with the town ofGennesaret proper, in the field and the legend 'In the best market,' andher corslet, of leather, folded over her heart in the shape of a purse,with thirty slits in it for a piece of money to go in at, on each day ofthe month. And I doubt not but that people would come to see yourexchange, and its goddess, with applause.
Nevertheless, I want to point out to you certain strange characters inthis goddess of yours. She differs from the great Greek and Mediaevaldeities essentially in two things--first, as to the continuance of herpresumed power; secondly, as to the extent of it.
1st, as to the Continuance.
The Greek Goddess of Wisdom gave continual increase of wisdom, as theChristian Spirit of Comfort (or Comforter) continual increase ofcomfort. There was no question, with these, of any limit or cessation offunction. But with your Agora Goddess, that is just the most importantquestion. Getting on--but where to? Gathering together--but how much? Doyou mean to gather always--never to spend? If so, I wish you joy of yourgoddess, for I am just as well off as you, without the trouble ofworshipping her at all. But if you do not spend, somebody elsewill--somebody else must. And it is because of this (among many othersuch errors) that I have fearlessly declared your so-called science ofPolitical Economy to be no science; because, namely, it has omitted thestudy of exactly the most important branch of the business--the study of_spending_. For spend you must, and as much as you make, ultimately. Yougather corn:--will you bury England under a heap of grain; or will you,when you have gathered, finally eat? You gather gold:--will you makeyour house-roofs of it, or pave your streets with it? That is still oneway of spending it. But if you keep it, that you may get more, I'll giveyou more; I'll give you all the gold you want--all you can imagine--ifyou can tell me what you'll do with it. You shall have thousands of goldpieces;--thousands of thousands--millions--mountains, of gold: wherewill you keep them? Will you put an Olympus of silver upon a goldenPelion--make Ossa like a wart? Do you think the rain and dew would thencome down to you, in the streams from such mountains, more blessedlythan they will down the mountains which God has made for you, of mossand whinstone? But it is not gold that you want to gather! What is it?greenbacks? No; not those neither. What is it then--is it ciphers aftera capital I? Cannot you practise writing ciphers, and write as many asyou want? Write ciphers for an hour every morning, in a big book, andsay every evening, I am worth all those noughts more than I wasyesterday. Won't that do? Well, what in the name of Plutus is it youwant? Not gold, not greenbacks, not ciphers after a capital I? You willhave to answer, after all, 'No; we want, somehow or other, money's_worth_.' Well, what is that? Let your Goddess of Getting-on discoverit, and let her learn to stay therein.
II. But there is yet another question to be asked respecting thisGoddess o
f Getting-on. The first was of the continuance of her power;the second is of its extent.
Pallas and the Madonna were supposed to be all the world's Pallas, andall the world's Madonna. They could teach all men, and they couldcomfort all men. But, look strictly into the nature of the power of yourGoddess of Getting-on; and you will find she is the Goddess--not ofeverybody's getting on--but only of somebody's getting on. This is avital, or rather deathful, distinction. Examine it in your own ideal ofthe state of national life which this Goddess is to evoke and maintain.I asked you what it was, when I was last here;[5]--you have never toldme. Now, shall I try to tell you?
Your ideal of human life then is, I think, that it should be passed in apleasant undulating world, with iron and coal everywhere underneath it.On each pleasant bank of this world is to be a beautiful mansion, withtwo wings; and stables, and coach-houses; a moderately sized park; alarge garden and hot houses; and pleasant carriage drives through theshrubberies. In this mansion are to live the favoured votaries of theGoddess; the English gentleman, with his gracious wife, and hisbeautiful family; always able to have the boudoir and the jewels for thewife, and the beautiful ball dresses for the daughters, and hunters forthe sons, and a shooting in the Highlands for himself. At the bottom ofthe bank, is to be the mill; not less than a quarter of a mile long,with a steam engine at each end, and two in the middle, and a chimneythree hundred feet high. In this mill are to be in constant employmentfrom eight hundred to a thousand workers, who never drink, never strike,always go to church on Sunday, and always express themselves inrespectful language.
Is not that, broadly, and in the main features, the kind of thing youpropose to yourselves? It is very pretty indeed seen from above; not atall so pretty, seen from below. For, observe, while to one family thisdeity is indeed the Goddess of Getting on, to a thousand families she isthe Goddess of _not_ Getting on. 'Nay,' you say, 'they have all theirchance.' Yes, so has every one in a lottery, but there must always bethe same number of blanks. 'Ah! but in a lottery it is not skill andintelligence which take the lead, but blind chance.' What then! do youthink the old practice, that 'they should take who have the power, andthey should keep who can,' is less iniquitous, when the power has becomepower of brains instead of fist? and that, though we may not takeadvantage of a child's or a woman's weakness, we may of a man'sfoolishness? 'Nay, but finally, work must be done, and some one must beat the top, some one at the bottom.' Granted, my friends. Work mustalways be, and captains of work must always be; and if you in the leastremember the tone of any of my writings, you must know that they arethought unfit for this age, because they are always insisting on need ofgovernment, and speaking with scorn of liberty. But I beg you to observethat there is a wide difference between being captains or governors ofwork, and taking the profits of it. It does not follow, because you aregeneral of an army, that you are to take all the treasure, or land, itwins (if it fight for treasure or land); neither, because you are kingof a nation, that you are to consume all the profits of the nation'swork. Real kings, on the contrary, are known invariably by their doingquite the reverse of this,--by their taking the least possible quantityof the nation's work for themselves. There is no test of real kinghoodso infallible as that. Does the crowned creature live simply, bravely,unostentatiously? probably he _is_ a King. Does he cover his body withjewels, and his table with delicates? in all probability he is _not_ aKing. It is possible he may be, as Solomon was; but that is when thenation shares his splendour with him. Solomon made gold, not only to bein his own palace as stones, but to be in Jerusalem as stones. But evenso, for the most part, these splendid kinghoods expire in ruin, and onlythe true kinghoods live, which are of royal labourers governing loyallabourers; who, both leading rough lives, establish the true dynasties.Conclusively you will find that because you are king of a nation, itdoes not follow that you are to gather for yourself all the wealth ofthat nation; neither, because you are king of a small part of thenation, and lord over the means of its maintenance--over field, or mill,or mine, are you to take all the produce of that piece of the foundationof national existence for yourself.
You will tell me I need not preach against these things, for I cannotmend them. No, good friends, I cannot; but you can, and you will; orsomething else can and will. Do you think these phenomena are to stayalways in their present power or aspect? All history shows, on thecontrary, that to be the exact thing they never can do. Change _must_come; but it is ours to determine whether change of growth, or change ofdeath. Shall the Parthenon be in ruins on its rock, and Bolton priory inits meadow, but these mills of yours be the consummation of thebuildings of the earth, and their wheels be as the wheels of eternity?Think you that 'men may come, and men may go,' but--mills--go onforever? Not so; out of these, better or worse shall come; and it is foryou to choose which.
I know that none of this wrong is done with deliberate purpose. I know,on the contrary, that you wish your workmen well; that you do much forthem, and that you desire to do more for them, if you saw your way to itsafely. I know that many of you have done, and are every day doing,whatever you feel to be in your power; and that even all this wrong andmisery are brought about by a warped sense of duty, each of you strivingto do his best, without noticing that this best is essentially andcentrally the best for himself, not for others. And all this has come ofthe spreading of that thrice accursed, thrice impious doctrine of themodern economist, that 'To do the best for yourself, is finally to dothe best for others.' Friends, our great Master said not so; and mostabsolutely we shall find this world is not made so. Indeed, to do thebest for others, is finally to do the best for ourselves; but it willnot do to have our eyes fixed on that issue. The Pagans had got beyondthat. Hear what a Pagan says of this matter; hear what were, perhaps,the last written words of Plato,--if not the last actually written (forthis we cannot know), yet assuredly in fact and power his partingwords--in which, endeavouring to give full crowning and harmonious closeto all his thoughts, and to speak the sum of them by the imaginedsentence of the Great Spirit, his strength and his heart fail him, andthe words cease, broken off for ever. It is the close of the dialoguecalled 'Critias,' in which he describes, partly from real tradition,partly in ideal dream, the early state of Athens; and the genesis, andorder, and religion, of the fabled isle of Atlantis; in which genesis heconceives the same first perfection and final degeneracy of man, whichin our own Scriptural tradition is expressed by saying that the Sons ofGod intermarried with the daughters of men, for he supposes the earliestrace to have been indeed the children of God; and to have corruptedthemselves, until 'their spot was not the spot of his children.' Andthis, he says, was the end; that indeed 'through many generations, solong as the God's nature in them yet was full, they were submissive tothe sacred laws, and carried themselves lovingly to all that had kindredwith them in divineness; for their uttermost spirit was faithful andtrue, and in every wise great; so that, in all meekness of wisdom, theydealt with each other, and took all the chances of life; and despisingall things except virtue, they cared little what happened day by day,and _bore lightly the burden_ of gold and of possessions; for they sawthat, if only their common love and virtue increased, all these thingswould be increased together with them; but to set their esteem andardent pursuit upon material possession would be to lose that first, andtheir virtue and affection together with it. And by such reasoning, andwhat of the divine nature remained in them, they gained all thisgreatness of which we have already told, but when the God's part of themfaded and became extinct, being mixed again and again, and effaced bythe prevalent mortality; and the human nature at last exceeded, theythen became unable to endure the courses of fortune; and fell intoshapelessness of life, and baseness in the sight of him who could see,having lost everything that was fairest of their honour; while to theblind hearts which could not discern the true life, tending tohappiness, it seemed that they were then chiefly noble and happy, beingfilled with all iniquity of inordinate possession and power. Whereupon,the God of God's, whose Kinghood is
in laws, beholding a once justnation thus cast into misery, and desiring to lay such punishment uponthem as might make them repent into restraining, gathered together allthe gods into his dwelling-place, which from heaven's centre overlookswhatever has part in creation; and having assembled them, he said'----
The rest is silence. So ended are the last words of the chief wisdom ofthe heathen, spoken of this idol of riches; this idol of yours; thisgolden image high by measureless cubits, set up where your green fieldsof England are furnace-burnt into the likeness of the plain of Dura:this idol, forbidden to us, first of all idols, by our own Master andfaith; forbidden to us also by every human lip that has ever, in any ageor people, been accounted of as able to speak according to the purposesof God. Continue to make that forbidden deity your principal one, andsoon no more art, no more science, no more pleasure will be possible.Catastrophe will come; or worse than catastrophe, slow mouldering andwithering into Hades. But if you can fix some conception of a true humanstate of life to be striven for--life for all men as for yourselves--ifyou can determine some honest and simple order of existence; followingthose trodden ways of wisdom, which are pleasantness, and seeking herquiet and withdrawn paths, which are peace;--then, and so sanctifyingwealth into 'commonwealth,' all your art, your literature, your dailylabours, your domestic affection, and citizen's duty, will join andincrease into one magnificent harmony. You will know then how to build,well enough; you will build with stone well, but with flesh better;temples not made with hands, but riveted of hearts; and that kind ofmarble, crimson-veined, is indeed eternal.
FOOTNOTES:
[3] It is an error to suppose that the Greek worship, or seeking, waschiefly of Beauty. It was essentially of Rightness and Strength, foundedon Forethought: the principal character of Greek art is not Beauty, butDesign: and the Dorian Apollo-worship and Athenian Virgin-worship areboth expressions of adoration of divine Wisdom and Purity. Next to thesegreat deities rank, in power over the national mind, Dionysus and Ceres,the givers of human strength and life: then, for heroic example,Hercules. There is no Venus-worship among the Greek in the great times:and the Muses are essentially teachers of Truth, and of its harmonies.
[4] Jerem. xvii. 11 (best in Septuagint and Vulgate). 'As the partridge,fostering what she brought not forth, so he that getteth riches, not byright shall leave them in the midst of his days, and at his end shall bea fool.'
[5] Two Paths, p. 98.