by John Ruskin
LECTURE III.
_WAR._
(_Delivered at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich._)
Young soldiers, I do not doubt but that many of you came unwillinglyto-night, and many in merely contemptuous curiosity, to hear what awriter on painting could possibly say, or would venture to say,respecting your great art of war. You may well think within yourselves,that a painter might, perhaps without immodesty, lecture youngerpainters upon painting, but not young lawyers upon law, nor youngphysicians upon medicine--least of all, it may seem to you, youngwarriors upon war. And, indeed, when I was asked to address you, Ideclined at first, and declined long; for I felt that you would not beinterested in my special business, and would certainly think there wassmall need for me to come to teach you yours. Nay, I knew that thereought to be _no_ such need, for the great veteran soldiers of Englandare now men every way so thoughtful, so noble, and so good, that noother teaching than their knightly example, and their few words of graveand tried counsel should be either necessary for you, or even, withoutassurance of due modesty in the offerer, endured by you.
But being asked, not once nor twice, I have not ventured persistently torefuse; and I will try, in very few words, to lay before you some reasonwhy you should accept my excuse, and hear me patiently. You may imaginethat your work is wholly foreign to, and separate from mine. So far fromthat, all the pure and noble arts of peace are founded on war; no greatart ever yet rose on earth, but among a nation of soldiers. There is noart among a shepherd people, if it remains at peace. There is no artamong an agricultural people, if it remains at peace. Commerce is barelyconsistent with fine art; but cannot produce it. Manufacture not only isunable to produce it, but invariably destroys whatever seeds of itexist. There is no great art possible to a nation but that which isbased on battle.
Now, though I hope you love fighting for its own sake, you must, Iimagine, be surprised at my assertion that there is any such good fruitof fighting. You supposed, probably, that your office was to defend theworks of peace, but certainly not to found them: nay, the common courseof war, you may have thought, was only to destroy them. And truly, I whotell you this of the use of war, should have been the last of men totell you so, had I trusted my own experience only. Hear why: I havegiven a considerable part of my life to the investigation of Venetianpainting and the result of that enquiry was my fixing upon one man asthe greatest of all Venetians, and therefore, as I believed, of allpainters whatsoever. I formed this faith, (whether right or wrongmatters at present nothing,) in the supremacy of the painter Tintoret,under a roof covered with his pictures; and of those pictures, three ofthe noblest were then in the form of shreds of ragged canvas, mixed upwith the laths of the roof, rent through by three Austrian shells. Nowit is not every lecturer who _could_ tell you that he had seen three ofhis favourite pictures torn to rags by bombshells. And after such asight, it is not every lecturer who _would_ tell you that, nevertheless,war was the foundation of all great art.
Yet the conclusion is inevitable, from any careful comparison of thestates of great historic races at different periods. Merely to show youwhat I mean, I will sketch for you, very briefly, the broad steps of theadvance of the best art of the world. The first dawn of it is in Egypt;and the power of it is founded on the perpetual contemplation of death,and of future judgment, by the mind of a nation of which the rulingcaste were priests, and the second, soldiers. The greatest worksproduced by them are sculptures of their kings going out to battle, orreceiving the homage of conquered armies. And you must remember also,as one of the great keys to the splendour of the Egyptian nation, thatthe priests were not occupied in theology only. Their theology was thebasis of practical government and law, so that they were not so muchpriests as religious judges, the office of Samuel, among the Jews, beingas nearly as possible correspondent to theirs.
All the rudiments of art then, and much more than the rudiments of allscience, are laid first by this great warrior-nation, which held incontempt all mechanical trades, and in absolute hatred the peaceful lifeof shepherds. From Egypt art passes directly into Greece, where allpoetry, and all painting, are nothing else than the description, praise,or dramatic representation of war, or of the exercises which prepare forit, in their connection with offices of religion. All Greek institutionshad first respect to war; and their conception of it, as one necessaryoffice of all human and divine life, is expressed simply by the imagesof their guiding gods. Apollo is the god of all wisdom of the intellect;he bears the arrow and the bow, before he bears the lyre. Again, Athenais the goddess of all wisdom in conduct. It is by the helmet and theshield, oftener than by the shuttle, that she is distinguished fromother deities.
There were, however, two great differences in principle between theGreek and the Egyptian theories of policy. In Greece there was nosoldier caste; every citizen was necessarily a soldier. And, again,while the Greeks rightly despised mechanical arts as much as theEgyptians, they did not make the fatal mistake of despising agriculturaland pastoral life; but perfectly honoured both. These two conditions oftruer thought raise them quite into the highest rank of wise manhoodthat has yet been reached; for all our great arts, and nearly all ourgreat thoughts, have been borrowed or derived from them. Take away fromus what they have given; and I hardly can imagine how low the modernEuropean would stand.
Now, you are to remember, in passing to the next phase of history, thatthough you _must_ have war to produce art--you must also have much morethan war; namely, an art-instinct or genius in the people; and that,though all the talent for painting in the world won't make painters ofyou, unless you have a gift for fighting as well, you may have the giftfor fighting, and none for painting. Now, in the next great dynasty ofsoldiers, the art-instinct is wholly wanting. I have not yetinvestigated the Roman character enough to tell you the causes of this;but I believe, paradoxical as it may seem to you, that, however trulythe Roman might say of himself that he was born of Mars, and suckled bythe wolf, he was nevertheless, at heart, more of a farmer than asoldier. The exercises of war were with him practical, not poetical; hispoetry was in domestic life only, and the object of battle, 'pacisimponere morem.' And the arts are extinguished in his hands, and do notrise again, until, with Gothic chivalry, there comes back into the mindof Europe a passionate delight in war itself, for the sake of war. Andthen, with the romantic knighthood which can imagine no other nobleemployment,--under the fighting kings of France, England, and Spain; andunder the fighting dukeships and citizenships of Italy, art is bornagain, and rises to her height in the great valleys of Lombardy andTuscany, through which there flows not a single stream, from all theirAlps or Apennines, that did not once run dark red from battle: and itreaches its culminating glory in the city which gave to history the mostintense type of soldiership yet seen among men;--the city whose armieswere led in their assault by their king, led through it to victory bytheir king, and so led, though that king of theirs was blind, and in theextremity of his age.
And from this time forward, as peace is established or extended inEurope, the arts decline. They reach an unparalleled pitch ofcostliness, but lose their life, enlist themselves at last on the sideof luxury and various corruption, and, among wholly tranquil nations,wither utterly away; remaining only in partial practice among races who,like the French and us, have still the minds, though we cannot all livethe lives, of soldiers.
'It may be so,' I can suppose that a philanthropist might exclaim.'Perish then the arts, if they can flourish only at such a cost. Whatworth is there in toys of canvas and stone if compared to the joy andpeace of artless domestic life?' And the answer is--truly, inthemselves, none. But as expressions of the highest state of the humanspirit, their worth is infinite. As results they may be worthless, but,as signs, they are above price. For it is an assured truth that,whenever the faculties of men are at their fulness, they _must_ expressthemselves by art; and to say that a state is without such expression,is to say that it is sunk from its proper level of manly nature. Sothat, when I tell you that war i
s the foundation of all the arts, I meanalso that it is the foundation of all the high virtues and faculties ofmen.
It was very strange to me to discover this; and very dreadful--but I sawit to be quite an undeniable fact. The common notion that peace and thevirtues of civil life flourished together, I found, to be whollyuntenable. Peace and the _vices_ of civil life only flourish together.We talk of peace and learning, and of peace and plenty, and of peace andcivilisation; but I found that those were not the words which the Museof History coupled together: that on her lips, the words were--peace andsensuality, peace and selfishness, peace and corruption, peace anddeath. I found, in brief, that all great nations learned their truth ofword, and strength of thought, in war; that they were nourished in war,and wasted by peace; taught by war, and deceived by peace; trained bywar, and betrayed by peace;--in a word, that they were born in war, andexpired in peace.
Yet now note carefully, in the second place, it is not _all_ war ofwhich this can be said--nor all dragon's teeth, which, sown, will startup into men. It is not the ravage of a barbarian wolf-flock, as underGenseric or Suwarrow; nor the habitual restlessness and rapine ofmountaineers, as on the old borders of Scotland; nor the occasionalstruggle of a strong peaceful nation for its life, as in the wars of theSwiss with Austria; nor the contest of merely ambitious nations forextent of power, as in the wars of France under Napoleon, or the justterminated war in America. None of these forms of war build anything buttombs. But the creative or foundational war is that in which thenatural restlessness and love of contest among men are disciplined, byconsent, into modes of beautiful--though it may be fatal--play: in whichthe natural ambition and love of power of men are disciplined into theaggressive conquest of surrounding evil: and in which the naturalinstincts of self-defence are sanctified by the nobleness of theinstitutions, and purity of the households, which they are appointed todefend. To such war as this all men are born; in such war as this anyman may happily die; and forth from such war as this have arisenthroughout the extent of past ages, all the highest sanctities andvirtues of humanity.
I shall therefore divide the war of which I would speak to you intothree heads. War for exercise or play; war for dominion; and, war fordefence.
I. And first, of war for exercise or play. I speak of it primarily inthis light, because, through all past history, manly war has been morean exercise than anything else, among the classes who cause, andproclaim it. It is not a game to the conscript, or the pressed sailor;but neither of these are the causers of it. To the governor whodetermines that war shall be, and to the youths who voluntarily adopt itas their profession, it has always been a grand pastime; and chieflypursued because they had nothing else to do. And this is true withoutany exception. No king whose mind was fully occupied with thedevelopment of the inner resources of his kingdom, or with any othersufficing subject of thought, ever entered into war but on compulsion.No youth who was earnestly busy with any peaceful subject of study, orset on any serviceable course of action, ever voluntarily became asoldier. Occupy him early, and wisely, in agriculture or business, inscience or in literature, and he will never think of war otherwise thanas a calamity. But leave him idle; and, the more brave and active andcapable he is by nature, the more he will thirst for some appointedfield for action; and find, in the passion and peril of battle, the onlysatisfying fulfilment of his unoccupied being. And from the earliestincipient civilisation until now, the population of the earth dividesitself, when you look at it widely, into two races; one of workers, andthe other of players--one tilling the ground, manufacturing, building,and otherwise providing for the necessities of life;--the other partproudly idle, and continually therefore needing recreation, in whichthey use the productive and laborious orders partly as their cattle, andpartly as their puppets or pieces in the game of death.
Now, remember, whatever virtue or goodliness there may be in this gameof war, rightly played, there is none when you thus play it with amultitude of small human pawns.
If you, the gentlemen of this or any other kingdom, choose to make yourpastime of contest, do so, and welcome; but set not up these unhappypeasant-pieces upon the green fielded board. If the wager is to be ofdeath, lay it on your own heads, not theirs. A goodly struggle in theOlympic dust, though it be the dust of the grave, the gods will lookupon, and be with you in; but they will not be with you, if you sit onthe sides of the amphitheatre, whose steps are the mountains of earth,whose arena its valleys, to urge your peasant millions into gladiatorialwar. You also, you tender and delicate women, for whom, and by whosecommand, all true battle has been, and must ever be; you would perhapsshrink now, though you need not, from the thought of sitting as queensabove set lists where the jousting game might be mortal. How much more,then, ought you to shrink from the thought of sitting above a theatrepit in which even a few condemned slaves were slaying each other onlyfor your delight! And do you _not_ shrink from the _fact_ of sittingabove a theatre pit, where,--not condemned slaves,--but the best andbravest of the poor sons of your people, slay each other,--not man toman,--as the coupled gladiators; but race to race, in duel ofgenerations? You would tell me, perhaps, that you do not sit to seethis; and it is indeed true, that the women of Europe--those who have noheart-interests of their own at peril in the contest--draw the curtainsof their boxes, and muffle the openings; so that from the pit of thecircus of slaughter there may reach them only at intervals a half-heardcry and a murmur as of the wind's sighing, when myriads of souls expire.They shut out the death-cries; and are happy, and talk wittily amongthemselves. That is the utter literal fact of what our ladies do intheir pleasant lives.
Nay, you might answer, speaking for them--'We do not let these wars cometo pass for our play, nor by our carelessness; we cannot help them. Howcan any final quarrel of nations be settled otherwise than by war?' Icannot now delay, to tell you how political quarrels might be otherwisesettled. But grant that they cannot. Grant that no law of reason can beunderstood by nations; no law of justice submitted to by them: and that,while questions of a few acres, and of petty cash, can be determined bytruth and equity, the questions which are to issue in the perishing orsaving of kingdoms can be determined only by the truth of the sword, andthe equity of the rifle. Grant this, and even then, judge if it willalways be necessary for you to put your quarrel into the hearts of yourpoor, and sign your treaties with peasants' blood. You would be ashamedto do this in your own private position and power. Why should you not beashamed also to do it in public place and power? If you quarrel withyour neighbour, and the quarrel be indeterminable by law, and mortal,you and he do not send your footmen to Battersea fields to fight it out;nor do you set fire to his tenants' cottages, nor spoil their goods. Youfight out your quarrel yourselves, and at your own danger, if at all.And you do not think it materially affects the arbitrement that one ofyou has a larger household than the other; so that, if the servants ortenants were brought into the field with their masters, the issue of thecontest could not be doubtful? You either refuse the private duel, oryou practise it under laws of honour, not of physical force; that so itmay be, in a manner, justly concluded. Now the just or unjust conclusionof the private feud is of little moment, while the just or unjustconclusion of the public feud is of eternal moment: and yet, in thispublic quarrel, you take your servants' sons from their arms to fightfor it, and your servants' food from their lips to support it; and theblack seals on the parchment of your treaties of peace are the desertedhearth and the fruitless field. There is a ghastly ludicrousness inthis, as there is mostly in these wide and universal crimes. Hear thestatement of the very fact of it in the most literal words of thegreatest of our English thinkers:--
'What, speaking in quite unofficial language, is the net-purport and upshot of war? To my own knowledge, for example, there dwell and toil, in the British village of Dumdrudge, usually some five hundred souls. From these, by certain "natural enemies" of the French, there are successively selected, during the French war, say thirty able-bodied men. Dumdr
udge, at her own expense, has suckled and nursed them; she has, not without difficulty and sorrow, fed them up to manhood, and even trained them to crafts, so that one can weave, another build, another hammer, and the weakest can stand under thirty stone avoirdupois. Nevertheless, amid much weeping and swearing, they are selected; all dressed in red; and shipped away, at the public charges, some two thousand miles, or say only to the south of Spain; and fed there till wanted.
'And now to that same spot in the south of Spain are thirty similar French artisans, from a French Dumdrudge, in like manner wending; till at length, after infinite effort, the two parties come into actual juxtaposition; and Thirty stands fronting Thirty, each with a gun in his hand.
'Straightway the word "Fire!" is given, and they blow the souls out of one another, and in place of sixty brisk useful craftsmen, the world has sixty dead carcases, which it must bury, and anon shed tears for. Had these men any quarrel? Busy as the devil is, not the smallest! They lived far enough apart; were the entirest strangers; nay, in so wide a universe, there was even, unconsciously, by commerce, some mutual helpfulness between them. How then? Simpleton! their governors had fallen out; and instead of shooting one another, had the cunning to make these poor blockheads shoot.' (Sartor Resartus.)
Positively, then, gentlemen, the game of battle must not, and shall not,ultimately be played this way. But should it be played any way? Shouldit, if not by your servants, be practised by yourselves? I think, yes.Both history and human instinct seem alike to say, yes. All healthy menlike fighting, and like the sense of danger; all brave women like tohear of their fighting, and of their facing danger. This is a fixedinstinct in the fine race of them; and I cannot help fancying that fairfight is the best play for them, and that a tournament was a better gamethan a steeple-chase. The time may perhaps come in France as well ashere, for universal hurdle-races and cricketing: but I do not thinkuniversal 'crickets' will bring out the best qualities of the nobles ofeither country. I use, in such question, the test which I have adopted,of the connection of war with other arts; and I reflect how, as asculptor, I should feel, if I were asked to design a monument for a deadknight, in Westminster abbey, with a carving of a bat at one end, and aball at the other. It may be the remains in me only of savage Gothicprejudice; but I had rather carve it with a shield at one end, and asword at the other. And this, observe, with no reference whatever to anystory of duty done, or cause defended. Assume the knight merely to haveridden out occasionally to fight his neighbour for exercise; assume himeven a soldier of fortune, and to have gained his bread, and filled hispurse, at the sword's point. Still, I feel as if it were, somehow,grander and worthier in him to have made his bread by sword play thanany other play; had rather he had made it by thrusting than bybatting;--much more, than by betting. Much rather that he should ridewar horses, than back race horses; and--I say it sternly anddeliberately--much rather would I have him slay his neighbour, thancheat him.
But remember, so far as this may be true, the game of war is only thatin which the _full personal power of the human creature_ is brought outin management of its weapons. And this for three reasons:--
First, the great justification of this game is that it truly, when wellplayed, determines _who is the best man_;--who is the highest bred, themost self-denying, the most fearless, the coolest of nerve, the swiftestof eye and hand. You cannot test these qualities wholly, unless there isa clear possibility of the struggle's ending in death. It is only in thefronting of that condition that the full trial of the man, soul andbody, comes out. You may go to your game of wickets, or of hurdles, orof cards, and any knavery that is in you may stay unchallenged all thewhile. But if the play may be ended at any moment by a lance-thrust, aman will probably make up his accounts a little before he enters it.Whatever is rotten and evil in him will weaken his hand more in holdinga sword hilt, than in balancing a billiard cue; and on the whole, thehabit of living lightly hearted, in daily presence of death, always hashad, and must have, a tendency both to the making and testing of honestmen. But for the final testing, observe, you must make the issue ofbattle strictly dependent on fineness of frame, and firmness of hand.You must not make it the question, which of the combatants has thelongest gun, or which has got behind the biggest tree, or which has thewind in his face, or which has gunpowder made by the best chemist, oriron smelted with the best coal, or the angriest mob at his back. Decideyour battle, whether of nations, or individuals, on _those_ terms;--andyou have only multiplied confusion, and added slaughter to iniquity. Butdecide your battle by pure trial which has the strongest arm, andsteadiest heart,--and you have gone far to decide a great many mattersbesides, and to decide them rightly.
And the other reasons for this mode of decision of cause, are thediminution both of the material destructiveness, or cost, and of thephysical distress of war. For you must not think that in speaking to youin this (as you may imagine), fantastic praise of battle, I haveoverlooked the conditions weighing against me. I pray all of you, whohave not read, to read with the most earnest attention, Mr. Helps's twoessays on War and Government, in the first volume of the last series of'Friends in Council.' Everything that can be urged against war is theresimply, exhaustively, and most graphically stated. And all, there urged,is true. But the two great counts of evil alleged against war by thatmost thoughtful writer, hold only against modern war. If you have totake away masses of men from all industrial employment,--to feed them bythe labour of others,--to move them and provide them with destructivemachines, varied daily in national rivalship of inventive cost; if youhave to ravage the country which you attack,--to destroy for a score offuture years, its roads, its woods, its cities, and its harbours;--andif, finally, having brought masses of men, counted by hundreds ofthousands, face to face, you tear those masses to pieces with jaggedshot, and leave the fragments of living creatures countlessly beyond allhelp of surgery, to starve and parch, through days of torture, down intoclots of clay--what book of accounts shall record the cost of yourwork;--What book of judgment sentence the guilt of it?
That, I say, is _modern_ war,--scientific war,--chemical and mechanicwar, worse even than the savage's poisoned arrow. And yet you will tellme, perhaps, that any other war than this is impossible now. It may beso; the progress of science cannot, perhaps, be otherwise registeredthan by new facilities of destruction; and the brotherly love of ourenlarging Christianity be only proved by multiplication of murder. Yethear, for a moment, what war was, in Pagan and ignorant days;--what warmight yet be, if we could extinguish our science in darkness, and jointhe heathen's practice to the Christian's theory. I read you this from abook which probably most of you know well, and all ought toknow--Muller's 'Dorians;'--but I have put the points I wish you toremember in closer connection than in his text.
'The chief characteristic of the warriors of Sparta was great composureand subdued strength; the violence [Greek: lyssa] of Aristodemus andIsadas being considered as deserving rather of blame than praise; andthese qualities in general distinguished the Greeks from the northernBarbarians, whose boldness always consisted in noise and tumult. For thesame reason the Spartans _sacrificed to the Muses_ before an action;these goddesses being expected to produce regularity and order inbattle; as they _sacrificed on the same occasion in Crete to the god oflove_, as the confirmer of mutual esteem and shame. Every man put on acrown, when the band of flute-players gave the signal for attack; allthe shields of the line glittered with their high polish, and mingledtheir splendour with the dark red of the purple mantles, which weremeant both to adorn the combatant, and to conceal the blood of thewounded; to fall well and decorously being an incentive the more to themost heroic valour. The conduct of the Spartans in battle denotes a highand noble disposition, which rejected all the extremes of brutal rage.The pursuit of the enemy ceased when the victory was completed; andafter the signal for retreat had been given, all hostilities ceased. Thespoiling of arms, at least durin
g the battle, was also interdicted; andthe consecration of the spoils of slain enemies to the gods, as, ingeneral, all rejoicings for victory, were considered as ill-omened.
Such was the war of the greatest soldiers who prayed to heathen gods.What Christian war is, preached by Christian ministers, let any one tellyou, who saw the sacred crowning, and heard the sacred flute-playing,and was inspired and sanctified by the divinely-measured and musicallanguage, of any North American regiment preparing for its charge. Andwhat is the relative cost of life in pagan and Christian wars, let thisone fact tell you:--the Spartans won the decisive battle of Corinth withthe loss of eight men; the victors at indecisive Gettysburg confess tothe loss of 30,000.
II. I pass now to our second order of war, the commonest among men, thatundertaken in desire of dominion. And let me ask you to think for a fewmoments what the real meaning of this desire of dominion is--first inthe minds of kings--then in that of nations.
Now, mind you this first,--that I speak either about kings, or masses ofmen, with a fixed conviction that human nature is a noble and beautifulthing; not a foul nor a base thing. All the sin of men I esteem as theirdisease, not their nature; as a folly which may be prevented, not anecessity which must be accepted. And my wonder, even when things are attheir worst, is always at the height which this human nature can attain.Thinking it high, I find it always a higher thing than I thought it;while those who think it low, find it, and will find it, always lowerthan they thought it: the fact being, that it is infinite, and capableof infinite height and infinite fall; but the nature of it--and here isthe faith which I would have you hold with me--the _nature_ of it is inthe nobleness, not in the catastrophe.
Take the faith in its utmost terms. When the captain of the 'London'shook hands with his mate, saying 'God speed you! I will go down with mypassengers,' _that_ I believe to be 'human nature.' He does not do itfrom any religious motive--from any hope of reward, or any fear ofpunishment; he does it because he is a man. But when a mother, livingamong the fair fields of merry England, gives her two-year-old child tobe suffocated under a mattress in her inner room, while the said motherwaits and talks outside; _that_ I believe to be _not_ human nature. Youhave the two extremes there, shortly. And you, men, and mothers, who arehere face to face with me to-night, I call upon you to say which ofthese is human, and which inhuman--which 'natural' and which'unnatural?' Choose your creed at once, I beseech you:--choose it withunshaken choice--choose it forever. Will you take, for foundation of actand hope, the faith that this man was such as God made him, or that thiswoman was such as God made her? Which of them has failed from theirnature--from their present, possible, actual nature;--not their natureof long ago, but their nature of now? Which has betrayed it--falsifiedit? Did the guardian who died in his trust, die inhumanly, and as afool; and did the murderess of her child fulfil the law of her being?Choose, I say; infinitude of choices hang upon this. You have had falseprophets among you--for centuries you have had them--solemnly warnedagainst them though you were; false prophets, who have told you that allmen are nothing but fiends or wolves, half beast, half devil. Believethat and indeed you may sink to that. But refuse that, and have faiththat God 'made you upright,' though _you_ have sought out manyinventions; so, you will strive daily to become more what your Makermeant and means you to be, and daily gives you also the power to be--andyou will cling more and more to the nobleness and virtue that is in you,saying, 'My righteousness I hold fast, and will not let it go.'
I have put this to you as a choice, as if you might hold either of thesecreeds you liked best. But there is in reality no choice for you; thefacts being quite easily ascertainable. You have no business to _think_about this matter, or to choose in it. The broad fact is, that a humancreature of the highest race, and most perfect as a human thing, isinvariably both kind and true; and that as you lower the race, you getcruelty and falseness, as you get deformity: and this so steadily andassuredly, that the two great words which, in their first use, meantonly perfection of race, have come, by consequence of the invariableconnection of virtue with the fine human nature, both to signifybenevolence of disposition. The word generous, and the word gentle,both, in their origin, meant only 'of pure race,' but because charityand tenderness are inseparable from this purity of blood, the wordswhich once stood only for pride, now stand as synonyms for virtue.
Now, this being the true power of our inherent humanity, and seeing thatall the aim of education should be to develop this;--and seeing alsowhat magnificent self sacrifice the higher classes of men are capableof, for any cause that they understand or feel,--it is whollyinconceivable to me how well-educated princes, who ought to be of allgentlemen the gentlest, and of all nobles the most generous, and whosetitle of royalty means only their function of doing every man'_right_'--how these, I say, throughout history, should so rarelypronounce themselves on the side of the poor and of justice, butcontinually maintain themselves and their own interests by oppression ofthe poor, and by wresting of justice; and how this should be accepted asso natural, that the word loyalty, which means faithfulness to law, isused as if it were only the duty of a people to be loyal to their king,and not the duty of a king to be infinitely more loyal to his people.How comes it to pass that a captain will die with his passengers, andlean over the gunwale to give the parting boat its course; but that aking will not usually die with, much less _for_, his passengers,--thinksit rather incumbent on his passengers, in any number, to die for _him_?Think, I beseech you, of the wonder of this. The sea captain, notcaptain by divine right, but only by company's appointment;--not a manof royal descent, but only a plebeian who can steer;--not with the eyesof the world upon him, but with feeble chance, depending on one poorboat, of his name being ever heard above the wash of the fatalwaves;--not with the cause of a nation resting on his act, but helplessto save so much as a child from among the lost crowd with whom heresolves to be lost,--yet goes down quietly to his grave, rather thanbreak his faith to these few emigrants. But your captain by divineright,--your captain with the hues of a hundred shields of kings uponhis breast,--your captain whose every deed, brave or base, will beilluminated or branded for ever before unescapable eyes of men,--yourcaptain whose every thought and act are beneficent, or fatal, fromsunrising to setting, blessing as the sunshine, or shadowing as thenight,--this captain, as you find him in history, for the most partthinks only how he may tax his passengers, and sit at most ease in hisstate cabin!
For observe, if there had been indeed in the hearts of the rulers ofgreat multitudes of men any such conception of work for the good ofthose under their command, as there is in the good and thoughtfulmasters of any small company of men, not only wars for the sake of mereincrease of power could never take place, but our idea of power itselfwould be entirely altered. Do you suppose that to think and act even fora million of men, to hear their complaints, watch their weaknesses,restrain their vices, make laws for them, lead them, day by day, topurer life, is not enough for one man's work? If any of us were absolutelord only of a district of a hundred miles square, and were resolved ondoing our utmost for it; making it feed as large a number of people aspossible; making every clod productive, and every rock defensive, andevery human being happy; should we not have enough on our hands thinkyou? But if the ruler has any other aim than this; if, careless of theresult of his interference, he desire only the authority to interfere;and, regardless of what is ill-done or well-done, cares only that itshall be done at his bidding,--if he would rather do two hundred miles'space of mischief, than one hundred miles' space of good, of course hewill try to add to his territory; and to add inimitably. But does he addto his power? Do you call it power in a child, if he is allowed to playwith the wheels and bands of some vast engine, pleased with their murmurand whirl, till his unwise touch, wandering where it ought not, scattersbeam and wheel into ruin? Yet what machine is so vast, so incognisable,as the working of the mind of a nation what child's touch so wanton, asthe word of a selfish king? And yet, how long have we allowed thehistorian to s
peak of the extent of the calamity a man causes, as a justground for his pride; and to extol him as the greatest prince, who isonly the centre of the widest error. Follow out this thought byyourselves; and you will find that all power, properly so called, iswise and benevolent. There may be capacity in a drifting fire-ship todestroy a fleet; there may be venom enough in a dead body to infect anation:--but which of you, the most ambitious, would desire a driftingkinghood, robed in consuming fire, or a poison-dipped sceptre whosetouch was mortal? There is no true potency, remember, but that of help;nor true ambition, but ambition to save.
And then, observe farther, this true power, the power of saving, dependsneither on multitude of men, nor on extent of territory. We arecontinually assuming that nations become strong according to theirnumbers. They indeed become so, if those numbers can be made of onemind; but how are you sure you can stay them in one mind, and keep themfrom having north and south minds? Grant them unanimous, how know youthey will be unanimous in right? If they are unanimous in wrong, themore they are, essentially the weaker they are. Or, suppose that theycan neither be of one mind, nor of two minds, but can only be of _no_mind? Suppose they are a more helpless mob; tottering into precipitantcatastrophe, like a waggon load of stones when the wheel comes off.Dangerous enough for their neighbours, certainly, but not 'powerful.'
Neither does strength depend on extent of territory, any more than uponnumber of population. Take up your maps when you go home thisevening,--put the cluster of British Isles beside the mass of SouthAmerica; and then consider whether any race of men need care how muchground they stand upon. The strength is in the men, and in their unityand virtue, not in their standing room: a little group of wise hearts isbetter than a wilderness full of fools; and only that nation gains trueterritory, which gains itself.
And now for the brief practical outcome of all this. Remember, nogovernment is ultimately strong, but in proportion to its kindness andjustice; and that a nation does not strengthen, by merely multiplyingand diffusing itself. We have not strengthened as yet, by multiplyinginto America. Nay, even when it has not to encounter the separatingconditions of emigration, a nation need not boast itself of multiplyingon its own ground, if it multiplies only as flies or locusts do, withthe god of flies for its god. It multiplies its strength only byincreasing as one great family, in perfect fellowship and brotherhood.And lastly, it does not strengthen itself by seizing dominion over raceswhom it cannot benefit. Austria is not strengthened, but weakened, byher grasp of Lombardy; and whatever apparent increase of majesty and ofwealth may have accrued to us from the possession of India, whetherthese prove to us ultimately power or weakness, depends wholly on thedegree in which our influence on the native race shall be benevolent andexalting. But, as it is at their own peril that any race extends theirdominion in mere desire of power, so it is at their own still greaterperil, that they refuse to undertake aggressive war, according to theirforce, whenever they are assured that their authority would be helpfuland protective. Nor need you listen to any sophistical objection of theimpossibility of knowing when a people's help is needed, or when not.Make your national conscience clean, and your national eyes will soon beclear. No man who is truly ready to take part in a noble quarrel willever stand long in doubt by whom, or in what cause, his aid is needed. Ihold it my duty to make no political statement of any special bearing inthis presence; but I tell you broadly and boldly, that, within theselast ten years, we English have, as a knightly nation, lost our spurs:we have fought where we should not have fought, for gain; and we havebeen passive where we should not have been passive, for fear. I tell youthat the principle of non-intervention, as now preached among us, is asselfish and cruel as the worst frenzy of conquest, and differs from itonly by being not only malignant, but dastardly.
I know, however, that my opinions on this subject differ too widely fromthose ordinarily held, to be any farther intruded upon you; andtherefore I pass lastly to examine the conditions of the third kind ofnoble war;--war waged simply for defence of the country in which we wereborn, and for the maintenance and execution of her laws, by whomsoeverthreatened or defied. It is to this duty that I suppose most menentering the army consider themselves in reality to be bound, and I wantyou now to reflect what the laws of mere defence are; and what thesoldier's duty, as now understood, or supposed to be understood. Youhave solemnly devoted yourselves to be English soldiers, for theguardianship of England. I want you to feel what this vow of yoursindeed means, or is gradually coming to mean. You take it upon you,first, while you are sentimental schoolboys; you go into your militaryconvent, or barracks, just as a girl goes into her convent while she isa sentimental schoolgirl; neither of you then know what you are about,though both the good soldiers and good nuns make the best of itafterwards. You don't understand perhaps why I call you 'sentimental'schoolboys, when you go into the army? Because, on the whole, it is loveof adventure, of excitement, of fine dress and of the pride of fame, allwhich are sentimental motives, which chiefly make a boy like going intothe Guards better than into a counting-house. You fancy, perhaps, thatthere is a severe sense of duty mixed with these peacocky motives? Andin the best of you, there is; but do not think that it is principal. Ifyou cared to do your duty to your country in a prosaic and unsentimentalway, depend upon it, there is now truer duty to be done in raisingharvests than in burning them; more in building houses, than in shellingthem--more in winning money by your own work, wherewith to help men,than in taxing other people's work, for money wherewith to slay men;more duty finally, in honest and unselfish living than in honest andunselfish dying, though that seems to your boys' eyes the bravest. Sofar then, as for your own honour, and the honour of your families, youchoose brave death in a red coat before brave life in a black one, youare sentimental; and now see what this passionate vow of yours comesto. For a little while you ride, and you hunt tigers or savages, youshoot, and are shot; you are happy, and proud, always, and honoured andwept if you die; and you are satisfied with your life, and with the endof it; believing, on the whole, that good rather than harm of it comesto others, and much pleasure to you. But as the sense of duty entersinto your forming minds, the vow takes another aspect. You find that youhave put yourselves into the hand of your country as a weapon. You havevowed to strike, when she bids you, and to stay scabbarded when she bidsyou; all that you need answer for is, that you fail not in her grasp.And there is goodness in this, and greatness, if you can trust the handand heart of the Britomart who has braced you to her side, and areassured that when she leaves you sheathed in darkness, there is no needfor your flash to the sun. But remember, good and noble as this statemay be, it is a state of slavery. There are different kinds of slavesand different masters. Some slaves are scourged to their work by whips,others are scourged to it by restlessness or ambition. It does notmatter what the whip is; it is none the less a whip, because you havecut thongs for it out of your own souls: the fact, so far, of slavery,is in being driven to your work without thought, at another's bidding.Again, some slaves are bought with money, and others with praise. Itmatters not what the purchase-money is. The distinguishing sign ofslavery is to have a price, and be bought for it. Again, it matters notwhat kind of work you are set on; some slaves are set to forceddiggings, others to forced marches; some dig furrows, othersfield-works, and others graves. Some press the juice of reeds, and somethe juice of vines, and some the blood of men. The fact of the captivityis the same whatever work we are set upon, though the fruits of the toilmay be different. But, remember, in thus vowing ourselves to be theslaves of any master, it ought to be some subject of forethought withus, what work he is likely to put us upon. You may think that the wholeduty of a soldier is to be passive, that it is the country you have leftbehind who is to command, and you have only to obey. But are you surethat you have left _all_ your country behind, or that the part of it youhave so left is indeed the best part of it? Suppose--and, remember, itis quite conceivable--that you yourselves are indeed the best part ofEngland; that you who have become the
slaves, ought to have been themasters; and that those who are the masters, ought to have been theslaves! If it is a noble and whole-hearted England, whose bidding youare bound to do, it is well; but if you are yourselves the best of herheart, and the England you have left be but a half-hearted England, howsay you of your obedience? You were too proud to become shopkeepers: areyou satisfied then to become the servants of shopkeepers? You were tooproud to become merchants or farmers yourselves: will you have merchantsor farmers then for your field marshals? You had no gifts of specialgrace for Exeter Hall: will you have some gifted person thereat for yourcommander-in-chief, to judge of your work, and reward it? You imagineyourselves to be the army of England: how if you should find yourselves,at last, only the police of her manufacturing towns, and the beadles ofher little Bethels?
It is not so yet, nor will be so, I trust, for ever; but what I want youto see, and to be assured of, is, that the ideal of soldiership is notmere passive obedience and bravery; that, so far from this, no countryis in a healthy state which has separated, even in a small degree, hercivil from her military power. All states of the world, however great,fall at once when they use mercenary armies; and although it is a lessinstant form of error (because involving no national taint ofcowardice), it is yet an error no less ultimately fatal--it is the errorespecially of modern times, of which we cannot yet know all thecalamitous consequences--to take away the best blood and strength of thenation, all the soul-substance of it that is brave, and careless ofreward, and scornful of pain, and faithful in trust; and to cast thatinto steel, and make a mere sword of it; taking away its voice and will;but to keep the worst part of the nation--whatever is cowardly,avaricious, sensual, and faithless--and to give to this the voice, tothis the authority, to this the chief privilege, where there is leastcapacity, of thought. The fulfilment of your vow for the defence ofEngland will by no means consist in carrying out such a system. You arenot true soldiers, if you only mean to stand at a shop door, to protectshop-boys who are cheating inside. A soldier's vow to his country isthat he will die for the guardianship of her domestic virtue, of herrighteous laws, and of her anyway challenged or endangered honour. Astate without virtue, without laws, and without honour, he is bound_not_ to defend; nay, bound to redress by his own right hand that whichhe sees to be base in her. So sternly is this the law of Nature andlife, that a nation once utterly corrupt can only be redeemed by amilitary despotism--never by talking, nor by its free effort. And thehealth of any state consists simply in this: that in it, those who arewisest shall also be strongest; its rulers should be also its soldiers;or, rather, by force of intellect more than of sword, its soldiers itsrulers. Whatever the hold which the aristocracy of England has on theheart of England, in that they are still always in front of her battles,this hold will not be enough, unless they are also in front of herthoughts. And truly her thoughts need good captain's leading now, ifever! Do you know what, by this beautiful division of labour (her bravemen fighting, and her cowards thinking), she has come at last to think?Here is a bit of paper in my hand,[6] a good one too, and an honest one;quite representative of the best common public thought of England atthis moment; and it is holding forth in one of its leaders upon our'social welfare,'--upon our 'vivid life'--upon the 'political supremacyof Great Britain.' And what do you think all these are owing to? To whatour English sires have done for us, and taught us, age after age? No:not to that. To our honesty of heart, or coolness of head, or steadinessof will? No: not to these. To our thinkers, or our statesmen, or ourpoets, or our captains, or our martyrs, or the patient labour of ourpoor? No: not to these; or at least not to these in any chief measure.Nay, says the journal, 'more than any agency, it is the cheapness andabundance of our coal which have made us what we are.' If it be so, then'ashes to ashes' be our epitaph! and the sooner the better. I tell you,gentlemen of England, if ever you would have your country breathe thepure breath of heaven again, and receive again a soul into her body,instead of rotting into a carcase, blown up in the belly with carbonicacid (and great _that_ way), you must think, and feel, for your England,as well as fight for her: you must teach her that all the true greatnessshe ever had, or ever can have, she won while her fields were green andher faces ruddy;--that greatness is still possible for Englishmen, eventhough the ground be not hollow under their feet, nor the sky black overtheir heads;--and that, when the day comes for their country to lay herhonours in the dust, her crest will not rise from it more loftilybecause it is dust of coal. Gentlemen, I tell you, solemnly, that theday is coming when the soldiers of England must be her tutors and thecaptains of her army, captains also of her mind.
And now, remember, you soldier youths, who are thus in all ways the hopeof your country; or must be, if she have any hope: remember that yourfitness for all future trust depends upon what you are now. No goodsoldier in his old age was ever careless or indolent in his youth. Manya giddy and thoughtless boy has become a good bishop, or a good lawyer,or a good merchant; but no such an one ever became a good general. Ichallenge you, in all history, to find a record of a good soldier whowas not grave and earnest in his youth. And, in general, I have nopatience with people who talk about 'the thoughtlessness of youth'indulgently, I had infinitely rather hear of thoughtless old age, andthe indulgence due to _that_. When a man has done his work, and nothingcan any way be materially altered in his fate, let him forget his toil,and jest with his fate, if he will; but what excuse can you find forwilfulness of thought, at the very time when every crisis of futurefortune hangs on your decisions? A youth thoughtless! when all thehappiness of his home for ever depends on the chances, or the passions,of an hour! A youth thoughtless! when the career of all his days dependson the opportunity of a moment! A youth thoughtless! when his every actis a foundation-stone of future conduct, and every imagination afountain of life or death! Be thoughtless in _any_ after years, ratherthan now--though, indeed, there is only one place where a man may benobly thoughtless,--his deathbed. No thinking should ever be left to bedone there.
Having, then, resolved that you will not waste recklessly, but earnestlyuse, these early days of yours, remember that all the duties of herchildren to England may be summed in two words--industry, and honour. Isay first, industry, for it is in this that soldier youth are especiallytempted to fail. Yet surely, there is no reason because your life maypossibly or probably be shorter than other men's, that you shouldtherefore waste more recklessly the portion of it that is granted you;neither do the duties of your profession, which require you to keep yourbodies strong, in any wise involve the keeping of your minds weak. Sofar from that, the experience, the hardship, and the activity of asoldier's life render his powers of thought more accurate than those ofother men; and while, for others, all knowledge is often little morethan a means of amusement, there is no form of science which a soldiermay not at some time or other find bearing on business of life anddeath. A young mathematician may be excused for langour in studyingcurves to be described only with a pencil; but not in tracing thosewhich are to be described with a rocket. Your knowledge of a wholesomeherb may involve the feeding of an army; and acquaintance with anobscure point of geography, the success of a campaign. Never waste aninstant's time, therefore; the sin of idleness is a thousandfold greaterin you than in other youths; for the fates of those who will one day beunder your command hang upon your knowledge; lost moments now will belost lives then, and every instant which you carelessly take for play,you buy with blood. But there is one way of wasting time, of all thevilest, because it wastes, not time only, but the interest and energy ofyour minds. Of all the ungentlemanly habits into which you can fall, thevilest is betting, or interesting yourselves in the issues of betting.It unites nearly every condition of folly and vice; you concentrate yourinterest upon a matter of chance, instead of upon a subject of trueknowledge; and you back opinions which you have no grounds for forming,merely because they are your own. All the insolence of egotism is inthis; and so far as the love of excitement is complicated with the hopeof winning money, you tu
rn yourselves into the basest sort oftradesmen--those who live by speculation. Were there no other ground forindustry, this would be a sufficient one; that it protected you from thetemptation to so scandalous a vice. Work faithfully, and you will putyourselves in possession of a glorious and enlarging happiness: not suchas can be won by the speed of a horse, or marred by the obliquity of aball.
First, then, by industry you must fulfil your vow to your country; butall industry and earnestness will be useless unless they are consecratedby your resolution to be in all things men of honour; not honour in thecommon sense only, but in the highest. Rest on the force of the two mainwords in the great verse, _integer_ vitae, scelerisque _purus_. You havevowed your life to England; give it her wholly--a bright, stainless,perfect life--a knightly life. Because you have to fight with machinesinstead of lances, there may be a necessity for more ghastly danger, butthere is none for less worthiness of character, than in olden time. Youmay be true knights yet, though perhaps not _equites_; you may have tocall yourselves 'cannonry' instead of 'chivalry,' but that is no reasonwhy you should not call yourselves true men. So the first thing you haveto see to in becoming soldiers is that you make yourselves wholly true.Courage is a mere matter of course among any ordinarily well-bornyouths; but neither truth nor gentleness is matter of course. You mustbind them like shields about your necks; you must write them on thetables of your hearts. Though it be not exacted of you, yet exact it ofyourselves, this vow of stainless truth. Your hearts are, if you leavethem unstirred, as tombs in which a god lies buried. Vow yourselvescrusaders to redeem that sacred sepulchre. And remember, before allthings--for no other memory will be so protective of you--that thehighest law of this knightly truth is that under which it is vowed towomen. Whomsoever else you deceive, whomsoever you injure, whomsoeveryou leave unaided, you must not deceive, nor injure, nor leave unaidedaccording to your power, any woman of whatever rank. Believe me, everyvirtue of the higher phases of manly character begins in this;--in truthand modesty before the face of all maidens; in truth and pity, or truthand reverence, to all womanhood.
And now let me turn for a moment to you,--wives and maidens, who are thesouls of soldiers; to you,--mothers, who have devoted your children tothe great hierarchy of war. Let me ask you to consider what part youhave to take for the aid of those who love you; for if you fail in yourpart they cannot fulfil theirs; such absolute helpmates you are that moman can stand without that help, nor labour in his own strength.
I know your hearts, and that the truth of them never fails when an hourof trial comes which you recognise for such. But you know not when thehour of trial first finds you, nor when it verily finds you. You imaginethat you are only called upon to wait and to suffer; to surrender and tomourn. You know that you must not weaken the hearts of your husbands andlovers, even by the one fear of which those hearts are capable,--thefear of parting from you, or of causing you grief. Through weary yearsof separation, through fearful expectancies of unknown fate; through thetenfold bitterness of the sorrow which might so easily have been joy,and the tenfold yearning for glorious life struck down in itsprime--through all these agonies you fail not, and never will fail. Butyour trial is not in these. To be heroic in danger is little;--you areEnglishwomen. To be heroic in change and sway of fortune is little;--fordo you not love? To be patient through the great chasm and pause of lossis little;--for do you not still love in heaven? But to be heroic inhappiness; to bear yourselves gravely and righteously in the dazzling ofthe sunshine of morning; not to forget the God in whom you trust, whenHe gives you most; not to fail those who trust you, when they seem toneed you least; this is the difficult fortitude. It is not in the piningof absence, not in the peril of battle, not in the wasting of sickness,that your prayer should be most passionate, or your guardianship mosttender. Pray, mothers and maidens, for your young soldiers in the bloomof their pride; pray for them, while the only dangers round them are intheir own wayward wills; watch you, and pray, when they have to face,not death, but temptation. But it is this fortitude also for which thereis the crowning reward. Believe me, the whole course and character ofyour lovers' lives is in your hands; what you would have them be, theyshall be, if you not only desire to have them so, but deserve to havethem so; for they are but mirrors in which you will see yourselvesimaged. If you are frivolous, they will be so also; if you have nounderstanding of the scope of their duty, they also will forget it; theywill listen,--they _can_ listen,--to no other interpretation of it thanthat uttered from your lips. Bid them be brave;--they will be brave foryou; bid them be cowards; and how noble soever they be;--they will quailfor you. Bid them be wise, and they will be wise for you; mock at theircounsel, they will be fools for you: such and so absolute is your ruleover them. You fancy, perhaps, as you have been told so often, that awife's rule should only be over her husband's house, not over his mind.Ah, no! the true rule is just the reverse of that; a true wife, in herhusband's house, is his servant; it is in his heart that she is queen.Whatever of the best he can conceive, it is her part to be; whatever ofhighest he can hope, it is hers to promise; all that is dark in him shemust purge into purity; all that is failing in him she must strengtheninto truth: from her, through all the world's clamour, he must win hispraise; in her, through all the world's warfare, he must find his peace.
And, now, but one word more. You may wonder, perhaps, that I have spokenall this night in praise of war. Yet, truly, if it might be, I, for one,would fain join in the cadence of hammer-strokes that should beat swordsinto ploughshares: and that this cannot be, is not the fault of us men.It is _your_ fault. Wholly yours. Only by your command, or by yourpermission, can any contest take place among us. And the real, final,reason for all the poverty, misery, and rage of battle, throughoutEurope, is simply that you women, however good, however religious,however self-sacrificing for those whom you love, are too selfish andtoo thoughtless to take pains for any creature out of your own immediatecircles. You fancy that you are sorry for the pain of others. Now I justtell you this, that if the usual course of war, instead of unroofingpeasants' houses, and ravaging peasants' fields, merely broke the chinaupon your own drawing-room tables, no war in civilised countries wouldlast a week. I tell you more, that at whatever moment you chose to put aperiod to war, you could do it with less trouble than you take any dayto go out to dinner. You know, or at least you might know if you wouldthink, that every battle you hear of has made many widows and orphans.We have, none of us, heart enough truly to mourn with these. But atleast we might put on the outer symbols of mourning with them. Let butevery Christian lady who has conscience toward God, vow that she willmourn, at least outwardly, for His killed creatures. Your praying isuseless, and your churchgoing mere mockery of God, if you have not plainobedience in you enough for this. Let every lady in the upper classes ofcivilised Europe simply vow that, while any cruel war proceeds, she willwear _black_;--a mute's black,--with no jewel, no ornament, no excusefor, or evasion into, prettiness.--I tell you again, no war would last aweek.
And lastly. You women of England are all now shrieking with onevoice,--you and your clergymen together,--because you hear of yourBibles being attacked. If you choose to obey your Bibles, you will nevercare who attacks them. It is just because you never fulfil a singledownright precept of the Book, that you are so careful for its credit:and just because you don't care to obey its whole words, that you are soparticular about the letters of them. The Bible tells you to dressplainly,--and you are mad for finery; the Bible tells you to have pityon the poor,--and you crush them under your carriage-wheels; the Bibletells you to do judgment and justice,--and you do not know, nor care toknow, so much as what the Bible word 'justice means.' Do but learn somuch of God's truth as that comes to; know what He means when He tellsyou to be just: and teach your sons, that their bravery is but a fool'sboast, and their deeds but a firebrand's tossing, unless they are indeedJust men, and Perfect in the Fear of God;--and you will soon have nomore war, unless it be indeed such as is willed by Him, of whom, thoughPrince of
Peace, it is also written, 'In Righteousness He doth judge,and make war.'
FOOTNOTES:
[6] I do not care to refer to the journal quoted, because the articlewas unworthy of its general tone, though in order to enable the audienceto verify the quoted sentence, I left the number containing it on thetable, when I delivered this lecture. But a saying of Baron Liebig's,quoted at the head of a leader on the same subject in the 'DailyTelegraph' of January 11, 1866, summarily digests and presents themaximum folly of modern thought in this respect. 'Civilization,' saysthe Baron, 'is the economy of power, and English power is coal.' Notaltogether so, my chemical friend. Civilization is the making of civilpersons, which is a kind of distillation of which alembics areincapable, and does not at all imply the turning of a small company ofgentlemen into a large company of ironmongers. And English power (whatlittle of it may be left), is by no means coal, but, indeed, of thatwhich, 'when the whole world turns to coal, then chiefly lives.'
MUNERA PULVERIS
SIX ESSAYS
ON THE ELEMENTS OF
POLITICAL ECONOMY