Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

ly is, there are considerations of still greater | ted States also stand open to all who wish to import to be weighed before finally despatching the whole matter to the dreary and sterile desert of solved problems.

First among the reasons which may be urged in favour of the scheme here proposed, is that it will put a seal upon Imperial legislation for our North American dependencies. The people of this country are unanimous in according to them everything which they may fairly demand. Taught by the lessons of painful experience, our desire is to avoid committing any blunders either in kind or degree resembling those which have caused so much bitterness between us and the off shoots of this country which now constitute the American Republic. There is no danger of the blunder being either repeated or persisted in that led to the sundering in anger of a bond which, in the fulness of time, might have been severed in amity. If the Canadians should ever wish to be independent, the obstacle would not be the indisposition of the Mother Country to hasten that consummation. So long as they prefer to remain united with Great Britain, it would be unnatural and unjustifiable to render that connexion unbearable. The duty of our statesmen is to promote peace and good-will between all sections of the Empire; and in pursuance of that praiseworthy task, the Legislature has cordially assented to every measure designed to foster kindly feelings by providing for appropriate arrangements. Hence it was that when the several Provinces had settled the terms upon which they would live together in harmony and union, Parliament passed the Bill framed to suit their requirements. As a complement to the Act of 1867, the incorporation of the NorthWestern territory with the Dominion of Canada has been advocated, and will be proposed. To refuse assent to this would be to commit a blunder of which neither the present Parliament nor the existing Government is likely to be guilty.

That this measure would consolidate Canada admits of no doubt; that it would also be of immense value to this country can be demonstrated. Our greatest difficulty, as well as our most serious social danger at this moment, arises from the presence among us of a redundant population. Many hands are now idle for lack of employment. The will to work is strong, while the opportunities for work are few. No other remedy than an organized system of emigration will cure the evil by redressing the disturbed balance between supply and demand. There is room and to spare for our starving multitudes in the vast and unpeopled lands of our Australian colonies. The doors of the Uni

enter in and be satisfied. But then Australia is very far distant, and the necessaries of life in the United States are at present much dearer than in Canada. Thus the choice of Canada is one which the weightiest reasons combine to favour. The working classes who wish to emigrate appear to have come to this conclusion. But it would be a misfortune if through mismanagement the movement should prove a failure. It is simply ridiculous to suppose that paupers and invalids who cannot earn a livelihood at home will thrive in a strange country. Perhaps the most hopeful experiments are those in contemplation for adapting the principle of benefit societies to emigration, combining the processes of emigration and colonization in one system. If working men would club together for these objects they might do much to elevate their class. Mr. Scratchley, the well-known authority on benefit building societies, has shown how this can be accomplished, as well as furnished many valuable statistics in the appendix to the fourth edition of his work entitled Benefit Building Societies, pp. 13-18. Unless, however, the other inducements to settle there are equal to those which have made the western prairies of the United States the favourite home of the exile from Europe, we cannot expect to see the tide of emigration diverted towards the British North America. As soon as the North-Western territory shall have been formally placed under the control of the Canadians, so soon will they be able to boast that in every natural advantage they are on a par with their neighbours, and are consequently prepared to offer an asylum to the houseless such as may be paralleled but cannot be surpassed throughout the length and breadth of the continent they inhabit.

Another point of great importance to this country, we can but glance at now. In the course of this year the Pacific Railway will be completed. As a consequence of this, it is expected that much of the trade between Europe and the East will pass over the iron way in the United States. Possibly, some of the glowing anticipations of the Ameri cans may never be realized, yet it is certain that the possession of that line of rail will enable them to compete with us in the future much better than in the past. If we would keep pace with them, we must adopt their tactics. To do this is easy. The means for communicating with our Eastern markets are as great as those of our rivals, the essential thing being to turn them to as good account. Through the territory of the North-West, over the Rocky Mountains and across British Columbia to the splendid har

[merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors]

Bay Company must be compelled to abdicate, unless they wisely retire from an untenable position. As traders they may long continue to prosper; as investors they have a claim to compensation for, should they voluntarily surrender, the rights which it would be difficult to prove are founded on anything but possession. With the settlement of this dispute a long and most embittered controversy will terminate. An end will also be put to whatever is obnoxious in the last of those great governing companies, founded when the principles of the Constitution were either imperfectly understood or else were deliberately violated by usurping archs.

bor of Esquimalt, or of Bute Inlet on the Pacific, the natural facilities for constructing a railroad are everything that could be desired. There are no difficult inequalities of surface to be overcome; the pass through the mountains is nearly one-half less steep than that on the American route, while the country is everywhere fertile, contrasting in this respect with the great desert across which, for a thousand miles, the Americans have carried their railway. But if this were all, we should despair of capitalists investing money in the undertaking, for they are unlikely to embark in an enterprise dictated merely by a desire to cap the achievement of a rival nation. Sentiment and dividends are incompatible. Money invested.in order to yield a return must not be employed for the furtherance of fanciful views. In the present case, however, the certainty of profit is as clear as are the advantages of the work in other respects. The route to the East through the Dominion of Canada must be called the best, because it is the shortest. Now, the minimum of distance implies the minimum of fares, and confers the power to surpass all competitors by underselling them. If this railway were constructed, it is estimated that the distance between Liverpool and any port of China or Japan would be 700 miles less than if the overland journey were made across the United States.*

Enough has been said, we think, to show the impolicy of conniving at the occupation by the Hudson's Bay Company of territory which can be turned to so many useful purposes, and made to prove advantageous to the Empire. It is fortunate that the ordering of the necessary changes has come within the control of such a statesman as Mr. Gladstone. He is unusually well qualified for deciding rightly on these questions, because he has made a special study of the points raised during the tedious Hudson's Bay controversy, having on more than one occasion, when a private member of the House of Commons, striven to bring about a settlement.

mon

The understanding reader's imagination can alone picture the result when the vast British dominions, from the Pacific and the Atlantic Oceans, and from the boundary of the United States to the North Pole, shall constitute one grand Dominion, rivalling the most favoured country of the old world in every gift of nature, affording to pining and oppressed millions all the social and political blessings which render life happy and freemen proud. It is improbable that the forms and ceremonies adopted by Canada from us will long continue unchanged. Neither the Constitution of the United Kingdom nor of the United States is perfect. A new people must frame its own system of government. So long as the Canadians regard the happiness of the individual as the chief end of government, they will not be blamed whatever alterations they may think right to introduce. As neighbours of the most energetic and prosperous people in the world they must always be stimulated by a healthy rivalry. The fault will be their own should they fail to profit by their splendid opportunities. One conspicuous failure is already associated with their country. It was the dream of Cardinal Richelieu and the ambition of more than one French sovereign to establish a new France across the Atlantic. That their attempts miscarried is matter for rejoicing, because they cleared the ground for the trial of a far more notable experiment. In Canada, Frenchmen by descent, and those who by ancestry or birth are Scotchmen, Irishmen, or Englishmen, form a community, speaking the two languages which are most widely spread over the earth and are the most highly esteemed among modern tongues. As a consequence of this intermixture of races and intermingling of ideas, another nationality and a new people will in process of time be constituted. Towards ourselves that people will doubtless entertain feelings of tender admiration and unalloyed good-will. It is improbable that

That the end is at hand we feel satisfied. Now that the public is awakened to the importance of the issues raised, delay is impossible. It was long before the opponents of the double Government in India succeeded in their object, but once they had enlisted popular feeling on their side, little time was lost in substituting the direct authority of the Sovereign in India for the anomalous rule of the directors of a joint-stock company. In like manner, the directors of the Hudson's

*For detailed information on this interesting subject see The Overland Route through British North America, by Alfred Waddington (Longmans, 1868).

we shall ever alienate or offend them in a | philosophic school.
manner so absolute and unpardonable as that
with which George the Third and his sub-
servient and foolish Parliament are charge-
able in the case of those among our kindred
who settled in America in order to exercise
there the privileges of self-government. In
the minds of the citizens of the United
States there is a sore which time will never
heal. Between us and them there is a gulf
which peacemakers will never bridge over.
If we desire allies in America on whose af-
fection we may rely, and to whose self-inter-
est we need not basely appeal, we must turn
to the Dominion of Canada rather than to
the Great Republic. We feel confident that
even after the Canadians shall have estab-
lished for themselves a claim upon the ad-
miration of the world, they will still take
pride in loving and cherishing all that is
glorious in the traditions of the Mother
Country. It is our sanguine hope that her
example will long continue to exercise an ac-
tive and a benign influence over their con-
duct. Moreover, we sincerely trust that
their achievements will entitle them to a
large share in the splendid heritage of her
renown when, in the remote future, the scep-
tre she now majestically wields shall have
dropped from her enfeebled grasp, and her
envied supremacy be as a tale that is told.

ART. VII.-Culture and Anarchy. (An
Essay in Political and Social Criticism.)
By MATTHEW ARNOLD. London: Smith,
Elder, and Co. 1869.

"WHAT is the chief end of man?" is a question with which Scotland has been familiar for two centuries. In its terse simplicity it states one of the ultimate questions in Philosophy. Its theoretical solution would be the answer to a fundamental problem in Ethics; its practical realization would be the ideal of a perfect life. In one form or other it occurs to all men in whom the reflective life has dawned, and who look beneath the surface of human action to discover its underlying root and its ultimate It arises from that instinctive craving for unity in our life, which is spontaneous and ineradicable. We are not satisfied by studying the phenomena of our human nature as a miscellaneous mass of mere detail; we desire to know the relation of the parts to the whole, and the connexion of the whole with its parts. The question thus raised has been discussed in every

purpose.

It is as ancient as the meditations of the seers in Palestine and the remoter East. We find it treated with marvellous subtilty and great breadth of insight by the more noticeable of the Greek thinkers. Every philosopher of mark in modern times has rediscussed it, and in his own way deepened the current of research, or added a contribution to our knowledge of the problem; while it remains as fresh and full of interest in our own day as if the race had now awakened from the sleep of centuries to ponder it for the first time. Being thus one of the problems of the "philosophia perennis," its solution must vary with the character and progress of the great systems, and be essentially modified by the prevailing type of each. It is closely related to two other cardinal questions in philosophy, "Whence are we?" and "Whither do we tend ? "what is our origin? and what our destination ?-questions which have nursed the speculative passion, and aroused the wondering curiosity of men in all ages. But the third great inquiry, "What is the ultimate meaning, the final purpose of our life as it now exists-what its present ideal?" is as fundamental as the others, and its solution is much more urgent. It may not be possible to give an altogether satisfactory answer to any one of these questions without partially answering the other two, as the three problems intersect each other, and their solutions are finely interlaced. The conclusions of Speculative Philosophy (culminating in Theology) and those of Ethics are ultimately based upon the data which human nature supplies; and as human nature is an organic whole, the results we arrive at in one department of inquiry will necessarily modify our views in all the others. Thus, if (as is the case on the hypothesis of materialism) we have no light as to our origin and destination beyond that which the law of evolution and the sequences of physical nature supply, our ideal of life in the present could scarcely be an elevated one. We could not find a motive for the culture of our powers that would not be crippled in its action, by the obscurity of the source whence we have arisen, and the dreariness of the goal to which we tend. And if we appeal to history, it will be found that those systems which have denied to man all certain knowledge of his source or of his destiny beyond the limits of orga nization, have invariably lowered his ideal of culture.

But the discussion of every great philosophical question must be untrammelled by the verdict which other problems yield us, or even by the data which kindred sciences

[ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][ocr errors]

supply; and we propose now to examine
the third of the correlated questions referred
to, partly in the light of a recent discussion
by one of the ablest of our living critics,
and partly as a theme of permanent philo-
sophic interest, which is unaffected by the
passing controversies of the age.

What, then, is the relation in which human culture, with a view to human perfection, stands to the supreme end of life, as an ideal aim? Our answer may be stated generally thus :-That culture (when the term is broadened and deepened in its meaning far beyond Mr. Arnold's limiThe late occupant of the chair of Poetry tation of it), culture prosecuted with a at Oxford (himself a poet and a thinker of view to the entire perfection of our manno mean rank) has recently brought the hood and the reflex glory of God, is the one question of culture before the British mind absolute and untransferable end of human with singular freshness and emphasis. But existence. This is our thesis. We proceed we shall not, in the first instance, follow to the proof of it. And it may conduce to Mr. Arnold into those bypaths of subtile precision of statement if we distinguish becriticism (confessedly unsystematic), where tween the two principal terms made use of ✔he ranges with so free a step, and applies in the proposition with which we set out. his doctrine to the prevailing tendencies of The former, viz., "culture," we regard as England with rare discriminative power and the means of attaining the latter, viz., classic grace. Mr. Arnold has needlessly "perfection: " perfection denoting the ripe cumbered his discussion of a theme which is result, when all the human faculties act a commonplace in the philosophical schools together, vigorously and harmoniously; (though he has succeeded in illustrating and culture denoting the process of education, popularizing it), by criticism of British poli- by which these faculties are trained to reach tics, contemporary newspapers, and reli- that end in concord. The distinction, howgious societies. To that extent he has re- ever, is fundamentally empirical, inasmuch duced the permanent philosophical value of as the resulting perfection, however harhis book. At every turn, one who may monious and complete, can never be reagree with the main doctrine which he garded as final. Its supreme value consists teaches, is forced to dissent from his appli- but in the condition it affords for a still cations and illustrations of it. We may further advance. The stages of partial peralso regret a certain tone of harsh and fection reached, become in turn, and necesalmost cynical antagonism, which detracts sarily, but "the stepping-stones of their from the otherwise constructive character of dead selves," on which "men rise to higher the book. We shall therefore approach the things." In other words, the states of our group of questions raised by Mr. Arnold human nature to which the terms culture through a brief discussion of the philosophi- and perfection are applicable, are at once cal problem, "What is the chief end of both ends and means. Looked at on one human existence the ideal of a perfect side, they are ends, as possessed of a certain life?" We must distinguish, however, inherent value; surveyed on the other, they between the theoretic ideal as an object are but means, as the conditions of still of thought and contemplation, and the prac-higher ends. But the determination of the tical realization of that ideal in a finite human life. The ideal stands always contrasted with the actual, as that to which no one can absolutely attain, however he may strive, and succeed in his approach to it. There are conditions by which the range of human culture is inevitably bounded, obstacles which resist its progress and impede its freedom, which are irremovable within the limits of our present life. But these do not concern us at present. We propose, in the first instance, to discuss the Ideal of culture by striving to answer the question, "To what would the most perfect education of the human faculties amount, supposing all hindrances to that education were withdrawn?" Having answered this question, we shall be in a position to consider how those hindrances which prevent the realization of the ideal may be most successfully overcome; or the relation in which the Actual stands to the Ideal in culture,

final end of man's existence as a being possessed of diverse faculties, the tenant ol this earth, depends essentially upon the answer we give to the really prior question, What are the essentials of human nature? What are the fundamental characteristics of man as a being distinct from the other existences that surround him in the universe? Driven thus backwards to the human consciousness, our final court of appeal in every philosophical question, we discern (in a way we need not tarry to explain) the ultimate fact of our personality, and, along with this, as a correlated fact, our personal freedom. Let us assume, let us take for granted in this discussion, our free human personality, and along with it the possession of certain faculties (intellectual, moral, religious, aesthetical, social). It seems indisputable that if these faculties cannot be said to have a defined existence till their activity

zero of ignorance whence we set out; the positions gained and the prospects beheld are the stages and the partial lights of knowledge. The lines and circles out-reaching to the surrounding infinite, and lost above and around in the clouds, symbolize that shroud of mystery which encircles our last truths, as it enveloped the first, that solemn veil of darkness which girdles our faculties when they have reached their loftiest culture, as it wrapped them round in their embryo development. The progress from absolute ignorance to partial science, ending in a return to relative igorance (the sum of our intellectual destiny, and a favourite theme of philosophic men), is thus faintly symbolized in the inverted cone. It may at least represent a circle of faculties advancing in harmony, each one being supposed to be linked to the first circle which formed the inverted apex. But as analogy casts but a pale and lunar light upon a problem which touches the region of transcendent truth, we lay it aside; and content our selves with announcing once more, as a first principle of philosophic doctrine, that man's chief end is to cultivate his faculties; that the great postulate in the perfection of his nature is now to secure the deepest, widest, and intensest life; and that all the education he receives is only a system of means by which this is more or less perfectly or imperfectly secured.

is called forth, is educated;-if for man they are practically real, only in so far as by man they are consciously realized; and if they are consciously realized, only in so far as they are used (cultivated),—it is plain that in that case the very end of the possession is use; that the activity of the faculties constitutes the supreme human end of the faculties. The fullest, freest, least impeded, and best balanced energy amongst the several powers of our nature thus becomes that nature's end. Whether an ulterior end is or is not subserved by this proximate end is a further question which we shall presently discuss. But in so far as man is to be regarded as a centre of personality, and as reaching his manhood only through the concurrent action of all his faculties, it is clear that man fulfils the end of his being, is, in short, truly man, only in so far as he fulfils the law of catholic or eclectic culture. We thus view man as a personal and free agent, whose nature is made up of certain innate powers, faculties, capacities (let him name them as he will), and whose perfection consists in the harmonious action and reaction of all these faculties. The most perfect human being is he in whom all the faculties are trained in equipoise, and balanced in their activity; each of his powers being vigorous, and all of them advancing in harmony. The list or circle of the faculties is the same in every rational creature. However stunted, there is none absolutely want- We may remember, however, that in that ing in any human being. Even in the idiot religious catechism with which Scotland is and the insane (these malformations of hu- so familiar, "man's chief end" is defined as manity), the missing power is but suppres- "to glorify God, and to enjoy him for sed. It is buried under a bad organization, ever," and no one who is at once thoughtful crushed by a weak physique. The supreme and reverent will quarrel with the definition. and final end of every human life is there- It states a great truth in brief compass. fore the perfection of each faculty in detail, But it does not state the entire range of the and the harmony of all in unison. Though truth. The aim of the compilers of that no analogy can cast much light upon a truth manual of instruction was not to write a so ultimate, the following symbol may be series of philosophic aphorisms, but to arof slight use. Let us imagine an inverted range a practical digest of religious truth. cone, with its apex slightly blunted, but ris- And the philosophic student of the ultimate ing on all sides upwards to infinity. Round ends of human action may learn from the the narrow circle forming the base cluster definition of the divines at Westminster, the normal infant energies of human nature. while he is in search of other aspects of the From the apex there is an expansion up-question with which they were unfamiliar. wards; but with the rise perpendicular, Let us take for granted that the chief end of there is also an expanse horizontal; and the the creature is to glorify the Creator; the two are co-ordinate,-they are equally in- further question immediately arises-How definite and limitless. The human faculties is he to glorify Him? By what means and in their march from infancy to manhood rise instrumentality is he to proceed to the exeas do the sides of the graduated cone, but as cution of the stupendous task? And if his they gain in height they expand at an equal answer is to be more than a barren formula ratio in the widening circles of breadth.if it is to be a fruitful maxim of life and Progress intellectual, moral, æsthetical, religious, may be measured by the places gained by the agents who toil on the sides and circles of the cone, The base represents that

conduct, he must know how to translate the primary proposition we have referred to from indefiniteness into clearness. How is man to proceed that he may succeed in this

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »