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member of the corps: and the sole check toples of political science. This central organ these closely allied, though seemingly oppo- should have a right to know all that is done, site, tendencies, the only stimulus which can and its special duty should be that of making keep the ability of the body itself up to a high the knowledge acquired in one place availastandard, is liability to the watchful criticism ble for others. Emancipated from the petty of equal ability outside the body. It is indis- prejudices and narrow views of a locality by pensable, therefore, that the means should its elevated position and comprehensive exist, independently of the government, of sphere of observation, its advice would natforming such ability, and furnishing it with urally carry much authority; but its actual the opportunities and experience necessary power, as a permanent institution, should, I for a correct judgment of great practical af- conceive, be limited to compelling the local fairs. If we would possess permanently a officers to obey the laws laid down for their skilful and efficient body of functionaries-guidance. In all things not provided for by above all, a body able to originate and willing general rules, those officers should be left to to adopt improvements; if we would not have our bureaucracy degenerate into a pedantocracy, this body must not engross all the occupations which form and cultivate the faculties required for the government of mankind.

their own judgment, under responsibility to their constituents. For the violation of rules, they should be responsible to law, and the rules themselves should be laid down by the legislature; the central administrative authority only watching over their execuTo determine the point at which evils, tion, and if they were not properly carried so formidable to human freedom and ad- into effect, appealing, according to the nat vancement, begin, or rather at which they ure of the case, to the tribunals to enforce begin to predominate over the benefits attend- the law, or to the constituencies to dismiss ing the collective application of the force of the functionaries who had not executed it acsociety, under its recognized chiefs, for the cording to its spirit. Such, in its general removal of the obstacles which stand in the conception, is the central .superintendence way of its well-being; to secure as much of which the Poor Law Board is intended to the advantages of centralized power and in- exercise over the administrators of the Poor telligence, as can be had without turning into Rate throughout the country. Whatever governmental channels too great a proportion powers the Board exercises beyond this limit, of the general activity-is one of the most were right and necessary in that peculiar difficult and complicated questions in the art case, for the cure of rooted habits of maladof government. It is, in a great measure, a ministration in matters deeply affecting not question of detail, in which many and various the localities merely, but the whole commuconsiderations must be kept in view, and no nity; since no locality has a moral right to absolute rule can be laid down. But I believe make itself by mismanagement a nest of that the practical principle in which safety pauperism, necessarily overflowing into other resides, the ideal to be kept in view, the stand- localities, and impairing the moral and physard by which to test all arrangements intend-ical condition of the whole laboring commued for overcoming the difficulty, may be con- nity. The powers of administrative coercion veyed in these words: the greatest dissemina- and subordinate legislation possessed by the tion of power consistent with efficiency; but Poor Law Board (but which, owing to the the greatest possible centralization of infor- state of opinion on the subject, are very mation, and diffusion of it from the centre. scantily exercised by them), though perfectly Thus, in municipal administration, there justifiable in a case of first-rate national inwould be, as in the New England States, a terest, would be wholly out of place in the suvery minute division among separate officers, perintendence of interests purely local. But chosen by the localities, of all business which a central organ of information and instrucis not better left to the persons directly inter- tion for all the localities, would be equally ested; but besides this, there would be, in valuable in all departments of administraeach department of local affairs, a central su- tion. A government cannot have too much perintendence, forming a branch of the gen- of the kind of activity which does not imeral government. The organ of this superin-pede, but aids and stimulates, individual extendence would concentrate, as in a focus, ertion and development. The mischief bethe variety of information and experience de- gins when, instead of calling forth the activrived from the conduct of that branch of ity and powers of individuals and bodies. it public business in all the localities, from substitutes its own activity for theirs; when, everything analogous which is done in for- instead of informing, advising, and, upon oceign countries, and from the general princi-casion, denouncing, it makes them work in

fetters, or bids them stand aside and does that they may be more docile instruments in their work instead of them. The worth of a its hands even for beneficial purposes-will State, in the long run, is the worth of the in- find that with small men no great thing can dividuals composing it; and a State which really be accomplished; and that the perfecpostpones the interests of their mental ex- tion of machinery to which it has sacrificed pansion and elevation, to a little more of ad- everything, will in the end avail it nothing, ministrative skill, or of that semblance of it for want of the vital power which, in order which practice gives, in the details of busi-that the machine might work more smoothly, ness; a State which dwarfs its men, in order it has preferred to banish.

THE

INTELLECTUAL LIFE.

BY PHILIP GILBERT HAMERTON.

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AUTHOR OF A PAINTER'S CAMP," THOUGHTS ABOUT ART," THE UNKNOWN RIVER," ETC.

TO EUGÈNIE H.

titious as those we find in novels, for they have never been sent to anybody by the post, We have shared together many hours of yet the persons to whom they are addressed study, and you have been willing, at the cost are not imaginary. I made it a rule, from of much patient labor, to cheer the difficult the beginning, to think of a real person when paths of intellectual toil by the unfailing sweet-writing, from an apprehension that by dwellness of your beloved companionship. It seems ing in a world too exclusively ideal I might to me that all those things which we have lose sight of many impediments which beset learned together are doubly my own; whilst all actual lives, even the most exceptional and those other studies which I have pursued in fortunate. solitude have never yielded me more than

The essence of the book may be expressed a maimed and imperfect satisfaction. The in a few sentences, the rest being little more dream of my life would be to associate you than evidence or illustration. First, it apwith all I do if that were possible; but since pears that all who are born with considerable the ideal can never be wholly realized, let me intellectual faculties are urged towards the at least rejoice that we have been so little sep-intellectual life by irresistible instincts, as arated, and that the subtle influence of your water-fowl are urged to an aquatic life; but finer taste and more delicate perception is ever, like some penetrating perfume, in the whole atmosphere around me.

PREFACE.

the lower animals have this advantage over man, that as their purposes are simpler, so they attain them more completely than he does. The life of a wild duck is in perfect accordance with its instincts, but the life of an intellectual man is never on all points perfectly in accordance with his instincts. Many I PROPOSE, in the following pages, to con- of the best intellectual lives known to us have sider the possibilities of a satisfactory intel- been hampered by vexatious impediments of lectual life under various conditions of ordi- the most various and complicated kinds; and nary human existence. It will form a part when we come to have accurate and intimate of my plan to take into account favorable and knowledge of the lives led by our intellectual unfavorable influences of many kinds; and contemporaries, we are always quite sure to my chief purpose, so far as any effect upon find that each of them has some great thwartothers may be hoped for, will be to guard ing difficulty to contend against. Nor is it some who may read the book alike against the loss of time caused by unnecessary discouragement, and the waste of effort which is the consequence of misdirected energies.

too much to say that if a man were so placed and endowed in every way that all his work should be made as easy as the ignorant imagine it to be, that man would find in that very I have adopted the form of letters addressed facility itself a condition most unfavorable to to persons of very different position in order his intellectual growth. So that, however that every reader may have a chance of find- circumstances may help us or hinder us, the ing what concerns him. The letters, it is un- intellectual life is always a contest or a discinecessary to observe, are in one sense as fic-pline, and the art or skill of living intellectu

ally does not so much consist in surrounding | accomplishment as a state or condition of ourselves with what is reputed to be advan- the mind in which it seeks earnestly for the tageous as in compelling every circumstance highest and purest truth. It is the continual and condition of our lives to yield us some exercise of a firmly noble choice between the tribute of intellectual benefit and force. The larger truth and the lesser, between that needs of the intellect are as various as intel- which is perfectly just and that which falls lects themselves are various: and if a man a little short of justice. The ideal life would has got high mental culture during his pas- be to choose thus firmly and delicately alsage through life it is of little consequence ways, yet if we often blunder and fail for where he acquired it, or how. The school of want of perfect wisdom and clear light, have the intellectual man is the place where he we not the inward assurance that our aspirahappens to be, and his teachers are the people, tion has not been all in vain, that it has books, animals, plants, stones, and earth | brought us a little nearer to the Supreme Inround about him. The feeling almost always tellect whose effulgence draws us whilst it predominant in the minds of intellectual men dazzles? Here is the true secret of that fascias they grow older, is not so much one of re-nation which belongs to intellectual pursuits, gret that their opportunities were not more that they reveal to us a little more, and yet a abundant, as of regret that they so often little more, of the eternal order of the Unimissed opportunities which they might have verse, establishing us so firmly in what is turned to better account. known, that we acquire an unshakable confi

I have written for all classes, in the convic-dence in the laws which govern what is not, tion that the intellectual life is really within and never can be, known.

PART I.

THE PHYSICAL BASIS.

LETTER I.

TO A YOUNG MAN OF LETTERS WHO WORKED

EXCESSIVELY.

Mental labor believed to be innocuous to healthy personsDifficulty of testing this--Case of the poet Wordsworth-Case of an eminent living author-Case of a literary clergyman--Case of an energetic tradesman-Instances of two Londoners who wrote professionally-Scott's paralysis--Byron's death-All intellectual labor proceeds on a physical basis.

the reach of every one who earnestly desires it. The highest culture can never be within the reach of those who cannot give the years of labor which it costs; and if we cultivate ourselves to shine in the eyes of others, to become famous in literature or science, then of course we must give many more hours of labor than can be spared from a life of practical industry. But I am fully convinced of this, convinced by the observation of living instances in all classes, that any man or woman of large natural capacity may reach the tone of thinking which may justly be called intellectual, even though that thinking may not be expressed in the most perfect language. The essence of intellectual living does not reside in extent of science or in perfection of expression, but in a constant preference for So little is really known about the action of higher thoughts over lower thoughts, and this the nervous system, that to go into the subpreference may be the habit of a mind which ject from the physiological point of view has not any very considerable amount of in- would be to undertake a most difficult information. This may be very easily demon-vestigation, entirely beyond the competence strated by a reference to men who lived intel- of an unscientific person like your present lectually in ages when science had scarcely correspondent. You will, therefore, permit begun to exist, and when there was but little literature that could be of use as an aid to culture. The humblest subscriber to a mechanics' institute has easier access to sound learning than had either Solomon or Aristotle, yet both Solomon and Aristotle lived the intellectual life. Whoever reads English is richer in the aids to culture than Plato was, yet Plato thought intellectually. It is not A paper was read several years ago before erudition that makes the intellectual man, the members of a society in London, in which but a sort of virtue which delights in vigor the author maintained that mental labor was ous and beautiful thinking, just as moral vir- never injurious to a perfectly healthy human tue delights in vigorous and beautiful con- organization, and that the numerous cases of duct. Intellectual living is not so much an break-down, which are commonly attributed

me, in reference to this, to leave you to the teaching of the most advanced physiologists of the time; but I may be able to offer a few practical suggestions, based on the experience of intellectual workers, which may be of use to a man whose career is likely to be one of severe and almost uninterrupted intellectual labor.

to excessive brain-work, are due, in reality, to | obliged to abandon it on account of alarming the previous operation of disease.

This is one of those assertions which cannot be answered in a sentence. Concentrated within the briefest expression it comes to this, that mental labor cannot produce disease, but may aggravate the consequences of disease which already exists.

The difficulty of testing this is obvious; for so long as health remains quite perfect, it remains perfect, of course, whether the brain is used or not; and when failure of health be comes manifest, it is not always easy to decide in what degree mental labor may have been the cause of it. Again, the accuracy of so general a statement cannot be proved by any number of instances in its favor, since it is universally admitted that brain-work is not the only cause of disease, and no one affirms that it is more than one amongst many causes which may impede the bodily functions.

cerebral symptoms. This man has immense vigor and energy, but the digestive functions, in this instance, are sluggish. However, when he abandoned study, the cerebral inconveniences disappeared, and have never returned since.

Two Londoners who followed literature as a profession, and who both worked to excess, had cerebral attacks of a still more decided kind. One of them, after his recovery, resolved to regulate his work in future, so that it might never pass the limits of moderation. He is now living, and in possession of a remarkably clear and richly furnished intellect. The other, who returned to his old habits, died in two years from softening of the brain. I am not aware that in these cases there was any other disease than that produced by an immoderate use of the mental powers.

When the poet Wordsworth was engaged in The health of Sir Walter Scott-we have composing the "White Doe of Rylstone," he this on his own testimony-was uncommonly received a wound in his foot, and he observed robust, and there is every reason to believe that the continuation of the literary labor that his paralysis was brought on by the exincreased the irritation of the wound; where- cessive labor which resulted from his pecunas by suspending his work he could diminish|iary embarrassments, and that without such it, and absolute mental rest produced a perfect cure. In connection with this incident he remarked that poetic excitement, accompanied by protracted labor in composition, always brought on more or less of bodily derangement. He preserved himself from permanently injurious consequences by his excellent habits of life.

A very eminent living author, whose name I do not feel at liberty to mention, is always prostrated by severe illness at the conclusion of each of his works; another is unwell every Sunday, because he does not write on that day, and the recoil after the mental stretch of the week is too much for him.

In the case of Wordsworth, the physical constitution is believed to have been sound. His health at seventy-two was excellent; the two other instances are more doubtful in this respect, yet both these writers enjoy very fair health, after the pressure of brain-work has been removed for any considerable time. A clergyman of robust organization, who does a good deal of literary work at intervals, told me that, whenever he had attempted to make it regular, the consequence had always been distressing nervous sensations, from which at other times he was perfectly free. A tradesman, whose business affords an excellent outlet for energetic bodily activity, told me that having attempted, in addition to his ordinary work, to acquire a foreign language which seemed likely to be useful to him, he had been

excessive mental labor and anxiety he would have preserved his health much longer. The death of Byron was due, no doubt, quite as much to habits of dissipation as to poetical excitement; still it is probable that he would have borne either of these evil influences if it had not been accompanied by the other; and that to a man whose way of life was so exhausting as Byron's was, the addition of constant poetical excitement and hard work in production, may be said without exaggeration to have killed him. We know that Scott, with all his facility, had a dread of that kind of excitement, and withdrew from the poetical arena to avoid it. We know, too, that the brain of Southey proved ultimately unable to endure the burden of the tasks he laid upon it.

Difficult as it may be in some instances to ascertain quite accurately whether an overworked man had perfectly sound bodily health to begin with, obvious as it may be that in many breakdowns the final failure has been accelerated by diseases independent of mental work, the facts remain, that the excessive exercise of the mental powers is injurious to bodily health and that all intellectual labor proceeds upon a physical basis. No man can safely forget this, and act as if he were a pure spirit, superior to physical considerations. Let me then, in other letters on this subject, direct your attention to the close connection which exists between intellectual production

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