MAN ON MAN.

The sayings of men of thought may be termed the work of their lives, and form an imperishable monument of their wisdom. It would be imagined that nothing then would be easier than to string them together like beads upon a string to produce a book of great value and beauty. Without some wisdom, however, on the part of the collector, or at all events, an intelligent sympathy, this cannot be done, though it has been often tried, with much effect. Indeed, some of the stupidest works that have ever been published have appeared under the title of 'Beauties,' 'Selections,' 'Sayings,' &c., and have injured as far as possible the memories of those great men whom it was their object to embalm. To 'form a collection' from natural history, it is requisite that a man should not only possess the articles in question, but know how to arrange them both in order and by contrast; and knowledge of this kind is almost as necessary to one who would collect the wisest thoughts of the wisest thinkers. In Human Nature,[1] by Mr Mitchell, we have a little volume, which if not perfect, is at least the best book of the kind which has come under our notice. It deals, as the title would imply, with only one subject, but that one of great extent, and of the most paramount importance to us—namely, Ourselves. It makes no pretence of stating any dogmatic truth, but simply gives the utterances of those who have devoted their lives to finding the truth. Often at variance and sometimes in direct opposition to one another, they are nevertheless almost all worthy of regard; and since they concern themselves with our own 'virtues, vices, manners, follies, sufferings, interests, and duties,' can scarcely fail to command our attention.

In the definitions of Mankind, in general, the variety strikes one at least as much as the ingenuity. 'Man is a microcosm;' 'the cooking animal;' 'the animal that makes exchanges;' 'the animal that makes tools, &c.' They all appear, notwithstanding their general acceptance, as more or less affected, strained, and incomprehensive. What, asks Pascal, 'is the utility of even Plato's definition of man: "An animal with two legs without feathers?" Does a man lose his humanity by losing his legs? or does a capon acquire it by being stripped of its feathers?' Thus does one philosopher fall foul of another. But when we pass from the definition to the moral description of the human race, the agreement is remarkable, and that among wholly different types of mind.

says Young. And commenting on the same inconsistency, Pope sings:

A modern poet, Swinburne, follows still on the same side, in prose: 'After all, man is man; he is not wicked, and he is not good; by no means white as snow; but by means black as a coal; black and white, piebald, striped, dubious.' These ideas, so curiously similar in three such different minds, may seem to set at nought the dreams of the perfectibility of our species; but at the same time there is nothing in them to corroborate the gloomy verdict of Buckle, that 'we cannot assume in the present state of our knowledge that there has been any permanent improvement in the moral or intellectual faculties of man.'

The above is one of the most depressing statements a philosopher has ever made; but it seems to us to be directly contradicted by an even still greater name. 'I have long felt,' says Mill, 'that the prevailing tendency to regard all the marked distinctions of human character as innate and in the main indelible, is one of the chief hindrances to the rational treatment of great social questions, and one of the great stumbling-blocks to human improvement.' On the other hand, a thinker of quite another sort, Francis Galton, exclaims: 'I have no patience with the hypothesis, occasionally expressed and often implied, especially in tales written to teach children to be good, that babies are born pretty much alike, and that the sole agencies in creating differences between boy and boy, and man and man, are steady application and moral effort.' Where philosophers thus differ, we do not pretend to say which is true; but there is no doubt as to which opinion would suggest industry and which sloth. Indeed, Mr Galton's views if carried to their full length would approach to fatalism, and might almost be placed beside the famous song of Messrs Moody and Sankey:

Oliver Wendell Holmes has described the various intellects of man (but without going into the hereditary question) with as much wit as truth: 'One-story intellects, two-story intellects, three-story intellects with skylights. All fact collectors who have no aim beyond their facts are one-story men. Two-story men compare, reason, generalise, using the labours of the fact collectors as well as their own. Three-story men idealise, imagine, predict; their best illumination comes from above through the skylight.... Poets are often narrow below, incapable of clear statement, and with small power of consecutive reasoning, but full of light, if sometimes rather bare of furniture, in the attics.'

The desire to lay field to field and house to house has been the ruin of some great minds; but it is generally an attribute of the small. A few have almost no other vice save that of acquisitiveness. A whole nation indeed is said to be characterised by it. 'The Dutch,' writes John Foster, 'seem very happy and comfortable, certainly; but it is the happiness of animals. In vain do you look among them for the sweet breath of hope and advancement.... There is gravity enough, but it is the gravity of a man who despises gaiety, without being able to rise by contemplation. The love of money always creates a certain coarseness in the moral texture, either of a nation or an individual.' This last remark has certainly an application on the other side of the Atlantic. It is true that Goethe says that 'English pride is invulnerable, because it is based on the majesty of money;' but he does not refer to the mean desire of gain. He has elsewhere indeed expressed himself with some favour on the national character: 'Is it then derivation, or their soil, or their free constitution, or national education—who can tell?—but it is a fact that the English appear to have the advantage of many other nations. There is in them nothing turned and twisted, and no half-measures and after-thoughts. Whatever they are, they are always complete men. Sometimes they are complete fools, I grant you; but even their folly is a folly of some substance