THINGS WISHED TO BE TRUE.

by Robert Chambers
(1802-1871)

IN the mental progress both of individuals and of nations, the feelings are in activity before the reasoning powers. This is one of the great causes of superstition, prejudice, and fallacy of every kind. Even in a comparatively mature state of individual or national intellect, reason has a sore battle to fight with the dictates of the feelings, and for one thing ascertained to be true, we probably sanction a score which we only wish to be so. In cases where the assumption rests upon a feeling in itself good and beautiful, the error is sure to be the more inveterate; for as we advance, we cherish such feelings the more warmly, and are thus apt to cling the more eagerly to every thing which they dictate to us.

      The system of trial by ordeal, by combat, and by touching the body of the murdered, which prevailed in the middle ages, is a lively example of an error arising from good feelings, and which was on that account the more difficult to be got quit of. The Deity was expected to guide the steps of the innocent among the burning ploughshares, and to buoy him up when thrown bound into the flood. He was expected to give the victory to the protector of innocence and the pursuer of guilt. It was supposed that he would interfere to cause the corpse to bleed at the moment when the guilty hand was placed upon it. In these convictions we see a strong trust in Providence — a beautiful and laudable feeling, but here in a false and mistaken form. The touching of the sick was a similar error, with the addition of a second and scarcely subordinate faith in the king as an immediate deputy of God. We cannot but admire these devout and amiable feelings; but it is nevertheless unquestionable that they led to bad results. Many an innocent man must have perished through the accident of touching the ploughshares, or of not being able to sustain himself in the water, or because his adversary was of more powerful make, or through the chance of his touching the corpse at the moment when the tumid vessels happened, under the influence of natural causes, to burst ❘ in the stomach. By trusting, moreover, in the efficacy of the royal hand, many must have been prevented from taking the right natural means for restoring their afflicted relatives. By the methods now pursued in the respective cases, innocence is evidently safer, and scrofula runs a better chance of being cured. It may be said, "Well, an advantage is thus gained; but still is it not a pity that feelings so laudable should be suppressed or left unemployed?" They are not, however, necessarily suppressed in consequence of their ceasing to dictate trial by ordeal or touching for the king's evil. The faculties which produced those feelings are still in the human mind, ready to be employed on any objects which may be presented to them. Only let them be exercised on right objects and to right ends, under the direction of reason; and we shall then have good instead of evil results. It is a fallacy to suppose, that, when some distate of our feelings is confuted, the feeling, with any merit there may be in it, is lost. We might as well say that discommending a diet of pastry was suppressing agriculture, when it is obvious that the wheat may be employed in a salutary instead of an injurious way.

      Society still gives currency and partial sanction to many notions which certainly take their rise in good feelings, but nevertheless are clearly wrong in fact and in reason, and must therefore, by a principle inseparable from every kind of error, be upon the whole, though perhaps not very immediately, injurious. We shall first adduce an example of a comparatively innocuous nature. Cruelty is generally detested, and bravery is as universally admired. Admiring the brave, we do not wish that they should be cruel. Then, remembering that, under alarm or terror, there is a tendency to do cruel things, which a brave man, from his calmness, might avoid, we rush to the agreeable conclusion that the brave are never cruel. Yet it is an unquestionable fact, that many brave men have been extremely cruel. William Duke of Cumberland was, like all his family, almost insensible to fear; yet the cruelties with which he visited the Highlanders in 1746, were such as most deservedly to obtain for him the ignominious name of "the Butcher." Nelson's bravery will not, we think, be questioned; yet he exercised the most atrocious cruelties upon the Neapolitan patriots, not to speak of the infamous breach of faith by which these cruelties were preceded. The Duke of Alva, who shed the blood of the Netherlanders like water, was never called a timid man. Graham of Claverhouse, who shot simple and innocent peasants without compunction, was a hero on the battle-field. Marius and Sylla, Richard III. and Wallenstein, were all of them brave men. But, in fact, it is absurd to reckon up instances of brave men who have been cruel: the question would be more easily exhausted by pointing to those who have not been so. History is full of bold fellows who have been quite unscrupulous about human suffering. The brave who have also been habitually merciful are but a few. This, at the same time, is not because there is any necessary connection between bravery and cruelty. There may quite well be the one quality where the other is wanting. But as bravery is independent of cruelty, so is it independent of clemency. We may admit that, in many cases, a brave man, not fearing an enemy, may be merciful to him, where a coward, from very fear, would be unrelenting. But, on the other hand, the brave are apt to be led by their courage into the rougher scenes of life, where human life and suffering are little regarded; and thus more cruel acts are likely to fall in their hands than in those of timid men, who generally seek the gentler and more peaceful scenes, where the quality, if they have it, is less liable to be called into action. Upon the whole, then, though bravery and cruelty are not necessarily connected in human character, there is little reason to believe that they are never, or rarely, found together.

      There is a set of maxims, which men of liberal and philanthropic views are likely to entertain, as encouraging to their hopes and wishes, but which a little cool reflection shows to be greatly open to challenge. One of these is expressed in Byron's verses —

Freedom's battle, once begun, Bequeathed from bleeding sire to son, Though baffled oft, is ever won.

It certainly is in many cases won, after a long series of reverses and difficulties. But is it not also often permanently lost? Has not the nascent spark of freedom, after a little fitful flickering, been extinguished in many countries, where, after the lapse of centuries, we have not seen it re-illumined? As the proposition is one which only can be proved by the invariableness of the assumed fast, we must hold it as only an agreeable fancy, which is occasionally realised. It may be very encouraging under certain circumstances, but, as not being strictly true, it may also mislead. Better, then, that mankind should be at once made sensible of how the case really stands. Another maxim, nearly related to the above, is, that it is impossible to keep down the expression of public opinion. Mr D'Israeli has treated this subject at some length in his Curiosities of Literature, and shown many curious clandestine expedients that have been adopted for diffusing and communicating thought, when open methods were impossible. But, while we do not deny that the ingenuity of a depressed party is capable of defeating severely repressive measures in many surprising ways, we cannot be insensible to a fact which so broadly appears on the face of history, as well as on the surface of continental society at the present moment, as that the measures taken by government for repressing opinion, and preventing its communication, are in many instances sufficiently successful to secure the desired end. It would be pleasant to think that tyranny must ever be baffled in such attempts; but it may be still more advantageous to acknowledge the truth of the case, for then men may make more strenuous exertions to resist the first encroachments of a power which is sure to be irresistible, if allowed to grow to full strength. A third maxim of the same nature is, that persecution never succeeds, but only has the effect of adding strength and force to the thing persecuted. This is a notion very likely to obtain currency at a time when persecution is rarely exemplified except in a very mild form. It would not have been so apt to gain credence a few centuries ago. Then persecution often was successful. And this simply because it was then carried out with the required degree of vigour. When it could condemn to the flames, or deprive of land and goods, or imprison and banish, it always succeeded in pretty well extinguishing the obnoxious doctrines. It is only at a time when it appears willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike, when it only frets and irritates, without destroying, that it seems to be attended with an effect the contrary of that contemplated. Such is the fact with regard to the grosser and better defined modes of persecution. There are more refined methods, appropriate to the refined character of the age, which are yet in full play, and attended with the most complete success. Persecution not effectual! it might be as proper to say that steel and poison do not kill. The real truth is, that there is a tendency in things under a certain amount of persecution to rise up into greater vigour, as fire burns brighter under a slight sprinkling of water; but, under a sufficient amount of persecution, their repression is as unavoidable as the extinction of the same fire by a sufficient quantity of water. To look this fact broadly in the face may also have better effects than to remain under the delusion. An inclination to adopt severe measures with dissentients may be checked, when it is considered that such measures will only be successful if carried to a pitch which humanity will not sanction. On the other hand, dissentients, if convinced that a certain amount of persecution is sure to be effectual, may be prompted by that conviction to guard the more anxiously against the first efforts of a power seeking to keep them down. It is also something to show, where opinions or systems really have been repressed, that it may have been from the severity of the measures taken with them, and not from want of good foundation on their part, which might otherwise be presumed — for, clearly, if any one denies the power of persecution to extinguish a speculative system supported by him, and if that system, being persecuted, languishes and decays, he must be liable to hear its decay attributed to its own demerit.

      To turn to more vulgar maxims. That "murder will out," is a general conviction among the common people; and at first sight it seems a very respectable kind of conviction. It certainly is not true, for many murders have remained concealed. It seems to be only a hasty inference from a number of surprising cases in which that crime, long concealed, had been unexpectedly discovered. It may be said that the conviction, though erroneous, is likely to be useful, and it is therefore a pity to undeceive the multitude on the point. We would answer, there is no certain dependence to be placed on what is not true. Let us rather promulgate the fact, as it stands, that, from natural circumstances, there is a very great likelihood that murder, when it takes place, will be discovered. In this alone, there is much to deter men even in their present state from the act. But the true way to prevent men from committing this act is to improve their moral natures, so that they shall become incapable of it. That "ill-gotten wealth never thrives," is another of the prepossessions of the multitude. Apparently, such a conviction ought to serve as a check to all erroneous modes of acquiring wealth. Perhaps it does so to a small extent; but the good end would be infinitely better served, if men were enlightened so as to see not only the falsity of this maxim, but that moral means of acquiring wealth were, generally speaking, the surest, and also those which would afford most satisfaction in the long-run. Besides, supposing that a man has no other idea of the arrangements of the Deity on this point, but that he will not allow a cheat to thrive, what is he to think when he observes the not infrequent phenomenon of successful rapine? His ideas of providence must be completely confounded, and his mind left to wander into every sort of error. If, on the contrary, he knows that the Deity governs by general laws, and that these laws have each its independent sphere of action, he will rest content on seeing the occasional prosperity of the wicked, being certain that, upon the whole, the result of wickedness will probably, from the operation of the same laws, be otherwise, and that still, as a general truth, honesty is the best policy.

      Many other examples of false convictions from our best feelings might be adduced, but the above will perhaps be sufficient with most readers to suggest the rest. We have been anxious to show the advantage of confessing error and seeing the truth in these cases, though perhaps with less success than might be desirable. If, however, there be any deficiency on this point, we would have the reader to call into exercise his general faith in truth. If he believes that there is such a thing in nature, and that it generally tends to better results than error, he may well be assured that no false maxim, however it may harmonise with the first impulses of good feelings, can ever be so conducive to human happiness as the opposite truth.