Short Studies on Great Subjects | Page 4

Here already was a large area of human
activity in which natural laws were found to act unerringly. Men had
gone on for centuries trying to regulate trade on moral principles. They
would fix wages according to some imaginary rule of fairness; they
would fix prices by what they considered things ought to cost; they
encouraged one trade or discouraged another, for moral reasons. They
might as well have tried to work a steam-engine on moral reasons. The
great statesmen whose names were connected with these enterprises
might have as well legislated that water should run up-hill. There were
natural laws, fixed in the conditions of things: and to contend against
them was the old battle of the Titans against the gods.
As it was with political economy, so it was with all other forms of
human activity; and as the true laws of political economy explained the
troubles which people fell into in old times, because they were ignorant
of them, so the true laws of human nature, as soon as we knew them,
would explain their mistakes in more serious matters, and enable us to
manage better for the future. Geographical position, climate, air, soil,
and the like, had their several influences. The northern nations are
hardy and industrious, because they must till the earth if they would eat
the fruits of it, and because the temperature is too low to make an idle
life enjoyable. In the south, the soil is more productive, while less food
is wanted and fewer clothes; and in the exquisite air, exertion is not
needed to make the sense of existence delightful. Therefore, in the
south we find men lazy and indolent.
True, there are difficulties in these views; the home of the languid
Italian was the home also of the sternest race of whom the story of

mankind retains a record. And again, when we are told that the
Spaniards are superstitious, because Spain is a country of earthquakes,
we remember Japan, the spot in all the world where earthquakes are
most frequent, and where at the same time there is the most serene
disbelief in any supernatural agency whatsoever.
Moreover, if men grow into what they are by natural laws, they cannot
help being what they are; and if they cannot help being what they are, a
good deal will have to be altered in our general view of human
obligations and responsibilities.
That, however, in these theories there is a great deal of truth is quite
certain; were there but a hope that those who maintain them would be
contented with that admission. A man born in a Mahometan country
grows up a Mahometan; in a Catholic country, a Catholic; in a
Protestant country, a Protestant. His opinions are like his language; he
learns to think as he learns to speak; and it is absurd to suppose him
responsible for being what nature makes him. We take pains to educate
children. There is a good education and a bad education; there are rules
well ascertained by which characters are influenced, and, clearly
enough, it is no mere matter for a boy's free will whether he turns out
well or ill. We try to train him into good habits; we keep him out of the
way of temptations; we see that he is well taught; we mix kindness and
strictness; we surround him with every good influence we can
command. These are what are termed the advantages of a good
education: and if we fail to provide those under our care with it, and if
they go wrong, the responsibility we feel is as much ours as theirs. This
is at once an admission of the power over us of outward circumstances.
In the same way, we allow for the strength of temptations, and the like.
In general, it is perfectly obvious that men do necessarily absorb, out of
the influences in which they grow up, something which gives a
complexion to their whole after-character.
When historians have to relate great social or speculative changes, the
overthrow of a monarchy or the establishment of a creed, they do but
half their duty if they merely relate the events. In an account, for

instance, of the rise of Mahometanism, it is not enough to describe the
character of the Prophet, the ends which he set before him, the means
which he made use of, and the effect which he produced; the historian
must show what there was in the condition of the Eastern races which
enabled Mahomet to act upon them so powerfully; their existing beliefs,
their existing moral and political condition.
In our estimate of the past, and in our calculations of the future--in the
judgments which we pass upon one another, we measure responsibility,
not by the thing done, but by