Thoughts on Man

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The principles here laid down have the strongest tendency to
prove to us how little progress has yet been made in the art of
turning human creatures to the best account. Every man has his
place, in which if he can be fixed, the most fastidious judge
cannot look upon him with disdain. But, to effect this
arrangement, an exact attention is required to ascertain the
pursuit in which he will best succeed. In India the whole mass
of the members of the community is divided into castes; and,
instead of a scrupulous attention being paid to the early
intimations of individual character, it is already decided upon
each, before he comes into the world, which child shall be a
priest, and which a soldier, a physician, a lawyer, a merchant,
and an artisan. In Europe we do not carry this so far, and are
not so elaborately wrong. But the rudiments of the same folly
flourish among us; and the accident of birth for the most part
decides the method of life to which each individual with whatever
violence shall be dedicated. A very few only, by means of
energies that no tyranny can subdue, escape from the operation of
this murderous decree.

Nature never made a dunce. Imbecility of mind is as rare, as
deformity of the animal frame. If this position be true, we have
only to bear it in mind, feelingly to convince ourselves, how
wholesale the error is into which society has hitherto fallen in
the destination of its members, and how much yet remains to be
done, before our common nature can be vindicated from the basest
of all libels, the most murderous of all proscriptions.

There is a passage in Voltaire, in which he expresses himself to
this effect: "It is after all but a slight line of separation
that divides the man of genius from the man of ordinary mould."
I remember the place where, and the time when, I read this
passage. But I have been unable to find the expression. It is
however but reasonable that I should refer to it on this
occasion, that I may hereby shew so eminent a modern concurring
with the venerable ancient in an early era of letters, whose
dictum I have prefixed to this Essay, to vouch to a certain
extent for the truth of the doctrine I have delivered.

ESSAY III.
OF INTELLECTUAL ABORTION.

In the preceding Essay I have endeavoured to establish the
proposition, that every human creature, idiots and extraordinary
cases excepted, is endowed with talents, which, if rightly
directed, would shew him to be apt, adroit, intelligent and
acute, in the walk for which his organisation especially fitted
him.

There is however a sort of phenomenon, by no means of rare
occurrence, which tends to place the human species under a less
favourable point of view. Many men, as has already appeared, are
forced into situations and pursuits ill assorted to their
talents, and by that means are exhibited to their contemporaries
in a light both despicable and ludicrous.

But this is not all. Men are not only placed, by the absurd
choice of their parents, or an imperious concurrence of
circumstances, in destinations and employments in which they can
never appear to advantage: they frequently, without any external
compulsion, select for themselves objects of their industry,
glaringly unadapted to their powers, and in which all their
efforts must necessarily terminate in miscarriage.

I remember a young man, who had been bred a hair-dresser, but who
experienced, as he believed, the secret visitations of the Muse,
and became inspired. "With sad civility, and aching head," I
perused no fewer than six comedies from the pen of this aspiring
genius, in no page of which I could discern any glimmering of
poetry or wit, or in reality could form a guess what it was that
the writer intended in his elaborate effusions. Such are the
persons enumerated by Pope in the Prologue to his Satires,

a parson, much bemused in beer,
A maudlin poetess, a rhyming peer,
A clerk, foredoomed his father's sou to cross,
Who pens a stanza, when he should engross.

Every manager of a theatre, and every publishing bookseller of
eminence, can produce you in each revolving season whole reams,
almost cartloads, of blurred paper, testifying the frequent
recurrence of this phenomenon.

The cause however of this painful mistake does not lie in the
circumstance, that each man has not from the hand of nature an
appropriate destination, a sphere assigned him, in which, if life
should be prolonged to him, he might be secure of the respect of
his neighbours, and might write upon his tomb, "I have filled an
honourable career; I have finished my course."

One of the most glaring infirmities of our nature is discontent.
One of the most unquestionable characteristics of the human mind
is the love of novelty. Omne ignotum pro magnifico est. We are
satiated with those objects which make a part of our business in
every day, and are desirous of trying something that is a
stranger to us. Whatever we see through a mist, or in the
twilight, is apt to be apprehended by us as something admirable,
for the single reason that it is seen imperfectly. What we are
sure that we can easily and adequately effect, we despise. He
that goes into battle with an adversary of more powerful muscle
or of greater practice than himself, feels a tingling sensation,
not unallied to delight, very different from that which would
occur to him, when his victory was easy and secure.

Each man is conscious what it is that he can certainly effect.
This does not therefore present itself to him as an object of
ambition. We have many of us internally something of the spirit
expressed by the apostle: "Forgetting the things that are
behind, we press forward to those that remain." And, so long as
this precept is soberly applied, no conduct can be more worthy of
praise. Improvement is the appropriate race of man. We cannot
stand still. If we do not go forward, we shall inevitably
recede. Shakespear, when he wrote his Hamlet, did not know that
he could produce Macbeth and Othello.

But the progress of a man of reflection will be, to a
considerable degree, in the path he has already entered. If he
strikes into a new career, it will not be without deep
premeditation. He will attempt nothing wantonly. He will
carefully examine his powers, and see for what they are adapted.
Sudet multum. He will be like the man, who first in a frail bark
committed himself to the treachery of the waves. He will keep
near to the shore; he will tremble for the audaciousness of his
enterprise; he will feel that it calls for all his alertness and
vigilance. The man of reflection will not begin, till he feels
his mind swelling with his purposed theme, till his blood flows
fitfully and with full pulses through his veins, till his eyes
sparkle with the intenseness of his conceptions, and his "bosom
labours with the God."

But the fool dashes in at once. He does not calculate the
dangers of his enterprise. He does not study the map of the
country he has to traverse. He does not measure the bias of the
ground, the rising knolls and the descending slopes that are
before him. He obeys a blind and unreflecting impulse.

His case bears a striking resemblance to what is related of
Oliver Goldsmith. Goldsmith was a man of the most felicitous
endowments. His prose flows with such ease, copiousness and
grace, that it resembles the song of the sirens. His verses are
among the most spirited, natural and unaffected in the English
language. Yet he was not contented. If he saw a consummate
dancer, he knew no reason why he should not do as well, and
immediately felt disposed to essay his powers. If he heard an
accomplished musician, he undertook to enter the lists with him.
His conduct was of a piece with that of the countryman, who,
cheapening spectacles, and making experiment of them for ever in
vain upon the book before him, was at length asked, "Could you
ever read without spectacles?" to which he was obliged to answer,
"I do not know; I never tried." The vanity of Goldsmith was
infinite; and his failure in such attempts must necessarily have
been ludicrous.

The splendour of the thing presented to our observation, awakens
the spirit within us. The applause and admiration excited by
certain achievements and accomplishments infects us with desire.
We are like the youthful Themistocles, who complained that the
trophies of Miltiades would not let him sleep. We are like the
novice Guido, who, while looking on the paintings of Michael
Angelo, exclaimed, "I also am a painter." Themistocles and Guido
were right, for they were of kindred spirit to the great men they
admired. But the applause bestowed on others will often generate
uneasiness and a sigh, in men least of all qualified by nature to
acquire similar applause. We are not contented to proceed in the
path of obscure usefulness and worth. We are eager to be
admired, and thus often engage in pursuits for which perhaps we
are of all men least adapted Each one would be the man above him.

And this is the cause why we see so many individuals, who might
have passed their lives with honour, devote themselves to
incredible efforts, only that they may be made supremely
ridiculous.

To this let it be added, that the wisest man that ever existed,
never yet knew himself, especially in the morning of life. The
person, who ultimately stamped his history with the most heroic
achievements, was far perhaps even from suspecting, in the dawn
of his existence, that he should realise the miracles that mark
its maturity. He might be ready to exclaim, with Hazael in the
Scriptures, "Is thy servant more than man, that he should do this
great thing?" The sublimest poet that ever sung, was
peradventure, while a stripling, unconscious of the treasures
which formed a part of the fabric of his mind, and unsuspicious
of the high destiny that in the sequel awaited him. What wonder
then, that, awaking from the insensibility and torpor which
precede the activity of the soul, some men should believe in a
fortune that shall never be theirs, and anticipate a glory they
are fated never to sustain! And for the same reason, when
unanticipated failure becomes their lot, they are unwilling at
first to be discouraged, and find a certain gallantry in
persevering, and "against hope believing in hope."

This is the explanation of a countless multitude of failures that
occur in the career of literature. Nor is this phenomenon
confined to literature. In all the various paths of human
existence, that appear to have something in them splendid and
alluring, there are perpetual instances of daring adventures,
unattended with the smallest rational hope of success. Optat
ephippia bos piger.

All quit their sphere, and rush into the skies.

But, beside these instances of perfect and glaring miscarriage,
there are examples worthy of a deeper regret, where the juvenile
candidate sets out in the morning of life with the highest
promise, with colours flying, and the spirit-stirring note of
gallant preparation, when yet his voyage of life is destined to
terminate in total discomfiture. I have seen such an one, whose
early instructors regarded him with the most sanguine
expectation, and his elders admired him, while his youthful
competitors unreluctantly confessed his superiority, and gave way
on either side to his triumphant career; and all this has
terminated in nothing.

In reality the splendid march of genius is beset with a thousand
difficulties. "The race is not always to the swift, nor the
battle to the strong." A multitude of unthought-of
qualifications are required; and it depends at least as much upon
the nicely maintained balance of these, as upon the copiousness
and brilliancy of each, whether the result shall be auspicious.
The progress of genius is like the flight of an arrow; a breath
may turn it out of its course, and cause that course to terminate
many a degree wide of its purposed mark. It is therefore
scarcely possible that any sharpness of foresight can pronounce
of the noblest beginnings whether they shall reach to an adequate
conclusion.

I have seen such a man, with the most fervent imagination, with
the most diligent study, with the happiest powers of memory, and
with an understanding that apparently took in every thing, and
arranged every thing, at the same time that by its acuteness it
seemed able to add to the accumulated stores of foregone wisdom
and learning new treasures of its own; and yet this man shall
pass through the successive stages of human life, in appearance
for ever active, for ever at work, and leave nothing behind that
shall embalm his name to posterity, certainly nothing in any
degree adequately representing those excellencies, which a chosen
few, admitted to his retired and his serenest hours, knew to
reside in him.

There are conceptions of the mind, that come forth like the
coruscations of lightning. If you could fix that flash, it would
seem as if it would give new brightness to the sons of men, and
almost extinguish the luminary of day. But, ere you can say it
is here, it is gone. It appears to reveal to us the secrets of
the world unknown; but the clouds congregate again, and shut in
upon us, before we had time to apprehend its full radiance and
splendour.

To give solidity and permanence to the inspirations of genius two
things are especially necessary. First, that the idea to be
communicated should be powerfully apprehended by the speaker or
writer; and next, that he should employ words and phrases which
might convey it in all its truth to the mind of another. The man
who entertains such conceptions, will not unfrequently want the
steadiness of nerve which is required for their adequate
transmission. Suitable words will not always wait upon his
thoughts. Language is in reality a vast labyrinth, a scene like
the Hercinian Forest of old, which, we are told, could not be
traversed in less than sixty days. If we do not possess the
clue, we shall infallibly perish in the attempt, and our thoughts
and our memory will expire with us.

The sentences of this man, when he speaks, or when he writes,
will be full of perplexity and confusion. They will be endless,
and never arrive at their proper termination. They will include
parenthesis on parenthesis. We perceive the person who delivers
them, to be perpetually labouring after a meaning, but never
reaching it. He is like one flung over into the sea, unprovided
with the skill that should enable him to contend with the
tumultuous element. He flounders about in pitiable helplessness,
without the chance of extricating himself by all his efforts. He
is lost in unintelligible embarrassment. It is a delightful and
a ravishing sight, to observe another man come after him, and
tell, without complexity, and in the simplicity of
self-possession, unconscious that there was any difficulty, all
that his predecessor had fruitlessly exerted himself to unfold.

There are a multitude of causes that will produce a miscarriage
of this sort, where the richest soil, impregnated with the
choicest seeds of learning and observation, shall entirely fail
to present us with such a crop as might rationally have been
anticipated. Many such men waste their lives in indolence and
irresolution. They attempt many things, sketch out plans, which,
if properly filled up, might illustrate the literature of a
nation, and extend the empire of the human mind, but which yet
they desert as soon as begun, affording us the promise of a
beautiful day, that, ere it is noon, is enveloped in darkest
tempests and the clouds of midnight. They skim away from one
flower in the parterre of literature to another, like the bee,
without, like the bee, gathering sweetness from each, to increase
the public stock, and enrich the magazine of thought. The cause
of this phenomenon is an unsteadiness, ever seduced by the
newness of appearances, and never settling with firmness and
determination upon what had been chosen.

Others there are that are turned aside from the career they might
have accomplished, by a visionary and impracticable
fastidiousness. They can find nothing that possesses all the
requisites that should fix their choice, nothing so good that
should authorise them to present it to public observation, and
enable them to offer it to their contemporaries as something that
we should "not willingly let die." They begin often; but nothing
they produce appears to them such as that they should say of it,
"Let this stand." Or they never begin, none of their thoughts
being judged by them to be altogether such as to merit the being
preserved. They have a microscopic eye, and discern faults
unworthy to be tolerated, in that in which the critic himself
might perceive nothing but beauty.

These phenomena have introduced a maxim which is current with
many, that the men who write nothing, and bequeath no record of
themselves to posterity, are not unfrequently of larger calibre,
and more gigantic standard of soul, than such as have inscribed
their names upon the columns of the temple of Fame. And certain
it is, that there are extraordinary instances which appear in
some degree to countenance this assertion. Many men are
remembered as authors, who seem to have owed the permanence of
their reputation rather to fortune than merit. They were daring,
and stepped into a niche that was left in the gallery of art or
of science, where others of higher qualifications, but of
unconquerable modesty, held back. At the same time persons,
whose destiny caused them to live among the elite of an age, have
seen reason to confess that they have heard such talk, such
glorious and unpremeditated discourse, from men whose thoughts
melted away with the breath that uttered them, as the wisest of
their vaunted contemporary authors would in vain have sought to
rival.

The maxim however, notwithstanding these appearances, may safely
be pronounced to be a fallacious one. It has been received in
various quarters with the greater indulgence, inasmuch as the
human mind is prone in many cases to give a more welcome
reception to seeming truths, that present us at the first blush
the appearance of falshood.

It must however be recollected that the human mind consists in
the first instance merely of faculties prepared to be applied to
certain purposes, and susceptible of improvement. It cannot
therefore happen, that the man, who has chosen a subject towards
which to direct the energy of his faculties, who has sought on
all sides for the materials that should enable him to do that
subject justice, who has employed upon it his contemplations by
day, and his meditations during the watches of the night, should
not by such exercise greatly invigorate his powers. In this
sense there was much truth in the observation of the author who
said, "I did not write upon the subject you mention because I
understood it; but I understood it afterward, because I had
written upon it."

The man who merely wanders through the fields of knowledge in
search of its gayest flowers and of whatever will afford him the
most enviable amusement, will necessarily return home at night
with a very slender collection. He that shall apply himself with
self-denial and an unshrinking resolution to the improvement of
his mind, will unquestionably be found more fortunate in the end.

He is not deterred by the gulphs that yawn beneath his feet, or
the mountains that may oppose themselves to his progress. He
knows that the adventurer of timid mind, and that is infirm of
purpose, will never make himself master of those points which it
would be most honourable to him to subdue. But he who undertakes
to commit to writing the result of his researches, and to
communicate his discoveries to mankind, is the genuine hero.
Till he enters on this task, every thing is laid up in his memory
in a certain confusion. He thinks he possesses a thing whole;
but, when he brings it to the test, he is surprised to find how
much he was deceived. He that would digest his thoughts and his
principles into a regular system, is compelled in the first place
to regard them in all their clearness and perspicuity, and in the
next place to select the fittest words by which they may be
communicated to others. It is through the instrumentality of
words that we are taught to think accurately and severely for
ourselves; they are part and parcel of all our propositions and
theories. It is therefore in this way that a preceptor, by
undertaking to enlighten the mind of his pupil, enlightens his
own. He becomes twice the man in the sequel, that he was when he
entered on his task. We admire the amateur student in his public
essays, as we admire a jackdaw or a parrot: he does considerably
more than could have been expected from him.

In attending to the subject of this Essay we have been led to
observe the different ways, in which the mind of man may be
brought into a position tending to exhibit its powers in a less
creditable and prepossessing point of view, than that in which
all men, idiots and extraordinary cases excepted, are by nature
qualified to appear. Many, not contented with those occupations,
modest and humble in certain cases, to which their endowments and
original bent had designed them, shew themselves immoderately set
upon more alluring and splendid pursuits in which they are least
qualified to excel. Other instances there are, still more
entitled to our regret, where the individual is seen to be gifted
with no ordinary qualities, where his morning of life has proved
auspicious, and the highest expectations were formed of a
triumphant career, while yet in the final experiment he has been
found wanting, and the "voyage of his life" has passed "in
shallows and in miseries."

But our survey of the subject of which I treat will not be
complete, unless we add to what has been said, another striking
truth respecting the imperfection of man collectively taken. The
examples of which the history of our species consists, not only
abound in cases, where, from mistakes in the choice of life, or
radical and irremediable imperfection in the adventurer, the most
glaring miscarriages are found to result,--but it is also true,
that all men, even the most illustrious, have some fatal
weakness, obliging both them and their rational admirers to
confess, that they partake of human frailty, and belong to a race
of beings which has small occasion to be proud. Each man has his
assailable part. He is vulnerable, though it be only like the
fabled Achilles in his heel. We are like the image that
Nebuchadnezzar saw in his dream, of which though the head was of
fine gold, and the breast and the arms were silver, yet the feet
were partly only of iron, and partly of clay. No man is whole
and entire, armed at all points, and qualified for every
undertaking, or even for any one undertaking, so as to carry it
through, and to make the achievement he would perform, or the
work he would produce, in all its parts equal and complete.

It is a gross misapprehension in such men as, smitten with
admiration of a certain cluster of excellencies, or series of
heroic acts, are willing to predicate of the individual to whom
they belong, "This man is consummate, and without alloy." Take
the person in his retirement, in his hours of relaxation, when he
has no longer a part to play, and one or more spectators before
whom he is desirous to appear to advantage, and you shall find
him a very ordinary man. He has "passions, dimensions, senses,
affections, like the rest of his fellow-creatures, is fed with
the same food, hurt with the same weapons, warmed and cooled by
the same summer and winter." He will therefore, when narrowly
observed, be unquestionably found betraying human weaknesses, and
falling into fits of ill humour, spleen, peevishness and folly.
No man is always a sage; no bosom at all times beats with
sentiments lofty, self-denying and heroic. It is enough if he
does so, "when the matter fits his mighty mind."

The literary genius, who undertakes to produce some consummate
work, will find himself pitiably in error, if he expects to turn
it out of his hands, entire in all its parts, and without a flaw.

There are some of the essentials of which it is constituted, that
he has mastered, and is sufficiently familiar with them; but
there are others, especially if his work is miscellaneous and
comprehensive, to which he is glaringly incompetent. He must
deny his nature, and become another man, if he would execute
these parts, in a manner equal to that which their intrinsic
value demands, or to the perfection he is able to give to his
work in those places which are best suited to his powers. There
are points in which the wisest man that ever existed is no
stronger than a child. In this sense the sublimest genius will
be found infelix operas summa, nam ponere totum nescit. And, if
he properly knows himself, and is aware where lies his strength,
and where his weakness, he will look for nothing more in the
particulars which fall under the last of these heads, than to
escape as he can, and to pass speedily to things in which he
finds himself at home and at his ease.

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