THE TERRORS OF INTELLECT.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 6, Issue 325, 20 November 1865, Page 1

THE TERRORS OF INTELLECT.

[From the Saturday Kevicw.] The painful position of a man who detests and dreads intellectual inquiry in an age of active speculation upon all possible subjects is scarcely recognised so sympathetically as it ought to be. It is all very well to talk about the increase of knowledge, and the development of sound methods, and the growth of searching critical principles ; but those perverse and conceited persons who are for ■ ever subjecting everything under the sun to rational tests are shamefully inconsiderate of the sufferings which this perpetual seeking after new knowledge inflicts upon a large and highly meritorious class. There is a downright inhumanity in such conduct. No man with a spark of kindness in his heart would think of frightening his little children out of their wits by means of sham ghosts and horrible storLs. It is now admitted to be a piece of scandalous cruelty to dress up the broomstick with a sheet, or to write with phosphorus on the wall of a darkroom. The most fatal results have constantly followed these mischievous .and senseless tricks. Surely it is quite as unfeeling and as mischievous, by corresponding devices, to alarm excellent country clergymen and their admirable wives, and honest country squiries, to say nothing of the whole army of timid licensed victuallers. Who can measure the wretchedness which these theological ghosts and terrifying illuminations carry into parsonages and manorhouses where fifty years ago all was confidence •and peace ?■ If it is a cruel thing to draw a phosphorous skeleton upon the wall of a child’s room, why is it any less cruel to write a book about the Pentateuch or the origin of species, and then publish it, to the infinite perturbation of honest divines whose parishioners do not happen to be Zulus? It is true that, if the child were only a Tittle older and know a little about the luminous properties of phosphorus, the skeleton would lose all its terrors. And in the same way, if these unfortunate beings in the country had their minds rather more fully developed, and could discern the real properties of thought and inquiry, they would be rapidly released from their hot and angry misery. As it is, the phosphorescent demon Intellect, with its flaming eyes and outstretched claws and complacent fiery grin, makes their very lives a burden to them. Tho monster is constantly assuming new and more hideous shapes. At one moment we are told that possibly Moses did not write the book of Genesis, and that some of the figures in Exodus and Leviticus are rather J mzzling. With what pleasure can one recite to a aithful congregation of farmers and squires and Linds the chapters about the construction of the tabernacle with its “fifty taches of brass,” and “ two tenons in one board,” and tho “knops of the four bowls of the candlestick,” when we know that a copy of Dr. Colenso’s book is locked up in drawer of the study-table at home ? What becomes of the grand solemnity of tbe genealogies which in happier days brought such comfort alike to the occupants of the rectory pew and of (he free sittings? What solace remains in “that blessed word Mesopotamia,” or in Jehoshapat, or Mahershalalhasbaz ? Then the demon quits theology, and changes the guise of a colonial bishop for that of a naturalist. We are asked to believe that men and women are the creatures of natural selection. Granting a modest doubt as to the exact number of people who have the faintest notion either what a species means or what the process of natural selection means, wherecan wefind

language strong enough to characterise so venomous a doctrine ? It is impossible to foretell the shock which would affect the moral constitution lf of the patient Hodge or bovine Giles if he were once infected with the suspicion that he is a distant connexion of the ox which he tends or the turnip which he digs up. What is the use of giving him ten shillings and a pair of breeches 'for virtue, if he knows all the time that he is only a very highly improved kind of lower animal? There really would be no answering for the consequences upon the morality and devoutness of our rural poor if they once got wind of the doctrine of natural selection. The very .safest churchwarden might have his faith in church-rates shaken to its lowest foundations by this revolutionary theory, and the boys in the Sunday-school might cease to pull their forelocks to a rector whose ancestors had had prehensile tails. It is really to bad. People were just beginning to feel pretty comfortable about geology. Religious belief and .the practice of virtue had survived the discoveries of strata and the explosion of Archbishop Usher’s chronology. Strata are no sooner got over than a new and worse tribulation is brought by tails. Men paid their church-rates and heard sermons just as willingly when they found the globe was uncounted millions of years old, as when they thought it had been made precisely 4,004 B.C. But of course it would be absurdly sanguine to hope that men and women will find religion as needful, as inspiring, and as comforting, if they once think that the differences of sneeies had their origin in a process of natural selection.

It is important to remember how much excuse there is for the terror with which timid people regard this deadly plague of Intellect. When a man gets considerably past middle age, and has lived all his life among a narrow circle of folk, and read only a handful of books all of the same stamp, he is not likely to relish any sort of speculation which travels outof the old grooves. New ideas are to him what a French treaty is to an old Coventry weaver. The treaty is of the greatest service to mankind generally, but to tho old weaver it means the disruption of inveterate habits, (be breaking up of his home, the dispersion of his family—in short, it means ruin and misery. And to the worthy parson who was presented with his living thirty or forty years ago, and who has passed all that time in the company of his family and a few dull neighbors, new ideas mean misery too. Ho has discharged his routine duties faithfully. He has pre,idled the best sermons he could either compose or copy. He has taken care to keep any interesting or improper book out of tbe book-club. Punctuality at funerals, kindliness to all his parishioners, reverence for the archdeacon, and a dignified sense of his own importance, make up the catalogue of ilia virtues. The whole atmosphere thickens the intellectual cuticle, and he ceases to be sensible of argument, if indeed he ever had any sensibility. It is impossible to blame a man of this sort for his dogged dislike of intellectual activity, any more than we can blame a little child for being afraid of ghosts. Belief in Radical and Atheistic and Scientific Spectres, which to men who live in daylight are not visible at all, with him is a condition of existence. It is natmal to his age and position. One is certainly bitterly annoyed to see the excellent man journey up to Oxford, and there do his best to prevent a professor from being paid for his professorial work, and it is a little vexations to think that he and his fellows are powerful enough to bring a reproach on the more educated part of the University who do not deserve the reproach. But we get over the vexation. They cannot help it. Everything that educated men value most these people set down tho spirit of the age, or intellect, or whatever else they call their bugbear, and they preach against it, and vote against it, and abhor it. accordingly. They see what intellect brings a man to. It destroys all his peace of mind and comfort about the quantity of taches and tenons and shittim wood in the tabernacle; it draws the charm and solace out of Mesopotamia ; it makes him believe in an ancestral tail. Can we wonder, then, that those who think all this should hate an agency which thus blights man’s present and so narrowly endangers his future, and that, whenever they catch a glimpse of anything like an intellect actively and honestly at work, they should set their faces sternly and dead against it? Nay, rather “let us respectfully sj mpathiso with these much-tried souls, and admire the energetic and simple fervor of tho man who exclaimed, “Well, 1 thank God 1 always hare voted against that d d intellect, and I always shall.” But the liberal aristocracy, as well as the Conservative clergy, seem to look upon intellect and education as thoroughly undesirable things. The exhibition of himself which Lord Uffington was good enough to-make for the benefit of the electors of Berkshire, though utterly different in its accidents, is in its essence much the same as the exhibition made by the rural Masters of Arts. Lord Uffington and ArcbdeaconDenison pratically agree in treating intellect as a mistake in political transactions. If t be former had only been a Master of Arts and a Tory, be would have been a much more suitable candidate than Mr Hardy. His display might have con vinced the sturdiest enemy of intellect that here at last was a man after his own heart. “ Gentlemen,” he began, “ I am in favor of the Government that have governed this country for the last six years and am of opinion—I am of opinion—should be upheld.” At this point tbe noble orator looked steadily into his hat, and a spectator ventured on a very apposite remark —“ You *ve got more in your ’at than you have in your ’ed, guv’nor.” After another word or two, the invitation! to bring the piece of paper

out of the hat were too loud to be resisted, and the candidate complied, with the explanatory words, “ It’s all very fine ; if you think it an easy thing, just you come up and try.” He then went on to say that, “ as to America, the Conservatives evidently wanted to fight with the Southern States”; and amid the roars which this remarkable statement produced some body took the occasion to ask his Lordship, “ Who’s your hatter?” to which the undaunted candidate replied with the inimitable repartee, ‘‘Who’s yours?” The noise having been quelled by such wit as this Lord Ufiington declared his intention of supportingtho present Parliament, and hoped they would do the same.” Then, after renewed convulsions, there was a considerable pause, during which some of his Iriends, obeying the voice of the crowd to “ help the poor young man,” had vainly tried to give him an idea or two. The “poor young man” frankly said, “ I don’t care—l don’t want to speak.” Somebody suggested, “ Give us a song then, guv’nor.” Once more refreshed by his backers, lie began about the French treaty —“ one of the best things out —ever so long, for the last, I should say, hundred years.” This sentence, we are told, “ was brought cut in such a hesitating manner, a word at a time, that it produced shouts of laughter.” The treaty, the candidate proceeded, “not only preserved peace with the two nations, but developed, developed—” At this point he turned round to his friends and inquired “ What is it?” amid loud and prolonged shouts. “Well, gentlemen,” he concluded, “ I’am not a speaker, but I intend to vote straight.” Mr Louverie had introduced this extraordinary person with the assurance that “he was thorough-bred, with no hair about his legs,” It is sincerely to be hoped that the thorough-bred will some day win a seat in the House. All minorities ought to be represented, it is said, and there is a huge minority of people who tremble at the mention of intellect, and hate a man who is always educating himself, ihis admirable body may congratulate itself on having, as it were by a special providence, bad so suitable a representative brought under its notice. No slight political difference about Liberalism or Conservatism need stand in the way. The sacred interests of ignorance and stupidity override mere polieal considerations.