SPEAKING OF THE DEAD. (Saturday Review.)

Waikato Times, Volume III, Issue 160, 17 May 1873, Page 2

SPEAKING OF THE DEAD. (Saturday Review.)

An old controversy springs up afresh at the death of every remarkable man upon whose merits there has been any considerable divergence of opinion Each side has a commonplace to allege in defence of its own view. We should not speak evil of the dead, urges one party ; and the other replies that we should speak the truth of every one, dead or alive. Undoubtedly this last doctrine has an •pparent advantage in point ot sincerity and honesty. Flattery of th<3 dead is merely satire in disguise, for every good word implies that the dead men must have had some exceedingly bad qualities winch prevented even his better qualities from being recognised during his lifetime. The rule, therefore, should be, according, to some persons, that death ought to mate uo- difference. Wlum a murderer t fa hanged, he is not converted into a saant. Deatli.places - a man beyond the reach of our hostility; but whatever lessons should be drawn from his career are precisely the same before and after it has readied its conclusion. Tie only difference, theiefore, should be that we need no longer stimulate hostility. The judgment may be delivered without the pas&ion which was pardonable during the heat of conflict ; but the judgment itself should not be altered. We can afford it, should it be said; to regard your wickedness without active indignation now that ifc can lead to no fresh crimes ; but what was wicked remains wicked to the end of time. So far, indeed, there cannot bo much dispute ; but such reflections are not decisive of the controversy. There is, mi fact, an> obvious alternative The maxim of bpeaking no evil| of the dead may be interpreted to mean that we should, hold" our tongues if we have nothing good to say. Or, if absolute silence be impossible, we may, without concealing our unfavourable opinions, prefer rather to tin ell upon, that side of a raim's character which has been least objectionable. Why, in lact, should' we think it incumbent upon us to sum up the good and bad qualities of our neighbours oa scon as they have left us ? We are altogether too anxious to effect an accurate classification' of men's characters, and to. place them distinctly amongst the sheep or the goats. Innumerable historical controversies are carried on as to the inscrutable question whether somebody long dead should have a black, or white mark placed against his name. Why place either ? We learn by experience the- infinite complexity of human, impulses, and the impossibility of fairly unravelling all the complicated skein of motive that goes to determine our owm actions, to say nothing of the actions of other people. Who are we that we should profess to penetrate the bosoms of our neighbours, and by t>ome spiritual calculus to sum up precisely the value of the good and tlie bad ingredients ? By suilieienfc care we can arrive at some kind of knowledge of what people actually did ; in a rough way we may infer something as to the qualities by which such actions were prompted. Yet it is not ea.sy to say how much allowance should be made for a variety of perplexing circumstances, for temptations which we have not yet experienced, and for motives which nt best we can very imperfectly analyse. Still less is it easy to say how many good qualities may reinam unextinguishod bide by side with great vices, and unable to restrain their possessors from grievous crimes. Here and there is a man who is nearly all bad, and another who is nearly all good. But in the infinite majority of cases the problem is so omnlex as to evarle our feeble power of analysis. As a rule it is better to decline an impracticable task. Even amongst our own friends whom we see daily, and whose conduct may be tested in an infinite variety of ways, we are generally ben ildered if we attempt to plnce them irrevocably iv some mental pigeon-hole ; and we are constantly miikmg new discoveries winch show how little wo could have predicted their action under some fresh combination of circumstances. Why then endeavour to nronounce confidently about peoplo at a far greater distance from us, of whose character we can judge only by remote inferences from uncertain evidence 9 When any great political change is useful to the mass of mankind, it is generally the plain interest of some distinguished leader to ]dace himself at the hevd of the resulting mo\ement, and it generally follows that we are quite unable J. to say whether selfish ambition or a wider patriotism deter- ' mined his actions. The inference would seom to be that we should be much more cautious than we generally arc in expressing an opinion about men's characters, whether dead or alive. We can very salely leave the question in other hands, and rather confine ourselves to the results of a man's actions than attempt theinvestigation of the hidden sources from which they flowed. In short it in a sufficient reason for not speaking evil of the dead that w e are for the most part in great ignorance whether or not he deserved it. The rule, it is true, applies equally during a man's life ; but it is chiefly on occasion of his death that we are tempted to place ourselves in the judgment seat, and sum up as though wo had all the evidencebefore us. It would be moro becoming at such a time to feel the depth of our own incapacity. Imputations of evil motives are so far excusabe during a man's lifetime that they may force him to give an account of himself, and keep up a due sense of responsibility. It is evtremely desirable that a man should be compelled to make the purity of his motives as plain as possible ; and the greatest pressure we can put upon him arises from the free criticism of his antagonists. » When he is dead that reason passes comparatively out of sight ; he is no longer responsible to airy human tribunal ; and wo may fairly recognise the impossibility of makmg an exhaustive summary of his motives. — Saturday Review.

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