THE DECLINE OF HYPOCRISY.
WE observed last week that the old charge against the Quakers of being a parcel of hypocrites had almost disappeared. Nobody now sees any humour in depicting the Friends as men who only affect to believe in non-resistance, while in reality cruelly tenacious of their rights, or as conceal- ing laxity of morals under an appearance of severity, or as using a special garb and dialect in order to cover unusual dis- honesty and greed. The sect is reproached very often with over-care for respectability and over-desire of wealth, but it is no longer accused of securing either by hypocritical conduct. The Quakers of fiction are now-a-days men rather more dis- interested than the majority, and the Quaker of the drama is usually a sort of philanthropic providence. Much, perhaps most, of this change, is due, of course, to the change of public feeling in regard to Quakerism itself, which is no longer considered ultra-heretical; but some of it arises from another cause,—a very carious and notable decline in the public readiness to sus- pect hypocrisy. A very few years ago, not half a century, this suspicion was, by certain classes, perpetually expressed, both publicly and in society, in every variety of form ; and there is no reason to believe that it was only assumed, though it may have been purposely exaggerated in expression. A section of the public did really believe that every Catholic priest used the confessional for seduction, that every Dissenting minister was either a drinker, a cheat, or a man practising a poor profession for gain only, and that every "professor," as the Evangelicals styled him, was a debauchee. Comic literature, especially pictorial literature, was almost based on those assumptions, which were so popular with the mob, that the ducking of a preacher or a " Methody " struck them as being only a fair penalty for habitual lying and deceitfulness. That was not all the protest of laxity against strictness, but of laxity against an appearance of strictness which it honestly believed to be pat on for gain of some kind. You can trace the tone of the old hnmourists as well as much personal prejudice in Charles Dickens's stories, where the delineations of Stiggins and Chadhand struck his readers not only as exquisite jests, but as useful exposures; and in Mrs. Trollope's "Vicar of Wrexhill," where the Evangelical clergyman is depicted not only as a hypocrite in life, but entirely devoid of belief in his own system. Caricatures of that kind would not now succeed in elicit- ing even a laugh, and this not from any diminution of dislike for the people depicted. Stiggins, if less hated, is more despised than he was, and the Vicar would stand a very strong chance indeed of a term of imprisonment. The world is no more tolerant of extreme profession than it was, and has even an increased distaste for sectarian dialects ; but it has altered its view as to the origin of such habitudes, and calls men of eccentric religions ways "fanatics," instead of "hypocrites." The Methodist preachers would not be ducked now, but placed under a microscope, and their characters, their powers, and their modes of electrifying sinners described with
complete but most irritating fairness. Had Colonel Gordon, for example, written his extraordinary letters to the Bom- bay papers forty years ago, he would have been summarily set down as a pretender, who was seeking and concealing some private end, most probably a bad one. To-day, though just as many as before pronounce him a fool, the public understands that he is sincere, sees that his capacity is unaffected by his religious vehemence, and only pronounces him narrow-minded on religion, and probably a little self-deceived.
The change is a very great one, and it bas, we believe, apart from an assumed increase of tolerance, which is not altogether well-founded, though intolerance has taken a different direction, two main causes. One of these, which is rarely noticed, but which we believe to be very real indeed, is an increase in the general perception and comprehension of varieties of character. Ordinary men move much more about than they did, come into contact with many more people than they did, and—most marked change of all, though townsmen will not at once acknowledge it —converse much more readily than they did. They read a great deal more, and especially they read more fiction, which, with many incidental drawbacks, has the effect of widening very extensively their conceptions of possible varieties of character, of habits and ways of thought. They have become aware of those " faults " which exist in intellectual character, as in geology, and no longer insist that the keen man who will quote texts must be a hypocrite, because otherwise such a weak- ness would be unaccountable. The body of the people has, in fact, attained in part to a form of knowledge once nearly con- fined to the few men rich enough or well placed enough to enjoy a varied society ; and with the knowledge has come not only tolerance, but increased perception. They see more accu- rately,—perceive, for example, that the profession of religion in its more " decided " forms, while it does not mean quite so much as the professor thinks it does, usually does mean a good deal, and a good deal perfectly con- sistent with an ordinarily sincere and upright character. They perceive, too, what our grandfathers seem scarcely to have per- ceived at all,—that character is very often shot, as it were, with separate and distinctive threads, and that a perfectly ordinary man may have on certain sides of his mind, and especially therefore on the religious side, an extreme and abnormal vehemence. Recognising that, they abandon the old explana- tion of hypocrisy, and only declare that about such and such questions Mr. Smith is just a little "gone." It does not occur to them to distrust him on that account, any more than it occurs to a diplomatist to distrust the polished gentleman he is talking to because he suddenly finds him a fanatical ultramontane or a far-gone Socialist. He is quite aware that such things are, that men have strange ravines and hills and chasms in their minds, and brings no accusation, therefore, any more than if his interlocutor suddenly betrayed some remarkable failure of resthetic taste,—an abhorrence of music, for example. The public have not attained to that level yet, but they are attaining it, and with their rise their chronic suspicion of hypocrisy is departing. The man who habitually puts his faith forward out of season may be, they think, a hypo- crite, but is much more likely to be a man who lacks on that subject self-restraint, or a full sense of proportion. Curiously enough, the suspicion remains strongest upon the negative side. One of the many causes which induce British Philistines, in Parliament and out of it, to refuse to Atheists the toleration they accord to all other religious views, is a rooted belief that Atheists are hypocrites,—that they are not denying God, but defying God ; that nobody ever did disbelieve wholly in a supernatural Power, and that consequently he who says he does is a hypocrite, pretending to be freer than he is. He is a hypocrite as a man is who, with an inner reverence for Kingship, professes hot Republicanism. On the Continent, where atheism is more common, that especial form of suspicion is rare ; and it will decay here, as men perceive that this also is one of the vehement opinions men otherwise very ordinary sometimes hold. As for a costume or a dialect, that is only a "way," and indicates nothing except a wish to announce very publicly the views that the wearer or the speaker entertains.
The second cause is, we imagine—though on this subject we write with the reserve that no man or group of men can be quite sufficiently experienced for a final opinion—a decided decline in the practice of hypocrisy itself. It does not pay so well as it did. An individual may still, and very often does, prac- the hypocrisy towards an individual whom he thinks he under- stands, and can therefore deceive ; but he fears to practise it towards the public, or even that section of the public which specially esteems the character he is enacting. It is not so much that the public is shrewder, and will find him out, as that it will reason differently about him before he is found out. The reward of his trouble and self-suppression will be much less. If, for instance, he affects asceticism, the public may be- lieve him an ascetic, yet not draw the deduction he wishes,— that he is utterly disinterested. "No," it will say," all ascetics are not disinterested, though some are; he may be so or not,—asceticism does not prove it. He may like asceticism best, and strive unfairly for money as a power all the same." Average men of the former generation did not quite know that that type existed, and were forced as it were to decide either that the ascetic was wholly disinterested all through, and therefore to trust him, or that he was a hypocrite. As they did not trust him all through, they bluntly decided that his asceticism was merely a hypocrisy. Now they distrust, but consider the asceticism by itself. The growth of perception which enables men to perceive that other men, ordinary in speech, habit, and ways, may be deeply religious men, has released the pious from a certain temptation to affect devotion, and at the same time has deprived the hypocrite of the advantage he expected from the affectation. When the man next you at dinner, exactly like everybody else, may be the most energetic of Calvinists or of Ultramontanes, the benefit of pretending to be either, of acting a part through life, has perceptibly declined. You will no longer be thought exceptionally devoted, but only exceptionally wanting in reticence or manners. A banker is no longer especially trusted because he is specially "strict." He is not pronounced a hypocrite on account of his strictness, but his strictness is considered by itself, as a specialty of his character very little affecting, or not affecting, your chances of getting deposits back out of his hands. In remote country districts and among very separated religious communities, a particular profession, no doubt, still tells heavily ; but it tells, we imagine, more because the clients think their banker, or lawyer, or goods-supplier s ympathises with them on an exceptional subject which fills a large part of their lives, than because they think him, because of his profes- sion, specially trustworthy. If it is otherwise, then our case is proved, hypocrisy being more or less profitable, according to the isolation of the community, and its consequent ignorance of character. We suspect, however, that in our modern world a Quaker grocer prefers to buy sugar from a Quaker in Mincing Lane rather on account of their common Quakerism, than because he thinks a Quaker more certain to give him sugar up to sample. Hypocrisy, we fancy, pays less than it did, owing to the increasing perception of average men that exceptional profession, even when sincere, is not so com- plete a guarantee of general character as it used to be thought; and as it pays less well, is less practised. Of course, there is plenty of hypocrisy still, but it more rarely takes the old and brutal form of direct simulation for purposes of gain. The most frequent of the hypocrisies now is the affectation of good- feeling by the callous and self-seeking, and that is, perhaps, the easiest of all to detect. It requires to be supported by acts which are rarely forthcoming.
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