BOOKWORK.*
THE corporate mind gets tired. Whole sections of the com- munity find at intervals that certain forms of both mental and physical work are repellent to them. They will not undertake them at all, or only for great gain or as a means to an end. Not very long ago Englishmen really liked agriculture. Then came a period when they did not. It was difficult to persuade country boys to remain upon the land. No doubt other causes besides this mental weariness contributed to take them away, but the primary cause must have been this unaccountable repugnance, for they cheerfully accepted worse conditions in order to take up other work. Now we hope the wave of feeling has passed by ; but it is noticeable that strong inducements must be held out to those who hesitate between a life of sowing and reaping and a life under town conditions. The attraction of Nature is not strong enough to make them risk. For some while the servant-keeping class has been bribing persons to undertake domestic work outside their own homes. Working-class women are tired of it, speaking generally. It is not because they do not want to leave home at all. Obviously they do want to leave it—but not for domestic service. Again, we have been told that below all the mining troubles of to-day lies the fact that mining is no longer as popular as it was. Men are sick of the caverns of the earth. They are only going there if it is well worth their while. Since they must go it must be made worth it. This form of fatigue is not laziness. Those who feel it are not involved in the original mistake of Adam, who conceived that work was a curse. They are no more lazy than the untheological are irreligious. Spiritual fatigue is also a very real thing. This form of " tiredness " applies also to amusements. To take a small and unimportant instance. Our grandmothers had a passion for needlework. They spent hours upon useless 'embroidery, and they valued lace almost as we value jewels. Their granddaughters prefer almost any recre. ation. Again, young people do not read the great novels of the past, or rather they read them under compulsion in the school- room. While there they have got to work, and they admit that, looked at as work, the great writers of fiction are interesting. But when they were new they were read for pure pleasure. It would have seemed impossible to Scott's contemporaries that the reading of his novels should come to be regarded as an agreeable task, but yet a task, an undertaking rendered serious by the sense of duty attaching to it. There are fashions in work and play even among children. The young would appear to have a great natural interest in all moral questions. Instinct- ively, from the time they can speak, they sit in moral judgment. The old children's book frankly recognized this peculiarity, and pandered to it unduly. Children have a natural love of sweets, but it is possible to make even children sick with sugar—and now, if demand creates supply, while they still talk of morals they will only read nonsense. The old books seem to them " difficult."
How far a new book written for the general public has a right to be " difficult " is a serious literary question. If it is not technical, it ought to be clear. So much, we think, may be granted. All the same, there is now and then a great pleasure in doing a piece of hard reading—something which strains our powers and induces mental perspiration. Where the book deals with one of the subjects uppermost in the pubhc mind there are always plenty of mental sportsmen in good training and willing for the effort. At present we suppose that the prevalent taste is scientific. Even the subjects which used to be regarded as outside the range of science altogether must now be approached from a scientific point of view, or must assume to be thus ap- proachable. The straws of general conversation which show which way the wind blows prove this. Was there ever so much talk about " cures " as now 1 Medical science is every man's hobby. Before the war the satirists declared that we feared death so much that we could think of nothing but how to keep alive. This criticism has been proved ridiculous. Others vowed that, having lost all interest in a future world, we thought of nothing but how to save ourselves pain in this world. The war has knocked this theory also on the head. Whatever we think of the present wave of spiritualism, it proves beyond a doubt that
• Self and Neighbour. By VAward W. Hart. London Macmillan. [10s. net.]
interest in religion has once more fixed upon the Whence and the Whither, and that the Victorian effort to concentrate the spiritual aide of the mind upon conduct has failed. It is just now not very easy to read a book about ethics. Most ordinary people are ready to accept the old principles of conduct in theory. When it is pointed out to them that that theory has little influence upon the practical life of the world to-day, they are more angry than interested. They try for a few moments to disable the critic by counter-accusations, and then give the subject up—in apparent exhaustion. But there are those who still love the mental exercise involved in reading such a book as
one we have just finished by Mr. Edward W. Hirst, called Self and Neighbour, and if they will get the book they may have several hours of healthy and profitable exercise.
The writer has attempted, he tells us, a reconstruction of traditional moral theory, very necessary, as he thinks, at a moment when " every nation has been accusing its opponent of utter want of principle." What he desires to do is to supply " the principle of Fraternity with a somewhat firmer foundation." With this end in view, he reviews the generally received theories of morals and finds them wanting. Ethical writers have, he thinks, traditionally regarded the individual as an end in himself to an extent which Mr. Hirst finds inadmissible. They have supposed, he maintains, that, " like some Robinson Crusoe, he could be good alone." He epitomizes the arguments of Hume, Adam Smith, Cumberland, Sidgwick, Spencer, and Green with a view to showing forth this defect. Perhaps because of his scrupulous fairness, he either seems to the reader to fail to make his points, or to show his own position as divided but by a hair's-breadth from that of his supposed opponents. Surely when Cumberland writes : " If any man rightly judge that the common good of all who act according to the rule of reason is a greater good than the good or happiness of one man (and this is no more than to judge the whole to be greater than the part) there is no doubt but that God thinks the same "—he cannot be said to be making the good of the individual too exclusive an end, though we agree with our author that he implies that the " vocation of some is to be a mere means of happiness to others." Kant, again, when he teaches that " morality is action which can be universalized " would seem to be in almost complete agreement with Mr. Hirst's " principle of community," which he bases upon " love " as the sole medium whereby the relation of the "ego" and the "alter" can be adjusted. "In the Parental Instinct and in the Sentiment of Love developed from it the chasm between the life of self and that of others is bridged ; ego and alter are not treated as opposed but are merged." .Mr. Hirst divides love into four kinds—sexual, parental, friendly, and philanthropic—and all these various kinds of affection are, as it were, derivatives of parental affec- tion, and all show their origin by exhibiting a sense of protection. All terms of endearment, even those between lovers, tend to become diminutives. The mother has some power of recognizing the perceptions of her offspring other than the senses of sight and hearing. She feels for it, and here we find the roots, not of natural affections only, but by far extension of all sympathetic phenomena, even of that inexplicable sympathy which makes it disagreeable to watch a dramatic performance alone.
A book may be hard reading, demand close attention, incur at times the just reproach of hair-splitting, and yet be good reading. It may be clear, logical, succinct, and even original, and yet not carry the reader along. Some readers do not wish to be carried ; they wish to tramp beside their author, and to reach the goal with him " comfortably tired." They call easily read books " very popular," and they mean " very superficial." Also they do not like to trudge in company. They Scorn fashions in work. The mass of the thoughtful may strike and demand changes of work, but not they. In one sense they are the people best worth writing for, and for them Mr. Hirst has written.
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