THE DEBTS OF THE SPIRIT.
EVERY age is inspired or distraught by its own peculiar enthusiasms and passions. An enthusiasm for justice under the guise of equality has now taken hold of society, and men are almost deranged by a passionate longing for what they conceive to be their rights. Modern civilization, in their eyes is nothing but a man-made system of injustice. Nature, say those who would damp their ardour or sober their wild mood, knows nothing of equality, nothing of this new conception of fairness. Moderate men are not likely to agree with either side in a violent argument, but they must be set thinking by it. The French have a proverbial saying which declares that Nature, like other mothers, has her spoiled children and is miserly and .hard to the "malvenus." On the other hand, it is difficult to watch life closely and not be struck by the working of some powerful system of justice traceable hourly in connexion with individuals as well as in connexion with huge groups of people and great stretches of time; traceable, too, by simple men and women for whom the philosophy of history simply does not exist. For instance, in what a strange manner moral debts are liqui- dated! Apart from money and what are rather cynically called " the good things of life," people get back very much what they give. The system on which it is given back is simply incom- prehensible, but generally speaking back it comes. Ingratitude is the commonest of faults. It is a sort of spiritual dishonesty which permeates society. All the same, most men would without false humility admit that they have got during life about as much gratitude as was their due. By the time they get to old age they have " ta'en their wages " in that particular, and have no particular reason to be'dissatisfied with them. The person who owed them much has given back perhaps only a very little and produced in their minds some inevitable bitterness of feeling. On the other hand, the man for whom they did only a little has greatly overpaid his little debt, and in the end, in accordance with some unknown force, the account has been squared. Men and women who lavish their all upon some one ingrate obviously do not come within the scope of this compensatory law. They are exceptional people. Their case affords a subject for tragedy, and literature makes it appear far commoner than it is in real life. The devotion which at its best is perhaps the highest thing in life, and at its worst mere egoisine is deux, is a tremendous hazard ; and those who embark upon such a moral speculation cannot expect compensation.
The use of the word " owe " in the moral sense is full of interesting suggestion—and full of mystery. People of average goodness all believe that they " owe " pity to the suffering, even where they can be of no use to them. The man who absolutely refuses to consider any pain which he cannot alleviate does somehow defraud his fellow-creatures. On the other hand, this indefinable sense of spiritual indebtedness which we most of us feel is subject to very odd and arbitrary limitations. Physical distance, for one thing, seems to nullify it ; actual mileage writes it off. We are not, of course, speaking of circum. stances in which affection makes of distance nothing but torment added to the suffering of sympathy. We are speaking of every- day things. We " owe " it to a man who lives in the same village with ourselves to pity his sufferings, and feel a moment of pleasure in his luck, although we do not know him, if either his distress or his success come under our notice. Suppose we aro told that a certain man living near by has been honoured for bravery, or after mourning a missing son has seen him alive and well, or has had any smaller noticeable stroke of luck, wo " owe " him a mental congratulation, and in nine cases out of ten we pay it silently in our hearts. In the same way, if we bear he has had a terrible accident or sorrow, we owe " him a momentary thought of compassion. If we are so much taken up with our own cares and pleasures as to receive the news with absolute indifference, our informant, if not our own consciences, will note our unhandsome behaviour. It is quite impossible to argue logically that the payment of these little " debts " does any good to anyone, but it is disagreeable to contemplate a state of society in which they were never paid. But if the unknown favourite or victim of fortune lives ten miles off us, we are much less impressed by the recital of his troubles and joys ; and if we hear that before the sad or happy events related to us took place he who used to live near by had removed to China, wo shall feel no emotion or probably interest of any kind. We cannot sympathize with an unknown person at a distance. It is not in the least upon our conscience either to rejoice or grieve. Wo are absolved from the duty of " paying in " to that mystical fund which appears to bo used for the good of all, Even among those who are known and even dear to us, distance does in a measure preclude sympathy. Not when affection reaches its height. A mother who blows her son to be dying in India suffers more than if he were dying in her arms ; but where the secondary affections are concerned, the effect of propinquity is immense. How different is the effect of a long and trying illness upon those relations who are not actually " under the same roof" I They may often see the sufferer, but they do not suffer with him. They aro not morally required to do so. The " debt " is not so large.
Where public matters are concerned very much the same principle holds good. When the public hero hears of an epidemic at a distance, they are interested : the beat of them even to the point of looking up the illness in a book and sending a little money. But an epidemic close at hand is full of pain and sorrow and distress to those who hear of it. Cynics will reply that this is simply because fear comes in ; but that is hardly true, since those who are for any reason immune—as old people in a children's epidemic or persons who have already had the disease —may be among those most bitterly distressed by watching it. Several times lately we have heard it said by people who ought to know the world—once by a Roman Catholic priest resident in a poor part of London—that uneducated people have the kinder hearts, paying their debt of compassion more promptly than the rich by thought and deed. Comparing good people with good, the working man and woman are more quickly moved to sympathy than their rich brothers and sisters. If there is any truth in this, though the present writer is inclined to doubt it, it throws a puzzling light upon the effects of education. May it be that educated people tend to put first and inculcate first in their children the virtues which history tells them that the world cannot get on without, such as honesty and truth- speaking ? It is certain that the fashion for appearing hard which reappears from time to time among the best of the educated is a fashion which never goes down. In that particular simple people have no wish to seem worse than they are. It is possible also that the immense call which literature makes upon educated emotions rather dissipates them. We pay so many emotional debts in unreal coinage. There is no doubt a Sanger lest the call which literature makes upon the emotions ihould confuse our spiritual accounts.
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