SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTE ON NOTHING.

NOBODY will be inclined to say that Sir Stafford North- cote's speech about Nothing, was nothing of a speech. Not only was he very entertaining last Saturday, but even more instructive than entertaining. And he might, perhaps, have been even still more instructive, without being less entertaining, if he had but told his hearers, what the mathematicians teach,— that nothing is as far beyond the grasp of human faculty as in- finity itself. If we could understand nothing, we could under- stand infinity, for these are but correlatives, the one being the limit which we constantly approach when we halve a finite

quantity, and then halve what remains, and so on, indefi-

nitely; and the other, but the limit which we constantly approach when we double a finite quantity, and then double the product, and so on, indefinitely. The one process leads to a goal as mysterious and inexplicable as the other ; and hence 'nothing' is just as much beyond the conception of a race which tries to help itself to understand minutia3 by the aid of the microscope, as infinity is beyond the conception of a race which tries to help itself to understand gigantic distances by

the aid of the telescope. The infinitesimal is as much beyond our comprehension as the infinite, and yet, though no one confounds the infinite with the finite, every one fancies that if he can understand anything, he can, a fortiori, understand nothing. However, Sir Stafford Northcote was not very far wrong, even from this point of view, when he suggested to his hearers, as he did, that in the world as we know it, what we call annihilation really means nothing but reducing one sort of resisting force in order to increase the effect of some other aggressive force. Just ' as withdrawing the air from a tube involves giving power to the outward air to sustain a column of water or column of mercury in the tube so exhausted, so, hinted Sir Stafford, nihilism in politics means nothing more than producing a political vacuum, into which the currents of human passion will intrude the most unexpected columns of solid energy or fluid passion. You can- not draw off one sort of energy without drawing on another. You cannot sweep one influence away without introducing another infinence,—and very likely one which you are the last to expect,—in its room. But though Sir Stafford hinted this, and intended, no doubt, to make his hearers in- terpret the doctrine in a Conservative sense, as a great lesson against hasty change, he did not see that it really applies as much to neutralising the natural desire for progressive change, as it does to neutralising the Conservative instinct for remaining as we are. Perhaps, indeed, he did see it, for while praising the policy of "masterly inactivity "when it represents a real immaturity of judgment, anda disposition to wait till fuller materials for judgment are at hand, Sir Stafford Northcote did, we think, indicate that no inactivity could be masterly which does not seize opportunity at the right moment, and then trans- form the previous inactivity into cool and clear activity. We wonder that he did not quote Wordsworth's lines in praise of "masterly inactivity," which were quite to the point. Our readers will remember that when reproached with sitting on an old grey stone to dream his time away, the poet defended his masterly inactivity thus :—

"The eye it cannot choose but see, We cannot bid the ear be still ; Our bodies feel, where'er they be, Against or with our will.

Nor less I deem that there are powers Which of themselves our minds impress ; That we can feed this mind of ours

In a wise passiveness.

Think you, 'mid all this mighty Kim Of things for ever speaking, That nothing of itself will come, Bat we must still be seeking P"

In other words, the "wise passiveness" of the poet,—the "masterly inactivity" of Sir Stafford Northcote,—is as positive

a policy as any, and one, we may add, not less apt,—perhaps more apt,—to lead to sudden springs of passionate impulse, as

one of more steady and constant action. Brooding minds, whether of nations or individuals, are always those from which the greatest and most startling energies proceed. If you accumulate your store of impulse for any length of time, that store of impulse will always be the more potent for the accumu- lation. To take Sir Stafford Northeote's own examples, William the Silent and Shakespeare's Cordelia are not the less potent energies in the different worlds in which they move, for their

"wise passiveness." On the contrary, the one changes the face of Northern Europe, and the other, in spite of the small stint of one hundred and nine lines to which Shakespeare limits her in the whole five acts of his play, keeps her spell upon us through- out the whole drama; and even after its melancholy close, to use Sir Stafford Northcote's own beautiful words, "lingers about our recollections as if we had seen some being more beautiful and purer than a thing of earth, who had communicated with us by a higher medium than that of words." That is, the suppression of the ordinary modes of activity may mean, and often does mean, the highest activity of which human nature is capable ; so that inertness in one sphere not unfrequently involves intense activity in another. And as this applies just as much to nations as to individuals, we do not see how a Conservative lesson can very well be extracted from the doctrine that you cannot neutralise one species of energy, without in all probability stimulating another. That is very true, but it is as much a lesson against neutralising the progressive activity of peoples, as it is against destroying hastily what you do not see your way to replace. You may make your boiler burst by accumulating force which you do not use; just as easily as you may wreck your train by putting on too much speed.

Perhaps Sir Stafford Northcote came nearest to the kind of nothingness which is really the basis of genuine Conservatism, when he referred to the title of a Narcissus to the praise of his contemporaries :—

"Narcissus is the glory of his race,

For who does nothing with a better grace ?"

If, instead of accumulating force by repressing its outward manifestation, you can find the temperament which has no force in it, and not only has no force in it, but has a thoroughly gracious manner in manifesting the want of it, you really do get, so far as persons of that temperament go, a genuine basis for true Conservatism. The spirit which animates the dolee far niente is necessarily Conservative, and not only so, but so far as it per- meates others and imbues them with pleasure in its own indolence, it tends to make others Conservative too. Only, as Sir Stafford Northcote very justly warned his hearers, that dreamy type of character is hardly the one that it is safe to copy ; and he might have added that it is a type which cannot possibly be common amongst those "dim, common populations" spurred on to effort by want and pain. So that the only "masterly inactivity" which really favours the policy of Conservatism is a kind of masterly inactivity which is impossible to the masses of men, and irritating to those masses even in the few to whom it is possible. The accumulation of inward heat is not Conservative, but revolutionary ; and if the languor which reflects a real dispo- sition to do nothing is Conservative in its truest sense, it, is impossible to the multitude who can neither be languid them- selves, nor be soothed by the spectacle of mild languor in others.

Perhaps the most interesting hint in Sir Stafford Northeote's lecture was his suggestion that the modern doctrine of evolution without God, is equivalent to the dogma that something is always being born out of nothing. That has always seemed to us be- yond question. In the first place, the principle of evolution itself must have sprung from nothing, if there was no mind in the Universe before it came into action ; in the next place, all its conditions,—the principle of parentage itself, the transmission of qualities from parent to offspring,—the variations which are the conditions of improvement,—and the identity of the physical conditions which render life easier with the moral conditions which render it richer,—are all consequences of nothing, on that theory ; indeed, on that theory, the mindless Universe becomes a great bank without a banker, which is nevertheless constantly ac- cumulating at compound interest advantages which sprang out of nothing, and are prolific of everything. That is a philosophy which Sir Stafford Northcote certainly repudiates as heartily as we do, but is it not more really Conservative than the one he prefers ? At least, the political doctrine of laisser-faire is a genuine and natural product of the belief in this mindless evolution of the universe, for it is impossible to think that a finite human mind, which is a mere single fruit of mindless evolution, can be itself fit to tamper with the law of evolution ; whereas those who regard man as the creation of God may fairly think that in endowing man with the sense of responsibility, God also imposed on him the duty of directing, so far as he may, the stream of human energy and action. It seems to us, then, that in the only direction in which Sir Stafford Northcote's amusing discourse on "Nothing" tends to a specific conclu- sion, it tends to a conclusion adverse to the general view with

which he, as the leader of the Conservative party, may be sup- posed to have chosen his subject, and to have intended to illustrate it.