INTELLECTUAL DETACHMENT.

WE have noticed in another column the pleasant and readable article on " Intellectual Detachment," con- tributed by Sir Herbert Maxwell to this month's Nineteenth Century. But though we agree with much that is said by Sir Herbert Maxwell, he does not seem to us to have gone quite to the root of the matter. He treats intellectual detachment too much as if, it were a mere grace of character,—the something which saves a man from being a prig or from making a fool of himself. No doubt intellectual detachment is this, but it is also a great deal more, or rather it ought to be a great deal more, if it is to be regarded, as we are inclined to regard it,—namely, as one of the noblest and best of mental characteristics. Sir Herbert Maxwell defines intellectual detachment as "that which purges the scholar of pedantry, saves the soldier from ton de garnison and prevents him degenerating into a martinet, preserves the man of

affairs from becoming a bore, the countryman from growing up a bumpkin, the man of the world from hardening into a worldling ; indeed, it contributes greatly to fashioning a man of the world in the best sense of that much-misused term." It is, he goes on, " the reverse of provincialism."

Now this seems to us to take much too low ground, and to make intellectual detachment into a cold and neutral thing,— a something without passion, life, or creative force. It comes perilously near to being nothing better than thinking before you speak, or merely looking at both sides of the question, and understanding your enemies' case. Against these habits of mind we have, of course, nothing whatever to say. They afford, indeed, an excellent practical base for conduct, but they are hardly more. The limits of what we may call this lower form of intellectual detachment are well brought out, though uncon- sciously, by Sir Herbert Maxwell's very clever and suggestive comparison between Burns and Edmund Burke. Burke, he very rightly says, was utterly without the power of intellectual detachment. His want of it drew him into that attitude of frenzied hatred against Warren Hastings, which led him to speak of the prisoner at the bar as "a spider of hell." Lord Coke, he said, had called Sir Walter Raleigh " a spider of hell." " This was foolish and indecent in Lord Coke," but he went on to say he should not be doing his duty as a manager if he did not describe Warren Hastings as "a spider of hell." This mode of prosecuting an alleged criminal is nothing less than horrible. Though we are not so keenly disgusted, we feel again how impossible Burke was when he behaved in the way quoted by Sir Herbert Maxwell. The night of Bnrke's famous outburst against Fox in the House of Commons was rainy, and "Mr. Curwen, a Member who sat on the same benches as Burke, offered him a seat in his carriage to go home. Burke immediately began referring with bitterness to some of the passages in the debate so bitterly, that Mr. Curwen hazarded something in a contrary sense. ' What !' exclaimed Burke, seizing the checkstring,' are you one of these people ? Let me down !' It is said that Curwen kept his companion in the carriage by main force, and that when they reached his house, Burke alighted and left him without a word of acknowledg- ment." Clearly, here was a great lack of even the lower form of intellectual detachment. We cannot, however, feel certain. that Burke would have necessarily gained in moral stature if he had merely been endowed with that which purges the scholar of pedantry, saves the soldier from the to a de garnison, preserves the man of affairs from becoming a bore, the countryman from being a bumpkin, and makes the man of the world in the best sense. The sinister man who stood behind Burke in the attack on Hastings, and inflamed his mind with the cloudy and irridescent vision of the demoniacal oppressor of Asia, a new Verres overthrown by a new Cicero, had these qualities to perfection. Sir Philip Francis never lost his head, nor forgot to see his enemies' case. He was the cold-hearted man of the world, and when he had not a personal object in view, as in the case of Hastings, never even pretended to have his heart moved by righteous indig- nation. For example, he remonstrated with Burke when he was in his hottest fire of chivalry over Marie Antoinette, for making so much fuss about a "jade." Yet, for all that, one prefers Burke on fire, when in the wrong, to Philip Francis icy and cynical, even if in the right. The truth is, that the lower intellectual detachment is very apt to degenerate into mere cynicism. We are not sure that it did not do so in Burns. No doubt Burns, as a poet, was able to take wings of inspiration, and ascend far above himself and the earth he inhabited. When he spoke as a poet, he often spoke with the true and the highest intellectual detachment. The lines,— "What's done we partly may compute,

But know not what's resisted,"

have the true note of detachment in them. If we turn to Barns the man, we must admit that this detachment of mind —which Sir Herbert Maxwell is quite right in noticing as Burns's dominant characteristic—was of the lower and more worldly kind. It sometimes sank him very low indeed, as when he spoke of himself in regard to certain of his relations with the other sex as "the old hawk." There his detachment brought him below even the mere headstrong, devil-may-care, pleasure-mad profligate. At its beat, no doubt, it made him keep his head, in spite of the flattery and neglect with which i.e was alternately assailed. It kept him from being spoiled by the one or soured by the other, and conquered on the ono hand the pomp and pride of authorship, and on the other,

the reflex action of a peasant origin. Still, his intellectual detachment, when he was not speaking as the poet, was not of the highest kind, and so could not confer on him the noblest traits of character.

It is difficult to define in words exactly what we mean by the higher intellectual detachment. Before, however, we attempt to do so, let us take one more example of what it is not. Goethe is sometimes spoken of as if the gift belonged to him above all other mortals. In our opinion, it most emphati- cally does not. Matthew Arnold has exactly described Goethe's mental outlook in the famous passage in his "Memorial Verses,"—a passage which, though so often quoted in these columns, will bear repetition :—

" And he was happy if to know Causes of things, and far below His feet to see the lurid flow Of terror and insane distress, And headlong fate be happiness."

Goethe could detach his brain from all the " lendings " and trappings of the world, could isolate it in the icy and thrilling regions of pure thought, could see things in what appeared to be all their bearings and on all sides. This, however, was not the higher intellectual detachment, but merely the lower intellectual detachment sublimated and carried to the highest

power. It was the apotheosis of that which makes the

true man of the world, saves the scholar from being a prig, and the countryman from being a bumpkin, but never-

theless it was still the lower, not the higher intellectual detachment. It was a cold, dead, unfruitful thing—a quality of mind unmingled with the fire of true human feeling. It was pride and self-love frozen into a perpetual calm, rather than love and sympathy burning with so pure a flame that there is neither smoke nor noise. The higher intellectual detachment, the quality which is above all price, and which marks the noblest natures, is different in kind, and not merely in degree, from the lower. It is never merely sub- limated good sense or worldliness so well understood as to be goodness, or selfishness so keenly and cleverly wrought as to produce the most perfect altruism. It is neither moderation carried out in every sphere of action, or the putting of one- self into other people's place, practised at every turn. Still less is it a general flabby belief that there is always some-

thing to be said on the other side. We can perhaps best define it directly by saying that it is a finer, keener, truer knowledge,—a knowledge of men and the world, reached 4ffirough love and sympathy on the one side, and single-

.mindedness and sincerity on the other. The higher intel- lectual detachment is shown most and developed most in a man's dealings with himself. He gains it by realising him- self through that finer knowledge of which we speak. It enables him to see himself and his actions in their true light, and not as he would like them to be seen. Out of this negation of self-deception, which is the true humility, and as separate from grovelling, unreasoning humility—the humility which is a kind of moral debauch—as it is from arrogance, comes the sense of justice which is the truest mark of the higher intellectual detachment. By this the higher intel- lectual detachment may indeed be best differentiated from its lower aspect. The man who possesses but the lower Intel- o2ctual detachment, too often takes up the attitude that, when

every allowance is made, nothing is very good or very bad. Pressed far enough, this soon becomes the point of view represented by the aphorism of Emerson's "languid Oxford

gentleman,"—" Nothing new and nothing true, and no matter." The man with the higher intellectual detachment, who sees things in their true relations, doubtless pardons much and understands all, but he is not misled thereby into thinking that nothing matters. He may agree that to understand all is to ex- cuse much ; but this does not make him impartially indifferent Rather it leads him to know that right and wrong are realities, not illusions. Perhaps, however, we can best illustrate what we mean by the higher detachment of mind, by taking a con- crete instance. In our own day we know of no better example

than Abraham Lincoln. We do not wish to treat Lincoln as if he were perfect or to speak as if the higher intellectual detach-

ment saved its possessor from all errors of judgment or conduct. We believe it, however, to be among the greatest of moral qualities and to have been enjoyed by Lincoln. The man was certainly no cynic, no cold watcher of the game of life. His heart was warm and kindly, and full of human passion and tenderness. And if he showed by these marks that he did not possess the lower form of mental detachment, he showed by his exhibition of the sense of justice that he did possess the higher. No more truly just man ever walked this earth. There is no hate in justice, though hate, we are willing to admit, is often more of a virtue than a vice. But Lincoln was not unmanned, as most men would have been, by his lack of hate. It is almost inconceivable and yet true, that he carried on his death-struggle with the South without ever feeling the passion of hate, and yet without even faltering in his course. Many a General has neglected to hate his enemies ; but that has usually been due to indifference to the cause of the war, or to a cynical disbelief in such a thing as righteousness. Lincoln had a fervent belief in the justice of his actions, and yet could view the South without a trace of hatred. His attitude can be best illustrated by quoting the sublime passage from the Second Inaugural. We know not, if not there, where to find an example of the higher mental detachment :—

" Both parties deprecated war ; but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive ; and the other would accept war rather than let it perish. And the war came. One- eighth of the whole population were coloured slaves, not distri- buted generally over the Union, but localised in the Southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was _somehow, the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest, was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union, even by war; while the Government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party ex- pected for the war the magnitude nor the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the con- flict might cease with, or even before, the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less funda- mental and astounding. Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God ; and each invokes his aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces ; but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered—that of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has his own purposes. Woe unto the world because of offences ! for it must needs be that offences come ; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh.' If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offences which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through his appointed time, he now wills to remove, and that he gives to both North and South this terrible war, as the woe due to those by whom the offence came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to him ? Fondly do we hope—fervently do we pray—that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.' With malice toward none ; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in ; to bind up the nation's wounds ; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan—to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves, and with all nations."

Notice how the sense of justice saves Lincoln from confusing and confounding right and wrong. Though the South were not necessarily wicked, there was a real question of right and wrong involved, which must never be lost sight of. The man with only the lower intellectual detachment, had he attempted to write as Lincoln wrote, would probably have ended by blurring the moral outlook, and would have lost touch of the cause of the war. Lincoln, because he possessed the higher intellectual detachment, was able to be perfectly just to the South, and yet never to confuse the moral issue. Right and wrong were not the same to him, though he could see so well, and understand so completely, the attitude of the South. This is the intellectual detachment which is indeed worth having, and against which the graces of the lower intellectual detachment weigh like thistle-down in the balance.