An example will make this clear. The reflex egoism we name patriotism, causing among other things a high valua tion of the religious creed nationally professed, makes us overrate the effects this creed has produced, and makes us underrate the effects produced by other creeds and by influ ences of other orders. The notions respecting savage and civilized races, in which we are brought up, show this.
The word savage, originally meaning wild or uncultivated, has come to mean cruel and blood-thirsty, because of the rep resentations habitually made that wild or uncultivated tribes THE BIAS OF PATRIOTISM. 191 of men are cruel and blood-thirsty. And ferocity being- now always thought of as a constant attribute of uncivilized races, which are also distinguished by not having our religion, it is tacitly assumed that the absence of our religion is the cause of this ferocity. But if, struggling successfully against the bias of patriotism, we correct the evidence w^hich that bias has garbled, we find ourselves obliged to modify this assump tion.
When, for instance, we read Cook's account of the Tahi- tians, as first visited by him, we are surprised to meet with some traits among them, higher than those of their civilized visitors. Though pilfering was committed by them, it was not so serious as that of which the sailors were guilty in steal ing the iron bolts out of their own ship to pay the native women. And when, after Cook had enacted a penalty for theft, the natives complained of one of his own crew — wrhen this sailor, convicted of the offence he w^as charged with, was condemned to be whipped, the natives tried to get him off, and failing to do this, shed tears on seeing preparations for the punishment. If, again, we compare critically the accounts of Cook's death, we see clearly that the Sandwich Islanders behaved amicably until they had been ill-used, and had rea son to fear further ill-usage. The experiences of many other travellers similarly show us that friendly conduct on the part of uncivilized races when first visited, is very general; and that their subsequent unfriendly conduct, when it occurs, is nothing but retaliation for injuries received from the civilized. Such a fact as that the natives of Queen Charlotte's Island did not attack Captain Carteret's party till after they had received just cause of offence,4 may be taken as typical of the histories of transactions between wild races and cultivated races. When we inquire into the case of the missionary Williams, "the Martyr of Erromanga," we discover that his murder, di lated upon as proving the wickedness of unreclaimed natures, was a revenge for injuries previously suffered from wicked Europeans. Read a few testimonies about the relative be haviours of civilized and uncivilized:— "After we had killed a man at the Marquesas, grievously wounded one at Easter Island, hooked a third with a boat-hook at Tonga-tabu, wounded one at Namocka, another at Mallicollo, and killed another at 192 THE STUDY OP SOCIOLOGY.
Tanna; the several inhabitants behaved in a civil and harmless man ner to us, though they might have taken ample revenge by cutting off our straggling parties." 5 " Excepting at Cafta, where I was for a time supposed to come with hostile intent, I was treated inhospitably by no one during all my travels, excepting by Europeans, who had nothing against me but my apparent poverty." 6 " In February, 1812, the people of Winnebah [Gold Coast] seized their commandant, Mr. Meredith," and so maltreated him that he died. The town and fort were destroyed by the English. " For many years afterwards, English vessels passing Winnebah were in the habit of pouring a broadside into the town, to inspire the natives with an idea of the severe vengeance which would be exacted for the spilling of European blood." * Or, instead of these separate testimonies, take the opinion of one who collected many testimonies. Referring to the kind treatment experienced by Enciso from the natives of Car tagena (on the coast of New Granada), who a few years before had been cruelly treated by the Spaniards, Washington Irving says: — " When we recall the bloody and indiscriminate vengeance wreaked upon this people by Ojida and his followers for their justifiable resist ance of invasion, and compare it with their placable and considerate spirit when an opportunity for revenge presented itself, we confess we feel a momentary doubt whether the arbitrary appellation of savage is always applied to the right party." 8 The reasonableness of this doubt will scarcely be ques tioned, after reading of the diabolical cruelties committed by the invading Europeans in America; as, for Instance, in St. Domingo, where the French made the natives kneel in rows along the edge of a deep trench and shot them batch after batch, until the trench was full, or, as an easier method, tied numbers of them together, took them out to sea, and tumbled them overboard; and where the Spaniards treated so horribly the enslaved natives, that these killed themselves wholesale: the various modes of suicide being shown in Spanish draw ings.
Does the Englishman say that these, and hosts of like demoniacal misdeeds, are the misdeeds of other civilized races in other times; and that they are attributable to that corrupted religion which he repudiates? If so, he may be reminded THE BIAS OF PATRIOTISM. 193 that sundry of the above facts are facts against ourselves. He may be reminded, too, that the purer religion he professes has not prevented a kindred treatment of the North American In dians by our own race. And he may be put to the blush by accounts of barbarities going on in our own colonies at the present time. Without detailing these, however, it will suf fice to recall the most recent notorious case — that of the kid nappings and murders in the South Seas. Here we find re peated the typical transactions: — betrayals of many natives and merciless sacrifices of their lives; eventual retaliation by the natives to a small extent; a consequent charge against the natives of atrocious murder; and finally, a massacre of them, innocent and guilty together.
See, then, how the bias of patriotism indirectly produces erroneous views of the effects of an institution. Blinded by na tional self-love to the badness of our conduct towards inferior races, while remembering what there is of good in our con duct; forgetting how well these inferior races have usually behaved to us, and remembering only their misbehaviour, which we refrain from tracing to its cause in our own trans gressions; we over-value our own natures as compared with theirs. And then, looking at the two as respectively Christian and Heathen, we over-rate the good done by Christian institu tions (which has doubtless been great), and we under-rate the advance that has been made without them. We do this ha bitually in other cases. As, for instance, when we ignore evi dence furnished by the history of Buddhism; respecting the founder of which Canon Liddon lately told his hearers that " it might be impossible for honest Christians to think over the career of this heathen Prince without some keen feelings of humiliation and shame." 9 And ignoring all such evidence, we get one-sided impressions. Thus our sociological concep tions are distorted— do not correspond with the facts; that is, are unscientific.
To illustrate some among the many effects wrought by the bias of patriotism in other nations, and to show how mischiev ous are the beliefs it fosters, I may here cite evidence fur nished by France and by Germany.
Contemplate that undue self-estimation which the French 14 194 THE STUDY OF SOCIOLOGY.
have shown us. Observe what has resulted from that exceed ing faith in French power which the writings of M. Thiers did so much to maintain and increase. When we remember how, by causing under-valuation of other nations, it led to a disre gard of their ideas and an ignorance of their doings — when we remember how, in the late war, the French, confident of vic tory, had maps of G-erman territory but not of their own, and suffered catastrophes from this and other kinds of unprepared- ness; we see what fatal evils this reflex self-esteem may pro duce when in excess. So, too, on studying the way in which it has influenced French thought in other directions. On reading the assertion, " La chimie est une science fran- $aise," with which Wurtz commences his Histoire des Doc trines Chimiques, one cannot but see that the feeling which prompted such an assertion must vitiate the comparisons made between things in France and things elsewhere. Looking at Crimean battle-pieces, in which French soldiers are shown to have achieved everything — looking at a picture like Ingres' " Crowning of Homer," and noting French poets conspicuous in the foreground, while the figure of Shakspeare in one corner is half in and half out of the picture — reading the names of great men of all nations inscribed on the string course running round the Palais de V Industrie, and finding many unfamiliar French names, while (strange oversight, as we must suppose) the name of Newton is conspicuous by its absence; we see exemplified a national sentiment which, gen erating the belief that things not French deserve little atten tion, acts injuriously on French thought and French progress. From Victor Hugo's magniloquent description of France as the " Saviour of Nations," down to the declamations of those who urged that were Paris destroyed the light of civilization w^ould be extinguished, we see throughout, the conviction that France is the teacher, and by implication needs not to be a learner. The diffusion of French ideas is an essential thing for other nations; while the absorption of ideas from other nations is not an essential thing for France: the truth being, rather, that French ideas, more than most other ideas, stand in need of foreign influence to qualify the undue definiteiiess and dogmatic character they habitually display. That such a tone of feeling, and the mode of thinking appropriate THE BIAS OF PATRIOTISM. 195 to it, should vitiate sociological speculation, is a matter of course. If there needs proof, we have a conspicuous one in the writing's of M. Conite; where excessive self -estimation under its direct form, and under that reilex form constituting patriot ism, has led to astounding sociological misconceptions. If we contemplate that scheme of Positivist reorganization and feder ation in which France was, of course, to be the leader — if we note the fact that M. Comte expected the transformation he so rigorously formulated to take place during the life of his own generation; and if, then, we remember what has since hap pened, and consider what are the probabilities of the future, we shall not fail to see that great perversions are produced by this bias in the conceptions of social phenomena.
How national self-esteem, exalted by success in war, warps opinions about public affairs, is again shown of late in Ger many. As a German professor writes to me: — " there is, alas, no want of signs " that the " happy contrast to French self- sufficiency " which Germany heretofore displayed, is disap pearing "since the glory of the late victories." The German liberals, he says, " overflow with talk of Germanism, German unity, the German nation, the German empire, the German army and the German navy, the German church, and German science They ridicule Frenchmen, and what animates them is, after all, the French spirit translated into Ger man." To illustrate the injurious reaction on German thought, and on the estimates of foreign nations and their do ings, he describes a discussion with an esteemed German profes sor of philosophy, against whom he was contending that the psychical and ethical sciences would gain in progress and influ ence by international communion, like that among the physico- mathematical sciences. He " to my astonishment declared that even if such an union were possible, he did not think it desir able, as it would interfere too much with the peculiarity of Ger man thought Second to Germany," he said, " it was Italy, wrhich, in the immediate future, was most likely to promote philosophy It appeared that what made him prefer the Italians...was nothing else than his having observed that in Italy they were acquainted with every philosophical treatise published in Germany, however unimportant." And thus, adds my correspondent, "the finest German characteristics 196 THE STUDY OF SOCIOLOGY.
are disappearing- in an exaggerated Teutonomania." One more truth his comments on German feeling disclose. An in direct antagonism exists between the sentiment of nationality and the sentiment of individuality; the result of which is that exaltation of the one involves depression of the other, and a decreased regard for the institutions it originates. Speaking of the "so-called National Liberals," he says: — "A friend of mine was lately present at a discussion, in the course of which a professor of philosophy, of the University of, was very eloquently, and witli perfect seriousness, contending that only one thing is now wanted to complete our German institutions — a national costume. Other people, who, no doubt, are fully aware of the ridiculousness of such things, are nevertheless guilty of an equally absurd and even more-intolerable en croachment on individual liberty; since, by proposing to es tablish a national church, they aim at constraining the adher ents of the various religious bodies into a spiritual uniform. Indeed, I should hardly have thought it possible that a Ger man government could encourage such monstrous proposi tions, if they had not been expounded to me at the Ministry of Public Worship."
Saying no more about patriotism and its perverting effects on sociological judgments, which are, indeed, so conspicuous all through history as scarcely to need pointing out, let me devote the remaining space to the perverting effects of the opposite feeling — anti-patriotism. Though the distortions of opinion hence resulting are less serious, still they have to be guarded against.
In England the bias of anti-patriotism does not diminish in a marked way the admiration we have for our political insti tutions; biit only here and there prompts the wish for a strong government, to secure the envied benefits ascribed to strong governments abroad. Nor does it appreciably modify the gen eral attachment to our religious institutions; but only in a few who dislike independence, shows itself in advocacy of an authoritative ecclesiastical system, fitted to remedy what they lament as a chaos of religious beliefs. In other directions, however, it is displayed so frequently and conspicuously as to affect public opinion in an injurious way. In respect to the THE BIAS OF PATRIOTISM. 197 higher orders of intellectual achievement, under-valuation of ourselves has become a fashion; and the errors it fosters react detrimentally on the estimates we make of our social regime, and on our sociological beliefs in general.
What is the origin of this undue self -depreciation? In some cases no doubt it results from disgust at the jaunty self- satisfaction caused by the bias of patriotism when excessive. In other cases it grows out of affectation: to speak slightingly of what is English seems to imply a wide knowledge of what is foreign, and brings a reputation for culture. In the remain ing cases it is due to ignorance. Passing over such of these self -depreciatory estimates of our powers and achievements as have partial justifications, I will limit myself to one which has no justification. Among the classes here indicated, it is the custom to speak disrespectfully of the part we play in dis covery and invention. There is an assertion occasionally to be met with in public journals, that the French invent and we improve. Not long since it was confessed by the Attorney - General that the English are not a scientific nation. Recently the Times, commenting 011 a speech in which Mr. Gladstone had been disparaging our nation and its men, said: — " There is truth, however, in the assertion that we are backward in ap preciating and pursuing abstract knowledge."10 Such state ments exhibit the bias of anti-patriotism creating a belief that is wholly indefensible. As we shall presently see, they are flatly contradicted by facts; and they can be accounted for only by supposing that those who make them have had a culture ex clusively literary, A convenient way of dealing with this bias of anti-patri otism will be to take an individual example of it. More than any other, Mr. Matthew Arnold has of late made himself an exponent of the feeling. His motive cannot be too highly respected; and for much that he has said in rebuke of the vainglorious, entire approval may rightly be felt. Many grave defects in our social state, many absurdities in our modes of action, many errors in our estimates of ourselves, are to be pointed out and dwelt upon; and great good is done by a writer who efficiently executes the task of making us feel our shortcomings. In his condemnation of the ascetic view of life which still prevails here, one may entirely agree. That 198 THE STUDY OP SOCIOLOGY.
undue valuation of material prosperity common with us, is a fault justly insisted on by him. And the overweening confi dence so often shown in a divine favour gained by our greater national piety, is also an attitude of mind to be reprobated. But by reaction Mr. Arnold is, I think, carried too far in the direction of anti-patriotism; and weakens the effect of his criticism by generating a re-action. Let us glance at some of his views.
The mode of procedure generally followed by Mr. Arnold, is not that of judicially balancing the evidence, but that of meeting the expression of self-satisfied patriotism by some few facts calculated to cause dissatisfaction: not considering what is their quantitative value. To reprove a piece of national self-laudation uttered by Mr. Roebuck, he comments on the murder of an illegitimate child by its mother, reported in the same paper. Now this would be effective if infanticide were peculiar to England, or if he could show a larger proportion of infanticide here than elsewhere; but his criticism is at once cancelled on calling to mind the developed system of baby- farming round Paris, and the extensive getting-rid of infants to which it is instrumental. By following Mr. Arnold's method, it would be easy to dispose of his conclusions. Suppose, for instance, that I were to set down the many murders com mitted in England by foreigners within our own memories, including those by Courvoisier, by Mrs. Manning, by Barthe- lemi near Fitzroy Square, by a Frenchman in Foley Place (about 1854-7), that by Muller, that by Kohl in the Essex marshes, that by Lani in a brothel near the Haymarket, that by Marguerite Diblanc, the tragedy of the two young Ger mans (Mai' and Nagel) at Chelsea, ending with the recent one in Great Coram Street — suppose I were to compare the ratio between this number of murderers and the number of for eigners in England, with the answering ratio among our own people; and suppose I were to take this as a test of the Conti nental culture Mr. Arnold so much admires. Probably he would not think the test quite relevant; and yet it would be quite as relevant as that he uses — perhaps somewhat more relevant. Suppose, again, that by way of criticism on German administration, I were to dwell on the catastrophe THE BIAS OF PATRIOTISM. 199 at Berlin, where, during the celebration of victory, fourteen sightseers were killed and some hundreds injured; or suppose I were to judge it by the disclosures of the leading Berlin phy sician, Virchow, who shows that one out of every thi'ee chil dren born in Berlin dies the first year, and whose statistics prove the general mortality to be increasing so rapidly that while " in 1854 the death-rate was 1000, in 1851-63 it rose to 1164, and in 1864-8 to 1817 " "—suppose, I say, that I took these facts as proof of failure in the social system Mr. Arnold would have us copy. Possibly he would not be much shaken; though it seems to me that this evidence would be more to the point than a case of infanticide among ourselves. Fur ther, suppose I were to test French administration by the sta tistics of mortality in the Crimea, as given at the late meeting of the French Association for the Advancement of Science, by M. Le Fort, who pointed out that — " Dans ces six mois d'hiver 1855-1856, alors qu'il n'y a plus guere d'hostilites, alors que les Anglais ont seulement en six mois 165 blesses, et les Francais 323, 1'armee anglaise, grace aux precautions prises, n'a que peu de malades et ne perd que 606 homines; 1'armee francaise voit eclater au milieu d'elle le typhus, qu'on eut pu eviter, et perd par les maladies seules 21,190 hommes; " and who further, respecting the relative mortalities from operations, said that — " En Crimee, les armees anglaise et francaise se trouvent exposees aux memes besoins, aux memes vicissitudes atmospheriques, et cepen- dant quelle difference dans la mortalite des operes. Les Anglais per- dent 24 pour 100 de leurs amputes du bras, nous en perdons plus du double, 55 sur 100; il en est de meme pour I'amputation de la jambe: — suppose. I say, that I were thus to deal with the notion that "they manage these things better in France." Mr. Arnold would, very likely, not abandon his belief. And yet this con trast would certainly be as damaging as the fact about the girl Wragg, to which he more than once refers so emphati cally. Surely it is manifest enough that by selecting the evi dence, any society may be relatively blackened and any other society relatively whitened.
From Mr. Arnold's method let us turn to some of his spe cific statements; taking first the statement that the English 200 THE STUDY OF SOCIOLOGY.
are deficient in ideas. He says: — " There is the world of ideas, and there is the world of practice; the French are often for suppressing the one, and the English the other." ia Admitting the success of the English in action, Mr. Arnold thinks that it goes along with want of faith in speculative conclusions. But by putting ideas and practice in this antithesis, he im plies his acceptance of the notion that effectual practice does not depend on superiority of ideas. This is an erroneous no tion. Methods that answer are preceded by thoughts that are true. A successful enterprise presupposes an imagination of all the factors, and conditions, and results— an imagination which differs from one leading to an unsuccessful enterprise in this, that what will happen is clearly and completely fore seen, instead of being foreseen vaguely and incompletely: there is greater ideality. Every scheme is an idea: every scheme more or less new, implies an idea more or less orig inal: every scheme proceeded with, implies an idea vivid enough to prompt action; and every scheme which succeeds, implies an idea so accurate and exhaustive that the results correspond with it. When an English company accommo dates Amsterdam with water (an element the Dutch are very familiar with, and in the management of which they, cen turies ago, gave us lessons) must we not say that by leaving us to supply their chief city they show a want of confidence in results ideally seen? Is it replied that the Dutch are not an imaginative people? Then take the Italians. How hap pens it that such a pressing need as the draining of Naples, has never suggested to Italian rulers or Italian people the tak ing of measures to achieve it; and how happens it that the idea of draining Naples, instead of emanating from French or Germans, supposed by Mr. Arnold to have more faith in ideas, emanates from a company of Englishmen, who are now pro posing to do the "work without cost to the municipality.11 Or what shall we infer as to relative faith in ideas, on learning that even within their respective territories the French and Germans wait for us to undertake new things for them? When we find that Toulouse and Bordeaux were lighted with gas by an English company, must we not infer lack of ideas in the people of those places? When we find that a body of Englishmen, the Rhone Hydraulic Company, seeing that at THE BIAS OF PATRIOTISM. •_-..]
Bellegarde there are rapids having a fall of forty feet, made a tunnel carrying a fourth of the river, and so got 10,000 horse power, which they are selling to manufacturers; and when we ask why this source of wealth was not utilized by the French themselves; must we not say that it was because the idea did not occur to them, or because it was not vivid and definite enough to prompt the enterprise? And when, on going north, we discover that not only in Belgium and Hol land are the chief towns, Brussels, Antwerp, Lille, Ghent, Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Haarlem, &c., lighted by our Con tinental Gas Association, but that this combination of Eng lishmen lights many towns in Germany also — Hanover. Aix- la-Chapelle, Stolberg. Cologne. Frankfort Vienna, nay. that even the head-quarters of geist, Berlin itself, had to wait for light until this CoTupauy supplied it. must we not say that more faith in ideas was shown by English than by Germans? Germans have plenty of energy, are not without desire to make money, and knew that gas was used in England; and if neither they nor their Governments undertook the work, we must infer that the benefits and means were inadequately conceived. English enterprises have often been led by ideas that looked wholly unpractical: as when the first English steamer astonished the people of Coblentz. in 1S17. by making its appearance there, so initiating the Rhine steam-navigation; or as when the first English steamer started across the Atlan tic. Instead of our practice being unideal. the ideas which guide it sometimes verge on the romantic. Fishing up a cable from the bottom of an ocean three miles deep, was an idea seemingly more fitted for The Arabian Xights than for actual life: and yet success proved how truly those who conducted the operation had put together their ideas in correspondence with the facts — the true test of vivid imagination.