Imagens das páginas
PDF
ePub

RESIDENCE IN BUSHY HEATH.

217

both with Mill and with Grote upon the topics discussed.

The new portions contributed to the work referred (1) to the Moral Sense, (2) to the nature of Happiness, and (3) to Moral Obligation.

The discussion on the Moral Sense (occupying nine pages of close print) consisted in showing the difficulties. of treating this as purely instinctive, and in enumerating nine constituent elements serving to account for our moral judgments, without reference to a special instinct. There was a considerable amount of redundancy in the enumeration, and, at best, it could only be called an approximate settlement of the question. It had been the result of many overhaulings of the subject in previous essays, and was superseded by the final analysis in the Mental and Moral Science.

Paley was unusually pretentious in expounding what he considered the constituents of Happiness, as being vital to his treatment of morals. In such a vast subject, it was not easy to comprise an adequate rendering in the short chapter devoted to it. Accordingly, an

attempt was made to improve upon it. The chief condition assigned was given in the unexceptionable formula “to afford a well-proportioned and duly-alternated gratification to the various active and passive susceptibilities of the human frame". If to this we add the negative expression -an exemption from all the varieties of pain in the proportion of their respective amounts and severity,—the definition is sufficient as an abstract formula.

Moral Obligation-disposed of by Paley under his pithy interrogatory, "Why am I obliged to keep my word?"-is subjected to a fresh examination. All the points usually involved in the topic are gone over, much in the same fashion as in the later treatment in the Moral Science; stress being laid upon self-preservation and

social security as the leading ends of a properly ethical kind, while universal happiness or utility is regarded as too large for ethical enforcement.

Two or three visits to Grote at Burnham Beeches diversified the winter, and gave opportunities for discussing what I was at work upon. Grote strongly protested against the proposal to regard Integrity as a fundamental assumption of Ethics; which led me to modify the position I had assigned to it. On my stating this to Mill, he remarked that the necessities of the advocacy of the ballot operated on Grote's mind upon this point. At the same time, he himself held that Truth must occasionally bend to Utility.

Summer in Paris, 1851.

I left Bushey Heath in the beginning of April, 1851, with the intention of proceeding to Paris. A few days spent in London were turned to account in attending Professor Sharpey's lectures in University College, that part of the course referring to the brain and nervous system. His exposition contained the most advanced views held at the time. In particular, he gave a résumé of the nature of the nerve force, introducing some speculations of Faraday on its character, as illus

EDITING PALEY.-SHARPEY'S LECTURES.

219

trated by his electrical researches. I did not preserve the exact tenor of the speculation; but it operated upon my mind in the way of suggesting the doctrine of Spontaneity as a necessary supplement to the recognized circle of the nervous current from sense to movement. I had not embodied this addition in any previous sketch of either Sense or Instinct, but introduced it somehow into the draft that was in my hands at the time.

In planning a residence in Paris of two or three months, it was my intention to go on with the composition of a full detail of the psychological scheme already redacted on a smaller scale in more than one draft. I should, of course, at the same time, be able to see Paris and Paris life, and improve my knowledge of the language.

I arrived in the first week of April, and, after a few days at the Hotel de Lisle, found my way to a boarding-house or Hôtel garni, in the Rue de la Victoire. The house had a large number of bedrooms and a common table for six o'clock dinner. The keeper was an elderly woman, who had for manager a young medical graduate. He presided at the table, and had a remarkably clear articulation, which enabled me to follow his French

with comparative ease. I engaged a private teacher for an hour-a-day's lesson, and kept it up during my stay.

I brought with me an introduction to Madame Mohl, well known to a large English circle for her hospitality and conversation. Her husband, Julius Mohl, Professor of Persian in the Collège de France, contributed his part to make their domicile an attraction to English visitors, as well as to their wide circle in Paris. They occupied an unpretentious troisième in the Rue de Bac, which had been the abode of Madame Mohl's mother. I presented my introduction at once; and it was responded to in the most cordial fashion both by Madame Mohl and by her husband. I received an invitation to their weekly evening receptions, which were a mixture of amusement to the young, in the shape of music and dances in one apartment, and, in another apartment, of conversation with people of all ages and of all ranks. Their circle of acquaintance comprised, of course, the literary and scientific class, which made up the institute of which Mohl was a member, and also a considerable sprinkling of the more purely fashionable members of Paris society. The titles of the old régime still persisted in their families, but did not carry with them the dignity that attaches to the titles of our nobility. While frequenting those

PROFESSOR AND MADAME MOHL.

221

evening receptions, I had also the privilege of making morning calls upon Professor Mohl himself in his own study. He was essentially an orientalist; his standing being shown by the fact that he was president of the Oriental Society of Paris. He interested me greatly by opening up two new veins of information on the countries of the East. His earliest project had been to devote his life to a history of Chinese civilization, but found that his memory broke down under the weight of the language. Still, he had gone far enough to possess a great number of curious and interesting details respecting the early history of China. These he freely communicated in conversation; and they still remain in my mind. His actual position as a teacher in Paris was to give lectures in modern Persian to a very small number of pupils. The nature of these expositions he also explained to me; and they were remarkably suggestive. He was, further, known as a man of the most liberal political views-which he retained through the vicissitudes of French politics that soon overtook the country.

Madame Mohl had usually with her one of her husband's two nieces, the daughters of Robert von Mohl of Heidelberg, whom I saw several years later at his own abode. These were remarkably intelligent and vigorous young women;

« AnteriorContinuar »