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made one of the counsel of the United States in the matter of the Geneva arbitration. His argument in reply to that of Sir Roundell Palmer attracted some attention, but he was almost unknown to the profession and to the country when appointed Chief Justice by President Grant in January, 1874. He was not a great man, nor was he born to be the leader of men; nor had he any great ambition; nor any of that genius which in its struggle for supremacy seeks to surmount the world and say, like Lucifer: "Place my throne by the throne of God." But to a cer

tain extent his elevation reinforced his character. There is no man called suddenly into public life who, in passing from his own house to preside in the capital of the Union over the most dignified, if not the most powerful, tribunal on earth, has not been changed-transfigured. If he has not been it is an evidence of such hopeless mediocrity that even the hand of God would hardly be able to produce anything from it.

Waite was trained in the ways of the law and of the courts; his opinions do not convey the impression of a commanding intellect, but they are clear, terse, vigorous and judicial. He was absorbed in the obligations and responsibilities of his office, having no ambition beyond it. He was in manner plain, unattractive, and unostentatious; his genial and social nature, combined with amiable courtesy, endeared him to the members of the bar. He was an upright and impartial judge, a good man, and a pious Christian.

JOHN CAMPBELL SHAIRP

THE LITERARY THEORY OF CULTURE

[Address by John Campbell Shairp, poet, critic, and essayist, Principal of the United College, St. Andrew's (born in Houstoun, West Lothian, July 30, 1819; died at Ormsary in Argyll, September 18, 1885), delivered as one of a series of addresses on Culture and Religion, before the University of St. Andrew's.]

A true poet and brilliant critic of the present time, admired by all for his fine and cultivated genius, and to me endeared by never-fading memories of early companionship, has identified his name with a very different view of culture from that which I brought before you the last time I addressed you. If Professor Huxley's is the exclusively scientific view of culture, Mr. Arnold's may be called the literary or æsthetic one. In discussing the former theory, I attempted to examine it in the light of facts, and to avoid applying to it any words which its author might disown. For mere appeal to popular prejudice should have no place in discussions about truth, and he who has recourse to that weapon in so far weakens the cause he advocates. If, however, I was constrained to call attention to some not unimportant facts of human nature which that theory fails to account for, this should be regarded not as appeal to unreasoning prejudice, but as a statement of omitted facts.

But whatever might be said of Professor Huxley's view, as leaving out of sight the spiritual capacities and needs of man, the same objection cannot equally be urged against Mr. Arnold's theory of culture. He fully recognizes religion as an element, and a very important one, in his theory; only we may see cause to differ from him in the

place which he assigns to it. Though I believe Mr. Arnold's theory to be defective when taken as a total philosophy of life, yet so large-minded and generous are the views it exhibits, so high and refined are the motives it urges for self-improvement, that I believe no one can seriously and candidly consider what he says without deriving good from it. As a recent writer has truly said, "The author of this theory deserves much praise for having brought the subject before men's minds, and forced a little unwilling examination on the 'self-complacent but very uncultured British public.'"

Many who now hear me may have probably read in Mr. Arnold's several works all his pleadings for culture. To these the recapitulation of his views which I shall give may be somewhat tedious, but I hope those who know his writings will bear with me while I briefly go over his views for the sake of those of my hearers who may be less acquainted with them.

In Mr. Arnold's view, the aim of culture is not merely to render an intelligent being more intelligent, to improve our capacities to the uttermost, but, in words which he borrows from Bishop Wilson, "to make reason and the kingdom of God prevail." It is impelled not merely by the scientific desire to see things as they are, but rather by the moral endeavor to know more and more the universal order, which seems intended in the world, that we may conform to it ourselves, and make others conform to it; in short, that we may help to make the will of God prevail in us and around us. In this, he says, is seen the moral, social, beneficent nature of culture, that while it seeks the best knowledge, the highest science that is to be had, it seeks them in order to make them tell on human life and character.

The aim of culture, therefore, is the perfection of our human nature on all its sides, in all its capacities. First, it tries to determine in what this perfection consists, and in order to solve this question, it consults the manifold human experience that has expressed itself in such diverse ways, throughout science, poetry, philosophy, history, as well as through religion. And the conclusion which culture reaches is, Mr. Arnold holds, in harmony with the voice of religion. For it places human perfection in an internal

condition of soul, in the growth and predominance of our humanity proper, as distinguished from our animality.

Again, it does not rest content with any condition of soul, however excellent, but presses ever onward to an ampler growth, to a gradual harmonious expansion of those gifts of thought and feeling which make the peculiar dignity, wealth, and happiness of human nature. Not a having and resting, but a growing and becoming, is the true character of perfection as culture conceives it. Again, in virtue of that bond of brotherhood which binds all men to each other, whether they will it or not, this perfection cannot be an isolated individual perfection. Unless the obligation it lays on each man to consider others as well as himself is recognized, the perfection attained must be a stunted, ignoble one, far short of true perfection.

In all these three considerations the aim of culture, Mr. Arnold thinks, coincides with the aim of religion.

First, in that it places perfection not in any external good, but in an internal condition of soul-"The kingdom of God is within you."

Secondly, in that it sets before men a condition not of having and resting, but of growing and becoming as the true aim-" Forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before."

Thirdly, in that it holds that a man's perfection cannot be self-contained, but must embrace the good of others equally with his own, and as the very condition of his own -"Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others."

These three notes belong alike to the perfection which culture aims at and to that which religion enjoins.

But there is a fourth note of perfection as conceived by culture, in which, as Mr. Arnold thinks, it transcends the aim of religion. "As an harmonious expansion of all the powers which make the beauty and worth of human nature," Mr. Arnold holds that it "goes beyond religion, as religion is generally conceived among us." For religion, Mr. Arnold thinks, aims at the cultivation of some, and these, no doubt, the highest powers of the soul, at the expense, even at the sacrifice, of other powers, which it regards as lower. So it falls short of that many-sided,

even-balanced, all-embracing totality of development which is the aim of the highest culture.

Mark well this point, for, though I cannot stop to discuss it now, I must return to it after I have set before you Mr. Arnold's view in its further bearings.

After insisting, then, that culture is the study of perfection, harmonious, all-embracing, consisting in becoming something rather than in having something, in an inward condition of soul rather than in any outward circumstances, Mr. Arnold goes on to show how hard a battle. culture has to fight in this country, with how many of our strongest tendencies, our most deep-rooted characteristics, it comes into direct, even violent collision. The prominence culture gives to the soul, the inward and spiritual condition, as transcending all outward goods put together, comes into conflict with our worship of a mechanical and material civilization. The social aspirations it calls forth for the general elevation of the human family conflict with our intense individualism, our "every man. for himself." The totality of its aim, the harmonious expansion of all human capacities, contradicts our inveterate one-sidedness, our absorption each in his own one pursuit. It conflicts, above all, with the tendency so strong in us to worship the means and to forget the ends of life.

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Everywhere, as he looks around him, Mr. Arnold sees this great British people chasing the means of living with unparalleled energy, and forgetting the inward things of our being, which alone give these means their value. are, in fact, idol-worshippers without knowing it. worship freedom, the right to do every man as he chooses, careless whether the thing we choose to do be good or not. We worship railroads, steam, coal, as if these made a nation's greatness, forgetting that

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We worship wealth, as men have done in all ages, in spite of the voices of all the wise, only, perhaps, never before in the world's history with such unanimity, such strength and consistency of devotion, as at this hour, in this land. I must quote the words in which he makes

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