Trincq est ung mot panomphée, célébré et entendu de toutes
nations, et nous signifie, beuuez. Et ici maintenons que non
rire, ains boyre est le propre de l'homme. Je ne dy boyre
simplement et absolument, car aussy bien boyvent les bestes;
je dy boyre vin bon et fraiz.—Rabelais: 1. v. c. 45.
Some guests remained. Some departed and returned. Among these was Mr. MacBorrowdale. One day after dinner, on one of his reappearances, Lord Curryfin said to him—
'Well, Mr. MacBorrowdale, in your recent observations, have you found anything likely to satisfy Jack1 of Dover, if he were prosecuting2 his inquiry3 among us?'
Mr. MacBorrowdale. Troth, no, my lord. I think, if he were among us, he would give up the search as hopeless. He found it so in his own day, and he would find it still more so now. Jack was both merry and wise. We have less mirth in practice; and we have more wisdom in pretension4, which Jack would not have admitted.
The Rev5. Dr. Opimian. He would have found it like Juvenal's search for patriotic6 virtue7, when Catiline was everywhere, and Brutus and Cato were nowhere.{1}
1 Et Catilinam quocumque in populo videas, quocumque sub
axe: sed nee Brutus erit, Bruti nec avunculus usquam.
—Juv. Sat. xiv. 41-43.
Lord Curryfin. Well, among us, if Jack did not find his superior, or even his equal, he would not have been at a loss for company to his mind. There is enough mirth for those who choose to enjoy it, and wisdom too, perhaps as much as he would have cared for. We ought to have more wisdom, as we have clearly more science.
The Rev. Dr. Opimian. Science is one thing, and wisdom is another. Science is an edged tool, with which men play like children, and cut their own fingers. If you look at the results which science has brought in its train, you will find them to consist almost wholly in elements of mischief8. See how much belongs to the word Explosion alone, of which the ancients knew nothing. Explosions of powder-mills and powder-magazines; of coal-gas in mines and in houses; of high-pressure engines in ships and boats and factories. See the complications and refinements9 of modes of destruction, in revolvers and rifles and shells and rockets and cannon10. See collisions and wrecks11 and every mode of disaster by land and by sea, resulting chiefly from the insanity12 for speed, in those who for the most part have nothing to do at the end of the race, which they run as if they were so many Mercuries speeding with messages from Jupiter. Look at our scientific drainage, which turns refuse into poison. Look at the subsoil of London, whenever it is turned up to the air, converted by gas leakage13 into one mass of pestilent blackness, in which no vegetation can flourish, and above which, with the rapid growth of the ever-growing nuisance, no living thing will breathe with impunity14. Look at our scientific machinery15, which has destroyed domestic manufacture, which has substituted rottenness for strength in the thing made, and physical degradation16 in crowded towns for healthy and comfortable country life in the makers17. The day would fail, if I should attempt to enumerate18 the evils which science has inflicted19 on mankind. I almost think it is the ultimate destiny of science to exterminate20 the human race.
Lord Curryfin. You have gone over a wide field, which we might exhaust a good bin21 of claret in fully22 discussing. But surely the facility of motion over the face of the earth and sea is both pleasant and profitable. We may now see the world with little expenditure23 of labour or time.
The Rev. Dr. Opimian. You may be whisked over it, but you do not see it. You go from one great town to another, where manners and customs are not even now essentially24 different, and with this facility of intercourse25 become progressively less and less so. The intermediate country—which you never see, unless there is a show mountain, or waterfall, or ruin, for which there is a station, and to which you go as you would to any other exhibition—the intermediate country contains all that is really worth seeing, to enable you to judge of the various characteristics of men and the diversified26 objects of Nature.
Lord Curryfin. You can suspend your journey if you please, and see the intermediate country, if you prefer it.
The Rev. Dr. Opimian. But who does prefer it? You travel round the world by a hand-book, as you do round an exhibition-room by a catalogue.
Mr. MacBorrowdale. Not to say that in the intermediate country you are punished by bad inns and bad wine; of which I confess myself intolerant. I knew an unfortunate French tourist, who had made the round of Switzerland, and had but one expression for every stage of his journey: Mauvaise auberge!
Lord Curryfin. Well, then, what say you to the electric telegraph, by which you converse27 at the distance of thousands of miles? Even across the Atlantic, as no doubt we shall yet do.
Mr. Gryll. Some of us have already heard the doctor's opinion on that subject.
The Rev. Dr. Opimian. I have no wish to expedite communication with the Americans. If we could apply the power of electrical repulsion to preserve us from ever hearing anything more of them, I should think that we had for once derived28 a benefit from science.
Mr. Gryll. Your love for the Americans, doctor, seems something like that of Cicero's friend Marius for the Greeks. He would not take the nearest road to his villa29, because it was called the Greek Road.{1} Perhaps if your nearest way home were called the American Road, you would make a circuit to avoid it.
The Rev. Dr. Opimian. I am happy to say I am not put to the test. Magnetism30, galvanism, electricity, are 'one form of many names.'{2} Without magnetism we should never have discovered America; to which we are indebted for nothing but evil; diseases in the worst forms that can afflict31 humanity, and slavery in the worst form in which slavery can cast. The Old World had the sugar-cane and the cotton-plant, though it did not so misuse32 them. Then, what good have we got from America? What good of any kind, from the whole continent and its islands, from the Esquimaux to Patagonia?
1 Non enim te puto Graecos ludos desiderare: praesertim quum
Graecos ita non âmes, ut ne ad villain33 quidem tuam via
Grasca ire soleas.—Cicero: Ep. ad Div, vii. i.
2 (Greek phrase)—Æschylus: Prometheus.
Mr. Gryll. Newfoundland salt-fish, doctor.
The Rev. Dr. Opindan. That is something, but it does not turn the scale.
Mr. Gryll. If they have given us no good, we have given them none.
The Rev. Dr. Opimian. We have given them wine and classical literature; but I am afraid Bacchus and Minerva have equally "Scattered34 their bounty35 upon barren ground."
On the other hand, we have given the red men rum, which has been the chief instrument of their perdition. On the whole, our intercourse with America has been little else than an interchange of vices37 and diseases.
Lord Curryfin. Do you count it nothing to have substituted civilised for savage38 men?
The Rev, Dr. Opimian. Civilised. The word requires definition. But looking into futurity, it seems to me that the ultimate tendency of the change is to substitute the worse for the better race; the Negro for the Red Indian. The Red Indian will not work for a master. No ill-usage will make him. Herein he is the noblest specimen39 of humanity that ever walked the earth. Therefore, the white man exterminates40 his race. But the time will come when by mere41 force of numbers the black race will predominate, and exterminate the white. And thus the worse race will be substituted for the better, even as it is in St. Domingo, where the Negro has taken the place of the Caraib. The change is clearly for the worse.
Lord Curryfin. You imply that in the meantime the white race is better than the red.
The Rev. Dr. Opimian. I leave that as an open question. But I hold, as some have done before me, that the human mind degenerates42 in America, and that the superiority, such as it is, of the white race, is only kept up by intercourse with Europe. Look at the atrocities43 in their ships. Look at their Congress and their Courts of Justice; debaters in the first; suitors, even advocates, sometimes judges, in the second, settling their arguments with pistol and dagger44. Look at their extensions of slavery, and their revivals45 of the slave-trade, now covertly46, soon to be openly. If it were possible that the two worlds could be absolutely dissevered for a century, I think a new Columbus would find nothing in America but savages47.
Lord Curryfin. You look at America, doctor, through your hatred48 of slavery. You must remember that we introduced it when they were our colonists49. It is not so easily got rid of. Its abolition50 by France exterminated51 the white race in St. Domingo, as the white race had exte............