The sayings of men of thought may be termed the work of their lives, and form an imperishable monument of their wisdom. It would be imagined that nothing then would be easier than to string them together like beads upon a string to produce a book of great value and beauty. Without some wisdom, however, on the part of the collector, or at all events, an intelligent sympathy, this cannot be done, though it has been often tried, with much effect. Indeed, some of the stupidest works that have ever been published have appeared under the title of 'Beauties,' 'Selections,' 'Sayings,' &c., and have injured as far as possible the memories of those great men whom it was their object to embalm. To 'form a collection' from natural history, it is requisite that a man should not only possess the articles in question, but know how to arrange them both in order and by contrast; and knowledge of this kind is almost as necessary to one who would collect the wisest thoughts of the wisest thinkers. In Human Nature,[1] by Mr Mitchell, we have a little volume, which if not perfect, is at least the best book of the kind which has come under our notice. It deals, as the title would imply, with only one subject, but that one of great extent, and of the most paramount importance to us—namely, Ourselves. It makes no pretence of stating any dogmatic truth, but simply gives the utterances of those who have devoted their lives to finding the truth. Often at variance and sometimes in direct opposition to one another, they are nevertheless almost all worthy of regard; and since they concern themselves with our own 'virtues, vices, manners, follies, sufferings, interests, and duties,' can scarcely fail to command our attention.

In the definitions of Mankind, in general, the variety strikes one at least as much as the ingenuity. 'Man is a microcosm;' 'the cooking animal;' 'the animal that makes exchanges;' 'the animal that makes tools, &c.' They all appear, notwithstanding their general acceptance, as more or less affected, strained, and incomprehensive. What, asks Pascal, 'is the utility of even Plato's definition of man: "An animal with two legs without feathers?" Does a man lose his humanity by losing his legs? or does a capon acquire it by being stripped of its feathers?' Thus does one philosopher fall foul of another. But when we pass from the definition to the moral description of the human race, the agreement is remarkable, and that among wholly different types of mind.

says Young. And commenting on the same inconsistency, Pope sings:

A modern poet, Swinburne, follows still on the same side, in prose: 'After all, man is man; he is not wicked, and he is not good; by no means white as snow; but by means black as a coal; black and white, piebald, striped, dubious.' These ideas, so curiously similar in three such different minds, may seem to set at nought the dreams of the perfectibility of our species; but at the same time there is nothing in them to corroborate the gloomy verdict of Buckle, that 'we cannot assume in the present state of our knowledge that there has been any permanent improvement in the moral or intellectual faculties of man.'

The above is one of the most depressing statements a philosopher has ever made; but it seems to us to be directly contradicted by an even still greater name. 'I have long felt,' says Mill, 'that the prevailing tendency to regard all the marked distinctions of human character as innate and in the main indelible, is one of the chief hindrances to the rational treatment of great social questions, and one of the great stumbling-blocks to human improvement.' On the other hand, a thinker of quite another sort, Francis Galton, exclaims: 'I have no patience with the hypothesis, occasionally expressed and often implied, especially in tales written to teach children to be good, that babies are born pretty much alike, and that the sole agencies in creating differences between boy and boy, and man and man, are steady application and moral effort.' Where philosophers thus differ, we do not pretend to say which is true; but there is no doubt as to which opinion would suggest industry and which sloth. Indeed, Mr Galton's views if carried to their full length would approach to fatalism, and might almost be placed beside the famous song of Messrs Moody and Sankey:

Oliver Wendell Holmes has described the various intellects of man (but without going into the hereditary question) with as much wit as truth: 'One-story intellects, two-story intellects, three-story intellects with skylights. All fact collectors who have no aim beyond their facts are one-story men. Two-story men compare, reason, generalise, using the labours of the fact collectors as well as their own. Three-story men idealise, imagine, predict; their best illumination comes from above through the skylight.... Poets are often narrow below, incapable of clear statement, and with small power of consecutive reasoning, but full of light, if sometimes rather bare of furniture, in the attics.'

The desire to lay field to field and house to house has been the ruin of some great minds; but it is generally an attribute of the small. A few have almost no other vice save that of acquisitiveness. A whole nation indeed is said to be characterised by it. 'The Dutch,' writes John Foster, 'seem very happy and comfortable, certainly; but it is the happiness of animals. In vain do you look among them for the sweet breath of hope and advancement.... There is gravity enough, but it is the gravity of a man who despises gaiety, without being able to rise by contemplation. The love of money always creates a certain coarseness in the moral texture, either of a nation or an individual.' This last remark has certainly an application on the other side of the Atlantic. It is true that Goethe says that 'English pride is invulnerable, because it is based on the majesty of money;' but he does not refer to the mean desire of gain. He has elsewhere indeed expressed himself with some favour on the national character: 'Is it then derivation, or their soil, or their free constitution, or national education—who can tell?—but it is a fact that the English appear to have the advantage of many other nations. There is in them nothing turned and twisted, and no half-measures and after-thoughts. Whatever they are, they are always complete men. Sometimes they are complete fools, I grant you; but even their folly is a folly of some substance and weight.'

The opinions of man on women are, as might be expected, even more various than those pronounced upon their own sex. But even these are not without a certain congruity. It is rare to find a complete 'irreconcilable,' such as John Knox, who thus delivers himself: 'To promote a woman to bear rule, superiority, dominion, or empire, above any realm, nation, or city, is repugnant to nature, contumely to God, a thing most contrary to His revealed will and approved ordinance; and finally, it is the subversion of good order, of all equity and justice.' This would be now thought little short of treason; but there is no doubt that Knox had a certain particular queen in his mind when he made those very strong observations. Among the French philosophers, there is a wonderful unanimity concerning the fair sex, and not altogether in accordance with the proverbial gallantry of their nation.

La BruyÈre says: 'Women for the most part have no principles, as men understand the word. They are guided by their feelings, and have full faith in their guide. Their notions of propriety and impropriety, right and wrong, they get from the little world embraced by their affections.' Alphonse Karr says: 'Never attempt to prove anything to a woman: she believes only according to her feelings. Endeavour, then, to please and persuade: she may yield to the person who reasons with her, not to his arguments. She will listen to the strongest, the most unanswerable proofs, enough to silence an assembly of learned theologians; and when you have done she will reply, with the utmost unconcern, and in perfect good faith: "Well, and what has all that to do with the matter?"'

It is probable that both these last philosophers were 'very much married.' No one, however, that is capable of anything beyond a superficial judgment has ever imagined that the French have a genuine respect for women. Their sayings about them are very severe. 'Whenever two women form a friendship, it is merely a coalition against a third,' writes Karr; and even Rochefoucauld confesses, 'Most women care little about friendship; they find it insipid as soon as they have known what it is to love.' 'No woman is pleased,' asserts Octave Feuillet, 'at being told by a man that he loves her like a sister.' At the same time, our Parisian philosophers give every credit to female attractions. 'Do not flatter yourself,' says one, 'because you have studied, and possibly understand all that is to be understood of womankind, you are safe against their wiles. A word, a look, from one of them may make you forget in a twinkling of an eye all your boasted knowledge.' It is like escaping into the fresh air from some brilliant but unhealthy scene to read, after these cynical assertions, what an American essayist (who ought to have been an Englishman) has to say upon this same subject: 'A woman who does not carry about with her a halo of good feeling wherever she goes, an atmosphere of grace, mercy, and peace, of at least six feet radius, which wraps every human being upon whom she is pleased to bestow her presence, and gives him the comfortable belief that she is rather glad than otherwise that he is alive, may do well enough to hold discussions with, but is not worth talking to—as a woman.' This is almost as great a general compliment as Steele's well-known eulogy on Lady Elizabeth Hastings was a particular one: 'To behold her is an immediate check on loose behaviour, and to love her is a liberal education.'

It is curious that no sages in the least agree in their definitions of genius, nor can even express what they mean by it with distinctness, which is perhaps a proof of its transcendent and mysterious power. Of originality, however, it is well remarked by Opie that 'it is most seen in the young. It is a mistake to suppose that artists [and he might have added authors] go on improving to the last, or nearly so; on the contrary, they put their best ideas into their first works, which all their lives they have been qualifying themselves to undertake, and which are the natural fruit of their combined genius, training, circumstances, and opportunities. What they gain afterwards in correctness and refinement, they lose in originality and vigour.'

A very fine addendum or paraphrase of the line, 'The proper study of mankind is man,' has been given by Professor Huxley: 'Whence our race has come; what are the limits of our power over Nature, and of Nature's powers over us; to what goal we are tending—are the problems which present themselves anew, and with undiminished interest, to every man born into the world.' It seems to us a somewhat too lenient conclusion that Hazlitt has come to when he says, 'A single bad action does not condemn a man, nor a single bad habit.' For a single action, not to mention a habit, may be easily so bad—such as torturing a living creature for the pleasure of it—as to condemn him altogether. Our philosophers, however, do not generally err on the side of charity, except, perhaps, when admitting the force of circumstances. 'Tell me your age and your income,' says Balzac, 'and I will tell you your opinions;' and is it not our own Becky Sharp who has observed, 'Anybody could be good with three thousand a year.'

Hobbes (of all people!) makes this significant remark concerning our Saviour: 'The evangelists tell us that Christ knew anger, joy, sorrow, pity, hunger, thirst, fear, and weariness; but neither prophet, historian, apostle, nor evangelist speaks of his laughing.'

We find under the head of 'the Senses' a curious modern fallacy of the Faculty in the mouth of Charles Lamb. 'Take away the candle,' he says, 'from the smoking man; by the glimmering light of the ashes he knows that he is still smoking, but he knows it only by an inference, till the restored light, coming in aid of the olfactories, reveals to both senses the full aroma.' This idea of smoking not being enjoyable in the dark is shared by even men of science; whereas it is certain that blind men (for example, Professor Fawcett) are not only fond of smoking, but delicate in their perceptions as to the quality of the tobacco. Another fallacy of a different kind—namely, that it is well to tell your friends of their faults—is thus extinguished by Sydney Smith: 'Very few friends will bear this; if done at all, it must be done with infinite management and delicacy. If the evil is not very alarming, it is better to let it alone.'

A general favourite in society is usually thought to be an exceptionally clever and cultivated person; but this is not in fact the case. 'A delicacy of taste,' says David Hume, 'is favourable to love and friendship, by confining our choice to few people, and making us indifferent to the company and conversation of the greater part of men.... One that has well digested his knowledge, both of books and men, has little enjoyment but in the company of a few select companions.'

Of the superiority of Nature over Art, Byron has a fine saying: 'I never yet saw the picture or the statue which came within a league of my conception or expectation; but I have seen many mountains, and seas, and rivers, and views, and one or two women, who went as far beyond it.' Burns has stated that we have not the gift of seeing ourselves as others see us; but Canning tells us that we at least desire it: 'Prevalent as every species of curiosity is, there is none which has so powerful an influence over every man as the desire of knowing what the world thinks of him; and there is none of which the gratification is in general so heartily repented of.' This is severe; but not so harsh as Mirabeau, who said of Lafayette, who loved popular applause, 'He deserves a certain renown; he has done a great deal with the humble means with which Nature furnished him.'

One statement in Mr Mitchell's book will be hailed with universal satisfaction, if, as Thackeray tells us, nine-tenths of our population are 'snobs;' it is a sort of apology for toadyism, and rests upon no less an authority than that of Adam Smith: 'Our obsequiousness to our superiors more frequently arises from our admiration of the advantages of their situation than from any private expectations of benefit from their good-will.' It is certainly some kind of comfort to consider that this general suppleness of the back, however mean may be its motive, does not arise from mere sordid self-interest.

Just as it is understood that all self-made men begin the world with half-a-crown in their pocket, so it is reported that all great men leave the world with some admirable sentiment in their mouths. 'William Pitt said something in his last moments. His physician (a gentleman, we suppose, of Tory proclivities) made it out to be, "Save my country, Heaven." His nurse said that he asked for barley-water.'

Curiously enough, the famous saying of the Swedish chancellor concerning the ease with which the world is governed, is not in the present collection; but there is a comparatively unknown remark by Vauvenargues that merits quotation: 'It is the easiest thing in the world for men in good positions to appropriate to their own use and credit the knowledge and ability of inferiors.' Of the truth of this there are very many modern instances. Whenever a person of rank without abilities is placed in power, and to the surprise of everybody, does not make a complete failure, his friends say: 'Ah, but he has good administrative capacity;' and Vauvenargues has told us what it means.

To shew the comprehensiveness of the plan which our author has adopted in this excellent selection, we may mention that between a reflection of Carlyle's and a quotation from the Persian poet Sadi, appears this maxim: 'Some people have money and no brains; others have brains and no money;' which is widely known as the motto of a certain 'unfortunate British nobleman now languishing in Dartmoor prison.'

There is a good deal of the truest wisdom, as well as amusement and instruction, to be gleaned from this little volume; and we will conclude our remarks upon it with one of its best pieces of advice: 'Take short views, hope for the best, and trust in God.'

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