ON THE DIFFICULTY OF DISCOVERING FIXED LAWS.

A book on Human Intercourse might be written in a variety of ways, and amongst them might be an attempt to treat the subject in a scientific manner so as to elucidate those natural laws by which intercourse between human beings must be regulated. If we knew quite perfectly what those laws are we should enjoy the great convenience of being able to predict with certainty which men and women would be able to associate with pleasure, and which would be constrained or repressed in each other’s society. Human intercourse would then be as much a positive science as chemistry, in which the effects of bringing substances together can be foretold with the utmost accuracy. Some very distant approach to this scientific state may in certain instances actually be made. When we know the characters of two people with a certain degree of precision we may sometimes predict that they are sure to quarrel, and have the satisfaction of witnessing the explosion that our own acumen has foretold. To detect in people we know those incompatibilities that are the fatal seeds of future dissension is one of our malicious pleasures. An acute observer really has considerable powers of prediction and calculation with reference to individual human beings, but there his wisdom ends. He cannot deduce from these separate cases any general rules or laws that can be firmly relied upon as every real law of nature can be relied upon, and therefore it may be concluded that such rules are not laws of nature at all, but only poor and untrustworthy substitutes for them.

The reason for this difficulty I take to be the extreme complexity of human nature and its boundless variety, which make it always probable that in every mind which we have not long and closely studied there will be elements wholly unknown to us. How often, with regard to some public man, who is known to us only in part through his acts or his writings, are we surprised by the sudden revelation of characteristics that we never imagined for him and that seem almost incompatible with the better known side of his nature! How much the more, then, are we likely to go wrong in our estimates of people we know nothing about, and how impossible it must be for us to determine how they are likely to select their friends and companions!

Certain popular ideas appear to represent a sort of rude philosophy of human intercourse. There is the common belief, for example, that, in order to associate pleasantly together, people should be of the same class and nearly in the same condition of fortune, but when we turn to real life we find very numerous instances in which this fancied law is broken with the happiest results. The late Duke of Albany may be mentioned as an example. No doubt his own natural refinement would have prevented him from associating with vulgar people; but he readily associated with refined and cultivated people who had no pretension to rank. His own rank was a power in his hands that he used for good, and he was conscious of it, but it did not isolate him; he desired to know people as they are, and was capable of feeling the most sincere respect for anybody who deserved it. So it is, generally, with all who have the gifts of sympathy and intelligence. Merely to avoid what is disagreeable has nothing to do with pride of station. Vulgar society is disagreeable, which is a sufficient reason for keeping aloof from it. Amongst people of refinement, association or even friendship is possible in spite of differences of rank and fortune.

Another popular belief is that “men associate together when they are interested in the same things.” It would, however, be easy to adduce very numerous instances in which an interest in similar things has been a cause of quarrel, when if one of the two parties had regarded those things with indifference, harmonious intercourse might have been preserved. The livelier our interest in anything the more does acquiescence in matters of detail appear essential to us. Two people are both of them extremely religious, but one of them is a Mahometan, and the other a Christian; here the interest in religion causes a divergence, enough in most cases to make intercourse impossible, when it would have been quite possible if both parties had regarded religion with indifference. Bring the two nearer together, suppose them to be both Christians, they acknowledge one law, one doctrine, one Head of the church in heaven. Yes, but they do not acknowledge the same head of it on earth, for one accepts the Papal supremacy, which the other denies; and their common Christianity is a feeble bond of union in comparison with the forces of repulsion contained in a multitude of details. Two nominal, indifferent Christians who take no interest in theology would have a better chance of agreeing. Lastly, suppose them to be both members of the Church of England, one of the old school, with firm and settled beliefs on every point and a horror of the most distant approaches to heresy, the other of the new school, vague, indeterminate, desiring to preserve his Christianity as a sentiment when it has vanished as a faith, thinking that the Bible is not true in the old sense but only “contains” truth, that the divinity of Christ is “a past issue,”[1] and that evolution is, on the whole, more probable than direct and intentional creation,—what possible agreement can exist between these two? If they both care about religious topics, and talk about them, will not their disagreement be in exact proportion to the liveliness of their interest in the subject? So in a realm with which I have some acquaintance, that of the fine arts, discord is always probable between those who have a passionate delight in art. Innocent, well-intentioned friends think that because two men “like painting,” they ought to be introduced, as they are sure to amuse each other. In reality, their tastes may be more opposed than the taste of either of them is to perfect indifference. One has a severe taste for beautiful form and an active contempt for picturesque accidents and romantic associations, the other feels chilled by severe beauty and delights in the picturesque and romantic. If each is convinced of the superiority of his own principles he will deduce from them an endless series of judgments that can only irritate the other.

Seeing that nations are always hostile to each other, always watchfully jealous and inclined to rejoice in every evil that happens to a neighbor, it would appear safe to predict that little intercourse could exist between persons of different nationality. When, however, we observe the facts as they are in real life, we perceive that very strong and durable friendships often exist between men who are not of the same nation, and that the chief obstacle to the formation of these is not so much nationality as difference of language. There is, no doubt, a prejudice that one is not likely to get on well with a foreigner, and the prejudice has often the effect of keeping people of different nationality apart, but when once it is overcome it is often found that very powerful feelings of mutual respect and sympathy draw the strangers together. On the other hand, there is not the least assurance that the mere fact of being born in the same country will make two men regard each other with kindness. An Englishman repels another Englishman when he meets him on the Continent.[2] The only just conclusion is that nationality affords no certain rule either in favor of intercourse or against it. A man may possibly be drawn towards a foreign nationality by his appreciation of its excellence in some art that he loves, but this is the case only when the excellence is of the peculiar kind that supplies the needs of his own intelligence. The French excel in painting; that is to say, that many Frenchmen have attained a certain kind of excellence in certain departments of the art of painting. Englishmen and Americans who value that particular kind of excellence are often strongly drawn towards Paris as an artistic centre or capital; and this opening of their minds to French influence in art may admit other French influences at the same time, so that the ultimate effect of a love of art may be a breaking down of the barrier of nationality. It seldom happens that Frenchmen are drawn towards England and America by their love of painting, but it frequently happens that they become in a measure Anglicized or Americanized either by the serious study of nautical science, or by the love of yachting as an amusement, in which they look to England and America both for the most advanced theories and the newest examples.

The nearest approach ever made to a general rule may be the affirmation that likeness is the secret of companionship. This has a great look of probability, and may really be the reason for many associations, but after observing others we might come to the conclusion that an opposite law would be at least equally applicable. We might say that a companion, to be interesting, ought to bring new elements, and not be a repetition of our own too familiar personality. We have enough of ourselves in ourselves; we desire a companion who will relieve us from the bounds of our thoughts, as a neighbor opens his garden to us, and delivers us from our own hedges. But if the unlikeness is so great that mutual understanding is impossible, then it is too great. We fancy that we should like to know this or that author, because we feel a certain sympathy with him though he is very different from us, but there are other writers whom we do not desire to know because we are aware of a difference too excessive for companionship.

The only approximation to a general law that I would venture to affirm is that the strongest reason why men are drawn together is not identity of class, not identity of race, not a common interest in any particular art or science, but because there is something in their idiosyncrasies that gives a charm to intercourse between the two. What it is I cannot tell, and I have never met with the wise man who was able to enlighten me.

It is not respect for character, seeing that we often respect people heartily without being able to enjoy their society. It is a mysterious suitableness or adaptability, and how mysterious it is may be in some degree realized when we reflect that we cannot account for our own preferences. I try to explain to myself, for my own intellectual satisfaction, how and why it is that I take pleasure in the society of one very dear friend. He is a most able, honorable, and high-minded man, but others are all that, and they give me no pleasure. My friend and I have really not very much in common, far less than I have with some perfectly indifferent people. I only know that we are always glad to be together, that each of us likes to listen to the other, and that we have talked for innumerable hours. Neither does my affection blind me to his faults. I see them as clearly as if I were his enemy, and doubt not that he sees mine. There is no illusion, and there has been no change in our sentiments for twenty years.

As a contrast to this instance I think of others in which everything seems to have been prepared on purpose for facility of intercourse, in which there is similarity of pursuits, of language, of education, of every thing that is likely to permit men to talk easily together, and yet there is some obstacle that makes any real intercourse impossible. What the obstacle is I am unable to explain even to myself. It need not be any unkind feeling, nor any feeling of disapprobation; there may be good-will on both sides and a mutual desire for a greater degree of intimacy, yet with all this the intimacy does not come, and such intercourse as we have is that of simple politeness. In these cases each party is apt to think that the other is reserved, when there is no wish to be reserved but rather a desire to be as open as the unseen obstacle will allow. The existence of the obstacle does not prevent respect and esteem or even a considerable degree of affection. It divides people who seem to be on the most friendly terms; it divides even the nearest relations, brother from brother, and the son from the father. Nobody knows exactly what it is, but we have a word for it,—we call it incompatibility. The difficulty of going farther and explaining the real nature of incompatibility is that it takes as many shapes as there are varieties in the characters of mankind.

Sympathy and incompatibility,—these are the two great powers that decide for us whether intercourse is to be possible or not, but the causes of them are dark mysteries that lie undiscovered far down in the “abysmal deeps of personality.”