PART XI.

TRADES AND PROFESSIONS.

LETTER I.

TO A YOUNG GENTLEMAN OF ABILITY AND CULTURE WHO HAD

NOT DECIDED ABOUT HIS PROFESSION.

LETTER

I.

The Church-Felicities and advantages of the clerical profession- PART XI. Its elevated ideal-That it is favourable to noble studies-French priests and English clergymen-The professional point of view -Difficulty of disinterested thinking-Coloured light-Want of strict accuracy-Quotation from a sermon-The drawback to the clerical life-Provisional nature of intellectual conclusionsThe legal profession-That it affords gratification to the intellectual powers--Want of intellectual disinterestedness in lawyers -Their absorption in professional life-Anecdote of a London lawyer-Superiority of lawyers in their sense of affairs-Medicine -The study of it a fine preparation for the intellectual life— Social rise of medical men coincident with the mental progress of communities-Their probable future influence on educationThe heroic side of their profession-The military and naval professions-Bad effect of the privation of solitude-Interruption -Anecdote of Cuvier-The fine arts-In what way they are favourable to thought-Intellectual leisure of artists-Reasoning artists-Sciences included in the fine arts.

It may be taken for granted that to a mind constituted as yours is, no profession will be satisfactory which does not afford free play to the intellectual powers. You

PART XI. might no doubt exercise resolution enough to bind your

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1.

and

self down to uncongenial work for a term of years, but it would be with the intention of retiring as soon as you had realized a competency. The happiest life is that which constantly exercises and educates what is best in us.

You had thoughts, at one time, of the Church, and the Church would have suited you in many respects very Felicities happily, yet not, I think, in all respects. The clerical advantages profession has many great felicities and advantages: it of holy orders. educates and develops, by its mild but regular discipline, much of our higher nature; it sets before us an elevated ideal, worth striving for at the cost of every sacrifice but one, of which I intend to say something farther on; and it offers just that mixture of public and private life which best affords the alternation of activity and rest. It is an existence in many respects most favourable to the noblest studies. It offers the happiest combination of duties that satisfy the conscience with leisure for the cultivation of the mind; it gives the easiest access to all classes of society, providing for the parson himself a neutral and independent position, so safe that he need only conduct himself properly to preserve it. How superior, from the intellectual point of view, is this liberal existence to the narrower one of a French curé de campagne! I certainly think that if a good curé has an exceptional genius for sanctity, his chances of becoming a perfect saint are better than those of a comfortable English incumbent, who is at the same time a gentleman and man of the world, but he is not nearly so well situated for leading the intellectual The English life. Our own clergy have a sort of middle position

French priests.

clergy.

between the curé and the layman, which, without at all interfering with their spiritual vocation, makes them

better judges of the character of laymen and more completely in sympathy with it.

And yet, although the life of a clergyman is favourable to culture in many ways, it is not wholly favourable to it. There exists, in clerical thinking generally, just one restriction or impediment, which is the overwhelming importance of the professional point of view. Of all the professions the ecclesiastical one is that which most decidedly and most constantly affects the judgment of persons and opinions. It is peculiarly difficult for a clergyman to attain disinterestedness in his thinking, to accept truth just as it may happen to present itself, without passionately desiring that one doctrine may turn out to be strong in evidence and another unsupported. And so we find the clergy, as a class, anxious rather to discover aids to faith, than the simple scientific truth; and the more the special priestly character develops itself, the more we find them disposed to use their intellects for the triumph of principles that are decided upon beforehand. Sometimes this disposition leads them to see the acts of laymen in a coloured light and to speak of them without strict accuracy. Here is an example of what I mean. A Jesuit priest preached a sermon in London very recently, in which he said that "in Germany, France, Italy, and England, gigantic efforts were being made to rob Christian children of the blessing of a Christian education." Herod, though dead," the preacher continued, "has left his mantle behind him; and I wish that the soldiers of Herod in those countries would plunge their swords into the breasts of little children while they were innocent, rather than have their souls destroyed by means of an unchristian and uncatholic education." No doubt this is very earnest and

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the laity.

PART XI. sincere, but it is not accurate and just thinking. The laity in the countries the preacher mentioned have certainly a strong tendency to exclude theology from Feeling of State schools, because it is so difficult for a modern State to impose any kind of theological teaching without injustice to minorities; but the laity do not desire to deprive children of whatever instruction may be given to them by the clergy of their respective communions. May I add, that to the mind of a layman it seems a sanguinary desire that all little children should have swords plunged into their breasts rather than be taught in schools not clerically directed? The exact truth is, that the powerful lay element is certainly separating itself from the ecclesiastical element all over Europe, because it is found by experience that the two have a great and increasing difficulty in working harmoniously together, but the ecclesiastical element is detached and not destroyed. The quotation I have just made is in itself a sufficient illustration of that very peculiarity in the more exalted ecclesiastical temperament, which often makes it so difficult for priests and governments, in these times, to get on comfortably together. Here is first a very inaccurate statement, and then an outburst of most passionate feeling, whereas the intellect desires the strictest truth and the most complete disinterestedness. As the temper of the laity becomes more and more intellectual (and that is the direction of its movement), the sacerdotal habit will become more and more remote from it.

The ecclesias

tical temperament.

The clerical life has many strong attractions for the intellectual, and just one drawback to counterbalance them. It offers tranquillity, shelter from the interruptions and anxieties of the more active professions, and

LETTER

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of engagements for the

future.

powerful means of influence ready to hand; but it is PART XI, compatible with intellectual freedom and with the satisfaction of the conscience, only just so long as the priest really remains a believer in the details of his religion. Now, although we may reasonably hope to retain the chief elements of our belief, although what a man believes at twenty-five is always what he will most probably Difficulty believe at fifty, still, in an age when free inquiry is the common habit of cultivated people of our sex, we may well hesitate before taking upon ourselves any formal engagement for the future, especially in matters of detail. The intellectual spirit does not regard its conclusions as being at any time final, but always provisional; we hold what we believe to be the truth until we can replace it by some more perfect truth, but cannot tell how much of to-day's beliefs to-morrow will retain or reject. It may be observed, however, that the regular performance of priestly functions is in itself a great help to permanence in belief by connecting it closely with practical habit, so that the clergy do really and honestly often retain through life their hold on early beliefs which as laymen they might have lost.

The profession of the law provides ample opportunities for a critical intellect with a strong love of accuracy and a robust capacity for hard work, besides which it is the best of worldly educations. Some lawyers love their work as passionately as artists do theirs, others dislike it very heartily, most of them seem to take it as a simple business to be done for daily bread. Lawyers whose heart is in their work are invariably men of superior ability, which proves that there is something in it that affords gratification to the intellectual powers. However, in speaking of lawyers, I feel ignorant and on the outside, because

The legal profession.