The Best Horrors by F. Marion Crawford. Francis Marion Crawford
I have learned that there are no ugly things in nature. In living persons the impression of the ugliness of external objects is purely relative; since we know that an African negro in the natural state sees more beauty in a black woman of his own race than in a white woman of ours, and that with ourselves the contrary is the case. But if the negro be taken to a country inhabited by white men and women, he soon comes to regard the white woman as the type of what a woman should be, and before long he will see beauty where he formerly supposed that there was nothing but ugliness."
"But of course white women are more beautiful than black!" exclaimed Lady Brenda.
"When you say that they are more beautiful, you imply that their beauty is contrasted with the less beauty of black women," continued Johnson. " For since you employ a comparative form in describing the one, it may reasonably be supposed that you find something in the other with which the first may be compared. Indeed, comparison is at the root of all intelligence, and, if other things be alike, the man who is able to compare any two things with greater accuracy than his neighbour, is the wiser of the two; for, if we suppose that two men are equally able to remember that which they have learned, it is clear that he v/ho is able to discern the comparative value of the different things he knows, possesses of the two the greater facility for using his knowledge. It may be doubted whether Sir Isaac Newton possessed a more remarkable memory than Lord Chesterfield; but it cannot be questioned that, whereas, in the latter, the power of comparison merely produced a brilliant wit, in Newton the power was so great that it produced a very great man and a very great discoverer."
" Is it fair to compare a statesman with a scientist?" asked Diana, as the party paused in their walk.
"If statesmanship is a science, it is fair," answered the doctor, looking down at the young girl.
"Statesmanship must be the greatest of sciences," said Augustus. " There are a hundred scientists today alive, who are commonly called great. There are certainly not three statesmen alive to whom the epithet is applied now, or will be applied when they are dead."
"You are quite right, sir," answered Johnson.
"I suppose there is less room for them," remarked Gwendoline.
"I do not know," returned her husband. " There are hundreds of important places in which a man might distinguish himself, if we count together all the important governments in the world. If great statesmen were plenty, there would be no reason why a whole government should not consist of great men. Almost every university in the world pretends to boast of possessing one or two great men, and nobody seems able to prove that they are not really as great as is pretended."
"Scientists," said the doctor, " or men of science, as we called them in my day, are in a position which differs wholly from that of statesmen; for while the former are privileged to speak without acting, the latter are often compelled to act without explaining themselves in words. A man is not to be held responsible for his convictions, provided that he does not act upon them; but the actions of a statesman produce results of the sort which soon become manifest to all men and which influence the lives of mankind, so that mankind has the right to judge him. If all the theories of men of science were subjected to the test of experiment upon the corpus vile of whole nations, it may be doubted whether popular opinion would continue to be as tolerant of scientific opinion as it now is; for though one man might succeed in rearing men from a litter of monkeys, the next experimenter might very likely, by a small error, reduce men to the state of apes. One man rises up, and declares to the people that they must believe in him, but that, in order to believe in him, it is necessary that they should not believe in God. He exalts science to the position of the Deity, and tells people that they must worship it; but it is his own science which he exalts, and not that of his adversary, who has invented a different kind of idol. No, sir, science is a good thing so long as it is useful; but when, in its present state, it takes upon itself to tamper with so enormous and vital a matter as the belief of man in his Creator, it is pernicious, it is dangerous, and it will soon become destructive."
"You see, Augustus," said Lady Brenda, triumphantly, " I always told you that it was great rubbish."
"My dear mother-in-law," returned Chard, "you forget that I belong to the brotherhood of the Ignorantines. My principal conviction is that nobody knows anything.
"Sir," said Johnson, " you are not far wrong. One of the greatest mistakes of these days is the attempt to make people believe that they can know everything. Science cannot be made popular; for if it be within the reach of every one, and so simple that everybody can understand it, why then many persons could have discovered its secrets long ago; but if it be indeed a hard matter to understand, it must be reserved for those whose intellect is equal to so great an effort, and it is useless to make that popular which the people can never comprehend. If those men, who occupy themselves by attempting to substitute in others their own theories in the place of a wholesome religion, would confine their efforts to communicating such knowledge as they possess without endeavouring to destroy that belief which excites their unreasoning hatred, they might indeed deserve some credit; but their arguments are of so partial a nature, their language is so vehement and unrestrained, that we are forced to believe that they are animated rather by a desire to destroy religion than by a legitimate wish to extend the sphere of human knowledge and to do good to humanity by teaching that which is useful."
"Yes," said Augustus, " there is no reason why we should not learn the little that can be known, without upsetting religion. I think some modern scientists might read the life of Pascal with advantage, not to say that of Newton. I do not suppose that any of our living professors pretend to be as great as either of those two, who were extremely religious men."
"Pascal," replied the doctor, "was a tremendous young man. He discovered the weight of the atmosphere, he invented a calculating machine, he found the law of cycloids, he wrote like a father of the early Church, and he instituted the first omnibus that ever ran. A man cannot do more than that in thirty-nine years, but he did most of these things before he was five and twenty. As for Sir Isaac Newton he wrote a book of ' Arguments in Proof of a Deity' and a chronology of ancient history, both of which are much better than is commonly supposed."
"Dear me I " exclaimed Gwendoline, " I never knew that Pascal invented the omnibus. He must have had a great deal of common sense."
"Both common and uncommon, madam," answered Johnson, "and I venture to say that the common sense which can invent the omnibus is as valuable to mankind as the uncommon intelligence which is able to conceive that the atmosphere may have weight and that the cycloid curve may be reduced to a law."
"Yes," said Augustus, "but the weight of the atmosphere is more interesting than the invention of a public carriage. I should think that a man with a big intellect would prefer to study big things."
"No, sir," answered Johnson. "It is not more interesting, but it is more attractive. When a man of science discovers a lacuna in his wisdom, he makes haste to fill up the breach with a new theory, in the framing of which he at once enjoys the pleasures of imagination and the satisfaction which is felt in the exercise of ingenuity. His theory will stop the hole in the wall until it is worn out, or until some one finds a better theory to substitute in its place; and those portions of his work which are the result of knowledge acquired independently of the imagination, even if not very perfect, will always afford him some ground for congratulating himself upon his own abilities as compared with those of others. But the case of the man who occupies himself in endeavouring to better the condition of his fellow-men by imparting to them some of the results of his study, is very different. For, while the man of speculative science acts upon ideas, theories, and the like, the student of the applied sciences acts upon things and in a high degree upon people. It is clear that the immediate results produced by the man who acts upon living men are, in the present, incalculably more important than those brought about by the student who speculates upon the origin of the human race, or upon the ultimate nature of human happiness; although it is true that where speculation results in discoveries capable of being widely and advantageously applied, the man of science attains to an importance which cannot be over-estimated. When Pascal discovered that the atmosphere has weight, he laid the foundation for the invention of the first steam-engine; when Newton established the nature of the laws of gravity, he gave to science the means of weighing