13th Mar.
Tux writer of a paper appearing in a recent number of the Spectator has discovered a happy phrase for the title of a very able and interesting discourse on those slight deviations from the beaten track of established social laws and conventions, so often condemned by the strictest moralists as deserving the severest censure; but which in future no one need feel any hesitation about committing, now that we have the comfortable assurance that they are only "artificial sins." Children whose lives have hitherto been made a burden to them by reason of that terrible institution, an English Sunday, can now hunt out their playthings and picture books and turn the dreaded twenty-four hours into a red letter day whose advent is to be anticipated with delight instead of abhorrence, for, whilst assuring their parents that they thoroughly uphold the geveral principle of setting the Sabbath apart, they can yet urge in their own case the individual need for making an exception. Rabid teetotallers and other would-be social reformers must necessarily retire into the background wit their shrieking objections to every pleasant vice, however harmlessly indulged, when we prove to them that by their very severity, they are doing the cause they support infinitely more harm than good, and show them that our temperance is much morepraiseworthy than their abstinence, which instead of appealing forcibly to the public, has the contrary effect of rousing in individual minds an impatient, irritated longing to throw all social conventions at defiance, and return to a Rousseau "State of Nature." There is no doubt an enormous amount of truth in the article referred to. Wherever civilisation finds its way and establishes a footing, a code of minor rules is gradually drawn up for the direction of life and manners, in' addition to those great moral principles on which the happiness and welfare of the whole community rest, and which it is impossible for a man entirely to ignore without mentally placing himself on a lower level than his companions, But these same laws, although very uocesary a8 props for weak natures requiring moral backbones, are not to be looked upon as divine obligations, the transgressing of which would be a mortal sin; and the superstition which exalts into a sacred command a prudently judicious counsel having no claim to such a lofty place, is as mistaken as it is mischievous.
An occasional outbreak of social delirium, or fierce epidemic of excitement like the. " Missing Word " competition of which. we have heard so much lately, shows how very necessary itis to have certain. rules of restraint that may act-as a safeguard or preventive against. the definite dangers of Society. George Henry Lewes in his History of Philosophy" tells us that it is much easier to regulate desires than' to subjugate them the former recess " requiring much greater power of mind, greater will, greater constancy." And for those whose natures have not sufficient force to resist even lesser temptations, the establishment of hard and fast rules of life and conduct is most necessary and salutary,, so long as the observance of those rules does not degenerate into a false interpretation of their real strictness, and a morbid tendency to regard as backsliders those whose greater moral strength enables them to discriminate accurately when a proper. occasion arrives for an exceptional line of conduct. There is an old saying familiar to all who dwell in this remote quarter of the globe, that "people who come to the East leave their consciences in the Suez Canal to be picked up on the way home," and there can be no question that so far as strict conventionality is concerned, we are doubtless more lax than our friends and relatives at home, Hitherto, the prospect of having to burden ourselves on our return with that heavy load of tiresome virtues we parted with so readily on the voyage out, has had a most depressing effect on most of us as the time for going back to our native land drew near; but in future we shall be troubled with no such qualms. If the article in the Spectator may be regarded as an index of public opinion in England, there will be no further necessity for us to martyrise ourselves by assuming a mantle of righteousness we have temporarily laid aside, and hereafter we shall be saved the discomfiture of clothing ourselves in a garment that would doubtless prove a very bad fit after being so long discarded. In fact, there is every reason to believe that our consciences will not be so hard-worked then as they are now, for there has evidently been a radical change in home opinions, and we shall" probably find that, putting aside those graver matters of the law, our standard of which compares very favourably with the western one (there having been no considerable amount of murders, burglaries, forgeries and scaudals worth recording lately in the Model Settlement), our list of minor peccadilloes is no larger nor more comprehensive than the one we shall then be asked to observe. Although teetotalism is a subject we need out discuss in these columns as it is little en evidence out here, we are glad to see that its breach within discreet limits is relegated to its proper place in the category of sham misdemeanours; and it is comforting; to be told that we shall not be call upon to renounce the " moderate excitements of such games as whist played for shilling or sixpenny points "—a concession that holds out the possibi~ lity that in a few years time some one will discover that even baccarat itself is an orthodox pastime, But there is one class of beings to whom this new classification will bring anything but satisfaction; the individuals who have one particular pet delinquency with which they are fond of identifying all their neighbours, and who will be deprived of the greater part of this daily pleasure and amusé- ment when they find that what they have hitherto dignified by the name of a vice must henceforth figure as a harmless counterfeit, lo them we can only offer our condolence, begging them to remember that even ethics are not entirely non-progressive.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.