The Sun.
London, England, 1856-12-08 00:00:00

THE UNIVERSAL PASSION.

(Front the Dispatch.)
It is estimated that the application of steam and ma-
Chinery to manufactures has prac.dcaliy given to these
Wanda the productive power. without the cost, of 200
Million of workers. The adaptation of these former agen-
cies to navigation, to land transit and transport, to min-
ing and other purposes, has probably contributed quite
as largely to the production of wealth among us. The
facilities which these, the electric telegraph, the gold
discoveries and "yellow fever" have afforded for the pro-
motion of emigration and colonisation have vastly en-
larged our markets, and afforded us access to extensive
additions be the supply of the chief raw materials of

manufacture.
These agencies have grown upon us almost insensibly.
It is not until we rest upon cur etatl and look back that
we see the prodigious length of the road we have travel-
led. What Watt, Arkwright, Crompton, Heathcoat,
Jacquard have done for us has been so silent, peaceful,
gradual in • its effects, that we scarcely realise to 'our-
selves the fact that England is at least ten times richer
than she was a century ago ; that the population, as a
wh2le, can command more than ten times the conveni-
encZ, comfort, and luxury which their ancestors could
in the year of grace 175 G.
Need we call to mind even the least obvious of these
changes Thirty gallons of water per head per day
within every house in the metropolis, in place of one
or two gallons of Fleet-ditch or Thames brought in
barrels on men's backs ; a blaze of gas in the obscurest
alley, in place of total darkness even in the Strand ;
halfpenny steam-boats or sixpenny cabs, in place of
half-crown wherries, or two shilling hackney-coaches
or sedan-chairs ; better and infinitely more diver-,
sified and agreeable books for a shilling than were for-
merly produced at a guinea and a half ; excursions of
labourers from Edinburgh to the Crystal Palace iu lose
time and at less cost than the middle class voyages ie a
Margate in a boy ; a letter from Penzance to Kirkwa
ii
at ld. in place of 55., and delivered in one-tenth of ti ze
time ; a voyage to America in a fortnight, or to India in
a month, in place of 42 days or six months ; large retail
stocks entirely superseded, and coals cheap in the remote
interior ; the housemaid dressed more handsomely than
the mistress used to be ; the exterior of the holiday me-
chanic undistinguishable from that of the gentleman ;
hardware and earthenware so cheap, elegant, and useful
as to furnish the poor man's kitchen better than formerly
that of his employer—these are mere hints of our prodi-
gious progress ; suggestions only to set the mind loose
to complete the comparisons of advance. Yet the result
is perfectly magical. It outstrips the heated fancy that
imagined the wonders of Aladdin ; the splendours of the
East are copper tinsel to it ; it realises the visions of tae
alchemist, and outstrips the most stupendous coteje eteores
of science, or the most gorgeous imagery of the pcast.
It was not to be expected that society should remain
stationary during the progress of this traneitio.a of its
outward conditions. We are, it is said, the crfretures of
circumstances. This material cliange bee haft its moral
parallel. If the world has moved, so also has the soul.
The change in the architecture of the "tenement ofclay"
has altered the spiritual character of its tenant. Tem-
pera mutantnr, et nos mutamur in iliis. We do not
think history has traced the change in human nature
which has followed the mutation of the influences which
surround it ; psychology has been asleep while its phe-
nomena have been in active development, and its laws
have experienced a violent and extended elimination.
It is beginning to be remarked that society every day
more and more concentrates the business of life on the
acquisition of property. Crime, daily, rapidly, alarmingly
increasing among all classes of our community, is
prompted chiefly by the desire to appropriate and accu-
mulate. A cold, cunning, calculating sordidness, with
little violence of passion in it, and much forecast and
callous arithmetic—these characteristics distinguish the
offences of the age from the lawlessness of former times.
Necessity, the wild spirit of adventure, fierce courage,
recklessness—these are superseded by methodical ar-
rangement, painstaking preparation, and ingenious im-
posture. Thieving is a science, and swindling a profes-
sion, but gainfulness prompts and moves all.
Where is Grub-street now the Grub-street of Ho-
garth or Goldsmith ; the poor author, with his long
milk score, the famised poet ready to immortalise the
Mecseuas of a dinner ; the painter, limning his way out
of a tavern bill, or dying "in the worst inn's worst
room." Actors, artiste, authors, poets, all are " warm
men," and become fastidious in their luxury, and magni-
ficent in their notions, generally in the ratio of the
lowness of their birth, and the penury of their original
circumstances. Fame ! " A fico for the phrase !"
Solid pudding, that is the real celebrity. A fine house,
fine furniture, a dowry for the girls, a good income for
the sons, that is the goal of "high art," the one end and
aim of the inspiration of genius.
Where is there a Hippocrates, a Galen, a Celsus ?
where the physician whose devotion to science, whose
love of knowledge, whose enthusiastic dedication of his

life to the study of anatomy and physiology postpones
every motive and consideration to the promotion of
medical discovery? The greatest physician is simply the
man who gets the greatest number of fees, whose hours
are apportioned by guineas, and who seems to be most
highly rewarded just when he has arrived.at the point
tf not sparing one hour from avarice to devote to science.
And to whom do the profession look up as the greatest
p hyeiologist and anatomist ? Why, chiefly to the man
who has done least for either, awd most for himself ; the
largest income is the index to the greatest doctor.
What divine is there, who, if ale Archbishopric of
Canterbury were 1001. a year less than his own living,
would not laugh in your face, if you proposed an ex-
change, and cry "Nolo episcopari" with 'a fervour of
sincerity utterly unknown to Bishops ? See where the
profound theologian and eloquent ambassador of Heaven
crams his fashionable church, " wins many souls to
Christ," makes "those who came to scoff remain to
pray." "Religion re-vives around him ; lie seeks and he
saves thousands VA ho were lost. What if a more lucrative
but a less useful sphere should open to him—a large
living and a small cure --more tithe and fewer souls ?
Why, he should think- himself crazy to hesitate for a
moment so prefer the larger income ; and his most de-
voted followers would not so much as think of any other
way of getting him to remair, but that of subscribing to
make up the difference. And this Bishops, utterly in-
competent for their duties, cannot resign uruler 6,0001.
a year and a palace ; and statesmen and pietists insist
upon what they call "dignitaries" of the Church coping
with the nobility and gentry, not in simplicity and godly
sincerity, but in the style of living and worldly splendour;
while evangelical orthodoxy cannot conceive of support-
ing the pomp of the episcopal office, except by a prince's
income and regal display.
Every condition is equally measured by its money
value. No other standard, either of greatness or happi-
ness, is even conceived. It is not possible to imagine, in
a great and free country, so ennobling an office as that
of a Judge. He stands between the Crown and the
people ; between innocence and the power of authority •
superior to them all, because the law is above all. Or
a Minister, or an Ambassador, the lawgiver, the ruler,
the representative of his couniry, in whose band is the
rod of empire—how exalted is such a function ! In
A muerica this is felt and understood ; to serve the State
in au honourable capacity is a distinction reckoned wor-
thy of any pecuniary sacrifice. But amonest as, cash is
the measure of value. A lawyer declines to be a judge
because he "makes more at the bar ;" a merchant "can-
not afford" to be Chancellor of the Exchequer. Walpole
":as a great fool" to leave the Chancery bar to serve as
a secretary of State. He has only "a paltry thousand a
year from his Cornmissionership ; really we must do
something for him."
It lathe same spirit which inspires every movement.
Whenever any man serves either his friends or his coun-
try in any Way, the first thought of gratitude—indeed ,
the only thought—is •
in the direction of money. A "tes-
timonial," a purse, a
service
of
plate, an appointment, a
pension for life, these, in one eternal tound
the sheer sordid tinlind , testify to
-counter character of the age.
Every class conspires to
cringe to " the almighty 'uagnify money ;all bow and
public policy. It idiepres dollar."d It is stamped upon our
by our statesmen them-
selves, upon all departmentssos, the public service. Sheer
gain and pecuniary Profit are
sure of every office,
from the temporal Judge to theeStrcitual Pontiff. The
farce is, that thelomxuorsitoossn,mapotaue
upon measuri4ng
I:lg.:um their tastes, the
dici in their styles of
most fastidious',
living, who insist u
their osition by the
money it brings, are the profeasionel classes, or con-
tractors, sprung from the lowest origin,
born into the
most penurious circumstances, not •
in the least degree
entitled to give themselves any such airs, or to
such sybarite indulgences. Bishops,doot require`
ors, judges
lawyers, sons of saddlers, shoemakers, country apothe-
-
caries, provincial hucksters—why should each magnifi
cence be so essential to the ambition of such a career, as
that they should all dwell upon the cash income as
• the
indispensable qualification of their position I
Can we wonder that with such an example, such an
impress stamped upon the spirit of society by its natural
leaders, its State policy, its governors, and chiefs,
po.
verty should be infamous ? that Hudson should e a
king, and fill his house at Albert-gate with countesses 1
that wealth should be the measure of every man's pp.
sition ? that men should be regarded, not by - what
they are, but what they have ? that worth and wisdom
should be of no account without income ? and that as
money is the universal standard of character, fools and
knaves should act on the faith of the sentiment rent, si
possis recd, sed rent and that other ct genus ct virtus
nisi cuna re,,vilior alga est ? Is it surprising that universal
luxury should make men think that they cannot live in
frugality and simplicity ; that llobsons and Redpaths
and Pauls and Gordons shduld become delirious with
the universal fever ?
Is all this-a truism or a truth ? Is it a mere triticality
of the wiseacre, or the insight of the moralist ? Let us
Zit the significancy of it. Does any one believe that a
Pythagoras,o a Solon, or a Lycurgus, by the mere force
their
character and intellect, in their povertyand mean
_array,_.conid command the reverence and power in Eng-
land they did in their
own age and country ? Would a
Dingenee, with
no freehold but a tub, and in a ragged
coat, receive that homage to his in • fluence with the coun-
try of a visit from the Dnke of Wellington which would
be the parallel of that of Alexander the Great. Socrates,
the son of Sophroni
acne,
lived
in a hovel, was meanly
clad, fared hard, and lived in
him, Alcibiades revered, idolised YetAth
hung Athens
qato sought
, his lips, and her greatest bowed to ;11' authority.lV on
What
would his " three pair back," and his
s
his bard fare and empty purse, do for clouted -shoes,
m
on Manchester Exchange ? If Paul knockedhl at at Oxford or
of Lambeth Palace, would Canterbury so muchthe
a gate
hear
him as Felix. did ; and if even the teachergreates:
were
to "reason from the Scriptures" at West •
minster Abbey
in his carpenter's dress, does any one doubt how the
beadles would deal with him ?
This is not the fault solely of the world, the ignorant,
the vulgar. It is, in fact, the result rather of the mean
aims and sordid views of life of the Upper Ten Thou-
sand, the men who are regarded as great. Heroes now
look to a Peerage and a pension as the sole purpose of