Chapter III: Section I

He must have made up his mind as to what it is that he wants to know. In physical science, great results may be obtained by hap-hazard experiments; but this is not the case in Morals. A chemist can hardly fail of learning something by putting any substances together, under new circumstances, and seeing what will arise out of the combination; and some striking discoveries happened in this way, in the infancy of the science; though no one doubts that more knowledge may be gained by the chemist who has an aim in his mind, and who conducts his experiment on some principle. In Morals, the latter method is the only one which promises any useful results. In the workings of the social system, all the agents are known in the gross--all are determined. It is not their nature, but the proportions in which they are combined, which have to be ascertained.

What does the traveller want to know? He is aware that, wherever he goes, he will find men, women, and children; strong men and weak men; just men and selfish men. He knows that he will everywhere find a necessity for food, clothing, and shelter; and everywhere some mode of general agreement how to live together. He knows that he will everywhere find birth, marriage, and death; and therefore domestic affections. What results from all these elements of social life does he mean to look for?

For want of settling this question, one traveller sees nothing truly, because the state of things is not consistent with his speculations as to how human beings ought to live together; another views the whole with prejudice, because it is not like what he has been accustomed to see at home; yet each of these would shrink from the recognition of his folly, if it were fully placed before him. The first would be ashamed of having tried any existing community by an arbitrary standard of his own--an act much like going forth into the wilderness to see kings' houses full of men in soft raiment; and the other would perceive that different nations may go on judging one another by themselves till doomsday, without in any way improving the chance of self-advancement and mutual understanding. Going out with the disadvantage of a habit of mind uncounteracted by an intellectual aim, will never do. The traveller may as well stay at home, for anything he will gain in the way of social knowledge.

The two considerations just mentioned must be subordinated to the grand one,--the only general one,--of the relative amount of human happiness. Every element of social life derives its importance from this great consideration. The external conveniences of men, their internal emotions and affections, their social arrangements, graduate in importance precisely in proportion as they affect the general happiness of the section of the race among whom they exist. Here then is the wise traveller's aim,--to be kept in view to the exclusion of prejudice, both philosophical and national. He must not allow himself to be perplexed or disgusted by seeing the great ends of human association pursued by means which he could never have devised, and to the practice of which he could not reconcile himself. He is not to conclude unfavourably about the diet of the multitude because he sees them swallowing blubber, or scooping out water-melons, instead of regaling themselves with beef and beer. He is not to suppose their social meetings a failure because they eat with their fingers instead of with silver forks, or touch foreheads instead of making a bow. He is not to conclude against domestic morals, on account of a diversity of methods of entering upon marriage. He might as well judge of the minute transactions of manners all over the world by what he sees in his native village. There, to leave the door open or to shut it bears no relation to morals, and but little to manners; whereas, to shut the door is as cruel an act in a Hindoo hut as to leave it open in a Greenland cabin. In short, he is to prepare himself to bring whatever he may observe to the test of some high and broad principle, and not to that of a low comparative practice. To test one people by another, is to argue within a very small segment of a circle; and the observer can only pass backwards and forwards at an equal distance from the point of truth. To test the morals and manners of a nation by a reference to the essentials of human happiness, is to strike at once to the centre, and to see things as they are.