A Joy For Ever

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Note 8th, p. 148.--"_Silk and purple._"

144. In various places throughout these lectures I have had to allude to
the distinction between productive and unproductive labour, and between
true and false wealth. I shall here endeavour, as clearly as I can, to
explain the distinction I mean.

Property may be divided generally into two kinds; that which produces
life, and that which produces the objects of life. That which produces
or maintains life consists of food, in so far as it is nourishing; of
furniture and clothing, in so far as they are protective or cherishing;
of fuel; and of all land, instruments, or materials necessary to produce
food, houses, clothes, and fuel. It is specially and rightly called
useful property.

The property which produces the objects of life consists of all that
gives pleasure or suggests and preserves thought: of food, furniture,
and land, in so far as they are pleasing to the appetite or the eye; of
luxurious dress, and all other kinds of luxuries; of books, pictures,
and architecture. But the modes of connection of certain minor forms of
property with human labour render it desirable to arrange them under
more than these two heads. Property may therefore be conveniently
considered as of five kinds.

145. (1) Property necessary to life, but not producible by labour, and
therefore belonging of right, in a due measure, to every human being as
soon as he is born, and morally inalienable. As for instance, his proper
share of the atmosphere, without which he cannot breathe, and of water,
which he needs to quench his thirst. As much land as he needs to feed
from is also inalienable; but in well-regulated communities this
quantity of land may often be represented by other possessions, or its
need supplied by wages and privileges.

(2) Property necessary to life, but only producible by labour, and of
which the possession is morally connected with labour, so that no person
capable of doing the work necessary for its production has a right to it
until he has done that work;--"he that will not work, neither should he
eat." It consists of simple food, clothing, and habitation, with their
seeds and materials, or instruments and machinery, and animals used for
necessary draught or locomotion, etc. It is to be observed of this kind
of property, that its increase cannot usually be carried beyond a
certain point, because it depends not on labour only, but on things of
which the supply is limited by nature. The possible accumulation of corn
depends on the quantity of corn-growing land possessed or commercially
accessible; and that of steel, similarly on the accessible quantity of
coal and iron-stone. It follows from this natural limitation of supply
that the accumulation of property of this kind in large masses at one
point, or in one person's hands, commonly involves, more or less, the
scarcity of it at another point and in other persons' hands; so that the
accidents or energies which may enable one man to procure a great deal
of it, may, and in all likelihood will, partially prevent other men
procuring a sufficiency of it, however willing they may be to work for
it; therefore, the modes of its accumulation and distribution need to be
in some degree regulated by law and by national treaties, in order to
secure justice to all men.

Another point requiring notice respecting this sort of property is, that
no work can be wasted in producing it, provided only the kind of it
produced be preservable and distributable, since for every grain of such
commodities we produce we are rendering so much more life possible on
earth.[20] But though we are sure, thus, that we are employing people
well, we cannot be sure we might not have employed them _better_; for it
is possible to direct labour to the production of life, until little or
none is left for that of the objects of life, and thus to increase
population at the expense of civilization, learning, and morality: on
the other hand, it is just as possible--and the error is one to which
the world is, on the whole, more liable--to direct labour to the objects
of life till too little is left for life, and thus to increase luxury or
learning at the expense of population. Right political economy holds its
aim poised justly between the two extremes, desiring neither to crowd
its dominions with a race of savages, nor to found courts and colleges
in the midst of a desert.

[Note 20: This point has sometimes been disputed; for instance,
opening Mill's 'Political Economy' the other day, I chanced on a passage
in which he says that a man who makes a coat, if the person who wears
the coat does nothing useful while he wears it, has done no more good to
society than the man who has only raised a pineapple. But this is a
fallacy induced by endeavour after too much subtlety. None of us have a
right to say that the life of a man is of no use to _him_, though it may
be of no use to _us_; and the man who made the coat, and thereby
prolonged another man's life, has done a gracious and useful work,
whatever may come of the life so prolonged. We may say to the wearer of
the coat, "You who are wearing coats, and doing nothing in them, are at
present wasting your own life and other people's;" but we have no right
to say that his existence, however wasted, is wasted _away_. It may be
just dragging itself on, in its thin golden line, with nothing dependent
upon it, to the point where it is to strengthen into good chain cable,
and have thousands of other lives dependent on it. Meantime, the simple
fact respecting the coat-maker is, that he has given so much life to the
creature, the results of which he cannot calculate; they may be--in all
probability will be--infinite results in some way. But the raiser of
pines, who has only given a pleasant taste in the mouth to some one, may
see with tolerable clearness to the end of the taste in the mouth, and
of all conceivable results therefrom.]

146. (3) The third kind of property is that which conduces to bodily
pleasures and conveniences, without directly tending to sustain life;
perhaps sometimes indirectly tending to destroy it. All dainty (as
distinguished from nourishing) food, and means of producing it; all
scents not needed for health; substances valued only for their
appearance and rarity (as gold and jewels); flowers of difficult
culture; animals used for delight (as horses for racing), and such
like, form property of this class; to which the term 'luxury,' or
'luxuries,' ought exclusively to belong.

Respecting which we have to note, first, that all such property is of
doubtful advantage even to its possessor. Furniture tempting to
indolence, sweet odours, and luscious food, are more or less injurious
to health: while jewels, liveries, and other such common belongings of
wealthy people, certainly convey no pleasure to their owners
proportionate to their cost.

Farther, such property, for the most part, perishes in the using. Jewels
form a great exception--but rich food, fine dresses, horses and
carriages, are consumed by the owner's use. It ought much oftener to be
brought to the notice of rich men what sums of interest of money they
are paying towards the close of their lives, for luxuries consumed in
the middle of them. It would be very interesting, for instance, to know
the exact sum which the money spent in London for ices, at its desserts
and balls, during the last twenty years, had it been saved and put out
at compound interest, would at this moment have furnished for useful
purposes.

Also, in most cases, the enjoyment of such property is wholly selfish,
and limited to its possessor. Splendid dress and equipage, however, when
so arranged as to produce real beauty of effect, may often be rather a
generous than a selfish channel of expenditure. They will, however,
necessarily in such cases involve some of the arts of design; and
therefore take their place in a higher category than that of luxuries
merely.

147. (4) The fourth kind of property is that which bestows intellectual
or emotional pleasure, consisting of land set apart for purposes of
delight more than for agriculture, of books, works of art, and objects
of natural history.

It is, of course, impossible to fix an accurate limit between property
of the last class and of this class, since things which are a mere
luxury to one person are a means of intellectual occupation to another.
Flowers in a London ball-room are a luxury; in a botanical garden, a
delight of the intellect; and in their native fields, both; while the
most noble works of art are continually made material of vulgar luxury
or of criminal pride; but, when rightly used, property of this fourth
class is the only kind which deserves the name of _real_ property, it is
the only kind which a man can truly be said to 'possess.' What a man
eats, or drinks, or wears, so long as it is only what is needful for
life, can no more be thought of as his possession than the air he
breathes. The air is as needful to him as the food; but we do not talk
of a man's wealth of air, and what food or clothing a man possesses more
than he himself requires must be for others to use (and, to him,
therefore, not a real property in itself, but only a means of obtaining
some real property in exchange for it). Whereas the things that give
intellectual or emotional enjoyment may be accumulated, and do not
perish in using; but continually supply new pleasures and new powers of
giving pleasures to others. And these, therefore, are the only things
which can rightly be thought of as giving 'wealth' or 'well being.' Food
conduces only to 'being,' but these to '_well_ being.' And there is not
any broader general distinction between lower and higher orders of men
than rests on their possession of this real property. The human race
may be properly divided by zoologists into "men who have gardens,
libraries, or works of art; and those who have none;" and the former
class will include all noble persons, except only a few who make the
world their garden or museum; while the people who have not, or, which
is the same thing, do not care for gardens or libraries, but care for
nothing but money or luxuries, will include none but ignoble persons:
only it is necessary to understand that I mean by the term 'garden' as
much the Carthusian's plot of ground fifteen feet square between his
monastery buttresses, as I do the grounds of Chatsworth or Kew; and I
mean by the term 'art' as much the old sailor's print of the _Arethusa_
bearing up to engage the _Belle Poule_, as I do Raphael's "Disputa," and
even rather more; for when abundant, beautiful possessions of this kind
are almost always associated with vulgar luxury, and become then
anything but indicative of noble character in their possessors. The
ideal of human life is a union of Spartan simplicity of manners with
Athenian sensibility and imagination; but in actual results, we are
continually mistaking ignorance for simplicity, and sensuality for
refinement.

148. (5) The fifth kind of property is representative property,
consisting of documents or money, or rather documents only--for money
itself is only a transferable document, current among societies of men,
giving claim, at sight, to some definite benefit or advantage, most
commonly to a certain share of real property existing in those
societies. The money is only genuine when the property it gives claim to
is real, or the advantages it gives claim to certain; otherwise, it is
false money, and may be considered as much 'forged' when issued by a
government, or a bank, as when by an individual. Thus, if a dozen of
men, cast ashore on a desert island, pick up a number of stones, put a
red spot on each stone, and pass a law that every stone marked with a
red spot shall give claim to a peck of wheat;--so long as no wheat
exists, or can exist, on the island, the stones are not money. But the
moment as much wheat exists as shall render it possible for the society
always to give a peck for every spotted stone, the spotted stones would
become money, and might be exchanged by their possessors for whatever
other commodities they chose, to the value of the peck of wheat which
the stones represented. If more stones were issued than the quantity of
wheat could answer the demand of, the value of the stone coinage would
be depreciated, in proportion to its increase above the quantity needed
to answer it.

149. Again, supposing a certain number of the men so cast ashore were
set aside by lot, or any other convention, to do the rougher labour
necessary for the whole society, they themselves being maintained by the
daily allotment of a certain quantity of food, clothing, etc. Then, if
it were agreed that the stones spotted with red should be signs of a
Government order for the labour of these men; and that any person
presenting a spotted stone at the office of the labourers, should be
entitled to a man's work for a week or a day, the red stones would be
money; and might--probably would--immediately pass current in the island
for as much food, or clothing, or iron, or any other article, as a man's
work for the period secured by the stone was worth. But if the
Government issued so many spotted stones that it was impossible for the
body of men they employed to comply with the orders,--as, suppose, if
they only employed twelve men, and issued eighteen spotted stones daily,
ordering a day's work each,--then the six extra stones would be forged
or false money; and the effect of this forgery would be the depreciation
of the value of the whole coinage by one-third, that being the period of
shortcoming which would, on the average, necessarily ensue in the
execution of each order. Much occasional work may be done in a state or
society, by help of an issue of false money (or false promises) by way
of stimulants; and the fruit of this work, if it comes into the
promiser's hands, may sometimes enable the false promises at last to be
fulfilled: hence the frequent issue of false money by governments and
banks, and the not unfrequent escapes from the natural and proper
consequences of such false issues, so as to cause a confused conception
in most people's minds of what money really is. I am not sure whether
some quantity of such false issue may not really be permissible in a
nation, accurately proportioned to the minimum average produce of the
labour it excites; but all such procedures are more or less unsound;
and the notion of unlimited issue of currency is simply one of the
absurdest and most monstrous that ever came into disjointed human wits.

150. The use of objects of real or supposed value for currency, as gold,
jewellery, etc., is barbarous; and it always expresses either the
measure of the distrust in the society of its own government, or the
proportion of distrustful or barbarous nations with whom it has to deal.
A metal not easily corroded or imitated, it is a desirable medium of
currency for the sake of cleanliness and convenience, but, were it
possible to prevent forgery, the more worthless the metal itself, the
better. The use of worthless media, unrestrained by the use of valuable
media, has always hitherto involved, and is therefore supposed to
involve necessarily, unlimited, or at least improperly extended, issue;
but we might as well suppose that a man must necessarily issue unlimited
promises because his words cost nothing. Intercourse with foreign
nations must, indeed, for ages yet to come, at the world's present rate
of progress, be carried on by valuable currencies; but such
transactions are nothing more than forms of barter. The gold used at
present as a currency is not, in point of fact, currency at all, but the
real property[21] which the currency gives claim to, stamped to measure
its quantity, and mingling with the real currency occasionally by
barter.

151. The evils necessarily resulting from the use of baseless currencies
have been terribly illustrated while these sheets have been passing
through the press; I have not had time to examine the various conditions
of dishonest or absurd trading which have led to the late 'panic' in
America and England; this only I know, that no merchant deserving the
name ought to be more liable to 'panic' than a soldier should; for his
name should never be on more paper than he can at any instant meet the
call of, happen what will. I do not say this without feeling at the same
time how difficult it is to mark, in existing commerce, the just limits
between the spirit of enterprise and of speculation. Something of the
same temper which makes the English soldier do always all that is
possible, and attempt more than is possible, joins its influence with
that of mere avarice in tempting the English merchant into risks which
he cannot justify, and efforts which he cannot sustain; and the same
passion for adventure which our travellers gratify every summer on
perilous snow wreaths, and cloud-encompassed precipices, surrounds with
a romantic fascination the glittering of a hollow investment, and gilds
the clouds that curl round gulfs of ruin. Nay, a higher and a more
serious feeling frequently mingles in the motley temptation; and men
apply themselves to the task of growing rich, as to a labour of
providential appointment, from which they cannot pause without
culpability, nor retire without dishonour. Our large trading cities
bear to me very nearly the aspect of monastic establishments in which
the roar of the mill-wheel and the crane takes the place of other
devotional music; and in which the worship of Mammon or Moloch is
conducted with a tender reverence and an exact propriety; the merchant
rising to his Mammon matins with the self-denial of an anchorite, and
expiating the frivolities into which he may be beguiled in the course of
the day by late attendance at Mammon vespers. But, with every allowance
that can be made for these conscientious and romantic persons, the fact
remains the same, that by far the greater number of the transactions
which lead to these times of commercial embarrassment may be ranged
simply under two great heads--gambling and stealing; and both of these
in their most culpable form, namely, gambling with money which is not
ours, and stealing from those who trust us. I have sometimes thought a
day might come, when the nation would perceive that a well-educated man
who steals a hundred thousand pounds, involving the entire means of
subsistence of a hundred families, deserves, on the whole, as severe a
punishment as an ill-educated man who steals a purse from a pocket, or
a mug from a pantry.

[Note 21: Or rather, equivalent to such real property, because
everybody has been accustomed to look upon it as valuable; and therefore
everybody is willing to give labour or goods for it. But real property
does ultimately consist only in things that nourish body or mind; gold
would be useless to us if we could not get mutton or books for it.
Ultimately all commercial mistakes and embarrassments result from people
expecting to get goods without working for them, or wasting them after
they have got them. A nation which labours, and takes care of the fruits
of labour, would be rich and happy though there were no gold in the
universe. A nation which is idle, and wastes the produce of what work it
does, would be poor and miserable, though all its mountains were of
gold, and had glens filled with diamond instead of glacier.]

152. But without hoping for this excess of clear-sightedness, we may at
least labour for a system of greater honesty and kindness in the minor
commerce of our daily life; since the great dishonesty of the great
buyers and sellers is nothing more than the natural growth and outcome
from the little dishonesty of the little buyers and sellers. Every
person who tries to buy an article for less than its proper value, or
who tries to sell it at more than its proper value--every consumer who
keeps a tradesman waiting for his money, and every tradesman who bribes
a consumer to extravagance by credit, is helping forward, according to
his own measure of power, a system of baseless and dishonourable
commerce, and forcing his country down into poverty and shame. And
people of moderate means and average powers of mind would do far more
real good by merely carrying out stern principles of justice and honesty
in common matters of trade, than by the most ingenious schemes of
extended philanthropy, or vociferous declarations of theological
doctrine. There are three weighty matters of the law--justice, mercy,
and truth; and of these the Teacher puts truth last, because that cannot
be known but by a course of acts of justice and love. But men put, in
all their efforts, truth first, because they mean by it their own
opinions; and thus, while the world has many people who would suffer
martyrdom in the cause of what they call truth, it has few who will
suffer even a little inconvenience, in that of justice and mercy.

SUPPLEMENTARY ADDITIONAL PAPERS.

EDUCATION IN ART.

ART SCHOOL NOTES.

SOCIAL POLICY.

EDUCATION IN ART.

(_Read for the author before the National Association for the Promotion
of Social Science in the autumn of 1858; and printed in the Transactions
of the Society for that year, pp. 311-16._)

153. I will not attempt in this paper to enter into any general
consideration of the possible influence of art on the masses of the
people. The inquiry is one of great complexity, involved with that into
the uses and dangers of luxury; nor have we as yet data enough to
justify us in conjecturing how far the practice of art may be compatible
with rude or mechanical employments. But the question, however
difficult, lies in the same light as that of the uses of reading or
writing; for drawing, so far as it is possible to the multitude, is
mainly to be considered as a means of obtaining and communicating
knowledge. He who can accurately represent the form of an object, and
match its colour, has unquestionably a power of notation and
description greater in most instances than that of words; and this
science of notation ought to be simply regarded as that which is
concerned with the record of form, just as arithmetic is concerned with
the record of number. Of course abuses and dangers attend the
acquirement of every power. We have all of us probably known persons
who, without being able to read or write, discharged the important
duties of life wisely and faithfully; as we have also without doubt
known others able to read and write whose reading did little good to
themselves and whose writing little good to any one else. But we do not
therefore doubt the expediency of acquiring those arts, neither ought we
to doubt the expediency of acquiring the art of drawing, if we admit
that it may indeed become practically useful.

154. Nor should we long hesitate in admitting this, it we were not in
the habit of considering instruction in the arts chiefly as a means of
promoting what we call "taste" or dilettanteism, and other habits of
mind which in their more modern developments in Europe have certainly
not been advantageous to nations, or indicative of worthiness in them.
Nevertheless, true taste, or the instantaneous preference of the noble
thing to the ignoble, is a necessary accompaniment of high worthiness in
nations or men; only it is not to be acquired by seeking it as our chief
object, since the first question, alike for man and for multitude, is
not at all what they are to like, but what they are to do; and
fortunately so, since true taste, so far as it depends on original
instinct, is not equally communicable to all men; and, so far as it
depends on extended comparison, is unattainable by men employed in
narrow fields of life. We shall not succeed in making a peasant's
opinion good evidence on the merits of the Elgin and Lycian marbles; nor
is it necessary to dictate to him in his garden the preference of
gillyflower or of rose; yet I believe we may make art a means of giving
him helpful and happy pleasure, and of gaining for him serviceable
knowledge.

155. Thus, in our simplest codes of school instruction, I hope some day
to see local natural history assume a principal place, so that our
peasant children may be taught the nature and uses of the herbs that
grow in their meadows, and may take interest in observing and
cherishing, rather than in hunting or killing, the harmless animals of
their country. Supposing it determined that this local natural history
should be taught, drawing ought to be used to fix the attention, and
test, while it aided, the memory. "Draw such and such a flower in
outline, with its bell towards you. Draw it with its side towards you.
Paint the spots upon it. Draw a duck's head--her foot. Now a robin's--a
thrush's--now the spots upon the thrush's breast." These are the kinds
of tasks which it seems to me should be set to the young peasant
student. Surely the occupation would no more be thought contemptible
which was thus subservient to knowledge and to compassion; and perhaps
we should find in process of time that the Italian connexion of art with
_diletto_, or delight, was both consistent with, and even mainly
consequent upon, a pure Greek connexion of art with _arete_, or virtue.

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