ART. II.-How to Observe.-Morals and Manners. By Harriet Martineau. Charles Knight. London. 1838.

IN the year of the world 6798, answering to the vulgar era of 1835, an association of philanthropic geniuses of both sexes combined to emulate the material improvements of the age-gas, railroads, and balloons-by teaching mankind a new and wonderful problem in morals-how to observe. This association seems to be an offset from the illustrious Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge,' and means, we understand, to publish a complete encyclopædia de omnibus rebus et quibusdum aliis—of which the work before us is an early specimen. As observation, in the general sense of the term, is clearly the dawn of human faculties, (for the new-born infant shows by an expression of pain that it observes its change of situation,) it is strictly in the order of nature and logic that this society, meaning to proceed scientifically through the whole physical and mental economy of man, should begin with How to observe. The next essay of the seriesHow to suck-is in the hands of the professor of statistics in the London University, and will speedily appear, with an appendix, by Charles Babbage, Esq., on artificial sucking, vulgarly called milking, accompanied by the specification of a machine which he has invented for performing that operation on more cleanly and economical principles than by the human hand, and which only awaits a grant of 5000l. from the Treasury, to be brought into operation at Spring Garden gate: and the third, How to talk, by a promising pupil of the Deaf and Dumb Asylum, is only delayed by Mr. Knight's not being yet able to find a deaf and dumb compositor to communicate with the author: and so on through all the other categories.

How to observe, in geology, has, we understand, already appeared, by an able explorer of the bowels of the earth under the typical cognomen of De la Bèche. This author labours under the disadvantage of knowing a good deal of the matter he writes about, which makes his book rather perplexing to the uninformed, for whose use the society professes to publish. But even in this work, though much of it is above ordinary capacities, there are some things not uninteresting even to very young tastes such as the precept that every body should be constantly furnished with a cup half full of treacle to ascertain the direction of earthquakes.*

But the second treatise of this class, namely, How to observe

* This ridiculous, and utterly impracticable, proposition has been actually and solemnly propounded in the work alluded to, as the combined recommendation of two grave philosophers, Messrs. Babbage and De la Bèche.

the

the morals and manners of the various nations of the globe, has been most properly confided to Miss Martineau-who enjoys, it seems, the great, and in the literary world almost singular, advantage of never having been on the continent of Europe, nor indeed in any country of which English is not the vernacular idiom. This circumstance, it is clear, must produce a fortunate sympathy between the teacher and the pupil, however ignorant and inexperienced the latter may be.

We shall hereafter perhaps take a larger view of the progress of this magnificent scheme, which promises to render the future modes of performing all animal and intellectual functions as superior to those in present use as the Birmingham rail-carriage is to Pickford's waggon. For the present, however, we must content ourselves with displaying the merits of the system as developed by Miss Martineau, and, as mere extracts could give but an inadequate idea of the precision of her style and the closeness of her reasoning, we shall rather endeavour to let her explain herself in her own words, and to exhibit to our readers a miniature, as it were, rather than a review of this great original, preserving even her scientific division of her labours into parts, chapters, sections, &c., and only interjecting here and there a few explanatory remarks of our own to render our abridgment more intelligible.

'PART I.

'REQUISITES FOR OBSERVATION.

INTRODUCTION.

'There is no department of inquiry in which it is not full as easy to miss truth as to find it;' as a child does not catch a gold fish in water at the first trial.' p. 1.-' The power of observation must be trained ;' for which of us would undertake to classify the morals and manners of any hamlet in England after spending a summer in it?" If it be thus with us at home,' what hope remains for the foreign tourist?'—p. 4. Not much, certainly; for, at six months per hamlet, Methuselah himself would hardly get from La Vendée to the Simplon. 'I remember some striking words addressed to me, before I set out on my travels, by a wise man, since dead. "You are going to spend two years in the United States," said he. "Now just tell me,-do you expect to understand the Americans by the time you come back? You do not that is well. I lived five-and-twenty years in Scotland, and I fancied I understood the Scotch; then I came to England, and supposed I should soon understand the English. I have now lived five-and-twenty years here, and I begin to think I understand neither the Scotch nor the English."-p. 5.

Such was the low state of the science of observation under the old system; but by Miss Martineau's new lights she was enabled,

contrary

contrary to her own modest apprehension and her wise man's prophecy, to see all America in two years, and has published six octavo volumes on that country, containing, no doubt, more valuable information than the wise man' of the old school could collect about his native land in twice five-and-twenty years.

'The traveller must not generalize on the spot. A raw English traveller in China was entertained by a host who was intoxicated, and a hostess who was red-haired; he immediately made a note of the fact that all the men in China were drunkards, and all the women redhaired.'-p. 6.

We have heard this 'anecdote,' not of a raw English traveller (who could not be very raw if he travelled into China), but of an old case-hardened Scotch doctor, one Tobias Smollett, to whom the thing is said to have happened, not at Pekin, but at a French post-house.*

'These anecdotes,' however, are better than the old narratives of "men whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders."—ib.

How much?

It was a great mistake of a geologist to assign a wrong level to the Caspian Sea; and it is difficult to foresee when the British public will believe that the Americans are a mirthful nation, or even that the French are not almost all cooks or dancing-masters.' p. 7.- As long as travellers generalize on morals and manners as hastily as they do, it will probably be impossible to establish a general conviction that no cirilised nation is ascertainably better or worse than any other on this side barbarism.'-pp. 7, 8.

With a short commentary on this important and undeniable truth-that no civilised nation can be better in morals or manners than other civilised nation, unless the last-mentioned civilised nation should be also barbarous,-the Introduction closes.

'There are two parties to the work of observation-the observer and the observed. This is an important fact.'-p. 11.

Very!

'SECTION I.

A traveller must have made up his mind as to what it is he wants to know. In physical science great results may be obtained by hap-hazard experiments; but this is not the case in morals.' p. 11.- The wise traveller's aim' should be the exclusion of prejudice. In short, he is to

The story is still older than Smollett. We find it in a French Dictionnaire a Anecdotes," printed long before Smollett's travels, and there attributed to a German, qui passant par Blois, où son hotesse etait rousse et peu complaisante, mit sur son Album.—Ñ.B. Toutes les femmes de Blois sont rousses et acariâtres.'

prepare

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,' which will enable him to discover that, although in his native village, to leave the door open or shut bears no relation to morals and little to manners, to shut the door is as cruel an act in a Hindoo hut, as to leave it open in a Greenland cabin.'-p. 14.

Just the same-there seldom being a door in either.

"To test one people by another is to argue within a very small segment of a circle.'-ib.

To argue in a circle is, we all know, bad logic: how much worse must it be to argue in the segment of a circle! There was long ago in France a fellow, one Molière, who is supposed to have known how to observe; and, though he was reckoned no great mathematician, he had the good luck to stumble haphazard,' as will 'sometimes happen in the physical sciences,' on this very distinction between the circle and the segment.

'Mascarille.-Te souvient-il, Vicomte, de cette demi-lune que nous emportâmes sur les ennemis au siége d'Arras?

Jodelet.-Que veux-tu dire avec ta demi-lune? C'était bien une lune toute entière.

This curious coincidence may perhaps induce Miss Martineau to look into the ingenious work which she has thus, no doubt unconsciously, imitated-it is called LES PRÉCIEUSES RIDICULES, and cannot fail, we assure her, to be of great use to one who so well knows how to observe.'

6 SECTION II.

The traveller, when he was a child, was probably taught that eyes, ears, and understanding are all sufficient to gain for him as much knowledge as he will have time to acquire;' ib.

but that was a mistake-,

'a traveller may do better without eyes, or without ears, than without principles.'-p. 14.

And, indeed, the only two travellers mentioned with any degree of approbation in the whole work are

'Holman, the blind traveller, who gains a wonderful amount of information, though he is shut out from the evidence yielded by the human countenance, and by way-side groups,' and the case of the Deaf Traveller,'-[name not stated]- which leads us to say the same about the other great avenue of knowledge.'-The blind and the deaf travellers must suffer under a deprivation or deficiency of certain classes of facts. The condition of the unphilosophical traveller is much worse.' ib.— This superiority of the blind and deaf in the new science of observing is strongly illustrated by the following questions :——

'Is the Shaker of New England a good judge of the morals and manners of the Arab of the Desert?'-p. 17.

Clearly

Clearly not-particularly if he can see or hear.

'What sort of a verdict would the shrewdest gipsy pass upon the monk of La Trappe? What would the Scotch peasant think of the magical practices of Egypt? or the Russian soldier of a meeting of electors in the United States?'-ib.

We cannot answer these questions; but Miss Martineau's inference is plain and undeniable-none of these persons could be expected in their present state to write an instructive book of travels, whereas, if any of them, after losing eyes and ears, should by any means become acquainted with this excellent work, and thereby learn how to observe, he

'would see the whole of the earth in one contemplation.'-'In the extreme North, there is the snow-hut of the Esquimaux, shining with the fire within, like an alabaster lamp left burning in a wide waste.'In the extreme East, there is the Chinese family in their garden, treading its paved walks.'-' In the extreme South, there is the Colonist of the Cape, lazily basking before his door.'—' In the extreme West, the hunters laden with furs. Here is the Russian nobleman on his estate, the lord of the fate of his serfs.'-'his wife leads a languid life among her spinning-maidens.'-' There is the Frankfort trader dwelling among equals.' Here is the French peasant returning from the field in total ignorance of what has taken place in the capital of late; and there is the English artisan carrying home to his wife some fresh hopes of the interference of parliament about labour and wages. Here is a conclave of Cardinals; there a company of Brahmins.'-'A troop of horsemen traversing the desert.'-A German vineyard.'- The Swiss mountains.'-'The coffee-house at Cairo.'- The churches of Italy. And the New England parlour, where the young scholar reads the Bible to parent or aged grandfather. All these, and more, will a traveller of the most enlightened order revolve before his mind's eye as he notes the groups which are presented to his senses. Of such travellers there are but too few.-pp. 18, 19.

Very few indeed; and, considering that there are but two blind travellers extant,* and only one that we know of, stone deaf, we cannot but wonder where Miss Martineau has collected all this valuable information.

SECTION III.

'As an instance of the advantage which a philosophical traveller has over an unprepared one, look at the difference which will enter into a

The French, who seem resolved to outdo us in all branches of pihlosophy, have prished Miss Martineau's theory even further than Lieutenant Holman, the blind Englishman; he only publishes his observations-but a blind Frenchman has announced his voyage round the world with sketched views. We copy the advertisement from the last French papers:-'Souvenirs d'un Avuegle. Voyage autour du Monde, par M. Jacques Arago, enriché de soixante magnifiques DESSINS D'APRES LES CROQUIS de M. Arago, à la fidélité desquels l'Academie a rendu les témoignages les plus honorables. Hortel et Ozaune, Editeurs, 58, Rue Jacob.' This blind traveller and draftsman is a younger brother of Arago, the savant.

VOL. LXIII. NO. CXXV.

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man's