that I cannot pay all this reckoning alone. Once more, my dear lord, farewell for ever." 1

32. Adam Ferguson at Fontenoy.-Adam Ferguson, the Historian, when he was chaplain to the Black Watch, appeared in the fighting line at Fontenoy, whereupon his commanding officer reminded him that his commission did not warrant his presence there. "Then," said Adam gently, "damn my commission!" and threw it at his Colonel. 2 A council of Dramatists and Poets could scarcely have furnished him with a more pithy rejoinder. The Dramatist who might try to "improve" upon it, might not improve upon it. 33. A Waterloo Anecdote.-Colonel Blair told Walter Scott that at the beginning of the Battle of Waterloo it was necessary to prevent our men from breaking their ranks. He expostulated with one man: Why, my good fellow, you cannot propose to beat the French alone; better keep your ranks." Whereupon the man (one of the 71st), returning to the ranks, replied: believe you, sir, but I'm a man of a very hot temper." While in itself the episode is a potential source of poetry, no fictionist in creation could add anything to the unconscious humour, or give us a more vivid impression, of the heroic battlestraining eagerness of the man. It is as good as anything in Homer.

"I

34. Some episodes of our own time.-Familiar episodes of our own time also are completely opposed to the conclusions of Macaulay and Swinburne that facts are the dross of History. David Livingstone, solitary in the heart of Africa, writing brave letters to his son-letters glowing with apostolic fervour; General Gordon at Khar

1 Sir Henry Craik, ' A Century of Scottish History,' Vol. i. p. 315. 2 Ib., Vol. ii. p. 211.

toum scanning the desert horizon in vain for deliverance-deliverance not so much for himself as for his poor followers; and then the hero dying under the knives of cut-throats. Poetry or art can scarcely get hold of greater or more tragical material.

35. Great memories are a great national asset.— Some of these episodes belong to the glorious moments in the history of our country and of man. We should all rejoice in such stories-stories which tend to exalt Humanity—more than over a division of spoil. Our youth should be nourished in the frequent contemplation of heroic deeds. In the interests of the highest education and of true civilisation, I would, if I could, try to fortify our Youth with the spirit of such stories. All material wealth piled in a heap is of no account beside the worth of the spirit. Great memories are a great national asset-the very greatest; and the more they are known and cherished, the more valuable do they become to the Nation possessing them.

36. The esthetics of the Supernatural.-And to return, not only do we experience varied emotions in the presence of Nature and as witnesses of actual human episodes and incidents, but we also experience emotions of yet another kind in the presence of what may be deemed the Supernatural, or even in the apprehension of, or hearing about, the Supernatural. It is highly probable, I believe, that if we could experience the visions of a Hamlet or a Brutus, we should be profoundly moved by them, since they are impressive even in a good stage representation. Who is there, again, so purely and impassively intellectual as not to experience the emotion of what the Scots call " eeriness as he listens to a good ghost story? This feeling is manifested throughout

Literature, ancient and modern.1 And again, very few, I daresay, would be found so proof against this kind of feeling as to be quite willing, though provided with physical comforts, to spend, say, a night alone in a lonely churchyard. Now in such a case the feeling of dread would scarcely arise from any apprehension of bodily danger. Physical fear, I think, would not at all events it need not be the source of the feeling at all; but it would actually arise probably from the involuntary apprehension of supernatural presences, or even of the possibility of such. Why we should experience an emotion of the kind in such circumstances it may be impossible to say; but this does not alter the fact that we do experience it-a psychological manifestation wholly different in its kind from any movement of sensation or of pure intellection which may be concomitant with it.

37. The Esthetic or Emotional Faculty is as distinct and authentic as any other. Thus analysing our psychical experiences in presence of such scenes, we find that they all contain a strong emotional element. The roadside hedge, the mountain, the ocean, the brook, the cathedral, the pealing anthem, domestic and historic scenes, the scaffold, the battlefield-all give rise not only to sensations and intellectual activities, but also

1 E.g., in Sophocles :

"My thin locks of hair,

Stiff with fear, upward stare."

—'Edipus at Colonus,' 1463-4 (Campbell). In The Cid' we read that "while they were thus communing, every hair upon King Alfonso's head stood up erect, and Alimaymon laid his hand upon them to press them down again; but so soon as his hand was taken off, they rose again.”—Bk. ii. chap. 21. We have similar imagery in Calderon, Purgatory of St Patrick,' i. 2; in Shakespeare, Scott, Burns, and many more-e.g., Dante :— "Already I perceived my hair stand all

On end with terror."

-Hell,' c. xxiii.

to certain emotions proper to each. It clearly appears that amongst all the combined and complex properties of the Human Mind, the emotional faculty exists as surely and incontestably as the calculating or any other faculty. As certainly as we possess organs of seeing, hearing, smelling, touching, and tasting; as certainly as we are furnished with an apparatus of sapid, tactile, olfactory, visual, and auditory nerves, and have an appetite for food; as indubitably as we have a faculty of following a geometrical demonstration, and of comprehending the Multiplication Table, and another by which we are convinced of the propriety of the command, "Thou shalt not steal "so surely and incontestably are we convinced that we have yet another faculty which in the presence of Nature yields emotions of joy or sorrow, of gladness or woe, of mirth or melancholy, of gaiety or solemnity, of rage or placidity, of admiration or contempt, of pettiness or sublimity; each emotion exactly corresponding to the exciting cause, just as in a well-tuned instrument the striking of a certain note gives rise to a certain sound. As expressed by Akenside in his "Pleasures of the Imagination," we find that the observant Soul

"discloses every tuneful spring

To that harmonious movement from without
Responsive."

In other words, Nature plays upon us, so to speak, as if we were musical instruments. As certainly as our organs of sense respond to external influences, as certainly as our minds perceive and reason upon the things of the inner and outer worlds, so certainly do we experience corresponding emotions in the presence of Nature. These emotions I take to be the Sources of Poetry.

81

CHAPTER IV.

THE ESTHETICAL AUTHORITY.

1. The Emotional Faculty is common to Men.Now with regard to all those emotional manifestations of which we have been speaking, it might be queried by some inquirer: What is your authority for asserting the existence of such manifestations? To such a question I should have no hesitation in replying that my authority is my own consciousness. But our questioner might rejoin: "What is your consciousness to me? To which objection I should immediately reply: "Honestly and earnestly consulted, your consciousness will substantially agree with my consciousness, mine with yours; and there is no prosperous going behind, or below, or above consciousness." To every sane man Nature has given faculties by which he may know, to some extent at least: (1) what is true; (2) what is not true; (3) what is uncertain.1

2. Psychological and universal scepticism.-Let us try to make this very important point as clear as possible. Some people profess to doubt of everything. They They take their scepticism to be a strong mark of cleverness and general superiority of intellect. They could scarcely make a greater mistake. One is under the painful

1 As shown forth at large in 'The Grammar of Philosophy.'

F