Punctually at 11 a.m. on Monday I appeared among the young men and women assembled to hear Professor Anderson's lecture on philosophy. This same philosophy, literally the love of wisdom, has a deal to answer for, in spite of its seeming innocence. It is strange that a harmless inquiry into the causes of mental and material phenomena should have led men to say the bitterest things of each other and to fill libraries with volumes which no one understood. Even in our day no sooner does one sage come forward with an explanation of subjective and objective phenomena than another arises to flatly contradict him. But the disputes of these days regarding nature and man's place in it are but affairs of outposts as compared with the pitched battles between the schools of old. Modern philosophers, like modern sectaries, have come to see that hard words break no bones and elucidate no hypotheses. Every now and then, to be sure, even in contemporary writers, you come across an expression half abusive, half minatory, that sounds like a faint echo of old-time disputation, but the spirit of the age is so unpropitious to dogmatism either in faith or philosophy that the threatening sound expires with the sentence. It is almost supererogatory to state that in such a vast and attractive subject the Professor covered but a limited amount of ground. A synopsis of his lecture is before me, and the first sentence "the whole progress of ancient philosophy was from a social to an individualistic view of man "—would of itself form a text for a volume. A few more sentences from the synopsis may be given if only to show the breadth of the canvas it was necessary to cover within the hour. "At first the individual had little or no value as man. The State or Clan was all. Plato sought to crush the individual element—the passions, to exalt the universal element—the reason. Aristotle, most individualistic, rejects Socialism, gives greater freedom to individuals, keeps his highest life for the cultured few, justifies slavery, since all are not fitted for the scientific life." It will thus be seen that the students of the Philosophy class at the Sydney University have no cause to complain of the menu. They have explained to them the teachings of those masters who, when the world was much younger, gave to human thought a direction and an impetus which, in their turn, have shaped the destinies of nations. The lecture, it will not be forgotten, was but one of a series intended to cover the whole term, so that the amount of information to be obtained during the course by a punctual and attentive student must be considerable. It was delivered to the most advanced class, so that the professor plunged at once in medias res without those preliminary explanations and definitions unavoidably necessary at the commencement of a subject. The discourse was mainly historical, and consisted of a resume of what the old masters taught, accompanied by apposite comparisons and contrasts between the various ways in which the subjective and objective worlds (i.e., the worlds of mind and of matter, or of man himself and his environments) were regarded by them. In Aristotle's mind the highest ideal of happiness seems to have been that of a well-to-do Greek with friends and money, and all that makes life enjoyable—wives included—at his command, while such things as poverty and suffering were unknown. This conception was contrasted with the Christian one which demands for every person, high born or mean an equal share in the protection of the State. As for Plato's ideal man, he was an impossible being, sublimated and refined till all passion and reason had left him, and he became an embodiment or incarnation of reason alone. It was Plato's opinion, too, that in any community, the few alone are capable of the highest culture. In this the philosopher has my hearty concurrence—a fact which were he now alive, he no doubt would estimate at its proper value. Still, if you but look the matter fairly in the face, you will find it hard to escape from the conviction that the world's best books, finest music, grandest pictures, highest speculations, and in fact masterpieces in any line are now, always have been, and possibly always will be, duly appreciated by the few alone. These few may come from the palace or from the hovel. The pity of it is that, in the latter case, the best years of their lives are generally spent in battling against untoward circumstances, in overcoming obstacles that their more fortunate confreres, born high up in the social scale, never encounter. Take the city of Sydney for example, with its third of a million of inhabitants. What proportion, think you, after a visit to a picture gallery, a high-class concert, a literary recital, or a philosophical discourse, could return home and, without consulting books of reference, describe in simple language the causes that induced them to admire or to condemn ? There are our own Shakespeare, Milton, and Byron. How many of those you meet have sat with their feet on their fenders and gone through the trio from cover to cover ? And there is no better test either of a play or a poem than the manner it reads at your own fireside. There is beside me a little threepenny book containing "The School for Scandal" and "The Rivals." Where is the necessity for powder or patches, for voluptuous music, Georgian dresses, bijou drawing-rooms, pumps, wigs, hose and hoops, as a setting for the wit that sparkles on every page? Plato is responsible for this little tirade ? There may come a period when, owing to the radical amelioration of social conditions, the proportion of those qualified to appreciate the best work of pen or pencil will be multiplied a hundredfold , when ne sutor supra crepidam will have lost its application to cobbler or clodhopper. But the time is so distant—alas ! so distant—that the men of to-day can only work towards it without the hope of living to rejoice in the fruition of their labours.
The foregoing is a fair sample of what might be expected to pass through the mind of an ordinary listener as the young professor, not unlike the Peripatetics of other days, passed up and down before his class discoursing on the characteristics of old-world teachings. He explained how, under the empires of Alexander and of Rome the old rude communistic life became transformed into the fierce individualism which has existed ever since. He also adverted to the fact that some eminent moderns are of the opinion that from this individualism will ultimately be evolved a newer and higher Socialism than was dreamt of by the semi barbarous communities of ante-Platonic times. This would be a curious metamorphosis, resembling in some respects the fate that befell letters during the long night of the Middle Ages and the subsequent evolution of a new literature from the chaos due to a millennium of barbarism. As the professor proceeded with his lecture, he explained by the way how the universal toleration of Rome in religious matters destroyed the old national faiths, the Jewish excepted, in the countries overrun by her armies. It was then the aid of philosophy was sought for the purpose of filling the void left by the decay of faith, and of answering questions which had previously been answered after a fashion by the hierophants. As he went on it became obvious that, to the ethical query regarding a foundation in morals, as well as to the philosophical question concerning the relationship between the subjective and objective worlds, the various schools were just as prone to dispute as were the divines they had displaced. While one school arose for the purpose of asserting that both the ethics and philosophical nuts were capable of being cracked, neither denied that any solution was possible, and broadly assorted that happiness and ignorance were closely allied. There is a good deal in the latter contention, in spite of J. S. Mill's assertion that he would rather be a dissatisfied philosopher than a satisfied pig. . .
The Sydney Morning Herald 1 August 1891,
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