TO LEWIS CAMPBELL, Esq.
8 Kings Parade, 10th Feb. 1852.
I was at Isaac Taylor's to-night. His
father has come
to see him, a
little, cold man, with a tremulous voice, who talks
about
the weather as if he were upon oath, but who can lift up his testimony
against any unwarrantable statement. Taylor junr. and
Maclennan
were talking about associations of workmen, Christian socialism, and
so
forth. T. junr. approved of the system where each workman has a share
in
the firm. M. liked one master better than many.
T. senr. described the inducement to
hard work among
engineers at Manchester;
the reward is not profit, but situation.
There are advantages in subordination,
besides good
direction, for it
supplies an end to each man, external to himself.
Activity
requires Objectivity.—Do you ever read books written by women about
women?
I mean fictitious tales, illustrating Moral Anatomy, by
disclosing
all thoughts, motives, and secret sins, as if the authoress
were a perjured confessor. There you find all the good thinking about
themselves,
and plotting self-improvement from a sincere regard
to
their own interest, while the bad are most disinterestedly plotting
against
or for others, as
the case may be; but all are caged in and compelled to criticise one
another till nothing is left, and you exclaim:—
"Madam! if I
know your sex, By the fashion of your bones."
No wonder people get hypochondriac if
their souls are
made to go through
manœuvres before a mirror. Objectivity alone is favourable
to the free circulation of the soul. But let the Object be real and not
an Image of the Mind's own creating, for Idolatry is
Subjectivity
with respect to gods. Let a man feel that he is wide awake,—that
he has something to do, which he has authority, power, and will to do,
and is doing; but let him not cherish a consciousness of
these
things as if he had them at his command, but receive them thankfully
and
use them strenuously, and exchange them freely for other
objects.
He has then a happiness which may be increased in
degree, but cannot be altered in kind.
