Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 430. Various
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p>Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 430 / Volume 17, New Series, March 27, 1852
PRONOUNCERS
Do you not find, in almost every company, one who pronounces decisively upon every matter which comes in question? His voice is loud and firm, his eye bold and confident, and his whole manner oracular. No cold hesitations as to points of fact ever tease him. Little time does he require to make up his mind on any speculative subject. He is all yes or all no at once and without appeal. Opposite opinions he treats with, at the best, a sublime pity, meant to be graceful, but, in reality, galling. He is often a goose; but, be he what he may, it is ten to one that he carries off the majority of the company in the mere sweep of his gown. They are led by him for the time, fascinated by the energy of his pronunciations. They may all recover from him afterwards—some after one day, some after two, and particularly weak men after, perhaps, a week. At the moment, however, the pronouncer has vast influence, and, if immediate action can be determined on, it is very likely that he drags his victims into some committal of themselves, from which subsequent escape may not be very easy.
While pronouncing is thus the prominent quality of a few, it is more or less the vice of nearly all. Men feel that they have an inherent right to their opinion, and to the promulgation of it, and are not very apt to reflect that there is another question—as to whether their opinion be worth delivering; whether it has been formed upon a good basis of knowledge or experience, or upon any basis at all; whether it is the emanation of ripe judgment and reflection, or of some mere passing gust of ideas springing from the whim of the minute. Hence, when any question arises, it is seldom found that any one is quite unprepared to give some sort of decision. Even the giddy girl of seventeen will have something to say upon it, albeit she may never have heard of the matter before. It is thought foolish-looking not to be able to pronounce, as if one imperiled the right of private judgment itself by not being prepared in every case to act upon it. In consequence, what absurd opinions do we hear in all kinds of companies upon all kinds of topics! How the angels, who know better, must weep!
A conversational party even of tolerably well-educated persons, often presents itself in a ludicrous light. Some question has arisen amongst them. No one has any clear or definite information upon it. They have had disputes about the simplest matters of fact involved in it. Yet no person there, down to the youngest, but would take scorn to be held as incapable of pronouncing upon it. There are as many opinions as there are persons present, and not one less confident than another. What is very natural in such circumstances, no one has the least respect for the opinions of any of the rest. Each, in fact, does justice upon his neighbour for the absurdity of pronouncing without grounds, while incapable of seeing the absurdity in himself. And thus an hour will be passed in a most unprofitable manner, and perhaps the social spirit of the company be not a little marred. How much better to say: 'Well, that is a subject I know nothing about: I will not undertake to judge.' Supposing all who are present to be in the same predicament, they might dismiss the barren subject, and start another on which some one could throw real light, and from which, accordingly, all might derive some benefit.
Is not this habit of pronouncing without preparation in inquiry and reflection just one of the causes of that remarkable diversity of opinion which is so often deplored for its unpleasant consequences? In ignorance—fancy, whim, and prejudice usurp the directing power. If we take no time for consideration, we shall be apt to plunge into an error, and afterwards persevere in it for the sake of consistency, or because it has become a thing which we regard as our own. In such circumstances, no wonder there are as many 'minds' as 'men.' But when any one can speak on the ground of well-ascertained facts, and after some deliberation on the bearings of the question, he must carry others with him, not by fascination, but by real conviction, and thus greatly reduce the proportion of opinions to men. Very likely, some other man has got hold of a somewhat different range of facts, and come to different conclusions: he, too, will have his party of followers. But there being two or three discrepant views on the subject, is a much less evil than there being as many as there are individuals.
The right of pronouncing upon public affairs is one that would be particularly clung to if there were any danger of its being lost, and it certainly is not in England that any writer would be found ready to challenge so valued a privilege. At the same time, no one will seriously deny, that if this right were used more generally with the advantage of a tolerable knowledge of the subject, it would be an improvement. Public men may be acting, as, indeed, they must generally do, upon certain data carefully brought out by inquiry: they may judge and act amiss after all, for human judgment is fallible. But when we contrast their means of forming a judgment with those of many persons who hesitate not to pronounce upon their measures, it cannot be denied that they stand in a strong position. When we hear a bold condemnation of their acts from men who, so far from having gone through the same process of inquiry, have not even perused the documents in which the grounds of the administrative policy were explained, can we do otherwise than smile at the pretensions of the pseudo-judges? Is not the frequency of this unfounded judging much more apt to harden an unlucky statesman than to make him amenable to counsel? On the other hand, when a public man finds himself and his actions criticised by men who have knowledge, he must be a hardy one indeed who can entirely disregard the judgment.
If we attentively study the progress of any man who has acquired influence over his fellow-creatures—apart from certain matters in which the feelings are mainly concerned—we shall find that he has distinguished himself by a habit of not pronouncing where he has no means of forming a judgment. Such a man has had the good sense to see and confess that he could not be expected to know many things sufficiently well to entitle him to pronounce authoritatively upon them. He has probably given some considerable share of attention to certain subjects that are of some importance to his fellow-creatures, and thus fitted himself, with regard to them, to speak with more or less decision. Never found guilty of giving a vague, crudely-formed judgment on things a hundred miles out of his way, but, on the contrary, obtaining credit occasionally for the manner in which he treats those with which he is conversant, he irresistibly acquires character and influence. Young hasty minds laugh at his taking such care not to commit himself: he is perhaps taxed with getting credit for merely looking grave and holding his tongue. But this very holding of the tongue when there is nothing to say, is, in reality, one of the greatest, though often one of the last-learned virtues. Were his merits purely negative, they would be great; tending as they do to save truth from that obscuration which a multitude of ill-formed opinions necessarily throw upon it. But we shall usually discover in such men a positive merit also in their power to illustrate and give a guiding opinion upon certain subjects of importance to public or private interests.
There is not one sentence in this little essay which may not be justly set down as mere commonplace. We acknowledge the fault; but defend it on the ground that sound and useful commonplaces require a continual refreshing and re-presentment, so many persons being, after all, unaware or forgetful of them.
On a similar ground of defence, we would take leave to remind mankind of the good old maxim, 'Hear the other party.' Familiar to most people, observed by some, there are multitudes who uniformly act as if they had never heard of it. To be quite candid, we often catch ourselves neglecting it; and always, at the best, it takes a struggle to make it a reality in our conduct. Experience, however, impresses us more and more with a sense of its being absolutely essential to the ascertainment of truth in any disputable case. There is so much bias from self-love, so much recklessness about truth in general, and so much of even a sincere faithlessness of narration, that no partial account of anything is to be trusted. It is but a small concession to the cause of truth, to wait till we hear the statement of the opposite party, or not to pronounce without it. If anything were required to prove how little this is reflected on, it would be the readiness of nearly all persons to tell their own story, without intimating the slightest doubt that it is to be implicitly received on their own shewing. One cannot walk along a street, but some friend will come up and inflict a narration, limited entirely to his own view of a case in which he is interested or aggrieved, practically ignoring that there can and must be another way of stating it. And so great is the complaisance of mankind, that no one thinks of intimating any necessity for consulting another authority before giving judgment. Here the vicious habit of thoughtless pronouncing is doubly bad, as it involves also a kind of flattery.
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