How to Observe: Morals and Manners. Harriet Martineau
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rel="nofollow" href="#u97ebc57c-b9e7-476e-8d5d-d3f0f831df53">[A] leads us to say the same about the other great avenue of knowledge. His writings prove, to all who are acquainted with them, that, though to a great degree deprived of that inestimable commentary upon perceived facts—human discourse—the Deaf Traveller is able to furnish us with more knowledge of foreign people than Fine-Ear himself could have done without the accompaniments of analytical power and concentrative thought. All senses, and intellectual powers, and good habits, may be considered essential to a perfect observation of morals and manners; but almost any one might be better spared than a provision of principles which may serve as a rallying point and a test of facts. 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. It is a chance whether he puts a right interpretation on any of the facts he perceives.
Many may object that I am making much too serious a matter of the department of the business of travelling under present notice. They do not pretend to be moral philosophers;—they do not desire to be oracles;—they attempt nothing more than to give a simple report of what has come under their notice. But what work on earth is more serious than this of giving an account of the most grave and important things which are transacted on this globe? Every true report is a great good; every untrue report is a great mischief. Therefore, let there be none given but by persons in some good degree qualified. Such travellers as will not take pains to provide themselves with the requisite thought and study should abstain from reporting at all.
It is a mistake, however, to suppose that the study shown to be requisite is vast and deep. Some knowledge of the principles of Morals and the rule of Manners is required, as in the case of other sciences to be brought into use on a similar occasion; but the principles are few and simple, and the rule easy of application.
The universal summary notions of Morals may serve a common traveller in his judgments as to whether he would like to live in any foreign country, and as to whether the people there are as agreeable to him as his own nation. For such an one it may be sufficient to bear about the general notions that lying, thieving, idleness, and licentiousness are bad; and that truth, honesty, industry, and sobriety are good; and for common purposes, such an one may be trusted to pronounce what is industry and what idleness; what is licentiousness and what sobriety. But vague notions, home prepossessions, even on these great points of morals, are not sufficient, in the eyes of an enlightened traveller, to warrant decisions on the moral state of nations who are reared under a wide diversity of circumstances. The true liberality which alone is worthy to contemplate all the nations of the earth, does not draw a broad line through the midst of human conduct, declaring all that falls on the one side vice, and all on the other virtue; such a liberality knows that actions and habits do not always carry their moral impress visibly to all eyes, and that the character of very many must be determined by a cautious application of a few deep principles. Is the Shaker of New England a good judge of the morals and manners of the Arab of the Desert? 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? The ideas of right and wrong in the minds of these people are not of the enlarged kind which would enable them to judge persons in situations the most opposite to their own. The true philosopher, the worthy observer, first contemplates in imagination the area of humanity, and then ascertains what principles of morals are applicable to them all, and judges by these.
The enlightened traveller, if he explore only one country, carries in his mind the image of all; for, only in its relation to the whole of the race can any one people be judged. Almost without exaggeration, he may be said to see what the rhapsodist in Volney saw.
"There, from above the atmosphere, looking down upon the earth I had quitted, I beheld a scene entirely new. Under my feet, floating in empty space, a globe similar to that of the moon, but less luminous, presented to me one of its faces. … 'What!' exclaimed I, 'is that the earth which is inhabited by human beings?'"[B]
The differences are, that, instead of "one of its faces," the moralist would see the whole of the earth in one contemplation; and that, instead of a nebulous expanse here, and a brown or grey speck there—continents, seas, or volcanoes—he would look into the homes and social assemblies of all lands. 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; within, the beardless father is mending his weapons made of fishbones, while the dwarfed mother swathes her infant in skins, and feeds it with oil and fat. In the extreme East, there is the Chinese family in their garden, treading its paved walks, or seated under the shade of its artificial rocks; the master displaying the claws of his left hand as he smokes his pipe, and his wife tottering on her deformed feet as she follows her child—exulting over it if it be a boy; grave and full of sighs if heaven have sent her none but girls. In the extreme South, there is the Colonist of the Cape, lazily basking before his door, while he sends his labourer abroad with his bullock-waggon, devolves the business of the farm upon the women, and scares from his door any poor Hottentot who may have wandered hither over the plain. In the extreme West, there is the gathering together on the shores of the Pacific of the hunters laden with furs. The men are trading, or cleaning their arms, or sleeping; the squaws are cooking, or dyeing with vegetable juices the quills of the porcupine or the hair of the moose-deer. In the intervals between these extremities, there is a world of morals and manners, as diverse as the surface of the lands on which they are exhibited. Here is the Russian nobleman on his estate, the lord of the fate of his serfs, but hard pressed by the enmity of rival nobles, and silenced by the despotism of his prince; his wife leads a languid life among her spinning maidens; and his young sons talk of the wars in which they shall serve their emperor in time to come. There is the Frankfort trader, dwelling among equals, fixing his pride upon having wronged no man, or upon having a son distinguished at the university, or a daughter skilled in domestic accomplishments; while his wife emulates her neighbours in supporting the comfort and respectability of the household. 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 artizan discussing with his brother-workman the politics of the town, or carrying home to his wife some fresh hopes of the interference of parliament about labour and wages. Here is a conclave of Cardinals, consulting upon the interests of the Holy See; there a company of Brahmins setting an offering of rice before their idol. In one direction, there is a handful of citizens building a new town in the midst of a forest; in another, there is a troop of horsemen hovering on the horizon, while a caravan is traversing the Desert. Under the twinkling shadows of a German vineyard, national songs are sung; from the steep places of the Swiss mountains the Alp-horn resounds; in the coffee-house at Cairo, listeners hang upon the voice of the romance reciter; the churches of Italy echo with solemn hymns; and the soft tones of the child are heard, in the New England parlour, as 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; and vague and general, or merely traditional, notions of right and wrong must serve the purpose of the greater number. The chief evil of moral notions being vague or traditional is, that they are irreconcileable with liberality of judgment; and the great benefit of an ascertainment of the primary principles of morals is, that such an investigation dissolves prejudice, and casts a full light upon many things which cease to be fearful and painful when they are no longer obscure. We all know how different a Sunday in Paris appears to a sectarian, to whom the word of his priest is law; and to a philosopher, in whom religion is indigenous, who understands the narrowness of sects, and sees how much smaller even Christendom itself is than Humanity. We all know how offensive the prayers of Mahomedans at the corners of streets, and the pomp of catholic processions, are to those who know no other way than entering into their closet, and shutting the door when they pray; but how felt the deep thinker who wrote the Religio Medici? He was an orderly member of a Protestant church, yet he uncovered his head at the sight of a crucifix; he could not laugh at pilgrims walking with peas in their shoes, or despise a begging friar; he could "not hear an Ave Maria bell without an elevation;" and it is probable that even