Lady Morgan’s Memoirs
Thomas Charles Morgan to Sydney Owen, November 1811
November 26th, 1811.
Dearest Life,
After three days of painful, miserable discussion,
welcome, welcome to the holy Sabbath, and to pure,
unmixed love. I know not why, but I enjoy to-day a triste sort of calmness in regard to you, to
myself, and to all that life can give, which is ease and happiness when
compared with the eternal flow and ebb of hope with which I am usually agitated. I will take advantage of it (while it
lasts) in writing to you, contrary to my previous
intention, and I do so, because I can avoid at all
touching on your affairs.
I should much like to have been present at your disputation on the influence of mental
cultivation on human happiness. You knew my
opinion, as I had so lately mentioned it, though in a cursory way, in ![]()
| 480 | LADY MORGAN'S MEMOIR. | |
![]()
one of my letters. I believe it is not very different from
your own. There can be no doubt, as far as the sciences go, with which
Davy is more particularly acquainted,
their happy influence on human life is considerable, not only in the aggregate by “bettering the condition” (that
is the fashionable phrase) of man, and multiplying his comforts, but individually, in a way not at first sight very visible.
The physical sciences all consist in facts and reasoning on facts, totally unconnected with morals, and, as Chamfort says, “Le monde
physique parait l’ouvrage d’un être parfait et bon,
mais le monde moral parait être le produit des caprices d’un
diable devenu fou.” The mind, then, perpetually
abstracted from the contemplation of this influence, stimulated by brilliant
discoveries, and absorbed in the consideration of beautiful, well-arranged and
constant laws, is enlarged to pleasurable emotion, at the same time that it rejoices in the
consciousness of its increased powers over the natural world. Those pursuits,
on the contrary, which have been supposed the most to influence happiness and
to tame the tiger in our nature,—the moral and metaphysical sciences, belles-lettres, and the fine arts, are, in my opinion,
of much more doubtful efficacy. Though their influence, when opposed to the
passions, is really as nothing (indeed, they too often but co-operate with them
in corrupting the heart) yet they cast a sort of splendour about vice by the
refinement they create; and render man, if not a better animal, yet certainly a
less horrible animal. As to the question whether humanity is bettered by the
multiplying wants, and ![]()
![]()
thereby drawing tighter the social
bonds and making us more dependant on each other, on police and on Government,
we cannot decide,—the advantages and disadvantages
of each state are so little comparable; most probably what is lost on the side
of liberty, is gained in security and the petty enjoyments which, by their repetition become important, so that, on the whole, one
age is nearly on a par with another in this respect. As for the influence of
these pursuits on the cultivator of them, there can,
in my opinion, be hardly a dispute; he is to all intents and purposes a victim
immolated for the public for which he labours. In morality, the mind always
bent upon a gloomy and shaded system of things, is either tortured in making
stubborn fact bend to graduate with religious
prejudices, or if forced to abandon these, lost in
seas of endless speculation; consciously feeling
actually existing evil, and perfectly sceptical to future good. These sciences, too, generally are
connected with a cultivated imagination, the greatest curse
in itself to its unfortunate possessor. Imagination, always at
variance with reason and truth, delights in exaggeration and dwells most
constantly on what most affects the passions. Its food, its occupation is pain;
then, again, how constant is that sickly squeamishness of taste which finds
nothing to admire, nothing to approve; that sees the paucity of our conceptions
and the endless repetition of them. In point of fact, I have rarely seen poets,
painters, or musicians (I mean composers), happy men.
Fretful, irritable, impatient; guided by enthu-![]()
| 482 | LADY MORGAN'S MEMOIR. | |
![]()
siasm
(another word for false conception). [End missing.]
Nicolas Chamfort (1741-1794)
French journalist, wit, and friend of Mirabeau; he was alternately a courtier and a
jacobin, and died a suicide.
Sir Humphry Davy, baronet (1778-1829)
English chemist and physicist, inventor of the safety lamp; in Bristol he knew Cottle,
Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Southey; he was president of the Royal Society (1820).
