"THE GOLDEN MEAN."

Otago Witness, Issue 2325, 22 September 1898, Page 22

"THE GOLDEN MEAN."

By M. Great literary artists make a phrase as scientific men a formula, resuming a vast range of fucts in one brief, flashing state- j ment, a miracle of insight and constructive j power. Sucli formulte do not explain ; they state. As Pearson puts it, they are a kind of shorthand, in whose slight outlines those who understand their subject find a whole cyclopedia of knowledge. Those whose particular training has never brought them into contact with science and its methods have 1 generally a quite unfounded reverence for that branch of human growth. To them its mightiest function is to explain the mysteries of life ; and this unfortunate misapj prehension is often shewn in the absurdest ways. Rise in the coiu-se of a debate and ! point out with an air of quiet confidence that j this or that contention is unscientific, and I your remark will be accepted by nine people out of ten as perfectly convincing: on the other hand, rise in support of the most utterly nonsensical of motions, and tell your listeners that it is scientific, you have in the ! mere doing so scotched, if not altogether killed, the argument of your opponent. If only that this foolish reverence for science may be replaced by wise appreciation of the real aims, the splendid patience, the truly great achievements of its votaries, a carefully considered scientific programme should form part of every man and woman's education. Ignorance of the true character of formulae, or laws, to use the commoner and most misleading term, robs them of almost all their educative value, and turns them from the vitalising things they should be to engines of destruction. The old l»reeK parable still .serves ; Medusa, priestess of the gods, becomes through her defilement a Gorgon, the scourge in place of the deliverer of men : phrases that should have been bright beacons to the age become but devil's lanterns to lead us deeper into the morass. Consider for a moment the fine phrase I chose as title to this paper — "The Golden Mean," tho well-known "aurea mediocritas" of Flaccus. How often is the formula enounced by those who are entirely ignorant of how the Roman poet wrought it, and who endeavour to apply it to circumstances wholly different from those that filled his mind ; wresting it to embrace phenomena without its scope, making its wisdom the instrument of folly? Rectius vives, Licini, neque altuin Semper uigendo, neque, dum procellas Cautus horrescis, niniium premendo Litus iniquuni. Aureani quisquis niediooritatem Diligit tutus caret obsoleti Sordibus tecti, caret invidenda Sobrius aula. . . . Cowper's translation, though dreadfully inadequate, will serve the purpose of conveying to non-Latinists some notion of the spirit of the ode: — Ode X (Book II). to Licrarus mureha. Receive, dear friend, the truths I teach ; So shalt thou live beyond the reach Of adverse fortune's power; Not always tempt the distant deep, ISTor alvivs timorously creep Along the treacherous shore. He that holds fast the golden mean, And lives contentedly between The little and the great, Feels not the wants that pinch the poor, Nor plagues that haunt the rich man's door, Embittering all his state. The tallest pines feel most the power Of wintry blasts ; the loftiest tower Comes heaviest to the ground ; The bolts that spare the mountain's side, Hia cloud-capt eminence divide, And spread the ruin round. The well-informed philosopher Rejoices with a wholesome fear, [ And hopes, in spite of pain ; If winter bellow from the north, Soon the sweet spring corn^s dancing forth, And Nature laughs again. What if thine heaven be overcast? The daik appearance will not last; Expect a brighter sky. • The God that strings the silver bow, Awakes sometimes the Musea too, And lays his arrows by. I£ hindrances obstruct thy way, Thy magnanimity display, And let thy strength bo seen ; B\\t oh ! if Fortune fill thy sail With rnoro than a propitious gale, Take half thy canvas in. Why had not gentle Cowper the high translational ideal of Freiligrath, and his miraculous faculty of touching it! Why did not Freiligrath himself find one small corner of his heart for Horace only of tha ancients ! Yet Cowper's version, all imperfect as it is. enables us to come at something

like a clear idea of the intention of the poet ,when he struck out that satisfying " aurea mediocritas." Study the -second stanza carefully. Horace's golden mean is the fair life above the pinch of "poortith cauld," beneath the ostentation that breeds ill-will in those less favoured than ourselves with Fortune's gifts. The poet's counsel is distinguished here as elsewhere by sound sense the facts of social life before him, he distils this drop of potent essence^. He who would live serene, let him avoid the two extremes of poverty and wealth, the breeding-grounds, after their several ways, of cares and troubles ; let him pursue the " golden mean " between them. The formula i 3 unassailable ; its matter is as perfect as its form ; it summarises in its pregnant phrase the multifarious phenomena of social inequality, relates them, binding their various many into one, enriching us with yet another general notion, thus adding definitely to the sum of human knowledge. But the inclusion of ox:e gal of facts excludes all others, and that is where the need for study lies. Should anybody use this formula of Horace's to back up the opinion that no man can face with equanimity the trials bred of poverty or wealth, he would be stretching it to cover facts its author never contemplated covering ; should anybody use this formula to retard human progress, he too would be endeavouring to include within its range a series of phenomena beyond its author's purview. Study in either case reveals the error and justifies the poet while condemning his intentional and unintentional traducers. The first of the misapplications I suggest would be comparatively harmless ; the second, which is astonishingly frequent, is fruitful of much evil. I think that men and women, gray with the lapse of time, nearing their devachanic rest, will still remember freshly, thrillingly, the hour when on their young enthusiasm fell the chilling caution — "Now, don'!/ rush to extremes! " It came upon us wi.'h a prestige born of our revevence for age and for experience — how we looked up to them and worshipped them, until the aged and experienced themselves gave our dear dream its death blow ! We thought the words the product of that wisdom we were determined some far distant day to rise to ; and we jtondered them, and pondered them, aid weighed our aspiration in the scale against them, and tried to make believe it kicked the beam. " Observe the golden mean ; never be borne away by foolish heat ; remember there are wiser guides than the fine fancies of impatient youth" — ah, me! Tendered at times in the wanton cruelly by "disillusioned" elders, at tunes in honest though mistaken kindliness, and with do&irc to save from that same disillusionment, this counsel of our seniors was perhaps of all the foes we had to fight the darkest and the deadliest;. Some of us perished in the struggle, and some endured and slew the fiend. It is so easy looking back from now to then, to smile at the poor youths we were, fighting a phantom whose sole power against us lay in the fact thot we believed it real ; but the smile vanishes the moment we perceive the young enthusiasms for whom we fill the rolo of seniors harnessing them against the day of battle. We realise it is our duty to avoid the part our elders plaj r ed, 'and play a nobler ; to stimulate, not check, the young heart's aspiration, and to endeavour to direct it into channels of high service, not by impressing our pet theories upon it, but by assisting to extend its proper view, so as to give it every opportunity of forming for itself a wise philosophy of life ; and first a,nd foremost we resolve to show them the fallacy of this extension of the maxim of the golden mean. Suppose a line with one ( extremity at a fixt point, the other moving forward: where is the middle of the line? It is not a fixt point, but like the end is always moving, with this emphatic difference that it covers precisely half the ground in a jriven time. But how could even this pro^L^ssive "mean" exist if there were no extreme? The question is absurd ; the terms " extreme" and "mean" being correlative, the things they signify mutually dependent. Consider life in some such fashion tracing out a line ; an army on the march, perhaps, a compact little group of pioneers at head, a huge main body in the centre, and a loose, straggling company behind. How can there be a centre but for those stragglers in the rear, that hardy corps of guides in front? I know analogies are dangerous, so easy is it to suppose an illustration is intended for an argument, and to run off in ho*t pursuit of issues that should never have arisen : all the same, civilisation is o march where fclieie are pioneers and laggards and a " compact majority " between ; and that compact; majority it is who preach us the false doctrine of the golden mean, they who would never have arrived at their position of today but for the pioneers of yesterday. "Don't rush to extremes " is an excellent counsel when understood and properly applied, but when a human soul has anything to do, it is a wicked thing to try to hamper it with strained prudential maxims. The golden mean! Let men misuse the phrase to cover up their idleness and sloth. Be not deceived thereby, ye who have felt divinity astir within you, and know yourselves the knights of God's Round Table. Remember the rejection of the church that was neither cold nor hot, and harken rather to the Hebrew sage who said : " Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do with thy might."

—A' horse will live 25 days without food, merely drinking water. — In a library possessed by a certain bookcollector, there are over 700 tiny volumes, not one of which is larger than lin in width by 2in in height. — Presents of small packets of sweets or of cakes made to the children of customers while engaged in shopping afford an example of the latest enterprise in the drapery trade. — Smoking' a pipe of medium size, says a static r.cian, a man blows out of his mouth for every time he fills his pipe 700 smoke clouds. If he smokes four pipes a day for 20 years, he blows out 20,440,000 smoke clouds. — A medical officer of health is the latest addition to the primary schools of Germany. He examines the new pupils, and gives each, his health certificate. It is his duty to sea that the school is well aired, well lighted, and, properly warmed in winter. Every five dayl he gives a medical lesson to each claaa.