It May Be Argued That These Opinions Spring From The Defect Of
Culture; That A Narrow And Pinching Way Of
Life not only
exaggerates to a man the importance of material conditions, but
indirectly, by denying him the necessary books
And leisure, keeps
his mind ignorant of larger thoughts; and that hence springs this
overwhelming concern about diet, and hence the bald view of
existence professed by Mackay. Had this been an English peasant
the conclusion would be tenable. But Mackay had most of the
elements of a liberal education. He had skirted metaphysical and
mathematical studies. He had a thoughtful hold of what he knew,
which would be exceptional among bankers. He had been brought up
in the midst of hot-house piety, and told, with incongruous pride,
the story of his own brother's deathbed ecstasies. Yet he had
somehow failed to fulfil himself, and was adrift like a dead thing
among external circumstances, without hope or lively preference or
shaping aim. And further, there seemed a tendency among many of
his fellows to fall into the same blank and unlovely opinions. One
thing, indeed, is not to be learned in Scotland, and that is the
way to be happy. Yet that is the whole of culture, and perhaps
two-thirds of morality. Can it be that the Puritan school, by
divorcing a man from nature, by thinning out his instincts, and
setting a stamp of its disapproval on whole fields of human
activity and interest, leads at last directly to material greed?
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