Littell's Living Age/Volume 126/Issue 1628/Prof. Cairnes
Hardly more than two years have passed since the greatest of modern political economists died at Avignon, and last Monday the clods were laid at Willesden over all that could be buried of the greatest of his disciples. The first loss came as a terrible shock to those who knew and valued Mr. Mill's services to the world as a thinker and teacher; for, though he had reached the age of sixty-seven, no one could have anticipated, till within a few days of his death, that there were not many years of life and work before him. The second loss can have surprised no one who was at all acquainted with the state of Mr. Cairnes's health during the last three years. He has died at the age of fifty-one, when his ripe mind seemed fitted to render services to the world which would far surpass all the excellent work he had already done; yet surely there is not one of all the friends who loved him who could have wished that his bodily agonies should be prolonged even one day longer for the sake of any public good that might issue from his life. His death, when a kindlier fate might have enabled him to work on bravely and worthily for many years longer — long enough, at any rate, to complete that splendid scheme for the exposition of his favourite science on which his heart was set — is a cruel blow to the world; but it must almost be welcomed as putting an end to the physical sufferings that, if overwork induced them in the first instance, were only rendered tolerable by heroic persistence in overwork.
John Elliot Cairnes was born at Drogheda in 1824. His father was a brewer in that town, and he began life with the intention of carrying on his father's business. He chose, however, to give himself a much more thorough education than was necessary to success in the family calling. He matriculated at Trinity College, Dublin, and supplemented the business occupations of the day by close and constant study in the evening. Thus were laid the seeds of the malady that has caused his premature death. When the time came for him to decide whether he should slacken his studies or husband his strength by transferring to the day-time some of the work that had hitherto encroached on the night-hours, he chose the latter course — to the extent, at least, of quitting the brewery and devoting himself wholly to a student's life, though he seems thereby rather to have augmented his opportunities of intellectual work than to have supplemented them with the needful amount of rest and leisure. To this course he appears to have been partly induced by home discomforts, growing out of convictions on theological matters which separated him more and more widely from the somewhat narrow Protestantism that opposed itself to the dominant Catholicism of Drogheda. He settled down in Dublin, having taken his bachelor's degree in 1848; and in 1854, after a somewhat long interval, and at a somewhat mature age, he "commenced" as master of arts. It is worth remembering that the year in which he took his B.A. degree was the year in which Mr. Mill's "Principles of Political Economy" appeared, "Some Unsettled Questions in Political Economy" having been published four years before. Mr. Cairnes made a careful study of law, and was called to the Irish bar; but political economy was his favourite pursuit, and he was able to consider it under all the new light that Mr. Mill had thrown on the subject, and in all the new bearings that Mr. Mill had suggested. His shrewd observation of all that was going on around him, his quick apprehension of all the deep problems involved even in occurrences that seemed trivial, and his power of discussing them at once with humour and with sobriety, eminently fitted him to be a journalist of the highest type, and he became a valued and, we believe, a frequent contributor to the most important and influential of the Protestant newspapers published in Ireland. He was a conspicuous member, moreover, of the more intellectual circles of Dublin society, then presided over by Archbishop Whately, whose great liberality of opinion on religious and social affairs was not less remarkable than his kindly interest in every young man of talent who came in his way. Mr. Cairnes became one of Whately's favourites, and in late years he took pleasure, when the current of conversation suggested it, not only in testifying to the good old archbishop's sterling qualities as a man, but also in quoting from memory many of his witticisms which have never appeared among the published Whateliana.
Why Whately should have taken as much interest as he did in political economy, which he proposed to darken with the new name of "catallactics," and the scope and purport of which he limited to "inquiry into the nature, production, and distribution of wealth, not its connection with virtue and happiness," it is hard to understand, unless this was due to his accidental appointment as professor of the science at Oxford in 1829; but he had that interest, and gave solid proof of it immediately after he was made archbishop, by endowing, in the University of Dublin, a Whately professorship of political economy, tenable for five years. The first professor whom he appointed, in 1832, was Mr. Isaac Butt; the second, in 1837, was the present Judge Lawson; the sixth, in 1857, was Mr. Cairnes. In that last appointment he showed excellent judgment, and by it he enabled, or perhaps forced, Mr. Cairnes to take a much more prominent position among public teachers than his own modesty might otherwise have allowed. It was a condition of the Whately professorship that at least one of each year's lectures should be published within the year. Mr. Cairnes published, or rather the archbishop published for him, not one lecture, but the whole opening course of six. This work was "The Character and Logical Method of Political Economy," which was lately republished with sufficiently important additions to make it a new book, and which was reviewed at some length in our columns only three weeks ago. We do not propose here to review it again; but it is important to note the contents of the original volume, as they precisely indicate the position taken up by Mr. Cairnes at the commencement of his public life, if so quiet and unobtrusive a life can be regarded as having ever been a public one. The first lecture was on "The Character, Objects, and Limits of Political Economy;" the second, on "The Mental and Physical Premises of Political Economy, and the Logical Character of the Doctrines thence Deduced;" the third, on "The Logical Method of Political Economy;" the fourth, on "The Solution of an Economic Problem, and the Degree of Perfection of which it is Susceptible;" the fifth, on "The Malthusian Doctrine of Population;" the sixth, on "The Theory of Rent."
Mr. Cairnes differed from all his predecessors in finally and completely discarding the old notion that political economy is a cut-and-dried science, — a system for laying down, in certain departments, the laws of human action from which men may, or may not, legitimately depart, but from which they cannot depart with the sanction of political economy. He sought, throughout his working years, to bring the principles of political economy to bear upon all the great political and social questions of the day, or, perhaps we should rather say, to see whether and how far economic principles could be brought to bear upon them. Mr. Mill showed how broad could be the sympathies and how deep the philanthropy of a rigid political economist; Mr. Cairnes how, not the dominion, but the influence of political economy could be wisely extended into the region of human sympathies and the methods of philanthropy. Regarded from this point of view, there was remarkable consistency in all Mr. Cairnes's work as a teacher and writer. Seventeen or eighteen years ago the Australian gold discoveries gave new and very practical importance to the question as to the effect of an increased supply of the metal used as a standard of value upon the market value of all other commodities; and he contributed to Fraser a series of articles, based, we believe, upon lectures previously given in Dublin, in which the question was exhaustively and philosophically treated. His views, ridiculed and controverted by many critics, were at once adopted by the men most competent to gauge them, and subsequent events have proved their entire correctness. Much more general attention was excited, however, by a work that grew out of the last course of lectures delivered by him in i86l to the Dublin students. "The Slave Power: its Character, Career, and Probable Designs," was published in the spring of 1862, and soon ran into a second edition, to be quickly re-issued in the United States, and to be at once singled out, from the mass of ephemeral literature provoked by the American civil war, as a solid and most masterly exposition of the problems therein involved. It was based on the assumption, not then much recognized, that, not the question of tariffs or anything else, but, as he said, "slavery is at the bottom of this quarrel, and that on its determination depends whether the power which derives its strength from slavery shall be set up with enlarged resources and increased prestige, or be now once for all effectually broken." But the great value of the work was in the close and overwhelming arguments by which slavery was shown to be an uneconomical institution, not only in the conventional but yet more in the scientific sense of the term; to involve excessive and deplorable waste of the materials of production as well as to be utterly indefensible in a moral aspect. Here Mr. Cairnes was able to give most important application to his special view as to the functions of political economy. He brought slavery within the range of science, and, subjecting it to a new standard, weighed it carefully, and conclusively proved it to be altogether wanting.
Before "The Slave Power" was published, his five years' tenure of the Whately professorship had come to an end; but he had immediately afterwards been appointed professor of political economy and jurisprudence at Queen's College, Galway. While there, the direct work attached to his office was more onerous and responsible than at Dublin. But the indirect work that devolved upon him was more tedious and more important. He had long ago, perhaps under Whately's guidance, arrived at strong convictions on the question of Irish education, and he laboured with unflagging energy as the defender and promoter of the system of united and unsectarian education in accordance with which the Queen's University had been established. The "Thouglus on University Reform," lately republished in his volume of "Political Essays," and the other pamphlets, essays, and letters, that issued from his pen at this time, very clearly and boldly set forth his opinions on the subject.
He found time for other work as well. It may not seem a great undertaking to prepare a lecture for a Young Men's Christian Association: but the lecture that in 1864 he delivered to the Society bearing that name on "Colonization and Colonial Government" shows nearly as deep and thorough a study of one of the most complicated political problems of the present day as does the lecture, delivered two years before to the same Society, on "The Revolution in America," containing, as that did, the pith of the opinions that had fuller expression in "The Slave Power." In 1865, moreover, he began to embody the results of other careful study and close reflection in a work on the industrial condition of Ireland, of which he said, "The practical aim was to lead up to a discussion of the land question, then pressing for solution." But "the work was interrupted by ill health," and so much of it as he had been able to write was only published in 1873, under the title of "Fragments on Ireland," as a contribution towards the discussion that has yet to be fairly entered upon when reformers are ready to carry on the work very partially begun by the Irish Land Act of 1870. "There are few questions," he said, "which can arise in the course of legislation for Ireland — even if we could consider the Irish land problem as definitively settled — which do not require for their intelligent discussion a constant reference to the crisis through which the country has recently passed, as well as a correct apprehension of the nature and direction of the economical forces now shaping its industrial career." When the discussion begins, Prof. Cairnes's statement of some of these economical forces will be found to be of a value quite disproportionate to the number of pages that it fills.
Ill health thus checked him, nearly ten years ago, in an undertaking of great importance, in which, as an Irishman and an economist, he proposed, following the rule of his life, to bring the questions of deepest moment in his country within the cognizance of political economy. Ill health checked other work. Overwork, as we have already observed, began to tell upon a not very robust constitution in his early studious years. He could not keep from overwork; but he sought to counteract its bad effects by taking plenty of out-door exercise. Hunting was his favourite pastime, and, as he thought, his chief safeguard. But it proved otherwise. A fall from his horse did serious injury to one of his legs, and thus his constitutional weakness was localized and intensified in the injured part until the painful malady spread from one limb to the whole body, and he gradually became altogether crippled. Throughout ten years he fought bravely against disease, but it slowly mastered him, and, during these ten years, all the work he did was done amid ever-increasing difficulties, and, at length, amid agonies that would have been intolerable to a man less resolved to do all the good work that it could be possible for him to do.
He was an invalid when, in 1866, he was appointed professor of political economy in University College, London; but he did not despair of recovery, and looked forward to a life of greater usefulness in the metropolis, where also he could find relaxation in more congenial society than Galway or even Dublin afforded. For a few years he was a prominent member of the Political Economy Club. It was with no slight pain to him, in addition to the bodily pain that harassed him, that he was forced gradually to withdraw from all social intercourse that could not be brought within the circle of his own quiet home. Desiring to do much more hard work, he had only strength to write occasional articles in the magazines and newspapers, and to prepare the lectures which all who had the good fortune to attend his classes will always remember as rich stores of profound teaching, put forth with extraordinary clearness and simplicity. In the winter of 1868-9, he was obliged, leaving a substitute, to forego even those lectures, and to seek improvement of his health by a long holiday in Italy and the south of France. Coming back, he lectured on for three years more, and, during the last year, it may be noticed, one excellent result issued from his bad health. Our readers will remember that, a few years ago, an important movement was set on foot for supplying ladies anxious for "higher education" with lectures from the professors of University College, and in this movement Prof. Cairnes took a hearty interest from the beginning. There was, at first, no thought of the lectures being given within the college walls, and we believe that even many of those who initiated the plan would have shrunk in alarm from such a dangerous proximity of the sexes. To the syllabus of Mr. Cairnes's college lectures for 1871-2, however, was appended this note: "By special permission of the council, ladies are admitted to this class." Mr. Cairnes had not strength for two concurrent classes; but he would not give up his women-pupils. Therefore, he was allowed to have young men and young women in the same classroom; and when, at the end of the session, it was found not only that no mischief had resulted, but also that a young woman was at the head of the examination-list, and had carried off the prize in political economy, the practice was continued in the same class, and is being now extended to others. Thus, the first step that has hitherto been taken in England towards the encouragement of mixed education is due to Prof. Cairnes, though partly only brought about by the unfortunate accident of his broken health.
His health was altogether broken in the spring of 1872. He was forced to resign his post at University College, and to content himself, instead of continuing to take an active part in collegiate education, with the barren title, albeit welcome to him as a grateful testimony to his abilities as a teacher, of emeritus professor of political economy. In 1873 that compliment was followed by the bestowal, quite unsolicited, upon him by the University of Dublin of the degree of doctor of laws. Henceforth, all the work he could do had to be done in his enforced retirement at Blackheath, his amanuensis being the brave and patient wife who did so much in every way to lighten the burden of his life.
That work, however, was very considerable. Two volumes, "Political Essays" and "Essays in Political Economy" which he published in 1873, did not involve much labour, as they were mainly composed of reprinted articles and lectures, or of papers written long before, though not hitherto printed. But each volume contained some fresh matter, the most important essay being on "The Present Position of the Irish University Question." Mr. Cairnes next set himself to re-arrange his notes of lectures delivered at University College, and to put in writing the main conclusions at which he had arrived in correction or in extension of the teachings of his predecessors on certain points. The work grew in his hands, however, and "Some Leading Principles in Political Economy newly Expounded" came to be a far more exhaustive treatise than at starting he could have hoped to make it.
Into the privacy of the heroic life and the lingering death amid which all this later work was done we have no right to enter. If ever that history is written by a competent hand, the world will learn to what height and dignity modern stoicism in its purest and noblest form can reach. This thing is not valued nowadays. A man may work and suffer for others, and those others take or reject the work, but think little of the sufferer. There is some small consolation in the thought that it was not altogether so in this case. Such homage as is rare in these bustling times was paid to Prof. Cairnes during these last years, and, though he never recognized it as homage, it was grateful to him. Selfish motives may have prompted most of the pilgrims who journeyed down to Blackheath, as they knew that there they could get better help towards putting sound thoughts into their books, or newspaper articles, their speeches in Parliament, or their college lectures, as well as all their plans of life, than would elsewhere be obtained. They knew, too, that the excellent judgment on which they relied would be joined in the expression with so much wit and humour that they were tempted to forget the pain of the sufferer in the pleasure derived from his conversation. But they also went because they knew that the sufferer's pain was alleviated by the consciousness that he was not altogether debarred from the outside world, — that he could take part not only in the private interests of his friends, but also in their public work. To live as useful a life as possible was his great ambition. To feel that it was growing useless was his heaviest trouble, heavier than the physical pain that he endured. He did not know how useful his life was to the very last. Still less, perhaps, was it possible for a man so imbued with the modesty of genius, so entirely free from every sort of arrogance or self-conceit, to know how useful might be the issue of that life after welcome death had put an end to his sufferings.