Debating Society's Prize Essay.

Influence of Natural Conditions in New Zealand on the National Character.

The subject selected by the Debating Society for the essay of the season is one that has not been much discussed, and which possesses in a very considerable degree the freshness of novelty. What effect have the natural conditions in New Zealand on the national character ? It is at once manifest that we are here confronted with a very comprehensive, as well as a very interesting question. The moulding influences of our national character—the character, that is, of the people of the colony—must always be of interest; the matter touches us closely. Bra the field opened up by the question, as stated, is very wide, and to exhaust it would require the space of many volumes, and a pen guided by a breadth of experience and investigation to which the writer of this essay can lay no claim. If, however, within the scope of the present effort, the subject cannot be treated with anything approaching exhaustiveness, a few remarks on its more prominent phases may afford some food for reflection.

In view of the teachings of modern biology, it can scarcely be questioned that environment, in the shape of climate, proportion of land area to the population, and generally, the physical characteristics of a country, all make themselves felt, to some extent, in the temperament of its people. We are told that some animals, such as rabbits, tend to assume the colour of the country they occupy; and it may be inferred that man, with all his greater sensitiveness, will, in a measure, reflect the sunshine, the storm, and the various aspects and conditions of Nature with which he is brought in contact. In New Zealand, as [unclear: in] every country, more or less, Nature is doubtless presented in some distinctive forms. Can we trace, then, as a result of these, any characteristics commencing to impress themselves on us, as a people, [unclear: and] tending to distinguish us from our cousins in the Mother Country [unclear: !] Are such effects likely to be accentuated by time, or will they [unclear: disappear] as the colony grows older ? These are the questions which present themselves for consideration.

The aboriginal natives, it may at first be thought, will exhibit the result of the country's influence on its inhabitants; but the [unclear: short] time which has elapsed since the Maoris first set foot in New Zealand makes any deductions from this source exceedingly hazardous. They page 83 were originally a tropical people, their ancestors having probably come from the Malay Peninsula, where their racial characteristics must have been moulded through ages. The heriditary element is consequently the predominant one, and it must not be concluded that, because the Maoris manifest an imaginative mind, or a lazy disposition, these peculiarities have resulted from the impress of their present surroundings. It is true that the imaginative and poetical proclivity may be plausibly attributed to the magnificent scenery of these islands: the winding river, the forest-clad hills, and the glistening mountain peak, each irresistibly suggesting some spiritual counterpart. But the ultimate effect on the mind of these natural phenomena must always be conditioned by the susceptibility of the subject to the poetic suggestion, which is always discernible, even in the most commonplace surroundings, by the seeing eye and the hearing ear. Though there is probably no tract of country in the world more richly endowed with the elements of the sublime than the rugged and far-extending Rocky Mountains of America, we do not hear that the Indians from these parts are anything but dull and phlegmatic. Further, as the matter is more closely approached, the rational a priori deduction would seem to be that a people continually face to face with the strongest possible stimulants of any sentiment should tend to become indifferent to their influence. To one who habitually sees Nature in its more prosaic aspect, an occasional glimpse of more entrancing scenes liberates, with overwhelming force, the sense of beauty or grandeur, the susceptibilities for which have been accustomed to respond to much less powerful appeals. But with scenery, as with almost all things, familiarity breeds, if not contempt, at least a considerable amount of insensibility.

The poetical element in the mind of the Maori, then, cannot be attributed to a close intercourse with scenic display, which, if the foregoing conclusions be just, would tend to act in quite an opposite direction. The case of the white invaders of the country may be regarded in the same light, in so far as the exigencies of population permit them to have free contact with Nature. The rugged hill may lend itself admirably to metaphor, but, in the mind of the shepherd, it is too closely linked with footsore wanderings after straggling sheep to be strongly suggestive of any finer analogy. The conditions will not be favourable to the fullest development of the poetic instincts as applied to Nature as long as the subject matter is too common to be impressive. This is illustrated by the tone of what may distinctively be called colonial literature, including poetry such as that, to take a typical example near home, of Mr D. M'Kee Wright. There must be, in Nature, a certain "aloofness" from the ordinary affairs of life, in order that its poetic aspects may impress themselves with full effect. To the mind engrossed in abstract business, and worried with petty wrangles, or tired with the ceaseless ebb and flow of human institutions, the wide- page 84 reaching moorland and the placid lake entwining the base of the everlasting hills stand out in their serenity and immovable grandeur as imposing types of the immutable and abiding reality. But, when these same phenomena are bound up with prosaic life and the struggle for existence, they lose a great part of that charm; and the poetry which they inspire has reference more to the emotional phases of man, as he copes with, and endeavours to overcome, their refractory obstacles, than with the symbolism of the phenomena themselves. In poetry such as that of Mr Wright, the river or creek, unlike Tennyson's Brook, which is made a typo of the everlasting in contrast with fleeting human life, becomes merely a man-trap to be dreaded—a danger torrent, whose swollen and gurgling waters may perhaps engulf an unsuspecting or muddled rabbiter as he makes his way homeward in the dark to an outlying and lonely hut. The cloud-capped mountain peak, which, with Byron, figures the chilly darkness that heads the ascent of fame, here is set forth as extracting groans from the lost and hungry swagger, as he wearily travels up rock and down precipice, endeavouring to make his way to the low-lying lands beyond. The conclusion is that the general attitude towards Nature in New Zealand, as in all new countries where men are engaged in doing battle with her, is not poetical, and that, where poetry does emerge, it will be chiefly introspective, will deal more directly with the soul of man than with the soul of Nature.

It has been stated, in reference to the Maoris, that their characteristics must be principally due to hereditary propensities. The same assertion applies to the colonists. We are still Britons; and many centuries, at least, must elapse before ancestral predisposition gives place to environment as the paramount influence determining national character. This would be so even were the change of circumstances severe. From Great Britain to New Zealand the change is not at all severe, especially in climate, which is calculated to most strongly affect racial disposition; and the great characteristics of the Anglo-Saxons will always be exhibited by the people of this colony. The climate of the Northern provinces certainly approaches the tropical, and these parts may consequently have a slightly enervating tendency; but, if we take New Zealand as a whole, the just conclusion appears to be that the climate does not sufficiently differ from that of the Mother Country to affect, in any considerable degree, the bodily or mental constitution of the colonists or their descendants. It is not, therefore, to the climate we must look for a clue to our present enquiry : no important result can be attributed to its agency. A more fertile field is to be found in the pristine state of the land, the sparseness of the population, and the consequent predominance of rural occupation. New Zealand ii essentially a rural country. No doubt some manufacturing is done, but this is principally for home supply. Of the exports from the colony, gold is the only considerable item other than agricultural and pastoral page 85 products, and gold mining may also be regarded as a rural pursuit. There are as yet no large cities, and the business of the towns we have is in such close touch with the country that the latter may be put down as exercising the governing influence. What may be termed the city mind is doubtless found, to some extent, in the large towns. There are clerks engaged in office work who are constantly figuring out accounts connected with country matters of the nature of which they neither know, nor care to know, anything. But any such estrangement from Nature which exists here must be trivial in comparison with the state of affairs in the large cities of the Old Country, where millions of men are employed writing about things which they have never seen and never can see, or toiling at the manufacture of castings or other pieces of machines, utterly ignorant, not only of the ultimate use of the complete mechanism, but also of the place in it which their article is to occupy. It has been said that, in the manufacturing towns of England, hundreds of men are engaged in the manufacture of fencing wire, which, for all they know to the contrary, might be intended for fishing lines. Here, then, is a vast difference between our colony and older countries in respect to the general relation of the people to Nature. In New Zealand every apprentice in an implement factory at least knows that a plough is used for turning over the ground; there are no armies of men in commercial establishments who have a mechanical understanding of business forms, while they know nothing of its matter; and to the student at the Universities there is not the same danger of the charge which Goethe lays at the door of Faust :—

"From living Nature thou hast fled
To dwell 'mong fragments of the dead;
And for the lovely scenes which heaven
Hath made man for, to man has given :
Hast chosen to pore o'er mouldering bones
Of brute and human skeletons."

When it is considered that the whole tone of the colony is rural, and that the great majority of the people are face to face with Nature, it will be seen that those characteristics which distinguish the mental and physical constitution of a country population from that of the closely crowded inhabitants of cities will be found predominant in New-Zealand. The first inference from this, in respect to intellectual quality, is that the intelligence will be broad and practical, as opposed to the abstract and formal. Although it has been customary to connect bright intellectuality with the city and dullness with the country, a closer investigation will show that the mental difference is one of kind rather than degree. The average country mind is as fully equipped as that of the city, but it runs in different grooves. A minute insight into details, a clear representation of individual things as they actually exist, a shrewd and well-practised faculty for adapting means to required ends—these are some of the characteristics most fully page 86 developed in those who confront Nature at first hand. To use [unclear: the] language of logic, the particular and concrete are more familiar [unclear: tha] the general and abstract. This is not to say that the volume of knowledge is small, for it is certainly just the reverse, but that the [unclear: mind] grasps its objects separately and in detail, reasoning more from [unclear: one] particular case to another than striving consciously after [unclear: generalisation] or universal propositions. The latter are more sought after by the aspiring intelligence of towns; but, while covering a greater area [unclear: of] cases, they do not tend to stimulate a ready application of the [unclear: minor] premise, without which the practical conclusion cannot be drawn.

In passing judgment on the relative merits or desirableness of [unclear: the] two types of intellect set forth as broadly characterising, respectively, [unclear: a] rural population and people closely packed together in cities, who [unclear: are] consequently more engaged in theoretical pursuits, it must be remembered that the intellect, besides being primarily a means to an [unclear: end] may be regarded to some extent as an end in itself. The faculty [unclear: o] generalisation and deduction is commonly looked upon by [unclear: met] physicians as that which differentiates the mind of man from that [unclear: o] the brutes, and as the highest and best phase of thought. This [unclear: is] just; but perfection does not consist in an undue development of [unclear: th] differentiating element, but in giving the various modes of mind [unclear: the] proper proportions. Viewed as a means to practical ends, there can [unclear: be] little doubt that the detailed and particular type of intelligence, [unclear: he] attributed to the country, is the superior. In dealing with Nature, [unclear: i] is the incalculable elements that for the most part exercise the determining influence, or, at all events, those elements the deductive [unclear: ca] calculation of whose effects would occupy more time than can ever [unclear: h] spared. The practised waggoner knows better whether or not he [unclear: ca] drive over a given side slope without capsizing, by intuitively comparing it with similar places which he has previously encountered, [unclear: tha] he could ever judge from any knowledge, however clear, that equilibrium depends on the centre of gravity falling within the base. [unclear: I] driving home a stake, the proper delivery of the blow can be arrived [unclear: a] infinitely better and more expeditiously by trying a few different positions than by making any computations from the rule that the [unclear: energy] stroke varies directly as the product of the mass of the hammer [unclear: as] the square of the velocity. Of course, practical knowledge may [unclear: I] found in conjunction with, although not resulting from, a [unclear: strong] developed faculty for abstraction and generalisation; and this combination is most effective of all. But, generally speaking, the two [unclear: form] tend to separate. The abstract is opposed to the concrete; [unclear: reflexion] opposed to observation. In the lower animals the latter faculty is [unclear: me] fully developed, probably because the former is altogether wanting. [unclear: T] consequence we find brutes with unerring memories and most [unclear: susceptible] of lessons from experience. A dog ten months' old is better [unclear: al] page 87 to cope with Nature within its sphere than a child of as many years; better, in fact, than many an adult man. Of course the lower animals through lack of the power of reflex thought, have their limitations; they have not the rational faculty of man. But man can never combine with his intelligence their alert watchfulness and close observation. The mind which would remain practical, however, cannot eliminate those functions which are so indispensable to success in the struggle for existence. It must learn to accept and appropriate with alacrity the teachings of its environment without unduly pausing to consider if they can be syllogistically explained. It is true that the general includes the particular; but it is also true that the particular typifies the universal, and is, moreover, unshorn of individual peculiarities, which are usually of the greatest importance, but which it is the very nature of generalisation to suppress. The term intellectual is, as a rule, applied to that class of mind which spreads itself, even though it be but superficially, over a large area of knowledge. In populated centres mental power, where it exists, develops more readily in this direction on account of the facilities for obtaining second-hand information from all quarters. But such a mind tends to exclude details; and, where it does so, it represents only one department of the cognitive sphere of man. On the other hand, where intercourse with the primary sources of production is closer, and where the momentous desideratum is a mental equipment best adapted to cope with Nature, a form of intelligence emerges which, although probably containing a greater number of items of knowledge, is less widespread in its scope. Unhealthy extremes are possible in both the directions indicated. A man may struggle up the slopes of theory till actuality is left altogether behind, the heated mental faculties fuming off in empty vapourings; or he may so confine himself to his particular sphere that his rational prerogative becomes chilled and paralysed. In New Zealand, if danger exist, it will be in the latter direction colonials are not inclined to dwell overmuch on abstractions. This is perhaps well, for, after all, the best-balanced minds are not those that run riot in theory. Men may build stately temples, dedicated to reason, whose sparkling domes and pinnacles and inspiring marble halls may delight the souls of the architects; but more humble structures are often of greater utility. The phase of intelligence which grasps things as they appear in their diverse aspects rather than in their ideal relations can, from its inherent usefulness and healthiness, never be lacking in dignity.

(To be continued.)