June 15, 1907.)
IMAGINATION.
CHINA OVERLAND TRADE REPORT.
395
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This was
to take all at once; and the present device | imagination has caused to countless thou- | recommending that they should be left was acknowledged as at best a stop-gap to sands of worthy people serves to bring us severely alone. be properly constituted when experience back to the point that the faculty of had shown the needs of the post. Most rea-imagination may Bot be always a source of sonable men in the Empire are thoroughly happiness to the average human being. sick of the absurd lengths to which the Some such idea as that which caused practice of party Government has been WHITMAN to remark that the beasts of the carried, and it seems a pity that of this, the field do not lie awake at night thinking of first opportunity that has presented itself their sins seems possible in the case of our for a long time of bettering the position, illustrative coolies. Do they maintain their more advantage has not been taken. cheerfuluess because they have less imag n- ation than those who envy them? The suggestion is not implausible. Certainly many of us suffer from a too lively imagin- ation. If it be of the anticipatory pleasant kind, it is not worth the certainty of later disillusion; if it be unpleasant, we are not compensated for the preliminary dreal by the subsequent dissipation of the bogie. This latter kind of imagination is very common, and we must add to SHAKESPEARE'S list of the lunatic, lover, and poet, the coward. Elsewher, indeel, the bard has noted that individual's form of imagination as when into the mouth of CAESAR be puts the words, "Cowards die many times before their deaths." The thousand little worries of ordinary daily life may many of them be included in the category. The shadows that harbinger coming events are always bigger than their cause. The imagined trouble of to-morrow is greater than the positive discomfort of to-day. perturbed over things that do not matter because we imagine they may or will matter. The so-called "gift" of imagination makes the heir to a legacy unhappy in showing him a dozen ways in which he may lose his inheritance; it curses the healthy man with vivid impress ons of possible infectious; it peoples the dark, the unknown, with horrid creatures; and though we cannot deny the "pleasures of imagination," it seeus we must emphasise its sorrows also. The rose of imagination, in short, has its thorns; and there is the temptation to envy the coolie who, if he enjoy not the fragrance and colour of the flowers, at least seems able to ignore the prickles.
(Daily Press, 12th June.) A casual remark sometimes inale by a bystander observing a procession of Chinese coolies leads to reflections on the subject of imagination. These patient labourers, laughing and chattering amongst them- selves, frequently prompt foreigners who have some idea of their lot to wonder at their apparent happiness. Working hard day after day for twenty cents or less, pro- curing thereby only the meagrest portion of the barest necessities, how can they afford to laugh? The foreigner, in comparison with them surfeited with luxuries, has bis lines of care, and perhaps in the midst of worrying over something or other, remarks the cheerfulness of the coolie. They are "better off" than he is, he concludes, and says something platitudinal about the com- plexities of civilization and the advantages of the Simple Life. "We cry for things we imagine we need," one such person said the other day, and one of his words seemed arrestive. Was there a clue in the word "imagination"? A form of reproach not uncommon is to say of a person that he lacks imagination. Imagination, it is generally understood, is a quality of the higher civilization. Its possession in a marked degree denotes status: its possessor is one of the highest products of evolution if manifested in art, his "gift makes hit a genius. It is talked of as "the gift", be it noted, and none question its value. Can it be that the popular estimate is too sweep. ing that there is another side of the shield to betray the disadvantages of imagination ? If we turn to the Bible, with its score of references to the faculty, we find that other side of the shield exclusively pictured. It is always vain or wicked. In no instance is the human imagination cited therein as in anyway a good quality. SHAKESPEARE, as he always does, notices many sides.
"The lunatic, the lover, and the poet Are of imagination all compact.” The imaginations of the lunatic we can guess at.
We call them hallucinations, but both words fit. There is really little need for the hairsplitting definitions of CRABB, TRENCH, and other precisians of that gender. The imaginations of the lover, also, we describe as pleasing fancies, and predict that his anticipatory images will breed disappointment. The imagination of the poet is the particular kind that bas led to the popular and undiscriminating esteem for the faculty. It is a source of intellectual elevation, leading to a mental Parnassus. Scieutifically, psychologically, we kuow that the word is misleading. There is really no such thing. What we call imagination, even in its noblest forms, becomes, under analysis, a mere mosaic of conceptions derived from experience, from perceptions of previous actualities. Thus MILTON's great imagery of the unquenchabls lake of fire, grand as it is from a literary point of view, is to the psychologist no more thin an exaggerated concept founded 00 ex- periences of little earthly conflagrations. The pain and dread that particular fancy or
We are
WOMAN'S SUFFRAGE.
The women's voting question however still attracts a great deal of discussion and bids fair to become a standing dish during the silly season. The subject is one opea to so much high sounding platitude on the one side and to so much superficial "obaff" on the other, that it is difficult to get people to look upon it in its plain practical light. The object of giving certain persons a vote for Parliamentary representatives is broadly speaking two-fold-to secure first that the Government of the country shall be in conformity with the wishes of the large majority and secondly that the best talent may be obtained for carrying on the Government. Upoa neither of these grounds can it be said that cause has been showd for so momentous a change as the suffragists and "suffragettes are clamouring to see introduced. That the positions of women both legally and politically has up to recent times been anomalous is not to be denied. only a result of the old ideas partly of Roman and partly of Feudal origin which bave formed so important an element in the history not only of Britain but of all European nations. These ideas however have been largely modified in recent times and in our own country have practically almost ceased to exist! In respect to wo- men, legislation of late yours has been markedly in their favour. Their eligibility for election on School Bards is a notable instance of this as regards their political and social status; while th- Married Women's Property Act of 1882 did away with the last remnant of anything in the form of sub jection of women eit er as to their personal powers or as to their property. There is, therefore, no cause for complaint that the rights and interests of women are disregard- ed by Parliaments elected by mere m-n— nor indeed has any such ground been taken up-the complaint being that women are not recognised as on an equality with the other sex. This, in a certain sens, is no doubt true, but it is so only in respect to the particular matter of voting-not as to their rights and status generally.
(Daily Press, 13th June). It is a curious coincidence that at the time when the Chinese took steps to study Western Institutions and seut a Commission to Europe to obtain information as to their working, more especially in regard to Representative Government, a movement should have taken shape, which of all others is calculated to make the Celestial mind sceptical as to the advantages to be derived from their adoption. The idea of women taking any practical part in the government of the country-the Empress Dowager always excepted-must seem to the Chinese the acme of absurdity. If any members of the Commission happened to be in the House of Commons, when it was besieged by the suffragists, they must indeed have felt reason to congratulate themselves upon having occular demonstration of what the introduction of Western institutions is likely to lead to. That the most august political assembly in the Kingdom should be invaded by a screaming body of advanced women demanding the suffrage, so far as the attentions of the Police would allow their voices to be heard, must have appeared the queerest of all the queer things that the Chinese have ever heard of on the part of the outer barbarians. Fancy such an invasion of a Chinese Council or Yamen! The thing is absolutely unthinkable, and it this is the logical conclusion of recognising the rights of the people, the Commissioners would probably deem themselves justified in
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A consideration, however, of the reasons why voting power should be granted must make it plain that there is ample grounds why women should not have the vote. will be so at least as long as society con- tiques to be constituted as it is. Whatever may be the state of matters if women, as is possible, take a very much larger part id the business side of life than at present, as long as men have the onus and respon- sibility of the conduct of the particular kind of work which in the aggregate makes up the active life of the State, it is obvious that their voice should bave a preponderat- ing influence on the manner in which the State is to be governed. The instincts which have been evolved by centuries of business and working habits in con. nection with the hard matters of life, to say nothing of their daily duties of dealing with such matters often on a very large scale, fit larger questions of State-while the more men more or less for taking part in the retired life, which, even in these advanced days, is still considered the chief sphere of women's activity, does not give them that experience in dealing with the kind of business that has to be grappled with by those upon whom the responsibility of governing the State devolves. If women the ordinary rough business of life, if generally speaking had experience of
the bulk of them contacted mercantile establishments and became directors of large shipping Insurance sad other
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