CHAPTER III

STANDARDS IN TASTE AND MORALS1

Let us take in order the words which make up the title-Standard-Taste-Morals-and set down upon each some statements which have won or may win general agreement, and then arrange the several conclusions to which these statements seem to point, and lastly compare the conclusions one with another.

"A standard," according to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, is a "fixed weight, measure, value or quality established by law or customarily recognised as a unit of comparison by which the correctness of others can be determined....The use of the term for a recognised unit of comparison is due probably to the fact that it is something fixed or set up, stable; and not to any fanciful reference to the ensign or flag as the object to which one turns as a rallying point."

A standard, evidently, must be easily recognised and without dispute or hesitation accepted if it is to deserve its name. But to say so much as this is at once to raise several interesting and difficult questions. By whom, we may ask, is the standard to be recognised? and for what purpose is it to be used? Let us recall for a moment the alternative words given

1 Reprinted, with permission, from the Proceedings of the Liverpool Literary and Philosophical Society.

by the Encyclopaedia Britannica for standard-not less than four are given, and more might quite easily have been given. Weight is subject to standard, but a standard by weight is of no use to a man who desires to reckon distance or size; measure, a somewhat ambiguous word, generally indicates spatial dimension, but a measure of this sort is of no use to a man whose concern is with weight; value, once more an ambiguous word, we may take as indicating the preciousness, or as we more commonly put it, the price of things; but the preciousness of gold as compared with that of silver or of copper, cannot be judged either by weight or by measured size. Quality, a more general word still, is used most frequently when we give our regard to the constituent elements of things which may perhaps be weighed, measured and priced, but which we choose to consider in another light-so we speak of the quality of some fabric, the quality of a wine, or the quality of an action, or of quality simply, and without as yet determining how it is to be exhibited, in what material or in what action, without indeed surmising whether it is to be exhibited at all,-so richness may be ascribed to a fabric but also to a voice, mellowness to a wine or to a stained glass window or to old age, and we may speak of mercy, truth and justice without ascribing them to any person or looking for their embodiment in any act.

A standard used for one purpose will not serve another purpose; there are different standards in different fields of human conduct and interest.

C. E.

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But let us turn to the other question-by whom is it to be recognised? It is well recognised by persons whose occupation is wholly or mainly in one or other of these several fields, and less easily by others, and not at all by persons who have no concern whatever in these regions. "Weight” and 'measure," recognised most readily by persons who constantly have occasion to measure and to weigh, are recognised, of course, though less easily, by other persons; but those weights and measures are recognised which a man uses in dealing with things with which he is familiar-a carpenter for instance recognises a foot and a footrule, but he might well be at a loss if he heard the word "hand" used as a measure, though a man who trafficked in horses would be in no difficulty at all: and a coal merchant might confess himself unfamiliar with the names of weights endeared by familiarity to a chemist. About "values" there is less agreement. The value, for instance, of a house is differently estimated by several men who contemplate purchasing it, and if all of them should agree in differing from the man who desires to sell it, we should be confronted with no unusual, though a troublesome, phenomenon. This is the more remarkable, because value has a wider range of meaning than weight or even than measure. Where, it would appear, men ought most easily to be agreed they are most sharply divided. We may, for a moment longer, pursue this line of investigation, and look again at the word quality. The quality of a sound, the quality of a colour are very variously

apprehended and diversely expressed by critics who need not count lack of confidence among their shortcomings; and there may of course be critics of a finer temper who are less sure of themselves, who apprehend sometimes in one fashion sometimes in another, vividly now, less vividly at another moment, or if not less vividly yet with varying perception, and whose words for what they perceive vary too. Justice is a quality, and mercy a quality; but if we are to temper justice with mercy, what is the result? Is it something less than justice, other than mercy? Whatever our conclusion may be we cannot state it in the form of an addition sum-so much justice plus so much mercy; and however we state it, our words will not avail perfectly to assure our neighbours that our thoughts are their thoughts.

We appear, then, to be forced to this position: we must allow that the same standards are not applicable in different departments of life and speculation; and that within the same departments the meaning of standards varies in the use of persons who are speaking about the same subject, and who are making a serious effort to be exact and to reach agreement.

Moreover we expressly and deliberately vary the meaning of our words, even when we use them in connexion with the same standards and in the same general field, but about different objects in it. The word tall for instance conveys the notion of height, measured, let us say, in feet and inches; but we do not convey the same notion when we speak of a tall

man as when we speak of a tall tree or of a tall hat; and we intend something different once more when we characterise a story as tall. We may with equal security but with different intention, speak of a mountain and the price of coal as being high, and we may call ourselves and our neighbours to admire the height of devotion or of folly which a man may reach.

At once the objection will be raised that we are passing from the ordinary to a metaphorical use of words: my purpose has been to raise it, and I shall later attempt a reply to it. In the meanwhile I shall say without apology or argument that when we declare that a man is tall and presently that his son, a boy of 12, is tall, though we may measure both with the same measure against the same door, we are not using the same standard for the two-there is one standard for a man, another for a child.

This homely observation may offer us an entrance to a problem as attractive as it is perplexing. If we return to the Encyclopaedia, we see again that a standard is "established by law or customarily recognised." It is, then, founded on convention, based on agreement, protected by legal enactment or sanctioned by use and wont. But a convention has a date, an agreement is made at some point of time, and if not our knowledge, at least, our imagination can travel back to it, and we may ask, what of our standard before that momentous hour? Or will our inquiry be hushed by the discreet reminder that the standard was but born in that very hour; or