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 Xin-She Yang

Introduction to
Algorithms for Data Mining
and Machine Learning
Introduction to Algorithms for Data Mining and
Machine Learning
This page intentionally left blank
Introduction to
Algorithms for Data
Mining and Machine
Learning

Xin-She Yang
Middlesex University
School of Science and Technology
London, United Kingdom
Academic Press is an imprint of Elsevier
125 London Wall, London EC2Y 5AS, United Kingdom
525 B Street, Suite 1650, San Diego, CA 92101, United States
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The Boulevard, Langford Lane, Kidlington, Oxford OX5 1GB, United Kingdom
Copyright © 2019 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or
mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without
permission in writing from the publisher. Details on how to seek permission, further information about the
Publisher’s permissions policies and our arrangements with organizations such as the Copyright Clearance Center
and the Copyright Licensing Agency, can be found at our website: www.elsevier.com/permissions.
This book and the individual contributions contained in it are protected under copyright by the Publisher (other
than as may be noted herein).
Notices
Knowledge and best practice in this field are constantly changing. As new research and experience broaden our
understanding, changes in research methods, professional practices, or medical treatment may become necessary.
Practitioners and researchers must always rely on their own experience and knowledge in evaluating and using
any information, methods, compounds, or experiments described herein. In using such information or methods
they should be mindful of their own safety and the safety of others, including parties for whom they have a
professional responsibility.
To the fullest extent of the law, neither the Publisher nor the authors, contributors, or editors, assume any liability
for any injury and/or damage to persons or property as a matter of products liability, negligence or otherwise, or
from any use or operation of any methods, products, instructions, or ideas contained in the material herein.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress

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A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-0-12-817216-2

For information on all Academic Press publications

visit our website at https://www.elsevier.com/books-and-journals

Publisher: Candice Janco

Acquisition Editor: J. Scott Bentley
Editorial Project Manager: Michael Lutz
Production Project Manager: Nilesh Kumar Shah
Designer: Miles Hitchen
Typeset by VTeX
Contents

About the author ix

Preface xi
Acknowledgments xiii

1 Introduction to optimization 1
1.1 Algorithms 1
1.1.1 Essence of an algorithm 1
1.1.2 Issues with algorithms 3
1.1.3 Types of algorithms 3
1.2 Optimization 4
1.2.1 A simple example 4
1.2.2 General formulation of optimization 7
1.2.3 Feasible solution 9
1.2.4 Optimality criteria 10
1.3 Unconstrained optimization 10
1.3.1 Univariate functions 11
1.3.2 Multivariate functions 12
1.4 Nonlinear constrained optimization 14
1.4.1 Penalty method 15
1.4.2 Lagrange multipliers 16
1.4.3 Karush–Kuhn–Tucker conditions 17
1.5 Notes on software 18

2 Mathematical foundations 19
2.1 Convexity 20
2.1.1 Linear and affine functions 20
2.1.2 Convex functions 21
2.1.3 Mathematical operations on convex functions 22
2.2 Computational complexity 22
2.2.1 Time and space complexity 24
2.2.2 Complexity of algorithms 25
2.3 Norms and regularization 26
2.3.1 Norms 26
2.3.2 Regularization 28
2.4 Probability distributions 29
2.4.1 Random variables 29
2.4.2 Probability distributions 30
vi Contents

2.4.3 Conditional probability and Bayesian rule 32

2.4.4 Gaussian process 34
2.5 Bayesian network and Markov models 35
2.6 Monte Carlo sampling 36
2.6.1 Markov chain Monte Carlo 37
2.6.2 Metropolis–Hastings algorithm 37
2.6.3 Gibbs sampler 39
2.7 Entropy, cross entropy, and KL divergence 39
2.7.1 Entropy and cross entropy 39
2.7.2 DL divergence 40
2.8 Fuzzy rules 41
2.9 Data mining and machine learning 42
2.9.1 Data mining 42
2.9.2 Machine learning 42
2.10 Notes on software 42

3 Optimization algorithms 45
3.1 Gradient-based methods 45
3.1.1 Newton’s method 45
3.1.2 Newton’s method for multivariate functions 47
3.1.3 Line search 48
3.2 Variants of gradient-based methods 49
3.2.1 Stochastic gradient descent 50
3.2.2 Subgradient method 51
3.2.3 Conjugate gradient method 52
3.3 Optimizers in deep learning 53
3.4 Gradient-free methods 56
3.5 Evolutionary algorithms and swarm intelligence 58
3.5.1 Genetic algorithm 58
3.5.2 Differential evolution 60
3.5.3 Particle swarm optimization 61
3.5.4 Bat algorithm 61
3.5.5 Firefly algorithm 62
3.5.6 Cuckoo search 62
3.5.7 Flower pollination algorithm 63
3.6 Notes on software 64

4 Data fitting and regression 67

4.1 Sample mean and variance 67
4.2 Regression analysis 69
4.2.1 Maximum likelihood 69
4.2.2 Liner regression 70
4.2.3 Linearization 75
4.2.4 Generalized linear regression 77
4.2.5 Goodness of fit 80
Contents vii

4.3 Nonlinear least squares 81

4.3.1 Gauss–Newton algorithm 82
4.3.2 Levenberg–Marquardt algorithm 85
4.3.3 Weighted least squares 85
4.4 Overfitting and information criteria 86
4.5 Regularization and Lasso method 88
4.6 Notes on software 90

5 Logistic regression, PCA, LDA, and ICA 91

5.1 Logistic regression 91
5.2 Softmax regression 96
5.3 Principal component analysis 96
5.4 Linear discriminant analysis 101
5.5 Singular value decomposition 104
5.6 Independent component analysis 105
5.7 Notes on software 108

6 Data mining techniques 109

6.1 Introduction 110
6.1.1 Types of data 110
6.1.2 Distance metric 110
6.2 Hierarchy clustering 111
6.3 k-Nearest-neighbor algorithm 112
6.4 k-Means algorithm 113
6.5 Decision trees and random forests 115
6.5.1 Decision tree algorithm 115
6.5.2 ID3 algorithm and C4.5 classifier 116
6.5.3 Random forest 120
6.6 Bayesian classifiers 121
6.6.1 Naive Bayesian classifier 121
6.6.2 Bayesian networks 123
6.7 Data mining for big data 124
6.7.1 Characteristics of big data 124
6.7.2 Statistical nature of big data 125
6.7.3 Mining big data 125
6.8 Notes on software 127

7 Support vector machine and regression 129

7.1 Statistical learning theory 129
7.2 Linear support vector machine 130
7.3 Kernel functions and nonlinear SVM 133
7.4 Support vector regression 135
7.5 Notes on software 137
viii Contents

8 Neural networks and deep learning 139

8.1 Learning 139
8.2 Artificial neural networks 140
8.2.1 Neuron models 140
8.2.2 Activation models 141
8.2.3 Artificial neural networks 143
8.3 Back propagation algorithm 146
8.4 Loss functions in ANN 147
8.5 Optimizers and choice of optimizers 149
8.6 Network architecture 149
8.7 Deep learning 151
8.7.1 Convolutional neural networks 151
8.7.2 Restricted Boltzmann machine 157
8.7.3 Deep neural nets 158
8.7.4 Trends in deep learning 159
8.8 Tuning of hyperparameters 160
8.9 Notes on software 161

Bibliography 163

Index 171
About the author

Xin-She Yang obtained his PhD in Applied Mathematics from the University of Ox-
ford. He then worked at Cambridge University and National Physical Laboratory (UK)
as a Senior Research Scientist. Now he is Reader at Middlesex University London, and
an elected Bye-Fellow at Cambridge University.
He is also the IEEE Computer Intelligence Society (CIS) Chair for the Task Force
on Business Intelligence and Knowledge Management, Director of the International
Consortium for Optimization and Modelling in Science and Industry (iCOMSI), and
an Editor of Springer’s Book Series Springer Tracts in Nature-Inspired Computing
(STNIC).
With more than 20 years of research and teaching experience, he has authored
10 books and edited more than 15 books. He published more than 200 research pa-
pers in international peer-reviewed journals and conference proceedings with more
than 36 800 citations. He has been on the prestigious lists of Clarivate Analytics and
Web of Science highly cited researchers in 2016, 2017, and 2018. He serves on the
Editorial Boards of many international journals including International Journal of
Bio-Inspired Computation, Elsevier’s Journal of Computational Science (JoCS), In-
ternational Journal of Parallel, Emergent and Distributed Systems, and International
Journal of Computer Mathematics. He is also the Editor-in-Chief of the International
Journal of Mathematical Modelling and Numerical Optimisation.
This page intentionally left blank
Preface

Both data mining and machine learning are becoming popular subjects for university
courses and industrial applications. This popularity is partly driven by the Internet and
social media because they generate a huge amount of data every day, and the under-
standing of such big data requires sophisticated data mining techniques. In addition,
many applications such as facial recognition and robotics have extensively used ma-
chine learning algorithms, leading to the increasing popularity of artificial intelligence.
From a more general perspective, both data mining and machine learning are closely
related to optimization. After all, in many applications, we have to minimize costs,
errors, energy consumption, and environment impact and to maximize sustainabil-
ity, productivity, and efficiency. Many problems in data mining and machine learning
are usually formulated as optimization problems so that they can be solved by opti-
mization algorithms. Therefore, optimization techniques are closely related to many
techniques in data mining and machine learning.
Courses on data mining, machine learning, and optimization are often compulsory
for students, studying computer science, management science, engineering design, op-
erations research, data science, finance, and economics. All students have to develop
a certain level of data modeling skills so that they can process and interpret data for
classification, clustering, curve-fitting, and predictions. They should also be familiar
with machine learning techniques that are closely related to data mining so as to carry
out problem solving in many real-world applications. This book provides an introduc-
tion to all the major topics for such courses, covering the essential ideas of all key
algorithms and techniques for data mining, machine learning, and optimization.
Though there are over a dozen good books on such topics, most of these books are
either too specialized with specific readership or too lengthy (often over 500 pages).
This book fills in the gap with a compact and concise approach by focusing on the key
concepts, algorithms, and techniques at an introductory level. The main approach of
this book is informal, theorem-free, and practical. By using an informal approach all
fundamental topics required for data mining and machine learning are covered, and
the readers can gain such basic knowledge of all important algorithms with a focus
on their key ideas, without worrying about any tedious, rigorous mathematical proofs.
In addition, the practical approach provides about 30 worked examples in this book
so that the readers can see how each step of the algorithms and techniques works.
Thus, the readers can build their understanding and confidence gradually and in a
step-by-step manner. Furthermore, with the minimal requirements of basic high school
mathematics and some basic calculus, such an informal and practical style can also
enable the readers to learn the contents by self-study and at their own pace.
This book is suitable for undergraduates and graduates to rapidly develop all the
fundamental knowledge of data mining, machine learning, and optimization. It can
xii Preface

also be used by students and researchers as a reference to review and refresh their
knowledge in data mining, machine learning, optimization, computer science, and data
science.

Xin-She Yang
January 2019 in London
Acknowledgments

I would like to thank all my students and colleagues who have given valuable feedback
and comments on some of the contents and examples of this book. I also would like to
thank my editors, J. Scott Bentley and Michael Lutz, and the staff at Elsevier for their
professionalism. Last but not least, I thank my family for all the help and support.

Xin-She Yang
January 2019
This page intentionally left blank
Discovering Diverse Content Through
Random Scribd Documents
he blew and vexed the little brown pipe with rapid runs and nervous
fioriture, until great drops of sweat dripped from its round open
mouth. Sometimes, when he could not play fast enough to satisfy his
eagerness, he ran his finger up and down the vents; then, suddenly
lowering his instrument, he would scream, in a strong peasant voice,
verse after verse of the novena, to the accompaniment of the
zampogna (bagpipe). One was like a slow old Italian vettura, all
lumbered with luggage and held back by its drag; the other panting
and nervous at his work as an American locomotive, and as
constantly running off the rails. As they stood there playing, a little
group gathered round. A scamp of a boy left his sport to come and
beat time with a stick on the stone step before them; several children
clustered near; and one or two women, with black-eyed infants in
their arms, also paused to listen and sympathise.”
Every one who has been in Rome during Advent has seen this
group, or one mighty like it and equally characteristic. Turn to the
book (chapter on “Street Music in Rome”) for the little scene that
follows, for the music of the pifferari song, and for Mr Story’s
conversation with the enthusiastic piper, whom, with his
companions, he invited up into his house, where they agreeably
stunned him with their noisy music, to the delight of his children and
the astonishment of his servants, for whom piffero and zampogna
had long since lost all charm, and who doubtless looked upon their
introduction with somewhat of the same feeling of disgust with
which London flunkies would behold that of a couple of organ-
grinders and a cage of white mice into a Grosvenor Square drawing-
room. However, Mr Story took down the words of their quaint song,
which we find printed, probably for the first time, in his book, and he
also got from them some curious particulars of their wanderings. The
man who blew the little brown pipe was quite a character. He and his
companion had played together for three-and-thirty years, and their
sons, who presently came up, were to play together with them. “For
thirty-three years more, let us hope,” said Mr Story.

“‘Eh! Speriamo’ (let us hope so), was the answer of the pifferaro, as he showed
all his teeth in the broadest of smiles. Then, with a motion of his hand, he set both
the young men going, he himself joining in, straining out his cheeks, blowing all
the breath of his body into the little pipe, and running up and down the vents with
a sliding finger, until finally he brought up against a high, shrill note, to which he
gave the full force of his lungs, and after holding it in loud blast for a moment,
startled us by breaking off, without gradation, into a silence as sudden as if the
music had snapped short off like a pipe-stem.”

There are a great many stories and incidents of and relating to

Rome and its inhabitants scattered through the ‘Roba;’ and although
to us “old Romans,” not all of these may be new, the majority of them
will be so to most readers, and they are generally well told and ben
trovate. Amongst them we prefer those little anecdotes and traits of
character which are evidently derived from the writer’s personal
observation, and which, therefore, as might be expected, are amongst
the most racy morsels in the book. Take the following as an excellent
specimen of quiet humour—a strain in which we like Mr Story better
than in his more buoyant mood:—

“My friend Count Cignale is a painter—he has a wonderful eye for colour and an
exquisite taste. He was making me a visit the other day, and in strolling about the
neighbourhood we were charmed with an old stone wall of as many colours as
Joseph’s coat: tender greys, dashed with creamy yellows and golden greens and
rich subdued reds, were mingled together in its plastered stonework; above
towered a row of glowing oleanders covered with clusters of roseate blossoms.
Nothing would do but that he must paint it, and so secure it at once for his
portfolio; for who knows, said he, that the owner will not take it into his head to
whitewash it next week, and ruin it? So he painted it, and a beautiful picture it
made. Within a week the owner made a call on us. He had seen Cignale painting
his wall with surprise, and deemed an apology necessary. ‘I am truly sorry,’ he said,
‘that the wall is left in such a condition. It ought to be painted all over with a
uniform tint, and I will do it at once. I have long had this intention, and I will no
longer omit to carry it into effect.’
“‘Let us beseech you,’ we both cried at once, ‘caro conte mio, to do no such thing,
for you will ruin your wall. What! whitewash it over!—it is profanation, sacrilege,
murder, and arson.’
“He opened his eyes. ‘Ah! I did not mean to whitewash it, but to wash it over
with a pearl colour,’ he answered.
“‘Whatever you do to it you will spoil it. Pray let it alone. It is beautiful now.’
“‘Is it, indeed?’ he cried. ‘Well, I hadn’t the least idea of that. But if you say so, I
will let it alone.’
“And thus we saved a wall.”
 The preceding scrap reminds us of a passage from Alphonse Karr,
one of the most quietly-humorous of living French writers, who
relates, in one of his quaint, dreamy, desultory books, how a
neighbour of his, who lived in a poor thatched cottage on the fringe
of a wood, embowered in flowers, shaded by venerable trees,
refreshed by the balmiest of breezes, and enlivened by the songs of
countless birds, suddenly disappeared from the countryside. Karr,
who had long admired the sylvan retreat, and almost envied its
occupant, inquired his fate. He had become rich, he was told; a
legacy had enabled him to go and live in the town. He could afford to
rent two rooms with new furniture and a gaudy paper, and he looked
out upon a dirty street, along which omnibuses continually rolled.
“Poor rich man!” Karr pitying exclaims. He had whitewashed his
wall.
The Roman Ghetto furnishes the theme of one of Mr Story’s
longest and most lively chapters; Fountains and Aqueducts, Saints
and Superstitions, the Evil Eye, are the titles of three others. He
begins his second volume with a vivid and characteristic sketch of the
Markets of Rome, which are well worth the attention of foreign
visitors, especially of Englishmen, who will find their arrangements,
and much of what is there sold, to contrast strikingly with what they
are accustomed to in their own country. Carcasses of pigs and goats
adorned with scraps of gold-leaf and tinsel, blood puddings of a
brilliant crimson, poultry sold by retail—that is to say, piecemeal, so
that you may buy a wing, a leg, or even the head or gizzard of a fowl,
if so it please you. There is game of all sorts, and queer beasts and
fowls of many kinds are also there; the wild boar rough and snarling
—the slender tawny deer—porcupines (commonly eaten in Rome)—
most of our English game-birds—ortolans, beccaficoes, and a great
variety of singing-birds. Passing into the fruit and vegetable market,
one comes upon mushrooms of many colours, and some of them of
enormous size, most of which would in England be looked upon as
sudden death to the consumer, although in Italy they are found both
savoury and harmless. “Here are the grey porcini, the foliated
alberetti, and the orange-hued ovole; some of the latter of enormous
size, big enough to shelter a thousand fairies under their smooth and
painted domes. In each of these is a cleft stick, bearing a card from
the inspector of the market, granting permission to sell; for
mushrooms have proved fatal to so many cardinals, to say nothing of
popes and people, that they are naturally looked upon with
suspicion, and must all be officially examined to prevent accidents.”
Besides the fruits common in England, figs are very abundant, and of
many kinds; and when the good ones come in, in September, the
Romans of the lower classes assemble in the evenings, in the Piazza
Navona, for great feeds upon them. Five or six persons surround a
great basket and eat it empty, correcting possible evil results by a
glass of strong waters or a flask of red wine. But figs are a wholesome
fruit—much more so than one which at Rome, and in many parts of
Southern Europe, is the most popular of all—namely, the water-
melon. What millions of people, from the Danube’s banks to the
Portuguese coast, are daily refreshed the summer through by those
huge green gourds, hard and unpromising in outward aspect, but
revealing, at stroke of knife, rich store of rosy pulp, dotted with sable
seeds! Pesth is a great place for them; and daily, when morning
breaks, so long as they are in season, they are to be seen piled, all
along the river-side, in heaps like those of shot and shell in an
arsenal, only much broader and higher. All through the hot months,
in Hungary’s pleasant and interesting capital, few persons think of
dining without associating with the more heating viands a moiety or
enormous segment of one of those great cold fruits—a strange
digestive, as we Northerners should consider it, but found to answer
well in sultry climes. At Rome they are equally appreciated, and are
set above the choicest grapes. People make parties to go out of the
city and eat them; and this was especially the case some years ago,
when the authorities forbade their entrance on account of the
cholera, but were unable to prevent their extramural consumption.
In ordinary times you find heaps of them in the streets, especially in
the Piazza Navona, that great mart of fruit and frippery, vegetables,
old books, brilliant handkerchiefs, and other finery for the market-
women—old iron, old bottles, and rubbish of all kinds—amongst
which miscellany the patient investigator may sometimes discover
valuable copies of the classic authors and precious antique intagli, to
be purchased for a mere song. Here, as the story goes, a poor priest
once bought, for a few baiocchi, a large cut-glass bead which took his
fancy, and which a friend, more knowing than himself, afterwards
discovered to be a diamond of great value, now belonging, we are
told, to the Emperor of Russia. The priest disappeared, which leaves
any ingenious and inventive writer full liberty to build a romantic
tale upon the incident. The natural finale of the affair, Mr Story
opines, would have been for the priest to have married the Emperor’s
daughter, but his being in orders was an impediment; and so we are
justified in presuming that some less agreeable means was found of
easing him of his jewel, which, when he first possessed it, he took to
be a drop from a chandelier, but to which he of course clung with
desperate tenacity when enlightened as to the quality of the gem.
Rome ought to be a good preserve for fiction-writers, there are so
many family histories, traditions, and anecdotes current there, which
would serve the novelist’s turn. Edmund About availed himself of
one such in his tale of ‘Tolla;’ and another over-true tale was
interwoven, not very long since, in a pleasant novelet of Roman life
in the pages of this Magazine. Mr Story’s volumes abound in
suggestive passages of the kind. If Rome be an admirable residence
for an artist (and for some of the reasons why it is so, see the ‘Roba,’
i. p. 66, 67), it ought also to be an excellent one for a writer, were it
not that it is found by many unfavourable to mental exertion. This is
said to be particularly exemplified in the case of diplomatists, many
of whom, after a certain time passed in the Papal capital, are apt to
conceive an intense dislike to despatch-writing, and to keep their
Governments extremely uninformed concerning the state of the Holy
City and the prospects of Pontifical politics. We remember to have
been told, when in Rome, the names of more than one foreign
minister who had been recalled, it was asserted, for no other reason
but that nothing could induce him to write despatches. Rome is
certainly one of the places where there is most temptation, at least
for one half of the year, to neglect business for pleasure; but there is
possibly also something in the climate which disinclines many people
to headwork. It is much the fashion to abuse the Roman climate; and
this has been done, especially of late, by persons desirous to show
that Rome is an undesirable, because a highly insalubrious, capital
for united Italy. It is to be feared the grapes are sour, and that the
yellow flag now hoisted would be struck at the same time with the
French tricolour. Our own experience and observations induce us
very much to concur with those passages of Mr Story’s book which
relate to this question. “Rome has, with strangers, the reputation of
being unhealthy; but this opinion I cannot think well founded—to the
extent, at least, of the common belief.” Many maladies, virulent and
dangerous elsewhere, are very light in Rome; and for lung
complaints it is well known that people repair thither. The “Roman
fever,” as it is commonly called (intermittent and perniciosa), is
seldom suffered from by the better classes of Romans; and Mr Story
(who speaks with authority after his many years’ residence in Rome)
believes that, with a little prudence, it may easily be avoided. The
peasants of the Campagna are, it is well known, those who chiefly
suffer from it, and why? “Their food is poor, their habits careless,
their labour exhausting and performed in the sun, and they sleep
often on the bare ground or a little straw. And yet, despite the life
they lead and their various exposures, they are, for the most part, a
very strong and sturdy class.” Mr Story gives it as a fact that the
French soldiers who besieged Rome in ‘48, during the summer
months, suffered very little from fever, although sleeping out on the
Campagna; but they were better clothed and fed, and altogether
more careful of themselves, than the native peasants. Generally
speaking, the foreigners who visit Rome are less attentive than the
Romans to certain common rules for the preservation of health. They
eat and drink too much, and of the wrong things. They get hot, and
then plunge into cold churches or galleries; whereas an Italian flies
from a chill or current of air as from infection. Mr Story gives a few
simple rules, by following which he declares you may live twenty
years in Rome without a fever. He cautions Englishmen against
copious dinners, sherry and brandy, and his own countrymen against
the morning-dinner which they call a breakfast; and supplies other
useful hints and practical remarks. The subject is one which interests
many, and such are referred to the ‘Roba,’ i. p. 156–161, and to the
chapter on the Campagna, in which high authorities and ingenious
arguments are brought to prove that in old times it was not
insalubrious, and that in our own it need not be so. Population and
cultivation are perhaps all that are needed to render tracts healthy
that now are pestilential, but which assuredly were not so in the time
of the ancient Romans, since many of them, we know, were their
favourite sites for patrician villas. Much might be done by an
intelligent and active government, and especially by a good sanitary
commission. There was one clever gentleman who wrote that Rome
was ill fitted to be the capital of Italy on account of its deficiency in
buildings suitable for government offices! Where good reasons are
not to be found silly ones may be resorted to, but they of course only
weaken the cause they are intended to prop. And if it were to be
urged that all the worst plagues flesh is heir to, combine to render
Rome for the present impossible as capital of Italy, the most we
could admit, by way of compromise, and borrowing a well-known
answer, would be, “non tutti, ma Buona parte.”
 CAXTONIANA:
A SERIES OF ESSAYS ON LIFE,
LITERATURE, AND MANNERS.
By the Author of ‘The Caxton Family.’
PART XV.

NO. XX.—ON SELF-CONTROL.

“He who desires to influence others must learn to command
himself,” is an old aphorism, on which, perhaps, something new may
be said. In the ordinary ethics of the nursery, self-control means little
more than a check upon temper. A wise restraint, no doubt; but as
useful to the dissimulator as to the honest man. I do not necessarily
conquer my anger because I do not show that I am angry. Anger
vented often hurries towards forgiveness; anger concealed often
hardens into revenge.
A hasty temper is not the only horse that runs away with the
charioteer on the Road of Life. Nor is it the most dangerous, for it
seldom runs away far. It gives a jerk and a shake; but it does not take
the bit between its teeth, and gallop blindly on, mile after mile, in
one obstinate direction towards a precipice. A hasty temper is an
infirmity disagreeable to others, undignified in ourselves—a fault so
well known to every man who has it, that he will at once acknowledge
it to be a fault which he ought to correct. He requires, therefore, no
moralising essayist to prove to him his failing, or teach him his duty.
But still a hasty temper is a frank offender, and has seldom that
injurious effect either on the welfare of others, or on our own
natures, mental and moral, which results from the steady purpose of
one of those vices which are never seen in a passion.
 In social intercourse, if his character be generous and his heart
sound, a man does not often lose a true friend from a quick word.
And even in the practical business of life, wherein an imperturbable
temper is certainly a priceless advantage, a man of honesty and
talent may still make his way without it. Nay, he may inspire a
greater trust in his probity and candour, from the heat he displays
against trickiness and falsehood. Indeed there have been
consummate masters in the wisdom of business who had as little
command of temper as if Seneca and Epictetus had never proved the
command of temper to be the first business of wisdom. Richelieu
strode towards his public objects with a footstep unswervingly firm,
though his servants found it the easiest thing in the world to put him
into a passion. Sometimes they did so on purpose, pleased to be
scolded unjustly, because sure of some handsome amends. And in
treating of self-control, I am contented to take that same Richelieu,
the Cardinal, as an illustration of the various and expansive meaning
which I give to the phrase. Richelieu did not command his temper in
the sphere of his private household: he commanded it to perfection
in his administration of a kingdom. He was cruel, but from policy,
not from rage. Among all the victims of that policy, there was not one
whose doom could be ascribed to his personal resentments. The life
of no subject, and the success of no scheme, depended on the chance
whether the irritable minister was in good or bad humour. If he
permitted his temper free vent in his household, it was because there
he was only a private individual. There, he could indulge in the
luxury of ire without disturbing the mechanism of the state. There,
generous as a noble and placable as a priest, he could own himself in
the wrong, and beg his servants’ forgiveness, without lowering the
dignity of the minister, who, when he passed his threshold, could ask
no pardon from others, and acknowledge no fault in himself. It was
there where his emotions were most held in restraint,—there where,
before the world’s audience, his mind swept by concealed in the folds
of its craft, as, in Victor Hugo’s great drama, L’Homme Rouge passes
across the stage, curtained round in his litter, a veiled symbol of
obscure, inexorable, majestic fate,—it was there where the dread
human being seemed to have so mastered his thoughts and his
feelings, that they served but as pulleys and wheels to the bloodless
machine of his will,—it was there that self-control was in truth the
most feeble. And this apparent paradox brings me at once to the
purpose for which my essay is written.
What is Self? What is that many-sided Unity which is centred in
the single Ego of a man’s being? I do not put the question
metaphysically. Heaven forbid! The problem it involves provokes the
conjectures of all schools, precisely because it has received no
solution from any. The reader is welcome to whatever theory he may
prefer to select from metaphysical definitions, provided that he will
acknowledge in the word Self the representation of an integral
individual human being—the organisation of a certain fabric of flesh
and blood, biassed, perhaps, originally by the attributes and
peculiarities of the fabric itself—by hereditary predispositions, by
nervous idiosyncrasies, by cerebral developments, by slow or quick
action of the pulse, by all in which mind takes a shape from the
mould of the body;—but still a Self which, in every sane constitution,
can be changed or modified from the original bias, by circumstance,
by culture, by reflection, by will, by conscience, through means of the
unseen inhabitant of the fabric. Not a man has ever achieved a
something good or great, but will own that, before he achieved it, his
mind succeeded in conquering or changing some predisposition of
body.
True self-control, therefore, is the control of that entire and
complex unity, the individual Self. It necessitates an accurate
perception of all that is suggested by the original bias, and a power to
adapt and to regulate, or to oppose and divert, every course to which
that bias inclines the thought and impels the action.
For Self, left to itself, only crystallises atoms homogeneous to its
original monad. A nature constitutionally proud and pitiless,
intuitively seeks, in all the culture it derives from intellectual labour,
to find reasons to continue proud and pitiless—to extract from the
lessons of knowledge arguments by which to justify its impulse, and
rules by which the impulse can be drilled into method and refined
into policy.
Among the marvels of psychology, certainly not the least
astounding is that facility with which the conscience, being really
sincere in its desire of right, accommodates itself to the impulse
which urges it to go wrong. It is thus that fanatics, whether in
religion or in politics, hug as the virtue of saints and heroes the
barbarity of the bigot, the baseness of the assassin. No one can
suppose that Calvin did not deem that the angels smiled approbation
when he burned Servetus. No one can suppose that when
Torquemada devised the Inquisition, he did not conscientiously
believe that the greatest happiness of the greatest number could be
best secured by selecting a few for a roast. Torquemada could have
no personal interest in roasting a heretic; Torquemada did not eat
him when roasted; Torquemada was not a cannibal.
Again: no one can suppose that when the German student, Sand,
after long forethought, and with cool determination, murdered a
writer whose lucubrations shocked his political opinions, he did not
walk to the scaffold with a conscience as calm as that of the mildest
young lady who ever slaughtered a wasp from her fear of its sting.
So when Armand Richelieu marched inflexibly to his public ends,
the spy on his left side, the executioner on his right, Bayard could not
have felt himself more free from stain and reproach. His conscience
would have found in his intellect not an accusing monitor but a
flattering parasite. It would have whispered in his ear—“Great Man—
Hero, nay, rather Demigod[5]—to destroy is thy duty, because to
reconstruct is thy mission. The evils which harass the land—for
which Heaven, that gave thee so dauntless a heart and so scheming a
brain, has made thee responsible—result from the turbulent
ambition of nobles who menace the throne thou art deputed to
guard, and the licence of pestilent schisms at war with the Church of
which thou art the grace and the bulwark. Pure and indefatigable
patriot, undeterred by the faults of the sovereign who hates thee, by
the sins of the people who would dip their hands in thy blood, thou
toilest on in thy grand work serenely, compelling the elements vainly
conflicting against thee into the unity of thine own firm design—
unity secular, unity spiritual—one throne safe from rebels, one
church free from schisms; in the peace of that unity, the land of thy
birth will collect and mature and concentrate its forces, now wasted
and waning, till it rise to the rank of the one state of Europe—the
brain and the heart of the civilised world! No mythical Hercules
thou! Complete thy magnificent labours. Purge the land of the Lion
and Hydra—of the throne-shaking Baron—the church-splitting
Huguenot!”
 5. An author dedicated a work to Richelieu. In the dedication, referring to the
‘Siege of Rochelle,’ he complimented the Cardinal with the word Hero. When the
dedication was submitted to Richelieu for approval, he scratched out “Hèros,” and
substituted “Demi-Dieu!”
Armand Richelieu, by nature not vindictive nor mean, thus
motions without remorse to the headsman, listens without shame to
the spy, and, when asked on his deathbed if he forgave his enemies,
replies, conscientiously ignorant of his many offences against the
brotherhood between man and man, “I owe no forgiveness to
enemies; I never had any except those of the State.”
For human governments, the best statesman is he who carries a
keen perception of the common interests of humanity into all his
projects, howsoever intellectually subtle. But that policy is not for the
interests of humanity which cannot be achieved without the spy and
the headsman. And those projects cannot serve humanity which
sanction persecution as the instrument of truth, and subject the fate
of a community to the accident of a benevolent despot.
In Richelieu there was no genuine self-control, because he had
made his whole self the puppet of certain fixed and tyrannical ideas.
Now, in this the humblest and obscurest individual amongst us is too
often but a Richelieu in miniature. Every man has in his own
temperament peculiar propellers to the movement of his thoughts
and the choice of his actions. Every man has his own favourite ideas
rising out of his constitutional bias. At the onset of life this bias is
clearly revealed to each. No youth ever leaves college but what he is
perfectly aware of the leading motive-properties of his own mind. He
knows whether he is disposed by temperament to be timid or rash,
proud or meek, covetous of approbation or indifferent to opinion,
thrifty or extravagant, stern in his justice or weak in his indulgence.
It is while his step is yet on the threshold of life that man can best
commence the grand task of self-control; for then he best adjusts
that equilibrium of character by which he is saved from the
despotism of one ruling passion or the monomania of one cherished
train of ideas. Later in life our introvision is sure to be obscured—the
intellect has familiarised itself to its own errors, the conscience is
deafened to its own first alarms; and the more we cultivate the
intellect in its favourite tracks, the more we question the conscience
in its own prejudiced creed, so much the more will the intellect find
skilful excuses to justify its errors, so much the more will the
conscience devise ingenious replies to every doubt we submit to the
casuistry of which we have made it the adept.
Nor is it our favourite vices alone that lead us into danger—noble
natures are as liable to be led astray by their favourite virtues; for it
is the proverbial tendency of a virtue to fuse itself insensibly into its
neighbouring vice; and, on the other hand, in noble natures, a
constitutional vice is often drilled into a virtue.
But few men can attain that complete subjugation of self to the
harmony of moral law, which was the aim of the Stoics. A mind so
admirably balanced that each attribute of character has its just
weight and no more, is rather a type of ideal perfection, than an
example placed before our eyes in the actual commerce of life. I must
narrow the scope of my homily, and suggest to the practical a few
practical hints for the ready control of their faculties.
It seems to me that a man will best gain command over those
intellectual faculties which he knows are his strongest, by cultivating
the faculties that somewhat tend to counterbalance them. He in
whom imagination is opulent and fervid will regulate and discipline
its exercise by forcing himself to occupations or studies that require
plain common sense. He who feels that the bias of his judgment or
the tendency of his avocations is over-much towards the positive and
anti-poetic forms of life, will best guard against the narrowness of
scope and feebleness of grasp which characterise the intellect that
seeks common sense only in commonplace, by warming his faculties
in the glow of imaginative genius; he should not forget that where
heat enters it expands. And, indeed, the rule I thus lay down,
eminent men have discovered for themselves. Men of really great
imagination will be found to have generally cultivated some branch
of knowledge that requires critical or severe reasoning. Men of really
great capacities for practical business will generally be found to
indulge in a predilection for works of fancy. The favourite reading of
poets or fictionists of high order will seldom be poetry or fiction.
Poetry or fiction is to them a study, not a relaxation. Their favourite
reading will be generally in works called abstruse or dry—antiquities,
metaphysics, subtle problems of criticism, or delicate niceties of
scholarship. On the other hand, the favourite reading of celebrated
lawyers is generally novels. Thus in every mind of large powers there
is an unconscious struggle perpetually going on to preserve its
equilibrium. The eye soon loses its justness of vision if always
directed towards one object at the same distance—the soil soon
exhausts its produce if you draw from it but one crop.
But it is not enough to secure counteraction for the mind in all
which directs its prevailing faculties towards partial and special
results; it is necessary also to acquire the power to keep differing
faculties and acquirements apart and distinct on all occasions in
which it would be improper to blend them. When the poet enters on
the stage of real life as a practical man of business, he must be able to
leave his poetry behind him; when the practical man of business
enters into the domain of poetry, he must not remind us that he is an
authority on the Stock Exchange. In a word, he who has real self-
control has all his powers at his command, now to unite and now to
separate them.
In public life this is especially requisite. A statesman is seldom
profound unless he be somewhat of a scholar; an orator is seldom
eloquent unless he have familiarised himself with the world of the
poets. But he will never be a statesman of commanding influence,
and never an orator of lasting renown, if, in action or advice on the
practical affairs of nations, he be more scholar or poet than orator or
statesman. Pitt and Fox are memorable instances of the
discriminating self-abnegation with which minds of masculine power
can abstain from the display of riches unsuited to place and occasion.
In the Mr Fox of St Stephen’s, the nervous reasoner from premises
the broadest and most popular, there is no trace of the Mr Fox of St
Anne’s, the refining verbal critic, with an almost feminine delight in
the filigree and trinkets of literature. At rural leisure, under his
apple-blossoms, his predilection in scholarship is for its daintiest
subtleties; his happiest remarks are on writers very little read. But
place the great Tribune on the floor of the House of Commons, and
not a vestige of the fine verbal critic is visible. His classical allusions
are then taken from passages the most popularly known. And,
indeed, it was a saying of Fox’s, “That no young member should
hazard in Parliament a Latin quotation not found in the Eton
Grammar.”
Pitt was yet more sparing than Fox in the exhibition of his
scholarship, which, if less various than his rival’s, was probably quite
as deep. And one of the friends who knew him best said, that Pitt
rigidly subdued his native faculty of wit, not because he did not
appreciate and admire its sparkles in orators unrestrained by the
responsibilities of office, but because he considered that a man in the
position of First Minister impaired influence and authority by the
cheers that transferred his reputation from his rank of Minister to
his renown as Wit. He was right. Grave situations are not only
dignified but strengthened by that gravity of demeanour which is not
the hypocrisy of the would-be wise, but the genuine token of the
earnest sense of responsibility.
Self-control thus necessitates, first, Self-Knowledge—the
consciousness and the calculation of our own resources and our own
defects. Every man has his strong point—every man has his weak
ones. To know both the strong point and the weak ones is the first
object of the man who means to extract from himself the highest
degree of usefulness with the least alloy of mischief. His next task is
yet more to strengthen his strong points by counterbalancing them
with weights thrown into the scale of the weak ones; for force is
increased by resistance. Remedy your deficiencies, and your merits
will take care of themselves. Every man has in him good and evil. His
good is his valiant army, his evil is his corrupt commissariat; reform
the commissariat, and the army will do its duty.
The third point in Self-control is Generalship—is Method—is that
calm science in the midst of movement and passion which decides
where to advance, where to retreat—what regiments shall lead the
charge, what regiments shall be held back in reserve. This is the last
and the grandest secret: the other two all of us may master.
The man who, but with a mind somewhat above the average
(raised above the average whether by constitutional talent or
laborious acquirement), has his own intellect, with all its stores,
under his absolute control,—that man can pass from one state of idea
to another—from action to letters, from letters to action—without
taking from one the establishment that would burden the other. It is
comparatively a poor proprietor who cannot move from town to
country but what he must carry with him all his servants and half his
furniture. He who keeps the treasures he has inherited or saved in
such compartments that he may know where to look for each at the
moment it is wanted, will rarely find himself misplaced in any
change of situation. It is not that his genius is versatile, but that it
has the opulent attributes which are essential to successful intellect
of every kind. The attributes themselves may vary in property and in
degree, but the power of the Self—of the unity which controls all at
its disposal—should be in the facility with which it can separate or
combine all its attributes at its will.
It is thus, in the natural world, that an ordinary chemist may
accomplish marvels beyond the art of magicians of old. Each man of
good understanding, who would be as a chemist to the world within
himself, will be startled to discover what new agencies spring into
action merely by separating the elements dormant when joined, or
combining those that were wasted in air when apart. In one
completed Man there are the forces of many men. Self-control is self-
completion.
 NO. XXI.—THE MODERN MISANTHROPE.
“All the passions,” saith an old writer, “are such near neighbours,
that if one of them is on fire the others should send for the buckets.”
Thus love and hate being both passions, the one is never safe from
the spark that sets the other ablaze. But contempt is passionless; it
does not catch, it quenches fire. The misanthrope who professes to
hate mankind has generally passed to that hate from too extravagant
a love. And love for mankind is still, though unconsciously to
himself, feeding hate by its own unextinguished embers. “The more a
man loves his mistress,” says Rochefoucauld, “the nearer he is to
hate her.” Possibly so, if he is jealous; but in return, the more he
declares he hates her, the nearer he is to loving her again. Vehement
affections do not move in parallels but in circles. As applied to them
the proverb is true, “Les extrêmes se touchent.” A man of ardent
temperament who is shocked into misanthropy by instances of
ingratitude and perfidy, is liable any day to be carried back into
philanthropy, should unlooked-for instances of gratitude and truth
start up and take him by surprise. But if an egotist, who, inheriting
but a small pittance of human affection, concentres it rigidly on
himself, should deliberately school his reason into calm contempt for
his species, he will retain that contempt to the last. He looks on the
world of man, with its virtues and vices, much as you, O my reader,
look on an ant-hill! What to you are the virtues or vices of ants? It is
this kind of masked misanthropy which we encounter in our day—
the misanthropy without a vizard belongs to a ruder age.
The misanthrope of Shakespeare and Molière is a passionate
savage; the misanthrope who has just kissed his hand to you is a
polished gentleman. No disgust of humanity will ever make him fly
the world. From his club-window in St James’s his smile falls on all
passers-by with equal suavity and equal scorn. It may be said by
verbal critics that I employ the word misanthrope incorrectly—that,
according to strict interpretation, a misanthrope means not a
despiser but a hater of men, and that this elegant gentleman is not,
by my own showing, warmblooded enough for hate. True, but
contempt so serene and immovable is the philosophy of hate—the
intellectual consummation of misanthropy. My hero would have
listened with approving nod to all that Timon or Alceste could have
thundered forth in detestation of his kind, and blandly rejoined,
“Your truisms, mon cher, are as evident as that two and two make
four. But you can calculate on the principle that two and two make
four without shouting forth, as if you proclaimed a notable discovery,
what every one you meet knows as well as yourself. Men are
scoundrels—two and two make four—reckon accordingly, and don’t
lose your temper in keeping your accounts.” My misanthrope à la
mode never rails at vice; he takes it for granted as the elementary
principle in the commerce of life. As for virtue, he regards it as a
professor of science regards witchcraft. No doubt there are many
plausible stories, very creditably attested, that vouch for its
existence, but the thing is not in nature. Easier to believe in a
cunning imposture than an impossible fact. It is the depth and
completeness of his contempt for the world that makes him take the
world so pleasantly. He is deemed the man of the world par
excellence, and the World caresses and admires its Man.
The finest gentleman of my young day, who never said to you an
unkind thing nor of you a kind one—whose slightest smile was a
seductive fascination—whose loudest tone was a flute-like melody—
had the sweetest way possible of insinuating his scorn of the human
race. The urbanity of his manners made him a pleasant acquaintance
—the extent of his reading an accomplished companion. No one was
more versed in those classes of literature in which Mephistopheles
might have sought polite authorities in favour of his demoniacal
views of philosophy. He was at home in the correspondence between
cardinals and debauchees in the time of Leo X. He might have taken
high honours in an examination on the memoirs illustrating the life
of French salons in the ancien régime. He knew the age of Louis
Quinze so well that to hear him you might suppose he was just fresh
from a petit souper in the Parc aux Cerfs.
Too universally agreeable not to amuse those present at the
expense of those absent, still, even in sarcasm, he never seemed to be
ill-natured. As one of his associates had a louder reputation for wit
than his own, so it was his modest habit to father upon that
professed diseur de bons mots any more pointed epigram that
occurred spontaneously to himself. “I wonder,” said a dandy of
another dandy who was no Adonis, “why on earth —— has suddenly
taken to cultivate those monstrous red whiskers.” “Ah,” quoth my
pleasant fine gentleman, “I think for my part they become his style of
face very much; A—— says ‘that they plant out his ugliness.’” For the
rest, in all graver matters, if the man he last dined with committed
some act which all honest men blamed, my misanthrope evinced his
gentle surprise, not at the act, but the blame—“What did you
expect?” he would say, with an adorable indulgence, “he was a man—
like yourselves!”
Sprung from one of the noblest lineages in Christendom—
possessed of a fortune which he would smilingly say “was not large
enough to allow him to give a shilling to any one else,” but which,
prudently spent on himself, amply sufficed for all the elegant wants
of a man so emphatically single—this darling of fashion had every
motive conceivable to an ordinary understanding not to be himself
that utter rogue which he assumed every other fellow-creature to be.
Nevertheless, he was too nobly consistent to his creed to suffer his
example to be at variance with his doctrine; and here he had an
indisputable advantage over Timon and Alceste, who had no right,
when calling all men rogues, to belie their assertion by declining to
be rogues themselves. His favourite amusement was whist, and in
that game his skill was so consummate that he had only to play fairly
in order to add to his income a sum which, already spending on
himself all that he himself required, he would not have known what
to do with. But, as he held all men to be cheats, he cheated on
principle. It was due to the honour of his philosophy to show his
utter disdain of the honour which impostors preached, but which
only dupes had the folly to practise. If others did not mark the aces
and shuffle up the kings as he did, it was either because they were too
stupid to learn how, or too cowardly to risk the chance of exposure.
He was not as stupid, he was not as cowardly, as the generality of
men. It became him to show his knowledge of their stupidity and his
disdain of their cowardice. Bref—he cheated!—long with impunity:
but, as Charron says, L’homme se pique—man cogs the dice for his
own ruin. At last he was suspected, he was watched, he was detected.
But the first thought of his fascinated victims was not to denounce,
but to warn him—kindly letters conveying delicate hints were
confidentially sent to him: he was not asked to disgorge, not
exhorted to repent; let bygones be bygones, only for the future,
would he, in playing with his intimate associates, good-naturedly
refrain from marking the aces and shuffling up the kings?
I can well imagine the lofty smile with which the scorner of men
must have read such frivolous recommendations to depart from the
philosophical system adorned in vain by his genius if not enforced by
his example. He who despised the opinions of sages and saints—he to
be frightened into respecting the opinions of idlers at a club!—send
to him an admonition from the world of honour, to respect the
superstitions of card-players! as well send to Mr Faraday an
admonition from the world of spirits to respect the superstitions of
table-rappers! To either philosopher there would be the same reply
—“I go by the laws of nature.” In short, strong in the conscience of
his opinion, this consistent reasoner sublimely persevered in
justifying his theories of misanthropy by his own resolute practice of
knavery, inexcusable and unredeemed.
“What Timon thought, this god-like Cato was!”

But man, whatever his inferiority to the angels, is still not

altogether a sheep. And even a sheep only submits to be sheared
once a year; to be sheared every day would irritate the mildest of
lambs. Some of the fellow-mortals whom my hero smiled on and
plundered, took heart, and openly accused him of marking the aces
and shuffling up the kings. At first his native genius suggested to him
the wisdom of maintaining, in smiling silence, the contempt of
opinion he had hitherto so superbly evinced. Unhappily for himself,
he was induced by those who, persuaded that a man of so high a
birth could never have stooped to so low a peccadillo, flattered him
with the assurance of an easy triumph over his aspersers—unhappily,
I say, he was induced into a departure from that system of action
which he had hitherto maintained with so supreme a success. He
condescended, for the first time in his life, to take other men into
respect—to regard what might be thought of him by a world he
despised. He brought an action for libel against his accusers. His
counsel, doubtless by instruction, sought to redeem that solitary
inconsistency in his client, by insinuating that my lord’s chosen
associates were themselves the cheats, malignant conspirators
against the affable hawk of quality in whom they had expected to find
a facile pigeon.
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