1
10
28
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/506365bfd993ae330dbb7a7db58c8a4c.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=LZimDkYeQHVxHg2jD7PrC115ecmFhdw7TklFc3s2inmIqlHJh6esGjApl-tVFBaxnTOZLiqixUy3KXJRuNsUgJhSY%7Efd5ikynLoFS2FW5aWM-xcJ2EfG0piQCjXzNQg9Os0FN0eVD6nh8SmISU30ppsZK60zcdZqTuuq6-nAEct2D6NYE5iCDJfddH7kZ-y-438yHuykxzPmcyxsAJ14Qg-76wat6d5WFFl9h8YQ41w-Y48j4RQwqMr4v4cRSuX0cEZ1k3eGjrPbJnOVVQ-szjmenKKSanqCyYSMgfLbPgjjXNri%7EyT6KGWbjvqB9cmWKya9mToIZFTpvcr5Sx6L6w__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
df43c61f976e091e5638ddbfc8d09491
PDF Text
Text
Theories of Mental Genesis.
197
8. Under the process of correlation, wherein real forces lose
lheir individuality, only abstract or general force abides.
Iriris may be called ideal force when contrasted with par
ticular real forces; it is cognized only by inference, and not
By immediate sensuous perception. It is a really-existent
Universal or generic entity — an Actuality whose manifesta
tion is the correlation of forces. The particular forces are
^its reality, but not their own; for their manifestation is their
S destruction, but both phases give evidence of the reality of the
Universal. In the entire round from one force through all
-the others back to the same force again, we have the succes
sive annulment of all the characteristic distinctions of the
several forces, and thus we have left force in general as the
pure negative might whose constitution or nature is self-made
by its activity in the play of forces. Its universal nature —
its ascent out of particularity — refusing to be limited to a
special form—appears in the negative side of the process,
wherein it perpetually annuls special characteristics. Its
positive affirmative side appears in the perpetual production
..of the special out of the negation of (old forms of) the same.
9. Wherein this Universal force, which is a self-determined,
.'differs from the thinking activity or Mind
is a
profitable inquiry. But the sole point we had in view here
was simply to show the new doctrine of Realism now arising
in place of the dismal nominalism and stifling conceptualism
in vogue.
THEORIES OF MENTAL GENESIS.
By John Weiss.
The later scientific method derives the conscience from
Selected experiences of the useful and agreeable. In the
finest minds the moral sense is only the clarified residue of
the experiences of people in learning to live safely and com
fortably with each other. It sums them up, but can add
nothing to them. It becomes, like a family resemblance, a
permanent trait acquired by inheritance. A fresh experience
may compel a fresh adjustment, and the moral sense can be
�198
Theories of Mental Genesis.
modified from without by a social exigency, but it has
attained to no independent power to force its own adjust
ment upon experience. It is never conscious of an exigency
of its own, which may transcend experience, and dictate to
it; such a faculty is as inconceivable as that a fountain
should rise higher than its source. Acts of moral heroism
are suggestions of an ultimate utility which persuade the
individual to sacrifice himself. But what is the origin of
such suggestions which contradict the average sense derived
from human experience ? The scientific method insists upon
its derivation of conscience from empirical observation, yet
proceeds to explain transcendent morals which reform the
race and abolish any wrong that average experience has
incorporated in its social system, by endowing certain indi
viduals with the capacity to conceive of a more beneficent
system, to anticipate the future, to sacrifice peace, the feel
ing of approbation, the immediate security of society, life
itself, for the sake of a finer idea of Right. These individuals
are moved thereto, perhaps, by seeing outrages, or by suffer
ing from them. But what impels a man who suffers from a
wrong which is upheld by society, to increase his suffering by
protesting against it in behalf of other men ? Every feeling
of the useful and the agreeable would counsel him to keep
his suffering and that of his fellows at a minimum. Expe
rience has gradually founded the system which surrounds
him: it can no more furnish him with the seeds of his revolt
than the nut of a beech can provide the acorn for an oak.
When the empirical method is held strictly to its own logic,
this absurdity is perceived, of something resulting from
objective experience different from all the objects which coni
stituted that experience. A state of morals at any epoch is
only the state of comfort, happiness, usefulness, and mutual
approbation of the majority; it is an average attained by
the exigencies of the people who are forced to live together.
Logically that average is insurmountable; but practically it
is constantly surmounted, and society is compelled to assume
a higher average by men of a forlorn hope who propose a
conception of religion, of worship, of human rights and happi
ness, which nowhere exists, and which could not therefore be
suggested by empirical sensations. They are frequently men
�j
Theories of Mental Genesis.
199
| who conceive these things from afar, without the stimulus of
| personal suffering, quite removed from that into calm regions
I of meditation. They emerge from the solitudes of thought
| to proclaim the advent of a fresher and more just society:
i but the sense of justice, the instinct of order, devastates the
things that men hold dearest, and, if the thinkers are obsti
nate, demands their life as a sacrifice to existing order. One
thing is “ said by them of olden time ” ; but these men, the
products of no time at all, step out of a purer conception, and
■are heard, “ But I say unto you.” What an unaccountable
I j phrase if morals are nothing but the silt which time brings
-down and deposits. There must be somewhere existing an
11 Absolute Righteousness, the inspirer of every more righteous
future, as there must exist a Plan of Absolute Intelligence,
the continuous cause of every developing epoch of creation.
The hero of Right and Absolute Religion is not maddened
by suffering into forgetfulness of self, but possessed by a
higher Self which his fortunate structure invites into him and
to which he responds. Or, shall we suppose that his struc
ture develops an exceptional Self? At any rate, the empirical
method does not account for him, because he is essentially
different from all the materials and sensations which it has
to work with to produce notions of utility and social appro
bation. We may concede that such results may be derived
from such materials; but the burden of showing the genesis
■of prophets and reformers rests with those who would restrict
us to these materials alone.
\
In Mr. Huxley’s book, entitled “ More Criticisms on Dar
win,” I find the following paragraph: “ Assuming the posi
tion of the absolute moralists, let it be granted that there is
w *a perception of right and wrong innate in every man. This
means simply, that when certain ideas are presented to his
mind the feeling of approbation arises, and when certain
�200
Theories of Mental Genesis.
duty is to earn the approbation of your conscience, or moral
sense; to fail in your duty is to feel its disapprobation.” Of
course: but the question is of simple perception of an idea
of a right act and of a wrong act; the idea of doing either
personally is not involved. So that there can be an absolute
perception of an act as right or as wrong, pure and simple,
without any mixture of personal satisfaction or pain. The un
biased moral sense can simply recognize right and wrong, as
the mind perceives that two and two make four; both recog
nitions are an organic necessity. If the recognition of a right
thing is reflected on, then approval of it arises: a feeling
closely bordering upon the mental satisfaction which accompanies the perception of truths and facts of the exact sciences.
But the pleasure and pain of self-approbation and disappro
bation cannot arise until the Self transfers or fails to transfer
its moral perception into private action.
So that there is something in man besides the “ something
which enables him to be conscious of these particular pleas
ures and pains.”
Now the origin of this moral Something is a distinct
question. It may have descended from obscure traits of
anticipatory moral action which reign in the animal world.
Transferred into human and social circumstances, they may
have filtered through a developing sense of the useful and
the salutary, till they were deposited in average habits of
behavior. But these traits reach at length in the finest brains
a capacity of being self-perceived as immutable morality, dis
tinct from motives of utility, or of pleasure and pain, whether
they travelled manward by those routes or not. There is no
objection to the theory that they did, until it undertakes to
insist that they have not emerged from those routes upon a
broad land of a Conscience which transcends all selfish feelings, to sacrifice them to a more arduous Right yet unattained, whose attainment may involve the hero of Conscience
in ruin.
The latest scientific method derives the Imagination, as it
does the Conscience, from accumulated sensations. But its
language here struggles painfully to bring its phrases up to
the level of the whole function of Imagination. It is quite
inadequate to say that a brain well compacted with images
X
jl
<i
J
|
V’j
X
g
|j
S
J
f.|
'M
I
!
j
�Theories of Mental Genesis.
201
derived from natural objects, spontaneously creates the asso
ciations between them and human moods, passions, and
emotions; that a sense of symmetry and beauty, a feeling for
landscapes, a power to evolve them out of the crude assem
blage of natural features, a gift of constructing all the sensa
tions derived from life and nature into the sublimity of poetry
and song, results from the number and variety of these sen
sations taken into a temperament of sensibility, where they
are moulded, fused by personal passion, and express cerebral
felicity of structure. These phrases mix up the raw mate
rial in which the poet, artist and composer work with other
phrases which are assumptions that it also generates their
working faculty. That is the very point involved. No doubt
the poet has received a multiplicity and variety of sensa
tions. The difference between him and other men is first a
capacity to receive them ; second, a capacity to transform
them into his own personality; third, a capacity to express
them, thus transmuted, with a rhythmical flow that involves
the whole of Nature and man in its course, and converts Na
ture into a metaphor of his private vitality. No number of
empirical sensations derived from Nature, no experience of
mankind, no recollection of its history, can account for this
result. A brain of rare structure incorporates a world, but
gives it back to us another world; or, rather, the world’s
secret is fathomed and betrayed: we see it not as it always
seemed to us, but lifted into a passionate and symmetrical
vitality, which transcends every empirical sensation, and is,
in fact, its reason for being: and that is something which
nere sensation cannot supply. Held to strict logic, the mate‘ialist has no right even to the phrases he employs in speakng of this subject.
j H. Taine says that there is a fixed rule “for converting into
ne another the ideas of a positivist, a pantheist, a spiritualit, a mystic, a poet, a head given to images, and a head given
to formulas. We may mark all the steps which lead simple
philosophical conception to its extreme or violent state,” as
in the passage which he quotes from Sartor Resartus, begin
ning, “generation after generation takes to itself the Form of
a Body, and, forth issuing from Cimmerian Night, on Heav
en’s mission appears.” “ Take the world as science shows
�202
Theories of Mental Genesis.
it,” continues Taine, “ it is a regular group, or, if you will, a
series which has a law; according to science it is nothing
more. As from the law we deduce the series, you may say
that the law engenders it, and consider this law as a force.
If you are an artist, you will seize in the aggregate the force,
the series of effects, and the fine regular manner in which
the force produces the series.” In this connection Taine evi
dently recalls the novels of Balzac, who develops the charac
ter of various human passions as primitive forces, which
appear in objective facts of men and women, who are to be
observed, without praise or dispraise, as beings who develop
organically their whole moral disposition, and whose joy or
grief may be inferred according to the judicious rule laid
down by Hegel, that every work of art depends for its moral
upon the person who is studying it. Elsewhere Taine shows
how Thackeray, for instance, violates this rule. “To my
■mind,” continues Taine, “this sympathetic representation is
of all the most exact and complete; knowledge is limited as
long as it does not arrive at this, and it is complete when
it has arrived there. But beyond, there commence the phan
toms which the mind creates, and by which it dupes itself.
If you have a little imagination, you will make of this force
a distinct existence, situated beyond the reach of experience,
spiritual, the principle and the substance of concrete things.”
By the simple intensification of this quality, the metaphysi
cian and the mystic are evolved. But notice here how Taine
has smuggled in the phrase, “ if you have a little imagina
tion,” as if that faculty were something excrementitious,
whose products are what alimentation abandons and expels.
It occurs to us to inquire, at the lowest, if imagination may
not be a mode of force: if so, it must be taken into the
account of mental development, where it appears to be some
thing quite as positive as any passion which Balzac describes.
It is then a legitimate object whose products cannot be re
jected merely because they deposit in the mind a sense of
Spirit. They push out a horizon filled with images and cor
respondences which are different from visible things, and
which those things, left to themselves, could not procreate,
any more than a garden of flowers could impregnate itself.
A viewless wind must stir the celibate stalks—a ranging bee
�Theories of Mental Genesis.
203
must make its geometric cell an excuse for these promiscuous
Carriages. Here is the point where the scientific method,
which is complemented by Taine’s artistic method, fails to
account for all the facts that a universe provides. As soon
as the word Spirit appears, or phrases hinting at the Invisi
ble put in their claim, or a capacity that transcends inherited
effects is supposed, the empirical method disclaims it all, as
Conscience is explained to be the cumulative result of expe
riences of utility. Yet the scientific method itself is indebted
to the faculty of imagination. That is a twofold faculty: it
performs two functions.
First, it anticipates subsequent epochs of scientific inter
pretation by incessant proclamations of the essential unity of
all things. Its instinct is for similarities; it floats at so great
a height that objects appear blended, but the horizon from
that height is so enlarged that a hemisphere of objects is
spread out. It selects on one meridian the counterpart of an
object upon another, though it may skulk, and imitate the
color of its neighborhood, hoping not to be swooped upon
and assimilated. Its prey runs in forests and multiplies in
all seas. The ocean is a saucer, and its bottom scarce skin
deep. And the distances which lie within the galaxy are
sanded with the gold dust of its imagery. The firmament is
a solid floor on which this sense of unity can walk.
This instinct appears first in poetry, where Nature is rifled
of all the features that can correspond to our emotions, or
serve as symbols of our thought.
‘•The forest is my loyal friend;
Like God it useth me.”
And like God we use the forest. Its million leaves dance
in the anticipation which our mind has that this “sense
sublime of something interfused” will turn out to be the
^identity of law and object, of the creature and the Creator,
of the scenery and the seer. And all the images of the Poet,
so far from being the bastards of an irresponsible impulse
rwhich ravishes an idiotic universe, are the healthy children
I of the only realism that dare aspire to his feathered hand.
See it tremble in moments of conception ! God remembers
His rapture. There is not an object which is not a passion—
�204
Theories of Mental Genesis.
not a passion which does not overtake itself in objects. What
is my thought like ? Whatever it be like, that is my thought,
or else it could not be like it. How irrational and fantastic
seems this conclusion to which the imagination leaps with
the faith of a child in his “ make believe” ! How futile this
hysteric passion which mounts to the eyelid and inundates
the cheek at the happy rashness of some image that abol
ishes time and space, and makes the dirty earth a lens' We
put our eye to it. Thou Deity, our eyes have met!
There is no sense in this transubstantiation of poetry, ex
cept to the senseless communicants, until the epoch of scien
tific Synthesis arrives, and the imagination is justified in
ransacking the' universe for symbols. Synthesis is imagina
tion secularized. I mean that every one of the old symbols
*
the old confidences with Nature, the old obscure sympathies,
the artless pretences that objects are personal and vital, and
all related through the observer, are now proved to be the
mind’s expectation that there is but one kind of intellect, but
one object, and but one law or mode of divine manifestation.
Synthesis builds a hive for imagination to dwell in ; the
structures planned by the original Geometer are filled with
myriad meadows of sweets distilled to sweetness.
This leads me to say that, secondly, the imagination some
times anticipates, at any existing epoch of information, a
subsequent epoch, when all the facts collected up to that date
justify the anticipation. They are interpreted by a law,
or by a mode of Force which put them forth. They arrive at
length in sufficient number, and in relations obvious enough,
to vindicate the previous divining of the imagination. Hardly
a great man, from Pythagoras downward, can be mentioned',
who did not have fore-feelings of the genuine scientific direc»
tion, in Number and mathematical relation, in the qualities
of Motion and their application to planetary phenomena, in
the sphericity of the earth and stars, in the law of musical
intervals, in the applications of the arc and conic sections, in
the position of the earth in the solar system. Before the facts
were in, the method was surmised; sometimes the law itselF
was hinted at, and imperfectly formulated. Now, no uncon
scious cerebration, or automatic sorting of impressions de
rived from the number and similarity of facts, can promulgate
�Theories of Mental Genesis.
205
or anticipate a law, because that is something essentially dis
tinct from Object. There may be simultaneousness in the
Lppearance of law and object; we may admit that the two
are really one, a moment in which identity appears, a focus
of correlation. But there is not any feature of this intimacy
which can proclaim itself; that is not done for a long time,
nor until an independent mental faculty appears of such a
divining nature that it is not at any epoch a common human
faculty. It is the result of rare structural qualifications, which
recur to Creation with the gift that made creation possible,
with a power to repeat by a sense of Cause the logic that
caused, to create a mental synthesis that sweeps all observa
tion into the unity of a Law, to show that all the sciences are
Protean moods of one eternal moment of correlation, to speak
at length in human language the plan which without speak
ing planned. That ineffable creative word becomes flesh in
the divinings of imagination. They precede any collection or
arrangements of objects, just as infinite Will must have pre
ceded its own going into objects. Or, if Will and Object be
continually identical, it is not in consequence of Object. We
cannot eradicate or explain away that aboriginal habit of the
scientific imagination to ask Why ? as the child does; and
to answer, Because! as the child does. “ Of such is the king
dom of Heaven.” Object cannot ask nor answer, because it
cannot originate. But the intellect does not wait till all the
facts are in, any more than the divine Mind did in order that
the facts might be created.
Luther said, “ the principle of marriage runs through all
creation, and flowers as well as animals are male and female,”
before botany was dreamed of, or the principle of vegetable
life divined. This was an anticipation as remarkable as that
of Swedenborg, who clearly posited the nebular hypothesis
before he or any other man had an inch of standing ground
to show for it.
Now, if at any epoch the finest brains—those, namely,
whose synthetic method is rarefied by imagination—are only
deposited by empirical contact with the world, so that their
state of intelligence is nothing but juxtaposition of facts, and
their structure nothing but a result of microscopic packing of
sensations, such brains could not discharge the functions of
�206
Theories of Mental Genesis.
which they are conscious. The problem is to build a brain.
Let us build it after the fashion of the materialist. The animal
kingdom slowly elaborated the cerebral matter, and roughly
mapped out the relation of its parts. Nature, cautiously
feeling her way from species to species, from simple to com
plex forms, from a dot of plasma to the complicated lobes
which respond to external circumstances and record them,
contributes the whole of the process to the progenitors of man
kind. What had their brain become by that time ? It was an
agglutination of sensations. What must have been the re
sult of the first sensible impression which was made upon the
earliest rudimental nerve-matter? That question is answered
by the discovery that the nerve-matter was a part of the ob
jective world which produced the impression. It did not lose
or modify its character by being eliminated from that world ;
it was still one of its discrete forms, and identical in sub
stance. Then the object which impressed it and the impres
sion were identical. The object was the sensation. There is
no infinitesimal rift into which you can thrust your surmise
of a difference and pry apart a sameness into duality; that
is, into the supposition of an object to impress and an object
to be impressed—one to become by means of that impression
something different in kind from the object that impresses.
Brood upon that primitive relation of plasma to all the rest
of elemental matter. You cannot hatch it into a different
kind of vitality by merely saying that plasma was a more
highly organized matter. You cannot establish a schism in
matter by determining grades of organization. Every grade
preserves, prolongs, embodies the original identity in which
it was contained; just as oxygen by aerating the blood im
presses it with the character of oxygen, but does not liberate
it from the materiality which they both share. A nerve
sensation is not a leap from Object into Subject.
If it is not, as.the materialist alleges, then it makes no dif
ference how many sensations the accumulating brain receives
and registers. Their number cannot change their quality.
On the long route of developing mankind there is no station
where independent mentality may step on board. The train
stops for refreshment, wood, and water. But the food and the
fuel still correspond to their own motive power and digestive
�Theories of Mental Genesis.
207
ability. Stomach and food, brain and object, are convertible
expressions. All objective circumstances remain unaltered;
nerve-matter accumulates because sensations do. The first
word of human speech, the first musical cadence, the first
J smatter of the natural language of human emotions on the
[ face, the first prattling of social intercourse, the first fumbling
| for a tool of bone or flint, the first sparkle kindled in the dry
pith of the fennel — all these rudiments of society were only
the sensations of Sensation, the objectivity of Objects.
The brain was but another object set up by the concurrence
of objects, a self-registering world in the compass of a skulk
Even if the cerebral capacity should cease to expand, while
the perceptions continued to accumulate, it never can be
filled; for the method of packing them is economical of room.
If a drop of water is capable of containing 500,000,000 ani
malcules endowed with locomotive limbs, there must be room
> enough in any brain for any number of objective residues.
But so long as the world does not swerve from its own objeci tivity and change its climate, so long does the human brain
continue to be its odometer, or automatic tally.
“ The Holothuriae living in the South Sea, which feed upon
coral sand, spontaneously eject their lungs and intestine
(through the anus when they are transferred to clear sea
water ; then they construct new bowels corresponding to the
new conditions.” But Object does not transfer the human
brain into the element of Subject, so that it can void its assi
milative structure, and set up the liver, lungs and lights of
Subjectivity.
I think this is a correct presentation of the latest materialJ Ism, which derives all mental functions from an automatic
| /system of storage of objective impressions. But its advocates
fl Yhave not yet looked in the glass of their own theory. I have
tried to reduce it to the absurdity which lies latent in it. It
. . is this. It has nothing but objects to start from, nothing but
Ji them to accumulate, and yet it assumes to arrive at somep thing which is not object; for instance, its own capacity to
is make any assumption at all, and to deny that the capacity
* i, demonstrates independent mentality. It will deduce and preFrfi" sume; something which a skull commensurate with the sky,
i and crammed with objectivity, could never do. It will refuse
|
�208
Theories of Mental Genesis.
to a human being an independent personality: something
which nothing but such a personality could do. It started
with speechlessness, and had, of course, nothing but aggluti
nated dumbness to end with: yet it invents words, and com
mits to them its affirmations and denials; lends them to the
poet, who makes whole landscapes share the breath of their
life; turns them over to the prophet, who puts them in his
thwarts, casts loose from actual states, and pulls into the
possible and the desirable; yields them to the synthetic
imagination, and hears its own best guesses before it has pro
claimed them, and its own experimental method suggested
before objects could muster strong enough to raise a whim
per; consigns them to the moral sense, and is refuted by a
style of speech which transcends the latest moment of utility
and social advantage, pronounces in divine men their own
death-warrant, and sighs out selfishness upon a million
crosses. Was that bit of plasma, then, nothing but one
object more in a world full? or, was it an anvil upon which
objective impact flew into a spark? Now a myriad hammers
of the many-handed Cosmos crash through our skull, and we
see stars —abysses full of them! Is it an optical illusion?
They appear to attain orbits—they move in definite and har
monious relations—they create distance, deepen it with per
spective: flat objectivity is broken up as a thinkable Uni
verse comes pondering through.
Let me have recourse to an illustration.
A planetary motion is the result of two causes : first, a
force that acts in the direction of a tangent; second, a force
that attracts. What happens when the mind has observed
that there are these two forces? Something which discovers
their'laws. This may be an inductive process, derived from
prolonged and numerous calculations, adjustments, and cor
rections, based upon as many planetary directions as can be
observed. Then suppose we wish to ascertain the motion of
a planet which is submitted to the influence of these laws.
That is a deduction based upon calculation. There is an
astronomical duplication of the planetary facts, a mental re
hearsing of orbital motions. The facts recur to their Cause
through our intellect. Their mere objectivity is not compej
tent to achieve this result, which is something causative, and
�Theories of Mental Genesis.
209
therefore essentially different from themselves, which are
caused. They are occasions for addressing, stimulating and
developing in us a quality which is not themselves, not their
counterpart, but which is identical with the quality which
caused them. They stand between, and could as soon have
originated cause behind them as our causality beyond them.
What is the mental fact which takes place when this medi
ate Object recurs to Subject? Something besides cerebral
registering of the succession of sensations produced by the
phenomena. That only succeeds in confirming succession or
simultaneousness. We call the mental fact Deduction. But
that is only a word, and not an explanation. It does not put
us into possession of the actual occurrence when objects are
mentally fitted with the laws of their causes. It does not
explain the nature of that mental moment. To say that it is
the result of cerebral movement and waste, of changes in the
grey matter in the brain, does not explain it. That is only a
dynamical accessory.
In like manner, what happens when an imaginative per
son, seeing some features of a landscape, or some combina
tions of light, sky, sea, color, at morn or sunset, invests the
scene with his own personality ? In fact, the combination
called a landscape exists nowhere; it is a pure ideal con
struction of his own. The scene without is only a palette or
a pot of paint. A poetic symbol, a simile which encloses a
trait of nature in the amber of thought or emotion, is a men
tal process unaccountable on any theory of empirical accu
mulation of sensations.
But we seldom find a materialist who is willing to accept a
statement of his method which shows that it really starts
with a term that is incapable of starting. Bald matter is im
potent to proceed except into fresh forms of matter; and even
that process requires that Force should be assumed. And
something has to make that assumption. That assuming
faculty cannot be merely a form of matter, for no thing can
step outside of itself and become what is not Thing. No
number of things can do that, though the sensations pro
duced by them accumulate for centuries. They may be irri
tants, as a drop of acid on a frog’s bare muscle after his head
is cut off; but they cannot conceive that they irritate, any
Vol. vi.—14
�210
Theories of Mental Genesis.
more than the frog can conceive that he is irritated. They
cannot formulate ■ their unconscious function of exciting our
senses.
What does the materialist say when his empirical method
is boned in this way, and sinks on the floor of creation a help
less huddle of Object, every articulation and vertebra of his
own mentality withdrawn from it? He disclaims the result,
cannot tolerate being defrauded of his own analytic and clas
sifying skill, and declares against materialism in that sense.
But it has no other sense. The moment he declares against
it, he declares in favor of an intellectual perception of an ob
jective sensation, that is, in favor of something which Object
cannot generate. His own idealism rises against its jailer,
and breaks out of prison in this declaration.
This ought to startle him into making a more distinct defini
tion of the word Matter than he has yet undertaken. He uses
that, and the word Object, in the ordinary sense; but he will
not recognize all that it connotes when it is pressed to ultimates. And it is astonishing that he can invent such >\ ords
as Vitality, Force, Correlation, to account for phases of ob
jects, elemental modes, conditions of existence, without feel
ing compromised. He is obliged to assume something which
is anterior to objects and their phenomena, anterior to the
sensations produced by them; he speaks of correlation, but
says nothing about something previous which does the corre
lating. If that something be another objective condition, a
more tenuous tenuity, it involves the necessity of something
still beyond, since mere condition cannot conditionate itself,
and no thing can do itself. So that, sooner or later, the
words employed by the empirical observer justify an ulti
mate ground of Being, an absolute Cause; and that, too, jus
tifies Cause in the observer, for Being goes into Object, and
not Object into Being.
Perhaps the materialist will take refuge in the Hegelian
phrase, “Matter is Being outside of Itself,” in order to endow
Matter with a causative capacity, and secure perpetual vital
ity to its plastic germs. Then he may suppose that objective
phenomena, in their gradual achievement of the human brain,
lent it their primitive endowment as Being outside of Itself,
and made of it another animate object. But what becomes
�Theories of Mental Genesis.
211
of Being outside of Itself when this object disappears, is dis
integrated, ceases to be a focus of Being ? It either must re
cur to Being in Itself, or must be correlated in some mode of
Force. Both suppositions make the human intellect only a
phenomenal phase of Absolute Being; it is only caused mat
ter, it is on the footing of every other object, its root imbibes
the identity of Object and Being, its self-consciousness is
only an increase of animateness, but not a differentiation of
it into Person. It invents the phrase, to be sure—claims to
have or be a self—and that the unconscious animal, reaching
man’s estate, comes to the line where consciousness begins;
man separates to that extent from the world of Object, be
cause Object has been Being all the time. But if it has been
Being all the time, one of two things must be true, either that
self-consciousness resided all along the route in organic ob
jects, or at no point of it at all; the reputed consciousness of
Self is only a phenomenon of Object.
Perhaps the materialist will thank us for such a reduction
of the Hegelian phrase to another form of Matter, because it
makes Soul and Person impossible on any terms; and per
haps the idealist, discontented with any style of the doctrine
of Evolution, will be driven to the notion that there is outside
of us an ocean of germinal soul-monads which become allied
with human structures.
There are insuperable objections, lying mainly in the direc
tion of the facts of inheritance, to this attempt at spiritual
ism. In the meantime, the Doctrine of Evolution cannot be
dispensed with. The burden does not rest upon us to in
dicate the point in time and the method of appearing of
independent mentality. But we can show that Object can
propagate only Object; nor that without something assumed
which Object cannot propagate.
Let us take, however, a word which the materialist is com
petent to invent and is obliged to use—Vitality. He must
assume it in spite of the objectivity of every point of his
empirical method. Then, in the interest of Idealism, we
suggest, taking a statement used by us in another place,
“whether there can be any germinal soul-substance except
the mysterious force which we call Vitality wherever we
see it in the human state. It went into creation allied with
�212
Theories of Mental Genesis.
all the germs which have subsequently taken form. It
carried everywhere a latent sensibility for the creative law
out of which it came. It swept along with a dim drift of the
Personality that first conceived and then put it on the way
to self-expression.. It mounted thus by the ascending scale
of animals, and its improvements in structure were prepara«
tions to reach and repeat Personality, to report the original
consciousness of the Creator that He was independent of
structure. At length it became detached from the walls of
the womb of creation, held only for nourishment by the cord
of structure till it could have a birth into individualism.
Then the interplay of mind and organism began, with an in
herited advantage in favor of Vitality. Now Vitality, thus
developed and crystallized into personality, tends constantly
back towards its origin. The centrifugal movement through
all the animals is rectified by the centripetal movement in
man. The whole series of effects musters in him to recur to
an effecting Cause.”
Prof. Haeckel of Jena, in his Biological Studies, makes the
*
following statement: “ Protoplasm, or germinal matter, also
nailed cell-substance or primitive slime, is the single material
basis to which, without exception and absolutely, all so-called
vital phenomena ’ are radically bound. If the latter are re
garded as the result of a peculiar vital force independent of
the protoplasm, then necessarily also must the physical and
•chemical properties of every inorganic natural body be re
garded as the result of a peculiar force not bound up with its
.substance.”
Very well, why not? Even the vague motions, like the
incoherent simmer of a crowd of people on a great sqm re,
which take place in the molecules of the densest sub ance,
are dumb gropings of some Force, arrested for the present
in the substance, and not to be detected transgressing its. lim
its. But something is there which shares and testifies to a
universal tendency towards evolution into other substances
and into organic forms. Physical and chemical forces attest
the presence of Vitality, as well as the mental functions
which use the structural results of those forces. Something
* See Toledo Index, April 29, 1871.
�Theories of Mental Genesis.
fit, [
ift
ft!
1'1
b
»
Tfj
í|
213
independent of the material basis must have endowed it with
its movements and qualities. It certainly could not have
originated itself or its forces. Something anterior to the ma
lerial basis must include and transmit a tendency of Vitality
towards mental and moral functions, which are at once inde
pendent of the basis and yet closely allied to it.
Let us observe now if any contribution may be made to
idealism from another quarter. The empirical method has
not busied itself much with the phenomena of musical sensi
bility, though, to be consistent after including the imagina
tion in its genesis of mind from external sensations, it ought
to construct the sense of Harmony and the inventive genius
of the composer in the same way, since imagination plays so
large a part therein. Some physical facts which at first
threaten to support a pure empiric origin for mental func
tions, turn out upon cross-questioning to belong to the other
side of the case, and to contribute toward some more ideal
statement.
The German Helmholtz, who has made some profound
studies of the laws of Harmony, in his examination of the
structure of the human ear, found that the cochlea, or snailformed cavity, contained a fluid, across which three membranes
were thrown — an upper, middle, and under. In the middle
compartment he discovered innumerable microscopic disks,
lying next each other • like the keys of a piano : one end of
each of them is attached to the vessels of the auditory nerve,
the other end to the outstretched membranes. These disks
are the sensitive points which receive the vibrations of musi
cal instruments, and transmit them to the brain in the form
of notes and tones. A single string will give off different
vibrations from its upper and its middle section. Does the
ear solve the sound of a complex vibration made by these
waves of different length, or does it receive the sound as a
whole ? Answering this, Helmholtz says that the physical
ear funds the wave-forms into a sum of simple waves, which
is the result of their concurrence; since any wave-form you
please can be constructed out of a combination of simple
waves of different lengths. And as in the instruments, so in
the ear, the ground tone wakes the corresponding upper tone.
When vibrations play upon the disks in the ear, it is as if
�214
Theories of Mental Genesis.
they played upon banks of keys; and the first physical im
pressions are produced, sorted, combined, and then transmit
ted as so much seasoned material to be used in manufacturing
music. Then occurs the wonderful moment when Something
beyond these microscopic feelers digests the prey they catch
into human moods and emotions. What leaps the genius
takes, through and across what an unbridged abyss, upon
these stepping-stones of disks, to gather the waifs and strays
that float upon the manifold sea of Harmony! There is no
such startling proof that Nature has at length developed a
transcending Person in mankind; perhaps whole races
died for it, dissonances and partial chords, or constructed
upon vicious intervals, before Harmony could respond to its
own laws. At length an essential differentiation seems to
have taken place, an abstraction which compels sensations to
subserve its subtlest emotions. For at one end of this process
is nothing but the disks vibrating in their fluid: at the other
end is something rarely and radically different—the gamut of
the human heart, the symphony upreared by intellect and
feeling, the song exhaling into the mist that sheathes the
eye, the lyric whose silvery trumpets summon bravery and
nobleness from every drop of blood.
Now, atmospheric vibrations and the structure of the ear
enclosing the microscopic disks are the objects which provide
empirical sensations. The temperament, culture and inher
ited susceptibility of the musical composer’s brain collect
and organize these, sensations into the modes of harmony,
and reject all dissonance. But when, and by which of the two
parties in this transaction, was the earliest step taken toward
such a complicated result ? There was a time when there was
nothing but an atmosphere capable of vibrating, and nothing
but an ear capable of receiving the accidental throng of natu
ral noises. There was a time when the first fibre of a plant,
the first tense string of some creeping vine, twanged to some
chance touch: when the wood of the forest first revealed its
resonant capacity, when the dried reeds first sighed and whis
tled in the wind. This was all the appeal which Nature had
to make. Did it originate the sequence of melodies and con
struct the theory of harmony ? What is a dissonance ? Is it
merely a physical repugnance of the disks for interfering and
�Theories of Mental Genesis.
215
•contrarious vibrations ? Whence, then, the repugnance of the
«disks ? There are tribes of men whose ears have not been
furnished with it. There are civilized Indo-Germanic peo
ple who cannot tell a chord from a discord. It is not credible
that the crude objectivity of natural vibrations gradually
■selected out of Nature a harmonious ear. Nature has no
harmony which could effect such a selection ; she has never
¿sorted and combined and weeded out her noises. She is uni
sonous, monotonous, or full of jar and clash; she has no art
to reconcile the voices of the sea, the air, the birds of the for
est: each creature has its note and its key, and the air itself
is a Babel of cross-purposes. The empirical sensations pro
duced by modern music are drawn from things which vibrate
by a law that the things do not possess, and never could have
•suggested. Harmony has been imposed from within upon
their isolated qualities ; and an orchestra, so far from being
■an induction, is an intuition. The Composer listens to its
combinations before they are played. His subjectivity has
imparted to every instrument its peculiar quality by gradual
selection among the woods, reeds and metals of Nature, and
by discovery of the isolated shapes which correspond best to
.atmospheric conditions. His inductive experiments have been
presided over by a sense which no induction could have fur
nished. What, for instance, is the temperament of a piano
but a metaphysical compromise between the imperfections of
the material and the law of intervals ? Harmony, in short, is
a refutation which the materialist himself might welcome;
but it kills his theory as effectually as the poison poured into
the auditory tube, which made a ghost of Hamlet’s father.
It is much easier to tolerate the doctrine that a slice of meat,
well-assimilated, becomes the poet’s happy thought, than to
understand how wafts of common air could be transformed
into the mighty uplifting of the soul when the orb of music
passes over our fiat life, and draws emotion into every barren
•creek, and dashes its tonic against the heart. Physics must
allow an essential difference between a vibration and a welli cooked mutton chop; and it is in favor of the stimulating
and edifying quality of the chop. Music has been called the
image of motion. But when the ear is struck, something else
than a wave is propagated. It would be more just to say that
Music is imagination set in motion.
�216
Anti-Materialism.
The sea-tide writes its diary accurately enough in the sand
ripples. But air did not imprint these footsteps so massive
and deep that our own are lost as we try to follow ; yet there
is no dismay, for in the bosom of each trace lies home’s direc
tion,—by which we know that a Beethoven had just passed.
I claim, then, against a strictly logical empirical method,
three classes of facts. First, the authentic facts of the moral
sense whenever it appears as the transcender of the ripest
average utility. Second, the facts of the Imagination as the
anticipator of mental methods by pervading everything with
personality, by imputing Life to Object, or by occasional
direct suggestion. Third, the facts of the harmonic sense as
the reconciler of discrete and apparently sundered objects,
as the prophet and artist of Number and mathematical ratio,
as the unifier of all the contents of the soul into the acclaim
which rises when the law of Unity fills the scene. ■
Upon these facts I chiefly sustain myself against the the
ory, consistently explained, which derives all possible men
tal functions from the impacts of Objectivity.
*
ANTI-MATERIALISM
By G. S. Hall.
To a concise though popular restatement of the younger
* Fichte’s, Fontlage’s, and Leopold Schmidt’s construction of'
the ego as person, modified as he believes it to have been by
Lazarus and Lotze, the author joins a vigorous and original
polemic against “ materialism in natural science and theol
ogy” which he calls an “ absurd and therefore impossible
form of subjective idealism.” This he does in the interest of
speculative philosophy, which he would rescue from present
discredit and neglect, and to which he would restore an ulti
mate character as the mediating unity of theology and natu
ral science.
The barren abstractions of the absolute philosophy carried
thought into so rare an atmosphere that its utmost effort was
* Five Lectures on Philosophical Subjects, by Ludwig Weis. Berlin, 1871.
&
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Theories of mental genesis
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Weiss, John
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [St Louis]
Collation: 197-216 p. ; 24 cm.
Notes: From the Journal of Speculative Philosophy (Vol. VI, no. 3, 1872). From the library of Dr Moncure Conway.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
[The R.P. Studley Company]
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
[1872]
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
G5353
Subject
The topic of the resource
Objectivism
Philosophy
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Theories of mental genesis), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Language
A language of the resource
English
Conway Tracts
Objectivism (Philosophy)
Philosophy and Religion
Science and Religion
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/6523859c58194dbac4761006eefb7600.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=t3cciwv1lm9O2Fs4Wox81r36Z8XYuTirFx1frNbThi95fjWCeMMZGc5nsoapHb-ZpL%7EOFHhQqMqYHlaV%7EN3Wrki9QUkVkpSgXk3MTl%7EeD0ovG0WKfln4zFalIrlQVe37LNBP7Ki0i4HKYDCFoZM0sCD98Nxk-3HCr1RXUJGrqgePdRAb0Nc06I4Gc2g48wNsYvyWGfDcgTF06LkqWyhm3eRw20Y5PBwAEkRoGQqXdtjJ-G1-HeLyBvsHdXc20Se%7E5cBhX7ZJS2IjOwa6Tlb5KhfrvF2SAf%7EmMaKRHHK1me4MPL4w0Sww02xPHi23QmoQDEcWgRLXkiTaBqVwkzX8rA__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
033913a6c476183376cbc11f92918677
PDF Text
Text
THE PRACTICAL IDEALIST.
I.—Worship—(converse
with the supreme.)
1. The Idealist gives his worship and contemplation to the Eternal-Essence,
—to the beautiful Power and Law that underlies all phenomena, of which these
are but the sensuous appearances, or garment.
2. On strictly scientific grounds he has the full assurance that neither Evil
nor Chance, but Good is the mainspring of Nature. He is intensely conscious
of the omnipotent omnipresence of the Universal Spirit, and of his own parti
cipation in the vast Unity of Spiritual Life, but he does not dogmatise con
cerning the personality of the Deity.—“ We distinguish the announcements of
the soul, its manifestations of its own nature by the term Revelation. These
are always attended by the emotion of the sublime. For this communication
is an influx of the Divine Mind into our mind. It is an ebb of the individual
rivulet before the flowing surges of the sea of life. Every distinct apprehen
sion of this central commandment agitates men with awe and delight. A
thrill passes through all men at the reception of new truth, or at the perform
ance of a great action which comes out of the heart of nature.— Ths Over
Soul.
Trust your emotion. Tn your metaphysics you have denied personality
to the Deity; yet when the devout motions of the soul come, yield to them heart
and life, though they should clothe God with shape and colour.—Self-reliance.
3. For the Idealist there can be nothing Supernatural in Creed and History
He is as a mountain climber who has the clouds beneath him, and is face to
face with God’s blue of Heaven. Nature and the natural to him are more
miraculous than the most monstrous prodigy, and infinitely more beautiful.
�$3
The Idealist's Code of Tatilt.
•4. The Idealist worships in the Divine Being the Ideal of Truth, Beauty,
arid' Good, and the recognition of His attributes is the central force, and fount
fof power in moral dynamics. Prayer for worldly and material good or success,
;appears to him an arrogant assumption that God will not order things for the
'best, and a selfish intrusion of our own interests that must most frequently be
■at the expense of those of our fellow creatures. But Spiritual prayer, com
prehended in contemplation, and passionate aspiration yearning for communion
■with the Highest, is the natural function of the soul.
II.—Duties.—(Intercourse
with our neighbour.)
The idea of Justice proclaiming that every individual in his pursuit of
enjoyments, and in the development of his life, shall not interfere with the free
exercise of all their faculties by his fellows, inculcates as the duties of all
men,—
1. That they regard all forms of religious and other opinions, that do not
themselves violate the law, in the purest spirit of toleration, and strenuously
resist the monopoly of state protection and other privileges by any one body of
sectarians.
2. That the fullest liberty be acceded to women to exercise their faculties
in any occupation to which those faculties may impel them.
3. That they ever recognise the indefeasible right of all men to the use of
the earth’s surface, and to the opportunity of labouring, and earnestly promote
the achieving of such social organization as shall secure to all men the oppor
tunity of attaining to the most perfect development possible to them.
That
•they pilot their charitable enterprises with discriminating wisdom, and realise
the fact that unthinking well-mindedness is immoral.
4. That they promote the spread of knowledge, and the establishment of a
new system of education that shall render it possible to form the characters of
■children, to more radically influence their lives, and give effect to the special
¿aptitudes with which nature may have endowed them.
The Law of Charity, or Universal Love commands:—
1. That every man have a lively anxiety for the happiness and well-being
•of his fellow men, and abstain from any self-gratification that is injurious to
the general community, or that inflicts pain on another normally constituted
mind.
2. That he vehemently persuade them of the folly of appealing to the
arbitration of the sword; and advocate the establishment of a wise inter
national organisation and code for the settlement of differences.
3. To advocate the principle of friendly association as opposed to selfinterested, aud dis-united isolation, for purposes of social economy, social re
finement, and social happiness.
�jpRNiNA
Pardon.
A PATCHED SOCIETY.
{DigestContinued!)
IO.—Competition.—It would be erroneous to infer that it is proposed to
dispense with the wholesome stimulus of normal and legitimate competition as
•an element of Society. In all that concerns the commerce, or wholesale dealing
■of the country, in contra-distinction to retail distribution, the laws of supply
and demand would continue their unimpeded action. If any are disposed to
attribute inconsistency to such a distinction, they are reminded that whilst
commerce is directly creative of wealth, the unproductive competings of the
retailers are little better than a lawless wrangling for wealth already created,
attended with the consequent waste and destruction to be anticipated from such
chaotic and non-industria] busyness.
The system of allied industries, then, is not Socialism, that would eliminate
competition from human affairs,—that contemplating an ideal conception of
man overlooks his proneness to sloth and to physical and mental inaction; it
would, on the contrary, attempt, for the first time, to free competitive human
works and endeavours, from the clogs and drawbacks that choke its action. It
is precisely because competition is so useful an agency for production that we
would not waste its energies on barren objects.
11-—Associated Industry.—To facilitate the guarantee of employment which
Society is morally bound to provide for all its members, by means of the wisest
regulations tending to this end, the Committees of Public Welfare in order,
afford further security from the variations of the demand in the labour market,
will encourage the establishment of firms of co-operative industry. There
should be at least one estate divided into allotments, and farmed on the best
principles by small tenants, the necessary machinery being supplied by a union
of their capitals ; and the cultivation of a second by labourers who will share
�Ernina Landon.
in the produce in proportion to their contributions of labour and capital, will
be superintended by the Committee, h manufactory, also, of the description
best calculated to succeed under the economical conditions of the locality, will
be established on the same principles.
12. —Administration of Justice, and Arbitration of differences.—The com
munity will obtain, when possible, the nomination of the members of the
Committee as Justices of the Peace, and they, from their knowledge of the
antecedents and character of all the members, be enabled to'treat some of the
‘criminals that may be brought before them in a way that will be calculated to
remove the defects in character, instead of hardening them in offences by de- grading punishments.
Every member of the community will agree to refer any disputes in which
he may become involved, and that at present, are the subjects of actions-atlaw, to the friendly arbitration of one of the members of the Committee ; and
failing a settlement by this means, to submit them to the decision of the Com
mittee as a final court of arbitration.
13. —Education.—How futile are the existing educational systems in influ
encing and forming the characters of the young, the results best show, and it
seems incredibly ludicrous that the mere imparting of the rudiments of know
ledge should be denominated education. In the new organisation, all the
children of the district will pass -the whole of their time in the school-house
and its adjacent gardens and grounds ; which it will be the first effort of the
reformed community to provide on as magnificent a scale as possible. The
masters will be in the proportion of one, to from ten to fifteen children, and
will be fitted by special training on a new system, as well as by natural superi
ority, carefully tested, for the important work of training the young in all
senses. They will, each one attach to himself a manageable number of the
children of poorer parents, to whom they will act stand as parents and educational
guardians, making their characters their constant study and care. The children
instead of wandering wildly in a semi-savage state, as at present, when school
hours are over, will be pleasantly employed in alternately studying and working
in the gardens, or in other light labours with occasional organised recreation,
so that each one, according to the future before him, be instructed to play his
.part in life with intelligence. The industrial-school principle will also be com
bined with the instruction of the girls, who will be similarly provided with
teachers, and the market-garden, laundry, &c., properly superintended, will
render the school partially self-supporting.
14. —The Social Mansion.—The leisure hours of the inhabitants will be
spent in this, the central building, and heart of the town. It will contain besides
reading, conversation, and lecture-rooms—club-rooms, provided with the
different means of amusement, and a concert-room furnished with musical
instruments, and will be situated in an ornamental garden, with pleasure
grounds as extensive as possible. Attached to the Mansion and resident in it,
will be the Lecturer and Public Teacher ; the duty of whose important office
will be to provide for the delight and instruction of the community, by lectures,
�The Practical Idealist.
83
But more especially by directing the tastes and talents of the different members,
and turning them to the advantage and profit of all, and by promoting spon
taneous social assemblies, in which refinement may spread its garlands over all
classes.
We have seen that the town of three thousand inhabitants will effect an
economy of many thousand pounds by adopting the associative principle; this
sum representing the profit obtained by the joint-stock transactions of the
community will be thus- acquired, and school-masters and gardeners will be a
profitable exchange for superfluous and useless shopkeepers.
15. —The Selection of Capacities—The learned professions still be paid by
fixed stipends in the new communities, instead of by a system of fees that
tend to encourage deception, and that make the interest of lawyers and medical
men to consist in the increase of dishonesty and bad faith, and diseases in the
community. It will be at once objected by some, as it has been, that such' a
plan would but universalise the notorious inefficiency of parish doctors. But
it surely must be apparent enough that the young surgeon who accepts the
meagre official pay of the parish doctor, does so only whilst striving to gain
practice of a more remunerative kind, and sharing in the universal game of
money-making, and following, the laws of its code, metes out attention to the
paupers proportionate to the pay, eager to throw up the ungrateful office as soon
as he can afford to. It may be presumed, also, that professional zeal of this
mercenary sort is scarcely of the kind likeliest to advance the interests of
science. On the other hand, when the election of medical men is guided by
the best judgment of the Members of the Committee of Public Welfare, —
subject to the rate of the majority of the community,—who will have also the
power of dismissing those guilty of neglect, a more wholesome stimulus to
conscientious diligence and zeal is provided. It will follow, as a consequence
of this arrangement, that of all social abuses the most prolific in chaotic and
deathful consequences will be extinguished—the placing brainless incapacity
in a profession which is chosen because of a patron’s living, or. a father’s practice.
In the community no mere dictum of parental partiality shall suffice to afflict
society with a misplaced incapable, but the verdict of greatest aptitude from
Teachers and from the Committee of Public Welfare, shall decide on the proper
sphere for a young man.
16. —The New Order af Nobility.—In the commencement of a new society
which involves a higher moral condition of mankind, and turns man’s aspira?tions to the higher still, the noblest will set the example of preferring the
public good and the happiness of all, to selfish considerations, and of substi
tuting for private splendour public magnificence that will help to. lead man
kind along the road of progress.
These noblest,, therefore, will take
upon them a vow of renunciation, binding themselves to satisfy their pri
vate wants with a limited and fixed income, and to devote the surplus of their
incomes and earnings to the promotion of public welfare,-—this with the object
of assuaging the insane rage for wealth and appearances that is driving society
into a whirlwind of well merited disaster; a volcanic upheaval of the downcrushed, under miseries that will no longer be borne.
�87
Emina Landon.
This new and noble Aristocracy will be of three ranks, accord
ing to the surplus of wealth devoted to the service of the community,.
They will receive all the honours that are at present undeservedly paid
to rank, and in order that they may not suffer the loss of the greatest boon
that wealth confers, the community will defray the cost of educating their
children in the best universities. Were this purchasing of honour to become a
fashion even, it would not impair the wholesome desire for wealth that has so
strong an influence in creating it; for the riches that were renounced as far as
private employment of them goes, would be at their disposal for public
purposes, and so be still desirable as conferring power. If it is pretended that
in this nineteenth century the honours and rank of this new nobility would be
had in derision and contempt by an irreverent age, it is replied that if this is so,—
to be contemptible to a people that reverence lying shams, and the ignoble only
is the only true honour, and there is tenfold more need for a fresh fashion of
nobility.
17.—Lastly—because it appears a ludicrous, but melancholy and altogether
intolerable violation of the divine law, that men who chance to be possessed
of wealth should be freed from all compulsory social duties and responsibilities,
producing as we see, a state of things in which such wealth becomes unwhole
some heaps of decomposition, prolific of turf parasites, black-legs, Anonymas,
men in women’s clothes, and similar maggot-births, the Committee of Public
Welfare will assign duties to all such unemployed persons suitable to their
respective capacities.
General Objections Answered.—The sceptic will pertinently enough observe
of this Scheme of a New Society,—‘ it is all very admirable, and would doubtless
work charmingly, if in our community the rather large proportion of Socrates
and infallible wise men were forthcoming for our Committee of Public Welfare,
not to say our regiment of school-masters. As it is the world is suffering pre
cisely from the want of more of these wise men.’ We reply, that the world can
well furnish the brain-power that is requisite for a few experimental communi
ties, and when the fundamental principles have been once laid down and tested, it
will require no supreme amount of initiatory and creative wisdom. The growth
in morality and unselfishness is the grand desideratum, and chief of all the
difference between the two Societies, is the difference between one in which
starving labourers and competing speculators and tradesmen are compelled into
crime, knavery, and bestial low-mindedness by the resistless influence of circum
stances, and one which sets man free for the first time to assert himself human
and heaven’s noblest work.
The first objection that is offered by practical persons, is of this sort,—‘But
you who pretend to be effecting so much good for all men are proposing to
wantonly deprive of their means of livelihood the immense body of tradesmen
who form the great majority of the middle classes,—whilst you yourself admitted
but now, that in wealthy countries the essential point of economical policy is
to distribute the wealth so as to produce comfortable and well-to-do classes,
and it seems that retail trading, if it does nothing more, provides a large body
of persons with the comforts of life, and moreover fills up, as with social
�The Practical Idealist.
99
Buffers, the gap between the otherwise too distinct classes of brain-workers and»
gentry, and the manual labourers.
It is an unfortunate fact, that arguments as exasperatingly irrational as this,
—the desirability of providing for tradesmen even employment that is utterly
useless to the community—are only too abundantly employed by persons who
pride themselves on their common sense. Although it may be that the supply
of mere material wealth that has been accumulated in some old countries, is
almost adequate for the wants of all, can it be necessary to remind anyone that
the essential wealth of all countries is the capacity for work and the labour of
all their inhabitants,—'that the gross sum of this cannot by any ever so multi
plied powers of production be too great,—that this wealth expends itself in com
passing comfortable, happy, intellectual and noble lives for all human beings,
and that to squander any of this work-power is to wantonly cast into the mire
God’s purest gold, to mar His design, and to thwart His purposes.. As for the
services of the tradesman class by way of padding to fill out the gaunt form of
society into a false show of comeliness, and to cover up the hollows of degra
dation and ignorance—the sooner we can tear away this stuffing and reveal the
naked truth, we quicker may hope that the condition of the labouring classes
will have serious consideration. To return to the practical point of the question,
however, it is true that were the new system adopted suddenly in all parts of
the country simultaneously, some confusion and distress would result. But it
is only too certain that the process of transition will be a long and gradual one,
and in the first of the new communities the displaced tradesmen will be pro
vided with such other employment as they will willingly accept, or be compen
sated for any loss sustained. It is equally apparent that in the course of a
gradual transition the condemned class would spontaneously disappoar, and
who will question the fact that a community organised on the proposed system
Could provide useful and productive employment for as many persons in the'Same rank of life as it had discarded, if not the same individuals.
Our opponent would probably continue;—£ supposing your plan of appoint
ing medical men by the Committee already adopted in such a town as you have
been speaking of, do you pretend to hope that we should not see the sons and
relatives of the members of the said Committee filling the posts you are so
anxious to she wisely filled, just as the patronage system in the church gives
us younger sons for our divinely anointed rectors. In any imperfect condition,
of mankind let not a few fallible persons be so heavily laden with responsi
bilities, and depend on it, it is best for everyman to choose his surgeon, and-hisschoolmaster, &c., and be taught wisdom by the consequences, if his choicehappens to be an unwise one.’ It must be replied that this last seems at first
sight very wholesome in theory, but experience shows that a number of persons
are not capable of judging of the merits of a professional adviser, as is abun
dantly proved by the number of successful charlatans; yet, on the other hand,
their faculty of judging will be fostered by their power of expressing discontent
with any such public person, and by nominating the person who shall make the
selection for them. Respecting what might have been the result had the system
been already adopted, we reply that the novel plan is only proposed as a portion of
�1
89
Emina Landon.
an integral system, which by its provisions, requires the improved moral corr*
dition of the whole community, or itself effects it.
Ever foremost in the remembrance of all earnest reformers, should be the
consideration that no perfectest machinery for the distributing and feeding of
men can be of permanent value, if it permit them to remain for the most part
what we see them, a race of ignoble beings. It has been no part of the present
endeavour to create a complicated pattern of theoretical modes of life by
which all the details of human existence and effort are to be regulated. The
genius of any community and of every race will shape their surroundings accord
ing to the degree of nobleness that animates their collective aspirations. The
fundamental principles of Association, therefore, upon which the new institutions
are to be based have been alone indicated. But on the other hand, if the
individualities of the members of the community are all in all, how imperative
is it for this very reason to modify the force of circumstances that irresistably
re-act upon human nature, and give the ineffaceable impress of their good or
evil influence. The characters and lives of men are the produet of the twofactors, natural constitution and circumstance, of which the latter is the greater
and more important. Nine out of ten men if influenced by the best circum
stances-—education, and opportunities for the exercise of their faculties, will
become more or less noble members of society, and the bad propensities of the
other small portion can be pretty well neutralised by such influences, but it
should be needless to repeat that the education alluded to here is no confection
or compound of the three B’s by a National or any other existing school
master.
O many and earnest-hearted brothers, see ye not that these some thousand years
past the wonderful magic of the eternal mind that flows through a hundred
ages, has woven mysterious harmonies into thoughts and sounds of surpassing
delight,—Shakespeares, Angelos, and Mozarts,—helping to make man well
nigh divine; and now, too, that our eyes are opening to the mysteries of the
spheres, and we are glad in the strength of growing science, shall we con
tinue beasts in feeling only, and watch complacently how the sorely afflic ed
labourers who are bound for us, go vilely still on their bellies by reason of
their burdens ? Surely we may open their ears with some scanty visitations of
sweet sounds, and unfold their brains in some sort of life not wholly brutish.
Certainly we may fling off the hot blush that proclaims us conscious oppressors
and monopolisers of the sunshine. Truly we can live honest, and they shall
live men.
Such meaning as this Ernina hastily, greedily tore from the closely printed
volume, and when the early morning light peered into the room, it found its
white robed tenant still pacing up and down with happy unquenchable resolve
in deep, eloquent eyes. “Thank heaven, I am rich, thank heaven for that;”
were the words with which she turned at length to rest.
To be continued.
�Jarge Uhrhe,
m
if c
VERSUS
Cease we then, Loved Ones ;
Cease this hard strainful stress,—
Seeking that mirage—Truth,
Yearning for good unknown,
Seeking to ripen
With our hot painful sighs
Fruitage of world-schemes,
Ere the time destined,—
Seeking to force men’s souls—
Still all beneath the clod—
Swift into golden bloom,
Into large-mindedness,
Open-eyed lovingness,
Into the better life,—
Quenching the acridness
Of their green juices,
Quenching their hatreds,
Their selfish injustice
In love universal
From the unequal war
Cease we and rest we;
And of a larger love
Larglier quaff we.
Then lap me, ye Loved Ones
Enwrapped by your beauties,
Drunk with your beaming eyes,
Awed by your loveliness,
Soothed by your tenderness
My Ideal Maidens.
*
�The Practical Idealist
’Tis not one soul alone
Pouring responses
Back to my thirsting heart,
Prinks from mine perfect love
Knows all love’s fulness.
Maude, my grave Empress love,
Great browed and large eyed,
Thou giv’st me thought for thought
Erom thy imperial soul
Seeking all knowledge.
Swells thy round swelling breast
Echoing lovely
Impulses noble.
Perfect thy perfect form
As large Minerva’s.
Clara, small shrinking fawn
Tenderly clinging
With thy deep hazel eyes
To my down bending face
Feeding upon thee,
Knowledge thou car’st not for,.
Nor Science lov’st greatly
Save for the beautiful
Chance twineth around them.
Thy purest, flawless soul,
Delicate poised
Taste’s pure embodiment
Serves me for magnet,
Testing all things by thee
Testing all thought by thee
For fleck in their beauties.
Helen, sweet Crown of Love
Thou are just beautiful,
Womanly wholly r—
’Tis the soft perfectness
Of thy pure womanhood
Bows my heart down to thee
In willingness unwilled
With the light melody
Of thy bright girlishness
Each resting pause of thought
Fillest thou gracefully
Piecing our four lives
Into a vision bright
Into bright oneness.
�Large Love.
92
So of full largest love
Largliest quaff we,
Four souls inpouring
Brightness convergent
All their quadruple love
All their quadruple life
All their quadruple thought
Into-one Eden..
Turn me mayhap thenBack to the fight again
Teaching with- open eyes
Preaching such largest love
Unto all mortals;—
Quelling the beast in man,
Quelling base self in man
Teaching to quail before
Love’s fearful glances
Unto the higher life
Leading man onwards.
ON PRAYER.
Men take their texts from Bibles, but wheresoever truth is spoken we have a
Bible to hand. Inspiration is in Truth. God himself cannot speak more
than that. To think otherwise is not religion but superstition ; to think that
inspiration is locked up within the covers of one book, and is not the eternal
characteristic of veracity; that it was exhausted some eighteen hundred odd
years ago, and not reserved in an inexhaustible fund to be spent upon the
world, carrying its own sanctity, and founting always
Within the arteries of a man,
that truth can be anything else but inspired, or inspiration anything but truth
is a fetishism only different in quality, not in substance, to that of the idolator
and the savage.
Let us take a text from Emerson; if he does not speak the truth, he speaks
honesty, which is the next thing to it, but that he does speak the truth (and
consequently is equally inspired for us with any Scriptures whatsoever,) I need
not say is the writer’s religion.
�93
The Practical Idealist.
The preamble to the passage runs thus :—
_ “ It is easy to see that a greater self-reliance,—a new respect for thedivinity in man,—must work a revolution in all the offices and relations of
men ; in their religion; in their education; in their pursuits ; their modes of
living; their associations ; in their property; in their speculative views.
In what prayers do men allow themselves ? That which they call a holy»
office is not so much as brave and manly. Prayer looks abroad, and asks for
some foreign addition to come through some foreign virtue, and loses itself in
endless mazes of natural and supernatural, and mediatorial and miraculous.
Prayer that craves a particular commodity—anything less than all good, is
vicious.
Prayer is the contemplation of the facts of life from the highest*
point of view. It is the soliloquy of a beholding and jubilant soul. It is
the Spirit of God pronouncing His works good. But prayer as a means to
effect a private end, is theft and meanness. It supposes dualism and not
unity iD nature and consciousness. As soon as the man is at one with God, he
will not be. He will then see prayer in all action. The prayer of the farmer*
kneeling in his field to weed it, the prayer of the rower kneeling with the stroke
of his oar, are true prayers heard throughout all nature, though for cheap
ends.”
This extract is from the noble essay on “Self-Reliance,” against passages
of which I was impelled to write,—Read me these pages on my death bed.
By a melancholy mistake, truly, is common prayer called holy. Instead of
cultivating manliness, self-help, and fortitude, it feebly whines for subsidy and
indulgence. It forgets the proverb, men in their wiser (if secular) momenta
have invented,—“ God helps those who help themselves.” It is lazy and
luxurious, and essentially immoral. I have for years shrunk from praying for
temporal blessings; I have instinctively and intimately felt that it is so selfish,
or as Emerson says, “mean;” and further that it is, in truth, a piece of
profanity, for it indirectly imputes to God that He will not order things for the
best; it impugns His dispensation.
I have felt that I hardly dared to petition
in this selfish way; that it was a piece of presumption and temerity; that I
was not justified; that I had no standing-point. I, a microscopic creature on
a speck of the Rolling Universe, to lift up my voice to the King without a
a Name to ask him to interfere in my puny affairs for my personal,—nay, my
pecuniary benefit ! Not that anything is too small to be out of God’s Provi
dence; the atom is the focus of stupendous laws; the object of the solar
system ; abstractly, great and little are alike with God; but relatively,—that
God should arrest or modify the progress of the whole to gratify the ephemeral
appetite of an atom is a melancholy superstition, as illogical as it is selfish.
The welfare of the atom, we must learn, is bound up with that of the whole;
we must abandon ourselves to the laws, not pitiably beg that the laws may be
altered.
The theory of materialistic prayer must be either that God will interfere speci
ally to accommodate our lilliputian petitions,—the selfish fancies of a shallow
moment,—morally certain to clash with the true demands of things,—or that
he is pleased with a little lip-service.
�On Prayer.
94
The latter need only be mentioned not to be noticed; the former is almost
■a§ unworthy.
; Is it not seen that prayer is a superfluity as well as an impertinence ; that
God will order all things for the best. It is our duty to accept, and not to
ask; our attitude should be receptivity; it pleases God best that we help ourselves,
—and not ask Him to help us ; He leaves us to answer our own prayers ; forti
tude aud work are what He admires—not petitions; to do and bear, that is
■our duty; not to presume to-ask, which is, indirectly to dictate. God Almighty,
indeed, must look upon such unmanly practices as utterly contemptible, and
one would have thought men would have learnt their futility, if not their
ignobleness, from the systematic way in which they have been disregarded.
The world goes singing the same tune,
And whirls her living and her dead.
God does not put us here to ask Him to help us, but to learn His laws; to
be healthy and clever; and the veteran Premier’s remark to the scandalized
Scotch corporation,—that sanitary measures, and not prayers, were the remedy,
exhausted the truth.
’
To help ourselves appears to be our raison d’etre,—what have we to do with
grayer ?
In the expression—“ Prayer -is the contemplation of the facts of life from
the highest point of view ”—I imagine Emerson meant praise rather than
prayer,—laudatory prayer, not solicitous. Prayer, he says, (in his splendid
eloquence) “is the soliloquy of a beholding and jubilant” soul; the spirit of
God pronouncing his works good.”
Silent .Praise is this; and it is the spirit of God because in its living appre
hension. it becomes one in identity; as Emerson elsewhere asks—“ Jesus’
virtue, is not that mine ? If it cannot be made mine it is not virtue.”
In the same way as this spirit pronouncing God’s works to be good is a
tacit Te Deum; so laborare est orare,—as Carlyle translates it,—work is
woiship.. The way to praise God is to work; every furrow turned over is an
ode; it is testimony to His genius and obedience to His laws.
Appreciation, too, is the deepest form of praise. When I walk into the
fields and feel helpless with delight, that is the sincerest psalm, and more in
tense than the most throbbing hymn. My son, says the Lord, ever,—give me
thine. Heart; not thy Voice, but thy tumultuous, unfathomable Feeling; the
glowing spirit within you.
To conclude; the beauty, the ineffableness, even, of spiritual prayer is not to
be concealed, though it is singular how the idea of even spiritual prayer seems
to shiink before that of work. After all, it seems somewhat of an indulgence,
or a supeifluity. The man who rises at six o’clock with a hard day’s work
before him, seems to have little to do with prayer; he seems to be independent
of .it, and even of that exquisite relation of docility before God, which the
spiritual pray-er knows in all its sweetness.
�95
The Practical Idealist
The beauty of spiritual prayer consists in the attitude of humility and con«
versation it establishes before God; and if we will only observe the rule—
Pray,—pouring thanks and asking grace.
I own T can conceive little more lovely. Surely it is a sweet preparation for
the day ; from such prayer we seem to come out as from a sanctuary ; invested
as with a radiant atmosphere ; explaining the parable of Moses of old.
The depth and sweetness of true prayer I have not failed to experience;
and yet, alas, such is the meanness of human nature, I must confess their
greatest intensity was in a moment of disappointment and trouble. And yet
it is an intense delight, and an inexprsssible balm to find after the chills and
vanities of the world that we have in our heart-of-hearts the invisible Almighty
God to fall back upon, ever at the bottom and the centre, the Illimitable
Father, the incorporation of all that is Ideal, the Ideal of ail that is loving and
kind, majestic and pure.
A prayer of the spiritual sort, might not, perhaps, improperly, run as
follows :—
O Lord Father, who hast poured upon me so many blessings, and granted
me so many privileges, 1 thank Thee with inexpressible thanks for Thy mercies,
impossible to enumerate. My words can make Thee no return, let my feelings
praise Thee. Make me great, which is making me good; fortify me against
my last day, and reconcile me beyond,—for Thy Fatherhood’s sake, Amen!
Alex. Teetgen.
�By H. L. M.
I must again trespass on the Editor’s courtesy,—already conspicuously dis
played, by disputing the interpretation put upon the argument of my former
■article, as follows :—
“ When the writer speaks of what Christ might have done had He not been
despised and rejected, it is equivalent to saying that He was mistaken and
disappointed in calculations which it seems the insight of modern thinkers
would have been equal to ; and in this case, where the omniscience of God
head ?”—Idealist, p. 66, 67.
I reply, that this omniscience of God-head was “ equal to ” foresee the
result of Israel’s probation, is shown—1st, by the prophecies which speak of
Messiah’s rejection, and 2ndly, by many words of Christ on Earth, proving
that he was by no means “ dissapointed,” however grieved thereat.
I. I alluded in the previous paper to the pathetic 53rd of Isaiah, as sup
plying a strong additional support to the claims of Jesus to the Messiahship.
Eor this is a wondrously fulfilled inspired prophecy ; and one of such a nature
as neither a vain glorious deluding pretender, nor a fondly dreaming, self
deluded enthusiast, would have been particularly desirous to attempt to get
fulfilled in his own person. Let all readers, however well they know the pas
sage, read it once more, from the 13th verse of the 52nd chapter, to the end
of the 53rd, and note its remarkable correspondence with the facts and doctrine
of Christ’s Passion. Then observe how, after the closing notes of this mournful
strain, inwhich the prophet seems to lament his people’s rejection and ill-treatment
of their Messiah—he changes his key, and in the opening of the 54th chapter
salutes with a joyful welcome the new Gentile Church, called in to supply the
place of the unfaithful nation, and promised more numerous children, and a
wider habitation. Similar in spirit are prophecies in chaps, xlviii and xlix.
�The Practical Idealist.
■97
4
i
i
'
Here the Messiah, the “ Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel,” v. 17, seeifts
himself to speak, and thus break forth, (though uic passage had a more
immediate application,) i'nto a lament over his rejection, not for his own
sake, but the nation’s;—“ 0 that thou had’st hearkened to my command-"
ments 1 then had thy peace been as a river, and thy righteousness as
the waves of the sea: thy seed also had been as the sand,” &c.—-surely the
very voice which long afterwards exclaimed in the same accents, “ If thou
had’st known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong
unto thy peace ! but now they are hid from thine eyes 1 ” &c.—Luke xix, 42.
In the 49th chapter, as if turning away in sorrow from Israel, he thus addresses
the Gentiles :—“ Listen 0 isles, unto me, and hearken ye people, from far ; ’*
then after announcing his birth and mission, he sCems to relate a colloquy be
tween himself and his father. “ he said I have laboured in vain, I have spent
my strength for nought, and in vain; yet surely my judgment is with the Lord,
and my work with my God: ” and' the reply is, “ Though Israel be not
gathered,” &c. “ It is a light thing that thou shouldest be my servant to
raise up the tribes of Jacob;—I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles,
that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth.”—Lev. i. 12.
Daniel announces that “ Messiah should be cut off, but not for himself; ”
ix. 25 ; and Zechariah has some remarkable prophecies;—of the thirty pieces
of silver, assigned to the potter in the house of the Lord •; “ a goodly price
that I was priced at of them.” He said—xi, 12-13, “Awake O sword,
against my shepherd and against the man that is my fellow saith the Lord of
hosts.”—xiii, 7 ; and “They shall look upon me whom they have pierced.”—
xii, 10.
These predictions were for several centuries “ unfulfilled inspired prophecies; ”
but now for above 18 have stood forth as fulfilled ones; (the last indeed, as far
as regards the piercing, if not yet the looking,) the more remarkably because
they predict the nation’s own shame and blindness, and the preference of others
in its place; a situation which no nation would be likely to “ aspire ” or
“ sigh after,” or seek to fulfill for itself. It is remarkable that that part of
Handel’s Messiah which depicts the rejection and sufferings of Christ, is taken
exclusively from the Old Testament: indeed the whole work affords a curious
illustration, (by no means an exhaustive one,) of the fulness with which his
storv can be related out of that Testament, and those who recognise the fulfil
ment of some of its testimonies concerning him, find no difficulty in believing
that all will be fulfilled in the end. In the Messianic prophecies, the predic
tions relating to the first and to the second advents, appear contiguously
mingled together, as different chains of mountains sometimes do in a distant
view; but as in journeying nearer and through them, these open and separate,
showing how far they lie one beyond another, and what long stretches of plain
land intervene,—so from our present position between the two advents, we now
behold the long centuries which divide them. That this interval was not clearly
visible in prospect is not surprising when we reflect that before Christ’s coming
it was open to Israel to accept him at his first advent, and then all might have
been fulfilled without a break. Doubtless, he could have found means to accom-
�“Despised and Rejected.”
98
plisli his great sacrifice for the redemption of the world without their wicked
hands; and then having thrown off the guise of humiliation which befitted it,
might for anything we know, have stepped on at once to David’s throne. In
like manner, when the Israelites were in Egypt, God’s promise to bring them
out thence, and to bring them into Canaan was given all in one, and but for
their own fault might have been fulfilled all in one; but through their unbelief
when on the border of the promised land, a long interval was interposed of 40
years.
It may be asked why, if the conduct of the Jews in refusing Christ was so
plainly foreseen by God, as to find place in the prophecies, did He nevertheless
put them to the test? But the same question might be asked concerning every
probation to which God has ever subjected man with a like result; for when
was there any of which He did not see the result ? But it is nevertheless,
morally necessary that such probations should take place. And though those
who fail rightly to endure them suffer loss themselves, they will not in the end
defeat the purposes of God.
II. Nor was Christ’s treatment by the Jews any matter of surprise or dis
appointment to Himself? No, surely no. Not only were the circumstances of
His death and resurrection before Him at the beginning of His public career,
the pulling down and raising up again of the temple of His body, and His
lifting up on the cross, like the serpent in the wilderness, John ii, 19-22, iii, 14,
but His rejection by the leaders of the people with its issue, and many atten
dant circumstances, were the subject of frequent prophecy during the last year
of His life on earth, (Mark, viii, 31-33, ix, 33-34), with reference to the
prophets and the scriptures (Luke, xviii, 31, Matt, xxvi, 54). While confi
dently prophesying His second coming into glory, He interposed the prelimi
nary, that “ first must He suffer many things, and be rejected of this genera
tion,” Luke, xvii, 25. When the whole company of the disciples greeted Him
with acclamations on His entry into Jerusalem, thinking that now’ the Son of
David was surely about to take possession of his kingdom, his own thoughts
rested rather on the more proximate events which would postpone that dav,
Jerusalem’s crime and punishment ; over which he wept, not for his own sake,
but for the city’s; seeing in anticipation the Roman armies compassing it
around, and laying it even with the ground, because it knew not the time of
its visitation. When James and John asked to be foremost in sharing the
honours of the kingdom, he told them of a bitter cup to be drunk first, a cold
baptism to be undergone. And it was not without a Divine eagerness that he
looked forward to this, for the sake of the great issues beyond it. “ I have a
baptism to be baptised with,”—a cold plunge into, and rising again from death,
—and how am I straitened till it be accomplished ? ” As the time drew near
the simple-request of certain Greeks to see Ilim, seems to have brought before
His mind the thought of all nations presently drawing near to worship and
afresh stimulated Him to the endurance of the approaching sacrifice which vas
to redeem them. “ Except a corn of wheat” He said ‘ fall into the ground
and die, it abideth alor.e ; but if it die, it bringvlh forth much fruit. And 1,
if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.” Should He then
�99
The Practical Idealist.
pray to be saved from this coming hour of pain and death ? No ; it was for
this cause He had come to this hour; “ to give His life,” as He said at another
time, “a ransom for many.” John xii, 20-33, Matt, xxi, 28. Jesus stood
alone at this time in these thoughts ; without any sympathy or comprehension
from His disciples. Peter rebuked Him when first He began to speak to them
of His future sufferings and death, and afterwards we are told “they under
stood none of these things.”—Matt, xvi, 22, Luke xviii, 34), having so fixed
their eyes on the more numerous prophecies of the Messiah’s kingdom and
glory as to overlook the occasional ones which spoke of his sufferings and
hnmiliation. Not till after His resurrection did they learn to connect them,
when to the disappointed sigh of Cleopas. “ We trusted that it had been He
who should have redeemed Israel,” Jesus himself replied “ 0 fools, and slow of
heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken ! Ought not Christ to have
suffered these things,” (according to these prophets) “ and to enter into His
glory ?” Then first to these two pedestrians, and afterwards to the assembled
apostles, Me expounded in all the scriptures, the law of Moses, and the Psalms,
as well as the Prophets, the things concerning Himself—Luke, xxiv, 25-27,
44-47. A wondrous exposition that must have been ! would that it had been
preserved for us! But the Christian student is at no great loss, in the face of
the great facts and doctrines of the Gospel, to trace the many anticipations in
earlier scripture which foreshadowed and led up to them—far more numerous,
taking the whole body of it into account, than could be touched on here. AU
the scriptures looking forward to Christ, catch on their faces the coming dawn,
as those written after His appearance throw back the full light.
As to the effects of the invention of printing, the greatest work which that
did was to liberate the Bible, which had been hidden in convents, shut up in
dead languages and costly illuminated manuscripts, and send it abroad to pro
duce by its influence the reformation of religion, and the regeneration of society.
During the dark centuries of its seclusion, the name of Christ may have been
indeed over rated, but his spirit and doctrine were behind a cloud, overlaid and
encrusted with mediaeval superstition. But how pregnant is true Christianity
with right law-making principles, if not definite laws, for social government, is
manifest in the improvement of legislation, as well as spiritual life, wherever it
has free scope to operate. And how living are those waters which, the seal
being removed from the fountain, could gush forth again so fresh, revivifying
the face of aU lands through which they flow !
H. L. M.
Any mind not irrevocably given up to foregone conclusions in studying the Book of
Isaiah must surely peroeive that only a vague and brief passage here and there, in the midst
of ten chapters of wholly inapplicable matter, oan be strained into any sort of reference
to Jesus. Compared with the general vagueness of the Hebrew prophecies, the Delphian,
oracles might rationally be styled miraculous, and given such a mass of poetic utter
ance, or so-called prophecies, it may be assumed that the circumstances of the life of any
illustrious Jew, in the course of the latter half of the nation’s history, would have tallied
more closely with them. Taking the much vaunted 53rd chap. Isaiah, whilst the whole
�“Despised and Rejected'
100
that is so rashly deemed conclusive, is only the natural portrait of a future ideal person
age that would naturally occur to the prophetic Poet of a country that’was wont to place
its faith in its prophets, and jet amongst a people who usually rejected and ill-used, like
the
their great men, it contains no single direct and unmistakeable allusion, and
the passages in the 10th and 12th verses are distinctly contradictory of such allusion to
Jesus, unless contorted in a manner by which anything might be made to mean any
thing.
It would be idle to answer arguments founded upon the prophecies recorded along with
miracles in the very narrative whose authenticity is the question at issue. But any dis
passionate mind should have its doubts at once set at rest by the consideration that it is
altogether incredible that the Deity in making a revelation that should save man the
trouble of solving “ the painful riddle of the earth,” would involve it in such mysteries as
to render it the only incredible and inscrutable thing in His Universe to the greater part
Of thoso acknowledged to be the most earnest, reverent and enlightened minds on the
earth.
The following words of Emerson irradiate the subject.—
“ Jesus saw that God incarnates himself in man, and evermore goes forth anew to take
possession of his world- He said, in this jubilee of sublime emotion, ‘I am divine.
Through me, God acts; through me, speaks. Would you see God, see me ; or, see thee,
when thou also thinkest as I now think.’ The understanding caught this high chant from
the poet’s lips, and said, in the next age, ' This was Jehovah come down out of heaven.
I will kill you if you say he was a man.’ The idioms of his language, and the figures of
his rhetoric, have usurped the place of his truth; and churches are not built on his principtes, but on his tropes. Christianity became a mythus, as the poetic teaching of Greece
and of Egypt, before.”—
The Author of “The Christian Hypothesis.”
ONE YEAR IN HIS LIFE (CONCLUDED.)
Had she forgotten how 1 prayed her love ?
1 could not tell; she was so frank and sweet,
Had no embarrassment in talking just
In the old strain. I watched her every hour,
As doth a prisoner watch his jailer’s face
To catch the faintest forecast of his doom;
But 1 could learn nought from her bonnie eyes,
Save kindness, and a somewhat frightened glance,
Were we by chance left separate from the rest,
A pretty plaintive look, that seemed to ask
For yet a little longer, e’er I spoke.
Oh that I could have taken from iny life
Some of these weary hours, and added them
To that short week ; it was so short, oh God !
And life now is so long ! so long, so void.
But now I must not rave 1 my deepest grief
Forbids a questioning, I can only wait
For an hereafter that may teach them all,
Or leave me quiet in a silent grave
Beside my darling ; let it come, oh Lord 1
We talked one night, the night before the end,
�The Practical Idealist.
Just as we used at Holme; the August eve
Lay purple round us, and the great white moon
Shone glorious o’er the hills that slept in shade
All flecked by silver arrows from her bow,
The silence kept us silent, neither spake
Till Mary sang most quietly and sweet
Half to herself, the following little song:—
“ The birds have done their pairing and are wed,
The lovers whisper where the blooms are shed,
Upon their clasped hands, his love-bowed head.
The birds have done their pairing; yet I stay
And weary of the loneliness each day,
That I go quite alone upon my way.
The birds have done their pairing; say oh heart,
Is lonely grief for aye thy bitter part ? ’
Death is a friend 1 Oh may he heal the smart!
“ How sad your song is,” said I, “ but ’tis fit
For August surely, when the hopes of spring
Find their fulfilment or their emptiness.
The autumn’s turning, and the winter wind
Will try us all, unless we’re safely housed,
Most blessed in the warmth and love of home.”
“ Which of us three,” said Lady Mildred then,
Will have the warmest winter ? Mary, you,
And you, Sir Wilfrid will have empty nests,
And I my husband, and a home, yet void
As yours are; could three lonelier souls have met
Than we are ? Oh for comfort, oh for love!
“ Oh Lady Mildred,” said I, “you have love,
All love, love of your husband, of your friends,
And sure Miss Stanton could have love enough
If she had but needed it; I am all alone.”
“ Shall we dispute,” said Mary—“ half in sport.”
Which of us has the largest share of woe?—
Ah no ! life is too short, 1’11 change my note
And sing instead of light and love and flowers,
And quite forget the echo of the song
That caused your talk to take that bitter tone,
To-morrow we go home, to-morrow morn;
I have a fancy to explore your coast
With you, Sir Wilfred, you can teach me much,
And we’ll go early e’er the morn is high,
Aye, even watch the sun rise o’er the sea.”
“Agreed,” I answered, “only just that word,
�One Year in his Life concluded.
My heart leaped high and beat against my breast,
And questions crowded quiekly thro’ my brain,
Can she have learned at last to love my soul,
Or will she in her mercy gently crush
The hopes and longings that the summer nursed?
Or has she quite forgotten how I loved ?
Here do I pause, here shrink in actual pain,
At putting the last touches to the tale
Of this my living, yet oh, heart, be strong,
Tell all thy story and then close the book,
And let the past lay it within its breast,
And glide away into its shadowy home,—
The morning came, not clear and calmly bright,
But wild and glowring: still she kept the tryst,
And we walked towards the coast. I did not speak
Until we reached the shore; th’ uneasy waves
Moaned greyly ’mid the shadows, and the rocks
Loomed blackly o’er our heads, straight, sharp, and steep :
We wandered on, until a tiny cove,
Lit with the coming day, enticed our steps
To stay themselves, and so we rested there,
And watched the fitful wavelets come and go,—
“ Gloriously wild,” I said, half to myself,
“ Yet miserable, for it tells of winter’s hand,
That summer’s passing, all the sweets will go,
And I shall weary of the wiuter time,
And wonder in the gloom why things are so,
And cavil at the God who made them thus.
Miss Stanton ; all this week I’ve watched your face,
Yearning for sign or word to shew to me
That you are still remembring what I said
Before I left the river in the spring.—
Mary, I pause again ; my very soul
Sickens with aprehensión; nay, my dear,
l)o not be crying; I should hold my peace,
But hope is hard in dying—will not die
Till hell’s own touch makes us abandon it.
Child, I am happy but to see you, feel
Your presence round me, if I try once more
To keep you here regardless of the pain,—
You have in hearing me, forgive me then ?”
She answered not, but gazed away, and I
Cared not to break the silence, so we sat,
An hour or more, until the gathering light
Showed us the day—was here, and showed us more,—
102
�103
The Practical I dealist.
Here is the climax ; but I cannot paint
E’en for your eyes our agony, my pain:
A natural pain at losing sight of life
And facing fully all the facts of death,
For as we sat there, round had crept the waves
And hemmed us in, and we had scarce an hour
That we could call our own; God only knows
Why this was done; we climbed the steep black rocks
Until we could not climb another step,
A.nd then she spoke quiet quietly and slow,
“ Sir Wilfred, we are dead ! so I may speak
May tell you now, what never in this life
I fear me I’d have told you, face to face,
I love you 1—do not start and press me close,
Remember death knows neither bliss nor pain,
Nought but oblivion or a higher sphere
Where kisses do not come, or clasping arms,
But, chance, a fuller knowledge; now they creep
About us here, those cruel curling waves,
So soon to crush us in their deadly grasp.”—
“I can’t beliwe we’re dead! is there no hope?
“ Oh God,” I cried, “ is their no hope indeed,
Can we not live now I have won her soul
To love mine own, despite the cursed form
That hangs a burden on my feeble life ?
Oh God be merciful, nor dash the cup
I yearned so long for, from my thirsting lip,
Oh! Mary, if we die, and die we must—
Watch how those cruel waves grow at our feet,—
Meet death within mine arms; perchance, perchance
You’ll feel them round you; I may feel your form
Within them in the silence of the grave.—
These arms! oh God, misshapen as they are
It is impossible to know that swift
They’ll be all nerveless, that our tongues that speak
And call each other by our names to-day
Will never whisper more;—oh Mary, love,
Tell me you love me, once before we die.”
“ I love you,” said she, and she took my hands
And placed them round her, leaning down her head,
And blushing tenderly ; ay, even then ;
God has His purpose, “ let us hope, in this,”
She added slowly, “better thus to die
Than to live on a useless, loveless life,
I would have been loveless, for my soul I fear
Has not the nobleness to love yours quite
As ’twill when unencumbered by the mark
�One Year in his Life concluded.
You bear about you, of mishapenness,
Dear Wilfred, I shall love you when we’re dead,
It will be nought, if death is only sleep,
To sleep within your arms, but death is more,
’Tis painful, oh! 1 shudder, see the waves
Curl now about our feet, oh hold me fast 1
’Tis the unraveller sure of all our doubts,
The soother of our puzzled weary brain,”
She murmured, as she watched the rising tide,
“ How near death is, yet seems it Wondrous far,
Wondrous unreal, that we are standing here,
Quivering with life, yet trembling into death,
And Mildred waits and wonders why we stay.”
I held her to my breast, and clasped her close
And murmured little sentences of love
And death crept nearer, o’er our trembling feet,
Up to our knees it came, I had small strength,
—Due to my cursed shape,—to hold her there,
Yet we clung on, and hoped until the last,
A boat might come and take us from death’s jaws :
“ I’m trying hard,” said Mary, “ to be good,
To say the prayers our lips have ever prayed
But they are not for dying, parting 8ouls,
Our Father hangs in utterance, and my soul
Can but resign itself because it must,
With just a hope that God is over us,
To take us gently now our work is done,
To somewhere, where our living is not just
A groping after shadows, but a guest
For answers to the questions that have pressed
Since childhood wearily upon our hearts.”
“ Let it come quickly,” groaned I. “ Oh, my love,
My little love, kiss me upon the lips
And let your kiss baptise my soul anew;
In mercy kiss me.”—“ Oh good bye my dear,
Good bye but for a moment, whispered she,
Thank God we go together, here is death.”
E’en as she spoke, our lips met in one kiss,
And I remember nothing, save a shock,
A parting of my hold upon the cliff,
Until I came to life here,—save the mark !
To life, nay unto death—the bitterness
Had passed, the wrenching of the mental part
From the more sense of life that is such pain;
The real Death,—felt when I saw Mildred’s face
Looking upon me, turning into pain,
104
�1.05
The Practical Idealist.
When with a gasp, I asked for Mary’s hands
To smoothe my pillow, cool my throbbing brow.
“ Dead ! dead ! ” I whispered as my mera’ry came
Back from that dim mysterious shore, where none
Can trace the footsteps that oblivion made,
Or follow where sleep led at evening’s tide
When one returns one does return for aye
Without one fact traced on the dreaming brain,
Will it be thus I wonder when we’re dead?
Shall we awake as from a troubled dream,
With no remembrance, nothing save a thought,
That somewhere in the darkness we have met
With such a one, or somewhere else, one knew
What ’twas to love?’—God keep my memory clear,
And save me here from madness in the pause
That lies before me me till I meet my love.
I saw her dead, laid in her coffined peace
Smiling with upturned face; I realized
That she was gone, and yet I lived, and live.
(Some boat had come into the little cove
And rescued me, the first wave kdled my love;
She had no pain,—that all is left for me,
I had forgot to tell you how I lived.)
Here is my story, Arthur! read it o’er
Then mark it with a query, nought is solved,
Not one thing answered; here i3 this and that,
Facts upon facts, each laid in due array,
Such suffring, so much death, so little cause,
Yet people who are pious, simply sigh,
When they are asked the reason of this thing,
And think I take the comfort when they say,
With untried faith, “ Sure, God is very good.”
S. Panton.
Correction, In our May No.—Muriel's Story,
Author's copy runs—Up steep Parnassus, &c.
line 11,
page 62, the
NOTICE!
Competition for tiie Lavreatesiiip of tiie Association. 1870-1871.—The Author of
the best poem on the subject—Social Progress, shall be the Laureate for the ensuing year.
The Judges will be the Members of the Council, who will not be debarred from compet
ing, (present Laureates excepted). No limits are imposed as regards the length of the
Poems. They should be sent before the 1st of September, to the Hon. Assist. Secretary,
Augustus Villa, 90, Richmond Road, Hackney, N.
Erratum. Page 92. line 9. For—Turn me—read—turn we.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The Practical Idealist
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [s.l.]
Collation: [82] -105 p. ; 23 cm.
Notes: Possibly from the journal of the Social Progress Association. {from KVK]. Contents: The idealist's code of faith -- A patched society (Digest:-continued) / Ernina Landon -- Large lobe, or Eros versus Aphrodite -- On prayer /Alex Teegen -- "Despised and dejected" / H.L.M. -- One year in his life (concluded) S. Panton.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
[s.n.]
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
[187-?]
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
G5293
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
[Unknown]
Subject
The topic of the resource
Philosophy
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br /><span>This work (The Practical Idealist), identified by </span><span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk">Humanist Library and Archives</a></span><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Language
A language of the resource
English
Conway Tracts
Idealism
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/c5a15f6b17b809785930417df25ff2e8.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=NUI2Lshce8rHcyymEnKwmiQCSMpSxXXS2vLx-7l7DLSR9g0%7EQU9ku34C6qZmUZWD%7E5diZ7eSyoW00A9fz7wCq2sn5SL%7Eqno2DsblX5igwVor6Sbk3XldI9EC3nYTt4qnqSvJyNox6P9Ljc75p%7EZo8oYEVT-l3lUb0NedRsRM3wqG3Xu67kxnMe8OvA0LoA6ZGgCp4A-SNnQvzcl5%7EfxIWl1pyBGInrPpBTn5r5-uJHOQbgwTFn6QiHFk4GXg85%7EMbWQd24Gth5V%7ECGrrc0evNhxcrGb-AXw8-3hNGdwFSfXzhm8Ey9jueid7xw53rh8vJI4ekFKJ6-DkWQNm-cM7fw__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
214192575c2bc526dc32f11eaf85a580
PDF Text
Text
THE POSITIVIST PROBLEM.
BY FREDERIC HARRISON.
HE interest which the system known as Positivism awakens
in public attention is so vastly in excess of any knowledge
of the writings of Comte, and of any attempts at propagandism made by his followers, that it may afford matter
for some curious reflection. On the one hand, we have one of the most
voluminous if not the most elaborate of all modern philosophies, com
posed in a foreign language and a highly technical style. Those who
have honestly studied, or even actually read, these difficult works may
be numbered on the hand; and no methodical exposition of them exists
in this country. The full adherents of this system in England are
known to be few; and they but very rarely address the public. Among
the regular students of Comte two or three alone find means occasion
ally to express their views, and that for the most part on special sub
jects. Such is the only medium through which the ideas of Comte are
promulgated—a mass of writings practically unread; a handful of
disciples for the most part silent.
On the other hand, the press and society, platform and pulpit, are
continually resounding with criticism, invective, and moral reflection
arrayed against this system. Reviews devote article after article to
demonstrate anew the absurdity or the enormity of these views. The
critics cut and thrust at will, well knowing that there is no one to re
taliate ; secure of the field to themselves, they fight the battle o’er again;
thrice have they routed all their foes, and thrice they slay the slain.
Religious journalism, too, delights to use the name of Comte as a sort
of dark relief to the glowing colors of the Scarlet Woman. Semi-re
ligious journals detect his subtle influence in everything, from the last
poem to the coming revolution. Drowsy congregations are warned
against doctrines from which they run as little risk as they do from
that of Parthenogenesis, and which they are yet less likely to under
stand. Society even knows all about it, and chirrups the last gossip or
jest at afternoon tea-tables. Yet even under this the philosophy of
Comte survives; for criticism of this kind, it need hardly be said, is
not for the most part according to knowledge.
Some such impression is left by the glaring inconsistencies which
appear among the critics themselves. They have so easy a time of it in
T
�50
THE
POSITIVIST PBOBLEM.
piling up charges against Positivism, that they, in a great degree, dis
pose of each other. According to some, for instance, it would promote
a perfect pandemonium of anarchy. With others it means only the
“paralyzing and iron rule of law.” With some it is the concentration
of all human energy on self; with others, an Utopia which is to elimi
nate self from human nature. Now it is to crush out of man every
instinct of veneration for a superior being; now it is to enthrall him in
a superstitious devotion. The followers of Comte are at once the vota
ries of disorder and of arbitrary power; of the coldest materialism and
the most ideal sentimentalism; they are blind to everything but the
facts of sensation, yet they foster the most visionary of hopes; they
execrate all that is noble in man, and yet dream of human perfectibility.
In a word, they are anarchists or absolutists; pitiless or maudlin; ma
terialists or transcendentalists, as it may suit the palette of the artist to
depict them.
Now all of these things cannot be true together. If it is proved to
the satisfaction of a thousand critics that Positivism is a mass of absur
dity, why need we hear so much about it ? How can that still be
dangerous which is hardly ever heard of but in professed refutations,
and known only through adverse critics ? It is strange that a writer,
as they tell us, of obscure French, such as no one can make sense of,
who finds in this country but an occasional student, should need such
an army to annihilate him. If he were responsible for one-tenth of the
contradictory views which are put into his mouth, he is self-condemned
already. No house so divided against itself could stand, to say nothing
of the critical batteries which thunder on it night and day—religious,
scientific, literary champions without stint, warning an intelligent
public against a new mystery of abominations. “ Dearly beloved,” cries
the priest, “beware of this soul-destroying doctrine of Humanity!”
“ Science has not a good word for it,” cries the man of physics, “ to say
nothing of its irreligion! ” and so makes a truce with the man of God.
“ And literature has a thousand ill names for it,” cry out the brazen
tongues of the press through all its hundred throats of brass. Yet,
withal, the thoughts of Comte seem still to live and grow, to flourish
without adherents, and to increase without apostles. They must be in
some way in the air; for all that men see is the refutation of that
which none study, the smiting of those who do not contend. Epur si
muove !
Those to whom the system of Comte is of serious moment would be
but of a poor spirit if they lost heart under such a combination of
assaults, or took pleasure in the signs of so wide-spread an interest. A
perpetual buzzing about a new system of thought can as little do it
good as it can do it harm. The students of Comte would be foolishly
sanguine if they set this down to real study or serious interest in his
system. They would be culpably weak if they supposed it was due to
any efforts of their own to extend it.
�THE
POSITIVIST PROBLEM.
51
However much Positivism may desire the fullest discussion, little can
come of criticism which does not pretend to start with effective study.
As a system it demands far too much both in the way of sustained
thought and of practical action, to gain by becoming merely a subject
of social or literary causerie. The platoon firing of the professional
critics, and the buzz of the world, may become fatiguing; but both in
the main are harmless, and in any case appear to be inevitable.
But when we look below the surface a different view will appear.
However few are they who avow Positivism completely, its spirit per
meates all modem thought. Those who teach the world have all learnt
something from it. The awe-struck interest it arouses in truly relig
ious minds shows how it can touch the springs of human feeling. Men
of the world are conscious that it is a power clearly organic, and that it
is bent on results. And even the curiosity of society bears witness that
its ideas can probe our social instincts to the root.
It cannot, indeed, be denied that so general an interest in this subject
is itself a significant fact; and though it be not due to anything like a
study of Comte, and most certainly to nothing that is done by his
adherents, it has beyond question a cause. This cause is that the age
is one of Construction—and Positivism is essentially constructive.
Men in these times crave something organic and systematic. Ideas are
gaining a slow but certain ascendency. There is abroad a strange consciousne*ss of doubt, instability, and incoherence; and, withal, a secret
yearning after certainty and reorganization in thought and in life.
Even the special merits of this time, its candor, tolerance, and spirit of
inquiry, exaggerate our consciousness of mental anarchy, and give a
strange fascination to anything that promises to end it.
We have passed that stage of thought in which men hate or despise
the religious and social beliefs they have outgrown—their articles of
religion, constitutions of State, and orders of society. We feel the need
of something to replace them more and more sadly, and day by day we
grow more honestly and yet tenderly ashamed of the old faiths we once
had. At bottom mankind really longs for something like a rule of
life, something that shall embody all the phases of our multiform
knowledge, and yet slake our thirst for organic order. Now there is, it
may be said without fear, absolutely nothing which pretends to meet
all these conditions—but one thing, and that is Positivism. There are,
no doubt, religions in plenty, systems of science, theories of politics,
and the like; but there is only one system which takes as its subject
all sides of human thought, feeling, and action, and then builds these
up into a practical system of life. Hence it is that, however imperfectly
known, Positivism is continually presenting itself; and though but
little studied, and even less preached, it ceases not to work. It proposes
some solution to the problem which is silently calling for an answer in
the depths of every vigorous mind that has ceased to be satisfied with
the past. It states the problem at least, and nothing else does even
�52
THE
POSITIVIST PROBLEM.
this. Thus, in spite of every distortion from ignorance or design, the
scheme of Positivism has such affinity for the situation that it is ever
returning to men’s view. For whilst mankind, in the building of the
mighty tower of Civilization, seem for the time struck as if with a con
fusion of purpose, and the plan of the majestic edifice for the time
seems lost or forgotten, ever and anon there grows visible to the eye of
imagination the outline of an edifice in the future, of harmonious de
sign and just proportion, filling the mind with a sense of completeness
and symmetry.
An interest thus wide and increasing in a system so very imperfectly
known, proves that it strikes a chord in modern thought. And as
among those who sit in judgment on it there must be some who hon
estly desire to give it a fair hearing, a few words may not be out of
place to point out some of the postulates, as it were, of the subject, and
some of the causes which may account for criticisms so incessant and
so contradictory. It need hardly be said that these words are offered
not as by authority, or ex cathedrd, from one who pretends to speak in
the name of any body or any person whatever. They are some of the
questions which have beset the path of one who is himself a disciple
and not an apostle, and the answers which he offers are simple sugges
tions proposed only to such as may care to be fellow-hearers with him.
It is of the first importance for any serious consideration of Posi
tivism to know what is the task it proposes to itself. For the grounds
on which it is attacked are so strangely remote, and appear to be so
little connected, that perhaps no very definite conception exists of what
its true scope is. There is much discussion now as to its scientific
dogmas, now as to its forms of worship, now as to its political prin
ciples. But Positivism is not simply a new system of thought. It is
not simply a religion—much less is it a political system. It is at once
a philosophy and a polity; a system of thought and a system of life;
the aim of which is to bring all our intellectual powers and our social
sympathies into close correlation. The problem which it proposes is
twofold: to harmonize our conceptions and to systematize human life;
and furthermore, to do the first only for the sake of the second.
Now this primary notion stands at the very root of the matter, and
if well kept in view it may spare much useless discussion and many
hard words. Thus viewed, Positivism is really not in competition with
any other existing system. It is hardly in contrast with any, because
none is in pari materid—none claims the same sphere. No extant re
ligion professes to cover the same ground, and therefore with none can
Positivism be placed in contrast. Christianity, whatever it may have
claimed in the age of Aquinas and Dante, certainly in our day does not
profess to harmonize the results of science and methodize thought. On
the contrary, it is one of the boasts of Christianity that its work is ac
complished in the human heart, whatever be the forms of thought and
even of society. It cannot therefore be properly contrasted with Posi
�THE POSITIVIST PROBLEM.
53
tivism, for they are essentially disparate, and the function claimed by
the one is not that claimed by the other.
So, too, Positivism is hardly capable of comparison with any existing
philosophy. There are many systems of science and methods of thought
before the world, but they insist on being heard simply as such, and
not as being also religions, or schemes of life. They stand before the
judgment-seat of the intellect, and they call for sentence from it accord
ing to its law. Such social or moral motive as they rest on is ade
quately supplied in the love of truth and the general bearing of knowl
edge on human happiness. Their doctrines ask to stand or fall on
their own absolute strength, and are not put forward as a mere intro
duction to a form of life. Not but what, of course, philosophers,
ancient and modern, have elaborated practical applications of their
teaching to life. But no modern philosophy, as such, puts itself forth
as a part of a larger system, as a mere foundation on which to build the
society, as a major premise only in a strict syllogism of which the con
clusion is action. Now this the Positive philosophy does. Positivism
therefore is not a religion, for its first task was to found a complete
system of philosophy: nor is it á philosophy, for its doctrines are but
the intellectual basis of a definite scheme of life: nor a polity, for it
makes political progress but the corollary of moral and intellectual
movements. But, though being itself none of these three, it professes
to comprehend them all, and that in their fullest sense. Thus it
stands essentially alone, a system in antagonism strictly with none, the
function and sphere of which is claimed by no other as its own.
Criticism which ignores this primary point, which deals with a sys
tem as if its end were something other than it is, can hardly be worth
much. And thus viewed, a mass of popular objections fall to the
ground. For instance, a continual stumbling-block is found in politi
cal institutions and reforms which Positivism proposes—institutions
which are wholly alien, it is true, to our existing political atmosphere,
and which could hardly exist in it, or would be actively noxious. But
these are proposed by Positivism only on the assumption that they fol
low on and complete an intellectual, social, and moral reorganization
by which society would be previously transformed, and for which an
adequate machinery is provided. No value can attach therefore to any
judgment on the political institutions per se, tom from the soil in
which they are to be planted, crudely judged by the political tone of
the hour. No serious judgment is possible until the social and intel
lectual basis on which they are to be built has been comprehended and
weighed, and found to be inadequate or impossible. But this is what
he who criticises the system from a special point of view is unwilling
or unable to do.
So with the philosophy—we often hear indignant protests against
the attempt made by Comte to organize the investigation of nature.
Nothing is easier than to show that the organization proposed might
�54
THE
POSITIVIST PROBLEM.
check the discovery of some curious facts, or the pursuits of certain
seekers after truth. But the same would be true of any organization
whatever. The problem of human life is not to secure the greatest ac
cumulation of knowledge, or the vastest body of truth, but that which
is most valuable to man; not to stimulate to the utmost the exercise
of the intelligence, but to make it practically subservient to the happi
ness of the race. The charge therefore that the Positive philosophy
would set boundaries to the intellect by setting it a task, is not to the
purpose, even if it were true. This might be said of almost every re
ligion and any system of morality. The very point in issue is whether
the true welfare of mankind is best secured by the absolute independ
ence of the mind, going to and fro like the wind which bloweth
whither it listeth.
Thus, too, in criticising the religious side of Positivism, it is argued
that it fails to provide for this or that emotion or yearning of the re
ligious spirit; that it leaves many a solemn question unanswered, and
many a hope unsatisfied, and has no place for the mystical and the In
finite, for absolute goodness, or power, or eternity. Be it so. The
objection might have weight if Positivism were offering a new form of
theology, or came forward simply as a new sort of religion. But the
problem before us is this—whether these ideas can find a place in any
religion which is to be in living harmony with a scientific philosophy.
We are called on to decide whether, since these notions are repugnant
to rational philosophy, religion and thought must forever be divorced,
and whether we must choose thought without religion, or religion
without thought. Positivism, if it has no place for the mystical or su
pernatural, has the Widest field for the Ideal and the Abstract. It
holds out the utmost reach for any intensity of sentiment. Nor could
its believers fail in a boundless vista of hope; of hope which, while it
is substantial and real, is not less ardent, and far more unselfish, than
the ideals of' older faiths. Positivism maintains that supposing estab
lished such a scientific and moral philosophy as it conceives, inspiring
a community so full of practical energies and social sympathies as that
which it creates, a rational religion is possible, but such hopes and
yearnings would be practically obsolete, supplanted by deeper and yet
purer aspirations. They would perish of inanition in a mind or a so
ciety really imbued with the relative and social spirit. They had -no
place under the practical morality and social life of past ages. They
would have none, it argues, under the scientific philosophy and the
public activity of the future. The truth of this expectation cannot
possibly be estimated without a thorough weighing both of the philos
ophy and of the polity which it is proposed to found, and a very sys
tematic comparison of their combined effects.
To treat philosophy, religion, or polity without regard to the place
each holds in the general synthesis, is simply to beg the question. It is
much more to the purpose to argue that the general synthesis which
�THE
POSITIVIST PROBLEM.
55
Positivism proposes to create is not needed at all, or even if needed, is
perfectly chimerical. Certainly it is a question which cannot be dis
cussed here; and perhaps it is one which cannot be settled by any dis
cussion at all. It seems one of those ultimate questions which can only
be determined by the practical issue, and which no a, priori argument
can touch. Solvetur ambulando. It has been most vigorously treated
by Mr. Mill in his estimate of Positivism, and, like all that he has said
on this subject, deserves the most diligent thought. After all, it may
be the truth that this question of questions—if human life be or be not
reducible to one harmony—is one of those highest generalizations
which the future alone can decide, and which no man can decide to be
impossible until it has been proved so.
In any case, those who have no mind to busy themselves with any
system of life or synthesis of social existence whatever—and they are
the great bulk of rqankind—may well be asked to spare themselves
many needless protestations. Positivism most certainly will not
trouble them; and the world is wide enough for them all. Still less
need of passionate disclaimers and attacks have all they who are hon
estly satisfied with their religious and social faith as it is. Positivism
looks on their convictions with the most sincere respect, and shrinks from
wounding or disturbing the very least of them. How much waste of
energy and serenity might be spared to many conscientious persons if
these simple conditions were observed! Positivism is in its very essence
unaggressive and non-destructive; for it seeks only to build up, and to
build up step by step. It must appeal to very few at present, for the first of
its conditions—the need of a new System of Life—is as yet admitted only
by a few. It must progress but slowly as yet, for its scheme is too wide
to be compatible with haste. If all of those who are alien to anything
like a new order of human life, and all those who are satisfied with the
* order they have lived under would go their own way and leave Posi
tivism to those who seek it, a great deal of needless irritation and agi
tation would be happily averted. The idea that thought and life may
some day on this earth be reduced to organic order and harmony may
be Utopian, but is it one so grotesque that it need arouse the tiresome
horseplay of every literary trifler? And though there be men so un
wise as to search after this Sangreal in a moral and intellectual re
form, is their dream so anti-social as to justify an organized hostility
which amounts to oppression? Incessant attempts to crush by the
weight of invective, fair or unfair, a new system of philosophy, which
appeals solely to opinion, and which numbers but a handful of adher
ents for the most part engaged in study, are not the highest forms of
intelligent criticism. Positivism as a system has nothing to say to any
but the very few who are at once disbelievers in the actual systems of
faith and life, and are believers in the possibility of such a system in
the future. To the few who seek it, it presents a task, as it fairly warns
them, requiring prolonged patience and labor. The rest it will scarcely
�56
THE
POSITIVIST PROBLEM.
trouble unless they seek it; and perhaps it will be better that they
should leave it alone. Little can come of eternally discussing the solu
tion of a problem which men have no wish to see solved, or of multi
plying objections to what they have no mind to investigate.
Positivism, then, consists of a philosophy, a religion, and a polity;
and to regard it as being any one of these three singly, or to criticise
any one of them separately, is simple waste of time. Its first axiom is,
that all of these spheres of life suffer from their present disorder, because
hitherto no true synthesis has been found to harmonize them. This
axiom is obviously one which must meet with opposition, and in any
case be very slowly accepted. The very notion of system and organiza
tion implies subordination in the parts, submission to control, and
mutual concession. The unbounded activity, independence, and free
dom of the present age, not to say its anarchy and incoherence, quiver,
it seems, in every nerve at the least show of discipline. Yet any species
of organization involve discipline, and any discipline involves some re
straint. Of course, therefore, any scheme to organize thought and life
presented in an age of boundless liberty and individualism meets oppo
sition at every point. To show that Positivism involves a systematic
control over thought and life is not an adequate answer to it. To prove
of a new system that it is a system is not a final settling the question
until you have first proved that no system can be good. All civilizartion and every religion, all morality and every kind of society, imply
some restraint and subordination. The question—and it is a question
which cannot be decided off-hand—is whether more is implied in the
system of Positivism than is involved in the very notion of a synthesis,
or a harmony co-extensive with human life.
It is worthy of notice how entirely new to modern thought is this
cardinal idea of Positivism—that of religion, science, and industry
working in one common life—how little such an idea can be grasped *
in the light of the spirit of the day! Yet so far is it from being an
extravagant vision, that it sleeps silently in the depths of every brain
which ever looks into the future of the race. None but they who dwell
with regret on the past, or are engrossed in the cares of the present,
doubt but what the time will come when the riddle of social life will be
read, and the powers of man work in unison together; when thought
shall be the prelude only to action or to art, and action and art be but
the realization of affection and emotion; when brain, heart, and will
have but one end, and that end be the happiness of man on earth.
And thus while priest, professor, and politician forswear the scheme
which Positivism offers, and society resounds with criticism and refu
tation, none believe it overcome or doubt its vitality; for it remains
the only conception which pretends to satisfy an undying aspiration
of the soul.
Whether the pursuit of system or harmony be carried out by Comte
extravagantly or not is, no doubt, a question of the first importance.
�t
THE
ii a
pa
R
p
r
B
POSITIVIST PROBLEM.
57
It is certainly one which there is no intention of discussing here. But
in any case it is not to be decided lightly. Mr. Mill, as has been said,
has argued this question-with all that power which in him is exceeded
only by his candor. But which of the other critics have done the
like ? A criticism like that of Mr. Mill is a totally different thing,
and worthy of all attention. Nor must it be forgotten how largely, in
criticising Positivism, he accepts its substantial bases. Nothing can
be more disingenuous than to appeal to the authority of Mr. Mill as
finally disposing of the social philosophy of Comte, when Mr. Mill has
adhered to so much of the chief bases of that philosophy in general,
and has warmly justified some of the most vital features of the social
system. A system may be false, but it is not false solely because it is a
system. It might very possibly be that harmony had only been
attained by Positivism at the expense of truth or life, by doing violence
to the facts of Nature, or by destroying liberty of action. But this is
a matter depending so much on a multitude of combined arguments
and on such general considerations, that it can be decided only after
long and patient study. It clearly cannot be done piecemeal or at first
sight. And of all questions is the one in which haste and exaggeration
are most certain to mislead.
Let us follow a little further each of the three sides of Positivism—
the Philosophy, the Religion, the Polity—in order, but not independ
ently, so as to put before us the goal they propose to win and the main
obstacles in their path. The grand end which it proposes to philosophy
is to give organic unity to the whole field of our conceptions, whether
in the material or in the moral world, to order all branches of knowl
edge into their due relations, and hence to classify the sciences. Even
if the unthinking were to regard this project as idle or extravagant,
every instructed mind well knows that it is involved in the very nature
of philosophy, and has been its dream from the first. Can it be neces
sary to argue that the very meaning of philosophy is to give system to
our thoughts ? What are laws of nature but generalizations ? what
are generalizations but a multitude of facts referred to a common
idea ? what is science but the bringing the manifold under the one ?
Knowledge itself is but the study of relations; and the highest knowl
edge, the study of the ultimate relations.
And as science has no meaning but the systematizing of separate
ideas, so the grand systematizing of all ideas has been the ceaseless aim
of philosophy. What else were the strange but luminous hypotheses
of the early Greeks? what else was the colossal task of Aristotle?
what else that of the elder Bacon and his coevals, of the other Bacon,
of Descartes, of Leibnitz, of the Encyclopaedists, of Hegel ?
That order is the ultimate destiny of all our knowledge is so ob
vious that the effort to found it at once can be met only by one objec
tion worthy of an answer, and that is that the aim is premature. It is
very easy to see that the earlier attempts, when even astronomy was in
�58
THE POSITIVIST PROBLEM.
complete and the moral sciences outside the pale of law, were utterly
premature. But whether the task is premature now is entirely dif
ferent. After all, it is one of those questions which no a priori argu
ment can affect. It is not premature if it can be even approximately
done. Yet the mere suggestion of it arouses a myriad-headed oppo
sition. In every science and every sub-section of a science a specialist
starts forth to tell us that generations of observers are needed to ex
haust even his own particular corner in the field of knowledge. And
if one science is to become but the instrument of another, if one kind
of inquiry is to be subordinated to another, we should fetter, they tell
us, the freedom which has led to so many brilliant discoveries, and
leave unsolved many a curious problem.
The answer of Positivism is simply this: If the systematizing of
knowledge will be premature before all this is accomplished, it will
always be premature. The end for which we are to wait is one utterly
chimerical. No doubt there are no bounds to knowledge, any more
than there are bounds to the universe. As Aristotle says, thus one
would go on for ever without result; so that the search will be fruitless
and vain. Nay, if we go by quantity, estimate our knowledge now as
compared with the facts of the universe, we are but children still play
ing on the shore of an infinite sea. If, before philosophy can be
formed into a systematic whole, every phenomenon which the mind
can grasp in the inorganic or in the organic world has to be first ex
amined—every atom which microscope can detect, every nebula which
telescope can reach—if every living thing has to be analyzed down to
the minutest variation of its tissues, from infinitesimal protozoa to
palaeontologic monsters—if every recorded act, word, or thought of
men has to be first exhausted before the science of sciences can begin
—the task is hopeless, for the subject is infinite. A life of toil may
be baffled by the problems to be found in one drop of turbid water.
Ten generations of thinkers might perish before they had succeeded in
explaining all that it is conceivable science might detect on a withered
leaf. And whole academies of historians would not suffice fully to
raise the veil that shrouds a single human life.
Were science pursued indefinitely on this scale, not only would the
earth not contain all the books that should be written, but no conceivable
brain could grasp, much less organize, the infinite maze. The task of
organization would thus be made more hopeless each day, and philos
ophy would be as helpless as Xerxes in the midst of his countless
hosts. The radical difference between the point of view of the positive
and the current philosophy, that which feeds the internecine conflict
between them, is that between the relative and the absolute. Looked
at from the absolute point of view—that is, as the phenomena of mat
ter and life present themselves from without—the task of exhausting
I he knowledge of them is truly infinite, and that of systematizing them
is truly hopeless. From the relative point of view philosophy is called
�THE P OSITIVIST PROBLEM.
59
on to exist, not for its own sake, but as the immediate minister of life.
To utilize it, and to organize in order to utilize it, is of far higher im
portance than to extend it. It judges the value of truths, not by the
degree of intellectual brilliancy they exhibit, or the delight they afford
to the imagination, but by their relation, in a broad sense, to the prob
lem of human happiness. Till this great problem is nearer its solution,
Positivism is content to leave many a problem yet unsolved and many
a discovery unrevealed. It sees life to be surrounded by such problems
as by an atmosphere “ measureless to man; ” for life rests ever like an
island girt by an ocean of the Insoluble, and hangs like our own planet,
a firm and solid spot suspended in impenetrable space.
What is the test of true knowledge, when phenomena, facts, and
therefore truths, are actually infinite? The fact that this or that gas
has been detected in a fixed star is, no doubt, a brilliant discovery in
the absolute point of view; but, in the relative, it might possibly turn
out to be a mere feat of scientific gymnastic—the answer to a scientific
puzzle. The discoverer of many a subtle problem may be, absolutely
speaking, entitled to the honor of mankind; but relatively, if his
problem is valueless, he may have been wasting his time and his
powers. Hence the special professors of every science are the first to
resent the principles and the judgments of the relative mode of
thought. They cannot endure that their intellectual achievements
should be judged by any but scientific standards, or their inquiries
directed by any but scientific motives. The whole conception of the
relative method differs from theirs. It calls for the solution first of
those problems in each science which a systematic philosophy of them
all indicates as the most fruitful sources of inquiry: it enjoins the fol
lowing of one study and science for the sake of and as minister to
another, and of all for the sake of establishing a rational basis for human
life and activity. And this not in the vague general spirit that all
knowledge is good, and all discoveries useful to man, and no one can
tell which or how. The same objection was brought against Aristotle
and Bacon when they proposed their Organa, or clues to inquiry. All
truths may have some value, but they are not equally valuable. The
claim of the relative is to test their value by a system of referring them
to human necessities. It sees the life of man stumbling and wander
ing for the want of a foundation and guide of certain and organized
knowledge. Each hour the want of a rational philosophy to direct and
control our social activity is more pressing, yet the absolute spirit in
science, vain-glorious and unmindful of its function, shakes off the idea
of a yoke-fellow, and widens the gulf between thought and life by soli
tary flights amidst worlds of infinite phenomena.
It is sometimes pretended—it must be said rather perversely—that
this relative conception of science is akin to the stifling of thought by
the Catholic Church. It is of course true that the Holy Inquisition,
like most dominant religions, did claim the right, in virtue of its
�60
THE POSITIVIST PROBLEM.
divine mission, of dictating to the intellect certain subjects as forbid
den ground, and warning it off from these limits; it dictated to the
intellect the conclusions which it was required to establish, and the
methods it was permitted to use—and this not on intellectual, but on
religious and supernatural grounds. Positivism neither dictates to the
intellect nor hampers its activity. It calls on it on grounds of philos
ophy, and on demonstrable principles, to work in its own free light;
but by that light, and at its own discretion, to choose those spheres and
to follow those methods that shall combine harmoniously with a scheme
of active life as systematic as itself. This is utterly distinct from the
slavery of the mind, according to the Catholic or any other religious
notion. The comparison is as simple a sophistry as to argue that it is
slavery in the will deliberately to follow the dictates of conscience.
No one who has given the subject a second thought can suppose
that Positivism, in bringing the intellect into intimate union with the
other sides of human nature for the direct object of human happiness,
intends thereby to confine it to the material uses of life, or to refer
every thought to some immediate practical end. The former is mere
materialism ; the second simple empiricism; and both utterly unphilosophical. On the contrary, by far the noblest part of the task of the
mind is to minister to moral and spiritual needs. And by far the most
of its efforts are employed in strengthening its own powers, and amass
ing the materials for long series of deductions. Philosophy, as Positiv
ism conceives it, would annihilate itself by becoming either material
or empirical. Its business is to systematize the highest results of
thought; but those results are the highest which are most essential
to, and can be assimilated best by, human life as a whole.
And
no system can be the true one but as it orders all thoughts in rela
tion, first to each other, and, secondly, in relation to every power of
man.
Can it be needful again to say that the attempt of Positivism to
systematize the sciences is very far from implying that there is but one
science and one method, or that it would reduce all knowledge to one
set of laws. Its chief task has been to show the boundaries of the
sciences, to classify the different methods appropriate to each, and to
point out how visionary are all attempts at ultimate generalizations.
When men of science tell us that processes of reasoning are used indis
criminately in all sciences, and that all scientific questions are ulti
mately referable to one set of laws, they are going back to the infancy
of philosophy, effacing all that has been done to analyze reasoning, and
attempting, as of old, to reach some chimerical, because universal,
principle. It is but the materialist phase of the metaphysical problem.
Supposing all questions of science, including all social questions, as has
been proposed, not apparently in jest, could be reduced to questions of
molecular physics, how would this serve human life more than if they
were reduced to air, water, or fire ? The end of specialism is at hand
�THE
POSITIVIST PROBLEM.
61
if science is looking for some ultimate principle of the universe. The
search is equally unpractical, whether it be pursued by crude guessing
or by microscopes and retorts. It would not help us if we knew it;
and as Aristotle says of Plato’s idea, the highest principle would
contain none under it. It would be so general as to support no prac
tical derivatives. Like all extreme abstractions, it would bear no fruit.
Turn on whichever side we will, we meet this conflict between the
relative and the absolute point of view. The absolute burns for new
worlds to conquer; the relative insists that the empire already won,
before all things, be reduced to order, and knowledge systematized in
order to be applied. The absolute calls us to admire its brilliant dis
coveries ; the relative regrets that such efforts were not spent in dis
covering the needful thing. The absolute claims entire freedom for
itself; the relative asks that its labors be directed to a systematic end.
It is the old question between individual and associated effort—the
spontaneous and the disciplined—the special and the general point of
view'. We might imagine the case of a general with a genius for war,
such as Hannibal or Napoleon, carrying on a campaign with a hetero
geneous host and a staff of specialist subordinates. He desires to learn
the shape of a country, the powers of his artillery, the fortification of
his camp, or the engineering of his works. He seeks to master each
of these arts himself, so far as he has means, and for his ultimate end.
But with his specialists he wages a constant struggle. His geographer
has a thousand points still to observe to complete his survey. His en
gineers start curious problems in physics, and each science has its own
work, as each captain of irregulars may have his pet plan. It may be
true that much may be needed before any of the branches can be
thoroughly done ; and the scheme of some subordinate officer might
possibly destroy a certain number of the enemy. But the true general
knows that all these things are good only in a relative manner. His
end is victory, or rather conquest.
Thus it is not only intelligible, but quite inevitable, that Positivism
should meet the stoutest opposition from the science of the day, not
only in details and in estimates, but even in general conceptions, and
yet not be unscientific. The strictures of men even really eminent in
special departments are precisely what every system must encounter
which undertakes the same task. That all such should make them,
more especially if they be inclined to theology, or devotees of individ
ualism, is so entirely natural that any answer in detail must be an end
less task. By their fruits you shall know them. Let us see them pro
duce a system of thought more harmonious in itself and more applica
ble to the whole of human life. Every new philosophy which proposes to
change the very point of view of thought has always incurred fierce oppo
sition. Every new religion and social system has seemed to its predeces
sors an evil and cruel dream. How much more a system which involves
at once a new philosophy, a new religion, and a new society; which brings
�62
THE POSITIVIST PROBLEM.
to thought a change greater than that wrought by Bacon or Descartes;
which draws a spiritual bond vaster and deeper than that which was
conceived by Paul, and founds a social system that differs from our own
more than the modern differs from the ancient world.
Whether the actual solution of the problem of systematizing thought
as worked out by Comte in all its sides, his statement of natural laws,
and his classification of the sciences, be adequate or true, is a matter
which it is far from our present purpose to discuss. It would be for
eign to our immediate aim, and impossible within our present limits.
But there is a stronger reason. It would be simple charlatanry in one
without due scientific education to undertake such a task as that of
examining and reviewing a complete encyclopaedia of science. The
natural philosophy of Comte is a matter which no one could undertake
to justify in all its bearings without a systematic study of each science
in turn. Looking at it from the point of view of philosophy, and with
that relative spirit which the sense of social necessities involves, a dili
gent student of the system, who seeks to satisfy his mind on it as a
whole, can form a sufficient opinion, at least so far as to compare its
results with any other before us. After very carefully considering the
strictures passed on Comte’s classification of the sciences and his state
ment of the principal laws, it does not appear to the writer that one of
them will hold. If we are to shelter ourselves under authority, we may
be content with that of M. Littré, Mr. Mill, and Mr. Lewes. We are
too apt to forget the great distinction between philosophy and science,
and the paramount title of the former. Men of science are far too
ready to decide matters of philosophy by their own lights, matters
which depend far less on knowledge of special facts than on the gen
eral laws and history of thought, and even of society. Nor does there
appear to be any weight in some strictures which have recently been
published in this Review on the positive law of the three stages and the
classification of the sciences, the greater part of which objections have
been already anticipated and refuted by Mr. Mill—part of which are
obvious misconceptions of Comte, and part are transparent sophisms.
On the whole, it may be fairly left to any one who seriously seeks for a
philosophy of science, and is prepared to seek it with that patience
and breadth of view which such a purpose requires, to decide for him
self if he can discover any other solution of the problem, the general
co-ordination of knowledge as a basis of action.
Let us now for a moment turn to the system viewed as a religion,
not with the slightest intention of reviewing it, much less of advocating
it, but simply to see what it is, and what it proposes to do. Its funda
mental notion is that no body of truth, however complete, can effect
ually enlighten human life; no system of society can be stable or
sound without a regular power of acting on the higher emotions.
There are in human nature capacities which will not be second, and
cannot be dispensed with. There are instincts of self-devotion and of
�THE POSITIVIST PROBLEM.
63
sympathy, love, veneration, and beneficence, which ultimately control
human life, and alone can give it harmony. Though not the most
active either in the individual character, or even in the social, these
powers are in the long run supreme, because they are those only to
which the rest can permanently and harmoniously submit. Each sepa
rate soul requires, to give unity to the exercise of its powers, a motive
force outside of itself: for the highest of its powers are instinctively
turned to objects without. The joint action of every society is in the
long run due to sympathy, and to common devotion to some power on
which the whole depends. There thus arises a threefold work to be
accomplished—to give unity to the individual powers; to bind up the
individuals into harmonious action ; to keep that action true and per
manent—unity, association, discipline. Without this the most elabo
rate philosophy might become purely unpractical or essentially im
moral, the most active of societies thoroughly corrupt or oppressive,
and the result throughout the whole sphere of life—discord. Nothing
but the emotions remain as the original motive force of life in all its
sides; and none of the emotions but one can bring all the rest and all
other powers into harmony, and that is the devotion of all to a power
recognized as supreme. To moralize both Thought and Action, by
inspiring Thought with an ever-present social motive, by making
Action the embodiment only of benevolence—such is the aim of reli
gion as Positivism conceives it.
Now, without debating whether the mode in which Positivism
would affect this be true or not, adequate or not, it is plainly what
every system of religion in its higher forms has aimed at. And accord
ingly we see the singular attraction which this side of Positivism pos
sesses for many orthodox Christians. It is entirely their own claim;
and, indeed, there nowhere exists in the whole range of theological phil
osophy an argument on the necessity for and nature of religion in the
abstract at all to be compared with that in the second volume of the
“ Politique Positive.” Passing over the question whether Positivism
has carried out this aim by methods either arbitrary or excessive, it is
plain that every system which can claim to be an organized religion at
all, has had a body of doctrine, a living object of devotion, observances
of some kind, and an associated band of teachers. It is not easy to see
how there could be anything to be rightly called a religion without them,
or something with equivalent effect. A mere idea is not a religion,
such as that of the various neo-Christian and Deist schools.
The hostility, therefore, which the religious scheme of Positivism
awakens is one involved of necessity in the undertaking, and should
count for very little until it is seen that its critics are prepared fairly
to consider any such scheme at all. Those who are most disposed to
feel any interest in the scientific or political doctrines of Positivism
are just those who almost to a man reject worship, Church, and religion
altogether. This, for the most part, they have done, not on any gen
�64
THE
POSITIVIST PROBLEM.
eral philosophical reasons, but simply from antipathy to those forms of
devotion they find extant. Whether, in rejecting the actual forms of
them now or hitherto presented, the very spirit of these institutions
can be eliminated from human nature and from society, is a question
which they care neither to ask nor to answer. But in treating of the
Positive, or any scheme of religion, this is the question at issue. Nor
must it be forgotten that so much is the vital spirit of all religious
institutions extinct in modern thought, that even if the doctrines and
ceremonies of existing churches escape ridicule by virtue of habit and
association, forms less familiar, however rational in themselves, would
be certain to appear ridiculous, as doctrines far more intelligible and
capable of proof would appear chimerical to men accustomed to listen
calmly even to the Athanasian Creed.
Fully to conceive the task which Positivism as a religion has set
itself to accomplish, much more fairly to judge how its task has been
done, requires the mind to be placed in a point of view very different
from that of the actual moment. How little could the most cultivated
men of antiquity, who never looked into the inner life of their time,
estimate the force of early Christianity, or the most religious minds of
the middle ages accept the results of modern enlightenment! What
an effort of candor and patience would it have proved to any of these
men to do justice to the system which was to supersede theirs, even if
presented to their minds in its entirety and its highest form 1 It is
inherent in the nature of every scheme which involves a great social
change that it should bring into play or into new life powers of man
kind hitherto dormant or otherwise directed. Whether it be right in
so doing, or whether it do so to any purpose, is the question to decide;
but it is a question the most arduous which can be put to the intelligence,
and involves protracted labor and inexhaustible candor. Random criti
cism of any new scheme of religious union is of all things the most
easy and the most worthless. It can only amuse the leisure of a trifler,
but it deserves neither thought nor answer. Positivism in the plainest
way announces what is its religious aim and basis. The partisans of
the actual creeds may of course resist it by any means they think best.
But as it certainly does not seek them, nor address any who are at rest
within their folds, they cannot fairly complain of being scandalized by
what they may find in it for themselves. Those who attack it from
independent grounds show but small self-respect if they do so without
accepting the first condition of their own good faith, which is patiently
to weigh it as a whole. And those who fairly intend to consider it to
any purpose may be assured that they are undertaking a very long and
perplexing task; that much of it must necessarily seem repugnant to
our intellectual tone. A system which professes to be co-extensive
with life and based upon proof would be mere imposture if it could be
accepted off-hand as true or false, if it did more than assert and illus
trate general principles, or if it ended in closing the mind and leaving
�THE
POSITIVIST PROBLEM.
65
man but a machine. The real point in issue is whether it be possible
to direct mankind by a religion of social duty, if humanity as a whole—
past, present, and to come—can inspire a living devotion, capable of
permanently concentrating the highest forces of the soul; whether it
be possible to maintain such a religion by appropriate observances and
an organized education. This is the true problem for any serious
inquirer, and not whether a number of provisions admittedly sub
ordinate approve themselves to the first glance. To travestie a new
system by exaggerating or isolating its details is a task as easy as it
is shallow.
In its third aspect—that is, as a polity—what is it that Positivism
proposes ? It is a political system in harmony with a corresponding
social and industrial system, tempered by a practical religion, and based
upon a popular education. The leading conception is to subordinate
politics to morals by bringing the practical life into accord with the
intellectual and the emotional. The first axiom, therefore, is this—
that permanent political changes cannot be effected without previous
social and moral changes. This is a scheme which may be said to be
wholly new in political philosophy. Every political system of modern
times hitherto has proposed to produce its results by legislative, or at
all events by practical changes, and has started from the point of view
that the desired end could be obtained if the true political machinery
could be hit upon. It is the starting-point of Positivism that no machinery whatever can effect' the end without a thorough regeneration
of the social system; and when that is done, the machinery becomes
of less importance. The principal thing, then, will be to have the ma
chinery as simple and as efficient as possible. Political action, like all
practical affairs, must in the main depend on the practical instinct.
And the chief care will be to give the greatest scope for the rise and
activity of such powers. But as the social system is to be recast, not
by the light of the opinion of the hour, but by a study of the human
powers as shown over their widest field, so the leading principles in
politics will find their rational basis in no corner of modern civilization,
but in the history of the human l’ace as a whole and a complete analy
sis of the human capacities.
Let us see what this involves. From the nature of its aim it can
not be revolutionary in the ordinary sense. The very meaning of revo
lution is a radical and sudden change in the constitution of the state.
Now, apart from its condemnation of all revolutionary methods, Posi
tivism insists that all political changes so made must prove abortive.
But, besides this, it repudiates disorder as invariably evil, and insists
that every healthy movement is nothing but the development of the
past. But at the same time the change to which it looks is of the
greatest extent and importance. It is thus the only systematic attempt
to conciliate progress and order, one which effects revolutionary ends by
a truly conservative spirit. Of all charges, therefore, that could be
�66
THE
POSITIVIST PROBLEM.
made against Positivism, that of being anarchical is the most super
ficial. The attempt to connect it with disorder and sedition is scan
dalously unjust. To the charge of being reactionary the best answer is
a simple statement of the future to which it looks forward. That it
contemplates a benevolent despotism is an idle sneer, for it conceives
the normal condition of public life as one in which the influence of
public opinion is at its maximum, and the sphere of government at
its minimum.
But just in proportion to the width of the system on which Positive
politics rest is the degree of opposition which it awakens. Adapting to
itself portions from each of the rival systems, it alienates each of them
in turn. It is impossible to do justice to the greatness o£*past ages, and
still more to revive anything from them, without offering a rock of
offence to all the revolutionary schools. And it.is impossible to pro
pose a reorganization of society at all without alarming the conserva
tive. These alternations of interest in and antipathy towards Positivist
politics, these bitter attacks, these contradictory charges, belong of
necessity to the undertaking, and need surprise no one. But those who
profess to know what they undertake to criticise, those to whom all
matters human and divine are open questions, who spend their time
but to hear or to tell some new thing, such, one would think, would be
careful that they understand the conditions on which a new system of
thought is based.
This hasty outline of the task which Positivism undertakes—the
mere statement of its problem—may suffice to explain the continual
interest it excites, and also the incessant hostility it meets. Let any
one fairly ask himself—if it be possible to accomplish such a task at all
without necessarily provoking a storm of opposition, and if the success
of the system as a whole could possibly be estimated without a patience
which, it may be said, it almost never receives. The mere variety of
the objects which it attempts to combine, while interesting men of the
most opposite views, of necessity presents to each some which utterly
repel him. It is impossible to reconcile a Babel of ideas without for
cing on each hearer many which he is accustomed to repudiate. The
man of science, who is attracted by the importance given to the physi
cal laws, starts back when it is proposed to extend these laws to the
science of society. The student of history, who sees the profound truth
of the philosophy of history, is scandalized by the very idea of a creed
of scientific proof. The politician foi* a time is held by the vision it
presents of social reforms, but he is disgusted at hearing that he must
take lessons from the past. The conservative delights to find his an
cient institutions so truly honored, to be shocked when he finds that
they are honored only that they may be the more thoroughly trans
formed. The man of religion is touched to find in such a quarter a
profound defence of worship and devotion, only to be struck dumb
with horror at a religion of mere humanity. The democrat, who hails
�THE POSITIVIST PROBLEM.
67
the picture of a regenerated society, turns with scorn from an attempt
to lay the bases of temporal and spiritual „authority. The reactionist
fares no better; for if he finds some comfort in the new importance
given to order, he dreads the results of an unqualified trust in popular
education and the constant appeal to public opinion. Those whom the
philosophy attracts, the religion repels. Those whom the moral the
ories strike shrink back from the science. Those who believe in the
forces of religion are no friends of scientific laws. Those who care most
for the progress of science are the first to be jealous of moral control.
It is simply impossible, therefore, to address with effect all of these
simultaneously without in turn wounding prejudices dear to each. It
could not be that the sciences could be organized without hurting the
susceptibilities of specialists everywhere, and it is the spirit of our time
to create specialists. To bridge over the vast chasm between the Past and
the Future, to co-ordinate the opinions and the emotions, to satisfy the
heart as well as the brain, to reconcile truth with feeling, duty with
happiness, the individual with society, fact and hope, order with
progress, religion with science, is no simple task. The task may be
looked on as hopeless, the solution of it may be derided as extravagant;
but if it were presented to men “ by an angel from heaven,” it would
sound strange to the bulk of hearers, men to whom such a notion is
alien, who have sympathy neither with the object nor the mode of pur
suing it. Hence the unthinking clamor which Positivism excites. To
the pure conservative it offers a fair mark for fierce denunciation. To
the jester it offers an opening for easy ridicule, for it offers to him
many things on which he has never thought. But by a critic of any
self-respect or intelligence it must be treated thoroughly, or not at all.
There are persons devoid of any solid knowledge, of the very shreds of
intellectual convictions, of any germ of social or religious sympathies,—
specialists ex hypothesis—to whom a serious effort to grapple with the
great problem of Man on earth is but the occasion for a cultivated
sneer, or a cynical appeal to the prejudices of the bigot. Non ragioniam di lor.
It must be plain to any one who gives all this a fair judgment that
the students of Comte could not possibly suffice for all such contro
versies, were they ten times as numerous as they are. The critics of
Positivism attack on a hundred quarters, and with every weapon, at
once. Only those who seriously interest themselves in the progress of
thought must remember that they are continually listening to mere
travesties, which it is worth no man’s while to expose, and to criticisms
which no one cares to answer. They would have only themselves to
blame if they choose to suppose that no answer could be given. Now
and then some striking case of misrepresentation has to be dealt with ;
but, as a rule, the students of Comte are of necessity otherwise engaged.
Controversy is alien to the whole genius of Positivism, for the range
of objections in detail is entirely infinite. Positivism must make way,
�68
THE
POSITIVIST PROBLEM.
if at all, like all efforts at construction, by its synthetic force, by its co
herence, and its fitness for the situation. If it has this, it can be
neither hindered nor promoted by any controversy, however brilliant as
a performance.
It is not an infrequent comment that the points of the Positive sys
tem are so widely remote and heterogeneous, that it appears somewhat
discursive. They are no doubt far apart from each other, and appar
ently, perhaps, disconnected. But it would be a most superficial view
to regard them as desultory. Now and then these principles are heard
of m matters of practical politics,—now in pure science, in religion, in
industry, in history, or in philosophy. But this is a necessity of the
case, and is a consequence of the connection between all these, which it
is the aim of Positivism to enforce, and of their general dependence on
common intellectual foundations. Its great principle is, that the errors
hitherto committed are due to the separate treatment of these cognate
phases of life and thought. And if it treats in turn very different sub
jects, it is by virtue of this very doctrine that each must be viewed in
its relation to the other. That individuals defending these principles
wander out of their course, and fall into inconsistencies, is their weak
ness, not that of the system. Positivism itself stands like an intrenched
camp, presenting a continuous chain of works to the beleaguring forces
around. Within its own circle the system of defence communicates
immediately to, and radiates from, its centre, while the attack, being
unorganized and ranged in a circle without, is spread over a vastly
greater area. It stands as yet almost entirely by the strength of its own
walls and the completeness of its works, and not by that of its defenders
within.
Metaphor apart, let any one in common fairness consider what stu
dents of Comte have to meet. The philosophical basis alone covers a
ground far apart from the ordinary education so wide that nothing but
general views of it can be possible. To be intelligently convinced of
the truth of the Positive Philosophy in a body in such a way as to be a
capable exponent, requires, first, a previous preparation which very few
have gained; and, secondly, a weighing of the system by that knowl
edge step by step, in bulk and in detail, which perhaps not five men in
this country have chosen to give. It need not be said that the present
writer has as little pretension to belong to one class as to the other.
But there is no reason why men, positivist in spirit and in general aim,
should feel bound to defend every point in turn in a vast body of phil
osophy for which they are not responsible, and which in its entirety
they do not pretend to teach. A student of Positivism may hold that
which he believes to be true without being concerned to maintain every
suggestion of Comte’s, which to the infinite wisdom of some critics
may appear ridiculous. Deductions of the kind they are fond of treat
ing are just what a serious student bent on mastering a body of prin
ciples leaves as open or indifferent matters, and trusts to the future to
�THE POSITIVIST PROBLEM.
69
decide. Besides, even on the assumption that many of these deduc
tions, and even some of these principles, were preposterous or false, still,
as Mr. Mill has well pointed out, the same might be said of every known
philosopher. Aristotle, Bacon, and Descartes have sown their whole
works broadcast'with the wildest blunders. What a flood of cheap rid
icule their contemporary critics had at their command I What a mass
of absurdity might not a smart reader discover who for the first time
were to glance through the Ethics of Aristotle, or the Organum of
Bacon 1 Yet even if the system of Comte were as full of absurdities as
those of these philosophers—which I am far from conceding—this
would not prevent his philosophy from being as valuable a step in
thought as any of the three. There seems a disposition to force men
who become students of Comte and accept generally the Positive sys
tem, as they might in their day have accepted the Aristotelian or the
Baconian philosophy, to defend every statement of Comte’s, as if it were
a question of verbal inspiration. It seems that men in this country
are at liberty to profess themselves adherents of every system of thought
but one. A man may—one or two do—study and uphold the princi
ples of Hegel. Benthamism is a creed with living disciples. Mr. Mill
may be called the chief of a school. A fair field is open to all of these,
at least in any field which is open to freedom of thought. But if a
man ventures to treat a public question avowedly from the Positive
point of view, he is assailed by professed friends to free inquiry as if he
were an enemy of the human race, to whom the ordinary courtesies are
denied; and some of the commonest names that he will hear for him
self are atheist, fanatic, and conspirator.
Respecting the actual adherents of Comte, perhaps a few words
may be permitted, and, indeed, a few are required. It is not usual in
this country to “ picket ” the ordinary doings of a school in politics or
opinion, even though you do happen to differ from them. But in the
case of Positivism it seems to be thought allowable to dispense with
such scruples. Accordingly, the most ordinary utterance of one of
those whom they dub as a member of the school is at once set down by
anonymous persons as some fresh act of what they are pleased to call
" this malignant sect.” The mode in use is a very old, a very simple,
but not a very candid plan: it consists only in this—the describing
every one who has adopted any Positivist principle as a professed disci
ple of Comte; next, of attributing to each of such persons everything
that any of them or that Comte has at any time countenanced; and
lastly, of ascribing to Positivism and to Comte, every act and almost
every word of any of these persons. And the world seems to relish
any preposterous bit of gossip about Positivist churches and ceremo
nies, schemes, plots, and what not 1 One can hardly keep one’s coun
tenance in doing it, but it seems necessary to state that all this illnatured gossip is the childish stuff such gossip invariably is. As to
telling the world anything about the “ sect ”—“ malignant ” or other
�70
THE POSITIVIST PROBLEM.
wise—there is nothing to tell. Whatever else may be true about Posi
tivism, publicity is its very essence—vivre au grand jour—in thought,
word, and deed, according to the motto of Comte; and every act and
statement it makes is open to any one who cares to look. The utmost
publicity about persons, congregations, rites, and preaching, by all
means. But the gossip need not be untrue as well as impertinent. As
is well known, Dr. Richard Congreve, who has adopted the system and
practice of Comte in its entirety, has occasionally made an address to
a small audience, and has subsequently published his discourse. He
has also from time to time given a course of lectures open to the
public. Those who like himself definitely accept Positivism as a re
ligion, and regard themselves as a community, of whom it should be
said the present writer is not one, occasionally have met together. But
the various observances instituted by Comte are scarcely practicable
here. It is obvious that it must be so. A religion, a worship, and an
education such as Comte conceived them, are not possible in all their
completeness without a body of persons and families steadily desirous
of observing them. It need hardly be said that the materials for this
do not as yet exist in this country. A system like Positivism does not
easily receive complete adherents. It is not like any of the religious,
political, or socialist systems—like Swedenborgianism or CornmnuiRm
—a simple doctrine capable of awakening a dominant fanaticism. It
cannot possibly be preached beside a hedge or in a workshop, and gain
converts by the score, like Methodism or Chartism. To promulgate it
duly requires a fresh education, followed by a long course of systematic
meditation. To form an honest and solid conviction upon a body of
philosophy thus encyclopedic requires years of study. Accordingly,
the number of those who have completely accepted the system of
Comte as a religion, among whom it has been said the present writer
cannot count himself, is small. To treat every student of Positivism
and avowed adherent of Comte’s system as a member of a sort of
secret society, and then to pretend that this supposed society is engaged
in a series of religious and political plots, the amusement of some
busybodies, is an idle impertinence. These tales are worthy only of an
imperialist journal describing an apparition of the Spectre Rouge.
The fact that there are men not so nervously afraid of being associated
with an unpopular cause as to be engaging in constant controversy or
defence, is no honest ground for including them in a body to which
they do not belong, for fastening on them any design, whether they
have countenanced it or not, and any opinion,whether they adopt it or
not. That there are men who think it their duty to say plainly what
they think, and to say it always under the guarantee of their own
names, is no good cause, though it makes it easy for masked opponents,
to eke out the argumentum ad rationem by a free use of the argumen
tum ad hominem. If all such attacks, which are the portion of any
man who dares to treat a question from the Positivist point of view,
�THE
POSITIV IST PROBLEM.
are for the most part unanswered and unnoticed, the reason most as
suredly is, not that they are true, but- that they are unworthy of
answer.
But enough of such matters. These petty questions of an hour
are but dust in the balance by which this question must be weighed.
However little it may be thought that Positivism has solved its
problem, it can hardly be said that the time is not ripe for its task,
that there is nothing that calls for solution. Into what a chaos and
deadlock is opinion reduced in spiritual as in practical things! Who
seriously looks for harmony to arise out of the Babel of sects which
have arisen amid the debris of the Catholic Church ? Or are any of
the Pantheist or Deist dreams more likely to give unity to the human
race ? The 'dogmas of Christianity have been by some refined and
adapted away until nothing is left of them but an aspiration. Qan an
aspiration master the wild confusion of brain and will ? And has even
the most unsparing of adaptations brought the ancient faith really
more near to true science or to active life ? To science, that which
cannot be reduced to law is that which cannot be known, and the un
knowable is a thing of naught. Activity on earth can be regulated
only by a real not a fictitious, a natural not a supernatural standard.
By their very terms, then, the various forms of spiritualism shut them
selves off from the world of knowledge and the world of action; and,
more or less distinctly, they assume an attitude of antagonism to
both.
And yet, on the other hand, is there any better prospect of harmony
in the ignoring of religion altogether? The men of science and of
action from time to time form desperate hopes for the triumph of their
own ideas and the ultimate extinction of religious sentiment. With
them it is a morbid growth of the human mind—a weakness bred of
ignorance or inaction. They chafe under the grossness of an age which
will not be content with the pure love of truth or with the fruits of
material success. Yet to how shallow and slight a hope do they trust!
Human nature under the influence of its deepest sentiments- venera-.
tion, adoration, and devotion—rises up from time to time, and snaps
their thin webs like tow. Errors a thousand times refuted spring up
again with new life. The instinct of religious feeling is paramount as
well as indestructible, and philosophy and politics are in turn con
founded by its force. It is an internecine struggle, in which they seem
fated eternally to contend, but in which neither can crush its op
ponent.
In political matters is there any foundation more sure ? Constitu
tions, suffrages, and governments are alike discredited. Some cry for
one reform, some for another; but where is the prospect of agreement ?
The best institutions of the age men cling to at most as stop-gaps, as
the practical solution of a shifting problem. But useful as they may
be, who believes in them as things of the future, destined to guide
�72
THE
POSITIVIST PROBLEM.
man’s course as a social being ? What a chaos of plans, nostrums, and
watch-cries ?—how little trust, or hope, or rest I
In things social is the prospect brighter? Is the question of rich
and poor, of labor and capital, of health and industry, of personal free
dom and public well-being, so much nearer to its answer than it was ?
With our great cities decimated by disease, famine, pauperism—with
the war of master and servant growing louder and deeper—the corrup
tion of industry increasing—and the whole world of commerce and
manufactures swept from time to time by hurricanes of ruin and
fraud,—is it a time tb indulge in visions of content? We all have
hope, it is true, in the force of civilization, in the noble elements of
progress, and in the destiny of the human race ; but by what patl^or
course they may arrive at the goal, what man shall say ?
In such a state of things Positivism comes forward with its system
of ideas, which, at the least, is comprehensive as well as uniform. To
some its solution may appear premature, to some incomplete, to others
erroneous. But what thoughtful mind, among those to whom the
social and religious forms of the past are no longer a living thing, can
honestly assert that no such problem as it attempts to solve exists at
all, or that this problem is already solved ?
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The positivist problem
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Harrison, Frederic
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [New York]
Collation: [49]-72 p. ; 26 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Extracted from Modern Thinker, no. 1, 1870. Printed in brown ink on green paper.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
[American News Company]
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
[1870]
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
G5415
Subject
The topic of the resource
Positivism
Philosophy
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (The positivist problem), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Language
A language of the resource
English
Conway Tracts
Positivism
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/bd7476f1dfcd5742ab857e7c57fabf5e.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=uAuQye1f8uoSIm8ATpgQDyyW0xyncZon%7E7cw8J2kpo7I1OtXdVsmMl-VK6GLAfkpu6EQCCv42yPT6q3S6nP6yDIpG3Y5cPbf35hYwS6JtKH9PSouAYqBkMcMOdBKk0qivxL7LilovY1MdSyYRQqsmGsbr-iJPGqxYVAS4WlZwOkSCoATzdBqukyyNDydEnjK8XZMt0PYFzO71U7E3PyW77XzXGiOUwqAFLTepkyCWGMXPd9KfOl8yLtzh59Pgqd5D5S%7E2YKd6hJjjBSgfWQo-ws%7E4mlACRFqM9MNKO5e3YyLAOrhD2A0W2FRJGfd35jHBiQIogOtWQ8oBoTPPBsnrQ__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
7faabb94e01617967c32587c91d457fd
PDF Text
Text
171.4
LVE
—......
=
The
Pleasures of Life
BY
THE RIGHT HON.
SIR JOHN LUBBOCK, BART., M.P.
F.R.S., D.C.L., LL.D.
Volition
MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited
1899
Price Sixpence
�9omp.
‘ Give me Health and a Day, and
I will make the Pomp of Emperors Ridiculous.’—Emerson.
“ As an illustration of the BENEFICIAL EFFECTS
of Eno’s ‘ Fruit Salt,’ I give you particulars of the case
of one of my friends. His whole life was clouded by the
want of vigorous health, and SLUGGISH LIVER and
its concomitant BILIOUS HEADACHES so affected
him, that he was obliged to live upon only a few articles
of diet, and to be most sparing in their use.
This did
nothing in effecting a cure, although persevered in for
some twenty-five years, and also consulting very eminent
members of the faculty.
By the use of your simple
‘Fruit Salt,’ however, he now ENJOYS VIGOROUS
HEALTH, has NEVER had HEADACHE or CONSTI
PATION since he commenced it, and can partake of his
food in such a hearty manner as to afford great satisfac
tion to himself and friends. There are others to whom
your remedy has been SO BENEFICIAL in various kinds
of complaints that I think you may very well extend its
use pro bono publico. I find that it makes a VERY
REFRESHING and INVIGORATING drink.—I remain,
dear Sir, yours faithfully, Veritas.” {From the late Rev.
J. TV. Neil, Holy Trinity Church, North Shields.}
Experience!
‘ Vie Gather the Honey of Wisdom
From Thorns, not from Flowers.’—Lytton.
HOW TO AVOID
The INJURIOUS EFFECTS OF STIMULANTS.
THE PRESENT SYSTEM OF LIVING—
partaking of too rich foods, as pastry, saccharine and fatty
substances, alcoholic drinks, and an insufficient amount of
exercise—FREQUENTLY DERANGES THE LIVER.
I would ADVISE all BILIOUS PEOPLE, unless they are careful to keep the liver acting
freely, to exercise great care in the use of alcoholic drinks; avoid sugar, and always dilute
largely with water.
EXPERIENCE SHOWS that porter, mild ales, port wine, dark
sherries, sweet champagne, liqueurs and brandies, are ALL very APT to DISAGREE;
while light white wines, and gin or old whisky largely diluted with pure mineral water, will
be found the least objectionable. ENO’S ‘ FRUIT SALT ’ is PECULIARLY ADAPTED
for any CONSTITUTIONAL WEAKNESS of the LIVER; it possesses the power of
reparation when digestion has been disturbed or lost, and PLACES the INVALID on the
RIGHT TRACK to HEALTH. A WORLD of WOES is avoided by those who KEEP
and USE ENO’S ‘FRUIT SALT.’
Therefore NO FAMILY SHOULD EVER BE
WITHOUT IT.
THE VALUE OF ENO’S ‘FRUIT SALT’ CANNOT BE TOLD.
Its Success in Europe, Asia, Africa, America, and Australia proves it.
The effect of ENO’S ‘ FRUIT SALT ’ upon any DISORDERED, SLEEPLESS,
and FEVERISH condition of the system is SIMPLY MARVELLOUS. It is, in fact,
NATURE’S OWN REMEDY, and AN UNSURPASSED ONE.
CAUTION.—See Capsule marked ENO'S 1 FRUIT SALT.' Without it you have a WORTHLESS IMITATION.
Prepared only by J. C. ENO, Ltd., at the1 FRUIT SALT ’ WORKS, London, by J. C. ENO’S Patent.
�1
If you want to preserve your hair and prevent baldness
YOU MUST USE
ROWLANDS’ MACASSAR OIL
some kind of grease ; cold water ruins the hair, and most hair restorers dry up
and wither it. All doctors will tell you that:
is the most perfect restorer, preserver, and strengthener of the hair you can use,
and being specially refined and purified, does not have the greasy effect of pomades
o’- other oils. It prevents baldness and eradicates scurf, and is also sold in a GOLDEN COLOUR
for fair and grey hair. Bottles, 3s. 6d., 7s., and 10s. 6d. Sold by Stores and Chemists.
NATIONAL PROVIDENT.
— INSTITUTION. FOR MUTUAL LIFE ASSURANCE.
PROFITS.—The whole are divided amongst the Assured; already divided, £5,400,000.
At the division in 1897 there were nearly 1000 Policies, in respect of which not only were the Premiums
entirely extinguished, but Cash Bonuses were also paid, whilst in the case of many Policies the original sums
assured are now more than doubled by the Bonus Additions.
ENDOWMENT-ASSURANCE POLICIES ARE ISSUED, COMBINING LIFE ASSURANCE AT MINIMUM COST,
WITH PROVISION FOR OLD AGE. The practical effect of these Policies in the National Provident Institution
48
is that the Member’s life is assured until he reaches the age agreed upon, and on his reaching that age the whole of
the Premiums paid are returned to him, and a considerable sum in addition, representing a by no means insignificant
rate of interest on his payments.
Applications for Agencies invited.
Gracechurch 8t., London, E.C.
Arthur smither, Actuary and secretary.
BOOKS OF
^Liberal IReligion.
PHILIP GREEN, 5 Essex Street,
Strand, W.C., will forward, post free,
on application, a NEW CATALOGUE of
BOOKS of LIBERAL RELIGION and
^THEOLOGY, containing Works by Dr.
>hartineau, Stopford A. Brooke, R. A.
Armstrong, J. Estlin Carpenter, Dr.
Brooke Herford, J. W. Chadwick, M. J.
Savage, and other English and American
Unitarian and Liberal Religious Teachers.
NO
HOUSEHOLD
BE
Philip Green, 5 Essex St., Strand, W.C.
WITHOUT
SHOULD
IT.
THE CHEAP EDITIONS OF
MRS. HENRY WOOD’S NOVELS.
Crown 8vo. in green cloth, 2s. each, or in red cloth, gilt lettered, 2s. 6d. each.
SALE OVER TWO MILLION AND A HALF COPIES.
Trevlyn Hold. 65th Thousand.
Court Netherleigh. 46 th Thousand.
East Lynne. 480th Thousand.
The Channings. 180th Thousand.
Mrs. Halliburton’s Troubles.
150th Thousand.
v."’he Shadow of Ashlydyat.
100th Thousand.
Lord Oakbum’s Daughters.
105th Thousand.
Verner’s Pride. 85th Thousand.
Roland Yorke. 130th Thousand.
| Johnny Ludlow. First Series.
50th Thousand.
Mildred Arkell. 80th Thousand.
St. Martin’s Eve. 76th Thousand.
George Canterbury’s Will.
The Red Court Farm.
70th Thousand.
Within the Maze. 112th Thousand.
Elster’s Folly. 60th Thousand.
Lady Adelaide. 60th Thousand.
Oswald Cray. 60th Thousand.
Johnny Ludlow. Second Series.
35tli Thousand.
Anne Hereford. 55th Thousand.
Dene Hollow. 60th Thousand.
Edina. 40th Thousand.
A Life’s Secret. 60th Thousand.
The House of Halliwell.
15th Thousand.
The Master of Greylands.
50th Thousand.
The Story of Charles Strange.
15th Thousand.
Ashley. 15th Thousand.
Bessy Rane. 42nd Thousand.
Johnny Ludlow. Third Series.
18th Thousand,
Orville College. 33rd Thousand.
Lady Grace. 16th Thousand.
Adam Grainger.
The Unholy Wish.
Johnny Ludlow. Fourth Series.
Johnny Ludlow. Fifth Series.
Johnny Ludlow. Sixth Series.
Pomeroy Abbey. 48th Thousand.
MACMILLAN AND CO., Ltd., LONDON.
70th Thousand.
��PREFACE
Those who have the pleasure of attending the opening meetings of schools and
colleges, and of giving away prizes and certificates, are generally expected at
the same time to offer such words of counsel and encouragement as the ex
perience of the world might enable them to give to those who are entering life.
Having been myself when young rather prone to suffer from low spirits,
I have at several of these gatherings taken the opportunity of dwelling on
the privileges and blessings we enjoy, and I reprint here the substance of
some of these addresses (omitting what was special to the circumstances of
each case, and freely making any alterations and additions which have since
occurred to me), hoping that the thoughts and quotations in which I have
myself found most comfort may perhaps be of use to others also.
- It is hardly necessary to say that I have not by any means referred to
all the sources of happiness open to us, some indeed of the greatest pleasures
and blessings being altogether omitted.
In reading over the proofs I feel that some sentences may appear too
dogmatic, but I hope that allowance will be made for the circumstances under
which they were delivered.
High Elms,
Down, Kent, January 1887.
�PREFACE
TO THE TWENTIETH EDITION
A lecture which I delivered three years ago at the Working Men’s College, and
which forms the fourth chapter of this book, has given rise to a good deal of
discussion. The Pall Mall Gazette took up the subject and issued a circular to many
of those best qualified to express an opinion. This elicited many interesting replies,
and some other lists of books were drawn up. When my book was translated, a
similar discussion took place in Germany. The result has been very gratifying, and
after carefully considering the suggestions which have been made, I see no reason
for any material change in the first list. I had not presumed to form a list of my
own, nor did I profess to give my own favourites. My attempt was to give those
most generally recommended by previous writers on the subject. In the various
criticisms on my list, while large additions, amounting to several hundred works in
all, have been proposed, very few omissions have been suggested. As regards those
v orks with reference to which some doubts have been expressed—namely, the few
Oriental books, Wake’s Apostolic Fathers, etc.—I may observe that I drew up the
list, not as that of the hundred best books, but, which is very different, of those
which have been most frequently recommended as best worth reading.
For instance as regards the Shelving and the Analects of Confucius°I must-humbly
confess that I do not greatly admire either ; but I recommended them because they
are held in the most profound veneration by the Chinese race, containing 400,000,000
of our fellow-men. I may add that both works are quite short.
The Ramayana and Maha Bliarata (as epitomised by Wheeler) and St. Hilaire’s
Bouddha are not only very interesting in themselves, but very important in reference
to our great oriental Empire.
The authentic writings of the Apostolic Fathers are very short, being indeed
comprised in one small volume, and as the only works (which have come down to
us) of those who lived with and knew the Apostles, they are certainly well worth
reading.
I have been surprised at the great divergence of opinion which has been expressed.
Nine lists of some length have been published. These lists contain some three
hundred works not mentioned by me (without, however, any corresponding omissions),
and yet there is not one single book which occurs in every list, or even in half of
them, and only about half a dozen which appear in more than one of the nine.
If these authorities, or even a majority of them, had concurred in their recom
mendations, I would have availed myself of them ; but as they differ so greatly I
will allow my list to remain almost as I first proposed it. I have, however, added
Kalidasa’s Safomfato or The Lost Ring, and Schiller’s Wilhelm Tell, omitting, in
consequence, Lucretius and Miss Austen : Lucretius because though his work is most
remarkable, it is perhaps too difficult and therefore less generally suitable than most
of the others in the list; and Miss Austen because English novelists were somewhat
over-represented.
High Elms,
Down, Kent, August 1890.
�CONTENTS
PART I
CHAP.
*
PAGE
I. The Duty
of
II. The Happiness
III. A Song
of
of
V. The Blessing
VI.The
.
.
Friends
.
Value of Time
VII. The Pleasures
VIII. The Pleasures
IX.Science
.
.
Books
of
1
...
Duty ......
of
Books
IV. The Choice
.
Happiness
of
of
.
.
.13
.
.
.
17
.
.
.
.
.22
.
.
.
.
.25
-
.
28
Travel
.
.
.
.
.
Home
.
.
.
.
.32
........
X. Education
7
.
.
.
.
.
36
.42
�‘ All places that the eye of Heaven visits
Are to the wise man ports and happy havens.”
Shakespeare.
“ Some murmur, when their sky is clear
And wholly bright to view,
If one small speck of dark appear
In their great heaven of blue.
And some with thankful love are fill’d
If but one streak of light,
One ray of God’s good mercy gild
The darkness of their night.
‘ ‘ In palaces are hearts that ask,
In discontent and pride,
Why life is such a dreary task,
And all good things denied.
And hearts in poorest huts admire
How love has in their aid
(Love that not ever seems to tire)
Such rich provision made.”
Trench.
�THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
PART I
CHAPTER I
THE DUTY OF HAPPINESS1
“ If a man is unhappy, this must be his own
fault; for God made all men to be happy.”—
Epictetus.
Life is a great gift, and as we reach
years of discretion, we most of us natur
ally ask ourselves what should be the
main object of our existence. Even those
who do not accept “the greatest good
of the greatest number” as an absolute
rule, will yet admit that we should all
endeavour to contribute as far as we may
to the happiness of others. There are
many, however, who seem to doubt
whether it is right that we should try to
be happy ourselves. Our own happiness
ought not, of course, to be our main
object, nor indeed will it ever be secured
if selfishly sought. We may have many
pleasures in life, but must not let them
have rule over us, or they will soon hand
us over to sorrow; and “ into jvhat
dangerous and miserable servitude doth
he fall who suffereth pleasures and
sorrows (two unfaithful and cruel com
manders) to possess him successively 1” 2
I cannot, however, but think that the
world would be better and brighter if our
teachers would dwell on the Duty of
Happiness as well as on the Happiness of
Duty; for we ought to be as cheerful as
we can, if only because to be happy our
selves, is a most effectual contribution to
the happiness of others.
1 The substance of this was delivered at the
Harris Institute, Preston.
2 Seneca.
B
Every one must have felt that a cheer
ful friend is like a sunny day, shedding
brightness on all around ; and most of
us can, as we choose, make of this world
either a palace or a prison.
There is no doubt some selfish satisfac
tion in yielding to melancholy, and fancy
ing that we are victims of fate ; in brood
ing over grievances, especially if more or
less imaginary. To be bright and cheer
ful often requires an effort; there is a
certain art in keeping ourselves happy :
and in this respect, as in others, we re
quire to watch over and manage ourselves,
almost as if we were somebody else.
Sorrow and joy, indeed, are strangely
interwoven. Too often
“We look before and after,
And pine for wliat is not:
Our sincerest laughter
With some pain is fraught ;
Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest
thought. ”1
As a nation we are prone to melancholy.
It has been said of our countrymen that
they take even their pleasures sadly.
But this, if it be true at all, will, I hope,
prove a transitory characteristic. “ Merry
England ” was the old saying ; let us hope
it may become true again. We must look
to the East for real melancholy. What
can be sadder than the lines with which
Omar Khayyam opens his quatrains : 2
“ We sojourn here for one short day or two,
And all the gain we get is grief and woe ;
And then, leaving life’s problems all unsolved
And harassed by regrets, we have to go ; ”
1 Shelley.
2 I quote from Whinfield’s translation.
IE
�2
THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
PART I
or the Devas’ song to Prince Siddartha, inherit ; the glories and beauties of the
in Edwin Arnold’s beautiful version :
Universe, which is our own if we choose
to have it so ; the extent to which we can
‘ ‘ We are the voices of tlie wandering wind,
Which moan for rest, and rest can never find. make ourselves what we wish to be ; or
Lo ! as the wind is, so is mortal life—
the power we possess of securing peace, of
A moan, a sigh, a sob, a storm, a strife. ”
triumphing over pain and sorrow.
If this indeed be true, if mortal life
Dante pointed to the neglect of oppor
be so sad and full of suffering, no wonder tunities as a serious fault:
that Nirvana—the cessation of sorrow—
“Man can do violence
should be welcomed even at the sacrifice
To himself and his own blessings, and for this
of consciousness.
He, in the second round, must aye deplore,
With unavailing penitence, his crime.
But ought we not to place before our
Whoe’er deprives himself of life and light
selves a very different ideal—a healthier,
In reckless lavishment his talent wastes,
manlier, and nobler hope ?
And sorrows then when he should dwell in joy.”
Life is not to live merely, but to live
Ruskin has expressed this with special
well. There are some “ who live without
any design at all, and only pass in the allusion to the marvellous beauty of this
world like straws on a river : they do not glorious world, too often taken as a matter
go ; they are carried,”1—-but as Homer of course, and remembered, if at all, al
makes Ulysses say, “ How dull it is to most without gratitude. “ Holy men,” he
pause, to make an end, to rest un complains, “in the recommending of the
burnished ; not to shine in use — as love of God to us, refer but seldom to those
things in which it is most abundantly and
though to breathe were life ! ”
Goethe tells us that at thirty he resolved immediately shown; though they insist
“ to work out life no longer by halves, much on His giving of bread, and raiment,
and health (which He gives to all inferior
but in all its beauty and totality.”
creatures): they require us not to thank
“Im Ganzen, Guten, Schonen
Him for that glory of His works which
Resolut zu leben.”
He has permitted us alone to perceive :
Life indeed must be measured by
they tell us often to meditate in the closet,
thought and action, not by time. It
but they send us not, like Isaac, into the
certainly may be, and ought to be, bright,
fields at even : they dwell on the duty of
interesting, and happy ; for, according to
self-denial, but they exhibit not the duty
the Italian proverb, “ if all cannot live on
of delight: ” and yet, as he justly says
the Piazza, every one may feel the sun.”
elsewhere, “ each of us, as we travel the
If we do our best; if we do not mag
way of life, has the choice, according to
nify trifling troubles ; if we look resolutely,
our working, of turning all the voices of
I do not say at the bright side of things,
Nature into one song of rejoicing ; or of
but at things as they really are ; if we
withering and quenching her sympathy
avail ourselves of the manifold blessings
into a fearful withdrawn silence of con
which surround us ; we cannot but feel
demnation,—into a crying out of her
that life is indeed a glorious inheritance.
stones and a shaking of her dust against
“ More servants wait on man
us.”
Than he’ll take notice of. In every path
Must we not all admit, with Sir Henry
lie treads down that which doth befriend
Taylor, that “the retrospect of life swarms
him
When sickness makes him pale and wan. with lost opportunities ” ? “ Whoever en
Oh mighty Love ! Man is one world, and hath joys not life,” says Sir T. Browne, “ I
Another to attend him.” 2
count him but an apparition, though he
Few of us, however, realise the wonder wears about him the visible affections of
ful privilege of living, or the blessings we flesh.”
St. Bernard, indeed, goes so far as to
1 Seneca.
2 Herbert.
�CHAP. I
THE DUTY OF HAPPINESS
3
and that “ rather than follow a multitude
to do evil,” one should “ stand like Pom
pey’s pillar, conspicuous by oneself, and
single in integrity.” 1 But to many this
isolation would be itself most painful, for
the heart is “ no island cut off from other
lands, but a continent that joins to them.”2
If we separate ourselves so much from
the interests of those around us that we
do not sympathise with them in their
sufferings, we shut ourselves out from
sharing their happiness, and lose far more
than we gain. If we avoid sympathy
and wrap ourselves round in a cold chain
armour of selfishness, we exclude ourselves
from many of the greatest and purest joys
of life. To render ourselves insensible to
pain we must forfeit also the possibility
of happiness.
Moreover, much of what we call evil
is really good in disguise, and we should
not “ quarrel rashly with adversities not
yet understood, nor overlook the mercies
often bound up in them.” 3 Pleasure and
pain are, as Plutarch says, the nails which
fasten body and soul together. Pain is
a signal of danger, a very necessity of
existence. But for it, but for the warnings
which our feelings give us, the very bless
ings by ■which we are surrounded would
soon and inevitably prove fatal. Many
of those who have not studied the question
are under the impression that the more
deeply-seated portions of the body must
be most sensitive. The very reverse is
the case. The skin is a continuous and
ever-watchful sentinel, always on guard
to give us notice of any approaching
danger ; while the flesh and inner organs,
where pain would be without purpose,
“ Unaffrighted by the silence round them,
Undistracted by the sights they see,
are, so long as they are in health, com
These demand not that the things without paratively without sensation.
them
“We talk,” says Helps, “of the origin
Yield them love, amusement, sympathy.
of evil ; . . . but what is evil ? We mostly
Bounded by themselves, and unobservant
speak of sufferings and trials as good, per
In what state God’s other works may be,
haps, in their result ; but we hardly
In their own tasks all their powers pouring,
These attain the mighty life you see.”
admit that they may be good in them
selves. Yet they are knowledge—how
It is true that
else to be acquired, unless by making
“ A man is his own star ;
maintain that “nothing can work me
damage except myself; the harm that I
sustain I carry about with me, and never
am a real sufferer but by my own fault.”
Some Heathen moralists also have
taught very much the same lesson. “ The
gods,” says Marcus Aurelius, “ have put all
the means in man’s power to enable him
not to fall into real evils. Now that
which does not make a man worse, how
can it make his life worse ? ”
Epictetus takes the same line : “ If a
man is unhappy, remember that his un
happiness is his own fault; for God has
made all men to be happy.” “ I am,” he
elsewhere says, “ always content with that
which happens ; for I think that what
God chooses is better than what I choose.”
And again : “ Seek not that things should
happen as you wish ; but wish the things
which happen to be as they are, and you
will have a tranquil flow of life. ... If
you wish for anything which belongs to
another, you lose that which is your own.”
Few, however, if any, can I think go
as far as St. Bernard. We cannot but
suffer from pain, sickness, and anxiety;
from the loss, the unkindness, the faults,
even the coldness of those we love. How
many a day has been damped and dark
ened by an angry word !
Hegel is said to have calmly finished
his Phaenomenologie des Geistes at Jena, on
the 14th October 1806, not knowing any
thing whatever of the battle that was
raging round him.
Matthew Arnold has suggested that we
might take a lesson from the heavenly
bodies.
Our acts our angels are
For good or ill,”
1 Sir T. Browne.
2 Bacon.
3 Sir T. Browne.
�4
THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
men. as gods, enabling them to understand
without experience. All that men go
through may be absolutely the best for
them—no such thing as evil, at least in
our customary meaning of the word.”
Indeed, “ the vale best discovereth the
hill,” 1 and “ pour sentir les grands biens,
il faut qu’il connoisse les petits maux.” 2
But even if we do not seem to get all
that we should wish, many will feel, as
in Leigh Hunt’s beautiful translation of
Filicaja’s sonnet, that —
“ So Providence for us, high, infinite,
Makes our necessities its watchful task,
Hearkens to all our prayers, helps all our wants,
And e’en if it denies what seems our right,
Either denies because ’twould have us ask,
Or seems but to deny, and in denying grants.”
Those on the other hand who do not
accept the idea of continual interferences,
will rejoice in the belief that on the whole
the laws of the Universe work out for
the general happiness.
And if it does come—
“ Grief should be
Like joy, majestic, equable, sedate,
Confirming, cleansing, raising, making free :
Strong to consume small troubles; to commend
Great thoughts, grave thoughts, thoughts last
ing to the end.” 3
If, however, we cannot hope that life
will be all happiness, we may at least
secure a heavy balance on the right side ;
and even events which look like mis
fortune, if boldly faced, may often be
turned to good. Oftentimes, says Seneca,
“calamity turns to our advantage; and
great ruins make way for greater glories.”
Helmholtz dates his start in science to
an attack of illness. This led to his
acquisition of a microscope, which he was
enabled to purchase, owing to his having
spent his autumn vacation of 1841 in the
hospital, prostrated by typhoid fever ;
being a pupil, he was nursed without
expense, and on his recovery he found
himself in possession of the savings of
his small resources.
“ Savonarola,” says Castelar, “ would,
1 Bacon.
2 Rousseau.
3 Aubrey de Vere.
PART I
under different circumstances, undoubtedly
have been a good husband, a tender
father; a man unknown to history,
utterly powerless to print upon the sands
of time and upon the human soul the
deep trace which he has left : but mis
fortune came to visit him, to crush his
heart, and to impart that marked melan
choly which characterises a soul in grief;
and the grief that circled his brows with
a crown of thorns was also that which
wreathed them with the splendour of
immortality.
His hopes were centred
in the woman he loved, his life was set
upon the possession of her, and when her
family finally rejected him, partly on
account of his profession, and partly on
account of his person, he believed that it
was death that had come upon him, when
in truth it was immortality.”
It is, however, impossible to deny the
existence of ewl, and the reason for it
has long exercised the human intellect.
The Savage solves it by the supposition of
evil Spirits. Even the Greeks attributed
the misfortunes of men in great measure
to the antipathies and jealousies of gods
and goddesses.
Others have imagined
two Celestial Beings, opposite and an
tagonistic—the one friendly, the other
hostile, to men.
Freedom of action, however, seems to
involve the existence of evil. If any
power of selection be left us, much must
depend on the choice we make. In the
very nature of things, two and two cannot
make five. Epictetus imagines Jupiter
addressing man as follows : “ If it had
been possible to make your body and
your property free from liability to injury,
I would have done so. As this could not
be, I have given you a small portion of
myself.”
This divine gift it is for us to use
wisely. It is, in fact, our most valuable
treasure. “ The soul is a much better
thing than all the others which you
possess. Can you then show me in what
way you have taken care of it ? For it
is not likely that you, who are so wise a
man, inconsiderately and carelessly allow
�THE DUTY OF HAPPINESS
CHAP. I
the most valuable thing that you possess
to be neglected and to perish.” 1
Moreover, even if evil cannot be alto
gether avoided, it is no doubt true that
not only whether the life we lead be good
and useful, or evil and useless, but also
whether it be happy or unhappy, is very
much in our own power, and depends
greatly on ourselves. “ Time alone re
lieves the foolish from sorrow, but reason
the wise,”2 and no one was ever yet
made utterly miserable excepting by him
self. We are, if not the masters, at any
rate almost the creators of ourselves.
With most of us it is not so much great
sorrows, disease, or death, but rather the
little “daily dyings” which cloud over
the sunshine of life.
Many of our
troubles are insignificant in themselves,
and might easily be avoided L
How happy home might generally be
made but for foolish quarrels, or mis
understandings, as they are well named !
It is our own fault if we are querulous or
ill-humoured ; nor need we, though this
is less easy, allow ourselves to be made
unhappy by the querulousness or illhumours of others.
Much of what we suffer we have
brought on ourselves, if not by actual
fault, at least by ignorance or thought
lessness. Too often we think only of the
happiness of the moment, and sacrifice
that of the life. Troubles comparatively
seldom come to us, it is we who go to
them. Many of us fritter our life away.
La Bruyere says that “ most men spend
much of their lives in making the rest
miserable • ” or, as Goethe puts it:
“ Careworn man has, in all ages,
Sown vanity to reap despair.”
Not only do we suffer much in the
anticipation of evil, as “ Noah lived many
years under the affliction of a flood, and
Jerusalem was taken unto Jeremy before
it was besieged,” but we often distress
ourselves greatly in the apprehension of
misfortunes which after all never happen
at all. We should do our best and wait
1 Epictetus.
2 Ibid.
5
calmly the result. We often hear of
people breaking down from overwork,
but in nine cases out of ten they are
really suffering from worry or anxiety.
“Nos maux moraux,” says Rousseau,
“ sont tous dans 1’opinion, hors un seul,
qui est le crime ; et celui-la depend de
nous : nos maux physiques nous detruisent, ou se detruisent. Le temps, ou la
mort, sont nos remedes.”
“ Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie,
Which we ascribe to heaven.” 1
This, however, applies to the grown up.
With children of course it is different.
It is customary, but I think it is a mistake,
to speak of happy childhood. Children
are often over-anxious and acutely sensi
tive. Man ought to be man and master
of his fate ; but children are at the mercy
of those around them. Mr. Rarey, the
great horse-tamer, has told us that he has
known an angry word raise the pulse of
a horse ten beats in a minute. Think
then how it must affect a child !
It is small blame to the young if they
are over-anxious ; but it is a danger to be
striven against. “ The terrors of the storm
are chiefly felt in the parlour or the
cabin.” 2
To save ourselves from imaginary, or
at any rate problematical, evils, we often
incur real suffering. “The man,” said
Epicurus, “who is not content with little
is content with nothing.” How often do
we “ labour for that which satisfieth not.”
More than we use is more than we need,
and only a burden to the bearer.3 We
most of us give ourselves an immense
amount of useless trouble ; encumber our
selves, as it were, on the journey of life
with a dead weight of unnecessary bag
gage ; and as “a man maketh his train
longer, he makes his wings shorter.” 4 In
that delightful fairy tale, Alice through
the Looking-Glass, the “ White Knight ” is
described as having loaded himself on
starting for a journey with a variety of
odds and ends, including a mousetrap, lest
1 Shakespeare.
3 Seneca.
2 Emerson.
4 Bacon.
�6
THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
PART I
he should be troubled by mice at night,
“ How is it possible,” he says, “ that a
and a bee-hive in case he came across a Inan who has nothing, who is naked,
swarm of bees.
houseless, without a hearth, squalid, with
Hearne, in his Journey to the Mouth of out a slave, without a city, can pass a life
the Coppermine River, tells us that a few that flows easily ? See, God has sent you
days after starting on his expedition he a man to show you that it is possible.
met a party of Indians, who annexed a Look at me, who am without a city,
great deal of his property, and all Hearne without a house, without possessions,
says is, “ The weight of our baggage being without a slave ; I sleep on the ground ;
so much lightened, our next day’s journey I have no wife, no children, no prsetorium,
was much pleasanter.” I ought, however, but only the earth and heavens, and one
to add that the Indians broke up the poor cloak. And what do I want ? Am
philosophical instruments, which,no doubt, I not without sorrow ? Am I not with
were rather an encumbrance.
out fear ? Am I not free ? When did
When troubles do come, Marcus Aur any of you see me failing in the object of
elius wisely tells us to “ remember on my desire ? or ever falling into that which
every occasion which leads thee to vex I would avoid ? Did I ever blame God
ation to apply this principle, that this is or man ? Did I ever accuse any man ?
not a misfortune, but that to bear it nobly Did any of you ever see me with a
is good fortune.” Our own anger indeed sorrowful countenance ? And how do I
does us more harm than the thing which meet with those whom you are afraid of
makes us angry; and we suffer much and admire ? Do not I treat them like
more from the anger and vexation which slaves ? Who, when he sees me, does not
we allow acts to rouse in us, than we do think that he sees his king and master ? ”
from the acts themselves at which we are
Think how much we have to be
angry and vexed. How much most people, thankful for. Few of us appreciate the
for instance, allow themselves to be dis number of our everyday blessings; we
tracted and disturbed by quarrels and look on them as trifles, and yet “ trifles
family disputes. Yet in nine cases out make perfection, and perfection is no
of ten one ought not to suffer from being trifle,” as Michael Angelo said. We for
found fault with. If the condemnation is get them because they are always with
just, it should be welcome as a warning ; us ; and yet for each of us, as Mr. Pater
if it is undeserved, why should we allow well observes, “ these simple gifts, and
it to distress us 1
others equally trivial, bread and wine,
Moreover, if misfortunes happen we do fruit and milk, might regain that poetic
but make them worse by grieving over and, as it were, moral significance which
them.
surely belongs to all the means of our
“ I must die,” says Epictetus. “ But daily life, could we but break through the
must I then die sorrowing ? I must be veil of our familiarity with things by no
put in chains. Must I then also lament? means vulgar in themselves.”
I must go into exile. Can I be prevented
“Let not,” says Isaak Walton, “the
from going with cheerfulness and con blessings we receive daily from God make
tentment ? But I will put you in prison. us not to value or not praise Him because
Man, what are you saying ? You may they be common; let us not forget to
put my body in prison, but my mind not praise Him for the innocent mirth and
even Zeus himself can overpower.”
pleasure we have met with since we met
If, indeed, we cannot be happy, the together. What would a blind man give
fault is generally in ourselves. Socrates to see the pleasant rivers and meadows
lived under the Thirty Tyrants. Epic and flowers and fountains ; and this and
tetus was a poor slave, and yet how much many other like blessings we enjoy daily.”
we owe him !
Contentment, we have been told by
�CHAP. I
THE HAPPINESS OF DUTY
Epicurus, consists not in great wealth, but
in few wants. In this fortunate country,
however, we may have many wants, and
yet, if they are only reasonable, we may
gratify them all.
Nature indeed provides without stint
the main requisites of human happiness.
“.To watch the corn grow, or the blossoms
set; to draw hard breath over plough
share or spade ; to read, to think, to love,
to pray,” these, says Ruskin, “ are the
things that make men happy.”
“ I have fallen into the hands of
thieves,” says Jeremy Taylor ; “ what
then ? They have left me the sun and
moon, fire and water, a loving wife and
many friends to pity me, and some to
relieve me, and I can still discourse ; and,
unless I list, they have not taken away
my merry countenance and my cheerful
spirit and a good conscience. . . . And
he that hath so many causes of joy, and
so great, is very much in love with
sorrow and peevishness who loses all
these pleasures, and chooses to sit down
on his little handful of thorns.”
“ When a man has such things to think
on, and sees the sun, the moon, and stars,
and enjoys earth and sea, he is not
solitary or even helpless.” 1
“ Paradise indeed might,” as Luther
said, “apply to the whole world.” What
more is there we could ask for ourselves ?
“Every sort of beauty,” says Mr. Greg,2
“has been lavished on our allotted home ;
beauties to enrapture every sense, beauties
to satisfy every taste • forms the noblest
and the loveliest, colours the most
gorgeous and the most delicate, odours
the sweetest and subtlest, harmonies the
most soothing and the most stirring : the
sunny glories of the day; the pale
Elysian grace of moonlight; the lake, the
mountain, the primeval forest, and the
boundless ocean; ‘ silent pinnacles of
aged snow ’ in one hemisphere, the
marvels of tropical luxuriance in another ;
the serenity of sunsets; the sublimity of
storms ; everything is bestowed in bound
less profusion on the scene of our exist1 Epictetus,
? The Enigmas of Life.
7
ence ; we can conceive or desire nothing
more exquisite or perfect than what is
round us every hour; and our percep
tions are so framed as to be consciously
alive to all. The provision made for our
sensuous enjoyment is in overflowing
abundance ; so is that for the other
elements of our complex nature. Who
that has revelled in the opening ecstasies
of a young Imagination, or the rich
marvels of the world of Thought, does not
confess that the Intelligence has been
dowered at least with as profuse a benefi
cence as the Senses ? Who that has truly
tasted and fathomed human Love in its
dawning and crowning joys has not
thanked God for a felicity which indeed
‘passeth understanding.’ If we had set
our fancy to picture a Creator occupied
solely in devising delight for children
whom he loved, we could not conceive
one single element of bliss which is not
here.”
CHAPTER II
THE HAPPINESS OF DUTY1
“I am always content with that which
happens ; for I think that what God chooses is
better than what I choose.”
Epictetus.
“ 0 God, All conquering ! this lower earth
Would be for men the blest abode of mirth
If they were strong in Thee
As other things of this world well are seen ;
Oh then, far other than they yet have been,
How happy would men be.”
King Alfred’s ed. of Boethius’s
Consolations of Philosophy.
We ought not to picture Duty to our
selves, or to others, as a stern taskmistress.
She is rather a kind and sympathetic
mother, ever ready to shelter us from the
cares and anxieties of this world, and to
guide us in the paths of peace.
To shut oneself up from mankind i°,
in most cases, to lead a dull, as well as a
selfish life. Our duty is to make ourselves
useful, and thus life may be made most
1 The substance of this was delivered at the
Harris Institute, Preston.
�8
THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
PART I
interesting, while yet comparatively free if we have done our best to make others
from anxiety.
happy; to promote “ peace on earth and
But how can we fill our lives with life, goodwill amongst men.” Nothing, again,
energy, and interest, and yet keep care can do more to release us from the cares
outside ?
of this world, which consume so much of
Many great men have made shipwreck our time, and embitter so much of our
in the attempt. “ Anthony sought for life. When we have done our best, we
happiness in love ; Brutus in glory; Cfesar should wait the result in peace ; content,
in dominion : the first found disgrace, the as Epictetus says, “with that which
second disgust, the last ingratitude, and happens, for what God chooses is better
each destruction.” 1 Riches, again, often than what I choose.”
bring danger, trouble, and temptation ■
At any rate, if we have not effected all
they require care to keep, though they we wished, we shall have influenced our
may give much happiness if wisely spent. selves. It may be true that one cannot
How then is this great object to be do much. “You are not Hercules, and
secured ? What, says Marcus Aurelius, you are not able to purge away the wicked
“ What is that which is able to conduct ness of others ; nor yet are you Theseus,
a man ? One thing and only one—philo able to drive away the evil things of
sophy. But this consists in keeping the Attica. But you may clear away your
daemon 2 within a man free from violence own. From yourself, from your own
and unharmed, superior to pains and thoughts, cast away, instead of Procrustes
pleasures, doing nothing without a pur and Sciron,1 sadness, fear, desire, envy,
pose, yet not falsely and with hypocrisy, malevolence, avarice, effeminacy, intem
not feeling the need of another man’s perance. But it is not possible to eject
doing or not doing anything ; and besides, these things otherwise than by looking to
accepting all that happens, and all that God only, by fixing your affections on
is allotted, as coming from thence, where- Him only, by being consecrated by His
ever it is, from whence he himself came ; commands.” 2
and, finally, waiting for death with a
Duty does not imply restraint. People ’
cheerful mind, as being nothing else than sometimes think how delightful it would
a dissolution of the elements of which be to be quite free. But a fish, as Ruskin
every living being is compounded.” I con says, is freer than a man, and as for a fly,
fess I do not feel the force of these last few it is “a black incarnation of freedom.”
words, which indeed scarcely seem requisite A life of so-called pleasure and self-indul
for his argument. The thought of death, gence is not a life of real happiness or
however, certainly influences the conduct true freedom. Far from it, if we once
of life less than might have been expected. begin to give way to ourselves, we fall
Bacon truly points out that “there is under a most intolerable tyranny. Other
no passion in the mind of man so weak, temptations are in some respects like that
but it mates and masters the fear of of drink. At first, perhaps, it seems
death. . . . Revenge triumphs over death, delightful, but there is bitterness at the
love slights it, honour aspireth to it, grief bottom of the cup. Men drink to satisfy
flieth to it.”
the desire created by previous indulgence.
So it is in other things. Repetition soon
“Think not I dread to see my spirit fly
Through the dark gates of fell mortality;
becomes a craving, not a pleasure. Re
Death has no terrors when the life is true ;
sistance grows more and more painful;
’Tis living ill that makes us fear to die.” 3
yielding, which at first, perhaps, afforded
We need certainly have no such fear some slight and temporary gratification,
1 Colton, Lacon, or Many Things in Few soon ceases to give pleasure, and even if
JFotyZs.
2 J.e. spirit.
I
3 Omar Khayyam.
1 Two robbers destroyed by Theseus.
2 Epictetus.
�CHAP. II
THE HAPPINESS OF DUTY
9
for a time it procures relief, ere long have of the Universe must in some measure
damp personal ambition. What it is to be
becomes odious itself.
To resist is difficult, to give way is pain king, sheikh, tetrarch, or emperor over a
ful ; until at length the wretched victim ‘ bit of a bit ’ of this little earth ? ” “ All
to himself can only purchase, or thinks rising to great place,” says Bacon, “ is by
he can only purchase, temporary relief from a winding stair; ” and “ princes are like
intolerable craving and depression, at the heavenly bodies, which have much vener
expense of even greater suffering in the ation, but no rest.”
Plato in the Republic mentions an old
future.
On the other hand, self-control, how myth that after death every soul has to
ever difficult at first, becomes step by step choose a lot in life for the existence in the
easier and more delightful. We possess next world ; and he tells us that the wise
mysteriously a sort of dual nature, and Ulysses searched for a considerable time
there are few truer triumphs, or more for the lot of a private man. He had
delightful sensations, than to obtain some difficulty in finding it, as it was lying
neglected in a corner, but when he had
thorough command of oneself.
How much pleasanter it is to ride a secured it he was delighted ; the recollec
spirited horse, even perhaps though requir tion of all he had gone through on earth
ing some strength and skill, than to creep having disenchanted him of ambition.
along upon a jaded hack. In the one
Moreover, there is a great deal of
case you feel under you the free, re drudgery in the lives of courts. Cere
sponsive spring of a living and willing monials may be important, but they take
force ; in the other you have to spur a up much time and are terribly tedious.
dull and lifeless slave.
A man then is his own best kingdom.
To rule oneself is in reality the greatest “ He that ruleth his spirit,” says
triumph. “ He who is his own monarch,” Solomon, “ is better than he that taketh
says Sir T. Browne, “ contentedly sways a city.” But self-control, this truest and
the sceptre of himself, not envying the greatest monarchy, rarely comes by in
glory to crowned heads and Elohim of the heritance. Every one of us must conquer
earth ; ” for those are really highest who himself; and we may do so, if we take
are nearest to heaven, and those are low conscience for our guide and general.
est who are farthest from it.
No one really fails who does his best.
True greatness has little, if anything, Seneca observes that “no one saith the
to do with rank or power. “ Eurystheus three hundred Fabii were defeated, but
being what he was,” says Epictetus, “ was that they were slain,” and if you have
not really king of Argos nor of Mycenee, done your best, you will, in the words of
for he could not even rule himself ; while an old Norse ballad, have gained
Hercules purged lawlessness and intro
“ Success in thyself, which is best of all.”
duced justice, though he was both naked
and alone.”
Being myself engaged in business, I was
We are told that Cineas the philosopher rather startled to find it laid down by no
once asked Pyrrhus what he would do less an authority than Aristotle (almost as
when he had conquered Italy. “ I will if it were a self-evident proposition) that
conquer Sicily.” “And after Sicily?” commerce “ is incompatible with that
“ Then Africa.” “ And after you have dignified life which it is to be wished that
conquered the world ? ” “I will take my our citizens should lead, and totally ad
ease and be merry.” “ Then,” asked verse to that generous elevation of mind
Cineas, “ why can you not take your ease with which it is our ambition to inspire
and be merry now ? ”
them.” I know not how far that may
Moreover, as Sir Arthur Helps has really have been the spirit and tendency
wisely pointed out, “ the enlarged view we of commerce among the ancient Greeks;
�IO
THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
but if so, I do not wonder that it was not
more successful.
I may, indeed, quote Aristotle against
himself, for he has elsewhere told us that
“business should be chosen for the sake
of leisure ; and things necessary and useful
for the sake of the beautiful in conduct.”
It is not true that the ordinary duties
of life in a country like ours—agriculture,
manufactures, and commerce,—the pur
suits to which the vast majority are and
must be devoted—are incompatible with
the dignity or nobility of life. Whether
a life is noble or ignoble depends, not on
the calling which is adopted, but on the
spirit in which it is followed. The
humblest life may be noble, while that of
the most powerful monarch or the greatest
genius may be contemptible. Commerce,
indeed, is not only compatible, but I
would almost go further and say that it
will be most successful, if carried on in
happy union with noble aims and generous
aspirations. What Ruskin says of art is,
with due modification, true of life gener
ally. It does not matter whether a man
“ paint the petal of a rose or the chasms
of a precipice, so that love and admiration
attend on him as he labours, and wait for
ever on his work. It does not matter
whether he toil for months on a few
inches of his canvas, or cover a palace
front with colour in a day ; so only that
it be with a solemn purpose, that he have
filled his heart with patience, or urged his
hand to haste.’’
It is true that in a subsequent volume
he refers to this passage, and adds, “ But
though all is good for study, and all is
beautiful, some is better than the rest for
the help and pleasure of others ; and this
it is our duty always to choose if we have
opportunity,” adding, however, “ being
quite happy with what is within our
reach if we have not.”
We read of and admire the heroes of
old, but every one of us has to fight his
ow’n Marathon and ThermopyIse ; every
one meets the Sphinx sitting by the road
he has to pass ; to each of us, as to
Hercules, is offered the choice of Vice or
PART I
Virtue; we may, like Paris, give the apple
of life to Venus, or Juno, or Minerva.
There are many who seem to think that
we have fallen on an age in the world
when life is especially difficult and anxious,
when there is less leisure than of yore,
and the struggle for existence is keener
than ever.
On the other hand, we must remember
how much we have gained in security?
It may be an age of hard work, but -when
this is not carried to an extreme, it is by
no means an evil. If we have less leisure,
one reason is because life is so full of
interest. Cheerfulness is the daughter of
employment, and on the whole I believe
there never was a time when modest
merit and patient industry were more
sure of reward.
We must not, indeed, be discouraged if
success be slow in coming, nor puffed up
if it comes quickly. We often complain
of the nature of things when the fault is
all in ourselves. Seneca, in one of his
letters, mentions that his wife’s maid,
Harpaste, had nearly lost her eyesight,
but “ she knoweth not she is blind, she
saith the house is dark. This that seemeth
ridiculous unto us in her, happeneth unto
us all. No man understandeth that he is
covetous, or avaricious. He saith, I am
not ambitious, but no man can otherwise
live in Rome ; I am not sumptuous, but
the city requireth great expense.”
Newman, in perhaps the most beautiful
of his hymns, “ Lead, kindly light,” says :
“ Keep thou my feet, I do not ask to see
The distant scene ; one step enough for me. ”
But we must be sure that we are really
following some trustworthy guide, and not
out of mere laziness allowing ourselves to
drift. We have a guide within us which
will generally lead us straight enough.
Religion, no doubt, is full of difficulties,
but if we are often puzzled what to think,
we need seldom be in doubt what to do.
“ To say well is good, but to do well is better ;
Do well is the spirit, and say well the letter ;
If do well and say well were fitted in one frame,
All were won, all were done, and. got were all
the gain.”
�THE HAPPINESS OF DUTY
CHAP. II
il
Cleanthes, who appears to have well every fourth. But if you have inter
merited the statue erected to him at mitted thirty days, make a sacrifice to
God. For the habit at first begins to be
Assos, says :
weakened, and then is completely de
“ Lead me, 0 Zeus, and thou, 0 Destiny,
stroyed. When you can say, ‘ I have not
The way that I am bid by you to go :
To follow I am ready. If I choose not,
been vexed to-day, nor the .day before, nor
I make myself a wretch ;—and still must yet on any succeeding day during two or
follow.”
three months ; but I took care when some
If we are ever in doubt what to do, it exciting things happened,’ be assured that
is a good rule to ask ourselves what we you are in a good way.” 1
Emerson closes his Conduct of Life
shall wish on the morrow that we had
with a striking allegory.
The young
done.
Moreover, the result in the long run Mortal enters the Hall of the Firmament.
will depend not so much on some single The Gods are sitting there, and he is
resolution, or on our action in a special alone with them. They pour on him
case, but rather on the preparation of gifts and blessings, and beckon him to
daily life. Battles are often won before their thrones. But between him and
they are fought. To control our passions them suddenly appear snow-storms of
we must govern our habits, and keep illusions. He imagines himself in a vast
watch over ourselves in the small details crowd, whose behests he fancies he must
obey. The mad crowd drives hither and
of everyday life.
The importance of small things has thither, and sways this way and that.
been pointed out by philosophers over What is he that he should resist ? He
and over again from jEsop downwards. lets himself be«carried about. How can
“ Great without small makes a bad wall,” he think or act for himself? But the
says a quaint Greek proverb, which seems clouds lift, and there are the Gods still
to go back to cyclopean times. In an old sitting on their thrones ; they alone with
Hindoo story Ammi says to his son, him alone.
“ The great man,” he elsewhere says,
“ Bring me a fruit of that tree and break
it open. What is there ? ” The son said, “is he who in the midst of the crowd
“ Some small seeds.” “ Break one of keeps with perfect sweetness the serenity
them and what do you see ? ” “ Nothing, of solitude.”
We may all, indeed, if we will, secure
my lord.”
“ My child,” said Ammi,
“where you see nothing there dwells a peace of mind for ourselves.
“ Men seek retreats,” says Marcus Au
mighty tree.” It may almost be questioned
whether anything can be truly called relius, “ houses in the country, sea-shores,
and mountains ; and thou too art wont
small.
to desire such things very much. But
“ There is no great and no small
this is altogether a mark of the most
To the soul that maketh all ;
common sort of men ; for it is in thv
And where it cometh all things are,
And it cometh everywhere.” 1
power whenever thou shalt choose, to
We should therefore watch ourselves in retire into thyself. For nowhere either
small things. If “ you wish not to be of with more quiet or more freedom from
an angry temper, do not feed the habit: trouble does a man retire, than into his
throw nothing on it which will increase own soul, particularly when he has within
it: at first keep quiet, and count the days him such thoughts that by looking into
on which you have not been angry. I them he is immediately in perfect tran
used to be in a passion every day ; now quillity.”
Happy indeed is he who has such a
every second day ; then every third ; then
sanctuary in his own soul. “He who is
1 Emerson.
1 Epictetus.
�12
THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
virtuous is wise ; and he who is wise is
good ; and he who is good is happy.” 1
But we cannot expect to be happy if
we do not lead pure and useful lives. To
be good company for ourselves we must
store our minds well ; fill them with pure
and peaceful thoughts ; with pleasant
memories of the past, and reasonable
hopes for the future. We must, as far
as may be, protect ourselves from selfreproach, from care, and from anxiety. We
shall make our lives pure and peaceful,
by resisting evil, by placing restraint upon
our appetites, and perhaps even more by
strengthening and developing our tend
encies to good. We must be careful, then,
on what we allow our minds to dwell.
The soul is dyed by its thoughts; we
cannot keep our minds pure if we allow
them to be sullied by detailed accounts
of crime and sin. Peace of mind, as
Ruskin beautifully observes, “ must come
in its own time, as the waters settle
themselves into clearness as well as quiet
ness ; you can no more filter your mind
into purity than you can compress it into
calmness ; you must keep it pure if you
would have it pure, and throw no stones
into it if you would have it quiet.”
The penalty of injustice, said Socrates,
is not death or stripes, but the fatal neces
sity of becoming more and more unjust.
Few men have led a wiser or more
virtuous life than Socrates himself, of
whom Xenophon gives us the following
description :—“ To me, being such as I
have described him, so pious that he did
nothing without the sanction of the gods;
so just, that he wronged no man even in
the most trifling affair, but was of service
in the most important matters to those
who enjoyed his society ; so temperate
that he never preferred pleasure to virtue;
so wise, that he never erred in distinguish
ing better from worse ; needing no counsel
from others, but being sufficient in himself
to discriminate between them ; so able to
explain and settle such questions by argu
ment ; and so capable of discerning the
character of others, of confuting those
1 King Alfred’s Boethius.
PART I
who were in error, and of exhorting them
to virtue and honour, he seemed to be
such as the best and happiest of men
would be. But if any one disapproves
of my opinion let him compare the con
duct of others with that of Socrates, and
determine accordingly.”
Marcus Aurelius again has drawn for us
a most instructive lesson in his character
of Antoninus:—“Remember his constancy
in every act which was conformable to
reason, his evenness in all things, his
piety, the serenity of his countenance,
his sweetness, his disregard of empty
fame, and his efforts to understand things ;
how he would never let anything pass
without having first most carefully ex
amined it and clearly understood it ; how
he bore with those who blamed him
unjustly without blaming them in return;
how he did nothing in a hurry; how he
listened not to calumnies, and how exact
an examiner of manners and actions he
was ; not given to reproach people, nor
timid, nor suspicious, nor a sophist; with
how little he was satisfied, such as lodging,
bed, dress, food, servants ; how laborious
and patient ; how sparing he was in his
diet; his firmness and uniformity in his
friendships ; how he tolerated freedom of
speech in those who opposed his opinions;
the pleasure that he had when any man
showed him anything better ; and how
pious he was without superstition. Imi
tate all this that thou mayest have as
good a conscience, when thy last hour
comes, as he had.”
Such peace of mind is indeed an in
estimable boon, a rich reward of duty
fulfilled. Well then does Epictetus ask,
“Is there no reward? Do you seek a
reward greater than that of doing what
is good and just ? At Olympia you wish
for nothing more, but it seems to you
enough to be crowned at the games.
Does it then seem to you so small and
worthless a thing to be good and happy?”
In Bernard of Morlaix’s beautiful
lines —
“ Pax erit ilia fidelibus, ilia beata
Irrevocabilis, Invariabilis, Intemerata.
�A SONG OF BOOKS
CHAP. Ill .
13
Pax sine crimine, pax sine turbine, pax sine himself to-be a zealous follower of truth,
rixa,
of happiness, of wisdom, of science, or
Meta Laboribus, inque tumultibus anchora
even of the faith, must of necessity make
fixa ;
Pax erit omnibus unica. Sed quibus ? Im- himself a lover of books.” But if the
maculatis
debt were great then, how much more
Pectore niitibus, ordine stantibus, ore sacratis.” now.
What greater reward can we have than
this ; than the “peace which passeth all
understanding,” which “ cannot be gotten
for gold, neither shall silver be weighed
for the price thereof.” 1
CHAPTER III
A SONG OF BOOKS2
“ Oil for a booke and a sliadie nooke,
Eyther in doore or out;
With the grene leaves whispering overhead
Or the streete cryes all about.
Where I maie reade all at my ease,
Both of the newe and old ;
For a jollie goode booke whereon to looke,
Is better to me than golde.”
Old English Song.
Of all the privileges we enjoy in this
nineteenth century there is none, perhaps,
for which we ought to be more thankful
than for the easier access to books.
The debt we owe to books -was well
expressed by Richard de Bury, Bishop of
Durham, author of Philobiblon, written
as long ago as 1344, published in 1473,
and the earliest English treatise on the
delights of literature :—“ These,” he says,
“ are the masters who instruct us without
rods and ferules, without hard words and
anger, without clothes or money. If you
approach them, they are not asleep; if
investigating you interrogate them, they
conceal nothing ; if you mistake them,
they never grumble ; if you are ignorant,
they cannot laugh at you. The library,
therefore, of wisdom is more precious
than all riches, and nothing that can be
wished for is worthy to be compared with
it. Whosoever therefore acknowledges
1 Job.
2 Delivered at the Working Men’s College.
This feeling that books are real friends
is constantly present to all who love read
ing. “ I have friends,” said Petrarch,
“ whose society is extremely agreeable to
me ; they are of all ages, and of every
country. They have distinguished them
selves both in the cabinet and in the
field, and obtained high honours for their
knowledge of the sciences. It is easy to
gain access to them, for they are always
at my service, and I admit them to my
company, and dismiss them from it,
whenever I please. They are never
troublesome, but immediately answer every
question I ask them. Some relate to me
the events of past ages, while others
reveal to me the secrets of Nature. Some
teach me how to live, and others how to
die. Some, by their vivacity, drive away
my cares and exhilarate my spirits ; while
others give fortitude to my mind, and
teach me the important lesson how to
restrain my desires, and to depend wholly
on myself. They open to me, in short,
the various avenues of all the arts and
sciences, and upon their information I
may safely rely in all emergencies. In
return for all their services, they only ask
me to accommodate them with a con
venient chamber in some corner of my
humble habitation, where they may
repose in peace; for these friends are
more delighted by the tranquillity of
retirement than with the tumults of
society.”
“ He that loveth a book,” says Isaac
Barrow, “ will never want a faithful
friend, a wholesome counsellor, a cheer
ful companion, an effectual comforter.
By study, by reading, by thinking, one
may innocently divert and pleasantly
entertain himself, as in all weathers, so
in all fortunes.”
Southey took a rather more melancholy
view :
�THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
“My days among the dead are pass’d,
Around me I_beliold,
Where’er these casual eyes are cast,
The mighty minds of old;
My never-failing friends are they,
With whom I converse day by day.”
Imagine, in the words of Aikin, “ that
we had it in our power to call up the
shades of the greatest and wisest men
that ever existed, and oblige them to con
verse with us on the most interesting
topics—what an inestimable privilege
should we think it !—how superior to all
common enjoyments! But in a wellfurnished library we, in fact, possess this
power. We can question Xenophon and
Csesar on their campaigns, make Demos
thenes and Cicero plead before us, join in
the audiences of Socrates and Plato, and
receive demonstrations from Euclid and
Newton. In books we have the choicest
thoughts of the ablest men in their best
dress.”
“Books,” says Jeremy Collier, “are a
guide in youth and an entertainment for
age. They support us under solitude,
and keep us from being a burthen to
ourselves. They help us to forget the
crossness of men and things ; compose
our cares and our passions ; and lay our
disappointments asleep. When we are
weary of the living, we may repair to
the dead, who have nothing of peevish
ness, pride, or design in their conversa
tion.”
Sir John Herschel tells an amusing
anecdote illustrating the pleasure derived
from a book, not assuredly of the first
order. In a certain village the black
smith having got hold of Richardson’s
novel, Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded, used
to sit on his anvil in the long summer
evenings and read it aloud to a large and
attentive audience. It is by no means a
short book, but they fairly listened to it
alL At length, when the happy turn of
fortune arrived, which brings the hero
and heroine together, and sets them living
long and happily together according to
the most approved rules, the congregation
were so delighted as to raise a great shout,
PART I
and procuring the church keys, actually
set the parish bells a-ringing.
“The lover of reading,” says Leigh
Hunt, “will derive agreeable terror from
Sir Bertram and the Haunted Chamber;
will assent with delighted reason to every
sentence in Mrs. Barbauld’s Essay; will
feel himself wandering into solitudes with
Gray; shake honest hands with Sir Roger
de Coverley; be ready to embrace Parson
Adams, and to chuck Pounce out of the
window instead of the hat ; will travel
with Marco Polo and Mungo Parle; stay
at home with Thomson; retire with
Cowley; be industrious with Hutton;
sympathising with Gay and Mrs. Inch
bald; laughing with (and at) Buncle;
melancholy, and forlorn, and self-restored
with the shipwrecked mariner of De Foe.”
Carlyle has wisely said that a collection
of books is a real university.
The importance of books has been
appreciated in many quarters where we
might least expect it. Among the hardy
Norsemen runes were supposed to be
endowed with miraculous power. There
is an Arabic proverb, that “a wise man’s
day is worth a fool’s life,” and another—
though it reflects, perhaps, rather the
spirit of the Califs than of the Sultans,—
that “ the ink of science is more precious
than the blood of the martyrs.”
Confucius is said to have described
himself as a man who “ in his eager pur
suit of knowledge forgot his food, who
in the joy of its attainment forgot his
sorrows, and did not even perceive that
old age was coming on.”
Yet, if this could be said by the Arabs
and the Chinese, what language can be
strong enough to express the gratitude we
ought to feel for the advantages we enjoy !
We do not appreciate, I think, our good
fortune in belonging to the nineteenth
century. Sometimes, indeed, one may
even be inclined to wish that one had not
lived quite so soon, and to long for a
glimpse of the books, even the school
books, of one hundred years hence. A
hundred years ago not only were books
extremely expensive and cumbrous, but
�CHAP .III
A SONG OF BOOKS
many of the most delightful were still
uncreated—such as the works of Scott,
Thackeray, Dickens, Shelley, and Byron,
not to mention living authors. How
much more interesting science has become
especially, if I were to mention only one
name, through the genius of Darwin!
Renan has characterised this as a most
amusing century; I should rather have
described it as most interesting : present
ing us as it does with an endless vista of
absorbing problems ; with infinite oppor
tunities ; with more interest and less
danger than surrounded our less fortunate
ancestors.
Cicero described a room without books,
as a body without a soul. But it is by no
means necessary to be a philosopher to
love reading.
Reading, indeed, is by no means neces
sarily study. Far from it. “ I put,” says
Mr. Frederic Harrison, in his excellent
article on the “ Choice of Books,” “ I
put the poetic and emotional side of
literature as the most needed for daily
use.”
In the prologue to the Legende of Goode
Women, Chaucer says :
“ And as for me, though that I konne but lyte,
On bokes for to rede I me delyte,
And to him give I feyth and ful credence,
And in myn herte have him in reverence,
So hertely, that tlier is game noon,
That fro my bokes maketh me to goon,
But yt be seidome on the holy day,
Save, certynly, when that the monthe of May
Is comen, and that I here the foules synge,
And that the floures gynnen for to sprynge,
Farwel my boke and my devocion.”
But I doubt whether, if he had enjoyed
our advantages, he could have been so
certain of tearing himself away, even in
the month of May.
Macaulay, who had all that wealth and
fame, rank and talents could give, yet, we
are told, derived his greatest happiness
from books. Sir G. Trevelyan, in his
charming biography, says that—“of the
feelings which Macaulay entertained to
wards the great minds of bygone ages it is
not for any one except himself to speak.
He has told us how his debt to them was
IS
incalculable; how they guided him to
truth; how they filled his mind with
noble and graceful images ; how they stood
by him in all vicissitudes—comforters in
sorrow, nurses in sickness, companions in
solitude, the old friends who are never
seen with new faces ; who are the same in
wealth and in poverty, in glory and in
obscurity. Great as were the honours and
possessions which Macaulay acquired by his
pen, all who knew him were well aware
that the titles and rewards which he gained
by his own works were as nothing in the
balance compared with the pleasure he
derived from the works of others.”
There was no society in London so agree
able that Macaulay would have preferred
it at breakfast or at dinner “ to the com
pany of Sterne or Fielding, Horace Wal
pole or Boswell.” The love of reading
which Gibbon declared he would not ex
change for all the treasures of India was,
in fact, with Macaulay “ a main element of
happiness in one of the happiest lives that
it has ever fallen to the lot of the bio
grapher to record.”
“History,” says Fuller, “maketh a
young man to be old without either
wrinkles or gray hair, privileging him
with the experience of age without either
the infirmities or the inconveniences
thereof.”
So delightful indeed are books that we
must be careful not to forget other duties
for them; in cultivating the mind we
must not neglect the body.
To the lover of literature or science,
exercise often presents itself as an irksome
duty, and many a one has felt like “ the
fair pupil of Ascham (Lady Jane Grey),
who, while the horns were sounding and
dogs in full cry, sat in the lonely oriel,
with eyes riveted to that immortal page
which tells how meekly and bravely
(Socrates) the first martyr of intellectual
liberty took the cup from his weeping
jailer.” 1
Still, as the late Lord Derby justly ob
served,2 those who do not find time for
1 Macaulay.
2 Address, Liverpool College, 1873.
�i6
THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
exercise will have to find time for ill
ness.
Books, again, are now so cheap as to be
within the reach of almost every one.
This was not always so. It is quite a
recent blessing. Mr. Ireland, to whose
charming little Book Lover's Enchiridion,
in common with every lover of reading, I
am greatly indebted, tells us that when
a boy he was so delighted with White’s
Natural History of Selborne, that in order
to possess a copy of his own he actually
copied out the whole work.
Mary Lamb gives a pathetic description
of a studious boy lingering at a bookstall :
“ I saw a boy with eager eye
Open a book upon a stall,
And read, as he’d devour it all;
Which, when the*stall man did espy,
Soon to the boy I heard him call,
‘ You, sir, you never buy a book,
Therefore in one you shall not look.’
The boy passed slowly on, and with a sigh
He wished he never had been taught to read,
Then of the old churl’s books he should have
had no need.”
Such snatches of literature have, indeed,
a special and peculiar charm. This is, I
believe, partly due to the very fact of
their being brief. Many readers miss
much of the pleasure of reading by forceing themselves to dwell too long con
tinuously on one subject. In a long
railway journey, for instance, many persons
take only a single book. The consequence
is that, unless it is a story, after half an
hour or an hour they are quite tired of it.
Whereas, if they had two, or still better
three books, on different subjects, and one
of them of an amusing character, they
would probably find that, by changing as
soon as they felt at all weary, they would
come back again and again to each with
renewed zest, and hour after hour would
pass pleasantly away. Every one, of
course, must judge for himself, but such
at least is my experience.
I quite agree, therefore, with Lord
Iddesleigh as to the charm of desultory
reading, but the wider the field the more
important that we should benefit by the
very best books in each class. Not that we
PART I
need confine ourselves to them, but that
we should commence with them, and they
will certainly lead us on to others. There
are of course some books which we must
read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest.
But these are exceptions. As regards by
far the larger number, it is probably
better to read them quickly, dwelling only
on the best and most important passages.
In this way, no doubt, we shall lose much,
but we gain more by ranging over a wider
field. We may, in fact, I think, apply to
reading Lord Brougham’s wise dictum as
regards education, and say that it is well
to read everything of something, and
something of everything. In this way
only we can ascertain the bent of our
own tastes, for it is a general, though not
of course an invariable, rule, that we
profit little by books which we do not enjoy.
Every one, however, may suit himself.
The variety is endless.
Not only does a library contain “in
finite riches in a little room,” 1 but we
may sit at home and yet be in all quarters
of the earth. We may travel round the
world with Captain Cook or Darwin,
with Kingsley or Ruskin, who will show
us much more perhaps than ever we
should see for ourselves.
The world
itself has no limits for us ; Humboldt
and Herschel will carry us far away to
the mysterious nebulas, beyond the sun
and even the stars : time has no more
bounds than space; history stretches out
behind us, and geology will carry us back
for millions of years before the creation
of man, even to the origin of the material
Universe itself. Nor are we limited to
one plane of thought.
Aristotle and
Plato will transport us into a sphere none
the less delightful because we cannot
appreciate it without some training.
Comfort and consolation, peace and
happiness, may indeed be found in his
library by any one “ who shall bring the
golden key that unlocks its silent door.” 2
A library is true fairyland, a very palace
of delight, a haven of repose from the
storms and troubles of the world. Rich
1 Marlowe.
2 Matthews.
�THE CHOICE OF BOOKS
CHAP. IV
and poor can enjoy it alike, for here, at
least, wealth gives no advantage. We
may make a library, if we do but rightly
use it, a true paradise on earth, a garden
of Eden without its one drawback ; for
all is open to us, including, and especially,
the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, for
which we are told that our first mother
sacrificed all the Pleasures of Paradise.
Here we may read the most important
histories, the most exciting volumes of
travels and adventures, the most interest
ing stories, the most beautiful poems ; we
may meet the most eminent statesmen,
poets, and philosophers, benefit by the
ideas of the greatest thinkers, and enjoy
the grandest creations of human genius.
CHAPTER IV
THE CHOICE OF BOOKS 1
“ All round the room my silent servants wait—
My friends in every season, bright and dim,
Angels and Seraphim
Come down and murmur to me, sweet and low,
And spirits of the skies all come and go
Early and Late.”
Proctor.
And yet too often they wait in vain.
One reason for this is, I think, that people
are overwhelmed by the crowd of books
offered to them.
In old days books were rare and dear.
Now on the contrary, it may be said with
greater truth than ever that
“Words are things, and a small drop of ink,
Falling like dew upon a thought, produces
That which makes thousands, perhaps millions,
think.”2
Our ancestors had great difficulty in pro
curing books. Ours now is what to select.
We must be careful what we read, and
not, like the sailors of Ulysses, take bags
of wind for sacks of treasure—not only
lest we should even now fall into the
error of the Greeks, and suppose that
1 Delivered at the London Working Men’s
College.
2 Byron.
c
17
language and definitions can be instru
ments of investigation as well as of
thought, but lest, as too often happens,
we should waste time over trash. There
are many books to which one may apply,
in the sarcastic sense, the ambiguous
remark which Lord Beaconsfield made to
an unfortunate author, “ I will lose no
time in reading your book.”
There are, indeed, books and books ;
and there are books which, as Lamb said,
are not books at all. It is wonderful
how much innocent happiness we thought
lessly throw away. An Eastern proverb
says that calamities sent by heaven may
be avoided, but from those we bring on
ourselves there is no escape.
Many, I believe, are deterred from
attempting what are called stiff books for
fear they should not understand them ;
but there are few* who need complain of
the narrowness of their minds, if only
they would do their best with them.
In reading, however, it is most im
portant to select subjects in which one is
interested. I remember years ago con
sulting Mr. Darwin as to the selection of
a course of study. He asked me what
interested me most, and advised me to
choose that subject. This, indeed, applies
to the work of life generally.
I am sometimes disposed to think that
the great readers of the next generation
will be, not our lawyers and doctors,
shopkeepers and manufacturers, but the
labourers and mechanics. Does not this
seem natural1? The former work mainly
with their head ; when their daily duties
are over, the brain is often exhausted, and
of their leisure time much must be de
voted to air and exercise. The labourer
and mechanic, on the contrary, besides
working often for much shorter hours,
have in their work-time taken sufficient
bodily exercise, and could therefore give
any leisure they might have to reading
and study. They have not done so as
yet, it is true ; but this has been for
obvious reasons. Now, however, in the
first place, they receive an excellent edu
cation in elementary schools, and in the
�i8
THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
second have more easy access to the best
books.
Ruskin has observed that he is not sur
prised at what men suffer, but he often
wonders at what they lose. We suffer
much, no doubt, from the faults of others,
but we lose much more by our own
ignorance.
“ If,” says Sir John Herschel, “ I were
to pray for a taste which should stand
me in stead under every variety of cir
cumstances, and be a source of happiness
and cheerfulness to me through life, and
a shield against its ills, however things
might go amiss and the world frown upon
me, it would be a taste for reading. I
speak of it of course only as a worldly
advantage, and not in the slightest degree
as superseding or derogating from the
higher office and surer and stronger
panoply of religious principles—but as
a taste, an instrument, and a mode of
pleasurable gratification.
Give a man
this taste, and the means of gratifying it,
and you can hardly fail of making a
happy man, unless, indeed, you put into
his hands a most perverse selection of
books.”
It is one thing to own a library ; it
is quite another to use it wisely. I
have often been astonished how little care
people devote to the selection of ■what
they read. Books, we know, are almost
innumerable ; our hours for reading are,
alas ! very few. And yet many people
read almost by hazard. They will take
any book they chance to find in a room
at a friend’s house ; they will buy a novel
at a railway-stall if it has an attractive
title ; indeed, I believe in some cases even
the binding affects their choice.
The
selection is, no doubt, far from easy. I
have often wished some one would re
commend a list of a hundred good books.
If we had such lists drawn up by a few
good guides they would be most useful.
I have indeed sometimes heard it said
that in reading every one must choose for
himself, but this reminds me of the re
commendation not to go into the water
till you can swim.
PART I
In the absence of such lists I have
picked out the books most frequently
mentioned with approval by those who
have referred directly or indirectly to the
pleasure of reading, and have ventured to
include some which, though less frequently
mentioned, are especial favourites of my
own. Every one who looks at the list
will wish to suggest other books, as indeed
I should myself, but in that case the
number would soon run up.1
I have abstained, for obvious reasons,
from mentioning works by living authors,
though from many of them I have myself
derived the keenest enjoyment; and I
have omitted works on science, with one
or two exceptions, because the subject is
so progressive.
I feel that the attempt is over bold,
and I must beg for indulgence, while
hoping for criticism ; indeed one object
which I have had in view is to stimu
late others more competent than I am to
give us the advantage of their opinions.
Moreover, I must repeat that I suggest
these works rather as those which, as far
as I have seen, have been most frequently
recommended, than as suggestions of my
own, though I have slipped in a few of
my own special favourites.
In any such selection much weight
should, I think, be attached to the general
verdict of mankind. There is a “ struggle
for existence ” and a “ survival of the
fittest” among books, as well as among
animals and plants. As Alonzo of Aragon
said, “Age is a recommendation in four
things—old wood to burn, old wine to
drink, old friends to trust, and old books
to read.” Still, this cannot be accepted
without important qualifications.
The
most recent books of history and science
contain, or ought to contain, the most
accurate information and the most trust
worthy conclusions. Moreover, while the
1 Several longer lists have been given ; for
instance, by Comte, Catechism of Positive Philo
sophy ; Pycroft, Course of English Pleading;
Baldwin, The, Book Lover; Perkins, The Best
Reading ; and by Ireland, Books for General
Readers.
�CHAP. IV
THE CHOICE OF BOOKS
books of other races and times have an
interest from their very distance, it must
be admitted that many will still more
enjoy, and feel more at home with, those
of our own century and people.
Yet the oldest books of the world are
remarkable and interesting on account
of their very age; and the works which
have influenced the opinions, or charmed
the leisure hours, of millions of men in
distant times and far-away regions are
well worth reading on that very account,
even if to us they seem scarcely to deserve
their reputation.
It is true that to
many, such works are accessible only in
translations ; but translations, though
they can never perhaps do justice to the
original, may yet be admirable in them
selves. The Bible itself, which must
stand first in the list, is a conclusive
case.
At the head of all non- Christian
moralists, I must place the Enchiridion
of Epictetus and the Meditations of Marcus
Aurelius, certainly two of the noblest
books in the whole of literature ; and
which, moreover, have both been admir
ably translated. The Analects of Con
fucius will, I believe, prove disappointing
to most English readers, but the effect it
has produced on the most numerous race
of men constitutes in itself a peculiar
interest. The Ethics of Aristotle, per
haps, appear to some disadvantage from
the very fact that they have so profoundly
influenced our views of morality. The
Koran, like the Analects of Confucius,
will to most of us derive its principal
interest from the effect it has exercised,
and still exercises, on so many millions of
our fellow-men. I doubt whether in any
other respect it will seem to repay per
usal, and to most persons probably certain
extracts, not too numerous, would appear
sufficient.
The writings of the Apostolic Fathers
have been collected in one volume by
Wake. It is but a small one, and though
I must humbly confess that I vas dis
appointed, they are perhaps all the more
curious from the contrast they afford to
19
those of the Apostles themselves. Of the
later Fathers I have included only the
Confessions of St. Augustine, which Dr.
Pusey selected for the commencement of
the Library of the Fathers, and which, as
he observes, has “ been translated again
and again into almost every European
language, and in all loved ; ” though
Luther was of opinion that St. Augustine
“ wrote nothing to the purpose concerning
faith.” But then Luther was no great
admirer of the Fathers. St. Jerome, he
says, “ writes, alas ! very coldly ; ” Chrys
ostom “ digresses from the chief points ; ”
St. Jerome is “very poor;” and in fact,
he says, “ the more I read the. books of the
Fathers the more I find myself offended ; ”
while Renan, in his interesting auto
biography, compared theology to a Gothic
Cathedral, “ elle a la grandeur, les vides
immenses, et le peu de solidite.”
Among other devotional works most
frequently recommended are Thomas a
Kempis’s Imitation of Christ, Pascal’s
Pensees, Spinoza’s Tractatus TheologicoPoliticus, Butler’s Analogy of Religion,
Jeremy Taylor’s Holy Living and Dying,
Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, and last, not
least, Keble’s beautiful Christian Year.
Aristotle and Plato stand at the head
of another class. The Politics of Aristotle,
and Plato’s Dialogues, if not the whole,
at any rate the Phcedo, the Apology, and
the Republic, will be of course read by all
who wish to know anything of the history
of human thought, though I am heretical
enough to doubt whether the latter repays
the minute and laborious study often
devoted to it.
Aristotle being the father, if not the
creator, of the modern scientific method,
it has followed naturally—indeed, almost
inevitably—that his principles have be
come part of our very intellectual being,
so that they seem now almost self-evident
while his actual observations, though very
remarkable—as, for instance, when he
observes that bees on one journey confine
themselves to one kind of flower—still
have been in many cases superseded by
others, carried on under more favourable
�20
THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
conditions. We must not be ungrateful
to the great master, because his own
lessons have taught us how to advance.
Plato, on the other hand, I say so with
all respect, seems to me in some cases to
play on words : his arguments are very
able, very philosophical, often very noble ;
but not always conclusive ; in a language
differently constructed they might some
times tell in exactly the opposite sense.
If his method has proved less fruitful, if
in metaphysics we have made but little
advance, that very fact in one point of
view leaves the Dialogues of Socrates as
instructive now as ever they were; while
the problems with which they deal will
always rouse our interest, as the calm
and lofty spirit which inspires them
must command our admiration.
Of
the Apology and the Phcedo especially
it would be impossible to speak too grate
fully.
I would also mention Demosthenes’s
De Corona, which Lord Brougham pro
nounced the greatest oration of the
greatest of orators ; Lucretius, Plutarch’s
Lives, Horace, and at least the De Officiis,
De Amicitia, and De Senectute of Cicero.
The great epics of the world have
always constituted one of the most popu
lar branches of literature. Yet how few,
comparatively, ever read Homer or Virgil
after leaving school.
The Nibelungenlied, our great AngloSaxon epic, is perhaps too much neglected,
no doubt on account of its painful char
acter. Brunhild and Kriemhild, indeed,
are far from perfect, but we meet with few
such “ live ” women in Greek or Roman
literature. Nor must I omit to mention
Sir T. Malory’s Morte d’A rthur, though I
confess I do so mainly in deference to the
judgment of others.
Among the Greek tragedians I include
zEschylus, if not all his works, at any rate
Prometheus, perhaps the sublimest poem
in Greek literature, and the Trilogy (Mr.
Symonds in his Greek Poets speaks of the
“ unrivalled majesty ” of the Agamemnon,
and Mark Pattison considered it “the
grandest work of creative genius in the
PART I
whole range of literature”); or, as Sir
M. E. Grant Duff recommends, the Persce;
Sophocles (CEdipus Tyrannus), Euripides
(Medea), and Aristophanes (The Knights and
Clouds') ; unfortunately, as Schlegel says,
probably even the greatest scholar does
not understand half his jokes ; and I think
most modern readers will prefer our own
poets.
I should like, moreover, to say a word
for Eastern poetry, such as portions of the
Maha Bharata and Ramayana (too long
probably to be read through, but of which
Taiboys Wheeler has given a most interest
ing epitome in the first two volumes of
his History of India); the Shali-nameh, the
work of the great Persian poet Firdusi;
Kalidasa’s Sakuntala, and the Sheking, the
classical collection of ancient Chinese odes.
Many I know, will think I ought to have
included Omar Khayyam.
In history we are beginning to feel that
the vices and vicissitudes of kings and
queens, the dates of battles and wars, are
far less important than the development
of human thought, the progress of art, of
science, and of law, and the subject is on
that very account even more interesting
than ever. I will, however, only mention,
and that rather from a literary than a his
torical point of view, Herodotus, Xenophon
(the Anabasis), Thucydides, and Tacitus
(Germania); and of modern historians,
Gibbon’s Decline and Fall (“ the splendid
bridge from the old world to the new ”),
Hume’s History of England, Carlyle’s
French Revolution, Grote’s History of Greece,
and Green’s Short History of the English
People.
Science is so rapidly progressive that,
though to many minds it is the most
fruitful and interesting subject of all, I
cannot here rest on that agreement which,
rather than my own opinion, I take as the
basis of my list. I will therefore only
mention Bacon’s Novum Organum, Mill’s
Logic, and Darwin’s Origin of Species; in
Political Economy, which some of our
rulers do not now sufficiently value, Mill,
and parts of Smith’s Wealth of Nations,
for probably those who do not intend to
�CHAP. IV
THE CHOICE OF BOOKS
make a special study of political economy
would scarcely read the whole.
Among voyages and travels, perhaps
those most frequently suggested are Cook’s
Voyages, Humboldt’s Travels, and Darwin’s
Naturalist’s Journal; though I confess I
should like to have added many more.
Mr. Bright not long ago specially re
commended the less known American poets,
but he probably assumed that every one
would have read Shakespeare, Milton
(Paradise Lost, Lycidas, Comus and minor
poems), Chaucer, Dante, Spenser, Dryden,
Scott, Wordsworth, Pope, Byron, and
others, before embarking on more doubtful
adventures.
Among other books most frequently re
commended are Goldsmith’s Vicar of
Wakefield, Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, Defoe’s
Robinson Crusoe, The Arabian Nights, Don
Quixote, Boswell’s Life of Johnson, White’s
Natural History of Selborne, Burke’s Select
Works (Payne), the Essays of Bacon,
Addison, Hume, Montaigne, Macaulay, and
Emerson, Carlyle’s Past and Present,
Smiles’s Self-Help, and Goethe’s Faust and
Autobiography.
Nor can one go wrong in recommending
Berkeley’s Human Knowledge, Descartes’s
Discours sur la Methode, Locke’s Conduct
of the Understanding Lewes’s History of
Philosophy ; while, in order to keep within
the number one hundred, I can only
mention Moliere ,and Sheridan among
dramatists. Macaulay considered Mari
vaux’s La Vice de Marianne the best novel
in any language, but my number is so
nearly complete that I must content my
self with English: and will suggest
Thackeray (Vanity Fair and Pendennis'),
Dickens (Pickwick and David Copperfield),
G. Eliot (Adam Bede or The Mill on the
Floss), Kingsley (Westward Ho!), Lytton
(Last Days of Pompeii), and last, not least,
those of Scott, which indeed constitute a
library in themselves, but which I must
ask, in return for my trouble, to be allowed,
as a special favour, to count as one.
To any lover of books the very mention
of these names brings back a crowd of de
licious memories, grateful recollections of
21
peaceful home hours, after the labours and
anxieties of the day. How thankful we
ought to be for these inestimable blessings,
for this numberless host of friends who
never weary, betray, or forsake us !
LIST OF 100 BOOKS
Works by Living Authors are omitted
The Bible
The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius
Epictetus
Aristotle’s Ethics
Analects of Confucius
St. Hilaire’s “Le Bouddha et sa religion”
Wake’s Apostolic Fathers
Thos. a Kempis’s Imitation of Christ
Confessions of St. Augustine (Dr. Pusey)
The Koran (portions of)
Spinoza’s Tractatus Theologico-Politicus
Pascal’s Pensees
Butler’s Analogy of Religion
Taylor’s Holy Living and Dying
Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress
Keble’s Christian Year
Plato’s Dialogues ; at any rate, the Apology,
Crito, and Pheedo
Xenophon’s Memorabilia
Aristotle’s Politics
Demosthenes’s De Corona
Cicero’s De Officiis, De Amicitia, and De
Senectute
Plutarch’s Lives
Berkeley’s Human Knowledge
Descartes’s Discours sur la Methode
Locke s On the Conduct of the Understanding
Homer
Hesiod
Virgil
Maha Bliarata
Ramayana
Epitomised in Taiboys
Wheeler’s History of
India, vols. i. and ii.
The Shahnameh
The Nibelungenlied
Malory’s Morte d’Arthur
The Sheking
Kalidasa’s Sakuntala or The Lost Ring
Alschylus’s Prometheus
Trilogy of Orestes
Sophocles’s (Edipus
Euripides’s Medea
Aristophanes’s The Knights and Clouds
Horace
Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (perhaps in
Morris’s edition ; or, if expurgated, in C.
Clarke’s, or Mrs. Haweis’s)
�22
THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
Shakespeare *
Milton’s Paradise Lost, Lycidas, Comus, and
the shorter poems
Dante’s Divina Commedia
Spenser’s Fairie Queen
Dryden’s Poems
Scott’s Poems
Wordsworth (Mr. Arnold’s selection)
Pope’s Essay on Criticism
Essay on Man
Rape of the Lock
Burns
Byron’s Childe Harold
Gray’s Poems
Tennyson’s Idylls and smaller poems
PART I
Thackeray’s Vanity Fair
Pendennis
Dickens’s Pickwick
David Copperfield
Lytton’s Last Days of Pompeii
George Eliot’s Adam Bede
Kingsley’s Westward Ho >.
Scott’s Novels
CHAPTER V
THE BLESSING OF FRIENDS1
Herodotus
Xenophon’s Anabasis
Thucydides
Tacitus’s Germania
Livy
Gibbon’s Decline and Fall
Hume’s History of England
Grote’s History of Greece
Carlyle’s French Revolution
Green’s Short History of England
Lewes’s History of Philosophy
“They seem to take away the sun from the
world who withdraw friendship from life ; for
we have received nothing better from the Im
mortal Gods, nothing more delightful.”—Cicero.
Most of those who have written in praise
of books have thought they could say
nothing more conclusive than to compare
them to friends.
All men, said Socrates, have their
different objects of ambition—horses, dogs,
Arabian Nights
money, honour, as the case may be ; but
Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels
Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe
for his own part he would rather have a
Goldsmith’s Vicar of Wakefield
good friend than all these put together.
Cervantes’s Don Quixote
And again, men know “ the number of
Boswell’s Life of Johnson
their other possessions, although they
Moliere
Schiller’s William Tell
might be very numerous, but of their
Sheridan’s The Critic, School for Scandal, and friends, though but few, they were not
The Rivals
only ignorant of the number, but even
Carlyle’s Past and Present
when they attempted to reckon it to such
as asked them, they set aside again some
Bacon’s Novum Organum
that they had previously counted among
Smith’s Wealth of Nations (part of)
Mill’s Political Economy
their friends; so little did they allow
Cook’s Voyages
their friends to occupy their thoughts.
Humboldt’s Travels
Yet in comparison with what possession,
White’s Natural History of Selborne
of all others, would not a good friend
Darwin’s Origin of Species
Naturalist’s Voyage
appear far more valuable ? ”
Mill’s Logic
“ As to the value of other things,” says
Cicero, “most men differ; concerning
Bacon’s Essays
friendship all have the same opinion.
Montaigne’s Essays
What can be more foolish than, when
Hume’s Essays
Macaulay’s Essays
men are possessed of great influence by
Addison’s Essays
their wealth, power, and resources, to
Emerson’s Essays
procure other things which are bought
Burke’s Select Works
by money—horses, slaves, rich apparel,
Smiles’s Self-Help
costly vases—and not to procure friends,
Voltaire’s Zadig and Micromegas
Goethe’s Faust, and Autobiography
1 The substance of this was delivered at the
London Working Men’s College.
�CHAP. V
THE BLESSING OF. EE ZENDS
the most valuable and fairest furniture of
life?” And yet, he continues, “every
man can tell how many goats or sheep
he possesses, but not how many friends.”
In the choice, moreover, of a dog or of a
horse, we exercise the greatest care : we
inquire into its pedigree, its training and
character, and yet we too often leave the
selection of our friends, which is of in
finitely greater importance—by whom our
whole life will be more or less influenced
either for good or evil—almost to chance.
It is no doubt true, as the Autocrat of
the Breakfast Table says, that all men are
bores except when we want them. And
Sir Thomas Browne quaintly observes
that “ unthinking heads who have not
learnt to be alone, are a prison to them
selves if they be not with others ; whereas,
on the contrary, those whose thoughts are
in a fair and hurry within, are sometimes
fain to retire into company to be out of
the crowd of themselves.” Still I do not
quite understand Emerson’s idea that
“men descend to meet.” In another
place, indeed, he qualifies the statement,
and says, “ Almost all people descend to
meet.” Even so I should venture to
question it, especially considering the
context.
“ All association,” he adds,
“must be a compromise, and, what is
worse, the very flower and aroma of the
flower of each of the beautiful natures
disappears as they approach each other.”
What a sad thought! Is it really so ;
Need it be so ? And if it were, would
friends be any real advantage ? I should
have thought that the influence of friends
was exactly the reverse : that the flower
of a beautiful nature would expand, and
the colours grow brighter, when stimu
lated by the warmth and sunshine of
friendship.
It has been said that it is wise always
to treat a friend, remembering that he
may become an enemy, and an enemy,
remembering that he may become a
friend ; and whatever may be thought
of the first part of the adage, there is
certainly much wisdom in the latter.
Many people seem to take more pains
23
and more pleasure in making enemies,
than in making friends. Plutarch, in
deed, quotes with approbation the. advice
of Pythagoras “ not to shake hands with
too many,” but as long as friends are
well chosen, it is true rather that
“ He who has a thousand friends,
Has never a one to spare,
And he who has one enemy,
Will meet him everywhere,”
and unfortunately, while there are few
great friends there is no little enemy.
I guard myself, however, by saying
again—As long as they are well chosen.
One is thrown in life with a great many
people who, though not actively bad,
though they may not wilfully lead us
astray, yet take no pains with themselves,
neglect their own minds, and direct the
conversation to petty puerilities or mere
gossip ; who do not seem to realise that
conversation may by a little effort be
made instructive and delightful, without
being in any way pedantic ; or, on the
other hand, in ay be allowed to drift into
a mere morass of muddy thought and
weedy words. There are few from ■whom
we may not learn something, if only they
will trouble themselves to tell us. Nay,
even if they teach us nothing, they may
help us by the stimulus of intelligent
questions, or the warmth of sympathy.
But if they do neither, then indeed their
companionship, if companionship it can
be called, is mere waste of time, and of
such we may well say, “ I do desire that
we be better strangers.”
Much certainly of the happiness and
purity of our lives depends on our making
a wise choice of our companions and
friends. If badly chosen they will in
evitably drag us down ; if well they will
raise us up. Yet many people seem to
trust in this matter to the chapter of
accident. It is well and right, indeed, to
be courteous and considerate to every one
with whom we are brought into contact,
but to choose them as real friends is an
other matter. Some seem to make a man
a friend, or try to do so, because he lives
near, because he is in the same business,
�24
THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
travels on the same line of railway, or for
some other trivial reason. There cannot
be a greater mistake. These are only, in
the words of Plutarch “ the idols and
images of friendship.”
To be friendly with every one is
another matter ; we must remember that
there is no little enemy, and those who
have ever really loved any one will have
some tenderness for all. There is indeed
some good in most men. “ I have heard
much,” says Mr. Nasmyth in his charming
autobiography, “ about the ingratitude
and selfishness of the world. It may
have been ray good fortune, but I have
never experienced either of these unfeel
ing conditions.” Such also has been my
own experience.
“ Men talk of unkind hearts, kind deeds
With coldness still returning.
Alas ! the gratitude of men
Has ofteuer left me mourning.”
I cannot, then, agree with Emerson
when he says that “we walk alone in the
world. Friends such as we desire are
dreams and fables. But a sublime hope
cheers ever the faithful heart, that else
where in other regions of the universal
power souls are now acting, enduring,
and daring, which can love us, and which
we can love.”
No doubt, much as worthy friends
add to the happiness and value of life,
we must in the main depend on ourselves,
and every one is his own best friend
or worst enemy.
Sad, indeed, is Bacon’s assertion that
“ there is little friendship in the world,
and least of all between equals, which
was wont to be magnified. That that is,
is between superior and inferior, whose
fortunes may comprehend the one to the
other.” But this can hardly be taken as
his deliberate opinion, for he elsewhere
says, “ but we may go farther, and affirm
most truly, that it is a mere and miser
able solitude to want true friends, without
which the world is but a wilderness.”
Not only, he adds, does friendship intro
duce “ daylight in the understanding out
of darkness and confusion of thoughts;”
PART I
it “ maketh a fair day in the affections
from storm and tempests:” in consultation
with a friend a man “ tosseth his thoughts
more easily; he marshalleth them more
orderly ; he seeth how they look when
they are turned into words ; finally, he
waxeth wiser than himself, and that more
by an hour’s discourse than by a day’s
meditation.” . . . “ But little do men
perceive what solitude is, and how far it
extendeth, for a crowd is not company,
and faces are but a gallery of pictures,
and talk but a tinkling cymbal where
there is no love.”
With this last assertion I cannot alto
gether concur. Surely even strangers may
be most interesting ! and many will agree
with Dr. Johnson when, describing a
pleasant evening, he summed it up—“ Sir,
we had a good talk.”
Epictetus gives excellent advice when
he dissuades from conversation on the
very subjects most commonly chosen, and
advises that it should be on “ none of
the common subjects—not about gladi
ators, nor horse-races, nor about athletes,
nor about eating or drinking, which are
the usual subjects ; and especially not
about men, as blaming them ; ” but when
he adds, “or praising them,” the injunction
seems to me of doubtful value. Surely
Marcus Aurelius more wisely advises that
“when thou wishest to delight thyself,
think of the virtues of those who live
with thee ; for instance, the activity of
one, and the modesty of another, and the
liberality of a third, and some other good
quality of a fourth. For nothing delights
so much as the examples of the virtues,
when they are exhibited in the morals of
those who live with us and present them
selves in abundance, as far as is possible.
Wherefore we must keep them before us.”
Yet how often we know merely the sight
of those we call our friends, or the sound
of their voices, but nothing whatever of
their mind or soul.
We must, moreover, be as careful to
keep friends as to make them. If every
one knew what one said of the other,
Pascal assures us that “ there would not
�THE VALUE OF TIME
CHAP. V
be four friends in the world.” This I
hope and think is too strong, but at
any rate try to be one of the four. And
when you have made a friend, keep
him. Hast thou a friend, says an Eastern
proverb, “ visit him often, for thorns and
brushwood obstruct the road which no
one treads.” The affections should not be
mere “tents of a night.”
Still less does Friendship confer any
privilege to make ourselves disagreeable.
Some people never seem to appreciate
their friends till they have lost them.
Anaxagoras described the Mausoleum as
the ghost of wealth turned into stone.
“ But he who has once stood beside the
grave to look back on the companionship
which has been for ever closed, feeling
how impotent then are the wild love and
the keen sorrow, to give one instant’s
pleasure to the pulseless heart, or atone
in the lowest measure to the departed
spirit for the hour of unkindness, will
scarcely for the future incur that debt to
the heart which can only be discharged
to the dust.” 1
Death, indeed, cannot sever friendship.
“Friends,” says Cicero, “though absent,
are still present ; though in poverty they
are rich ; though weak, yet in the enjoy
ment of health ; and, what is still more
difficult to assert, though dead they are
alive.” This seems a paradox, yet is
there not much truth in his explanation ?
“ To me, indeed, Scipio still lives, and
will always live ; for I love the virtue of
that man, and that worth is not yet ex
tinguished. . . . Assuredly of all things
that either fortune or time has bestowed
on me, I have none which I can compare
with the friendship of Scipio.”
If, then, we choose our friends for
what they are, not for what they have,
and if we deserve so great a blessing, then
they will be always with us, preserved in
absence, and even after death, in the
amber of memory.
25
CHAPTER VI
THE VALUE OF TIME1
Each day is a little life
All other good gifts depend on time
for their value. What are friends, books,
or health, the interest of travel or the de
lights of home, if we have not time for
their enjoyment ? Time is often said to
be money, but it is more—it is life ; and
yet many who would cling desperately to
life, think nothing of wasting time.
Ask of the wise, says Schiller in Lord
Sherbrooke’s translation,
‘ ‘ The moments we forego
Eternity itself cannot retrieve. ”
And, in the words of Dante,
“ For who knows most, him loss of time most
grieves.”
Not that a life of drudgery should be our
ideal. Far from it. Time spent in
innocent and rational enjoyments, in
healthy games, in social and family inter
course, is well and wisely spent. Games
not only keep the body in health, but give
a command over the muscles and limbs
which cannot be over-valued. Moreover,
there are temptations which strong exercise
best enables us to resist.
It is the idle who complain they cannot
find time to do that which they fancy
they wish. In truth, people can generally
make time for what they choose to do ; it
is not really the time but the will that is
wanting: and the advantage of leisure is
mainly that we may have the power of
choosing our own wTork, not certainly that
it confers any privilege of idleness.
“ Time travels in divers paces with
divers persons. I’ll tell you who time
ambles withal, who time trots withal, who
time gallops withal, and who he stands
still withal.” 2
1 Ruskin.
1 The substance of this was delivered at the
Polytechnic Institution.
2 Shakespeare.
�26
THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
PART I
For it is not so much the hours that Devil tempts the busy man, but the idle
tell, as the way we use them.
man tempts the Devil. I remember, says
Hillard, “a satirical poem, in which the
“ Circles are praised, not that excel
In largeness, but th’ exactly framed ;
Devil is represented as fishing for men,
So life we praise, that does excel
and adapting his bait to the tastes and
Not in much time, but acting well.” 1
temperaments of his prey ; but the idlers
“Idleness,” says Jeremy Taylor, “is were the easiest victims, for they swallowed
the greatest prodigality in the world ; it even the naked hook.”
throws away that which is invaluable in
The mind of the idler indeed preys upon
respect of its present use, and irreparable itself. “ The human heart is like a mill
when it is past, being to be recovered by stone in a mill; when you put wheat
no power of art or nature.”
under it, it turns and grinds and bruises
Life must be measured rather by depth the wheat to flour ; if you put no wheat,
than by length, by thought and action it still grinds on—and grinds itself away.” 1
rather than by time. “ A counted number
It is not work, but care, that kills, and
of pulses only,” says Pater, “is given to us it is in this sense, I suppose, that we are
of a variegated, aromatic, life. How may told to “ take no thought for the morrow.”
we see in them all that is to be seen by To “ consider the lilies of the field, how
the finest senses 1 How can we pass most they grow ; they toil not, neither do they
swiftly from point to point, and be present spin : and yet even Solomon, in all his
always at the focus where the greatest glory, was not arrayed like one of these.
number of vital forces unite in their Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of
purest energy ? To burn always with this the field, which to-day is, and to-morrow
hard gem-like flame, to maintain this is cast into the oven, shall he not much
ecstasy, is success in life. Failure is to more clothe you, O ye of little faith 1 ” It
form habits, for habit is relation to a would indeed be a mistake to suppose that
stereotyped world ; . . . while all melts lilies are idle or imprudent. On the
under our feet, we may well catch at any contrary, plants are most industrious, and
exquisite passion, or any contribution to lilies store up in their complex bulbs a
knowledge, that seems, by a lifted horizon, great part of the nourishment of one year to
to set the spirit free for a moment.”
quicken the growth of the next. Care, on
I would not quote Lord Chesterfield as the other hand, they certainly know not.2
generally a safe guide, but there is certainly
“ Hours have wings, fly up to the author
much shrewd wisdom in his advice to his of time, and carry news of our usage.
son with reference to time. “ Every All our prayers cannot entreat one of them
moment you now lose, is so much character either to return or slacken his pace. The
and advantage lost ; as, on the other hand, misspents of every minute are a new record
every moment you now employ usefully, against us in heaven. Sure if we thought
is so much time wisely laid out, at pro thus, we should dismiss them with better
digious interest.”
reports, and not suffer them to fly away
And again, “ It is astonishing that any empty, or laden with dangerous intelli
one can squander away in absolute idleness gence. How happy is it when they carry
one single moment of that small portion up not only the message, but the fruits of
of time which is allotted to us in the world. good, and stay with the Ancient of Days
. . . Know the true value of time ; snatch, to speak for us before His glorious
seize, and enjoy every moment of it.”
throne! ” 3
‘ Are you in earnest ? seize this very minute,
What you can do, or think you can, begin it.” 2
There is a Turkish proverb that
1 Waller.
2 Faust.
1 Luther.
2 The word used iiepifiv-qa-qTe is translated in
the Liddell and Scott “to be anxious about, to be
distressed in mind, to be cumbered with many
cares.”
3 Milton.
�CHAP. VI
THE VALUE OF TIME
Time is often said to fly : but it is not
so much the time that flies ; as we that
waste it, and wasted time is worse than no
time at all; “ I wasted time,” Shake
speare makes Richard II. say, “and now
doth time waste me.”
“He that is choice of his time,” says
Jeremy Taylor, “ will also be choice of
his company, and choice of his actions ;
lest the first engage him in vanity and
loss, and the latter, by being criminal, be
a throwing his time and himself away,
and a going back in the accounts of
eternity.”
The life of man is seventy years, but
how little of this is actually our own.
We must deduct the time required for
sleep, for meals, for dressing and undress
ing, for exercise, etc., and then how little
remains really at our own disposal!
“ I have lived,” said Lamb, “ nominally
fifty years, but deduct from them the
hours I have lived for other people, and
not for myself, anct you will find me still
a young fellow.”
The hours we live for other people,
however, are not those which should be
deducted, but rather those which benefit
neither oneself nor any one else ; and
these, alas 1 are often very numerous.
“ There are some hours which are taken
from us, some which are stolen from us,
and some which slip from us.”1 But
however we may lose them, we can never
get them back. It is wonderful, indeed,
how much innocent happiness we thought
lessly throw away. An Eastern proverb
says that calamities sent by heaven may
be avoided, but from those we bring on
ourselves there is no escape.
Some years ago I paid a visit to the
sites of the ancient lake villages of Switzer
land in company with a distinguished
archseologist, M. Morlot. To my surprise
I found that his whole income was £100
a year, part of which, moreover, he spent
in making a small museum. I asked him
whether he contemplated accepting any
post or office, but he said certainly not.
He valued his leisure and opportunities
1 Seneca.
27
as priceless possessions far more than
silver or gold, and would not waste any
of his time in making money.
Time, indeed, is a sacred gift, and each
day is a little life. Just think of our
advantages here in London ! We have
access to the whole literature of the
world ; we may see in our National
Gallery the most beautiful productions of
former generations, and in the Royal
Academy and other galleries the works of
the greatest living artists. Perhaps there
is no one who has ever found time to
see the British Museum thoroughly. Yet
consider what it contains ; or rather, what
does it not contain ? The most perfect
collection of living and extinct animals;
the marvellous monsters of geological
ages ; the most beautiful birds, shells, and
minerals ; precious stones and fragments
from other worlds ; the most interesting
antiquities ; curious and fantastic speci
mens illustrating different races of men ;
exquisite gems, coins, glass, and china ;
the Elgin marbles; the remains of the
Mausoleum ; of the temple of Diana of
Ephesus; ancient monuments of Egypt
and Assyria ; the rude implements of our
predecessors in England, who were coeval
with the hippopotamus and rhinoceros, the
musk-ox, and the mammoth ; and beauti
ful specimens of Greek and Roman art.
Suffering may be unavoidable, but no
one has any excuse for being dull. And
yet some people are dull. They talk of
a better world to come, while whatever
dulness there may be here is all their
own. Sir Arthur Helps has well said :
“ What! dull, when you do not know
what gives its loveliness of form to the
lily, its depth of colour to the violet, its
fragrance to the rose; when you do not
know in what consists the venom of the
adder, any more than you can imitate the
glad movements of the dove. What !
<jull, when earth, air, and water are all
alike mysteries to you, and when as you
stretch out your hand you do not touch
anything the properties of which you have
mastered ; while all the time Nature is
inviting you to talk earnestly with her,
�28
THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
part I
to understand her, to subdue
be blessed by her 1 Go away,
something, do something,
something, and let me hear
your dulness.”
her, and to
Surely no one who has the opportunity
man ; learn should omit to travel. The world belongs
understand to him who has seen it. “ But he that
no more of would make his travels delightful must
first make himself delightful.” 1
According to the old proverb, “ the fool
wanders, the wise man travels.” Bacon
tells us that “the things to be seen and
observed are the courts of princes, especi
CHAPTER VII
ally when they give audience to ambas
THE PLEASURES OF TRAVEL 1
sadors ; the courts of justice while they
sit and hear causes ; and so of consistories
“I ain a part of all that I have seen.”
ecclesiastic • the churches and monasteries,
with the monuments which are therein
I AM sometimes disposed to think that
extant; the walls and fortifications of
there are few things in which we of this cities and towns ; and so the havens and
generation enjoy greater advantages over harbours, antiquities and ruins, libraries,
our ancestors than in the increased facili colleges, disputations and lectures, when
ties of travel; but I hesitate to say this, any are; shipping and navies ; houses
not because our advantages are not great, and gardens of state and pleasure near
but because I have already made the same great cities; armouries, arsenals, maga
remark with reference to several other zines, exchanges, burses, warehouses, exer
aspects of life.
cises of horsemanship, fencing, training of
The very word “ travel ” is suggestive. soldiers, and the like; comedies, such
It is a form of “travail”—excessive labour; whereunto the better sort of persons do
and, as Skeat observes, it forcibly recalls resort; treasuries of jewels and robes;
the toil of travel in olden days. How cabinets and rarities ; and, to conclude,
different things are now !
whatsoever is memorable in the places
It is sometimes said that every one where they go.”
should travel on foot “ like Thales, Plato,
But this depends on the time at our
and Pythagoras ” ; we are told that in disposal, and the object with which we
these days of railroads people rush through travel. If we are long enough in any
countries and see nothing. It may be so, one place Bacon’s advice is no doubt
but that is not the fault of the railways. excellent; but for the moment I am
They confer upon us the inestimable ad thinking rather of an annual holiday,
vantage of being able, so rapidly and with taken for the sake of rest and health ;
so little fatigue, to visit countries which for fresh air and exercise rather than for
were much less accessible to our ancestors. study. Yet even so, if we have eyes to
What a blessing it is that not our own see, we cannot fail to lay in a stock of
islands only—our smiling fields and rich new ideas as well as a store of health.
woods, the mountains that are full of
We may have read the most vivid and
peace and the rivers of joy, the lakes and accurate description, we may have pored
heaths and hills, castles and cathedrals, over maps and plans and pictures, and yet
and many a spot immortalised in the the reality will burst on us like a revela
history of our country :—not these only, tion. This is true not only of mountains
but the sun and scenery of the South, and glaciers, of palaces and cathedrals,
the Alps the palaces of Nature, the blue but even of the simplest examples.
Mediterranean, and the cities of Europe,
For instance, like every one else, I had
with all their memories and treasures, are read descriptions and seen photographs
now brought within a few hours of us.
and pictures of the Pyramids. Their
1 The substance of this was delivered at Oldham.
1 Seneca.
�CHAP. VII
THE PLEASURES OF TRAVEL
form is simplicity itself. I do not know
that I could put into words any character
istic of the original for -which I was not
prepared. It was not that they were
larger ; it was not that they differed in
form, in colour, or situation. And yet,
the moment I saw them, I felt that my
previous impression had been but a faint
shadow of the reality. The actual sight
seemed to give life to the idea.
Every one who has been in the East
will agree that a -week of oriental travel
brings out, with more than stereoscopic
effect, the pictures of patriarchal life as
given us in the Old Testament. And
what is true of the Old Testament is true
of history generally. To those who have
been in Athens or Rome, the history of
Greece or Italy becomes far more interest
ing ; -while, on the other hand, some
knowledge of the history and literature
enormously enhances the interest of the
scenes themselves.
Good descriptions and pictures, how
ever, help us to see much more than we
should perhaps perceive for ourselves. It
may even be doubted whether some
persons do not derive a more correct im
pression from a good drawing or descrip
tion, which brings out the salient points,
than they would from actual, but unaided,
inspection. The idea may gain in ac
curacy, in character, and even in detail,
more than it misses in vividness. But,
however this may be, for those who cannot
travel, descriptions and pictures have an
immense interest; while to those who
have travelled, they will afford an inex
haustible delight in reviving the memories
of beautiful scenes and interesting expedi
tions.
It is really astonishing how little most
of us see of the beautiful world in which
we live. Mr. Norman Lockyer tells me
that while travelling on a scientific mission
in the Rocky Mountains, he w’as astonished
to meet an aged French Abbe, and could
not help showing his surprise. The Abbd
observed this, and in the course of con
versation explained his presence in that
distant region.
29
“You were,” he said, “I easily saw,
surprised to find me here. The fact is,
that some months ago I was very ill. My
physicians gave me up : one morning I
seemed to faint and thought that I was
already in the arms of the Bon Dieu. I
fancied one of the angels came and asked
me, ‘Well, M. l’Abbe, and how did you
like the beautiful world you have just
left?’ And then it occurred to me that
I who had been all my life preaching
about heaven, had seen almost nothing
of the world in which I was living. I
determined therefore, if it pleased Provi
dence to spare me, to see something of
this world ; and so here I am.”
Few of us are free, however much we
might wish it, to follow the example of
the worthy Abbe. But although it may
not be possible for us to reach the Rocky
Mountains, there are other countries nearer
home which most of us might find time
to visit.
Though it is true that no descriptions
can come near the reality, they may at
least persuade us to give ourselves this
great advantage. Let me then try to
illustrate this by pictures in words, as
realised by some of our most illustrious
countrymen; I will select references to
foreign countries only, not that we have
not equal beauties here, but because every
where in England one feels oneself at
home.
The following passage from Tyndall’s
Hours of Exercise in the Alps, is almost as
good as an hour in the Alps themselves :
“ I looked over this wondrous scene
towards Mont Blanc, the Grand Combin,
the Dent Blanche, the Weissliorn, the
Dom, and the thousand lesser peaks which
seemed to join in the celebration of the
risen day. I asked myself, as on previous
occasions, How was this colossal work
performed ? Who chiselled these mighty
and picturesque masses out of a mere
protuberance of the earth ? And the
answer was at hand. Ever young, ever
mighty—with the vigour of a thousand
worlds still within him—the real sculptor
was even then climbing up the eastern
�30
THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
PART I
i
sky. It was lie wlio raised aloft the
waters which cut out these ravines; it
was he who planted the glaciers on the
mountain-slopes, thus giving gravity a
plough to open out the valleys ; and it is
he who, acting through the ages, will
finally lay low these mighty monuments,
rolling them gradually seaward, sowing
the seeds of continents to be ; so that the
people of an older earth may see mould
spread, and corn wave over the hidden
rocks which at this moment bear the
weight of the Jungfrau.” And the Alps
lie within twenty-four hours of London !
Tyndall’s writings also contain many
vivid descriptions of glaciers ; those
“ silent and solemn causeways . . . broad
enough for the march of an army in line
of battle and quiet as a street of tombs in
a buried city.” 1 I do not, however, borrow
from him or from any one else any descrip
tion of glaciers, for they are so unlike any
thing else, that no one who has not seen,
can possibly visualise them.
The history of European rivers yet
remains to be written, and is most inter
esting. They did not always run in their
present courses. The Rhone, for instance,
appears to have been itself a great traveller.
At least there seems reason to believe
that the upper waters of the Valais fell
at first into the Danube, and so into
the Black Sea ; subsequently joined the
Rhine and the Thames, and so ran far
north over the plains which once connected
the mountains of Scotland and of Norway
—to the Arctic Ocean ; and have only
comparatively of late years adopted their
present course into the Mediterranean.
But, however this may be, the Rhine
of Germany and the Rhine of Switzerland
are very unlike. The catastrophe of Schaff
hausen seems to alter the whole character
of the river, and no wonder. “ Stand for
half an hour,” says Ruskin, “beside the
Fall of Schaffhausen, on the north side
where the rapids are long, and watch how '
the vault of water first bends, unbroken,
in pure polished velocity, over the arching
rocks at the brow of the cataract, covering ,
1 Ruskin.
' them with a dome of crystal twenty feet
j thick, so swift that its motion is unseen
i except when a foam globe from above
, darts over it like a falling star ; . . . and
, how ever and anon, startling you with its
white flash, a jet of spray leaps hissing
out of the fall, like a rocket, bursting in
the wind and driven away in dust, filling
the air with light; and how, through the
curdling wreaths of the restless crushing
abyss below, the blue of the water, paled
by the foam in its body, shows purer
than the sky through white rain-cloud •
. . . their dripping masses lifted at inter
vals, like sheaves of loaded corn, by some
stronger gush from the cataract, and
bowed again upon the mossy rocks as its
roar dies away.”
But much as we may admire the
majestic grandeur of a mighty river,
either in its eager rush or its calmer
moments, there is something which
fascinates even more in the free life, the
young energy, the sparkling transparence,
and merry music of smaller streams.
“ The upper Swiss valleys,” as the
same great Seer says, “ are sweet with
perpetual streamlets, that seem always to
have chosen the steepest places to come
down, for the sake of the leaps, scattering
their handfuls of crystal this way and
that, as the wind takes them, with all the
grace, but with none of the formalism, of
fountains . . . until at last . . . they
find their way down to the turf, and lose
themselves in that, silently ; with quiet
depth of clear water furrowing among the
grass blades, and looking only like their
shadow, but presently emerging again in
little startled gushes and laughing hurries,
as if they had remembered suddenly that
the day was too short for them to get
down the hill.”
How vividly does Symonds bring before
us the sunny shores of the Mediterranean,
which he loves so well, and the contrast
between the scenery of the North and
the South.
“ In northern landscapes the eye travels
through vistas of leafy boughs to still,
secluded crofts and pastures, where slow-
�CHAP. VII
THE PLEASURES OF TRA VEL
moving oxen graze. The mystery of
dreams and the repose of meditation haunt
our massive bowers. But in the South,
the lattice-work of olive boughs and foliage
scarcely veils the laughing sea and bright
blue sky, while the hues of the landscape
find their climax in the dazzling radiance
of the sun upon the waves, and the pure
light of the horizon. There is no conceal
ment and no melancholy here. Nature
seems to hold a never-ending festival and
dance, in which the waves and sunbeams
and shadows join. Again, in northern
scenery, the rounded forms of full-foliaged
trees suit the undulating country, with its
gentle hills and brooding clouds ; but in
the South the spiky leaves and sharp
branches of the olive carry out the defined
outlines which are everywhere observable
through the broader beauties of mountain
and valley and sea-shore. Serenity and
intelligence characterise this southern
landscape, in which a race of splendid men
and women lived beneath the pure light
of Phoebus, their ancestral god. Pallas
protected them, and golden Aphrodite
favoured them with beauty. Olives are
not, however, by any means the only trees
which play a part in idyllic scenery. The
tall stone pine is even more important. . . .
Near Massa, by Sorrento, there are two
gigantic pines so placed that, lying on the
grass beneath them, one looks on Capri
rising from the sea, Baiae, and all the bay
of Naples sweeping round to the base of
Vesuvius. Tangled growths of olives,
oranges, and rose-trees fill the garden
ground along the shore, while far away in
the distance pale Inarime sleeps, with
her exquisite Greek name, a virgin island
on the deep.
“ On the wilder hills you find patches
of ilex and arbutus glowing with crimson
berries and white waxen bells, sweet myrtle
rods and shafts of bay, frail tamarisk and
tall tree-heaths that wave their frosted
houghs above your head. Nearer the
shore the lentisk grows, a savoury shrub,
with cytisus and aromatic rosemary.
Clematis and polished garlands of tough
sarsaparilla wed the shrubs with clinging,
3i
climbing arms ; and here and there in
sheltered nooks the vine shoots forth
luxuriant tendrils bowed with grapes,
stretching from branch to branch of mul
berry or elm, flinging festoons on which
young loves might sit and swing, or
weaving a lattice-work of leaves across the
open shed. Nor must the sounds of this
landscape be forgotten,—sounds of bleat
ing flocks, and murmuring bees, and
nightingales, and doves that moan, and
running streams, and shrill cicadas, and
hoarse frogs, and whispering pines. There
is not a single detail which a patient
student may not verify from Theocritus.
“ Then too it is a landscape in which
sea and country are never sundered. The
higher we climb upon the mountain-side
the more marvellousis the beauty of the sea,
which seems to rise as we ascend, and
stretch into the sky. Sometimes a little
flake of blue is framed by olive boughs,
sometimes a turning in the road reveals
the whole broad azure calm below. Or,
after toiling up a steep ascent we fall
upon the undergrowth of juniper, and
lo ! a double sea, this way and that,
divided by the sharp spine of the jutting
hill, jewelled with villages along its shore,
and smiling with fair islands and silver
sails.”
To many of us the mere warmth of the
South is a blessing and a delight. The
very thought of it is delicious. I have
read over again and again Wallace’s graphic
description of a tropical sunrise—of the
sun of the early morning that turneth all
into gold.
“ Up to about a quarter past five o’clock,”
he says, “ the darkness is complete ; but
about that time a few cries of birds begin
to break the silence of night, perhaps
indicating that signs of dawn are percept
ible in the eastern horizon. A little later
the melancholy voices of the goatsuckers
are heard, varied croakings of frogs, the
plaintive whistle of mountain thrushes,
and strange cries of birds or mammals
peculiar to each locality. About half-past
five the first glimmer of light becomes
perceptible ; it slowly becomes lighter, and
�32
THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
then, increases so rapidly that at about a
quarter to six it seems full daylight. For
the next quarter of an hour this changes
very little in character ; when, suddenly,
the sun’s rim appears above the horizon,
decking the dew-laden foliage with glitter
ing gems, sending gleams of golden light
far into the woods, and waking up all
nature to life and activity. Birds chirp
and flutter about, parrots scream, monkeys
chatter, bees hum among the flowers, and
gorgeous butterflies flutter lazily along or
sit with full expanded wings exposed to
the warm and invigorating rays. The
first hour of morning in the equatorial
regions possesses a charm and a beauty
that can never be forgotten. All nature
seems refreshed and strengthened by the
coolness and moisture of the past night,
new leaves and buds unfold almost before
the eye, and fresh shoots may often be
observed to have grown many inches since
the preceding day. The temperature is
the most delicious conceivable. The slight
chill of early dawn, which was itself
agreeable, is succeeded by an invigorating
warmth ; and the intense sunshine lights
up the glorious vegetation of the tropics,
and realises all that the magic art of the
painter or the glowing words of the poet
have pictured as their ideals of terrestrial
beauty.”
Or take Dean Stanley’s description of
the colossal statues of Amenophis III., the
Memnon of the Greeks, at Thebes—“The
sun was setting, the African range glowed
red behind them ; the green plain was
dyed with a deeper green beneath them,
and the shades of evening veiled the vast
rents and fissures in their aged frames.
As I looked back at them in the sunset,
and they rose up in front of the background
of the mountain, they seemed, indeed, as
if they were part of it,—as if they belonged
to some natural creation.”
But I must not indulge myself in more
quotations, though it is difficult to stop.
Such pictures recall the memory of many
glorious days : for the advantages of travels
last through life ; and often, as we sit at
home, “some bright and perfect view of
PART I
Venice, of Genoa, or of Monte Rosa comes
back on you, as full of repose as a day
wisely spent in travel.” 1
So far is a thorough love and enjoyment
of travel from interfering with the love of
home, that perhaps no one can thoroughly
enjoy his home who does not sometimes
wander away. They are like exertion and
rest, each the complement of the other ; so
that, though it may seem paradoxical, one
of the greatest pleasures of travel is the
return ; and no one who has not roamed
abroad, can realise the devotion which the
wanderer feels for Domiduca—the sweet
and gentle goddess who watches over our
coming home.
CHAPTER VIII
THE PLEASURES OF HOME
“There’s no place like Home.”—
Old English Song.
It may ■well be doubted which is more
delightful,—to start for a holiday which
has been fully earned, or to return home
from one which has been thoroughly
enjoyed ; to find oneself, with renewed
vigour, with a fresh store of memories
and ideas, back once more by one’s own
fireside, with one’s family, friends, and
books.
“ To sit at home,” says Leigh Hunt,
“with an old folio (?) book of romantic
yet credible voyages and travels to read,
an old bearded traveller for its hero, a
fireside in an old country house to read it
by, curtains drawn, and just wind enough
stirring out of doors to make an accom
paniment to the billows or forests we are
reading of—this surely is one of the
perfect moments of existence.”
It is no doubt a great privilege to
visit foreign countries; to travel say
in Mexico or Peru, or to cruise among
the Pacific Islands ; but in some respects
the narratives of early travellers, the
histories of Prescott or the voyages of
1 Helps.
�CHAP. VIII
THE PLEASURES OF HOME
Captain Cook, are even more interesting ;
describing to us, as they do, a state of
society which was then so unlike ours,
but which has now been much changed
and Europeanised.
Thus we may make our daily travels
interesting, even though, like those of the
Vicar of Wakefield, all 'our adventures
are by our own fireside, and all our migra
tions from one room to another.
Moreover, even if the beauties of home
are humble, they are still infinite, and a
man “ may lie in his bed, like Pompey
and his sons, in all quarters of the
earth.” 1
It is, then, wise to “ cultivate a talent
very fortunate for a man of my dis
position, that of travelling in my easy
chair ; of transporting myself, without
stirring from my parlour, to distant places
and to absent friends ; of drawing scenes
in my mind’s eye ; and of peopling them
with the groups of fancy, or the society
of remembrance.” 2
We may indeed secure for ourselves
endless variety without leaving our own
firesides.
In the first place, the succession of
seasons multiplies every home.
How
different is the view from our windows as
we look on the tender green of spring, the
rich foliage of summer, the glorious tints
of autumn, or the delicate tracery of
winter.
Our climate is so happy, that even in
the worst months of the year, “ calm
mornings of sunshine visit us at times,
appearing like glimpses of departed spring
amid the wilderness of wet and windy
days that lead to winter. It is pleasant,
when these interludes of silvery light
occur, to ride into the woods and see how
wonderful are all the colours of decay.
Overhead, the elms and chestnuts hang
their wealth of golden leaves, while the
beeches darken into russet tones, and the
wild cherry glows like blood-red wine.
In the hedges crimson haws and scarlet
hips are wreathed with hoary clematis or
1 Sir T. Browne.
2 Mackenzie, The Lounger.
D
33
necklaces of coral briony-berries ; the
brambles burn with many-coloured flames ;
the dog-wood is bronzed to purple ; and
here and there the ’ spindle-wood puts
forth its fruit, like knots of rosy buds,
on delicate frail twigs. Underneath lie
fallen leaves, and the brown bracken
rises to our knees as we thread the forest
paths.”1
Nay, every day gives us a succession of
glorious pictures in never-ending variety.
It is remarkable how few people seem
to derive any pleasure from the beauty of
the sky. Gray, after describing a sunrise
—how it began, with a slight whitening,
just tinged with gold and blue, lit up
all at once by a little line of insufferable
brightness which rapidly grew to half an
orb, and so to a whole one too glorious
to be distinctly seen—adds, “ I wonder
whether any one ever saw it before. I
hardly believe it.” 2
No doubt from the dawn of poetry, the
splendours of the morning and evening
skies have delighted all those who have
eyes to see.
But we are especially
indebted to Ruskin for enabling us more
vividly to realise these glorious sky
pictures. As he says, in language almost
as brilliant as the sky itself, the whole
heaven, “from the zenith to the horizon,
becomes one molten, mantling sea of
color and fire ; every black bar turns
into massy gold, every ripple and wave
into unsullied, shadowless crimson, and
purple, and scarlet, and colors for which
there are no words in language, and
no ideas in the mind—things which can
only be conceived while they are visible ;
the intense hollow blue of the upper sky
melting through it all, showing here deep
and pure, and lightness ; there, modulated
by the filmy, formless body of the trans
parent vapour, till it is lost imperceptibly
in its crimson and gold.”
' It is in some cases indeed “ not color
but conflagration,” and though the tints
are richer and more varied towards morn
ing and at sunset, the glorious kaleidoscope
goes on all day long. Yet “ it is a strange
1 J. A. Symonds.
2 Gray’s Letters.
�THE PLEASURES OE LIRE
34
thing how little in general people know
about the sky. It is the part of creation
in which Nature has done more for the
sake of pleasing man, more for the sole
and evident purpose of talking to him and
teaching him, than in any other of her
works, and it is just the part in which we
least attend to her. There are not many
of her other works in which some more
material or essential purpose than the
mere pleasing of man is not answered by
every part of their organisation ; but
every essential purpose of the sky might,
so far as we know, be answered, if once
in three days, or thereabouts, a great,
ugly, black rain-cloud were brought up
over the blue, and everything well
watered, and so all left blue again till
next time, with perhaps a film of morning
and evening mist for dew. And instead
of this, there is-not a moment of any day
of our lives when Nature is not producing
scene after scene, picture after picture,
glory after glory, and working still upon
such exquisite and constant principles of
the most perfect beauty, that it is quite
certain it is all done for us, and intended
for our perpetual pleasure.” 1
Nor does the beauty end with the day.
“ Is it nothing to sleep under the canopy
of heaven, where we have the globe of
the earth for our place of repose, and the
glories of the heavens for our spectacle? ”2
For my part I always regret the custom
of shutting up our rooms in the evening,
as though there was nothing worth seeing
outside. What, however, can be more
beautiful than to “ look how the floor of
heaven is thick inlaid with patines of
bright gold,” or to watch the moon
journeying in calm and silver glory
through the night. And even if we do
not feel that “ the man who has seen the
rising moon break out of the clouds at
midnight, has been present like an Arch
angel at the creation of light and of the
world,”3 still “ the stars say something
significant to all of us : and each man
has a whole hemisphere of them, if he
r Ruskin.
2 Seneca.
3 Emerson.
PART I
will but look up, to counsel and befriend
him ” ;1 for it is not so much, as Helps
elsewhere observes, “in guiding us over
the seas of our little planet, but out of
the dark waters of'our own perturbed
minds, that we may make to ourselves
the most of their significance.” Indeed,
“ How beautiful is night !
A dewy freshness fills the silent air ;
No mist obscures, nor cloud, nor speck, nor
stain,
Breaks the serene of heaven :
In full-orbed glory yonder moon divine
Rolls through the dark blue depths ;
Beneath her steady ray
The desert circle spreads,
Like the round ocean, girdled with the sky ;
How beautiful is night ! ” 2
I have never wondered at those who
worshipped the sun and moon.
On the other hand, when all outside is
dark and cold ; when perhaps
“ Outside fall the snowflakes lightly ;
Through the night loud raves the storm ;
In my room the fire glows brightly,
And ’tis cosy, silent, warm.
Musing sit I on the settle
By the firelight’s cheerful blaze,
Listening to the busy kettle
Humming long-forgotten lays.” 3
For after all the true pleasures of home
are not without, but within ; and “ the
domestic man who loves no music so well
as his -own kitchen clock and the airs
which the logs sing to him as they burn
on the hearth, has solaces which others
never dream of.” 4
We love the ticking of the clock, and
the flicker of the fire, like the sound of
the cawing of rooks, not so much for any
beauty of their own as for their associations.
It is a great truth that when we re
tire into ourselves we can call up what
memories we please.
“ How dear to this heart are the scenes of my
childhood,
When fond recollection recalls them to view.—
The orchard, the meadow, the deep-tangled
wildwood
And every lov’d spot which my infancy knew.” 5
1 Helps.
2 Southey.
3 Heine, trans, by E. A. Bowring.
4 Emerson,
8 Woodworth.
�THE PLEASURES OF HOME
CHAP. VIII
It is not so much the
“ Fireside enjoyments,
And all the comforts of the lowly roof,” 1
but rather, according to the higher and
better ideal of Keble,
“ Sweet is the smile of home ; the mutual look,
When hearts are of each other sure ;
Sweet all the joys that crowd the household
nook,
The haunt of all affections pure.”
In ancient times, not only among
savage races, but even among the Greeks
themselves, there seems to have been but
little family life.
What a contrast was the home life of
the Greeks, as it seems to have been, to
that, for instance, described by Cowley—
a home happy “ in books and gardens,”
and above all, in a
“ Virtuous wife, where thou dost meet
Both pleasures more refined and sweet;
The fairest garden in her looks
And in her mind the wisest books.”
No one who has ever loved mother or
wife, sister or daughter, can read without
astonishment and pity St. Chrysostom’s
description of woman as “a necessary
evil, a natural temptation, a desirable
calamity, a domestic peril, a deadly fascina
tion, and a painted ill.”
In few respects has mankind made a
greater advance than in the relations of
men and women. It is terrible to think
how women suffer in savage life; and
even among the intellectual Greeks, with
rare exceptions, they seem to have been
treated rather as housekeepers or play
things than as the Angels who make a
Heaven of home.
The Hindoo proverb that you should
“ never strike a wife, even with a flower,”
though a considerable advance, tells a
melancholy tale of what must previously
have been.
In The Origin of Civilisation I have
given many cases showing how small a
part family affection plays in savage life.
Here I will only mention one case
in illustration. The Algonquin (North i
1 Cowper.
|
35
America) language contained no word
for “ love,” so that when the missionaries
translated the Bible into it they were
obliged to invent one. What a life, and
what a language, without love.
Yet in marriage even the rough passion
of a savage may contrast favourably with
any cold calculation, which, like the en
chanted hoard of the Nibelungs, is almost
sure to bring misfortune. In the Kalevala,
the Finnish epic, the divine smith, Ilmarinnen, forges a bride of gold and silver
for Wainamoinen, who was pleased at first
to have so rich a wife, but soon found
her intolerably cold, for, in spite of fires
and furs, whenever he touched her she
froze him.
Moreover, apart from mere coldness,
how much we suffer from foolish quarrels
about trifles ; from mere misunderstand
ings ; from hasty words thoughtlessly
repeated, sometimes without the context
or tone which would have deprived them
of any sting. How much would that
charity which “beareth all things, believeth all things, bopeth all things,
endureth all things,” effect to smooth
away the sorrows of life and add to the
happiness of home. Home indeed may
be a sure haven of repose from the storms
and perils of the world. But to secure
this we must not be content to pave it
with good intentions, but must make it
bright and cheerful.
If our life be one of toil and of suffer
ing, if the world outside be cold and
dreary, what a pleasure to return to
the sunshine of happy faces and the
warmth of hearts we love.
�36
THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
’Twas she discovered that the world was
young,
And taught a language to its lisping tongue.”
CHAPTER IX
SCIENCE 1
“Happy is he that findeth wisdom,
And the man that getteth understanding :
For the merchandise of it is better than silver,
And the gain thereof than fine gold.
She is more precious than rubies :
And all the things thou canst desire are not to
be compared unto her.
Length of days is in her right hand,
And in her left hand riches and honour.
Her ways are ways of pleasantness,
And all her paths are peace.”
Proverbs
of
PART I
Solomon.
Those who have not tried for themselves
can hardly imagine how much Science
adds to the interest and variety of life.
It is altogether a mistake to regard it as
dry, difficult, or prosaic—-much of it is
as easy as it is interesting. A wise in
stinct of old united the prophet and the
“ seer.” “ The wise man’s eyes are in
his head, but the fool walketh in dark
ness.” Technical works, descriptions of
species, etc., bear the same relation to
science as dictionaries do to literature.
Occasionally, indeed, Science may de
stroy some poetical myth of antiquity,
such as the ancient Hindoo explanation
of rivers, that “ Indra dug out their beds
with his thunderbolts, and sent them
forth by long continuous paths ; ” but
the real causes of natural phenomena are
far more striking, and contain more true
poetry, than those which have occurred
to the untrained imagination of mankind.
In endless aspects science is as wonder
ful and interesting as a fairy tale.
‘ ‘ There are things whose strong reality
Outshines our fairyland ; in shape and hues
More beautiful than our fantastic sky,
And the strange constellations which the Muse
O’er her wild universe is skilful to diffuse.” 2
Mackay justly exclaims :
“Blessings on Science! When the earth
seemed old,
When Faith grew doting, and our reason cold,
1 The substance of this was delivered at
Mason College, Birmingham.
2 Byron.
Botany, for instance, is by many re
garded as a dry science. Yet though
without it we may admire flowers and
trees, it is only as strangers, only as one
may admire a great man or a beautiful
woman in a crowd. The botanist, on the
contrary—nay, I will not say the botanist,
but one with even a slight knowledge of
that delightful science—when he goes
out into the woods, or into one of those
fairy forests which we call fields, finds
himself welcomed by a glad company of
friends, every one with something inter
esting to tell. Dr. Johnson said that, in
his opinion, when you had seen one
green field you had seen them all; and a
greater even than Johnson—Socrates—
the very type of intellect without science,
said he was always anxious to learn, and
from fields and trees he could learn
nothing.
It has, I know, been said that botanists
“Love not the flower they pluck and know it
not,
And all their botany is but Latin names. ”
Contrast this, however, with the language
of one who would hardly claim to be a
master in botany, though he is certainly a
loving student. “Consider,” says Ruskin,
“ what we owe to the meadow grass, to
the covering of the dark ground by that
glorious enamel, by the companies of
those soft, countless, and peaceful spears
of the field ! Follow but for a little
time the thought of all that we ought to
recognise in those words. All spring and
summer is in them—the walks by silent
scented paths, the rest in noonday heat,
the joy of the herds and flocks, the power
of all shepherd life and meditation; the
life of the sunlight upon the world, fall
ing in emerald streaks and soft blue
shadows, when else it would have struck
on the dark mould or scorching dust;
pastures beside the pacing brooks, soft
banks and knolls of lowly hills, thymy
slopes of down overlooked by the blue
�CHAP. IX
SCIENCE
line of lifted sea ; crisp lawns all dim
with early dew, or smooth in evening
warmth of barred sunshine, dinted by
happy feet, softening in their fall the
sound of loving voices.”
My own tastes and studies have led
me mainly in the direction of Natural
History and Archaeology ; but if you
love one science, you cannot but feel in
tense interest in them all. How grand
are the truths of Astronomy ! Prudhomme, in a sonnet, beautifully trans
lated by Arthur O’Shaugnessy, has
pictured an Observatory. He says—
“ ’Tis late ; the astronomer in his lonely height,
Exploring all the dark, descries afar
Orbs that like distant isles of splendour are.”
He notices a comet, and calculating its
orbit, finds that it will return in a
thousand years—
“ The star will come. It dare not by one hour
Cheat Science, or falsify her calculation ;
Men will have passed, but, watchful in the
tower,
Man shall remain in sleepless contemplation ;
And should all men have perished in their
turn,
Truth in their place would watch that star’s
return.”
Ernest Rhys well says of a student’s
chamber—
“ Strange things pass nightly in this little room,
All dreary as it looks by light of day ;
Enchantment reigns here when at evening
play
Red fire-light glimpses through the pallid
gloom.”
And the true student, in Ruskin’s words,
stands on an eminence from which he
looks back on the universe of God and
forward over the generations of men.
Even if it be true that science was dry
when it was buried in huge folios, that is
certainly no longer the case now ; and
Lord Chesterfield’s wise wish, that Minerva
might have three Graces as well as Venus,
has been amply fulfilled.
The study of natural history indeed
seems destined to replace the loss of what
is, not very happily I think, termed
“ sport; ” engraven in us as it is by the
37
operation of thousands of years, during
which man lived greatly on the produce
of the chase. Game is gradually becoming
“small by degrees and beautifully less.”
Our prehistoric ancestors hunted the
Mammoth, the woolly-haired Rhinoceros,
and the Irish Elk ; the ancient Britons
had the wild ox, the deer, and the wolf.
We have still the pheasant, the partridge,
the fox, and the hare; but even these are
becoming scarcer, and must be preserved
first, in order that they may be killed
afterwards. Some of us even now—and
more, no doubt, will hereafter—satisfy
instincts, essentially of the same origin, by
the study of birds, or insects, or even
infusoria—of creatures which more than
make up by their variety what they want
in size.
Emerson avers that when a naturalist
has “got all snakes and lizards in his
phials, science has done for him also, and
has put the man into a bottle.” I do not
deny that there are such cases, but they
are quite exceptional. The true naturalist
is no mere dry collector.
I cannot resist, although it is rather
long, quoting the following description
from Hudson and Gosse’s beautiful work
on the Rotifera :—
“ On the Somersetshire side of the Avon,
and not far from Clifton, is a little combe,
at the bottom of which lies an old fish-pond,
Its slopes are covered with plantations of
beech and fir, so as to shelter the pond on
three sides, and yet leave it open to the
soft south-western breezes, and to the
afternoon sun. At the head of the combe
wells up a clear spring, which sends a
thread of water, trickling through a bed
of osiers, into the upper end of the pond.
A stout stone wall has been drawn across
the combe from side to side, so as to dam
up the stream ; and there is a gap in one
corner through which the overflow finds
its way in a miniature cascade, down into
the lower plantation.
“ If we approach the pond by the game
keeper’s path from the cottage above, we
shall pass through the plantation, and
come unseen right on the corner of the
�38
THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
wall; so that one quiet step will enable
us to see at a glance its whole surface,
without disturbing any living thing that
may be there.
“Far off at the upper end a water-hen
is leading her little brood among the
willows ; on the fallen trunk of an old
beech, lying half way across the pond, a
vole is sitting erect, rubbing his right ear,
and the splash of a beech husk just at our
feet tells of a squirrel who is dining some
where in the leafy crown above us.
“ But see, the water-rat has spied us out,
and is making straight for his hole in the
bank, while the ripple above him is the
only thing that tells of his silent flight.
The water-hen has long ago got under
cover, and the squirrel drops no more
husks. It is a true Silent Pond, and
without a sign of life.
“But if, retaining sense and sight, we
could shrink into living atoms and plunge
under the water, of what a world of
wonders should we then form part ! We
should find this fairy kingdom peopled
with the strangest creatures—creatures
that swim with their hair, that have ruby
eyes blazing deep in their necks, with
telescopic limbs that now are withdrawn
wholly within their bodies and now
stretched out to many times their own
length. Here are some riding at anchor,
moored by delicate threads spun out from
their toes ; and there are others flashing
by in glass armour, bristling with sharp
spikes or ornamented with bosses and
flowing curves ; while fastened to a green
stem is an animal convolvulus that, by
some invisible power, draws a neverceasing stream of victims into its gaping
cup, and tears them to death with hooked
jaws deep down within its body.
“ Close by it, on the same stem, is some
thing that looks like a filmy heart’s-ease.
A curious wheelwork runs round its four
outspread petals ; and a chain of minute
things, living and dead, is winding in and
out of their curves into a gulf at the back
of the flower. What happens to them
there we cannot see ; for round the stem
is raised a tube of golden-brown balls, all j
PART I
regularly piled on each other. Some
creature dashes by, and like a flash the
flower vanishes within its tube.
“We sink still lower, and now see on
the bottom slow gliding lumps of jelly
that thrust a shapeless arm out where they
will, and grasping their prey with these
chance limbs, wrap themselves round their
food to get a meal; for they creep without
feet, seize without hands, eat without
mouths, and digest without stomachs.”
Too many, however, still feel only in
Nature that which we share “ with the
weed and the worm ; ” they love birds as
boys do—that is, they love throwing
stones at them ; or wonder if they are good
to eat, as the Esquimaux asked about the
watch ; or treat them as certain devout
Afreedee villagers are said to have treated
a descendant of the Prophet—killed him
in order to worship at his tomb: but
gradually we may hope that the love of
Science—the notes “we sound upon the
strings of nature ”1—-will become to more
and more, as already it is to many, a
“ faithful and sacred element of human
feeling.”
Science summons us
“ To that cathedral, boundless as our wonder,
Whose quenchless lamps the sun and moon
supply ;
Its choir the winds and waves, its organ thunder,
Its dome the sky.” 2
Where the untrained eye will see
nothing but mire and dirt, Science will
often reveal exquisite possibilities. The
mud we tread under our feet in the street
is a grimy mixture of clay and sand, soot
and water. Separate the sand, however,
as Ruskin observes—-let the atoms arrange
themselves in peace according to their
nature—and you have the opal. Separate
the clay, and it becomes a white earth,
fit for the finest porcelain; or if it still
further purifies itself, you have a sapphire.
Take the soot, and if properly treated it
will give you a diamond. While, lastly,
the water, purified and distilled, will
become a dew-drop, or crystallise into a
lovely star. Or, again, you may see as
1 Emerson.
2 H. Smith.
�CHAP. IX
SCIENCE
39
you will in any shallow pool either the many years ago by Professor Huxley to
mud lying at the bottom, or the image the South London Working Men’s College
of the heavens above.
which struck me very much at the time,
Nay, even if we imagine beauties and and which puts this in language more
charms which do not really exist ; still if forcible than any which I could use.
we err at all, it is better to do so on the
“Suppose,” he said, “it were perfectly
side of charity; like Nasmyth, who tells certain that the life and fortune of every
us in his delightful autobiography, that one of us would, one day or other, depend
he used to think one of his friends had a upon his winning or losing a game of
charming and kindly twinkle, and was chess. Don’t you think that we should
one day surprised to discover that he all consider it to be a primary duty to
had a glass eye.
learn at least the names and the moves of
But I should err indeed were I to the pieces ? Do you not think that we
dwell exclusively on science as lending should look with a disapprobation amount
interest and charm to our leisure hours. ing to scorn upon the father who allowed
Far from this, it would be impossible his son, or the State which allowed its
to overrate the importance of scientific members, to grow up without knowing a
training on the wise conduct of life.
pawn from a knight ? Yet it is a very
“ Science,” said the Royal Commission plain and elementary truth that the life,
of 1861, “quickens and cultivates directly the fortune, and the happiness of every
the faculty of observation, which in very one of us, and more or less of those who
many persons lies almost dormant through are connected with us, do depend upon
life, the power of accurate and rapid our knowing something of the rules of a
generalisation, and the mental habit of game infinitely more difficult and compli
method and arrangement; it accustoms cated than chess. It is a game which
young persons to trace the sequence of has been played for untold ages, every
cause and effect; it familiarises them with man and woman of us being one of the
a kind of reasoning which interests them, two players in a game of his or her own.
and which they can promptly compre The chessboard is the world, the pieces
hend • and it is perhaps the best correc are the phenomena of the Universe, the
tive for that indolence which is the vice rules of the game are what we call the
of half-awakened minds, and which shrinks laws of Nature. The player on the other
from any exertion that is not, like an side is hidden from us. We know that
effort of memory, merely mechanical.”
his play is always fair, just, and patient.
Again, when we contemplate the gran But also we know to our cost that he
deur of science, if we transport ourselves never overlooks a mistake or makes the
in imagination back into primeval times, smallest allowance for ignorance. To the
or away into the immensity of space, man who plays well the highest stakes
our little troubles and sorrows seem to are paid, with that sort of overflowing
shrink into insignificance. “ Ah, beautiful generosity which with the strong shows
creations ! ” says Helps, speaking of the delight in strength. And one who plays
stars, “it is not in guiding us over the ill is checkmated—without haste, but
seas of our little planet, but out of the without remorse.”
dark waters of our own perturbed minds,
I have elsewhere1 endeavoured to show
that we may make to ourselves the most the purifying and ennobling influence of
of your significance.” They teach, he tells science upon religion ; how it has assisted,
us elsewhere, “something significant to if indeed it may not claim the main share,
all of us; and each man has a whole in sweeping away the dark superstitions,
hemisphere of them, if he will but look the degrading belief in sorcery and witch
up, to counsel and befriend him.”
craft, and the cruel, however well-intenThere is a passage in an address given
1 The, Origin of Civilisation.
�40
THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
tioned, intolerance which embittered the
Christian world almost from the very days
of the Apostles themselves. In this she
has surely performed no mean service to
religion itself. As Canon Fremantle has
well and justly said, men of science, and not
the clergy only, are ministers of religion.
Again, the national necessity for
scientific education is imperative. We
are apt to forget how much we owe to
science, because so many of its wonderful
gifts have become familiar parts of our
everyday life, that their very value makes
us forget their origin. At the recent
celebration of the sexcentenary of Peterhouse College, near the close of a long
dinner, Sir Frederick Bramwell was called
on, some time after midnight, to return
thanks for Applied Science. He excused
himself from making a long speech on the
ground that, though the subject was
almost inexhaustible, the only illustration
which struck him as appropriate under
the circumstances was “ the application
of the domestic lucifer to the bedroom
candle.” One cannot but feel how un
fortunate was the saying of the poet that
“The light-outspeeding telegraph
Bears nothing on its beam.”
The report of the Royal Commission
on Technical Instruction, which has
recently been issued, teems with illustra
tions of the advantages afforded by
technical instruction. At the same time,
technical training ought not to begin too
soon, for, as Bain truly observes, “ in a
right view of scientific education the first
principles and leading examples, with
select details, of all the great sciences,
are the proper basis of the complete and
exhaustive study of any single science.”
Indeed, in the words of Sir John Herschel,
“it can hardly be pressed forcibly enough
on the attention of the student of Nature,
that there is scarcely any natural pheno
menon which can be fully and completely
explained in all its circumstances, with
out a union of several, perhaps of all, the
sciences.” The most important secrets of
Nature are often hidden away in unex
pected places. Many valuable substances
PART I
have been discovered in the refuse of
manufactories ; and it was a happy
thought of Glauber to examine what
everybody else threw away. There is
perhaps no nation the future happiness
and prosperity of which depend more on
science than our own. Our population is
over 35,000,000, and is rapidly increas
ing. Even at present it is far larger
than our acreage can support.
Few
people whose business does not lie in the
study of statistics realise that we have
to pay foreign countries no less than
£150,000,000 a year for food. This, of
course, we purchase mainly by manu
factured articles. We hear even now a
great deal about depression of trade, and
foreign, especially American, competition ;
but let us look forward a hundred years
—no long time in the history of a nation.
Our coal supplies will then be greatly
diminished. The population of Great
Britain doubles at the present rate of
increase in about fifty years, so that we
should, if the present rate continues,
require to import over £400,000,000 a
year in food. How, then, is this to be
paid for ? We have before us, as usual,
three courses.
The natural rate of
increase may be stopped, which means
suffering and outrage ; or the population
may increase, only to vegetate in misery
and destitution; or, lastly, by the de
velopment of scientific training and
appliances, they may probably be main
tained in happiness and comfort. We
have, in fact, to make our choice between
science and suffering. It is only by
wisely utilising the gifts of science that
we have any hope of maintaining our
population in plenty and comfort.
Science, however, will do this for us if
we will only let her. She may be no
Fairy Godmother indeed, but she will
richly endow those who love her.
That discoveries, innumerable, marvel
lous, and fruitful, await the successful
explorers of Nature no one can doubt.
“We are so far,” says Locke, “from
being admitted into the secrets of Nature,
that we scarce so much as approach the
�CHAP. IX
SCIENCE
first entrance towards them.”
What
would one not give for a Science primer
of the next century ? for, to paraphrase a
well-known saying, even the boy at the
plough will then, know more of science
than the wisest of our philosophers do
now. Boyle entitled one of his essays
“ Of Man’s great Ignorance of the Uses
of Natural Things; or that there is no
one thing in Nature whereof the uses to
human life are yet thoroughly under
stood ”—a saying which is still as true
now as when it was written. And, lest I
should be supposed to be taking too
sanguine a view, let me give the authority
of Sir John Herschel, who says : “Since
it cannot but be that innumerable and
most important uses remain to be dis
covered among the materials and objects
already known to us, as well as among
those which the progress of science must
hereafter disclose, we may hence conceive
a well-grounded expectation, not only of
constant increase in the physical resources
of mankind, and the consequent improve
ment of their condition, but of continual
accession to our power of penetrating into
the arcana of Nature and becoming
acquainted with her highest laws.”
Nor is it merely in a material point of
view that science would thus benefit the
nation. She will raise and strengthen
the national, as surely as the individual,
character. The great gift which Minerva
offered to Paris is now freely tendered to
all, for we may apply to the nation, as
well as to the individual, Tennyson’s
noble lines :—
“ Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control:
These three alone lead life to sovereign power,
Yet not for power (power of herself
Would come uncalled for), but to live bylaw ;
Acting the law we live by without fear.”
“ In the vain and foolish exultation of
the heart,” said John Quincey Adams, at
the close of his final lecture on resigning
his chair at Boston, “ which the brighter
prospects of life will sometimes excite,
the pensive portress of Science shall call
you to the sober pleasures of her holy
cell. In the mortification of disappoint
4i
ment, her soothing voice shall whisper
serenity and peace. In social converse
with the mighty dead of ancient days,
you will never smart under the galling
sense of dependence upon the mighty
living of the present age. And in your
struggles with the world, should a crisis
ever occur, when even friendship may
deem it prudent to desert you, when
priest and Levite shall come and look on
you and pass by on the other side, seek
refuge, my unfailing friends, and be
assured you shall find it, in the friend
ship of Laelius and Scipio, in the
patriotism of Cicero, Demosthenes, and
Burke, as well as in the precepts and
example of Him whose law is love, and
who taught us to remember injuries only
to forgive them.”
Let me in conclusion quote the glow
ing description of our debt to science
given by Archdeacon Farrar in his address
at Liverpool College-—-testimony, more
over, all the more valuable, considering
the source from which it comes.
“In this great commercial city,” he
said, “ where you are surrounded by the
triumphs of science and of mechanism—
you, whose river is ploughed by the great
steamships whose white wake has been
called the fittest avenue to the palace
front of a mercantile people—you know
well that in the achievements of science
there is not only beauty and wonder, but
also beneficence and power. It is not
only that she has revealed to us infinite
space crowded with unnumbered worlds ;
infinite time peopled by unnumbered
existences ; infinite organisms hitherto in
visible but full of delicate and irridescent
loveliness ; but also that she has been, as
a great Archangel of Mercy, devoting
herself to the service of man. She has
laboured, her votaries have laboured, not
to increase the power of despots or add to
the magnificence of courts, but to extend
human happiness, to economise human
effort, to extinguish human pain. Where
of old, men toiled, half blinded and half
naked, in the mouth of the glowing
furnace to mix the white-hot iron, she
�THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
42
now substitutes the mechanical action of
the viewless air. She has enlisted the
sunbeam in her service to limn for us,
with absolute fidelity, the faces of the
friends we love. She has shown the
poor miner how he may work in safety,
even amid the explosive fire-damp of the
mine.
She has, by her anaesthetics,
enabled the sufferer to be hushed and
unconscious while the delicate hand of
some skilled operator cuts a fragment
from the nervous circle of the unquiver
ing eye. She points not to pyramids
built during weary centuries by the
sweat of miserable nations, but to the
lighthouse and the steamship, to the rail
road and the telegraph. She has restored
eyes to the blind and hearing to the deaf.
She has lengthened life, she has minimised
danger, she has controlled madness, she
has trampled on disease. And on all
these grounds, I think that none of our
sons should grow up wholly ignorant of
studies which at once train the reason
and fire the imagination, which fashion as
well as forge, which can feed as well as
fill the mind.”
CHAPTER X
EDUCATION
“No pleasure is comparable to the standing
upon the vantage ground of truth.”—Bacon.
‘ ‘ Divine Philosophy !
Not harsh and crabbed as dull fools suppose,
But musical as is Apollo’s lute,
And a perpetual feast of nectar’d sweets
Where no crude surfeit reigns.”—Milton.
It may seem rather surprising to include
education among the pleasures of life ;
for in too many cases it is made odious
to the young, and is supposed to cease
with school; while, on the contrary, if it
is to be really successful it must be suit
able, and therefore interesting, to children,
and must last through life. The very
process of acquiring knowledge is a
privilege and a blessing. It used to be
PART I
said that there was no royal road to learn
ing : it would be more true to say that
the avenues leading to it are all royal.
“It is not,” says Jeremy Taylor, “the
eye that sees the beauties of heaven, nor
the ear that hears the sweetness of music,
or the glad tidings of a prosperous
accident; but the soul that perceives all
the relishes of sensual and intellectual
perceptions: and the more noble and
excellent the soul is, the greater and
more savoury are its perceptions. And
if a child behold the rich ermine, or the
diamonds of a starry night, or the order
of the world, or hears the discourses of
an apostle ; because he makes no reflex
act on himself and sees not what he sees,
he can have but the pleasure of a fool or
the deliciousness of a mule.”
Herein lies the importance of educa
tion. I say education rather than in-,
struction, because it is far more important
to cultivate the mind than to store the
memory. Instruction is only a part of
education : the true teacher has been well
described by Montgomery :
‘ ’ And while in tones of sportive tenderness,
He answer’d all its questions, and ask’d others
As simple as its own, yet wisely framed
To wake and prove an infant’s faculties ;
As though its mind were some sweet instru
ment,
And he, with breath and touch, were finding
out
What stops or keys would yield the richest
music.”
Studies are a means and not an end.
“To spend too much time in studies is
sloth ; to use them too much for orna
ment is affectation ; to make judgment
wholly by their rules is the humour of a
scholar : they perfect nature, and are per
fected by experience. . . . Crafty men
contemn studies, simple men admire
them, and wise men use them.” 1
Moreover, though, as Mill says, “in
the comparatively early state of human
development in which we now live, a
person cannot indeed feel that entireness
of sympathy with all others which would
make any real discordance in the general
1 Bacon.
�EDUCATION
CHAP. X
direction of tlieir conduct in life impos
sible,” yet education might surely do more
to root in us the feeling of unity with our
fellow-creatures. At any rate, if we do
not study in this spirit, all our learning
will but leave us as weak and sad as
Faust.
Our studies should be neither “a
couch on which to rest; nor a cloister in
which to promenade alone ; nor a tower
from which to look down on others; nor
a fortress whence we may resist them ;
nor a workshop for gain and merchandise ;
but a rich armoury and treasury for the
glory of the creator and the ennoblement
of life.” 1
For in the noble words of Epictetus,
“ you will do the greatest service to the
state if you shall raise, not the roofs of
the houses, but the souls of the citizens :
for it is better that great souls should
dwell in small houses rather than for
mean slaves to lurk in great houses.”
It is then of great importance to con
sider whether our present system of
education is the one best calculated to
fulfil these great objects. Does it really
give that love of learning which is better
than learning itself ? Does all the study
of the classics to which our sons devote
so many years give any just appreciation
of them; or do they not on leaving
college too often feel with Byron—
“ Then farewell, Horace ; whom I hated so ! ”
Too much concentration on any one
subject is a great mistake, especially in
early life. Nature herself indicates the
true system, if we would but listen to
her. Our instincts are good guides,
though not infallible, and children will
profit little by lessons which do not
interest them. In cheerfulness, says
Pliny, is the success of our studies—
“ studia hilaritate proveniunt ”—and we
may with advantage take a lesson from
Theognis, who, in his Ode on the
Marriage of Cadmus and Harmonia,
makes the Muses sing —
1 Bacon.
43
‘ ‘ What is good and fair,
Shall ever be our care ;
Thus the burden of it rang,
That shall never be our care,
Which is neither good nor fair.
Such were the words your lips immortal sang.”
There are some who seem to think
that our educational system is as good as
possible, and that the only remaining
points of importance are the number of
schools and scholars, the question of fees,
the relation of voluntary and board
schools, etc. “No doubt,” says Mr.
Symonds, in his Sketches in Italy and
Greece, “ there are many who think that
when we not only advocate education but
discuss the best system we are simply
beating the air ; that our population is
as happy and cultivated as can be, and
that no substantial advance is really
possible. Mr. Galton, however, has ex
pressed the opinion, and most of those
who have written on the social condition
of Athens seem to agree with him, that
the population of Athens, taken as a
whole, was as superior to us as we are to
Australian savages.”
That there is, indeed, some truth in
this, probably no student of Greek history
will deny. Why, then, should this be so ?
I cannot but think that our system of
education is partly responsible.
Manual and science teaching need not
in any way interfere with instruction in
other subjects. Though so much has
been said about the importance of science
and the value of technical instruction, or
of hand-training, as I should prefer to
call it, it is unfortunately true that in
our system of education, from the highest
schools downwards, both of them are
sadly neglected, and the study of language
reigns supreme.
This is no new complaint. Ascham,
in The Schoolmaster, long ago lamented
it; Milton, in his letter to Mr. Samuel
Hartlib, complained “ that our children
are forced to stick unreasonably in these
grammatick flats and shallows ; ” and
observes that, “though a linguist should
pride himself to have all the tongues
�44
THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
Babel cleft tlie world into, yet, if he have
not studied the solid things in them as
well as the words and lexicons, he were
nothing so much to be esteemed a learned
man as any yeoman or tradesman com
petently wise in his mother dialect only ; ”
and Locke said that “ schools fit us for
the university rather than for the world.”
Commission after commission, committee
after committee, have reiterated the same
complaint. How then do we stand now ?
I see it indeed constantly stated that,
even if the improvement is not so rapid
as could be desired, still we are making
considerable progress. But is this so ?
I fear not.
I fear that our present
system does not really train the mind, or
cultivate the power of observation, or
even give the amount of information
which we may reasonably expect from the
time devoted to it.
Sir M. E. Grant-Duff has expressed
the opinion that a boy or girl of fourteen
might reasonably be expected to “read
aloud clearly and agreeably, to write a
large distinct round hand, and to know
the ordinary rules of arithmetic, especially
compound addition — a by no cneans
universal accomplishment; to speak and
write French with ease and correctness,
and have some slight acquaintance with
French literature ; to translate ad aperturam libri from an ordinary French
or German book ; to have a thoroughly
good elementary knowledge of geography,
under which are comprehended some
notions of astronomy—enough to excite
his curiosity ; a knowledge of the very
broadest facts of geology and history—
enough to make him understand, in a
clear but perfectly general way, how the
larger features of the world he lives in,
physical and political, came to be like
what they are ; to have been trained from
earliest infancy to use his powers of
observation on plants, or animals, or rocks,
or other natural objects; and to have
gathered a general acquaintance with what
is most supremely good in that portion
of the more important English classics
which is suitable to his time of life; to
PART I
have some rudimentary acquaintance with
drawing and music.”
To effect this, no doubt, “industiy
must be our oracle, and reason our
Apollo,” as Sir T. Browne says ; but surely
it is no unreasonable estimate; yet how
far do we fall short of it ? General
culture is often deprecated because it is
said that smatterings are useless. But
there is all the difference in the world
between having a smattering of, or being
well grounded in, a subject. It is the
latter which we advocate-—to try to know,
as Lord Brougham well said, “ every
thing of something, and something of
everything.”
“It can hardly,” says Sir John Her
schel, “ be pressed forcibly enough on
the attention of the student of nature,
that there is scarcely any natural phe
nomenon which can be fully and com
pletely explained, in all its circumstances,
without a union of several, perhaps of all,
the sciences.”
The present system in most of our
public schools and colleges sacrifices
everything else to classics and arithmetic.
They are most important subjects, but
ought not to exclude science and modern
languages. Moreover, after all, our sons
leave college unable to speak either Latin
or Greek, and too often absolutely with
out any interest in classical history or
literature. But the boy who has been
educated without any training in science
has grave reason to complain of “ wisdom
at one entrance quite shut out.”
By concentrating the attention, indeed,
so much on one or two subjects, we defeat
our own object, and produce a feeling of
distaste where we wish to create an
interest.
Our great mistake in education is, as
it seems to me, the worship of book
learning—the confusion of instruction and
education. We strain the memory instead
of cultivating the mind. The children
in our elementary schools are wearied
by the mehanical act of wilting, and
the interminable intricacies of spelling;
they are oppressed by columns of dates
�CHAP. X
EDUCATION
45
by lists of kings and places, which convey man he was. I doubt, however, whether
no definite idea to their minds, and have the boys were deceived by the hat ; and
no near relation to their daily wants am very sceptical about Dr. Busby’s
and occupations; while in our public theory of education.
schools the same unfortunate results are
Master John of Basingstoke, who was
produced by the weary monotony of Latin Archdeacon of Leicester in 1252, learnt
and Greek grammar. We ought to follow Greek during a visit to Athens, from
exactly the opposite course with children Constantina, daughter of the Archbishop
—to give them a wholesome variety of of Athens, and used to say afterwards
mental food, and endeavour to cultivate that though he had studied well and
their tastes, rather than to fill their minds diligently at the University of Paris, yet
with dry facts. The important thing is he learnt more from an Athenian maiden
not so much that every child should be of twenty. We cannot all study so
taught, as that every child should be pleasantly as this, but the main fault
given the wish to learn. What does it I find with Dr. Busby’s system is that
matter if the pupil knows a little more or it keeps out of sight the great fact of
a little less ? A boy who leaves school human ignorance.
knowing much, but hating his lessons,
Boys are given the impression that
will soon have forgotten almost all he the masters know everything. If, on the
ever learnt; while another who had contrary, the great lesson impressed on
acquired a thirst for knowledge, even if them was that what we know is as nothing
he had learnt little, would soon teach to what we do not know, that the “great
himself more than the first ever knew. ocean of truth lies all undiscovered before
Children are by nature eager for informa us,” surely this would prove a great
tion. They are always putting questions. stimulus, and many would be nobly
This ought to be encouraged. In fact, anxious to enlarge the boundaries of
we may to a great extent trust to their human knowledge, and extend the in
instincts, and in that case they will do I tellectual kingdom of man. Philosophy,
much to educate themselves. Too often, says Aristotle, begins in wonder, for Iris
however, the acquirement of knowledge is the child of Thaumas.
is placed before them in a form so irk
Education ought not to cease w’hen we
some and fatiguing that all desire for leave school; but if well begun there,
information is choked, or even crushed will continue through life.
out; so that our schools, in fact, become
Moreover, whatever our occupation
places for the discouragement of learning, or profession in life may be, it is most
and thus produce the very opposite effect desirable to create for ourselves some
from that at which we aim. In short, other special interest. In the choice of
children should be trained to observe and a subject every one should consult his
to think, for in that way there would own instincts and interests. I will not
be opened out to them a source of the attempt to suggest whether it is better to
purest enjoyment for leisure hours, and pursue art or science ; whether we should
the wisest judgment in the work of study the motes in the sunbeam, or the
life.
heavenly bodies themselves. Whatever
Another point in which I venture to may be the subject of our choice, we shall
think that our system of education might find enough, and more than enough, to
be amended, is that it tends at present repay the devotion of a lifetime.
to give the impression that everything is
Life no doubt is paved with enjoyments,
known.
but we must all expect times of anxiety,
Dr. Busby is said to have kept his of suffering, and of sorrow ; and when
hat on in the presence of King Charles, these come it is an inestimable comfort to
that the boys might see what a great have some deep interest which will, at
�46
THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
any rate to some extent, enable us to escape
from ourselves.
“ A cultivated mind,” says Mill—“ I do
not mean that of a philosopher, but any
mind to which the fountains of knowledge
have been opened, and which has been
taught in any tolerable degree to exercise
its faculties—will find sources of inex
haustible interest in all that surrounds
it; in the objects of nature, the achieve
ments of art, the imaginations of poetry,
the incidents of history, the ways of man
kind, past and present, and their prospects
in the future. It is possible, indeed, to
become indifferent to all this, and that too
without having exhausted a thousandth
part of it ; but only when one has had
from the beginning no moral or human
interest in these things, and has sought in
them only the gratification of curiosity.”
I have been subjected to some goodnatured banter for having said that I
looked forward to a time when our artizans
and mechanics would be great readers. But
it is surely not unreasonable to regard our
social condition as susceptible of great im
provement. The spread of schools, the
cheapness of books, the establishment of
free libraries will, it may be hoped, exercise
a civilising and ennobling influence. They
will even, I believe, do much to diminish
poverty and suffering, so much of which
is due to ignorance and to the want of
interest and brightness in uneducated life.
So far as our elementary schools are con
cerned, there is no doubt much difficulty in
apportioning the National Grant without
unduly stimulating mere mechanical in
struction. But this is not the place to dis
PART I
cuss the subject of religious or moral train
ing, or the system of apportioning the grant.
If we succeed in giving the love of learn
ing, the learning itself is sure to follow.
We should therefore endeavour to edu
cate our children so that every country
walk may be a pleasure ; that the dis
coveries of science may be a living interest;
that our national history and poetry may
be sources of legitimate pride and rational
enjoyment. In short, our schools, if they
are to be worthy of the name—if they are
to fulfil their high function—must be
something more than mere places of dry
study ; they must train the children edu
cated in them so that they may be able
to appreciate and enjoy those intellectual
gifts which might be, and ought to be, a
source of interest and of happiness, alike
to the high and to the low, to the rich
and to the poor.
A wise system of education will at
least teach us how little man yet knows,
how much he has still to learn ; it will
enable us to realise that those ■who com
plain of the tiresome monotony of life
have only themselves to' blame ; and that
knowledge is pleasure as well as power.
It will lead us all to try with Milton “ to
behold the bright countenance of truth
in the quiet and still air of study,” and to
feel with Bacon that “no pleasure is com
parable to the standing upon the vantage
ground of truth.”
We should then indeed realise in part,
for as yet we cannot do so fully, the
“ sacred trusts of health, strength, and
time,” and how thankful we ought to be
for the inestimable gift of life.
�PAET II
��PREFACE
“ And what is writ, is writ—
Would it were worthier.”
Byron.
Herewith I launch the conclusion of my subject. Perhaps I am unwise in
publishing a second part. The first was so kindly received that I am running
a risk in attempting to add to it.
In the preface, however, to the first part I have expressed the hope that
the thoughts and quotations in which I have found most comfort and delight,
might be of use to others also.
In this my most sanguine hopes have been more than realised. Not only
has the book passed through twenty editions in less than three years, but the
many letters which I have received have been most gratifying.
Two criticisms have been repeated by several of those who have done me
the honor, of noticing my previous volume. It has been said in the first
place that my life has been exceptionally bright and full, and that I cannot
therefore judge for others. Nor do I attempt to do so. I do not forget, I
hope I am not ungrateful for, all that has been bestowed on me. But if I
have been greatly favoured, ought I not to be on that very account especially
qualified to write on such a theme 1 Moreover, I have had,—who has not,—
my own sorrows.
Again, some have complained that there is too much quotation—too little
of my own. This I take to be in reality a great compliment. I have not
striven to be original.
If, as I have been assured by many, my book has added to their power
of enjoying life, and has proved a comfort in the hours of darkness, that
is indeed an ample reward and is the utmost I have ever hoped.
High Elms, Down, Kent,
April 1889.
E
�CONTENTS
PART II
CHAP.
I. Ambition ....
51
II. Wealth ....
54
III. Health
....
IV. Love
....
V. Art
....
65
....
70
....
74
VI. Poetry
•VII. Music
VIII. The Beauties of Nature
IX. The Troubles of Life
.
X. Labour and Rest
XI. Religion .
XII. The Hope of Progress .
XIII. The Destiny of Man
56
61
79
86
89
92
98
102
�THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
PART II
CHAPTER I
I know, says Morris,
“ How far high failure overleaps the bound
Of low successes.”
AMBITION
“ Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth
raise
(That last infirmity of noble mind)
To scorn delights and live laborious days.”
Milton.
If fame be the last infirmity of noble
minds, ambition is often the first ; though,
when properly directed, it may be no
feeble aid to virtue.
Had not my youthful mind, says
Cicero, “ from many precepts, from many
writings, drunk in this truth, that glory
and virtue ought to be the darling, nay,
the only wish in life; that, to attain
these, the torments of the flesh, with the
perils of death and exile, are to be
despised ; never had I exposed my person
in so many encounters, and to these daily
conflicts with the worst of men, for your
deliverance. But, on this head, books
are full; the voice of the wise is full;
the examples of antiquity are full: and
all these the night of barbarism had still
enveloped, had it not been enlightened
by the sun of science.”
The poet tells us that
“The many fail: the one succeeds.”1
And Bacon assures us that “ if a man
look sharp and attentively he shall see
fortune; for though she is blind, she is
not invisible.”
To give ourselves a reasonable prospect
of success, we must realise what we
hope to achieve ; and then make the
most of our opportunities.
Of these the use of time is one of the
most important. What have we to do
with time, asks Oliver Wendell Holmes,
but to fill it up with labour. “At the
battle of Montebello,” said Napoleon, “I
ordered Kellermann to attack with 800
horse, and with these he separated the
6000 Hungarian grenadiers before the
very eyes of the Austrian cavalry. This
cavalry was half a league off, and required
a quarter of an hour to arrive on the
field of action ; and I have observed that
it is always these quarters of an hour
that decide the fate of a battle,” including,
we may add, the battle of life.
Nor must we spare ourselves in other
ways, for
“ He who thinks in strife
To earn a deathless fame, must do, nor ever
care for life.” 1
But this is scarcely true. All succeed
who deserve, though not perhaps as they
hoped. An honourable defeat is better
than a mean victory, and no one is really
the worse for being beaten, unless he
loses heart. Though we may not be able
to attain, that is no reason why we should
not aspire.
In the excitement of the struggle,
moreover, he will suffer comparatively
little from wounds and blows which
would otherwise cause intense pain.
It is well to weigh scrupulously the
object in view, to run as little risk as
may be, to count the cost with care.
1 Tennyson.
1 Beowulf.
�52
THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
But when the mind is once made up,
there must be no looking back, you must
spare yourself no labour, nor shrink from
danger.
“ He either fears his fate too much
Or his deserts are small,
That dares not put it to the touch
To gain or lose it all.” 1
Glory, says Renan, “is after all the
thing which has the best chance of not
being altogether vanity.” But what is
glory ?
Marcus Aurelius observes that “ a
spider is proud when it has caught a fly,
a man when he has caught a hare,
another when he has taken a little fish
in a net, another when he has taken
wild boars, another when he has taken
bears, and another when he has taken
Sarmatians ; ”2 but this, if from one
point of view it shows the vanity of
lame, also encourages us with the evidence
that every one may succeed if his objects
are but reasonable.
Alexander may be taken as almost a
type of Ambition in its usual form,
though carried to an extreme.
His desire was to conquer, not to in
herit or to rule. When news was brought
that his father Philip had taken some
town, or won some battle, instead of
being delighted, he used to say to his
companions, “ My father will go on con
quering, till there be nothing extra
ordinary left for you and me to do.”3
He is said even to have been mortified at
the number of the stars, considering that
he had not been able to conquer one
world. Such ambition is justly fore
doomed to disappointment.
The remarks of Philosophers on the
vanity of ambition refer generally to that
unworthy form of which Alexander may
be taken as the type—the idea of self
exaltation, not only without any reference
to the happiness, but even regardless of
the sufferings, of others.
“A continual and restless search after
1 Montrose.
2 He is referring here to one of his expeditions.
3 Plutarch.
PART II
fortune,” says Bacon, “ takes up too much
of their time who have nobler things to
observe.” Indeed he elsewhere extends
this, and adds that “No man’s private
fortune can be an end in any way worthy
of his existence.”
Goethe well observes that man “ exists
for culture; not for what he can accom
plish, but for what can be accomplished
in him.” 1
As regards fame, we must not confuse
name and essence. To be remembered is
not necessarily to be famous. There is
infamy as well as fame; and unhappily
almost as many are remembered for the
one as for the other, and not a few for a
mixture of both.
Who would not, however, rather be
forgotten, than recollected as Ahab or
Jezebel, Nero or Commodus, Messalina
or Heliogabalus, King John or Richard
III.?
“To be nameless in worthy deeds ex
ceeds an infamous history. The Canaanitish woman lives more happily without
a name than Herodias with one ; and
■who would not rather have been the good
thief than Pilate ? ” 2
Kings and Generals are often remem
bered as much- for their misfortunes as
for their successes, for their deaths as for
their lives. The Hero of Thermopylae
was Leonidas, not Xerxes. Alexander’s
Empire fell to pieces at his death.
Napoleon was a great genius, though no
Hero. But what came of all his victories ?
They passed away like the smoke of his
guns and he left France weaker, poorer,
and smaller than he found her. The
most lasting result of his genius is no
military glory, but the Code Napoleon.
A surer and more glorious title to
fame is that of those who are remembered
for some act of justice or self-devotion:
the self-sacrifice of Leonidas, the good
faith of Regulus, are the glories of history.
In some cases where men have been
called after places, the men are remem
bered, while the places are forgotten.
When we speak of Palestrina or Perugino,
1 Emerson.
2 Sir T. Browne.
�CHAP. I
AMBITION
of Nelson or Wellington, of Newton or
Darwin, who remembers the towns ?
We think only of the men.
Goethe has been called the soul of his
century.
We have but meagre biographies of
Shakespeare or of Plato • yet how’ much
we know about them.
Statesmen and Generals enjoy great
celebrity during their lives. The news
papers chronicle every word and move
ment. But the fame of the Philosopher
and Poet is more enduring.
Wordsworth deprecates monuments to
Poets, with some exceptions, on this very
account. The case of Statesmen, he says,
is different. It is right to commemorate
them because they might otherwise be
forgotten ; but Poets live in their books
for ever.
The real conquerors of the world in
deed are not the generals but the
thinkers ; not Genghis Khan and Akbar,
Barneses, or Alexander, but Confucius
and Buddha, Aristotle, Plato, and Christ.
The rulers and kings wrho reigned over
our ancestors have for the most part long
since sunk into oblivion—they are for
gotten for want of some sacred bard to
give them life—or are remembered, like
Suddhodana and Pilate, from their associ
ation with higher spirits.
Such men’s lives cannot be compressed
into any biography.
They lived not
merely in their own generation, but for
all time. When we speak of the Eliza
bethan period we think of Shakespeare
and Bacon, Raleigh and Spenser. The
ministers and secretaries of state, with
one or two exceptions, we scarcely re
member, and Bacon himself is recollected
less as the Judge than as the Philosopher.
Moreover, to what do Generals and
Statesmen owe their fame? They were
celebrated for their deeds, but to the
Poet and the Historian they are indebted
for their immortality, and to the Poet and
Historian we owe their glorious memories
and the example of their virtues.
‘ ‘ Vixere fortes ante Agamemnona
Multi; sed omnes illacrimabiles
53
Urgentur ignotique Tonga
Nocte, carent quia vate sacro.”
Montrose happily combined the tw*o,
when in “ My dear and only love ” he
promises,
“ I’ll make thee famous by my pen,
And glorious by my sword.”
It is remarkable, and encouraging, how
many of the greatest men have risen
from the lowest rank, and triumphed
over obstacles which might well have
seemed insurmountable; nay, even ob
scurity itself may be a source of honour.
The very doubts as to Homer’s birthplace
have contributed to his glory, seven cities
as we all know laying claim to the great
poet—
“Smyrna, Rhodos, Colophon, Salamis, Chios,
Argos, Athenaj.”
Take men of Science only. Ray was
the son of a blacksmith, Watt of a ship
wright, Franklin of a tallow-chandler,
Dalton of a handloom weaver, Fraunhofer
of a glazier, Laplace of a farmer, Linnseus
of a poor curate, Faraday of a blacksmith,
Lamarck of a banker’s clerk ; George
Stephenson wras a working collier, Davy
an apothecary’s assistant, Wheatstone a
musicalinstrumentmaker; Galileo, Kepler,
Sprengel, Cuvier, and Sir W. Herschel
were all children of very poor parents.
It is, on the other hand, sad to think
how many of our greatest benefactors are
unknown even by name. Who discovered
the art of procuring fire ? Prometheus is
merely the personification of forethought.
Who invented letters ? Cadmus is a
mere name.
These inventions, indeed, are lost in
the mists of antiquity, but even as re
gards recent progress the steps are often
so gradual, and so numerous, that few in
ventions can be attributed entirely, or
even mainly, to any one person.
Columbus is said, and truly said, to
have discovered America, though the
Northmen were there before him.
We Englishmen have every reason to
be proud of our fellow-countrymen. To
�54
THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
PART II
take Philosophers and men of Science what as the years roll on, does add to the
only, Bacon and Hobbes, Locke and comfort of life. But this is of course on
Berkeley, Hume and Hamilton, will the supposition that you are master of
always be associated with the progress of your money, that the money is not master
human thought; Newton with gravita of you.
tion, Adam Smith with Political Economy,
Unquestionably the possession of wealth
Young with the undulatory theory of is attended by many drawbacks. Money
light, Herschel with the discovery of and the love of money often go together.
Uranus and the study of the star depths, The poor man, as Emerson says, is the
Lord Worcester, Trevethick, and Watt man who wishes to be rich ; and the more
with the steam-engine, Wheatstone with a man has, the more he often longs to
the electric telegraph, Jenner with the be richer. Just as drinking often does
banishment of smallpox, Simpson with but increase thirst; so in many cases the
the practical application of anaesthetics, craving for riches grows with wealth
and Darwin with the creation of modern
This is, of course, especially the case
Natural History.
when money is sought for its own sake.
These men, and such as these, have Moreover, it is often easier to make money
made our history and moulded our than to keep or to enjoy it. Keeping it
opinions ; and though during life they is dull and anxious drudgery. The dread
may have occupied, comparatively, an of loss may hang like a dark cloud over
insignificant space in the eyes of their life. Seneca tells us that when Apicius
countrymen, they became at length an had squandered most of his patrimony,
irresistible power, and have now justly but had still 250,000 crowns left, he
grown to a glorious memory.
committed suicide, for fear he should die
of hunger.
Wealth is certainly no sinecure. More
over, the value of money depends partly
CHAPTER II
on knowing what to do with it, partly
WEALTH
on the manner in which it is acquired.
“ Acquire money, thy friends say, that
“ The rich and poor meet together : the Lord
is the maker of them all.” — Proverbs of we also may have some. If I can acquire
money and also keep myself modest, and
Solomon.
faithful, and magnanimous, point out the
Ambition often takes the form of a love way, and I will acquire it. But if you
of money. There are many who have ask me to lose the things which are good
never attempted Art or Music, Poetry or and my own, in order that you may gain
Science ; but most people do something things that are not good, see how unfair
for a livelihood, and consequently an and unwise you are. For which would
increase of income is not only acceptable you rather have? Money, or a faithful
in itself, but gives a pleasant feeling of and modest friend. . . .
success.
■“What hinders a man, who has clearly
Doubt is indeed often expressed whether comprehended these things, from living
wealth is any advantage. I do not my with a light heart, and bearing easily the
self believe that those who are born, as reins, quietly expecting everything which
the saying is, with a silver spoon in their can happen, and enduring that which has
mouth, are necessarily any the happier for already happened ? Would you have me
it. No doubt wealth entails almost more to bear poverty ? Come, and you will
labour than poverty, and certainly more know what poverty is when it has found
anxiety. Still it must, I think, be con one who can act well the part of a poor
fessed that the possession of an income, man.” 1
whatever it may be, which increases some
1 Epictetus.
�CHAP. II
WEALTH
We must bear in mind Solon’s answer
to Croesus, “ Sir, if any other come that
hath better iron than you, he will be
master of all this gold.”
Midas is another case in point. He
prayed that everything he touched might
be turned into gold, and this prayer was
granted. His wine turned to gold, his
bread turned to gold, his clothes, his very
bed.
“Attonitus novitate mali, divesque miserque,
Effugere optat opes, et quse modo voverat, odit.”
He is by no means the only man who
has suffered from too much gold.
The real truth I take to be that wealth
is not necessarily an advantage, but that
whether it is so or not depends on the
use we make of it. The same, however,
might be said of most other opportunities
and privileges ; Knowledge and Strength,
Beauty and Skill, may all be abused ; if
we neglect or misuse them we are worse
off than if we had never had them.
Wealth is only a disadvantage in the hands
of those who do not know how to use it.
It gives the command of so many other
things—leisure, the power of helping
others, books, works of art, opportunities
and means of travel.
It would, however, be easy to exagger
ate the advantages of money. It is well
worth having, and worth working for,
but it does not requite too great a sacri
fice ; not indeed so great as is often offered
up to it. A wise proverb tells us that
gold may be bought too dear. If wealth
is to be valued because it gives leisure,
clearly it would be a mistake to sacrifice
leisure in the struggle for wealth. Money
has no doubt also a tendency to make men
poor in spirit. But, on the other hand,
what gift is there which is without
danger ?
Euripides said that money finds friends
for men, and has great (he said the
greatest) power among Mankind, cynically
adding, “ Mighty indeed is a rich man,
especially if his heir be unknown.”
Bossuet tells us that “he had no
attachment to riches, still if he had only
55
what was barely necessary, he felt him
self narrowed, and would lose more than
half his talents.”
Shelley was certainly not an avaricious
man, and yet “ I desire money,” he said,
“ because I think I know the use of it.
It commands labour, it gives leisure ; and
to give leisure to those who will employ
it in the forwarding of truth is the noblest
present an individual can make to the
whole.”
Many will have felt with Pepys when
he quaintly and piously says, “ Abroad
with my wife, the first time that ever I
rode in my own coach ; which do make
my heart rejoice and praise God, and pray
him to bless it to me, and continue it.”
This, indeed, was a somewhat selfish
satisfaction. Yet the merchant need not
quit nor be ashamed of his profession,
bearing in mind only the inscription on
the Church of St. Giacomo de Bialto at
Venice: “ Around this temple let the
merchant’s law be just, his weights true,
and his covenants faithful.” 1
If, however, life has been sacrificed to
the rolling up of money for its own sake,
the very means by which it was acquired
will prevent its being enjoyed ; the chill
of poverty will have entered into the very
bones. The miser deprives himself of
everything, for fear lest some day he
should be deprived of something. The
term Miser was happily chosen for such
persons ; they are essentially miserable.
“ A collector peeps into all the picture
shops of Europe for a landscape of Poussin,
a crayon sketch of Salvator; but the
Transfiguration, the Last Judgment, the
Communion of St. Jerome, and what are
as transcendent as these, are on the walls
of the Vatican, the Uffizi, or the Louvre,
where every footman may see them ; to
say nothing of Nature’s pictures in every
street, of sunsets and sunrises every day,
and the sculpture of the human body
never absent. A collector recently bought
at public auction in London, for one
hundred and fifty-seven guineas, an auto
graph of Shakespeare : but for nothing a
1 Ruskin.
�56
THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
schoolboy can read Hamlet, and can detect
secrets of highest concernment yet un
published therein.”1 And yet “What
hath the owner but the sight of it with
his eyes.” 2
We are really richer than we think.
We often hear of Earth hunger. People
envy a great Landlord, and fancy how
delightful it must be to possess a large
estate. But, too often, as Emerson says,
“if you own land, the land owns you.”
Moreover, have we not all, in a better
sense—have we not all thousands of acres
of our own ? The commons, and roads,
and footpaths, and the seashore, our grand
and varied coast—these are all ours.
The sea-coast has, moreover, two great
advantages. In the first place, it is for
the most part but little interfered with
by man, and in the second it exhibits most
instructively the forces of Nature.
We are, indeed, all great landed pro
prietors, if we only knew it. What we
lack is not land, but the power to enjoy it.
This great inheritance has the additional
advantage that it entails no labour, requires
no management. The landlord has the
trouble, but the landscape belongs to
every one who has eyes to see it. Thus
Kingsley called the heaths round Eversley
his “ winter garden ” ; not because they
were his in the eye of the law, but in that
higher sense in which ten thousand persons
may own the same thing.
CHAPTER III
HEALTH
“ Health is best for mortal man ; next beauty ;
thirdly, well gotten wealth ; fourthly, the
pleasure of youth among friends.”
Simonides.
But if there has been some difference of
opinion as to the advantage of wealth,
with reference to health all are agreed.
“Health,” said Simonides long ago, “is
best for mortal man ; next beauty ; thirdly,
well gotten wealth ; fourthly, the pleasure
1 Emerson.
2 Solomon.
PART II
of youth among friends.” “Life, ’ says
Longfellow, “ without health is a burden,
with health is a joy and gladness.” Em
pedocles delivered the people of Selinus
from a pestilence by draining a marsh, and
was hailed as a Demigod. We are told
that a coin was struck in his honour, re
presenting the Philosopher in the act of
staying the hand of Phoebus.
We scarcely realise, I think, how much
we owe to Doctors. Our system of Medi
cine seems so natural and obvious that it
hardly occurs to us as something new and
exceptional. When we are ill we send for
a Physician ; he prescribes some medicine ;
we take it, and pay his fee. But among
the lower races of men pain and illness
are often attributed to the presence of evil
spirits. The Medicine Man is a Priest, or
rather a Sorcerer, more than a true Doctor,
and his effort is to exorcise the evil Spirit.
In other countries where some advance
has been made, a charm is written on a
board, washed off, and drunk. In some
cases the medicine is taken, not by the
patient, but by the Doctor. Such a sys
tem, however, is generally transient; it is
naturally discouraged by the Profession,
and is indeed incompatible with a large
practice. Even as regards the payment
we find very different- systems. The
Chinese pay their medical man as long as
they are well, and stop his salary as soon
as they are ill. In ancient Egypt we are
told that the patient feed the Doctor for the
first few days, after which the Doctor paid
the patient until he made him well. This
is a fascinating system, but might afford
too much temptation to heroic remedies.
On the whole our plan seems the best,
though it does not offer adequate encour
agement to discovery and research. There
is probably some cure for cancer if we did
but know it. If, however, the substantial
rewards of discovery are inadequate, we
ought to be all the more grateful to such
men as Hunter and Jenner, Simpson and
Lister. And yet in the matter of health
we can generally do more for ourselves
than the greatest Doctors can for us.
But if all are agreed as to the blessing
�CHAP. Ill
HEALTH
of health, there are many who will not
take the little trouble, or submit to the
slight sacrifices, necessary to maintain it.
Many, indeed, deliberately ruin their own
health, and incur the certainty of an early
grave, or an old age of suffering.
No doubt some inherit a constitution
which renders health almost unattainable.
Pope spoke of that long disease, his life.
Many indeed may say, 111 suffer, therefore
I am.” But happily these cases are excep
tional. Most of us might be well, if we
would. It is very much our own fault
that we are ill. We do those things
which we ought not to do, and we leave
undone those things which we ought to
have done, and then we wonder that there
is no health in us.
Like Naaman, we expect our health to
be the subject of some miraculous interfer
ence, and neglect the homely precautions
by which it might be secured.
We all know that we can make ourselves
ill, but few perhaps realise how much we
can do to keep ourselves well. Much of
our suffering is self-inflicted. It has been
observed that among the ancient Egyptians
it seemed the chief aim of life to be well
buried. Many, however, live even now
as if this were the principal object of their
existence.
I am inclined to doubt whether the
study of health is sufficiently impressed
on the minds of those entering life. Not
that it is desirable to potter over minor
ailments, to con over books on illnesses,
or experiment on ourselves with medicine.
Far from it. The less we fancy ourselves
ill, or bother about little bodily discom
forts, the more likely perhaps we are to
preserve our health.
It is, however, a different matter to
study the general conditions of health. A
well-known proverb tells us that, by the
time he is forty, every one is either a fool
or a physician. Unfortunately, however,
many persons are invalids at forty as well
as physicians.
Ill-health, however, is no excuse for
moroseness. If we have one disease we
may at least congratulate ourselves that
57
we are escaping all the rest. Sydney
Smith, ever ready to look on the bright
side of things even when borne down by
suffering, wrote to a friend that he had
gout, asthma, and seven other maladies,
but was “otherwise very well”; and many
of the greatest invalids have borne their
sufferings with cheerfulness and good
spirits.
It is said that the celebrated physiog
nomist, Campanella, could so abstract his
attention from any sufferings of his body,
that he was even able to endure the rack
without much pain ; and whoever has the
power of concentrating his attention and
controlling his will, can emancipate him
self from most of the minor miseries of
life. He may have much cause for anxiety,
his body may be the seat of severe suffer
ing, and yet his mind will remain serene
and unaffected ; he may triumph over care
and pain.
It is sad to think how much unnecessary
suffering has been caused, and how many
valuable lives have been lost, through
ignorance or carelessness.
We cannot
but fancy that the lives of many great
men might have been much prolonged by
the exercise of a little ordinary care.
If we take musicians only, what a
grievous loss to the world it is that Pergolesi should have died at twenty-six,
Schubert at thirty-one, Mozart at thirtyfive, Purcell at thirty-seven, and Mendels
sohn at thirty-eight.
In the old Greek myth the life of
Meleager was indissolubly connected by
fate with the existence of a particular
log of wood. As long as this was kept
safe by Althaea, his mother, Meleager bore
a charmed life. It seems wonderful that
we do not watch with equal care over our
body, on the state of which happiness so
much depends.
The requisites of health are plain
enough: regular habits, daily exercise,
cleanliness, and moderation in all things
—in eating as well as in drinking—would
keep most people well.
I need not here dwell on the evils of
alcohol, but we perhaps scarcely realise
�THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
how much of the suffering and ill-humour
of life is due to over-eating. Dyspepsia,
for instance, from which so many suffer,
is in nine cases out of ten their own fault,
and arises from the combination of too
much food with too little exercise. To
lengthen your life, says an old proverb,
shorten your meals. Plain living and
high thinking will secure health for most
of us, though it matters, perhaps, com
paratively little what a healthy man eats,
so long as he does not eat too much#
“ Go to your banquet then, but use delight,
So as to rise still with an appetite.”1
Mr. Gladstone has told us that the
splendid health he enjoys is greatly due
to his having early learnt one simple
physiological maxim, and laid it down as
a rule for himself always to make twentyfive bites at every bit of meat.
No doubt, however, though the rule not
to eat or drink too much is simple enough
in theory, it is not quite so easy in applica
tion. There have been many Esaus who
have sold their birthright of health for a
mess of pottage.
Yet, though it may seem paradoxical,
it is certainly true, that in the long run
the moderate man will derive more enjoy
ment even from eating and drinking, than
the glutton or the drunkard will ever
obtain. They know not what it is to
enjoy “the exquisite taste of common
dry bread.” 2
Even then if we were to consider
merely the pleasure to be derived from
eating and drinking, the same rule would
hold good. A lunch of bread and cheese
after a good walk is more enjoyable than
a Lord Mayor’s feast. Without wishing,
like Apicius, for the neck of a stork, so
as to enjoy our dinner longer, we must
not be ungrateful for the enjoyment we
derive from eating and drinking, even
though they be amongst the least aesthetic
of our pleasures.
They are homely,
no doubt, but they come morning, noon,
and night, and are not the less real
Herrick,
2 Hamerton.
PART II
because they have reference to the body
rather than the soul.
We speak truly of a healthy appetite,
for it is a good test of our bodily condi
tion ; and indeed in some cases of our
mental state also. That
“ There cometh no good thing
Apart from toil to mortals,”
is especially true with reference to appe
tite ; to sit down to a dinner, however
simple, after a walk with a friend among
the mountains or along the shore, is a
pleasure not to be despised.
Cheerfulness and good humour, more
over, during meals are not only pleasant
in themselves, but conduce greatly to
health.
It has been said that hunger is the
best sauce, but most would prefer some
good stories at a feast even to a good
appetite; and who would not like to
have it said of him, as of Biron by
Rosaline—
“A merrier man,
Within the limit of becoming mirth,
I never spent an hour’s talk withal.”
In the three great “Banquets” of
Plato, Xenophon, and Plutarch, the food
is not even mentioned.
In the words of the old Lambeth
adage—
“ What is a merry man ?
Let him do all he can
To entertain his guests
With wine and pleasant jests,
Yet if his wife do frown
All merryment goes down.”
What salt is to food, wit and humour
are to conversation and literature. “You
do not,” an amusing writer in the Cornhill
has said, “expect humour in Thomas a
Kempis or the Hebrew Prophets”; but
we have Solomon’s authority that there is
a time to laugh, as well as to weep.
“ To read a good comedy is to keep
the best company in the world, when the
best things are said,* and the most amus
ing things happen.” 1
It is not without reason that every one
1 Hazlitt.
�HEALTH
CHAP. Ill
resents the imputation of being unable to
see a joke.
Laughter appears to be the special
prerogative of man. The higher animals
present us with proofs of evident, if not
highly-developed reasoning power, but it
is more than doubtful whether they are
capable of appreciating a joke.
Wit, moreover, has solved many diffi
culties and decided many controversies.
“ Ridicule shall frequently prevail,
And cut the knot when graver reasons fail.” 1
The most wasted of all days, says
Chamfort, is that on which one has not
laughed.
A careless song, says Walpole, “with
a little nonsense in it now and then, does
not misbecome a monarch ; ” but it is
difficult now to realise that James I.
should have regarded skill in punning in
his selection of bishops and privy coun
cillors.
It is no small merit of laughter that it
is quite spontaneous. “You cannot force
people to laugh ; you cannot give a
reason why they should laugh; they
must laugh of themselves or not at all.
. . . If we think we must not laugh,
this makes our temptation to laugh the
greater.”2 Humour is, moreover, con
tagious. A witty man may say, as Falstaff does of himself, “ I am not only
witty in myself, but the cause that wit is
in other men.”
One may paraphrase the well-known
remark about port wine and say that
some jokes may be better than others, but
anything which makes one laugh is good.
“After all,” says Dryden, “it is a good
thing to laugh at any rate ; and if a straw
can tickle a man, it is an instrument of
happiness,” and I may add, of health.
I have been told that in omitting any
mention of smoking I was overlooking
one of the real pleasures of life. Not
being a smoker myself I cannot perhaps
judge ; much must depend on the in
dividual temperament ; to some nervous
natures it certainly appears to be a great
1 Francis.
2 Hazlitt.
59
comfort; but I have my doubts whether
smoking, as a general rule, does add to
the pleasures of life. It must, at any
rate, detract somewhat from the sensitive
ness of taste and of smell.
Those who live in cities may almost
lay it down as a rule that no time spent
out of doors is ever wasted. Fresh air is
a cordial of incredible virtue ; old families
are in all senses county families, not town
families ; and those who prefer Homer
and Plato and Shakespeare to rivers and
forests and mountains must beware that
they are not tempted to neglect this great
requisite of our nature.
An Oriental traveller, having been
taken to watch a game of cricket, was
astonished at hearing that many of those
playing were rich men. He asked why
they did not pay some poor people to do
it for them.
Most Englishmen, however, love open
air, and it is probably true that most of
us enjoy a game at cricket or golf more
than looking at any of the old masters.
The love of sport is engraven in the
English character.
As was said of
William Rufus, “ he loves the tall deer as
if he had been their father.”
Wordsworth made it a rule to go out
every day, and used to say that as he
never consulted the weather, he never had
to consult the physicians.
It always seems to be raining harder
than it really is when you look at the
weather through the window. Even in
winter, though the landscape often seems
cheerless and bare enough when you look
at it from the fireside, still it is far better
to go out, even if you have to brave the
storm : when you are once out of doors
the touch of earth and the breath of the
fresh air will give you new life and
energy. Men, like trees, live in great
part on air.
After a gallop over the downs, a row
on the river, a sea voyage, a walk by the
seashore or in the woods,
“ The blue above, the music in the air,
The flowers upon the ground,” 1
1 Trench.
�6o
THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
one feels as if one could say with Henry
IV., “ Je me porte comme le Pont Neuf.”
The Roman proverb that a child should
be taught nothing which he cannot learn
standing up, went no doubt into one
extreme, but surely we fall into another
when we act as if games were the only
thing which boys could learn upon their
feet.
The love of games among boys is
indeed a healthy instinct, and though
carried too far in some of our great
schools, there can be no question that
cricket and football, fives and hockey,
bathing and boating, are not only among
the greatest pleasures, but the best medi
cines, for boys.
We cannot always secure sleep. When
important decisions have to be taken, the
natural anxiety to come to a right decision
will often keep us awake.
Nothing,
however, is more conducive to healthy
sleep than plenty of open air. Then in
deed we can enjoy the fresh life of the
early morning : “ the breezy call of in
cense-breathing mom.”1
“ At morn the blackcock trims his jetty wing,
’Tis morning prompts the linnet’s blithest
lay,,
All Nature’s children feel the matin spring
Of life reviving, with reviving day.”
Epictetus described himself as “ a
spirit bearing about a corpse.” That
seems to me an ungrateful description.
Surely we ought to cherish the body, even
if it be but a frail and humble companion.
Do we not owe to the eye our enjoyment
of the beauties of this world and the
glories of the Heavens ; to the ear the
voices of friends and all the delights of
music ; are not the hands most faithful
and invaluable instruments, ever ready
in case of need, ever willing to do our
bidding ? and even the feet bear us with
out a murmur along the roughest and
stoniest paths of life.
With reasonable care, most of us may
hope to enjoy good health. And yet
what a marvellous and complex organisa
tion we have!
1 Gray.
PART II
We are indeed fearfully and wonder
fully made. It is
“ Strange that a harp of a thousand strings
Should keep in tune so long.”
When we consider the marvellous com
plexity of our bodily organisation, it
seems a miracle that we should live at
all; much more that the innumerable
organs and processes should continue day
after day and year after year with so
much regularity and so little friction
that we are sometimes scarcely conscious
of having a body at all.
And yet in that body we have more
than 200 bones, of complex and varied
forms, any irregularity in, or injury to,
which would of course grievously inter
fere with our movements.
We have over 500 muscles ; each
nourished by almost innumerable blood
vessels, and regulated by nerves. One
of our muscles, the heart, beats over
30,000,000 times in a year, and if it
once stops, all is over.
In the skin are wonderfully varied
and complex organs—for instance, over
2,000,000 perspiration glands, which
regulate the temperature, communicating
with the surface by ducts which have a
total length of some ten miles.
Think of the miles of arteries and veins,
of capillaries and nerves ; of the blood,
with the millions of millions of blood
corpuscles, each a microcosm in itself.
Think of the organs of sense,—the eye
with its cornea and lens, vitreous humour,
aqueous humour, and choroid, culminating
in the retina, no thicker than a sheet of
paper, and yet consisting of nine distinct
layers, the innermost composed of rods
and cones, supposed to be the immediate
recipients of the undulations of light,
and so numerous that in each eye the
cones are estimated at over 3,000,000,
the rods at over 30,000,000.
Above all, and most wonderful of all,
the brain itself. Meinert has calculated
that the gray matter alone contains no
less than 600,000,000 cells ; each cell
consists of several thousand visible mole-
�LOVE
CHAP. IV
cules, and each molecule again of many
millions of atoms.
And yet, with reasonable care, we can
most of us keep this wonderful organisa
tion in health, so that it will work with
out causing us pain, or even discomfort,
for many years ; and we may hope that
even when old age comes
“ Time may lay his hand
Upon your heart gently, not smiting it,
But as a harper lays his open palm
Upon his harp, to deaden its vibrations.”
61
To this a look, to that a word, dispenses,
And, whether stern or smiling, loves them
still;—
So Providence for us, high, infinite,
Makes our necessities its watchful task,
Hearkens to all our prayers, helps all our
wants,
And e’en if it denies what seems our right,
Either denies because ’twould have us ask,
Or seems but to deny, and in denying
grants.”1
Sir Walter Scott well says—
“And if there be a human tear
From passion’s dross 2 refined and clear,
’Tis that which pious fathers shed
Upon a duteous daughter’s head.”
Epaminondas is said to have given as
his main reason for rejoicing at the victory
of Leuctra, that it would give so much
LOVE
pleasure to his father and mother.
“ £)tre avec ceux qu’on aime, cela suffit.”
Nor must the love of animals be
La Bruy1:re.
altogether omitted. It is impossible not
Love is the light and sunshine of life. to sympathise with the Savage when he
We cannot fully enjoy ourselves, or any believes in their immortality, and thinks
thing else, unless some one we love enjoys that after death
it with us. Even if we are alone, w’e
“Admitted to that equal sky,
His faithful dog shall bear him company.” 3
store up our enjoyment in hope of shar
ing it hereafter with those wre love.
In the Mahabharata, the great Indian
Love lasts through life, and adapts Epic, when the family of Pandavas, the
itself to every age and circumstance ; in heroes, at length reach the gates of
childhood for father and mother, in man heaven, they are welcomed themselves,
hood for wife, in age for children, and but are told that their dog cannot come
throughout for brothers and sisters, re in. Having pleaded in vain, they turn
lations and friends. The strength of to depart, as they say they can never
friendship is indeed proverbial, and in leave their faithful companion. Then at
some cases, as in that of David and the last moment the Angel at the door
Jonathan, is described as surpassing the relents, and their Dog is allowed to enter
love of women. But I need not now with them.
refer to it, having spoken already of what
We may hope the time will come when
we owe to friends.
we shall learn
The goodness of Providefice to man has
to blend
or our pride,
been often compared to that of fathers “Never sorrow of our pleasure thing that feels.” 4
With
the meanest
and mothers for their children.
But at the present moment I am speak
“ Just as a mother, with sweet, pious face,
ing rather of the love which leads to mar
Yearns towards her little children from her
riage. Such love is the music of life, nay,
seat,
Gives one a kiss, another an embrace,
“there is music in the beauty, and the
Takes this upon her knees, that on her silent note of love, far sweeter than the
feet;
sound of any instrument.” 5
And while from actions, looks, complaints,
CHAPTER IV
pretences,
She learns their feelings and their various
will,
1 Filicaja. Translated by Leigh Hunt.
2 Not from passion itself.
3 Pope.
4 Wor ds worth.
5 Browne.
�62
THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
The Symposium of Plato contains an in
teresting and amusing disquisition on Love.
“ Love,” Ph sod r us is made to say, “ will
make men dare to die for their beloved—
love alone ; and women as well as men.
Of this, Alcestis, the daughter of Pelias,
is a monument to all Hellas ; for she was
willing to lay down her life on behalf of
her husband, when no one else would,
although he had a father and mother ;
but the tenderness of her love so far ex
ceeded theirs, that she made them seem
to be strangers in blood to their own son,
and in name only related to him ; and so
noble did this action of hers appear to the
gods, as well as to men, that among the
many who have done virtuously she is
one of the very few to whom they have
granted the privilege of returning to earth,
in admiration of her virtue ; such exceed
ing honour is paid by them to the devo
tion and virtue of love.”
Agathon is even more eloquent—
Love “fills men with affection, and
takes away their disaffection, making them
meet together at such banquets as these.
In sacrifices, feasts, dances, he is our lord
—supplying kindness and banishing un
kindness, giving friendship and forgiving
enmity, the joy of the good, the wonder
of the wise, the amazement of the gods,
desired by those who have no part in him,
and precious to those who have the better
part in him ; parent of delicacy, luxury,
desire, fondness, softness, grace, regardful
of the good, regardless of the evil. In
every word, work, wish, fear—pilot, com
rade, helper, saviour ; glory of gods and
men, leader best and brightest: in whose
footsteps let every man follow, sweetly
singing in his honour that sweet strain
with which love charms the souls of gods
and men.”
No doubt, even so there are two
Loves, “one, the daughter of Uranus,
who has no mother, and is the elder and
wiser goddess ; and the other, the daughter
of Zeus and Dione, who is popular and
common,”—but let us not examine too
closely. Charity tells us even of Guine
vere, “ that while she lived, she was a
PART II
good lover and therefore she had a good
end.” 1
The origin of love has exercised philo
sophers almost as much as the origin of
evil. The Symposium continues with a
speech which Plato attributes in joke to
Aristophanes, and of which Jowett ob
serves that nothing in Aristophanes is
more truly Aristophanic.
The original human nature, he says,
was not like the present. The Primeval
Man “ was round,2 his back and sides form
ing a circle ; and he had four hands and
four feet, one head with two faces, look
ing opposite ways, set on a round neck
and precisely alike.
He could walk
upright as men now do, backwards or
forwards as he pleased, and he could
also roll over and over at a great rate,
whirling round on his four hands and
four feet, eight in all, like tumblers going
over and over with their legs in the
air ; this was when he wanted to run fast.
Terrible was their might and strength, and
the thoughts of their hearts were great, and
they made an attack upon the gods ; of
them is told the tale of Otys and Epliialtes,
who, as Homer says, dared to scale heaven,
and would have laid hands upon the gods.
Doubt reigned in the celestial councils.
Should they kill them and annihilate the
race with thunderbolts, as they had done
the giants, then there would be an end
of the sacrifices and worship which men
offered to them ; but, on the other hand,
the gods could not suffer their insolence
to be unrestrained. At last, after a good
deal of reflection, Zeus discovered a way.
He said : ‘ Methinks I have a plan which
will humble their pride and mend their
manners ; they shall continue to exist, but
I will cut them in two, which will have a
double advantage, for it will halve their
strength and we shall have twice as many
sacrifices. They shall walk upright on
two legs, and if they continue insolent and
will not be quiet, I will split them again
and they shall hop on a single leg.’ He
spoke and cut men in two, ‘ as you might
1 Malory, Morte eVArthur.
2 I avail myself of Dr. Jowett’s translation.
�LOVE
CHAP. IV
split an egg with a hair.’ . . . After the
division the two parts of man, each de
siring his other half, came together. . . .
So ancient is the desire for one another
which is implanted in us, reuniting our
original nature, making one of two, and
healing the state of man. Each of us when
separated is but the indenture of a man,
having one side only, like a flat-fish,
and he is always looking for his other
half.
“ And when one of them finds his other
half, the pair are lost in amazement of
love and friendship and intimacy, and
one will not be out of the other’s sight,
as I may say, even for a minute : they
will pass their whole lives together ; yet
they could not explain what they desire
of one another. For the intense yearn
ing which each of them has towards the
other does not appear to be the desire of
lovers’ intercourse, but of something else,
which the soul of either evidently desires
and cannot tell, and of which she has
only a dark and doubtful presentiment.”
However this may be, there is such in
stinctive insight in the human heart
that we often form our opinion almost
instantaneously, and such impressions
seldom change, I might even say, they
are seldom wrong. Love at first sight
sounds like an imprudence, and yet is
almost a revelation. It seems as if we
were but renewing the relations of a
previous existence.
‘ But to see her were to love her,
Love but her, and love for ever."1
Yet though experience seldom falsifies
such a feeling, happily the reverse does
not hold good. Deep affection is often of
slow growth. Many a warm love has
been won by faithful devotion.
Montaigne indeed declares that “ Few
have married for love without repenting
it.” Dr. Johnson also maintained that
marriages would generally be happier if
they were arranged by the Lord Chan
cellor ; but I do not think either Mon
taigne or Johnson were good judges. As
1 Burns.
63
Lancelot said to the unfortunate Maid of
Astolat, “ I love not to be forced to love,
for love must arise of the heart and not
by constraint.” 1
Love defies distance and the elements ;
Sestos and Abydos are divided by the
sea, “ but Love joined them by an arrow
from his bow.” 2
Love can be happy anywhere. Byron
wished
“ 0 that the desert were my dwelling-place,
With one fair Spirit for my minister,
That I might all forget the human race,
And, hating no one, love but only her.”
And many will doubtless have felt
“ 0 Love ! what hours were thine and mine
In lands of palm and southern pine,
In lands of palm, of orange-blossom,
Of olive, aloe, and maize and vine.”
What is true of space holds good equally
of time.
“ In peace, Love tunes the shepherd’s reed ;
In war, he mounts the warrior’s steed ;
In halls, in gay attire is seen ;
In hamlets, dances on the green.
Love rules the court, the camp, the grove,
And men below, and saints above ;
For love is heaven, and heaven is love.”3
Even when, as among some Eastern
races, Religion and Philosophy have com
bined to depress Love, truth reasserts
itself in popular sayings, as for instance
in the Turkish proverb, “ All women are
perfection, especially she who loves you.”
A French lady having once quoted to
Abd-el-Kader the Polish proverb, “ A
woman draws more with a hair of her
head than a yoke of oxen well harnessed ; ”
he answered with a smile, “ The hair is
unnecessary, woman is powerful as fate.”
But we like to think of Love rather as
the Angel of Happiness than as a ruling
force : of the joy of home when “hearts
are of each other sure.”
“ It is the secret sympathy,
The silver link, the silken tie,
Which heart to heart, and mind to mind
In body and in soul can bind.” 4
1 Malory, Morte. d’Arthur.
2 Symonds.
3 Scott.
4 Ibid.
�THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
64
What Bacon says of a friend is even
truer of a wife ; there is “ no man that
imparteth his joys to his friend, but he
joyeth the more ; and no man that
imparteth his griefs to his friend, but he
grieveth the less.”
Let some one we love come near us and
“ At once it seems that something new or
strange
Has passed upon the flowers, the trees, the
ground ;
Some slight but unintelligible change
On everything around.” 1
PART II
Glistering with dew ; fragrant the fertile earth
After soft showers ; and sweet the coming-on
Of grateful evening mild ; then silent night,
With this her solemn bird, and this fair moon,
And these the gems of heaven, her starry
train.
But neither breath of morn when she ascends
With charm of earliest birds ; nor rising sun
On this delightful land; nor herb, fruit,
flower,
Glistering with dew; nor fragrance after
showers ;
Nor grateful evening mild ; nor silent night,
With this her solemn bird ; nor walk by moon,
Or glittering starlight, without thee is sweet.”
Moreover, no one need despair of an
ideal marriage. We fortunately differ so
much in our tastes ; love does so much to
create love, that even the humblest may
hope for the happiest marriage if only he
deserves it; and Shakespeare speaks, as
11 Her feet are tender, for she sets her steps
Not on the ground, but on the heads of men.” he does so often, for thousands when he
says
Love and Reason divide the life of man.
“ She is mine own,
We must give to each its due. If it is
And I as rich in having such a jewel
impossible to attain to virtue by the aid
As twenty seas, if all their sands were pearls,
The water nectar, and the rocks pure gold.”
of Love without Reason, neither can we
do so by means of Reason alone without
True love indeed will not be unreason
Love.
able or exacting.
Love, said Melanippides, “ sowing in
“ Tell me not, sweet, I am unkind
the heart of man the sweet harvest of
That from the nunnery
Of thy chaste breast and quiet mind
desire, mixes the sweetest and most
To war and arms I fly.
beautiful things together.”
How true is the saying of La Bruyere,
“ Etre avec ceux qu’on aime, cela suffit.”
We might, I think, apply to Love what
Homer says of Fate :
“ Love is kind, and suffers long,
Love is meek, and thinks no wrong,
Love than death itself more strong—
Therefore give us Love.”
True ! a new mistress now I chase,
The first foe in the field,
And with a stronger faith embrace
A sword, a horse, a shield.
Yet this inconstancy is such
As you too shall adore,
I could not love thee, dear, so much,
Loved I not honour more.”1
No one indeed could complain now,
with Phaedrus in Plato’s Symposium,
And yet
that Love has had no worshippers among
the Poets. On the contrary, Love has 1 ‘ Alas ! how light a cause may move
Dissension between hearts that love !
brought them many of their sweetest in
Hearts that the world in vain had tried,
spirations : none perhaps nobler or more
but more
beautiful than Milton’s description of And sorrowthe storm, closely tied, were rough,
That stood
when waves
Paradise :
Yet in a sunny hour fall off,
Like ships that have gone down at sea,
‘ With thee conversing, I forget all time,
When heaven was all tranquillity.” 2
All seasons, and their change ; all please alike.
Sweet is the breath of morn, her rising sweet
For love is brittle. Do not risk even
With charm of earliest birds ; pleasant the
any little jar ; it may be
sun,
When first on this delightful land he spreads
“The little rift within the lute,
His orient beams, on herb, treo, fruit, and
That by and by will make the music mute,
flower,
And ever widening slowly silence all.”3
1 Trench.
1 Lovelace.
2 Moore.
3 Tennyson.
�ART
CHAP. V
Love is delicate; “ Love is hurt with
jar and fret,” and you might as well ex
pect a violin to remain in tune if roughly
used, as Love to survive if chilled or
driven into itself. But what a pleasure
to keep it alive by
“ Little, nameless, unremembered acts
Of kindness and of love.” 1
“ She whom you loved and chose,” says
Bondi,
“ Is now your bride, •
The gift of heaven, and to your trust consigned;
Honour her still, though not with passion blind;
And in her virtue, though you watch, confide.
Be to her youth a comfort, guardian, guide,
In whose experience she may safety find ;
And whether sweet or bitter be assigned,
The joy with her, as well as pain, divide.
Yield not too much if reason disapprove ;
Nor too much force ; the partner of your life
Should neither victim be, nor tyrant prove.
Thus shall that rein, which often mars the bliss
Of wedlock, scarce be felt; and thus your wife
Ne’er in the husband shall the lover miss.” 2
65
Earthly these passions of the Earth,
They perish where they have their birth,
But Love is indestructible ;
Its holy flame for ever burneth,
From Heaven it came, to Heaven retumeth ;
Too oft on Earth a troubled guest,
At times deceived, at times opprest,
It here is tried and purified,
Then hath in Heaven its perfect rest:
It soweth here with toil and care,
But the harvest time of Love is there.
“ The Mother when she meets on high
The Babe she lost in infancy,
Hath she not then, for pains and fears,
The day of woe, the watchful night
For all her sorrow, all her tears,
An over-payment of delight ? ”1
As life wears on the love of husband or
wife, of friends and of children, becomes
the great solace and delight of age. The
one recalls the past, the other gives in
terest to the future ; and in our children
we live our lives again.
Every one is ennobled by true love—
“ ’Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.” 3
Perhaps no one ever praised a woman
more gracefully in a sentence than Steele
when he said of Lady Elizabeth Hastings
that “ to know her was a liberal educa
tion ” ; but every woman may feel as she
improves herself that she is not only
laying in a store of happiness for herself,
but also raising and blessing those whom
she would most wish to- see happy and
good.
Love, true love, grows and deepens
with time. Husband and wife, who are
married indeed, live
CHAPTER V
ART
“ High art consists neither in altering, nor in
improving nature ; but in seeking throughout
nature for ‘whatsoever things are lovely, what
soever things are pure ’ ; in loving these, in dis
playing to the utmost of the painter’s power
such loveliness as is in them, and directing the
thoughts of others to them by winning art, or
gentle emphasis. Art (caeteris paribus) is great
in exact proportion to the love of beauty shown
by the painter, provided that love of beauty
forfeit no atom of truth.”—Ruskin.
The most ancient works of Art which we
possess, are representations of animals,
rude indeed, but often strikingly charac
teristic, engraved on, or carved in, stag’s“ By each other, till to love and live
Be one.” 4
horn or bone ; and found in English,
Nor does it end with life. A mother’s French, and German caves, with stone
and other rude implements, and the re
love knows no bounds.
mains of mammalia, belonging apparently
“ They err who tell us Love can die,
to the close of the glacial epoch: not
With life all other passions fly,
only of the deer, bear, and other animals
All others are but vanity.
In Heaven Ambition cannot dwell,
now inhabiting temperate Europe, but
Nor Avarice in the vaults of Hell ;
of some, such as the reindeer, the musk
4 Wordsworth.
2 Bondi. Tr. by Glassford. sheep, the mammoth, and the woolly-
3 Tennyson.
K
4 Swinburne.
1 Southey.
�66
THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
haired rhinoceros, which have either re
treated north or become altogether ex
tinct. We may even, I think, venture to
hope that other designs may hereafter be
found, which will give us additional in
formation as to the manners and customs
of our ancestors in those remote ages.
Next to these in point of antiquity
come the sculptures and paintings on
Egyptian and Assyrian tombs, temples,
and palaces.
These ancient scenes, considered as
works of art, have no doubt many faults,
and yet how graphically they tell their
story ! As a matter of fact a king is not,
as a rule, bigger than his soldiers, but in
these battle-scenes he is always so repre
sented. We must, however, remember
that in ancient warfare the greater part
of the fighting was done by the chiefs.
In this respect the Homeric poems re
semble the Assyrian and Egyptian repre
sentations. At any rate, we see at a
glance which is the king, which are
officers, which side is victorious, the
struggles and sufferings of the wounded,
the flight of the enemy, the city of refuge
—so that he who runs may read ; while
in modern battle-pictures the story is
much less clear, and, indeed, the untrained
eye sees for some time little but scarlet
and smoke.
These works assuredly possess a grandeur
and dignity of their own, even though
they have not the beauty of later art.
In Greece Art reached a perfection
which has never been excelled, and it
was more appreciated than perhaps it has
ever been since.
At the time when Demetrius attacked
the city of Rhodes, Protogenes was paint
ing a picture of Ialysus. “ This,” says
Pliny, “hindered King Demetrius from
taking Rhodes, out of fear lest he should
burn the picture; and not being able to
fire the town on any other side, he was
pleased rather to spare the painting than
to take the victory, which was already in
his hands. Protogenes, at that time, had
his painting-room in a garden out of the
town, and very near the camp of the
PART II
enemies, where he was daily finishing
those pieces which he had already begun,
the noise of soldiers not being capable of
interrupting his studies. But Demetrius
causing him to be brought into his pre
sence, and asking him what made him so
bold as to work in the midst of enemies,
he answered the king, ‘That he under
stood the war which he made was against
the Rhodians, and not against the Arts.’ ”
With the decay of Greece, Art sank too,
until it was revived in the thirteenth
century by Cimabue, since whose time its
progress has been triumphal.
Art is unquestionably one of the purest
and highest elements in human happiness.
It trains the mind through the eye, and
the eye through the mind. As the sun
colors flowers, so does art color life.
“In true Art,” says Ruskin, “the
hand, the head, and the heart of man go
together. But Art is no recreation : it
cannot be learned at spare moments, nor
pursued when we have nothing better to
do.”
It is not only in the East that great
works, really due to study and labour,
have been attributed to magic.
Study and labour cannot make every
man an artist, but no one can succeed in
art without them. In Art two and two
do not make four, and no number of
little things will make a great one.
It has been said, and on high authority,
that the end of all art is to please. But
this is a very imperfect definition. It
might as well be said that a library is
only intended for pleasure and ornament.
Art has the advantage of nature, in so
far as it introduces a human element,
which is in some respects superior even
to nature. “If,” says Plato, “you take
a man as he is made by nature and com
pare him with another who is the effect
of art, the work of nature will always
appear the less beautiful, because art is
more accurate than nature.”
Bacon also, in The Advancement of
Learning, speaks of “ the world being in
ferior to the soul, by reason whereof there
is agreeable to the spirit of man a more
�CHAP. V
ART
ample greatness, a more exact goodness,
and a more absolute variety than can be
found in the nature of things.”
The poets tell us that, Prometheus
having made a beautiful statue of Minerva,
the goddess was so delighted that she
offered to bring down anything from
Heaven which could add. to its perfection.
Prometheus on this prudently asked her
to take him there, so that he might choose
for himself. This Minerva did, and Pro
metheus, finding that in heaven all things
were animated by fire, brought back a
spark, with which he gave life to his
work.
In fact, Imitation is the means and not
the end of Art. The story of Zeuxis and
Parrhasius is a pretty tale ; but to deceive
birds, or even man himself, is but a
trifling matter compared with the higher
functions of Art. To imitate the Iliad,
says Dr. Young, is not imitating Homer ;
though, as Sir J. Reynolds adds, the more
the artist studies nature “the nearer he
approaches to the true and perfect idea of
art.”
Art, indeed, must create as well as
copy. As Victor Cousin well says, “ The
ideal without the real lacks life ; but the
real without the ideal lacks pure beauty.
Both need to unite; to join hands and
enter into alliance. In this way the best
work may be achieved. Thus beauty is
an absolute idea, and not a mere copy of
imperfect Nature.”
The grouping of the picture is of course
of the utmost importance. Sir Joshua
Reynolds gives two remarkable cases to
show how much any given figure in a
picture is affected by its surroundings.
Tintoret in one of his pictures has taken
the Samson of Michael Angelo, put an
eagle under him, placed thunder and
lightning in his right hand instead of the
jawbone of an ass, and thus turned him
into a Jupiter. The second instance is
even more striking. Titian has copied
the figure in the vault of the Sistine
Chapel which represents the Deity divid
ing light from darkness, and has intro
duced it into his picture of the battle of
67
Cadore, to represent a general falling from
his horse.
We must remember that so far as the
eye is concerned, the object of the artist
is to train, not to deceive, and that his
higher function has reference rather to
the mind than to the eye.
Those who love beauty will see beauty
everywhere. No doubt
“ To gild refined gold, to paint the lily,
To throw a perfume on the violet,
To smooth the ice, or add another hue
Unto the rainbow, or with taper-light
To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to
garnish,
Is wasteful aud ridiculous excess.”1
But all is not gold that glitters, flowers
are not all arrayed like the lily, and
there is room for selection as well as
representation.
“The true, the good, and the beautiful,”
says Cousin, “ are but forms of the in
finite : what then do we really love in
truth, beauty, and virtue1? We love the
infinite himself. The love of the infinite
substance is hidden under the love of its
forms. It is so truly the infinite which
charms in the true, the good, and the
beautiful, that its manifestations alone do
not suffice. The artist is dissatisfied at
the sight even of his greatest works ; he
aspires still higher.”
It is indeed sometimes objected that
Landscape painting is not true to nature;
but we must ask, What is truth ? Is the
object to produce the same impression on
the mind as that created by the scene
itself? If so, let any one try to draw
from memory a group of mountains, and
he will probably find that in the impres
sion produced on his mind the mountains
are loftier and steeper, the valleys deeper
and narrower, than in the actual reality.
A drawing, then, which was literally
exact would not be true, in the sense of
conveying the same impression as Nature
herself.
In fact, Art, says Goethe, is called Art
simply because it is not Nature.
It is not sufficient for the artist to
choose beautiful scenery, and delineate
1 Shakespeare.
�68
THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
tART ii
it with accuracy. He must not be a
mere copyist.
Something higher and
more subtle is required. He must create,
or at any rate interpret, as well as copy.
Turner was never satisfied merely to
copy even the most glorious scenery. He
moved, and even suppressed, mountains.
A certain nobleman, we are told, was
very anxious to see the model from whom
Guido painted his lovely female faces.
Guido placed his color-grinder, a big
coarse man, in an attitude, and then drew
a beautiful Magdalen. “ My dear Count,”
he said, “ the beautiful and pure idea
must be in the mind, and then it is no
matter what the model is.”
When painting St. Michael for the
Church of the Capuchins at Rome, Guido
wished that he “ had the wings of an
angel, to have ascended unto Paradise, and
there to have beheld the forms of those
beautiful spirits, from which I might have
copied my Archangel. But not being
able to mount so high, it was in vain for
me to seek for his resemblance here below;
so that I was forced to look into mine
own mind, and into that idea of beauty
which I have formed in my own imagina
tion.” 1
Science attempts, as far as the limited
powers of Man permit, to reproduce the
actual facts in a manner which, however
bald, is true in itself, irrespective of time
and scene. To do this she must submit
to many limitations ; not altogether unvexatious, and not without serious draw
backs. Art, on the contrary, endeavours
to convey the impression of the original
under some especial aspect.
In some respects, Art gives a clearer
and more vivid idea of an unknown
country than any description can convey.
In literature rock may be rock, but in
painting it must be granite, slate, or some
other special kind, and not merely rock
in general.
It is remarkable that while artists have
long recognised the necessity of studying
anatomy, and there has been from the
commencement a professor of anatomy in
the Royal Academy, it is only of late
years that any knowledge of botany or
geology has been considered desirable,
and even now their importance is by no
means generally recognised.
Much has been written as to the rela
tive merits of painting, sculpture, and
architecture. This, if it be not a some
what unprofitable inquiry, would at any
rate be out of place here.
Architecture not only gives intense
pleasure, but even the impression of
something ethereal and superhuman.
Madame de Stael described it as
“ frozen music ”; and a cathedral is a
glorious specimen of “ thought in stone,”
whose very windows are transparent walls
of gorgeous hues.
Caracci said that poets paint in their
words and artists speak in their works.
The latter have indeed one great advan
tage, for a glance at a statue or a painting,
will convey a more vivid idea than a long,
and minute description.
Another advantage possessed by Art
is that it is understood by all civilised
nations, whilst each has a separate language.
Again, from a material point of view
Art is most important.
In a recent
address Sir F. Leighton has observed that
the study of Art “ is every day becoming
more important in relation to certain
sides of the waning material prosperity of
the country. For the industrial compe
tition between this and other countries
—a competition, keen and eager, which
means to certain industries almost a race
for life—runs, in many cases, no longer
exclusively or mainly on the lines of
excellence of material and solidity of
workmanship, but greatly nowadays on
the lines of artistic charm and beauty
of design.”
The highest service, however, that Art
can accomplish for man is to become “ at
once the voice of his nobler aspirations,
and the steady disciplinarian of his
emotions ; and it is with this mission,
rather than with any eesthetic perfection,
that we are at present concerned.” 1
1 Dryden.
1 Haweis.
�CHAI’. V
ART
69
Science and Art are sisters, or rather story, that the picture was sold for a pot
perhaps they are like brother and sister. of porter and a cheese, which, however,
The mission of Art is in some respects does not give a higher idea of the ap
like that of woman. It is not Hers preciation of the art of landscape at that
so much to do the hard toil and moil date.
Until very recently the general feeling
of the world, as to surround it with a
halo of beauty, to convert work into with reference to mountain scenery has
been that expressed by Tacitus. “ Who
pleasure.
In Science we naturally expect pro would leave Asia or Africa or Italy to go
gress, but in Art the case is not so clear : to Germany, a shapeless and unformed
and yet Sir Joshua Reynolds did not country, a harsh sky, and melancholy
hesitate to express his conviction that in aspect, unless indeed it was his native
the future “ so much will painting im land?”
It is amusing to read the opinion of
prove, that the best we can now achieve
will appear like the work of children,” Dr. Beattie, in a special treatise on Truth.,
and we may hope that our power of Poetry, and Music, written at the close
enjoying it may increase in an equal of last century, that “ The Highlands of
ratio. Wordsworth says that poets have Scotland are in general a melancholy
to create the taste for their own works, country. ■ Long tracts of mountainous
and the same is, in some degree at any country, covered with dark heath, and
often obscured by misty weather ; narrow
rate, true of artists.
In one respect especially modern painters valleys thinly inhabited, and bounded by
appear to have made a marked advance, precipices resounding with the fall of
and one great blessing which in fact we torrents ; a soil so rugged, and a climate
owe to them is a more vivid enjoyment so dreary, as in many parts to admit
neither the amenities of pasturage, nor
of scenery.
I have of course no pretensions to speak the labours of agriculture ; the mournful
with authority, but even in the case of the dashing of waves along the firths and
greatest masters before Turner, the land lakes ; the portentous noises which every
scapes seem to me singularly inferior to the change of the wind is apt to raise in a
figures. Sir Joshua Reynolds tells us that ' lonely region, full of echoes, and rocks,
Gainsborough framed a kind of model of a and caverns ; the grotesque and ghastly
landscape on his table, composed of broken appearance of such a landscape by the
stones, dried herbs, and pieces of looking- light of the moon: objects like these
glass, which he “ magnified and improved diffuse a gloom over the fancy,” etc.1
Even Goldsmith regarded the scenery
into rocks, trees, and water” ; and Sir
Joshua solemnly discusses the wisdom of of the Highlands as dismal and hideous.
such a proceeding. “ How far it may be Johnson, we know, laid it down as an
useful in giving hints,” he gravely says, axiom that “ the noblest prospect which
“ the professors of landscape can best a Scotchman ever sees is the high road
determine,” but he does not recommend that leads him to England ”—a saying
it, and is disposed to think, on the whole, which throws much doubt on his dis
the practice may be more likely to do tinction that the Giant’s Causeway was
“ worth seeing but not worth going to
harm than good !
In the picture of Ceyx and Alcyone, by see.” 2
Madame de Stael declared, that though
Wilson, of whom Cunningham said that,
with Gainsborough, he laid the foundation she would go 500 leagues to meet a clever
of our School of Landscape, the castle is man, she would not care to open her
said to have been painted from a pot of window to see the Bay of Naples.
porter, and the rock from a Stilton cheese.
Nor was the ancient absence of apThere is indeed another version of the
1 Beattie. 1776.
2 Boswell.
�70
THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
preciation confined to scenery. Burke,
speaking of Stonehenge, even says, “ Stone
henge, neither for disposition nor ornament,
has in it anything admirable.”
Ugly scenery may well in some cases
have an injurious effect on the human
system.
It has been ingeniously sug
gested that what really drove Don Quixote
out of his mind was not the study of his
books of chivalry, so much as the mono
tonous scenery of La Mancha.
The love of landscape is not indeed
due to Art alone. It has been the happy
combination of art and science which has
trained us to perceive the beauty which
surrounds us.
Art helps us-to see, and “hundreds of
people can talk for one who can think ;
but thousands can think for one who can
see. To see clearly is poetry, prophecy,
and religion all in one. . . . Remember
ing always that there are two characters
in which all greatness of Art consists—
first, the earnest and intense seizing of
natural facts ; then the ordering those
facts by strength of human intellect, so
as to make them, for all who look upon
them, to the utmost serviceable, memor
able, and beautiful. And thus great Art
is nothing else than the type of strong
and noble life ; for as the ignoble person,
in his dealings w’ith all that occurs in the
world about him, first sees nothing clearly,
looks nothing fairly in the face, and then
allows himself to be swept away by the
trampling torrent and unescapable force
of the things that he would not foresee
and could not understand : so the noble
person, looking the facts of the world full
in the face, and fathoming them with deep
faculty, then deals with them in unalarmed
intelligence and unhurried strength, and
becomes, with his human intellect and
will, no unconscious nor insignificant
agent in consummating their good and
restraining their evil.” 1
May we not also hope that in this
respect also still further progress may be
made, that beauties may be revealed, and
pleasures may be in store for those who
1 Ruskin.
PART JI
come after us, which we cannot appreciate,
or at least can but faintly feel ?
Even now there is scarcely a cottage
without something more or less success
fully claiming to rank as Art,—a picture,
a photograph, or a statuette; and we may
fairly hope that much as Art even now
contributes to the happiness of life, it
will do so even more effectively in the
future.
CHAPTER VI
POETRY
“ And here the singer for his Art
Not all in vain may plead
‘ The song that nerves a nation’s heart
Is in itself a deed.’ ”
Tennyson.
After the disastrous defeat of the Athen
ians before Syracuse, Plutarch tells us
that the Sicilians spared those who could
repeat any of the poetry of Euripides.
“ Some there were,” he says, “ who owed
their preservation to Euripides. Of all
the Grecians, his was the muse with whom
the Sicilians were most in love. From
the strangers who landed in their island
they gleaned every small specimen or
portion of his works, and communicated
it with pleasure to each other. It is said
that upon this occasion a number of
Athenians on their return home went to
Euripides, and thanked him in the most
grateful manner for their obligations to
his pen ; some having been enfranchised
for teaching their masters what they re
membered of his poems, and others having
procured refreshments, when they were
wandering about after the battle, by sing
ing a few of his verses.”
Nowadays we are not likely to owe our
lives to Poetry in this sense, yet in another
we many of us owe to it a similar debt.
How often, when worn with overwork,
sorrow, or anxiety, have we taken down
Homer or Horace, Shakespeare or Mil ton,
and felt the clouds gradually roll
away, the jar of nerves subside, the con-
�POETRY
CHAP. VI
sciousness of power replace physical
exhaustion, and the darkness of despond
ency brighten once more into the light of
life.
“And yet Plato/’ says Jowett, “expels
the poets from his Republic because they
are allied to sense; because they stimulate
the emotions ; because they are thrice re
moved from the ideal truth.”
In that respect, as in some others, few
would accept Plato’s Republic as being
an ideal Commonwealth, and most would
agree with Sir Philip Sidney that “ if you
cannot bear the planet-like music of
poetry ... I must send you in the be
half of all poets, that while you live, you
live in love, and never get favour for
lacking skill of a sonnet; and when you
die, your memory die from the earth, for
want of an epitaph.”
Poetry has often been compared with
painting and sculpture. Simonides long
ago said that Poetry is a speaking picture,
and painting is mute Poetry.
“ Poetry,” says Cousin, “ is the first of
the Arts because it best represents the
infinite.”
And again, “Though the arts are in
some respects isolated, yet there is one
which seems to profit by the resources of
all, and that is Poetry. With words,
Poetry can paint and sculpture ; she can
build edifices like an architect; she unites,
to some extent, melody and music. She
is, so to say, the centre in which all arts
unite.”
A true poem is a gallery of pictures.
It must, Tthink, be admitted that paint
ing and sculpture can give us a clearer and
more vivid idea of an object we have
never seen than any description can
convey. But when we have once seen it,
then on the contrary there are many
points which the poet brings before us,
and which perhaps neither in the repre
sentation, nor even in nature, should we
perceive for ourselves. Objects can be
most vividly brought before us by the
artist, actions by the poet; space is the
domain of Art, time of Poetry.1
1 See Lessing’s Tmocooh.
71
Take, for instance, as a typical instance,
female beauty. How laboured and how
cold any description appears, The great
est poets recognise this ; as, for instance,
when Scott wishes us to realise the Lady
of the Lake he does not attempt any de
scription, but just mentions her attitude
and then adds—
“ And ne’er did Grecian chisel trace
A Nymph, a Naiad, or a Grace,
Of finer form or lovelier face ! ”
A great poet must be inspired ; he
must possess an exquisite sense of beauty,
with feelings deeper than those of most men,
and yet well under control. “The Milton
of poetry is the man, in his own magnifi
cent phrase, of devout prayer to that
Eternal Spirit that can enrich with all
utterance and knowledge, and sends out
his seraphim with the hallowed fire of his
altar, to touch and purify the lips of whom
he pleases.” 1 And if from one point of
view Poetry brings home to us the im
measurable inequalities of different minds,
on the other hand it teaches us that genius
is no affair of rank or wealth.
“ I think of Chatterton, the marvellous boy,
The sleepless soul, that perish’d in his pride ;
Of Burns, that walk’d in glory and in joy
Behind his plough upon the mountain-side.” 2
A man may be a poet and yet write no
verse, but not if he writes bad or poor
ones.
“ Mediocribus esse poetis
Non homines, non Di, non concessere column a?.”3
Poetry will not live unless it be alive,
“ that which comes from the head goes to
the heart ”;4 and Milton truly said that
“ he who would not be frustrate of his
hope to write well hereafter in laudable
things, ought himself to be a true poem.”
For “ he who, having no touch of the
Muses’ madness in his soul, comes to the
door and thinks he will get into the temple
by the help of Art—he, I say, and his
Poetry are not admitted.” 5
Secondrate poets, like secondrate writers
1 Arnold.
3 Horace.
2 Wordsworth.
4 Coleridge.
5 Plato.
�THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
72
PART II
generally, fade gradually into dreamland;
The works of our greatest Poets are all
but the work of the true poet is immortal. episodes in that one great poem which
“ For have not the verses of Homer the genius of man has created since the
continued 2500 years or more without commencement of human history.
the loss of a syllable or a letter, during
A distinguished mathematician is said
which time infinite palaces, temples, once to have inquired what was proved
castles, cities, have been decayed and by Milton in his Paradise Lost; and there
demolished ? It is not possible to have are no doubt still some who ask them
the true pictures or statues of Cyrus, selves, even if they shrink from putting
Alexander, or Ciesar ; no, nor of the kings the question to others, whether Poetry
or great personages of much later years ; is of any use, just as if to give pleasure
for the originals cannot last, and the were not useful in itself. No true Utili
copies cannot but lose of the life and tarian, however, would feel this doubt,
truth. But the images of men’s wits and since the greatest happiness of the greatest
knowledge remain in books, exempted number is the rule of his philosophy.
from the wrong of time and capable of
We must not however “ estimate the
perpetual renovation. Neither are they works of genius merely with reference
fitly to be called images, because they to the pleasure they afford, even when
generate still and cast their seeds in the pleasure was their principal object. We
minds of others, provoking and causing must also regard the intelligence which
infinite actions and opinions in succeeding they presuppose and exercise.”1
ages ; so that if the invention of the ship
Thoroughly to enjoy Poetry we must
was thought so noble, which carrietli riches not limit ourselves, but must rise to a
and commodities from place to place, and high ideal.
consociateth the most remote regions in
“ Yes ; constantly in reading poetry, a
participation of their fruits, how much sense for the best, the really excellent,
more are letters to be magnified, which, and of the strength and joy to be drawn
as ships, pass through the vast seas of time from it, should be present in our minds,
and make ages so distant to participate of and should govern our estimate of what
the wisdom, illuminations, and inventions, we read.” 2
the one of the other 1 ” 1
Cicero, in his oration for Archias, well
The poet requires many qualifications. asked, “ Has not this man then a right to
“ Who has traced,” says Cousin, “ the plan my love, to my admiration, to all the
of this poem ? Reason. Who has given means which I can employ in his defence ?
it life and charm ? Love. And who has For we are instructed by all the greatest
guided reason and love ? The Will.” All and most learned of mankind, that educa
men have some imagination, but the lover tion, precepts, and practice, can in every
and the poet
other branch of learning produce excel
“ Are of imagination all compact.
lence. But a poet is formed by the hand
of nature ; he is aroused by mental vigour,
The Poet’s eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,
and inspired by what we may call the
Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth
spirit of divinity itself. Therefore our
to heaven,
And as imagination bodies forth
Ennius has a right to give to poets the
The forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen epithet of Holy,3 because they are, as it
Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing !
were, lent to mankind by the indulgent
A local habitation and a name.” 2
bounty of the gods.”
Poetry is the fruit of genius; but it
“Poetry,” says Shelley, “awakens and
cannot be produced without labour. Moore, enlarges the mind itself by rendering it
one of the airiest of poets, tells us that he
1 St. Hilaire.
2 Arnold.
was a slow and painstaking workman.
1 Bacon.
2 Shakespeare.
3 Plato styles poets the sons and interpreters
of the gods,
�CHAP. VI
POETRY
73
The man who has a love for Poetry can
scarcely fail to derive intense pleasure
from Nature, which to those who love it
is all “ beauty to the eye and music to
the ear.”
“Yet Nature never set forth the earth
in so rich tapestry as divers poets have
done ; neither with so pleasant rivers,
fruitful trees, sweet-smelling flow’ers, nor
whatsoever else may make the too-muchloved earth more lovely.”1
In the smokiest city the poet will
transport us, as if by enchantment, to the
fresh air and bright sun, to the murmur
of woods and leaves and water, to the
ripple of waves upon sand ; and enable
us, as in some delightful dream, to cast
off the cares and troubles of life.
The poet, indeed, must have more true
knowledge, not only of human nature,
but of all Nature, than other men are
gifted with.
Crabbe Robinson tells us that when a
“ Higher still and higher
stranger once asked permission to see
From the earth thou springest
Wordsworth’s study, the maid said, “ This
Like a cloud of fire ;
The blue deep thou wingest,
is master’s Library, but he studies in the
And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever fields.” No wonder then that Nature
singest.
has been said to return the poet’s love.
the receptacle of a thousand unappre
hended combinations of thought. Poetry
lifts the veil from the hidden beauty of
the world, and makes familiar objects be
as if they were not familiar ; it repro
duces all that it represents, and the im
personations clothed in its Elysian light
stand thenceforward in the minds of those
who have once contemplated them, as
memorials of that gentle and exalted
content which extends itself over all
thoughts and actions with which it co
exists.”
And again, “All high Poetry is infinite;
it is as the first acorn, which contained
all oaks potentially. Veil after veil may
be undrawn, and the inmost naked beauty
of the meaning never exposed. A great
poem is a fountain for ever overflowing
with the waters of wisdom and delight.”
Or, as he has expressed himself in his
Ode to a Skylark :
“ Like a poet hidden
In the light of thought,
Singing hymns unbidden,
Till the world is wrought
To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not:
“ Call it not vain ;—they do not err
Who say that, when the poet dies,
Mute Nature mourns her worshipper,
And celebrates his obsequies.” 2
Swinburne says of Blake, and I feel
“ Like a glow-worm golden
entirely with him, though in my case the
In a dell of dew,
application would have been different,
Scattering unbeholden
that “The sweetness of sky and leaf, of
Its aerial hue
Among the flowers and grass, which screen it grass and water—the bright light life of
from the view.”
bird, child, and beast—is, so to speak,
We speak now of the poet as the
Maker or Creator—•ttoitjtt/s ; the origin
of the word “ bard ” seems doubtful.
The Hebrews well called their poets
“ Seers,” for they not only perceive more
than others, but also help other men to
see much which would otherwise be lost
to us. The old Greek word was aoiSos
—the Bard or Singer.
Poetry lifts the veil from the beauty
of the world which would otherwise be
hidden, and throws over the most familiar
objects the glow and halo of imagination.
kept fresh by some graver sense of
faithful and mysterious love, explained
and vivified by a conscience and purpose
in the artist’s hand and mind. Such a
fiery outbreak of spring, such an insurrec
tion of fierce floral life and radiant riot
of childish power and pleasure, no poet
or painter ever gave before ; such lustre
of green leaves and flushed limbs, kindled
cloud and fervent fleece, was never
wrought into speech or shape.”
1 Sydney, Defence of Poetry.
3 Scott.
�74
THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
To appreciate Poetry we must not
merely glance at it, or rush through it,
or read it in order to talk or write about
it. One must compose oneself into the
right frame of mind. Of course for one’s
own sake one will read Poetry in times of
agitation, sorrow, or anxiety, but that is
another matter.
The inestimable treasures of Poetry
again are open to all of us. The best
books are indeed the cheapest. For the
price of a little beer, a little tobacco,
we can buy Shakespeare or Milton—or
indeed almost as many books as a man
can read with profit in a year.
Nor, in considering the advantage of
Poetry to man, must we limit ourselves
to its past or present influence. The
future of Poetry, says Mr. Matthew
Arnold, and no one was more qualified to
speak, “ The future of Poetry is immense,
because in Poetry, where it is worthy of
its high destinies, our race, as time goes
on, will find an ever surer and surer stay.
But for Poetry the idea is everything ;
the rest is a world of illusion, of divine
illusion. Poetry attaches its emotion to
the idea; the idea is the fact. The
strongest part of our religion to-day is its
unconscious Poetry. We should conceive
of Poetry worthily, and more highly than
it has been the custom to conceive of it.
We should conceive of it as capable of
higher uses, and called to higher destinies
than those which in general men have
assigned to it hitherto.”
Poetry has been well called the record
“ of the best and happiest moments of the
happiest and best minds ” ; it is the light
of life, the very “ image of life expressed
in its eternal truth ” ; it immortalises all
that is best and most beautiful in the
world ; “ it purges from our inward sight
the film of familiarity which obscures
from us the wonder of our being” ; “it
is the centre and circumference of know
ledge ” ; and poets are “ mirrors of the
gigantic shadows which futurity casts
upon the present.”
Poetry, in effect, lengthens life ; it
creates for us time, if time be realised as
TART II
the succession of ideas and not of minutes ;
it is the “ breath and finer spirit of all
knowledge ” ; it is bound neither by time
nor space, but lives in the spirit of man.
What greater praise can be given than
the saying that life should be Poetry put
into action ?
CHAPTER VIT
MUSIC
“Music is a moral law. It gives a soul to
the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the
imagination, a charm to sadness, gaiety and life
to everything. It is the essence of order, and
leads to all that is good, just, and beautiful, of
which it is the invisible, but nevertheless
dazzling, passionate, and eternal form.”—Plato.
Music is in one sense far more ancient
than man, and the voice was, from the
very commencement of human existence,
a source of melody. The early history of
Music is, however, unfortunately wrapped
in much obscurity. The use of letters
long preceded the invention of notes, and
tradition in such a matter can tell us but
little. So far, however, as musical in
struments are concerned, it is probable
that percussion came first, then wind in
struments, and lastly, those with strings :
first the Drum, then the Flute, and
thirdly, the Lyre.
The contest between Marsyas and
Apollo is supposed by some to typify the
struggle between the Flute and the Lyre ;
Marsyas representing the archaic Flute,
Apollo the champion of the Lyre. The
latter of course was victorious : it sets the
voice free, and the sound
“ Of music that is born of human breath
Conies straighter to the soul than any strain
The hand alone can make.” 1
Various myths have grown up to ex
plain the origin of Music. One Greek
tradition was to the effect that Grass
hoppers were human beings themselves
in a world before the Muses ; that when
1 L. Morris.
�CHAP. VII
MUSIC
75
the Muses came, being ravished with
delight, they “sang and sang and forgot
to eat, until they died of hunger for the
love of song. And they carry to heaven
the report of those who honour them on
earth.” 1
The old writers and commentators tell
us that Pythagoras, “ as he was one day
meditating on the want of some rule to
guide the ear, analogous to what had
been used to help the other senses,
chanced to pass by a blacksmith’s shop,
and observing that the hammers, which
were four in number, sounded very har
moniously, he had them weighed, and
found them to be in the proportion of
six, eight, nine, and twelve. Upon this
he suspended four strings of equal length
and thickness, etc., fastened weights in
the above-mentioned proportions to each
of them respectively, and found that they
gave the same sounds that the hammers
had done; viz., the fourth, fifth, and
octave to the gravest tone.”2 However
this may be, it would appear that the
lyre had at first four strings only;
Terpander is said to have given it three
more, and an eighth was subsequently
added.
The Chinese indicated the notes by
words or their initials. The lowest was
termed “ Koung,” or the Emperor, as
being the Foundation on which all were
supported ; the second was Tschang, the
Prime Minister ; the third, the Subject;
the fourth, Public Business ; the fifth,
the Mirror of Heaven.3 The Greeks also
had a name for each note. We have
unfortunately no specimens of Greek 4 or
Roman, or even of Early Christian music.
The so-called Gregorian notes were not
invented until six hundred years after
Gregory’s death. The Monastery of St.
Gall possesses a copy of Gregory’s Antiphonary, made about the year 780 by a
chorister who was sent from Rome to
Charlemagne to reform the Northern
music, and in this the sounds are indi
cated by “ pneumes,” from which our
notes were gradually developed, being
first arranged along one line, to which
others were gradually added.
The most ancient known piece-of music
for several voices is an English four men’s
song, “Summer is i-comen in,” which is
considered to be at least as early as 1240,
and is now in the British Museum.
.In the matter of music Englishmen
have certainly deserved well of the world.
Even as long ago as 1185 Giraldus
Cambrensis, Archdeacon of St. David’s,
says, “ The Britons do not sing their
tunes in unison like the inhabitants of
other countries, but in different parts.
So that when a company of singers meet
to sing, as is usual in this country, as
many different parts are heard as there
are singers.”1
The Venetian ambassador in the time
of Henry VIII. said of our English
Church music : “ The mass was sung by
His Majesty’s choristers, whose voices are
more heavenly than human; they did
not chaunt like men, but like angels.”
Dr. Burney says that Purcell was “ as
much the pride of an Englishman in
music as Shakespeare in productions of
the stage, Mil ton in epic poetry, Locke
in metaphysics, or Sir Isaac Newton in
philosophy and mathematics ” ; and yet
Purcell’s music is unfortunately but little
known to us now, as Macfarren says, “ to
our great loss.”
Purcell died early, and on his tomb is
the celebrated epitaph—
“ Here lies Henry Purcell, who left
this life, and is gone to that blessed place,
where, only, his harmony can be exceeded.”
The authors of some of the loveliest
music, and even in some cases that of
comparatively recent times, are unknown
to us. This is the case for instance with
the exquisite song “Drink to me only
with thine eyes,” the words of which
were taken by Jonson from Philostratus,
1 Plato.
2 Crowest.
and which has been considered as the
3 Rowbotliam, History of Music.
4 Since this was written some fragments of a most beautiful of all “people’s songs.”
hymn to Apollo have been found at Delphi.
1 Wakefield.
�76
THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
The music of “ God save the Queen ”
has been adopted in more than half a
dozen other countries, and yet the author
ship is a matter of doubt, being attributed
by some to Dr. John Bull, by others to
Carey. It was apparently first sung in a
tavern in Cornhill.
Both the music and words of “ O
Death, rock me to sleep ” are said to be
by Anne Boleyn : “ Stay, Corydon ” and
“ Sweet Honey-sucking Bees ” by Wildye,
“ the first of madrigal writers. ” “ Rule
Britannia ” was composed by Arne, and
originally formed part of his Masque of
Alfred, first performed in 1740 at Cliefden, near Maidenhead. To Arne we are
also indebted for the music of “ Where
the Bee sucks, there lurk I.” “ The
Vicar of Bray ” is set to a tune originally
known as “ A Country Garden.” “ Come
unto these yellow sands ” we owe to
Purcell; “ Sigh no more, Ladies ” to
Stevens ; “ Home, Sweet Home ” to
Bishop.
There is a curious melancholy in
national music, which is generally in the
minor key ; indeed this holds good with
the music of savage races generally.
They appear, moreover, to have no love
songs.
Herodotus tells us that during the
whole time he was in Egypt he only
heard one song, and that was a sad one.
My own experience there was the same.
Some tendency to melancholy seems in
herent in music, and Jessica is not alone
in the feeling
Pz\RT II
composed “ Il trillo del Diavolo,” con
sidered to be his best work, in a dream.
Rossini, speaking of the chorus in G
minor in his “ Dal tuo stellato soglio,”
tells us: “ While I was writing the
chorus in G minor I suddenly dipped my
pen into a medicine bottle instead of the
ink. I made a blot, and when I dried
this with the sand it took the form of a
natural, which instantly gave me the idea
of the effect the change from G minor to
G major would make, and to this blot is
all the effect, if any, due.” But these of
course are exceptional cases.
There are other forms of Music, which,
though not strictly entitled to the name,
are yet capable of giving intense pleasure.
To the Sportsman what Music can excel
that of the hounds themselves. The
cawing of rooks has been often quoted as
a sound which has no actual beauty of its
own, and yet which is delightful from its
associations.
There is, moreover, a true Music of
Nature,— the song of birds, the whisper
of leaves, the ripple of waters upon a
sandy shore, the wail of wind or sea.
There was also an ancient impression
that the Heavenly bodies give out sound
as well as light: the Music of the Spheres
has become proverbial.
“There’s not the smallest orb which thou beholdest
But in his motion like an angel sings,
Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubims ;
Such harmony is in immortal souls.
But while this muddy vesture of decay
Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.” 1
Music indeed often seems as if it
scarcely belonged to this material universe,
The histories of music contain many but was
curious anecdotes as to the circumstances
“ A tone
under w’hich different works have been
Of some world far from ours,
Where music, and moonlight, and feeling are
composed.
one.” 2
Rossini tells us that he wrote the over
“ It is a language which is incapable
ture to the “ Gazza Ladra ” on the very
day of the first performance, in the upper of expressing anything impure.” There
loft of the La Scala, where he had been is music in speech as well as in song.
confined by the manager under the guard Not merely in the voice of those we love,
of four scene-shifters, who threw the text and the charm of association, but in
out of window to copyists bit by bit as it actual melody ; as when Milton says,
was composed. Tartini is said to have
1 Shakespeare.
2 Swinburne.
“ I am never merry when I hear sweet music.”
�MUSIC
CHAP. VII
77
“ The Angel ended, and in Adam’s ear
As touching the human heart—
So charming left his voice, that he awhile
Thought him still speaking, still stood fixed “ The soul of music slumbers in the shell,
Till waked and kindled by the master’s spell ;
to hear.”
And feeling hearts—touch them but rightly—
pour
It is remarkable that more pains are
A thousand melodies unheard before.”1
not taken with the voice in conversation
As an education—
as well as in singing, for
“What plea so tainted and corrupt
But, being seasoned with a gracious voice,
Obscures the show of evil.”
As a general rule
“ I have sent books and music there, and all
Those instruments with which high spirits call
The future from its cradle, and the past
Out of its grave, and make the present last
In thoughts and joys which sleep, but cannot
die,
Folded within their own eternity.” 2
‘ ‘ The man that hath no Music in himself
Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds
Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils ” ;1 As an aid to religion—
“ As from the power of sacred lays
but there are some notable exceptions.
The spheres began to move,
Dr. Johnson had. no love of music. On
And sung the great Creator’s praise
one occasion, hearing that a certain piece
To all the blessed above,
So when the last and dreadful hour
of music was very difficult, he expressed
This crumbling pageant shall devour,
his regret that it was not impossible.
The trumpet shall be heard on high,
Poets, as( might have been expected,
The dead shall live, the living die,
have sung most sweetly in praise of song.
And music shall untune the sky.” 3
They have, moreover, done so from the Or again—
opposite points of view.
“Hark how it falls ! and now it steals along,
Milton invokes it as a luxury—
“ And ever against eating cares
Lap me in soft Lydian airs ;
Married to immortal verse
Such as the meeting soul may pierce,
In notes -with many a winding bout
Of linked sweetness long drawn out ;
With wanton heed, and giddy cunning,
The melting voice through mazes running ;
Untwisting all the chains that tie
The hidden soul of harmony.”
Like distant beHs upon the lake at eve,
When all is still; and now it grows more strong
As when the choral train their dirges weave
Mellow and many voiced ; where every close
O’er the old minster roof, in echoing waves
reflows.
Oh ! I am rapt aloft. My spirit soars
Beyond the skies, and leaves the stars behind;
Lo ! angels lead me to the happy shores.
And floating paeans fill the buoyant wind.
Farewell! base earth, farewell ! my soul is
freed.”
Sometimes it is used as a temptation : so
The power of Music to sway the feel
Spenser says of Phsedria,
ings of Man has never been more cleverly
“ And she, more sweet than any bird on bough, portrayed than by Dryden in “ The
Would oftentimes amongst them bear a part, Feast of Alexander,” though the circum
And strive to passe (as she could well enough)
stances of the case precluded any reference
Their native musicke by her skilful art.”
to the influence of Music in its nobler
Or as an element of pure happiness—
aspects.
Poets have always attributed to Music
“There is in souls a sympathy with sounds ;
And as the mind is pitched, the ear is pleased —and who can deny it—a power even
With melting airs or martial, brisk or grave ; over the inanimate forces of Nature.
Some chord in unison with what we hear
Shakespeare accounts for shooting stars
Is touched within us, and the heart replies.
by the attraction of Music :
How soft the music of those village bells,
Falling at intervals upon the e.ar
In cadence sweet, now dying all away,
Now pealing loud again and louder still
Clear and sonorous, as the gale comes on.” 2
1 Shakespeare.
2 Cowper.
“ The rude sea grew civil at her song,
And certain stars shot madly from their spheres
To hear the Sea-maid’s Music.”
Prose writers have also been inspired
1 Rogers.
2 Shelley.
3 Dryden.
�7«
THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
by Music to their highest eloquence.
“ Music,” said Plato, “ is a moral law.
It gives a soul to the universe, wings to
the mind, flight to the imagination, a
charm to sadness, gaiety and life to
everything. It is the essence of order,
and leads to all that is good, just, and
beautiful, of which it is the invisible,
but nevertheless dazzling, passionate, and
eternal form.”
“Music,” said Luther,
“is a fair and glorious gift from God. I
would not for all the world renounce my
humble share in music.” “Music,” said
Halevy, “is an art that God has given
us, in which the voices of all nations
may unite their prayers in one harmoni
ous rhythm.” And Carlyle, “ Music is a
kind of inarticulate, unfathomable speech,
which leads us to the edge of the infinite,
and lets us for moments gaze into it.”
“ There are but seven notes in the
scale; make them fourteen,” says Newman,
“ yet what a slender outfit for so vast an
enterprise ! What science brings so miicli
out of so little ?
Out of what poor
elements does some great master in it
create his new world ! Shall we say that
all this exuberant inventiveness is a mere
ingenuity or trick of art, like some game
of fashion of the day, without reality,
without meaning ? . . . Is it possible that
that inexhaustible evolution and dis
position of notes, so rich yet so simple, so
intricate yet so regulated, so various yet
so majestic, should be a mere sound, which
is gone and perishes ? Can it be that
those mysterious stirrings of the heart, and
keen emotions, and strange yearnings after
we know not what, and awful impressions
from we know not whence, should be
wrought in us by what is unsubstantial,
and conies and goes, and begins and ends
in itself ? it is not so ; it cannot be. No ;
they have escaped from some higher
sphere ; they are the outpourings of eter
nal harmony in the medium of created
sound ; they are echoes from our Home ;
they are the voice of Angels, or the Mag
nificat of Saints, or the living laws of
Divine Governance, or the Divine Attri
butes ; something are they besides them
PART II
selves, which we cannot compass, which
we cannot utter, though mortal man, and
he perhaps not otherwise distinguished
above his fellows, has the gift of eliciting
them.”
Let me also quote Helmholtz, one of
the. profoundest exponents of modern
science. “Just as in the rolling ocean,
this movement, rhythmically repeated, and
yet ever-varying, rivets our attention and
hurries us along. But whereas in the sea
blind physical forces alone are at work,
and hence the final impression on the
spectator’s mind is nothing but solitude—
in a musical work of art the movement
follows the outflow of the artist’s own
emotions. Now gently gliding, now grace
fully leaping, now violently stirred,
penetrated, or laboriously contending with
the natural expression of passion, the
stream of sound, in primitive vivacity,
bears over into the hearer’s soul unimagined
moods which the artist has overheard
from his own, and finally raises him up to
that repose of everlasting beauty of which
God has allowed but few of his elect
favourites to be the heralds.”
Poetry and Music unite in song. From
the earliest ages song has been the sweet
companion of labour. The rude chant of
the boatman floats upon the water, the
shepherd sings upon the hill, the milk
maid in the dairy, the ploughman in the
field. Every trade, every occupation,
every act and scene of life, has long
had its own especial music. The bride
went to 'her marriage, the labourer to
his work, the old man to his last long rest,
each with appropriate and immemorial
music.
Music has been truly described as the
mother of sympathy, the handmaid of
Religion, and will never exercise its full
effect, as the Emperor Charles VI. said to
Farinelli, unless it aims not merely to
charm the ear, but to touch the heart.
There are many who consider that our
life at present is peculiarly prosaic and
mercenary. I greatly doubt whether
that be the case, but if so our need for
Music is all the more imperative.
�CHAP. VIII
THE BEAUTIES OF NATURE
Much indeed as Music has already done
for man, we may hope even more from it
in the future.
It is, moreover, a joy for all. To ap
preciate Science or Art requires some
training, and no doubt the cultivated ear
will more and more appreciate the beauties
of Music ; but though there are exceptional
individuals, and even races, almost devoid
of any love of Music, still they are happily
but rare.
Good Music, moreover, does not neces
sarily involve any considerable outlay ; it
is even now no mere luxury of the rich,
and we may hope that as time goes on, it
will become more and more the comfort
and solace of the poor.
CHAPTER VIII
THE BEAUTIES OF NATURE
“ Speak to the earth and it shall teach thee.”
Job.
“ And this our life, exempt from public haunt,
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running
brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in everything.”
Shakespeare.
We are told in the first chapter of Genesis
that at the close of the sixth day “ God
saw every thing that he had made, and,
behold, it was very good.” Not merely
good, but very good. Yet how few of us
appreciate the beautiful world in which we
live 1
In preceding chapters I have incident
ally, though only incidentally, referred to
the Beauties of Nature ; but any attempt,
however imperfect, to sketch the blessings
of life must contain some special reference
to this lovely world itself, which the Greeks
happily called /cocr/ws—beauty.
Hamerton, in his charming work on
Landscape, says, “ There are, I believe,
four new experiences for which no de
scription ever adequately prepares us, the
first sight of the sea, the first journey in
the desert, the sight of flowing molten lava,
79
and a walk on a great glacier. We feel in
each case that the strange thing is pure
nature, as much nature as a familiar
English moor, yet so extraordinary that
we might be in another planet.” But it
would, I think, be easier to enumerate the
Wonders of Nature for which description
can prepare us, than those which are
beyond the power of language.
Many of us, however, walk through
the world like ghosts, as if we were in it,
but not of it. We have “ eyes and see
not, ears and hear not.” We must look
before wre can expect to see. To look is
indeed much less easy than to overlook,
and to be able to see what we do see, is a
great gift. Ruskin maintains that “ The
greatest thing a human soul ever does in
this world is to see something, and tell
what it saw in a plain way.” . I do not
suppose that his eyes are better than ours,
but how much more he sees with them !
“ To the attentive eye,” says Emerson,
“ each moment of the year has its own
beauty ; and in the same field it beholds
every hour a picture that was never seen
before, and shall never be seen again.
The heavens change every moment and
reflect their glory or gloom on the plains
beneath.”
The love of Nature is a great gift, and
if it is frozen or crushed out, the character
can hardly fail to suffer from the loss.
I will not, indeed, say that a person
who does not love Nature is necessarily
bad ; or that one who does, is necessarily
good; but it is to most minds a great
help. Many, as Miss Cobbe says, enter
the Temple through the gate called
Beautiful.
There are doubtless some to whom none
of the beautiful wonders of Nature; neither
the glories of the rising or setting sun ; the
magnificent spectacle of the boundless
ocean, sometimes so grand in its peaceful
tranquillity, at others so majestic in its
mighty power ; the forests agitated by the
storm, or alive with the song of birds;
nor the glaciers and mountains—there
are doubtless some whom none of these
magnificent spectacles can move, w’hom
�So
THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
l’ART II
“ all the glories of heaven and earth else is illusion, or mere endurance. To
may pass in daily succession without be beautiful and to be calm, without
touching their hearts or elevating their mental fear, is the ideal of Nature.”
minds.” 1
I must not, however, enlarge on the
Such men are indeed pitiable. But, contrast and variety of the seasons, each
happily, they are exceptions. If we can of which has its own special charm and
noire of us as yet fully appreciate the i interest, as
beauties of Nature, we are beginning to
“ The daughters of the year
do so more and more.
Dance into light and die into the shade.” 1
For most of us the early summer has a
Our countrymen derive great pleasure
special charm. The very life is luxury.
The air is full of scent, and sound, and from the animal kingdom, in hunting,
sunshine, of the song of birds and the shooting, and fishing, thus obtaining fresh
murmur of insects ; the meadows gleam 1 air and exercise, and being led into much
with golden buttercups ; one can almost varied and beautiful scenery. Still it
see the grass grow and the buds open ; will probably ere long be recognised that
the bees hum for very joy, and the air even from a purely selfish point of view,
is full of a thousand scents, above all killing animals is not the way to get
the greatest enjoyment from them. How
perhaps that of new-mown hay.
The exquisite beauty and delight of much more interesting would every walk
a fine summer’s day in the country has in the country be, if Man would but treat
never perhaps been more truly, and there-I other animals with kindness, so that they
fore more beautifully, described, than by might approach us without fear, and we
Jefferies in his “Pageant of Summer.” I might have the constant pleasure of
Their
“ I linger,” he says, “ in the midst of the watching their winning ways.
long grass, the luxury of the leaves, and origin and history, structure and habits,
the song in the very air. I seem as if I senses and intelligence, offer an endless
could feel all the glowing life the sunshine field of interest and wonder.
The richness of life is marvellous. Any
gives and the south wind calls to being.
The endless grass, the endless leaves, the one who will sit down quietly on the
immense strength of the oak expanding, grass and watch a little, will be indeed
the unalloyed joy of finch and blackbird ; surprised at the number and variety of
from all of them I receive a little. . . . living beings, every one with a special
In the blackbird’s melody one note is history of its own, every one offering
mine ; in the dance of the leaf shadows ' endless problems of great interest.
“ If indeed thy heart were right, then
the formed maze is for me, though the
motion is theirs ; the flowers with a thou would every creature be to thee a rnirrox'
sand faces have collected the kisses of the of life, and a book of holy doctrine.” 2
The study of Natural History has the
morning. Feeling with them, I receive
some, at least, of their fulness of life. special advantage of carrying us into the
Never could I have enough ; never stay country and the open air.
Not but what towns are beautiful too.
long enough. . . . The hours when the
mind is absorbed by beauty are the only They teem with human interest and his
hours when we really live, so that the torical associations.
Wordsworth was an intense lover of
longer we can stay among these things
so much the more is snatched from nature ; yet does he not tell us, in lines
inevitable Time. . . . These are the which every Londoner will appreciate,
only hours that are not wasted—these that he knew nothing in nature more
hours that absorb the soul and fill it fair, no calm more deep, than the city of
with beauty. This is real life, and all London at early dawn ?
1 Beattie.
1 Tennyson.
Thomas a Kempis.
�THE BEAUTIES OF NATURE
CHAP. VIII
“Earth has not anything to show more fair ;
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty:
This City now doth, like a garment, wear
The beauty of the igorning ; silent, bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie
Open unto the fields, and to the sky ;
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air..
Never did sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill;
Ne’er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep !
The river glideth at his own sweet will:
Dear God ! the very houses seem asleep ;
And all that mighty heart is lying still ! ”
Milton also described London as
81
mountain-side up to the very edge of the
eternal snow.
And what an infinite variety they
present.
“Daffodils,
That come before the swallow dares, and take
The winds of March with beauty ; violets, dim.
But sweeter than the lids of Juno’s eyes,
Or Cytherea’s breath ; pale primroses,
That die unmarried, ere they can behold
Bright Phoebus in his strength, a malady
Most incident to maids ; bold oxlips and
The crown imperial ; lilies of all kinds,
The flower-de-luce being one.”1
Nor are they mere delights to the eye ;
they are full of mystery and suggestions.
Some of our streets indeed are lines of They almost seem like enchanted prin
cesses waiting for some princely deliverer.
loveliness, but yet, after being some time
Wordsworth tells us that
in a great city, one longs for the country.
“Too blest abode, no loveliness we see
In all the earth, but it abounds in thee.”
“The meanest floweret of the vale,
The simplest note that swells the gale,
The common sun, the air, the skies,
To him are opening paradise.”1
“ To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.”
Here Gray justly places flowers in the
first place, for whenever in any great
town we think of the country, flowers
seem first to suggest themselves.
“ Flowers,” says Ruskin, “ seem in
tended for the solace of ordinary humanity.
Children love them; quiet, tender, con
tented, ordinary people love them as they
grow ; luxurious and disorderly people
rejoice in them gathered. They are the
cottager’s treasure ; and in the crowded
town, mark, as with a little broken frag
ment of rainbow, the windows of the
workers in whose heart rests the covenant
of peace.” But in the crowded street, or
even in the formal garden, flowers always
seem, to me at least, as if they were pining
for the freedom of the woods and fields,
where they can live and grow as they
please.
There are flowers for almost all seasons
and all places,—flowers for spring,
summer, and autumn ; while even in the
very depth of winter here and there one
makes its appearance. There are flowers
of the fields and woods and hedgerows, of
the seashore and the lake’s margin, of the
Every color again, every variety of form,
has some purpose and explanation.
And yet, lovely as Flowers are, Leaves
add even more to the Beauty of Nature.
Trees in our northern latitudes seldom
own large flowers; and though of course
there are notable exceptions, such as the
Horse-chestnut, still even in these cases
the flowers live only a few days, while
the leaves last for months.
Every tree indeed is a picture in itself:
The gnarled and rugged Oak, the symbol
and source of our navy, sacred to the
memory of the Druids, the type of
strength, is the sovereign of British trees :
the Chestnut has beautiful, tapering, and
rich green, glossy leaves, delicious fruit,
and wood so durable that to it we owe
the grand and historic roof of Westminster
Hall.
The Birch is the queen of trees, with
her feathery foliage, scarcely visible in
spring but turning to gold in autumn;
the pendulous twigs tinged with purple,
and silver stems so brilliantly marked
with black and white.
The Beech enlivens the country by its
tender green in spring, rich tints in
summer, and glorious gold and orange in
1 Gray.
1 Shakespeare.
G
�THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
82
autumn, set off by the graceful gray
stem ; and has, moreover, such a wealth
of leaves that, as we see in autumn, there
are enough not only to clothe the tree
itself but to cover the grass underneath.
If the Beech owes much to its delicate
gray stem, quite as beautiful is the reddish
crimson of the Scotch Pine, in such
charming contrast with the rich green of
the foliage, by which it is shown off
rather than hidden. Pines, moreover,
with the green spires of the Firs, keep the
woods warm in winter.
The Elm forms grand masses of foliage
which turn a beautiful golden yellow in
autumn ; and the Black Poplar with its
perpendicular leaves, rustling and trem
bling with every breath of wind, towers
over most of our other forest trees.
Nor must I overlook the smaller trees :
the Yew with its thick green foliage ; the
wild Guelder rose, which lights up the
woods in autumn with translucent glossy
berries and many-tinted leaves ; or the
Bryonies, the Briar, the Traveller’s Joy,
and many another plant, even humbler
perhaps, and yet each with some exquisite
beauty and grace of its own, so that we
must all have sometimes felt our hearts
overflowing with gladness and gratitude,
as if the woods were full of music—as if
“ The woods were filled so full with song
There seemed no room for sense of wrong.”1
On the whole, no doubt, woodlands are
most beautiful in the summer ; yet even
in winter the delicate tracery of the
branches, which cannot be so well seen
when they are clothed with leaves, has a
special beauty of its own ; while every
now and then hoar frost or snow settles
like silver on every branch and twig,
lighting up the forest as if by enchant
ment in preparation for some fairy
festival.
I feel with Jefferies that “by day or
by night, summer or winter, beneath
trees the heart feels nearer to that depth
of life which the far sky means. The
rest of spirit found only in beauty, ideal
,
1 Tennyson.
TART II
and pure, comes there because the distance
seems within touch of thought.”
The general effect of forests in tropical
regions must be very different from that
of those in our latitudes.
Kingsley
describes it as one of helplessness, con
fusion, awe, all but terror. The trunks
are lofty and straight, rising to a great
height without a branch, so that the wood
seems at first comparatively open. In
Brazilian forests, for instance, the trees
struggle upwards, and the foliage forms
an unbroken canopy, perhaps a hundred
feet overheard. Here, indeed, high up in
the air is the real life of the forest.
Everything seems to climb to the light.
The quadrupeds climb, birds climb,
reptiles climb, and tlie variety of climb
ing plants is far greater than anything to
which we are accustomed.
Many savage nations worship trees,
and I really think my first feeling would
be one of delight and interest rather than
of surprise, if some day when I am alone
in a wood one of the trees were to speak
to me. Even by day there is something
mysterious in a forest, and this is much
more the case at night.
With wood, Water seems to be natur
ally associated. Without water no land
scape is complete, while overhead the
clouds add beauty to the heavens them
selves. The spring and the rivulet, the
brook, the river, and the lake, seem to
give life to Nature, and were indeed re
garded by our ancestors as living entities
themselves.
Water is beautiful in the
morning mist, in the broad lake, in the
glancing stream, in tlie river pool, or the
wide ocean, beautiful in all its varied
moods. Water nourishes vegetation ; it
clothes the lowlands with green and the
mountains with snow. It sculptures the
rocks and excavates the valleys, in most
cases acting mainly through the soft rain,
though our harder rocks are still grooved
by the ice-chisel of bygone ages.
The refreshing power of water upon
the earth is scarcely greater than that
which it exercises on the mind of man.
After a long spell of work how delightful
�CHAP. VIII
THE BEAUTIES OF NATURE
83
it is to sit by a lake or river, or on the and quarries and lines of stratification
seashore, and enjoy the fresh air, the began to show themselves, though the
glancing sunshine on the water, and the cliffs were still in shadow, and the more
ripple of the waves upon sand.
distant headlands still a mere succession
Every Englishman loves the sight of of ghosts, each one fainter than the one
the Sea. We feel that it is to us a second before it. As the morning advances the
home. It seems to vivify the very at sea becomes blue, the dark woods, green
mosphere, so that Sea air is proverbial as meadows, and golden cornfields of the
a tonic, and the very thought of it makes opposite coast more distinct, the details
the blood dance in our veins. The Ocean of the cliffs come gradually into view,
gives an impression of freedom and and fishing-boats with dark sails begin to
grandeur more intense perhaps even than appear.
the aspect of the heavens themselves. A
Gradually as the sun rises higher, a
poor woman from Manchester, on being yellow line of shore appears under the
taken to the seaside, is said to have ex opposite cliffs, and the sea changes its
pressed her delight on seeing for the first color, mapping itself out as it were, the
time something of which there was enough shallower parts turquoise blue, almost
for everybody. The sea coast is always green ; the deeper ones violet.
interesting. When we think of the cliff
This does not last long—a thunderstorm
sections with their histories of bygone comes up. The wind mutters overhead,
ages ; the shore itself teeming with sea the rain patters on the leaves, the coast
weeds and animals, waiting for the return opposite seems to shrink into itself, as if
of the tide, or thrown up from deeper it would fly from the storm. The sea
water by the waves; the weird cries of grows dark and rough, and white horses
seabirds ; the delightful feeling that, with appear here and there.
every breath, we are laying in a store of
But the storm is soon over. The clouds
fresh life, and health, and energy, it is break, the rain stops, the sun shines once
impossible to over-estimate all we owe to more, the hills opposite come out again.
the Sea.
They are divided now not only into fields
It is, moreover, always changing. We and woods, but into sunshine and shadow.
went for our holiday last year to Lyme The sky clears, and as the sun begins to
Regis. Let me attempt to describe the descend westwards the sea becomes one
changes in the view from our windows beautiful clear uniform azure, changing
during a single day. Our sitting-room again soon to pale blue in front and dark
opened on to a little lawn, beyond which violet beyond; and once more, as clouds
the ground dropped suddenly to the sea, begin to gather again, into an archipelago
while over about two miles of water were of bright blue sea and islands of deep
the hills of the Dorsetshire coast—-Golden ultramarine. As the sun travels west
Cap, with its bright crest of yellow sand, ward, the opposite hills change again.
and the dark blue Lias Cliff of Black Ven, They scarcely seem like the same country.
When I came down early in the morning What was in sun is now in shade, and
the sun was rising opposite, shining into what was in shade now lies bright in the
the room over a calm sea, along an avenue sunshine. The sea once more becomes a
of light; by degrees, as it rose, the whole uniform solid blue, only flecked in places
sea glowed in the sunshine while the hills by scuds of wind, and becoming paler
were bathed in a violet mist. By break towards evening as the sun sinks, the cliffs
fast-time all color had faded from the which catch his setting rays losing their
sea—it was like silver passing on each deep color and in some places looking
side into gray ; the sky blue, flecked with almost as white as chalk ; while at sunset
fleecy clouds ; while, on the gentler slopes they light up again for a moment with a
of the coast opposite, fields and woods, | golden glow, the sea at the same time
�84
THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
sinking to a cold gray. But soon the
hills grow cold too, Golden Cap holding
out bravely to the last, and the shades of
evening settle over cliff and wood, corn
field and meadow.
These are but a part, and a very small
part, of the changes of a single day. And
scarcely any two days are alike. At
times a sea-fog covers everything. Again
the sea which sleeps to-day so peacefully,
sometimes rages, and the very existence of
the bay itself bears witness to its force.
The night, again, varies like the day.
Sometimes shrouded by a canopy of dark
ness, sometimes lit up by millions of
brilliant worlds, sometimes bathed in the
light of a moon, which never retains the
same form for two nights together.
If Lakes are less grand than the sea,
they are in some respects even more
lovely. The seashore is comparatively
bare. The banks of Lakes are often
richly clothed with vegetation which
comes close down to the water’s edge,
sometimes hanging even into the water
itself. They are often studded with wellwooded islands. They are sometimes
fringed with green meadows, sometimes
bounded by rocky promontories rising
directly from comparatively deep water ;
while the calm bright surface is often
fretted by a delicate pattern of interlacing
ripples ; or reflects a second, softened, and
inverted landscape.
To water again we owe the marvellous
spectacle of the rainbow—“ God’s bow in
the clouds.” It is indeed truly a heavenly
messenger, and so unlike anything else that
it scarcely seems to belong to this world.
Many things are colored, but the rain
bow seems to be color itself.
“ First the flaming red
Sprang vivid forth ; the tawny orange next,
And next delicious yellow ; by whose side
Fell the kind beams of all-refreshing green.
Then the pure blue that swells autumnal skies.
Ethereal play’d ; and then, of sadder hue
Emerged the deeper indigo (as when
The heavy-skirted evening droops with frost),
While the last gleamings of refracted light
Died in the fainting violet away.”1
1 Thomson.
PART II
We do not, I think, sufficiently realise
how wonderful is the blessing of color.
It would have been possible, it would
even seem more probable, that though
light might have enabled us to perceive
objects, this would only have been by
shade and form. How we perceive color
is not yet understood ; and yet when we
speak of beauty, among the ideas which
come to us most naturally are those of
birds and butterflies, flowers and shells,
precious stones, skies, and rainbows.
Our minds might have been constituted
exactly as they are, we might have been
capable of comprehending the highest and
sublimest truths, and yet, but for a small
organ in the head, the world of sound
would have been shut out from us ; we
should have lost all the varied melody of
nature, the charms of music, the conversa
tion of friends, and have been condemned
to perpetual silence: a slight alteration
in the retina, which is not thicker than a
sheet of paper, not larger than a finger
nail,—and the glorious spectacle of this
beautiful world, the exquisite variety of
form, the glow and play of color, the
variety of scenery, of woods and fields,
and lakes and hills, seas and mountains,
the beauty of the sky alike by day and
night, would all have been lost to us.
Mountains, again, “ seem to have been
built for the human race, as at once their
schools and cathedrals ; full of treasures
of illuminated manuscript for the scholar,
kindly in simple lessons for the worker,
quiet in pale cloisters for the thinker,
glorious in holiness for the worshipper.”
They are “great cathedrals of the earth,
with their gates of rock, pavements of
cloud, choirs of stream and stone, altars of
snow, and vaults of purple traversed by
the continual stars.” 1
All these beauties are comprised in
Tennyson’s exquisite description of (Enone’s
vale—the city, flowers, trees, river, and
mountains.
“ There lies a vale in Ida, lovelier
Than all the valleys of Ionian hills.
1 Ruskin.
�CHAP. VIII
THE BEAUTIES OF NATURE
The swimming vapour slopes athwart the glen,
Puts forth an arm, and creeps from pine to pine,
And loiters, slowly drawn. On either hand
The lawns and meadow-ledges midway down
Hang rich in flowers, and far below them roars
The long brook falling thro’ the clov’n ravine
In cataract after cataract to the sea.
Behind the valley topmost Gargarus
Stands up and takes the morning; but in front
The gorges, opening wide apart, reveal
Troas and Ilion’s column’d citadel,
The crown of Troas.”
85
The evening colors indeed soon fade
away, but as night comes on,
“ how glows the firmament
With living sapphires ! Hesperus that led
The starry host, rode brightest ; till the moon
Rising in clouded majesty, at length,
Apparent queen, unveiled her peerless light,
And o’er the dark her silver mantle threw.” 1
We generally speak of a beautiful night
when it is calm and clear, and the stars
shine brightly overhead ; but how grand
And when we raise our eyes from earth, also are the wild ways of Nature, how
who has not sometimes felt “ the witchery magnificent when the lightning flashes,
of the soft blue sky ” ? who has not “ between gloom and glory ” ; when
watched a cloud floating upwards as if on ‘ ‘ From peak to peak, the rattling crags among
its way to heaven ?
Leaps the live thunder. ” 2
And yet “if, in our moments of utter
In the words of Ossian—
idleness and insipidity, we turn to the sky
“ Ghosts ride in the tempest to-night;
as a last resource, which of its phenomena
Sweet is their voice between the gusts of wind,
do we speak of? One says, it has been
Their songs are of other worlds.”
wet; and another, it has been w'indy;
Nor are the -wonders and beauties of the
and another, it has been warm. Who,
heavens limited by the clouds and the blue
among the whole chattering crowd, can
sky, lovely as they are. In the heavenly
tell me of the forms and the precipices
bodies we have before us the perpetual
of the chain of tall white mountains that
presence of the sublime. They-are so im
girded the horizon at noon yesterday 1
mense and so far away, and yet on soft
Who saw the narrow sunbeam that came
summer nights “they seem leaning down
out of the south, and smote upon their
to whisper in the ear of our souls.” 3
summits until they melted and mouldered
“ A man can hardly lift up his eyes to
away in a dust of blue rain ? Who saw
wards the heavens,” says Seneca, “ without
the dance of the dead clouds when the sun
wonder and veneration, to see so many
light left them last night, and the west
millions of radiant lights, and to observe
wind blew them before it like withered
their courses and revolutions, even with
leaves ? All has passed, unregretted as
out any respect to the common good of the
unseen ; or if the apathy be ever shaken
Universe.”
off, even for an instant, it is only by -what
Who does not sympathise with the
is gross, or what is extraordinary ; and
feelings of Dante as he rose from his visit
yet it is not in the broad and fierce mani
to the lower regions, until, he says,
festations of the elemental energies, not in
the clash of the hail, nor the drift of the “ On our view the beautiful lights of heaven
Dawned through a circular opening in the cave,
whirlwind, that the highest characters of
Thence issuing, we again beheld the stars.”
the sublime are developed.” 1
As we watch the stars at night they
But exquisitely lovely as is the blue
arch of the midday sky, with its inexhaust seem so still and motionless that we can
ible variety of clouds, “ there is yet a light hardly realise that all the time they are
which the eye invariably seeks with a rushing on with a velocity far far exceed
deeper feeling of the beautiful, the light ing any that man has ever accomplished.
Like the sands of the sea, the stars of
of the declining or breaking day, and
the flakes of scarlet cloud burning like heaven have ever been used as an appro
watch-fires in thegreen sky ofthe horizon.” 2 priate symbol of number, and we know
that therfe are more than 100,000,000 ;
1 Ruskin.
2 Ibid.
1 Milton.
2 Byron.
3 Symonds.
�86
THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
many, no doubt, with planets of their own.
But this is by no means all. The floor of
heaven is not only “ thick inlaid with
patines of bright gold,” but is studded also
with extinct stars, once probably as bril
liant as our own sun, but now dead and
cold, as Helmholtz thinks that our own
sun will be some seventeen millions of
years hence. Then, again, there are the
comets, which, though but few are visible
to the unaided eye, are even more numerous
than the stars ; there are the nebulae, and
the countless minor bodies circulating in
space, and occasionally visible as meteors.
Nor is it only the number of the
heavenly bodies which is so overwhelm
ing ; their magnitude and distances are
almost more impressive. The ocean is
so deep and broad as to be almost infinite,
and indeed in so far as our imagination
is the limit, so it may be. Yet what is
the ocean compared to the sky ? Our
globe is little compared to the giant orbs
of Jupiter and Saturn, which again sink
into insignificance by the side of the Sun.
The Sun itself is almost as nothing com-,
pared with the dimensions of the solar
system. Sirius is a thousand times as
great as the Sun, and a million times as
far away. The solar system itself travels
in one region of space, sailing between
worlds and worlds ; and is surrounded by
many other systems at least as great and
complex; while we know that even then
we have not reached the limits of the
Universe itself.
There are stars so distant that their
light, though travelling 180,000 miles in
a second, yet takes years to reach us ; and
beyond all these are other systems of stars
which are so far away that they cannot
be perceived singly, but even in our most
powerful telescopes appear only as minute
clouds or nebulae.
The velocities of the Heavenly bodies
are equally astounding. We ourselves
make our annual journey round the Sun
at the rate of 1000 miles a minute ; of
the so-called “ fixed ” stars Sirius moves
at the same rate, and Arcturus no less
than 22,000 miles a minute. And yet
PART II
the distances of the stars are so great
that 1000 years makes hardly any differ
ence in the appearance of the Heavens.
It is, indeed, but a feeble expression
of the truth to say that the infinities re
vealed to us by Science,—the infinitely
great in the one direction, and the in
finitely small in the other,—go far beyond
anything which had occurred to the un
aided imagination of Man, and are not
only a never-failing source of pleasure
and interest, but lift us above the petty
troubles, and help us to bear the greater
sorrows, of life.
CHAPTER IX
THE TROUBLES OF LIFE
“ Count each affliction, whether light or grave,
God’s messenger sent down to thee ;
Grief should be
Like joy, majestic, equable, sedate ;
Confirming, cleansing, raising, making free ;
Strong to consume small troubles ; to commend
Great thoughts, grave thoughts, thoughts
lasting to the end.”
Aubrey be Vere.
We have in life many troubles, and
troubles are of many kinds. Some
sorrows, alas, are real enough, especially
those we bring on ourselves, but others,
and by no means the least numerous, are
mere ghosts of troubles : if we face them
boldly, we find that they have no sub
stance or reality, but are mere creations
of our own morbid imagination, and that
it is as true now as in the time of David
that “ Man disquieteth himself in a vain
shadow.”
Some, indeed, of our troubles are evils,
but not real; while others are real, but
not evils.
“ And yet, into how unfathomable a
gulf the mind rushes when the troubles
of this world agitate it. If it then forget
its own light, which is eternal joy, and
rush into the outer darkness, which are the
�CHAP. IX
THE TROUBLES OF LIFE
cares of this world, as the mind now does,
it knows nothing else but lamentations.” 1
“Athens,” said Epictetus, “is a good
place,—but happiness is much better ; to
be free from passions, free from dis
turbance.”
We should endeavour to maintain our
selves in
“ that blessed mood
In which the burden of the mystery,
In which the heavy and the weary weight,
Of all this unintelligible world
Is lightened.” 2
87
happen equally to good men and bad,
being things which make us neither
better nor worse.”
“ The greatest evils,” observes Jeremy
Taylor, “ are from within us ; and from
ourselves also we must look for our
greatest good.”
“ The mind,” says Milton,
“ is its own place, and in itself
Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.”
Milton indeed in his blindness saw
more beautiful visions, and Beethoven in
his deafness heard more heavenly music,
So shall we fear “neither the exile of than most of us can ever hope to enjoy.
Aristides, nor the prison of Anaxagoras,
We are all apt, when we know not
nor the poverty of Socrates, nor the con what may happen, to fear the worst.
demnation of Phocion, but think virtue When we know the full extent of any
worthy our love even under such trials.” 3 : danger, it is half over. Hence, we dread
We should then be, to a great extent, in-1 ghosts more than robbers, not only with
dependent of external circumstanced, for out reason, but against reason ; for even
if ghosts existed, how could they hurt us ?
“ Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage,
and in ghost stories, few, even of those
Minds innocent and quiet take
who say that they have seen ,a ghost, ever
That for an hermitage.
profess or pretend to have felt one.
“ If I have freedom in my love,
Milton, in his description of death,
And in my soul am free ;
dwells on this characteristic of obscurity :
Angels alone that soar above
Enjoy such liberty.” 4
In the wise words of Shakespeare,
“ All places that the eye of Heaven visits
Are to the wise man ports and happy havens.”
“ The other shape—
If shape it might be call’d that shape had none
Distinguishable in member, joint, or limb ;
Or substance might be call’d that shadow
seem’d,
For each seem’d either—black he stood as
night,
Fierce as ten furies, terrible as hell.
And shook a dreadful dart. What seem’d
his head
The likeness of a kingly crown had on.”
Happiness indeed depends much more
on what is within than without us.
When Hamlet says that the world is “ a
goodly prison ; in which there are many
confines, wards, and dungeons; Denmark
The effect of darkness and night in
being one of the worst,” and Rosencrantz enhancing terrors is dwelt on in one of
differs from him, he rejoins wisely, “ Why the sublimest passages in Job—
then, ’tis none to you : for there is
“ In thoughts from the visions of the night,
nothing either good or bad, but thinking
When deep sleep falleth on men,
makes it so : to me it is a prison.”
Fear came upon me, and trembling,
Which made all my bones to shake.
“All is opinion,” said Marcus Aurelius.
Then a spirit passed before my face ;
“ That which does not make a man worse,
The hair of my flesh stood up :
how can it make his life worse ? But
It stood still, but I could not discern the form
death certainly, and life, honor and dis
thereof:
An image was before mine eyes,
honor, pain and pleasure, all these things
1 King Alfred’s translation of the Consola
tions of Boethius.
2 Wordsworth.
3 Plutarch.
4 Lovelace.
There was silence, and I heard a voice, saying,
Shall mortal man be more just than God ? ”
Thus was the terror turned into a lesson
of comfort and of mercy.
�88
THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
We often magnify troubles and diffi
culties, and look at them till they seein
much greater than they really are.
Dangers are often “ light, if they once
seem light; and more dangers have
deceived men than forced them: nay,
it were better to meet some dangers
half way, though they come nothing
near, than to keep too long a watch
upon their approaches ; for if a man
watch too long, it is odds he will fall
asleep.” 1
Foresight is wise, but fore-sorrow is
foolish ; and castles are at any rate better
than dungeons, in the air.
It happens, unfortunately too often,
that by some false step, intentional or
unintentional, we have missed the right
road, and gone astray. Can we then
retrace our steps ? can we recover what
is lost ? This may be done. It is too
gloomy a view to affirm that
“ A sigh too much, or a kiss too long,
And there comes a mist and a weeping rain,
And life is never the same again.” 2
There are two noble sayings of Socrates,
that to do evil is more to be avoided
than to suffer it; and that when a man
has done evil, it is better for him to be
punished than to be unpunished.
We generally speak of selfishness as
a fault, and as if it interfered with the
general happiness. But this is not alto
gether correct. The pity is that so many
people are foolishly selfish ; that they
pursue a course of action which neither
makes themselves nor any one else happy.
Is there not some truth in Goethe’s
saying, though I do not altogether agree
with him, that “ every man ought to begin
with himself, and make his own happiness
first, from which the happiness of the
whole world would at last unquestionably
follow” ? This is perhaps too broadly
stated, and of course exceptions might be
pointed out : but assuredly if every one
would avoid excess, and take care of his
own health ; would keep himself strong
and cheerful; would make his home
1 Bacon.
2 G. Macdonald.
PART II
happy, and’give no cause for the petty
vexations which often embitter domestic
life ; would attend to his own affairs and
keep himself sober and solvent; would,
in the words of the Chinese proverb,
“sweep away the snow from before his
own door, and never mind the frost upon
his neighbour’s tiles”: even though it
were not from the nobler motives, still,
how well it would be for his family,
relations, and friends. But, unfortunately,
“ Look round the habitable world, how few
Know their own good, or, knowing it, pursue.”1
It would be a great thing if people
could be brought to realise that they can
never add to the sum of their happiness
by doing wrong. In the case of children,
indeed, we recognise this ; we perceive
that a spoilt child is not a happy one;
that it would have been far better for
him to have been punished at first and
thus saved from greater suffering in after
life.
The beautiful idea that every man has
with him a Guardian Angel is true in
deed : for Conscience is ever on the watch,
| ever ready to warn us of danger.
No doubt we often feel disposed to
complain, and yet it is most ungrateful:
‘‘ For who would lose,
Though full of pain, this intellectual being,
Those thoughts that wander through Eternity ;
To perish rather, swallowed up, and lost
In the wide womb of uncreated thought! ” 2
But perhaps it will be said that we are
sent here in preparation for another and
a better world. Well, then, why should
we complain of what is but a preparation
for future happiness ?
We ought to
“ Count each affliction, whether light or grave,
God’s messenger sent down to thee ; do thou
With courtesy receive him ; rise and bow ;
And, ere his shadow pass thy threshold, crave
Permission first his heavenly feet to lave ;
Then lay before him all thou hast; allow
No cloud of passion to usurp thy brow,
Or mar thy hospitality ; no wave
Of mortal tumult to obliterate
1 Dryden.
2 Milton.
�LABOUR AND REST
CHAP. X
and joy”; and if properly understood,
would enable us “ to acquiesce in the
present without repining, to remember
the past with thankfulness, and to meet
the future hopefully and cheerfully with
out fear or suspicion.”
The soul’s marmoreal calmness : Grief should
be
Like joy, majestic, equable, sedate ;
Confirming, cleansing, raising, making free ;
Strong to consume small troubles ; to commend
Great thoughts, grave thoughts, thoughts
lasting to the end.” 1
Some persons are like the waters of
Bethesda, and require to be troubled
before they can exercise their virtue.
“We shall get more contentedness,”
CHAPTER X
says Plutarch, “ from the presence of all
LABOUR AND REST
these blessings if we fancy them as absent,
and remember from time to time how
“ Through labour to rest, through combat to
people when ill yearn for health, and victory.”
Thomas a Kempis.
people in war for peace, and strangers
and unknown in a great city for reputa Among the troubles of life I do not, of
tion and friends, and how painful it is to course, reckon the necessity of labour.
Work indeed, and hard work too, if
be deprived of all these when one has
once had them. For then each of these only it be in moderation, is in itself a
blessings will not appear to us only great rich source of happiness. We all know
and valuable when it is lost, and of no how quickly time passes when we are
value when we have it. . . . And yet it well employed, while the moments hang
makes much for contentedness of mind to heavily on the hands of the idle. Occupa
look for the most part at home and to our tion drives away care and all the small
own condition ; or if not, to look at the troubles of life. The busy man has no
case of people worse off than ourselves, time to brood or to fret.
and not, as people do, to compare our
“ From toil he wins his spirits light,
selves with those who are better off. . . .
From busy day the peaceful night ;
But you will find others, Chians, or
Rich, from the very want of wealth,
Galatians, or Bithynians, not content
In Heaven’s best treasures, peace, and
health.” 1
with the share of glory or power they
have among their fellow-citizens, but
This applies especially to t^e labour of
weeping because they do not wear sena the field and the workshop. Humble it
tors’ shoes ; or, if they have them, that may be, but if it does not dazzle with the
they cannot be praetors at Rome; or if promise of fame, it gives the satisfaction
they get that office, that they are not of duty fulfilled, and the inestimable
consuls ; or if they are consuls, that they blessing of health. As Emerson reminds
are only proclaimed second and not first. those entering life, “ The angels that live
. . . Whenever, then, you admire any one with them, and are weaving laurels of life
carried by in his litter as a greater man for their youthful brows, are toil and truth
than yourself, lower your eyes and look and mutual faith.”
at those that bear the litter.” And again,
Labour was truly said by the ancients
“ I am very taken with Diogenes’ remark to be the price which the gods set upon
to a stranger at Lacedaemon, who was everything worth having. We all admit,
dressing with much display for a feast. though we often forget, the marvellous
‘ Does not a good man consider every day power of perseverance; and yet all Nature,
a feast ? ’ . . . Seeing then that life is down to Bruce’s spider, is continually
the most complete initiation into all these | impressing this lesson on us.
things, it ought to be full of ease of mind J Hard writing makes easy reading ;
1 Aubrey de Vere.
.
1 Gray.
�THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
9°
Plato is said to have rewritten the first
page of the Aepit&Zic thirteen times ; and
Carlo Maratti, we are told, made three
hundred sketches of the head of Antinous
before he brought it to his satisfaction.
It is better to wear out than to rust
out, and there is “ a dust which settles on
the heart, as well as that which rests upon
the ledge.”1
At the present time, though there may
be some special drawbacks, we come to
our work with many advantages which
were not enjoyed in olden times. We
live in much greater security ourselves,
and are less liable to have the fruits of
our labour torn violently from us.
But though labour is good for man,
it may be, and unfortunately often is,
carried to excess.
Many are wearily
asking themselves
“ All why
Should life all labour be ? ” 2
There is a time for all things, says
Solomon, a time to work and a time to
play : we shall work all the better for
reasonable change, and one reward of
work is to secure leisure.
It is a good saying that where there’s
a will there’s a way ; but while it is all
very well to wish, wishes must not take
the place of work.
In whatever sphere his duty lies, every
man must rely mainly on himself. Others
can help us, but we must make ourselves.
No one else can see for us. To profit by
our advantages we must learn to use for
ourselves
“The dark lantern of the spirit
Which none can see by, but he who bears it. ”
It is hardly an exaggeration to say that
honest work is never thrown away. If
we do not find the imaginary treasure, at
any rate we enrich the vineyard.
“Work,” says Nature to man, “in
every hour, paid or unpaid; see only
that thou work, and thou canst not
escape the reward : whether thy work be
fine or coarse, planting corn or writing
1 Jefferies.
2 Tennyson.
part II
epics, so only it be honest work, done to
thine own approbation, it shall earn a
reward to the senses as well as to the
thought: no matter how often defeated,
you are born to victory. The reward
of a thing well done is to have done
it.” 1
Nor can any work, however persever
ing, or any success, however great, exhaust
the prizes of life.
The most studious, the most successful,
must recognise that there yet remain
“ So much to do that is not e’en begun,
So much to hope for that we cannot see,
So much to win, so many things to be.”2
In olden times the difficulties of study
were far greater than they are now.
Books were expensive and cumbersome,
in many cases moreover chained to the
desks on which they were kept. The
greatest scholars have often been very
poor. Erasmus used to read by moonlight
because he could not afford a candle, and
“ begged a penny, not for the love of
charity, but for the love of learning.” 3
Want of time is no excuse for idleness.
“ Our life,” says Jeremy Taylor, “ is too
short to serve the ambition of a haughty
prince or a usurping rebel; too little
time to purchase great wealth, to satisfy
the pride of a vainglorious fool, to
trample upon all the enemies of our just
or unjust interest: but for the obtaining
virtue, for the purchase of sobriety and
modesty, for the actions of religion, God
gives us time sufficient, if we make the
outgoings of the morning and evening,
that is our infancy and old age, to be
taken into the computations of a man.”
Work is so much a necessity of exist
ence, that it is less a question whether,
than how, w’e shall work. An old saying
tells us that the Devil finds work for those
who do not make it for themselves and
there is a Turkish proverb that the Devil
tempts the busy man, but the idle man
tempts the Devil.
If we Englishmen have succeeded as a
2 W. Morris.
1 Emerson.
3 Coleridge.
�LABOUR AND REST
CHAP. X
race, it has been due in no small measure
to the fact that we have worked hard.
Not only so, but we have induced the
forces of Nature to work for us. “ Steam,”
says Emerson, “ is almost an Englishman.”
The power of work has especially
characterised our greatest men. Cecil
said of Sir W. Raleigh that he “ could
toil terribly.”
We are most of us proud of belonging
to the greatest Empire the world has ever
seen. It may be said of us with especial
truth in Wordsworth’s words that
“ The world is too much with us ; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers.”
Yes, but what world ? The world will be
with us sure enough, and whether we
please or not. But what sort of world it
will be for us, will depend greatly on
ourselves.
We are told to pray not to be taken
out of the world, but to be kept from the
evil.
There are various ways of working.
Quickness may be good, but haste is bad.
“Wie das Gestirn
Ohne Hast
. Ohne Rast
Drehe sich Jeder
Um die eigne Last.”1
“Like a star, without haste, without rest,
let every one fulfil his own best.”
Lastly, work secures the rich reward of
rest ; we must rest to be able to work
well, and work to be able to enjoy rest.
“We must no doubt beware that our
rest become not the rest of stones, which
so long as they are torrent-tossed and
thunder-stricken maintain their majesty ;
but when the stream is silent, and the
storm past, suffer the grass to cover them,
and the lichen to feed on them, and are
ploughed down into the dust. . . . The
rest which is glorious is of the chamois
couched breathless in its granite bed, not
of the stalled ox over his fodder.” 2
When we have done our best we may
wait the result without anxiety.
“ What hinders a man, who has clearly
1 Goethe.
2 Ruskin.
9i
comprehended these things, from living
with a light heart and bearing easily the
reins ; quietly expecting everything which
can happen, and enduring that which has
already happened ? Would you have me
to bear poverty ? Come and you will
know what poverty is when it has found
one who can act well the part of a poor
man. Would you have me to possess
power1? Let me have power, and also
the trouble of it. Well, banishment ?
Wherever I shall go, there it will be well
with me.” 1
“We complain,” says Ruskin, “of the
want of many things—-we want votes, we
want liberty, we want amusement, we
want money. Which of us feels, or
knows, that he wants peace ?
“ There are two ways of getting it, if
you do want it. The first is wholly in
your own power; to make yourselves
nests of pleasant thoughts. . . . None of
us yet know, for none of us have yet been
taught in early youth, what fairy palaces
we may build of beautiful thought—proof
against all adversity. Bright fancies,
satisfied memories, noble histories, faith
ful sayings, treasure-houses of precious
and restful thoughts ; which care cannot
disturb, nor pain make gloomy, nor
poverty take away from us—houses built
without hands, for our souls to live in.”
The Buddhists believe in many forms
of future punishment; but the highest
reward of virtue is Nirvana—the final
and eternal rest.
Very touching is the appeal of Ashmanezer to be left in peace, which was
engraved on his Sarcophagus at Sidon.2
“ In the month of Bui, the fourteenth
year of my reign, I, King Ashmanezer,
King of the Sidonians, son of King
Tabuith, King of the Sidonians, spake,
saying : ‘ I have been stolen away before
my time—a son of the flood of days.
The whilom great is dumb ; the son of
gods is dead. And I rest in this grave,
even in this tomb, in the place which I
have built. My adjuration to all the
Ruling Powers and all men : Let no one
1 Epictetus.
2 Now in Paris.
�9*
THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
open this resting-place, nor search for
treasure, for there is no treasure with us ;
and let him not bear away the couch of
my rest, and not trouble us in this
resting-place by disturbing the couch of
my slumbers. . . . For all men who
should open the tomb of my rest, or any
man who should carry away the couch of
my rest, or any one who trouble me on
this couch : unto them there shall be no
rest with the departed : they shall not be
buried in a grave, and there shall be to
them neither son nor seed. . . . There
shall be to them neither root below nor
fruit above, nor honour among the living
under the sun.’ ” 1
The idle man does not know what it is
to enjoy rest, for he has not earned it.
Hard work, moreover, tends not only to
give us rest for the body, but, what is
even more important, peace to the mind.
If we have done our best to do, and to
be, we can rest in peace.
“ En la sua voluntade e nostra pace.” 2
In His will is our peace ; and in such
peace the mind will find its truest delight,
for
“When, care sleeps, the soul wakes.”
In youth, as is right enough, the idea
of exertion, and of struggles, is inspiriting
and delightful; but as years advance the
hope and prospect of peace and of rest
gain ground gradually, and
“ When the last dawns are fallen on gray,
And all life’s toils and ease complete,
They know who work, not they who play
If rest is sweet.” 3
1 From Sir M. E. Grant Duff’s A Winter in
Syria.
2 Dante.
3 Symonds.
PART II
CHAPTER XT
RELIGION
“ And what doth the Lord require of thee,
but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk
humbly with thy God ? ”—Micah.
“Pure religion and undefiled before God and
the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and
widows in their affliction, and to keep himself
unspotted from the world.”—James i.
“The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.”
2 Corinthians.
It would be quite out of place here to
enter into any discussion of theological
problems or to advocate any particular
doctrines. Nevertheless I could not omit
what is to most so great a comfort and
support in sorrow and suffering, and a
source of the purest happiness.
We commonly, however, bring together
under the name of Religion two things
which are yet very different: the religion
of the heart, and that of the head. The
first deals with conduct, and the duties of
Man ; the second with the nature of the
supernatural and the future of the Soul,
being in fact a branch of knowledge.
Religion should be a strength, guide,
and comfort, not a source of intellectual
anxiety or angry argument. To persecute
for religion’s sake implies belief in a
jealous, cruel, and unjust Deity. If we
have done our best to arrive at the truth,
to torment oneself about the result is to
doubt the goodness of God, and, in the
words of Bacon, “ to bring down the Holy
Ghost, instead of the likeness of a dove,
in the shape of a raven.” “ The letter
killeth, but the spirit giveth life,” and it
is a primary duty to form the highest
possible conception of God.
Many, however, and especially many
women, render themselves miserable on
entering life by theological doubts and
difficulties. These have reference, in
ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, not
to what we should do, but to what we
should think. As regards action, con-
�RELIGION
CHAP. XI
science is generally a ready guide; to
follow it is the real difficulty. Theology,
on the other hand, is a most abstruse
science ; but as long as we honestly wish
to arrive at truth we need not fear that
we shall be punished for unintentional
error. “For what,” says Micah, “doth
the Lord require of thee, but to do justly,
to love mercy, and to walk humbly with
thy God.” There is very little theology
in the Sermon on the Mount, or indeed
in any part of the first three Gospels ; and
the differences which keep us apart have
their origin rather in the study than the
Church. Religion was intended to bring
peace on earth and goodwill towards men,
and whatever tends to hatred and perse
cution, however correct in the letter, must
be utterly wrong in the spirit.
How much misery would have been
saved to Europe if Christians had been
satisfied with the Sermon on the Mount!
Bokhara is said to have contained more
than three hundred colleges, all occupied
with theology, but ignorant of everything
else, and it was probably one of the most
bigoted and uncharitable cities in the world.
“ Knowledge puffeth up, but charity edifieth.”
We must not forget that
“ He prayeth best who lovetli best
All things both great and small.” 1
Theologians too often appear to agree that
“ The awful shadow of some unseen power
Floats, though unseen, among us ” ; 2
and in the days of the Inquisition many
must have sighed for the cheerful childlike
religion of the Greeks, if they could but
have had the Nymphs and Nereids, the
Fays and Faeries, with Destiny and Fate,
but without Jupiter and Mars.
Sects are the work of Sectarians. No
truly great religious teacher, as Carlyle
said, ever intended to found a new Sect.
Diversity of worship, says a Persian
proverb, “ has divided the human race
into seventy-two nations. From among
all their dogmas I have selected one—‘ Di
vine Love.’ ” And again, “ He needs no
1 Coleridge.
2 Shelley.
93
other rosary whose thread of life is struug
with the beads of love and thought.”
There is more true Christianity in some
pagan Philosophers than in certain Chris
tian theologians. Take, for instance,
Plato, Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus, and
Plutarch.
“ Now I, Callicles,” says Socrates, “ am
persuaded of the truth of these things,
and I consider how I shall present my
soul whole and undefiled before the judge
in that day. Renouncing the honours at
which the world aims, I desire only to
know the truth, and to live as well as I
can, and, when the time comes, to die.
And, to the utmost of my power, I exhort
all other men to do the same. And in
return for your exhortation of me, I
exhort you also to take part in the great
combat, which is the combat of life, and
greater than every other earthly conflict.”
“As to piety towards the Gods,” says
Epictetus, “you must know that this is
the chief thing, to have right opinions
about them, to think that they exist, and
that they administer the All well and
justly; and you must fix yourself in this
principle (duty), to obey them, and to
yield to them in everything which
happens, and voluntarily to follow it
as being accomplished by the wisest
intelligence.”
“ Do not act,” says Marcus Aurelius,
“ as if thou wert going to live ten
thousand years. Death hangs over thee.
While thou livest, while it is in thy
power, be good. . . .
“ Since it is possible that thou mayest
depart from life this very moment, regu
late every act and thought accordingly.
But to go away from among men, if there
be Gods, is not a thing to be afraid of,
for the Gods will not involve thee in
evil; but if indeed they do not exist, or
if they have no concern about human
affairs, what is it to me to live in a
universe devoid of Gods, or without a
Providence. But in truth they do exist,
and they do care for human things, and
they have put all the means in man’s
power to enable him not to fall into real
�94
THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
evils. And as for the rest, if there was
anything evil, they would have provided
for this also, that it should be altogether
in a man’s power not to fall into it.”
And Plutarch : “ The Godhead is not
blessed by reason of his silver and gold,
nor yet Almighty through his thunder
and lightnings, but on account of know
ledge and intelligence.”
It is no doubt very difficult to arrive
at the exact teaching of Eastern Moralists,
but the same spirit runs through Oriental
Literature.
For instance, in the Toy
Cart of King Sudraka, the earliest
Sanskrit drama with which we are ac
quainted, when the wicked Prince tempts
Vita to murder the Heroine, and says
that no one would see him, Vita declares
“ All nature would behold the crime—
the Genii of the Grove, the Sun, the
Moon, the Winds, the Vault of Heaven,
the firm - set Earth, the mighty Yama
who judges the dead, and the conscious
Soul.”
There is indeed a tone of doubting sad
ness in Roman moralists, as in Hadrian’s
dying lines to his soul—
“Animula, vagula, blandula
Hospes, comesque corporis
Qua nunc abibis in loca :
Pallidula, rigida, nudula,
Nec, ut soles, dabis jocos.”
PART II
than to say that Plutarch is a man in
constant, fickle, easily moved to anger,
revengeful for trifling provocations, vexed
at small things.”
Many things have been mistaken for
religion ; selfishness especially, but also
fear, hope, love of music, of art, of pomp ;
scruples often take the place of love, and
the glory of heaven is sometimes made to
depend upon precious stones and jewellery.
Many, as has been well said, run after
Christ, not for the miracles, but for the
loaves.
In many cases religious differences are
mainly verbal. There is an Eastern tale
of four men, an Arab, a Persian, a Turk,
and a Greek, who agreed to club together
for an evening meal, but when they had
done so they quarrelled as to what it
should be. The Turk proposed Azum,
the Arab Aneb, the Persian Anghur,
while the Greek insisted on Staphylion.
While they were disputing
“ Before their eyes did pass
Laden with grapes, a gardener’s ass.
Sprang to his feet each man, and showed,
With eager hand, that purple load.
‘ See Azum,’ said the Turk ; and ‘ see
Anghur,’ the Persian ; 1 what should be
Better.’ ‘Nay Aneb, Aneb ’tis, ’
The Arab cried. The Greek said, 'This
Is my Staphylion.’ Then they bought
Their grapes in peace.
Hence be ye taught.” 1
The same spirit is expressed in the
It is said that on one occasion, when
epitaph on the tomb of the Duke of Dean Stanley had been explaining his
Buckingham in Westminster Abbey—
views to Lord Beaconsfield, the latter
replied, “ Ah 1 Mr. Dean, that is all very
“ Dubins non improbus vixi
Incertus morior, non perturbatus ;
well, but you must remember,—No dog
Humanum est nescire et errare,
mas, no Deans.” To lose such Deans as
Deo confido
Stanley would indeed be a great misfor
Omnipotent! benevolentissimo :
tune ; but does it follow ? Religions, far
Ens entium miserere mei.”
from being really built on Dogmas, are
Take even the most extreme type of too often weighed down and crushed by
difference. Is the man, says Plutarch, them. No one can doubt that Stanley
“ a criminal who holds there are no gods ; has done much to strengthen the Church
and is not he that holds them to be such of England.
as the superstitious believe them, is he
We may not always agree with Spinoza,
not possessed with notions infinitely more but is he not right when he says, “ The
atrocious 1 I for my part would much first precept of the divine law, therefore,
rather have men say of me that there indeed its sum and substance, is to love
never was a Plutarch at all, nor is now,
1 Arnold. Pearls of the Faith.
�RELIGION
CHAP. XI
God unconditionally as the supreme good
—unconditionally, I say, and not from
any love or fear of aught besides ” ? And
again, that the very essence of religion is
belief in “ a Supreme Being who delights
in justice and mercy, whom all who would
be saved are bound to obey, and whose
worship consists in the practice of justice
and charity towards our neighbours ” ?
“ Theology,” says the Master of Balliol,
“is full of undefined terms which have
distracted the human mind for ages.
Mankind have reasoned from them, but
not to them; they have drawn out the
conclusions without proving the premises ;
they have asserted the premises without
examining the terms. The passions of
religious parties have been roused to the
utmost about words of which they could
have given no explanation, and which
had really no distinct meaning.” 1
Doubt is of two natures, and we often
confuse a wise suspension of judgment
with the weakness of hesitation. To pro
fess an opinion for which we have no
sufficient reason is clearly illogical, but
when it is necessary to act we must do so
on the best evidence available, however
slight that may be.
Why should we expect Religion to
solve questions with reference to the origin
and destiny of the universe ? We do not
expect the most elaborate treatise to tell
us as yet the origin of electricity or of
heat. Natural History throws no light
on the origin of life. Has Biology ever
professed to explain existence ?
Simonides was asked at Syracuse by
Hiero, who or what God was, when he
requested a day’s time to think of his
answer. On subsequent days he always
doubled the period required for deliber
ation ; and when Hiero inquired the reason,
he replied that the longer he considered
the subject, the more obscure it appeared.
The Vedas say, “In the midst of the
sun is the light, in the midst of light is
truth, and in the midst of truth is the
imperishable being.” Deity has been
defined as a circle whose centre is every1 Jowett’s Plato,
95
where, and whose circumference is no
where ; but the “ God is love ” of St.
John appeals more forcibly to the human
soul.
“ Love suffereth long, and is kind ;
Love envieth not;
Love vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,
Doth not behave itself unseemly,
Seeketh not her own,
Is not easily provoked,
Thinketh no evil;
Rejoieeth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the
truth ;
Beareth all things, believeth all things,
Hopeth all things, endureth all things.
Love never faileth ; but whether there be pro
phecies, they shall fail : whether there be tongues,
they shall cease ; whether there be knowledge,
it shall vanish away. ... Now abideth Faith,
Hope, Love, these three ; but the greatest of
these is Love.” 1
The Church is not a place for study or
speculation. Few but can sympathise
with Eugenie de Guerin in her tender
affection for the little Chapel at Cahuzac,
where she tells us she freed herself from
“ tant de miseres.”
Doubt does not exclude faith.
“ Perplext in faith, but pure in deeds,
At last he beat his music out.
There lives more faith in honest doubt,
Believe me, than in half the creeds.” 2
Unfortunately many have attempted
to compound for wickedness of life by
purity of belief; a vain and fruitless
effort. To do right is the sure ladder
which leads up to Heaven, though the
true faith will help us to find and to
climb it.
“ It was my duty to have loved the highest,
It surely was my profit had I known,
It would have been my pleasure had I seen.” 3
But though religious truth can justify no
bitterness, it is well worth any amount of
thought and study.
If we must admit that many points are
still, and probably long will be, involved
in obscurity, we may be pardoned if we
indulge ourselves in various speculations
both as to our beginning and our end.
1 St. Paul,
2 Tennyson.
3 Ibid.
�&
THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
‘ ‘ Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life’s Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar :
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home.” 1
I hope I shall not be supposed to
depreciate any honest effort to arrive at
truth, or to undervalue the devotion of
those who have died for their religion.
But surely it is a mistake to regard
martyrdom as a merit, when from their
own point of view it was in reality a
privilege.
Let every man be persuaded in his own
mind
“Truth is the highest thing that man may
keep.” 2
It is impossible to overvalue the power
“ which the soul has of loving truth and
doing all things for the sake of truth. ” 3
To arrive at truth we should spare our
selves no pains, but certainly inflict none
on others.
We may be sure that quarrels will
never advance religion, and that to per
secute is no way to convert. No doubt
those who consider that all who do not
agree with them will suffer eternal tor
ments, seem logically justified in persecu
tion even unto death. Such a course, if
carried out consistently, might stamp out
a particular sect, and any sufferings which
could be inflicted here would on this
hypothesis be as nothing in comparison
with the pains of Hell. Only it must be
admitted that such a view of religion is
quite irreconcilable with the teaching of
Christ, and incompatible with any faith
in the goodness of God.
Moreover, the Inquisition has even
from its own point of view proved gener
ally a failure. The blood of the martyrs
is the seed of the Church.
“ In obedience to the order of the
Council of Constance (1415) the remains
of Wickliffe were exhumed and burnt to
1 Wordsworth.
2 Chaucer.
3 Plato.
TART II
ashes, and these cast into the Swift, a
neighbouring brook running hard by, and
thus this brook hath conveyed his ashes
into Avon ; Avon into Severn ; Severn
into the narrow seas ; they into the main
ocean. And thus the ashes of Wickliffe
are the emblem of his doctrine, which
now is dispersed all the world over?’1
The Talmud says that when a man
once asked Shamai to teach him the Law
in one lesson, Shamai drove him away in
anger. He then went to Hillel with the
same request. Hillel said, “Do unto
others as you would have others do unto
you. This is the whole Law ; the rest,
merely Commentaries upon it.”
Collect from the Bible all that Christ
thought necessary for His disciples, and
how little Dogma there is. Christianity
is based, not on Dogma, but on Charity
and Love.
“ By this shall all men
know that ye are my disciples, if ye have
love one to another.” “ Suffer little
children to come unto me.” And one
lesson which little children have to teach
us is that religion is an affair of the heart
and not of the mind only. St. James
sums up as the teaching of Christ that
“Pure religion and undefiled is this, to
visit the fatherless and widows in their
affliction, and to keep himself unspotted
from the world.”
The Religion of the lower races is
almost as a rule one of terror and of
dread. Their deities are jealous and
revengeful, cruel, merciless, and selfish,
hateful and yet childish. They require
to be propitiated by feasts and offerings,
often even by human sacrifices. They are
not only exacting, but so capricious that,
with the best intentions, it is often
impossible to be sure of pleasing them.
From the dread of such evil beings
Sorcerers and Witches derived their
hellish powers. No one was safe. No
one knew where danger lurked. Actions
apparently the most trifling might be
fraught with serious risk : objects ap
parently the most innocent might be fatal.
In many cases there were supposed to
1 Fuller.
�RELIGION
CHAP. XI
97
be deities of Crime, of Misfortunes, of we were to show them a near, visible,
Disease. These wicked Spirits naturally inevitable, but all-beneficent Deity, whose
encouraged evil rather than good. An presence makes the earth itself a heaven,
energetic friend of mine was sent to a I think there would be fewer deaf children
district in India where smallpox was sitting in the market-place.”
specially prevalent, and where one of the
But it must not be supposed that those
principal Temples was dedicated to the who doubt whether the ultimate truths of
Goddess of that disease. He had the the Universe can be expressed in human
people vaccinated, in spite of some opposi , words, or whether, even if they could,
tion, and the disease disappeared, much we should be able to comprehend them,
to the astonishment of the natives. But undervalue the importance of religious
the priests of the Deity of Smallpox were ' study. Quite the contrary. Their doubts
not disconcerted ; only they deposed the , arise not from pride, but from humility :
Image of their discomfited Goddess, and ! not because they do not appreciate divine
petitioned my friend for some emblem of . truth, but on the contrary because they
himself which they might install in her doubt whether we can appreciate it
stead.
' sufficiently, and are sceptical whether the
We who are fortunate enough to live (infinite can be reduced to the finite.
in this comparatively enlightened century
We may be sure that whatever may be
hardly realise how our ancestors suffered ■ right about religion, to quarrel over it
from their belief in the existence of must be wrong. “ Let others wrangle,”
mysterious and malevolent beings; how said St. Augustine, “I will wonder.”
their life was embittered and overshadowed
Those who suspend their judgment are
by these awful apprehensions.
not on that account sceptics, and it is
As men, however, have risen in civilisa often those who think they know most,
tion, their religion has risen with them; who are especially troubled by doubts
they have by degrees acquired higher and anxiety.
and purer conceptions of divine power.
It was Wordsworth who wrote
We are only just beginning to realise
“ Great God, I had rather
that a loving and merciful Father would A Pagan suckled in some ereed outworn ;he
not resent honest error, not even perhaps So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
the attribution to him of such odious Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn.”
injustice. Yet what can be clearer than
In religion, as with children at night, it
Christ’s teaching on this point.
He
is darkness and ignorance which create
impressed over and over again on his
disciples, that, as St. Paul expresses it, dread ; light and love cast out fear.
In looking forward to the future we
“ The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth
may fairly hope with Ruskin that “the
life.”1
“If,” says Ruskin, “for every rebuke charities of more and more widely ex
that we utter of men’s vices, we put forth tended peace are preparing the way for
a claim upon their hearts; if, for every a Christian Church which shall depend
assertion of God’s demands from them, neither on ignorance for its continuance,
we should substitute a display of His nor on controversy for its progress, but
kindness to them; if side by side, with shall reign at once in light and love.”
every warning of death, we could exhibit
proofs and promises of immortality ; if,
in fine, instead of assuming the being of
an awful Deity, which men, though they
cannot and dare not deny, are always
unwilling, sometimes unable, to conceive :
1 2 Cor. in. 6.
H
�THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
PART II
because they fancied that pain was ordained
under certain circumstances.
CHAPTER XII
We are told that in early Saxon days
Edwin, King of Northumbria, called his
THE HOPE OF PROGRESS
nobles and his priests around him, to dis
cuss whether a certain missionary should
“ To what then may we not look forward, when
a spirit of scientific inquiry shall have spread be heard or not. The result was doubtful.
through those vast regions in which the progress But at last there rose an old chief, and said
of civilisation, its sure precursor, is actually —“You know, 0 King, how, on a winter
commenced and in active progress ? And what evening, when you are sitting at supper
may we not expect from the exertions of powerful
minds called into action under circumstances in your hall, with your company around
totally different from any which have yet existed you, when the night is dark and dreary,
in the world, and over an extent of territory far when the rain and the snow rage outside,
surpassing that which has hitherto produced the when the hall inside is lighted and warm
whole harvest of human intellect ?”
with a blazing fire, sometimes it happens
Herschel,
that a sparrow flies into the bright hall
There are two lines, if not more, in out of the dark night, flies through the
which we may look forward with hope to hall and then out at the other end
progress in the future. In the first place, into the dark night again. We see him
increased knowledge of nature, of the for a few moments, but we know not
properties of matter, and of the pheno whence he came nor whither he goes in
mena which surround us, may afford to the blackness of the storm outside. So is
our children advantages far greater even the life of man. It appears for a short
than those which we ourselves enjoy. space in the warmth and brightness of
Secondly, the extension and improvement this life, but what came before this life,
of education, the increasing influence of or what is to follow this life, we know not.
Science and Art, of Poetry and Music, If, therefore, these new teachers can en
of Literature and Religion,—of all the lighten us as to the darkness that went
powers which are tending to good, will, we before, and the darkness that is to come
may reasonably hope, raise man and make after, let us hear what they have to teach
him more master of himself, more able us.”
It is often said, however, that great
to appreciate and enjoy his advantages,
and to realise the truth of the Italian and unexpected as recent discoveries
proverb, that wherever light is, there is have been, there are certain ultimate
problems which must ever remain un
joy.
One consideration which has greatly solved. For my part, I would prefer to
tended to retard progress has been the abstain from laying down any such limita
floating idea that there was some sort of tions. When Park asked the Arabs what
ingratitude, and even impiety, in attempt became of the sun at night, and whether
ing to improve on what Divine Providence the sun was always the same, or new each
had arranged for us. Thus Prometheus day, they replied that such a question was
was said to have incurred the wrath of foolish, being entirely beyond the reach
Jove for bestowing on mortals the use of of human investigation.
M. Comte, in his Cours de Philosophic
fire ; and other discoveries only escaped
similar punishment when the ingenuity of Positive, as recently as 1842, laid it down
priests attributed them to the special as an axiom regarding the heavenly bodies,
favour of some particular deity. This that’“we may hope to determine their
feeling has not even yet quite died out. forms, distances, magnitude, and move
Even I can remember tlie time when ments, but we shall never by any means be
many excellent persons had a scruple or able to study their chemical composition
prejudice against the use of chloroform, or mineralogical structure.” Yet within a
�CHAP. XII
THE HOPE OF PROGRESS
few years this supposed impossibility has
been actually accomplished, showing how
unsafe it is to limit the possibilities of
science.1
It is, indeed, as true now as in the time
of Newton, that the great ocean of truth
lies undiscovered before us. I often wish
that some President of the Royal Society,
or of the British Association, would take
for the theme of his annual address “ The
things we do not know.” Who can say
on the verge of what discoveries we are
perhaps even now standing ! It is extra
ordinary how slight a barrier may stand
for years between Man and some import
ant improvement. Take the case of the
electric light, for instance. It had been
known for years that if a carbon rod be
placed in an exhausted glass receiver, and
a current of electricity be passed through
it, the carbon glowed with an intense
light, but on the other hand it became so
hot that the glass burst. The light, there
fore, was useless, because the lamp burst
as soon as it was lit. Edison hit on
the idea that if you made the carbon
filament fine enough, you would get rid
of the heat and yet have abundance
of light.
His right to a patent has
been contested on this very ground. It
has been said that the mere introduction
of so small a difference as the replacement
of a thin rod by a fine filament was so
slight a change thaf it could not be
patented. The improvements by LaneFox, Swan, and others, though so import
ant as a whole, have been made step by
step.
Or take again the discovery of anaes
thetics. At the beginning of the century
Sir Humphry Davy discovered laughing
gas, as it was then called. He found that
it produced complete insensibility to pain
and yet did not injure health. A tooth
was actually taken out under its influence,
and of course without suffering. These
facts were known to our chemists, they
were explained to the students in our
jreat hospitals, and yet for half a century
1 Lubbock.
Fifty Years of Science.
99
the obvious application occurred to no
one. Operations continued to be per
formed as before, patients suffered the
same horrible tortures, and yet the bene
ficent element was in our hands, its divine
properties were known, but it never oc
curred to any one to make use of it.
I will only give one more illustration.
Printing is generally said to have been
discovered in the fifteenth century ; and
so it was for all practical purposes. But
in fact printing was known long before.
The Romans used stamps; on the monu
ments of the Assyrian kings the name of
the reigning monarch may be found duly
printed. What then is the difference ?
One little, but all-important step. The
real inventor of printing was the man
into whose mind flashed the fruitful
idea of having separate stamps for each
letter, instead of for separate words.
How slight seems the difference, and
yet for 3000 years the thought occurred
to no one. Who can tell what other
discoveries, as simple and yet as farreaching, lie at this moment under our
very eyes !
Archimedes said that if he had room
to stand on, he would move the earth.
One truth leads to another; each dis
covery renders possible another, and,
what is more, a higher.
We are but beginning to realise the
marvellous range and complexity of Na
ture. I have elsewhere called attention
to this with special reference to the prob
lematical organs of sense possessed by
many animals.1
There is every reason .to hope that
future studies will throw much light on
these interesting structures. We may,
no doubt, expect much from the improve
ment in our microscopes, the use of new
reagents, and of mechanical appliances ;
but the ultimate atoms of which matter is
composed are so infinitesimally minute,
that it is as yet difficult to foresee any
manner in which we may hope for a final
solution of these problems.
1 The Senses of A nimals.
�ICO
THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
Loschmidt, who has since been con
firmed by Stoney and Sir W. Thomson,
calculates that each of the ultimate atoms
of matter is at most •y0';b 00,000 °f an
inch in diameter. Under these circum
stances we cannot, it would seem, hope
at present for any great increase of our
knowledge of atoms by improvements in
the microscope. With our present in
struments we can perceive lines ruled on
glass which are 90,000' °f an inch apart ;
but owing to the properties of light itself,
it would appear that we cannot hope to
be able to perceive objects which are
much less than y 0 q*0 0 0 °f an inch in
diameter.
Our microscopes may, no
doubt, be improved, but the limitation
lies not merely in the imperfection of
our optical appliances, but in the nature
of light itself.
Now it has been calculated that a
particle of albumen son) 00
an inch
in diameter contains no less than
125,000,000 of molecules. In a simpler
compound the number would be much
greater ; in water, for instance, no less
than 8,000,000,000. Even then, if wre
could construct microscopes far more
powerful than any which we now possess,
they could not enable us to obtain by
direct vision any idea of the ultimate
organisation of matter. The smallest
sphere of organic matter which could be
clearly defined with our most powerful
microscopes may be, and in all proba
bility is, very complex ; it is built up of
many millions of molecules, and it follows
that there may be an almost infinite
number of structural characters in organic
tissues which we can at present foresee
no mode of examining.1
Again, it has been shown that animals
hear sounds which are beyond the range
of our hearing, and I have proved that
they can perceive the ultra-violet rays,
which are invisible to our eyes.2
Now, as every ray of homogeneous
1 Lubbock. Fifty Years of Science.
2 Ants, Bees, and Wasps.
PART II
light which we can perceive at all, appears
to us as a distinct color, it becomes
probable that these ultra-violet rays must
make themselves apparent to animals as
a distinct and separate color (of which we
can form no idea), but as different from
the rest as red is from yellow, or green
from violet. The question also arises
whether white light to these creatures
would differ from our white light in con
taining this additional color.
These considerations cannot but raise
the reflection how different the world
may—I was going to say must—appear
to other animals from what it does to us.
Sound is the sensation produced on us
when the vibrations of the air strike on
the drum of our ear. When they are
few, the sound is deep; as they increase
in number, it becomes shriller and shriller ;
but before they reach 40,000 in a second,
they cease to be audible. Light is the
effect produced on us when waves of
light strike on the eye. When 400
millions of millions of vibrations of ether
strike the retina in a second, they give
the sensation of red, and as the number
increases the color passes into orange,
then yellow, green, blue, and violet. But
between 40,000 vibrations in a second
and 400 millions of millions we have no
organ of sense capable of receiving an
impression.
Yet between these limits
any number of sensations may exist. We
have five senses, and sometimes fancy
that no others are possible. But it is
obvious that we cannot measure the in
finite by our own narrow limitations.
Moreover, looking at the question from
the other side, we find in animals complex
organs of sense, richly supplied with
nerves, but the function of which we are
as yet powerless to explain. There may
be fifty other senses as different from ours
as sound is from sight; and even within
the boundaries of our own senses there
may be endless sounds which we cannot
hear, and colors, as different as red from
green, of which we have no conception.
These and a thousand other questions
remain for solution. The familiar world
�CHAP. XII
THE HOPE OF PROGRESS
which surrounds us may be a totally
different place to other animals. To them
it may be full of music which we cannot
hear, of color which we cannot see, of
sensations which we cannot conceive. To
place stuffed birds and beasts in glass
cases, to arrange insects in cabinets, and
dried plants in drawers, is merely the
drudgery and preliminary of study ; to
watch their habits, to understand their
relations to one another, to study their
instincts and intelligence, to ascertain
their adaptations and their relations to
the forces of Nature, to realise what the
world appears to them ; these constitute,
as it seems to me at least, the true interest
of natural history, and may even give us
the clue to senses and perceptions of which
at present we have no conception.1
From this point of view the possi
bilities of progress seem to me to be
almost unlimited.
So far again as the actual condition of
man is concerned, the fact that there has
been some advance cannot, I think, be
questioned.
In the Middle Ages, for instance,
culture and refinement scarcely existed
beyond the limits of courts, and by no
means always there. The life in English,
French, and German castles was rough
and almost barbarous. Mr. Galton has
expressed the opinion, which I am not
prepared to question, that the population
of Athens, taken as a whole, was as
superior to us as we are to Australian
savages. But even if that be so, our
civilisation, such as it is, is more diffused,
so that unquestionably the general Euro
pean level is much higher.
Much, no doubt, is owing to the greater
facility of access to the literature of our
country, to that literature, in the words
of Macaulay, “ the brightest, the purest,
the most durable of all the glories of our
country ; to that Literature, so rich in
precious truth and precious fiction; to
that Literature which boasts of the prince
of all poets, and of the prince of all
1 Lubbock.
The, Senses of Animals.
IOI
philosophers; to that Literature which
has exercised an influence wider than
that of our commerce, and mightier than
that of our arms.”
Few of us, however, make the most of
our minds. The body ceases to grow in
a few years ; but the mind, if we will let
it, may grow almost as long as life lasts.
The onward progress of the future will
not, we may be sure, be confined to mere
material discoveries. We feel that we
are on the road to higher mental powers ;
that problems which now seem to us
beyond the range of human thought will
receive their solution, and open the way
to still further advance. Progress, more
over, wre may hope, will be not merely
material, not merely mental, but moral
also.
It is natural that we should feel a
pride in the beauty of England, in the
size of our cities, the magnitude of our
commerce, the wealth of our country, the
vastness of our Empire. But the true
glory of a nation does not consist in the
extent of its dominion, in the fertility of
the soil, or the beauty of Nature, but
rather in the moral and intellectual pre
eminence of the people.
And yet how few of us, rich or poor,
have made ourselves all we might be. If
he does his best, as Shakespeare says,
“ What a piece of work is man ! How
noble in reason ! How infinite in faculty !
in form and movement, how express and
admirable ! ” Few indeed, as yet, can be
said to reach this high ideal.
The Hindoos have a theory that after
death animals live again in a different
form ; those that have done well in a
higher, those that have done ill in a lower
grade. To realise this is, they find, a
powerful incentive to a virtuous life.
But whether it be true of a future life or
not, it is certainly true of our present
existence. If we do our best for a day,
the next morning we shall rise to a higher
life ; while if we give way to our passions
and temptations, we take with equal
certainty a step downwards towards a
lower nature.
�y -y. #;■ '
u? UV ' “■ ■
ZAL? PLEASURES OF LIFE
102
It is an. interesting illustration, of the
Unity of Man, and an encouragement to
those of us who have no claims to genius,
that, though of course there have been
exceptions, still on the whole, periods of
progress have generally been those when
a nation has worked and felt together ;
the advance has been due not entirely to
the efforts of a few great men, but of their
countrymen generally; not to a single
genius, but to a national effort.
Think, indeed, what might be.
“All ! when shall all men’s good
Be each man’s rule, and universal Peace
Lie like a shaft of light across the land,
And like a lane of beams athwart the sea,
Thro’ all the circle of the golden year ? ”1
Our life is surrounded with mystery,
our very world is a speck in boundless
space ; and not only the period of our
own individual life, but that of the whole
human race is, as it were, but a moment
in the eternity of time.
We cannot
imagine any origin, nor foresee the con
clusion.
But though we may not as yet perceive
any line of research which can give us a
clue to the solution, in another sense we
may hold that every addition to our
knowledge is one small step towards the
great revelation.
Progress may be more slow, or more
rapid. It may come to others and not to
us. It will not come to us if we do not
strive to deserve it. But come it surely
will.
“ Yet one thing is there that ye shall not slay,
Even thought, that fire nor iron can affright?’2
The future of man is full of hope, and I
who can foresee the limits of his destiny ?'
1 Tennyson.
2 Swinburne.
PART II
CHAPTER XIII
THE DESTINY OF MAN
“For I reckon that the sufferings of this
present time are not worthy to be compared
with the glory which shall be revealed in us.”—
Romans viii. 18.
But though we have thus a sure and
certain hope of progress for the race, still,
as far as man is individually concerned,
with advancing years we gradually care
less and less for many things which gave
us the keenest pleasure in youth. On the
other hand, if our time has been well
used, if we have warmed both hands
wisely before the fire of life, we may gain
even more than we lose. As our strength
becomes less, we feel also the less necessity
for exertion. Hope is gradually replaced
by memory : and whether this adds to
our happiness or not depends on what our
life has been.
There are of course some lives which
diminish in value as old age advances ; in
which one pleasure fades after another,
and even those which remain gradually
lose their zest; but there are others which
gain in richness and in peace all, and
more than, that of which time robs them.
The pleasures of youth may excel in
keenness and in zest, but they have at the
best a tinge of anxiety and unrest ; they
cannot have the fulness and depth which
may accompany the consolations of age,
and are amongst the richest rewards of
an unselfish life.
For as with the close of the day, so
with that of life ; there may be clouds,
and yet if the horizon is clear, the evening
may be beautiful.
Old age has a rich store of memories.
Life is full of
“Joys too exquisite to last,
And yet more exquisite when past.” 1
Swedenborg imagines that in heaven
the angels are advancing continually to
1 Montgomery.
�CHAP. XIII
THE DESTINY OF MAN
103
Is it not extraordinary that many men
will deliberately take a road which they
, know is, to say the least, not that of
happiness ? That they prefer to make
others miserable, rather than themselves
happy ?
Plato, in the Phsedrus, explains this
by describing Man as a Composite Being,
“ Age cannot wither nor custom stale
Their infinite variety.”
having three natures, and compares him
“ When I consider old age,” says Cicero, to a pair of winged horses and a charioteer.
“I find four causes why it is thought “ Of the two horses one is noble and of
miserable : one, that it calls us away from noble origin, the other ignoble and of
the transaction of, affairs ; the second, ignoble origin ; and the driving, as might
that it renders the body more feeble ; the be expected, is no easy matter.” The
third, that it deprives us of almost all noble steed endeavours to raise the
passions j the fourth, that it is not very chariot, but the ignoble one struggles to
far from death. Of these causes let us drag it down. As time goes on, if the
see, if you please, how great and how charioteer be wise and firm, the noble
part of our nature will raise us more
reasonable each of them is.”
To be released from the absorbing and more.
“Man,” says Shelley, “is an instru
affairs of life, to feel that one has earned
a claim to leisure and repose, is surely in ment over which a series of external and
internal impressions are driven, like the
itself no evil.
To the second complaint against old alternations of an ever-changing wind
age, I have already referred in speaking over an JEolian lyre, which move it by
their motion to ever-changing melody.”
of Health.
The third is that it has no passions.
Lastly, Cicero mentions the approach
“ 0 noble privilege of age I if indeed it of death as the fourth drawback of old
takes from us that which is in youth our age. To many minds the shadow of the
greatest defect.” But our higher aspira end is ever present, like the coffin in the
tions are not necessarily weakened ; or Egyptian feast, and overclouds all the
rather, they may become all the brighter, sunshine of life.
being purified from the grosser elements
But ought we to regard death as an
of our lower nature.
evil ? Shelley’s beautiful lines,
“Single,” says Manu, “is each man
born into the world; single he dies j
“ Life, like a Dome of many-coloured glass,
Stains the white radiance of Eternity ;
single he receives the reward of his good
Until death tramples it to fragments,”
deeds ; and single the punishment of his
sins. When he dies his body lies like a
fallen tree upon the earth, but his virtue contain, as it seems to me at least, a
accompanies his soul. Wherefore let Man double error. Life need not stain the
harvest and garner Virtue, that so he white radiance of eternity ; nor does
may have an inseparable companion in death necessarily trample it to fragments.
Man has, says Coleridge,
that gloom which all must pass through,
and which it is so hard to traverse.”
“Three treasures,—love and light
Then, indeed, it might be said that
And calm thoughts, regular as infants’ breath ;
“ Man is the sun of the world ; more And three firm friends, more sure than day and
than the real sun. The fire of his
night,
wonderful heart is the only light and Himself, his Maker, and the Angel Death.’
heat worth gauge or measure.” 1
Death is “the end of all, the remedy
1 Emerson.
the spring-time of their youth, so that
those who have lived longest are really
the youngest; and have we not all had
friends who seem to fulfil this idea ? who
are in reality—that is in mind—as fresh
as a child : of whom it may be said with
more truth than of Cleopatra that
�THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
104
of many, the wish of divers men, deserv
ing better of no men than of those to
whom she came before she was called.” 1
After a stormy life, with death comes
peace.
‘ ‘ Duncan is in his grave ;
After life’s fitful fever he sleeps well;
Treason has done his worst: nor steel, nor poison,
Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing,
Can touch him further.”'2
If death be final, then no one will
ever know that he is dead.
It is often, however, assumed that the
journey to
‘ ‘ The undiscovered country from whose bourne
No traveller returns ”
must be one of pain and suffering. But
this is not so. Death is often peaceful
and almost painless.
Bede during his last illness was trans
lating St. John’s Gospel into AngloSaxon, and the morning of his death his
secretary, observing his weakness, said,
“ There remains now only one chapter,
and it seems difficult to you to speak.”
“It is easy,” said Bede ; “take your pen
and write as fast as you can.” At the
close of the chapter the scribe said, “ It
is finished,” to which he replied, “ Thou
hast said the truth, consummatum est.”
He asked to be placed opposite to the
place where he usually prayed, said
“Glory be to the Father, and to the
Son, and to the Holy Ghost,” and as he
pronounced the last word he expired.
Goethe died without any apparent
suffering, having just prepared himself
to write, and expressed his delight at
the return of spring.
We are told of Mozart’s death that
“ the unfinished requiem lay upon the
bed, and his last efforts were to imitate
some peculiar instrumental effects, as he
breathed out his life in the arms of his
Wife and their friend Sussmaier.”
Plato died in the act of writing;
Lucan while reciting part of his book on
the war of Pharsalus ; Blake died sing
1 Seneca.
Shakespeare.
PART II
ing ; Wagner in sleep with his head on
his wife’s shoulder. Many have passed
away in their sleep. Various high
medical authorities have expressed their
surprise that the dying seldom feel either
dismay or regret. And even those who
perish by violence, as for instance in
battle, feel, it is probable, but little
suffering.
But what of the future 1 There may
be said to be now two principal views.
Some believe in the immortality of the
soul, but not of the individual soul: that
our life is continued in that of our
children would seem indeed to be the
natural deduction from the simile of St.
Paul, as that of the grain of wheat is
carried on in the plant of the following
year.
So long as happiness exists, it is selfish
to dwell too much on our own share in
it. Admit that the soul is immortal, but
that in the future state of existence there
is a break in the continuity of memory,
that one does not remember the present
life ; will it in that case matter to us
more what happens to the soul inhabiting
our body, than what happens to any
other soul ? And from this point of
view is not the importance of identity
involved in that of continuous memory ?
But however this may be, according to
the general view, the soul, though de
tached from the body, will retain its
conscious identity, and will awake from
death, as it does from sleep ; so that if
we cannot affirm that
“ Millions of spiritual creatures walk the Earth,
Unseen, both when we wake, and when we
sleep,” 1
at any rate they exist somewhere else in
space, and we are indeed looking at them
when we gaze at the stars, though to our
eyes they are as yet invisible.
In neither case, however, can death be
regarded as an evil. To wish that health
and strength were unaffected by time
might be a different matter.
1 Milton.
�THE DESTINY OF MAN
CHAP. XIII
“But if we are not destined to be
immortal, yet it is a desirable thing for a
man to expire at his fit time. For, as
nature prescribes a boundary to all other
things, so does she also to life. Now old
age is the consummation of life, just as of
a play : from the fatigue of which we
ought to escape, especially when satiety is
superadded.” 1
From this point of view, then, we need
“ Weep not for death,
’Tis but a fever stilled,
A pain suppressed,—a fear at rest,
A solemn hope fulfilled.
The moonshine on the slumbering deep
Is scarcely calmer. Wherefore weep ?
105
“ We are such stuff
As dreams are made of, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.” 1
According to the more general view
death frees the soul from the encumbrance
of the body, and summons us to the seat
of judgment. In fact,
“ There is no Death ! What seems so is transi
tion ;
This life of mortal breath
Is but a suburb of that life elysian,
Whose portal we call Death.” 2
We have bodies, we are spirits. “ I am
a soul,” said Epictetus, “ dragging about
a corpse.” The body is the mere perish
able form of the immortal essence. Plato
“ Weep not for death !
! concluded that if the ways of God are to
The fount of tears is sealed,
be justified, there must be a future life.
Who knows how bright the inward light
To those closed eyes revealed ?
To the aged in either case death is a
Who knows what holy love may fill
release. The Bible dwells most forcibly
The heart that seems so cold and still.”
on the blessing of peace. “ My peace I
Many a weary soul will have recurred give unto you : not as the ■world giveth,
give I unto you.” Heaven is described
with comfort to the thought that
I as a place where the wicked cease from
“ A few more years shall roll,
| troubling, and the weary are at rest.
A few more seasons come,
But I suppose every one must have
And we shall be with those that rest
asked himself in what can the pleasures
Asleep within the tomb.
of heaven consist.
“ A few more struggles here.
A few more partings o’er,
A few more toils, a few more tears,
And we shall weep no more.”
“ For all we know
Of what the blessed do above
Is that they sing, and that they love.” 3
By no one has this, however, been
It would indeed accord with few men’s
more grandly expressed than by Shelley. ideal that there should be any “struggle
for existence ” in heaven. We should then
“ Peace, peace ! he is not dead, he doth not be little better off than we are now. This
sleep 1
world is very beautiful, if we would only
He hath awakened from the dream of life.
enjoy it in peace. And yet mere passive
’Tis we who, lost in stormy visions, keep
With phantoms an unprofitable strife,
existence—mere vegetation—would in
He has outsoared the shadows of our night.
itself offer few attractions.
It would
Envy and calumny, and hate and pain,
indeed be almost intolerable.
And that unrest which men miscall delight,
Again, the anxiety of change seems
Can touch him not and torture not again.
From the contagion of the world’s slow stain inconsistent with .perfect happiness ; and
He is secure, and now can never mourn
I yet a wearisome, interminable monotony,
A heart grown cold, a head grown gray, in
1 the same thing over and over again for
vain—”
ever and ever without relief or variety,
Most men, however, decline to believe I suggests dulness rather than delight.
that
1 Cicero.
1 Shakespeare.
2 Longfellow.
3 Waller.
�106
THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
PART II
“For still the doubt came back,—Can God misconceiving us, or being harassed by us :
provide
—of glorious work to do, and adequate
For the large heart of man what shall not
faculties to do it—-a world of solved
pall,
problems, as well as of realised ideals.”
Nor through eternal ages’ endless tide
On tired spirits fall ?
| Cicero surely did not exaggerate when
he said, “ 0 glorious day ! when I shall
depart to that divine company and assem
blage of spirits, and quit this troubled and
polluted scene. For I shall go not only
to those great men of whom I have spoken
“ What shall the eyes that wait for him survey
When his own presence gloriously appears before, but also to my dear Cato, than
whom never was better man born, nor
In worlds that were not founded for a day,
But for eternal years ? ” 1
more distinguished for pious affection;
whose body was burned by me, whereas,
Here Science seems to suggest a on the contrary, it was fitting that mine
possible answer : the solution of problems should be burned by him. But his soul
which have puzzled us here; the acqui not deserting me, but oft looking back, no
sition of new ideas ; the unrolling the doubt departed to these regions whither it
history of the past; the world of animals saw that I myself was destined to come.
and plants; the secrets of space; the Which, though a distress to me, I seemed
wonders of the stars and of the regions patiently to endure : not that I bore it
beyond the stars. To become acquainted with indifference, but I comforted myself
with all the beautiful and interesting spots with the recollection that the separation
of our own world would indeed be some and distance between us would not con
thing to look forward to—and our world tinue long. For these reasons, O Scipio
is but one of many millions. I some (since you said that you with Laelius were
times ■wonder as I look away to the stars accustomed to wonder at this), old age is
at night whether it will ever be my tolerable to me, and not only not irksome,
privilege as a disembodied spirit to visit but even delightful. And if I am wrong
and explore them. When we had made in this, that I believe the souls of men to
the great tour fresh interests would have be immortal, I willingly delude myself:
arisen, and we might well begin again.
nor do I desire that this mistake, in
Here then is an infinity of interest which I take pleasure, should be wrested
without anxiety. So that at last the only from me as long as I live ; but if I, when
doubt may be
dead, shall have no consciousness, as some
narrow-minded philosophers imagine, I do
“ Lest an eternity should not suffice
To take the measure and the breadth and not fear lest dead philosophers should
height
ridicule this my delusion.”
Of what there is reserved in Paradise
Nor can I omit the striking passage
Its ever-new delight.”2
in the Apology, when, defending himself
I feel that to me, said Greg, “ God has before the people of Athens, Socrates says,
promised not the heaven of the ascetic “ Let us reflect in another way, and we
temper, or the dogmatic theologian, or of shall see that there is great reason to hope
the subtle mystic, or of the stern martyr that death is a good ; for one of two
ready alike to inflict and bear ; but a things—either death is a state of nothing
heaven of purified and permanent affec ness and utter unconsciousness, or, as men
tions—of a book of knowledge with eternal say, there is a change and migration of
leaves, and unbounded capacities to read the soul from this world to another.
it—of those we love ever round us, never Now if you suppose that there is no con
sciousness, but a sleep like the sleep of
him who is undisturbed even by dreams,
1 Trench.
2 Ibid.
“ These make him say,—If God has so arrayed
A fading world that quickly passes by,
Such rich provision of delight has made
For every human eye,
�CHAP. XIII
THE DESTINY OF MAN
107
death will be an unspeakable gain. For' to death for asking questions1; assuredly
if a person were to select the night in not. For besides being happier in that
which his sleep was undisturbed by world than in this, they will be immortal,
dreams, and were to compare with this if what is said be true.
the other days and nights of his life, and ’ “ Wherefore, O judges, be of good cheer
then were to tell us how many days and about death, and know of a certainty
nights he had passed in the course of his that no evil can happen to a good man,
life better and more pleasantly than this either in life or after death. He and his
one, I think that no man, I will not say a are not neglected by the gods ; nor has
private man, but not even the Great my own approaching end happened by
King, will find many such days or nights, mere chance. But I see clearly that to
when compared with the others. Now, die and be released was better for me;
if death is like this, I say that to die is and therefore the oracle gave no sign.
gain ; for eternity is then only a single For which reason, also, I am not angry
night. But if death is the journey to with my condemners, or with my accusers ;
another place, and there, as men say, they have done me no harm, although
all the dead are, what good, 0 my they did not mean to do me any good ;
friends and judges, can be greater than and for this I may gently blame them.
The hour of departure has arrived, and
this ?
“ If, indeed, when the pilgrim arrives in we go our ways—I to die and you to
the world below, he is delivered from the live. Which is better God only knows.’’
professors of justice in this world, and , In the Wisdom of Solomon we are
finds the true judges, who are said to promised that—
give judgment there,—Minos, and Rhada“ The souls of the righteous are in the
manthus, and yEacus, and Triptolemus, hand of God, and there shall no torment
and other sons of God who were righteous touch them.
in their own life,—that pilgrimage will
“ In the sight of the unwise they
indeed be worth making. What would seemed to die ; and their departure is
not a man give if he might converse with taken for misery.
Orpheus, and Musseus, and Hesiod, and
“ And their going from us to be utter
Homer ? Nay, if this be true, let me die destruction ; but they are in peace.
again and again. I myself, too, shall have
“ For though they be punished in the
a wonderful interest in there meeting and sight of men, yet is their hope full of
conversing with Palamedes, and Ajax the immortality.
son of Telamon, and other heroes of old,
“ And having been a little chastised,
who have suffered death through an unjust they shall be greatly rewarded : for God
judgment ; and there will be no small proved them, and found them worthy for
pleasure, as I think, in comparing my own himself.”
sufferings with theirs. Above all, I shall
And assuredly, if in the hour of death
then be able to continue my search into the conscience is at peace, the mind need
true and false knowledge ; as in this I not be troubled. The future is full of
world, so also in that ; and I shall find doubt, indeed, but fuller still of hope.
out who is wise, and who pretends to be
If we are entering upon a rest after the
wise, and is not. What would not a man struggles of life,
give, O judges, to be able to examine the ,
leader of the great Trojan expedition; |
“ Where the wicked cease from troubling,
And the weary are at rest,”
or Odysseus or Sisyphus, or numberless ;
others, men and women too 1 What in
that to many a weary soul will be a
finite delight would there be in conversing
with them and asking them questions.
1 Referring to the cause of his own condemna
In another world they do not put a man tion.
�108
THE PLEASURES OF LIFE
PART II
welcome bourne, and even then we may read and enjoyed, but those also whom
say,
we have loved and lost; when we shall
“ 0 Death ! where is thy sting ?
leave behind us the bonds of the flesh and
0 Grave ! where is thy victory ? ”
the limitations of our earthly existence ;
On the other hand, if, trusting humbly when we shall join the Angels, the Arch
but confidently in the goodness of an angels, and all the company of Heaven,—
Almighty and loving Father, we are then, indeed, we may cherish a sure and
entering on a new sphere of existence, certain hope that the interests and
where we may look forward to meet not pleasures of this world are as nothing,
only those Great Men of whom we have compared to those of the life that awaits
heard so much, those whose works we have us in our Eternal Home.
THE END
Printed by R. & R. Clark, Limited, Edinburgh
�THREE INTERESTING BOOKS: READ THEM.
THE SCOURGE OF GOD: A Romance of Religious Persecution.
By J. BLOUN-
DELLE-BURTON. Crown Svo, cloth, 6s.
■ “Mr. Burton has both pathos and fire at his command.”—Western Morning News.
“ This splendid story. . . . We can
■ heartily recommend the book to all who love the reading of a good historical novel in which the times and scenes of the
■ period written about are faithfully reflected. The notorious Baville is drawn with a master hand ; the heroine of the story
K is charmingly portrayed.”—The Methodist Times. “ The Scourge of God marks the high-water line of Mr. Bloundelle-Burton’s
I achievement as a writer of historical romance.”—The Daily Mail.
“A fascinating story.”—Dundee Advertiser.
Pictures of Lancashire Life.
[ THE SCOWCROFT CRITICS.
By JOHN ACKWORTH, Author of “ Clog-shop Chronicles,”
and “ Beckside Lights.” Crown Svo, art linen, gilt top, 3s. 6d. Clog-shop Chronicles is now in its Tenth Thousand.
“One of the most delightful series of Lancashire idylls that has yet been written.”—Dundee Advertiser.
New Work
by
Marianne Farninoham.
A WINDOW IN PARIS: A Romance of the Days of the Franco-German War.
Based upon Fact. By MARIANNE FARNINGHAM. Crown Svo, cloth, 5s. The story falls in the days of the
I Siege of Paris and the Commune, and is based on materials gathered from those who lived through that awful time.
“ .Any book from the pen of Marianne Farningham is sure of a warm welcome. A Window in Paris is a romance, but it is
r also history ; it may fairly be termed a fascinating and stirring chapter from the romance of history. The book, as may well be
I anticipated from the name of the publishers, is beautifully printed on good paper and is nicely bound.”—Northampton Reporter.
____ _______________ JAMES CLARKE AND CO., 13 AND 14 FLEET STREET, LONDON, E.C.
A BEAUTIFUL 10/6 TEACHER’S BIBLE FOR 4/11
POST FREE.
Size 7 inches by 5 inches.
rpHIS Bible is handsomely bound in soft, flexible Leather, with overlapping edges, printed in a clear, large type. It is
furnished with a valuable “Bible Readers’ Manual” of 300 pages, edited by Rev. Charles H. H. Wright, D.D., and
contributed to by such experts in Biblical learning as Professors Adam Smith, A. B. Davidson, Owen C. Whitehouse, Dr.
Stainer, Canon Fausset, Mr. F. G. Pinches (British Museum), Rev. J. B. Heard, M.A. (late Hulsean Lecturer), President
Harper (of Chicago University), and Major Condor. Illustrations of inscriptions, coins, MSS., mummies, &c., are numerous,
and there is a concordance and an atlas. Send 4s. lid. to Manager, when you will receive, carriage paid, this beautiful
Bible, securely packed in a box ; or 6s. 6d. for a superior Morocco Binding. Abroad 6d. extra.
A customer writes“I am not only satisfied, but delighted with it.”
also
5000 BIBLES AT HALF-PRICE ! ! !
p0Sl^EE
THE LONDON BIBLE WAREHOUSE, 53 PATERNOSTER ROW.
E. BROWN & SON’S
BOOT PREPARATIONS
SOLD EVERYWHERE.
MELTONIAN BLACKING
(As used in the Royal
Househjold)
Renders the Boots Soft,
Durable, and Waterproof.
MELTONIAN CREAM
(White or Black)
Cannot be equalled for
Renovating all kinds
of Cace Kid Boots and
buoes.
ROYAL LUTETIAN i NONPAREIL DE 6UICHE
Parisian Polish
CREAM.
(For Varnishing Dress Boots
The best for Cleaning i
and Shoes)
and Polishing Russian i
and Brown Leather
is more elastic and easier to use
Boots, Tennis Shoes,&c. j
than any other.
7 GARRICK STREET, LONDON, W.C.; and at 26 RUE BERGERE, PARIS,
�MACMILLAN AND CO.’S SIXPENNY ISSU^
OF
POPULAR COPYRIGHT WORKS BY WELL-KNOWN AUTHORS.
THE PLEASURES OF LIFE.
By
the
Rt. Hon. SIR JOHN LUBBOCK, Bart., M.P., F.R.S., D.C.L., LL.D.
THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS AND WHAT ALICE FOUND
THERE. By LEWIS CARROLL.
With Fifty Illustrations by John Tenniel.
ALICE’S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND.
By LEWIS CARROLL.
With Forty-two Illustrations by John Tenniel.
THE COURTSHIP OF MORRICE BUCKLER.
By A. E. W. MASON.
Punch. — “ Readers will, unless gratitude be extinct, thank me for my strong recommendation as to
the excellent entertainment provided for them in The Courtship of Morrice Buckler."
MR. ISAACS: A TALE OF MODERN INDIA.
By F. MARION CRAWFORD.
Athenaeum.—“A work of unusual ability. . . . It fully deserves the notice it is sure to attract.”
KIRSTEEN: The Story of a Scotch Family Seventy Years Ago.
By MRS. OLIPHANT. ■
Daily Chronicle.—“This story of Mrs. Oliphant’s is one not to be passed over.”
DOYE IN THE EAGLE’S NEST.
By CHARLOTTE M. YONGE.
Spectator.—“A pretty story nicely told, with an interesting plot.”
By CHARLES KINGSLEY.
WESTWARD HO!
HYPATIA.
ALTON LOCKE.
YEAST.
HEREWARD THE WAKE.
TWO YEARS AGO.
Athenaeum. — “The publishers deserve great credit for their enterprise and taste.”
SELECTED POEMS, including IN MEMORIAM.
By ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON.
[February 24.
ENOCH ARDEN, THE PRINCESS, MAUD.
By ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON.
[March 24.
To be followed by
MY FRIEND JIM.
By W. E. NORRIS.
MISUNDERSTOOD.
By FLORENCE MONTGOMERY.
A CIGARETTE-MAKER’S ROMANCE.
By F. MARION CRAWFORD.
THE FOREST LOVERS: a Romance.
By MAURICE HEWLETT.
MACMILLAN AND CO.. LIMITED, LONDON
.
�BY RUDYARD KIPLING.
| The Day’s Work.
Forty-third Thousand.
6s.
Crown 8vo.
DAILY NEWS.— “They have all his strength.”
■ Plain Tales from the Hills.
Thirty-seventh Thousand.
Crown 8vo.
6s.
SATURDAY REVIEW.—“Mr. Kipling knows and appreciates the English in India, and is a
y born story-telier and a man of humour into the bargain. ... It would be hard to find better reading.”
B The Light that Failed.
b
Rewritten and considerably enlarged.
S Life’s Handicap. Being Stories of Mine Own People.
t
Twenty-sixth
Thousand. Crown 8vo. 6s.
ACADEMY.—“Whatever else be true of Mr. Kipling, it is the first truth about him that he has
power, real intrinsic power. . . . Mr. Kipling’s work has innumerable good qualities.”
Twenty-seventh Thousand.
Crown 8vo. 6s.
BLACK AND WHITE.—“ Life's Handicap contains much of the best work hitherto accomplished
by the author, and, taken as a whole, is a complete advance upon its predecessors.”
It Many Inventions.
Twenty-fourth Thousand.
Crown 8vo.
6s.
PALL MALL GAZETTE.—“The completest book that Mr. Kipling has yet given us in work | manship, the weightiest and most humane in breadth of view. ... It can only be regarded as a
| fresh landmark in the progression of his genius.”
I Wee Willie Winkie, and other Stories.
I Soldiers Three, and other Stories.
Crown 8vo.
Crown 8vo.
6s.
6s.
GLOBE.—“ Containing some of the best of his highly vivid work.”
1 “ Captains Courageous.” A Story
of the
Grand Banks.
Illustrated by I. W.
Taber. Twenty-second Thousand. Crown 8vo, Cloth gilt. 6s.
ATHENAEUM.—“ Never in English prose has the sea in all its myriad aspects, with all its sounds
HI and sights and odours, been reproduced with such subtle skill as in these pages.”
Soldier Tales. With Illustrations by A. S. Hartrick.
Ninth Thousand.
Crown
8vo. 6s.
ATHENAEUM.—“By issuing a reprint of some of the best of Mr. Kipling’s Soldier Tales, Messrs.
Macmillan have laid us all under an obligation.”
The Jungle Book.
With Illustrations by J. L. Kipling, W. H. Drake, and P.
Frenzeny. Fortieth Thousand. Crown 8vo, Cloth gilt. 6s.
PUNCH.—“ ‘ JEsop’s Fables and dear old Brer Fox and Co.,’ observes the Baron sagely, ‘may have
suggested to the fanciful genius of Rudyard Kipling the delightful idea, carried out in the most
fascinating style, of The Jungle Boole.' ”
The Second Jungle Book.
With Illustrations by J. Lockwood Kipling.
Twenty
ninth Thousand. Crown 8vo, Cloth gilt. 6s.
DAILY TELEGRAPH.—“The appearance of The Second Jungle Book is a literary event of which
no one will mistake the importance. Unlike most sequels, the various stories comprised in the new
volume are at least equal to their predecessors.”
A Fleet in Being. Notes
of
Two Trips
with the
Channel Squadron.
Twenty
ninth Thousand. Crown 8vo. Sewed, Is. net; Cloth, Is. 6d. net.
SPECTATOR.—“We have put up our signpost to Mr. Kipling’s wonderful little book, and bid the
English-speaking world read and not miss a real delight.”
i The Kipling Birthday Book.
Compiled by Joseph Finn.
Authorised by the
Author, with Illustrations by J. Lockwood Kipling. 16mo. 2s. 6d.
STANDARD.—“ Will make a welcome present to girls. Mr. Finn has done his work exceedingly
well.”
MACMILLAN AND CO., Ltd., LONDON.
�BY SIR JOHN LUBBOCK, BART.
The Scenery of Switzerland, and the Causes to which it is Due.
6s.
Crown 8vo.
The Use Of Life.
sewed, Is.
Forty-third Thousand.
Library Edition.
3s. 6d.
The Beauties of Nature.
The Pleasures of Life.
Popular Edition.
sewed, Is.
Cloth, Is. 6d.
Part I.
The Pleasures of Life.
millan and Co., Ltd.)
Is. 6d. ;
Crown 8vo.
6s.
Library Edition.
New
(Macmillan and Co., Ltd.)
Paper, Is.
One hundred and twenty-eighth Thousand.
Part II.
3s. 6d.
Library Edition.
Popular Edition.
Thirty - eighth Thousand.
Is. 6d. ; sewed, Is.
The Pleasures of Life.
Globe 8vo.
(Macmillan and Co., Ltd.)
Globe 8vo.
Edition, without Illustrations.
8vo.
Third Edition.
(Macmillan and Co., Ltd.)
Globe
(Macmillan and Co., Ltd.)
3s. 6d.
Globe 8vo.
Eighty-sixth Thousand.
Is. 6d.;
(Macmillan and Co., Ltd.)
(Two Parts in one Vol.)
Sixpenny Edition.
Medium 8vo.
Scientific Lectures. Third Thousand.
8vo.
2s. 6d.
Globe 8vo.
(Mac
Sewed.
8s. 6d.
Addresses, Political and Educational.
(Macmillan and Co., Ltd.)
8s. 6d.
8vo.
(Macmillan and Co.,
Ltd.)
Fifty Years of Science.
Association, August 1881.
Being the Address delivered at York to the British
Fifth Edition.
8vo.
2s. 6d.
(Macmillan and Co., Ltd.)
British Wild Flowers, considered in Relation to Insects.
Illustrations.
Nature Series.
Ninth Thousand.
Flowers, Fruits, and Leaves.
Thousand.
Crown 8vo.
4s. 6d.
Crown 8vo.
With Illustrations.
Seventh Thousand.
Nature Series.
Sixth
(Macmillan and Co., Ltd.)
The Origin and Metamorphoses of Insects.
Series.
With
(Macmillan and Co., Ltd.)
4s. 6d.
Crown 8vo.
3s. 6d.
On Seedlings. With 690 Illustrations.
With Illustrations.
Nature
(Macmillan and Co., Ltd.)-
Two Volumes.
36s,
8vo.
(Kegan Paul,
Trench and Co.)
On Seedlings.
Popular Edition.
With 282 Illustrations.
Crown 8vo.
(Kegan
Paul, Trench and Co.)
Ants, Bees, and Wasps.
5s.
With Illustrations.
Thirteenth Edition.
Crown 8vo.
(Kegan Paul, Trench and Co.)
On the Senses, Instincts, and Intelligence of Animals.
Reference to Insects. With 100 Illustrations.
Crown 8vo. 5s. (Kegan Paul, Trench and Co.)
International Scientific Series.
Chapters in Popular Natural History.
12mo.
Is. 6d.
Monograph on the Collembola and Thysanura.
With Special
Fourth Edition.
(National Society.)
1871.
(Ray Society.)
Prehistoric Times. As Illustrated by Ancient Remains and the Manners and Customs
of Modern Savages.
Fifth Edition.
8vo.
18s.
(Williams and Norgate.)
The Origin of Civilisation and the Primitive Condition of Man.
Fifth Edition.
8vo.
18s.
On Representation.
and Co.)
(Longmans, Green and Co.)
Sixth Edition.
Crown 8vo.
Is.
(Swan Sonnenschein
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The pleasures of life
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 108, [4] p. ; 22 cm.
Notes: Publisher's list and advertisements on unnumbered pages at the begining and end. Paper covers. Pictorial cover - portrait of author. Includes bibliographical references. Printed in double columns. Advertisements on preliminary pages and unnumbered pages at the end.
Contents: Part 1: The duty of happiness -- The happiness of duty -- A song of books -- The choice of books -- The blessing of friends -- The value of time -- The pleasures of travel -- The pleasures of home -- Science -- Education. Part 2: Ambition -- Wealth -- Health -- Love -- Art -- Poetry -- Music -- The beauties of nature -- The troubles of life -- Labour and rest -- Religion -- The hope of progress -- The destiny of man.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Lubbock, John
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1899
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Macmillan and Co. Limited
Subject
The topic of the resource
Philosophy
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br /><span>This work (The pleasures of life), identified by </span><span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk">Humanist Library and Archives</a></span><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
G2829
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Language
A language of the resource
English
Conduct of life
Education
Health
Life
Work
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/a6996fc5a9a2173153ea3c656f54bf0f.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=unRw7nHDVf5oCBTNRyIUG7ltUWdqXm4FDFliXRvJybG47-B4dotqQdIT7TK7d9SZQlfdnHdFUIQYdi0x9gUPU7a41Sw6sHL5%7EyEsMu6lzLHHuP3WuBe2Gz7KhYZXn8G57MksYsTVuuinyMOSJT1lYNCtr%7EuGR83ZPKP-JCFoHUDIkzRAUI3OeE87XOjG57fpDDxWG2Ob2QiST0ceKtE4eWv40vq%7En7lBEdJLRsP%7EetFLVT68uRhdeV-s4BmFMrY2iYvuG7X%7Ex-mAZclvR3agNuX06m6cCyYycR5x2idZa4lxGJfThOCfLgKf5%7EIhhF6JnE1zg05a0CBGDi9CcjmITQ__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
26f5dc226d037ac9b380754f3e3a6d95
PDF Text
Text
national secula&society
;m.
THE PHILOSOPHY
OF
SECULARISM.
BY
GE W. FOOTE.
Price Twopence,
London :
THE PIONEER PRESS,
61 Farringdon Street, E.C. 4.
�This pamphlet was originally published in 1879, and reissued
a few years later.
It is again published with such alterations
as the lapse of time has rendered advisable.
�0
Wis7
THE PHILOSOPHY OF SECULARISM.
The present age is one of theological thaw. The Re
formation is by some regarded as the most remarkable
and important religious movement of modern times;
while others consider as still more portentious that
sceptical movement of last century, which culminated
in the lightnings and thunders of the Revolution, and
finally cleared the intellectual atmosphere of its densest
and most oppressive clouds of superstition. But pro
bably it will be found that the nineteenth century, which
was not, as some writers seem to imagine, rudely severed
from its predecessor, has continued less tumultuously,
because amidst fewer impediments, the critical work of
the eighteenth, and is no less a period of religious dis
integration and reconstruction. Traditional beliefs are
being silently subverted by new agencies. Science, in
stead of critically attacking supernatural religion, has
surely and irretrievably sapped its foundations. The
-educated intelligence of to-day is not required to discuss
minor points of doctrine and ritual, or the internal dis
crepancies of revelation, but finds itself confronted with
the supreme all-subsuming question of whether the very
essentials of faith can be maintained in the presence of
the indubitable truths of science, and of the rigorous
habit of mind it engenders. Heretics, too, are less
vigorously cursed for their wicked obstinacy, a sure sign
of theological decadence. On the contrary, when they
happen to be eminent in science or literature they are
usually treated with marked respect; and the apologetic
tone, which heresy has long discarded, is now assumed
by those who have hitherto claimed to speak with
authority. If the Reformation broke the infallibility of
�4
THE PHILOSOPHY
the Pope, and secured liberty and progress for Pro
testants ; if the Revolution drove feudalism and mental
tyranny from their strongholds in France, and enlisted
the bright, quick French intellect once for all in the ser
vice of reason and freedom, it is no less true that the
scientific movement of our age, which is co-extensive
with civilization, is doing a vaster though not more
necessary work, and is slowly but surely preparing for
that great Future, whose lineaments none of us can pre
sume to trace, although here and there an aspect flashes
on some straining vision.
The old faiths ruin and rend, and the air is vocal with
the clamour of new systems, each protesting itself the
Religion of the Future. Sweet sentimental Deism
claims first attention, because it retains what is thought
to be the essence of old beliefs after discarding their
reality. Next perhaps comes Positivism,1 far nobler
and more vital, which manages to make itself well
heard, having a few strong and skilful pleaders, who
never lose sight of their creed whatever subject they
happen to be treating. But Secularism, which in England
at least is numerically far more important than Posi
tivism, although gladly heard by thousands of common
people, is insufficiently known in circles of highest
education where its principles are most powerfully
operant. Yet the word secular is entering more and
more into our general vocabulary, and in especial has
become associated with that view of national education
which denies the propriety of religious teaching in Board
1 Positivism is exceedingly well represented in England, and
there are many points of resemblance between Positivism and
Secularism. Indeed the resemblance would be almost complete if
the Positivists in ignoring theology did not make a god of Comte,
and with amazing disregard of that historic development they so
emphasize, venerate all his later aberrations, as though he or any
man could justly assume to prescribe the ways in which, through all
succeeding generations, a great idea shall realize itself in practice.
�OF SECULARISM.
5
Schools. This use of the word points to the principle
on which Secularism is based. The interests of this
world and life are secular, and can be estimated and
furthered by our unaided intellects; the interests of
another life and world can be dealt with only by ap
pealing to Revelation. Secularism proposes to cultivate
the splendid provinces of Time, leaving the theologians
to care for the realms of Eternity, and meaning to
interfere with them only while their pursuit of salvation in
another life hinders the attainment of real welfare in this.
Were I obliged to give an approximate definition of
Secularism in one sentence I should say that it is natur
alism in morals as distinguished from supernaturalism ;
meaning by this that the criterion of morality is derivable
from reason and experience, and that its ground and
guarantee exist in human nature independently of any
theological belief. Mr. G. J. Holyoake, whose name is
inseparably associated with Secularism, says : “ Secular
ism relates to the present existence of man and to actions
the issue of which can be tested by the experience of
this life.” And again: “ Secularism means the moral
duty of man deduced from considerations which pertain
to this life alone. Secularism purposes to regulate
human affairs by considerations purely human.” The
second of these quotations is clearly more comprehen
sive than the first, and is certainly a better expression
of the view entertained by the vast majority of Secu
larists. It dismisses theology from all control over the
practical affairs of this life, and banishes it to the region
of speculation. * The commonest intelligence may see
that this doctrine, however innocent it looks on paper, is
in essence and practice revolutionary. It makes a clean
sweep of all that theologians regard as most significant
and precious. Dr. Newman, in his Grammar of Assent,
writes : “ By Religion I mean the knowledge of God, of
his will, and of our duties towards him ” ; and he adds
�6
THE PHILOSOPHY
that the channels which Nature furnishes for our ac
quiring this knowledge “ teach us the Being and Attri
butes of God, our responsibility to him, our dependence
on him, our prospect of reward or punishment, to be
somehow brought about, according as we obey or dis
obey him.” A better definition of what is generally
deemed religion could not be found, and such religion as
this Secularism will have no concern with. From their
point of view orthodox teachers are justified in calling
it irreligious; but those Secularists who agree with
Carlyle that whoever believes in the infinite nature of
Duty has a religion, repudiate the epithet irreligious
just as they repudiate the epithet infidel, for the popular
connotation of both includes something utterly inap
plicable to Secularisrh as they understand it. Properly
speaking, they assert, Secularism is not irreligious, but
untheological; yet, as it entirely excludes from the
sphere of human duty what most people regard as
religion, it must explain and justify itself.
Secularism rejects theology as a guide and authority
in the affairs of this life because its pretentions are not
warranted by its evidence. Natural Theology, to use a
common but half-paradoxical phrase, never has been
nor can be aught but a body of speculation, admirable
enough in its way perhaps, but quite irreducible to the
level of experience. Indeed, one’s strongest impression
in reading treatises on that branch of metaphysics is
that they are not so much proofs as excuses of faith, and
would never have been written if the ideas sought to be
verified had not already been enounced in Revelation.
As for Revealed Religion, it is based upon miracles, and
these to the scientific mind are altogether inadmissible,
being terribly discredited. In the first place, they are
at variance with the general fact of order in Nature, the
largest vessel or conception into which all our experi
ences flow; adverse to that law of Universal Causation
�OF SECULARISM.
7
which underlies all scientific theories and guides all
scientific research. Next, the natural history of miracles
show us how they arise, and makes us view them as
phenomena of superstition, manifesting a certain co
herence and order because the human imagination which
gave birth to them is subject to laws however baffling
and subtle. All miracles had their origin from one and
the same natural source. The belief in their occurrence
invariably characterizes certain stages of mental develop
ment, and gradually fades away as these are left farther
and farther behind. They are not historical but psycho
logical phenomena, not actual but merely mental, not
proofs but results of faith. The miracles of Christianity
are no exception to this rule; they stand in the same
category as all others. As Matthew Arnold aptly ob
serves : “The time has come when the minds of men no
longer put as a matter of course the Bible miracles in a
class by themselves. Now, from the moment this time
commences, from the moment that the comparative
history of all miracles is a conception -entertained, and a
study admitted, the conclusion is certain, the reign of
the Bible miracles is doomed.” Lastly, miracles are
discredited for the reason that, if we admit them, they
prove nothing but the fact of their occurrence. If God
is our author, he has endowed us with reason, and to the
bar of that reason the utterances of the most astounding
miracle-workers must ultimately come; if condemned
there, the miracles will afford them no aid ; if approved
there, the miracles will be to them useless. Miracles,
then, are fatally discredited in every way. Yet upon
them all Revelations are founded, and even Christianity,
as Dr. Newman urged against the orators of the Tamworth Reading Room, “ is a history supernatural, and
almost scenic.” Thus if Natural Theology is merely
speculative and irreducible to the level of experience,
Revealed Religion, though more substantial, is erected
�THE PHILOSOPHY
upon a basis which modern science and criticism have
hopelessly undermined.
Now, if we relinquish belief in miracles we cannot
retain belief in Special Providence and the Efficacy of
Prayer, for these are simply aspects of the miraculous.1
Good-natured Adolf Naumann, the young German
artist in Middlemavch, was not inaccurate though
facetious in assuring Will Ladislaw that through him,
as through a particular hook or claw, the universe was
straining towards a certain picture yet to be printed:
for every present phenomenon, whether trivial or im
portant, occurs here and now, rather than elsewhere and
at some other time, by virtue of the whole universal
past. All the forces of Nature have conspired to place
where it is the smallest grain of sand on the sea-shore,
just as much as their interplay has strewn the aether floated constellations of illimitable space. The slightest
interference with natural sequence implies a disruption
of the whole economy of things. Who suspends one
law of Nature suspends them all. The pious supplicator
for just a little rain in time of drought really asks for a
world-wide revolution in meteorology. And the dullest
intellects, even of the clerical order, are beginning to see
this. As a consequence, prayers for rain in fine weather,
or for fine weather in time of rain, have fallen almost
entirely into disuse; and the most orthodox can now
enjoy that joke about the clerk who asked his rector
what was the good of praying for rain with the wind in
that quarter. Nay more, so far has belief in the efficacy
of prayer died out, that misguided simpletons who
1 We often hear Prayer defended on emotional grounds, not as
a practical request but as a spiritual aspiration. This, however,
merely proves the potency of habit. The “ Lord’s Prayer ” con
tains a distinct request for daily bread. The practice of prayer
originated when people believed that something could be got by
it, and those who pray now with so much belief are slaves to the
fashion of their ancestors.
�OF SECULARISM.
9
persist in conforming to apostolic injunction and prac
tice, and in taking certain very explicit passages in the
Gospels to mean what the words express, are regarded
as Peculiar People, in the fullest sense of the term ; and
if through their primitive pathology children should die
under their hands, they run a serious risk of imprison
ment for manslaughter, notwithstanding that the book
which has misled them is declared to be God’s word by
the law of the land. Occasionally, indeed, old habits
assert themselves, and the nation suffers a recrudescence
of superstition. When the life of the Prince of Wales,
afterwards Edward VII., was threatened by a malignant
fever, prayers for his recovery were publicly offered up,
and the wildest religious excitement mingled with the
most loyal anxiety. But the newspapers were largely
responsible for this; they fanned the excitement daily
until many people grew almost as feverish as the Prince
himself, and “ irreligious ” persons who preserved their
sanity intact smiled when they read in the most unblushingly mendacious of those papers exclamations of
piety and saintly allusions to the great national wave of
prayer surging against the Throne of Grace. The
Prince’s life was spared, thanks to a good constitution
and the highest medical skill, and a national thanks
giving was offered up at St. Paul’s. Yet the doctors
were not forgotten; the chief of them was made a
knight, and the nation demanded a rectification of the
drainage in the Prince’s palace, probably thinking that
although prayer had been found efficacious there might
be danger in tempting Providence a second time.
Soon after that interesting event Mr. Spurgeon
modestly observed that the philosophers were noisy
enough in peaceful times, but shrank into their holes
like mice when imminent calamity threatened the
nation; which may be true without derogation to the
philosophers, who, like wise men, do not bawl against
�10
THE PHILOSOPHY
popular madness, but reserve their admonitions until the
heated multitude is calm and repentent. Professor
Tyndal once invited the religious world to test the
alleged efficacy of prayer by a practical experiment,
such as allotting a ward in some hospital to be specially
prayed for, and inquiring whether more cures are re
corded in it than elsewhere. But this invitation was
not and never will be accepted. Superstitions always
dislike contact with science and fact; they prefer to
float about in the vague region of sentiment, where pur
suit is hopeless and no obstacles impede. If there is any
efficacy in prayer, how can we account for the disastrous
and repeated failures of righteous causes and the
triumph of bad ? The voice of human supplication has
ascended heavenwards in all ages from all parts of the
earth, but when has a hand been extended from behind
the veil ? The thoughtful poor have besought appease
ment of their terrible hunger for some nobler life than is
possible while poverty deadens every fine impulse and
frustrates every unselfish thought, but whenever did
prayer bring them aid ? The miserable have cried for
comfort, sufferers for some mitigation of their pain,
captives for deliverance, the oppressed for freedom, and
those who have fought the great fight of good against ill
for some ray of hope to lighten despair; but what
answer has been vouchsafed ?
What hope, what light
Falls from the farthest starriest way
On you that pray ?
*
*
*
*
Can ye beat off one wave with prayer,
Can ye move mountains ? bid the flower
Take flight and turn to a bird in the air ?
Can ye hold fast for shine or shower
One wingless hour ? 1
1 A. C. Swinburne, Felise.
*
�OF SECULARISM.
11
The dying words of Mr. Tennyson’s Arthur—“ More
things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams
of”—are a weak solace to those who recognize its
futility, and find life too stern for optimistic dreams.
Salvation, in this life at least, cometh not by prayer, but
by valiant effort under the guidance of wisdom and the
inspiration of love. Knowledge alone is power. Igno
rant of Nature’s laws, we are broken to pieces and
ground to dust; knowing them, we win an empire of
enduring civilization within her borders. Recognizing
the universal reign of law and the vanity of supplicating
its reversal, and finding no special clause in the stafutes
of the universe for man’s behoof, Secularism dismisses
as merely superstitious the idea of an arbitrary special
providence, and affirms Science to be the only available
Providence of Man.
Thus theological conceptions obtruded upon the
sphere of. secular interests are one by one expelled.
We now come to the last, and, as the majority of
people think, the most serious and important—namely,
the doctrine of a Future life and of Future Reward
and Punishment. Secularism, as such, neither affirms
nor denies a future life ; it simply professes no knowledge
of such a state, no information respecting it which might
seive as a guide in the affairs of this life. The first
question to be asked concerning the alleged life beyond
the grave is, Do we know aught about it ? If there were
indisputably a future life in store for us all, and that life
immortal, and if we could obtain precise information of
its actualities and requirements, then indeed the trans
cendence of eternal over temporal interests would impel
us to live here with a view to the great Hereafter. But
have we any knowledge of this future life ? Mere conjec
tures will not suffice ; they may be true, but more pro
bably false, and we cannot sacrifice the certain to the
uncertain, or forgo the smallest present happiness for
�12
THE PHILOSOPHY
the sake of some imagined future compensation. Have
we any knowledge of a life beyond the grave ? The
Secularist answers decisively, No.
Whatever the progress of science or philosophy may
hereafter reveal, at present we know nothing of personal
immortality. The mystery of Death, if such there be,
is yet unveiled, and inviolate still are the secrets of the
grave. Science knows nothing of another life than this.
When we are dead she sees but decomposing matter,
and while • we live she regards us but as the highest
order of animal life, differentiated from other orders by
•clearly defined characteristics, but separated from them
by no infinite impassable chasm. Neither can Philo
sophy enlighten us. She reveals to us the laws of what
we call mind, but cannot acquaint us with any second
entity called soul. Even if we accept Schopen
hauer’s1 theory of will, and regard man as a con
scious manifestation of the one supreme force, we are
no nearer to personal immortality; for, if our soul
emerged at birth from the unconscious infinite, it
will probably immerge therein at death, just as a wave
rises and flashes foam-crested in the sun, and plunges
back into the ocean for ever. Indeed, the doctrine of
man’s natural immortality is so incapable of proof that
many eminent Christians even are abandoning it in
favour of the doctrine that everlasting life is a gift
specially conferred by God upon the faithful elect.
Their appeal is to Revelation, by which they mean the
New Testament, all other Scriptures being to them
gross impositions. But can Revelation satisfy the
critical modern spirit ? When we can interrogate her,
1 Schopenhauer was one of the most powerful and original
thinkers of his century, and his intellectual honesty is surprising
in such a flaccid and insincere age. A physical fact worthy of
notice is that his brain was the largest on record, not even ex
cepting Kant’s.
�OF SECULARISM.
13
discord deafens us. Every religion—nay, every sect
of religion—draws from Revelation its own peculiar
answer, and accepts it as infallibly true, although
widely at variance with others derived from the same
source. The answers cannot all be true, and their
very discord discredits each. The voice of God should
give forth no such uncertain tidings. If he had indeed
spoken, the universe would surely be convinced, and
the same conviction fill every breast. Even, however,
if Revelation proclaimed but one message concerning
the future, and that message were similarly interpreted
by all religions, we could not admit it as quite trust
worthy, although we might regard it as a vague forshortening of the truth. For Revelation, unless every,
genius be considered an instrument through which
eternal music is conveyed, must ultimately rely on
miracles, and these the modern spirit has decisively
rejected. Thus, then, it appears that neither Science,
Philosophy, nor Revelation, affords us any knowledge
of a future life. Yet, in order to guide our present
life with a view to the future, such knowledge is indis
pensable. In the absence of it we must live in the
light of the present, basing our conduct on Secular
reason, and working for Secular ends. How far this
is compatible with elevated morality and noble idealism
we shall presently inquire and decide. Intellectually,
Secularism is at one with the most advanced thought
of our age, and no immutable dogmas preclude it from
accepting and incorporating any new truth. Science
being the only providence it recognizes, it is ever
desirous to see and to welcome fresh developments
thereof, assured that new knowledge must harmonize
with the old, and deepen and broaden the civilization
of our race.
In morals Secularism is utilitarian. In this world
only two ethical methods are possible. Either we
�14
THE PHILOSOPHY
must take some supposed revelation of God’s will as
the measure of our duties, or we must determine our
actions with a view to the general good. The former
course may be very pious, but is assuredly unphilosophical. As Feuerbach1 insists, to derive morality from
God “ is nothing more than to withdraw it from the
test of reason, to institute it as indubitable, unassail
able, sacred, without rendering an account why.”
Stout old Chapman’s2 protest against confounding
the inherent nature of good is also memorable:—
“ Should heaven turn hell
For deeds well done, I would do ever well.”
Secularism adopts the latter course. Were it necessary,
■ a defence of utilitarian morality against theological
abuse might here be made; but an ethical system
which can boast so many noble and illustrious ad
herents may well be excused from vindicating its right
to recognition and respect. Nevertheless, it may be
observed that, however fervid are theoretical objections
to utilitarianism, its criterion of morality is the only one
admitted in practice. Our jurisprudence is not required
1 Feuerbach’s Essence of Christianity, from which I quote, was
translated from the German by Marian Evans (George Eliot).
This remarkable work deserves and will amply require a careful
study. The thoroughness with which Feuerbach applied his
subtle psychological method to the dogmas of Christianity
accounts for the hatred of him more than once expressed by
Mansel in his notes to the famous Bampton Lectures.
2 George Chapman was one of those lofty austere natures that
put to scorn the flabbiness which a sentimental Christianity does
so much to foster ; as it were, some fine old Pagan spirit rein
carnate in an Englishman of the great Elizabethan age. His
“ Byron’s Conspiracy ” furnished Shelley with the magnificent
motto of The Revolt of Islam :—
There is no danger to a man that knows
What life and death is : there’s not any law
Exceeds his knowledge ; neither is it lawful
That he should stoop to any other law.
�OF SECULARISM.
75
to justify itself before any theological bar, nor to show
its conformity with the maxims uttered by Jesus and his
disciples; and he would be thought a strange legislator
who should insist on testing the value of a Parliamentary
Bill by appealing to the New Testament. Secularism
holds that whatever actions conduce to the general good
are right, and that whatever have an opposite tendency
are wrong. Manifold objections are urged against this
simple rule on the ground of its impracticability ; but as
all of them apply with equal force to every conceivable
rule, they may be peremptorily dismissed. The imper
fections of human nature must affect the practicability
of any moral law, however conceived or expressed.
Christians who wrote before Secularism had to be com
bated never thought of maintaining that reason and
experience are inefficient guides, though they did some
times impugn the efficacy of natural motives to good.1
So thoughtful and cautious a preacher as Barrow, whom
Mr. Arnold accounts the best moral divine of our
English Church, plainly says that “ wisdom is, in effect,
the genuine parent of all moral and political virtue,
justice, and honesty.”2 But some theologically minded
persons, whose appearance betrays no remarkable signs
of asceticism, wax eloquent in reprobation of happiness
as a sanction of morality at all. Duty, say they, is
what all should strive after. Good ; but the Secularist
conceives it his duty to promote the general welfare.
Happiness is not a degrading thing, but a source of
1 Darwin, Spencer, and nearly all the rest of our modern Evolu
tionists, believe morality to have had a natural origin. Mr. Wake,
however, in his valuable work. The Evolution of Morality, while
admitting and powerfully illustrating its natural development,
apparently holds that its origin was supernatural, the germs of
all the virtues having been divinely implanted in our primitive
ancestors! Evidently the old superstition about “the meat-roasting
power of the meat-jack ” is not yet altogether extinct.
2 Sermon on “ The Pleasantness of Religion.”
�16
THE PHILOSOPHY
elevation. We have all enjoyed that wonderful cate
chism of Pig-Philosophy in Latter-Day Pamphlets. What
a scathing satire on the wretched Jesuitism abounding
within and without the Churches, and bearing such
malign and malodorous fruit! But it is not the neces
sary antithesis to the Religion of Sorrow. It is the
mongrel makeshift of those “ whose gospel is their
maw,’ whose swinish egotism makes them contemplate
Nature as a Universal Swine’s-Trough, with plenty of
pig’s-wash for those who can thrust their fellows aside
and get their paw in it. The Religion of Gladness is a
different thing from this. Let us hear its great prophet
Spinoza, one of the purest and noblest of modern
minds: “Joy is the passage from a less to a greater
perfection ; sorrow is the passage from a greater to a
less perfection.” No; suffering only tries, it does not
nourish us ; it proves our capacity, but does not produce
it. What, after all, is happiness ? It consists in the
fullest healthy exercise of all our faculties, and is as
various as they. Far from ignoble, it implies the
highest moral development of our nature, the dream of
Utopists from Plato downwards. And, therefore, in
affirming happiness to be the great purpose of social
life, Secularism makes its moral law coincident with the
law of man’s progress towards attainable perfection.
Motives to righteousness Secularism finds in human
nature. Since the evolution of morality has been traced
by scientific thinkers the idea of our moral sense having
had a supernatural origin has vanished into the limbo
of superstitions. Our social sympathies are a natural
growth, and] may be indefinitely developed in the future
by the same' means which has developed them in the
past. Morality and theology are essentially distinct.
The ground and guarantee of morality are independent
of any theological belief. When we are in earnest
about the right we need no incitement from above.
�OF SECULARISM.
17
Morality has its natural ground in experience and
reason, in the common nature and common wants of
mankind. Wherever sentient beings live together in a
social state, simple or complex, laws of morality must
arise, for they are simply the permanent conditions of
social health; and even if men entertained no belief in
any supernatural power, they would still recognize and
submit to the laws upon which societary welfare depends.
“ Even,” says Dr. Martineau,1 “ though we came out of
nothing, and returned to nothing, we should be subject
to the claim of righteousness so long as we are what we
are: morals have their own base, and are second to
nothing.” Emerson, a religious transcendentalist, also
admits that “ Truth, frankness, courage, love, humility,
and all the virtues, range themselves on the side of
prudence, or the art of securing a present well-being.” 2
The love professed by piety to God is the same feeling,
though differently directed, which prompts the com
monest generosities and succors of daily life. All moral
appeals must ultimately be made to our human sympa
thies. Theological appeals are essentially not moral,
but immoral. The hope of heaven and the fear of hell
are motives purely personal and selfish. Their tendency
is rather to make men worse than better. They may
secure a grudging compliance with prescribed rules, but
they must depress character instead of elevating it,
They tend to concentrate a man’s whole attention on
himself, and thus to develop and intensify his selfish
propensities. No man, as Dr. Martineau many years
ago observed, can faithfully follow his highest moral
■conceptions who is continually casting side glances at
the prospects of his own soul. Secularism appeals to
no lust after posthumous rewards or dread of posthu
mous terrors, but to that fraternal feeling which is the
1 Nineteenth Century, April, 1877.
Essay on Prudence.
�18
THE PHILOSOPHY
essence of all true religion, and has prompted
heroic self-sacrifice in all ages and climes. It removes
moral causation from the next world to this. It teaches
that the harvest of our sowing will be reaped here, and
to the last grain eaten, by ourselves or others. Every
act of our lives affects the whole subsequent history of
our race. Our mental and moral, like our bodily lungs,
have their appropriate atmospheres, of which every
thought, word, and act, becomes a constituent atom.1
Incessantly around us goes on the conflict of good and
evil, which a word, a gesture, a look of ours changes.
And we cannot tell how great may be the influence of
the least of these, for in Nature all things hang together,
and the greatest effects may flow from causes seemingly
slight and inconsiderable.2 When we thoroughly lay
this to heart, and reflect that no contrition or remorse
a ital
1 Wherever men are gathered, all the air
Is charged with human feeling, human thought;
Each shout and cry and laugh, each curse and prayer
Are into its vibrations surely wrought;
Unspoken passion, wordless meditation,
Are breathed into it with our respiration ;
It is with our life fraught and overfraught.
So that no man there breathes earth’s simple breath
As if alone on mountains or wide seas ;
But nourishes warm life or hastens death
With joys and sorrows, health and foul disease,
Wisdom and folly, good and evil labours
Incessant of his multitudinous neighbours ;
He in his turn affecting all of these.
—James Thomson, “ City of Dreadful Night."
2 The importance of individual action, even on the part of the
meanest, is well expressed by George Eliot in the concluding sen
tence of Middlemarch : “ The growing good of the world is partly
dependent on unhistoric acts ; and that things are not so ill withyou and me as they might have been, is half owing to the numbers,
who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.”
Even more memorable is the great saying attributed to Krishna,—
“ He who does nothing stays the progress of the world.”
�OF SECULARISM.
19
can undo the past or efface the slightest record from the
everlasting Book of Fate, we shall be more strongly re
strained from evil and impelled to good than we could
be by supernatural promises or threats. The promises
may be mistrusted, the threats nullified by a late repent
ance ; but the natural issues of conduct are inevitable
and must be faced. Whatever the future may hold in
store, Secularism bids us be true to ourselves and our
opportunities now. It does not undertake to determine
the vexed question of God’s existence, which it leaves
each to decide for himself according to what light he
has ; nor does it dogmatically deny the possibility of a
future life. But it insists on utilizing to the highest the
possibilities that lie before us, and realizing so far as
may be by practical agencies that Earthly Paradise
which would now be less remote if one-tithe of the time,
the energy, the ability, the enthusiasm, and the wealth
devoted to making men fit candidates for another life
had been devoted to making them fit citizens of this. If
there be a future life, this must be the best preparation
for it; and if not, the consciousness of humane work
achieved and duty done, will tint with rainbow and orient
colours the mists of death more surely than expected
glories from the vague and mystic land of dreams.
There are those who cannot believe in any effective
morality, much less any devotion to disinterested aims,
without the positive certainty of immortal life. Under
a pretence of piety they cloak the most grovelling
estimate of human nature, which, with all its faults, is
infinitely better than their conception of it. Even their
love and reverence of God would seem foolishness un-’
less they were assured of living for ever. Withdraw
posthumous hopes and fears, say they, and “ let us eat
and drink for to-morrow we die ” would be the sanest
philosophy. In his grave way Spinoza satirizes this
“ vulgar opinion,” which enjoins a regulation of life
�.20
THE PHILOSOPHY
according to the passions by those who have “ persuaded
themselves that the souls perish with the bodies, and
that there is not a second life for the -miserable who have
borne the crushing weight of piety ” ; “ a conduct,” he adds,
“ as absurd, in my opinion, as that of a man who should
fill his body with poisons and deadly food, for the fine
reason that he had no hope to enjoy wholesome nourish
ment for all eternity, or who, seeing that the soul is not
eternal or immortal, should renounce his reason, and
wish to become insane; things so preposterous that they
are scarcely worth mention.”
Others, again, deny that a philosophy which ignores
the infinite can have any grand ideal capable of lifting
us above the petty tumults and sordid passions of life.
But surely the idea of service to the great Humanity,
whose past and future are to us practically infinite, is
a conception vast enough for our finite minds. The
instincts of Love, Reverence, and Service may be fully
•exercised and satisfied by devotion to a purely human
ideal, without resort to unverifiable dogmas and inscrutible mysteries; and Secularism, which bids us
think and .act so that the great Human Family may
profit by our lives, which exhorts us to labour for human
progress and elevation here on earth, where effort may
be effective and sacrifices must be real, is more pro
foundly noble than any supernatural creed, and holds
the promise of a wider and loftier beneficence.
Secularism is often said to be atheistic. It is, how
ever, neither atheistic nor theistic. It ignores the pro
blem of God’s existence, which seems insoluble to finite
'intellects, and confines itself to the practical world of
experience, without commending or forbidding specula
tion on matters that transcend it. Unquestionably many
Secularists are Atheists, but others are Theists, and this
shows the compatibility of Secularism with either a
positive or a negative attitude towards the hypothesis of
�OF SECULARISM.
21
a supreme universal intelligence. There is no atheistic
declaration in the principles of any existing Secular
Society, although all are unanimous in opposing theology,
which is at best an elaborate conjecture, and at the
worst an elaborate and pernicious imposture.
Educated humanity has now arrived at the positive
stage of culture. Imagination, it is true, will ever
hold its legitimate province; but it is the kindling and
not the guiding element in our nature. When exercis
ing its proper influence it invests all things with “ a
light that never was on sea or land
it transforms
lust into love, it creates the ideal, it nurtures enthu
siasm, it produces heroism, it suggests all the glories of
art, and even lends wings to the intellect of the
scientist. But when it is substituted for knowledge,
when it aims at becoming the leader instead of the
kindler, is is a Phaeton who drives to disaster and ruin.
It is degrading, or at any rate perilous, to be the dupe
of fancy, however beautiful or magnificent. Reason
should always hold sovereign sway in our minds, and
reason tells us that we live in a universe of cause and
effect, where ends must be accomplished by means, and
where man himself is largely fashioned by circum
stances. Reason tells us that our faculties are limited
and that our knowledge is relative; it enjoins us to
believe what is ascertained, to give assent to no pro
position of whose truth we are not assured, and to walk
in the light of facts. This may seem a humble philo
sophy, but it is sound and not uncheerful, and it
stands the wear and tear of life when prouder philoso
phies are often reduced to rags and tatters. Nor is it
just to call this philosophy “ negative.” Every system,
indeed, is negative to every other system which it in
anywise contradicts ; but in what other sense can a
system be called negative, which leaves men all science
to study, all art to pursue and enjoy, and all humanity
�22
THE PHILOSOPHY
to love and serve ? It declines to traffic in supernatural
hopes and fears, but it preserves all the sacred things
of civilization, and gives a deeper meaning to such
words as husband and wife, father and mother, brother
and sister, lover and friend.
Incidentally, however, Secularism has what some will
always persist in regarding as negative work. It
finds noxious superstitions impeding its path, and
must oppose them. It cannot ignore orthodoxy,
although it would be glad to do so, for the dogmas and
pretensions of the popular . creed hinder its progress
and thwart Secular improvement at every step.
Favoured and privileged and largely supported by the
State, they usurp a fictitious dignity over less popular
ideas. They thrust themselves into education, insist
on teaching supernaturalism with the multiplication
table, dose the scholars with Jewish mythology as
though it were actual history, and assist their moral
development with pictures of Daniel in the lions’ den
and Jesus walking on the sea. They employ vast
wealth in preparing for another world, which might
be more profitably employed in bettering this. They
prevent us from spending our Sunday rationally^
refusing us any alternative but the church or the
public-house. They deprive honest sceptics so far as
possible of the common rights of citizenship.1 They
retard a host of reforms, and still do their utmost to
suppress or curtail freedom of thought and speech.
1 Nearly every leading Secularist has suffered in this respect.
Mr. G. J. Holyoake was imprisoned for blasphemy; Mr. Brad
laugh had to win the seat which Northampton gave him, by
means of almost superhuman energy and resource, in the face of
the most bigoted and brutal opposition ; Mrs. Besant was
robbed of her child' by an order of the Court of Chancery;
and it would be a false modesty not to add that I have
suffered twelve-months’ imprisonment as an ordinary criminal for
editing a Freethought journal.
�[OF SECULARISM.
23
While all this continues, Secularism must actively
oppose the popular creed. Nor is it just on the part
of Christians to stigmatize this aggressive attitude.
They forget that their faith was vigorously and per
sistently aggressive against' Paganism. Secularism
may surely imitate that example, although it neither
intends nor desires to demolish the temples of Chris
tianity as the early Christians, headed by their bishops,
destroyed the temples of Paganism and desecrated its
shrines.
Properly speaking, Secularism is doing a positive,
■not a negative, work in destroying superstition. Every
error removed makes room for a truth ; and if super
stition is a kind of mental disease, he who expels it is
a mental physician. His work is no more negative
than the doctor’s who combats a bodily malady, drives
it out of the system, and leaves his patient in the full
possession of health.
Secular propaganda, by means of lectures, journals,
and pamphlets, conducted for so many years, has pro
duced a considerable effect on the public mind. A great
change has been wrought during the past generation.
Much of it has been accomplished by science, but much
also by the energetic labours of Secular advocates.
Inquire closely into the personnel of advanced
movements, and you will find Secularists there out
of all proportion to their numerical strength. Where
Christians may be they are sure to be ; not because they
necessarily have better hearts than their orthodox
neighbours, but because their principles impel them to
fight for Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity, irrespective
of nationality, race, sex, or creed ; and prompt them to
exclaim, in the sublime language of Thomas Paine, “ the
world is my country, and to do good is my religion.”
�The Mother of God, by G. W. Foote.
Price Two
pence, postage |d.
Christianity and Progress, by G. W. Foote. Price
Twopence, postage |d.
1 Bible and Beer, by G. W. Foote. Price One Penny,
postage |d.
War and Civilization, by Chapman Cohen.
Price
One Penny, postage |d.
Religion and the Child, by Chapman Cohen. Price
One Penny, postage id.
God and Man, by Chapman Cohen. Price Threepence,
postage |d.
Deity and_ Design, by Chapman Cohen. Price One
Penny, postage |d.
Prayer: Its Origin, History, and Futility, by J. T.
Lloyd.
Price Twopence, postage id.
THE FREETHINKER.
Brilliant Articles by Capable Writers on
Religion, Literature, and Life.
PUBLISHED EVERY THURSDAY.
PRICE
TWOPENCE.
Printed and Published by The Pioneer Press (G. W. Foote
and Co., Ltd.), 61 Farringdon Street, London, E.C. 4.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The philosophy of secularism
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Foote, G. W. (George William) [1850-1915]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 23 p. ; 19 cm.
Notes: First published 1879: "reissued a few years later [and]...again published with..alterations..."--Note inside front cover. Publisher's list on back cover. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Pioneer Press
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
[c1886]
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
N257
Subject
The topic of the resource
Secularism
Philosophy
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (The philosophy of secularism), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Language
A language of the resource
English
NSS
Secularism
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/545d81728e21adef664b43c0ce0e15d8.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=Mzs6i6-ujPMlwBFw3i7kPtAUimuf1qx%7Ea%7EMKRbID8UghGgcaaM9i9XOqmjT0cirAJRHD%7Egh6cgOAmgmYiGyPzPFpOKaQgyPZa6IBOx5h07b-CyYf-bQVBUD2rV3sYCo1AlW5x-%7E9i%7Ef5ELfxsQuh1h0YDqOVUpV9VUMvIsdXYJAff4lrdYc3PcXuye2DtZQnZKFec-p0xFajNBICXyNUFyKCLe6rzj8OYCF8O3cKcjfRYrPlNTOMtLoEnaOhORf-mPKdROYj%7ERkyRPVqPhY4wvB3w-p2DF5FtncmqAnitLg9J6QTx6pJPNwWjJeGfbrNnhr-ZeQuUEgJo8EHc893zA__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
fef4a179f36bad594b2e5e31151a46ff
PDF Text
Text
THE PHILOSOPHY OF “GETTING RELIGION.”
TTIRST in order, let us ascertain what is meant by the phrase, “getting religion.” All will concede that.it is not a Scriptural phrase,
but the term religion is. Etymologically, the word religion means, to re
bind, to bind again. If the term be applied to persons, this meaning
suggests several ideas : i. A person to be bound again ; 2. A person
to whom he shall be bound again; 3. That the person to be bound has
been loosed; 4. A bond. If we consider this word historically and
theologically, all these thoughts find in it an authorized symbol.
Under this view of the term, to say that a man “gets religion,” con
veys no definite conception. If then, we would arrive at the current
meaning of the phrase, we must consult the usus loquendi—the usual
mode of speaking, past or present. Inasmuch as words and phrases
are the signs of ideas, and! because neither this phrase nor its
synonym was used in apostolic times, we have evidence, prima facie,
that the idea.3is of post-apostolic origin. Hence, on theological
grounds, our jealousy of it may be justified.
The usus loquendi, then and now, assigns to the word religion a
meaning which Webster thus expresses: “ Theology, as a system of
doctrines or principles, as well as practical piety; a system of faith
and worship.” The proper reception of the Christian doctrine, as a
rule of life, binds a man to God in covenant relationship. The term,
therefore, ordinarily relates to the system which a man receives under
the idea of a bond. This is one of the thoughts growing out of the
etymology of the term. But usage has made this the paramount idea.
Can it be, then, that to “get religion” is to possess one’s self with
the Christian system of truth? Surely not. Then there must be
some idea involved by the term, as phrased, different both from its
etymological and ordinary sense.
It is certain that this phrase is eminently peculiar to the litera
ture of a special class of religionists; particularly those who adopt
�2
The Philosophy of “ Getting Religion'.'
the “anxious-seat” as an instrumentality to facilitate conversion.
They evidently mean, by the phrase, a subjective or psychological
experience—a sudden revulsion of the emotions from a more or less
profound depression, through conviction of sin and fear of its conse
quences, to a high state of exultation and joy, on account of pardon.
It must not be supposed that a psychological experience is peculiar
to this class, although some, under the influence of this system, have
denounced others as “ head religionists;” for we must believe that
every one who becomes reconciled to God has an experience pecu
liarly his own. But from the fact that, under this system, this ex
perience is sought for by peculiar methods as the direct gift of the
Holy Spirit, and as having a priceless value as the evidence of par
don, it becomes the paramount object of the sinner’s seeking. And
as this revulsion, by a singular use of the word, is called religion,
naturally enough the obtainment of it is called “getting religion.”
With others, the objective point is not “getting religion,” but getting
themselves into' harmony with religion, or the Christian system,
knowing that if they can effect this, their emotions will take care of
themselves. Hence, they do not need to coin a new phrase to ex
press a new religious idea, but simply to use the Scriptural term,
reconciliation.
INFLUENCE OF THEORIES.
Every theory determines its own methods and inspires its own
literature. The literature of the theory now referred to, is character
ized by such expressions as “ experimental religion,” “ seed of grace,”
“grace of God in the heart,” “grace of faith,” “getting the power,”
“ getting through,” “ soundly converted,” “ hopefully converted,” “ I
feel to thank God,” “ I feel to do right,” “ I know that I am a child
of God, because I feel it.” The emotions are first, last, and all the
time. They become the standard of truth, as well as duty. And if,
under the law of affinities, the most abundant harvests of converts are
not gathered from the emotional classes, there would be occasion to
revise all our systems of mental philosophy.
Nor is it surprising that there should be a perplexing confusion
of Scriptural terms, in order to adjust them to a system whose central
thought places its advocates under the necessity of coining so many
unscriptural words and phrases, in order to furnish it a lingual habi
tation and a name. The terms conversion, regeneration, change of
�The Philosophy of “ Getting Religion:
3
heart, born again, are modified by the phrase “getting religion,” or
made its synonyms ; generally, the latter.
Were it not for the logical and theological connections of the idea
of “ getting religion,” we might tolerate it as a comparatively inoffen
sive affair. But just here we hesitate. It is affirmed that it is the
immediate—without means—direct work of the Holy Spirit; that
saving faith is an inspiration by the Holy Spirit, as the writer re
cently heard in a discourse by a prominent minister.
The necessity for this position is laid in a theory of the fall of
man—in .the doctrine of total native depravity, as the hereditament
from Adam of every human being; that this corruption of man’s na
ture is such, that “he can not turn and prepare himself, by his own
natural strength, to faith and calling upon God, . . . without the
grace of God, by Christ, preventing [anticipating] us, that we may
have a good will ” (see M. E. Discipline, Arts, vii, viii) ; that man
can not exercisesaving faith when he hears the Gospel, because of
natural inability inherited; that the Holy Spirit must directly im
part the power.
Hence, a distinguished writer in the Methodist
Quarterly, of A. D. 1869, page 266, says, “The method of Meth
odism is inspiration, in distinction from
The'larger Catechism (questions and answers 25, 26, 27, and 67,)
avows the same doctrine of original sin, with the necessity for Spirit
impact, in order to predetermine man’s will to the exercise of saving
faith. In accordance with which, Dr. Rice, in Debate with Alexander
Campbell, page 672, says: “ Every thing has its nature. The lion,
however young, has its nature. . # . Plant two trees in the same
soil, and let them be watered by the same stream, and one will
produce sweet fruit and the other bitter. They possess different na
tures.” From these comparisons, we learn that man’s nature since
the fall differs from his nature before the fall, as a lion’s from a lamb’s
nature, or as the nature of a peach-tree from that of a crab-apple
tree. But man’s nature before the fall was created by God, and was
a human nature. He fails to tell who created his second nature, and
of what kind it is. Its creator must have been God, man, or the
devil. If God, then every creature of God is not good. If the devil,
then one thing was made without the Word. If man, then why can
he not new-create himself? That Dr. Rice understands his stand
ards to teach that God’s original creative power is exerted in regen
eration, is clear from page 635 : “Now, if God could originally create
�4
The Philosophy of “ Getting Religion?
man holy without words and arguments, who shall presume to assert
that he can not. create him anew, and restore his lost image ?” This
he said, in order to show the possibility of infant moral regeneration,
which, but for the logical demands of a theory, no one need attempt
to prove, since the Savior has said, “ Of such is the kingdom of
heaven.” When Mr. Campbell charged that Dr. Rice’s theory made
every conversion a miracle, he was met by an emphatic denial. But
the logic of a system will sometimes crop out through advocates who
are not constrained by controversial considerations. Hence, in his
■ Early Years of Christianity,” page 24, Dr. E. Pressense declares
that the Church, “born of a miracle,' by a miracle lives. Founded
upon the great miracle of redemption, it grows and is perpetuated by
the ever-repeated miracle of conversion.”
We would not be understood as disparaging the terms conversion,
regeneration, born again, change of heart, being healed, new creation,
in their Scriptural usage; nor the eminently Scriptural idea that the
Holy Spirit is the efficient agent in regeneration; but we do most
courageously object to any theory which requires such a set of
exegetical laws as makes these beautiful figures mutually destructive,
and arrays them all against every man’s consciousness and the analogy
of faith. For example, if the sinner is dead, in the strained sense
put upon this figure, how can he, under another figure, be diseased
and capable of cure ? If he must be created anew, according to and
in the manner this theory demands, how can he be born again ?,
RATIONAL VIEW.
That a revulsion of the emotions, called “getting religion,” does
occur, as is claimed, the writer sincerely believes. It is not a ques
tion of fact, but of the explanation of the fact. Those who question
the fact, speak unwisely; for this would be to assume that many of
the most estimable men are guilty of hypocrisy and downright false
hood—the only effect of which would be to shut the ear against
reason, to turn the edge of argument before whetting, to clothe the
claimants with a coat of mail more impenetrable than Greek or Ro
man warrior ever wore. If this revulsion is the effect of an imme
diate impact of the Holy Spirit, then we must concede all its logical
and theological antecedents and consequents. If it can be accounted
for without transcending the bounds of natural causes and natural
�The Philosophy of “ Getting Religion'.'
5
laws, then the opponent must cease to demand for the fact a solely
supernatural explanation, or stand self-convicted of fanaticism.
Let no one deny our right to deal with this subject philosophic
ally ; for Rev. C. G. Finney, late President of Oberlin College, has
defended it upon philosophic grounds. He, more than any other
man, perhaps, was instrumental in promoting the great revivals which
swept the country forty years ago. His staid, quondam Presbyterian
brethren objected to certain “ new measures ” used by him to promote
revivals; one of which was the anxious-seat. In his “ Revival Lec
tures,” page 253, he replies: “Of late, this measure has met with
more opposition than any of the others. What is the great objec
tion ? I can not see it. The design of the anxious-seat is undoubt
edly philosophical, and according to the laws of mind'.'
Singular how extremes meet. Mr. Finney swung off to an oppo
site extreme from the prevailing theories of conversion, and adopted
the anxious-seat as a measure to facilitate conversion, because its
design is philosophical, and in accordance with the laws of mind, while
others held on to the old theories, and adopted it for the same
purpose, disclaiming its design. Whgr^ consistency lies, the reader
must pronounce. Chide us not, then,, nor complain, if we at
tempt to ascertain these laws of mind, or the philosophy of “getting
religion.”
Let us look in upon a revival scene, The . sermon culminates in
an impassioned, rhetorical descpption of the sinfulness of sin, the
terrors of judgment. The peroration flames and fumes with fire and
brimstone. As the writer once heard, “ Hell is uncapped, and the
wails of the damned salute the sinnerjs earhe “ is hair-hung and
breeze-shaken over the gulf of damnation.” The imaginative, no less
than the moral, emotions are wrought up to a fearful pitch. The cry
is heard, “What must we do ?”“ Come to the anxious-seat, and the
Lord’s people will pray for you. and. the Lord will speak peace to
your souls.” They come. Preacher and people wait on them to in
struct, admonish, exhort, or entreat,jMpeach case may require, or as
the psychological condition of each may. seem to demand. “ How do
you feel ?” If the sense of guilt does not seem deep enough, the
effort is to “ break him down, so that he can neither stand nor go
or, in other words, to depress the emotions to the lowest possible
point. This done, the effort begins to “ get him through,” or to se
cure a rebound of the emotions. For this purpose, the power of
�6
The Philosophy of “ Getting Religion!'
payer and song and encouraging exhortation is called into requisiton- The penitent is addressed thus : “ Do you not believe that God
is able to save you ?” “ Is he not willing ?” “ Heaven, with all its
glories, is yours, if you will only surrender your heart to the Lord.”
“ If you will only give up all your sins; if you will only believe,
the Lord will receive you, and give you the evidence of accept
ance.” “ Ask, and you shall receive.” “ Seek, and you shall find.”
He repents, and prays, and weeps, and mourns. He asks, but
does not receive. A flash comes over him ; but it is a flash of
withering skepticism. “ Surely,” he thinks, “ if what I am told is
true, I would obtain the blessing so long and earnestly sought for.”
Some one by his side, who came long since he did, rises with a glow
ing halleluiah upon his lips. This only perplexes him the more. He,
after along struggle, is still unblessed, while the joyful convert by his
side has received the blessing after a very short struggle. The thought
steals upon his mind, “ Surely, God must be a respecter of persons ;
but if he is, the Bible is false, for it says the contrary.” Discour
aged, disheartened, and perplexed beyond measure, he sinks into
a skeptical stolidity. His friends note it. They come about him with
increased solicitude and intensified prayerfulness. One says to him:
“ This is a device of Satan to ruin you, when you were just escaping
from his power;” “Don’t give way to your doubts.” “I was just
so, says another ; “ I had a long struggle and a hard one to get relig
ion, but I finally succeeded, and I was so happy.” “ Pray on, brother ;
we will pray for you, that you may yet prevail.” “ If you will only
believe, God will speak peace to your soul.” “ Pray to the Lord to
give you faith ; to give you the victory over Satan.” His doubts
overcome, at least quieted, by the confidence he has in those who re
late their experiences, and encouraged by their earnest exhortations,
he plunges again into the struggle. Special attention is now given
him, as a brand that must be plucked from the burning. He and
others are animated for the struggle with the idea that it is a hand-tohand conflict with Satan, who is striving, with more than usual per
sistency, to keep this soul under his dominion. Victory over an
opposing foe is always sweet. Prayers go up, earnest, sincere, tearful,
agonizing prayers. Songs are inspired with the hope of impending
victory. Heaven is addressed: “Lord, send down the power.” “Come
down, and convert this poor sinner.” “ Drive back Satan to his own
native hell, and give this soul release.” “ Lord, baptize him with the
�The Philosophy of “ Getting Religion'.'
7
Holy Spirit and fire.” “ Lord, pour light into this darkened soul.”
Meantime, the penitent is exhorted: “Now give up all to Christ.”
“Hold back nothing.” “Turn away from all your sins.” “Ask,
and you shall receive.” “Now, don’t you believe?” “Just believe
that you have the blessing, and you have it.” “Just believe that
God has pardoned you, and you are pardoned.” “Just rise up, and
shout glory to God, and it will be all right; you will feel happy.”
“ Open your mouth, and the Lord will put a new song into it.”
Then the altar resounds with the chorus:
“O believe him, O believe him,
O believe him, just now.
He will save you, he will save you,
He will save you, just now !”
A heavenly smile begins to chase away the sadness which has hung
like a pall over the penitent’s countenance. Before he has had time
to express a word, a score of happy voices lift the choral halleluiah,
in which he joins with his shouts of joy. “His was a mighty work
of grace.” “The Lord was merciful.” His conversion becomes the
theme of sermon and song, to incite others to seek religion.
How fortunate for the poor penitent, when he was on the verge
of infidelity, that his reasoning process was cut short and his judg
ment overborne by the solicitude of friends! Otherwise he might
have deepened skepticism into confirmed infidelity, with the contra
dictions and inconsistencies of the system. The preacher had told
him that the unregenerate can not exercise saving faith, without the
enabling power of the Holy Spirit; yet all the while he was exhorted
to believe—to believe just now. What ? That Jesus is the Son of
God ? No. He believed that already. Believe that he was a sinner ?
No. What then? Why, “just believe that you are pardoned, and
you are pardoned.” Or, otherwise, a man must believe in order to
be pardoned; still he can not, being unregenerate. Then, he is par
doned if he believes so. Then, of course, believing that he is par
doned, he will be happy, has the desired revulsion of the emotions,
or has “gotten religion.” Then, his feelings become the evidence of
pardon ; or he believes he is pardoned before he has the evidence, in
order to obtain the evidence. But did he believe without evidence
entirely ? Surely not; for that is impossible. His faith must have
rested upon the testimony of his advisers, or it was nothing but
imagination, or both combined. Of the power of the imagination,
�8
The Philosophy of “ Getting Religion'.'
hear what Professor Haven, of Amherst, says in his “ Mental Philos
ophy,” page 153. This is a standard text-book in many of our insti
tutions of learning:
“ Errors of Imagination.—Undoubtedly there are errors, mistakes, prejudices,
illusions of the imagination ; mistakes in judgment, in reasoning, in the affairs of
practical life, the source of which is to be found in some undue influence, some
wrong use of the imagination. We mistake its conceptions for realities. We
dwell upon its pleasing visions till we forget the sober face of truth. We fancy
pleasures, benefits, results, which will never be realized, or we look upon the dark
and dreary side of things, till all nature wears the somber hue of our disordered
fancy.”
It would seem that Professor Haven must have had his eye upon
the anxious-seat when he penned this paragraph.
While presenting the foregoing description of anxious-seat
conversion, the thought occurred to the writer that he might be
charged with an attempted caricature; for, he is free to confess that,
if he had not carefully noted the facts, it would be difficult to regard
it as a representation of sober reality. But those who have frequented
such scenes, will confess that he might have colored the picture even
more highly, without violence to truth. He is not conscious of “ hav
ing set down aught in malice.”
With this procedure before us, we propose to deduce those mental
and emotional laws which should be recognized in this process of
“getting religion,” and under the operation of which it is believed
the fact may be rationally explained. In order to appreciate this
psychological experience in its varied manifestations, it must be pre
mised that the intensity of emotional activity depends largely upon the
strength and development of the moral sense and the imagination;
that the intensity of emotional activity, caused under the influence
of the imagination, is ordinarily greater than that produced under the
influence of the moral sense. But if both the imagination and the
moral sense are involved, as is generally, if not always, the case in
religious excitements, we may expect an intensity of emotional ac
tivity correspondent to the united strength and development of both
these faculties, only modified by the degree of precision and force
with which the objects producing the excitement are presented to the
mind, and also the nature of the objects; for, if the objects be such
as are not trivial, but directly connected with our highest interests
for time and eternity, they would naturally command our most ear
�The Philosophy of “ Getting Religion!'
9
nest solicitude. Hence, we would most confidently expect, what is a
notorious fact, that the results of revivals, conducted according to the
anxious-seat method, should depend largely upon the rhetorical and
emotional power of the minister. If he be a man of warm, impulsive
nature, with a vivid imagination and good pulpit address, so that he
can clothe his transcendently important themes with the chameleon
changes of the sublime and the sorrowful, the terrific and the beau
tiful, the awful, grand, or pitiful; if he can touch, every note in the
diapason of human feeling, with the exquisiteness and the dash of a
well-skilled orchestra,—then we may readily believe that great results
will be achieved. Hence, in our time, an evangelist is regarded as
little else than an expert revivalist. Let no one think, because the
writer speaks thus, that he is opposed to revivals. Far from it. If
procured and conducted in accordance with the Word of God, they
are great instrumentalities for good. But it is the abuse of them, by
pressing them into the service of a human system, that has well-nigh
turned the world against them.
MENTAL AND EMOTIONAL LAWS.
I. We most readily imagine or believe that which is in accordance
with our desires.
II. The facility of faith is variable in different persons, on account
of constitutional peculiarities, and in the same person at different
times, on account of associations, personal habits, or other causes.
III. Confidence in the veracious character of witnesses predisposes
the mind to faith in their testimony.
IV. Imagination and faith exercise a controlling power over the
emotions. We feel as we imagine or believe.
V. The imagination or belief of a falsehood affects the emotions
in precisely the same manner and to the same degree as the truth
upon any given subject, provided the falsehood appears to be truth.
VI. If the emotions be borne out of their normal condition to any
extreme of intense activity, nature demands a revulsion, or a gradual
subsidence, at the peril of insanity.
VII. Generally, if the emotions be intensely excited under the
influence of the imagination or moral sense, or both combined,
bodily agitations will appear, particularly in persons of a nervous
temperament.
VIII. Generally, emotional excitement is contagious.
�1°
The Philosophy of “ Getting Religion!'
These laws of mental and emotional activity are not submitted
as applicable only to religious revivals, but to mental and emotional
activity under all circumstances. Without undertaking to prove or
illustrate them, which would be a pleasant pastime, if space allowed,
the writer appeals to the consciousness of every reader for their jus
tification, confident, also, that the observation of every man will afford
an abundance of facts from every-day life to fully illustrate them.
APPLICATION OF THE ABOVE LAWS.
Let us recur to the penitent whom we left, a little while since,
filled with the new-born joy of “getting religion,” that we may trace
his psychological experience, to ascertain whether or not it was gov
erned and explainable by these laws.
Why were his emotions so depressed, even to the very verge of
an anguishing despair, till he could say, “ The pains of hell get hold
on me?” Was it because of an immediate impact of the Holy Spirit
upon his spirit? Or, was it because he believed himself to be a sin
ner, exposed to the wrath of God ? Because he saw, through faith in
the Word of God, a hell yawning to receive him, and his imagination
pictured the woefulness of its torments to his mind. Because he had
begun to realize that he deserved it all, for sinning so long against a
Holy God, whose matchless love, in the death of Christ, he had so
long despised. Because, too, not only his own faith and imagina
tion had shown him these things, but the faith and imagination of
preacher and people had assisted his own vision. His faith and
imagination being intensely active, his emotions were agonizingly
depressed. (See Law IV.)
But, says the objector, if the Spirit of God had not been striving
with him, he would not have felt this deep conviction. Grant it. But
did the Spirit strive, by direct impact, or through intervening instru
mentalities, in accordance with the laws of our mental and moral con
stitution ? This is the point. If in the former manner, then his
conviction had no moral character, for he must have been without
will in the matter. If in the latter manner, then his own agency was
involved; and conversion is not a miracle, but to be effected in a
rational way, although none the less by a supernatural, efficient cause.
Why did the penitent’s feelings rebound so suddenly? and why
did they not rebound sooner? For, perhaps, he had been “seeking
religion” for weeks—may be months. In favor of this revulsion several
�The Philosophy of “ Getting Religion!1
11
principles conspired: I. He earnestly desired and sought for the par
don of his sins. (See Law I.) 2. He had confidence in his religious
advisers, who testified that God would pardon him, and gave their
own experience in proof. (See Law III.) 3. Nature demands a re
bound of the emotions when borne away to a given extreme. (See
Law VI.) 4. Many around him were happy, having recently “gotten
religionothers were happy in the demonstrative joy of the new
converts, and in the faith of their own salvation. (See Law VIII.)
Why, then, should he not find the object of his seeking sooner ? His
faith and imagination combined to depress his emotions; why did
they not, under these seemingly favorable circumstances, combine to
exalt them to the acme of peace and joy? Here is the puzzle, if con
version, or “getting religion,” is an effect of the direct, immediate
operation of the Holy Spirit. Does not the Holy Spirit aim at and de
sire every sinner’s conversion ? Had not many already been converted,
who came to the anxious-seat long since this penitent came ? Why,
then, is he not converted sooner ? Perhaps this explanation may avail
us: The Word of God testifies plainly against sin, showing us also its
sinfulness and its punishment; also, of the love of God, and the death
of Jesus for the sinner. The Holy Spirit had laid a broad foundation
for the penitent’s faith in regard to his lost condition without Christ.
That same Word had deigned to assist his imagination by such rep
resentations of the fearful consequences of sin as were calculated to
give activity to his imagination. We can readily understand how he
was “pricked to the heart;” how he was prostrated under a sense of
guilt and fearful apprehension. But in vain does the poor man search
the Word of God for a promise of pardon connected with the anxiousseat. In vain does he search the Divine record for an example of
conversion according to this method. The broad foundation where
he rested his faith for conviction, is now wanting. He is dependent
upon the testimony of men, that God will forgive his sins in this
way. The fact that, in giving his experience, he may rest his faith
upon some promise contained in the Scriptures, does not change the
fact that the testimony of men is the real basis of his faith; for, if
there is no promise of God connected with the anxious-seat, or if
this method of conversion is unscriptural, then, of course, all promises
construed with it are misapplied, and therefore cease to be the testi
mony of God, and become simply the testimony of men,—just as the
Scripture quoted by Satan, when tempting the Savior, ceased to be
�12
The Philosophy of “ Getting Religion'.'
the Word of God, and, as then applied, became simply a positive
falsehood. Perhaps the convert was like Thomas, constitutionally
incredulous; not inclined to believe, ordinarily, without palpable evi
dence. Perhaps he may have become slow to believe the testimony
of men, because his confidence had been violently shattered or weak
ened by human treachery and deception. Perhaps his own personal
habits may have replaced a confiding disposition. (See Law II.) If
any or all these things were true of him, it is easily explained why
he did not “ get religion ” sooner. Still, the very fact that he “ got
religion” at all, indicates a preponderance of the favorable influences
over the adverse. Now, the revulsion being at last secured, perhaps
under a tremendous pressure of the imagination, combined with
what strength of faith he was able to command, may be carried up to
the most intense emotional excitement, producing bodily agitations
of the most astonishing violence; or, the physical powers sometimes
whelmed with the emotional flood, the man sinks into a semi-con
scious state, when he is said to be in a trance. (See Law VII.)
Then the mind is given up to the most delightful visions. This used
^to be regarded as evidence of an unusual display of the power of the
Holy Spirit.
Seeing that similar revolutions of the feelings, as well as bodily
agitations, sometimes take place where no one contends that the
Holy Spirit has any thing to do with them, suppose it should turn
out that the Holy Spirit has nothing to do with many of these sup
posed “ sound conversions that there is a clear non causa pro causa
committed,—then they would simply fall under and be explained by
Law V. The belief or imagination of a falsehood upon any given
subject will produce precisely the same emotional effect as the truth
upon that subject, if the falsehood be accepted as truth. When Jacob
saw the blood-stained coat of his son Joseph, he accepted it as evi
dence of his death. Doubtless his imagination painted fearful and
heart-rending pictures of his son’s fatal struggle with the wild beasts.
He believed a lie. Joseph was not dead. But would his sorrow have
been more pungent and agonizing if Joseph had actually been dead?
Then, what a revulsion in his emotions when he afterward believed
him to be alive, and next to the throne of Egypt! What a culmina
tion of his joy, when the aged patriarch fell upon Joseph’s neck and
kissed him, amid the splendors of his royal estate!
The pious Catholic goes to confessional with a heavy heart; con
�The Philosophy of “ Getting Religion!'
:3
fessing his sins, he receives the declaration of absolution from the
priest, and departs a happy man. The pagan, too, distressed and
agonized by a sense of guilt, offers his atoning sacrifice, and then re
joices with a joy unspeakable. Men under delusion may believe a lie,
be happy, and yet be lost.
RESULTS OF THE SYSTEM.
The worst is not yet. According to Law VI, nature demands a
subsidence of excessive emotional excitement, whether the emotion
be pleasant or painful. The new convert naturally measures the evi
dence of his pardon by the nature and volume of his feelings. As
the volume of joy diminishes and temptations crowd upon him, he
begins to sing, in a doleful tone:
“ ’Tis a point I long to know—
Oft it causes anxious thought:
Do I love the Lord or no ?
Am I his, or am I not?”
'-
Sentiments about as unscriptural as the system which inspired them.
What wonder that these doubts have ended so often in an incor
rigible apostasy? The Methodist, one of the ablest papers of the
Methodist Episcopal Church, declares that eighty out of every hun
dred of their converts fall away. So unstable were they, that an
other human expedient must be devised, not only unscriptural, but
anti-scriptural and ruinous,—take them on six months' trial. Every
theory works out through its appropriate forms.
Another class are made infidels because they can not “get religion.”
Failing to distinguish between religion and its abuse, they, like Gib
bon, condemn it as a whole, because of their disgust with the abuse.
Another class are made hypocrites. Under the pressure of a
public commitment, by going to the anxious-seat, they feign. what
they do not feel, or studiously conceal what, if revealed, would forfeit
the good opinion of others. It is not averred, here, that there are
more hypocrites among those who believe in the anxious-seat than
among others, but that with a certain class there is a direct tendency
in the system to produce hypocrisy; while, under the simple Gospel,
if men are hypocrites, they must be so despite the system.
There is still another ipore pitiable class—those who, having been
long under conviction and fruitless agony, failing to find relief, and
concluding that they have committed the unpardonable sin, under
♦
�I
14
The Philosophy of “ Getting Religion!'
the operation of Law VI, become hopelessly insane. Asylum records
will abundantly corroborate this statement:
Another fearful result is a wide-spread indifference to all religion.
Apostasy is the rule ; or those who remain steadfast are only as one
to five, according to the New York Methodist. The last state of the
apostate is, uniformly, worse than the first. It is always more diffi
cult to stir his religious consciousness. What, then, must be the
effect upon the eighty out of every hundred converts—to say nothing
of the indurating influence of so much apostasy upon the public
mind—but indifference to all religion ? Of course, apostasy may and
does occur under any system; but it is one thing to facilitate it by a
system, and quite another thing to have it occur against a system.
A CORRUPTION OF THE GOSPEL.
President Finney admits it. On page 254, after contending that
it is necessary to have a test for the sinner’s faith, he further says:
“The Church has always felt it necessary to have something of the kind to
answer this very purpose. In the days of the apostles, baptism answered this pur
pose. The Gospel was preached to the people, and then all those who were will
ing to be on the side of the Lord, were called on to be baptized. It held the
precise place that the anxious-seat does now, as a public manifestation of their
determination to be Christians.”
Baptism is confessedly a Divine command. Who authorized its
substitution, for any purpose, with the anxious-seat ? That is a small
matter, however, if it is only a “ mere form',' or if only “ something of
the kind" of the anxious-seat. In apostolic times “ the Gospel was
preached, and those who were willing to be on the side of the Lord,
were called on to be baptized!' Now they are called to the anxiousseat. “It held the precise place that the anxious-seat does now!'
Exactly. Hence a new Gospel. “ He that believeth and cometh to
the anxious-seat, shall be saved.” “ Repent and come to the anxiousseat, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission
of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.” “And he
commanded them to come to the anxious-seat, in the name of the Lord
Jesus Christ.” “Arise and come to the anxious-seat, and wash away
your sins, calling on the name of the Lord.” “ The like figure whereunto even the anxious-seat doth also now save us.” “ Know you not
that so many of you as have come to the. anxious-seat, have put on
Christ ?” Is this a perversion of the Gospel, or another gospel ? If
the anxious-seat occupies the place of baptism, of course it is a com
«
�The Philosophy of “ Getting Religion'.'
15
mand of God, and the promises which He attached to baptism, must
be attached to it; hence, baptism is pushed out of its place in the
plan of pardon. It becomes a mere “ Church ordinance,” to be
changed at pleasure, as to its form and uses. (See Bishop Gilbert’s
“Exposition of the Thirty-nine Articles,” page 251.)
SANCTIFICATION,
Otherwise Perfectionism, is simply anxious-seat conversion in extenso. It is a subjective, or psychological experience, produced in the
same manner as “ getting religion,” and explainable by the same laws.
It is less frequently enjoyed, however, because the people generally
have less faith in the doctrine; hence, fewer persons attempt the
experiment.
THE WAY OUT OF CONFUSION.
“ Preach the Word.” Show the people their sins and their con
sequences. The love of God in Christ manifested. If they believe,
and are “pricked in the heart,” or become convicted of sin, and cry
out, “ What must we do ?” tell them, as of old, “ Repent and be bap
tized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for remission
of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” Do not
seek to work up the feelings by artificial means. Do not call into
play the pride of character by public commitment, before the heart is
ready. How often do we hear the preacher say, “ Now, if you wish to
go to heaven [who does not ?], rise up.” “ If you wish the prayers
of the Lord’s people [who does not ?], rise up.” “ Now, all who
have voted that they wish to go to heaven, that they desire the
prayers of the Lord’s people, come to the anxious-seat.” Ah, the
trick! the trick !! thinks many a person who has voted, and instantly
he is filled with disgust. People will endure, or even applaud, strategy ;
but not in religion.
Again: the religious sensibilities always shrink from public expo
sure, unless the will is won over. To have one’s incipient religious
experience displayed before the prurient gaze, or to be bandied
about by the gossiping tongue, is exceedingly repulsive to a person
whose sense of propriety is well developed. Many a sinner’s thoughts
have been drawn off in the attempted reconciliation of himself to this
unscriptural procedure, when they ought to have been engaged in the
work of reconciling himself to God. Let the struggle begin and go
�16
The Philosophy of “ Getting Religion!'
forward to a final issue without ostentation, then it will be time for
public commitment to Christianity. If the friendly counsel of proper
persons may be given quietly, to lead the soul out of its entangle
ments, and break its sinful alliances, it is well. Reason, propriety,
philosophy, and Scripture concur to demand this course.
If the subject is ignorant of Christ as the Savior, tell him first, as
Paul did the jailor, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you
shall be saved.” As soon as he expresses a willingness to receive
Christ, “speak to him the Word of the Lord,” for his enlightenment
as to the Lord’s means of salvation, and through repentance he will
soon find his way to baptism, and come again rejoicing through faith.
(See Acts,xvi.) If he be a believing penitent, like Saul at Damas
cus, tell him to “ arise and be baptized, and wash away his sins, calling
on the name of the Lord.” In short, give to each, according to his
condition, a portion of the Word suited to his case, in due season.
Never mind your theories ; speak the Word.
But, says the objector, must we rule out a psychological expe
rience ? Must we simply have a “head-religion,” without any heart
in it ? No ; by no means. Nor will there be the least danger, if we
cling to the apostolic methods. The revulsion of the emotions from
the pungency of conviction to the exhilaration of joy will always be
secured, if the sinner really believes that he is pardoned, although he
may believe a falsehood. (See Laws IV, V.) It matters not upon what
kind of testimony his faith may rest. If, then, he be led to a hearty,
intelligent submission to Christ, according to the Gospel plan, his
belief that he is pardoned will rest, not upon the testimony of men,
nor upon imagination, but upon the express promises of God, which
can never fail. The Pentecostan converts began to be glad as soon
as they learned from Peter that they could be saved. “ They gladly
received the Word,” and were baptized the same day. But they were
more joyful still, afterward, when they were able, through their faith
and obedience, to appropriate the Divine promises. Then “ they, con
tinuing daily, with one accord, in the temple, and breaking of bread
from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness
of heart, praising God, and having favor with all the people.”
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The philosophy of "getting religion"
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Hobbs, Alvin Ingels [1832-1900]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: Cincinatti
Collation: 16 p. ; 23 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Republished from Christian Quarterly. Attribution from Virginia Clark catalogue.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
[s.n.]
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
[1873?]
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
G5351
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (The philosophy of "getting religion"), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Language
A language of the resource
English
Subject
The topic of the resource
Philosophy
Religion
Conway Tracts
Philosophy and Religion
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/bf871c89a27f9ed71da292254f09e9b1.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=gFHv6zkq4RXlOHFtNa5rPlhWH7Vww9PdNLn2kFOTsomo-%7Ekw8-nZQarLC6CVIm1H26Zg6ZQRVUtxk1dGKjg2HGubp30l1hfsMdYF6sQdfdeZEq8uzOo2IbUQjpX9uWHNjbYREhavFq8jUcNuj9muqyb%7E9FeJ6ri9w5ytrFW9bNc0KoKcYBxXKa5IBY%7E82chd74OJGrUG6UF6k8IUn7J-xsXQeFM7v2ztng3OXIj1aLSOK69plRInedCEY3Px0iFpFEnB2Hs1OyxXQAZfgUSMVKE0kEP7P3Ap0gx37PL1rIxFQMAwLiSXYnFHMTSiorbnYi01omXbcfzS-rZoKB8haw__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
376902b582b76faed11d28aedb8f4024
PDF Text
Text
��������������������������������������
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The origin of man: being a paper read before the Victoria Institute, or Philosophical Society of Great Britain
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Bardsley, John W.
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 28,4, p. ; 22 cm.
Notes: Information on the Society and an application form on numbered pages at the end. John Bardsley was the Archdeacon of Warrington. Tentative date of publication from KVK (OCLC WorldCat).
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
E. Stanford
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
[1884]
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
G5083
Subject
The topic of the resource
Philosophy
Anthropology
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (The origin of man: being a paper read before the Victoria Institute, or Philosophical Society of Great Britain), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Language
A language of the resource
English
Man-Origin
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/7f7f24b89e9150fc424daa10ba05a02c.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=oKB5gty6EsQJmnYd6sSF2I3ZfJpJNbZCRqmW43mYU9dmDqsCMiNIAnMHfFstoVq0cZ32%7E73FGb0Tue7dJ3q8cTDMpjG10OGDXY1SA78B9yPPNZjbibcow%7EcLEZcWaVAXFxUfHwEsi%7Epvw%7ES7kD2lKKQNepmbm42kZVgYvu2hzlRV6G8y3Quf79Jq3FhHTb88hCK91H2dBtbV9gqsQ173YDQ1bnzzGe3sWFSuH89Pd4R4Gc7VtQ3aUBST42bU8npG7a3cSo0gEtcgsAw6SFUKJn2mYRzmp-d4OUNVOCreEOZGK4PYq0fTR4riGybTxU3zcFMYONixd8Ob%7EjrLZdfEVQ__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
74551aa0e2ca5907a96516870a093f8c
PDF Text
Text
THE JOURNAL
OF
' SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY.
Vol. £
~
18 6 7.
■
No. 1.
TO THE READER.
For the reason that a journal devoted
exclusively to the interests of Speculative
Philosophy is a rare phenomenon in the
English language, some words may reason
ably be expected from the Editors upon
the scope and design of the present under
taking.
There is no need, it is presumed, to
speak of the immense religious movements
now going on in this country and in Eng
land. The tendency to break with the
traditional, and to accept only what bears
for the soul its own justification, is widely
active, and can end only in the demand
that Reason shall find and establish a phil
osophical basis for all those great ideas
which are taught as religious dogmas. Thus
it is that side by side with the naturalism of
such men as Renan, a school of mystics is
beginning to spring up who prefer to ignore
utterly all historical wrappages, and cleave
only to the speculative kernel itself. The
vortex between the traditional faith and the
intellectual conviction cannot be closed by
renouncing the latter, but only by deepen
ing it to speculative insight.
Likewise it will be acknowledged that
the national consciousness has moved for
ward on to a new platform during the last
few years. The idea underlying our form
of government had hitherto developed
only one of its essential phases—that of
brittle individualism—in which national
unity seemed an external mechanism,
soon to be entirely dispensed with, and
the enterprise of the private man or of the
corporation substituted for it. Now we
have arrived at the consciousness of the
other essential phase, and each individual
recognizes his substantial side to be the
State as such. The freedom of the citizen
does not consist in the mere Arbitrary, but
in the realization of the rational convic
tion tvhich finds expression in established
law. That this new phase of national life
demands to be digested and comprehended,
is a further occasion for the cultivation of
the Speculative.
More ’significant still is the scientific
revolution, working out especially in the
domain of physics. The day of simple
empiricism is past, and with the doctrine
of “ Correlation of forces ” there has arisen
a stage of reflection that deepens rapidly
into the purely speculative. For the fur
ther elucidation of this important point the
two following articles have been prepared.
It is hoped that the first one will answer
more definitely the question now arising in
the mind of the reader, “ What is this
Speculative Knowing of which you speak ?”
and that the second one will show whither
Natural Science is fast hastening.
With regard to the pretensions of this
Journal, its editors know well how much
its literary conduct will deserve censure
and need apology. They hope that the
substance will make up in some degree for
deficiencies in form; and, moreover, they
expect to improve in this respect through
experience and the kind criticisms of
friends.
�2
The Speculative.
THE SPECULATIVE.
“ We need what Genius is unconsciously seeking, and, by some daring generalization of the
universe, shall assuredly discover, a spiritual calculus, a Novum Organon, whereby nature shall
be divined in the soul, the soul in God, matter in spirit, polarity resolved into unity; and that
power which pulsates in all life, animates and builds all organizations, shall manifest itself as
one universal deific energy, present alike at the outskirts and centre of the universe, whose
centre ana circumference are one; omniscient, omnipotent, self-subsisting, uncontained, yet
containing all things in the unbroken synthesis of its being.”—(“Calculus,” one of Alcott’s
“Orphic Sayings.”)
At the end of the sixth book of Plato’s
Republic, after a characterization of the
two grades of sensuous knowing and the
grade of the understanding, (i which is
obliged to set out from hypotheses, for the
reason that it does not deal with principles
but only with results,” we find the specu
lative grade of knowing characterized as
<£ that in which the soul, setting out from
an hypothesis, proceeds to an unhypothetical principle, and makes its way without
the aid of [sensuous] images, but solely
through ideas themselves.” The mathe
matical procedure which begins by hy
pothecating definitions, axioms, postulates,
and the like, which it never examines nor
attempts to deduce or prove, is the exam
ple given by Plato of the method of theUnderstanding, while he makes the specula
tive Reason “ to posit hypotheses by the
Dialectic, not as fixed principles, but only
as starting points, in order that, by remov
ing them, it may arrive at the unhypothetical—the principle of the universe.”
This most admirable description is fully
endorsed by Aristotle, and firmly estab
lished in a two-fold manner :
1. In the Metaphysics (xi. 7) he shows
ontologically, starting with motion as an
hypothesis, that the self-moved is the first
principle ; and this he identifies with the
speculative, and the being of God.
2. In the De Anima (iii. 5-8) he dis
tinguishes psychologically the “ active in
tellect” as the highest form of knowing,
as that which is its own object, (subject
and object,) and hence as containing its
own end and aim in itself—as being infin
ite. He identifies this with the Specula
tive result, which he found ontologically
as the Absolute.
Spinoza in his Ethics (Prop. xl. Scbol.
ii., and Prop, xliv., Cor. ii. of Part II.)
has well described the Speculative, which
he names C{ Scienlia intuiliva,” as the
thinking of things under the form of eter
nity, (De natura rationis est res sub quadam specie ceternitatis percipere.)
Though great diversity is found in re
spect to form and systematic exposition
among the great philosophers, yet there is
the most complete unanimity, not only
with respect to the transcendency of the
Speculative, but also with reference to the
content of its knowing. If the reader of
different systems of Philosophy has in
himself achieved some degree of Specula
tive culture, he will at every step be de
lighted and confirmed at the agreement of
what, to the ordinary reader, seem irrecon
cilable statements.
Not only do speculative writers agree
among themselves as to the nature of
things, and the destiny of man and the
world, but their results furnish us in the
form of pure thought what the artist has
wrought out in the form of beauty.
Whether one tests architecture, sculpture,
painting, music or poetry, it is all the
same. Goethe has said:
“As all Nature’s thousand changes
But one changeless God proclaim ;
So in Art’s wide kingdoms ranges
One sole meaning, still the same:
This is Truth, eternal Reason,
Which from Beautj' takes its dress,
And serene, through time and season,
Stands for aye in loveliness.”
While Art presents this content to the
senses, Religion offers it to the conception
in the form of a dogma to be held by faith ;
the deepest Speculative truth is allegori
cally typified in a historical form, so that
it acts upon the mind partly through fan
tasy and partly through the understand
ing. Thus Religion presents the same
content as Art and Philosophy, but stands
between them, and forms a kind of middle
�The Speculative.
ground upon which the purification takes
place. “ It is the purgatory between the
Inferno of Sense and the Paradise of Rea
son.” Its function is mediation ; a contin
ual degrading of the sensuous and exter
nal, and an elevation to the supersensual
and internal. The transition of Religion
into Speculative Philosophy is found in
the mystics. Filled with the profound
significance of religious symbolism, and
seeing in it the explanation of the uni
verse, they essay to communicate their in
sights. But the form of Science is not
yet attained by them. They express
themselves, not in those universal catego
ries that the Spirit of the Race has formed
in language for its utterance, but they
<have recourse to symbols more or less in
adequate because ambiguous, and of insuf
ficient universality to stand for the arche
types themselves. Thus “ Becoming ” is
the most pure germinal archetype, and be
longs therefore to logic, or the system of
pure thought, and it has correspondences
on concrete planes, as e. g., time, motion,
life, fyc. Now if one o^. these concrete
terms is used for the pure logical category,
we have mysticism. The alchemists, as
shown by a genial writer of our day, use
the technique of their craft to express the
profound mysteries of spirit and its regen
eration. The Eleusinian and other mys
teries do the like.
While it is one of the most inspiring
things connected with Speculative Philo
sophy to discover that the “ Open Secret
of the Universe” has been read by so
many, and to see, under various expres
sions, the same meaning ; yet it is the
highest problem of Speculative Philoso
phy to seize a method that is adequate to
the expression of the “ Secret;” for its
(the content’s) own method of genetic de
velopment must be the only adequate one.
Hence it is that we can classify philosophic
systems by their success in seizing the
content which is common to Art and Re
ligion, as well as to Philosophy, in such a
manner as to allow its free evolution ; to
have as little in the method that is merely
formal or extraneous to the idea itself.
The rigid formalism of Spinoza—though
manipulated by a clear speculative spirit—
3
is inadequate to the unfolding of its con
tent ; for how could the mathematical
method, which is that of quantity or ex
ternal determinations alone, ever suffice to
unfold those first principles which attain
to the quantitative only in their result?
In this, the profoundest of subjects, we
always find in Plato light for the way. Al
though he has not given us complete ex
amples, yet he has pointed out the road of
the true Speculative method in a way not
to be mistaken. Instead of setting out
with first principles presupposed as true,
by which all is to be established, (as math
ematics and 6uch sciences do), he asserts
that the first starting points must be re
moved as inadequate. We begin with the
immediate, which is utterly insufficient,
and exhibits itself as such. We ascend to
a more adequate, by removing the first
hypothesis ; and this process repeats itself
until we come to the first principle, which
of course bears its own evidence in this,
that it is absolutely universal and abso
lutely determined at the same time; in
other words it is the self-determining, the
“self-moved,” as Plato and Aristotle call
it. It is its own other, and hence it is the
true infinite, for it is not limited but con
tinued by its other.
From this peculiarity results the difficul
ty of Speculative Philosophy. The unused
mind, accepting with naivete' the first pro
position as settled, finds itself brought,
into confusion when this is contradicted,
and condemns the whole procedure. The
irony of Socrates, that always begins by
positing the ground of his adversary, and
reducing it through its own inadequateness
to contradict itself, is of this character,
and the unsophisticated might say, and do
say: “ See how illogical is Socrates, for
he sets out to establish something, and ar
rives rather at the destruction of it.” The
reductio ad absardum is a faint imita
tion of the same method. It is not suffi
cient to prove your own system by itself,
for each of the opposing systems can do
that; but you must show that any and all
counter-hypotheses result in your own.
God makes the wrath of men to praise
Him, and all imperfect things must con
tinually demonstrate the perfect, for the
�4
The. Speculative.
reason that they do not exist by reason of
their defects, but through what of truth
there is in them, and the imperfection is
continually manifesting the want of the
perfect. ££ Spirit,” says Hegel, ££ is selfcontained being. But matter, which is
spirit outside of itself, [turned inside out,]
continually manifests this, its inadequacy,
through gravity—attraction to a central
point beyond each particle. (If it could
get at this central point, it would have no
extension, and hence would be anni
hilated.)”
The soul of this method lies in the com
prehension of the negative. In that won
derful expose of the importance of the
negative, which Plato gives in the Par
menides and Sophist, we see how justly
he appreciated its true place in Philoso
phic Method. Spinoza’s “ omnis determinatio est negatio ” is the most famous
of modern statements respecting the nega
tive, and has been very fruitful in re
sults.
One would greatly misunderstand the
Speculative view of the negative should
he take it to mean, as some have done,
ee that the negative is as essential as the
positive.” For if they are two indepen
dent somewhats over against each other,
having equal validity, then all unity of
system is absolutely impossible—we can
have only the Persian Ahriman and Ormuzd ; nay, not even these—for unless
there is a primal unity, a “ Zeruane-Akerene”—the uncreated one, these are im
possible as opposites, for there can be no
tension from which the strife should pro
ceed.
The Speculative has insight into the
constitution of the positive out of the
negative. “ That which has the form of
Being,” says Hegel, £‘ is the self-related ;”
but relation of all kinds is negation, and
hence whatever has the form of being and
is a positive somewhat, is a self-related
negative. Those three stages of culture in
knowing, talked of by Plato and Spinoza,
may be characterized in a new way by
their relation to this concept.
The first stage of consciousness—that of
immediate or sensuous knowing—seizes
objects by themselves—isolatedly—without
their relations ; each seems to have valid
ity in and for itself, and to be wholly pos
itive and real. The negative is the mere
absence of the real thing ; and it utterly
ignores it in its scientific activity.
But the second stage traces relations,
and finds that things do not exist in imme
diate independence, but that each is re
lated to others, and it comes to say that
££ Were a grain of sand to be destroyed,
the universe would collapse.” It is a
necessary consequent to the previous stage,
for the reason that so soon as the first
stage gets over its childish engrossment
with the novelty of variety, and attempts
to seize the individual thing, it finds its
characteristic marks or properties. But
these consist invariably of relations to
other things, and it learns that these prop
erties, without which the thing could
have no distinct existence, are the very
destruction of its independence, since
they are its complications with other
things.
In this stage the negative has entered
and has full sway. For all that was before
firm and fixed, is now seen to be, not
through itself, but through others, and
hence the being of everything is its nega
tion. For if this stone exists only through
its relations to the sun, which is not the
stone but something else, then the being
of this stone is its own negation. But the
second stage only reduces all to depend
ence and finitude, and does net show us
how any real, true, or independent being
can be found to exist. It holds fast to the
stage of mediation alone, just as the first
stage held by the immediate. But the
dialectic of this position forces it over
into the third.
If things exist only in their relations,
and relations are the negatives of things,
then all that appears positive—all being—
must rest upon negation. How is this?
The negative is essentially a relative, but
since it is the only substrate (for all is
relative), it can relate only to itself. But
self-relation is always identity, and here
we have the solution of the previous diffi
culty. All positive forms, all forms of im
mediateness or being, all forms of identity,
are self-relatiops, consisting of a negative
�The Speculative,
or relative, relating to itself. But the
most wonderful side of this, is the fact that
since this relation is that of the negative,
it negates itself in its very relation, and
hence its identity is a producing of non
identity. Identity and distinction are
produced by the self-same process, and
thus self-determination is the origin of all
identity and distinction likewise. This
is the speculative stand-point in its com
pleteness. It not only possesses specula
tive content, but is able to evolve a spec
ulative system likewise. It is not only
conscious of the principles, but of their
method, and thus all is transparent.
To suppose that this may be made so
plain that one shall see it at first sight,
would be the height of absurdity. Doubt
less far clearer expositions can be made
of this than those found in Plato or
Proclus, or even in Fichte and Ilegel; but
any and every exposition must incur the
same difficulty, viz : The one who masters
it must undergo a thorough change in his
innermost. The í( Palingenesia” of the
intellect is as essential as the “ regenera
tion of the heart,” and is at bottom the
same thing, as the mystics teach us.
But this great difference is obvious su
perficially : In religious regeneration it
seems the yielding up of the self to an
alien, though beneficent, power, while in
philosophy it seems the complete identifi
cation of one’s self with it.
He, then, who would ascend into the
thought of the best thinkers the world has
seen, must spare no pains to elevate his
thinking to the plane of pure thought.
•The completest discipline for this may be
found in Hegel’s Logic. Let one not de
spair, though he seem to be baffled seventy
and seven times; his earnest and vigorous
assault is repaid by surprisingly increased
strength of mental acumen which he will
be assured of, if he tries his powers on
lower planes after his attack has failed on
the highest thought.
These desultory remarks on the Specu
lative, may be closed with a few illustra
tions of whSt has been said of the negative.
I. Everything must have limits that
mark it off from other things, and these
limits are its negations, in which it ceases.
5
II. It must likewise have qualities which
distinguish it from others, but these
likewise are negatives in the sense that
they exclude it from them. Its determin
ing by means of qualities is the making
it not this and not that, but exactly what
it is. Thus the affirmation of anything is
at the same time the negation of others.
III. Not only is the negative manifest
in the above general and abstract form,
but its penetration is more specific. Ev
erything has distinctions from others in
general, but also from its other. Sweet is
opposed not only to other properties in
general, as white, round, soft, etc.,s but
to its other, or sour. So, too, white is
opposed to black, soft to hard, heat to
cold, etc., and in general a positive thing
to a negative thing. In this kind of rela
tive, the negative is more essential, for it
seems to constitute the intimate nature of
the opposites, so that each is reflected in
the other.
IV. More remarkable are the appear
ances of the negative in nature. The elementyire is a negative which destroys the
form of the combustible. It reduces or
ganic substances to inorganic elements,
and is that which negates the organic.
Air is another negative element. It acts
upon all terrestrial elements ; upon water,
converting it into invisible vapor; upon
metals, reducing them to earths through
corrosion—eating up iron to form rust,
rotting wood into mould—destructive
or negative alike to the mineral
and vegetable world, like fire, to which
it has a speculative affinity. The grand
type of all negatives in nature, such as
air and fire, is Time, the great devourer, and archetype of all changes and
movements in nature.
Attraction is
another appearance of the negative. It
is a manifestation in some body of an es
sential connection with another which is
not it; or rather it is an embodied selfcontradiction : “that other (the sun)
which is not me (the earth) is my true
being.” Of course its own being is its
own negation, then.
Thus, too, the plant is negative to the
inorganic—it assimilates it; the animal is
negative to the vegetable world.
�6
Herbert Spencer.
As we approach these higher forms of
negation, we see the negative acting
against itself, and this constitutes a pro
cess. The food that life requires, which
it negates in the process of digestion, and
assimilates, is, in the life process, again
negated, eliminated from the organism,
and replaced by new elements. A nega
tion is made, and this is again negated.
But the higher form of negation appears
in the generic ; “ The species lives and the
individual dies.” The generic continually
transcends the individual—going forth to
new individuals and deserting the old—
a process of birth and decay, both nega
HERBERT
CHAPTER I.
THE CRISIS IN NATURAL SCIENCE.
During the past twenty years a revolu
tion has been working in physical science.
Within the last ten it has come to the sur
face, and is now rapidly spreading into
all departments of mental activity.
Although its centre is to be found in the
doctrine of the £-'Correlation of Forces,” it
would be a narrow view that counted only
the expounders of this doctrine, numerous
as they are; the spirit of this movement
inspires a heterogeneous multitude—Car
penter, Grove, Mayer, Faraday, Thompson,
Tyndall and Helmholtz ; Herbert Spencer,
Stuart Mill, Buckle, Draper, Lewes, Lecky,
Max Muller, Marsh, Liebig, Darwin and
Agassiz ; these names, selected at random,
are suggested on account of the extensive
circulation of their books. Every day the
press announces some new name in this
field of research.
What is the character of the old which
is displaced, and of the new which gets
established ?
By way of preliminary, it must be re
marked that there are observable in mod
ern times three general phases of culture,
more or less historic.
The first phase is thoroughly dogmatic:
it accepts as of like validity metaphysical
tive processes. In conscious Spirit both
are united in one movement. The generic
here enters the individual as pure ego—
the undetermined possibility of all deter
minations. Since it is. undetermined,
it is negative to all special deter
minations. But this ego not only exists as
subject, but also as objeet—a process of
self-determination or self-negation. And
this negation or particularization contin
ually proceeds from one object to another,
and remains conscious under the whole,
not dying, as the mere animal does, in the
transition from individual to individual.
This is the aperçu of Immortality.
SPENCER.
abstractions, and empirical observations.
It has not arrived at such a degree of
clearness as to perceive contradictions be
tween form and content. For the most
part, it is characterized by a reverence for
external authority. With the revival of
learning commences the protest of spirit
against this phase. Descartes and Lord
Bacon begin the contest, and are followed
by the many — Locke, Newton, Leibnitz,
Clark, and the rest. All are animated with
the spirit of that time — to come to the
matter in hand without so much mediation.
Thought wishes to rid itself of its fetterB ;
religious sentiment, to get rid of forms.
This reaction against the former stage,
which has been called by Hegel the meta
physical, finds a kind of climax in the in
tellectual movement just preceding the
French revolution. Thought no longer is
contented to say “ Cogito, ergo sum,” ab
stractly, but applies the doctrine in all di
rections, “I think; in that deed, I am.”
“ I am a man only in so far as I think. In
so far as I think, I am an essence. What I
get from others is not mine. What I can
comprehend, or dissolve in my reason, that
is mine.” It looks around and spies insti
tutions—“ clothes of spirit,” as Herr Tcufelsdroeck calls them. “ What are you
doing here, you sniveling priest ?” says
Voltaire: “you are imposing delusions
�Herbert Spencer.
upon society for your own aggrandizement.
I had no part or lot in making the church ;
cogito, ergo sum; I will only have over me
what I put there !”
“ I see that all these complications of
society are artificial,” adds Rousseau;
“man has made them ; they are not good,
and let us tear them down and make
anew.” These utterances echo all over
France and Europe. “ The state is merely
a machine by which the few exploiter the
many”—“ off with crowns !” Thereupon
they snatch off the crown of poor Louis,
and his head follows with it. “Reason”
is enthroned and dethroned. Thirty years
of war satiates at length this negative sec
ond period, and the third phase begins.
Its characteristic is to be constructive, not
to accept the heritage of the past with pas
sivity, noi’ wantonly to destroy, but to
realize itself in the world of objectivity—
the world of laws and institutions.
The first appearance of the second phase
of consciousness is characterized by the
grossest inconsistencies. It says in gene
ral, (see D’Holbach’s “ Systeme de la Na
ture”: “The immediate, only, is true;
what we know by our senses, alone has
reality ; all is matter and force.” But in
this utterance it is unconscious that matter
and force are purely general concepts, and
not objects of immediate consciousness.
What we see and feel is not matter or
force in general, but only some special
form. The self-refutation of this phase
may be exhibited as follows :
I. “What is known is known through
the senses : it is matter and force.”
II. But by the senses, the particular only
is perceived, and this can never be matter,
but merely a form. The general is a medi
ated result, and not an object of the senses.
III. Hence, in positing matter and force
as the content of sensuous knowing, they
unwittingly assert mediation to be the
content of immediateness.
The decline of this period of science re
sults from the perception of the contradic
tion involved. Kant was the first to show
this; his labors in this field may be
summed up thus;
The universal and necessary is not an
empirical result. (General laws cannot be
7
sensuously perceived.) The constitution
of the mind itself, furnishes the ground for
it :—first, we have an a priori basis (time
and space) necessarily presupposed as the
condition of all sensuous perception ; and
then we have categories presupposed as the
basis of every generalization whatever.
Utter any general proposition : for example
the one above quoted—“ all is matter and
force”—and you merely posit two cate
gories— Inherence and Causality — as ob
jectively valid. In all universal and neces
sary propositions we announce only the
subjective conditions of experience, and
not anything in and for itself true (i. e.
applicable to things in themselves).
At once the popular side of this doctrine
began to take effect. il We know only phe
nomena; the true object in itself we do
not know.”
This doctrine of phenomenal knowing
was outgrown in Germany at the com
mencement of the present century. In
1791—ten years after the publication of
the Critique of Pure Reason—the deep
spirit of Fichte began to generalize Kant’s
labors, and soon he announced the legiti
mate results of the doctrine. Schelling
and Hegel completed the work of trans
forming what Kant had left in a negative
state, into an affirmative system of truth.
The following is an outline of the refuta
tion of Kantian scepticism :
I. Kant reduces all objective knowledge
to phenomenal : we furnish the form of
knowing, and hence whatever we announce
in general concerning it—and all that we
call science has, of course, the form of
generality—is merely our subjective forms,
and does not belong to the thing in itself.
II. This granted, say the later philoso
phers, it follows that the subjective swal
lows up all and becomes itself the univer
sal (subject and object of itself), and
hence Reason is the true substance of the
universe. Spinoza’s substance is thus seen
to become subject. We partake of God as
intellectually seeing, and we see only God
as object, which Malebranche and Berkeley
held with other Platonists.
1. The categories (e. g. Unity, Reality,
Causality, Existence, etc.) being merely
subjective, or given by the constitution of
�8
Herbert Spencer.
the mind itself—for such universals are
presupposed by all experience, and hence
not derived from it—it follows :
2. If we abstract what we know to be
subjective, that we abstract all possibility
of a thing in itself, too. For “ existence”
is a category, and hence if subjective, we
may reasonably conclude that nothing ob
jective can have existence.
3. Hence, since one category has no pre
ference over another, and we cannot give
one of them objectivity without granting it
to all others, it follows that there can be
no talk of noumena, or of things in them
selves, existing beyond the reach of the
mind, for such talk merely applies what it
pronounces to be subjective categories,
(existence) while at the same time it de
nies the validity of their application.
III. But since we remove the supposed
“ noumena,” the so-called phenomena are
not opposed any longer to a correlate be
yond the intelligence, and the noumenon
proves to be mind itself.
An obvious corollary from this is, that by
the self-determination of mind in pure
thinking we shall find the fundamental
laws of all phenomena.
Though the Kantian doctrine soon gave
place in Germany to deeper insights, it
found its way slowly to other countries.
Comte and Sir Wm. Hamilton have made
the negative results very widely known—
the former, in natural science ; the latter,
in literature and philosophy. Most of the
writers named at the beginning are more or
less imbued with Comte’s doctrines, while
a few follow Hamilton. For rhetorical
purposes, the Hamiltonian statement is far
superior to all others; for practical pur
poses, the Comtian. The physicist wishing
to give his undivided attention to empiri
cal observation, desires an excuse for neg
lecting pure thinking ; he therefore refers
to the well-known result of philosophy,
that we cannot know anything of ultimate
causes—we are limited to phenomena and
laws. Although it must be conceded that
this consolation is somewhat similar to
that of the ostrich, who cunningly con
ceals his head in the sand when annoyed
by the hunters, yet great benefit has
thereby accrued to science through the
undivided zeal of the investigators thus
consoled.
When, however, a sufficiently large col
lection has been made, and the laws are
sought for in the chaotic mass of observa
tions, then thought must be had. Thought
is the only crucible capable of dissolving
“ the many into the one.” Tycho Brahe
served a good purpose in collecting obser
vations, but a Kepler was required to dis
cern the celestial harmony involved therein.
This discovery of laws and relations, or
of relative unities, proceeds to the final
stage of science, which is that of the abso
lute comprehension.
Thus modern science, commencing with
the close of the metaphysical epoch, has
three stages or phases :
I. The first rests on mere isolated facts
of experience ; accepts the first phase of
things, or that which comes directly before
it, and hence may be termed the Btage of
immediateness.
II. The second relates its thoughts to
one another and compares them ; it developes inequalities; tests one through an
other, and discovers dependencies every
where ; since it learns that the first phase
of objects is phenomenal, and depends up
on somewhat lying beyond it; since it de
nies truth to the immediate, it may be
termed the stage of mediation.
III. A final stage which considers a phe
nomenon in its totality, and thus seizes it
in its noumenon, and is the stage of the
comprehension.
To resume: the first is that of sensuous
knowing; the second, that of reflection (the
understanding); the third, that of the rea
son (or the speculative stage).
In the sensuous knowing, we have crude,
undigested masses all co-ordinated; each
is in and for itself, and perfectly valid
without the others. But as soon as re
flection enters, dissolution is at work.
Each is thought in sharp contrast with the
rest; contradictions arise on every hand.
The third stage finds its way out of these
quarrelsome abstractions, and arrives at a
synthetic unity, at a system, wherein the
antagonisms are seen to form an organism.
The first stage of the development closes
with attempts on all hands to put the re
�9
Herbert Spencer.
suits in an encyclopaediacal form. Hum
boldt’s Cosmos is a good example of this
tendency, manifested so ■widely. Matter,
masses, and functions are the subjects of
investigation.
Reflection investigates functions and
seizes the abstract category of force, and
straightway we are in the second stage.
Matter, as such, loses its interest, and “cor
relation of forces” absorbs all attention.
Force is an arrogant category and will
not be co-ordinated with matter; if ad
mitted, we are led to a pure dynamism.
This will become evident as follows :
I. Force implies confinement (to give it
direction) ; it demands, likewise, an “ oc
casion,” or soliciting force to call it into
activity.
II. But it cannot be confined except by
force; its occasion must be a force like
wise.
III. Thus, since its confinement and “oc
casion” are forces, force can only act upon
forces—upon matter only in so far as that
is a force. Its nature requires confinement
in order to manifest it, and hence it can
not act or exist except in unity with other
forces which likewise have the same de
pendence upon it that it has upon them.
Hence a force has no independent subsist
ence, but is only an element of a combination
of opposed forces, which combination is a
unity existing in an opposed manner (or
composed of forces in a Btate of tension).
This deeper unity which we come upon as
the ground of force is properly named law.
From this, two corollaries are to be
drawn : (I.) That matter is merely a name
for various forces, as resistance, attraction
and repulsion, etc. (2.) That force is no
ultimate category, but, upon reflection, is
seen to rest upon law as a deeper category
(not law as a mere similarity of phe
nomena, but as a true unity underlying
phenomenal multiplicity).
From the nature of the category of force
we see that whoever adopts it as the ulti
mate, embarks on an ocean of dualism, and
instead of “ seeing everywhere the one and
all” as did Xenophanes, he will see every
where the self opposed, the contradictory.
The crisis which science has now reached
is of this nature. The second stage is at
its commencement with the great bulk of
scientific men.
To illustrate the self-nugatory character
ascribed to this stage we shall adduce
some of the most prominent positions of
Herbert Spencer, whom we regard as the
ablest exponent of this movement. These
contradictions are not to be deprecated, as
though they indicated a decline of thought ;
on the contrary, they show an increased ac
tivity, (though in the stage of mere reflec
tion,) and give us good omens for the future.
The era of .stupid mechanical thinkers is
over, and we have entered upon the active,
chemical stage of thought, wherein the
thinker is trained to consciousness con
cerning his abstract categories, which, as
Hegel says, “ drive him around in their
whirling circle.”
Now that the body of scientific men are
turned in this direction, we behold a vast
upheaval towards philosophic thought ; and
this is entirely unlike the isolated pheno
menon (hitherto observed in history) of a
single group of men lifted above the sur
rounding darkness of their age into clear
ness. We do not have such a phenomenon
in our time ; it is the spirit of the nine
teenth century to move by masses.
CHAPTER II.
THE “ FIRST PRINCIPLES5’ OF THE “UNKNOW
ABLE.”
The British Quarterly speaking of Spen
cer, says : “ These i First Principles ’ are
merely the foundation of a system of Phil
osophy, bolder, more elaborate and com
prehensive, perhaps, than any other which
has been hitherto designed in England.”
The persistence and sincerity, so gener
allyprevailing among these correlationists,
we have occasion to admire in Herbert
Spencer. He seems to be always ready to
sacrifice his individual interest for truth,
and is bold and fearless in uttering what
he believes it to be.
For critical consideration no better divi
sion can be found than that adopted in the
“ First Principles” by Mr. Spencer himself,
to wit: 1st, the unknowable, 2nd, the know
�10
Herbert Spencer.
able. Accordingly, let us examine first his
theory of
for the scepticism can only legitimately
conclude that the objective which we do
THE UNKNOWABLE.
know is of a nature kindred with reason:
When Mr. Spencer announces the con and that by an a priori necessity we can
tent of the “ unknowable” to be(e ultimate affirm that not only all knowable must
religious and scientific ideas,” we are re have this nature, but also all possible ex
minded at once of the old adage in juris istence must.
prudence—“ Ornnis definitio in jure civili
In this we discover that the mistake on
est periculosa
the definition is liable to the part of the sceptic consists in taking
prove self-contradictory in practice. So self-conscious intelligence as something
when we have a content assigned to the one-sided or subjective, whereas it must
unknowable we at once inquire, whence be, according to its very definition, subject
come the distinctions in the unknowable? and object in one, and thus universal.
If unknown they are not distinct to us.
The difficulty underlying this stage of
When we are told that Time, Space, Force, consciousness is that the mind has not
Matter, God, Creation, etc., are unknow- been cultivated to a clear separation of
ables, we must regard these words as cor the imagination from the thinking. As
responding to no distinct objects, but Sir Wm. Hamilton remarks, (Metaphysics,
rather as all of the same import to us. It p. 487,) “Vagueness and confusion are
should be always borne in mind that all produced by the confounding of objects so
universal negatives are self-contradictory. different as the images of sense and the
Moreover, since all judgments are made by unpicturable notions of intelligence.”
subjective intelligences, it follows that all
Indeed the great “law of the condition
general assertions concerning the nature ed” so much boasted of by that philoso
of the intellect affect the judgment itself. pher himself and his disciples, vanishes at
The naïveté with which certain writers once when the mentioned confusion is
wield these double-edged weapons is a avoided. Applied to space it results as
source of solicitude to the spectator.
follows :
When one says that he knows that he
I.— Thought, of Space.
knows nothing, he asserts knowledge and
1. Space, if finite, must be limited from
denies it in the same sentence. If one without;
says il all knowledge is relative,” as Spen
2. But such external limitations would
cer does, (p. 68, et seq., of First Principles,) require space to exist in ;
he of course asserts that his knowledge of
3. And hence the supposed limits of
the fact is relative and not absolute. If a space that were to make it finite do in fact
distinct content is asserted of ignorance, continue it.
the same contradiction occurs.
It appears, therefore, that space is of
The perception of this principle by the such a nature that it can only end in, or be
later German philosophers at once led limited by itself, and thus is universally
them out of the Kantian nightmare, into continuous or infinite.
positive truth. The principle may be ap
II.—Imagination of Space.
plied in general to any subjective scepti
cism. The following is a general scheme
If the result attained by pure thought is
that will apply to all particular instances : correct, space is infinite, and if so, it can
I. “We cannot know things in them not be imagined. If, however, it should
selves; all our knowledge is subjective ; it be found possible to compass it by imagi
is confined to our own states and changes.” nation, it must be conceded that there
II. If this is so, then still more is what really is a contradiction in the intelligence.
we name the ‘objective” only a state or That the result of such an attempt coin
change of us as subjective; it is a mere cides with our anticipations we have Ham
fiction of the mind so far as it is regarded ilton’s testimony—“ imagination sinks ex
as a “beyond” or thing in itself.
hausted.”
III. Hence we do know the objective ;
Therefore, instead of this result contra
�Herbert Spencer.
dieting the first, as Hamilton supposes, it
really confirms it.
In fact if the mind is disciplined to
separate pure thinking from mere imagin
ing, the infinite is not difficult to think.
Spinoza saw and expressed this by making
a distinction between “ infinitum actu
(or rationis),” and “infinitum imaginationis,” and his first and second axioms
are the immediate results of thought ele
vated to this clearness. This distinction
and his “ omnis determinatio est negatio,”
together with the development of the third
stage of thinking (according to reason),
(e sub quadam specie ceternitatis,”—these
distinctions are the priceless legacy of the
clearest-minded thinker of modern times;
and it behooves the critic of “human
knowing” to consider well the results that
the “human mind” has produced through
those great masters — Plato and Aristotle,
Spinoza and Hegel.
Herbert Spencer, however, not only be
trays unconsciousness of this distinction,
but employs it in far grosser and self
destructive applications.
On page 25,
(“ First Principles,”) he says : When on
the sea shore we note how the hulls of dis
tant vessels are hidden below the horizon,
and how of still remoter vessels only the
uppermost sails are visible, we realize with
tolerable clearness the slight curvature of
that portion of the sea’s surface which lies
before us. But when we seek in imagina
tion to follow out this curved surface as it
actually exists, slowly bending round until
all its meridians meet in a point eight
thousand miles below our feet, we find
ourselves utterly baffled. We cannot con
ceive in its real form and magnitude even
that small segment of our globe which ex
tends a hundred miles on every side of us,
much less the globe as a whole. The piece
of rock on which we stand can be mentally
represented with something like complete
ness ; we find ourselves able to think of
its top,"its sides, and its under surface at
the same time, or so nearly at the same
time that they seem all present in con
sciousness together; and so we can form
what we call a conception of the rock, but
to do the like with the earth we find im
possible.” “We form of the earth not a
11
conception properly so-called, but only a
symbolic conception.”
Conception here is held to be adequate
when it is formed of an object of a given
size; when the object is above that size the
conception thereof becomes symbolical.
Here we do not have the exact limit stated,
though we have an example given (a rock)
which is conceivable, and another (the
earth) which is not.
“ We must predicate nothing of objects
too great or too multitudinous to be men
tally represented, or we must make our
predications by means of extremely inade
quate representations of such objects, mere
symbols of them.” (27 page.)
But not only is the earth an indefinitely
multiple object, but so is the rock; nay,
even the smallest grain of sand. Suppose
the rock to be a rod in diameter; a micro
scope magnifying two and a half millions
of diameters would make its apparent mag
nitude as large as the earth. It is thus
only a question of relative distance from
the person conceiving, and this reduces it
to the mere sensuous image of the retina.
Remove the earth to the distance of the
moon, and our conception of it would, upon
these principles, become quite adequate.
But if our conception of the moon be held
inadequate, then must that of the rock or
the grain of sand be equally inadequate.
Whatever occupies space is continuous
and discrete ; i. e., may be divided into
parts. It is hence a question of relativity
whether the image or picture of it corre
spond to it.
The legitimate conclusion is that all our
conceptions are symbolic, and if that pro
perty invalidates their reliability, it fol
lows that we have no reliable knowledge
of things perceived, whether great or small.
Mathematical knowledge is conversant
with pure lines, points, and surfaces ; hence
it must rest on inconceivables.
But Mr. Spencer would by no means con
cede that we do not know the shape of the
earth, its size, and many other inconceiv
able things about it. Conception is thus
no criterion of knowledge, and all built
upon this doctrine (i. e. depending upon
the conceivability of a somewhat) falls to
the ground.
�12
Herbert Spencer.
But he applies it to the questions of the says : “ no other result would happen if I
divisibility of matter (page 50): “ If we went on forever.’")
say that matter is infinitely divisible, we
III. Pure thought, however, grasps this
commit ourselves to a supposition not process as a totality, and sees that it only
realizable in thought. We can bisect and arises through a self-relation. The “ pro
rebisect a body, and continually repeating gress ” is nothing but a return to itself,
the act until we reduce its parts to a size the same monotonous round. It would be
no longer physically divisible, may then a similar attempt to seek the end of a cir
mentally continue the process without cle by travelling round it, and one might
limit.”
make the profound remark : “ If mv pow
Setting aside conceivability as indiffer ers were equal to the task, I should doubt
ent to our knowledge or thinking, we have less come to the end.” This difficulty
the following solution of this point:
vanishes as soon as the experience is made
I. That which is extended may be bi that the line returns into itself. “ It is the
sected (i. e. has two halves).
same thing whether said once or repeated
II. Thus two extensions arise, which, in forever,” says Simplicius, treating of this
turn, have the same property of divisibil paradox.
ity that the first one had.
The “Infinite Progress” is the most
III. Since, then, bisection is a process stubborn fortress of Scepticism. By it
entirely indifferent to the nature of exten our negative writers establish the imposion (i. e. does not change an extension tency of Reason for various ulterior pur
into two non-extendeds), it follows that poses. Some wish to use it as a lubrica
body is infinitely divisible.
ting fluid upon certain religious dogmas
We do not have to test this in imagina that cannot otherwise be swallowed. Oth
tion to verify it; and this very truth must ers wish to save themselves the trouble of
be evident to him who says that the pro thinking out the solutions to the Problem
gress must be Ci continued without limit.” of Life. But the Sphinx devours him who
For if we examine the general conditions does not faithfully grapple with, and solve
under which any such “ infinite progress ” her enigmas.
is possible, we find them to rest upon the
Mephistopheles (a good authority on this
presupposition of a real infinite, thus :
subject) says of Faust, whom he finds
grumbling at the littleness of man’s mind:
Infinite Progress.
“ Verachte nur Vernunft und Wissenchaft,
I. Certain attributes are found to be
Des Menschen allerhöchste Kraft!
long to an object, and are not affected by
Und hätt’ er sich auch nicht dem Teufel übergehen,
Er müsste doch zu Grunde gehen.”
a certain process. (For example, divisi
bility as a process in space does not affect
Only prove that there is a large field of
the continuity of space, which makes that the unknowable and one has at once the
process possible. Or again, the process of vade mecum for stupidity. Crude reflec
limiting space does not interfere with its tion can pour in its distinctions into a sub
continuity, for space will not permit any ject, and save itself from the consequences
limit except space itself.)
by pronouncing the basis incomprehensi
II. When the untutored reflection en ble. It also removes all possibility of
deavors to apprehend a relation of this Theology, or of the Piety of the Intellect,
nature, it seizes one side of the dualism and leaves a very narrow margin for re
and is hurled to the other. (It bisects ligious sentiment, or the Piety of the
space, and then finds itself before two ob Heart.
jects identical in nature with the first; it
The stage of Science represented by the
has effected nothing; it repeats the pro French Encyclopaedists was immediately
cess, and, by and by getting exhausted, hostile to each and every form of religion.
wonders whether it could meet a different This second stage, however, has a choice.
result if its powers of endurance were It can, like Hamilton or Mansel, let re
greater. Or else suspecting the true case, ligious belief alone, as pertaining to the
�Herbert Spencer.
unknown and unknowable—which may be
believed in as much as one likes ; or it may
44 strip off,” as Spencer does, u determina
tions from a religion,” by which it is dis
tinguished from other religions, and show
their truth to consist in a common doc
trine held by all, to-wit : 41 The truth of
things is unknowable.”
Thus the scientific man can baffle all at
tacks from the religious standpoint ; nay,
he can even elicit the most unbounded ap
proval, while he saps the entire structure
of Christianity.
Says Spencer (p. 4G) : 44 Science and Re
ligion agree in this, that the power which
the Universe manifests to us is utterly in
scrutable.” He goes on to show that
though this harmony exists, yet it is
broken by the inconsistency of Religion :
44 For every religion, setting out with the
tacit assertion of a mystery, forthwith
proceeds to give some solution of this
mystery, and so asserts that it is not a
mystery passing human comprehension.”
In this confession he admits that all relig
ions agree in professing to reveal the solu
tion of the Mystery of the Universe to man ;
and they agree, moreover, that man, as
simply a being of sense and reflection, can
not comprehend the revelation ; but that
he must first pass through a profound me
diation—be regenerated, not merely in his
heart, but in intellect also. The misty
limitations (4<vagueness and confusion”)
of the imagination must give way to the
purifying dialectic of pure thought before
one can see the Eternal Verities.
These revelations profess to make known
the nature of the Absolute. They call the
Absolute 44 Him,” 44 Infinite,” 44 Self-cre
ated,” 44 Self-existent,” 44 Personal,” and
ascribe to this 44 Him” attributes implying
profound mediation. All definite forms
of religion, all definite theology, must at
once be discarded according to Spencer’s
principle. Self-consciousness, even, is re
garded as impossible by him (p. 65) :
44 Clearly a true cognition of self implies a
state in which the knowing and known are
one, in which subject and object are iden
tified ; and this Mr. Mansel rightly holds
to be the annihilation of both.” He con
siders it a degradation (p. 109) to apply
13
personality to God: 44 Is it not possible
that there is a mode of being as much
transcending intelligence and will as these
transcend mechanical motion ?” And
again (p. 112) he holds that the mere
44 negation of absolute knowing contains
more religion than all dogmatic theology.”
(P. 121,) 4<A11 religions-are envelopes of
truth, which reveal to the lower and con
ceal to the higher.” (P. 66,) 44 Objective
and subjective things are alike inscrutable
in their substance and genesis.” 44 Ulti
mate religious and scientific ideas (p. 68)
alike turn out to be mere symbols of the
actual, and not cognitions of it.” (P. 69,)
44 We come to the negative result that the
reality existing behind all appearances
must ever be unknown.”
In these passages we see a dualism pos
ited in this form : “ Everything immediate
is phenomenal, a manifestation of the hid
den and inscrutable essence.” This es
sence is the unknown and unknowable ;
yet it manifests itself in the immediate or
phenomenal.
The first stage of thought was uncon
scious that it dealt all the time with a
mediated result (a dualism) while it as
sumed an immediate ; that it asserted all
truth to lie in the sensuous object, while it
named at the same time “matter and/orce,”
categories of reflection.
The second stage has got over that dif
ficulty, but has fallen into another. For
if the phenomenon manifested the essence,
it could not be said to be 44 unknowable,
hidden, and inscrutable.” But if the es
sence is not manifested by the phenome
non, then we have the so-called phenome
non as a self-existent, and therefore inde
pendent of the so-called essence, which
stands coordinated to it as another exist
ent, which cannot be known because it
does not manifest itself to us. Hence the
44 phenomenon ” is no phenomenon, or
manifestation of aught but itself, and the
44 essence” is simply a fiction of the phil
osopher.
Hence his talk about essence is purely
gratuitous, for there is not shown the need
of one.
A dialectical consideration of essence
and phenomenon will result as follows :
�14
Herbert Spencer.
Essence and PhenomenonI. If essence is seized as independent
or absolute being, it may be taken in two
senses:
a. As entirely unaffected by “ other
ness” (or limitation) and entirely unde
termined ; and this would be pure nothing,
for it cannot distinguish itself or be dis
tinguished from pure nothing.
b. As relating to itself, and hence
making itself a duality—becoming its own
other; in this case the “other” is a van
ishing one, for it is at the same time iden
tical and non-identical — a process in
which the essence may be said to appear
or become phenomenal. The entire pro
cess is the absolute or self-related (and
hence independent). It is determined, but
by itself, and hence not in a finite man
ner.
II. The Phenomenon is thus seen to
arise through the self-determination of
essence, and has obviously the following
characteristics:
a. It is the “ other ” of the essence, and
yet the own self of the essence existing in
this opposed manner, and thus self-nuga
tory; and this non-abiding character gives
it the name of phenomenon (or that which
merely appears, but is no permanent es
sence).
b. If this were simply another to the
essence, and not the eelf-opposition of the
same, then it would be through itself, and
itself the essence in its first (or immediate)
phase. But this is the essence only as ne
gated, or as returned from the otherness.
c. This self-nugatoriness is seen to arise
from the contradiction involved in its be
ing other to itself, i. e. outside of its true
being. Without this self-nugatoriness it
would be an abiding, an essence itself, and
hence no phenomenon ; with this self-nu
gatoriness the phenomenon simply exhib
its or “ manifests ” the essence ; in fact,
with the appearance and its negation taken
together, we have before us a totality of
essence and phenomenon.
III. Therefore : a. The phenomenal is
such because it is not an abiding some
what. It is dependent upon other or es
sence. b. Whatever it posesses belongs
to that upon which it depends, i. e. be
longs to essence, c. In the self-nugatoriness of the phenomenal we have the entire
essence manifested.
This latter point is the important result,
and may be stated in a less strict and more
popular form thus : The real world (socalled) is said to be in a state of change
origination and decay. Things pass away
and others come in their places. Under
this change, however, there is a permanent
called Essence.
The imaginative thinking finds it impos
sible to realize such an abiding as exists
through the decay of all external form,
and hence pronounces it unknowable. But
pure thought seizes it, and finds it a pure
self-relation or process of return to itself,
which accordingly has duality, thus:
a. The positing or producing of a some
what or an immediate, and, b. The cancel
ling of the same. In this duality of be
ginning and ceasing, this self-relation
completes its circle, and is thus, c. the en
tire movement.
All categories of the understanding
(cause and effect, matter and form, possi
bility, etc.) are found to contain this
movement when dissolved. And hence
they have self-determination for their pre
supposition and explanation. It is un
necessary to add that unless one gives up
trying to imagine truth, that this is all
very absurd reasoning. (At the end of the
sixth book of Plato’s Republic, ch. xxi.,
and in the seventh book, ch.xiii., one may
see how clearly this matter was understood
two thousand, and more, years ago.)
To manifest or reveal is to make known ;
and hence to speak of the “manifestation
of a hidden and inscrutable essence” is to
speak of the making known of an unknow
able.
Mr. Spencer goes on; no hypothesis of
the universe is possible—creation not con
ceivable, for that would be something out
of nothing—self-existence not conceivable,
for that involves unlimited past time.
He holds that “all knowledge is rela
tive,'” for all explanation is the reducing
of a cognition to a more general. He says,
(p. G9,) “ Of necessity, therefore, explana
tion must eventually bring us down to the
inexplicable—the deepest truth which we
�Herbert Spencer.
15
can get at must be unaccountable.” This will prove a confused affair; especially
much valued insight has a positive side as since to the above-mentioned “inscruta
well as the negative one usually developed : bility” of the absolute, he adds the doc
I. (a.) To explain something we sub trine of an “ obscure consciousness of it,”
holding, in fact, that the knowable is only
sume it under a more general.
(6.) The ee summum genus” cannot be a relative, and that it cannot be known
without at the same time possessing a
subsumed, and
knowledge of the unknowable.
(c.) Hence is inexplicable.
(P. 82) he says : “ A thought involves
II. But those who conclude from this
that we base our knowledge ultimately relation, difference and likeness; what
upon faiih (from the supposed fact that we ever does not present each of them does
not admit of cognition. And hence we
cannot prove our premises) forget that—
(a.) If the subsuming process ends in an may say that the unconditioned as present
unknown, then all the subsuming has re ing none of these, is trebly unthinkable.”
sulted in nothing; for to subsume some And yet he says, (p. 96): “ The relative is
thing under an unknown does not explain itself inconceivable except as related to a
it. (Plato’s Republic, Book VII, chap, xiii.) real non-relative.”
We will leave this infinite self-contradic
(&.) The more general, however, is the
more simple, and hence the summum tion thus developed, and turn to the posi
genus” is the purely simple—it is Being. tions established concerning the knowable.
But the simpler the clearer, and the pure They concern the nature of Force, Matter
and Motion, and the predicates set up are
simple is the absolutely clear.
(c.) At the i( summum genus” subsump “persistence,” “indestructibility” and
tion becomes the principle of identity— similar.
THE KNOWABLE.
being is being; and thus stated we have
Although in the first part “ conceivabil
simple self-relation as the origin of all
ity” was shown to be utterly inadequate
clearness and knowing whatsoever.
III. Hence it is seen that it is not the as a test of truth ; that with it we could not
mere fact of subsumption that makes some even establish that the earth is round, or
thing clear, but rather it is the reduction that space is infinitely continuous, yet here
Mr. Spencer finds that inconceivability is
of it to identity.
In pure being as the summum genus, the the most convenient of all positive proofs.
The first example to be noticed is his
mind contemplates the pure form of know
ing—“ a is a,” or “ a subject is a predi proof of the compressibility of matter (p.
cate”—(a is b). The pure “is” is the 51): “It is an established mechanical
empty form of mental affirmation, the pure truth that if a body moving at a given ve
copula; and thus in the summum genus locity, strikes an equal body at rest in
the mind recognizes the pure form of itself. such wise that the two move on together,
All objectivity is at this point dissolved their joint velocity will be but half that of
into the thinking, and hence the subsump the striking body. Now it is a law of
tion becomes identity—(being=e</o, or “co- which the negative is inconceivable, that
gito, ergo sum” the process turns round in passing from any one degree of magni
and becomes synthetic, (“dialectic” or tude to another all intermediate degrees
‘‘genetic,” as called by some). From this must be passed through. Or in the case
it is evident that self-consciousness is the before us, a body moving at velocity 4,
cannot, by collision, be reduced-to velocity
basis of all knowledge.
2, without passing through all velocities
between 4 and 2. But were matter truly
CHAPTER III.
solid — were its units absolutely incom
THE “ FIRST PRINCIPLES” OF THE “ KNOWpressible fand in unbroken contact — this
ABLE.”
“ law of continuity,” as it is called, would
As might be expected from Spencer’s be broken in every case of collision. For
treatment of the unknowable, the knowable when, of two such units, one moving at ve
�16
Herbert Spencer.
locity 4 strikes another at rest, the striking
unit must have its velocity 4 instantane
ously reduced to velocity 2; must pass
from velocity 4 tq velocity 2 without any
lapse of time, and without passing through
intermediate velocities; must be moving
with velocities 4 and 2 at the same instant,
which is impossible.” On page 57 he ac
knowledges that any transition from one
rate of motion to another is inconceivable ;
hence it does not help the matter to “pass
through intermediate velocities.” It is
just as great a contradiction and just as
inconceivable that velocity 4 should be
come velocity 3.9999-f-, as it is that it
should become velocity 2; for no change
whatever of the motion can be thought (as
he cofifesses) without having two motions
in one time. Motion, in fact, is the syn
thesis of place and time, and cannot be
comprehended except as their unity. The
argument here quoted is only adduced by
Mr. S. for the purpose of antithesis to other
arguments on the other side as weak as
itself.
On page 241, Mr. Spencer deals with the
question of the destructibility of matter:
“The annihilation of matter is unthink
able for the same reason that the creation
of matter is unthinkable.” (P. 54): “ Mat
ter in its ultimate nature is as absolutely
incomprehensible as space and time.” The
nature of matter is unthinkable, its crea
tion or destructibility is unthinkable, and
in this style of reasoning we can add that
its indestructibility is likewise unthinkable;
in fact the argument concerning self-exis
tence will apply here. (P. 31) : “ Self
existence necessarily means existence with
out a beginning; and to form a conception
of self-existence is to form a conception of
existence without a beginning. Now by
no mental effort can we do this. To con
ceive existence through infinite past time,
implies the conception of infinite past time,
which is an impossibility.” Thus, too,
we might argue in a strain identical; in
destructibility implies existence through
infinite future time, but by no mental effort
can infinite time be conceived. ^And thus,
too, we prove and disprove the persistence
of force and motion. When occasion re
quires, the cver-convenient argument of
££ inconceivability” enters. It reminds
one of Sir Wm. Hamilton’s “imbecility”
upon which are based “ sundry of the most
important phenomena of intelligence,”
among which he mentions the category of
causality. If causality is founded upon
imbecility, and all experience upon it, it
follows that all empirical knowledge rests
upon imbecility.
On page 247, our author asserts that the
first law of motion “ is in our flay being
merged in the more general one, that mo
tion, like matter, is indestructible.” It is
interesting t<5 observe that this so-called
“ First law of motion” rests on no better
basis than very crude reflection.
“When not influenced by external forces,
a moving body will go on in a straight
line with a uniform velocity,” is Spencer’s
statement of it.
This abstract, supposed law has neces
sitated much scaffolding in Natural Phil
osophy that is otherwise entirely unneces
sary; it contradicts the idea of momen
tum, and is thus refuted :
I. A body set in motion continues in
motion after the impulse’ has ceased from
without, for the reason that it retains mo
mentum.
II. Momentum is the product of weight
by velocity, and weight is the attraction of
the body in question to another body exter
nal to it. If all bodies external to the
moving body were entirely removed, the
latter would have no weight, and hence
the product of weight by velocity would
be zero.
III. The “ external influences” referred
to in the so-called “ law,” mean chiefly
attraction. Since no body could have mo
mentum except through weight, another
name for attraction, it follows that all free
motion has reference to another body, and
hence is curvilinear; thus we are rid of
that embarrassing ££ straight line motion”
which gives so much trouble in mechanics.
It has all to be reduced back again through
various processes to curvilinear movement.
We come, finally, to consider the central
point of this system ;
THE CORRELATION OF FORCES.
Speaking of persistence of force, Mr.
Spencer concedes (p. 252) that this doc
�Herbert Spencer.
trine is not demonstrable from experience.
He says (p. 254): “Clearly the persistence
of force is an ultimate truth of which no
inductive proof is possible.” (P. 255) :
“By the persistence of force we really
mean the persistence of some power which
transcends our knowledge and conception.”
(P. 257): “The indestructibility of matter
and the continuity of motion we saw to be
really .corollaries from the impossibility of
establishing in thought a relation between
something and nothing.” (Thus what
was established as a mental impotence is
now made to have objective validity.)
“Our inability to conceive matter and
motion destroyed is our inability to sup
press consciousness itself.” (P. 258) :
“ Whoever alleges that the inability to con
ceive a beginning or end of the universe
is a negative result of our mental struc
ture, cannot deny that our consciousness
of the universe as persistent is a positive
result of our mental structure. And this
persistence of the universe is the persist
ence of that unknown cause, power, or
force, which is manifested to us through
all phenomena.” This “ positive result of
our mental structure” is said to rest on
our ££ inability to conceive the limitation
of consciousness” which is ££ simply the
obverse of our inability to put an end to
the thinking subject while still continuing
to think.” (P. 257) : “To think of some
thing becoming nothing, would involve
that this substance of consciousness having
just existed under a given form, should
next assume no form, or should cease to
be consciousness.”
It will be observed here that he is en
deavoring te solve the First Antinomy of
Kant, and that his argument in this place
differs from Kant’s proof of the “ Antithe
sis” in this, that while Kant proves that
“The world [or universe] has no begin
ning,” etc., by the impossibility of the
origination of anything in a ££ void time,”
that Mr. Spencer proves the same thing by
asserting it to be a “positive result of our
mental structure,” and then proceeds to
show that this is a sort of “inability”
which has a subjective explanation ; it is,
according to him, merely the “ substance
17
of consciousness” objectified and regarded
as the law of reality.
But how is it with the “Thesis” to that
Antinomy, “The world has a beginning
in time ?” Kant proves this apagogically by showing the absurdity of an “ in
finite series already elapsed.” That our
author did not escape the contradiction
has already been shown in our remarks
upon the “indestructibility of matter.”
While he was treating of the unknowable
it was his special province to prove that
self-existence is unthinkable. (P. 31) : He
says it means ££ existence without a begin
ning,” and “to conceive existence through
infinite past time, implies the conception
of infinite past time, which is an impos
sibility.” Thus we have the Thesis of the
Antinomy supported in his doctrine of the
“ unknowable,” and the antithesis of the
same proved in the doctrine of the know
able.
We shall next find him involved with
Kant’s Third Antinomy.
The doctrine of the correlation is stated
in the following passages :
(P. 280): “ Those modes of the un
knowable, which we call motion, heat,
light, chemical affinity, etc., are alike
transformable into each other, and into
those modes of the unknowable which we
distinguish as sensation, emotion, thought:
these, in their turns, being directly or in
directly re-transformable into the original
shapes. That no idea or feeling arises,
save as a result of some physical force ex
pended in producing it, is fast becoming a
common-place of science; and whoever
duly weighs the evidence, will see that
nothing but an overwhelming bias in favor
of a preconceived theory can explain its
non-acceptance. How this metamorphosis
takes place—how a force existing as mo
tion, heat, or light, can become a mode of
consciousness—how it is possible for aerial
vibrations to generate the sensation we
call sound, or for the forces liberated by
chemical changes in the brain to give rise
to emotion—these are mysteries which it
is impossible to fathom.” (P. 284): “Each
manifestation of force can be interpreted
only as the effect of some antecedent force ;
�18
Herbert Spencer.
no matter whether it be an inorganic ac
tion, an animal movement, a thought, or a
feeling. Either this must be conceded, or
else it must be asserted that our successive
states of consciousness are self-created.”
“ Either mental energies as well as bodily
ones are quantitatively correlated to cer
tain energies expended in their production,
and to certain other energies they initiate ;
or else nothing must become something
and something, nothing. Since persistence
of force, being a datum of consciousness,
cannot be denied, its unavoidable corol
lary must be accepted.”
On p. 294 he supports the doctrine that
“ motion takes the direction of the least
resistance,” mentally as well as physically.
Here are some of the inferences to be
drawn from the passages quoted :
1. Every act is determined from with
out, and hence does not belong to the sub
ject in which it manifests itself. "
2. To change the course of a force, is to
make another direction “ that of the least
resistance,” or to remove or diminish a
resistance.
3. But to change a resistance requires
force, which (in motion) must act in “ the
direction of the least resistance,” and
hence it is entirely determined from with
out, and governed by the disposition of
the forces it meets.
4. Hence, of will, it is an absurdity to
talk; freedom or moral agency is an im
possible phantom.
5. That there is self-determination in
self-consciousness—that it is “self-cre
ated ”—is to Mr. Spencer the absurd al
ternative which at once turns the scale in
favor of the doctrine that mental phenom
ena are the productions of external
forces.
After this, what are we to Bay of the
following ? (P. 501): “ Notwithstanding
all evidence to the contrary, there will
probably have arisen in not a few minds
the conviction that the solutions which
have been given, along with those to be
derived from them, are essentially mate
rialistic. Let none persist in these mis
conceptions.” (P. 502): “Their implica
tions are no more materialistic than they
are spiritualistic, and no more spiritual
istic than they are materialistic.”
If we hold these positions by the side of
Kant’s Third Antinomy, we shall see that
they all belong to the proof of the “ Anti
thesis,” viz : “ There is no freedom, but
everything in the world happens accord
ing to the laws of nature.” The “Thesis,”
viz : “ That a causality of freedom is nec
essary to account fully for the phenomena
of the world,” he has not anywhere sup
ported. We find, in fact, only those
thinkers who have in some measure mas
tered the third phase of culture in thought,
standing upon the basis presented by
Kant in the Thesis. The chief point in
the Thesis maybe stated as follows: 1.
If everything that happens presupposes a
previous condition, (which the law of
causality states,) 2. This previous condi
tion cannot be a permanent (or have been
always in existence); for, if so, its conse
quence, or the effect, would have always
existed. Thus the previous condition must
be a thing which has happened. 3. With
this the whole law of causality collapses';
for (a) since each cause is an effect, (5) its
determining power escapes into a higher
member of the series, and, (c) unless the
law changes, wholly vanishes ; there result
an indefinite series of effects with no
cause ; each member of the series is a de
pendent, has its being in another, which
again has its being in another, and hence
cannot support the subsequent term.
Hence it is evident that this Antinomy
consists, first: in the setting up of the law
of causality as having absolute validity,
which is the antithesis. Secondly, the
experience is made that such absolute law
of causality is a self-nugatory one, and thus
it is to be inferred that causality, to be at
all, presupposes an origination in a “ self
moved.” as Plato calls it. Aristotle (Meta
physics, xi. 6-7, and ix. 8) exhibits this ul
timate as the “ self-active,” and the Schol
astics take the same, under the designation
<( actus purus,” for the definition of God.
The Antinomy thus reduced gives :
I. Thesis : Self-determination must lie
at the basis of all causality, otherwise
causality cannot be at all.
�Herbert Spencer.
II. Antithesis : If there is self-determin
ation, “ the unity of experience (which
leads us to look for a cause) is destroyed,
and hence no such case could arise in ex
perience.”
In comparing the two proofs it is at once
seen that they are of different degrees of
universality. The argument of the Thesis is
based upon the nature of the thing itself,
i. e. a pure thought; while that of the
Antithesis loses sight of the idea of
“ efficient ” cause, and seeks mere contin
uity in the sequence of time, and thus ex
hibits itself as the second stage of thought,
which leans on the staff of fancy, i. e. mere
representative thinking. This “ unity of
experience,” as Kant calls it, is the same
thing, stated in other words, that Spencer
refers to as the “ positive result of our
mental structure.” In one sense those are
true antinomies—those of Kant, Hamilton,
et al.—viz. in this : that the “ representa
tive” stage of thinking finds itself unable
to shake off the sensuouB picture, and think
“ sub quadani specie ceternitatis.” To the
mind disciplined to the third stage of
thought, these are no antinomies; Spinoza,
Leibnitz, Plato and Aristotle are not con
fused by them. The Thesis, properly
stated, is a true universal, and exhibits its
own truth, as that upon which the law of
causality rests; and hence the antithesis
itself—less universal—resting upon the
law of causality, is based upon the Thesis.
Moreover, the Thesis does not deny an in
finite succession in time and space, it only
states that there must be an efficient cause
—-just what the law of causalty states, but
shows, in addition, that this efficient cause
must be a “ self-determined.”
On page 282 we learn that, “The solar
heat is the final source of the force mani
fested by society.” “ It (the force of so
ciety) is based on animal and vegetable
products, and these in turn are dependent
on the light and heat of the sun.”
As an episode in this somewhat abstract
discussion, it may be diverting to notice
the question of priority of discovery,
touched upon in the following note (p.
454): “Until I recently consulted his
‘ Outlines of Astronomy’ on another ques
tion, I was not aware that, so far back as
19
1833, Sir John Herschel had enunciated
the doctrine that ‘ the sun’s rays are the
ultimate source of almost every motion
which takes place on the surface of the
earth.’ He expressly includes all geologic,
meteorologic, and vital actions; as also
those which we produce by the combus
tion of coal. The late George Stephenson
appears to have been wrongly credited
with this last idea.”
In order to add to the thorough discus
sion of this important question, we wish
to suggest the claims of Thomas Carlyle,
who, as far back as 1830, wrote the foling passage in his Sartor Resartus (Am.
ed. pp. 55-6): “ Well sang the Hebrew
Psalmist: ‘If I take the wings of the
morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts
of the Universe, God is there.’ Thou, too,
0 cultivated reader, who too probably art
no psalmist, but a prosaist, knowing God
only by tradition, knowest thou any corner
of the world where at least force is not ?
The drop which thou shakest from thy wet
hand, rests not where it falls, but to-mor
row thou findest it swept away ; already,
on the wings of the north wind, it is near
ing the tropic of Cancer. How it came to
evaporate and not lie motionless ? Thinkest thou there is aught motionless, without
force, and dead ?
“ As I rode through the Schwartzwald,
I said to myself: That little fire which
glows starlike across the dark-growing
(nachtende) moor, where the sooty smith
bends over his anvil, and thou hopest to
replace thy lost horseshoe—is it a detach
ed, separated speck, cut off from the whole
universe, or indissolubly joined to the
whole ? Thou fool, that smithy-fire was
primarily kindled at the sun ; is fed by air
that circulates from beyond Noah’s deluge,
from beyond the Dog star; it is a little
ganglion, or nervous centre in the great
vital system of immensity.”
We have, finally, to consider the correl
ation theory in connection with equilib
rium.
I. Motion results from destroyed equi
librium. The whole totality does not cor
respond to itself, its ideal and real contra
dict each other. The movement is the re
storing of the equilibrium, or the bringing
�20
Herbert Spencer.
into unity of the ideal and real. To illus
trate : a spring (made of steel, rubber, or
any elastic material) has a certain form in
which it may exist without tension ; this
may be called the ideal shape, or simply
the ideal. If the spring is forced to as
sume another shape, its real shape becomes
different from the ideal; its equilibrium
is destroyed, and force is manifested as a
tendency to restore the equilibrium (or
unity of the ideal and real). Generalize
this : all forces have the same nature;
(a) expansive forces arise from the ideal
existing without—a gas, steam, for ex
ample, ideally takes up a more extended
space than it has really; it expands to fill
it. Or (6) contractive forces : the multi
plicity ideally exists within; e. g. attrac
tion of gravitation; matter trying to find
the centre of the earth, its ideal. The will
acts in this way: The ideal is changed
first, and draws the real after it. I first
destroy, in thought and will, the identity
of ideal and real; the tension resulting is
force. Thinking, since it deals with the
universal (or the potential and the actual)
is an original source of force, and, as will
result in the sequel from a reverse analysis
(see below, V. 3, c) the only source of force.
II. Persistence of force requires an unrestorable equilibrium ; in moving to re
store one equilibrium, it must destroy
another—its equivalent.
III. But this contradicts the above de
veloped conception of force as follows :
(a) Since force results from destroyed
equilibrium, it follows (Z>) that it requires
as much force to destroy the equilibrium
as is developed in the restoring of it (and
this notion is the basis of the correlation
theory). But (c) if the first equilibrium
(already destroyed) can only be restored
by the destroying of another equal to the
same, it has already formed an equilibrium
with the second, and the occasion of the
motion is removed.
If two forces are equal and opposed,
which will give way ?
By this dialectic consideration of force,
we learn the insufficiency of the theory of
correlation as the ultimate truth. Instead
of being “ the sole truth, which transcends
experience by underlying it ” (p. 258), we
are obliged to confess that this “ persist
ence of force” rests on the category of
causality; its thin disguise consists in the
substitution of other words for the meta
physical expression, “Every effect must
be equal to its cause.” And this, when
tortured in the crucible, confesses that
the only efficient cause is “ causi sui
hence the effect is equal to its cause, be
cause it is the cause.
And the correlation theory results in
showing that force cannot be, unless self
originated.
That self-determination is the inevitable
result, no matter what hypothesis be as
sumed, is also evident. Taking all counter
hypotheses and generalizing them, we have
this analysis:
I. Any and every being is determined
from without through another. (This theo
rem includes all anti-self-determination
doctrines.)
II. It results from this that any and
every being is dependent upon another and
is a finite one ; it cannot be isolated with
out destroying it. Hence it results that
every being is an element of a whole that
includes it as a subordinate moment.
III. Dependent being, as a subordinate
element, cannot be said to support any
thing attached to it, for its own support is
not in itself but in another, namely, the
whole that includes it. From this it re
sults that no dependent being can depend
upon another dependent being, but rather
upon the including whole.
The including whole is therefore not a
dependent; since it is for itself, and each
element is determined through it, and for
it, it may be called the negative unity (or
the unity which negates the independence
of the elements).
Remark.—A chain of dependent beings
collapses into one dependent being. De
pendence is not converted into independ
ence by simple multiplication. All de
pendence is thus an element of an inde
pendent whole.
IV. What is the character of this inde
pendent w’hole, this negative “unity I “Char
acter” means determination, and we are
prepared to sav that its determination can
not be through another, for then it would
�Herbert Spencer.
be a dependent, and we should be referred
again to the whole, including it. Its de
termination by which the multiplicity of
elements arises is hence its own self-deter
mination. Thus all finitude and depend
ence presupposes as its condition, selfdetermination.
V. Self-determination more closely ex
amined exhibits some remarkable results,
(which -will throw light on the discussion
of “ Essence and Phenomena” above):
(1.) It is “causa sui;” active and pas
sive; existing dually as determining and
determined ; this self-diremption produces
a distinction in itself which is again can
celled.
(2.) As determiner (or active, or cause),
it is the pure universal—the possibility of
any determinations. But as determined
(passive or effect) it is the special, the par
ticular, the one-sided reality that enters
into change.
(3.) But it is “ negative unity” of these
two sides, and hence an individual. The
pure universal w’hose negative relation to
itself as determiner makes the particular,
completes itself to individuality through
this act.
(a.) Since its pure universality is the
substrate of its determination, and at the
same time a self-related activity (or nega
tivity), it at once becomes its own object.
(6.) Its activity (limiting or determin
ing)— a pure negativity — turned to itself
as object, dissolves the particular in the
universal, and thus continually realizes
its subjectivity.
(c.) Hence these two sides of the nega
tive unity are more properly subject and
object, and since they are identical (causa
sui} we may name the result “ self-con
sciousness.”
The absolute truth of all truths, then, is
that self-consciousness is the form of the
Total. God is a Person, or rather the
Person. Through His self-consciousness
(thought of Himself) he makes Himself
an object to Himself (Nature), and in the
same act cancels it again into Ilis own
image (finite spirit), and thus comprehends
Himself in this self-revelation.
Two remarks must be made here: (1.)
This is not “Pantheism;” for it results
21
that God is a Person; and secondly Nature
is a self-cancelling side in the process;
thirdly, the so-called “finite spirit,” or
man, is immortal, since otherwise he would
not be the last link of the chain; but such
he is, because he can develop out of his
sensuous life to pure thought, uncondition
ed by time and space, and hence he can
surpass any fixed “higher intelligence,”
no matter how high created.
(2.) It is the result that all profound
thinkers have arrived at.
Aristotle (Metaphysics XI. 6 & 7) car
ries this whole question of motion back to
its presupposition in a mode of treatment,
“ sub quadam specie aternitatis” He
concludes thus : “ The thinking, however,
of that which is purely for itself, is a think
ing'of that which is most excellent in and
for itself.
“ The thinking thinks itself, however,
through participation in that which is
thought by it; it becomes this object in
its own activity, in such a manner that the
subject and object are identical. For the
apprehending of thought and essence is
what constitutes reason. The activity of
thinking produces that which is perceived ;
so that the activity is rather that which
Beason seems to have of a divine nature;
speculation [pure thinking] is the most ex
cellent employment; if, then, God is al
ways engaged in this, as we are at times,
lie is admirable, and if in a higher degree,
more admirable. But He is in this pure
thinking, and life too belongs to Him; for
the activity of thought is life. He is this
activity. The activity, returning into it
self, is the most excellent and eternal life.
We say, therefore, that God is an eternal
and the best living being. So that life and
duration are uninterrupted and eternal;
for this is God.”
When one gets rid of those “images of
sense” called by Spencer “ conceivables,”
and arrives at the “ unpicturable notions
of intelligence,” he will find it easy to re
duce the vexed antinomies of force, matter,
motion, time, space and causality; arriv
ing at the fundamental principle — selfdetermination—he will be able to make a
science of Biology. The organic realm
will not yield to dualistic Reflection.
�22
Herbert Spencer.
Goethe is the great pioneer of the school of
physicists that will spring out of the pre
sent activity of Reflection when it shall
have arrived at a perception of its method.
Résumé'.—Mr. Spencer’s results, so far
as philosophy is concerned, may be briefly
summed up under four general heads : I.
Psychology. 2. Ontology. 3. Theology.
4. Cosmology.
PSYCHOLOGY.
(1.) Conception is a mere picture in the
mind; therefore what cannot be pictured
cannot be conceived; therefore the Infinite,
the Absolute, God, Essence,Matter, Motion,
Force—anything, in short, that involves
mediation—cannot be conceived ; hence
they are unknowable.
(2.) Consciousness is self-knowing; but
that subject and object are one, is impos
sible. We can neither know ourselves nor
any real being.
(3.) All reasoning or explaining is the
subsuming of a somewhat under a more
general category; hence the highest cate
gory is unsubsumed, and hence inexpli
cable.
(4.) Our intellectual faculties may be
improved to a certain extent, and beyond
this, no amount of training can avail any
thing. (Biology, vol. I, p. 188.)
(5.) The ££ substance of consciousness”
is the basis of our ideas of persistence of
Force, Matter, etc.
(6.) All knowing is relative ; our knowl
edge of this fact, however, is not relative
but absolute.
the hidden and inscrutable essence of the
correlate of our knowledge of phenomena.
We know that it exists.
(3.) Though what is inconceivable is for
that reason unknowable, yet we know that
persistence belongs to force, motion and
matter ; it is a positive result of our “ men
tal structure,” although we cannot con
ceive either destructibility or indestructi
bility.
(4.) Though self-consciousness is an
impossibility, yet it sometimes occurs,since
the ££ substance of consciousness” is the
object of consciousness when it decides
upon the persistence of the Universe, and
of Force, Matter, etc.
THEOLOGY.
ONTOLOGY.
The Supreme Being is unknown and un
knowable ; unrevealed and unrevealable,
either naturally or supernaturally : for to
reveal, requires that some one shall com
prehend what is revealed. The sole doc
trine of Religion of great value is the doc
trine that God transcends the human intel
lect. When Religion professes to reveal
Him to man and declare His attributes,
then it is irreligious. Though God is the
unknown, yet personality, reason, con
sciousness, etc., are degrading when ap
plied to Him. The t£ Thirty-nine Arti
cles” should be condensed into one, thus :
There is an Unknown which I know that I
cannot know.”
££ Religions are envelopes of truth which
reveal to the lower, and conceal to the
higher.” “They are modes of manifesta
tion of the unknowable.”
(1.) All that we know is phenomenal.
The reality passes all understanding. In
the phenomenon the essence is “ manifest
ed,” but still it is not revealed thereby;
it remains hidden behind it, inscrutable to
our perception,
(2.) And yet, since all our knowledge is
relative, we have an obscure knowledge of
“ Evolution is a change from an indefi
nite, incoherent homogeneity, to a definite,
coherent heterogeneity ; through continu
ous differentiations and integrations.”
This is the law of the Universe. All pro
gresses to an equilibration—to a moving
equilibrium.
COSMOLOGY.
�23
Fichtes Science of Knowledge.
INTRODUCTION TO FICHTE’S SCIENCE OF KNOWLEDGE.
TRANSLATED BY A. E. KROEGER.
[Note.—Tn presenting this "Introduction” to the readers of the Journal of Speculative
Philosophy, we believe we afford them the easiest means of gaining an insight into Fichte’s great
work on the Science of Knowledge. The present introduction was written by Fichte in 1797,
three years after the first publication of his full system. It is certainly written in a remarkably
clear and vigorous style, so as to be likely to arrest the attention even of those who have but
little acquaintance with the rudiments of the Science of Philosophy. This led us to give it
the preference over other essays, also written by Fichte, as Introductions to his Science of
Knowledge. A translation of the Science of Knowledge, by Mr. Kroeger, is at present in course
of publication in New York. This article is, moreover, interesting as being a more complete un
folding of the doctrine of Plato upon Method, heretofore announced.—Ed.]
PRELIMINARY REMARKS.
Do re, quae agitur, petimus, ut homines, earn non
opinionem, sed opus esse, cogitent ac pro certo habeant,
non sectae nos alicujus, ant placiti, sed utilitatis
et amplitudinis humanae fundamenta moliri. Deinde,
ut, suis commodis aequi, in commune consulant, et ipsi
in partem veniant.—Baco de Verulamio.
The author of the Science of Knowledge
was soon convinced, through a slight ac
quaintance with the philosophical literature
since the appearance of Kant’s Critiques,
that the object of this great man—to ef
fect a total reform in the study of philoso
phy, and hence of all science—had result
ed in a failure, Bince not one of his
numerous successors appeared to under
stand what he had really spoken of. The
author believed that he had understood
the latter; he resolved 'to devote his
life to a representation—totally independ
ent from Kant’s—of that great discovery,
and he will not give up this resolve.
Whether he will succeed better in making
himself understood to his age, time alone
can show. At all events, he knows that
nothing true and useful, which has once
been given to mankind, is lost, though only
remote posterity should learn how to use it.
Determined by my academical vocation,
I wrote, in the first instance, for my hear
ers, with whom it was in my power to ex
plain myself in words until I was under
stood.
This is not the place to testify how
much cause I have to be satisfied with my
efforts, and to entertain, of some of my
students, the best hopes for science. That
book of mine has also become known else
where, and there are various opinions
afloat concerning it amongst the learned.
A judgment, which even pretended to bring
forth arguments, I have neither read nor
heard, except from my students; but I
have both heard and read a vast amount of
derision, denunciation, and the general
assurance that everybody is heartily op
posed to this doctrine, and the confession
that no one can understand it. As far as
the latter is concerned, I will cheerfully
assume all the blame, until others shall rep
resent it so as to make it comprehensible,
when students will doubtless discover that
my representation was not so very bad
after all; or I will assume it altogether
and unconditionally, if the reader thereby
should be encouraged to study the present
representation, in which I shall endeavor
to be as clear as possible. I shall con
tinue these representations so long as I am
convinced that I do not write altogether in
vain. But I write in vain when nobody
examines my argument.
I still owe my readers the following ex
planations : I have always said, and say
again, that my system is the same ag
Kant’s. That is to say, it contains the
same view of the subject, but is totally in
dependent of Kant’s mode of representa
tion. I have said this, not to cover myself
by a great authority, or to support my
doctrine except by itself, but in order to
say the truth and to be just.
Perhaps it may be proven after twenty
years. Kant is as yet a sealed book, and
what he has been understood to teach, is
exactly what he intended to eradicate.
My writings are neither to explain Kant,
nor to be explained by his ; they must
stand by themselves, and Kant must not be
counted in the game at all. My object is—
I
/
�24
Fichtes Science of Knowledge,
let me say it frankly—not to correct or
amplify such philosophical reflections as
may be current, be they called anti
Kant or Kant, but to totally eradicate
them, and to effect a complete revolution
in the mode of thinking regarding these
subjects, so that hereafter the Object will
be posited and determined by Knowledge
(Reason), and not vice versa-, and this
seriously, not merely in words.
Let no one object: “If this system is
true, certain axioms cannot be upheld,”
for I do not intend that anything should
be upheld which this system refutes.
Again : “Ido not understand this book,”
is to me a very uninteresting and insignifi
cant confession. No one can and shall
understand my writings, without having
studied them ; for they do not contain a
lesson heretofore taught, but something—
since Kant has not been understood—alto
gether new to the age.
Censure without argument tells me
simply that my doctrine does not please ;
and this confession is again very unim
portant; for the question is not at all,
whether it pleases you or not, but whether
it has been proven. In the present sketch
I write only for those, in whom there
still dwells an inner sense of love for
truth; who still value science and con
viction, and who are impelled by a lively
zeal to seek truth. With those, who, by
long spiritual slavery, have lost with the
faith in their own conviction their faith
in the conviction of others; who consider
it folly if anybody attempts to seek truth
for himself ; who see nothing in sci
ence but a comfortable mode of subsist
ence ; who are horrified at every proposi
tion to enlarge its boundaries involving as
a new labor, and who consider no means
disgraceful by which they can hope to sup
press him who makes such a proposition,—
with those I have nothing to do.
I should be sorry if they understood me.
Hitherto this wish of mine has been real
ized; and I hope, even now, that these
present lines will so confuse them that they
can perceive nothing more in them than
mere words, while that which represents
their mind is torn hither and thither by
their ill-concealed rage.
INTRODUCTION.
I. Attend to thyself; turn thine eye away
from all that surrounds thee and into thine
own inner self! Such is the first task im
posed upon the student by Philosophy.
We speak of nothing that is without thee,
but merely of thyself.
The slightest self-observation must show
every one a remarkable difference between
the various immediate conditions of his
consciousness, which we may also call
representations. For some of them appear
altogether dependent upon our freedom,
and we cannot possibly believe that there
is without us anything corresponding to
them. Our imagination, our will, appears
to us as free. Others, however, we refer to
a Truth as their model, which is held to be
firmly fixed, independent of us; and in
determining such representations, we find
ourselves conditioned by the necessity of
their harmony with this Truth. In the
knowledge of them we do not consider
ourselves free, as far as their contents are
concerned. In short: while some of our
representations are accompanied by the
feeling of freedom, others are accompanied
by the feeling of necessity.
Reasonably the question cannot arise—
why are the representations dependent
upon our freedom determined in precisely
this manner, and not otherwise? For in
supposing them to be dependent upon our
freedom, all application of the conception
of a ground is rejected; they are thus, be
cause I so fashioned them, and if I had
fashioned them differently, they would be
otherwise.
But it is certainly a question worthy of
reflection—what is the ground of the sys
tem of those representations which are ac
companied by the feeling of necessity and
of that feeling of necessity itself? To
answer this question is the object of phil
osophy ; and, in my opinion, nothing is
philosophy but the Science which solves
this problem. The system of those repre
sentations, which are accompanied by the
feeling of necessity, is also called Experi
ence—internal as well as external experi
ence. Philosophy, therefore, to say the
same thing in other words, has to find the
ground of all Experience.
�Fichte’s Science of Knowledge.
Only three objections can be raised
against this. Somebody might deny that
representations, accompanied by the feel
ing of necessity, and referred to a Truth
determined without any action of ours, do
ever occur in our consciousness. Such a
person would either deny his own know
ledge, or be altogether differently con
structed from other men ; in which latter
case his denial would be of no concern to
us. Or somebody might say : the question
is completely unanswerable, we are in ir
removable ignorance concerning it, and
must remain so. To enter into argument
with such a person is altogether superflu
ous. The best reply he can receive is an
actual answer to the question, and then
all he can do is to examine our answer,
and tell us why and in what matters it does
not appear satisfactory to him. Finally,
somebody might quarrel about the desig
nation, and assert: “Philosophy is some
thing else than what you have stated
above, or at least something else besides.”
It might be easily shown to such a one,
that scholars have at all times designated
exactly what we have just stated to be
Philosophy, and that whatever else he
might assert to be Philosophy, has already
another name, and that if this word signi
fies anything at all, it must mean exactly
this Science. But as we are not inclined
to enter upon any dispute about words,
we, for our part, have already given up
the name of Philosophy, and have called
the Science which has the solution of this
problem for its object, the Science of
Knowledge.
II. Only when speaking of something,
which we’consider accidental, i. e. which
we suppose might also have been other
wise, though it was not determined by free
dom, can we ask for its ground ; and by
this very asking for its ground does it be
come accidental to the questioner. To
find the ground of anything accidental
means, to find something else, from the
determinedness of which it can be seen
why the accidental, amongst the various
conditions it might have assumed, assumed
precisely the one it did. The ground lies
—by the very thinking of a ground—be
yond its Grounded, and both are, in so far
25
as they are Ground and Grounded, opposed
to each other, related to each other, and
thus the latter is explained from the former.
Now Philosophy is to discover the
ground of all experience; hence its object
lies necessarily beyond all Experience.
This sentence applies to all Philosophy,
and has been so applied always heretofore,
if we except these latter days of Kant’s
miconstruers and their facts of conscious
ness, i. e. of inner experience.
No objection can be raised to this para
graph ; for the premise of our conclusion
is a mere analysis of the above-stated con
ception of Philosophy, and from the prem
ise the conclusion is drawn. If some
body should wish to remind us that the
conception of a ground must be differently
explained, we can, to be sure, not prevent
him from forming another conception of
it, if he so chooses ; but we declare, on
the strength of our good right, that we, in
the above description of Philosophy, wish
to have nothing else understood by that
word. Hence, if it is not to be so under
stood, the possibility of Philosophy, as we
have described it, must be altogether de
nied, and such a denial we have replied to
in our first section.
III. The finite intelligence has nothing
beyond experience ; experience contains
the whole substance of its thinking. The
philosopher stands necessarily under thé
same conditions, and hence it seems impos
sible that he can elevate himself beyond
experience.
But he can abstract; i. e. he can separate
by the freedom of thinking what in experi
ence is united. In Experience, the Thing
—that which is to be determined in itself
independent of our freedom, and in ac
cordance with which our knowledge is to
shape itself—and the Intelligence—which
is to obtain a knowledge of it—are in
separably united. The philosopher may
abstract from both, and if he does, he bas
abstracted from Experience and elevated,
himself above it. If he abstracts from the
first, he retains an intelligence in itself,
i. e. abstracted from its relation to experi
ence ; if he abstract from the latter, he re
tains the Thing in itself, i. e. abstracted
from the fact that it occurs in experience;
�26
Fichte's Science of Knowledge.
and thus retains the Intelligence in it
self, or the “Thing in itself,” as the
explanatory ground of Experience. The
former mode of proceeding is called Ideal
ism, the latter Dogmatism.
Only these two philosophical systems—
and of that these remarks should convince
everybody—are possible. According to
the first system the representations, which
are accompanied by the feeling of neces
sity, are productions of the Intelligence,
which must be presupposed in their ex
planation ; according to the latter system
they are the productions of a thing in itself
which must be presupposed to explain
them. If anybody desired to deny this,
he would have to prove that there is still
another way to go beyond experience than
the one by means of abstraction, or that
the consciousness of experience contains
more than the two components just men
tioned.
Now in regard to the first, it will appear
below, it is true, that what we have here
called Intelligence does, indeed, occur in
consciousness under another name, and
hence is not altogether produced by ab
straction ; but it will at the same time be
shown that the consciousness of it is con
ditioned by an abstraction, which, how
ever, occurs naturally to mankind.
We do not at all deny that it is possible
to compose a whole system from fragments
of these incongruous systems, and that
this illogical labor has often been under
taken ; but we do deny that more than
these two systems are possible in a logical
course of proceeding.
IV. Between the object—(we shall call
the explanatory ground of experience,
which a philosophy asserts, the object of
that philosophy, since it appears to be only
through and for such philosophy) — be
tween the object of Idealism and that of
Dogmatism there is a remarkable distinc
tion in regard to their relation to con
sciousness generally. All whereof I am con
scious is called object of consciousness.
There are three ways in which the object
can be related to consciousness. Either
it appears to have been produced by the
representation, or as existing without any
action of ours; and in the latter case, as
either also determined in regard to its
qualitativeness, or as existing merely in
regard to its existence, while determinable
in regard to its qualitativeness by the free
intelligence.
The first relation applies merely to an
imaginary object; the second merely to an
object of Experience; the third applies
only to an object, which we shall at once
proceed to describe.
I can determine myself by freedom to
think, for instance, the Thing in itself of
the Dogmatists. Now if I am to abstract
from the thought and look simply upon
myself, I myself become the object of a
particular representation. That I appear to
myself as determined in precisely this
manner, and none other, e. g. as thinking,
and as thinking of all possible thoughts—
precisely this Thing in itself, is to depend
exclusively upon my own freedom of selfdetermination ; I have made myself such a
particular object out of my own free will.
1 have not made myself; on the contrary, I
am forced to think myself in advance as
determinable through this self-determina
tion. Hence I am myself my own object,
the determinateness of which, under cer
tain conditions, depends altogether upon
the intelligence, but the existence of which
must always be presupposed. Now this
very “I” is the object of Idealism. The
object of this system does not occur actu
ally as something real in consciousness, not
as a Thing in itself—for then Idealism
would cease to be what it is, and become
Dogmatism—but as “Z” in itself-, not as
an object of Experience—for it is not de
termined, but is exclusively determinable
through my freedom, and without this de
termination it would be nothing, and is
really not at all—but as something beyond
all Experience.
The object of Dogmatism, on the con
trary, belongs to the objects of the first
class, which are produced solely by free
Thinking. The Thing in itself is a mere
invention, and has no reality at all. It
does not occur in Experience, for the sys
tem of Experience is nothing else than
Thinking accompanied by the feeling of
necessity, and can not even be said to be
anything else by the dogmatist, who, like
�Fichte's Science of Knowledge.
every philosopher, has to explain its cause.
True, the dogmatist wants to obtain re
ality for it through the necessity of think
ing it as ground of all experience, and
would succeed, if he could prove that ex
perience can be, and can be explained only
by means of it. But this is the very thing
in dispute, and he cannot presuppose what
must first be proven.
Hence the object of Idealism has this
advantage over the object of Dogmatism,
that it is not to be deduced as the explana
tory ground of Experience—which would
be a contradiction, and change this system
itself into a part of Experience—but that
it is, nevertheless, to be pointed out as a
part of consciousness ; whereas, the object
of Dogmatism can pass for nothing but a
mere invention, which obtains validity
only through the success of the system.
This we have said merely to promote a
clearer insight into the distinction between
the two systems, but not to draw from it
conclusions against the latter system.
That the object of every philosophy, as
explanatory ground of Experience, must
lie beyond all experience, is required by
the very nature of Philosophy, and is far
from being derogotary to a system. But
we have as yet discovered no reasons why
that object should also occur in a particu
lar manner within consciousness.
If anybody should not be able to convince
himself of the truth of what we have just
said, this would not make his conviction
of the truth of the whole system an impos
sibility, since what we have just said was
only intended as a passing remark. Still
in conformity to our plan we will also here
take possible objections into consideration.
Somebody might deny the asserted im
mediate self-consciousness in a free act of
the mind. Such a one we should refer to
the conditions stated above. This selfconsciousness does not obtrude itself upon
us, and comes not of its own accord; it is
necessary first to act free, and next to ab
stract from the object, and attend to one’s
self. Nobody can be forced to do this,
and though he may say he has done it, it
is impossible to say whether he has done
it correctly. In one word, this conscious
ness cannot be proven to any one, but
27
everybody must freely produce it within
himself. Against the second assertion,
that the “Thing in itself” is a mere in
vention, an objection could only be raised,
because it were misunderstood.
V. Neither of these two systems can di
rectly refute the other ; for their dispute is
a dispute about the first principle; each
system—if you only admit its first axiom—
proves the other one wrong; each denies
all to the opposite, and these« two systems
have no point in common from which they
might bring about a mutual understanding
and reconciliation. Though they may agree
on the words of a sentence, they will sure
ly attach a different meaning to the words.
(Hence the reason why Kant has not
been understood and why the Science of
Knowledge can find no friends. The sys
tems of Kant and of the Science of Knowl
edge are idealistic—not in the general in
definite, but in the just described definite
sense of the word; but the modern phil
osophers are all of them dogmatists, and
are firmly resolved to remain so. Kant
was merely tolerated, because it was possi
ble to make a dogmatist out of him; but
the Science of Knowledge, which cannot
be thus construed, is insupportable to these
wise men. The rapid extension of Kant’s
philosophy—when it'was thus misunder
stood— is not a proof of the profundity,
but rather of the shallowness of the age.
For in this shape it is the most wonderful
abortion ever created by human imagina
tion, and it does little honor to its defend
ers that they do not perceive this. It
can also be shown that this philosophy was
accepted so greedily only because people
thought it would put a stop to all serious
speculation, and continue the era of shal
low Empiricism.)
First. Idealism cannot refute Dogma
tism. True, the former system has the ad
vantage, as we have already said, of being
enabled to point out its explanatory ground
of all experience—the free acting intelli
gence—as a fact of consciousness. This
fact the dogmatist must also admit, for
otherwise he would render himself incapa
ble of maintaining the argument with his
opponent; but he at the same time, by a cor
rect conclusion from his principle, changes
�2S
Fichte's Science of Knowledge.
this explanatory ground into a deception
and appearance, and thus renders it inca
pable of being the explanatory ground of
anything else, since it cannot maintain its
own existence in its own philosophy. Ac
cording to the Dogmatist, all phenomena
of our consciousness are productions of a
Thing in itself, even our pretended deter
minations by freedom, and the belief that
we are free. This belief is produced by
the effect of the Thing upon ourselves, and
the determinations, which we deduced from
freedom, are also produced by it. The only
difference is, that we are not aware of it in
these cases, and hence ascribe it to no
cause, i. e. to our freed-om. Every logical
dogmatist is necsssarily a Fatalist; he does
not deny the fact of consciousness, that we
consider ourselves free—for this would be
against reason ;—but he proves from his
principle that this is a false view. He de
nies the independence of the Ego, which is
the basis of the Idealist, in toto, makes it
merely a production of the Thing, an acci
dence of the World; and hence the logical
dogmatist is necessarily also materialist.
He can only be refuted from the postulate
of the freedom and independence of the
Ego ; but this is precisely what he denies.
Neither can the dogmatist refute the Ideal
ist.
The principle of the former, the Thing
in itself, is nothing, and has no reality, as
its defenders themselves must admit, ex
cept that which it is to receive from the
fact that experience can only be explained
by it. But this proof the Idealist annihi
lates by explaining experience in another
manner, hence by denying precisely what
dogmatism assumes. Thus the Thing in
itself becomes a complete Chimera; there
is no further reason why it should be as
sumed; and with it the whole edifice of
dogmatism tumbles down.
♦
From what we have just stated, is more
over evident the complete irreconcilability
of both systems; since the results of the
one destroy those of the other. Wherever
their union has been attempted the mem
bers would not fit together, and somewhere
an immense gulf appeared which could not
be spanned.
If any one were to deny this he would
have to prove the possibility of such a
union—of a union which consists in an
everlasting composition of Matter and
Spirit, or, which is the same, of Necessity
and Liberty.
Now since, as far as we can see at pres
ent, both systems appear to have the same
speculative value, but since both cannot
stand together, nor yet either convince the
other, it occurs as a very interesting ques
tion : What can possibly tempt persons who
comprehend this—and to comprehend it is
so very easy a matter—to prefer the one
over the other ; and why skepticism, as the
total renunciation of an answer to this
problem, does not become universal?
The dispute between the Idealist and the
Dogmatist is, in reality, the question,
whether the independence of the Ego is
to be sacrificed to that of the Thing, or vice
versa? What, then, is it, which induces
sensible men to decide in favor of the one
or the other ?
The philosopher discovers from this point
of view—in which he must necessarily place
himself, if he wants to pass for a philos
opher, and which, in the progress of Think
ing, every man necessarily occupies sooner
or later, — nothing farther than that he
is forced to represent to himself both:
that he is free, and that there are de
termined things outside of him. But it
is impossible for man to stop at this
thought; the thought of a representation
is but a half-thought, a broken off frag
ment of a thought; something must be
thought and added to it, as corresponding
with the representation independent of it.
In other words : the representation cannot
exist alone by itself, it is only something
in connection with something else, and in
itself it is nothing. This necessity of think
ing it is, which forces one from that point
of view to the question : What is the ground
of the representations ? or, which is exact
ly the same, What is that which corresponds
with them ?
Now the representation of the independ
ence of the Ego and that of the Thing can
very well exist together; but not the inde
pendence itself of both. Only one can be
the first, the beginning, the independent;
the second, by the very fact of being the
�Fichte's Science of Knowledge.
second, becomes necessarily dependent
upon the first, with which it is to be con
nected—now, which of the two is to be
made the first ? Reason furnishes no ground
for a decision ; since the question concerns
not the connecting of one link with an
other, but the commencement of the first
link, which as an absolute first act is al
together conditional upon the freedom of
Thinking. Hence the decision is arbitra
ry ; and since this arbitrariness is never
theless to have a cause, the decision is de
pendent upon inclination and interest.
The last ground, therefore, of the differ
ence between the Dogmatist and the Ideal
ist is the difference of their interest.
The highest interest, and hence the
ground of all other interest, is that which
we feel for ourselves. Thus with the Phil
osopher. Not to lose his Self in his argu
mentation, but to retain and assert it, this
is the interest which unconsciously guides
all his Thinking. Now, there are two
grades of mankind ; and in the progress
of our race, before the last grade has been
universally attained, two chief kinds of
men. The one kind is composed of those
who have not yet elevated themselves to
the full feeling of their freedom and abso
lute independence, who are merely con
scious of themselves in the representation
of outward things. These men have only
a desultory consciousness, linked together
with the outward objects, and put together
out of their manifoldness. They receive a
picture of their Self only from the Things,
as from a mirror; for their own sake they
cannot renounce their faith in the inde
pendence of those things, since they exist
only together with these things. What
ever they are they have become through
the outer World. Whosoever is only a
production of the Things will never view
himself in any other manner; and he is
perfectly correct, so long as he speaks
merely for himself and for those like him.
The principle of the dogmatist is : Faith
in the things, for their own sake ; hence,
mediated Faith in their own desultory self,
as simply the result of the Things.
But whosoever becomes conscious of his
self-existence and independence from all
outward things—and this men can only be
29
come by making something of themselves,
through their own Self, independently of
all outward things—needs no longer the
Things as supports of his Self, and cannot
use them, because they annihilate his inde
pendence and turn it into an empty appear
ance. The Ego which he possesses, and
which interests him, destroys that Faith in
the Things; he believes in his independ
ence, from inclination, and seizes it with
affection. His Faith in himself is imme
diate.
From this interest the various passions
are explicable, which mix generally with
the defence of these philosophical systems.
The dogmatist is in danger of losing his
Self when his system is attacked ; and yet
he is not armed against this attack, because
there is something within him which takes
part with the aggressor ; hence, he defends
himself with bitterness and heat. The ideal
ist, on the contrary, cannot well refrain
from looking down upon his opponent with
a certain carelessness, since the latter can
tell him nothing which he has not known
long ago and has cast away as useless. The
dogmatist gets angry, misconstrues, and
would persecute, if he had the power; the
idealist is cold and in danger of ridiculing
his antagonist.
Hence, what philosophy a man chooses
depends entirely upon what kind of man
he is; for a philosophical system is not a
piece of dead household furniture, which
you may use or not use, but is animated
by the soul of the man who has it. Men
of a naturally weak-minded character, or
who have become weak-minded and crooked
through intellectual slavery, scholarly lux
ury and vanity, will never elevate them
selves to idealism.
You can show the dogmatist the insuffi
ciency and inconsequence of bis system, of
which we shall speak directly; you can
confuse and terrify him from all sides ; but
you cannot convince him, because he is un
able to listen to and examine with calm
ness what he cannot tolerate. If Idealism
should prove to be the only real Philosophy,
it will also appear that a man must be born
a philosopher, be educated to be one, and
educate himself to be one; but that no
human art (no external force) can make a
�30
Fichte’s Science of Knowledge.
philosopher out of him. Hence, this Sci
ence expects few proselytes from men who
have already formed their character; if
our Philosophy has any hopes at all, it en
tertains them rather from the young gene
ration, the natural vigor of which has not
yet been submerged in the weak-mindednessof the age.
VI. But dogmatism is totally incapable
of explaining what it should explain, and
this is decisive in regard to its insufficien
cy. It is to explain the representation of
things, and proposes to explain them as an
effect of the Things. Now, the dogmatist
cannot deny what immediate conscious
ness asserts of this representation. What,
then, does it assert thereof? It is not my
purpose here to put in a conception what
can only be gathered in immediate contem
plation, nor to exhaust that which forms a
great portion of the Science of Knowledge.
I will merely recall to memory what every
one, who has but firmly looked within him
self, must long since have discovered.
The Intelligence, as such, sees itself, and
this seeing of its self is immediately con
nected with all that appertains to the Intel
ligence ; and in this immediate uniting of
Being and Seeing the nature of the Intel
ligence consists. Whatever is in the In
telligence, whatever the Intelligence is
itself, the Intelligence is for itself, and
only in so far as it is this for itself is it
this, as Intelligence.
I think this or that object! Now what
does this mean, and how do I appear to
myself in this Thinking ? Not otherwise
than thus : I produce certain conditions
within myself, if the object is a mere in
vention ; but if the objects are real and
exist without my invention, I simply con
template, as a spectator, the production of
those conditions within me. They are
within me only in so far as I contemplate
them; my contemplation and their Being
are inseparably united.
A Thing, on the contrary, is to be this
or that; but as soon as the question is put:
For whom is it this? Nobody, who but
comprehends the word, will reply : For
itself! But he will have to add the
thought of an Intelligence, for which the
Thing is to be; while, on the contrary, the
Intelligence is self-sufficient and requires
no additional thought. By thinking it as
the Intelligence you include already that
for which it is to be. Hence, there is in
the Intelligence, to express myself figura
tively, a twofold—Being and Seeing, the
Real and the Ideal; and in the inseparabil
ity of th is twofold the nature of the Intelli
gence consists, while the Thing is simply
a unit—the Real. Hence Intelligence and
Thing are directly opposed to each other;
they move in two worlds, between which
there is no bridge.
The nature of the Intelligence and its
particular determinations Dogmatism en
deavors to explain by the principle of
Causality ; the Intelligence is to be a pro
duction, the second link in a series.
But the principle of causality applies to
a real series, and not to a double one. The
power of the cause goes over into an Other
opposed to it, and produces therein a Be
ing, and nothing further; a Being for a
possible outside Intelligence, but not for
the thing itself. You may give this Other
even a mechanical power, and it will trans
fer the received impression to the next
link, and thus the movement proceeding
from the first may be transferred through
as long a series as you choose to make;
but nowhere will you find a link which re
acts back upon itself. Or give the Other
the highest quality which you can give a
thing—Sensibility—whereby it will follow
the laws of its own inner nature, and not
the law given to it by the cause—and it
will, to be sure, react upon the outward
cause ; but it will, nevertheless, remain a
mere simple Being, a Being for a possible
intelligence outside of it. The Intelligence
you will not get, unless you add it in think
ing as the primary and absolute, the con
nection of which, with this your independ
ent Being, you will find it very difficult to
explain.
The series is and remains a simple one;
and you have not at all explained what was
to be explained. You were to prove the
connection betweeen Being and Represen
tation ; but this you do not, nor can you
do it; for your principle contains merely
the ground of a Being, and not of a Repre ■
sentation, totally opposed to Being. You
�Fichtes Science of Knowledge.
take an immense leap into a world, totally
removed from your principle. This leap
they seek to hide in various ways. Rig
orously— and this is the course of con
sistent dogmatism, which thus becomes
materialism ;—the soul is to them no Thing
at all, and indeed nothing at all, but merely
a production, the result of the reciprocal ac
tion of Things amongst themselves. But
this reciprocal action produces merely a
change in the Things, and by no means
anything apart from the Things, unless you
add an observing intelligence. The similes
which they adduce to make their system
comprehensible, for instance, that of the
harmony resulting from sounds of different
instruments, make its irrationality only
more apparent. For the harmony is not in
the instruments, but merely in the mind of
the hearer, who combines within himself
the manifold into One; and unless you
have such a hearer there is no harmony at
all.
But who can prevent Dogmatism from
assuming the Soul as one of the Things,
per se? The soul would thus belong to
what it has postulated for the solution of
its problem, and, indeed, would thereby
be made the category of cause and effect
applicable to the Soul and the Things—
materialism only permitting a reciprocal
action of the Things amongst themselves—
and thoughts might now be produced. To
make the Unthinkable thinkable, Dogma
tism has, indeed, attempted to presuppose
Thing or the Soul, or both, in such a man
ner, that the effect of the Thing was to
produce a representation. The Thing, as
influencing the Soul, is to be such, as to
make its influences representations; God,
for instance, in Berkley’s system, was such
a thing. (Ilis system is dogmatic, not
idealistic.) But this does not better mat
ters ; we understand only mechanical
effects, and it is impossible for us to under
stand any other kind of effects. Hence,
that presupposition contains merely words,
but there is no sense in it. Or the soul
is to be of such a nature that every effect
upon the Soul turns into a representation.
But this also we find it impossible to
understand.
In this manner Dogmatism proceeds
31
everywhere, whatever phase it may assume.
In the immense gulf, which in that system
remains always open between Things and
Representations, it places a few empty
words instead of an explanation, which
words may certainly be committed to mem
ory, but in saying which nobody has ever
yet thought, nor ever will think, anything.
For whenever one attempts to think the
manner in which is accomplished what
Dogmatism asserts to be accomplished, the
whole idea vanishes into empty foam.
Hence Dogmatism can only repeat its
principle, and repeat it in different forms;
can only assert and re-assert the same
thing; but it cannot proceed from what it
asserts to what is to be explained, nor ever
deduce the one from the other. But in
this deduction Philosophy consists. Hence
Dogmatism, even when viewed from a
speculative stand-point, is no Philosophy
at all, but merely an impotent assertion.
Idealism iB the only possible remaining
Philosophy. What we have here said can
meet with no objection ; but it may -well
meet with incapability of understanding
it. That all influences are of a mechanical
nature, and that no mechanism can pro
duce a representation, nobody will deny,
who but understands the words. But this
is the very difficulty. It requires a certain
degree of independence and freedom of
spirit to comprehend the nature of the in
telligence, which we have described, and
upon which our whole refutation of Dog
matism is founded. Many persons have
not advanced further with their Thinking
than to comprehend the simple chain of na
tural mechanism; and very naturally,there
fore, the Representation, if they choose
to think it at all, belongs, in their eyes, to
the same chain of-which alone they have
any knowledge. The Representation thus
becomes to them a sort of Thing of which
we have divers examples in some of the
most celebrated philosophical writers. For
such persons Dogmatism is sufficient; for
them there is no gulf,since the opposite does
not exist for them at all. Hence you can
not convince the Dogmatist by the proof
just stated, however clear it may be, for you
cannot bring the proof to his knowledge,
since he lacks the power to comprehend it.
�32
Fichte’s Science of Knovdedge.
Moreover, the manner in which Dogma
tism is treated here, is opposed to the mild
way of thinking which characterizes our
age, and which, though it has been exten
sively accepted in all ages, has never been
converted to an express principle except in
ours; i. e. that philosophers must not be
so strict in their logic; in philosophy one
should not be so particular as, for instance,
in Mathematics. If persons of this mode
of thinking see but a few links of the
chain and the rule, according to which
conclusions are drawn, they at once fill up
the remaining part through their imagina
tion, never investigating further of what
they may consist. If, for instance, an
Alexander Von loch tells them: “All
things are determined by natural neces
sity ; now our representations depend
upon the condition of Things, and our
will depends upon our representations :
hence all our will is determined by natural
necessity, and our opinion of a free will is
mere deception !”—then these people think
it mightily comprehensible and clear, al
though there is no sense in it; and they go
away convinced and satisfied at the strin
gency of this his demonstration.
I must call to mind, that the Science of
Knowledge does not proceed from this
mild way of thinking, nor calculate upon
it. If only a single link in the long chain
it has to draw does not fit closely to the
following, this Science does not pretend to
have established anything.
VII. Idealism, as we have said above?
explains the determinations of conscious
ness from the activity of the Intelligence,
which, in its view, is only active and abso
lute, not passive ; since it is postulated
as the first and highest, preceded by noth
ing, which might explain its passivity.
From the same reason actual Existence can
not well be ascribed to the Intelligence,
since such Existence is the result of re
ciprocal causality, but there is nothing
wherewith the Intelligence might be placed
in reciprocal causality. From the view of
Idealism, the Intelligence is a Doing, and
absolutely nothing else; it is even wrong
to call it an Active, since this expression
points to something existing, in which the
activity is inherent.
But to assume anything of this kind is
against the principle of Idealism, which
proposes to deduce all other things from
the Intelligence. Now certain determined
representations—as, for instance, of a
world, of a material world in space, exist
ing without any work of our own—are to
be deduced from the action of the Intelli
gence; but you cannot deduce anything
determined from an undetermined; the
form of all deductions, the category of
ground and sequence, is not applicable
here. Hence the action of the Intelligence,
which is made the ground, must be a de
termined action, and since the action of
the Intelligence itself is the highest ground
of explanation, that action must be so de
termined by the Intelligence itself, and not
by anything foreign to it. Hence the pre
supposition of Idealism will be this : the In
telligence acts, but by its very essence it
can only act in a certain manner. If this
necessary manner of its action is considered
apart from the action, it may properly be
called Laws of Action. Hence, there are
necessary laws of the Intelligence.
This explains also, at the same time, the
feeling of necessity which accompanies
the determined representations ; the Intel
ligence experiences in those cases, not an
impression from without, but feels in its
action the limits of its own Essence. In
so far as Idealism makes this only reason
able and really explanatory presupposition
of necessary laws of the Intelligence, it is
called Critical or Transcendental Idealism.
A transcendent Idealism would be a sys
tem w’hich were to undertake a deduction
of determined representations from the
free and perfectly lawless action of the
Intelligence: an altogether contradictory
presupposition, since, as we have said
above, the category of ground and sequence
is not applicable in that case.
The laws of action of the Intelligence,
as sure as they are to be founded in the
one nature of the Intelligence, constitute
in themselves a system ; that is to say, the
fact that the Intelligence acts in this par
ticular manner under this particular condition is explainable, and explainable be
cause under a condition it has always a
determined mode of action, which again is
�Fichte's Science of Knowledge.
explainable from one highest fundamental
law. In the course of its action the Intel
ligence gives itself its own laws ; and this
legislation itself is done by virtue of a
higher necessary action or Representation.
For instance : the law of Causality is not a
first original law, but only one of the many
modes of combining the manifold, and to
be deduced from the fundamental law of
this combination ; this law of combining
the manifold is again, like the manifold
itself, to be deduced from higher laws.
Hence, even Critical Idealism can pro
ceed in a twofold manner. Either it de
duces this system of necessary modes of
action, and together with it the objective
representations arising therefrom, really
from the fundamental laws of the Intelli
gence, and thus causes gradually to arise
under the very eyes of the reader or hearer
the whole extent of our representations ; or
it gathers these laws—perhaps as they are
already immediately applied to objects ;
Hence, in a lower condition, and then they
are called categories—gathers these laws
somewhere, and now asserts, that the ob
jects are determined and regulated by
them.
I ask the critic who follows the l&stmentioned method, and who does not de
duce the assumed laws of the Intelligence
from the Essence of the Intelligence,
where he gets the material knowledge of
these laws, the knowledge that they are
just these very same laws ; for instance,
that of Substantiality or Causality ? For
I do not want to trouble him yet with the
question, how he knows that they are mere
immanent laws of the Intelligence. They
are the laws which are immediately applied
to objects, and he can only have obtained
them by abstraction from these objects,
i. e. from Experience. It is of no avail if
he takes them, by a roundabout way, from
logic, for logic is to him only the result
of abstraction from the objects, and hence
he would do indirectly, what directly might
appear too clearly in its true nature.
Hence he can prove by nothing that his
postulated Laws of Thinking are really
Laws of Thinking, are really nothing but
immanent laws of the Intelligence. The
Dogmatist asserts in opposition, that they
3
33
are not, but that they are general quali
ties of Things, founded on the nature of
Things, and there is no reason why we
should place more faith in the unproved
assertion of the one than in the unproved
assertion of the other. This course of pro
ceeding, indeed, furnishes no understand
ing that and why the Intelligence should act
just in this particular manner. To produce
such an understanding, it would be neces
sary to premise something which can only
appertain to the Intelligence, and from
those premises to deduce before our eyes
the laws of Thinking.
By such a course of proceeding it is
above all incomprehensible how the object
itself is obtained: for although you may
admit the unproved postulates of the critic,
they explain nothing further than the
qualities and relations of the Thing : (that
it is, for instance, in space, manifested in
time, with accidences which must be re
ferred to a substance, &c.) But whence
that which has these relations and quali
ties ? whence then the substance which
is clothed in these forms ? This substance
Dogmatism takes refuge in, and you have
but increased the evil.
We know very well: the Thing arises only
from an act done in accordance with these
laws, and is, indeed, nothing else than
all th°se relations gathered together by the
power of imagination; and all these rela
tions together are the Thing. The Object
is the original Synthesis of all these con
ceptions. Form and Substance are not
separates ; the whole formness is the sub
stance, and only in the analysis do we ar
rive at separate forms.
But this the critic, who follows the above
method, can only assert, and it is even a
secret whence he knows it, if he does know
it. Until you cause the whole Thing to
arise before the eyes of the thinker, you
have not pursued Dogmatism into its last
hiding places. But this is only possible
by letting the Intelligence act in its whole,
and not in its partial, lawfulness.
Hence, an Idealism of this character is
unproven and unprovable. Against Dog
matism it has no other weapon than the
assertion that it is in the right; and against
the more perfected criticism no other wea
�31
Fichte's Science of Knowledge,
pon than impotent anger, and the assu
rance that you can go no further than itself
goes.
Finally a system of this character puts
forth only those laws, according to which
the objects of external experience are de
termined. But these constitute by far the
smallest portion of the laws of the Intelli
gence. Hence, on the field of Practical Rea
son and of Reflective Judgment, this half
criticism, lacking the insight into the
whole procedure of reason, gropes about
as in total darkness.
The method of complete transcendental
Idealism, which the Science of Knowledge
pursues, I have explained once before in
my Essay, On the conception of the Science
of Knowledge. I cannot understand why
that Essay has not been understood; but
suffice it to say, that I am assured it has
not been understood. I am therefore com
pelled to repeat what I have said, and to
recall to mind that everything depends
upon the correct understanding thereof.
This Idealism proceeds from a single
fundamental Law of Reason, which is im
mediately shown as contained in con
sciousness. This is done in the following
manner : The teacher of that Science re
quests his reader or hearer to think freely
a certain conception. If he does so, he will
find himself forced to proceed in a partic
ular manner. Two things are to be distin
guished here : the act of Thinking,which is
required—the realization of which depends
upon each individual’s freedom,—and un
less he realizes it thus, he will not under
stand anything which the Science of
Knowledge teaches; and the necessary
manner in which it alone can be realized,
which manner is grounded in the Essence
of the Intelligence, and does not depend
upon freedom; it is something necessary,
but which is only discovered in and to
gether with a free action; it is something
discovered, but the discovery of which de
pends upon an act of freedom.
So far as this goes, the teacher of Ideal
ism shows his assertion to be contained in
immediate consciousness, But that this
necessary manner is the fundamental law
of all reason, that from it the whole sys
tem of our necessary representations, not
only of a world and the determinedness and
relations of objects, but also of ourselves,
as free and practical beings acting under
laws, can be deduced. All this is a mere
presupposition, which can only be proven
by the actual deduction, which deduction is
therefore the real business of the teacher.
In realizing this deduction, he proceeds
as follows : He shows that the first funda
mental law which was discovered in im
mediate consciousness, is not possible, unless
a second action is combined with it, which
again is not possible without a third action;
and so on, until the conditions of the First
are completely exhausted, and itself is now
made perfectly comprehensible in its possi
bility. The teacher’s method is a contin
ual progression from the conditioned to
the condition. The condition becomes
again conditioned, and its condition is next
to be discovered.
If the presupposition of Idealism is cor
rect, and if no errors have been made in the
deduction, the last result, as containing all
the conditions of the first act, must con
tain the system of all necessary representa
tions, or the total experience;—a compari
son, however, which is not instituted in
Philosophy itself, but only after that sci
ence has finished its work.
For Idealism has not kept this experi
ence in sight, as the preknown object and
result, which it should arrive at; in its
course of proceeding it knows nothing at
all of experience, and does not look upon
it; it proceeds from its starting point ac
cording to its rules, careless as to what the
result of its investigations might turn out
to be. The right angle, from which it has
to draw its straight line, is given to it; is
there any need of another point to which
the line should be drawn ? Surely not; for
all the points of its line arc already given
to it with the angle. A certain number is
given to you. You suppose that it is
the product of certain factors. All you
have to do is to search for the product of
these factors according to the well-known
rules. Whether that product will agree
with the given number, you will find out,
without any difficulty, as soon as you have
obtained it. The given number is the total
experience ; those factors are : the part of
�Fichte’s Science of Knowledge.
immediate consciousness which was dis
covered, and the laws of Thinking; the
multiplication is the Philosophizing. Those
who advise you, while philosophizing,
also to keep an eye upon experience, advise
you to change the factors a little, and to
multiply falsely, so as to obtain by all
means corresponding numbers ; a course of
proceeding as dishonest as it is shallow.
In so far as those final results of Idealism
are viewed as such, as consequences of our
reasoning, they are what is called the a
priori of the human mind ; and in so far
as they are viewed, also—if they should
agree with experience—as given in expe
rience, they are called a posteriori. Hence
the a priori and the a posteriori are, in a
true Philosophy, not two, but one and the
same, only viewed in two different ways,
and distinguished only by the manner in
which they are obtained. Philosophy an
ticipates the whole experience, thinks it
only as necessary ; and, in so far, Philoso
phy is, in comparison with real experience,
a priori. The number is a posteriori, if re
garded as given ; the same number is a
priori, if regarded as product of the fac
tors. Whosoever says otherwise knows
not what he talks about.
If the results of a Philosophy do not
agree with experience, that Philosophy is
surely wrong; for it has not fulfilled its
promise of deducing the whole experience
from the necessary action of the intelli
gence. In that case, either the presuppo
sition of transcendental Idealism is alto
gether incorrect, or it has merely been in
correctly treated in the particular repre
sentation of that science. Now, since the
problem, to explain experience from its
ground, is a problem contained in human
reason, and as no rational man will ad
mit that human reason contains any prob
lem the solution of which is altogether im
possible; and since, moreover, there are
only two ways of solving it, the dogmatic
system (which, as we have shown, cannot
accomplish what it promises) and the Ideal
istic system, every resolute Thinker will
always declare that the latter has been the
case; that the presupposition in itself is
correct enough, and that no failure in at
tempts to represent it should deter men
85
from attempting it again until finally it
must succeed. The course of this Ideal
ism proceeds, as we have seen, from a fact
of consciousness—but which is only obtain
ed by a free act of Thinking—to the total
experience. Its peculiar ground is be
tween these two. It is not a fact of con
sciousness and does not belong within the
sphere of experience; and, indeed, how
could it be called Philosophy if it did, since
Philosophy has to discover the ground of
experience, and since the ground lies, of
course, beyond the sequence. It is the
production of free Thinking, but proceed
ing according to laws. This will be at once
clear, if we look a little closer at the funda
mental assertion of Idealism. It proves
that the Postulated is not possible without
a second, this not without a third, &c., &c.;
hence none of all its conditions is possible
alone and by itself, but each one is only
possible in its union with all the rest.
Hence, according to its own assertion, only
the Whole is found in consciousness, and
this Whole is the experience. You want
to obtain a better knowledge of it; hence
you must analyze it, not by blindly groping
about, but according to the fixed rule of
composition, so that it arises under your
eyes as a Whole. You are enabled to do
this because you have the power of ab
straction ; because in free Thinking you can
certainly take hold of each single condi
tion. For consciousness contains not only
necessity of Representations, but also free
dom thereof ; and this freedom again may
proceed according to rules. The Whole is
given to you from the point of view of ne
cessary consciousness ; you find it just as
you find yourself. But the composition of
this Whole, the order of its arrangement,
is produced by freedom. Whosoever un
dertakes this act of freedom, becomes con
scious of freedom, and thus establishes, as
it were, a new field within his conscious
ness ; whosoever does not undertake it, for
him this new field, dependent thereupon,
does not exist. The chemist composes a
body, a metal for instance, from its ele
ments. The common beholder sees the
metal well known to him ; the chemist be
holds, moreover, the composition thereof
and the elements which it comprises. Do
�36
Hegel's Philosophy of Art.
both now see different objects? I should
think not! Both see the same, only in a
different manner. The chemist’s sight is
a priori; he sees the separates ; the ordi
nary beholder’s sight is a posteriori; he
sees the Whole. The only distinction is
this : the chemist must first analyze the
Whole before he can compose it, because
he works upon an object of which he can
not know the rule of composition before
he has analyzed it ; while the philosopher
can compose without a foregoing analysis,
because he knows already the rule of his
object, of reason.
Hence the content of Philosophy can
claim no other reality than that of neces
sary Thinking, on the condition that you
desire to think of the ground of Expe
rience. The Intelligence can only be
thought as active, and can only be thought
active in this particular manner ! Such is
the assertion of Philosophy. And this
reality is perfectly sufficient for Philosophy,
since it is evident from the development of
that science that there is no other reality.
This now described complete critical
Idealism, the Science of Kn owledge intends
to establish. What I have said just now
contains the conception of that science, and
I shall listen to no objections which may
touch this conception, since no one can
know better than myself what I intend to
accomplish, and to demonstrate the impos
sibility of a thing which is already rea
lized, is ridiculous.
Objections, to be legitimate, should only
be raised against the elaboration of that
conception, and should only consider
whether it has fulfilled what it promised to
accomplish or not.
ANALYTICAL AND CRITICAL ESSAY UPON THE ÆSTHETICS
OF HEGEL.
[Translated from the French of M. Ch. Bénard by J. A. Martling.j
of architecture, sculpture, painting, music,
ANALYSIS.
Having undertaken to translate into our and poetry.
language the ./Esthetics of Hegel, we hope
PART I.
to render a new service to our readers, by
OF THE BEAUTIFUL IN ART.
presenting, in an analysis at once cursory
In an extended introduction, Hegel lays
and detailed the outline of the ideas which
form the basis of that vast work. The the foundations of the science of the Beau
thought of the author will appear shorn of tiful : he defines its object, demonstrates
its rich developments ; but it will be more its legitimacy, and indicates its method;
easy to seize the general spirit, the connec he then undertakes to determine the nature
tion of the various parts of the work, and and the end of art. Upon each of these
to appreciate their value. In order not to points let us endeavor to state, in a brief
mar the clearness of our work, we shall manner, his thought, and, if it is neces
abstain from mingling criticism with expo sary, explain it.
Aesthetics is the science of the Beautiful.
sition; but reserve for the conclusion a
general judgment upon this book, which The Beautiful manifests itself in nature and
represents even to-day the state of the in art; but the variety and multiplicity
of forms under which beauty presents
philosophy of art in Germany.
The work is divided into three parts ; itself in the real world, does not permit
the first treats of the beautiful in art in their description and systematic classifi
general; the second, of the general forms of cation. The science of the Beautiful has
art in its historic development; the third then as its principal object, art and its
Contains the system of the arts—the theory works; it is the philosophy oj the fine arts.
�Hegel's Philosophy of Jiri.
Is art a proper object of science? No,
undoubtedly, if we consider it only as an
amusement or a frivolous relaxation. But
it has a nobler purpose. It will even be a
misconception of its true aim to regard it
simply as an auxiliary of morals and re
ligion. Although it often serves as inter
preter of moral and religious ideas, it pre
serves its independence. Its proper object
is to reveal truth under sensuous forms.
Nor is it allowable to say that it pro
duces its effects by illusion. Appearance,
here, is truer than reality. The images
which it places under our eyes are more
ideal, more transparent, and also more du
rable than the mobile and fugitive existen
ces of the real world. The world of art is
truer than that of nature and of history.
Can science subject to its formulas the
free creations of the imagination ? Art
and science, it is true, differ in their meth
ods ; but imagination, also, has its laws;
though free, it has not the right to be law
less. In art, nothing is arbitrary.; its
ground is the essence of things', its form is
borrowed from the real world, and the
Beautiful is the accord, the harmony of
the two terms. Philosophy recognizes in
works of art the eternal content of its
meditations, the lofty conceptions of in
telligence, the passions of man, and the
motives of his volition. Philosophy does
not pretend to furnish prescriptions to art,
but is able to give useful advice; it fol
lows it in its procedures, it points out to
it the paths whereon it may go astray; it
alone can furnish to criticism a solid basis
and fixed principles.
As to the method to be followed, two
exclusive and opposite courses present
themselves. The one, empiric and historic,
seeks to draw from the study of the master
pieces of art, the laws of criticism and the
principles of taste. The other, rational
and a priori, rises immediately to the idea
of the beautiful, and deduces from it cer
tain general rules. Aristotle and Plato re
present these two methods. The first
reaches only a narrow theory, incapable of
comprehending art in its universality ; the
other, isolating itself on the heights of
metaphysics, knows not how to descend
therefrom to apply itself to particular arts,
37
and to appreciate their works. The true
method consists in the union of these two
methods, in their reconciliation and simul
taneous employment. To a positive ac
quaintance with works of art, to the dis
crimination and delicacy of taste neces
sary to appreciate them, there should be
joined philosophic reflection, and the ca
pacity of seizing the Beautiful in itself,
and of comprehending its characteristics
and immutable laws.
What is the nature of art? The answer
to this question can only be the philosophy
of art itself ; and, furthermore, this again
can be perfectly understood only in its con
nection with the other philosophic sciences.
One is here compelled to limit himself to
general reflections, and to the discussion
of received opinions.
In the first place, art is a product of hu
man activity, a creation of the mind. What
distinguishes it from science is this, that
it is the fruit of inspiration, not of reflec
tion. On this account it can not be learned
or transmitted; it is a gift of genius.
Nothing can possibly supply a lack of tal
ent in the arts.
Let us guard ourselves meanwhile from
supposing that, like the blind forces of
nature, the artist does not know what he
does, that reflection has no part in his
works. There is, in the first place, in the
arts a technical part which must be learned,
and a skill which is acquired by practice.
Furthermore, the more elevated art be
comes, the more it demands an extended
and varied culture, a study of the objects
of nature, and a profound knowledge of
the human heart. This is eminently true
of the higher spheres of art, especially in
Poetry.
If works of art are creations of the hu
man spirit, they are not on that account
inferior to those of nature. They are, it
is true, living, only in appearance ; but the
aim of art is not to create living beings;
it seeks to offer to the spirit an image of
life clearer than the reality. In this, it
surpasses nature. There is also something
divine in man, and God derives no less
honor from the works of human intelligence
than from the works of nature.
Now what is the cause which incites mai
�38
Hegel’s Philosophy of Jlrt.
to the production of such works ? Is it a
caprice, a freak, or an earnest, fundamen
tal inclination of his nature ?
It is the same principle which causes
him to seek in science food for his mind,
in public life a theatre for his activity. In
science he endeavors to cognize the truth,
pure and unveiled; in art, truth appears
to him not in its pure form, but expressed
by images which strike his sense at the same
time that they speak to his intelligence.
This is the principle in which art originates,
and which assigns to it a rank so high
among the creations of the human mind.
Although art is addressed to the sensi
bility, nevertheless its direct aim is not to
excite sensation, and to give birth to pleas
ure. Sensation is changeful, varied, con
tradictory. It represents only the various
states or modifications of the soul. If then
we consider only the impressions which
art produces upon us, we make abstrac
tion of the truth which it reveals to us. It
becomes even impossible to comprehend
its grand effects ; for the sentiments which
it excites in us, are explicable only through
the ideas which attach to them.
The sensuous element, nevertheless, oc
cupies a large place in art. What part
must be assigned to it? There are two
modes of considering sensuous objects in
their connection with our mind. The first
is that of simple perception of objects by
the senses. The mind then knows only
their individual side, their particular and
concrete form; the essence, the law, the
substance of things escapes it. At the
same time the desire which is awakened
in us, is a desire to appropriate them to our
use, to consume them, to destroy them.
The soul, in the presence of these objects,
feels its dependence; it cannot contem
plate them with a free and disinterested
eye.
Another relation of sensuous objects
with spirit, is that of speculative thought
or science. Here the intelligence is not
content to perceive the object in its con
crete form and its individuality; it dis
cards the individual side in order to ab
stract and disengage from it the law, the
universal, the essence. Reason thus lifts
itself above the individual form perceived
by sense, in order to conceive the pure
idea in its universality.
Art differs both from the one and from
the other of these modes; it holds the
mean between sensuous perception and
rational abstraction. It is distinguished
from the first in that it does not attach
itself to the real but to the appearance, to
the form of the object, and in that it does
not feel any selfish longing to consume it,
to cause it to serve a purpose, to utilize it.
It differs from science in that it is interest
ed in this particular object, and in its sen
suous form. What it loves to see in it, is
neither its materiality, nor the pure idea
in its generality, but an appearance, an
image of the truth, something ideal which
appears in it; it seizes the connective of
the two terms, their accord and their inner
harmony. Thus the want which it feels
is wholly contemplative. In the presence
of this vision the soul feels itself freed
from all selfish desire.
In a word, art purposely creates images,
appearances, designed to represent ideas,
to show to us the truth under sensuous
forms. Thereby it has the power of stir
ring the soul in its profoundest depths, of
causing it to experience the pure delight
springing from the sight and contempla
tion of the Beautiful.
The two principles are found equally
combined in the artist. The sensuous side
is included in the faculty which creates—
the imagination. It is not by mechanical
toil, directed by rules learned by heart
that he executes his works; nor is it by a
process of reflection like that of the philos
opher who is seeking the truth. The mind
has a consciousness of itself, but it cannot
seize in an abstract manner the idea which
it conceives; it can represent it only under
sensuous forms. The image and the idea
coexist in thought, and cannot be separat
ed. Thus the imagination is itself a
gift of nature. Scientific genius is rather
a general capacity than an innate and spe
cial talent. To succeed in the arts, there
is necessary a determinate talent which
reveals itself early under the form of
an active and irresistible longing, and
a certain facility in the manipulation
of the materials of art. It is this which
�Hegel's Philosophy of Jlrt.
makes the painter, th§ sculptor, the musi
cian.
Such is the nature of art. If it be asked,
what is its end, here we encounter the most
diverse opinions. The most common is
that which gives imitation as its object.
This is the foundation of nearly all the
theories upon art. Now of what use to re
produce that which nature already offers
to our view? This puerile talk, unworthy
of spirit to which it is addressed, unworthy
of man who produces it, would only end
in the revelation of its impotency and
the vanity of its efforts ; for the copy will
always remain inferior to the original.
Besides, the more exact the imitation, the
less vivid is the pleasure. That which
pleases us is not imitation, but creation.
The very least invention surpasses all the
masterpieces of imitation.
In vain is it said that art ought to imi
tate beautiful Nature. To select is no
longer to imitate. Perfection in imitation
is exactness ; moreover, choice supposes a
rule; where find the criterion ? What
signifies, in fine, imitation in architecture,
in music, and even in poetry ? At most,
one can thus explain descriptive poetry,
that is to say, the most prosaic kind. We
must conclude, therefore, that if, in its
compositions, art employs the forms of
Nature, and must study them, its aim iB
not to copy and to reproduce them. Its mis
sion is higher—its procedure freer. Ri
val of nature, it represents ideas as well as
she, and even better ; it uses her forms as
symbols to express them ; and it fashions
even these, remodels them upon a type
more perfect and more pure. It is not
without significance that its works are
styled the creations of the genius of man.
A second system substitutes expression
for imitation. Art accordingly has for its
aim, not to represent the external form of
things, but their internal and living prin
ciple, particularly the ideas, sentiments,
passions, and conditions of the soul.
Less gross than the preceding, this
theory is no less false and dangerous.
Let us here distinguish two things: the
idea and the expression—the content and
the form. Now, if Art is designed for ex
pression solely—if expression is its essen
39
tial object—its content is indifferent.
Provided that the picture be faithful, the
expression lively and animated, the good
and the bad, the vicious, the hideous, the
ugly, have the same right to figure here as
the Beautiful. Immoral, licentious, impi
ous, the artist will have fulfilled his obli
gation and reached perfection, when he
has succeeded in faithfully rendering a
situation, a passion, an idea, be it true or
false. It is clear that if in this system
the object of imitation is changed, the
procedure is the same. Art would be only
an echo, a harmonious language; a liv
ing mirror, where all sentiments and all
passions would find themselves reflected,
the base part and the noble part of the soul
contending here for the same place. The
true, here, would be the real, would include
objects the most diverse and the most con
tradictory. Indifferent as to the content,
the artist seeks only to represent it well. He
troubles himself little concerning truth in
itself. Skeptic or enthusiast indifferently,
he makes us partake of the delirium of
the Bacchanals, or the unconcern of the
Sophist. Such is the system which takes
for a motto the maxim, Art is for art; that
is to say, mere expression for its own sake.
Its consequences, and the fatal tendency
which it has at all times pressed upon the
arts, are well known.
A third system sets up moral perfection
as the aim of art. It cannot be denied
that one of the effects of art is to soften
and purify manners (emollit mores'). In
mirroring man to himself, it tempers the
rudeness of his appetites and his passions ;
it disposes him to contemplation and re
flection ; it elevates his thought and sen
timents, by leading them to an ideal which
it suggests,—to ideas of a superior order.
Art has, from all time, been regarded as
a powerful instrument of civilization, as
an auxiliary of religion. It is, together
with religion, the earliest instructor of
nations ; it is besides a means of instruc
tion for minds incapable of comprehending
truth otherwise than under the veil of a
symbol, and by images that address them
selves to the sense as well as to the spirit.
But this theory, although much superior
to the preceding, is no more exact. Its
�40
Hegel's Philosophy of Art.
defect consists in confounding the moral
effect of art with its real aim. This con
fusion has inconveniences which do not
appear at the first glance. Let care be
taken, meanwhile, lest, in thus assigning
to aft a foreign aim, it be not robbed of
its liberty, which is its essence, and with
out which it has no inspiration—that
thereby it be not prevented from produ
cing the effects which are to be expected
from it. Between religion, morals and
art, there exists an eternal and intimate
harmony; but they are, none the less, es
sentially diverse forms of truth, and,
while preserving entire the bonds which
unite them, they claim a complete inde
pendence. Art has its peculiar laws,
methods and jurisdiction; though it ought
not to wound the moral sense, yet it is the
sense of the Beautiful to which it is ad
dressed. When its works are pure, its
effect on the soul is salutary, but its direct
and immediate aim is not this result.
Seeking it, it risks losing it, and does lose
its own end. Suppose, indeed, that the
aim of art should be to instruct, under the
veil of allegory; the idea, the abstract
and general thought, must be present in
the spirit of the artist at the very moment
of composition. It seeks, then, a form
which is adapted to that idea, and furn
ishes drapery for it. Who does not see
that this procedure is the very opposite of
inspiration ? There can be born of it only
frigid and lifeless works; its effect will
thus be neither moral nor religious ; it
will produce only ennui.
Another consequence of the opinion
which makes moral perfection the object
of art and its creations, is that this end is
imposed so completely upon art, and con
trols it to such a degree, that it has no
longer even a choice of subjects. The severe
moralist would have it represent moral
subjects alone. Art is then undone. This
system led Plato to banish poets from his
republic. If, then, it is necessary to
maintain the agreement of morality and
art, and the harmony of their laws, their
distinct bases and independence must also
be recognized. In order to understand
thoroughly this distinction between morals
and art, it is necessary to have solved the
moral problem. Morality is the realiza
tion of the. <c ought” by the free will; it
is the conflict between passion and'reason,
inclination and law, the flesh and the
spirit. It hinges upon an opposition.
Antagonism is, indeed, the very law of
the physical and moral universe. But this
opposition ought to be cancelled. This is
the destiny of beings who by their devel
opment and progress continually realize
themselves.
Now, in morals, this harmony of the
powers of our being, which should restore
peace and happiness, does not exist.
Morality proposes it as an end to the free
will. The aim and the realization are dis
tinct. Duty consists in an incessant striv
ing. Thus, in one respect, morals and
art have the same principle and the same
aim; the harmony of rectitude, and hap
piness of actions and law. But that
wherein they differ is, that in morals the
end is never wholly attained. It appears
separated from the means ; the con
sequence is equally separated from the
principle. The harmony of rectitude and
happiness ought to be the result of the
efforts of virtue. In order to conceive
the identity of the two terms, it is neces
sary to elevate one’s self to a superior
point of view, which is not that of morals.
In empirical science equally, the law ap
pears distinct from the phenomenon, the
essence separated from its form. In order
that this distinction may be cancelled,
there is necessary a mode of thinking
which is superior to that of reflection, or
of empirical science.
Art, on the contrary, offers to us in a
visible image, the realized harmony of the
two terms of existence, of the law of be
ings and their manifestation, of essence
and form, of rectitude and happiness.
The beautiful is essence realized, ac
tivity in conformity with its end, and
identified with it; it is the force which iB
harmoniously developed under our eyes,
in the innermost of existences, and
which cancels the contradictions of its
nature : happy, free, full of serenity in
the very midst of suffering and of sorrow.
The problem of art is then distinct from
the moral problem. The good is harmony
�Hegel's Philosophy of Jiri.
sought for; beauty is harmony realized.
So must we understand the thought of
Hegel; he here only intimates it, but it
will be fully developed in the sequel.
The true aim of art is then to represent
the Beautiful, to reveal this harmony. This
is its only purpose. Every other aim,
purification, moral amelioration, edifica
tion, are accessories or consequences. The
effect of the contemplation of the Beautiful
is to produce in us a calm and pure joy, in
compatible with the gross pleasures of
sense ; it lifts the soul above the ordinary
sphere of its thoughts ; it disposes to noble
resolutions and generous actions by the
close affinity which exists between the three
sentiments and the three ideas of the Good,
the Beautiful, and the Divine.
Such are the principal ideas which this
remarkable introduction contains. The re
mainder, devoted to the examination of
works which have marked the development
of aesthetic science in Germany since
Kant, is scarcely susceptible of analysis,
and does not so much deserve our atten
tion.
The first part of the science of aesthetics,
which might be called the Metaphysics of
the Beautiful, contains, together with the
analysis of the idea of the Beautiful, the
general principles common to all the arts.
Thus Hegel here treats : First, of the ab
stract idea of the Beautiful; second, of the
Beautiful in nature; third, of the Beautiful
in art, or of the ideal. He concludes with
an examination of the qualities of the art
ist. But before entering upon these ques
tions, he thought it necessary to point out
the place of art in human life, and espe
cially its connections with religion and
philosophy.
The destination of man, the law of his
nature, is to develop himself incessantly,
to stretch unceasingly towards the infinite.
He ought, at the same time, to put an end
to the opposition which he finds in himself
between the elements and powers of his be
ing ; to place them in accord by realizing
and developing them externally. Physical
life is a struggle between opposing forces,
and the living being can sustain itself only
through the conflict and the triumph of the
force which constitutes it. With man, and
41
in the moral sphere, this conflict and pro
gressive enfranchisement are manifested
under the form of freedom, which is the
highest destination of spirit. Freedom
consists in surmounting the obstacles which
it encounters within and without, in re
moving the limits, in effacing all contra
diction, in vanquishing evil and sorrow, in
order to attain to harmony with the world
and with itself. In actual life, man seeks
to destroy that opposition by the satisfac
tion of his physical wants. He calls to his
aid, industry and the useful arts ; but he
obtains thus only limited, relative, and
transient enjoyments. He finds a nobler
pleasure in science, which furnishes food
for his ardent curiosity, and piomises to
reveal to h’m the laws of nature and to
unveil the secrets of the universe. Civil
life opens another channel to his activity;
he burns to realize his conceptions ; he
marches to the conquest of the right, and
pursues the ideal of justice which he bears
within him. He endeavors to realize in
civil society his instinct of sociability,
which is also the law of his being, and one
of the fundamental inclinations of his mor
al nature.
But here, again, he attains an imperfect
felicity ; he encounters limits and obstacles
which he cannot surmount, and against
which, his will is broken. He cannot ob
tain the perfect realization of his ideas,
nor attain the ideal which his spirit con
ceives and toward which it aspires. He
then feels the necessity of elevating him
self to a higher sphere where all contradic
tions are cancelled ; where the idea of the
good and of happiness in their perfect ac
cord and their enduring harmony is real
ized. This profound want of the soul is
satisfied in three ways : in art, in religion,
and in philosophy. The function of art is
to lead us to the contemplation of the true,
the infinite, under sensuous forms ; for the
beautiful is the unity, the realized harmo
ny of two principles of existence, of the
idea and the form, of the infinite and the
finite. This is the principle and the hid
den essence of things, beaming through
their visible form. Art presents us, in its
works, the image of this happy accord
where all opposition ceases, and where all
�42
Hegel's Philosophy of Art.
contradiction is Cancelled. Such is the
aim of art: to represent the divine, the in
finite, under sensuous forms. This is its
mission; it has no other and this it alone
can fulfil. By this title it takes its place
by the side of religion, and preserves its
independence. It takes its rank also with
philosophy, whose object is the knowledge
of the true, of absolute truth.
Alike then as to their general ground
and aims, these three spheres are distin
guished by the form under which they be
come revealed to the spirit and conscious
ness of man. Art is addressed to sensuous
perception and to the imagination; reli
gion is addressed to the soul, to the con
science, and to sentiment; philosophy is
addressed to pure thought or to the reason,
which conceives the truth in an abstract
manner.
Art, which offers us truth under sensu
ous forms, does not, however, respond to
the profoundest needs of the soul. The
spirit is possessed of the desire of entering
into itself, of contemplating the truth in
the inner recesses of consciousness. Above
the domain of art, then, religion is placed,
which reveals the infinite, and by medita
tion conveys to the depths of the heart, to
the centre of the soul, that which in art we
contemplate externally. As to philosophy,
its peculiar aim is to conceive and to com
prehend, by the intellect alone, under an
abstract form, that which is given as sen
timent or as sensuous representation.
I. Of the Idea of the Beautiful.
After these preliminaries, Ilegel enters
upon the questions which form the object
of this first part. He treats, in the first
place, of the idea of the beautiful in itself,
in its abstract nature. Freeing his thought
from the metaphysical forms which render
it difficult of comprehension to minds not
familiar with his system, we arrive at this
definition, already contained in the fore
going : the Beautiful is the true, that is to
say, the essence, the inmost substance of
things ; the true, not such as the mind con
ceives it in its abstract and pure nature,
but as manifested to the senses under visi
ble forms. It is the sensuous manifesta
tion of the idea, which is the soul and
principle of things. This definition recalls
that of Plato : the Beautiful is the splendor
of the true.
What are the characteristics of the beau
tiful ? First, it is infinite in this sense,
that it is the divine principle itself which
is revealed and manifested, and that the
form which expresses it, in place of limit
ing it, realizes it and confounds itself with
it; second, it is free, for true freedom is
not the absence of rule and measure, it is
force which develops itself easily and har
moniously. It appears in the bosom of
the existences of the sensuous world, as
their principle of life, of unity, and of
harmony, whether free from all obstacle,
or victorious and triumphant in conflict,
always calm and serene.
The spectator who contemplates beauty
feels himself equally free, and has a con
sciousness of his infinite nature. He tastes
a pure pleasure, resulting from the felt ac
cord of the powers of his being ; a celestial
and divine joy, which has nothing in com
mon with material pleasures, and does not
suffer to exist in the soul a single impure
or gross desire.
The contemplation of the Beautiful
awakens no such craving; it is self-suf
ficing, and is not accompanied by any re
turn of the me upon itself. It suffers the
object to preserve its independence for its
own sake. The soul experiences some
thing analogous to divine felicity; it is
transported into a sphere foreign to the
miseries of life and terrestrial existence.
This theory, it is apparent, would need
only to be developed to return wholly to the
Platonic theory. Hegel limits himself to
referring to it. We recognize here, also,
the results of the Kantian analysis.
II. Of the Beautiful in Nature.
Although science cannot pause to de
scribe the beauties of nature, it ought,
nevertheless, to study, in a general man
ner, the characteristics of the Beautiful,
as it appears to us in the physical world
and in the beings which it contains. This is
the subject of a somewhat extended chap
ter, with the following title : Of the Beau
tiful in Nature. Hegel herein considers
the question from the particular point of
�Hegel's Philosophy of Jiri.
view of his philosophy, and he applies his
theory of the Idea. Nevertheless, the re
sults at which he arrives, and the manner
in which he describes the forms of physical
beauty, can be comprehended and accepted
independently of his system, little adapt
ed, it must be confessed, to cast light upon
this subject.
The Beautiful in nature is the first mani
festation of the Idea. The successive de
grees of beauty correspond to the develop
ment of life and organization in beings.
Unity is an essential characteristic of it.
Thus, in the mineral, beauty consists in the
arrangement or disposition of the parts,
in the force which resides in them, and
which reveals itself in this unity. The so
lar system offers us a more perfect unity
and a higher beauty. The bodies in that
system, while preserving entire their indi
vidual existence, co-ordinate themselves
into a whole, the parts of which are inde
pendent, although attached to a common
centre, the sun. Beauty of this order
strikes us by the regularity of the move
ments of the celestial bodies. A unity
more real and true is that which is mani
fested in organized and living beings. The
unity here consists in a relation of re-*
ciprocity and of mutual dependence be
tween the organs, so that each of them
loses its independent existence in order to
give place to a wholly ideal unity which
reveals itself as the principle of life ani
mating them.
Life is beautiful in nature : for it is es
sence, force, the idea realized under its
firs'- form. Nevertheless, beauty in nature
is still wholly external; it has no conscious
ness of itself; it is beautiful solely for an
intelligence which sees and contem
plates it.
How do we perceive beauty in natural
beings? Beauty, with living and animate
beings, is neither accidental and capricious
movements, nor simple conformity of those
movements to an end—the uniform and
mutual connection of parts. This point of
view is that of the naturalist, of the man
of science ; it is not that of the Beautiful.
Beauty is total form in so far as it reveals
the force which animates it; it is this
force itself, manifested by a totality of
43
forms, of independent and free move
ments ; it is the internal harmony which
reveals itself in this secret accord of mem
bers, and which betrays itself outwardly,
without the eye’s pausing to consider the
relation of the parts to the whole, and their
functions or reciprocal connection, as sci
ence does. The unity exhibits itself mere
ly externally as the principle which binds
the members together. It manifests itself
especially through the sensibility. The
point of view of beauty is then that of pure
contemplation, not that of reflection,
which analyzes, compares and seizes the
connection of parts and their destination.
This internal and visible unity, this ac
cord, and this harmony, are not distinct
from the material element; they are its
very form. This is the principle which «
serves to determine beauty in its inferior
grades, the beauty of the crystal with its
regular forms, forms produced by an in
ternal and free force. A similar activity
is developed in a more perfect manner in
the living organism, its outlines, the dispo
sition of its members, the movements, and
the expression of sensibility.
Such is beauty in individual beings. It
is otherwise with it when we consider na
ture in its totality, the beauty of a land
scape, for example. There is no longer
question here about an organic disposition
of parts and of the life which animates
them ; we have under our eyes a rich mul
tiplicity of objects which form a whole,
mountains, trees, rivers, etc. In this di
versity there appears an external unity
which interests us by its agreeable or im
posing character. To this aspect there is
added that property of the objects of na
ture through which they awaken in us,
sympathetically, certain sentiments, by the
secret analogy which exists between them
and the situations of the human soul.
Such is the effect produced by the silence
of the night, the calm of a still valley, the
sublime aspect of a vast sea in tumult,
and the imposing grandeur of the starry
heavens. The significance of these objects
is not in themselves ; they are only sym
bols of the sentiments of the soul which
they excite. It is thus we attribute to an
imals the qualities which belong only to
�44
Hegel's Philosophy of Art.
man, courage, fortitude, cunning. Physi consists in a totality of elements essen
cal beauty is a reflex of moral beauty.
tially distinct, but whose opposition is
To recapitulate, physical beauty, viewed destroyed and reduced to unity by a secret
in its ground or essence, consists in the accord, a reciprocal adaptation. Such is
manifestation of the concealed principle, the harmony of forms and colors, that of
of the force which is developed in the bo sounds and movements, Here the unity is
som of matter. This force reveals itself stronger, more prononce, precisely be
in a manner more or less perfect, by unity cause the differences and the oppositions
in inert matter, and in living beings by the are more marked. Harmony, however, is
different modes of organization.
not as yet true unity, spiritual unity,
Hegel then devotes a special examination that of the soul, although the latter pos
to the external side, or to beauty of form sesses within it a principle of harmony.
in natural objects. Physical beauty, con Harmony alone, as yet, reveals neither the
sidered externally, presents itself succes soul nor the spirit, as one may see in music
sively under the aspects of regularity and and dancing.
symmetry, of conformity to law and of har
Beauty exists also in matter itself,
mony ; lastly, of purity and simplicity of abstraction being made of its form; it
matter.
consists, then, in the unity and simplicity
1. Regularity, which is only the repeti which constitutes purity. Such is the
tion of a form equal to itself, is the most purity of the sky and of the atmosphere,
elementary and simple form. In symmetry the purity of colors and of sounds ; that of
there already appears a diversity which certain substances—of precious stones, of
breaks the uniformity. These two forms gold, and of the diamond. Pure and sim
of beauty pertain to quantity, and consti ple colors are also the most agreeable.
tute mathematical beauty ; they are found
After having described the beautiful in
in organic and inorganic bodies, minerals nature, in order that the necessity of a
and crystals. In plants are presented less beauty more exalted and more ideal, shall
regular, and freer forms. In the organiza- be comprehended, Hegel sets forth the im
ation of animals, this regular and sym perfections of real beauty. He begins with
metrical disposition becomes more and animal life, which is the most elevated
more subordinated in proportion as we as point we have reached, and he dwells upon
cend to higher degrees of the animal scale. the characteristics and causes of that im
2. Conformity to a law marks a degree perfection.
still more elevated, and serves as a transi
Thus, first in the animal, although the
tion to freer forms. Here there appears organism is more perfect than that of the
an accord more real and more profound, plant, what we see is not the central point
which begins to transcend mathematical of life; the special seat of the operations
rigor. It is no longer a simple numerical of the force which animates the whole, re
relation, where quantity plays the princi mains concealed from us. We see only
pal role ; we discover a relation of quality the outlines of the external form, covered
between different terms. A law rules with hairs, scales, feathers, skin; second
the whole, but it cannot be calcu ly, the human body, it is true, exhibits
lated; it remains a hidden bond, which more beautiful proportions, and a more
reveals itself to the spectator. Such is perfect form, because in it, life and sensi
the oval line, and above all, the undulating bility are everywhere manifested—in the
line, which Hogarth has given as the line color, the flesh, the freer movements,
of beauty. These lines determine, in fact, nobler attitudes, &c. Yet here, besides
the beautiful forms of organic nature in the imperfections in details, the sensibil
living beings of a high order, and, above ity does not appear equally distributed.
all, the beautiful forms of the human body, Certain parts are appropriated to animal
of man and of woman.
functions, and exhibit their destination in
3. Harmony is a degree still superior’to their form. Further, individuals in nature,
the preceding, and it includes them. It placed as they are under a dependence
�Hegels Philosophy of Jiri.
upon external causes, and under the in
fluence of the elements, are under the
dominion of necessity and want. Under
the continual action of these causes, phy
sical being is exposed to losing the fulness
of its forms and the flower of its beauty;
rarely do these causes permit it to attain
to its complete, free and regular develop
ment. The human body is placed under a
like dependence upon external agents. If
we pass from the physical to the moral
world, that dependence appears still more
clearly.
Everywhere there is manifested diver
sity, and opposition of tendencies and
interests. The individual, in the pleni
tude of his life and beauty, cannot pre
serve the appearance of a free force. Each
individual being is limited and particular
ized in his excellence. His life flows in a
narrow circle of space and time; he be
longs to a determinate species ; his type
is given, his form defined, and the condi
tions of his development fixed. The hu
man body itself offers, in respect to beauty,
a progression of forms dependent on the
diversity of races. Then come hereditary
qualities, the peculiarities which are due
to temperament, profession, age, and sex.
All these causes alter and disfigure the
purest and most perfect primitive type.
All these imperfections are summed up
in a word: the finite. Human life and
animal life realize their idea only imper
fectly. Moreover, spirit—not being able
to find, in the limits of the real, the sight
and the enjoyment of its proper freedom—
seeks to satisfy itself in a region more ele
vated, that of ari, or of the ideal.
III. Of the beautiful in Art or of the Ideal.
Art has as its end and aim the repre
sentation of the ideal. Now what is the
ideal7. It is beauty in a degree of perfec
tion superior to real beauty. It is force,
life, spirit, the essence of things, develop
ing themselves harmoniously in a sensu
ous reality, which is its resplendent image,
its faithful expression ; it is beauty dis
engaged and purified from the accidents
which veil and disfigure it, and which alter
its purity in the real world.
The ideal, in art, is not then the con
45
trary of the real, but the real idealized,
purified, rendered conformable to its
idea, and perfectly expressing it. In a
word, it is the perfect accord of the idea
and the sensuous form.
On the other hand, the true ideal is not
life in its inferior degrees—blind, unde
veloped force—but the soul arrived at the
consciousness of itself, free, and in the
full enjoyment of its faculties; it is life,
but spiritual life—in a word, spirit. The
representation of the spiritual principle, in
the plenitude of its life and freedom, with
its high conceptions, its profound and no
ble sentiments, its joys and its sufferings :
this is the true aim of art, the true ideal.
Finally, the ideal is not a lifeless ab
straction, a frigid generality; it is the
spiritual principle under the form of the
living individual, freed from the bonds of
the finite, and developing itself in its per
fect harmony with its inmost nature and
essence.
We see, thus, what are the characteris
tics of the ideal. It is evident that in all
its degrees it is calmness, serenity, felici
ty, happy existence, freed from the mis
eries and wants of life. This serenity
does not exclude earnestness ; for the ideal
appears in the midst of the conflicts of
life ; but even in the roughest experiences,
in the midst of intense suffering, the soul
preserves an evident calmness as a funda
mental trait. It is felicity in suffering,
the glorification of sorrow, smiling in
tears. The echo of this felicity resounds
in all the spheres of the ideal.
It is important to determine, with still
more precision, the relations of the ideal
and the real.
The opposition of the ideal and the real
has given rise to two conflicting opinions.
Some conceive of the ideal as something
vague, an abstract, lifeless generality,
without individuality. Others extol the
natural, the imitation of the real in the
most minute and prosaic details. Equal
exaggeration I The truth lies between the
two extremes.
In the first place, the ideal may be, in
fact, something external and accidental,
an insignificant form or appearance, a
common existence. But that which con
�4G
Hegel's Philosophy of Art.
stitutes the ideal, in this inferior degree,
is the fact that this reality, imitated by
art, is a creation of spirit, and becomes
then something artificial, not real. It is
an image and a metamorphosis. This
image, moreover, is more permanent than
its model, more durable than the real ob
ject. In fixing that which is mobile and
transient, in eternizing that which is mo
mentary and fugitive—a flower, a smile—
art surpasses nature and idealizes it.
But it does not stop here. Instead of
simply reproducing these objects, while
preserving their natural form, it seizeB
their internal and deepest character, it
extends their signification, and gives to
them a more elevated and .more general
significance; for it must manifest the uni
versal in the individual, and render visible
the idea which they represent, their eter
nal and fixed type. It allows this charac
ter of generality to penetrate everywhere,
without reducing it to an abstraction.
Thus the artist does not slavishly repro
duce all the features of the object, and its
accidents, but only the true traits, those
conformable to its idea. If, then, he takes
nature as a model, he still surpasses and
idealizes it. Naturalness, faithfulness,
truth, these are not exact imitation, but
the perfect conformity of the form to the
idea; they are the creation of a more
perfect form, whose essential traits repre
sent the idea more faithfully and more
clearly than it is expressed in nature itself.
To know how to disengage the operative,
energetic, essential and significant ele
ments in objects,—this is the task of the
artist. The ideal, then, is not the real; the
latter contains many elements insignifi
cant, useless, confused and foreign, or op
posed to the idea. The natural here loses
its vulgar significance. By this word must
be understood the more exalted expression
of spirit. The ideal is a transfigured, glo
rified nature.
As to vulgar and common nature, if art
takes it also for its object, it is not for its
own sake, but because of what in it is
true, excellent, interesting, ingenuous or
gay, as in genre painting, in Dutch paint
ing particularly. It occupies, neverthe
less, an inferior rank, and cannot make
pretensions to a place beside the grand
compositions of art.
But there are other subjects—a nature
more elevated and more ideal. Art, at its
culminating stage, represents the develop
ment of the internal powers of the soul,
its grand passions, profound sentiments,
and lofty destinies. Now, it is clear that
the artist does not find in the real world,
forms so pure and ideal that he may safely
confine himself to imitating and copying.
Moreover, if the form itself be given, ex
pression must be added. Besides, he
ought to secure, in a just measure, the
union of the individual and the universal,
of the form and the idea; to create a
living ideal, penetrated with the idea, and
in which it animates the sensuous form
and appearance throughout, so that there
shall be nothing in it empty or insig
nificant, nothing that is not alive with ex
pression itself. Where shall he find in
the real world, this just measure, this
animation, and this exact correspondence
of all the parts and of all the details con
spiring to the same end, to the same effect ?
To say that he will succeed in conceiving
and realizing the ideal, by making a feli
citous selection of ideas and forms, is to
ignore the secret of artistic composition ;
it is to misconceive the entirely sponta
neous method of genius,—inspiration which
creates at a single effort,—to replace it by a
reflective drudgery, which only results in
the production of frigid and lifeless
works.
It does not suffice to define the ideal in
an abstract manner; the ideal is exhibited
to us in the works of art under very va
rious and diverse forms. Thus sculpture
represents it under the motionless features
of its figures. In the other arts it assumes
the form of movement and of action ; in
poetry, particularly, it manifests itself in
the midst of most varied situations and
events, of conflicts between persons ani
mated by diverse passions. IIow, and
under what conditions, is each art in par
ticular’ called upon to represent thus the
ideal ? This will be the object of the
theory of the arts. In the general expo
sition of the principles of art, we may,
nevertheless, attempt to define the degrees
�Hegel's Philosophy of Art.
of this development, to study the princi
pal aspects under which it manifests it
self. Such is the object of those con
siderations, the title of which is, Of
the Determination of the Ideal, and
which the author develops iu this first
part of the work. We can trace only
summarily the principal ideas, devoting
ourselves to marking their order and con
nection.
The gradation which the author estab
lishes between the progressively determ
ined forms of the ideal is as follows :
1. The ideal, under the most elevated
form, is the divine idea, the divine such
as the imagination can represent it under
sensuous forms; such is the Greek ideal
of the divinities of Polytheism ; such the
Christian ideal in its highest purity, under
the form of God the Father, of Christ, of
the Virgin, of the Apostles, etc. It is
given above all to sculpture and painting,
to present us the image of it. Its essen
tial characteristics are calmness, majesty,
serenity.
2. In a degree less elevated, but more
determined, in the circle of human life,
the ideal appears to us, with man, as the
victory of the eternal principles which fill
the human heart, the triumph of the noble
part of the soul over the inferior and
passionate. The noble, the excellent,
the perfect, in the human soul, is the
moral and divine principle which is mani
fested in it, which governs its will, and
causes it to accomplish grand actions;
this is the true source of self-sacrifice and
of heroism.
3. But the idea, when it is manifested
in the real world, can be developed only
under the form of action. Now, action
itself has for its condition a conflict be
tween principles and persons, divided as
to interests, ideas, passions, and charac
ters. It is this especially that is repre
sented by poetry—the art par excellence,
the only art which can reproduce an action
in its successive phases, with its complica
tions, its sudden turns of fortune, its
catastrophe and its denouement.
Action, if one considers it more closely,
includes the following conditions : 1st. A
world which serves it as a basis and thea
47
tre, a form of society which renders it pos
sible, and is favorable to the development
of ideal figures. 2d. A determinate situa
tion, in which the personages are placed
who render necessary the conflict between
opposing interests and passions, whence
a collision may arise. 3d. An action, prop
erly so called, which develops itself in
its essential moments, which has a begin
ning, a middle, and an end. This action,
in order to afford a high interest, should
revolve upon ideas of an elevated order,
which inspire and sustain the personages,
ennobling their passions, and farming the
basis of their character.
Hegel treats, in a general manner, each
of these points, which will appear anew,
under a more special form, in the study of
poetry, and particularly of epic and dra
matic poetry.
1. The state of society most favorable
to the ideal is that which allows the char
acters to act with most freedom, to reveal
a lofty and powerful personality. This
cannot be a social order, where all is fixed
and regulated by laws and a constitution.
Nor can it be the savage state, where all
is subject to caprice and violence, and
where man is dependent upon a thousand
external causes, which render his existence
precarious. Now the state intermediate
between the barbarous state and an ad
vanced civilization, is the heroic age, that
in which the epic poets locate their action,
and from which the tragic poets them
selves have often borrowed their subjects
and their personages. That which char
acterizes heroes in this epoch is, above all,
the independence which is manifested in
their characters and acts. On the other
hand, the hero is all of a piece; he as
sumes not only the responsibility of his
acts and their consequences, but the re
sults of actions he has not perpetrated,
of the faults or crimes of his race; he
bears in his person an entire race.
Another reason why the ideal existences
of art belong to the mythologic ages, and
to remote epochs of history, is that the
artist or the poet, in representing or re
counting events, has a freer scope in his
ideal creations. Art, also, for the same
reason, has a predilection for the higher
�48
Hegel's Philosophy of Jiri.
conditions of society, those of princes par
ticularly, because of the perfect indepen
dence of will and action which character
izes them. In this respect, our actual
society, with its civil and political organi
zation, its manners, administration,police,
etc., is prosaic. The sphere of activity of
the individual is too restricted ; he en
counters everywhere limits and shackles
to his will. Our monarchs themselves are
subject to these conditions ; their power is
limited by institutions, laws and customs.
War, peace, and treaties are determined
by political relations independent of their
will.
The greatest poets have not been able
to escape these conditions ; and when they
have desired to represent personages
nearer to us, as Charles Moor, or Wallen
stein, they have been obliged to place
them in revolt against society or against
their sovereign. Moreover, these heroes
rush on to an inevitable ruin, or they fall
into the ridiculous situation, of which the
Don Quixote of Cervantes gives us the
most striking example.
2. To represent the ideal in personages
or in an action, there is necessary not only
a favorable world from which the subject
is to be borrowed, but a situation. This
situation can be either indeterminate, like
that of many of the immobile personages
of antique or religious sculpture, or de
terminate, but yet of little earnestness.
Such are also the greater number of the
situations of the personages of antique
sculpture. Finally, it may be earnest, and
furnish material for a veritable action. It
supposes, then, an opposition, an action and
a reaction, a conflict, a collision. The
beauty of the ideal consists in absolute
serenity and perfection. Now, collision
destroys this harmony. The problem of
art consists, then, in so managing that the
harmony reappears in the denouement. Po
etry alone is capable of developing this op
position upon which the interest, particu
larly, of tragic art turns.
Without examining here the nature of
the different collisions, the study of which
belongs to the theory of dramatic art, we
must already have remarked that the collis
ions of the highest order are those in
which the conflict takes place between
moral forces, as in the ancient tragedies.
This is the subject of true classic tragedy,
moral as well as religious, as will be seen
from what follows.
Thus the ideal, in this superior degree,
is the manifestation of moral powers and
of the ideas of spirit, of the grand move
ments of the soul, and of the characters
which appear and are revealed in the de
velopment of the representation.
3. In action, properly so-called, three
things are to be considered which consti
tute its ideal object: 1. The general inter
ests, the ideas, the universal principles,
whose opposition forms the very foundation
of the action ; 2. The personages; 3. Their
character and their passions, or the mo
tives which impel them to act.
In the first place, the eternal principles
of religion, of morality, of the family, of
the state—the grand sentiments of the
soul, love, honor, etc.—these constitute the
basis, the true interest of the action.
These are the grand and true motives of
art, the eternal theme of exalted poetry.
To these legitimate and true powers oth
ers are, without doubt, added ; the powers
of evil; but they ought not to be repre
sented as forming the real foundation and
end of the action. ciIf the idea, the end
and aim, be something false in itself, the
hideousness of the ground will allow still
less beauty of form. The sophistry of the
passions may, indeed, by a true picture,
attempt to represent the false under the
colors of the true, but it places under our
eyes only a whited sepulchre. Cruelty and
the violent employment of force can be en
dured in representation, but only when
they are relieved by the grandeur of the
character and ennobled by the aim which
is pursued by the dramatis personae. Per
versity, envy, cowardice, baseness, are only
repulsive.
“ Evil, in itself, is stripped of real in
terest, because nothing but the false can
spring from what is false ; it produces on
ly misfortune, while art should present to
us order and harmony. The great artists,
the great poets of antiquity, never give us
the spectacle of pure wickedness and per
versity.”
�Hegel's Philosophy of Jlrt.
We cite this passage because it exhibits
the character and high moral tone which
prevails in the entire work, as we shall
have occasion to observe more than once
hereafter.
If the ideas and interests of human life
form the ground of the action, the latter is
accomplished by the characters upon whom
the interest is fastened. General ideas
may, indeed, be personated by beings su
perior to man, by certain divinities like
those which figure in ancient epic poetry
and tragedy. But it is to man that action,
properly so-called, returns; it is he who
occupies the scene. Now, how reconcile
divine action and human action, the will
of the gods and that of man ? Such is the
problem which has made shipwreck of so
many poets and artists. To maintain a
proper equipoise it is necessary that the
gods have supreme direction, and that man
preserve his freedom and his independence
without which he is no more than the pas
sive instrument of the will of the gods; fa
tality weighs upon all his acts. The true
solution consists in maintaining the ident
ity of the two terms, in spite of their dif
ference ; in so acting that what is attributed
to the gods shall appear at the same time
to emanate from the inner nature of the
dramatis personce and from their character.
The talent of the artist must reconcile the
two aspects’. “ The heart of man must be
revealed in his gods, personifications of
the grand motives which allure him and
govern him within.” This is the problem
resolved by the great poets of antiquity,
Homer, .¿Eschylus, and Sophocles.
The general principles, those grand mo
tives which are the basis of the action, by
the fact that they are living in the soul of
the characters, form, also, the very ground
of the passions; this is the essence of true
pathos. Passion, here, in the elevated ideal
sense, is, in fact, not an arbitrary, capri
cious, irregular movement of the soul ; it is
a noble principle, which blends itself with
a great idea, with^ne of the eternal veri
ties of moral or religious order. Such is
the passion of Antigone, the holy love for
her brother ; such, the vengeance of Orestes.
It is an essentially legitimate power of the
soul which contains one of the eternal
4
49
principles of the reason and the will. This
is still the ideal, the true ideal, although it
appears under the form of a passion. It
relieves, ennobles and purifies it; it thus
gives to the action a serious and profound
interest.
It is in this sense that passion consti
tutes the centre and true domain of art ; it
is the principle of emotion, the source of
true pathos.
Now, this moral verity, this eternal
principle which descends into the heart of
man and there takes the form of great and
noble passion, identifying itself with the
will of ^ie dramatis persona., constitutes,
also, their character. Without this high
idea which serves as support and as basis
to passion, there is no true character.
Character is the culminating point of ideal
representation. It is the embodiment of
all that precedes. It is in the creation
of the characters, that the genius of the art
ist or of the poet is displayed.
Three principal elements must be united
to form the ideal character, richness, vital
ity, and stability. Richness consists in not
being limited to a single quality, which
would make of the person an abstraction,
an allegoric being. To a single dominant
quality there should be added all those
which make of the personage or hero
a real and complete man, capable of be
ing developed in diverse situations and
under varying aspects. Such a multiplici
ty alone can give vitality to the character.
This is not sufficient, however; it is neces
sary that the qualities be moulded together
in such a manner as to form not a simple
assemblage and a complex whole, but one
and the same individual, having peculiar
and original physiognomy. This is the
case when a particular sentiment, a ruling
passion, presents the salient trait of the
character of a person, and gives to him a
fixed aim, to which all his resolutions and
his acts, refer. Unity and variety, sim
plicity and completeness of detail, these
are presented to us in the characters of
Sophocles, Shakspeare, and others.
Lastly, what constitutes essentially the
ideal in character is consistency and stabil
ity. An inconsistent, undecided, irresolute
character, is the utter want of character.
�50
Hegel's Philosophy of Jlrt.
Contradictions, without doubt, exist in hu
man nature, but unity should be maintain
ed in spite of these fluctuations. Some
thing identical ought to be found through
out, as a fundamental trait. To be self-de
termining, to follow a design, to embrace a
resolution and persist in it, constitute the
very foundation of personality; to suffer
one’s self to be determined by another, to
hesitate, to vacillate, this is to surrender
one’s will, to cease to be one's self, to lack
character; this is, in all cases, the oppo
site of the ideal character.
Hegel on this subject strongly protests
against the characters which figure in mod
ern pieces and romances, and of which
Werthcr is the type.
These pretended characters, says he, rep
resent only unhealthiness of spirit, and
feebleness of soul. Now true and healthy
art does not represent what is false and
sickly, what lacks consistency and de
cision, but that which is true, healthy and
strong. The ideal, in a word, is the idea
realized ; man can realize it only as a free
person, that is to say, by displaying all
the energy and constancy which can make
it triumph.
We shall find more than once, in the
course of the work, the same ideas de
veloped with the same force and precision.
That which constitutes the very ground
of the ideal is the inmost essence of things,
especially the lofty conceptions of the
spirit, and the development of the powers
of the soul. These ideas are manifest in
an action in which are placed upon the
scene the grand interests of life, the pas
sions of the human heart, the will and the
character of actors. But this action is
itself developed in the midst of an external
nature which, moreover, lends to the ideal,
colors and a determinate form. These
external surroundings must also be con
ceived and fashioned in the meaning of the
ideal, according to the laws of regularity,
symmetry, and harmony, of which mention
has been made above. How-ought man to be
represented in his relations with external
nature ? How ought this prose of life to be
idealized? If art, in fact, frees man from
the wants of material life, it cannot, how
ever, elevate him above the conditions of
human existence, and suppress these con
nections.
Hegel devotes a special examination to
this new phase of the question of the ideal,
which he designates by this title—Of the
external determination of the ideal.
In our days we have given an exaggerated
importance to this external side, which
we have made the principal object. We
are too unmindful that art should repre
sent the ideas and sentiments of the hu
man soul, that this is the true ground of
its works. Hence all these minute de
scriptions, this external care given to the
picturesque element or to the local color,
to furniture, to costumes, to all those arti
ficial means employed to disguise the
emptiness and insignificance of the sub
ject, the absence of ideas, the falsity of
the situations, the feebleness of the char
acters, and the improbability of the
action.
Nevertheless, this side has its place in
art, and should not be neglected. It gives
clearness, truthfulness, life, and interest
to its works, by the secret sympathy which
exists between man and nature. It is
Characteristic of the great masters to rep
resent nature with perfect truthfulness.
Homer is an example of this. Without
forgetting the content for the form, pic
ture for the frame, he presents to us a
faultless and precise image of the theatre
of action. The arts differ much in this
respect. Sculpture limits itself to certain
symbolic indications ; painting, which has
at its disposal means more extended, en
riches with these objects the content of its
pictures. Among the varieties of poetry, the
epic is more circumstantial in its descrip
tions than the drama or lyric poetry. But
this external fidelity should not, in any
art, extend to the representation of insig
nificant details, to the making of them an
object of predeliction, and to subordinat
ing to them the developments which the
subject itself claims. The grand point in
these descriptions is that we perceive a
secret harmony between man and nature,
between the action and the theatre on
which it occurs.
Another species of accord is established
between man and the objects of physical
�Hegel's Philosophy of Art.
nature, when, through his free activity, he
impresses upon them his intelligence and
will, and appropriates them to his own
use; the ideal consists in causing misery
and necessity to disappear from the do
main of art, in revealing the freedom
which develops itself without effort under
our eyes, and easily surmounts obstacles.
Such is the ideal considered under this
aspect. Thus the gods of polytheism
themselves have garments and arms ; they
drink nectar and are nourished by ambro
sia. The garment is an ornament designed
to heighten the glory of the features, to
give nobleness to the countenance, to fa
cilitate movement, or to indicate force and
agility. The most brilliant objects, the
metals, precious stones, purple and ivory,
are employed for the same end. All con
cur to produce the effect of grace and
beauty.
In the satisfaction of physical wants the
ideal consists, above all, in the simplicity
of the means. Instead of being artificial,
factitious, complex, the latter emanate
directly from the activity of man, and free
dom. The heroes of Homer themselves
slay the oxen which are to serve for the
feast, and roast them; they forge their
arms, and prepare their couches. This is
not, as one might think, a relic of barbar
ous manners, something prosaic; but we
see, penetrating everywhere the delight of
invention, the pleasure of easy toil and
free activity exercised on material objects.
Everything is peculiar to and inherent in
his character, and a means for the hero
of revealing the force of his arm and the
skill of his hand ; while, in civilized so
ciety, these objects depend on a thousand
foreign causes, on a complex adjustment
in which man is converted into a machine
subordinated to other machines. Things
have lost their freshness and vitality;
they remain inanimate, and are no longer
proper, direct creations of the human per
son, in which the man loves to solace and
contemplate himself.
A final point relative to the external
form of the ideal is that which concerns
the relation of works of art to the public,
that is to say, to the nation and epoch for
which the artist or the poet composes his
51
works. Ought the artist, when he treats a
subject, to consult, above all, the spirit,
taste and manners of the people whom he
addresses, and conform himself to their
ideas ? This is the means of exciting in
terest in fabulous and imaginary or even
historic persons. But then there is a lia
bility to distort history and tradition.
Ought he, on the other hand, to repro
duce with scrupulous exactness the man
ners and customs of another time, to give
to the facts and the characters their proper
coloring and their original and primitive
costume? This is the problem. Hence
arise two schools and two opposite modes
of representation. In the age of Louis
XIV., for example, the Greeks and Romans
are conceived in the likeness of French
men. Since then, by a natural reaction,
the contrary tendency has prevailed. • To
day the poet must have the knowledge of
an archeologist, and possess his scrupu
lous exactness, and pay close attention,
above all, to local color, and historic verity
has become the principal and essential
aim of art.
Truth here, as always, lies between the
two extremes. It is necessary to maintain,
at the same time, the rights of art and
those of the public, to have a proper re
gard for the spirit of the epoch, and to
satisfy the exigencies of the subject
treated. These are the very judicious
rules which the author states upon this
delicate point.
The subject should be intelligible and
interesting to the public to which it is ad
dressed. But this end the poet or the
artist will attain only so far as, by his
general spirit, his work responds to some
one of the essential ideas of the human
spirit and to the general interests of hu
manity. The particularities of an epoch
are not of true and enduring interest
to us.
If, then, the subject is borrowed from re
mote epochs of history, or from some faroff tradition, it is necessary that, by our
general culture, we should be familiarized
with it. It is thus only that we can sym
pathize with an epoch and with manners
that are no more. Hence the two essen
tial conditions ; that the subject present
�52
Hegel's Philosophy of Art.
the general human character, then that it
be in relation with our ideas.
Art is not designed for a small number
of scholars and men of science; it is ad
dressed to the entire nation. Its works
should be comprehended and relished of
themselves, and not after a course of diffi
cult research. Thus national subjects are
the most favorable. All great poems are
national poems. The Bible histories have
for us a particular charm, because we are
familiar with them from our infancy. Nev
ertheless, in the measure that relations are
multiplied between peoples, art can bor
row its subjects from all latitudes and from
all epochs. It should, indeed, as to the
principal features, preserve, to the tradi
tions, events, and personages, to manners
and institutions, their historic or tradi
tional character ; but the duty of the artist,
above all, is to place the idea which consti
tutes its content in harmony with the
spirit of his own age, and the peculiar
genius of his nation.
In this necessity lies the reason and ex
cuse for what is called anachronism in art.
When the anachronism bears only upon
external circumstances it is unimportant.
It becomes a matter of more moment if
we attribute to the characters, the ideas,
and sentiments of another epoch. Re
spect must be paid to historic truth, but
regard must also be had to the manners
and intellectual culture of one’s own time.
The heroes of Homer themselves are more
than were the real personages of the epoch
which he presents ; and the characters of
Sophocles are brought still nearer to us.
To violate thus the rules of historic reali
ty, is a necessary anachronism in art. Fi
nally, another form of anachronism, which
the utmost moderation and genius can
alone make pardonable, is that which
transfers the religious or moral ideas of a
more advanced civilization to an anterior
epoch; when one attributes, for example,
to the ancients the ideas of the mod
erns. Some great poets have ventured up
on this intentionally ; few have been suc
cessful in it.
The general conclusion is this: “ The
artist should be required to make himself
the cotemporary of past ages, and become
penetrated himself with their spirit. For if
the substance of those ideas be true, it re
mains clear for all time. But to undertake
to reproduce with a scrupulous exactness
the external element of history, with all its
details and particulars,—in a word, all the
rust of antiquity, is the work of a puerile
erudition, which attaches itself only to a
superficial aim. We should not wrest from
art the right which it has to float between
reality and fiction.”
This first part concludes with an exam
ination of the qualities necessary to an
artist, such as imagination, genius, inspi
ration, originality, etc. The author does
not deem it obligatory to treat at much
length this subject, which appears to him
to allow only a small number of general
rules or psychological observations. The
manner in which he treats of many points,
and particularly of the imagination, causes
us to regret that he has not thought it
worth while to give a larger space to these
questions, which occupy the principal
place in the majority of aesthetical treati
ses; we shall find them again under an
other form in the theory of the arts.
[The next number will continue this trans
lation through the treatment of the Sym
bolic, Classic, and Romantic forms of art.]
�Raphael's Transfiguration.
53
NOTES ON RAPHAEL’S “ TRANSFIGURATION.”
[Bead before the St. Louis Art Society in November, 1866.]
I. THE ENGRAVING.
He who studies the ei Transfiguration ”
of Raphael is fortunate if he has access to
the engraving of it by Raphael Morghen.
This engraver, as one learns from the En
cyclopaedia, was a Florentine, and executed
this—his most elaborate work—in 1795,
from a drawing of Tofanelli, after having
discovered that a copy he had partly fin
ished from another drawing, was very in
adequate when compared with the origi
nal.
Upon comparison with engravings by
other artists, it seems to me that this en
graving has not received all the praise it
deserves ; I refer especially to the seizing of
the “motives” of the picture, which are so
essential in a work of great scope, to give it
the requisite unity. What the engraver has
achieved in the present instance, I hope to
be able to show in some degree. But one
will not be able to verify my results if he
takes up an engraving by a less fortunate
artist; e. g. : one by Pavoni, of recent
origin.
IL HISTORICAL.
It is currently reported that Raphael
painted the “ Transfiguration ” at the in
stance of Cardinal Giulio de Medici, and
that in honor of the latter he introduced
the two saints—Julian and Lawrence—on
the mount; St. Julian suggesting the illfated Giuliano de Medici, the Cardinal’s
father, and St. Lawrence representing his
uncle, “Lorenzo the Magnificent,” the
greatest of the Medici line, and greatest
man of his time in Italy. (( The haughty
Michael Angelo refused to enter the lists
in person against Raphael, but put forward
as a fitting rival Sebastian del Piombo, a
Venetian.” Raphael painted, as his mas
terpiece, the “ Transfiguration,” and Se
bastian, with the help of Michael Angelo,
painted the “ Raising of Lazarus.” In
1520, before the picture was quite finished,
Raphael died. His favorite disciple, Giu
lio Romano, finished the lower part of the
picture (especially the demoniac) in the
spirit of Raphael, who had completed the
upper portion and most of the lower.
III. LEGEND.
The Legend portrayed here—slightly va
rying from the one in the New Testament,
but not contradicting it—is as follows :
Christ goes out with his twelve disciples to
Mount Tabor, (?) and, leaving the nine
others at the foot, ascends with the favor
ed three to the summit, where the scene of
the Transfiguration takes place. While
this transpires, the family group approach
with the demoniac, seeking help from a
miraculous source.
Raphael has added to this legend the
circumstance that two sympathetic strang
ers, passing that way up the mount, carry
to the Beatified One the intelligence of the
event below, and solicit his immediate and
gracious interference.
The Testament account leads us to sup
pose the scene to be Mount Tabor, south
east of Nazareth, at whose base he had
healed many, a few days before, and
where he had held many conversations
with his disciples. “ On the following
day, when they were come down, they met
the family,” says Luke ; but Matthew and
Mark do not fix so precisely the day.
IV. CHARACTERIZATION.
It may be safely affirmed that there is
scarcely a picture in existence in which
the individualities are more strongly mark
ed by internal essential characteristics.
Above, there is no figure to be mistaken :
Christ floats toward the source of light—
the Invisible Father, by whom all is made
visible that is visible. On the right, Moses
appears in strong contrast to Elias on the
left—the former the law-giver, and the
latter the spontaneous, fiery, eagle-eyed
prophet.
On the mountain top—prostrate beneath,
are the three disciples—one recognizes on
the right hand, John, gracefully bending
his face down from the overpowering light,
while on the left James buries his face in
�54
Raphaels Transfiguration.
his humility. But Peter, the bold one, is
fain to gaze directly on the splendor. He
turns his face up in the act, but is, as on
another occasion, mistaken in his estimate
of his own endurance, and is obliged to
cover his eyes, involuntarily, with his hand.
Below the mount, are two opposed groups.
On the right, coming from the hamlet in
the distance, is the family group, of which
a demoniac boy forms the centre. They,
without doubt, saw Christ pass on his way
to this solitude, and, at length, concluded
to follow him and test his might which had
been c£ noised abroad” in that region. It
is easy to see the relationship of the whole
group. First the boy, actually “ possess
ed,” or a maniac ; then his father—a man
evidently predisposed to insanity—support
ing and restraining him. Kneeling at the
right of the boy is his mother, whose fair
Grecian face has become haggard with the
trials she has endured from her son. Just
beyond her is her brother, and in the shade
of the mountain, is her father. In the fore
ground is her sister. Back of the father,
to the right, is seen an uncle (on the fa
ther’s side) of the demoniac boy, whose
features and gestures show him to be a sim
pleton, and near him is seen the face of the
father’s sister, also a weak-minded person.
The parents of the father are not to be
seen, for the obvious reason that old age
is not a characteristic of persons predis
posed to insanity. Again, it is marked
that in a family thus predisposed, some
will be brilliant to a degree resembling ge
nius, and others will be simpletons. The
whole group at the right are supplicating
the nine disciples, in the most earnest
manner, for relief. The disciples, group
ed on the left, are full of sympathy, but
their looks tell plainly that they can do
nothing. One, at the left and near the
front, holds the books of the Law in his
right hand, but the letter needs the spirit
to give life, and the mere Law of Moses
does not help the demoniac, and only ex
cites the sorrowful indignation of the
beautiful sister in the foreground.
The curious student of the New Testa
ment may succeed in identifying the differ
ent disciples : Andrew, holding the books
of the Law, is Peter’s brother, and bears a
family resemblance. Judas, at the extreme
left, cannot be mistaken. Matthew looks
over the shoulder of Bartholomew, who is
pointing to the demoniac ; while Thomas—
distinguished by his youthful appearance—
bends over toward the boy with a look of
intense interest. Simon (?), kneeling be
tween Thomas and Bartholomew, is indi
cating to the mother, by the gesture with
his left hand, the absence of the Master.
Philip, whose face is turned towards Ju
das, is pointing to the scene on the mount,
and apparently suggesting the propriety of
going for the absent one. James, the son
of Alpheus, resembles Christ in features,
and stands behind Jude, his brother, who
points up to the mount while looking at
the father.
V. ORGANIC UNITY.
(а) Doubtless every true work of art
should have what is called an ‘‘organic uni
ty.” That is to say, all the parts of the work
should be related to each other in such a
way that a harmony of design arises. Two
entirely unrelated things brought into the
piece would form two centres of attraction
and hence divide the work into two differ
ent works. It should be so constituted
that the study of one part leads to all the
other parts as being necessarily implied in
it. This common life of the whole work
is the central idea which necessitates all
the parts, and hence makes the work an or
ganism instead of a mare conglomerate or
mechanical aggregate,—a fortuitous con
course of atoms which would make a chaos
only.
(б) This central idea, however, cannot
be represented in a work of art without
contrasts, and hence there must be antithe
ses present.
(c) And these antitheses must be again
reduced to unity by the manifest depend
ence of each side upon the central idea.
What is the central idea of this picture 2
(a) Almost every thoughtful person that
has examined it, has said : “ Here is the
Divine in contrast with the Human, and
the dependence of the latter upon the
former.” This may be stated in a variety
of ways. The Infinite is there above, and
the Finite here below seeking it.
(Z>) The grandest antithesis iB that be
�Raphael's Transfiguration,
tween the two parts of the Picture, the
above and the below. The transfigured
Christ, there,dazzling with light; below, the
shadow of mortal life, only illuminated by
such rays as come from above. There, se
renity ; and here, rending calamity.
Then there are minor antitheses.
(1) Above we have a Twofold. The
three celestial light-seekers who soar rap
turously to the invisible source of light,
and below them, the three disciples swoon
ing beneath the power of the celestial vis
ion. (2) Then below the mountain we
have a similar contrast in the two groups ;
the one broken in spirit by the calamity
that “ pierces their own souls,” and the
other group powerfully affected by sympa
thy, and feeling keenly their impotence
during the absence of their Lord.
Again even, there appear other anti
theses. So completely does the idea pen
etrate the material in this work of art, that
everywhere we see the mirror of the whole.
In the highest and most celestial we have
the antithesis of Christ and the twain ;
Moses the law or letter, Elias the spirit or
the prophet, and Christ the living unity.
Even Christ himself, though comparative
ly the point of repose of the whole picture,
is a contrast of soul striving against the
visible body. So, too, the antitheses of
the three disciples, John, Peter, James,—
grace, strength, and humility. Everywhere
the subject is exhaustively treated; the
family in its different members, the disci
ples with the different shades of sympa
thy and concern. (The maniac boy is a
perfect picture of a being, torn asunder by
violent internal contradiction.)
(c) The unity is no less remarkable.
First, the absolute unity of the piece, is the
transfigured Christ. To it, mediately or
immediately, everything refers. All the
light in the picture streams thence. All the
action in the piece has its motive power in
Him;—first, the two celestials soar to gaze
in his light ; then the three disciples are
expressing, by the posture of every limb,
the intense effect of the same light. On
the left, the mediating strangers stand im
ploring Christ to descend and be merciful
to the miserable of this life. Below, the
disciples are painfully reminded of Him
55
absent, by the present need of his all-heal
ing power, and their gestures refer to his
stay on the mountain top ; while the group
at the right, are frantic in supplications for
his assistance.
Besides the central unity, we find minor
unities that do not contradict the higher
unity, for the reason that they are only re
flections of it, and each one carries us, of
its own accord, to the higher unity, and
loses itself in it. Toillustrate: Below, the
immediate unity of all (centre of interest)
is the maniac boy, and yet he convulsively
points to the miraculous scene above, and
the perfect unrest exhibited in his attitude
repels the soul irresistibly to seek another
unity. The Christ above, gives^us a com
paratively serene point of repose, while
the unity of the Below or finite side of the
picture is an absolute antagonism, hurling
us beyond to the higher unity.
Before the approach of the distressed
family, the others were intently listening
to the grave and elderly disciple, Andrew,
who was reading and expounding the
Scriptures to them. This was a different
unity, and would have clashed with the
organic unity of the piece; the approach of
the boy brings in a new unity, which im
mediately reflects all to the higher unity.
VI.
SENSE AND REASON VS. UNDERSTANDING.
At this point a few reflections are sug
gested to render more obvious, certain
higher phases in the unity of this work of
art, which must now be considered.
A work of art, it will be conceded, must,
first of all, appeal to the senses. Equally,
too, its content must be an idea of the Rea
son, and this is not so readily granted by
every one. But if there were no idea of
the Reason in it, there would be no unity
to the work, and it could not be distin
guished from any other work not a work
of art. Between the Reason and the Senses
there lies a broad realm, called the “ Un
derstanding” by modern speculative wri
ters. It was formerly called the ‘‘discur
sive intellect.” The Understanding applies
the criterion “use.” It does not know
beauty, or, indeed, anything which is
for itself-, it knows only what is good for
something else. In a work of art, after it
�56
Raphael's Transfiguration.
has asked what it is good for, it proceeds
to construe it all into prose, for it is the
prose faculty. It must have the picture
tell us what is the external fact in nature,
and not trouble us with any transcendental
imaginative products. It wants imitation
of nature merely.
But the artist frequently neglects this
faculty, and shocks it to the uttermost by
such things as the abridged mountain in
this picture, or the shadow cast toward the
sun, that Eckermann tells of.
The artist must never violate the sensu
ous harmony, nor fail to have*the deeper
unity of the Idea. It is evident that the
sensuous side is always cared for by Ra
phael.
Here are some of the effects in the pic
ture that are purely sensuous and yet
of such a kind that they immediately call
up the idea. The source of light in the
picture is Christ’s form; below, it is re
flected in the garments of the conspicuous
figure in the foreground. Above, is Christ;
opposite and below, a female that suggests
the Madonna. In the same manner Elias,
or the inspired prophet, is the opposite to
the maniac boy ; the former inspired by the
celestial', the latter, by the demonic. So
Moses, the law-giver, is antithetic to the
old disciple that has the roll of the Law in
his hand. So, too, in the posture, Elias
floats freely, while Moses is brought against
the tree, and mars the impression of free
self-support. The heavy tables of the Law
seem to draw him down, while Elias seems
to have difficulty in descending sufficiently
to place himself in subordination to
Christ.
Even the contradiction that the under
standing finds in the abridgment of the
mountain, is corrected sensuously by the
perspective at the right, and the shade that
the edge of the rock casts which isolates
the above so completely from the below.
We see that Raphael has brought them
to a secluded spot just near the top of the
mountain. The view of the distant vale
tells us as effectually that this is ar moun
tain top as could be done by a full length
painting of it. Hence the criticism rests
upon a misunderstanding of the fact Ra
phael has portrayed.
VII. ROMANTIC VS. CLASSIC.
Finally, we must recur to those distinc
tions so much talked of, in order to intro
duce the consideration of the grandest
strokes of genius which Raphael has dis
played in this work.
The distinction of Classic and Romantic
Art, of Greek Art from Christian : the form
er is characterized by a complete repose, or
equilibrium between the Sense and Rea
son—or between matter and form. The
idea seems completely expressed, and the
expression completely adequate to the idea.
But in Christian Art we do not find this
equilibrium; but everywhere we find an
intimation that the idea is too transcend
ent for the matter to express. Hence, Ro
mantic Art is self contradictory—it ex
presses the inadequacy of expression.
“ I have that within which passeth show;
These but the trappings and the suits of woe.”
In Gothic Architecture, all strives up
ward and seems to derive its support from
above (i. e. the Spiritual, light). All Ro
mantic Art points to a beyond. The Ma
donnas seem to say : "'lama beyond which
cannot be represented in a sensuous form;”
“a saintly contempt for the flesh hovers
about their features.” as some one has ex
pressed it.
But in this picture, Christ himself, no
more a child in the Madonna’s arms, but
even in his meridian glory, looks beyond,
and expresses dependence on a Being who
is not and cannot be represented. His face
is serene, beatific ; he is at unity with this
Absolute Being, but the unity is an inter
nal one, and his upraised gaze towards the
source of light is a plain statement that the
True which supports him is not a sensuous
one. <£ God dwelleth not in temples made
with hands; but those who would ap
proach Him must do it in spirit and in
truth.”
This is the idea which belongs to the
method of all modern Art; but Raphael
has not left this as the general spirit of
the picture merely, but has emphasized it
in a way that exhibits the happy temper of
his genius in dealing with refractory sub
jects. And this last point has proved too
much for his critics. Reference is made
�Introduction to Philosophy.
to the two saints painted at the left. How
fine it would be, thought the Cardinal de
Medici, to have St. Lawrence and St. Ju
lian painted in there, to commemorate my
father and uncle! They can represent
mediators, and thereby connect the two
parts of the picture more closely !
Of course, Raphael put them in there !
“Alas 1” say his critics, “ what a fatal mis
take ! What have those two figures to
do there but to mar the work! All for
the gratification of a selfish pride!”
Always trust an Artist to dispose of the
Finite ; he, of all men, knows how to digest
it and subordinate it to the idea.
Raphael wanted just such figures in just
that place. Of course, the most natural
thing in the world that could happen, would
be the ascent of some one to bear the mes
sage to Christ that there was need of him
below. But what is the effect of that upon
the work as a piece of Romantic Art? It
would destroy that characteristic- if per
mitted in certain forms. Raphael, how
ever, seizes upon this incident to show the
entire spiritual character of the upper part
of the picture. The disciples are dazzled
so, that even the firm Peter cannot endure
the light at all. Is this a physical light?
Look at the messengers that have come up
the mountain ! Do their eyes indicate any
thing bright, not to say dazzling? They
stand there with supplicating looks and
gestures, but see no transfiguration. It
must be confessed, Cardinal de Medici,
57
that your uncle and father are not much
complimented, after all; they are merely
natural men, and have no inner sense by
which to see the Eternal Verities that il
lume the mystery of existence! Even if
you are Cardinal, and they were Popes’
counselors, they never saw anything higher
in Religion than what should add comfort
to us here below!
No! The transfiguration, as Raphael
clearly tells us, was a Spiritual one : Christ,
on the mountain with his favored three
disciples, opened up such celestial clear
ness in his exposition of the truth, that
they saw Moses and Elias, as it were, com
bined in one Person, and a new Heaven
and a new Earth arose before them, and
they were lost in that revelation of infinite
splendor.
In closing, a remark forces itself upon
us with reference to the comparative mer
its of Raphael and Michael Angelo.
Raphael is the perfection of Romantic
Art. Michael Angelo is almost a Greek.
His paintings all seem to bei pictures of
statuary. In his grandest—The Last Judg
ment—we have the visible presence as the
highest. Art with him could represent the
Absolute. With Raphael it could only, in
its loftiest flights, express its own impo
tence.
Whether we are to consider Raphael or
Michael Angelo as the higher artist, must
be decided by an investigation of the mer
its of the “Last Judgment.”
INTRODUCTION TO PHILOSOPHY.
CHAPTER I.
The object of this series is to furnish,
in as popular a form as possible, a course
of discipline for those who are beginning
the study of philosophy. Strictly popular,
in the sense the word is used—i. e. sig
nifying that which holds fast to the ordi
nary consciousness of men, and does not
take flights beyond—I am well aware, no
philosophy can be. The nearest approach
to it that can be made, consists in starting
from the common external views, and
1
drawing them into the speculative, stepbv
step. For this purpose the method of defi
nitions and axioms, with deductions there
from, as employed by Spinoza, is more ap
propriate at first, and afterwards a gradual
approach to the Dialectic, or true philoso
phic method. In the mathematical method
(that of Spinoza just alluded to) the con
tent may be speculative, but its form,
never. Hence the student of philosophy
needs only to turn his attention to the
content at first ; when that becomes in a
�58
Introduction to Philosophy.
measure familiar, he can then the more others put into ordinary phrases. He
readily pass over to the true form of the does not seem to think that the concepts
speculative content, and thus achieve com likewise are new. It is just as though an
plete insight. A course of discipline in Indian were to say to the carpenter, “I
the speculative content, though under an could make as good work as you, if I only
inadequate form, would make a grand had the secret of using my finger-nails and
preparation for the study of Hegel or teeth as you do the plane and saw.” Spec
Plato; while a study of these, or, in short, ulative philosophy—it cannot be too early
of any writers who employ speculative inculcated—does not “ conceal under cum
methods in treating speculative content— brous terminology views which men ordin
a study of these without previous ac arily hold.” The ordinary reflection would
quaintance with the content is well nigh say that Being is the ground of thought,
fruitless. One needs only to read the while speculative philosophy would say
comments of translators of Plato upon his that thought is the ground of Being;
speculative passages, or the prevailing whether of other being, or of itself as
verdicts upon Hegel, to be satisfied on this being—for it is causa sui.
point.
Let us now address ourselves to the task
The course that I shall here present will of elaborating our technique—the tools of
embody my own experience, to a great ex thought—and see what new worlds become
tent, in the chronological order of its de accessible through our mental telescopes
velopment. Each lesson will endeavor to and microscopes, our analytical scalpels
present an aperçu derived from some great and psychological plummets.
philosopher. Those coming later will pre
I.---- A PRIORI AND A POSTERIORI.
suppose the earlier ones, and frequently
throw new light upon them.
A priori, as applied to knowledge, signi
As one who undertakes the manufacture fies that which belongs to the nature of' the
of an elegant piece of furniture needs mind itself. Knowledge which is before
carefully elaborated tools for that end, so experience, or not dependent on it, is a
must the thinker who wishes to compre priori.
hend the universe be equipped with the
A posteriori or empirical knowledge is
tools of thought, or else he will come off derived from experience.
as poorly as he who should undertake to
A criterion to be applied in order to test
make a carved mahogany chair with no the application of these categories to any
tools except his teeth and finger nails. knowledge in question, is to be found in
What complicated machinery is required universality and necessity. If the truth ex
to transmute the rough ores into an Ameri pressed has universal and necessary valid
can watch! And yet how common is the ity it must be a priori, for it could not have
delusion that no elaboration of tools of been derived from experience. Of empir
thought is required to enable the common ical knowledge we can only say: “ It is
est mind to manipulate the highest sub true so far as experience has extended.”
jects of investigation. The alchemy that Of a priori knowledge, on the contrary, we
turned base metal into gold is only a sym affirm: “ It is universally and necessarily
bol of that cunning alchemy of thought true and no experience of its opposite can
that by means of the philosopher’s stone possibly occur; from the very nature of
(scientific method) dissolves the base/ac/s things it must be so.”
of experience into universal truths.
II.---- ANALYTICAL AND SYNTHETICAL.
The uninitiated regards the philosophic
treatment of a theme as difficult solely by
A judgment which, in the predicate,
reason of its technical terms. “If I only adds nothing new to the subject, is said to
understood your use of words, I think I be analytical, as e. g. “ Horse is an ani
should find no difficulty in your thought.” mal;”—the concept “animal” is already
He supposes that under those bizarre terms contained in that of “horse.”
there lurks only the meaning that he and
Synthetical judgments, on the contrary,
�59
Introduction to Philosophy.
add in the predicate something new to the
conception of the subject, as e. g. “This
rose is red,” or “ The shortest distance
between two points is a straight line ;”—in
the first judgment we have “red” added
to the general concept “rose;” while in
the second example we have straightness,
which is quality, added to shortest, which
is quantity.
III.—APODEICTICAL.
Omitting the consideration of aposteriori
knowledge for the present, let us investi
gate the a priori in order to learn some
thing of the constitution of the intelligence
which knows—always a proper subject for
philosophy. Since, moreover, the a priori
analytical (“ A horse is an animal ”) adds
nothing to our knowledge, we may con
fine ourselves, as Kant does, to a priori
synthetical knowledge. The axioms of
mathematics are of this character. They
are universal and necessary in their appli
cation, and we know this without milking
a single practical experiment. “Only one
straight line can be drawn between two
points,” or the proposition : “The sum of
the three angles of a triangle is equal to
two right angles,”—these are true in all
possible experiences, and hence transcend
any actual experience. Take any a poste
riori judgment, e. g. “All bodies are
heavy,” and we see at once that it im
plies the restriction, “ So far as we have
experienced,” or else is a mere analytical
judgment. The universal and necessary is
sometimes called the apodeictical. The
conception of the apodeictical lies at the
basis of all true philosophical thinking.
He who does not distinguish between apodeictic and contingent judgments must
pause here until he can do so.
IV. SPACE AND TIME.
In order to give a more exhaustive appli
cation to our technique, let us seek the
universal conditions of experience. The
mathematical truths that we quoted re
late to Space, and similar ones relate to
Time. No experience would be possible
without presupposing Time and Space as
its logical condition. Indeed, we should
never conceive our sensations to have an
origin outside of ourselves and in distinct
objects, unless we had the conception of
Space a priori by which to render it pos
sible. Instead, therefore, of our being
able to generalize particular experiences,
and collect therefrom the idea of Space
and Time in general, we must have added
the idea of Space and Time to our sensa
tion before it could possibly become an
experience at all. This becomes more clear
when we recur to the apodeictic nature of
Space and Time. Time and Space are
thought as infinites, i. e. they can only be
limited by themselves, and hence are uni
versally continuous. But no 6uch concep
tion as infinite can be derived analytically
from an object of experience, for it does
not contain it. All objects of experience
must be within Time and Space, and not
vice versa. All that is limited in extent
and duration presupposes Time and Space
as its logical condition, and this we know,
not from the senses but from the constitu
tion of Reason itself. “ The third side of a
triangle is less than the sum of the two
other sides.” This we never measured, and
yet we are certain that we cannot be mis
taken about it. It is so in all triangles,
present, past, future, actual, or possible.
If this was an inference a posteriori, we
could only say : “ It has been found to be
so in all cases that have been measured
and reported to us.”
v. MIND.
Mind has a certain a priori constitution ;
this is our inference. It must be so, or
else we could never have any experience
whatever. It is the only way in which the
possibility of apodeictic knowledge can be
accounted for. What I do not get from
without I must get from within, if I have
it at all. Mind, it would seem from this,
cannot be, according to its nature, a finite
affair—a thing with properties. Were it
limited in Time or Space, it could never
(without transcending itself) conceive Time
and Space as universally continuous or in
finite. Mind is not within Time and Space,
it is as universal and necessary as the
apodeictic judgments it forms, and hence
it is the substantial essence of all that ex
ists. Time and Space are the logical con
ditions of finite existences, and Mind is
�60
Seed Life.
the logical condition of Time and Space.
Hence it is ridiculous to speak of my mind
and your mind, for mind is rather the uni
versal substrate of all individuality than
owned by any particular individual.
These results are so startling to the one
who first begins to think, that he is tempt
ed to reject the whole. If he does not do
this, but scrutinizes the whole fabric keen
ly, he will discover wThat he supposes to be
fallacies. We cannot anticipate the an
swer to his objections here, for his objec
tions arise from his inability to distinguish
between his imagination and his thinking
and this must be treated of in the next
chapter. Here, we can only interpose an
earnest request to the reader to persevere
and thoroughly refute the whole argument
before he leaves it. But this is only one
and the most elementary position from
which the philosophic traveller sees the
Eternal Verities. Every perfect analysis
—no matter what the subject be—will bring
us to the same result, though the degrees
of concreteness will vary,—some leaving
the solution in an abstract and vague form,
—others again arriving at a complete and
satisfactory view of the matter in detail.
SEED LIFE.
BY E. V.
Ah ! woe for the endless stirring,
The hunger for air and light,
The fire of the blazing noonday
Wrapped round in a chilling night!
The muffled throb of an instinct
That is kin to the mystic To Be ;
Strong muscles, cut with their fetters,
As they writhe with claim to be free.
A voice that cries out in the silence,
And is choked in a stifling air;
Arms full of an endless reaching,
While the “Nay” stands everywhere.
The burning of conscious selfhood,
That fights with pitiless fate !
God grant that deliverance stay not,
Till it come at last too late ;
Till the crushed out instinct waver,
And fainter and fainter grow,
And by suicide, through unusing,
Seek freedom from its woe.
Oh ! despair of constant losing
The life that is clutched in vain!
Is it death or a joyous growing
That shall put an end to pain ?
�Dialogue on Immortality.
61
A DIALOGUE ON IMMORTALITY.
BY ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER.
(Translated from the German, by Chas. L. Bernays.)
Philalethes.—I could tell you that, after
your death, you will be what you were pre
vious to your birth; I could tell you that
we are never born, and that we only seem
to die—that we have always been precisely
the same that we are now, and that we
shall always remain the same—that Time
is the apparatus which prevents us from
being aware of all this; I could tell you
that our consciousness stands always in
the centre of Time — never on one of its
termini; and that any one among us,
therefore, has the immovable centre of
the whole infinite Time in himself. I then
could tell you that those who, by that
knowledge, are assured that the present
time always originates in ourselves, can
never doubt the indestructibility of their
own essence.
Thrasymachus.—All of that is too long
and too ambiguous for me. Tell me,
briefly, what I shall be after death.
Phil.—All and nothing.
Thras.—There we are ! Instead of a so
lution to the problem you give me a con
tradiction ; that is an old trick.
Phil.—To answer transcendental ques
tions in language that is only made for
immanent perceptions, may in fact lead us
into contradictions.
Thras.—What do you mean by “ trans
cendental” and “immanent” perceptions?
Phil.—Well! Transcendental perception
is rather the knowledge, which, by exceed
ing any possibility of experience, tends to
discover the essence of things as they are
by themselves ; immanent perception it is,
if it keeps inside of the limits of experi
ence. In this case, it can only speak of
appearances. You, as an individual, end
with your death. Yet individuality is not
your true and final essence, but only a
mere appearance of it. It is not the thing
in itself, but only its appearance, estab
lished in the form of time, thereby having
a beginning and an end. That which is es
sential in you, knows neither of beginning
nor ending, nor of Time itself; it knows
no limits such as belong to a given indi
viduality, but exists in all and in each. In
the first sense, therefore, you will become
nothing after your death; in the second
sense, you are and remain all. For that
reason I said you would be all and nothing.
You desired a short answer, and I believe
that hardly a more correct answer could be
given briefly. No wonder, too, that it con
tains a contradiction; for your life is in
Time, while your immortality is in Eter
nity.
Thras. — Without the continuation of
my individuality, I would not give a far
thing for all youi- “immortality/’
Phil.—Perhaps you could have it even
cheaper. Suppose that I warrant to you
the continuation of your individuality, but
under the condition that a perfectly un
conscious slumber of death for three
months should precede its resuscitation.
Thras.—Well, I accept the condition.
Phil. — Now, in an absolutely uncon
scious condition, we have no measure of
time; hence it is perfectly indifferent
whether, whilst we lie asleep in death in
the unconscious world, three months or
ten thousand years are passing away. We
do not know either of the one or of the
other, and have to accept some one’s word
with regard to the duration of our sleep,
when we awake. Hence it is indifferent
to you whether your individuality is given
back to you after three months or after
ten thousand years.
Thras.—That I cannot deny.
Phil. — Now, suppose that after ten
thousand years, one had' forgotten to
awake you at all, then I believe that the
long, long state of non-being would be
come so habitual to you that your mis
fortune could hardly be very great. Cer
tain it is, any way, that you would know
nothing of it; nay, you would even console
yourself very easily, if you were aware
that the secret mechanism which now keeps
�62
Dialogue on Immortality.
your actual appearance in motion, had not
ceased during all the ten thousand years
for a single moment to establish and to
move other beings of the same kind.
Thras.—In that manner you mean to
cheat me out of my individuality, do you?
I will not be fooled in that way. I have
bargained for the continuation of my in
dividuality, and none of your motives can
console me for the loss of that; I have it
at heart, and I never will abandon it.
Phil.—It seems that you hold individu
ality to be so noble, so perfect, so incom
parable, that there can be nothing superior
to it; you therefore would not like to ex
change it for another one, though in that,
you could live with greater ease and per
fection.
Thras.—Let my individuality be as it'
may, it is always myself. It is I—I my
self—who want to be. That is the indi
viduality which I insist upon, and not such
a one as needs argument to convince me
that it may be my own or a better one.
Phil. — Only look about you! That
which cries out—{CI, I myself, wish to ex
ist”—that is not yourself alone, but all
that has the least vestige of consciousness.
Hence this desire of yours, is just that
which is not individual, but common
rather to all without exception; it does
not originate in individuality, but in the
very nature of existence itself; it is es
sential to anybody who lives, nay, it is
that through which it is at all; it seems
to belong only to the individual because
it can become conscious only in the indi
vidual. What cries in us so loud for ex
istence, does so only through the media
tion of the individual; immediately and
essentially it is the will to exist or to live,
and this will is one and the same in all of
us. Our existence being only the free
work of the will, existence can never fail
to belong to it, as far, at least, as that
eternally dissatisfied will, can be satisfied.
The individualities are indifferent to the
will; it never speaks of them; though it
seems to the individual, who, in himself is
the immediate percipient of it, as if it
spoke only of his own individuality. The
consequence is, that the individual cares
for his own existence with so great
anxiety, and that he thereby secures the
preservation of his kind. Hence it fol
lows that individuality is no perfection,
but rather a restriction or imperfection ;
to get rid of it is not a loss but a gain.
Hence, if you would not appeal at once
childish and ridiculous, you should aban
don that care for mere individuality; for
childish and ridiculous it will appear
when you perceive your own essence to be
the universal will to live.
Thras.—You yourself and all philoso
phers are childish and ridiculous, and in
fact it is only for a momentary diversion
that a man of good common sense ever
consents to squander away an idle hour
with the like of you. I leave your talk for
weightier matters.
[The reader will perceive by the posi
tions here assumed that Schopenhauer has
a truly speculative stand-point; that he
holds self-determination to be the only
substantial (or abiding) reality. But
while Aristotle and those like him have
seized this more definitely as the selfconscious thinking, it is evident that
Schopenhauer seizes it only from its im
mediate side, i. e. as the will. On this
account he meets with some difficulty in
solving the problem of immortality, and
leaves the question of conscious identity
hereafter, not a little obscure. Ilegel, on
the contrary, for whom Schopenhauer
everywhere evinces a hearty contempt,
does not leave the individual in any doubt
as to his destiny, but shows how individu
ality and universality coincide in self-con
sciousness, so that the desire for eternal
existence is fully satisfied. This is the
legitimate result that Philalethes arrives
at in his last speech, when he makes the
individuality a product of the will; for if
the will is the essential that he holds it to
be, and the product of its activity is indi
viduality, of course individuality belongs
eternally to it. At the close of his Philos
ophy of Nature, (Encyclopaedia, vol. II.,)
Ilegel shows how death which follows life
in the mere animal—and in man as mere
animal—enters consciousness as one of its
necessary elements, and hence does not
stand opposed to it as it does to animal
life. Conscious being (Spirit or Mind as
it may be called,) is therefore immortal
because it contains already, within itself,
its limits or determinations, and thus can
not, like finite things, encounter dissolu
tion through external ones.—Ed.]
�Goethes Theory oj Colors.
63
GOETHE’S THEORY OF COLORS.
Krom an exposition given before the St. Louis Philosophical Society, Nov. 2nd, 1866.
I. —Color arises through the reciprocal
action of light and darkness.
(a.) When a light object is seen through
a medium that dims it, it appears of differ
ent degrees of yellow; if the medium is
dark or dense, the color is orange, or ap
proaches red. Examples : the sun seen in
the morning through a slightly hazy atmos
phere appears yellow, but if the air is
thick with mist or smoke the sun looks red.
(&.) On the other hand a dark object,
seen through a medium slightly illuminat
ed, looks blue. If the medium is very
strongly illuminated, the blue approaches
a light blue; if less so, then indigo; if
still less, the deep violet appears. Ex
amples: a mountain situated at a great
distance, from which very few rays of light
come, looks blue, because we see it through
a light medium, the air illuminated by the
sun. The sky at high altitudes appears of
a deep violet; at still higher ones, almost
perfectly black; at lower ones, of a faint
blue. Smoke—an illuminated medium—
appears blue against a dark ground, but
yellow or fiery against a light ground.
(c.) The process of bluing steel is a
fine illustration of Goethe’s theory. The
steel is polished so that it reflects light
like a mirror. On placing it in the char
coal furnace a film of oxydization begins to
form so that the light is reflected through
this dimming medium; this gives a straw
color. Then, as the film thickens, the
color deepens, passing through red to blue
and indigo.
(d.) The prism is the grand instrument
in the experimental field of research into
light. The current theory that light, when
pure, is composed of seven colors, is de
rived from supposed actual verifications
with this instrument. The Goethean ex
planation is by far the simplest, and, in
the end, it propounds a question which
the Newtonian theory cannot answer with
out admitting the truth of Goethe’s theory.
II. —The phenomenon of refraction is
produced by interposing different trans
parent media between the luminous object
and the illuminated one, in such a manner
that there arises an apparent displacement
of one of the objects as viewed from the
other. By means of a prism the displace
ment is caused to lack uniformity; one
part of the light image is displaced more
than another part; several images, as it
were, being formed with different de
grees of displacement, so that they to
gether make an image whose edges are
blurred in the line of displacement. If
the displacement were perfectly uniform,
no color would arise, as is’demonstrated
by the achromatic prism or lens. The
difference of degrees of refraction causes
the elongation of the image into a spec
trum, and hence a mingling of the edges
of the image with the outlying dark sur
face of the wall, (which dark surface is
essential to the production of the ordinary
spectrum). Its rationale is the following :
(a) The light image refracted by the
prism is extended over the dark on one
side, while the dark on the other side is
extended over it.
(Z>) The bright over the dark produces
the blue in different degrees. The side
nearest the dark being the deepest or vio
let, and the side nearest the light image
being the lightest blue.
(c) On the other side, the dark over light
produces yellow in different degrees; near
est the dark we have the deepest color,
(orange approaching to red) and on the
side nearest the light, the light yellow or
saffron tint.
(d) If the image is large and but little
refracted (as with a water prism) there will
appear between the two opposite colored
edges a colorless image, proving that the
colors arise from the mingling of the light
and dark edges, and not from any peculiar
property of the prism which should “ de
compose the ray of light,” as the current
theory expresses it. If the latter theory
�64
Goethe's Theory of Colors.
were correct the decomposition would be
throughout, and the whole image be col
ored.
fe) If the image is a small one, or it is
very strongly refracted, the colored edges
come together in the middle, and the ming
ling of the light yellow with the light blue
produces green—a new color which did
not appear so long as the light ground
appeared in the middle.
(/) If the refraction is still stronger,
the edges of the opposite colors lap still
more, and the green vanishes. The New
tonian theory cannot explain this, but it is
to be expected according to Goethe’s the
ory.
(<7) According to Goethe’s theory, if the
object were a dark one instead of a light
one, and were refracted on a light surface,
the order of colors would be reversed on
each edge of the image. This is the same
experiment as one makes by looking
through a prism at the bar of a window
appearing against the sky. Where in the
light image we had the yellow colors we
should now expect the blue, for now it is
dark over light where before it was light
over dark. So, also, where we had blue
we should now have yellow. This experi
ment may be so conducted that the cur
rent doctrine that violet is refracted the
most, and red the least, shall be refuted^
(h) This constitutes the experimentum
crucis. If the prism be a large water prism,
and a black strip be pasted across the mid
dle of it, parallel with its axis, so that in
the midst of the image a dark shadow in
tervenes, the spectrum appears inverted in
the middle, so that the red is seen where
the green would otherwise appear, and
those rays supposed to be the least re
frangible are found refracted the most.
(i) When the two colored edges do not
meet in this latter experiment, we have
blue, indigo, violet, as the ordQf on one
side; and on the other, orange, yellow,
saffron ; the deeper colors being next to
the dark image. If the two colored edges
come together the union of the orange with
the violet produces the perfect red (called
by Goethe (f purpur
(J) The best method of making experi
ments is not the one that Newton employ
ed—that of a dark room and a pencil of
light—but it is better to look at dark and
bright stripes on grounds of the opposite
hue, or at the bars of a window, the prism
being held in the hand of the investigator.
In the Newtonian form of the experiment
one is apt to forget the importance of the
dark edge where it meets the light.
[For further information on this inter
esting subject the English reader is refer
red to Eastlake’s translation of Goethe’s
Philosophy of Colors, published in Lon
don.]
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. Vol. 1, No. 1, 1867
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: [St. Louis, Miss.]
Collation: [1]-64 p. ; 25 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Journal edited by William Torrey Harris. Printed in double columns. Complete issue: Contents include an article on Herbert Spencer -- Introduction to Fichte's science of knowledge / trans. A.E. Kroeger -- Analytical and critical essay upon the aesthetics of Hegel / M. Ch. Bebards, trans. J.A. Martling -- Notes on Raphael's 'Transfiguration' -- A dialogue on immortality / Arthur Schopenhauer -- Goethe's theory of colours.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1867
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
[Pennsylvania State University Press]
Subject
The topic of the resource
Philosophy
Periodicals
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (The Journal of Speculative Philosophy. Vol. 1, No. 1, 1867), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
G5429
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Language
A language of the resource
English
Conway Tracts
Philosophy
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/9b5a56cd680af0504b01c29ef72035be.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=hBu3lOTwWktMNNXVmPwrsmXFPKlqZzfT-Nvymr2MssbUC3%7EBShx4Em9QAZOu11VyysFj8%7EHC4Aw%7EiAxdVpzrzMHQlgUKbZ8mLkFUJWifOcHoFGsMMk1iMql4g2sww-Sjtq7fNoPD73T5d485bqD%7E4csBY3Bx8U3HHHlkz%7EeyGrctHCciT3gIcejTUIv1AgNs-7UNoxmVsoP8KJlOqPxYuryDfN%7EE4wJhIDOe6A3qQk7XTnyI%7Er-GYX0B5WyPUm4lVLhNpz6KuiDARRGMJ1eyocRgkYgkiPmf1SZAG1Fbpt9BREUxYFQyyW4LqDV-z-hkcUbApCHKuJJBtwk6CO1QMw__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
2b96a560ee1980de0a55e7e2f85c9049
PDF Text
Text
NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
STUDIES IN MATERIALISM.
BEN
E L M Y.
LONDON:
FREETHOUGHT PUBLISHING COMPANY,
28, Stonecutter Street, E.C.
PRICE FOURPENCE.
�LONDON :
PRINTED BY ANNIE BESANT AND CHARLES BRADLAUGII,
28, STONECUTTER STREET, E.C.
�tJX°7
STUDIES IN MATERIALISM.
CHAPTER I.
THE
DAWN OF LIFE.
All things on this earth may be roughly divided into two
classes : things which have motion, and things which have
not; in other words, things which are living, and things
which are dead. The first constitute the animal and vege
table kingdoms, and the mineral kingdom contains all the
inanimate class. Motion and life seem at once to be in
timately connected ; we recognise the vitality of any living
thing, animal or vegetable, by its power of motion; whether
from place to place, as in an animal, or in simple changes of
form or aspect, as in both animal and vegetable.
Yet we must not confound motion and life. We see
motion in even the class of inanimate things. Steam will
rise in the air, a stone will fall to the ground ; both these
are instances of motion, yet even a child scarcely considers
them as any sign of life. I propose to myself the project
of pondering how far life and motion may be assumed to be
indeed one and the same element, though they may differ in
degree as much or more than a man differs from a jelly-fish.
It will be necessary first to think what phases of motion are
readily perceptible to our senses, and then to follow up that
chain till we approach forms of motion almost as little to be
rendered account of to our senses as is the ultimate mystery,
life itself. We may at any rate prove that there is a path
advancing step by step into the unknown; we may even go
along some part of the road, and we may form a just notion
as to where that road will ultimately lead us.
I have already instanced the simplest form of motion with
which we are acquainted—the falling of a stone or other
body towards the earth. This action or motion is so gene
ral or, as it were, natural, that countless generations of men
had witnessed it and it did not even occur to them to think
of rendering a reason for it. Some of the old Greek phi
losophers gave a feeble consideration to the matter, but did
�2
STUDIES IN MATERIALISM.
not or could not follow the question out; and there it rested till
an English philosopher, Isaac Newton, had the remembrance
of their difficulties brought to his mind by observing an
apple fall from a tree, and set himself to think why the .
apple should fall to the earth, and whether that motion
was in the apple or in the earth. The result of longthought and calculation on his part was the ascertained,
truth that every substance in the universe is attracted, or
drawn towards, or seeks to approach every other substance *
and that it will so approach if there be not forces acting in
other directions to prevent it. This attraction is called the
force of gravitation, or weight-force; and it is so called
because it is greater in proportion to the weight and density
of the body exercising that attraction.
It is this same force that accounts for the second form of
motion that I mentioned—the rising of steam through the.
air; for the particles of steam are lighter in proportion to
their size or bulk than the particles of the air; the particles
of the air are, therefore, more forcibly attracted to the earth,
and squeeze out of place or force away the steam higher up. '
into the air, i.e., farther away from the earth.
If instead of air we take water for an example, we shall
see the same series of motions repeated, for a piece of iron
will sink or drop through the water, because iron is heavier
or denser, bulk for bulk, than water; and a bubble of air or
a piece of cork will rise through water (just as steam does
through the air) because both air and cork are lighter or
less dense, bulk for bulk, than water. And now, if instead
of water we take mercury, which is also a fluid, we shall find
that a piece of gold will sink in it, but a piece of iron will
float in it; and this again for the same reason, because gold
is denser than mercury, and iron is not so dense as
mercury.
Here we may learn two things : firstly, that some solids
may be less dense than other fluids; and, secondly, that
density is after all but a comparative and conditional term,
and is proportional to the medium or atmosphere in which
the action takes place, for both iron and gold will sink in
water, or drop through the air, yet only one of them will
sink in mercury.
We all know that what is called an empty bucket, that is,
a bucket full of air, is not so heavy as a bucket full of water,
and that this again is not so heavy as a lump of iron the
same size, and this lump of iron will not be so heavy as a
�THE DAWN OF LIFE.
3
bucket full of mercury, nor this again so heavy as a similar
mass of gold.
Now the real meaning of the weight or heaviness of all
these is simply the greater or less force with which they are
•attracted towards the earth ; that force being in exact pro
portion to their density as compared with their bulk. For
'the earth is the great mass towards which all substances on
the earth are attracted, and as far as earthly things are con
sidered we may call it the centre of gravitation. It is our
. greatest and heaviest mass, and hence all earthly things pro
gress or fall towards it when not prevented by other forces
■ or obstacles. It is true that what we call celestial objects
have also an attraction for each other and the earth, and for
.all things on the earth; but distance is also an element in
..the calculation of gravitation, and the earth is so much nearer
that a stone let go at the distance of 1000 or 100,000 feet
.-.above the earth is attracted more powerfully by the earth
which is near than by the sun which is so far off, though the
sun is 1,300,000 times larger than the earth, and its attrac
tion proportionately great.
And the planets and our earth and the sun would all rush
^together but for their motion in their orbits—a circular motion
•which they have that counterbalances this attraction or
motion of gravitation and keeps them hovering at a distance.
What is the secret or cause of this circular or orbital motion
may be discovered by another Newton, but it will certainly
• be found to be but a phase of this universal force of
gravitation.
Indeed all motions and conditions seem to be but phases
or consequences of phases of this universal law. Next in
order to gravitation as generally defined, we might place
what is called the attraction of cohesion—an attraction that
does not seem quite so dependent on density, and that might
be defined as the greater attraction that substances of the
same nature have for each other under favourable circum
stances than for substances of a dissimilar nature. It is this
^attraction that causes the homogeneousness or consistency
• of t metals, or stone, or wood, &c. This attraction gives
. as its evidence the two qualities known as hardness and
tenacity. It may be exemplified by the cutting of a piece
of wood or lead with a steel knife, whereas a piece of steel
could not be cut with a wooden or leaden knife. The
mechanical explanation of this fact is that the particles of
steel have a greater attraction Of cohesion for each other
�4
STUDIES IN MATERIALISM
than have the particles of wood or lead; the particles off
wood or lead may be easily separated, but the particles of
steel are separable with difficulty.
This attraction of cohesion may seem to be but a passiveor defensive attraction, while gravitation is an active or
offensive power; yet the seemingly passive force of cohesion
is always really in action, for it must not be forgotten that
it is this force which at every instant holds bodies together
in resistance to the active force of gravitation which might
otherwise cause an indiscriminate mingling of their atoms,
with those of all the other bodies composing the mass of'
the earth. And some phases of this form of attraction are
palpably active, for under this head may be classed the
force of chemical affinity, and the force which produces and.
guides crystallization.
The force, chemical affinity, bears a very close resemblance?
to the attraction of cohesion, and may be roughly defined,
as the attraction which the particles of one clearly defined,
chemical clement or substance have for another of those
elements. At present these elements are known to have
certain affinities or combining powers with each other, and.
these attractions or affinities vary in each case, so that an.
element will leave one with which it is already combined to
join another for which it has a greater affinity, and will
again leave that, if one for which it has a still greater affinity
be presented to it.
And now we come to the force of crystallization, and must
give our earnest attention to this force ; for we get here the
first glimpse of a force or motion that in some of its actionsclosely resembles life. For we have here introduced de
fined growth towards a defined form. Crystals are of vary
ing sizes and shapes according to their substance, the same
substance generally following fixed and certain rules as to form. .
The growth of crystals is sometimes so rapid or vivid that
with some substances, and a strong magnifying glass, the
crystals may be seen forming themselves. In some instancesthis action of growth might well be mistaken for some part,
of the action that is seen in vegetable life. On ancient:
flint implements accretions of iron and manganese havebeen found which bear more than a casual resemblance to
various cryptogamous plants, mosses, lichens, and algae orseaweed. An example familiar to us all is that of the moss
like appearance of a frozen window-pane, the “ moss ” being,
simply water in a state of crystallization..
�STUDIES IN MATERIALISM.
5
This last example brings us face to face with another
series of forces or attractions; the force by which bodies
may be brought to, and held in, any one of the three con
ditions : the solid, the fluid, and the gaseous—in a word,
how water may exist as ice, water, or steam, each of the
three conditions giving powers of combination, or altered
force, which would not be possible in any other condition.
As far as we know, all elements are capable of these conditions
under given circumstances, and there is, as just said, a con
siderable intrinsic difference in the conditions. Fluids seem
only compressible with intense force, while solids have a con
siderable and gases an excessive amount of compressibility.
Fluids and solids, again, have the attraction of cohesion, so
that solids retain their form, and fluids their equilibrium; yet
in gases the force of cohesion seems to be almost, if not
altogether, absent. A pound of any solid substance, or a
pint of any fluid, would retain their simple appearance in
a vacuum; but it would seem that the same measure of gas
would permeate and fill up (though in a rarefied or attenu
ated form) any vacuum however great.
Now, each of these conditions is distinctly defined and
separate, and the change from one to another seems to be
effected by some form of the most living force we have yet
spoken of—heat. And as we consider this force of heat we
find it to be as universal as gravitation, every substance
having specific, or intrinsic, or self-contained heat, just as
it has specific or self-contained weight. And specific heat
varies in different bodies just in a similar manner to what
specific weight or gravity does. And just as we may not
perceive the weight of a body till some displacement occurs
which allows the force of gravitation to come into perceptible
action, so specific heat may only become manifest or percep
tible when certain changes are brought about in the condition
of the substance containing it. When heat is thus manifest
or active, it does to the evidence of our senses change some
substances from the solid into the fluid state, and from that
again into the gaseous state, and a deprivation of heat will
act in just the reverse direction.
Chemical action or affinity, which has already been
spoken of, is very frequently attended by the evolution or
absorption of heat, and for the reason already given, z>., a
disturbance in the molecular conditions of elements which
makes manifest their specific heat. Chemical action, indeed,
is the main source of the heat with which we are acquainted,
�6
STUDIES IN MATERIALISM.
for the heat of the sun itself is but the result of chemical
action or combustion in or on the sun.
As with the other forms of force or motion or attraction
spoken of, heat is but a comparative condition, and our ex
perience of it on this earth has but a very limited range.
We may readily imagine a planet or world where the heat
was so great that water was only known in a gaseous state,
and their rivers might be of molten metal; or, on the other
hand, one so cold that ice might be their usual building
material, roofed with sheets of hydrogen, an element that we
only know in a gaseous state. And any bodily organism of
living creatures would have to be proportionately altered ;
yet there is nothing repugnant to the idea of a similar con
dition to mind, or soul, or life, call it what we will, existing
under the changed circumstances.
And I think this may be taken as a probable solution of
the question whether there is life on other planets or worlds;
for wherever there exist the forces that we have knowledge of
on this earth, there will life follow as a natural consequence.
I spoke just now of combustion. This word simply means
chemical action or combination so intense that heat and
light result. And in light we have reached almost the last
of the series of forces of which we have yet any clear con
ception. We have seen by now that the word force is to be
used in a somewhat different sense from that generally as
cribed to it. It is too generally confounded with “strength”
or “motion yet we see it may be existing where we have
only pictured inactivity, or rest, or death. We may see a
soldier standing “at ease.” He too is resting, yet the
muscles of his legs and back are all in action, or the man
would fall to the earth. And in speaking of light as a force
it might be thought that I was applying a false word. In
giving an instance or two of the power of light, we may
recognize that it is literally a force.
We know that a plant in comparative darkness will
hardly grow, and will at best be but pale and sickly. It is
light that gives the green colour to all vegetation, simply
because it is the initial force which gives the chemical
elements in vegetation the impulse to unite and form
healthy green flesh necessary for the plant’s full life. Again,
light is the force that draws all our photographic pictures.
In taking those pictures, where the light falls strongest the
chemical salts are destroyed or decomposed ; where the
light does not fall those salts are left untouched.
�STUDIES IN MATERIALISM.
7
It must need force to do this, and light is that force,
light is certainly the initial force of a vast amount of
chemical action, and again it seems sometimes to be the
conseqtience of chemical action ; as with heat, which is in
turn the origin or result of such action. Some time we may
have knowledge of latent or specific light as well as of
specific heat or specific gravity.
As yet we know but little of the vast force involved in light.
George Stephenson said that a railway engine was driven by
the rays of bottled sunshine contained in the coals that fed the
furnace, and there seems no doubt that he was correct.
Coal is the buried vegetation of forests of millions of years ago.
The sun shone on those trees and on their leaves and branches
day by day in their growth, the light and warmth was
effective in working the chemical change that formed their
vegetable tissue, and when the trees fell, century by century,
their dead bodies contained and preserved the results of this
action ; this absorbed or latent light and heat lay buried in
them, is in them when they are mined and dug up, and when
they are put into the fire-box of the engine. The fire is lit,
and by combustion, the bottled sunbeams, developed into
the form of heat, are transmitted to the water in the boiler,
this heat turns the water from fluid into the gaseous state of
steam; the steam occupies vastly more space than water, and
in endeavouring to get room to spread itself to its natural
bulk is allowed to force out a piston, this piston moves a
crank which turns the wheel on which the engine rests, and
the whole engine moves on.
In this brief story we see what permutations or
changes may take place in the same force; now it appears
to us as light, now as heat, now as chemical action, now as
mechanical motion overcoming the attraction of gravitation.
Indeed there seems but one force, and the changes in it are
but changes in that they are more clearly perceived by some
one of our imperfect senses than by the others.
I have used the words initial force once or twice and
shall need to explain this somewhat, for the ultimate pur
poses of our argument. Initial force, then, is the impulse
which once given to matter or force is carried on in the
matter or force itself without need for repetition of the original
impulse. For instance, the mechanical action involved in
the striking of a match is the initial force which gives rise to
its combustion, and this combustion may be conveyed to
things innumerable without need for any repetition of
�8
STUDIES IN MATERIALISM
mechanical action. With a slight knowledge of chemistry,
we may remember where a single drop of sulphuric acid is
capable of initializing the same process of combustion.
In some cases the force of crystallization maybe initialized
in a similar way. A mass of salts may be in a condition
ready for crystallization, and continue in that preparatory
stage till some tiny initial mechanical impulse, such as even
the prick of a needle, is given, when the mass will at once
rush into crystals. We all know too that nitro-glycerine
may. by a slight mechanical force be driven into gas, and
possibly a frightful explosion ensue.
Any slight amount
of one kind of force may, under favourable circumstances,
be the initializer of a vastly increased mass of some widely
different phase.
And now I will only call attention to one other form of
force before endeavouring to show how all these forces, or
some combination of them, may have given the initial impulse
to the wondrous force of life. This last force to which I shall
draw attention is electricity, a force of whose knowledge we
are but yet in the infancy; and a force that seems, even as
far as our present knowledge goes, to be capable of a con
siderable number of phases. This is the force by which, to
give a simple example, a man’s words may be conveyed
almost without lapse of time from one place to another (the
electric telegraph) ; it is also the force that causes the
attraction of a magnet for iron.
Whether electricity be the cause of some of the various forms
of force already named, or simply a resultant of them, is
more than can be said at present: it sometimes appears in
the one character and sometimes in the other. It seems in
this way to add greater strength to the presumption that all
force is but some different and convertible phase of some
great and ultimate property:—the very property of being or
existing; for existence and movement or force are inalienable
and interchangeable terms. But be electricity what it may,
it is already known that all things are subject to its influence,
and that it is therefore presumably as universal and great in
its results as gravitation itself.
With all this well weighed and considered—bearing in mind the different possibilities of matter in its known con
ditions of solid, fluid, and gaseous—bearing in mind the
powers of chemical combination and the novel substances
engendered thereby—bearing in mind the power of definite
form and growth of which the force of crystallisation is an
�STUDIES IN MATERIALISM.
9
.example—bearing in mind that an initial impulse however
slight, once communicated, may give rise to a condition so
widely differing from itself that the change is to our present
powers utterly inexplicable; and that this condition will be
perpetuated as long as there is matter favourably situated to
be affected by it—bearing in mind all this, I ask if there
is anything very inconceivable in the idea that matter has been
so acted upon by some initial impulse that has given rise to
the phase of force which we call life, with all its attendant
phenomena ?
For, after all, what is life ? Animated beings may be
traced down to a type wherein they seem little more than
inert masses of matter—masses of gelatinous substance,
or of vegetable growth scarce differing from rust—and with
little more than the power of growth or assimilation of
similar matter to that of their own substance, which they
have in common with many substances that we hold to be
but minerals with the chemical properties of cohesion and
combination.
To such a view as this the continual objection made is :
“Yes, but you never show us what is the initial force by
which inanimate matter is endowed with the property of
life.” To this I can but say: Can we yet explain any initial
impulse ? And why do you call rtvzy matter inanimate ? Is
not chemical Action itself a phase of life, just as we reason
ably presume all these other forces to be but phases of some
universal ruling principle ? And indeed to me thefe seems a
less distance between the crudest forms of living organisms
and simple chemical action, than between those same
organisnjjjRind intellectual man. This difference and pro
gress I shall make an attempt to follow in my next study,
the “ Dawn of Humanity.” And as to the question of defin
ing or pointing out the initial force which institutes the
beginning of life, that initial force is just as easy or as
difficult to point out as any other initial force of which I
have spoken : we see the results, and it is a simple matter
of comparative result on which we have arbitrarily made the
distinction of calling one phenomenon animate action, while
we stigmatize the other as inanimate.
■ Yes : the greater our power of observation, the less do wfe
see to be the distinction between life and death, between
force and matter ; death (f.e. inanimation} is but hidden life,
matter is but hidden force. Change, or rather motion, is
the one constant rule of all things; and as our senses grow,
�IO
STUDIES IN MATERIALISM.
and fresh capacities or organs of sensibility are developed, ,
we shall grasp at higher and still more intangible phenomena..
It is not that Nature’s workings are so mysterious, but that:
our own faculties are so small, our own eyesight so dim.
Yet if we will carefully consult and ever strive to improvethe faculties we have, and follow out and strengthen in ourbeing the perceptions of justice and truth which Nature- everywhere shows us, we shall grow to know her better, and.
to have fuller, stronger sight—we shall be worthy to know
more of the at present mysterious meaning of life. When
we are so worthy the knowledge cannot be hidden from us,.
we may become intelligent co-operators in Nature’s work
and with power in our eyes and love in our hearts weshall fulfil the poet’s golden prophecy, and become in very
deed
“ the crowning race
Of those that, eye to eye, shall look
On knowledge ; under whose command
Is earth and earth’s, and in their hand
Is Nature like an open book.”
CHAPTER II.
THE
DAWN
OF
HUMANITY.
In the previous study, I have presumed or asserted that:
matter, under certain conditions, may become a living
organism, such active life being the sequence of an initial
impulse which we may hope eventually to trace and solve..
I have further asserted that matter to which such an im
pulse has been once conveyed, may continue or even
increase that impulse under suitable conditions. . Theseassertions cover two of the most advanced theories yet
deduced from our knowledge of to-day—viz., Spontaneous.
Generation, and the Development or Origin of Species. In
plain words, the theory of Spontaneous Generation declares,
that, under certain conditions of matter, life will be initiated
and living organisms will be evolved or spontaneously geneja.ted ; and the theory of Development is that these
organisms once evolved will not only have the power of
continuing the impulse, i.e. of propagating themselves, but
also of developing further and higher capabilities under
favouring conditions, and thereby of becoming higher
organisms—organisms, in fact, such that we could no longer
j
�STUDIES IN MATERIALISM.
II
'readily accept the supposition of their being in that condition
-spontaneously generated.
The theory of Spontaneous Generation has as yet but a
'limited acceptance, owing to the difficulty at present of
producing positive argument and irrefutable experiment in
its support, and owing, moreover, to its entire antagonism
to any biblical or other revelation, or to belief in any super
natural power. But it seems to me that the position may be
conclusively proved and justified even by negative argument;
,and it may be useful so to justify it before going further.
Evidently all primary generation (or initiation of life)
must either be spontaneous, or else the act of some creative
power foreign to the organism itself. In other words, life
is either the natural, innate, and inevitable result of certain
• conditions of matter, or it is the act of a creator external to
■ the matter. Such a presumed creator is usually styled God,
.-.and we may therefore conveniently use this term in the
1 sense specified. Nor shall we in so using the word be
-doing any wrong to the somewhat numerous class who seem
disinclined to accept the theory of spontaneity of life, while
yet rejecting the inconsistencies which become every day
more palpable in the theory of God and his creation of life.
For indeed there is no logical halting-place between the
■ two conclusions. Either all phenomena (life included) are
attributable to certain natural properties and sequences, or
■ they are due to an extra-natural power, a God.
Let us shift our questioning, then, from matter to its pre■sumed “Creator.” .Let us inquire into the origin of God.
How came he into existence? Did he' create himself? If
. so, we have a notable instance of the spontaneous generation
which his believers deny. Had God himself a creator
outside himself? If so, we may apply the same questioning
as to his creator. We only get the elephant and tortoise
fable over again.
There is but one resource left, and that is the assertion
- that God has existed for ever. This is but a begging of the
question, for no proof is given of the truth 6f the assertion ;
. and being unverified and unverifiable, it has not the least
: tangible claim to assent from our intellect.
The God theory is then placed in this dilemma: that it
' must either acknowledge spontaneity of life (which renders
i the God theory itself unnecessary), or take refuge in an
unverified assertion utterly beyond the ken of our senses
• and intellect.
�12
STUDIES IN MATERIALISM.
Against such a course of argument as this the constant,
objection of Theists or supernaturalists is, that there are
more things existent than can be brought to the evidence of
our senses ; but on that perfectly allowable position they
base the startling affirmation that therefore we must not
reason about God, or, at any rate, must not accept any con
clusion of our reason which leads to his rejection ! Yet in all
the assertions that they make in support of the God theory,
it is to these very senses of ours that they ultimately appeal
they have recourse with confidence to our senses and our
reason for acknowledgment of what they call the works of a
God, and thereby of a God himself, and yet they deny t(A
our senses and reason any right to evidence of, or faculty tocriticise, the hypothetical being whom they expect our reason j
to recognise !
The words reason and senses may in this connection ho
used as of the same meaning, for reason is but the collected
and developed experience of our senses. Now, if thisreason and these senses may be safely appealed to, and.
their evidence be received in the case of results, materialists
hold that the questionings of reason may be and must be
extended to causes, and that indeed the conclusions of'
reason are the only ones that can validly be accepted by the
organism that has given birth to it, and, as it were, dele
gated to it the care and power of the guidance and govern- ment of the organism.
It is to this reason and to these senses that Materialism ,
appeals, for it sees in man’s being no evidence of any
higher tribunal. Nor need it care to do so, since it also ■<
sees in the reason and the senses, and the self-responsibility of man, a faculty of development, of power, and of harmony
with nature, far beyond the feeble dreams and dulcet
cajoleries of any God theory, ancient or modern.
And Materialism claims for itself and for its evidence a ■
higher character and a greater worth of acceptance than it
holds due to any religious or supernatural or ultra-intel
lectual theory And this on several grounds. For Mate
rialism appeals to no select few, but to senses and faculties
which all possess. It does not recognise that any special
clique or class of man has received a supernatural revelation
of things in which all men have a joint and equal concern.
Its evidences are facts which have been gathered with careand painstaking by close observers and lovers of nature, not
dark fancies evolved from the tortured and ascetic brains of ‘
�STUDIES IN MATERIALISM.
13
men who have begun their system with the assumption that
nature is an abhorrent and unholy thing. Materialism
claims the higher character, because it comes into the light
and courts the examination and aid of all, not shrouding
and hiding itself in impenetrable unintelligibleness, and
hurling threats and cursings and thunderings at those who
shall dare to deny its infallibility, analyse its inconsistency,
or despise its degrading sycophancy and terrorism.
Though I have spoken of Spontaneous Generation as not
having been to the consent of all irrefutably proved, it must
not be forgotten that there are men who decisively affirm
that they have to the evidence of the senses produced organic
life where it was previously non-existent.
The evidence
of Bastian and others is convincing that living organisms
are constantly evolved in liquids which have been her
metically sealed in flasks while boiling, or submitted to still
greater heat, and carefully preserved from all extraneous
influence of the atmosphere.
The arguments used by opponents to explain or contra
dict these experiments, is what is known as the “ germ '*
theory—an assertion that there are countless seeds of living
organisms floating in the air, and ever ready to develop
themselves into active life when favourable conditions of
matter are presented. It is true that these germs may be
invisible in even the most powerful microscope, and so im
perceptible as to elude the subtlest chemical test, yet the
theory has the convenient property of continuing to refer the
initiation of life to some primary act on the part of a creator. ’
It is to such germs, also, that many forms of disease, epi
demic or otherwise, are attributed ; so that if the theory of
the creation of germs be correct, it will follow that the ap
pearance of certain new and previously unknown forms of
disease, such as diphtheria or rinderpest, is an evidence that
the creation was not an act once accomplished and done'
with, but that the Creator still busies himself from time to
time with doubtful benefits to his creatures.
Let it be understood that Materialists do not deny that low,
organisms may propagate themselves by germs, as well as byj
other means more clearly visible to our senses. Materialism,
simply denies any extra-natural creation or origin of these'
germs, and the materialistic explanation of a new form of
parasitic disease would be that certain novel conditions of
matter had evolved or developed into a new form some low,
type of organism, which, once generated, might propagate.
�14
STUDIES IN MATERIALISM. .
itself either by cell-growth or by germs. The Germ theorists
would say, that if all the germs or spprules of small-pox,
typhoid fever, &c., could once be destroyed, we should never
see those diseases more ; the Evolutionist says that similar
unsanitary conditions to those that now exist where those dis
eases are rife, would again evolve them.
It must not be forgotten that it would be no refutation of
spontaneous generation even if men had not yet succeeded
in producing it. It is the action of nature that is in ques
tion, rather than man’s power, to evoke that action. And
certainly, whether by spontaneous generation or other
wise primitive and extremely simple organisms are,
under favourable circumstances, everywhere readily and
plentifully generated, and in an ascending scale from them
we have a series of ever higher developments.
As instances of fairly lowr (though not the lowest) animal
and vegetable organisms, I may take the amoeba and the
algae, previously referred to as “masses of gelatinous sub
stance, or of vegetable growth, scarce differing from rust.”
The amoeba is but a floating speck of jelly that absorbs or
covers other floating particles of matter which can afford
sustenance to it. It has no defined organs of nutrition, or
of any other function ; it simply lets the floating particle
sink into its jelly-like substance, and then, by a process no
more vital than chemical affinity, or even simple attraction
4|f cohesion, it absorbs what there may be in the floating
particles analogous to its own substance, and lets the re
mainder Jgain sink or drop through. Its action seems no
more a living one than is the action of the isinglass used in
“ fining ” beer. The isinglass that is there introduced falls
gradually to the bottom of the cask, enfolding in its own
substance, and bearing down with it, every floating speck of
turbid matter, and leaving the beer clear. And, undoubt
edly, any particle of isinglass or other gelatinous matter
that might previously have existed in the floating specks
would be absorbed from out them into the homogeneous
mass of the isinglass itself. Why this action of the isinglass
is to be set down as mechanical action, while that of the
amceba is to be exalted to the dignity of living action, it is
not for me to say, since I do not believer in the dis
tinction.
Some forms of the alga, are a sort of grey-green mould or
rust : they “ vegetate exclusively in water or in damp situa
tions ; they I cquire no nutriment, but such as is supplied by
�STUDIES IN MATERIALISM.
“water and the air dissolved in it, which they absorb equally
by every part of their surface.'” These are the words of one
•of the most strenuous advocates of the God theory. Yet if
' for alga we substitute the word rust, how perfect a descrip
tion we get of .the action of moisture or water on iron. And
what is the difference between the two actions ? As far as
I can see, it is simply this, that the alga form a compound
•of three lements, oxygen, hydrogen, and carbon, while the
iron merely absorbs oxygen from the air or water, and so
forms a compound of only two elements, oxygen and iron.
No one disputes the spontaneous evolution of rust, that is,
■ of a compound of iron and oxygen : strange that men should
find it so hard to credit the spontaneous evolution of a
• compound of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen !
Two objections may here be raised : firstly, that rust will
• only appear or propagate itself where there is iron or some
other metal to feed it; and, secondly, that the action of
algae, or, at any rate, of other living organisms, is more vivid
than that of rust. To the first objection it is a sufficient
^answer that neither will algae nor any other organisms appear
■or propagate themselves where there is not suitable food for
them; and to the second, I would reply that I am not
asserting an equal degree of vital action in both the cases,
but simply that both instances are but different degrees of
the same natural and spontaneous action ; the dragging of
•one stick across another may seem to be action remote
-enough from that of combustion, yet we know that combus
tion is but an enhanced form of such action, and is, under
given circumstances, educible thereby.
In the lower living organisms, the distinction between
animal and vegetable is frequently so confused as to render
the organisms incapable of being classified with certainty;
■some motionless and apparently vegetable growths having
■ other well-defined animal properties, whilst some actively
moving organisms are, in other respects, as undoubtedly
1 vegetable. One would almost say, that on the threshold of
life the organisms are debating and undecided as to which
1 -of the two great channels they will follow. When this
choice is made, the same indecision seems extended again
somewhat to choice of species ; the mass of the primitive
■ organisms being involved in a hazy mist, to which only a
•very self-confident man could venture to assign defined
•limits and arbitrary classifications.
In these lower forms of life, the methods of extension or
�iU
STUDIES IN MATEfWCCTSSt
spreading, or repetition of both animal and vegetable,
organisms are, as might be presumed, identical; and are
visibly effected by either gemmation, or fissure, or both.
Gemmation is only another word for budding; buds form
on the original organism, which break off and become inde
pendent organisms. Fissure means that the original organ
ism, when grown, splits into two or more independent,
organisms. Some of the lowest organisms are asserted to
consist of single cells of animated organic matter, and it is,
of course, the development of further cells that renders,
practicable either gemmation or fissure. Yet we may soon
find organisms with a considerable accretion of cells not.
separating from each other, but remaining with the parent
organism, and, as it were, helping in the mutual and better
development of each; and we then begin to find special
groupings of these cells fulfilling certain definite functions,
in the economy of the organism, becoming, in point of fact,,
the organs for the support and growth and propagation of
the organism.
Here, too, we begin to come on clearer distinctions
between animal and vegetable; whose main difference has
been roughly, but fairly well-defined in the observation,
that with a vegetable the food is mainly applied to con
tinually increasing its fabric throughout its life, whereas,
with the animal, the food is only applied to growth till the
adult form is attained, and is then simply used to maintain,
that condition in efficiency.
We then go on to find special and peculiar formations,
and growths of cells for various purposes in the structure of
the organism; so that, eventually, we have cells whose
special purpose is to form the tissue or flesh of a plant,,
while others of different structure form the bark or fruit;.
and in animals we have cells which form the fibres of the
muscle, somewhat different ones forming the bone, and
others yet different forming the brain or nerve matter,.
&c., &c.
This development of different cells and functions is but
one form of the variations which are taking place, of which,
perhaps, the most important is the adaptation of the organisms
themselves to altered circumstances in which they may find
it convenient or necessary to live, and the development of
varied forms and poweis which will render that life more
acceptable and enjoyable to them. And it may fairly
be said that this variation or development is a fact in which
�STUDIES IN MATERIALISM.
"7
»aZZ classes of observers agree, though not all are willing to
lallow to it the same great ultimate results. It is the reason
ing out of such of these results as we have undoubted
cognizance of to their possible and logical conclusions, and
the acceptance of those conclusions, that constitutes the
theory already referred to of development or origin of
species.
In the lower forms of organisms this development or
variation is, as I have previously intimated, very conspicuous,
so that fructification or generation has frequently to be
waited for and observed before the organisms can with any
certainty be assigned to a definite class. And this question
of fructification or generation brings us to one of the most
vexed and evaded questions in the whole history of physio
logy or development—that of alternate generation, which
will be presently discussed.
For a further phenomenon has manifested itself in the
< course of these developments—the difference of sexes ; and to
this I shall need to draw your careful attention, since in his
• own case man has based on that difference a series of arti
ficial and arbitrary, and therefore unjust, distinctions which
. have done more than any other act to retard the progress
. and hinder the happiness of the human race.
We noticed that in the extension or propagation of the
lower forms of life, the growth or birth of further cells was
■followed by a constant budding or splitting off from the
•parent organism, but that in somewhat higher forms we find
' cells remaining and allotting themselves to various special
functions, and forming special organs for those purposes.
As might naturally be supposed, a substitute is at once pro
vided for the superseded actions of gemmation or fissure ;
-so that among the first definite organs we find those for
the extension or propagation of the species, and with such a
• specialized function we also find, as we might anticipate, a
-more methodical manner of fulfilling that function. The cells
•or germs which will form the infant organisms are no longer
■indiscriminately severed as soon as formed ; but are stored in
■• •assigned receptacles to await what shall seem to the organism
. a fitting time for their evolvement and extrusion. To con■wey this fitness and impulse for extrusion is the function of
a further organ, which in its turn has secreted special cells.
In these two sets of organs and their difference of cells
;-We have the first glimpse of separate male and female func
tions. To distinguish the two classes of cells, the latter are
�STUDIES IN MATERIALISM.
usually called germ cells, and the former sperm cells. Thesecretion of sperm cells, and their application, in due time,
to the germ cells, is the function of the male organs ; the
secretion of the germ cells, and the care of their develop
ment after impregnation, is the female function. For a
long time we find both these organs existing in the same
creature ; and this arrangement is very general throughout
vegetable life, from the lowest forms to the very highest. It
also extends into some fairly high grades of animal life, the
oyster being a notable instance of hermaphroditism, as this
union of the two organs in one being is termed.
At first, too, both these functions may be performed
within the one being without any extraneous aid; but pre
sently it would seem that a better result is attained by some
intermingling of possible slight variations, and we find two
individual organisms uniting in a mutual and utterly reciprocatory act of parentage, each being having fulfilled the
functions of father, and accepted the responsibilities of
mother, to an ensuing progeny. But this intermingling
does not seem an inevitable necessity, for there is evidence
that many such organisms have the capacity of both self and
reciprocal impregnation. Here, too, the strange fact may’
be noted that in some organisms the co-operation of threeindividuals is necessary to effect the generative act.
The change from gemmation to sexual generation is by
no means an invariable or fixed one, for we have here inter* vening the strange phenomenon of alternate generation just,
referred to. Various organisms may propagate a progeny by
means of sexual organs, and the members of this progenywill be of a totally different type to their parents in nature,,
appearance, and capabilities, and having no sexual organs,
but giving birth to their progeny by the primitive methods,
of gemmation or fissure; yet this further progeny will befully developed like the first set of parents, having sexual
organs, yet giving birth in turn to organisms that differ in
type, and only propagate by gemmation. It is, as it were,
an inheritance from grandparent to grandchild, with an in
tervening generation of an utterly different and inferiororganism. In some instances this descent seems to run.
through three forms of organisms before reverting to the
original type.
This phenomenon is affected to be made somewhat light
of and readily explained away by the holders of the God.
theory; apparently because it militates somewhat against.
�STUDIES in mateulwism,
I?
their idea of a creation, and is equally strong evidence in
&VOUr of the materialistic theory of development or origin
of species. If, as is the case, a stationary and, in so far,
vegetable-like polyp can give birth to an independent and
totally different swimming creature (a form of medusa),
which lives its life and gives birth again to stationary polyps,
it is easy enough to say that the one is but a latent or inter
vening form of the other; but this does not explain the
difference, nor destroy the evident fact that some organisms
under certain circumstances do evolve an utterly different
form of being. It were perhaps to “consider too curiously
to ask the God theorists which of the types was the one
originally created, and whence came the other ?
It is too much the habit of the God theorists to play fast
and loose with species ; holding, when it suits their purpose,,
to the idea of the special creation of each individual species,
and dropping that idea when the conclusions become at all
inconvenient. Yet there are only two possible ways of
accounting for species. Either they are the results of the
development of accidental or beneficial natural variations ;
or they must be the result of distinct creative acts. In the
first case the materialistic theory of development must be
accepted with all its consequent inductions (summarized
towards the end of this paper); in the second case all the
logical consequences of special creation must be accepted,,
of which consequences we may readily find an exemplifica
tion.
It is a definite and accepted fact, for instance, that
there are various species of entozoa or internal parasites find
ing a congenial habitat in the flesh and organs of special
animals and incapable of existence elsewhere. There are
also varied species of external parasites which make their
dwelling-place on the skin of animals, and live by extract
ing the grateful juices from within, nor can they exist on
other than specified animals. In the case of man, we may
instance psoriasis (as the itch is technically called), the
presence of exceedingly small but irritating animalculse,.
without troubling to refer to larger easily remembered in
sects. With the creation theory, or with the germ theory as.
propounded by non-evolutionists, we must accept the conclu
sion that the first man and animals had within and without
them all the various types of the parasitic organisms with which
their descendants are still troubled.
�20
STUDIES IN MATERIALISM.
II.--- THE DAWN OF HUMANITY.
Surely, none but a fabled God, the dark imagination of
•an ignorant and uncultured mind, could look upon poor
Adam or any other man, afflicted inwardly with tcenia and
ascarides, busied externally with the prolific pediculi that
enliven the solitude of the primitive savage, and having
the monotony of his consequent reflections diversified by
the chigo of the West Indies and the guinea-worm of torrid
Africa; could look too upon the sheep with a diseased liver,
owing to the fasciolae or “ flukes” therein existent; could gaze
on the pig evincing more than a suspicion of trichinae or
“ measles,” and upon the potato for the food of the same
pig already bearing the germs of the dreaded “disease,”
and pronounce such a sample of his creative powers as
“ very good 1”
Let it not be thought that these conclusions are only
ludicrous ; they are very serious indeed—for Bibliolaters
and the germ theorists. Nor let it be said that I am speak
ing of repulsive things : the man who believes that God
made all these things and called them good, must also
believe that God made what repulsiveness they have ; and it
is not my fault if the theory of creation is capable of a
reductio ad absurdam.
To return to the gradations and developments of func
tions, we find, at the stage at which we had just arrived,
individual organisms with only one set of generative organs
and functions—those of the male or those of the female
respectively; though, again, it does not follow that this is
an instant and unvarying result, since we may find forms of
the same organisms in which some individuals have only
male or female organs or functions, while others have both,
powerfully developed. This is even the case in some of the
orchids, plants bearing a very high rank in vegetable life.
In some species of gregarious insects, as ants or bees, we
find a further variation, for there are a very small number
with female organs, a larger number with male organs, and
a vast majority without any sexual organs at all; yet the
grubs, which would otherwise have become non-sexual in
sects or working bees, can be, in case of need, developed
by the other working bees themselves into perfect females or
queens.
Difference of sex is, as we all know, the rule in the
higher grades of animal life. We find, too, an increasing
�STUDIES IN MATKKIJIXIKI.
21
importance and responsibility attaching to the female func
tions. In some cases, as in fishes (which are classed very
high in animal life, being vertebrated}, the functions of both
male and female may continue to be as simple or even more
simple than in some of the primitive forms already men
tioned ; for with most fishes no congress of the sexes is
needed for the act of generation. The ova of the female
are simply extruded in some convenient locality, and the
secretion of the male is extruded in the water near by.
But with birds, and with the mammalia upwards to man,
the maternal function is one of increasing burden and
responsibility; no longer limited to the simple formation
and extrusion of germs or ova containing, as it were, latent
life, but now nourishing and cherishing the impregnated
cell or cells within their own body or otherwise, till even
tually an almost perfectly developed progeny is put forth
into the world. In this natural function and adaptability
we have a link which stretches through all remaining types
of life, in very deed “ one touch of nature ” that “ makes
the whole world kin;for in the system of development
that I have roughly sketched we have, in the incident of
separation of sex, arrived at or passed through all the phases
of living organisms of which we have any knowledge—the
lowest organisms as well as articulata, crustacese, insects,
fishes, reptiles, birds and mammalia—all therein included.
At the head of these as intelligent beings may be probably
placed the insect the ant, and the mammal zwzw.
I cannot attempt to explain in brief words all the evidence
that is adduced by materialists in favour of the assertion
that man has been eventually developed by simple natural
laws from lower organisms somewhat such as now surround
us. I will only draw attention to two inevitable conclu
sions : firstly, that if we verify any one instance in an
organism of development or adaptation to an altered con
dition of surroundings, there is no logical bar to such a
series of developments as would eventually result in man,
and might through him go on to still higher beings; and
secondly, that if we concede the spontaneous generation of
any one living organism we at once lay a sufficient basis for
such a series of developments as is just suggested.
Both these conclusions are antagonistic to and utterly do
away with any necessity for recourse to imaginary forces
outside the natural properties of matter. And this is, in brief,
the essential point of Materialism. In matter, ?.<?., in that which
�22
BTUbllS in MATERIALISM.
is perceptible to our senses, we find the basis of, and the
potentiality for, all of which those senses and their resultant
reason can give us any knowledge. We find, for example,
in the fact of man’s mind or intellect, simply a high instance
of this potentiality of matter; mind or intellect being but an
empty phrase, without the existence of brain and reason
{i.e., experience of the senses) to evolve and contain it.
Materialism does not, as is falsely assumed, degrade the
vital forces of life and thought to the level of the inert and
inanimate conditions usually attributed to matter; on the
contrary it elevates ignorantly despised matter to the capa
bilities and possibilities of the highest existence and most
subtle energies; materialism is no adding of death unto
death, but a resurrection of all things unto life. It does not
hold matter as alien or foreign to spirit, it sees in the one
but a capacity or phase of the other ; it does not say
matter is a vice, it finds no vice resultant anywhere but from
the want of knowledge of the laws of matter; it does not
look on matter as a foe to virtue and high intelligence, it sees
in matter the noble mother of all living.
I have wronged my argument somewhat by seeming to
assume that an hypothesis was necessary for the first of the
conclusions given above. But development is already more
than a theory, it has established itself in the region of in
disputable fact.
One of the most recent observations on
this point is that concerning the axolotl, a Mexican lizard,
furnished with gills, and living only in the water; but which
by accidental natural circumstances, or by such circumstances
artificially imitated, may be developed into a perfect land
salamander (hitherto considered of an entirely different genus,
which is a greater distinction than a species), breathing only
by lungs and being incapable of a life in the water; its gills
having disappeared together with the tail-fin, dorsal ridge and
other especially aquatic adaptations, and corresponding
capacities for a life on land having been developed.
Now if the variation from a life only possible in water to
one only possible in air,—if such a variation or adaptation
or development can be brought about during the brief period
of existence of one little reptile, who shall dare to assign a
limit to the variations and developments that may be
evolved in untold myriads of years ? This factor of time
is one of the most difficult to realize and grasp the full
import of, since we have but such a tiny experience of it
in our own life, or even in all the centuries during which
�STUDIES IN MATERIALISM.
23
man has left any written or graven record of his life and
.acts. Thirty or forty centuries would seem to be the limit
of the period during which we have anything like historical
record of man, though we may grasp that there were then
many and diverse races of men, some of which had at
tained a high state of civilization. Nor does there seem to
be any indubitable change traceable in the actual bodily
framework of man during that time. But sufficient expla: nations of this at once suggest themselves. In the first
place, that, as has been already noticed, it is in the lowest
and simplest organisms that cardinal changes are most
readily evolved, and we may expect in the case of so high
.an organism as man that many generations may pass away
before any distinct and palpable development may have
manifested itself; and that indeed no change would be neces. sitated in such organs as had, during all that period, been, suffi
ciently adapted to the circumstances ; secondly, that in tracing
the record of man through prehistoric times, in such evi
dence as is afforded us by fossil implements and bones of
man himself, we do get irrefutable evidence of development
since that more distant period ; and, lastly, that if we will
consider the case of organs or faculties which have ?z<7/been
.sufficiently adapted to the circumstances, we shall get here,
too, distinct and indubitable evidence of development.
Somewhat of such development it will be my effort to
trace in the next study—the Progress of Civilization ; the
■development of the faculties by which we have reached
from the material into that which has been usually, and, we
hold, incorrectly, styled and considered the immaterial.
With more highly developed faculties we may find how all
things are material : i.e., ultimately reducible to the cogni.zance of the senses; we shall find in materialism the even
tual explanation of all that lay outside the ken of duller
senses, and was therefore attributed to ultra-intelligible and
extra-natural agency; we shall find in materialism the sure
basis and touchstone for both the outward and inward
conduct of- man—all true work, all true science, all true
morality being therefrom deducible and provable. Nought
of despondency, nought of untrust is there in Materialism,
no dark, cold, fanciful belief, but simple knowledge, full of
Nature’s warmth and life and light. Not ours
“to seek
If any golden harbour be for men
In seas of Death and sunless gulfs of Doubt,”
�24
STUDIES IN MATERIALISM.
for to us Doubt is not sunless, it is the very bright and'
bracing air in which we grow ever more strong, more
humble, more confident,—and we trouble about no poetical
fictions as to Death ; for we hold that, as far as man is con
cerned, Death is but the condition of non-existence, and it
is manifestly absurd to endow the sheer absence of existence
with either charms or terrors.
in.—THE PROGRESS OF CIVILISATION.
In tracing the progress of man from a simple animal condi
tion to one of high intellectual power or civilisation, twomethods of inquiry are available; firstly, such historical
record as is afforded by writings and monuments, together
with what pre-historic evidence we may gather from fossil
bones or implements, or other evidences of man; and,
secondly, such knowledge as we may deduce from the con
ditions and characteristics of existing uncivilised races. To
my mind the evidence resultant from the comparison of
present existing conditions is less open to difference of
opinion than the historic or pre-historic source. It is on this
account that I have preferred to exemplify the development
theory by reference to now existing types and conditions
from the lowest organisms up to man, and by showing a
power and action of development in those which infer a
previous course of development ere reaching their present
condition, rather than to base my position more specially on
fossil forms and types which indubitably establish such
development, according to some observers, whilst others
dispute the conclusions thus arrived at. In man, however,
with both these sources of inquiry at our command we may
adduce evidence of development which it is impossible to
controvert, and I think we may further prove that such pro
gressive development has been incessant, and will, under
given circumstances, continue to be so.
In considering man and the higher organisms by com
parison with the lower and primitive types, we may take the
greatest acquired difference as that of sex. And for this
diversity of sex the Materialist may find a ready and natural
explanation. In the lowest types of life, as we have already
seen, the beings have the powers and functions of both sexes
(?.<?., impregnation and conception) united in one body, and
these functions may presently be exercised either indepen
dently of another being, or reciprocally with another being.
�STUDIES IN MATERIALISM.
2$
Now, it is a natural fact, and resultant from obvious reasons,
that liability to conception may and does exist before the
power of impregnation is existent. For impregnation can
only be effected by an animal already arrived at puberty,
while the capacity for reception and retention of the sperm
cells exists, and may come into operation before the actual
capacity for conception, which is also an attribute of puberty.
If, therefore, we presume a double-sexed animal at just
this stage of its existence taking part with, or being forced
to submit to an older and fully developed animal in what
should virtually be a reciprocal act, we shall find as the result
that the immature animal will receive and retain sperm cells,
with which its germ cells will in due time be vivified, while
the mature animal will have received no sperm cells from,
its partner, and its own germ cells will, therefore, remain
unimpregnated and unvivified. In plain words the first
animal will have found exercise for its female organs alone,
and the second for its male organs alone. And, supposing
no further intercourse or exercise of the organs to take place,
it is evident that the one animal will have fulfilled the func
tion of a mother only, and the other that of a father only.
It will also be seen, and I call special attention to this fact,,
that an animal might be forced or coaxed into the position
of maternity before its own impulses or capabilities would,
have prompted any such responsibility.
Another singular natural feature now comes into play.
Where an act is susceptible of repetition, the use of the
necessary organ has a tendency to cause an increased ability,
of that organ ; and the disuse of an organ has a corre
sponding tendency to produce debility or atrophy of that
organ. So that in the next acts of intercourse of the two
individuals we have presumed, there will be a tendency to?the uni-sexual function alone being exercised. Taught by
experience, too, the older individual may have learnt that by
being careful always to select young and scarcely mature
individuals it may secure what amount of gratification is
afforded by the sexual act, without any resultant burden or
incommodity of maternity to itself. It might, in fact, readily
act as a male being, with the tendency to masculinity con
tinually increasing throughout its life. And some of its progeny would inherit this tendency to be of the male sex
only; as also others of the progeny would, from the mother's
induced habit, have a corresponding tendency to be of the
female sex only. With these tendencies once developed into.-
�26
STUDIES IN MATERIALISM.
■fixed habits, and they certainly will so develop, the fact of
•division into separate sexes is accomplished.
Upon thp incidents mentioned in the earlier part of the
preceding paragraph two others follow almost as corollaries;
firstly, that with the idea of the evasion of the incommodity of
maternity once conceded, it would need the exercise or develop
ment of but a very slight amount of cunning or instinct to lead
an experienced mature animal to evade the maternal function
when trafficking with even a matured animal of less experi
ence ; and, secondly, that in addition to the induced
femininity of the younger animal, there would be developed
and perpetuated a sort of habit of juvenility which might
explain the seeming secondariness of development or immatury in some aspects of females generally; and further, the
general earlier capacity of parentage on the part of the female
than of the male which is now existent.
And I think it may easily be shown that maternity is an
incommodity sufficiently great to prompt to its evasion in
the manner I have suggested. For in even the lowest or
ganisms the fact of the organism being gravid, or heavy
with young, will necessarily restrain its liberty of action or
locomotion, and yet will entail on it a necessity for increased
action in order to find the extra food for the formation of its
• coming progeny.
The habit of unisexuality on the part of either male or
female, would be further established by the fact that with
many of the lower types, both of animals and vegetables, the
act of fructification once fulfilled the being dies. Those of my
readers who have kept silkworms may have noticed how the
male moth will live even for several days, should not a female
moth be present, but that the sexual act once accomplished
the male forthwith dies. And the fact of the female receiv
ing and retaining the male secretion may be well seen in the
female moth who does not begin laying eggs till two or three
days afterwards, and who has within her body, in common
with many other insects, a special cavity, called the sper■motheca, for the storing up till time of need of the secretion
received from the male. In the ant also, the instant death
of the male after the sexual act, and the long-continued
impregnation of the female, is a prominent example of this
phenomenon.
I instance these things to show that I am not drawing on
hypothesis alone, but also on facts and parallels for the
theory as to origin of sex. I hope, at least, to have shown
�STUDIES IN MATERIALISM.
27
that there may be a perfectly intelligible and natural way of
accounting for difference in sex, and of refuting the super
natural fiction that “ male and female created he them.”
It is but one contradiction the more of the fable of creation
that primitive and even some advanced forms of animal life
are not of divided sex.
Among the evidences that can be adduced in proof of the
some time general hermaphroditism of the progenitors of
animals that are now of clearly defined sexes, is the fact that
the rudiments or survivals of the organs and characteristics
of either sex are found in animals of the opposite sex;
rudiments of specially male organs or characteristics being
traceable in every woman, as are likewise rudiments
of the female organs in every man. Man, with other
male mammals, has nipples, and there are known cases
in which a perfectly developed man has given milk in
sufficient quantity to suckle a child. It would even seem
from recent observations in Germany that this faculty and
power may be somewhat readily called into activity. In
women, when the specially female functions have lapsed
through age, the male characteristics more or less assert
themselves; there is a distinct tendency to a more masculine
type in feature, voice, &c., and not unfrequently some ap
pearance of hair on the lips or chin. In the domestic fowl,
a hen past laying will acquire spurs and comb like the male,
and the habit of crowing. Again in the human being, if
accidentally or purposely the specially sexual organs are
removed, there is an instant and persistent tendency to the
development of the stirviving organs and characteristics of
the opposite sex (as though these organs had only been
kept in a state of dormancy by the predominances of the
previous set) ; thus male eunuchs are beardless, their
muscles less firm in texture, and their breasts grow and
soften; and, conversely, in women from whom the ovaries
have been removed, the breasts shrink and disappear, and
masculinity of voice and bearing supervene.
A still stronger exemplification of this survival of double
sexuality remains. As it is in the generative organs that the
main departure from the stage of hermaphroditism has
been made, so also is it there that we must be prepared to
furnish crucial proofs if we would maintain a still existing
identity of being in male and female; such an identity, I
mean, as should do away with all distinctions other than those
really existing in Nature. And it is precisely in those organs
�STUDIES IN MATERIALISM.
that survival can most clearly be evidenced, most celebrated
anatomists and physiologists asserting that precise analogues
or rudiments of every portion of the female economy are
to be found in the man, and vice versa.
I am calling attention at this length to the present and
real identities and differences of male and female, becau-se
in the case of the human being the natural difference has
been very much over-rated, and, as I have already said, man
has based a series of artificial and arbitrary and unjust distinc
tions on that difference. I wish it to be clearly understood
that I am but relating what seems to me a very probable
history of the origin of sex. Whether my theory be alto
gether correct or not, we shall undoubtedly, by searching,
■eventually find out that division of sex has been as simply
and naturally induced as any other phenomenon which was
at one time a mystery, but is now clear. Such a mode of
natural action as I have suggested would go far to account
for all the good and evil of existing civilisation. For the
difference of sex is certainly at the very base of civilisation
as far as man is concerned : from this difference (as I shall
-endeavour to show) have arisen all the conditions of social
and political life, all the working of men together for mutual
and common interests, all the good that has been en
gendered by reciprocity of action and sharing of benefits,
and all the social evil from which the world still groans,
and which is but the resultant of selfishness or non
reciprocity.
For I take civilisation* to mean the banding of many to
gether to do that which could not be done by one, and the more
entirely mutual and reciprocal the benefits received from
such union are, the higher and truer is the civilisation. It is
the custom to credit man alone with being civilised, but it
will be seen that under the definition I have adopted many
other animals may be included, some sorts of ants, bees
and wasps among insects, while perhaps the beaver is the
only other among mammals. It will be seen that intelligence
alone does not imply civilisation, for though the elephant, the
dog, and other animals have a high degree of intelligence,
yet the cases are rare in which they seem to combine for a
general good. And when such instances do occur, they
seem but temporary and transitory conditions, whereas, in the
beaver and the insects named the union is a permanent
one, insomuch that fixed habitations are erected for the
general welfare of the community. Indeed the word civis
�STUD IE S IN MATERIALISM.
29
means a denizen of a city or State, and in all the animals I
have classed as civilised the construction of cities or com
monwealths is an essential feature. Yet the art of building
.alone does not constitute civilisation: birds, squirrels, and
.sticklebacks build nests, though generally only for temporary
purposes ; moles dig passages and chambers, spiders make
webs, and catapillars spin cocoons.
It is in the fact of community that we find civilisation ; it
.is in what tends to and ensures the general benefit of that
community that we find the good of civilisation : it is where
the personal acts or interests of an individual are selfish,
.and, therefore, irrelevant or inimical to the general well
being that we have evil resultant. I know it is asserted by
some sophists that all actions of man spring from a selfish
motive, but we need not trouble much about such a defini
tion ; it will be sufficient for our purpose to distinguish
.between the acts in which a man may believe that his own
well-being or happiness will be an eventual result of benefitting others, and the acts in which he seeks a personal
advantage utterly irrespective of any evil consequences of
such acts to others. Few of my readers will hesitate to
call the former acts good and unselfish, and the latter
.selfish and evil.
Now, it would seem that the class of actions confined to
•.self-interest alone had their origin as a natural consequence
■ of the primitive unisexual and self-sufficient condition, and
that the wider class of feelings and actions have been the
eventual outcome of separation into sex—i.e., of the render,
ing each individual reciprocally helpful to, and more or less
•dependent on, the well-being and full life of some other.
For in looking for the primitive origin of man’s power of
feeling, passion, idea, thought, and reason, we must be ready
to recognize and accept beginnings utterly small and infini
tesimal as compared with his present powers; we must be
prepared to find that the love of a mother for her child had
.as rudimentary and material an origin as the breast and the
milk with which she suckles the babe. As we may already
.ascribe back the wondrous delicacy of finger of a Benve
nuto Cellini or a Michael Angelo to slow development
from such power as lies in the vague changes of form of the
amoeba, so may we look for the birthplace of all the pas
sions that a Shakespeare pourtrays, of all the wisdom with
* which a Socrates and a Bacon enrich the world, in the
^cravings of hunger and the sensations of heat and cold on
�the unisexual being, and then, with wonderfully increased'
impetus, in the fresh set of feelings evolved when quest for
love was added to the quest for food. For many of the
capabilities evolved and developed in either quest would
become of avail in the other, the mutual action and reaction
giving to the organs an acceleration and extent of develop
ment which they might not otherwise have attained.
In speaking of sensations of heat, cold, and hunger in the
lowest organisms, no further intellectual action is implied on
their part than is involved in the simple chemical, or even
mechanical, effects of heat and cold, moisture and dryness
some such action, for instance, as is seen in the rotifer, a
fairly advanced organism, which, in the absence of moisture,
dries up, and will lie, to all intents and purposes, as dead
matter, even for years, but will instantly revive and resume
full activity with the advent of a few drops of water.
A distinct tendency of animated matter is to accept suchconditions as are favourable to animation, the distinguishing
power of locomotion being developed and constantly exerted
to this end. Nor can it be doubted that constantly
recurring experiences of things inimical to the organism’s
well-being will cause even a mechanical tendency to the
avoidance of such evil things, and will develop a pro
vision from the remembrances of experiences, which is the step
ping-stone to an intellect. We see the pimpernel flowerclose itself when rain is coming, that its pollen may not be
injured by the moisture. Doubtless the mechanical causeof this is that some condition of the atmosphere previous
to rain causes a relaxation, and therefore a closing, as in sleep,,
of the flower. We see men and women, when rain is coming,
take an umbrella, that their clothes or their health may not
be injured. They are warned by some evidence of theirsenses: a dark cloud in the sky causes a mechanical relaxation,
in the retina of their eye analogous to the relaxation of the
corolla of the pimpernel, or they see a change in that furthermechanical contrivance, the barometer. Why are we to call,
the carrying of an umbrella an intellectual act, and the closing
ota flower a mechanical act ? Men only use a further de
veloped set of experiences and remembrances and mecha
nisms ; the base of the action and the resultant are essen
tially the same, the avoidance of a condition hurtful to thewell-being of the organism. Man’s intellectual chain may
be longer than that of the pimpernel, but the links are forged,
of the same metal.
�STUDIES IN MATERIALISM.
31
The fact is that every experience of an organism is in
some way duly registered in the organism, just as truly as
every touch of a sculptor’s chisel has its effect in the image
he produces. One result of this law—a result that will at
some time be as clear to our understanding as it is now in
many instances to our vision—is that the accretion of experi
ences produces, as might be expected, some definite change
or growth in the organism itself, such change being, in point
of fact, an organ ; and so truly is this the case that it is by
examining the organs of any living thing that we arrive at
the knowledge of the conditions and experiences of its life.
Indeed, we should not greatly err in calling organs materi
alized experiences. In such a way we may not only clearly
explain the necessarily slow progress of development, but
we may also show the very how and why of its existence.
And so the varied necessities of food and love induced
the gradual evolution and development of the organs and
faculties of touch, sight, hearing, smell, taste, locomotion,
prehension, speech; and from the experiences and remem
brances attendant on their continual use arose by similar
slow evolution all the powers that we call intelligence, or
mind, or soul. For we may find a fully sufficient basis for
mind and all its phenomena in such experiences and
remembrances, such impressions, inherited or acquiredimpressions inherited from countless ages of progenitors as
unconsciously, but just as tangibly, as our limbs are in
herited—impressions from our own smaller experiences—-im
pressions which we acquire from others by living converse,
or by bookly intercourse with the mighty dead.
It is the quest for food and the quest for love that are at
the bottom of the two laws so clearly enunciated by Charles
Darwin—Sexual Selection and the Survival of the Fittest.
It must be borne in mind that this survival of the fittest
simply means the survival of the types or animals best
capable of living under certain conditions and contingencies ;
it does not mean the survival of the animals which man
might have considered the most fitting denizens of the earth
as far as his ideas were concerned. For further considera
tion as to these two laws, I must refer the reader to the
works of the author just mentioned. I simply wish here to
note that the quest for food, coincident with the survival of
the fittest, and the quest for love, which evolved the prin
ciple of sexual selection, opened out two separate and widely
varying vistas of impulse and action.
�32
STUDIES IN MATERIALISM.
As already estimated, the quest of food involved feelings
mainly concerning the self of the organism, and affecting
only the inward personality of the individual; while from
the quest for love, for intercourse and companionship with
fellow-beings, have arisen the feelings concerning the larger
world outside the individual—the feelings which have their
outcome in parental affection, social relations, and civilisation.
And in the commingling and interaction of these inward and'
outer interests we may find the source of all intellectual action.
For, indeed, the reaction of these two sets of feelings on
each other has been so incessant and so multitudinous that
it is difficult, if not impossible, now to classify some of the
many varied passions of man according to their original
incentive. And the organs naturally bear evidence to this
intermingling of causes and events, for the gentle murmur
ing of words of love is as delicious to the lips and tongue as
is the most delicate fruit, and “ the warmth of hand in hand
is more tender and delightful than the sunniest glow of
summer skies.
In man, as in the male of many other animals, this inter
changeability of usage of the organs has been temporarily
used to evil ends, for the organs of prehension acquired in
the quest for food have been in some instances developed
by the quest for love into instruments of outrage; so that, as
already said, the young of the opposite sex have continually
had enforced on them the function of maternity before their
own strength or inclination would have suggested any such
burden or responsibility. In looking at the means of pre
hension used for amatory purposes by male animals gene
rally, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that the maternal
office has been a matter of compulsion rather than of equal
and voluntary acceptance. In some beetles, the cruellooking specially-developed organs of prehension are repul
sively suggestive of the idea that conquest and not endear
ment is their purpose, and that it must have been a great re
pugnance on the part of the female which has necessitated
such implements of brute force in the male.
It is true that in the course of time a habit of tolerance,
or even of perfect acquiescence, has been acquired by some
females, yet the habit is far from universal, and, perhaps,
never will be so, so long as the female remains exposed to
the capacity of having maternity forced upon her despite
her own will, while the male is incapable of having the office
of paternity enforced by outrage on him.
�TUDIES IN MATERIALISM.
33;
In the primitive and savage condition of mankind we
have such evidence of the abominable treatment and out
rage of the young females as to leave us without wonder
that the result has been to make woman of a generally
more feeble type than man, and to have induced in her an
utterly abnormal and unnatural phenomenon from which
men and even female animals are exempt. At the first
glance it is pitiful to reflect that man’s vaunted superiority
over the brute, the greater activity of his brain, and thesubtler cunning of his hand have for so long lent them
selves to the oppression that has resulted in such pernicious,
consequences and in the still existent slavery, social and
physical, of the female of his own species. The function
of child-bearing has been exaggerated to an utterly dispropor
tionate degree in her life; it has been made her almost sole
claim to existence. Yet it is not the true purpose of any
intellectual organism to live solely to give birth to succeed
ing organisms; its duty is also to live for its own happiness
and well-being. Indeed, in so doing, it will be acting in
one of the most certain ways to ensure that faculty and
possession of happiness that it aims to secure for its pro
geny. But up to the present woman has scarcely been
treated as an intellectual being. In earlier history her fate
was entirely subordinated to the passions of man, nor has
our civilization yet sufficiently advanced to leave her to
choose her own life, or to develop the powers, the inclina
tions, or the individuality which lie within her nature; and
in our still feeble intellectual powers, in our narrow sym
pathies, and in our stunted capacities, we men are reaping
the natural consequences of our blindness and injustice.
Truly the tale of man’s ignorant injustice will be a bitter
one when unfolded; yet there is the bright hope and con
fidence that to know the wrong will be to redress it. And
it is by intelligent materialistic research that we can alone
assure such knowledge, and by the destruction of all reli
gions and priestcrafts. For a main basis and element in
the constitution of these is the subjugation of woman,
enunciated in tacit and open assumptions and assertions of'
her inferiority and secondariness to man, or in hideous and
insulting fables proclamatory of her innate baseness, and
exculpatory of the condition to which the wrong and selfish
ness of man has alone reduced her.
Further and very conclusive evidence in favour of develop
ment by interaction of these sets of motives and quests is.
�34
STUDIES IN MATERIALISM.
offered by the nervous system in organised beings. This
system comprises the organs of intellect and of action, and
divides into two main conditions having these specific func
tions. In the lowest organisms little evidence of nervous
structure is presented beyond disjected filaments, but with
■organisms of more experiences (and, therefore, develop
ment) the nervous system becomes an apparatus of filaments
combined with knots or ganglia. And with division into
sets we have the accession of a cephalic ganglion or brain,
at any rate in the more advanced organisms. The minute
ness of many intelligent organisms (such as ants, bees,
wasps, beetles, &c.) throws greater difficulty in the way of
obtaining precise statistics concerning their nervous struc
ture, but in the vertebrata we have greater facilities. That
the brain seems to be a special outcome of wider experiences
■and motives is evidenced by its greater bulk in proportion to
Average Proportion of Weight of Brain to Body :
Fishes ........................... I to 5568
Reptiles ........................ 1 ,, 1321
Birds ........................... 1 ,, 212
Mammals....................... I ,, 186
Man............................... I „ 35
The spinal system, which we are assuming to be more
-specially developed by, and connected with, the narrower
series of motives implicated in self-preservation alone, offers
a similar confirmatory result in its proportion to the amount
of brain, as in the ensuing fairly accurate table :—
Proportion of Weight of Brain to Spinal Marrow :
Fishes ............. • i£, or 2 to 1
Reptiles ......... • 2, „ 2% „ 1
Birds .............
,, 1
Mammals......... • 3> „ 4 „ 1
Man ................. • 23, >, 24 „ 1
This proportion ot brain or mental power to spinal or
active power shall be noted with the coincident sexual,
parental, and social conditions, as follows :—
Fishes.—In general there is no approach of the sexes,
and no indication of parental feeling, except in very rare
instances.
Reptiles.—Approach of the sexes, and sometimes (as in
the viper) fairly developed parental care.
Birds.—In general a greatly increased degree of parental
care, with, in some cases, a steady companionship of two
individuals of opposite sex, which may even endure through
out life.
�STUDIES IN MATERIALISM.
35
Mammals.—Parental, or rather maternal, care has here
evolved a special organ, affording food to the young; the
degrees and conditions of parentage, and of sexual affection
and companionship, vary greatly. In many birds and mam- .
mals a power of affection, outside sexual or parental feeling,
has been developed. In animals which have been much
cared for by man, and become domesticated, this affection
may be so prominent as sometimes to override both the
quest for food, and sexual or parental affection. Instances
are not rare o*f the dog or the horse who willingly refuses a
meal in order to be with his master, or who will leave puppy
or colt at the sound of the same dear voice.
Man.—The office and issues of parentage have been ex
tended through simple paternal brute force, with subjugation
of wife and child; patriarchism, with attendant slavery ■
autocracy, with attendant servitude; limited monarchy, with
attendant subjection; to Republicanism, with recognition of
equality of individual right. And from some phase of these
have arisen the vast majority of the existent relations
between man and man. These form the subject of the
further science of materialism called Sociology, and to that
branch of the subject we must leave them, as also the wider
discussion of the development of love in man to its grand
phases of conjugal love, parental and filial affection,
patriotism, and general humanity.
I need only draw attention to one further incident before
bringing these papers to a close ; the fact that the superiority
of man’s primitive culture over that of animals is mainly
evidenced in three things—agriculture, the use of tools, and
the use of fire, each of these having contributed its quota to
the development of man’s intellect. Agriculture would seem
to be an outcome of the habit, common to many animals, of
hiding a superfluity of food till a time of need, though there
is, of course, a vast distance between the simple hiding of
food and the sowing of seeds and the preparing of land for
the purpose, yet it is not difficult to imagine that the acci
dental growth of a store of nuts or roots hidden in the
ground gave to man the idea of providing for food in that
manner.
Evidence of the origin of the use of tools is to be found
in the habit of some birds in carrying to a height and
dropping shell-fish which they have not the strength to
break or open ; monkeys, too, are known to break cocoa-nuts
by dropping them. In these cases the earth itself is used as
�36
STUDIES IN MATERIALISM.
a hammer, and the unintentional dropping of a shell or a
cocoa-nut offers an easy solution for the origin of the habit,
which would readily spread by imitation and inheritance.
The next step in the scale of mechanical progress is evi
denced in some monkeys, who use a stone as a hammer, or
a stick as a lever. Then follows man, with the adaptation
of the lever (or handle) to the stone, and the use of sharp-edged stones (knives and axes), and with the advent of fire
•and the smelting of metals we gradually arrive at the whole
series of tools and machines that may be found in an inter
national exhibition.
There seems no glimpse of any approach to the creation
■of fire in any animal but man, though many animals willingly
accept its artificial warmth, and prefer the food that is
cooked by its aid. In primitive times the chipping of his
flint implements must have afforded man many instances of
sparks of fire, and possibly of undesigned conflagration, with
•attendant flame and heat. The observation of this may
well have led some thoughtful man to turn the unexpected
discovery to profit and to imitate it; and the evolution by
friction of a heat similar to that caused by fire might suggest
to him or to others the continuance and increase of that
friction till flame would be the reward of their curiosity and
perseverance. And all this would be the consequence of as
clear and simple a train of reasoning as that which led
Columbus to discover land to the west of the Atlantic, or
James Watt to foresee that the force which could raise the
lid of a teakettle could also drive mighty engines.
We do not now dignify either of these men with the title
■of gods, or suppose that they stole their knowledge from
heaven, our times are already too materialistic for that; yet in
n preceding age we have the invention of fire attributed to
■such agency, and the shrewd and patient woman who
evolved the primitive art of the culture of corn and fruit
figured as a goddess, whose name we still use when
speaking of our cereal productions.
Yet, though we no longer dream of referring such inven
tions or knowledge to supernatural power, though we no
longer place faith in fictions of the divinity of the inventors,
we, as a majority, present the pitiable spectacle of still
accepting such primitive and infantile explanations of all the
phenomena that man’s intellect has not yet had the per
severance or the opportunity to solve. The inquisitiveness
and habit of research evolved in man’s natural quests have
�STUDIES IN MATERIALISM.
led him to continually inquire into the origin and sequence
-of all the circumstances that he sees around him, and, where
-want of true knowledge has supervened there have not been
wanting those who have offered all sorts of fictitious and
baneful explanations. It is the evil of all religions, from
that of Confucius to that of Comte, that they are, in the
main, a compound of unverified assertions concerning man’s
physical and social condition, together with a series of selfstyled moral aphorisms deduced from such assertions. It is
only when the spirit of materialistic inquiry shall be carried
into the region of ethics, when every action and idea and
sequence of man’s intellect and mind shall be accredited
solely on the same terms as any other physical fact, that we
shall arrive at any true morality, at any assured knowledge
■of living to the best for ourselves and for each other. Pro
ceeding in this way we shall find that man’s intellect will
have power to find the solution of all that that intellect can
suggest, and to speak of anything further is simply to speak
■of what is for man non-existent.
It has been my purpose to indicate somewhat of the line
.and method of thought which 'may be available in this
further research, but each man must be left to travel by
himself along that road. Sect and name-following can find
no place there; open eyes for Nature’s facts, open hearts
for Nature’s love, these will be our unerring guides to the
■ever-increasing knowledge, the ever-growing happiness, the
-ever-higher potentiality of life, and love, and humanity.
Farewell.
��
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Studies in materialism
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Elmy, Ben
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 37 p. ; 17 cm.
Notes: Printed and published by Annie Besant and Charles Bradlaugh. Tentative date of publication from KVK. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Freethought Publishing Company
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
[187-?]
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
N207
Subject
The topic of the resource
Materialism
Philosophy
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Studies in materialism), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Language
A language of the resource
English
Materialism
NSS
-
https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/25778/archive/files/12f25f7503eb19697d1cfb0ce77de886.pdf?Expires=1712793600&Signature=OFbjPT7ReZQuzRBBREBQLj92jM5cXJ25yyFk8vbARQeUuddk5ko1ho-OX5XPJTXu6PcJXBVbjVqEfnbOORpHetjCJDzzMdSa05YA-vq6yNyPl7Q2faaOs2YE1NgE317uqofpVWJCAUFBsPddkRSAwb2JGK79LHzu4wL4i2PRy%7E-xklxdLPnee7M%7Ezp9o%7E2LxUnUxwnivWzMIm3y%7EYRY9vdjWv4cSq8o0ol8nw%7EzFPQgdrxk3llAveEbk9IqJKD-2XX3rIFJzumBrUkh1sTGc2cGBR2ou81o7GzDfL8syH70uqVfEqqNaOv1qGA2VwkR4yiIZmCRwEpHHAUL7dl14-Q__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM
77e0c3fa16d91e4c519faa489bb4eca8
PDF Text
Text
THE
WESTMINSTER
AND
FOREIGN
QUARTERLY
REVIEW.
JANUARY 1, 1873.
Art. I.—Sophokles.
1. Sophokles, erlddrt wnF. W. Schneid ewin. Sechste Avflage,
besorgt von A..HKUGK., Berlin. 1871.
2. The Tragedies of Sophocles, with a Biographical Essay.
By E. H. Plumptre, M.A. London. 1867.
3. Die Religosen und Sittlichen Vorstellungen des Aeschylos
und Sopholdes. Von Gustav Dronke. Leipzig. 1861.
4. Sopholdes und seine Tragodien. Von 0. Ribbeck. Heft
83 in der Sammlung gemeinverstdndlicher wissenschaftlicher Vortrdge. Berlin. 1869.
ENGLISH scholarship has not done much for the better
J’j understanding of Sophokles. He is not a poet who has
taken close hold of the English mind. His works are studied of
course in the general university curriculum ; but he has not become
a poet often read and oftener quoted as have some of the classic
writers. Those who really find in him a source of intellectual
delight read his works in a German edition. But of what classical
writer may not this be said ? It is very seldom that an English
editor has the patience to make a complete presentation of a
classical author—to do for him what Professor Munro has done for
Lucretius—with that loving study and exhaustive research which
characterize the labours of the German editor. So far the case
of Sophokles is not single. But perhaps there is no instance of
an author of such renown as Sophokles, with so general a con
sensus of people willing to admit his claims, who has made so
little impression upon the majority of cultivated minds. The
[Vol. XCIX. No. CXCV.J—New Series, Vol. XLIII. No. I.
B
�2
Sophokles.
reason is that the majority of cultivated people never bring them
selves under his influence. The English scholar is for the
most part satisfied with a textual or critical knowledge: the
whole field of classical literature must be hurried through rather
than any part explored. And the result of this is scholarship
rather than knowledge.
Now with many authors this may be sufficient; it cannot be
so with all. Homer, for instance, will give up his. beauties in
broad and easily taken bands of continuous narrative. . Apart
from the necessities of philological studies, which are beside the
present question, Homer, like Chaucer, is easy reading. Those
that run may read the alto rilievo of the Iliad or Odyssey. But
before a group of statuary you must stand. And the difficulty
is that the intellectual life of the present day does not admit of
long standing. The progress of science and the march of new
ideas are continually urging on the student mind. And to almost
all the doubt must occasionally present itself, Is it worth while
to spend this time before these works of ancient art? . Now,
whatever the answer to this question may be, it is certain that
the. secret of Sophokles cannot be won without loving and
leisurely study. For in his works exists the highest form of one
species of art; and that an art which will yield its essence to no
hurried student. It is a significant circumstance that few English
translations of the works of Sophokles have been attempted.
The version of Mr. Plumptre is the fourth of its kind. Those
that have preceded it are of little importance. It is true that no
author suffers more from translation than Sophokles : but that
is the least element in the unpopularity of his dramas amongst
English readers. The reader unacquainted with the Greek
language may yet be fascinated by the “ tale of Troy divine
in the musical and monotonous lines of Pope, or the inadequate
interpretations of Cowper and Lord Derby : he may even, if.he
be a Keats, find his vision dazzled by the misty prospect which
he catches of the vast Homeric continent; but he is not at all
likely to be charmed with Sophokles. To understand Sophokles
one must place oneself in the intellectual position of ^n average
Athenian of the time of Perikles. Mr. Galton says : “ The
*
average ability of the Athenian race is, on the lowest possible
estimate, very nearly two grades higher than our own—that is,
about as much as our race is above that of the African negro?
The average English reader, therefore, whose knowledge of
Sophokles is derived from Mr. Plumptre’s very creditable version,
will probably lay down the book without any extraordinary
interest in the subject. He will miss the plaintive clink and
Hereditary Genius,” p. 3&2.
�Sophokles.
- 3
jingle of subjective sentimentality which he has been accustomed
to associate with poetry, and he will probably wonder at the
renown of the poet. But the earnest student of Sophokles will
find in the original enough to reward him. His mind will be
strengthened by the contemplation of perfect types of character,
bold, severe, and beautiful. He will pass .into a gallery of
statuary where he will see sights that can never leave his inner
eye. Serene faces, familiar, yet unusual in their lofty humanity,
will look down upon him •, voices, more divine than human,
though rising from the depths of the human heart, will speak to
him, and his ears will be filled with a holy and awful music.
The best guides to the higher knowledge of Sophokles are the
German works whose titles are given at the head of the present
*
paper. Schneidewin’s edition is known to students of Sophokles ;
so ought also to be the essay by G. Dronke, snatched from his
friends and from literature by an all too early death. Dr. Bib
beck’s paper, though short, is a concise estimate of the extant
dramas, and is written in a genial and scholarly style. The
present essay is an attempt to connect the works of Sophokles
with the periods of the poet’s life, and to point out the chief
dramatic characteristics of the several plays.
It was in the year 469 before our era, at the spring festival
of the greater Dionysia, that Athens saw the first trilogy of
Sophokles. The city was then full of new life ; it was the charmed
period when future greatness lay in bud, and not yet in blossom.
The terror of the Persian had been changed into an immortal
memory, and Athens was winning for herself the hegemony of
more than the Grecian race. This spring festival had drawn
many strangers to the city. The islands had not yet learned to
dread her power or doubt her justice, and sent their loyal visitors
to join in her rejoicing.
Two days of the festival had already passed, and a trilogy or
rather tetralogy had been presented each day. One was the
work of Aeschylus, for fourteen years the master of the Athenian
stage. Upon the third day a trilogy by a new poet was presented.
What thi^work really was is uncertain; it has, however, been
inferred from a passage in Pliny, that one drama was the Triptolemus. It was a subject that had never before been chosen for
the stage, but it was well adapted to win favour at Athens at the
present time. Already the city had conceived the design of
* No writer upon the life of Sophokles can forget the obligation which he
is under to Gotthold Ephraim Lessing—Mr. Plumptre most unaccountably
(p. xxii.) calls him Gottfried Lessing—whose splendid fragment of a ‘‘Life ot
Sophokles ” remains to show later writers what the great German critic might
have done in this direction.
B 2
�4
Sophokles.
uniting under a central power the scattered members of the Ionian
race, and the confederacy of Delos was in part a realization of
her desire. In the subject which he chose, Sophokles would
have an opportunity of idealizing the national aspiration.
Triptolemus was the youthful hero of Eleusis, the herald of
agriculture and peace, the friend and host of Demeter. He was
a traveller too, and where he lighted from his winged car, he
left a blessing of corn and wheat behind him. Thus Sophokles
was enabled to depict, as we know from Pliny he did depict, far
lands and foreign places, gladdened by the gifts that came from
Attica.
Whether he fully indicated such a mission for the new Attica
we cannot know; he was certainly too wise to miss the op
portunity altogether. It may well be that this power of repre
senting the national feeling, formed the distinctive characteristic of
the first trilogy of Sophokles; it is at least easier to believe this,
than that he surpassed the veteran JEschylus in technical ex
cellence. There was, however, a large section of the audience,
who preferred the JEschylean trilogy. Never, perhaps, in such
a cause, had party-feeling run so high. JEschylus was himself from
Eleusis; the new writer had won the suffrages of the elder poet’s
own townsmen. But the victory was not to be adjudged by
popular acclamation. The custom was that ten judges should be
elected by lot, one from each tribe. Why the ordinary mode of
decision was not retained, it is not easy to ascertain. At any
rate the presiding archon Aphepsion did not venture, in the
excited state of popular feeling, to follow the ordinary practice,
and this accident inaugurated a change in the method of electing
the tragic judges.
Kimon and his nine colleagues representing the Attic tribes
were at this moment the popular heroes. They had but newly
returned from their victorious contest with the Persians atEurymedon, and they had brought back from Skyros the bones of
Theseus to be laid in Attic soil. Moreover, they had been absent
during the preparation of the competing choruses, and, if any,
they were free from bias and prejudice Whatever their decision
might be, it would be accepted by the Athenians. With happy
tact, Aphepsion chose them as judges, and they were at once
sworn into the office. Their verdict was for Sophokles. Erom the
fact that henceforth only those who had seen service were allowed
to adjudge the tragic prizes, we may infer that the decision was
both memorable and satisfactory. Such at least seems to be the
sentiment with which Plutarch speaks of it : “ eOevto c’ dp
fj.v/]jur]v avrov Kai tt)v to>v rpaywcMv Kpiatv ovopacrrrjv ytvoplvriv.”
Whether it was the subject, the poetical handling, or the grace
and beauty of the principal actor, Sophokles himself, that turned
�Sophokles.
5
the scale in favour of the Triptoleinus, we miss the play with
regret. The result of the decision was that for many years
Sophokles became the favourite actor of the Athenian stage. There
is greater importance to be attached to this fact than at first sight
appears. It means not only that the successful dramatist was able,
to present his views cf art and ethics to the Athenian people ; but
that he was able to mould and perfect the form of presentation.
Nor must we forget the rival interests of the several tribes as an
element of success. The Choragus who had assisted in the pro
duction of a successful trilogy was rewarded even more than the
author. The actors were chosen for the same places in the
representations of the ensuing year, and we know that Sophokles
not only established a society of the best actors, but also wrote
his plays with special reference to their powers and capacities.
One success, therefore, was earnest of farther renown, and a
stepping-stone to it. The Choragus naturally granted to his
successful author more liberty than would be conceded to an
untried competitor, and it was this feeling of confidence in the
poet, which enabled Sophokles, as it had already enabled
.zEschylus, to achieve his ideal of dramatic art upon the stage.
But before we pass on to relate the gradual growth of the drama
in the hands of Sophokles, it will be well to speak of the young
poet in his personal relations to the Athenian people, who had
just crowned him with the ivy-chaplet.
If tradition is to be believed, he was not unknown to them. He
was not born of low or ignoble parents, for in this case the comic
stage would have rung with jesting allusions to his parentage.
His father, Sophillus, was undoubtedly a man of respectable rank,
a knight it may be. Plutarch speaks of Sophokles as a person
of good birth, and other writers attribute to him an excellent and
complete education. Probably with truth, for it is undoubted
that he possessed in a high degree those elegant personal accom
plishments which were deemed necessary accessories to an
Athenian gentleman. As the promising son of a well-known
citizen, he would be a youth who claimed attention ; and the
story of Athenaeus, which speaks of his surpassing beauty, is a'
record of the influence of his boyish grace upon his contem
poraries. It declares that he of all the Athenian youths, was
chosen to lead the choir of boys who danced round the trophies
in Salamis, after the defeat of the Persians. Aftertimes gladly
recalled the happy coincidence which linked the three great
names of Attic tragedy around the memorable victory of Salamis,
for Aeschylus fought in the battle, Sophokles led the paean, and
Euripides was born on the day of victory, within the fortunate
isle. The years which immediately followed the victory formed a
bright era in the history of the Athenians. They feared no more
�Sophokles.
6
for the barbarian invader, nor, by the prudence of Themistokles,
for the treachery of the selfish Spartans. At home there was room
in every sphere for the development of genius, and genius was
not absent. Under the hands of ./Eschylus the drama was
growing towards perfection, and the people built the great stone
theatre of Dionysus. A tradition says that ZEschylus was the
teacher of Sophokles in the dramatic art: it is most likely he
was his teacher only as he was the teacher of every Athenian
who had the right to hear his dramas. In this sense, each one
of his audience was his pupil, and not with regard to art alone.
It was his province to bring the minds of men from the dim
religious darkness of old theogonies into a fuller light, though a
light by no means so full as it was hereafter to be. Great
questions had been asked, and there was none to answer them ;
men’s minds were troubled with the inconsequence of virtue and
sorrow, and the polytheistic heaven of Homer was dark and
silent above them. The leading ideas of the tragedies of Adschylus
were the supremacy of Zeus, and the moral order of the Universe.
By chains, not always of gold, the world is bound about the
throne of Zeus. Vice leads to punishment in this generation,
and the next, and the third. Yet no voluntarily pure man can
come to ruin :
3’ avdyicaQ arep
(Action tiv ovk avoXfioQ
ekmv
carat.
H>vp.
550.
The contest of Destiny and Free-will is a mystery which finds
its solution only in this moral order. ’ wQpoavvir or moderation is
S
a conscious voluntary submission to the moral order. Any trans
gression of the line between Bight and Wrong is vfiptQ, and leads
to ruin. It is a disorder of the mind, a disease, a distemper,
without expiation and without cure. ZEschylus does not repre
sent the gods as leading man into the commission of guilt. In
the choice between good and evil, man is free. A good deed
must be, as an evil one is, dvdyaa^ drtp. No one is punished by
the Divine hand without fault of his own. But sin once com
mitted is followed by a judicial blindness which leads to other
and greater guilt. This dangerous downfall is accelerated by
means of a divine power known simply as “ Daimon,” or as
“ Alastor,” or sometimes “ Ate/’ whose influence may extend to a
whole race. This brings us to the subject of “family guilt,”
which is frequently a motive in the Greek dramas. The idea
that guilt was hereditary sprang from the notion that it was
inexpiable. Hence a house fell from one crime to another,
until the anger of the gods swept it away root and branch. It
is an extension of the primitive “ lex talionis murder brings
murder, rvppa TvppaTL rival, and guilt gives birth to guilt. And
�Sophokles.
7
what Ate or Alastor is to the individual, that Erinnys is to the
family, working it madness and blindness, and involving it
deeper and deeper in the slough of crime.
/3oct yap Xotyog ILpivvv
7rapa tGjv Trporspov (pQtpevwv drrjv
tTEpcw iTrayovaav £7r' dry.—Cho. 402.
Yet the individual is free. If he belongs to a doomed raise,
then it is true there is in him an hereditary tendency which
shall lead him to guilt and ruin, but the decision rests with him
self. He is not given over to Ate until he has himself been
guilty of sin (vj3ptc). In much of this ethical system 2Eschylus
has taken and arranged prevailing popular beliefs. By his
monotheism, which made Zeus supreme, he attained to the idea
of order in the universe. His conception of sin is one which
is not alien from some forms of modern thought, and his belief
in free-will and individual responsibility, exercised considerable
influence upon later philosophy.
Sophokles did not remain unaffected by the teaching of his
contemporary, though his nature was essentially different. His
works are to the works of Aeschylus, as the clear light succeeding
to a thunderstorm. He took the gain and added to it. We
shall see in what way.
Whatever had been the progress made by JEschylus, Sophokles
at once perceived that the mechanical and technical appliances
of the art, of which he now held supreme command, were by no
means perfect. It would be strange if they had been, while the
art itself was so young. The old monologue with the chorus as
interlocutor, gave place to the drama, when the earlier poet
introduced a second actor, and made dialogue possible. But
this, it is clear, left room for farther changes. Sophokles
availed himself of the opportunity. His first change was the
separation of the functions of author and actor. It is said that
he took this course for a personal reason, the weakness of his
own voice, which could not fill the vast space occupied by his
audience. But there was probably another reason also, the feeling
namely, that each character would more readily attain to its ade
quate excellence if separated from the other. He himself did
not take any leading character after the appearance of the
Triptolemus, but the care with which he trained his actors,
testifies to the importance which he attached to this branch of
the art. A more significant change was the introduction of a
third actor upon the stage. That this improvement was made
by Sophokles we have the testimony of Aristotle. It is possible
that even earlier, AEschylus may have used three actors, and it is
difficult to understand how some of the scenes of his earlier plays
�8
Sophokles.
could have been represented by two actors only, but the adoption
of this number as a permanent feature of each play, is due to
Sophokles. Besides these greater changes, no matter of detail
escaped him; we learn from the same source that he carefully
directed the arrangement of the scenery and the stage. The
palace of 2Eschylus, with doors central, right and left, gave place
to a more elaborate stage, and much art must have been required
in fitting the theatre for the scenery of the (Edipus at Kolonus.
Yet the greatest innovation was the mode which Sophokles
adopted in treating a subject itself. 2Eschylus wrote his dramas,
and treated the subject in the form of a trilogy. When Sophokles
abandoned this form of composition, and chose to develop his
subject in a single play, it is certain he risked much. But his
artistic sense could not err. What the poetical material lost in
breadth and depth, it gained in concentration and intensity. It
followed, that in the plays of Sophokles first was seen the real
spirit of Greek dramatic art, the perfect statuesque poise of form
and expression which we have learnt to look upon as the chief
characteristic of the Athenian drama.
We return to the year of the first victory of Sophokles, from
which these improvements have led us. It was a year marked
by an event of more importance for mankind than the supremacy
of Sophokles, the birth of Sokrates. Herodotus was then a boy
of sixteen years, Thukydides an infant of three, and Euripides a
child of twelve. Seven years later Perikles rose to the height
of his power, and Athens of her glory. This is the date of the
appearance of the Oresteian trilogy, a trilogy worthy of JEschylus
and of Athens, and the only one we possess. But it unquestion
ably exhibits marks of the influence of Sophokles. A third actor
appears in every play. Three years later fiEschylus died in Sicily,
and for the next fifteen years we know nothing of the personal
history of Sophokles. History has not much to say even about
the silent growth and development of the city under the govern
ing hands of Perikles, nor is it necessary that much should be
said when the memorials are imperishable. At the end of this
period, by some caprice of popular taste Euripides was allowed to
gain the first prize.
The next year Sophokles exhibited his Antigone.
It is almost as fatal to an author’s reputation to write too
much as it is to write too little. We learn that Sophokles had
written one-and-thirty dramas before he composed the Antigone;
yet if any of these lost dramas approached at all in majesty or
power the thirty-second, which remains to us, we may well
lament the irreparable theft of time. Perhaps they, as well as
the Antigone, aided in securing the election of Sophokles to a
general’s rank. The time at which it was exhibited has not
�Sophokles.
9
been fully illustrated by the luminous pen of Thukydides, but
some rays of historical light allow us to see the internal political
activity of the city. The establishment of a complete democracy
by Perikles and Ephialtes was not accomplished without much
resistance, and it was difficult to keep aloof from party strife.
The conservative or stationary faction, under the leadership of
Kimon, drew around them the wealthy Athenians, who saw
their oligarchical power passing away with the old order of
things. The centre of their union was the Council of the
Areopagus, and any change in that institution appeared to them
as sacrilege and profanity. But the victorious cause was with
their opponents. The Areopagites were stripped of their timehallowed privileges, which were certainly not in Accordance with
the spirit of a pure democracy. 2Eschylus had been a vigorous
partisan of the conservative party, and took occasion in his
Oresteian trilogy to inculcate popular respect for that court and
the other decaying institutions whose power Perikles and
Ephialtes sought to banish or curtail. And the artistic effect of
the poem is lessened by the zeal of the partisan. Muller says
with truth, that JEschylus seems almost to forget Orestes in the
establishment of the Areopagus and the religion of the Erinnys.
Sophokles never forgot that his first duty was to his art. And
so far is the
above the atmosphere of controversy
and dispute which blurred the Eumenides of ^Eschylus, that it
was actually claimed by both parties as a witness to their views,
and was received by both with un mixed applause. We cannot
wonder at it. No play of Sophokles seizes with such over
mastering power the human heart, no play is so full of noble
thought, and in no play is the lyric element so harmoniously
blended with the maich of events, accompanying it as with the
sound of serene and divine music.
The plot is as follows :—Eteokles and Polyneikes have fallen
at the gates of Thebes in contest: Eteokles fighting for the
Thebans, Polyneikes, with seven great princes, against them.
Both brothers perish, and Kreon is made king in the place of
Eteokles. At- once he issues a decree that Eteokles shall be
buried with due honours, and that the body of Polyneikes shall
be left unburied and exposed. When the drama opens, Antigone
has just heard of the proclamation of the decree. She therefore
suggests to her sister, Ismene, that they should bury the body of
their brother. Ismene shrinks from the attempt, and is met by
the full scorn of Antigone, who goes forth, daring “ a holy crime.”
Shortly the news is brought to Kreon that his authority has
been defied, and that rites of sepulture have been performed
upon the body. As yet the offender is unknown. But this is
soon revealed, and Antigone appears, led in by the guard. A
�10
Sophokles.
great scene follows, when Antigone appeals to > the divine
unwritten laws against human ordinances. Kreon pronounces
her doom ; she is to be buried in a living sepulchre—a bloodless
but horrible fate, not unknown of old. The action is, however,
delayed by the entrance of Hremon, Kreon’s son and Antigone’s
affianced husband, who pleads for her. Yet it is not to Kreon’s
paternal affection that he appeals, but to the principle which
the new king has set before himself—the safety and unanimity
of the state. There are already murmurs, indistinct but deep,
heard in the city against the severity of the king’s decree.
Kreon’s passion and blindness grow more intense as he listens to
his son, and before the king’s fiery words Hee mon is driven away,
crying that his father shall see his face no more. From the
depths of this-darkness the audience are lifted by the strains of
the Chorus, who sing, “ Love, ever victor in war and as their
music dies away, Antigone is led across the stage to her lingering
doom. Again the Chorus waken to music, but it is music in the
minor key, and can no longer lighten or delay the growing
terror. Teiresias, the blind but infallible prophet, appears, and
describes the imminence of the divine anger for Kreon’s crime.
His prophetic utterances terrify the king, who hurries to undo
the wrong he has committed. In vain. Upon reaching the tomb
of Antigone, he finds her hanging dead by her girdle to the
vaulted roof, and is in time only to receive the passionate curse
of his son, and to witness his self-inflicted death. When Kreon
reaches home, bearing the corpse of Haemon, he finds that
Rumour, swifter than his laden steps, has already told all to the
ears of his wife, and that she has slain herself in anguish and
despair. So all the fountains of feeling, young love and parental
affection, which can never be long pent up, have broken loose,
and are all the more terrible for the unholy obstructions which
they have swept away.
The character of the chief person, Antigone, stands forth
in just and magnificent proportions. All that is beautiful
in womanly nature—nay, rather in human nature—shine
forth from that supreme ideal, a mind that sees the right,
and a soul that dares to do it in the face of death. Never had
love and strength been so combined upon the Athenian stage,
and the Athenian spectators must have experienced the same
feeling in gazing upon that representation as pilgrims did when
they were ushered into the presence of the Olympian Zeus of
Phidias. We have lost the one? we can still be taught by the
other. The heart of man has not ceased to be shaken by the
contest which is waged between temporary expediency and selfish
interests on the one side, and on the other the unchanging
laws of higher duty, for these laws “ are not of to-day, nor of
�Sophokles.
11
yesterday, but they live always, and their footsteps are not
known.”
The secondary characters throw the figure of Antigone into
bolder relief. Ismene, who knows what is right, follows the way
which leads to personal security. The grandeur of Antigone dwarfs
even the natural nobility of her sister when she seeks to share the
death she has not earned. Kreon errs through insolence. He is
wanting in the vision which has made the path of Antigone clear ;
he has forgotten the rights of the gods, and his own way leads
to ruin. Only when this ruin is full in view does he perceive
that he has gone astray, and discover that there is something
higher than love to the state and to his country—loyalty to the
great unwritten laws. Nor does the character of Hsemon, noble as
it is, disturb the unity of the impression which we receive from
Antigone. She stands the central commanding figure of the
group. And as she thus stands alone, so in her the one promi
nent feature is her heroic allegiance to duty. Other traits there
are, but they serve to bring out this one characteristic. She is
no unwomanly person, portrayed in rough masculine lines. Her
language to Ismene, if it seems harsh, is forgotten when she says
to Kreon :
ou rot tnwEyOetv dXXd avp,^>iXAv tcpuv,
for we know that these words come from the depth of her nature.
Then, when the work which she has set herself has been accom
plished, when the expression of her natural feelings can no longer
mar or render equivocal her devotion to the dead, she breaks
into lamentations like those of the Hebrew daughter, which show
how tender and womanly alife is about to be sacrificed. Once only
before has she shown any indication of the mental struggle
through w’hich she has passed, and that is when strung by Kreon’s
unconcern she breathes forth the sighing complaint, “ 0 dearest
Hsemon, how thy sire dishonours thee !”* The delicacy with
which Sophokles has treated the ove of Hsemon and Antigone
secures still farther the predominant effect. It is hard to imagine
such restraint in modern art.
The Chorus, of whose surpassing melody mention has already
been made, had certain peculiarities in this play. It did not, like
most choruses, consist of persons of the same age and sex as the
principal actor, but of Theban elders. Nor did it at once take
part with Antigone. Even here she is left alone. But by its
submission to Kreon it serves to deepen the impression of the
* The MSS. gives this line (572) to Ismene. Schneidewin has rightly,
and for unanswerable reasons, assigned it to Antigone.
Dindorf and
Ribbeck agree with him.
�12
Sophokles.
monarch’s irresistible power : and by not participating at once in
the action, it is enabled to rise to a higher atmosphere of wisdom,
which culminates in the choric song,
7roXXa ra Seiva k.t.X.
So, too, in its last songs, the painful instances of suffering which
are recalled added to the darkness of Antigone’s fate.
The effect of this perfect drama upon the Athenians was great,
and as has been said, universal. Although Sophokles had hitherto
taken only that share in public life which was the duty of
every Athenian citizen, they now elected him as one of the
college of generals, at whose head was Perikles. It happened to
be the time of the war with Samos, which had revolted from
Athens, and the ten generals with sixty triremes sailed for that
island. Sophokles took sixteen of these ships and proceeded to
Chios and Lesbos, to procure a further contingent. At the former
island we hear of him through Athenreus, who records the opinion
of Ion, that he was not able nor energetic in political affairs, but
behaved as any other virtuous Athenian might have done.
(Ath. xiii. 81.) This assertion probably had its origin in the
playful self-depreciation with which Sophokles spoke of his own
strategic power ; and it is quite possible that Perikles treated his
poet-colleague with a good-humoured irony, which he accepted in
the same spirit. This view is borne out by the story which
Atnenseus tells of Sophokles : that, having snatched a kiss from
a fair face at Chios, he exclaimed amidst the laughter of the
company, “ Perikles says that I know how to compose poetry,
but have no strategic power; now, my friends, did not my
stratagem succeed ?” It is certain, however, that, whatever his
power as a general, he did not lose the confidence and affection
of his fellow citizens ; for, five years later, he was treasurer of the
common fund of the Greek Confederacy. Afterwards for nearly
thirty years we do not hear of his taking any part in public life.
But it was no time to him of intellectual inactivity. During this
period he wrote eighty-one plays, which is almost at the rate of a
trilogy a year. If we remember all that this includes—the com
position and the instruction of actors for so many and so fre
quently successfuldramas—we shall cease to wonder that Sophokles
did not seek to meddle with statesmanship. And once more we
shall regret that so little has come down to us of that abundant
intellectual wealth.
The commencement of the Peloponnesian war, and the
death of Perikles, turned one page of Athenian history ; but
Sophokles to the end of his long life continued to live in the
spirit of the Periklean age. Ten year after the appearance of the
Antigone he published the (Edipus Rex. The general outlines
of the story are easily told. Laius, King of Thebes, and J okasta
�Sophokles.
13
his wife, were told by the God at Delphi, that should they have
a son, Laius would be slain by his hand, and Jokasta would
become his wife. Therefore, when their son CEdipus was born,
they determined to destroy him, and gave him to a herdsman
that he might be cast out upon Mount Kithoeron. This herds
man, however, smitten with pity, gave the child to a comrade
shepherd, who carried him to Corinth, where the boy was adopted
as son by the king of that city. Many years afterwards, CEdipus
at Corinth heard the oracle which had been delivered concerning
him ; but he was still in ignorance as to his parentage. Think
ing, however, that he was the son of the king of Corinth, he left
Corinth lest the oracle should come true, and travelled towards
Thebes. Upon his way he met his real father, and a quarrel
having arisen, a contest ensued in which his father fell and all
those who accompanied him save one. (Edipus then arrived at
the kingless city of Thebes, which was ravaged by the murderous
Sphinx. He freed the city from the Sphinx and accepted the prof
fered throne, and with it the hand of the widowed queen, little
dreaming that she was his own mother. For years the city was
prosperous, and four children were born to him. Then a plague
fell upon the people. All this was before the action of the play
begins. An oracle now declares that the pestilence is sent because
Laius has been forgotten. His murderer must be ejected.
(Edipus pronounces a curse upon the unknown assassin, and
sends for Teiresias the blind seer, if peradventure he may be
able to declare the man. Teiresias, enlightened by his art,
scarce dares to tell what he knows, and is evilly treated by
CEdipus. Then Jokasta complicates the confusion. She openly
asserts her disbelief in oracles ; for her own son had been destined
by these lying witnesses to marry her; whereas he was slain, and
she was wedded to GEdipus. Yet out of this security
“ Surgit amari aliquid,”
Laius was slain at a “triple way
terrible words that
set sounding a sullen chord in the breast of (Edipus, for
long ago he slew a man upon a triple way. One witness there
was, and he is now summoned. Meanwhile a messenger
arrives to say that the king of Thebes, the reputed father of
(Edipus, is dead. This is a gleam of light upon the eyes of
CEdipus, for the oracle has been proved false.
The mes
senger has still farther comfort. CEdipus need not dread the
fulfilment of the oracle at all, since he is not the son of the king
and queen of Corinth, a fact dimly hinted before, but now for
the first time clearly told. Then whose son is he ? A new pas
sion seizes the king, and he is determined to unravel the mystery
of his birth. The messenger is able to aid him in this, for he
received the king as a foundling at the hands of a servant of
�14
Sophokles.
Laius. All is now ready for the catastrophe, which Jokasta, more
quickwitted than her son, at once foresees. The witness of his
murder of Laius, who at this moment comes up, is no other than
the herdsman who had given him as an infant to the Corinthians.
The electric circle is completed, the spark shatters the divine
edifice of royal prosperity and the hearts of the audience, and the
oracles of the gods are evidently true. Jokasta has already
ended her existence; and (Edipus. unable to endure the sight of
his own misery and that of his family, puts out his eyes.
There are several reasons why this drama should be assigned
to this period, notwithstanding the absence of authoritative data.
The vivid description of a pestilence was probably written by one
who had witnessed the virulence of the Athenian scourge. Some
commentators have believed the chorus tt poi
k.t.X. to have
reference to the mutilation of the Hermse. If this be true, the play
must necessarily be of later date than that supposed above. It
probably refers to the reckless spirit of licence w’hich exhibiteditself
in Athens as a reaction against the popular superstitions of the
earlier period, and which eventually led to the profanation. The
drama is in fact a protest against the disregard of religion, and a
magnificent exhibition of the vanity of human attempts to cross the
decrees of fate. In this respect it stands alone amongst the plays
of Sophokles. It depicts the contest of an honourable and noble
character with a foregone destiny. To add to the interest of the
picture, the man who is unable to solve the riddle of his own
history, is the one who alone was able to unravel the enigma
of human life proposed by the Sphinx, and it is only when the
eyes of his corporal vision are darkened for ever that the organs
of his spiritual sight are unclosed. At first his house is the only
one spared in the pestilence, and all eyes are directed to him as the
saviour of the state ; yet it is his house which is the cause of the
plague. Then his own blind eagerness to discover the regicide,
the curse which he unwittingly imprecates upon himself, 'the
gradual lifting of the curtain fold by fold till he breaks into the
exclamation,
lov, toil, ra navr av
<ra<p7j,
are terrible instances of the irony which Sophokles is accustomed
to ascribe to destiny, but nowhere so powerfully as in this play.
Surely but slowly the end approaches. Now the progress of
events is delayed by some joyous choric song like the imp tyii>
ptavriQ dpi, k.t.X. ; now there falls upon the play some beam of
hope which makes us believe that the gathering thunderstorm
will be dispersed or break up into sunny tears and the dewy
delight of averted calamity. But the vain hopes and the vanish
ing glory serve only as preludes to the complete darkness of the
catastrophe, which, at last, suddenly envelopes the w'hole heaven.
�Sophokles.
15
It is not only modern admiration which the play has won.
Aristotle has taken it as the model of a drama, and its effect
upon contemporary minds must have been great. It is equally
admirable as a whole and in single passages. The choruses are
generally like the atmosphere of the play, of a lurid and broken
colour, so that we know not whether light or darkness will
prevail. The earlier choruses approach in thought and expression
to the language of Milton, or of modern poetry. Thus the description of the rapid deaths in time of pestilence, so different as
it is from the picture given by Homer (II. 1) has that touch
about it which belonged later to Dante.
aXXor
av aXXp irpoffibote airep
kv7TTEpOV bpvcv,
Kpei&aoy apatpaKerov irupoQ Sp/ievoy
Q.KTCLV WpQQ ECTTTEpOU .&EOIK
“ And one soul after another might be discerned flitting like
strong-winged bird with greater force than invincible fire, to the
shore of the Western God.”
It recalls, too, the half-mediseval, wholly beautiful lines of Mr.
Rossetti in his poem of the “ Blessed Damozel.”
i
“ Heard hardly, some of her new friends
Amid their loving games
Spake evermore among themselves
Their virginal chaste names ;
And the souls mounting up to God,
Went big her like thinflames”
Another passage (lines 476 et seq.) is more Hebrew than
Greek in its description of the Cain-like homicide.
ipoird yap vir aypiciv
vXav, ava r ayrpa Kai
vrerpas are ravpos,
peXeo^ peXeip ~6ct ygripeviav,
ra. petropipaXa yaQ dirovoapiliiav
pavreia' rd 8’ dec
ZUvra irepcrrordrai.
"For sullenly turning his sullen step, he wanders moodily
under the wildwood, or amid caves and rocks, like a bull, and
avoids the divine voices that rise from the central oracle of the
land. But they live, and are whispered around him.”
Yet this incomparable poem won only the second prize; the
first was gained by the work of Philokles. Time, in preserving
this alone, has reversed the decision of the judges. The reason
of that decision may lie in the nature of the play itself. To the
Athenians, who after the taking of Miletus could not endure
�16
Sophokles.
the scenic shadow of their loss, the unsoftened representation of
their sufferings in the Theban plague, and the direct promulgation
of the doctrine of irresistible destiny may have seemed unwelcome
and ill-timed. And the conclusion of the play is less relieved
than that of any other. It is not broken up into those short
cries and natural lamentations, with which many tragedies
close, but solemnly and sadly to the beat of throbbing trochaics
the figures pass from the stage like the muffled pomp of a
funeral procession, and the curtain rises upon a silent- and awe
struck audience.
It is far otherwise with the (Edipus at Kolonus. Like the
Rhiloktetes, it has a plot which depends upon divine interven
tion, and one in which the sequence of the episodes is not
absolutely perfect in connexion, though each episode is perfect in
its own characteristic beauty. After the events depicted in
(Edipus Rex, the blind king with his daughters remained at
Thebes, until he and Antigone were thrust forth by Kreon. For
many long months they wandered through Greece, whilst Eteokles,
the younger son of CEdipus, drove out from Thebes Polyneikes
the elder, who betook himself to Argos and gathered an army to
make him king again. At last CEdipus and Antigone came to
the plain of Kolonus, near Athens. Here, beneath the shade of
an olive-grove, the aged king sits down to rest, and here an inward
confidence tells him that he is approaching the term of his suffer
ings. This olive-grove is sacred to the Furies, and it is sacrilege
for ordinary men to approach it. The news reaches Theseus that
stranger has set foot within the lioly precincts, and he hastens
to the place. Before his arrival Ismene comes in haste to tell
her father of the fratricidal war upon which her brothers have
entered, and that Kreon is hurrying to carry back CEdipus, since
an oracle has declared that his presence will bring victory on
either side. CEdipus pronounces a curse upon his son, and reveals
his intention of blessing Athens by remaining within her territory.
Theseus now arrives, and not ignorant of the responsibility he is
incurring, assures CEdipus of a courteous and secure hospitality.
CEdipus in return acquaints him with the benefits which his
presence will confer upon Athens, and the calamity which will
ensue to Thebes. Theseus accepts with confidence the divine
privilege which CEdipus offers, and once more assures him of his
protection. If ever a situation made a supreme demand upon
an Athenian chorus, it is the present. We have come to the
middle point between the beginning and the end of the action.
The Acropolis of Athens, though as yet unblessed by the works
of Phidias, rises within sight of the beholder. Kephissus draws
her silvery threads through the foreground, and the hero-prince
of Athens, in accepting the charge of CEdipus, unites the new and
�Sophokles.
17
the old, and links historic to heroic times. The music which
shall not mar the harmonious suspense of this situation must be
subtie indeed. But the music of Sophokles is never of a nega
tive kind. It increases and enhances the dramatic feeling.
Accordingly it is here that we find the greatest choric ode of the
Greek drama. The undying chords of the poem which follows
raise the mind of the hearer to a level with the exaltation of
CEdipus himself.
Pahttttov, Rve, raffle ^(ijpag.
“ Guest, thou art come to the noblest spot
Of all this chivalrous land.”
But this lofty tranquillity is broken by the entrance of Kreon,
who endeavours to persuade CEdipus to return to Thebes. Upon
his refusal, Kreon has recourse to violence, and carries off Anti
gone, Ismene having been previously secured. Theseus however
restores his daughters to the blind king. The next scene brings
upon the stage Polyneikes, who seeks reconciliation with his
father. This he does not succeed in obtaining, and he leaves
the stage begging for the kind offices of Antigone in his burial.
The play now draws to a close. The euthanasia of CEdipus is all
that remains. The hour of destiny has come, and the Passing
of CEdipus—no man knows where or whither—completes the
purpose of the gods.
A question so debated as the date of this play can scarcely be
Answered satisfactorily here. Critics both ancient and modern have
connected it with the latest period of the author’s life; but there
are portions of the drama which seem to belong to an earlier date,
and. to have reference to that period of reactionary licence which
was marked by the mutilation of the Hermse. By its subject it is
closely connected with the CEdipus Rex, and there is nothing im
probable in the supposition that even if it were first produced after
the author’s death, it was begun whilst the subject of CEdipus was
fresh in his mind. And if any parallelism is to be drawn
between Sophokles and the great German poet, this work may
well be compared with the “Faust,” from which the summa
manus was so long withheld. The allusions in the poem itself
do not fix it to any definite date. ' All that can be said with
certainty is that it is subsequent to the Antigone; for while
both plays that have CEdipus for their subject contain references
to the Antigone, that drama has not a single allusion to the
action of the other two. Whether, however, we are to credit it
with an earlier or later origin, we sh^ild be doing an injustice to
the spirit of Sophoklean poetry if we were to Suppose that
political allusions brought down the drama into a realistic atmo
sphere.’ It is idle to attempt to connect the Theban and Athenian
[Vol. XCIX. No. CXCV.J—New Series, Vol. XLIII. No. I.
C
�18
Sophokles.
struggle which the poet mentions, with any special date.
*
It is
more profitable to win the freedom of that ideal land in which
are brought together the blind old king and the hero of Athens.
In some respects the (Edipus at Kolonus differs from the
other dramas. There is in it a perplexing mixture of manner
which suggests both a return to the style of Aeschylus and a
concession to the growing influence of Euripides. The self
completion and perfection of outline, which marked the Antigone
and the (Edipus Rex are wanting here. The drama is the
fragment of a trilogy of Aeschylean breadth ; it is rhetorical and
lyric in the style of Euripides. The real Sophoklean charac
teristics are not, however, absent, sweetness and power of
expression, lofty and graceful sentiment, and a perfection of
rhythm and vivid delineation. But it is a series of linked
scenes rather than a drama proper. Of scenes that begin with
the peaceful olive grove, and end in the euthanasia of the
world-worn (Edipus. Nothing could be finer or more effective
than that touch of the pen of Sophokles which paints, not
indeed the death of (Edipus, but Theseus, who alone saw it,
with his face shaded by his hand, as though to shut out some
stupendous revelation. To this history of (Edipus Sophokles
has given the only satisfactory and worthy conclusion which
was possible. In his life he was a contradiction to the laws that
regulate human affairs ; he remained a contradiction in his
death. Others passed by the grove of the Eumenides with
bated breath and averted faces—he found there rest and a
conclusion of his toils. The grove trodden by Bacchus, nymphtraversed and nightingale-haunted, was to him, upon whom all
tempestuous airs had broken, a haven “ windless of all storms.”
And here the troubled life at length ceases, and peace is found
at last. In the choruses of this play the poet’s love of Athens
finds expression. Many poets had spoken with enthusiasm of
the “ violet-crowned city,” but never with such beauty and
exalted passion as does Sophokles in the ode, zviirirov,
k.t.X.
The legends connected with it are probably false, but they bear
witness to the opinion of the ancients concerning'it. Sophokles,
unlike his rivals in the dramatic art, remained true to his native
city. No offer of foreign patronage could tempt him to leave
Athens. Aeschylus died in Sicily, Euripides in Macedonia.
There were many princes who would gladly have welcomed
Sophokles to their courts—indeed, there were many who invited
him thither; but he remained unmoved by their offers, and
never left his city except to do her service and to further
* Schneidewin suggests the i7F7ro/xa^ta rts Bpax/ia ev Qpvpois, mentioned
Thukyd. ii. 22, as a possible occasion.
�Sophokles.
19
aer interests. The anonymous biographer says that he was
^adrivaioTaTOQ, (t most enamoured, of Athens.
And the city
repaid his affection. The same biographer says, “In a word,
such was the grace of his nature that he was beloved by all.
It is unfortunate—it is more than unfortunate—that of the
personal history of the poet we know so little. Few and far
between are the dates that we can assign to the events of his
life. The seventeenth year after the supposed date of the
(Edipus Rex saw the calamitous termination of the Sicilian
expedition. Amongst the names of the ten elderly men elected
Probuli to meet the emergency of the crisis, we find that ot
Sophokles. If this be indeed our poet, we have here another
instance of the confidence and love which the city felt towards
the tragedian, who was now eighty years old. The seventeen
years to which reference has been made are important in the
history of Greek literature. They include the birth of Plato, the
exhibition by Aristophanes of the Knights, the Clouds, and the
Peace, but they cannot definitely be connected with any play of
Sophokles. Possibly the Elektra falls within this period. It is
at any rate marked by the best characteristics of the poet. It
.dispenses with the breadth of treatment which a trilogy allows,
and concentrates the interest upon the action of a single play.
In the trilogy upon the same subject which AEschylus exhibited,
probably thirty years earlier, the death of Klytemnestra forms
an episode of the middle drama, and the ethical problem of
filial duty in antagonism to divinely-directed justice is sketched
only in outlines which leave much to be filled in.
Sophokles treated the subject as follows :—During the absence
of Agamemnon in the Trojan campaign, his wife Klytemnestra
formed an adulterous union with AEgisthus, and upon the return
of Agamemnon, slew her husband and wedded with AEgisthus.
Elektra, daughter of Agamemnon, fearing foul treatment for
her brother Orestes, then a child, sent him out of the country,
whilst she herself remained, together with her sister Chrysothenis,
at Argos, waiting for the manhood and return of Orestes to
claim his hereditary throne. When due time arrives, Orestes,
under the direction of Apollo, comes back to Argos unheralded
and unknown. He is accompanied by his faithful attendant the
Peedagogus, who brings to Klytemnestra an account of the death
of Orestes at the Pythean chariot contest. The play opens with
the arrival of Orestes and his attendant at Argos. Elektra comes
forth to bewail the death of her father and the delay of Orestes,
and is comforted by such consolation Us the chorus can offer her.
Next, Klytemnestra, who has been terrified by a dream, appears,
and
angry altercation takes place between her and Elektra.
When this is concluded, the Psedagogus enters and announces the
c 2
�20
Sophokles.
death of Orestes. The grief of Elektra occupies the attention of
the spectators until the entrance of the disguised Orestes and
Pylades his friend, bearing an urn which contains the pretended
ashes of Orestes. In the interview between Orestes and Elektra
which, follows, a recognition takes place, and nothing remains
to be done but to effect the revenge. Orestes therefore enters
the house and slays his mother, and ffEgisthus, upon his arrival,
shares the same fate.
The work of Sophokles is finer and fuller of artistic power
than the work of 2Eschylus. The character of Elektra is un
borrowed, and forms a contrast to that of the Aeschylean Elektra.
She, and not Orestes, is the centre of the action, and though
not the actual avenger, is really the prompter and promoter of
the deed. In the Choephorce we are perpetually reminded that
the death of Klytemnestra was the work of the gods; Elektra
falls into the background, a weak, suffering woman, whose
strongest trait is love for her brother, and he, a mere tool in the
hands of the deity, after numerous hesitations and delays in
accomplishing the divine purpose, becomes a victim of madness
and terror. The Sophoklean drama is more valuable than the
Aeschylean trilogy. In the Elektra we have, as in the Antigone,
a distinct and noble type of character set in full light and drawn
in clear lines of power. Elektra is the personification of justice
and fidelity, as Antigone is of love and strength. Like justice,
she never wavers from her purpose. When all hope of the
return of Orestes has ceased and his death seems certain, she
herself undertakes the work which should have been his, for
vengeance must be done, and the house of Agamemnon must
be freed from the accursed and abiding crime. And when
Orestes reveals himself as her brother, she does not leave the
central position of the group. One short burst of natural joy,
and she is ready to take any measures which may bring about
the punishment of the murderess. Nay, she stands on guard
while the deed is being done, and to the prayers of Klytemnestra
her answers are stern and inexorable as destiny. With subtle
words of double meaning she leads AEgisthus into the prepared
snare, and then forbids parley or delay—dXX’ wq rax^ra ktzivs,
she says—and the house of Athens is freed from its long and
intolerable servitude.
The character of Elektra, as we see it in its final manifestion, is
as terrible as it is grand. Klytemnestra endeavours to justify her
owm conduct, and to represent it as righteous; but Elektra strikes
the key-note in her long nightingale lament, when she says,
ooXoc r/i' 6 (ppaaac, tpoc o tcrtlvac.
Chrysothenis, weak and vacillating, ready to condone the past
�Sophokles.
21
and enjoy the present, serves as a foil to the stronger character
of her sister. The same may be said of the Chorus,, which
although sympathetic, does not rise to the same heights of
sublimity or lyric sweetness as in the other plays of Sophokles.
Dr. Ribbeck sees here a reason for believing the Elektra to be
an early work. Yet it is not the lyric element which we should
expect to see failing in a younger work, and the conception and
delineation of character in the Elektra is of the highest kind.
The balance of proportion between the brother and sister is
admirably kept. Orestes is not the instrument of the gods,
though under their protection, but of Elektra. By her side he
must not waver, he must proceed at once to vengeance.
That portion of the ethical question which yEschylus has
indicated in the Eumenides does not come into the drama of
Sophokles.
The description of the chariot race has always been regarded
with justice as a masterpiece of art, and there is scarcely any
thing more touching in literature than the scene which describes
the recognition of brother and sister, and the rapid change of
mood, which, in broken iambics, passes from hopeless sorrow into
Overpowering joy.
In the Elektra, Sophokles presents before us a character,
which, as it were, wrestles with destiny, and conquers ; in the
Ajax we have a character ennobled by its very defeat.
Ajax was the most distinguished of the Greek generals in the
Trojan war, next to Achilles, and upon the death of Achilles a
dispute arose for the arms of that hero. The claimants were
Ajax and Ulysses, and the arms were adjudged to the latter. Full
of anger at this decision, Ajax determined to slay both Ulysses
and the Atridse, who had acted as arbitrators; but as he was
going by night to accomplish his revenge, he was inspired with
madness by Athene, whose aid he had previously rejected. In
this madness he fell upon the flocks of cattle around the camp,
and slew some and carried others to his tent, thinking he had
captured in them his rival and his enemies. When day dawns
his right mind returns, and he is overwhelmed with the ignominy
of his position and resolves to put an end to his life. This he
accomplishes by falling upon his sword. The Atridee command
that his body should be left unburied, but Teucer resists
them, and he is honourably buried. This drama is placed
here, not because it certainly belongs to this period, but
because its date is undetermined and undeterminable. Schneidewin and others assign it to an earlier period, make it indeed
nearly contemporary with the Antigone, both on account
of its resemblance in lyric measures to the 2Eschylean dramas,
and on. account of the rarity with which a third actor is brought
�22
Sophokles.
forward. But the Antigone sufficiently shows that Sophokles
had passed this stage. Others see in the speeches which follow
the suicide of Ajax an approximation to the rhetorical style of
Euripides. Those who adopt a middle course, will place it rather
in the long undated period, when the literary activity of
Sophokles was at its height. It is a poem in which the national
feeling of Athens was likely to find especial gratification. Of all the
heroes celebrated in the Iliad, Ajax was the only one that Athens
could claim as connected with herself. Salamis had been in
close union with Athens from immemorial time, and one Athenian
tribe took its name from Ajax. Herodotus tells us (viii. 64), that
before the battle of Salamis, the Athenians prayed to all the
gods, and to Ajax and Telamon. This connexion gives rise to
the beautiful ode
<j) tcXeiva 'SiaXap.tQ k.t.X.
The drama opens with a scene which breathes the frenzy of fierce
hatred and lust for murder that mark Northern poetry rather
than Greek. Yet it serves to set a stamp upon the character of
Ajax, and to indicate his disposition, not without a warning note
of admonition. The degradation into which Ajax has fallen is a
punishment for the excess of that self-reliance which forms a
heroic character, the first sin which he commits is insolence
(w/3pic). When setting out to battle, he rejected the pious prayer
of his father, that he might wish to be victorious by the help of
the gods, and added the vaunt, “With a god’s help, even a
man of nought may win the victory; but I, I trust, without
God’s help shall be victorious.” And in the battle itself, when
Athene proffered aid, he bade her go elsewhere, for he would
none of it. Such is the disposition of the man who finds too late
that he is powerless against the gods. But against disgrace his
unyielding mind still contends. The real interest of the drama
lies in the moral conflict between heroic independence and the
necessity of submission to higher authority. The motives for
submission are forcibly brought out, the agony of disgrace, and
the strength of domestic affection. The turning point is reached
when Ajax says—“ I, once as strong as steel, have now been
softened by the words of this woman as steel is softened by the
bath, and I shrink from leaving amongst my enemies, her a
widow, and my son fatherless.” Yet from the shame there is
now but one escape, and from that he does not shrink—death.
But ere he goes to the baths of ocean and the sea-marge, where
he may appease the wrath of the goddess by his death, he freely
acknowledges his error. Honour and authorrty are worthy of
submission. Snowfooted winter yields to blooming spring, and
dark-tiaraed night gives place to bright-crowned day. Life is full
of change, so he too bends to authority, fears God and honours
�Sophokles.
23
the Atridse. Another scene reveals Ajax about to put an end
to the life he can no longer honourably cherish. His last prayer
is earnest and simple—That Teucer' may first raise his body,
and give it rites of sepulture; that Hermes may grant him
funeral escort; and that Helios may rein in his golden car, and
tell the sad news to his aged father and mother. Then follows
the farewell of the Greek to the bright sun, a long adieu to
Salamis and illustrious Athens, and all the plains and crystal
founts of Troy.
It is perhaps worth pointing out that this drama has severa
Shaksperian peculiarities. As in the works of our own drama
tist, overflowing sorrow finds relief in a play upon words.
aiai, r/c av ~or we0’ wi’ £7rwrvjuor
TOVjJ.OV
OVO/J-Cl TOIQ EpLOLQ KCLKOLQ j
The speech already referred to (line 646), which describes in the
form of a soliloquy a moral crisis, is in the manner of the English
writer, and the final monologue of Ajax recalls the meditation
of Hamlet.
Minuter resemblances might be noted. The cry of the sailors
in their search for their lost chief—ttovoq Trouw ttovov <pep&c—may
almost be translated by the “ Double, double toil and trouble
of the Witches in. Macbeth.
But a more characteristic peculiarity of the drama is the sea
air which blows through it, and the number of nautical allusions
which must have been grateful to a seafaring people. Sophokles
never forgets the mariners of Athens in his eulogies of the city.
In the great choric song of the (Edipus at Kolonus, the crowning
glory of the land is “ the well-used oar fitted to skilful hands,
that leaps through the sea in the train of the hundred-footed
Nereids,” and here from the first we are thrown into sailor
company. It is to the “ shipmates of Ajax, from over the sea/’
that Tecmessa turns in her trouble, and it is they who search
for their lost leader at the last, though Sophokles with poetic
propriety reserves the discovery of his body for Tecmessa herself.
And to the sea the thoughts of Ajax turn in his despair :
“ 0 ye paths of the watery reach,
O ye caves of the sea,
O ye groves of the Ocean beach,
Where my steps were wont to be.”
By the death of the hero atonement for all his sins is made,
and his body is honourably buried by' the sea he loved.
It is a real satisfaction to arrive at a period when we can
attach a date to a play of Sophokles. In B. C. 409 appeared the
Philoktetes. Before this time Athens had passed through
�24
Sophokles.
the conspiracy of the Four Hundred, and had seen the recall
of Alkibiades. In the measures of the oligarchical body we are
told Sophokles concurred, not because they were good, but
because they were expedient. “ ov yap vjv aXXa /BeXn'w/’ are
the words attributed to him. The anecdote, however, may
possibly refer to another Sophokles. It is possible also that
Sophokles had little sympathy with the later democracy, which
may have alienated amongst others the mind of the poet. But
his poetry retained the astonishing energy and freshness of his
younger days. The Philoktetes shows no sign of the, decay of in
tellectual power. It is worthy of the first prize which it received.
The subject was not a new one upon the Attic stage. kEschylus
and Euripides had handled it before, and other tragedians
had aided in making it familiar to an Athenian audience.
Sophokles, while adopting the well' known mythical outlines
as the groundwork, succeeded in lending the drama a new
and powerful motive. These outlines are to be found in
Homer. (II. 2. 716). Philoktetes, carrying the arrows of Her
cules, joined the expedition against Troy, but being wounded
in the foot by a serpent, he was left in the island of Lemnos.
In the tenth year of the war it was predicted by a Trojan
prophet that Troy could only be taken by the arrows of
Hercules, then in the possession of Philoktetes. Accordingly
Ulysses and Neoptolemus, son of Achilles, were sent to Lemnos
to bring Philoktetes with his arrows to Troy. The play opens
with the landing of these messengers upon the island of Lemnos.
Ulysses tutors Neoptolemus in deceit, and urges him to gain
possession of the arrows by falsehood. Neoptolemus obeys, and
having persuaded the suffering Philoktetes that he is about to
take him home is entrusted with the arrows. When Philoktetes
discovers the treachery that has been practised upon him, he
endeavours to commit suicide, but is prevented. Feelings of pity
and compassion now come upon Neoptolemus, and he restores
the arrows in spite of the angry remonstrances of Ulysses. The
mission has thus nearly failed of its object, when Hercules de
scends from heaven, and bids Philoktetes proceed to Troy, where
he shall win renown and be healed of his sore disease. The
interest of the play does not centre in the person whose name
it bears, but in the person of Neoptolemus. It is his character
that Sophokles has brought out from the massive block of
tradition in proportions of exceeding beauty. Between Philok
tetes hardened by suffering, and Ulysses wily and wise, the openhearted son of Achilles stands forth a contrast to both. This
contrast of character, together with the dramatic development of
natural nobility in the person of Neoptolemus, is the work of
Sophokles alone, and bears his stamp. The minor characters
�Sophokles.
25
are powerfully drawn. Philoktetes is immovable in his love to
his friends and in his hatred to his enemies. The extreme
agonies of physical suffering which wring from him cries and
groans, leave him still tears for the misfortunes of his friends
and imprecations for his foes. He is, in the words of Lessing,
a rock of a man,”* a hero still, though life has lost all that is
worth living for, except constancy and submission to the gods.
The Ulysses of this drama is differently portrayed from the
Ulysses of the Ajax, and the Ulysses of Homer. He is brought
forward in an ungracious part, and one more in accordance
with the role he takes in the plays of Euripides. He counsels
deceit and is willing to attain his end by means honourable or
dishonourable. We must not however forget that this end is
the well-being of the Greeks, and that the means are poetically
justified by his knowledge that neither persuasion nor violence
will avail to shake the firmness of Philoktetes. The psycholo
gical interest lies then in the struggle through which the mind
of Neoptolemus has to pass. On the one hand, with the bow of
Philoktetes he may win undying renown by the taking of Troy,
but he must desert and deceive his father’s friend, leaving him
doubly desolate and deprived of the means of supporting his
piteous existence. On the other hand he must bear the bitter
reproaches of Ulysses, the loss of the promised glory, and the
failure of the Achaean arms, but he will have respected the
rights of a suppliant and his plighted word. How will the
struggle end ? The sincerity of a noble nature prevails. Already
the treachery inspired by Ulysses has been successful; the bow
of Philoktetes is in his hand, but he can no longer endure the
part he has been compelled to play: he leaves the path of deceit
into which he has been misled, and assumes the character which
he has already shown to be his. The intervention of the “ deus
ex xnachina ” serves only to j ustify what has happened, it neither
diminishes the interest nor interferes with the action of the play.
The psychological question has been already answered.
The Trachinice is to be considered a later work than the
Philoktetes. Otherwise it is probable that Sophokles would
have used the connexion that lies in their subjects. For the bow
of Philoktetes was none other than that bequeathed him by
Hercules at his death. The Trachinice tells the story how
the death of Hercules was unwittingly brought about by his wife
Deianeira. Many years before the opening of the play, Hercules
had slain the Centaur Nessus by means of his unerring and
poisoned arrows. As he was dying, the Centaur bade Deianeira
take of the blood of his wound and the poison of the arrow, and
* “Laokoon,” ch. iv. p. 34.
�26
Sophokles.
preserve it, for it would prove an unfailing philtre to recover her
husband’s affection if he ever forsook her for another woman.
When the play opens, Hercules has been long absent, but is now
returning with captives, the reward of his victorious arms.
Amongst these captives, who arrive at Trachis before Hercules,
is the beautiful Iole, and Deianeira is not long in learning that
she it is who now possesses the affections of her husband. There
fore she imbues a garment with the philtre she had received
from Nessus, and sends it to Hercules, bidding him wear it whilst
transacting the sacred rites of Zeus. The venom of the mixture
does not fail in its efficacy. It seizes at once upon the body of
Hercules, who is consumed with intolerable burnings. In the
agony of death he orders himself to be borne home, but the news
flies before, and Deianeira ends her life with her own hand. Upon
his arrival, Hercules bids his son Hyllus erect a funeral pile for
him on Mount Oeta, and after his father’s death marry Iole.
The drama concludes with the promise of Hyllus to obey his
father.
The opinions as to the value of the drama have been
various. A. W. Schlegel deemed it of far inferior merit to that
of the other plays, and many modern readers have agreed with
him. Schneidewin, a critic of weightier authority, places it ex
ceedingly high amongst the works of ancient art. In looking at
it, however, we must regard it as a diptych rather than a single
picture. From this circumstance it suffers perhaps when compared
with the other works by the same author. Nevertheless each
part has its own merit. In the first part the figure of Deianeira
forms the centre; in the second, the half-divine half-savage cha
racter of Hercules exercises a strange imperious fascination upon
the spectator. Nothing can be more delicately and finely
represented than the amiable character of Deianeira, the faithful
and forgiving wife. It is in the true colour of Sophoklean irony
that the sympathy of a tender nature which leads her to express
pity for the captive woman, draws her most closely to Iole, who
is the cause of her misfortune. And it is the very strength of her
love for Hercules which brings about his ruin and her own. The
first part of the Trachinice may indeed be ranked with the best
dramatic exhibitions of character. Nor is it deficient in those
cross lights and special excellences in which the best abound. The
self-devotion and feminine dignity of Deianeira reaches its climax
when she implores Lichas to tell her the whole truth :—
ph 'ttvQegQu.i tovto p aXyovsiEV av‘
c’ EtSevat tI Seivov ; ov^l ^ciTEpas
teXelcetciq dv^p eiq HpaKXrjg EyypE c)/;;
kovttii) tlq avT(Sv ek y Epov Xoyov KOKOV
TJVEyKa.T' ovZ' ovelZoq.
to
to
�27
Sophokles.
This is in the very spirit of mediaeval devotion, and almost
in the words of the “ Nut-browne Mayde
“ Though in the wode I understode
Ye had a paramour,
All this may nought remove my thought
But that I will be your.
And she shall find me soft and kynde,
And courteys every hour.”
*
For vigorous word-painting, the passage which describes the
virulent corruption of the poisoned wool rotting away into nothing
ness, is unsurpassed. (Lines 695 et seq.)
The second portion of the diptych is less agreeable to modern
feeling, since the character of Hercules seems little fitted for the
tragic stage. By his semi-divinity he is above humanity, by his
semi-brutality he is below it. Hercules suffering is most likely
to gain our sympathy ; for the picture of excessive suffering is
redeemed from the peril of awaking horror or disgust by the
consistency and firmness of Hercules. He meets death with his
spiritual strength still unbroken, and his self-possession when he
recognises his real position changes the grief of the spectator into
admiration of his undaunted fortitude.
The marriage which he is represented as proposing between
Hyllus and Iole, however repugnant to modern, feeling, was too
firmly an article of popular belief rooted in popular tradition to
be neglected in the drama.
Nor does Herodotus (vi. 52) deem the tradition unworthy of
notice, since it was from Hyllus that he traced the descent of the
Dorian invaders of the Peloponnese.
The link which binds together the two portions of the drama
and preserves the unity of the action is the magic poison of the
Centaur. In the first part we have the motives which lead up
to its use; in the second we see its effects. The same protagonist
took the parts both of Deianeira and of Hercules.
The long and illustrious life of Sophokles was now drawing to
a close—a life more enviable, perhaps, than that of any man
who has lived so long. He had seen the growth of the Athenian
state ; he was spared the sight of her last declining days. He
was the contemporary of all the great men who had made Athens
glorious ; and he was the personal friend of many of them. Ten
years older than Euripides, he yet survived him, and lived to see
his own son Iophon wearing the ivy crown. One pleasing anec
dote is told of the last year of the poet’s life. When the news of
the death of Euripides in Macedonia reached Athens, Sophokles
was preparing a tragedy for exhibition. As a last tribute of
respect to the memory of his rival, he himself appeared in
mourning at the head of his chorus, and the choral company
�28
Sophokles.
were without the wreaths which they were accustomed to
wear. The wife of Sophokles was a native of Athens and was named
Nikostrate. By her he had one son, Iophon, already mentioned.
By Theoria of Sikyon he was the father of Ariston, whose son,
Sophokles, reproduced the (Edipus ad Kolonus two years after
the death of his grandfather. A story related by Cicero, and
often repeated, asserts that Iophon brought his father before the
Phratores on the ground of mental incapacity to manage his own
affairs. There is much improbability in the story and we may
well discredit any tradition of dissension in the family of
Sophokles. Hardly, if the story be true, could the comic writer
Phrynikus have written, as he did, a few months after the poet’s
death, a lament with the concluding words—
KaXwg
eteXeudjct’
inrop-EivaQ micov.
The immediate occasion of his death is unknown, and various
accounts are extant. One tradition asserts that it was joyous
excitement at again winning the tragic prize. Beit so. kuXwq
S’ EreXEurr/crEv. In the year B.C. 406, the year of the battle of
Arginusse, Athens lost her two great tragic writers, Sophokles
and Euripides.
Our consideration of the plays will be more than imperfect
unless we examine briefly the religious views with which they
are interpenetrated and coloured. What was the religious
position of the mind that conceived and brought them forth?
Art and religion have often been combined, but never more
intimately than in the dramas of Sophokles. rsyovs Ss koI
Oeo([>lXt)G o
wc
ovk. aXXoq,
says the anonymous
biographer: “ Sophokles was beloved of the gods as no other.”
And the attitude of the poet’s mind was one of reverent, almost
superstitious, adoration of the gods. ZEschylus, no less than
Sophokles, believed in the nothingness of human nature and the
omnipotence of Zeus. For man he marked out a narrow path
beyond which he could not go without offending those unsleeping
powers which punish the insolence of men to the third and fourth
generation of them that transgress. This narrow path he named
crw^poo-vvz/; Sophokles called it tvKpjtta, reverence.
In the Elektra the chorus says to Elektra (1093)
“ Thus have I found thee not in prosperous case
Advancing, but of all the highest laws
Wearing the crown by reverence (suth/SEta) of Zeus.”
And in the same play, commending her language, the chorus
says (464)
“ The maiden speaks with reverence.”
�Sopholdes.
29
In the chorus of the (Edipus Rex (863) the doctrine of
tvatflua is laid down at length. And in the praise which CEdipus
gives to Athens ((Ed. Koi. 1125) the highest is that she is the city
where Reverence dwells:—
E7TEI TO y EVffefjEC
povotQ irap vpiv -qvpov avOpuiruv Eya>.
How comes it then, if this be a chief article in the religion of
Sophokles, that so many of his characters are found speaking
against the gods ? The number of characters who so speak is
not very great. Tecmessa accuses Pallas of working the bane of
Ajax (Ag. 652). Philoktetes doubts the justice of the gods
(Phil. 447), and again (1035). Hyllus (Trach. 1266) speaks
Still more harshly of their unkindness, and reproaches (1272)
Zeus himself. But it is to be remembered that Sophokles him
self does not always speak by the mouth of his characters. Their
verisimilitude lends a force and warmth to the personification
which is absent from the poems of ZEschylus. It is quite in keep
ing with the Sophoklean stage that his dramatispersonce should
not be without a tinge of popular superstition. Instances may be
selected. Thus, Teucer is persuaded that the sword of Hector
was fabricated by the Erinnys ; Hercules calls the fatal robe
which takes away his life a web of the Erinnys ; Deianeira is
the victim of a popular superstition when she sets her hopes upon
a love-charm ; and the guardians of the corpse of Polyneikes are
instances of a similar delusion, when they believe that the unseen
burial was supernatural.
But Sophokles, as he bad received from the hands of ZEschylus
the drama already formed, so, too, he accepted from him a body
of religious doctrines already in advance of popular belief. Nor
was the progress which he inaugurated in this line of thought
less striking than his development of the dramatic art—as far
as the liberation of human thought is concerned it was more
important. ZEschylus, as we have seen, attributed the misfortunes
of mortals to a judicial blindness, the consequence of previous
guilt whereby a man falls into greater sin and supreme destruc
tion. His teaching is the teaching of Eliphaz the Temanite ;
* Remember, I pray thee, who ever perished being innocent ? or
when were the righteous cut off?” (Job iv. 7.) Sophokles dis
tinguished between the guilty blindness and involuntary crime.
With regard to the former he held the same position as did
ZEschylus. When a mortal willingly, and with full intent, com
mits a crime, the Deity punishes him with moral madness ; he
is delivered over to Alastor. Yet for all the actions committed
in this madness, he, and none other, is responsible. It is so with
Ajax. He deliberately rejects the aid of Athene, and falls into
a madness from which there is no escape. It is so with Kreon.
�Sophokles.
30
He designedly neglects the honour due to the gods below, and
pursues a course which is the result of madness. The chorus
recognise the chastisement of a divine hand when -ne.y speak
Kreon as—
ayfjp ettiirppov c/,a ytipoc
<■ idspiQ enrEiv, ovic aXXoTplav
li-ry aXX avrOQ anaorcov.
and he himse acknowledges it (1272),
paQibv cdXacoc. ev 3’ ejjm
Kapa
Oeoq tot apa tote piya fodpoc p
£7raicrEr.
But from this frenzy, involuntary guilt is separated by a wide
interval. As Ajax is a striking instance of the one condition, so
CEdipus is of the other. The contrast between the two is sharp
and complete. CEdipus is presented to us as a righteous prince,
wise above the common standard of humanity, for he alone could
solve the riddle of the Sphinx—as god-fearing, for he never doubts
the oracles of the gods. When he hears of the death of his sup
posed father, Polybus, there is mingled with his first cry of
wonder a note of distress for the credit of the oracle.
(pEu' (p£i>, ri cfjT ay w yvvat., <tkotto~it6 tiq
Trjv HvdopayTtv EGTiav ((Ed. R. 966.)
The sins which he committed were all involuntary, and he
repeatedly asserts it.
TTEirovdor
egti
ra y spya pov
paXXoy 7/ CECpaKOTa.
Yet upon him descend the heaviest misfortunes. What is the
conception which Sophokles designs to express by this ? There
is n'o answer in the CEdipus Rex ; it is found in the CEdipus at
Kolonus. It is this answer withheld that so closely unites the
former and the latter dramas. In the latter, CEdipus comes
before us under the guidance and protection of the gods. They
have used him for their purpose, a divine one, an unknown and
mysterious one, but a just one ; and now, having drunk the cup
of sorrow to the dregs, he is their sacred and especial care. He
himself says (287)
77/cw yap tpoc ev'teI'ji'iq te Kai (bepivv
OV'fjO’lV aOTOlQ TO~l(TC)E.
And therefore his passage from life is gentle and kindly. He
is not, for God takes him. As his life has been beyond all others
wretched though morally guiltless, so his death has beyond all
others a fuller promise of happiness.
If we gather up the teaching of Sophokles upon this point, we
find —That the gods have a great progressive plan of the
�Sophokles.
31
Universe, which they carry out in spite of, or sometimes by
means of individual suffering. That every man who seeks to do
right is, notwithstanding his misfortunes, under their protection,
and will finally be rewarded according to his merit. That volun
tary guilt tends to worse, and lastly to ruin. This advance from
the religious position of JUschylus is great, but it leads to results
no less important. It leads, firstly, to the possibility of making
a consciousness of right and justice an acting moral power. Thus
CEdipus sets before his daughters (Gild. K. 1613) as a recompense
for their laboursand sufferings on his behalf, the consciousness
that they had done their duty and won his love. Elektra and
Antigone are penetrated with this feeling. Elektra says (352)
“ Be it my only reward that 1 am conscious of doing my hard
duty?’ The sentiment of Antigone is the same (460) :
“ That I shall die I know without thy words,
And if before my time ’tis gain to me.”
This teaching of Sophokles is a herald of the truth declared
by Plato, that the moral consciousness of right in a man’s own
heart is the measure of his happiness.
Secondly, and here we must touch upon the mystic side of the
religion of Sophokles, it imbues his dramas with a lofty spiritual
ism. It stands in opposition to the religion of rite and profession.
It calls for the spirit and not the letter. CEdipus (CEd. K. 498)
declares that the sacrifice of one pure soul rightly offered, avails
more than ten thousand which are not so given. It adds a sig
nificance to the sincere unspoken prayer, for the god hears it
before it is said. Klytemnestra will not utter her prayer (El. 637)
for the god knows her desire, though she may not put it into
words. And the voice of the god speaks within the breast of
man to guide and direct him. This inward voice brought
CEdipus to the grove of the Eumenides, as he himself says (CEd.
K. 96) and led him—adtKrov riyprripo^—to his last restingplace.
°
And thirdly, it finds a place in the religion of Sophokles for
the doctrine of the immortality of the soul.
This doctrine was only dimly present to the popular mind ; it
was no active moral power. The motive to justice and righteous
ness lay in the fear of punishment in this life—of punishment at
the hands of the civil magistrate or the offended deity. True, in
Hades the unholy were unholy still, and suffered a shadowy
retribution for their crimes, but the real punishment was in this
life. Sophokles recognised a purer motive for human action, the
love of right for its own sake, and for the sake of the divine
approval. Antigone can look forward to a long and joyous
Existence with the dead (Ant. 73-76), for with them she will
*
�32
Sophokles.
dwell for ever. And so the highest duty is the duty of living
in accordance with the will of the gods, careless of praise or blame,
reward or punishment, from any but Their hands, and with eyes
directed to that other life, where wrongs are righted and where
j ustice is done.
ETTEl TtXeI(i)V XPOVOQ,
ov c?t p apEffKELV toIq Kara tojv oEvdai>E,
ekei yap asi KEi.trop.ai.
The monologue of Ajax sets this point of view rstill farther in
contrast with that of fiEschylus. 2Eschylus has exemplified the
terrors of conscience with appalling power in the persons of
Klytemnestra and Orestes, but the passion which he represents
is rather that of remorse than that of penitence. The fear of
punishment is the moving cause of terror. In the ethics of
Sophokles, conscience leads to a penitent recognition of personal
guilt and a desire of amendment—
ypsle ce irait; ov yvcvaopsaOa triotppovsiv;
is the cry of Ajax when he seeks to atone for his crimes by a
voluntary death. And the same moral revolution is exhibited
in the case of Kreon. (Ant. 1319.)
Thus in the hands of Sophokles, religion passed from a nega
tive to a positive phase. It was no longer sufficient as in the
time of AEschylus to live a quiet life with no overweening self
exaltation or insolent rivalry of the gods, but heart and hand
must be alike pure, and both devoted to the service of the gods.
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, in his essay upon the “ Education
of Humanity,” has traced the process by which a single nation
rose stage by stage to fuller knowledge. The nation which he
selected was the Hebrew nation, but it is not the only one which
submitted to the divine education. In the works of Sophokles
we see the Greek mind passing to a higher stage. It is not a
final stage ; that can never be reached as long as humanity
endures, but it is one that could give strength and confidence to
minds that loved the truth. That it did so to the mind of
Sophokles himself we may learn from his works. The per
fection of restraint and repose which reigns like a summer
atmosphere in his compositions, is the result not only of a mastery
of diction and a supreme command of art. The knowledge of
the sorrows of humanity and a co-existing capacity of beholding
above alia ruling order, which recompenses and atones for all,
are the characteristics which give an immortal interest to the
dramas of Sophokles.
They reveal to us a man who was
indeed OeoQiXpq “ beloved of God.”
And however dimly his contemporaries may have understood
the humane theology which pervaded his works, they understood
�Sophokles.
33
time of his death the Lacedaemonians were threatening Athens
from Deceleia. The family burial-place of Sophokles lay eleven
stades from Athens, upon the road to Deceleia. When Lysander
the Spartan heard that Sophokles was dead, he granted a free
pass to the funeral procession, and the body of the great
tragedian was laid to rest under the protection of the Lacedae
monians. Nor were there wanting due tokens of respect at the
hands of his fellow-citizens. As a hero they honoured him with
a' yearly sacrifice. A siren was sculptured upon his tomb, to
indicate the entrancing sweetness of his strains, and Simmias the
pupil of Sokrates wrote his epitaph. Forty years after his
death, his bust was placed in the Athenian theatre, and the state
took in charge the text of his works.
And yet against the life of Sophokles there are those who
bring the charge of impurity and immorality. Such a charge
we can but dismiss with indignation. A few anecdotes retailed
*
by that prurient collector of slander, Atheneeus, form the body
of the charge. They are not worth the time that would be spent
in contradicting them. There is nothing in Plato, there is nothing
in Plutarch that can sully the pure lustre of the name of
Sophokles. Plutarch indeed relates (Perikles, viii.) that upon
one occasion Perikles bade Sophokles remember that a man
must not only keep his hands pure, but his eyes from beholding
evil. If there is in this anything more than a commonplace
application of a moral maxim, it is a testimony that at least the
hands of the poet were pure. Of his thoughts as mirrored in
his writings we can ourselves judge. Aristophanes amidst all
his baseless attacks upon his contemporaries, never brought this
charge against Sophokles; modern writers with less knowledge,
have had greater audacity. This, however, matters but little to
him or to us.
In looking back upon the life of Sophokles as a whole, perfect
and radiant, it is difficult to find in the range of literature another
like it. From his boyhood to his death, there seems to be
nothing to mar the beauty of his career. Germans find an
analogous instance in the life of Gothe, but the analogy does not
go far. Both Sophokles and Gothe lived long, and won that
favour from their countrymen which is generally given to the
illustrious dead alone. Each of them possessed the highest
culture of his time, and aided the diffusion of that culture. The
comparison cannot in reality go much farther. The life of Gothe
is open to us in its minutest details : we are compelled to be
satisfied with the merest outline of the life of Sophokles.
Gothe has dissected for us (not without vanity) his own
sentiments, emotions, and passions. Only behind the works of
Sophokles can we discern the calm and majestic figure of the
[Vol. XCIX. No. CXCV.]—New Series, Vol. XLIII. No. I.
D
�34
Sophokles.
Greek poet. Yet the dimmer personality is not the less
impressive. To something of the calm which belongs to the
works of Sophokles, Gotbe could, and did attain ; but it is the
same with a difference. Gothe by a sublime selfishness, and his
progress marked with the sorrows which he caused, rose into a
clear intellectual ether. Sophokles brought down the wisdom of
another sphere to brighten the ways of men. The one was a
child of earth who made a path for himself to the serene heights ;
the other was a son of Olympus, about whom the inextinguish
able glory of his birthplace shone for the delight and instruction
of the world.
P.S.—Two editions of Sophokles, at present only published in
part, will go some way towards familiarizing English students with
the spirit of Sophokles. The one is by Mr. Jebb, Public Orator of
Cambridge, the other is by Professor Campbell of St. Andrews.
As a portion only of each edition is before the public, it has
been deemed better to exclude them from comment in the body
of this paper, but this much may be said, that we can hope every
thing from the complete edition by Professor Campbell. His
essay on “ the Language of Sophokles ” is admirable and
exhaustive, and the notes and introductions to the plays already
published are full of refined and suggestive enthusiasm.
Mr. Jebb has set forth his views upon the genius of Sophokles
in a lecture recently delivered at Dublin, and since published in
Macmillan’s Magazine (Nov. 1872). This lecture is clear,
scholarly, and critical, but both the points selected and the views
expressed seem scarcely adequate to the subject. The four
manifestations of the genius of Sophokles 'which he chooses are :
First, the blending of a divine with a human characteristic in the
heroes of Sophokles. Secondly, the effort to reconcile progress
with tradition. Thirdly, dramatic irony ; and lastly, the por
trayal of character. The first of these manifestations is illustrated
by the cases of Ajax, of GEdipus, and of Herakles. Ajax, we are
told, is human by his natural anguish on his return to sanity; he is
divine by his remorse and the sense that dishonour must be effaced
by death. But surely his remorse and repentance are human
too. His mere cries of distress, apart from the higher feelings, are
ludicrous, and insufficient to link Ajax to human nature. Nor
does his nearness to Athene, as one who had spoken with her
face to face, suffice to give him a divine character. The heroes of
Euripides also speak with the gods face to face. The lecturer has
not here brought out a real manifestation of the genius of
Sophokles; he has united accidents and imagined them to be
the essence. The intense suffering of (Edipus the King, and the
marvellous death of GEdipus at Colonus are two conditions
�Sophokles.
35
through which the character of CEdipus passes, and are not
more especially characteristic than are the sufferings of Medea,
who is finally carried away by the dragon-chariot of the sun.
The genius of Sophokles is certainly not revealed in the union of
the superhuman and the commonplace; it is manifested by its
power of idealizing humanity. The superhuman element which
Sophokles introduces, forms no part of the essence of any
character, it belongs to the cycle of popular beliefs, which as we
have seen, he used for the purpose of verisimilitude.
Secondly.—The idea that Sophokles preserved the balance
between superstition and free thought, that he endeavoured to
graft progress upon tradition is misleading. In religious matters
we have seen that the advance which he made was both definite
and important; in politics he was the disciple, as he was the
colleague, of Perikles. If he shrank from the extreme measures
of a later democracy, it was because he clung to a system which
had raised Athens to her highest political efficiency, and because
he distrusted a variation which exaggerated and distorted the true
democratic principles. Moreover, he was justified by the results.
Thirdly.—The lecturer’s canon upon dramatic irony is only
partially true. “ The practical irony of drama depends on the
principle that the dramatic poet stands aloof from the world
which he has created.” In fact the question of dramatic irony
cannot be so summarily dealt with. The manner of Professor
Campbell in treating of this characteristic (pp. 112-118) is far
more diffident and satisfactory. Irony, as he says, is always
accompanied with the consciousness of superiority. But the
exhibition of this consciousness must be destructive of artistic
effect. It is better to refer the irony to fate than to ascribe it to
the author; it may, perhaps, be best not to use the word at all,
but to refer the effect which every one feels, to an artistic and
legitimate application of dramatic elements such as contrast and
pathos, which reach their highest power only when used by the
most skilful hands. .Mr. Jebb thinks that Sophokles delineates
broadly, and with a “ deliberate avoidance of fine shading,” the
characters of his primary persons, and seeks for the more delicate
touches of portraiture in the subordinate persons. The persons,
however, to whom he refers as illustrations must be spoken of as
secondary with caution. Thus Deianeira is of equal importance
with Hercules in the Trachinice; the same protagonist took
both characters. The real interest of the Philoldetes centres in
Neoptolemus. But perhaps the chief inadequacy of Mr. Jebb’s
view of Sophokles, a view which, as has been said before, is set
forth with the charm of a scholarly and balanced style, results from
his notion of the religion of Sophokles. In his opinion, Sophokles
is the highest type of a votary of Greek polytheism, and no more.
D2
�36
Parliamentary Eloquence.
He does not see in his hand that torch which was to be passed
on to Plato, and through him to other times. His religion had,
he says, shed upon it the greatest strength of intellectual light
which it could bear without fading. His art was indeed the
highest of its kind, and remained his own ; but the impulse which
he gave to a freer and more enlightened reverence may be traced
in the best of Greek literature, the works of Plato. It is
probable, therefore, that the edition by Professor Campbell will
be a truer guide to the appreciation of Sophokles, for the editor
has already acknowledged his obligation to Professor Jowett.
Art. II.—Parliamentary Eloquence.
1. A Book of Parliamentary Anecdote. Compiled from
Authentic Sources. By G. H. Jennings and W. S. John
stone.
Cassell, Petter, and Galpin : London, Paris, and
New York. 1872.
2. The Orator : a Treasury of English Eloquence, containing
Selections from the most Celebrated Speeches of the Past
and Present. Edited, with Short Explanatory Notes and
References, by a Barrister. London : S. 0. Beeton.
3. Select British Eloquence, embracing the best Speeches entire
of the most Eminent Orators of Great Britain for the last
Two Centuries : with Sketches of their Lives, an estimate
of their Genius, and Notes Critical and Explanatory.
By Chauncey A. Goodrich, D.D., Professor in Yale Col
lege, New Haven, Conn., U.S. London : Sampson Low
and Co.
4. Parliamentary Logic : to which are subjoined Two Speeches
delivered in the House of Commons of Ireland, and
other pieces. By the Right Hon. William Gerard
Hamilton. London. 1798.
5. Hansard. New Series.
ANY have been the writers on the theory of Government,
and the framers of model governments and paper constitu
tions. None of these, however, devised Parliamentary Govern
ment as it actually exists amongst us, or foresaw its rise. Yet to
all appearances it is the form of government which will
universally prevail. The English tongue bids fair to become
the speech of the greater part of the globe, and wherever an
English-speaking race is to be found, English parliamentary
M
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Sophokles
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Lester, Joseph Dunn [1841/2-1875]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 36 p. ; 22 cm.
Notes: From The Westminster and Foreign Quarterly Review, January 1, 1873. Includes bibliography (p.1). From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Author attribution: The Wellesley Index to Victorian Periodicals 1824-1900.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
[s.n.]
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1873
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
CT56
Subject
The topic of the resource
Philosophy
Classics
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Sophokles), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Language
A language of the resource
English
Ancient
Ancient Greek philosophy
Conway Tracts
Greek
Philosophers
Philosophy
Sophocles