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EVERYMAN'S LIBRARY
EDITED BY ERNEST RHYS
ESSAYS
MATTHEW ARNOLD'S ESSAYS
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
G. K. C H EST E R TON
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REFERENCE
ROMANCE
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FIRST ISSUE OF THIS EDITION
REPRINTED
19 06
19 0 7, Igog, IgII, 19 1 4
CONTENTS
.A.G.
I. 'fHE FUNCTION OF CRITICISM AT THE PRESENT
TIME I
National Review, N av. 1864.
II. THE LITERARY INFLUENCE OF ACADEMIES . 26
Cornlzi/l Mag., August 1864.
III. MAURICE DE GUÉRIN . . . 51
Fraser's Mag., January 1863.
IV. EUGÉNIE DE GUÉRIN . . . 7 8
Cornlzill Mag., June 1863.
V. HEINRICH HEINE . . e 102
Coynlzil/ Mag., August 1863-
VI. PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN RELIGIOUS SENTIMENT 12 7
Cornlzil/ Mag., April 1864.
VII. JOUBERT; OR A FRENCH COLERIDGE .. 14 6
National Review, January 1864.
VIII. A WORD MORE ABOUT SPINOZA ç 17+
MacMillan', Mag., Ðec. 1863.
IX. MARCUS AURELIUS . . . 186
Pictoria Mag., Nov. 1863.
X. ON TRANSLATING HO!l.tER .. . II 210
XI. NEWMAN'S REPLY . . 27 6
XII. LAST \V ORDS ON TRANSLATING HOMEa. . . 337
'\'11
INTRODUCTION
OUR actual obligations to Matthew Arnold are almost beyond ex-
pression. His very faults reforn1ed us. The chief of his services
may perhaps be stated thus, that he discovered (for the
modern English) the purely intel1ectual importance of humility.
He had none of that hot humility which is the fascination of
saints and good men.
ut he had a cold humility which he
had discovered to be a mere essential of the intelligence. To
see things clearly, he said, you must" get yourself out of the
way." The weakness of pride lies after all in this; that oneseH
is a window. It can be a colourcd window, if you win; but
the more thickly you lay on the colours the less of a window
it will be. The two things to be done with a window are to
wash it and then forget it. So the truly pious have always
said the two things to ùo personally are to cleanse and to for-
get oneself.
f'vlatthew Arnold found the window of the English soul
opaque with its own purple. The Englishman had painted his
own image on the pane so gorgeously that it was practically a
dead panel; it had no opening on the world without. He
could not see the most obvious and enormous objects outside
his own door. The Englislunan could not see (for instance)
that the French Revolution was a far-reaching, fundamental
and 1110st practical and successful change in the whole structure
of Europe. He really thought that it was a bloody and futile
episode, in weak imitation of an English General Election.
The Englishman could not see that the Catholic Church was
(at the very least) an immense and enduring Latin civilisation,
linking us to the lost civilisations of the Mediterranean. He
really thought it was a sort of sect. The Englishman could
not see that the Franco-Prussian war was the,entrance of a
new and menacing military age, a terror to England and to
all. He really thought it was a little lesson to Louis Napoleon
for not reading the TÙnes. The most enormous catastrophe
was only some kind of symbolic compiiment to England. If
the sun fell from Heaven it only showed how wise England
IX
Introduction
was in not having much sunshine. If the waters were turned
to blood it was only an advertisement for Bass's Ale or Fry's
Cocoa. Such was the weak pride of the English then. One
cannot say that is wholly undiscoverable now.
But Arnold made war on it. One excellent point which he
made in many places was to this effect j that those very
foreign tributes to England which Englishmen quoted as
showing their own mel it were examples of the particular
foreign merit which we did not share. Frenchmen bragged
about France and Germans about Germany, doubtless; but
they retained just enough of an impartial interest in the mere
truth itself to remark upon the more outstanding and obvious
of the superiorities of England. Arnold justly complained
that when a Frenchman wrote about English political liberty
we always thought it a tribute simply to English political
liberty. We never thought of it as a tribute to French
philosophical liberty. Examples of this are still relevant. A
Frenchman wrote some time ago a book called A quoi /lent la
suþeriorl/é des Anglo-Saxons 1 What Englishman dare write
a book called" What causes the Superiority of Frenchmen"?
But this iucid abnegation is a power. \Vhen a Frenchman
calls a book "\Vhat is the Superiority of Englishmen?" we
ought to point to that book and say-" this is the superiority of
Frenchmen."
This humility, as I say, was with Arnold a mental need.
He was not naturally a humble man; he might even be called
a supercilious one. But he was driven to preaching humility
merely as a thing to clear the head. He found the virtue
which was just then being flung in the mire as fit only for nuns
and slaves: and he saw that it was essential to phi1osophers.
The most unpractical merit of ancient piety became the most
practical merit of modern investigation. I repeat, he did not
understand that headlong and happy humility which belongs
to the more beautiful souls of the simpler ages. He did not
appreciate the force (nor perhaps the hUITIOur) of St. Francis of
Assisi when he caned his own body" my brother the donkey}'
That is to say, he did not realise a certain feeling deep in all
mystics in the face of the dual destiny. He did not realise
their feeling (full both of fear and laughter) that the body is
an animal and a very comic animal. Matthew Arnold could
never have felt any part of himself to be purely comic-not
x
Introduction
even his singular whiskers. He would never, like Father
Juniper, have "played see-saw to abase himself." In a word,
he had little sympathy with the old ecstasies of self-effacement.
But for this very reason it is all the more important that his
main work was an attempt to preach some kind of self-efface-
ment even to his own self-assertive age. He realised that the
saints had even understated the case for humility. They had
always said that without humility we should never see the
better world to come. He realised that without humility we
could not even see this world.
Nevertheless, as I have said, a certain tincture of pride was
natural to him and prevented him from appreciating some
things of great human value. I t prevented him for instance
from having an adequate degree of popular sympathy. He
had (what is so rare in England) the sense of the state as one
thing, consisting of all its citizens, the Senatus Populusque
Ron1anus. But he had not the feeling of familiarity with the
loves and hungers of the common man, which is the essence
of the egalitarian sentiment. He was a republican, but he was
not a democrat. He contemptuously dismissed the wage-
ealning, beer-drinking, ordinary labourers of England as
U merely populace." They are not populace; they are merely
mankind. If you do not like them you do not like mankind.
And when all the f'ðle of Arnold's real glories has been told,
there always does remain a kind of hovering doubt as to
whether he did like mankind.
But of course the key of Arnold in most matters is that he
deliberately conceived himself to be a corrective. He prided
himself not upon telling the truth but upon telling the un-
popular half-truth. He blamed his contemporaries, Carlyle
for instance, not for telling falsehoods but simply for telling
popular truths. And certainly in the case of Carlyle and
others he was more or less right. Carlyle professed to be a
Jeremiah and even a misanthrope. But he was really a
demagogue and, in one sense, even a flatterer. He was
entirely si cere as all good demagogues are; he merely shared
all the peculiar vanities and many of the peculiar illusions of
the people to whom he spoke. He told Englishmen that they
were Teutons, that they were Vikings, that they were practical
politicians-all the things they like to be told they are, all the
things that they are not. He told them, indeed, with a dark
Xl
I n trod uction
reproachfulness, that their strengths were lying neglected or
Inert. Still he reminded them of their strengths; and they
liked him. But they did not like Arnold, who placidly reminded
theIn of their weaknesses.
Arnold suffered, however, from thus consenting merely to
correct; from thus consenting to tell the half-truth that was
neglected. He reached at times a fanaticism that was all the
more extraordinary because it was a fanaticism of moderation,
an intemperance of temperance. This may be seen, I think,
In the admirable argument for classical supremacy to which so
much of this selection is devoted. He saw and very rightly
asserted that the fault of the Mid-Victorian English was that
they did not seem to have any sense of definite excellence.
Nothing could be better than the way in which he points out
In the very important essay on "The Function of Criticism at
the Present Time" that the French admit into intellectuaf
problems the same principle of clearly stated and generally
admitted dogmas which aU of us in our daily lives admit into
moral problems. The French, as he puts it in a good
summarising phrase, have a conscience in literary matters.
Upon the opposite English evil he poured perpetual satire.
That any man who had money enough to start a paper could
start a paper and say it was as good as the Alhcl1æZl1n,/ that
anyone who had money enough to run a school could
run a school and say it was as good as \Vinchester; these
marks of the English anarchy he continually denounced. But
he hardly sufficiently noticed that if this English extreme of a
vulgar and indiscriminate acceptance be most certainly an
extreme and something of a madness, it is equally true tllat
his own celebration of excellence when carried past a certain
point might become a very considerable madness also; indeed
has become such a madness in SOlne of the artistic epochs of
the world. It is true that a man is in some danger of be-
coming a lunatic if he builds a stucco house and says it is as
fine as the Parthenon. But surely a man is equally near to a
lunatic if he refuses to live in any house except the Parlhenon.
A frantic hunger for all kinds of inappropriate food lnay be a
mark of a lunatic; but it is a1so the mark of a lunatic to be
fast idious about food.
One of the immense benefits conferred on us by Matthew
Arnold Jay in the fact that he recalled to us the vital fact that
XlI
Introduction
we are Europeans. He had a consciousness of Europe much
fuller and finner than that of any of the great men of his great
epoch. For instance, he admired the Germans as Carlyle
admired the Germans; perhaps he admired the Germans too
much as Carlyle admired the Germans too much. But he was
not deluded by any separatist follies about the superiority of a
Teutonic race. If he admired the Germans it was for being
European, signally and splendidly European. He did not, like
Carlyle, admire the Germans for being German. Like Carlyle,
he relied much on the sagacity of Goethe. But the sagacity of
Goethe upon which he relied was not a rugged or cloudy
sagacity, the German element in Goethe. It was the Greek
element in Goethe: a lucid and equalised sagacity, a modera-
tion and a calm such as Carlyle could not bave admired, nay,
could not even have imagined. Arnold did indeed wish, as
every sane European wishes, that the nations that make up
Europe should continue to be individual; that the contribu-
tions from the nations should be national. But he did wish
that the contributions should be contributions, parts, that is, of
a common cause and unity, the cause and unity of European
civilisation. He desired that Germany should be great, so as
to make Europe great. He would not have desired that
Germany should grow great so as to make Europe small.
Anything, however big and formidable, which tended to divide
us from the common culture of our continent he would have
regarded as a crotchet.. Puritanism he regarded at bottom as
only an enormous crotchet. The Anglo-Saxon race most
certainly he would have regarded as an enormous crotchet.
In this respect it is curious to notice how English public
opinion has within our own time contrived to swing from one
p05ition to the contrary position without her touching that
central position which Arnold loved. He found the English
people in a mood which seemed to him unreal and un.
European, but this mood was one of smug Radical mediocrity,
contemptuous of arts and aims of high policy and of national
honour. Ten years after his death the Englis'1 people were
waving Union Jacks and shouting for "La Revanche." Yet
though they had passed thus rapidly from extreme anti-
militarism to extreme tnilitarism they had never touched on the
truth that Arnold had to tell. Whether as anti;militarists or as
militdrists, they were alike ignorant of the actualities of our
Xlll
I n trod. uction
Aryan civilisation. They have passed from tameness to violence
without touching strength. Whenever they really touch strength
they will (with their wonderful English strength) do a number of
things. One of the things may be to save the world. Another
of the things will certainly be to thank Matthew Arnold.
G. K. CHESTERTON.
19 06 .
.
xiv
MATTHEW ARNOLD (1822-1888)
Alaric at Rome (Rugby Prize Poem), 1840; Cromwell
(Newdigate Prize), 1843; The Strayed Reveller, and other
Poems (Forsaken Merman, l\1ycerinus, etc.), 1849; En1pedoc1es
on Etna, and other Poems (Tristram and Iseult, etc.), 1852;
Poems, with Prefatory Essay (Sohrab and Rustum, Scholar
Gipsy, etc.), 1853, 1854, 1857; Poems: Second Series (Balder
Dead, etc.), 1855 j IVlerope: A Tragedy, 1858; England and
the Italian Question, 1859; On Translating Homer (Three
Lectures), 1861; Popular Education of France, 1861; On
Translating Homer: Last Words, 1862 ; A French Eton, 1864;
Essays in Criticism, 1865, 1869, 1889 j New Poems (Thyrsis,
A Southern Night, etc.), 1867; 5t Brandan (Poem), 1869; On
the Study of Celtic Literature, 1867; Schools and Universities
on the Continent, 1868 j Culture and Anarchy (from Cornhill),
1869; St Paul and Protestantism (from Cornhill) , 1870;
Friendship's Garland, 1871; Literature and Dogma, 1873:
God and the Bible, 1875; Last Essays on Church and Re-
ligion, 1877; Mixed Essays, 1879; Irish Essays, and Others,
1882; Discourses in America, 1885; Special Report on Ele-
mentary Education Abroad, 1886; Civilisation in the United
States from Nineteenth and Murray's Magazine, 1888 j Essays
in Criticism: Second Series, 1888; Report on Eletnentary
Schools (Ed. by Sir Francis Sandford, 1889), on Home Rule
for Ireland (privately printed from two letters to the TÙnes,
1891); Poems: Collected Ed., 1869, 1877, 1
85, 1890; Works
(with Bibliography), 15 vols., 1903 j Letters: ed. G. W. E.
Russell, 1895 j Life: George Saintsbury (Modern English
\Vriters) j H. W. Paul (English 1\1en of Letters) j W. C.
Brownell in Victorian Prose Masters j G. W. E. Russell
(Literary Lives).
xv
CRI'fICAL ESSAYS
I
TI-IE FUNCTION OF CRITICIS1\l AT TIlE
PRESENT TIl'vIE
11ANY objections have been made to a proposition which,
in SOll1e relnarks of Inine on translating lIomer, I ventured
to put forth; a proposition about criticislll, and its import-
ance at the present day. I s:lid that" of the literature of
France and Gern1any, as of the intellect of Europe in
general, the main effort, for now many years, has been a
critical effort; the endeavour, in all branches of knowledge,
theology, phi10sophy, history, art, science, to see the object
as in itself it really is." . I added, that owing to the operation
in English literature of certain causes, "ahnost the last thing
for which onc woulù con1e to English literature is just that
very thing which now Europe most desires,-criticislll;"
and that the power and \ralue of English literature was
thereby Í1npaired. !\lore than one rejoinder declared that
the ilnportance I here assigned to criticislll was excessive,
anù asserted the inherent superiority of the creative effort of
the hunlan spirit over its critical effort. And the other day,
having been led by an excellent notice of \Vordsworth,
published in the iVorth British Reviezv, to turn again to his
biography, I found, in the words of this great Inan, whom I,
for one, nlust always listen to with the profoundest respect,
a sentence passed on the critic's business, which seenlS to
justify every possible disparageluent of it. \Vordsworth says
in one of his letters :-
"The writers in these publications" (the Rev
ews), "while
they prosecute their inglorious en1ployment, cannot be sup-
posed to be in a state of 111ind very favourable for being affected
by the finer influences of a thing so pure as genuine poetry."
And a trustworthy reporter of his conversation quotes a
more elaborate judgment to the same effect ;-
A
2
Critical Essays
"\Vordsworth holds the critical power very low, infinitely
lower than the inventive; and he said to-day that if the
quantity of titne consumed in writing critiques on the works
of others were given to original composition, of whatever
kind it n1ight be, it woulù be much better employed; it
would make a man find out sooner his own level, and it
would do infinitely less mischief. A false or rnalicious
criticism may do much injury to the minds of others; a
stupid invention, either in prose or verse, is quite harnlless."
It is alnlost too much to expect of poor hUlllan nature,
that a n1an capable of producing some effect in one line of
literature, should, for the greater good of society, voluntarily
doom hinlself to inlpotence and obscurity in another. Still
less is this to be expected from nlen addicted to the com.
position of the "false or malicious criticisill" of which
\Vordsworth speaks. IIowever, everybody would admit
that a false or malicious criticisn1 had better never have
been written. Everybody, too, would be willing to adllli
,
as a general proposition, that the critical faculty is lower
than the inventive. But is it true that criticislll is really, in
itself, a baneful and injurious employment? is it true that
all time given to writing critiques on the works of others
would be much better enlployed if it were given to original
composition, of whatever kind this may be? Is it true that
Johnson had better have gone on producing more Irene.r
instead of writing his Lives of the Poets? nay, is it certain
that \V ordsworth hinlself was better en1ployed in making
his Ecclesiastical Sonnets than when he made his celebrated
}treface, so full of criticisnl, and criticism of the works of
others? \V ordsworth was himself a great critic, and it is to
be sincerely regretted that he has not left us more criticism;
Goethe was one of the greatest of critics, and we may
sincerely congratulate ourselves that he has left us so l1luch
criticism. 'Vithout wa
ting tinle over the exaggeration
which \V ordsworth's judglllent on criticism clearly contains,
cr over an attempt to trace the causes,-eot difficult, I
think, to bt traced,-which may haye led \Vordswonh to
this exaggeration, a critic n1ay with advantage seize an
occasion for trying his own conscience, and for asking hin1-
self of what real service, at any gi\.en moment, the practice
of criticism either is, or nlay be nladc, to his own mind and
spirit, and to the minds and spirits of others.
TIle 1-1'unction of Criticisnl 3
The critical power is of lower rank than the creative.
True; but in assenting to this proposition, one or two things
are to be kept in n1Ïnd. It is undeniable that the exercise
of a creative power, that a free creative activity, is the true
function of man; it is proved to be so by man's finding in
it his true happiness. nut it is undeniable, also, that nlen
may have the sense of exercising this free creative activity
in other ways than in producing great works of literature or
art; if it were not so, all but a very few men would be shut
out fron1 the true happiness of all men; they may have it
in well-doing, they may have it in learning, they nlay ha\re
it even in criticising. 1'his is one thing to be kept in n1Ìnd.
,Another is, that the exercise of the creative power in the
production of great works of literature or art, however higb
this exercise of it may rank, is not at all epochs and under
all conditions possible; and that therefore labour may be
vainly spent in attempting it, and may with more fruit be
used in preparing for it, in rendering it possible. rrhis
creative power works with elements, with nlaterials; what
if it has not those materials, those elements, ready for its
use? In that case it must surely wait till they are ready.
Now, in literature,-I willlÍlllit myself to literature, for it is
about literature that the question arises,-the elements with
which the creatiye power works are ideas; the best ideas on
every matter which literature touches, current at the time;
at any rate we n1ay lay it down as certain that in lllodem
literature no manifestation of the creative power not working
with these can be very inlportant or fruitful. And I say
current at the tin1e, not merely accessible at the tin1e j for
creative literary genius does not principally show itself in
discovering new ideas, that is rather the business of the
philosopher; the grand work of literary genius is a work of
synthesis and exposition, not of analysis and discovery; its
gift lies in the faculty of being happily inspired by a certain
intellectual and spiritual atmosphere, by a certain order of
ideas, when it finds itself in then1; of dealing divinely with
these ideas, presenting thC1TI in the 1110st 'effective and
attractive combinations, n1aking beautiful works with them,
in short. nut it must have the atn10sphere, it nlust find
itself an1idst the order of ideas, in order to work freely; and
these it is 110t so easy to conlnland. 1"his is why great
creative epochs in literature are so rare; this is why the.re
4
Cri tical Essa)'s
is so rouch that is unsati5factory in the productions of man}'
men of real genius; because, for the creation of a nutster-
work of literature two powers must concur, the power of the
11lan and the power of the rnonlent, and the 111an is not
enough without the n10nlcnt; the creative Í)ower has, for its
happy exercise, appointed elements, and those elenlents are
not in its own control.
Nay, they are ITIOre within the control of the critical
power. It is the business of the critical power, as I said in
the words already quoted, "in all branches of knowledge,
theology, philosophy, history, art, science, to see the object
as in itself it really is." 1'hus it tends, at last, to make an
intellectual situation of which the creative power can profit-
ably avail itself. It tends to establish an order of ideas, if
not absolutely true, yet true by cornparison with that which
it displaces; to make the best ideas prevail. Present]y
these new ideas reach society, the touch of truth is th
touch of life, and there is a stir and growth everywhere;
out of this stir and growth come the creative epochs of
literature.
Or, to narrow our range, and quit these consideratio115 of
the general march of genius and of society,-consideratio:i-:s
which are apt to become too abstract and in1palpable,-
everyone can see that a poet, for instance, ought to know
life and the world before dealing with them in poetry; and
life and the world being in modern times, very compl
x
things, the creation of a modern poet, to be worth Dluch,
inlplies a great critical effort behind it; else it would be a
comparatively poor, barren, and short-lived affair. This is
why Byron's poetry had so little endurance in it, and
Goethe's so inuch; both had a great prüductive power, but
Goethe's was nourished by a great critical effort providing
the true nlaterials for it, and Byron's was not; Goethe knew
life and the world, the poet's necessary subjects, rnuch nlore
c0111prehensively and thoroughly than Byron. l-le knew a
great deal more of theIn, and he knew then} nl uch 1110re as
they really arc.
It has long seerned to nle that the burst of creative activity
in our literature, through the first quarter of this century,
had about it in fact sonlething premature; and that frOIn
this cause its productions are doomed, most of them, in spite
of the
anguine hopes which accompanied and do still acconl-
The Function of Criticism 5
Dany them, to prove hardly more lasting than the produc-
tions of far less splendid epochs. And this prel11ature-
ness conles from its having proceeded without having its
proper data, without sufficient materials to work with. In
other words, the English poetry of the first quarter of this
century, with plenty of energy, plenty of creative force, did
not know enough. This makes Byron so elnpty of matter,
Shelley so incoherent, 'Vordsworth even, profound as he is,
yet so wanting in con1pleteness and variety. \Vordsworth
cared little for books, and disparaged Goethe. I admire
'Vordsworth, as he is, so much that I cannot wish hin1 differ-
ent; and it is vain, no doubt, to imagine such a DJan
different from what he is, to suppose that he could have been
dilTerent j but surely the one thin
wanting to make \V ords-
worth an even greater poet than he is,-his thought richer,
and his influence of wider application,-\vas that he should
have read n10re books, among them, no doubt, those of that
Goethe whom he disparaged without reading him. But to
speak of books and reading rnay easily lead to a misunder-
standing here. It was not really books and reading that
lacked to our poetry at this epoch j SheJIey had plenty of
reading, Coleridge had Í1nmense reading. Pindar and
SophùcJes-as we all say so gliLly, and often with so little
discernn1ent of the real in1port of what we are saying-had
not many books; Shakspeare was no deep reader. True;
but in the Greece of Pindar and Sophocles, in the England
of Shakspeare, the poet lived in a current of ideas in the
bighest degree animating and nourishing to the creative
power; society was, in the fullest measure, permeated by
fresh thought, intelligent and alive; and this state of things
is the true basis for the creative power's exercise, in this it
tì.nds its data, its materials, truly ready for its hand; all the
books and reading in the world are only valuable as they are
heJps to this. Even when this does not actually exist,
books and reading may enable a man to construct a kind of
semblance of it in his OWIl mind, a world of knowledge and
intelligence in which he may live and work, this is by no
means an equivalent to the artist for the nationally diffused
life and thought of the epochs of Sophocles or Shakspeare;
but, besides that it may be a means of preparation for such
epochs, it does really constitute, if D1any share in it, a
quickening and sustaining
.tmosphere of great value. Such
6
Cri tical Essays
an atmosphere the many-sided learning and the long and
widely-combined critical effort of Germany formed for
Goethe, when he lived and worked. There was no national
glow of life and thought there, as in the Athens of Pericles
or the England of Elizabeth. That was the poet's weakness.
But there was a sort of equivalent for it in the complete
culture and unfettered thinking of a large body of Germans.
That was his strength. In the England of the first quat ter
of this century there was neither a national glow of life and
thought, such as we had in the age of Elizabeth, nor yet a
culture and a force of learning and criticism such as were to
be found in Germany. Therefore the creative power of
poetry wanted, for success in the highest sense, nlaterÍr1.1s
and a basis; a thorough interpretation of the world was
necessaril y denied to it.
At first sight it seems strange that out of the immense
stir of the French Revolution and its age should not nave
come a crop of works of genius equal to that which came
out of the stir of the great productive time of Greece, or ûut
vf that of the Renaissance, with its powerful episode the
Reformation. But the truth is that the stir of the French
Revolution took a character which essentially distinguishp.d
it frOln such movements as these. These were, in the maJn,
disinterestedly intellectual and spiritual movements; move-
ments in which the human spirit looked for its satisfaction
in itself and in the increased play of its own activity: the
French Revolution took a political, practical character.
This Revolution-the object of so 111uch blind love and
so much blind hatred,-found indeed its 111otive-power i'L1
the intelligence of men, and not in their practical sense ;-
this is what distinguishes it from the English Revolution
of Charles the First's time; this is what lnakes it a nlore
spiritual event than our Revolution, an event of much
more powerful and world-wide interest, though practically
less successful-it appeals to an order of ideas which are
universal, certain, permanent. 1789 asked of a thing, Is it
rational? 1642 asked of a thing, Is it legal? or, when it
went furthest, Is it according to conscience? This is the
English fashion, a fashion to be treated, within its own
sphere, with the highest respect; for its success, within its
o\..-n sphere, has been prodigious. But what is law in one
place is not law in another; what is law here to-day is not
The Function of Criticism 7
law even here to-n10rrow; and as for conscience, what is
binding on one man's conscience is not binding on another's,
the old woman who threw her stool at the head of the sur-
pI iced minister in the Tron Church at EàinLurgh obeyed
an impulse to which n1Îllions of the human race may be
permitted to renl3.in strangers. Dut the prescriptions of
reason are absolute, unchanging, of uniyersal yalidity; to
count by te1lS is the easiest u'ay of counting -that is a pro-
position of which everyone, from here to the Antipodes,
feels the force; at least I should say so if we did not live
in a country where it is not impossible that any morning we
may find a letter in the 7ïmes declaring that a decimal coin-
age is an absurdity. That a whole nation should have been
penetrated with an enthusiasln for pure reason, and with an
ardent zeal for making its prescriptions triumph, is a very
remarkable thing, when we consider how little of 111ind, or
anything so worthy and quickening as nlind, comes into the
motives which alone, in general, impel great ll1asses of
men. In spite of the extravagant direction given to this
enthusiasDl, in spite of the crimes and fonies in which it lost
itself, the French Revolution derives from the force, truth,
and universality of the ideas which it took for its law, and
from the passion with which it could inspire a multitude for
these ideas, a unique and still living power; it is-it will
proLably long remain-the greatest, the most animating
event in history. And as no sincere passion for the things
of the mind, even though it turn out in many respects an
unfortunate passion, is ever quite thrown away and quite
barren of good, France has reaped froll1 hers one fruit, the
natural and legitin1ate fruit, though not precisely the grand
fruit she expected: she is the country in Europe where the
petìþle is lTIOst alive.
But the mania for giving an in1mediate political and
practical app1ication to all these fine ideac; of the reason
was fata1. I [ere an Engìishn1an is in his element: on this
then1e we can all go for hours. And all we are in the habit
of s:lying on it has undoubtedly a great èeal of truth.
Ideas cannot be too n1uch prized in anù for themselves,
cannot be too much lived with; but to transport then1
abruptly into the world of politics and practice. violently to
rcyolutionise this world to their bidding,-that is quite
another thing. '"fhere is the world of ideas and there is tbe
8
Critical Essays
world of practice; the French are often for suppressing the
one and the English the other; but neither is to be
suppressed. A member of the flouse of C0111mOnS said to
me the other day: "That a thing is an anomaly, I consid
r
to be no objection to it whatever." I venture to think he
was wrong; tha.t a thing is an anomaly is an objection to it,
but absolutely and in the sphere of ideas: it is not
necessarily, under such and such circunlstances, or at such
and such a nloment, an objection to it in the sphere of
politics and practice. Joubert has said beautifully: "C'est
130 force et Ie droit qui réglent toutes choses dans le Inonde ;
Ia fùrce en attendant Ie droit." Force and right are the
goven.1ors of this world; force tin right is ready. Force till
rig-ht -is 1'ead)'; and till right is ready, force, the existing
order of things, is justified, is the legitimate ruler. But
right is something moral, and implies inward recognition,
free assent of the will; we are not ready for right,-rzght,
so far as we are concerned, -is not rea{
',-.until we have
attained this sense of seeing it and willing it. 'T'he way in
which for us it may change and transform force, the existing
order of things, and becon1e, in its turn, the legitinlate ruler of
the wor1d, will depend on the way in which, when our tÍl11e
comes, we see it and win it. Therefore for other people
enanloured of their own newly discerned right, to atten1pt
to Ï1npose it upon us as ours, and violently to substitute
their right for our force, is an act of tyranny, and to be
re.5Ísted. It sets at nought the second great half of our
maxinl, force till right is 1
eadì" This was the grand error
of the French Revolution; and its movetnent of ideas, by
quitting the intellectual sphere and rushing furiously into
the political sphere, ran, indeed, a prodigious and
mernorable course, but produced no such intellectual fruit
as the movement of ideas of the Renaissance, and created,
in opposition to itself, what I nlay call an eþoch of concentra-
tion. The great force of that epoch of concentration was
England; and the great voice of that epoch of concentration
was Burke. It is the fashion to treat Durke's writings on
the French Revolution as superannuated and conquered by
the event; as the eloquent but unphilosophical tirades of
bigotry and prejudice. I win not deny that they are often
disfigured by the violence and passion of the monlent, and
that in sonle directions Burke's view was bounded, and his
'"fhe Function of Criticis111 9
observation therefore at fault, but on the whole, and for
those who can make the needful corrections, ,vhat dis-
tinguishes these writings is their profound, pennanent,
fruitful, philosophical truth, they contain the true philosophy
of an epoch of concentration, dissipate the heavy atn10sphere
which its own nature is apt to engender round it, and make
its resistance rational instead of Inechanical.
But Burke is so great because, almost alone in England,
he brings thought to bear upon politics, he saturates
politics with thought; it is his accident that his ideas were
at the service of an epoch of concentration, not of an epoch
of expansion; it is his characteristic th
t he so lived by
ideas, and had such a source of them welling up within
him, that he could float even an epoch of concentration
and English Tory politics with them. It does not hurt
hirn that Dr Price and the Liberals were displeased with him;
it does not even hurt him that George the Third and the
Tories were enchanted with him. His greatness is that he
lived in a world which neither English Liberalism nor
EngEsh Toryism is apt to enter j-the world of ideas, not
the world of catchwords and party habits. So far is it from
being really true of him that he "to party gave up what
was Inea:lt for 111ankind," that at the very end of his fierce
struggle with the French Revolution, after all his invectives
against its false pretensions, hollowness, and madness, with
his sincere conviction of its mischievousness, he can close
a men10randum on the best Ineans of COIn bating it, SOine of
thei last pages he ever wrote,-the Thoughts on French
Affairs, in December I 79I,-with these striking words :-
U The evil is stated, in nlY opinion, as it exists. The
renledy n1ust be where power, wisdom, and infonnation, I
hope, are more united with good intentions than they can
be with file. I have done with this subject, I believe, for
ever. It has gh'en me many anxious moments for the last
two years. If a great change z"s to be made in human affairs,
the minds of men will be jitted to it j the general opinions and
feelings will draw that 'way. EvelY fear, e'l:ery hope will
forward it,. and tlzen they 'li}ho persist in oþposzng thz"s mighty
curren'! in human affairs, will ajpear rather to resist the decrees
of Providence itself, than tlle mere desl:
ns of men. The;' will
not be resolute and finn, but perverse and obstinate."
That return of Burke upon hinlself has always seemed to
10
Critical Essavs
n1e one of the finest things in English literature, or indeed
in any literature. 'rhat i
what I call living by ideas: when
one side of a question has long had your earnest support,
when all your feelings are engaged, when you hear all round
you no language but one, when your party talks this lan-
guage like a steam-engine and can inlagine no other,-still
to be able to think, still to be irresistibly carried, if so it be, by
the current of thought to the opposite side of the question,
and, like Balaam, to be unable to speak anything but what the
Lord has þut ill your mOlt!ll. I know nothing more striking,
and I must add that I know nothing more un-Engl:sh.
For the Englishman in general is like 01Y friend the
1f ember of Parliament, and believes, point-blank, that for
a thing to be an anomaly is absolutely no objection to it
whatever. I-Ie is like the Lord ,A.uckland of Burke's day,
who, in a n1en10ranàunl on the French Revolution, talks..
of "certain Iniscreants, assun1ing the na01e of philosophers,
who have presumed then1selves capable of establishing a
new system of society." The Englishlnan has been called
a political anilnal, and he values what is political and
practical so DUlch that ideas easily become objects of
dislike in his eyes, and thinkers "miscreants," because idea:)
and thinkers have rashly meddled with politics and practice.
'fhis would be all very well if the dislike and neglect con-
fined thenlselves to ideas transported out of their own
sphere, and meddling rashly with practice; but they are
inevitably extended to ideas as such, and to the whole life
of intelligence; practice is everything, a free play of the
Inind is nothing. The notion of the free play of the n1ind
upon all subjects being a pleasure in itself, being an object
of desire, being an essential provider of elements without
which a nation's spirit, whatever compensations it n1ay ha,'e
for then1, must, in the long run, die of inanition, hardly
enters into an Englishman's thoughts. It is noticeable that
the word curiosilJ', which in other languages is used in a
good sense, to nlean, as a high and fine quality of man's
nature, just this disinterested love of a free play of the mind
on all subjects, for its own sake,-it is noticeable, I say,
that this word has in our language no sense of the kind, no
sense but a rather bad and disparaging one. But criticism,
real criticisln, is essentially the exercise of this very quality;
it obe}"s an instinct prompting it to try to know the best
The I
unction of Criticis111 I I
that is known and thought in the world, irrespectively of
practice, politics, anà c,-crything of the kind; and to value
knowledge and thought as thc}' approach this best, without
the intrusion of any other considerations whatever. 1-'his is
an instinct for which there is, I think, little original S}'In-
pathy in the practical English nature, and what there was of
it has undergone a long benumbing period of check and
suppression in the epoch of concentration wh
ch followed
tbe French Revolution.
nut epochs of concentration cannot well endure for ever;
epochs of expansion, in the due course of things, follow
them. Such an epoch of expansion seems to be opening in
this country. In the first place all danger of a hostile
forcible pressure of foreign ideas upon our practice has long
disappeared; like the traveller in the fable, therefore, we
begin to wear our cloak a little more loosely. Then, with
a long peace the ideas of Europe steal gradually and ami-
cably in, and mingle, though in infinitesinlally small
quantities at a time, with our own notions. 1'hen, too, in
spite of all that is said about the absorbing and brutalising
influence of our passionate material progress, it seems to me
indisputabìe that this progress is likely, thOUg
l not certain,
to lead in the end to an apparition of intellectual life; and
that nlan, after he has nlade himself perfectly comfortable
and has now to deten11ine what to do with himself next,
may begin to remelllber that he has a mind, and that the
mind [nay be I11ade the source of great pleasure. I grant
it is nlainly the privilege of faith, at present, to discern this
end to our railways, our business, and our fortune-nlaking;
but we shall see if, here as elsewhere, faith is not in the
eud the true prophet. Our ease, our travelling, and our
un bounded liberty to hold just as hard and securely as we
plcase to the practice to which our notions have given birth>>
all tend to beget an inclination to deal a little more freely
with these notions themselves, to canvass them a little, to
penetrate a little into their real nature. Flutterings of
curiosity, in the foreign sense of the word, appear Rrnongst
us, and it is in these that criticism lnust look to fInd its
account. Criticism first; a tin1e of true creative activity,
perhaps,-which, as I have said, must inevitably be pre-
ceded amongst us by a time of criticism,-hereafter, when
criticism has done its work.
12
Critical Essays
It is of the last importance that English criticism should
clearly discern what rules for its course, in order to avail
itself of the field now opening to it, and to produce fruit for
the future, it ought to take. 1'he rules may be given in
one word; by being disinterested. And how is it to be
disinterested? By keeping aloof from practice; by
resolutely following the law of its own nature, which is to be
a free play of the mind on all subjects which it touches; by
steadily refusing to lend itself to any of those ulterior,
political, practical considerations abo:Jt ideas, which plenty
of people will be sure to attach to then], which perhaps
ought often to be attached to them, which in this country at
any rate are certain to be attached to then1 quite sufficiently,
but which criticisnl has really nothing to do with. Its
business is, as 1 have said, simply to know the best that is
known and thought in the world, and by in its turn making
this known, to create a current of true and fresh ideas. Its
business is to do this with inflexible honesty, with due
ability; but its business is to do no more, and to leave alone
all questions of practical consequences and applications,
questions which will never fail to have due pron1Ínence given
to them. Else criticism, besides being really false to its
own nature, n1erely continues in the old rut which it has
hitherto followed in this country, and will certainly Inis5 th
chance now given to it. For what is at present the bane of
criticisG1 in this country? It is that practical considerations
cling to it and stifle it; it subserves interests not its o'l.rn;
our organs of criticism are organs of men and parties having
practical ends to serve, and with then1 those practical ends
are the first thing and the play of n1Ïnd the second; so
n1ucb play of mind as is conlpatible with the prosecution of
those practical ends is all that is wanted. An organ like the
I?evue des Deux .AIondes, having for its main function to
understand and utter the best that is known and thought in
the world, exi.sting, it n1ay be said, as just an organ for a
free play of the nlÍnd, we have not; but we have the
EdiJlburgh RevieuI, existing as an organ of the old 'Vhigs,
and for as n1 uch play of the Inind as may suit its being
that; we have the Quarterly Revie'iv, existing as an organ
of the rfories, and for as much play of mind as n]ay suit its
being that; we have the British Quarterly Re'l)ieuJ, existing
as :ton organ of the political Dissenters, and for as much
The Function of Criticism 13
play of mind as 11lay suit its being that; we have the Times,
exihting as an organ of the COnll1l0n, satisfied, well-to-do
Englishman, and for as much play of mind as Dla}' suit its
being that. And so on through all the ,.arious factions,
political and reli 6 rjous, of our society; every faction has, as
such, its organ of criticism, but the notion of cornbining all
fractions in the common pleasure of a free disinterested play
of rnind 111eets with no favour. Directly this play of mind
wants to have more scope, and to forget the pressure of
practical considerations a little, it is checked, it is made to
feel the chain. \Ve saw this the other day in the extinction,
so much to be regretted, of the .FIo111e and Foreign RevÙ'iv;
perhaps in no organ of criticisD1 in this country was there
so much knowledge, so much play of Dlind; but these could
not save it. The DZlblin Review subonlinates play of
rnind to the practical business of Roman Catholicisnl, and
lives. It must needs be that men should act in sects and
parties, that each of these sects and parties should have its
organ, and should make this organ subserve the interests
of its action; but it would be well, too, that there should be
a criticisnl, not the minister of these interests, not their
enemy, but absolutely and entircly independent of them.
No other criticis1l1 will ever attain any real authority or nlake
any real way towards its end,-the creating a current of true
and fresh ideas.
It is because criticisD1 has so little kept in the pure
intellectual sphere, has so little detached itself from practice,
has been so directly polemical and controyersial, that it has
so ill acconlplished, in this country, its best spiritual work;
which is to keep man from a self-satisfaction which is
retarding and yulgarising, to lead him towards perfection, by
n1aking his mind dwell uron what is excellent in itself, and
the absolute beauty and fitness of things. A polemical
practical criticism makes men blind even to the ideal in1-
perfection of their practice, makes them willingly assert its
ideal perfection, in order the better to secure it against
attack; and clearly this is narrowing and babeful for thein.
If they were reassured on the practical side, speculative
considerations of ideal perfection they might be brought to
entertain, and thcir spiritual horizon would thus gradually
widen. IHr .Adderley says to the \" arwickshire fanners :-
"Talk of the in1provement of breed! 'Yhy, the race
14
Critical Essays
we ourselves represent, the men and women, the old
i\.nglo-Saxon race, arc the best breed in the whole world.
. . . 1
he absence of a too enervating climate, too
unclouded skies, and a too luxurious nature, has produced
so vigorous a race of people, and has renùered us so
superior to all the world.))
lVlr Roebuck says to the Sheffield cutlers:-
U I look around me and ask what is the state of England?
Is not property safe? Is not every man able to say what
he likes? Can you not walk from one end of England to
the other in perfect security? I ask you whether, the
world over or in past history, there is anything like it?
Nothing. I pray that our unrivalled happiness may last."
Now obviously there is a peril for poor human nature in
words and thoughts of such exuberant self-satisfaction,
until we find ourselves safe in the streets of the Celestial
City.
U Das wenige verschwinc1et leicht clem Blicke
Der vorwärts sieht, wie viel noch übrig bleibt-
says Goethe; U the little that is done seen1S nothing whc:n
we look forward and see how much we have yet to do."
Clearly this is a better line of reflection for weak humanity,
so long as it remains on this earthly field of labour and
trial. But neither 1fr Adderley nor Mr Roebuck is by
nature inaccessible to considerations of this sort. They
only lose sight of them owing to the controversial life we all
lead, and the practical forn1 which all speculation takes
with us. They have in view opponents whose aim is not
ideal, but practical; and in their zeal to uphold their own
practice against these innovators, they go so far as even to
attribute to this practice an ideal perfection. Somebody
has been wanting to introduce a six-pound franchise, 01 to
abolish church-rates, or to collect agricultural statistics by
force, or to diminish local self-government. How natural,
in reply to such proposals, very like]y improper or ill-timed,
to go a little beyond the mark and to say stoutly, "Such a
race of people as we stand, so superior to all the world!
1-'he old Anglo-Saxon race, the best breed in the whole
world! I pray that our unrivalled happiness may last!
I ask you whether, the world over or in past history, there
is anything like it ? " And so long as criticism answers this
The Function of Criticisn1 15
dithyramb by insisting that the old Anglo-Saxon race
would be still more superior to all others if it had no
church-rates, or that our unrivalled happiness would last
yet longer with a six-pound franchise, so long will the
strain, "The best breed in the whole world!" swell louder
and louder, everything ideal and refining will be lost out of
sight, and both the assailed and their critics will ren1ain in
a sphere, to say the truth, perfectly unintelligent, a sphere in
which spiritual progression is ilnpossible. But let criticisnl
leave church-rates and the franchise alone, and in the most
candid spirit, without a single lurking thought of practical
innovation, confront with our dithyramb this paragraph on
which I stun1bled in a newspaper immediately after reading
l\lr Roebuck ;-
" A shocking child murder has just been committed at
Nottingham. A girl nmned 'Vragg left the workhouse there
on Saturday n10rning with her young illegitimate child.
The child was soon afterwards found dead on l\lapperly
Hills, having been strangled. 'Vragg is in custody."
Nothing but that; but, in juxtaposition with the absolute
eulogies of :r"lr Adderley and l\Ir Roebuck, how eloquent,
how suggestive are those few lines! H Our old Anglo-
Saxon breed, the best in the whole world! "-how much
that is harsh and ill-favoured there is in this best! IVragg!
If we are to talk of ideal perfection, of "the best in the
whole world," has anyone reflected what a touch of gross-
ness in our race, what an original shortcoming in the n10re
delicate spiritual perceptions, is shown by the natural growth
amongst us of such hideous nan1es,-I-Iigginbottom, Stiggins,
Bugg ! In Ionia and Attica they were luckier in this
respect than "the best race in the world;" by the Ilissus
there was no 'Vr
.
g, poor thing! And "our unrivalled
happiness; "-what an element of grÏ1nness, bareness, and
hideousness nlixes with it Rnd blurs it; the workhouse, the
disl11al l\iapperly Hills,-how disn1al those who have seen
then1 will ren1en1ber ;-the glool11, the slnoke, the cold, the
strangled illegitin1ate child! "I ask you v'bether, the world
over or in past history, there is anything like it ? " It may
be so, one is inclined to answer; but at any rate, in that
case, the world is very much to be pitied. And the final
touch,-short, bleak and inhuman: IVragg z"s Ùz CZtslod)'.
The sex lost in the confusion of our unrivalled happiness j
16
Critical Essa)?s
or shall I say, the superfluous Christi3.n name lopped ofT by
the straightforward vigour of our old Anglo-Saxon breed?
There is profit for the spirit in such contrasts as this i
criticism serves the cause of perfection by establishing then1.
By eluding sterile conflict, by refusing to renlaÎn in the
sphere where alone narrow and relative conceptions have
any worth and validity, criticism may din1Ìnish its nlonlentary
inlportance, but only in this way has it a chance of gaining
admittance for those wider and more perfect conceptions to
which all its duty is really owed. Mr Roebuck will have a
poor opinion of an adversary who replies to his defiant songs
of triumph only by murnluring under his breath, 1Vrag({ is
in clIstod.y,. but in no other way will these songs of triunlph be
inèuced gradually to moderate themselves, to get rid of what
in them is excessive and offensive, and to fall into a softer
and truer key.
It will be said that it is a veïy subtle and indirect action
which I am thus prescribing for criticism, and that, by
embracing in this nlanner the Indian virtue of detachment
and abandoning the sphere of practical life, it condemns itself
to a slow and obscure work. Slow and obscure it may be,
but it is the only proper work of criticism. The mass of
n1ankind will never have any ardent zeal for seeing things as
they are; very inadequate ideas win always satisfy them.
On these inadequate ideas reposes, and In ust repose, the
general practice of the world. That is as much as saying that
whoever sets himself to see things as they are will find
hitnself one of a very small circle; but it is only by this
sffi3.11 cirde resolutely doing its own work that adequate
ideas will ever get current at all. The rush and roar
of practical life will always have a dizzying and attracting
effect upon the most collected spectator, and tend to draw
hinl into its vortex; most of all will this be the case where
that life is so powerful as it is in England. Dut it is only by
rel11aining collected, and refusing to lend himself to the
point of view of the practical man, that the critic can
do the practical man any service; and it is only by the
greatest sincerity in pursuing his own course, and by at last
convincing even the practical man of his sincerity, that he
CfU1 escape l11isunderstandings which perpetually threaten
hin1.
:F'or the practical man is not apt for tine distinctions, and
The Function of Criticisn1 17
yet in these distinctions truth and the highest culture greatly
find their account. But it is not easy to lead a practical
man,-unless you reassure him as to your practical intentions,
you have no chance of leading hin1,-to see that a thing
which he has always been used to look at from one side
only, which he greatly values, and which, looked at from
that side, more than deserves, perhaps, all the prizing and
admiring which he bestows upon it,-that this thing, looked
at from another side, may appear much less beneficent and
beautiful, and yet retain all its claims to our practical
allegiance. '''here shall we find language innocent enough,
how shall we n)ake the spotless purity of our intentions
evident enough, to enable us to say to the political English-
rnan that the British constitution itself, which, seen from
the practical side, looks such a magnificent organ of progress
and virtue, seen from the speculative side,-with its
compromises, its love of facts, its horror of theory, its
studied avoidance of clear thoughts,-that, seen fron1 this
side, our august constitution sometimes looks,-forgive me,
shade of Lord Son1ers !-a colossal machine for the manu-
facture of Philistines? HOl\. is Cobbett to say this and not
be misunderstood, blackened as he is with the smoke of a
Ijfelong conflict in the field of political practice? how
is
Ir Carlyle to say it and not be n1isunderstood, after his
furious raid into this field with his Latter-day Pamþhlets 1
how is 1fr Ruskin, after his pugnacious political economy?
I say, the critic must keep out of the region of immediate
practice in the political, social, humanitarian sphere, if
he wants to n1ake a beginning for that more free speculative
treatment of things, which may perhaps one day nlake its
benefits felt even in this spher
, but in a natural and thence
irresistible n1anncr.
Do what he will, however, the critic will still remain
exposed to frequent misunderstandings, and nowhere so
much as in this country. For here people are particularly
indisposed even to comprehend that without this free dis-
interested treatment of things, truth and the highest culture
are out of the question. So immersed are they in practical
life, so accustomed to take all their notions from this life
and its processes, that they are apt to think that truth and
culture themselves can be reached by the processes of this
life, and that it is an impertinent singularity to think of
18
Cri tical Essays
reaching theln in any other. " \Ve are all terræ jilzi
J' crìe:!
their eloquent advocate; "all Philistines together. Away
with the notion of proceeding by any other way than the
,"yay dear to the Philistines; let us have a social move-
ment, let us organise and combine a party to pursue truth
jlnd new thought, let us call it the liberal parIJ', and let us
all stick to each other, and back each other up. Let us
have no nonsense about independent criticism, and in-
tellectual delicacy, and the few and the many. Don't let
us trouble ourselves about foreign thought; we shall invent
the whole thing for ourselves as we go along. If one of us
speaks well, applaud hinl; if one of us speaks ill, applaud
hinl too; we are all in the same moven1ent, we are all
liberals, we are all in pursuit of truth." In this way the
pursuit of truth becomes really a social, practical, plcasurabJe
affair, aln10st requiring a chairman, a secretary, and adver-
tisements; with the excitement of a little resistance, an
occasional scandal, to give the happy sense of difficulty
overCOlne; but, in general, plenty of bustle and very little
thought. To act is so easy, as Goethe says; to think is so
hard! It is true that the critic has many temptations to go
with the stream, to make one of the party movement, one
of these terræ jilzï; it seems ungracious to refuse to
be a terræ jilius, when so many excellent people are; but
the critic's duty is to refuse, or, if resistance is vain, at
least to cry with Obennann: I J érÙsolls en rÓista1lt.
How serious a nlattcr it is to try and resist, I had ample
opportunity of experiencing when I ventured some time ago
to criticise the celebrated fIrst volume of Bishop Colenso.
The echoes of the storn1 'which was then raised I still, from
time to time, hear grumbling round me. rrhat storm arose
out of a misunderstanding almost inevitable. It is a result
of no little culture to attain to a clear perception that science
and religion are two wholly different things; the n1ultitude
will for ever confuse thenl; but happily that is of no great
real importance, for ,....hile it in1agines itself to live by its
false science, it does really live by its true religion. Dr
Colenso, however, in his first volume did all he could to
strengthen the confusion, and to make it dangerous. He
did this with the best intentions, I freely admit, and with
the n10st candid ignorance that this was the natural effect
of what he was doing; but, says Joubert, (( Ignorance, which
The Function of Criticism 19
in matters of n10rals extenuates the crime, is itself, in
intellectual matters, a crime of the first order." I criticised
Bishop Colenso's speculative confusion. Immediately there
was a cry raised: "'Vhat is this? here is a liberal attacking
a liberal. Do not you belong to the movement? are not
you a friend of truth? Is not Bishop Colen so in pursuit of
truth? then speak with proper respect of his book. Dr
Stanley is another friend of truth, and you speak with
proper respect of his book; why make these invidious
differences? both books are excellent, admirable, liberal j
Bishop Colenso's perhaps the most, because it is the
boldest, and will have the best practical consequences for
the liberal cause. Do you want to encourage to the attack
of a brother liberal his, and your, and our implacable
enenlies, the Church alld Stale Review or the Record,-the
High Church rhinoceros and the Evangelical hyæna? Be
silent, therefore; or rather speak, speak as loud as ever you
can! and go into ecstasies over the eight hundred and odd
pigeons." But criticism cannot follow this coarse and
indiscriminate method. It is unfortunately possible for a
man in pursuit of truth to write a book which reposes upon
a false conception. Even the practical consequences of a
book are to genuine criticism no recommendation of it, if
the book is, in the highest sense, blundering. I see that a
lady who herself, too, is in pursuit of truth, and who writes
with great ability, hut a little too much, perhaps, under the
influence of the practical spirit of the English liberal move-
ment, classes Dishop Colenso's book and 1'1. Renan's
together, in her survey of the religious state of Europe, as
facts of the same order, works, both of them, of "great
importance;" "great ability, power, and skill;" Bishop
Colen so's, perhaps, the most powerful; at least, 1Iiss Cobbe
gives special expression to her gratitude that to Bishop
Colenso "has been given the strength to grasp, and the
courage to teach, truths of such deep inlport." In the same
way, more than one popular writer has compared hin1 to
Luther. Now it is just this kind of false t.stimate which
the critical spirit is, it seems to Ine, bound to resist. It is
really the strongest possible proof of the low ebb at which,
in England, the critical spirit is, that while the critical hit
in the religious literature of Gennany is Dr Strauss's book,
in that of France I\L Renan's book, the book of Bishop
20
Critical Essays
Colenso is the critical hit in the religious literature of
England. Bishop Colen so's book reposes on a total mis-
conception of the essential elements of the religious problem,
as that problelTI is now presented for solution. To criticism
therefore, which seeks to have the best that is known and
thought on this problem, it is, however well meant, of no
importance whatever. M. Renan's book attempts a new
synthesis of the elements furnished to us by the Four
Gospels. It attempts, in nlY opinion, a synthesis, perhaps
premature, perhaps inlpossible, certainly not successful.
Perhaps we shall always have to acquiesce in Fleury's
sentence on such recastings of the Gospel-story: Quiconque
s'il1lagl:ne la pouvoir mÙux !(rire, ne l'en/end þas. 1\1. Renan
had himself passed by anticipation a like sentence on his
own work, when he said: "If a new presentation of the
character of Jesus were offered to IDe, I would not have it;
its very clearness would be, in my opinion, the best proof
of its insufficiency." His friends may with perfect truth
rejoin that at the sight of the Holy Land, and of the actual
scene of the Gospel-story, all the current of M. Renan's
thoughts nlay have naturally changed, and a new casting of
that story irresistibly suggested itself to him; and that this
is just a case for applying Cicero's maxim: Change of mind
is not inconsistency-ne1no doc/us zuzqua?Jl 1l11tla/ionem consilii
inconstanliam dixit esse. Nevertheless, for criticism, -1\1.
Renan's first thought must still be the truer one, as long as
his new casting so fails more fully to comnlend itself, more
fully (to use Coleridge's happy phrase about the Bible) to
find us. Still 1\1. Renan's attempt is, for criticisnl, of the
most real interest and importance, since, with aU its diffi-
culty, a fresh synthesis of the New Testament data, is the
very essence of the religious problem, as now presented;
and only by efforts in this direction can it receive a solution.
Again, in the same spirit in which she judges Bishop
Colen so, I\Iiss Cobbe, like so many earnest liberals of our
practical race, both here and in America, herself sets
vigorously about a positive re-construction of religion, about
making a religion of the future out of hand, or at least setting
about making it, we nlust not rest, she and they are always
thinking and saying, in negative criticism, we must be
creative and constructive; hence we have such works as her
recent ReNgious Duty, and works still more considerable,
The Function of Criticisrll 2 I
perhaps, by others, which will be in everyone's mind.
These works often have much ability; they often spring out
of sincere conyictions, and a sincere wish to do good; and
they sometimes, perhaps, do good. Their fault is (if I may
be pern1Ïtted to say so) one which they have in common
with the l
ritish College of Health, in the New Road.
Everyone knows the British College of Health; it is that
building ,yith the lion and the statue of the Goddess H ygeia.
before it: at least I am sure about the lion, though I am
not absolutely certain about the Goddess Hygeia. This
building doe3 credit, perhaps, to the resources of Dr
110rrison and his disciples; but it falls a g('od deal short of
one's idea of what a British College of Health ought to be.
In England, where we hate public interference and love
individual enterprise, we have a whole crop of places like
the British College of Health; the grand name without the
gand thing. Unluckily, creditable to individual enterprise
as they are, they tend to impair our taste by 111aking us
forget what nlore grandiose, noble, or beautiful character
properly belongs to a public institution. 1'he same Inay be
said of the religions of the future of l\fiss Cobbe and others.
Creditable, like the British College of I-Iealth, to the re,
sources of their authors, they yet tend to make us forget
what nlore grandiose, noble, or beautiful character properly
belongs to religious constructions. The historic religions,
with all their faults, have had this; it certainly belongs to
the religious sentiment, when it truly flowers, to have this;
and we in1poverish our spirit if we allow a religion of the
future without it. 'Vhat then is the duty of criticisn1 here?
To take the practical point of view, to appìaud the liberal
moyemt::nt and all its works,-its New Road religions of the
future into the bargain,-for their general utility's sake?
By no means; but to be perpetually dissatisfied with these
works, while they perpetually fall short of a high and perfect
ideal.
In criticism, these are elementary laws; but they never
can be popular, and in this country they have been very
little follo\\""ed, and one meets with inllnense obstacles in
following them. That is a reason for asserting them again
and again. Criticislu must maintain its independence of
the practical spirit and its aÎ1us. Even with well-meant
eflorts of the practical spirit it must express dissatisfaction.
22
Critical Essays
if in the sphere of the ideal they seern impoverishing and
lin1iting. It must not hurry on to the goal because of its
practical importance. It must be patient, and know how to
wait; and flexible, and know how to attach itself to things
and how to withdraw from them. It must be apt to study
and praise elements that for the fulness of spiritual perfec-
tion are wanted, even though they belong to a power which
in the practical sphere may be Inaleficent. It must be apt
to discern the spiritual shortcomings or illusions of powers
that in the practical sphere may be beneficent. .And this
without any notion of favouring or injuring, in the practical
sphere, one power or the other; without any notion of
playing off, in this sphere. one power against the other.
'Vhen one looks, for instance, at the English Divorce Court,
-an institution which perhaps has its practical conveniences,
but which in the ideal sphere is so hideous; an institution
which neither n1akes divorce impossible nor makes it
decent, which allows a man to get rid of his wife, or a wife
of her husband, but Inakes them drag one another first, for
the public edification, through a n1Íre of unutterable infamy,
-when one looks at this charming institution, I say, with
its crowded trials, its newspaper reports, and its money
compensations, this institution in which the gross unregener-
ate British Philistine has indeed stamped an image of
hinlself,-one may be permitted to find the marriage theory
of Catholicisln refreshing and elevating. Or when Pro-
testantism, in virtue of its supposed rational and intellectual
origin, gives the law to criticism too n1agisterially, criticism
nlay and must relnind it that its pretensions, in this respect,
are illusive and do it harnl; that the Refornlation was a
nloral rather than an intellectual event; that Luther's theory
of grace no l110re exactly reflects the mind of the spirit than
Bossuet's philosophy of history reflects it; and that there is
no more antecedent probability of the Bishop of Durhanl's
stock of ideas being agreeable to perfect reason than of
Pope Pius the Ninth's. But criticism will not on that
account forget the achievements of Protestantislll in the
practical and moral sphere; nor that, even in the intellectual
sphere, Protestantism, though in a blind and stunlbling
manner, carried forward the IZenaissance, while CatholicisIll
threw itself violently across its path.
I lately heard a man of thought and energy contrasting
The Function of Criticism 23
the want of ardour and movement which he now found
amongst young men in this country with what he remelllbered
in his own youth, twenty years ago. U "
hat reformers we
were then!" he exclaimed; "what a zeal we had! how we
canvassed every institution in Church and State, and were
prepared to remodel them all on first principles! " He was
inclined to regret, as a spiritual flagging, the lull which he
saw. I am disposed rather to regard it as a pause in which
the turn to a new mode of spiritual progress is being ac-
com plished. Everything was long seen, by the young and
ardent amongst us, in inseparable connection with politics
and practical life. 'Ve have pretty well exhausted the
benefits of seeing things in this connection, we have got all
that can be got by so seeing them. Let us try a ll10re dis-
interested lllode of seeing them; let us betake ourstlves
more to the serener life of the mind and spirit. This life,
too, may have its excesses and dangers; but they are not for
lIS at present. Let us think of quietly enlarging our stock
of true and fresh ideas, and not, as soon us we get an idea
or half an idea, be running out with it into the street, and
trying to make it rule there. Our ideas will, in the end,
shape the world all the better for maturing a little. Perhaps
in fifty years' time it will in the English House of Commons
be an objection to an institution that it is an anolllaly, and
my friend the
Iember of Parlianlcnt will shudder in his
grave. But let us in the meanwhile rather endeayour that
in twenty years' time it may, in English literature, be an
objection to a proposition that it is absurd. That will be a
change so vast, that the imagination almost fails to grasp it.
Ab integro sæCIOnt71Z nascitur onto.
If I have insisted so much on the course which criticisu'l
must take where politics and religion are concerned, it is
because, where these burning matters are in question, it is
most likely to go astray. In general, its course is determined
for it by the idea which is the law of its being; the idea of
a disinterested endeavour to learn and propagate the best
that is known and thought in the world, and thus to establish
a current of fresh and true ideas. By the very nature of
things, as England is not all the world, n1uch of the best
that is known and thought in the world cannot be of English
growth, must be foreign; by the nature of things, again, it
is just this tbat we are least likely to know, while English
24
Critical Essays
thought is streaming in upon us from all sides, and takc9
excellent care that we shall not be ignorant of its exist-
ence; the English critic, therefore, must d ,veIl much on
foreign thought, and with particular heed on any p
nt of
it, which, while significant and fruitful in itself, is for any
reason specially likely to escape him. Judging is often
spoken of as the critic's one business, and so in some sense
it is; but the judgment which almost insensibly forms itself
in a fair and clear mind, along with fresh knowledge, is the
valuable one; and thus knowledge, and ever fresh knowledge,
must be the critic's great concern for himself; and it is by
cOlnmunic:lting fresh knowledge, and letting his own judg-
ment pass along with it,-but insensibly, and in the second
place, not the first, as a sort of companion and clue, not as
an abstract lawgiver,-that he will generally do most good
to his readers. Sometinles, no doubt, for the sake of estab-
lishing an author's place in literature, and his relation to a
central standard (and if this is not donE', how are we to get
at our best in the world 7) criticism nlay have to deal with a
subject-matter so familiar that fresh knowledge is out of the
question, and then it must be all judgment; an enunciation
and detailed application of principles. I-Iere the great safe-
guard is never to let oneself becollle abstract, always to
retain an intimate and lively consciousness of the truth of
what one is saying, and, the moment this fails us, to be sure
that something is wrong. Still, under all circumstances,
this mere judgment and application of principles is, in itself,
not the most satisfactory work to the critic; like mathema-
tics, it is tautological, and cannot well give us, like fresh
learning, the sense of creative activity. 1'0 have this
sense is, as I said at the beginning, the great happi-
ness and the great proof of being alive, and it is not
denied to criticisnl to have it; but then criticism must be
sincere, sinlple, flexible, ardent, ever widening its know-
ledge. Then it may have, in no contemptible measure, a
joyful sense of creative activity; a sense which a man of
insight and conscience will prefer to what he might derive
from a poor, starved, fragn1entary, inadequate creation.
And at some epochs no other creation is possible.
Still, in full measure, the sense of creative activity belongs
only to genuine creation; in literature we must never forget
that. But what true man of letters ever can forget it? It
1'he Function of Criticisnl 25
is no such common matter for a gifted nature to come into
posse
sion of a current of true and living ideas, and to
produce anlidst the inspiration of them, that we arc likely
to underrate it. The epochs of Æschylus and Shakspeare
make us feel their pre-eminence. In an epoch like those
is, no doubt, the true life of literature; thE're is the promised
land, towards which criticism can only beckon. That
promised land it will not be ours to enter, and we shall die
in the wilderness: but to have desired to enter it, to have
saluted it fronl afar, is already: perhaps, the best distinction
among contenlporaries; it will certainly be the best title to
esteem with posterity_
liBRARY ST. MARY'S COLLEGE
II
'fHE LITERARY INFLUENCE OF
ACADElVIIES
I T is impossible to put down a book like the history of the
French Academy, by Pellisson and D
Olivet, which 11.
Charles Livet has lately re-edited, without being led to
reflect upon the absence, in our own country, of any in-
stitution like the French Acaden1Y, upon the probable
causes of this absence, and upon its results. A thousand
voices will be ready to tell us that this absence is a signal
Inark of our national superiority; that it is in great part
owing to this absence that the exhilarating words of Lord
1\1acaulay, lately given to the world by his very clever
nephew, 1\1:1' Trevelyan, are so profoundly true: "It may
safely be said that the literature now extant in the English
language is of far greater value than all the literature which
three hundred years ago was extant in all the languages of
the world together." I daresay this is so; only, remen1ber-
ing Spinoza's maxim that the two great banes of humanity
are self-conceit and the laziness coming from self-conceit,
I think it may do us good, instead of resting in our pre-
en1inence with perfect security, to look a little more closely
why this is so, and whether it is so without any limitations.
But first of all I must give a very few words to the out-
ward history of the French Academy. About the year 1629,
seven or eight persons in Paris, fond of literature, forn1ed
themselves into a sort of little club to meet at one another's
houses and discuss literary matters. Their n1cetings got
talked of, and Cardinal Richelieu, then n1Înister and all-
powerful, heard of them. I-Ie hin1self had a noble passion
for letters, and for all fine culture; he was interested by
what he heard of the nascent society. Himself a man in
the grand style, if ever man was, he had the insight to
perceiye what a potent instrument of the grand style was
here to his hand. It was the beginning of a great century
26
Literary Influence of Acaùen1ies 27
for France, the seventeenth; men's minds were working,
the French language was forming. Richelieu sent to ask
the l11embers of the new society whether they would be
willing to become a body with a public character holding
regular meetings. Not without a little hesitation,-for
apparently they found then1selves very well as they were,
and these seven or eight gentlemen of a social and literary
turn were not perfectly at their ease as to what the great and
terrible minister could want with them,-they consented.
The favours of a man like Richelieu are not easily refused,
whether they are honestly meant or no; but, this favour of
Richelieu's was meant quite honestly. The Parlian1ent,
however, had its doubts of this. The Parliament had none
of Richelieu's enthusiasm about letters and culture; it was
jealous of the apparition of a new public body in the State;
above all, of a body called into existence by Richelieu.
The K.ing's letters-patent, establishing and authorising the
new society, were granted early in 1635; but, by the old
constitution of France, these letters-patent required the
verification of the Parliament. It was two years and a half-
towards the autumn of I637-before the Parlian1ent would
give it; and it then gave it only after pressing solicitations,
and earnest assurances of the innocent intentions of the
young Academy. Jocose people said that this society, with
its mission to purify and embellish the language, filled with
terror a body of lawyers like the French Parliament, the
stronghold of barbarous jargon and of chicane.
This improvement of the language was in truth the
d
clared grand aim for the operations of the Academy.
Its statutes of foundation, approved by Richelieu before the
royal edict establishing it was issued, say expressly: "The
Academy's principal function shall be to work with all the
care and all the diligence possible at giving sure rules to our
language, and rendering it pure, eloquent, and capable of
treating the arts and sciences." This zeal for making a
nation's great instrument of thought,-its language,-correct
and worthy, is undoubtedly a sign full of' promise,-a
wejghty earnest of future power. It is said that Richelieu
had it in his mind that French should succeed Latin in its
general ascendency, as Latin had succeeded Greek; if it
was so, even this wish has to some extent been fulfilled.
But, at any rate, the ethical influences of st}'1e in language,
28
Critical Essays
--its close relations, so often pointed out, with character,
-are most important. Richelieu, a man of high culture,
and, at the same time, of great character, felt them pro-
foundly; and that he should have sought to rcgularise,
strengthen, and perpetuate them by an institution for
perfecting language, is alone a striking proof of his governing
spirit and of his genius.
1"his was not all he h3.d in his lnind, however. The new
.A.cademYJ now en1a.rged to a body of forty rnenlbers, and
meant to contain all the chief literary n1cn of France, ,vas to
be a literary tribunal. The works of its 'members were to
be brought before it previous to publication, were to be
criticised by it, and finally, if it saw fit, to be published
with its declared approbation. The works of other writers,
not Inembers of the Academy, might also, at the'request of
these \vriters thenlselves, be passed under the .l\caclemy's
review. Besides this, in essays and discussions the Academy
examined and judged works already published, whether by
living or dead authors, and literary matters in general. rrhe
celebrated opinion on Corneil1e's Cid, delivered in 1637 by
the Acaden1Y at Richelieu's urgent request, when this poem,
which strongly occupied public attention, had been attacked
by IVL de Scudéry, shows how fully Riche1ieu designed his
new creation to do duty as a supreme court of literature,
and how early it in fact began to exercise this function.
One I who had known Richelieu declared, after the
Cardinal's death, that he had projected a yet greater
institution thån the Academy, a sort of grand European
college of art, science, and literature, a Prytaneum, where
the chief authors of all Europe should be gathered together
in one central hon1e, there to live in security, leisure, and
honour ;-that was a dream which will not bear to be pulled
about too roughly. But the project of forming a hjgh court
of letters for France was no dream; Richelieu in great
Ineasure fulfilled it. This is what the Academy, by its idea,
really is; this is what it has always tended to becorne; this
is what it has, frorn tinle to time, really been; by being, or
tending to be this, far more than even by what it has done
for the language, it is of such Ï1nportance in Fr
nce. To
giye the law, the tone to literature, and that tone a high one,
is its business. h Richelieu meant it," says 1vI. Sainte-
· La Mesnardière.
Literary Influence of Academies 29
Beuve, "to be a haut jU1J',"-a jury the most choice and
authoritatiyc that could be found on all important literary
matters in question before the public; to be, as it in fact
became in the latter half of the eighteenth century, "a
sovereign organ of opinion." "The duty of the Academy
is," says I\L Renan, "lllaintenir la délicatesse de "esprit
frallçais "-to keep the fine quality of the French spirit
unin1paired; it represents a kind of "1llaÍtrise en fait de
I bon tOil "-the authority of a recognised master in nl
tters of
I tone and taste. "All ages," says 1\1. Renan again, "have
: had their inferior literature; but the great danger of our
I time is that this inferior literature tenùs n10re and n10re to
get the upper place. No one has the saIne ad vantage as the
Academy for fighting against this mischief;" the Academy,
which, as he says elsewhere, has even special facilities for
" creating a form of intellectual culture u'hich shall in2fose
iÓ"cif 011 all arvulld." ß
. Sainte-Beuve and 1\1. H.enan are,
both of thenl, very keen-sighted critics; and they show it
signally by seizing and putting so prominently forward this
character of the French ...t\cademy.
Such an effort to set up a recognised authority, imposing
on us a high standard in nlatters of intellect and taste, has
nlany ellenlies in hUlllan nature. 'Ve all of us like to go
our own way, and not to be forced out of the ato1osphere of
comnlonplace habitual to n10st of us ;-" 'was uns a/If
bà"ndigt,JJ says Goethe, "das Gemeille." 'Ve like to be
suffered to lie comf,Jrtably in the old straw of our habits,
especially of our intellectual habits, even though this stra \,
may not be very clean and fine. But ii the effort to limit
this freedonl of our lower nature finds, as it does and must
find, enemies in hunlan nature, it finds also auxiliaries in it.
Out of the four great parts, says Cicero, of the hOllesft 
