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CEITICISMS

CONTEMPOEAEY THOUaHT AND

THINKERS

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CEITICISMS

CONTEMPORAKY THOUGHT
AND THINKERS

SELECTED FROM THE SPECTATOR

RICHARD HOLT HUTTON, M.Av (London)

FELLOW OF UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON

IN TWO VOLUMES— VOL. I

iLo„.on ^V

MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited

NEW YORK : THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1900

r. /

First Edition 1894
Reprinted 1900

TO THE MEMORY OF MY NEPHEW
THE LATE

REV. WILLIAM RICHMOND HUTTON

SOMETIME CURATE OF KIRKSTALL, NEAR LEEDS

AND OF WEST HESLERTON, YORK

I DEDICATE THESE ESSAYS

WHICH BUT FOR HIS REQUEST AND VALUABLE HELP

IN SELECTING THEM

WOULD PROBABLY HAVE BEEN LEFT IN THE TEMPORARY

FORM FOR WHICH ALONE THEY WERE INTENDED

Digitized by the Internet Archive

in 2007 with funding from

IVIicrosoft Corporation

http://www.archive.org/details/criticismsoncont01huttuoft

CONTENTS

PAGE

Carlyle's Faith. 1874 . . . .

Thomas Carlyle. 1881

Carlyle's Reminiscences. 1881

Thomas Carlyle. 1882

Ralph Waldo Emerson. 1882 .

Emerson as Oracle. 1884

Edgar Poe. 1874

Democracy: an American Novel. 1881 .

Longfellow. 1882 .... . .

10.

The Genius of Dickens. 1874 ...

11.

Charles Dickens's Life. 1874 ....

12.

The Future of English Humour. Mr. Ainger's

"Charles Lamb." 1882

103

13.

Mr. Fitzjames Stephen's Creed. 1874

110

14.

Mr. Stephen on Liberty, Equality, Fratern-

ity. 1873

119

15.

Mr. Leslie Stephen and the Scepticism of

Believers. 1877

140

16.

Mr. Leslie Stephen's "Science of Ethics."

1882

148

17.

Mr. Leslie Stephen on Johnson. 1878 .

164

CONTENTS

18.
19.

20.
21.
22.
23.
24.

26.
27.

28.

29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.

36.
37.

38.
39.

John Stuart Mill's Autobiography. 1873
John Stuart Mill's Philosophy as tested i

HIS Life. 1873

Mr. Mill's Essays on Religion. 1874
Amiel and Clough. 1886 ....
Mr. Arnold's Sublimated Bible. 1874 .
Matthew Arnold as Critic. 1888 .

M. Renan. 1883

Professor Tyndall on Physical and Moral

Necessity. 1877

The Approach of Dogmatic Atheism. 1874
Clifford's Lectures and Essays. 1879 .
Mr. Cotter Morison on the Sera^ice of j\L\n

1887

Ardent Agnosticism. 1888
Astronomy and Theology. 1888
The Magnanimity of Unbelief. 1877
AuGUSTE Comte's Aspiration. 1877 .
Materialism and its Lessons. 1879
Mozley's University Sermons. 1876
Professor Huxley on the Evolution of

Theology. 1886
Mr. Scott Holland's Sermons.
Sir James Paget on Science and Theology

1881

Mr. Wilfrid Ward's Wish to Believe. 1882
The Metaphysics of Conversion. 1875 .

1882

PAOE
.171

183
193
204
214
2^1
227

235
246
258

271
281
288
296
303
310
319

326
338

350
360
369

CARLYLE'S FAITH

1874

Mr. Carlyle has mended his religious faith since he
last described the damnable condition of the world in
which he is compelled to live, and in his letter to Sir
Joseph Whitworth on the relations of capital and
labour, he speaks of Almighty God with a pious
simplicity which is a surprise and a pleasure after
those " Abysses " and " Eternities," and other ornate
vaguenesses and paraphrastic plurals of his middle
period. Of all " the unveracities " which Mr. Carlyle
used to denounce with so much vigour, it ahvays
seemed to me that the circumlocutions by which he
himself avoided committing himself on the question
whether the rule to which he was always exhorting
us to submit was really the rule of wisdom or only
the rule of brute necessities, were some of the worst ; —
for he knew very well that to such creatures as we
are it makes the most enormous difference whether
we be in truth guided by a divine mind which is
infinitely above us, or only propelled by an undivine
fate which has reached its chef-d' (Buvre in ourselves.
In one who has always been so bitter on what he
calls juggles, who has insisted that man's religion
VOL. I ^ B

2 carlyle's faith I

" consists not of the many things lie is in doubt of
and tries to believe, but of the few he is assured of,
and has no need of effort for believing," it was not
surely a laudable practice to adopt as he did an
ambiguous religious jargon, the meaning of which it
waa impossible to define. In his denunciations of
Jesuitism, it always seemed to me that some of the
sharpest blows really descended upon himself. For
instance, Man's religion, he said in the Latter-Day
Pamphlets, " whatever it may be, is a discerned fact
and coherent system of discerned facts to him ; he
stands fronting the worlds and the eternities upon it :
to doubt of it is not permissible at all ! He must
verify or expel his doubts, convert them into certainty
of Yes or No, or they will be the death of his religion.
But on the other hand, convert them into certainty
of Yes and No; or even of Yes though No, as the
Ignatian method is, and what will become of your
religion 1 " Now the fault we have always been
disposed to find with Mr. Carlyle's religious exhorta-
tions is precisely this, that he left us with the im-
pression on our minds that his religious belief
consisted of certainties of " Yes and No," or " Yes
though No," rather than explicit beliefs and denials.
AVhat, for instance, does this dark saying about " Man
fronting the worlds and the eternities " mean % Not
clearly that he fronts God ; nor that he fronts a
yeast of fermenting forces of which he is the pro-
duct ; but rather that he fronts something ambiguous
between the two, which the mystic meaning of the
word ' Eternities ' suggests as partaking of spiritual
qualities, though Mr. Carlyle declined explicitly to
affirm them. Is not that, — and the passage is an
excellent specimen of a large part of Mr. Carlyle's
prophecy, — as near to suggesting that the answer to

I carlyle's faith 3

the question ' Do you believe in God,' should be " Yes,
though No," as Mr. Carlyle could go ? But I should
not now have called attention to the elaborate
disguises and ambiguities of Mr. Carlyle's religious
prophecies of twenty years and more ago, if this last
published letter of his had not been in a tone, as I
think, so much simpler and higher. He is writing
on the relations of labour and capital, and the little
hope that political economy (Mr. Carlyle's "dismal
science") will ever adjust these relations rightly —
(a state of mind, by the way, in which every reason-
able man, economist or not, would, I believe, concur
with Mr. Carlyle, for Political Economy has nothing
to do with moral Economy, and does not pretend to
explain what is just in action, but rather certain
inevitable tendencies to action due to the pressure of
human self-interests, the practical influence of which
it is not only open to men to modify most seriously,
but which they usually do modify most seriously,
and always ought to modify most seriously on other
than economical grounds) ; and he says : " The look
of England is to me at this moment abundantly
ominous, the question of capital and labour growing
ever more anarchical, insoluble by the notions hitherto
applied to it, pretty certain to issue in petroleum one
day, unless some other gospel than that of the
Dismal Science come to illuminate it. Two things
are pretty sure to me. The first is, that capital and
labour never can or will agree together till they both
first of all decide on doing their work faithfully
throughout, and, like men of conscience and honour,
whose highest aim is to behave like faithful citizens
of the universe, and obey the eternal commandment
of Almighty God who made them. The second
thing is, that a sadder object even than that of the

4 carlyle's faith ' I

coal strike, or any conceivable strike, is the fact that,
loosely speaking, we may say all England has decided
that the profitablest way is to do its work ill, slimly,
swiftly, and mendaciously. What a contrast between
now and, say, only one hundred years ago ! At the
latter date, or still more conspicuously for ages
before it, all England awoke to its work with an
invocation to the Eternal Maker to bless them in
their day's labour, and help them to do it well.
Now all England, shopkeepers, workmen, all manner
of competing labourers, awaken as if it were with an
unspoken but heartfelt prayer to Beelzebub, ' Oh !
help us, thou great Lord of shoddy, adulteration, and
malfeasance, to do our work with the maximum of
slimness, swiftness, profit, and mendacity, for the
Devil's sake. — Amen.' " I cannot say, however, that
I accept Mr. Carlyle's history. If all England ever
awoke daily with a real prayer to God in its heart
to do its daily work well, I believe that that genera-
tion would have rendered the present generation,
living within a hundred years of it, a very different
thing from what it is. Nothing is more really
unattainable than a true knowledge of the average
moral condition of any age, even the present; and
with respect to a past age, I believe such knowledge
to be hopelessly beyond us. But whether England
were ever before more genuinely in earnest than it
nbTr46, in its pious wish to do its work well, matters
little, Mr. Carlyle's object being really only this, to
persuade us that it is of the first moment that we
should daily become more in earnest than we now
are ; and that without becoming so, the talk about
rights and penalties, and strikes and lock-outs, will
result in mere destructive passion, — petroleum and
general chaos. There I sincerely hold Mr. Carlyle

I carlyle's faith 5

to be wholly in the right. And I believe that no
advice can be wholesomer for the purpose of averting
the chaos, than that all parties alike should look up
from the scene of bitter contention and competition
to "the eternal commandments of Almighty God
who made them." There is nothing that makes men
so reasonable as the disposition to take themselves
more strictly to task than their antagonists for their
shortcomings, and nothing which fosters that dis-
position like the faith that " Almighty God who made
them " is expecting it of them. But I cannot help
doubting if any sort of talk has done more to under-
mine this belief than Mr. Carlyle's old pantheistic
practice of substituting ' the Immensities ' and ' the
Eternities' in the place of 'Almighty God.' I do
not doubt that that practice was due to a certain
sincerity in himself, though it produced on others the
effect of that very ambiguousness and double meaning
of which he was the bitterest denouncer. He did
not, perhaps, fully believe in God, — the most difficult
thing in the world, I admit, though the most
necessary, — and he could not dismiss the thought of
a personal ruler ; so he invented an answer to the
question " God, or no God 1 " which was iu effect
what he himself calls the answer " Yes, though No,"
" yes in one sense, no in another," in fact, an ambiguity,
the true answer being evaded and deferred. And
the effect of the Carlylian paraphrase for God was,
in my opinion, much more disastrous to the numerous
devotees of Mr. Carlyle, than a blank assertion that
the truth was "unknown and unknowable." It en-
abled people to do exactly what Mr. Carlyle has
always most severely condemned, — clothe themselves
in an unreal costume of sentimental awe which was
neither piety nor its negation. The great difference

6 carlyle's faith

I take it, between Pantheism and Theism is this, —
that genuine Theism humbles the mind, while
genuine Pantheism inflates it. You cannot believe
that God exists for you; you know that, on the
contrary, you exist through God and for God. But
when you put the ' Eternities ' and ' Immensities ' and
'Abysses' in the place of God, you are very apt
indeed to feel what a wonderful fellow you must be
to "front the worlds and the eternities" in that
grand way. There is nothing definite enough in the
" Immensities " to humble you ; on the contrary, they
are a credit to you ; they are grand ideal conceptions
which add a certain distinction to your position on
earth, and justify Hamlet's remark — "in form and
moving how express and admirable, in action how
like an angel, in apprehension how like a God." I
believe that Mr. Carlyle in inventing, as he did, this
compromise between faith in God and no faith, did
very much indeed to smooth the way into that
irreligious state of mind which instead of simply
praying to do its work well, admires itself foi the
emotion with which it " fronts the world and the
eternities," while it is doing its work ill. There is a
kind of imaginative thought which is a fascinating
substitute for the simplicity and humility of devotion,
and I know no higher or more marvellous master in
that kind than Mr. Carlyle. His writings are full
of graphic power and moral passion. He sees the
strength and weakness, the wisdom and folly, the
good and evil of human life, with a power and a
humour which gives the mere act of follow^ing in the
track of his thought an intellectual charm of its own ;
and he has, moreover, an art of throwing a vague
mystery over the whole, a splendid confusion of
gorgeous tints and shadows, which makes his disciples

I carlyle's faith 7

feel as if their powers of insight and of moral passion
had been indefinitely magnified during the time in
which they are submitted to the spell of his genius.
But all this is not only no substitute for religious
faith : it is rather a gratifying stimulus which helps
you to miss its absence less. It is therefore to my
mind a most satisfactory thing to find Mr. Carlyle
in his old age dismissing ' the Immensities ' and ' the
Eternities ' altogether, and coming back to the simple
advice to people inflated with the idea of the import-
ance of their own rights, to pray to God that they
may do their own work well. It is a sound, and in
the most wholesome sense a humiliating bit of counsel,
of quite an opposite tendency from the advice which
we used to hear so frequently from him, to ' front the
eternities ' veraciously. Theism, and Christianity as
the highest Theism, are sobering faiths of which
humility is the first word though not the last. Pan-
theism— into whose scale Mr. Carlyle's influence had
hitherto been thrown, — is an inebriating faith, of which
vanity or sensationalism is apt to be the first word
though not the last. It is compensation for much
unwholesome teaching that Mr. Carlyle's latest and
present vote is for the former faith, the faith which
breeds sobriety and humility, and not that puffin g-up
of our mind with vain "Immensities," by which, as
St. Paul once vividly remarked, " the foolish heart is
darkened."

THOMAS CARLYLE

1881

For many years before his death last Saturday, Mr.
Carlyle had been to England what his great hero,
Goethe, long was to Germany, — the aged seer whose
personal judgments on men and things were every-
where sought after, and eagerly chronicled and re-
tailed. Yet it was hardly for the same reason. In
Goethe's old age, the ripeness of his critical judgment,
and the catholicity, not to say even the facility, of
his literary taste, induced a sort of confidence that
he w^ould judge calmly and judge genially anything,
whether in life or literature, that was not extravagant.
Mr. Carlyle was resorted to for a very different
reason. The Chelsea shrine, as was well known,
gave out only one sort of oracles, and that sort was
graphic and humorous denunciation of all conven-
tional falsehoods and pretentiousness, or what was
presumed to be conventional falsehood and preten-
tiousness ; — and consequently recourse was had to
that shrine only when some trenchant saying was
wanted that might help in the sweeping-away of some
new formula of the sentimentalists or of the pane-
gyrists of worn-out symbols. His almost extravagant

II THOMAS CARLYLE 9

admiration for Goethe notwithstanding, Carlyle in
his greatness was ever more disposed to sympathise
with the great organs of destructive, than with those
of constructive force. He sympathised with Crom-
well for what he destroyed, with Frederick in great
measure for what he destroyed, with Mirabeau and
Danton for what they destroyed, and even with
Goethe in large degree for the negative tendencies of
his thought and criticism. With the constructive
tendencies of the past he could often deeply sym-
pathise,— as he showed in "Past and Present," —
but with those of the present, hardly ever. If we
were asked what his genius did for English thought
and literature, we should say that it did chiefly the
work of a sort of spiritual volcano, — showed us the
perennial fire subversive of worn-out creeds which
lies concealed in vast stores beneath the surface of
society, and the thinness of the crust which alone
separates us from that pit of Tophet, as he would
himself have called it. And yet, in spite of himself,
he always strove to sympathise with positive work.
His teaching was incessant that the reconstruction
of society was a far greater work than the destruction
of the worn-out shell which usually preceded it, —
only, unfortunately, in his own time, there was
hardly any species of reconstructive effort which
could gain his acquiescence, much less his approval.
He despised all the more positive political and
philanthropic tendencies of his time ; felt little
interest in its scientific discoveries ; concerned himself
not at all about its art ; scorned its economical
teaching ; and rejected the modern religious in-
structors with even more emphatic contumely than
the "dreary professors of a dismal science." To
Carlyle, the world was out of joint, and his only

[

10 THOMAS CARLYLE 11

receipt for setting it right, — the restoration of " the
beneficent whip " for its idlers, rogues, and vagabonds,
— was never seriously listened to by thinking men.
Consequently, all that he achieved was achieved in
the world of thought and imagination. He did
succeed in making men realise, as they never realised
before, into what a fermenting chaos of passion
human society is constantly in danger of dissolving,
when either injustice or insincerity, — what Mr.
Carlyle called a "sAam," — is in the ascendant, and
rules by virtue of mere convention or habit. He did
succeed in making men realise the wonderful paradox
of all social order and discipline, in depicting to us
the weakness and the hysterical ^character of much
that is called patriotic and humane impulse, in making
us see that justice and strength and a certain heroism
of courage are all necessary for the original organisa-
tion of a stable society; and that much sensibility
in the body corporate, so far from making this
organisation easier, is apt to make it both more
difficult and more unstable. Carlyle's greatest power
was the wonderful imaginative genius which enabled
him to lift the veil from the strange mixture of con-
vention, passion, need, want, capacity, and incompet-
ence called human society, and make us understand
by what a thread order often hangs, and how rare is
the sort of genius to restore it when once it goes to
pieces. No one ever performed this great service
for the world as Carlyle has performed it in almost
all his works, — notably in The French Revolution
and Sartoi- Besartus, and this alone is enough to
entitle him to a very high place among the Immortals
of literature.

And he had all the gifts for this great task, —
especially that marvellous insight into the social

n THOMAS CARLYLE 11

power of symbols which made him always maintain
that fantasy was the organ of divinity. He has often
been called a prophet, and though I have too little
sympathy with his personal conception of good and
evil so to class him, — though religious seer as he
was, he was in no sense Christ-like, — he certainly
had to the full the prophet's insight into the power
of parable and type, and the prophet's eye for the
forces which move society, and inspire multitudes
with contagious enthusiasm, whether for good or ill.
He fell short of a prophet in this, that his main
interest, after all, was rather in the graphic and
picturesque interpretation of social phenomena, than
in any overwhelming desire to change them for the
better, warmly as that desire was often expressed,
and sincerely, no doubt, as it was entertained. Still,
Carlyle's main literary motive-power was not a moral
passion, but a humorous wonder. He was always
taking to pieces, in his own mind's eye, the marvellous
structure of human society, and bewildering himself
with the problem of how it could be put together
again. Even in studying personal character, what
he cared for principally was this. For men who
could not sway the great spiritual tides of human
loyalty and trust, he had — with the curious exception
of Goethe — no very real reverence. His true heroes
were all men who could make multitudes follow them
as the moon makes the sea follow her, — either by
spiritual magnetism, or by trust, or by genuine
practical capacity. To him, imagination was the true
organ of divinity, because, as he saw at a glance,
it was by the imagination that men are most easily
both governed and beguiled. His story of the French
Revolution is a series of studies in the way men are
beguiled and governed by their imagination, and no

12 THOMAS CARLYLE U

more wonderful book of its kind has ever been
written in this world, though one would be sorry
to have to estimate accurately how much of his
picture is true vision, and how much the misleading
guesswork of a highly-imaginative dreamer.

It is in some respects curious that Carlyle has
connected his name so effectually as he has done with
the denunciation of Shams. For the passionate love
of truth in its simplicity was not at all his chief
characteristic. In the first place, his style is too
self-conscious for that of sheer, self-forgetting love of
truth. No man of first-rate simplicity — and first-rate
simplicity is, I imagine, one of the conditions of a
first-rate love of truth, — would express common-place
ideas in so roundabout a fashion as he ; would say,
for instance, in recommending Emerson to the read-
ing public, " The words of such a man, — what words
he thinks fit to speak, — are worth attending to " ;
or would describe a kind and gracious woman as " a
gentle, excellent, female soul," as he does in his Life
of Sterling. There is a straining for effect in the
details of Carlyle's style which is not the character-
istic of an overpowering and perfectly simple love of
truth. Nor was that the ruling intellectual principle
of Carlyle's mind. What he meant by hatred of
shams, exposure of unveracities, defiance to the
"Everlasting No," affirmation of the "Everlasting
Yea," and the like, was not so much the love of truth,
as the love of divine force, — the love of that which
had genuine strength and effective character dn it,
the denunciation of imbecilities, the scorn for the
dwindled life of mere conventionality or precedent,
the contempt for extinct figments, not so much
because they were figments, as because they were
extinct and would no longer bear the strain put upon

n THOMAS CARLYLE 13

them by human passion. You can see this in the
scorn which Carlyle pours upon "thin" men, — his
meagre reverence for "thin- lipped, constitutional
Hampden," for instance, and his contempt for such
men as the Edgeworth described in John Sterling's
life, whom he more than despises, not for the least
grain of insincerity, but for deficiency in quantity of
nature, and especially such nature as moves society.
Greatly as Carlyle despised " cant," he seems to have
meant by cant not so much principles which a man
does not personally accept, but repeats by rote on
the authority of others, as principles which have
ceased, in his estimation, to exert a living influence
on society, whether heartily accepted by the in-
dividual or not. Thus, in his life of Sterling, he in-
dulges in long pages of vituperation against Sterling for
taking to the Church, — not that he believed Sterling
to be insincere in doing so, but because what Carlyle
called the "Hebrew old clothes" were to his mind
worn out, and he would not admit that any one of
lucid mind could honestly fail to see that so it was.

Carlyle, in short, has been the interpreter to his
country, not so much of the " veracities " or " verities "
of life, as of the moral and social spells and symbols
which, for evil or for good, have exercised a great
imaginative influence over the social organism of
large bodies of men, and either awed them into sober
and earnest work, or stimulated them into delirious
and anarchic excitement. He has been the greatest
painter who ever lived, of the interior life of man,
especially of such life as spreads to the multitude,
not perhaps exactly as it really is, but rather as it
represented itself to one who looked upon it as the
symbol of some infinite mind, of which it embodied
a temporary phase. I doubt if Carlyle ever really

14 THOMAS CARLYLE II

interpreted any human being's career, — Cromwell's,
or Frederick's, or Coleridge's, — as justly and fully
as many men of less genius might have interpreted
it. For this was not, after all, his chief interest.
His interest seems to me always to have been in
figuring the human mind as representing some flying
colour or type of an Infinite Mind at work behind
the Universe, and so presenting this idea as to make
it palpable to his fellow-men. He told Sterling he
did not mind whether he talked "pantheism or
pottheism," — a mild joke which he so frequently
repeated as to indicate that he rather overrated its
excellence, — so long as it was true ; and he meant,
I think, by being true, not so much corresponding
to fact, as expressing adequately the constant effort
of his own great imagination to see the finite in some
graphic relation to the infinite. Perhaps the central
thought of his life was in this passage from Sartoi'
Besartus, — "What is man himself, but a symbol of
God ? Is not all that he does symbolical, — a revela-
tion to sense of the mystic God-given power that is
in him, a gospel of freedom, which he, the 'Messias
of Nature,' preaches, as he can, by act and word ?
Not a hut he builds but is the visible embodiment
of a thought, but leaves visible record of invisible
things, but is, in the transcendental sense, symbolical
as well as real." Carlyle was far the greatest in-
terpreter our literature has ever had of the infinite
forces working through society, of that vast, dim
back-ground of social beliefs, unbeliefs, enthusiasms,
sentimentalities, superstitions, hopes, fears, and trusts,
which go to make up either the strong cement, or
the destructive lava-stream, of national life, and to
image forth some of the genuine features of the
retributive providence of history.

III

CARLYLE'S EEMINISCENCES ^

1881

There can be no doubt as to the permanent vitality
of this book, or of the careless genius which produced
it after this random fashion, at an age when Carlyle
was looking back upon a long and laborious life.
But there may be, I think, much doubt as to the
manner in which Mr. Froude has exercised the
absolute discretion entrusted to him by Carlyle as to
the use he should make of these reminiscences. I
do not think that Carlyle, with his great pride and
Iris deep reserve, would ever have approved of the
inclusion in this book of all the constant references
to his wife, and to his love for her, poured out with
the freedom of a diarist, though of a diarist who has
formed for himself that semi-artificial manner which
suggests a consciousness of audience. The rhapsodies
on his "noblest," " queenliest," " beautifullest," and
so forth, natural enough to the old man in his desola-
tion, should not, I think, have been given to the
world as they were written. What is the proper
sphere of privacy, if the half-remorseful self-reproaches

^ Reminiscences by Thomas Carlyle. Edited by James
Autliony Froude. Two vols. 1881. London : Longmans.

16 CARLYLE'S REMINISCENCES ni

of the tenderest love, accusing itself of inadequacy,
are to be made public to all the world ?

However, I shall deal here only with the pleasanter
and more brilliant characteristics of the book. And
nothing contained in it is so affecting as the few
pages devoted to the memory of James Carlyle.
Carlyle speaks of himself, with a certain dignified
pride, as " the humble James Carlyle's work " ; and
no doubt, there was much of the father in the son,
though the stern, taciturn conciseness of the father
was blended in the son with the artistic restlessness
and discontent, which seek relief in words and cannot
hold the mouth, as it were with a bridle, because it
were pain and grief to do so. Here you see Carlyle's
rich intellectual inheritance plainly enough : —

" None of us will ever forget that bold glowing style
of his, flowing free from his untutored soul, full of
metaphors (though he knew not what a metaphor was)
with all manner of potent words which he appropriated
and applied with a surprising accuracy you often would
not guess whence — brief, energetic, and which I should
say conveyed the most perfect picture, definite, clear, not
in ambitious colours but in full white sunlight, of all the
dialects I have ever listened to. Nothing did I ever
hear him undertake to render visible which did not
become almost ocularly so. Never shall we again hear
such speech as that was. The whole district knew of it,
and laughed joyfully over it, not knowing how otherwise
to express the feeling it gave them; emphatic I have
heard him beyond all men. In anger he had no need of
oaths, his words were like sharp arrows that smote into
the very heart. The fault was that he exaggerated
(which tendency I also inherit), yet only in description,
and for the sake chiefly of humorous effect. He was a
man of rigid, even scrupulous, veracity. I have often
heard him turn back when he thought his strong words

Ill carlyle's reminiscences 17

were misleading, and correct them into mensurative
accuracy."

All these qualities reappeared in Thomas Carlyle,
even to the last feature, — the compunctious with-
drawal of something which had overshot the mark,
though often in Thomas Carlyle's case so reluctant a
withdrawal that the withdrawal failed of its effect.
But then Carlyle goes on to paint in his father a
characteristic which he had absolutely failed to
inherit: — nay, he had even fallen into something
like an excess of the very weakness from which he
declares his father so completely free : —

"A virtue he had which I should learn to imitate.
He never spoke of what was disagreeable and past. I have
often wondered and admired at this. The thing that he
had nothing to do with, he did nothing with. His was a
healthy mind. In like manner I have seen him always
when we young ones, half roguishly, and provokingly
without doubt, were perhaps repeating sayings of his,
sit as if he did not hear us at all. Never once did I
know him utter a word, only once, that I remember,
give a look in such a case. Another virtue the example
of which has passed strongly into me was his settled
placid indifference to the clamours or the murmurs of
public opinion. For the judgment of those that had no
right or power to judge him, he seemed simply to care
nothing at all. He very rarely spoke of despising such
things. He contented himself with altogether disregard-
ing them. Hollow babble it was for him, a thing, as
Fichte said, that did not exist ; das gar nicht existirte.
There was something truly great in this. The very
perfection of it hid from you the extent of the attain-
ment."

Carlyle, on the contrary, loved, like Hamlet, to
" unpack his soul " with words, even when, like
VOL. I O

18 carlyle's reminiscences hi

Hamlet, he was profuse in liis self-reproaches for the
relief wliich that unpacking of his soul certainly gave
him. But even as regards this different temperament
of the two men, it is clear that the father had some-
thing of that high-pressure of emotion in him which
gave the literary writer his motive-power : —

" I have often seen him weep, too ; his voice would
thicken and his lips curve while reading the Bible. He
had a merciful heart to real distress, though he hated
idleness, and for imbecility and fatuity had no tolerance.
Once — and I think once only — I saw him in a passion
of tears. It was when the remains of my mother's fever
hung upon her, in 1817, aud seemed to threaten the
extinction of her reason. We were all of us nigh
desperate, and ourselves mad. He burst at last into
quite a torrent of grief, cried piteously, and threw himself
on the floor and lay moaning. I wondered, and had no
words, no tears. It was as if a rock of granite had
melted, and was thawing into water. What unknown
seas of feeling lie in man, and will from time to time
break through ! "

In painful contrast to this sketch of the strong
peasant from whom Carlyle was so justly proud to
be descended, is his sketch of the light literary men
of the world, whom he felt (sometimes unjustly) to
be writers and nothing more. Take, for instance,
a bitter, but I suppose substantially true, account of
De Quincey, though it seems to me clear that Carlyle
did not sufficiently appreciate that vivid seeing power
in De Quincey which was his own greatest literary
strength : —

"Jemmy Belcher was a smirking little dumpy Unit-
arian bookseller in the Bull-ring, regarded as a kind of
curiosity and favourite among these people, and had seen

Ill carlyle's reminiscences 19

me. One showery day I had took shelter in his shop ;
picked up a new magazine, founcfm it a cleverish and com-
pletely hostile criticism of my Wilhelm Meister, of my
Goethe, and self, etc., read it faithfully to the end, and have
never set eye on it since. On stepping out my bad spirits
did not feel much elevated by the dose just swallowed, but
I thought with myself, ' This man is perhaps right on some
points ; if so, let him be admonitory ! ' And he was so
(on a Scotticism, or perhaps two) ; and I did reasonably
soon (in not above a couple of hours), dismiss him to the
devil, or to Jericho, as an ill-given, unserviceable kind of
entity in my course through this world. It was De
Quincey, as I often enough heard afterwards from foolish-
talking persons. 'What matter who, ye foolish-talking
persons ? ' would have been my silent answer, as it
generally pretty much was. I recollect, too, how in
Edinburgh a year or two after, poor De Quincey, whom
I wished to know, was reported to tremble at the thought
of such a thing ; and did fly pale as ashes, poor little
soul, the first time we actually met. He was a pretty
little creature, full of wire-drawn ingenuities, bankrupt
enthusiasms, bankrupt pride, with the finest silver-toned
low voice, and most elaborate gently-winding courtesies
and ingenuities in conversation. 'What wouldn't one
give to have him in a box, and take him out to talk ! '
That was Her criticism of him, and it was right good.
A bright, ready, and melodious talker, but in the end an
inconclusive and long-winded. One of the smallest man
figures I ever saw ; shaped like a pair of tongs, and
hardly above five feet in all When he sate, you would
have taken him, by candlelight, for the beautifullest
little child ; blue-eyed, sparkling face, had there not been
a something, too, which said ' Eccovi — this child has been
in hell.' After leaving Edinburgh I never saw him,
hardly ever heard of him. His fate, owing to opium, etc.,
was hard and sore, poor fine -strung weak creature,
launched so into the literary career of ambition and
mother of dead dogs."

20 CARLYLE'S reminiscences III

The graphic force shown in single sentences, —
frequently representative only of what Carlyle him-
self discerned, not of the reality behind what he
discerned, but still most telling, as showing what his
quick eye first lit upon, — is extraordinary. Thus
he describes John Stuart Mill's talk as " rather
wintry" and " sawdustish," but "always well-in-
formed and sincere." A great social entertainer of
those times — Lady Holland — he dashes off as "a
kind of hungry, ornamented witch, looking over at
me with merely carnivorous views," — views, I suppose,
as to what she could make of him from the enter-
tainer's point of view ; and he describes a speech of
the Duke of AVellington's on Lord EUenborough's
"Gates of Sonmauth," as "a speech of the most
haggly, hawky, pinched, and meagre kind, so far as
utterance and eloquence went, but potent for con-
viction beyond any other." No wonder that Irving,
who knew Carlyle so intimately, said of him to
Henry Drummond that " few have such eyes." Even
in describing scenes or incidents, the old man's
language beats in vividness the most vivid of our
modern describers. He dashes off a slight walking
tour with Irving, with all its joyous hilarity, in
lines so clear and strong, that we seem to have been
with him in his youth : —

" In. vacation time, twice over, I made a walking tour
with him. First time I think was to the Trossachs, and
home by Loch Lomond, Greenock, Glasgow, etc., many
parts of which are still visible to me. The party gener-
ally was to be of four ; one Piers, who was Irvinj^'s
housemate or even landlord, schoolmaster of Abbotshall,
i.e. of ' The Links,' at the southern extra-burghal part of
Kirkcaldy, a cheerful scatterbrained creature who went
ultimately as preacher or professor of something to the

III carlyle's reminiscences 21

Cape of Good Hope, and one Brown (James Brown), who
had succeeded Irving in Haddington, and was now tutor
somewhere. The full rally was not to be till Stirling ;
even Piers was gone ahead ; and Irving and I, after an
official dinner with the burghal dignitaries of Kirkcaldy,
who strove to be pleasant, set out together one grey
August evening by Forth sands towards Torryburn.
Piers was to have beds ready for us there, and we cheerily
walked along our mostly dark and intricate twenty-two
miles. But Piers had nothing serviceably ready ; we
could not even discover Piers at that dead hour (2 a.m.),
and had a good deal of groping and adventuring before a
poor inn opened to us with two coarse, clean beds in it,
in which we instantly fell asleep. Piers did in person
rouse us next morning about six, but we concordantly
met him with mere ha-ha's ! and inarticulate hootings of
satirical rebuke, to such extent that Piers, convicted of
nothing but heroic punctuality, flung himself out into
the rain again in momentary indignant puff, and strode
away for Stirling, where we next saw him after four or
five hours. I remember the squalor of our bedroom in
the dim, rainy light, and how little we cared for it in
our opulence of youth. The sight of giant Irviug in a
shortish shirt on the sanded floor, drinking patiently a large
tankard of ' penny whaup ' (the smallest beer in creation)
liefore beginning to dress, is still present to me as comic.
Of sublime or tragic, the night before a mysterious great
red glow is much more memorable, which had long hung
before us in the murky sky, growing gradually brighter
and bigger, till at last we found it must be Carron Iron-
works, on the other side of Forth, one of the most im-
pressive sights. Our march to Stirling was under pour-
ing rain for most part, but I recollect enjoying the
romance of it ; Kincardine, Culross (Cu'ros), Clackmannan,
here they are then ; what a wonder to be here ! The
Links of Forth, the Ochills, Grampians, Forth itself,
Stirling, lion-shaped, ahead, like a lion cou chant with the
castle for his crown ; all this was beautiful in spite of

22 CARLYLE's reminiscences III

rain. Welcome too was the inside of Stirling, with its
fine warm inn and the excellent refection and thorough
drying and refitting we got there, Piers and Brown
looking pleasantly on. Strolling and sight-seeing, (day
now very fine — Stirling all washed) till we marched for
Doune in the evening (Brig of Teith, ' blue and arrowy
Teith,' Irving and I took that by-way in the dusk) ;
breakfast in Callander next morning, and get to Loch
Katrine in an hour or two more. I have not been in
that region again till August last year, four days of
magnificently perfect hospitality with Stirling of Keir.
Almost surprising how mournful it was to ' look on this
picture and on that ' at interval of fifty years."

But perhaps the most telling miniature in these
Reminiscences is that of Jeflfrey acting to Mrs. Carlyle
and himself the various kinds of orators, " the windy-
grandiloquent," "the ponderous stupid," "the airy
stupid," and finally, "the abstruse costive," who is
thus delineated : —

" At length he gave us the abstruse costive specimen,
which had a meaning and no utterance for it, but went
about clambering, stumbling, as on a path of loose
boulders, and ended in total downbreak, amid peals of
the heartiest laughter from us all. This of the aerial
little sprite standing there in fatal collapse, with the
brightest of eyes sternly gazing into utter nothingness and
dumbness, was one of the most tickling and genially
ludicrous things I ever saw ; and it prettily winded up
our little drama. I often thought of it afterwards, and
of what a part mimicry plays among human gifts."

It is rather remarkable in a man of Carlyle's
birth, that there seems to have been an intolerable
fastidiousness about him, not only in relation to
people, but to sounds and sights, which must, we
suppose, be ascribed to the artistic vein in his

III carlyle's reminiscences 23

temperament. He says quite frankly: — "In short,
as has been enough indicated elsewhere, I was
advancing towards huge instalments of bodily and
spiritual wretchedness in this my Edinburgh
purgatory ; and had to clean and purify myself in
penal fire of various kinds for several years coming ;
the first, and much the worst, two or three of which
were to be enacted in this once-loved city. Horrible
to think of in part even yet ! The bodily part of
them was a kind of base agony (arising mainly in
the want of any extant or discoverable fence between
my coarser fellow -creatures and my more sensitive
self), and might and could easily (had the age been
pious or thoughtful) have been spared a poor creature
like me. Those hideous disturbances to sleep, etc.,
a very little real care and goodness might prevent
all that ; and I look back upon it still with a kind
of angry protest, and would have my successors
saved from it." And in a later page he adds his
confession that he liked, on the whole, social con-
verse with the aristocracy best : — " Certain of the
aristocracy, however, did seem to me still very noble ;
and, with due limitation of the grossly worthless
(none of whom had we to do with), I should vote at
present that, of classes known to me in England, the
aristocracy (with its perfection of human politeness,
its continual grace of bearing and of acting, stead-
fast ' honour,' light address and cheery stoicism), if
you see well into it, is actually yet the best of
English classes." That is a very curious testimony
to the effect of Carlyle's artistic feeling in modi-
fying his own teaching as to " the gospel of work."
It was not the gospel of work which had made even
the noblest of the aristocracy what they were.

After reading these Reminiscences^ one cannot but

24 CARLYLE's reminiscences III

ask oneself in what respect was Carlyle really a
great man, and where did he fall short of true great-
ness^ I should say that he was really great in
imagination, — very great in insight into the more
expressive side of human character, — great in Scotch
humour, though utterly unable to appreciate the
lighter kinds of true humour, like Lamb's, — and
very great, too, in industry, quite indefatigable in
small painstakings, whenever he thought that the
task to which he had devoted himself was worthy
of him. But he was far from great, even weak in
judgment, far from great, even narrow in sympathy,
far from great, even purblind in his appreciation of
the importance to be attached to the various
mechanism of human life. It is singular that one
who manifested his genius chiefly by history, — or
should we rather say, by his insight into and
delineation of some of the most critical characters
in history, and some of the most vivid popular
scenes in history? — should have been so totally
devoid of what one may call the true historical
sense, — the appreciation, I mean, of the inherited
conditions and ineradicable habits of ordinary
national life. There was something of the historical
Don Quixote about Carlyle ; he tilted at windmills,
and did not know that he was tilting at windmills.
He had so deep an appreciation of the vivid flashes
of consciousness which mark all great popular crises,
because they mark all great personal crises, that he
wanted to raise all human life and all common
popular life to the level of the high self-conscious
stage. He never thoroughly appreciated the mean-
ing of habit. He never thoroughly understood the
value of routine. He never adequately entered into
the power of tradition. He judged of human life as

Ill carlyle's reminiscences 25

if will and emotion were all in alL He judged of
political life as if great men and great occasions
ought to be all in all, and was furious at the waste
of force involved in doing things as men had been
accustomed to do them, wherever that appeared to
be a partially ineffectual way. And his error in
judging of peoples is equally traceable in his judg-
ments on individuals. If a man had a strong inter-
est in the routine and detail of life, he called him
"sawdustish." If he had a profound belief in any
popular ideas beyond those acknowledged by himself,
Carlyle probably called him moonshiny. Such men
as John Mill came under the one condemnation,
such men as Mazzini under the other. And yet
either John Mill or Mazzini may be said to have
applied a more effectual knowledge of men to the
historical conditions of their own time, than Thomas
Carlyle. Indeed, once go beyond the world of the
vivid personal and popular emotions and passions,
and Carlyle's insight seems to have been very limited,
and his genius disappears.

IV
THOMAS CARLYLEi

1882

Mr. Froude takes credit, to himself for being a true
portrait-painter, a portrait-painter who abates nothing
in his picture of the darker features of the man whom
he has painted, and certainly he takes no credit in
this respect to which he has not a just claim. The
picture here given is strong but by no means idealised.
Indeed, the gloomy impression left by the Reminis-
cences is rather deepened than softened by this portion
of the Life. The stern gloom, contemptuousness,
and cynicism of these earlier days are not even
relieved, as they were in the Reminiscences, by the
remorseful tenderness and grateful affection of the
old man's feeling for his lost wife. It is only Carlyle's
passionate devotion to his mother and father, to his
brothers and sisters, which makes this part of his
life even tolerable. That Carlyle was uniformly
high-minded, so far as high-mindedness consists in a
positive scorn for mean actions and ignoble ends, the

1 Thomas Carlyle : a History of the First Forty Years of his
Life, 1795-1835. By James Anthony Froude, M.A. 2 vols.
With Portraits and Etchings. London : Longmans, Green,
and Co.

IV THOMAS CARLYLE 27

reader never forgets ; that he thought much more of
the welfare of his kith and kin than of his own
welfare, you see constantly, with increasing admira-
tion. But a man more absolutely destitute of that
"charity" which, in St. Paul's words, "suffereth
long and is kind, envieth not, vaunteth not itself, is
not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly,
seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh
no evil," cannot easily be imagined, and probably
never yet lived, than the proud and scornful peasant
of genius whom Mr. Froude's pages delineate.
Carlyle writes to his mother in 1824, when he has
just finished his Life of Schiller : —

" Sometimes of late I have bethought me of some of
your old maxims about pride and vanity. I do see this
same vanity to be the root of half the evil men are sul^ject
to in life. Examples of it stare me in the face every day.
The pitiful passion, under any of the thousand forms
which it assumes, never fails to wither out the good and
worthy parts of a man's character, and leave him poor
and spiteful, an enemy to his own peace and that of all
about him. There never was a wiser doctrine than that
of Christian humility, considered as a corrective for the
coarse, unruly selfishness of man's nature."

But whatever Carlyle thought of the value of Christian
humility " considered as a corrective for the coarse,
unruly selfishness of man's nature," he never seems
to have had any good opinion of it considered as a
corrective for that irritable pride, and detestation of
owing anything to the generosity of another, in which
he indulged himself as if it were the highest of
virtues. He is constantly comparing himself with
people whom he denounces with a sort of contemptu-
ous rage, rather than with those with whom he would

28 THOMAS CARLYLE iv

desire to rank himself, if he could. Thus he writes
to his mother : —

" I am in very fair health considering everything :
about a hundred times as well as I was last year, and as
happy as you ever saw me. In fact I want nothing but
steady health of body (which I shall get in time) to be
one of the comfortablest persons of my acquaintance. I
have also books to write and things to say and do in this
world which few wot of. This has the air of vanity, but
it is not altogether so. I consider that my Almighty
Author has given me some glimmerings of superior
understanding and mental gifts ; and I should reckon it
the worst treason against him to neglect improving
and using to the very utmost of my power these his
bountiful mercies. At some future day it shall go hard,
but I will stand above these mean men whom I have
never yet stood with."

And this he writes without in the least explaining to
what kind of mean men he refers, as if the class of
men whom he denounces were always haunting his
imagination, rather than the class of men of whose
moral and spiritual position he could be really
emulous. Except Goethe, who does not seem to me
a very splendid object for moral emulation, it is
wonderful how little Carlyle found among his con-
temporaries to appreciate and emulate. He can
admire " heroes " of past ages, and can love his own
family. But in relation to all his contemporaries, —
and Goethe can be called a contemporary only in a
very limited sense, — he finds hardly anything to
emulate or admire. He loves Irving, but is never
tired of girding at living's vanity and superstition.
He despises, almost without exception, the literary
men witli whom he makes acquaintance. Here is

THOMAS CARLYLE 29

Carlyle's survey of literary London, when he first
ventured into it : —

" Irving advises me to stay in London ; partly with
a friendly feeling, partly with a half-selfish one, for he
would fain keep me near him. Among all his followers
there is none whose intercourse can satisfy him. Any
other than him it would go far to disgust. Great part of
them are blockheads, a few are fools. There is no rightly
intellectual man among them. He speculates and specu-
lates, and would rather have one contradict him rationally,
than gape at him with the vacant stare of children viewing
the Grand Turk's palace with his guards — all alive ! He
advises me, not knowing what he says. He himself has
the nerves of a buffalo, and forgets that I have not. His
philosophy with me is like a gill of ditch-water thrown
into the crater of Mount ^tna. A million gallons of it
would avail me nothing. On the wliole, however, he is
among the best fellows in Loudon, by far the best that I
have met with. Thomas Campbell has a far clearer
judgment, infinitely more taste and refinement, but there
is no living well of thought or feeling in him. His head
is a shop, not a manufactory ; and for his heart, it is as
dry as a Greenock kipper. I saw him for the second
time the other night. I viewed him more clearly and in
a kindlier light, but scarcely altered my opinion of him.
He is not so much a man as the editor of a magazine.
His life is that of an exotic. He exists in London, as
most Scotchmen do, like a shrub disrooted and stuck into
a bottle of water. Poor Campbell ! There were good
things in him too, but fate has pressed too heavy on him,
or he has resisted it too weakly. His poetic vein is fail-
ing, or has run out. He has a Glasgow wife, and their
only son is in a state of idiotcy. I sympathised with
him, I could have loved him, but he has forgot the
way to love. Procter here has set up house on the
strength of his writing faculties, with his wife, a daughter
of the Noble Lady. He is a good-natured man, lively

30 THOMAS CARLYLE IV

and ingenious, but essentially a small. Coleridge is sunk
inextricably in the depths of putrescent indolence.
Southey and Wordsworth have retired far from the din
of this monstrous city ; so has Thomas Moore. Whom
have we lehl The dwarf Opium-eater, my critic in the
London Magazine^ lives here in lodgings, with a wife and
children living, or starving, on the scanty produce of
his scribble far off in Westmoreland. He carries a
laudanum bottle in his pocket, and the venom of a wasp

in his heart. A rascal ( ), who writes much of the

blackguardism in Blackwood, has been frying him to
cinders on the gridiron of John Bull. Poor De Quincey !
He had twenty thousand pounds, and a liberal share of
gifts from Nature. Vanity and opium have brought him
to the state of 'dog distract or monkey sick.' If I could
find him, it would give me ]ileasure to procure him one
substantial beefsteak before lie dies. Hazlitt is writing
his way through France and Italy. The gin-shops and
pawnbrokers bewail his absence. Leigh Hunt writes ' wish-
ing-caps ' for the Examiner, and lives on the lightest of

diets at Pisa. But what shall I say of you, ye , and

, and , and all the spotted fry that ' report ' and

* get up ' for the ' public press,' that earn money by writing
calumnies, and spend it in punch and other viler objects
of debauchery % Filthiest and basest of the children of
men ! My soul come not into your secrets ; mine honour
be not united unto you ! * Good heavens ! ' I often
inwardly exclaim, ' and is this the literary world ? ' This
rascal rout, this dirty rabble, destitute not only of high
feeling and knowledge or intellect, but even of common
honesty ! The very best of them are ill-natured weaklings.
They are not red-blooded men at all. They are only
things for writing articles. But I have done with them
for once. In railing at them, let me not forget that if
they are bad and worthless, I, as yet, am nothing ; and
that he who putteth on his harness should not boast
himself as he who putteth it off. Unhappy souls I
perhaps they are more to be pitied than blamed. I do

IV THOMAS CARLYLE 31

not hate them. I would only that stone walls and iron
bars were constantly between us. Such is the literary
world of London ; indisputably the poorest part of its
population at present."

And again : —

" The people are stupid and noisy, and I live at the
easy rate of five and forty shillings per week ! I say the
people are stupid not altogether unadvisedly. In point
either of intellectual and moral culture they are some
degrees below even the inhabitants of the 'modern
Athens.' I have met no man of true head and heart
among them. Coleridge is a mass of richest spices
putrefied into a dunghill. I never hear him taivlk
without feeling ready to worship him, and toss him in a
blanket. Thomas Campbell is an Edinburgh ' small,'
made still smaller by growth in a foreign soil. Irving is
enveloped with delusions and difficulties, wending some-
what down hill, to what depths I know not ; and scarcely
ever to be seen without a host of the most stolid of all
his Majesty's Christian people sitting round him. I
wonder often that he does not buy himself a tar-barrel,
and fairly light it under the Hatton Garden j)^^lpit, and
thus once for all exfumo giving lucem, bid adieu the gross

train-oil concern altogether. The poor little . I

often feel that were I as one of these people, sitting in a
whole body by the cheek of my own wife, my feet upon
my own hearth, I should feel distressed at seeing myself
so very poor in spirit. Literary men ! The Devil in his
own good time take all such literary men. One sterling
fellow like Schiller, or even old Johnson, would take
half-a-dozen such creatures by the nape of the neck,
between his finger and thumb, and carry them forth to
the nearest common sink. Save Allan Cunningham, our
honest Nithdale peasant, there is not one man among
them. In short, it does not seem worth while to spend
five and forty shillings weekly for the privilege of being
near such pen-men."

32 THOMAS CARLYLE ly

And you may say of the whole tone of his
correspondence that his chief desire and resolve, as
expressed in it, is to keep this " rabble rout " beneath
his feet, rather than to attain to any height of intel-
lectual or moral virtue w^hich he has discerned in any
living contemporary. With all his love for Irving,
you never find a thought passing through Carlyle's
mind that he, Carlyle, might with advantage emulate
Irving's large and generous nature, and his eager
spiritual faith. Nor do you find the character any-
where, unless it be within his own family, that
Carlyle for a single moment sets before him as an
ideal nobler than himself, to the elevation of which
he would gladly aspire. His one ideal of life seems
to be to tread down the " rabble rout," instead of to
strain after any excellence above his own. Indeed,
the thing which has struck me with most wonder in
reading these letters, is that a man could remain so
high-minded as Carlyle on the whole certainly did,
and yet live so constantly in the atmosphere of scorn,
— scorn certainly more or less for himself as well as
every one else, but especially for every one else, his
own clan excepted. He spends all his energies in a
sort of vivid passion of scorn. He tramples furiously
partly on himself and partly on the miserable genera-
tion of his fellow-men, and then he is lost in wonder
and vexation that such trampling results in no great
work of genius. It was not, of course, till he found
subjects for genuine admiration, — which he seems to
have been long in doing, — that he discovered subjects
for his creative genius at all. You cannot make
destructive fury serve you for a creative work, and it
seems to me that Carlyle's vast waste of power in
early life was greatly due to his giving up so large a
portion of his mind and heart to the task of tearing

rv THOMAS CARLYLE 33

to shreds the inadequate characters and aims which
he found so richly strewn around him. The grim fire
in him seems to have been in search of something to
consume, and the following was the kind of fuel
which, for the most part, it found. He is writing
from Kinnaird, in Perthshire, where he was staying
with Mr. and Mrs. Charles Buller, as tutor to that
Charles Buller whose premature death some years
later deprived England of a young statesman of the
highest promise :

"I see something of fashionable people here (he wrote
to Miss Welsh), and truly to my plebeian conception there
is not a more futile class of persons on the face of the
earth. If I were doomed to exist as a man of fashion, I
do honestly believe I should swallow ratsbane, or apply
to hemp or steel before three months were over. From
day to day and year to year the problem is, not how to
use time, but how to waste it least painfully. They have
their dinners and their routs. They move heaven and
earth to get everything arranged and enacted properly;
and when the whole is done, what is it ? Had the parties
all wrapped themselves in warm blankets and kept their
beds, much peace had been among several hundreds of
his Majesty's subjects, and the same result, the uneasy
destruction of half-a-dozen hours, had been quite as well
attained. No wonder poor women take to opium and
scandal. The wonder is rather that these queens of the
land do not some morning, struck by the hopelessness of
their condition, make a general finish by simultaneous
consent, and exhibit to coroners and juries the spectacle
of the old world of ton suspended by their garters, and
freed at last from ennui in the most cheap and complete
of all possible modes. There is something in the life of
a sturdy peasant toiling from sun to sun for a plump
wife and six eating children ; but as for the Lady Jerseys
and the Lord Petershams, peace be with them."

VOL. I D

34 THOMAS CARLYLE IV

No man not a man of genius could have written this,
and much that is of the same tjiie ; but then, mere
rage at the superficialities of the world was not
enough for one whom it never could have contented
to be a satirist. Carlyle had at least derived this
from his father's education, that he was never content
with raging at what was faulty and bad, unless he
could find the means of suggesting something less
faulty or even good to substitute for it ; and the
truth certainly is that during the early part of his
life at all events, Carlyle never did find this, but
gnawed his heart away in denouncing the follies
and futilities — not always nearly so unmixed as his
jaundiced eye persuaded him — which he did not know
how to reform.

Unfortunately, as it seems to me, in the lady who
became his wife, and whose mind he had a very
great share in forming, he found a very apt pupil
for this negative and contemptuous side of his own
mind; and so, as Mr. Froude puts it, the sharp
facets of the two diamonds, as they wore against
each other, " never wore into surfaces which harmoni-
ously corresponded." Mrs. Carlyle said, in the
late evening of her laborious life, " I married for
ambition. Carlyle has exceeded all my wildest
hopes and expectations, and I am miserable." No
wonder, when neither mutual love, nor even common
love for something above themselves, but rather
scorn for everything m.ean, was the only deep ground
of their mutual sympathy. The wonder rather is
that that scorn for what was mean should have
remained, on the whole, so sound as it did, and
should never have degenerated into a misanthropy at
once selfish and malignant. Yet this certainly never
happened. It is in the highest sense creditable

THOMAS CARLYLE 35

both to Carlyle and his wife, that with all the hard-
ness of their natures, and all the severe trials, which
partly from health and partly from the deficiency in
that tenderness which does so much to smooth the
path of ordinary life, they had to undergo, they kept
their unquestionable cynicism to the last free from
all the more ignoble elements, and perfectly consist-
ent with that Stoical magnanimity in which it began.

Still, say of it what you will, the spectacle of the
life of this great genius is not, on the whole, a good,
though it is in many respects a grand one. As for
the prophetic message which Mr. Froude thinks
that Carlyle had to deliver to the world, I hold that
the more it is studied, and especially the more it is
studied beside the life of him who promulgated it,
the more it will be found to consist almost as much
of a confession of its own insufficiency, and of the
true cause of that insufficiency, as of the salutary
warning and indignant denunciation. But to this
message it is now time to refer.

The one thing upon which I differ more and more
from Mr. Froude, the more I study all these strange
records of a strange and even unique character, is
his impression that Carlyle was really deeply
possessed with a gospel or message that he was
bound to deliver, that he was in this sense a veritable
prophet, and one straitened in spirit till he had
found a response in man. That one or two very
important truths had gained a complete possession
of his imagination is, of course, obvious. He saw
with a vividness which hardly any of us, even with
his help, realise, that almost all serious speech is a
sort of venture, an attempt to embody something
much deeper than itself, which at best it can only
indicate, not adequately express. He saw with

36 THOMAS CARLYLE iv

absolute insight the helplessness of mere institutions
to cure evils which are deep-rooted in the characters
of those who work the institutions. He felt, often
with a humorous indignation, sometimes only with
an indignant humour, the falsehood of the moral
standards by which men measure each other; and
he hated the conventional respectabilities at the
bottom of middle -class morality, with a hatred
almost too savage to be consistent with anything
like a true perspective in his views of life. Further,
he believed in the duty of doing thoroughly whatever
you take in hand to do at all, as the first of human
duties ; and to this great article of his creed, he no
doubt added, with profound confidence in the early
part of his life, but with very much less distinctness,
as it seems to me, towards its close, a faith in the
providence of God, in the immortality of the human
soul, and in the transcendental realities behind all
the time-phenomena, as he called them, which are
presented to us in history and in experience. But
take all these beliefs together, and they form a very
vague and ambiguous sort of gospel, almost all the
elements of which, except, perhaps, the gospel of
thoroughness in work, were embarrassed by all sorts
of doubts, to which Carlyle found no answer ; and
yet of the embarrassment of these doubts he became
more and more conscious as his life went on. For
example, he never could get himself quite clear as
to what he called his " creed of Natural Supernatur-
alism." Late in his own life he declared, with a
perfectly absurd dogmatism indeed, — at least, Mr.
Froude asserts that he dogmatically laid it down, —
that " it is as certain as mathematics, that no such
thing" as the special miraculous occurrences of
sacred history "ever has been, or can be." But

IV THOMAS CARLYLE 37

when he came to work out what he meant by his
own natural supernaturalism, he got quite out of his
depth. "Is not every thought," he wrote, in his
Journal in 1830, "properly an inspiration? Or how
is one thing more inspired than another ? Much in
this." If there were really much in this, then surely
all Carlyle's own teaching was wrong, for the Whigs
and the fanatics, and the materialists and utilitarians,
and all whom he denounced as the false teachers of
the age, were, in that case, just as much speaking
from inspiration, as he himself when he uttered the
oracles of his own practical transcendentalism. In-
deed, his whole early teaching really rested on the
principle of the immutable hostility of good and evil,
but what with his "natural supernaturalism," and
his admiration for Goethe's calm indifference to the
moral struggles of his age, he soon began to question
whether there were not some common measure
between sin and righteousness ; and we find specu-
lations like the following, not only scattered con-
stantly through his journals, but bearing the most
remarkable fruits in his later histories and moral
essaj^s : —

" What is art and poetry ? Is the beauLiful really
higher than the good ? A higher form thereof ? Thus
were a poet not only a priest, but a high priest. When
Goethe and Schiller say or insinuate that art is higher
than religion, do they mean perhaps this ? That whereas
religion represents (what is the essence of truth for man)
the good as infinitely (the word is emphatic) different
from the evil, but sets them in a state of hostility (as in
heaven and hell), art likewise admits and inculcates this
quite infinite difference, but without hostility, with peace-
fulness, like the difference of two poles which cannot
coalesce, yet do not quarrel — nay, should not quarrel.

38 THOMAS CARLYLE IV

for botli are essential to the whole. In this way is
Goethe's morality to be considered as a higher (apart from
its comprehensiveness, nay, universality) than has hitherto
been promulgated ? Sehr einseitig ! Yet perhaps there
is a glimpse of the truth here." (Vol. IL, pp. 93-4.)

This was written at the end of 1830. Again, at the
end of 1831, we read : —

"This I begin to see, that evil and good are every-
where, like shadow and substance ; inseparable (for men),
yet not hostile, only opposed. There is considerable
significance in this fact, perhaps the new moral principle
of our era. (How ?) It was familiar to Goethe's mind."
(Vol. IL, p. 228.)

And this thought certainly took more and more
possession of Carlyle, touching with uncertainty half
his most fiery moral judgments, and maturing
ultimately, as we see in his Life of Sterling, into a
" steady resolution to suppress " all discussions as to
either the personality of God or the origin of moral
evil, as "wholly fruitless and worthless." Indeed,
the nearest approach to anything like a gospel on
these deeper subjects, which Carlyle found himself
able to preach in later life, is contained in the
following ambiguous answer to a young man, the son
of an old friend, who wrote to him on the subject of
prayer : —

"Thomas Carlyle to George A. Duncan.

"Chelsea, June 9, 1870.
" Dear Sir — You need no apology for addressing me ;
your letter itself is of amiable, ingenuous character ;
pleasant and interesting to me in no common degree. I
am sorry only that I cannot set at rest, or settle into
clearness, your doubts on that important subject. What

IV THOMAS CARLYLE 39

I myself practically, in a half-articulate way, believe on
it I will try to express for you. First, then, as to your
objection of setting up our poor wish or will in opposition
to the will of the Eternal, I have not the least word to
say in contradiction of it. And this seems to close, and
does, in a sense though not perhaps in all senses, close
the question of our prayers being granted, or what is
called ' heard ; ' but that is not the whole question. For,
on the other hand, prayer is, and remains always, a
native and deepest impulse of the soul of man ; and
correctly gone about, is of the very highest benefit (nay,
one might say, indispensability) to every man aiming
morally high in this world. No prayer, no religion, or
at least, only a dumb and lamed one ! Prayer is a turning
of one's soul, in heroic reverence, in infinite desire and
ejideavour, towards the Highest, the All-Excellent, Omni-
potent, Supreme. The modern Hero, therefore, ought
not to give up praying, as he has latterly all but done.
Words of prayer, in this epoch, I know hardly any. But
the act of prayer, in great moments, I believe to be still
possible ; and that one should gratefully accept such
moments, and count them blest, when they come, if come
they do — which latter is a most rigorous preliminary
question with us in all cases. ' Can I pray in this
moment ' (much as I may wish to do so) 1 ' If not, then
NO ! ' I can at least stand silent, inquiring, and not
blasphemously lie in this Presence ! On the whole,
Silence is the one safe form of prayer known to me, in
this poor sordid era — though there are ejaculatory words,
too, which occasionally rise on one, with a felt propriety
and veracity ; words very welcome in such case ! Prayer
is the aspiration of our poor, struggling, heavy-laden soul
towards its Eternal Father ; and, with or without words,
ought nA)t to become impossible, nor, I persuade myself,
need it ever. Loyal sons and subjects can approach the
King's throne who have no 'request' to make there,
except that they may continue loyal Cannot they?"
(Vol II., pp. 21-2.)

40 THOMAS CARLYLE IT

That seems to show that in spite of Carlyle's rough
way of treating Sterling's charge of Pantheism —
" Suppose it were Pottheism, if the thing is true ! " —
he did to the last retain his belief in a Divine Will
higher than the human will, and quite distinct from
it. But gladly admitting and even maintaining this
as I do, it is clear enough that Carlyle's " gospel "
was overshadowed, even for himself, by such a
crowd of ambiguities and difficulties, by such con-
fusions between naturalism and supernaturalism,
between the lower and the higher nature, between
God and man, between morality and art, between
impulse and inspiration, between fate and free-will,
that he had very little heart left for genuine religious
appeal to any one, and could not even persuade him-
self to make much of an effort to rescue even his
most intimate friend, Edward Irving, from his
fanatical delusions about the gift of tongues. Once,
indeed, Carlyle seems to have told Irving his mind
pretty freely, but never again, even though he felt a
strong impulse at the last to make one more sally
against the superstitions in which he saw Irving more
and more involved. — Here, at least, it was not for
want of deep conviction, but probably for want of
confidence in his own power to express his too
negative convictions in any form which would per-
suade one who believed as fervently as Irving did in
the Christian revelation. Carlyle writes to his wife,
of a meeting with Irving in 1831, as follows: —
"The good Irving looked at me wistfully, for he
knows I cannot take miracles in ; yet he looks so
piteously, as if he implored me to believe. Oh dear,
oh dear ! was the Devil ever busier than now, when
the Supernatural must either depart from the world,
or reappear there like a chapter of Hamilton's

IV THOMAS CARLYLE 41

Diseases of Females ? " But none the less, he spoke
his mind freely to Irving only once, but never again
took heart to preach his gospel, — if he had one, — to
his old friend.

The more I study Carlyle, the less I believe that
the word " prophet," and the language concerning a
" message " which he had to deliver, in any proper
sense describe him and his work. He knew very
vaguely what he believed to be true, though he knew
very vividly indeed what it was that he held to be
utterly false, and from his heart repudiated. But
even as to that perfectly distinct and negative part of
his creed, even as to his hatred of what he persisted,
with his usual unfortunate insistence on a humorous
satirical expression of his own, in calling " gigmanity,"
— the morality, namely, of the class which believes
in keeping a gig as a sign of respectability, — which
he dubbed "gigmanity" by way of a joke, a joke
well enough for once, but in oppressively bad taste
when made to ring perpetually in all his friends' ears
through years of private correspondence, — I do not
believe that Carlyle's denunciations of woes repre-
sented a gospel at all. Doubtless, he detested the
conventional conception of "respectability" as the
characteristic of people who could make a show in
the world. He looked upon that conception with
supreme and absolute scorn, as well as with a certain
indignant horror. But was his denunciation of it
truly religious? Did he desire to denounce it,
mainly because he wished to substitute in every human
breast the higher and truer idea respecting moral
worth ? I doubt it. I do not in the least mean
that he did not wish to substitute this. Of course
he did. But what occupied him, what possessed his
imagination, what fired his pen, was not, after all,

42 THOMAS CARLYLE iv

love of the true idea, but hatred of the false. He
shows not half so much trace of the desire to redeem
man by planting the true belief, as passionate posses-
sion with the miserableness and contemptibleness of
those who are deluded by the false belief. And how
do I judge of this 1 Why, thus : that hardly any-
where in all these letters and journals do we find
Carlyle fastening with delight on traces of the nobler
and truer standard of thought (at least outside his
own clan), while we constantly find him fastening
with a sort of fever of excitement on traces of the
ignoble and false standard. Where in the world
could Carlyle have found nobler evidence of this
higher standard of worth than in the works of the
great genius of his age. Sir Walter Scott 1 Yet, what
does he say of these works ? —

"It is a damnable heresy in criticism to maintain
either expressly or implicitly that the ultimate object of
poetry is sensation. That of cookery is such, but not
that of poetry. Sir Walter Scott is the great intellectual
restaurateur of Europe. He might have been numbered
among the Conscript Fathers. He has chosen the worser
part, and is only a huge Publicanus. What are his
novels — any one of them ? A bout of champagne, claret,
port, or even ale drinking. Are we wiser, better, holier,
stronger ? No. We have been amused." (Vol. I., p.
371.) ..." Walter Scott left town yesterday on his way
to Naples. He is to proceed from Plymouth in a frigate,
which the Government have given him a place in. Much
run after here, it seems ; but he is old and sick, and
cannot enjoy it ; has had two shocks of palsy, and seems
altogether in a precarious way. To me he is and has
been an object of very minor interest for many, many
years. The novelwright of his time, its favourite child,
and therefore an almost worthless one. Yet is there some-
thing in Lis deep recognition of the worth of the past,

IV THOMAS CARLYLE 43

perhaps better than anything he has expressed about it,
into vvliich I do not yet fully see. Have never spoken
with him (though I might sometimes without great
effort) ; and now probably never shall." (Vol. II., p.
208.)

It is curious by the way, that Carlyle, an immense
reader, appears to have been wholly ignorant of the
meaning of the word " publicanus," and to have
confounded it with the English word "publican."
But it is much more curious that he should have
passed so grossly false a judgment on Sir Walter
Scott. For if ever there were a man whose writings
showed a profound appreciation of moral worth as
distinct from conventional worth, it was Sir Walter
Scott. Again, take the case of Wordsworth. If
ever a man held and preached Carlyle's own tran-
scendental doctrine, both as a creed and as a prac-
tical rule of life, it was Wordsworth. Wordsworth
genuinely held and embodied in his own life the
spiritual view of things, and he genuinely abhorred
the life of luxury, and loved the life of " plain living
and high thinking." In a word, Wordsworth was a
poetical Carlyle, without Carlyle's full insight into
the superficialities and conventionalities of bodies
politic, but otherwise a genuine and powerful
spiritual ally. But what does Carlyle think of
Wordsworth 1 Instead of delighting to detect in
him a kindred spirit, he writes of him in this
way: —

" Sir Wm. Hamilton's supper (three nights ago) has
done me mischief ; will hardly go to another. Words-
worth talked of there (by Captain T. Hamilton, his
neighbour). Represented verisimilarly enough as a man
full of English prejudices, idle, alternately gossiping to
enormous lengths, and talking, at rare intervals, high

44 THOMAS CARLYLE lY

wisdom ; on the whole, endeavouring to make out a
plausible life of halfness in the Tory way, as so many on
all sides do. Am to see him if I please to go thither ;
would go but a shortish way for that end." (Vol. II.,
pp. 338-9.)

And it is the same throughout. What Carlyle feels
to be false, he denounces with all the eloquence of a
great imagination. But the evidence that what he
is driving at, is, not the dissemination of a gospel of
new truth to his fellow-men, but rather the intellecual
annihilation of an error for which he feels the utmost
scorn, lies in the fact that he never seems to have
felt the slightest affinity for those contemporaries
who really held with him, but only a profound scorn
for those contemporaries who lived in the mists of
the illusions which he contemned.

On the whole, this picturesque life of Carlyle in
his earlier years, — and a more vivid life I cannot
imagine, — impresses me profoundly with the belief
that the prophetic side of his mind hardly existed ;
that he was a man of very rare genius, who had not
so much a message to his fellow-men, which he was
prompted by love for them to deliver, as a haunting
vision of the exceeding emptiness of the commoner
forms of human life, and who was brimful of the
scorn which that emptiness deserved, — which scorn
the intensity of his own imagination compelled him
to embody in words. But of grave desire to redeem
mankind by persuading them to accept even this
message, of passionate craving to find others possessed
with the same creed, of eager spiritual sympathy
with those who preached anything at all analogous
to it, — and there were many contemporaries who did
so, — I can find no trace at all. Therefore I deny
Carlyle the name of a prophet. His was the inspira-

IV THOMAS CARLYLE 45

tion of genius, not the inspiration which comes of
the love of God or man. He was, no doubt,
" straitened " till his genius found utterance, as all
men of genius are. But of the true preacher who
yearns to see his truth conveying to other minds the
illumination it has conveyed to his own, I can see no
sign at all in these delightful and vivid volumes.
Even to his wife, it is pretty clear that Carlyle failed
altogether to convey any helpful sense of the divine
character of the message which he supposed himself
to have delivered to the world at large.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON

1882

The great American thinker, who has been so often
compared to Carlyle, and who in some respects
resembles, whilst in many more he is profoundly
different from him, and who has so soon followed him
to the grave, will be remembered much longer, I
believe, for the singular insight of his literary
judgments, than for that transcendental philosophy
for which he was once famous. It is remarkable
enough that Carlyle and Emerson both had in them
that imaginative gift which made them aim at poetry,
and both that incapacity for rhythm or music which
rendered their verses too rugged, and too much
possessed with the sense of effort, to sink as verse
should sink into the hearts of men. Carlyle's verse
is like the heavy rumble of a van without springs ;
Emerson's, which now and then reaches something
of the sweetness of poetry, much more often reminds
one of the attempts of a seeress to induce in herself
the ecstasy which will not spontaneously visit her.
Yet the prose, both of Carlyle and of Emerson, falls
at times into that poetic rhythm which indicates the
highest glow of a powerful imaginative nature, though

V RALPH WALDO EMERSON 47

of such passages I could produce many more from
Carlyle than from Emerson. I should say that a
little of Emerson's verse is genuine poetry, though
not of the highest order, and that none of Carlyle's
is poetry at all ; but that some of Carlyle's prose is
as touching as any but the noblest poetry, while
Emerson never reaches the same profound pathos.
Nor is this the only side on which these two
contemporary thinkers resemble each other. As
thinkers, both were eager transcendentalists, and at
the same time, rationalists too. Both were intended
for divines, and both abandoned the profession, though
Emerson filled a pulpit for a year or two, while Car-
lyle never even entered on the formal study of
theology. Both, again, were in their way humourists,
though Emerson's humour was a much less profound
constituent of his character than Carlyle's. And
finally, both would have called themselves the spokes-
men of ''the dim, common populations," the enemies
of all selfish privilege, of all purely traditional
distinctions between man and man, of all the artificial
selfishness of class, of all the tyranny of caste, and
the cruelty of custom.

Yet Emerson and Carlyle were in their way very
remarkable contrasts. Emerson was as benignant
and gentle as Carlyle was arrogant and bitter. Mr.
Ruskin has asked, "What can you say of Carlyle,
except that he was born in the clouds, and struck
by lightning 1 " Of Emerson it might, perhaps, be
also said that he was born in the clouds, but
assuredly not that he was struck by lightning.
There is nothing scathed or marred about him,
nothing sublime, though something perhaps better,
— a little of the calm of true majesty. He has the
keen kindliness of the highest New-England culture,

48 RALPH WALDO EMERSON v

with a touch of majesty about him that no other
New-England culture shows. He has the art of
saying things with a tone of authority quite unknown
to Carlyle, who casts his thunderbolt, but never
forgets that he is casting it at some unhappy mortal
whom he intends to slay. That is not Emerson's
manner ; he is never aggressive. He has that regal
suavity which settles a troublesome matter without
dispute. His sentences are often like decrees. For
example, take this, on the dangers of the much-
vaunted life of action: — "A certain partiality,
headiness, and want of balance is the tax which all
action must pay. Act if you like, but you do it at
your peril ; " or this, on the dangers of speculation,
— "Why should I vapour and play the philosopher,
instead of ballasting the best I can this dancing
balloon ; " or this, on the dangers of hero-worship,
— " Every hero becomes a bore at last. We balance
one man with his opponent, and the health of the
State depends upon the see-saw ; " or this, on the
Time-spirit, — "We see now events forced on which
seem to retard or retrograde the civility of ages.
But the World-spirit is a good swimmer, and storms
and waves cannot drown him." There is no thinker
of our day who, for sentences that have the ring of
oracles, can quite compare with Emerson. Mr.
Arnold, in a sonnet written near forty years ago, on
Emerson's essays, said, —

" A voice oracular has pealed to-day ;
To-day a hero's banner is unfurled."

And the first line at least was true, whatever may
be said of the second. No man has compressed
more authoritative insight into his sentences than
Emerson. He discerns character more truly than

V RALPH WALDO EMERSON 49

Carlyle, though he does not describe with half the
fervent vigour. Carlyle worships Goethe blindly,
but Emerson discerns the very core of the poet.
" Goethe can never be dear to men. His is not even
the devotion to pure truth, but to truth for the sake
of culture." And again, — Goethe, he says, "has
one test for all men : What can you teach me ? "
Hear him of Goethe as artist, — " His affections help
him, like women employed by Cicero to worm out
the secrets of conspirators." Or take this, as
summing up Goethe as a poet : — " These are not wild,
miraculous songs, but elaborate poems, to which the
poet has confided the results of eighty years of
observation. . . . Still, he is a poet of a prouder
laurel than any contemporary, and under this
plague of microscopes (for he seems to see out of
every pore of his skin), strikes the harp with a hero's
strength and grace." There is something far more
royal and certain in Emerson's insight, than in all
the humorous brilliance of Carlyle.

Still, if I were to compare the two as tran-
scendental thinkers, I should not hesitate to declare
Carlyle much the greater of the two. Emerson never
seems to me so little secure of his ground as he is in
uttering his transcendentalisms, — Carlyle never so
secure. Emerson on "Nature," Emerson on the
"Over-soul," Emerson on the law of "Polarity,"
Emerson on " Intuition," does not seem to me even
instructive. He takes no distinct aim, and hits only
the vague. When he tells us, in his " Representative
Men," that "animated chlorine knows of chlorine,
and incarnate zinc of zinc," he attempts to state his
peculiar pantheism in words which not only do not
make it more intelligible, but rather illustrate the
untruth of the general assertion that only like can

VOL. I E

50 RALPH WALDO EMERSON V

perceive like. " Shall we say," he adds, " that quartz
mountains will pulverise into innumerable Werners,
Von Buchs, and Beaumonts, and that the laboratory
of the atmosphere holds in solution I know not what
Berzeliuses and Davys ? " — a question to which I, at
least, should reply with a most emphatic "No," if,
at least, the object be, as it no doubt is, to explain
discoverers by their latent affinity with the thing
discovered. Suppose I put it thus, — "Animated
bacteria know of bacteria, incarnate lymph of
vaccine : " — who would not see the absurdity 1 Is
there really more of the bacteria in Professor Pasteur
or Professor Koch, than there is in the cattle inocu-
lated by the former, or the consumptive patients who
die from the presence of tubercular bacteria, according
to the teaching of the latter, that Professors Pasteur
and Koch discover their presence, while the patients
themselves discover nothing of the nature of their
own complaints ? Of course, Emerson would have
said that he did not mean his statements to be thus
carnally interpreted. Very likely not ; but have
they any real meaning at all, unless thus carnally
construed? Emerson's transcendental essays are
full of this kind of dark and vague symbolism, which
carries weight only in proportion to the extent of
our ignorance, not to the extent of our knowledge.
Now, Carlyle, so far as he was a transcendentalist,
stuck to the very truth and reality of nature. He
showed us how small a proportion of our life we
can realise in thought ; how small a proportion of
our thoughts we can figure forth in words ; how
immense is the difference between the pretensions
of human speech and the real life for which it stands ;
how vast the forces amidst which the human spirit
struggles for its little modicum of purpose ; how

V RALPH WALDO EMERSON 51

infinite the universe, both in regard to space and
time, on which we make our little appearances only
to subside again before we can hope materially to
change the great stream of tendencies which contains
us ; and he made us feel, as hardly anj'' other has
made us feel, how, in spite of all this array of
immensities in which we are hardly a distinguishable
speck, the spirit whose command brings us into being
requires of us the kind of life which defies necessity,
and breathes into the order of our brief existence
the spirit of impassioned right and indomitable
freedom. This was but a narrow aim, compared
with that of Emerson's philosophy, but it succeeded,
while Emerson's did not. Tiie various philosophic
essays in which Emerson tried to assert the absolute
unity of the material and spiritual laws of the
Universe, have always seemed to me, though de-
cidedly interesting, yet unquestionable failures. You
can drive a coach and six through almost any one of
the generalisations which pass for philosophy, in these
vague and imaginative, but unreal speculations.

Inferior in genius, — as a man Emerson will com-
pare favourably with Carlyle. He certainly possessed
his soul in patience, which Carlyle never did. He
had a magnanimity in which Carlyle was altogether
wanting. He sympathised ardently with all the
greatest practical movements of his own day, while
Carlyle held contemptuously aloof. Emerson was
one of the first to strike a heavy blow at the institu-
tion of slavery. He came forward to encourage his
country in the good cause, when slavery raised the
flag of rebellion. He had a genuine desire to see all
men really free, while Carlyle only felt the desire to
see all men strongly governed, — which they might
be without being free at all. Emerson's spirit, more-

52 RALPH WALDO EMERSON V

over, was much the saner and more reverent of the
two, though less rich in power and humour. His
mind was heartily religious, though his transcen-
dentalism always gave a certain air of patronage to
his manner in speaking of any of the greater religions.
One of his youthful sermons was thus described by
a lady who heard it : — " Waldo Emerson came last
Sunday, and preached a sermon, with his chin in the
air, in scorn of the whole human race." That is
caricature, but whenever Emerson spoke on any
religion which claims a special revelation, even in
later life, his chin seemed to be "in the air" still.
He had the democratic transcendentalist's jealousy
of any one who claimed to be nearer God than the
race at large. He was contemptuous of the pre-
tensions of special access to God, and this, to my ear
at least, always spoils his tone, when he speaks of
Christ and Christianity. But towards man, he is
always reverent — which Carlyle seldom is — and he
is always reverent, too, in relation to the Divine
Mind itself. " I conceive a man as always spoken
to from behind," he once wrote, " and unable to turn
his head and see the speaker. In all the millions
who have heard the voice, none ever saw the face.
As children in their play run behind each other, and
seize one by the ears, and make him walk before
them, so is the Spirit our unseen pilot." Those are
the words of a truly reverent mind, though of a mind
as jealously devoted to a sort of false spiritual
democracy, as it is reverent in its attitude and poetic
in its inmost thought.

VI
EMERSON 1 AS ORACLE

1884

Emerson was more of a great, thougli uncertain
oracle, some of whose sayings ring for ever in the
mind, while others only jingle there, than either a
poet or a philosopher. There was too much strain
in him for either. He rose too much on tiptoe for
the poet, and was too broken in his insights for a
philosopher's steady continuity of thought. I have
read Mr. Joel Benton's little book on Emerson as a
poet without any result, except, perfect concurrence
with his remark, — aimed at "a critical English
journal," which is very possibly the Spectator, — that
"argument is as futile with this state of mental
inaptitude as it is with the colour-blind. There is no
delinquency of perception so unhelpable as that which
discerns but one literary fashion." Only I deny that
to reject Emerson's poetry as inadequate to the

^ 1. TJie Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson. With an Intro-
duction by John Morley. 6 vols. London : Macniillan.

2. The Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Riverside Edition.
8 vols. To be completed in 11 vols. London : Routledge.

3. Emerson as a Poet. By Joel Benton. New York: M.L.
Holbrook and Co.

54 EMERSON AS ORACLE VI

higher requirements of verse, implies limitation to
one literary fashion. I find poetry of the truest
kind at once in Isaiah and in ^schylus, in Shake-
speare and in Shelley, in Tennyson and in Matthew
Arnold, and surely these are not of one literary
fashion. But Emerson's verse is laborious. It
gives one that sense of uphill straining, as distin-
guished from flight, which is far removed from what
seems to me of the essence of poetry, and though
there are fine sayings in Emerson's verse which are
near akin to poetry, there seems to me very little
indeed of genuine poetic passion. This, perhaps, of
all that Mr. Joel Benton quotes, comes nearest to it,
but you could hardly rest the repute of a poet on
this : —

" The trivial harp will never please.

Or fill my craving ear ;

Its chords should ring, as blows the breeze,

Free, peremptory, clear ;

No jingling serenader's art,

Nor tinkle of piano-strings,

Can make the wild blood start

In its mystic sjjrings.

The kingly bard

Must smite the chords rudely and hard,

As with hammer or with mace,

That they may render back

Artful thunder which conveys

Secrets of the solar track,

Sparks of the super-solar blaze."

I wholly agree with Mr. John Morley that Emer-
son's poems " are the outcome of a discontent with
prose, not of that high-strung sensibility which
compels the true poet into verse." His verse often
attains the mystic dignity of gnomic runes, but

vi EMERSON AS ORACLE 55

seldom indeed embodies the passion of a poet's
heart.

Emerson is a most stimulating writer, — one,
however, who, like most stimulating writers, is apt
sometimes to make you think that you have got hold
of a real truth, only because he has put an old error
into a novel and fascinating dress. If you would be
stimulated by him to the best advantage, you must
be stimulated to challenge his gnomic sayings, and to
sift them through and through before you accept
them. He has a genuine dignity in him which often
gives a false air of authority to his announcements,
and so takes in the unwary. It was he, I fancy,
who introduced the unfortunate mistake, which has
been followed by so many, of using imposing scientific
terms, like 'polarity ' or 'polarised,' for instance, in a
hybrid popular sense, which makes them at once
pretentious and misleading. " Let me see every
trifle," says Emerson, "bristling with the polarity
that ranges it constantly on an eternal law, and the
shop, the plough, and the ledger referred to the like
cause by which light undulates and poets sing." How
the ledger is to be made to bristle with a polarity that
ranges it constantly on an eternal law, Emerson, of
course, never even suggested; but that grandiose mode
of speaking of things takes hold of all his disciples.
Mr. Joel Benton, in defending his poems, says, for
instance, — "They are hints rather than finished
statements. The words alone startle by their deep
suggestion. Their polarised vitality, rich symbolism,
and strong percussion, shock the mind, and celestial
vistas or unfathomed deeps are opened." There, we
venture to say that the metaphorical polarity of
Emerson, — a very vague kind of polarity even in
him, for it meant only the indication given by some

56 EMERSON AS ORACLE VI

detail of common life that that detail had its
explanation in grander life beyond itself, — has fallen
to a yet lower level of metaphorical emptiness.
The " polarised vitality " of his poems can hardly be
so explained as to give it any very distinct meaning.
Polarised light is, I believe, light deprived of one set
of its vibrations ; and polarised life ought, I suppose,
by analogy, to mean life that does not show itself
equally in all spheres, — life thinned oflf into what
is spiritual only. If Mr, Benton means this by the
" polarised vitality " of Emerson's poems, he certainly
is using terms at once pedantic and ineftectual to
convey a very simple meaning ; and this is just
the fault into which Emerson not unfrequently fell
himself, and almost always led his followers. There
is a cant of scientific symbolism about their language
which makes it at once obscure and affected.

What Emerson will always be remembered by is
his noble and resonant depth of conviction, his pithy
metaphor, and his keen, placid criticism. No one
could give more perfect resonance to the convictions
of the heart than he. One who was a boy forty
years ago never forgot the impression made upon
him by the last sentence of his address on the
subject of slavery and our West India emancipation :
— "The Intellect with blazing eye, looking through
history from the beginning onwards, gazes on this
blot and it disappears. The sentiment of right, once
very low and indistinct, but ever more articulate,
because it is the voice of the Universe, pronounces
Freedom, The power that built this fabric of things
affirms it in the heart, and in the history of the 1st
of August has made a sign to the ages of his will."
But even there, how strange is the assertion that
"the sentiment of right" is "the voice of the

VI EMERSON AS ORACLE 57

Universe ! " It is the voice of God, no doubt, but
most certainly not the voice of the Universe, but a
voice that overrules the many discordant voices of
the Universe, some of which pronounce "slavery," and
some "freedom." Emerson's thin and curiously opti-
mistic Pantheism seems to have derived hardly any
verification from his intellect. He assumed it as if
it were the only intellectual assumption on which life
to him was intelligible at all.

Emerson's pithy metaphor has a curious charm
and sometimes a curious grandeur of its own : —
" Man," he says, " is not a farmer, or a professor, or
an engineer, but he is all. Man is priest, and
scholar, and statesman, and producer, and soldier.
. . . But, unfortunately, this original unit, this
fountain of power, has been so distributed to multi-
tudes, has been so minutely subdivided and peddled
out, that it is spilled into drops and cannot be
gathered. The state of society is one in which the
members have suffered amputation from the trunk,
and strut about so many walking monsters, — a good
finger, a neck, a stomach, an elbow, but never a man."
" The priest becomes a form ; the attorney a statute
book ; the mechanic a machine ; the sailor a rope of
the ship." Or again, how can you have a finer
metaphor for the tendency of men to follow clearer
minds than their own, than the following ? — " The
unstable estimates of men crowd to him whose mind
is filled with a truth, as the heaped waves of the
Atlantic follow the moon." But I value Emerson
most as a critic. Representative Men, and the critical
passages which abound in his book on the Conduct of
Life and English Traits, seem to me his best literary
achievements.

As Mr. Morley justly remarks, Emerson has a

58 EMERSON AS ORACLE VI

marked dislike of disease in any form, and is helpless
in dealing with " that horrid burden and impediment
on the soul, which the Churches call sin, and which,
by whatever name we call it, is a very real catastrophe
in the moral nature of man." That is perfectly true,
and by the way, I defy any one who wishes to call
this phenomenon truly, to find a better name for it
than the Churches have given. Sin would not be
" a very real catastrophe," if it could be explained
away into anything but sin, — that is, a conscious
and voluntary revolt against a moral authority to
which we owe obedience. Emerson lived in a pale
moonlit world of ideality, in which there was little
that was adapted to tame the fierce passions and
appease the agonising remorse of ordinary human
nature. He was a voice to the pure intellect and
the more fastidious conscience of men, not a power
of salvation for their wretchedness. But his gnomic
wisdom will live long, and startle many generations
with its clear, high, thrilling note.

VII

EDGAR POEi

1874

It is pleasant to have Edgar Poe rescued from the
reputation of something like infamy to which his first
biographer had consigned him, even though it seems
simply impossible to accept the vindication which Mr.
Ingram has so successfully put forth for him without
throwing upon his previous biographer, Mr, Rufus
Wilmot Griswold, the responsibility not merely of
misrepresentations which were very unpardonable in
a biographer who should have taken, what certainly
he did not take, the greatest pains to sift the truth
of reports injuriously affecting the subject of his
memoir, but the much more serious responsibility, if
one may trust Mr. Ingram, of deliberate falsification
of Mr. Poe's writings. Mr. Ingram (p. Ixi. of the
Memoir) criticises Mr. Griswold's account of one of
Poe's literary quarrels, which he found untrue in
almost every important respect, and especially in this,
that the very editor who, according to Mr. Griswold,
had refused to support Poe, on the ground that he

^ The Works of Edgar Allan Poe. Edited by John B. Ingram.
Vol. I. Memoir and Tales. Edinburgh : Adam and Charles
Black.

60 EDGAR POE VII

was obviously in the wrong, had written in defence
and praise of Poe's "honourable and blameless
conduct " ; but he does more — he states that though
he was not at all surprised to find Mr. Griswold's
whole account of the affair upset by his investigation
of the facts, he was startled "to discover that the
whole of the personalities of the supposed critique
included in the collections of Poe's works, edited by
Griswold, were absent from the real critique published
in the ' Lady's Book.' " Of course, if Mr. Griswold,
or his friends, cannot explain this strange appearance
of direct fabrication, all belief in Mr. Griswold's
veracity collapses at once. There would be no
longer any reason to suppose that there was even a
foundation in fact for a statement unfavourable to Poe,
simply on the score that Mr. Griswold made it. And
in point of fact, Mr. Ingram does seem to have
refuted all the reasons for believing that there was
anything whatever malign in Edgar Poe. That he
led a restless and somewhat ungoverned life in his
youth, and that in the unhappy days after he lost his
wife he was occasionally intemperate, — though his
was a physique overpowered by incredibly little
wine, — seems to be true. But for the worse charges
against him, for the insinuations repeated by Mr.
Griswold that he was once guilty of an offence which
it was not even possible to mention, for the charge
that he was an ungrateful man towards those who
had been good to him, for the stories of his inattention
to business and neglect of his employers' interests, and
for the assertion as to the reason why the engagement
for his second marriage was broken off, there seems
to be no foundation whatever, — nay, the best possible
proof that the very reverse was true. Mr. Ingram
has quoted the most convincing evidence of his

VII EDGAR POE 61

fidelity to the interests of his literary employers, of
the exactitude of his business accounts -svith them,
of the regret with which they parted with him, and
of the permanence of their esteem. In short, he has
proved that Edgar Poe was not only most faithful to
his engagements, and a devoted husband and son-in-
law, but that with the exception of one period of
great misery, he led a most regular, industrious, and
abstemious life, and was as earnestly loved as he
was earnest in his own love.

All this will be a surprise to most of Edgar Poe's
English readers, who have not unnaturally taken Mr.
Griswold's statements without any distrust, and have
discerned perhaps something in the rather revolting
character of many of his tales, of a nature to support
the assumption that there was a" sinister strain in
his character. But, in fact, though Edgar Poe is one
of the greatest masters of the gruesome who ever
lived, there seems to be no reason in that at all for
making any kind of assumption as to his character.
Curiously enough, one of the principal features of the
most original among the American novelists has been
a fascination for the gruesome. The Hawthornes,
father and son, are both great masters in it; Dr.
Oliver Wendell Holmes made a study in this school
the subject of the fiction by which he is best known,
" Elsie Venner " ; and Edgar Poe was but leading or
following in the vein of some of his greater country-
men, when he chose to devote himself to the working-
up of weird and gruesome effects. The contemplation
of death, and of the earthly accompaniments of
death, seems always to have had an overpowering
fascination for him. Indeed, his passion for producing
that curdle of the blood with which the mind is apt
to greet the close association of repulsive bodily

62 EDGAR POE VII

conditions with intense ideal feelings, — either of love
or scientific desire, — was almost the key-note of his
imaginative genius. No writer was ever freer from
a sensual taint. None was ever more constantly
haunted by the corruptibility of the body, by what
we may call the physical caprices of the soul in
relation to that corruptibility, and by the vision of
that spiritual clamminess which sometimes seems to
spring out of tampering with questions too obscure
for the intellect and at any rate depressing to the
vitality of the whole constitution, or out of that
morbid condition which insists on connecting with
the mortal body what should be given only to the
immortal spirit. These are the sort of themes on
which Edgar Poe rings the changes till his stories
seem to reek of the grave, and of the human affec-
tions which oppress " the portals of the grave " with
their unhallowed pertinacity. I know nothing more
gruesome in all fiction than such tales as Ligeia
and Morella or that ghastly bit of fictitious science
in which Edgar Poe gives the account of the mes-
merising of a man in articulo mortis, and of its
effect in preserving the body from decay for many
months after death had occurred, without, however,
depriving the separated soul of the power of occa-
sionally using the tongue of the corpse. The
atmosphere of thorough horror hanging round the
realism of this little bit of morbid imagination is
hardly to be conceived without reading it. And yet
still more ghastly are such stories as Ligeia —
the devoted wife who holds that Will ought to be
able to conquer death, and who nev^ertheless dies of
consumption, but apparently haunts her successor, the
second wife, till she dies of the mere oppression on
her spirits, and who then by a vast spiritual effort,

VII EDGAR POE 63

the physical effects of the tentatives at which are
described with hideous minuteness, enters the dead
body of her rival, and brings back the exhausted
organism to life in her own person. And yet
perhaps even this morbid story is exceeded in the
uncanniness of its effects by the brief story of
Morella, — a wife who had pored over, or, shall we
say, pried deeply into, all the forbidden lore of the
mystical writers on personality and personal identity,
till the subject seemed to have a kind of unholy
fascination for both her husband and herself, and who
in dying bears a daughter, into whom it soon becomes
evident that the very personal soul of the mother
had entered. It is not, however, the ghastliness of
this fancy which chiefly gives its force to the tale.
Possibly even more force is spent on the description
of the woman herself, — which has nothing impossible
or even improbable about it, — though the husband's
impression of her is evidently a diseased one. Can
what I have ventured to call spiritual " clamminess "
be more powerfully conceived than in the following
account of Morella ? —

" With a feeling of deep yet most singular affection I
regarded my friend Morella. Thrown by accident into
her society many years ago, my soul, from our first
meeting, burned with fires it had never before known ;
but the fires were not of Eros, and bitter and tormenting
to my spirit was the gradual conviction that I could in
no manner define their unusual meaning or regulate their
vague intensity. Yet we met ; and fate bound us
together at the altar ; and I never spoke of passion nor
thought of love. She, however, shunned society, and,
attaching herself to me alone, rendered me happy. It is
a happiness to wonder ; it is a happiness to dream.
Morella's erudition was profound. As I hope to live,

64 EDGAR POE VII

her talents were of no common order — her powers of
mind were gigantic. I felt this, and, in many matters,
because [? became] her pupil. I soon, however, found
that, perhaps on account of her Presburg education, she
placed before me a number of those mystical writings
which are usually considered the mere dross of the
early German literature. These, for what reason I could
not imagine, were her favourite and constant study — and
that in process of time they became my own, should be
attributed to the simple but effectual influence of habit
and example. In all this, if I err not, my reason had
little to do. My convictions, or I forget myself, were in
no manner acted upon by the ideal, nor was any tincture
of the mysticism which I read to be discovered, unless
I am greatly mistaken, either in my deeds or in my
thoughts. Persuaded of this, I abandoned myself im-
plicitly to the guidance of my wife, and entered with
an unflinching heart into the intricacies of her studies.
And then — then, when poring over forbidden pages, I felt
a forbidden spirit enkindling within me — would Morella
place her cold hand upon my own, and rake up from the
ashes of a dead philosophy some low, singular words,
whose strange meaning burned themselves in upon my
memory. And then, hour after hour, would I linger by
her side, and dwell upon the music of her voice, until at
length its melody was tainted with terror, and there fell
a shadow upon, my soul, and I grew pale, and shuddered
inwardly at those too unearthly tones. And thus, joy
suddenly faded into horror, and the most beautiful
became the most hideous, as Hinnon [? Hinnom] became
Ge-Henna. . . . But, indeed, the time had now arrived
when the mystery of my wife's manner oppressed me as
a spell. I could no longer bear the touch of her wan
fingers, nor the low tone of her musical language, nor the
lustre of her melancholy eyes. And she knew all this,
but did not upbraid ; she seemed conscious of my weak-
ness or my folly, and, smiling, called it fate. She seemed
also conscious of a cause, to me unknown, for the gradual

VII EDGAR POE 65

alienation of my regard ; but she gave me no liint or
token of its nature. Yet was she woman, and pined
away daily. In time the crimson spot settled steadily
upon the cheek, and the blue veins upon the pale fore-
head became prominent ; and one instant my nature
melted into pity, but in the next I met the glance of her
meaning eyes, and then my soul sickened and became
giddy with the giddiness of one who gazes downward into
some dreary and unfathomable abyss."

It is very difficult to say where the genius of this
kind of thing ends and the merely nervous horror of
it begins. A good many of Edgar Poe's tales read
as if they might have been suggested by a constant
brooding over the conquests of the grave, in a state
of health disordered by doses of opium. But that
there is real literary power in the gruesome mixture
of sweetness and moral clamminess in such a character
as is here described, it is hardly possible to deny.

Perhaps a better measure of Edgar Poe's true
literary power may be gained from stories in which
he evidently intends to draw monomania, and draws
it with a force that one would regard as implying a
real experience of the confessions of a monomaniac.
In these cases there is none of the gruesomeness on
which I have been dwelling. The whole power is
spent on delineating the almost diabolical possession
of the mind by a single idea, and the rush with
which this at last precipitates its victim into the
fatal spring. "The Tell-tale Heart" and "The Imp
of the Perverse" are two very fine illustrations of
this power which Edgar Poe had of realising for us^
what we may call moral " rapids," down which the
will, if there be a will in such cases, is carried like a
shallop down Niagara. Whatever may be said of his
stories of corruption and sepulchral horrors, which no
VOL. I F

66 EDGAR rOE VII

doubt owe a good deal of their appearance of power
to their unnaturalness of conception, no one can doubt
that such a description of monomaniac remorse as the
following, implies very striking vigour. The hero of
the story commits a murder by means which it is
nearly impossible for any one to discover, — the
manufacture of a poisoned candle, by which the
victim reads at night in an ill-ventilated apartment,
and of course is found dead in the morning ; and the
greatest delight he has is not the wealth he inherits,
but the satisfaction he feels in his absolute security.
This afforded him "more real delight than all the
mere worldly advantages of his sin." But^ at last he
caught himself repeating to himself " I am safe," just
as the words of a song, which have somehow caught
the fancy, go round continually like a mill-wheel in
the head : —

" One day whilst sauntering along the streets, I arrested
myself in the act of murmuring half-aloud these customary
syllables. In a fit of petulance I re-modelled them thus :
— ' I am safe — I am safe — yes, if I be not fool enough to
make open confession ! ' No sooner had I spoken these
words than I felt an icy chill creep to my heart. I had
had some experience in these fits of perversity (whose
nature I have been at some trouble to explain), and I
remembered well tliat in no instance I had successfully
resisted their attacks ; and now my own casual self-
suggestion that I might possibly be fool enough to confess
the murder of which I had been guilty confronted me, as
if the very ghost of him wliom I had murdered — and
beckoned me on to death. At first I made an effort to
shake off this nightmare of the soul. I walked vigorously,
faster, still faster, at length I ran. I felt a maddening
desire to shriek aloud. Every succeeding wave of thought
overwhelmed me with new terror, for, alas ! I well, too
well, understood that to think in my situation was to be

VII EDGAR POE 67

lost. I still quickened my pace. I bounded like a mad-
man throiigli the crowded thoroughfares. At length the
populace took the alarm and pursued me. I felt then the
consummation of my fate. Could I have torn out my
tongue I would have done it — but a rough voice resounded
in my ears — a rougher grasp seized me by the shoulder.
I turned — I gasped for breath. For a momet I experi-
enced all the pangs of suffocation ; I became blind, and
deaf, and giddy ; and then some invisible fiend, I thought,
struck me with his broad palm upon the back. The
long-imprisoned secret burst forth from my soul. They
say that I spoke with a distinct enunciation, but with
marked emphasis and passionate hurry, as if in dread of
interruption before concluding the brief but pregnant
sentences that consigned me to the hangman and to hell."

" The Tell-tale Heart " shows power of the same kind,
but in a still higher degree.

But I have not yet mentioned one of the most
distinctive features of Poe's literary power, his delight
in the exercise of that sort of skill which consists in
the nice and delicate appraising of circumstantial
evidence. Poe was very fond of decyphering cyphers,
and proved, it is said, to many who brought him
puzzles of this kind that there was no cypher which
human art could invent, that human art could not
also unriddle. He has explained in the story of
The Gold Beetle (or Gold Bug, as they call it
in America) the principles on which one simple
specimen of a cypher can be decyphered, but he him-
self surmounted the difficulties of far more complicated
problems. This, however, was only one department
of the field of circumstantial evidence of which he
was so fond. In the case of a New York murder, he
seems to have really detected the secret which had
baffled the police, and all his discussions of the value

68 EDGAR POE VII

to be assigned to circumstantial indications of human
motives are very keen. Indeed, in his tales of this
kind, he shows that minute practical ingenuity which
seems to be one of the chief marks of American life,
as strongly as he elsewhere shows that curiosity to
explore the influence of the body on the mind which
is another of those marks. Circumstantial evidence
seems to have been the concrete region in which
Edgar Poe sought relief from the lurid and gruesome
dreams of his imagination. Nor is it the first time
that the piecing together of an almost mechanical
puzzle has been a vast relief to a mind oppressed by
dreary phantoms.

Of Edgar Poe's poems, — except The Eaven,
which will always owe a certain popularity to the
skill with which rhyme and metre reflect the dreary
hopelessness and shudderiness, if I may coin a word,
of the mood depicted — it is impossible to speak very
highly. His imagination was not high enough for
the sphere of poetry, and when he entered it he grew
mystical and not a little bombastic. Yet his criticisms
of poetry were very acute and almost always worthy
of an imaginative man. Indeed, he had imagination
enough for criticism, but hardly enough for successful
poetic creation. On the w^hole, while I should place
him on a level far below Hawthorne, — on the level of
great but, in almost all creative regions, essentially
sickly power, — I do not doubt that Edgar Poe will
have a permanent and a typical name in the history
of American literature ; and I rejoice heartily that
Mr. Ingram has vindicated his memory from asper-
sions so terrible, and apparently so unscrupulous and
unjust, as those deliberately cast upon him by his
previous editor and biographer.

VIII
DEMOCRACY: AN AMERICAN NOVELL

1881

This is a very brilliant little book, of the authorship
of which we have no knowledge whatever. Its chief
object is, of course^ to attack the corruptions of Amer-
ican democracy, but there is truly marvellous skill in
the literary form which, without including anything
even verging on a political dissertation, without even
a tendency to injure the lightness and brilliancy of a
novelette, yet contrives to produce, in a very much
more telling shape than any political dissertation
could supply, the impression of the leaden monotony,
the deadly inertia, the vulgar self-interest, the sodden
complexity of the moral influences which, according
to the author, determine all the secondary agencies
in the legislative and administrative policy of the
great Republic. I do not for a moment mean to say
that the picture thus given us produces a just im-
pression. Indeed, it is obvious enough that wherever
any issue of the first magnitude is present to the
mind of the country, these corrupt secondary in-
fluences are compelled to act within very closely

^ Democracy : an American Novel. New York : Henry
Holt and Co.

70 DEMOCRACY : AN AMERICAN NOVEL viil

circumscribed limits, and never dispose of the greater
questions at all. But however untrue the general
effect may be, what the anonymous author meant to
paint, he has painted with extraordinary force and
vividness, and without for a moment dropping the
interest of his little story. Those who used to admire
the late Lord Beaconsfield's success in grafting politi-
cal interests on a romance, would find the same thing
done with far greater skill and delicacy of touch in
the present story, the author's object being to dismay
his readers with the utter dreariness and vulgarity
of the politics he intends to portray, while never for
a moment relaxing his hold of their sympathies for
the heroine of his tale. So far as I can judge, the
writer of this little tale has no latent sympathy with
monarchy or aristocracy. Whenever he glances at
either of these, it is with something very like a sneer.
But what he desires to depict in American democracy
is the flagrant vulgarity and coarseness of the indivi-
dual self-interests which battle with, and override,
the interests of the whole community. He evidently
holds that in the American democracy at least there
are no characters pre-eminent enough in nobility of
purpose, popular influence, or political knowledge, to
command the respect of the whole people in de-
feating the cunning conspiracies of the Party wire-
pullers. One would suppose that such a thesis would
be irrelevant and tedious in a novelette. On the
contrary, the whole interest of the novelette is made
to depend upon it, and is made all the keener for the
coarse political by-play with which it is bound up.

Mrs. Lightfoot Lee is a young and restless widow,
who, after losing a husband and baby to whom she
was devotedly attached, plunges first into philan-
thropy, and then into politics, in the hope of winning

VIII DEMOCRACY : AN AMERICAN NOVEL 71

back some intellectual interest in life which may fairly
fill up the void in her heart. She goes to Washing-
ton, to gain some insight, if she can, into the springs
of popular power. "What she wished to see, she
thought, was the clash of interests, the interests of
forty millions of people and a whole continent,
centring at Washington ; guided, restrained, con-
trolled, or unrestrained and uncontrollable by men of
ordinary mould, the tremendous forces of government,
and the machinery of society, at work." She had
rejected the idea of Swift, that he who made two
blades of grass grow where only one grew before,
deserved better of mankind than the whole race of
politicians. "She could not find fault with the
philosopher," she said, "had he required that the
grass should be of an improved quality." But she
remarked, " I cannot honestly pretend that I should
be pleased to see two New York men, where I now
see one ; the idea is too ridiculous ; more than one
and a half would be fatal to me."

So to Washington Mrs. Lee goes, and there studies
the problem of democracy in the particular form of
the character of Mr. Silas P. RatclifFe, the Senator
for Illinois, otherwise called the "Peonia Giant,"
whose is the one master-mind of the Eepublican
organisation, and who holds the key of all the party
combinations of the capital. In her desire to see
something of the sources of political power, she dis-
covers a good deal of its hollowness. She hears the
whole correspondence between the wire-pullers on one
side, and the new President on the other, " with Sam
Grimes, of North Bend." At last, she reaches the
inmost altar of the god of Democracy. Nothing is
more spirited than the account of the amazement,
and even terror, with which Mrs. Lee observes the

72 DEMOCRACY : AN AMERICAN NOVEL viil

first evening reception of the new President, — " Old
Granite," as his friends call him, " Old Granny," as
he is nicknamed by his foes, — and anticipates that
in" this mechanical worship of Democracy, the new
age will find its euthanasia: —

" Then, Madeleine found herself before two seemingly
mechanical figures, which might be wood or wax, for any
sign they showed of life. These two figures were the
President and his wife ; they stood, stiff and awkward,
by the door, both their faces stripped of every sign of
intelligence, while the right hands of both extended them-
selves to the column of visitors, with the mechanical action
of toy dolls. Mrs. Lee for a moment began to laugh, but
the laugh died on her lips. To the President and his
wife, this was clearly no laughing matter. There they
stood, automata, representatives of the society which
streamed past them. . . . What a strange and solemn
spectacle it was ! and how the deadly fascination of it
burned the image upon her mind ! What a horrid warn-
ing to ambition ! And in all that crowd, there was no
one besides herself who felt the mockery of this exhibi-
tion. . . . She groaned in spirit. 'Yes, at last I have
reached the end ! We shall grow to be wax images, and
our talk will be like the squeaking of toy dolls. We shall
all wander round and round the earth, and shake hands.
No one will have any other object in this world, and there
will be no other. It is worse than anything in the
" Inferno." What an awful vision of eternity ! ' "

Mrs. Lee further forms a friendship with Lord Skye,
the British Minister, and discovers that "a certain
secret jealousy of the British Minister is always lurk-
ing in the breast of every American Senator, if he is
truly democratic ; for democracy, rightly understood,
is tlie Government of the people, by the people, for
the bt'iiefit of Senators, and there is always a danger

VIII DEMOCRACY: AN AMERICAN NOVEL 73

that the British Minister may not understand this
political principle as he should."

One very skilful touch among the early pictures
of Mrs. Lee's life in Washington, is the discovery
quickly made by her that the most cultivated Ameri-
cans in Washington feel the same sort of delicacy in
talking freely of the democratic principle, which
cultivated Englishmen so often feel in talking freely
of the religious principle. Mr. Gore, a historian, and
candidate for the post of American Minister to Madrid,
is one of the first to encourage Mrs. Lee to believe in
the Illinois Senator — to whom, indeed, he looks for
support in his candidature — but when challenged as
to how far he accepts that fundamental principle of
democracy of which Mr. RatclifFe is the most effective
representative, he replies, "These are matters about
which I rarely talk in society ; they are like the
doctrines of a personal God, of a future life, of
revealed religion; subjects which one naturally re-
serves for private reflection." And as that is the
attitude of the acuter and more refined minds towards
democracy, — which they regard as a " universal postu-
late," too awful, deep, and far-reaching for ordinary
discussion, — of course its consequences, or what are
supposed to be its consequences, are accepted with a
sort of fatalist resignation, even when they are wholly
pernicious and corrupting. Mrs. Lee falls under the
spell of Mr. Silas P. Ratcliffe, the powerful, coarse,
unscrupulous Senator from Illinois, and is very near
being drawn by him into the muddy whirlpool of
Washington politics, and turned, against her will, into
one of the chief social springs of the lobbying in
Washington. The story of this danger is made the
main thread of the novel, and most admirably is the
interest kept up, so as neither to merge the novel in

74 DEMOCRACY: AN AMERICAN NOVEL viii

political life, nor to lose sight for a moment of the
social aspect of Washington politics. The interest
of the struggle for Mrs. Lee is very powerful, and the
side-portraits are all so skilful, from Sibyl, the pretty
and practical sister of Mrs. Lee, and Mr. Carrington,
the dejected Virginian barrister, who is Mr. RatclifFe's
chief rival, down to Miss Victoria Dare, who affects
a little stammer when she is saying anything more
than usually impudent, the Voltairian minister from
Bulgaria, and the miserable President and his wife,
that the story grows quite dramatic. Mrs. Lee
becomes the pet detestation of the new President's
wife, who cannot endure a refined woman who knows
what dress means ; and so soon as it is rumoured that
Mr. Silas P. Ratcliffe, — the great Peonia Giant, — is
bent on making lier his wife, all the political eddies
of Washington seem to be intent on suckiiig her into
the maelstrom. Victoria Dare retails to Mrs. Lee the
choicest bits of gossip about her. "Your cousin,
Mrs. Clinton, says you are a ca-ca-cat, Mrs. Lee." —
"I don't believe it, Victoria. Mrs. Clinton never
said anything of the sort." — "Mrs. Marston says it
is because you have caught a ra-ra-rat, and Senator
Clinton was only a m-m-mouse." Carrington, who
has some knowledge of the disreputable political in-
trigues in which Mr. Silas P. Ratcliffe has been
involved, and who is himself in love with Mrs. Lee,
does all in his power to open her eyes to the true
character of Mr. Silas P. Ratcliffe, and the kind of
ambition to which she will surrender herself, if, in
her passion for self-sacrifice, she chooses to be absorbed
into his political career. Long the struggle remains
doubtful, and the author with great subtlety uses the
various vicissitudes of the battle to give one picture
after another of the political intrigues of democratic

VIII DEMOCRACY : AN AMERICAN NOVEL 75

life. At length the crisis comes, in a grand ball
given by the British Minister to a lioj^al princess of
his Sovereign's own family, who, with her husband,
the Grand Duke of Saxe-Baden-Hombourg, comes on
a tour of pleasure. The scene of this ball, in which
there is a dais for the President and his wife, and
another dais for the Grand Duke and Duchess, while
Mrs. Lee is used by the Grand Duchess — who is
dressed, by the way, in an ill-fitting black silk, with
false lace and jet ornaments, and makes herself ex-
tremely unpleasant — as a sort of amulet with which
to keep off the approaches of the President's wife, for
whom she has conceived the most deadly disgust, is
admirably painted, and is painted too with that ex-
actly balanced disgust for Koyalty and Democracy
which seems to indicate the universal political
pessimism of the author. After the departure of the
Princess, Mr. Silas P. Katcliffe seizes his opportunity
to make a bid for the great prize at which he has so
long been aiming. And in the story of how he is
foiled, the author strikes his final blow at the corrup-
tion of Democracy. I will not attempt to diminish the
interest of the reader by giving extracts from the tale
— which is so short that it may be read in two or
three hours without losing any of its points. But
this I will say, that blank and j^essimist as its politi-
cal doctrine appears to be, the literary skill with
which it is executed suggests the touch of a master-
hand. Whose that master-hand is, I have no guess,
but not often before have I read a political novel in
which the political significance has been so perfectly
blended with literary interest, as to create a lively
and harmonious whole.

IX
LONGFELLOW

1882

" The fact is, I hate everything that is violent," said
the poet whom the world lost last week, to some
friend who had been with him during a thunderstorm,
and to whom he was excusing himself for the care
with which he had endeavoured to exclude from his
house the tokens of the storm ; and one sees this in
his poetry, which is at his highest point when it is
most restful, and is never so happy in its soft radiance
as when it embodies the spirit of a playful or child-
like humility. I should not claim for Longfellow
the position of a very great or original poet ; it was
his merit rather to embody in a simple and graceful
form the gentleness and loveliness which are partially
visible to most men's eyes, than to open to our sight
that which is hidden from the world in general. To
my mind, Hiawatlm is far the most original of his
poems, because the happy nature-myths which best
expressed the religious genius of the American Indians
appealed to what was deepest in himself, and found
an exquisitely simple and harmonious utterance in
the liquid accents of his childlike and yet not
unstately verse. His material in Hiawatha was

IX LONGFELLOW 77

SO fresh and poetical in itself, as well as so admirably
suited to his genius, that in his mind it assumed its
most natural form, and flowed into a series of chaunts
of childlike dignity and inimitable grace. The story
of Nature has never been told with so much liquid
gaiety and melancholy, — so much of the frolic of the
childlike races, and so much of their sudden awe and
dejection, — as in Hiawatha which I, at least, have
never taken up without new delight in the singular
simplicity and grace, the artless art and ingenuous
vivacity, of that rendering of the traditions of a
vanishing race. How simple and childlike Long-
fellow makes even the exaggerations so often found
in these traditions, so that you enjoy, where you
might so easily have sneered ! How spontaneously
he avoids anything like dissertation on the significance
of the natural facts portrayed, leaving us the full
story and poetry of impersonation, without any
attempt to moralise or dilate upon its drift ! How
exquisitely the account of the first sowing and reap-
ing of the Indian corn, of Hiawatha's revelation of
agriculture to his people, is told in his three days'
wrestling with Mondamin, in his conquest over him,
and the sowing of the bare grain, that the green and
yellow plumes of Mondamin may wave again over
his grave ! And how eerie is the tale of the first
warning of spiritual truths, the return of spectres
from beyond the grave to warn Hiawatha that for
liim, too, there are secrets which it will need a higher
revelation than his to reveal : —

" One dark evening, after sun-down,
In her wigwam Laughing Water
Sat with old Nokomis, waiting
For the steps of Hiawatha
Homeward from the hunt returning.

/8 LONGFELLOW

On their faces gleamed the fire-light,
Painting them with streaks of crimson,
In the eyes of old Nokomis
Glimmered like the watery moonlight,
In the eyes of Laughing Water,
Glistened like the sun in water ;
And behind them crouched their shadows
In the corners of the wigwam,
And the smoke in wiefitlis above them
Climbed and crowded through the smoke-flue.

Then the curtain of the dooi'way
From" without was slowly lifted ;
Brighter glowed the fire a moment.
And a moment swerved the smoke-wreath.
As two women entered softly,
Passed the doorway uninvited,
Without word of salutation,
Without sign of recognition,
Sat down in the farthest corner,
Crouching low among the shadows.

From their aspect and their garments.
Strangers seemed they in the village ;
Very pale and haggard were they.
As they sat tbere sad and silent,
Trembling, cowering with the shadows.

Was it the wind above the smoke-flue,
Muttering down into the wigwam ?
Was it the owl, the Koko-koho,
Hooting from the dismal forest ?
Sure a voice said in the silence :
' These are corpses clad in garments.
These are ghosts that come to haunt you^
From the kingdom of Ponemah,
From the land of the Hereafter ! '

Homeward now came Hiawatha
From his hunting in the forest.
With the snow upon his tresses.
And the red deer on his shoulders.

LONGFELLOW 79

At the feet of Laughing Water
Down he threw his lifeless burden ;
Nobler, handsomer she thought him,
Than when first he came to woe her ;
First threw down the deer before her,
As a token of his wishes,
As a promise of the future.

Then he turned and saw the strangers,
Cowering, crouching with the shadows ;
Said within himself, ' Who are they ?
What strange guests has Minnehaha ? '
But he questioned not the strangers,
Only spake to bid them welcome
To his lodge, his food, his fireside.

When the evening meal was ready;
And the deer had been divided,
Both the pallid guests, the strangers,
Springing from among the shadows,
Seized upon the choicest portions,
Seized the white fat of the roebuck.
Set apart for Laughing Water,
For the wife of Hiawatha ;
Without asking, without thanking,
Eagerly devoured the morsels.
Flitted back among the shadows
In the corner of the wigwam.

Not a word spake Hiawatha,
Not a motion made Nokomis,
Not a gesture Laughing Water ;
Not a change came o'er their features ;
Only Minnehaha softly
Whispered, saying, ' They are famished ;
Let them do what best delights them ;
Let them eat, for they are famished.'

Once at midnight Hiawatha,
Ever wakeful, ever watchful.
In the wigwam dimly lighted

80 LONGFELLOW

By the brands that still were burning,
By the glimmering, flickering fiie-light,
Heard a sighing, oft repeated,
Heard a sobbing, as of sorrow.

From his couch rose Hiawatha,
From his shaggy hides of bison,
Pushed aside the deer-skin curtain,
Saw the pallid guests, the shadows.
Sitting upright on their couches.
Weeping in the silent midnight.

And he said : ' 0 guests ! why is it
That your hearts are so afflicted.
That you sob so in the midnight ?
Has perchance the old Nokomis,
Has my wife, my Minnehaha,
Wronged or grieved you by unkindness,
Failed in hospitable duties ? '

Then the shadows ceased from weeping,
Ceased from sobbing and lamenting.
And they said, with gentle voices :
' We are ghosts of the departed,
Souls of those who once were with you.
From the realms of Chibiabos
Hither have we come to try you,
Hither have we come to warn you.

Cries of grief and lamentation
Reach us in the Blessed Islands ;
Cries of anguish from the living.
Calling back their friends departed.
Sadden us with useless sorrow.
Therefore have we come to try you ;
No one knows us, no one heeds us.
We are but a burden to you,
And we see that the departed
Have no place among the living.

Think of this, O Hiawatha !
Speak of it to all the people,
That henceforward and for ever

LONGFELLOW 81

They iio,more with lamentations
Saddei/theYouls of the departed
In the Mnrnds of the Blessed.' "

There you see Longfellow at his best, rendering with
a singular mixture of simplicity and dignity legends
of which the very essence is a mixture of simplicity
and dignity, yet a mixture so rare, that the least false
note would have destroyed the whole poetry of the
tradition.

But Longfellow, singularly happy as he was in
catching the spirit of the American-Indian nature-
myths, could yet render with hardly less success, —
though here he shared his success with scores of
other poets not less skilful, — the grace and culture
of a thoughtful criticism of the past. Many have
equalled, I think, though few have surpassed, the
beauty of such a sonnet as this on Giotto's famous
tower, for the thought it expresses was one so deepty
ingrained in Longfellow's own mind, that he seemed
to be breathing out the very heart of his own
Christian humility in thus singing the glory of the
incomplete : —

" How many lives, made beautiful and sweet
By self-devotion, and by self-restraint.
Whose pleasure is to run without complaint
On unknown errands of the Paraclete,

Wanting the reverence of unshodden feet,

Fail of the nimbus which the artists paint
Around the shining forehead of the saint,
And are in their completeness incomplete !

In the old Tuscan town stands Giotto's tower.
The lily of Florence blossoming in stone, —
A vision, a delight, and a desire,

The builder's perfect and centennial flower,
VOL. I G

82 LONGFELLOW IX

That iu the night of ages bloomed alone,
But wanting still the glory of the spire."

Longfellow certainly, though often inafFective and
common-place in his treatment of a subject, had a
true genius for touching the subject of humility iu
any form, and is never more successful than when
relating the legend how Robert, King of Sicily, w^as
taught the truth of those words in the " Magnificat "
— " He hath put down the mighty from their seat,
and hath exalted the humble aud meek ; " or when
finding in the midnight chimes of the belfry of Bruges,
— heard fitfully in sleep, — the best type of the sort
of half-accidental power which the poet exerts over
the careless and preoccupied spirit of man : —

" But amid my broken slumbers
Still I heard those magic numbers
As they loud proclaimed the flight
And stolen marches of the night ;
Till their chimes in sweet collision
Mingled with each wandering vision.
Mingled with the fortune-telling
Gipsy-bands of dreams and fancies,
Which amid the waste expanses
Of the silent land of trances
Have their solitary dwelling.
All else seemed asleep in Bruges,
In the quaint old Flemish city.

And I thought, how like these chimes
Are the poet's airy rhymes,
All his rhymes and roundelays.
His conceits, and songs, and ditties,
From the belfry of his brain,
Scattered downward, though in vain,
On the roofs and stones of cities !

IX LONGFELLOW 83

For by night the drowsy ear
Under its curtains cannot hear,
And by day men go their ways,
Hearing the music as they pass,
But deeming it no more, alas !
Than the hollow sound of brass.

Yet perchance a sleepless wight,

Lodging at some humble inn

In the narrow lanes of life,

When the dusk and hush of night

Shut out the incessant din

Of daylight and its toil and strife,

May listen with a calm delight

To the poet's melodies,

Till he hears, or dreams he hears.

Intermingled with the song.

Thoughts that he has cherished long ;

Hears amid the chime and singing

The bells of his own village ringing,

And wakes, and finds his slumbrous eyes

Wet with most delicious tears."

I cannot particularly admire the pieces which one
oftenest hears quoted from Longfellow, — " Excelsior,"
"A Psalm of Life," "The Light of Stars," and so
forth, all of which seem to express common-place
feelings, with a certain picturesque and conventional
eloquence, but without anything of individual or
unique power. Longfellow is too apt to take up the
conventional subjects of poetry, and deck them out
with a pretty patch of colour that does not redeem
them from common-placeness, but does make their
common-placeness agreeable to the popular mind ;
and when he does this, though we perfectly under-
stand why he is so popular, we also perfectly under-
stand why so many of the poets think of him as

84 LONGFELLOW ix

falling short of the true poetic standard. But though
I cannot feel any enthusiasm for the remark that,
" — Our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still like muffled drums are beating
Funeral marches to the grave,"

I do hold that Longfellow was not only a poet, but
a poet whom the critics will appreciate better the
more they turn their attention away from the pieces
which, by a sort of trick of sentimental metaphor,
have caught hold of the ear of the public, to those
which are less showy and more restful.

It has been said, and truly said, that there was
very little of the local genius of the New World in
Longfellow's poetry ; that he was as Conservative at
heart as a member of the oldest European aristocracy,
that even the form of his poetic thought was not
bold, or striking, or unique. And this is undoubtedly
true ; but after the first period of ad captandum writing,
which almost every young man of talent passes
through, he gained that singular grace of perfect
simplicity, — simplicity both instinctive and cultivated,
— which rejects everything adventitious with a sure
and steady antipathy ; and this it was which enabled
him, when he had secured a fine subject, to produce
such a poem as " Hiawatha," or, again, so graceful
and tragic a picture as that embodied in the following
verses : —

"Killed at the Ford.
He is dead, the beautiful youth.
The heart of honour, the tongue of truth,
He, the life and light of us all,
Whose voice was blithe as a bugle-call.
Whom all eyes followed with one consent,
The cheer of whose laugh, and whose pleasant word
Hushed all murmurs of discontent.

IX LONGFELLOW 85

Only last night, as we rode along

Down the dark of the mountain gap,

To visit the picket-guard at the ford,

Little dreaming of any mishap,

He was humming the words of some old song :

' Two red roses he had on his cap.

And another he bore at the point of his sword.'

Sudden and swift a whistling ball
Came out of a wood, and the voice was still ;
Something I heard in the darkness fall.
And for a moment my blood grew chill j
I spake in a whisper, as he who speaks
In a room where some one is lying dead ;
But he made no answer to what I said.

We lifted him up to his saddle again,

And through the mire and the mist and the rain

Carried him back to the silent camp.

And laid him as if asleep on his bed.

And I saw by the light of the surgeon's lamp

Two white roses upon his cheeks.

And one, just over his heart, blood-red !

And I saw in a vision how far and fleet

That fatal bullet went speeding forth

Till it reached a town in the distant North,

Till it reached a house in a sunny street.

Till it reached a heart that ceased to beat

Without a murmur, without a cry ;

And a bell was tolled in that far-off town.

For one who had passed from cross to crown, —

And the neighbours wondered that she should die."

It would be hard, we think to convey better the
strange contract between the gay and picturesque
courage of youth, and the sudden sentence which
absolutely ended the story of life and love, than it is
conveyed in these few stanzas ; their simplicity has

86 LONGFELLOW ix

no nakedness in it ; it is the simplicity which avoids
detail, because detail only obscures the effect, not
the simplicity which says a thing crudely or poorly,
Longfellow, like all poets who had not any great
originality of initiative, was singularly dependent on
his subjects for his success ; but when his subject
suits him, he presents it with the simplicity of a
really great classic, with all its points in relief, and
with nothing of the self-conscious or artifical tone of
one who wants to draw attention to the admirable
insight with which he has grasped the situation.
He can be very conventional, when the subject is
conventional. When it is not, but is intrinsically
poetical, no one gives us its poetry more free from
the impertinences of subjective ecstasy than he. He
was not a great poet, but he was a singularly restful,
singularly simple-minded, and — whenever his subject
suited him, as in one very considerable and remark-
able instance it certainly did — a singularly classical
poet, who knew how to prune away every excrescence
of irrelevant emotion.

THE GENIUS OF DICKENS
1874

Lord Derby not long ago recalled to one of his
audiences at Liverpool the old definition of Genius,
that it is only a power of taking much greater pains
about a certain class of subjects than it is in other
people to take. In other words, genius, so defined,
flows from the labour and concentration of attention,
though the taste or predisposition Avhich renders that
labour and concentration possible because delightful,
may fairly be regarded as the ultimate root of it.
That is a very good definition of a good deal of
what the world calls genius. But it would be
difficult to imagine any definition which would be
further from the mark of the kind of genius which
must be ascribed to Dickens. At least, if the great
humourist's genius is to be brought within this defini-
tion at all, we must describe all the brightness and
truth of momentary flashes of perception, and
equally momentary humourous combinations, to a
power of taking pains, which w^ould certainly be a
very eccentric and forced construction of the term.
Indeed, it can hardly be said that in any intellectual
way Dickens had much power of taking pains in the

88 THE GENIUS OF DICKENS x

common sense of that term. It has been observed
that if he went down a street, he had more power
of telling you what he had seen in that street than
all the rest of the passers-by in the whole day would
have made out amongst them. He caught character,
so far as it could be caught in a glance of the eye,
as no other Englishman probably ever yet caught it.
Mr. Forster, who in his new volume resents warmly
a criticism of Mr. Lewes's on the want of true
individual characteristics in Dickens's set types of
character, — such as Pecksniff, who is pure humbug ;
Micawber, who is " always confident of something
turning up, always crushed and rebounding, and
always making punch ; " Mrs. Gamp, who is always
referring to "sicking," and " monthlying," and so
forth, — Mr. Forster, we say, rashly maintains that
there is nothing of this sort in the earlier tales,
especially Pickwick and its immediate followers.
Surely Mr. Wardle's fat boy, Sawyer late Knockemorf,
Mr. Jingle, Mr. Tupman, Mr. Winkle, Mr. Pickwick
himself, Mr. Weller, senior, nay, we will say even
the great Sam Weller himself, are all types made in
keeping with one ruling feature, though Dickens's
wonderful fancy and curious store of miscellaneous
observations enabled him so to vary the appropriate
illustrations of that ruling feature, that something
which looked like the variety and ease of life
resulted from the variation. It seems to us almost
absurd to deny that the power of kaleidoscopic
variation and multiplication of the same general
characteristic, is the main key to Dickens's humour
and power. Even in Oliver Twist, where Nancy and
Sykes at least seem to reach a stage of individu-
alisation beyond anything that can be thus accounted
for, by far the greater part of the book is occupied

X THE GENIUS OF DICKENS 89

with sketches which fall under the same general rule,
such as those of Noah Claypole, of the Dodger, and
Flash Toby Crackit. But not the less do I quite
agree with Mr. Forster that Mr. Lewes's mode of
explaining Dickens's popularity as the result of a
kind of glamour of enthusiasm which he threw over
his figures, like that which the child throws over a
wooden horse, till it really represents to him an
actual horse, is a mere blunder. I should say, on
the contrary, that that popularity is due to the
wonderful breadth of real life which Dickens was
able to lay under contribution for the illustration of
his various types, and that he had little or no power
of throwing a deceptive glamour of enthusiasm over
inadequate descriptions. All that could be known
by the help of astounding capacity for swift, sudden,
and keen vision, and through that large sense of
humour which brings an indefinite range of analogy
and contrast within the field of view at any one
moment, Dickens knew and painted. The result
was that he easily divined the secret of almost every
crotchety and superficial vein of character that
came within his view. Every one tells you that
they have met with a real Mrs. Nickleby and with a
real Mr. Micawber, and *! could quote sayings of a
person known to me, far more Micawberish than
Micawber's own. So all the secrets of any profes-
sional life with which he was familiar, were made by
Dickens completely his own. Nothing so perfect as
his pawnbrokers and his undertakers, his beadles and
his matrons, his boarding-housekeepers and his bone-
articulators, his dolls' dressmakers, his Yorkshire
schoolmasters, his travelling players, and his wax-
work men, his fire-eating editors and his Yankee
rogues, were ever produced for us before. But then

90 THE GENIUS OF DICKENS X

ail these characters are photographs from a superficial
stratum of real life, which he hardly ever goes
beneath, and where, if he does go beneath it, he is
apt to fail. While he sticks to his local colour, only
varying it as his extraordinary experience in the
varieties of local colour taught him to do, he is a
wonder and a delight to his readers. Directly he
tries to create anything in which his swift decisive
knowledge of detail does not help him, anything in
which a general knowledge of the passions and heart
and intellect of man is more needed than a special
knowledge of the dialect of a profession or the
habits of a class, he too often loses all his certainty
of touch, and becomes a painful mannerist. Compare
Nicholas and Kate Nickleby with their mother and
little Miss La Creevy. The former are nobodies, the
latter great successes. Compare Mr. Brownlow, or
Rose Maylie, or any of the ordinary human beings in
Oliver Twist or even Oliver himself when he has
ceased to be the terrified little boy, with any of the
thieves or scoundrels in that delightful book. Com-
pare the merely human beings in Martin Chuzzlewit

> with the typical beings, and it is always the same.

I Directly the shaft is sunk beneath the characterising
stratum of some particular type of manners, the
fountain no longer seems bubbling-up with life. It
does not follow that Dickens did not produce a vast
number of really life-like figures. It rather follows
that he did. Not only do eccentricities, who really
are moulded on the type of a few remarkable traits,
actually exist, but characters so much moulded by
class as to breathe, at first at least, all the class-
flavour, all the professional bouquet which Dickens
attributes to them, actually exist. Sam Weller is
hardly more than the distilled life of a sharp, cockney

X THE GENIUS OF DICKENS 91

servant, a wit of the lower class, who knows London
trickery well, and never loses his temper ; but then
such characters, no doubt, have existed ; and the
only defect about Sam Weller is one which no one
would feel who had not known such a person
intimately enough to find out that he had passions
and superstitions and affections of his own which
would not completely fit into the typical framework,
which were apt sometimes to break through it,
Dickens seems to me never to fail in this kind of
typical sketch, unless he prolongs his story so as
to exhaust his stock of illustrations for it, and then
he often does fail by harping monotonously on the
fundamental string. Every one is sick of Carker's
teeth and Susan Nipper's pertness long before the
end of Domhey. Even Toots's pack of cards, "for
Mr. Dombey, for Mrs. Dombey, for Miss Dombey,"
pall upon us. Honest John Browdie's loud York-
shire jollity grows tiresome before Nicholas Nicklehy
is at an end, and Lord Frederick Verisopht only
regains a gleam of individual character at the
moment of his death. John Willett's stupid study
of the Boiler in Barnahy Budge is exhausted
almost before it is begun, and even Miss Miggs's
malice and hypocrisy are worked a little too hard
before the tale is out. As for the good characters, —
the young lady who "points upwards," for instance,
in Copperfield, — they are hardly ever tolerable .
after their first appearance. Dickens had no special
store of experience from which to paint them, and I
his general knowledge of the human heart and mind/
was by no means profound. '

Indeed this is a natural result of his biographer's I
admission that Dickens had no refuge within himself,
no " city of the mind " for inward consolation. )

92 THE GENIUS OF DICKENS X

Without that it would have been hardly possible for
him to gain the command of the deeper secrets of
human emotion and passion. No author indeed
could draw more powerfully than he the mood of a
man haunted by a fixed idea, a shadowy apprehension,
a fear, a dream, a remorse. If Dickens had to
describe the restlessness of a murderer, or the panic
of a man apprehending murder, he did it with a
vigour and force that make the blood curdle. But
there, again, h(j was studying in a world of most
specific experience. He was a vivid dreamer, and no
one knew better the sort of supremacy which a given
idea gets over the mind in a dream, and in those
waking states of nervous apprehension akin to
dreams. Where he utterly fails is in giving the
breadth of ordinary life to ordinary characters. He
never drew a inere artisan, or a mere labourer or
labourer's wife, or a mere shopkeeper, or a mere
gentleman or lady, or a mere man or woman of rank.
Without something to render such characters peculiar
and special, he made the most wooden work of
them, simply because he had no field of special
experience upon which to draw for their delineation.
But after all, wonderful as are the riches of the
various specific worlds which Dickens ransacked for
his creations, there is nothing in him, as the most
realistic and picturesque of describers, to equal his
humour. The wealth and subtlety of his contrasts,
the fine aim of his exaggerations, the presence of
mind (which is the soul of wit) displayed in his
satire, the exquisitely professional character of the
sentiments and metaphors which fall from his char-
acters, the combined audacity and microscopic
delicacy of his shading in caricature, the quaint flights
of his fancy in illustrating a monstrous absurdity,

X THE GENIUS OF DICKENS 93

the suddenness of his strokes at one moment, the
cumulative perseverance of his touches at another,
all make him such a humourist as many centuries
are not likely to reproduce. But then humour of
this kind is not necessarily connected with any deep
knowledge of the heart and mind of man, and of
such a knowledge I can see little trace in Dickens.
He had a memory which could retain, and an ima-
gination which could sublimate, and a fancy which
could indefinitely vary almost any trait which had
once fixed itself in his mind ; but the traits which i!
did so fix themselves, were almost always peculiarities, /
and his human figures are only real so far as they
reproduce the real oddities of life, or what to a man
in Dickens's rank and class seemed real oddities ;
and of course, while there are many real oddities in
the world, these are not the staple of our average
life, — with which indeed Dickens's genius never
dealt either willingly or successfully.

CHAIiLES DICKENS'S LIFE^
1874

We have here a melancholy close to a book which,
in spite of the many traits of astonishing perceptive
power, and prodigal generosity, and unbounded
humour, contained in it, will certainly not add to the
personal fascination with which Dickens is regarded
by so many of his countrymen. The closing volume
contains more evidence than any of the others of the
very great defect of character which seems to have
grown from the very roots of Dickens's genius. Mr.
Forster himself admits it fully enough, though he
hardly seems to be aware what an admission it is.
" There was for him," says his biographer, " no ' city
of the mind ' against outward ills for inner consolation
and shelter." In other words, Dickens depended
more than most men on the stimulus which outer
things provided for him ; first, on the excitement
caused by the popularity of his books, and on that
which he drew from his own personal friends' private
appreciation ; then oh the applause which attended
his actings and readings, the intensity of the eagerness

^ The Life of Charles Dickens. By Joliu Forster. London :
Ohapnian and Hall.

x[ CHARLES Dickens's life 95

to hear him and the emotion he excited ; and lastly,
on the triumph excited by the counting-up of the
almost fabulous sums which the readings produced.
These were evidently- the moral drams without
security for which his life would have lost all its
spring and interest, and it is clear that as his pro-
ductiveness as an author began to fail, he grasped
eagerly at the quasi-theatrical powers displayed in
his readings to fill up the blank he was beginning to
feel, and to compensate him for the restlessness and
almost despair which the consciousness that his genius
was on the wane began to produce in him. The
painful story of his estrangement from his wife, which
Mr. Forster has told at once with judicious candour
and equally judicious reticence is evidently closely
connected with this dependence of his on the stimulus
of external excitement. There would indeed have
been no reason for any public reference to that story
at all, but for the inexcusable intolerance of public
censure which made Dickens, when he was contem-
plating his first course of public readings, insist on
publishing a defence of himself against the false and
slanderous rumours which were abroad. He did not
see apparently that this proceeding was a cruel
injustice to the lady whose name was thus dragged
into print, without its being within her power in any
way to give her own view of what had occurred ; he
only thought of the imperious need he felt for an
explanation which would secure the possibility of a
cordial good-will between him and his public. His
last will betrays the same ungenerous desire to clear
himself with the public from any charge of want of
generosity, and to impress upon men his own case,
though he must have known that just so far as he
succeeded, the one concerned equally with himself,

96 CHARLES Dickens's life xi

who was not famous and not popular, would inferen-
tially suffer in public estimation. Yet the public
neither knows nor can know anything of the faults
or faultlessness of the two parties in a quarrel thus
indelicately dragged into the light. And if they are
just, they must sum up the whole matter in their own
minds by saying, "Here was a case in which a
magnanimous man, even if wholly in the right, would
have borne in silence false rumours of a very painful
kind rather than defend himself publicly, when that
defence w-as necessarily at the cost of one whose
mouth was shut, and who had no door of escape into
the excitements of public applause and unbounded
popularity."

The volume before me, so far as it illustrates
Dickens's moral qualities at all, may be said to be one
long chronicle of his craving for these delights of
popular applause, — sometimes outweighing, as in the
case to which I have alluded, what the least modicum
of magnanimity would have enforced upon him, — at
other times, extinguishing all the sense of personal
dignity which might have been expected in an author
of so much genius, — and finally overpowering the
commonest prudence, and leading directly, no doubt,
to his premature death. Mr. Forster, by giving so
much prominence to the certainly extraordinary and
marvellous popularity of the public readings, and
recording, at excessive length, Dickens's unbounded
triumph in the enthusiasm and numbers and reckless
prodigality "of his audiences, has given to this craving
of his hero's a somewhat needless emphasis, and has,
moreover, extended his already very big book beyond
reasonable limits. Nobody wants to hear how the
people at Tynemouth did exactly what the people at
Dover did ; how Cambridge and Edinburgh behaved

XI CHARLES DICKENS'S LIFE 97

in exactly the same manner as Dublin and Manchester,
and so forth. There is something a little ignoble in
this extravagant relish of a man of genius for the
evidence of the popularity of his own writings. <!
Dickens must have known that theatrical effects arejjl
by no means the best gauge of the highest literary
fame. He must have been well aware that no one
could have produced with scenes from Shakespeare
or from Scott anything like the intensity of superficial
excitement which he himself produced with the
death of little Paul Dombey or the pathetic life of
Tiny Tim ; and whether the difference were due to
something of melodrama in him or something of
deficiency in the greater masters, must, at least, have
been a question on which his mind could hardly
have been definitely made up in his own favour. I
by no means deny the value of the test to which his
readings subjected the literary power of his writings.
Undoubtedly it demonstrated very great qualities. I
believe that it also demonstrated some great defects ;
and certainly the passion with which he gave away
his very life to producing these popular emotions,
pointed to a grave want of that higher life in himself
which could not have been compatible with such
constant superficial strains on his nervous energy, j
It would have added to the literary worth of the i
book, and certainly not have diminished the reader's
admiration, if Mr. Forster had curtailed greatly the
tiresome redundancy of Dickens's own gratitude for
the popular enthusiasm with which he was received.
Mr. Forster notes another quality besides this
absence in Dickens of any inner life in which he
could take refuge from the craving for external
excitement, — a quality which, while it very much in-
creased the danger of this dependence on the stimulus

VOL. I H

98 CHARLES DICKENS'S LIFE XI

of bursts of popular favour, was also inseparable from
his greatest qualities. There was " something of the
despot, seldom separable from genius," says Mr.
Forster, in Dickens. No doubt there was, but I
should say that genius is quite as often found without
it as with it ; that it was the peculiarity of Dickens's
own genius, and closely connected with his highly-
strung nerves, rather than the token of genius in
general. There are many types of genius which are
too largely tolerant, like Scott's or Thackeray's, for
this kind of disposition ; many, too, which are too
purely receptive, too sensitive to external influences,
for anything like despotism. But Dickens's genius
was of neither kind ; he hardly seems to have enjoyed
his visions merely as intellectual perceptions, as food
for his own reflection. He enjoyed them chiefly as
materials for sensation, as the means of producing
an intense effect on the world without. " I wish," said
Landseer of him, "he looked less eager and busy,
and not so much out of himself or beyond himself.
I should like to catch him asleep and quiet now
and then." But that was not in him. Never was
there a genius so little contemplative. Never had
a man of such wonderful powers so little of —

" The harvest of a quiet eye,
That broods and sleeps on his own lieart."

His mind was always trying to " work up " even the
most idle and worthless fancies and situations into
pictorial effects. Mr. Forster's chapter called " Hints
for Books Written and Unwritten " seems to me much
more of an evidence of weakness in this respect than
of power. The forced and extravagant suggestions
which Dickens sets down for himself as possible hints
for future works are far more numerous than those of

XI CHARLES DICKENS'S LIFE 99

real power or promise. In fact, what even his mar-
vellous humour lacks is repose. Often he cannot leave
even his most humourous things alone, but must tug
and strain at them to bring out their full effects, till
the reader is nauseated with what was, in its first
conception, of the richest and most original kind.
Dickens was too intensely practical, had too much eye
to the effect to be produced by all he did, for the
highest imagination. He makes you feel that it is
not the intrinsic insight that delights him half so
much as the power it gives him of nwving the world.
The visible word of command must go forth from
himself in connection with all his creations. His
imagination is not of the ruminating kind. He uses
his experience before it is mellow, in the impatience
of his nervous haste. But on the whole, while
the absolute deficiency of an inner life, and the want
of magnanimity it sometimes entailed, comes out more
powerfully in this volume of Mr. Forster's than in its
predecessors, — the despotic imperiousness of Dickens's
nature does not perhaps show quite so strongly. He
does not at least assert himself with the same passion
as in the earlier part of his life.

The new volume, of course, contains very fine
illustrations of the perceptive power and the exquisite
humour of Dickens. Nothing, perhaps, shows the
full abandon with which he entered into children's
natures more delightfully than this conversation with
a little boy of his Dublin landlord's, during his
"readings" in Dublin in 1858 : —

"Within the hotel, on getting up next morning, he
had a dialogue with a smaller resident, landlord's son he
supposed, a little boy of the ripe age of six, which he
presented, in his letter to his sister-in-law, as a colloquy
between Old England and Yoimg Ireland inadequately

100 CHARLES Dickens's life xi

reported for want of the ' imitation ' it required for its
full effect. ' I am sitting on the sofa, writing, and find
him sitting beside me. Old England. Halloa old chap. —
Young Ireland. Hal — loo ! — Old England (in his delight-
ful way). What a nice old fellow you are. I am very
fond of little boys. — Young Ireland. Air yes ? Ye'r right.
— Old England. What do you learn, old fellow ? — Young
Ireland (very intent on Old England, and always childish
except in his brogue). I lairn wureds of three sillibils —
and wureds of two sillibils— and wureds of one sillibil. —
Old England (cheerfully). Get out, you humbug ! You
learn only words of one syllable. — Young Ireland (laughs
heartily). You may say that it is mostly wureds of one
sillibil. — Old England. Can you write? — Young Ireland.
Not yet ; things conies by deegrays. — Old England. Can
you cipher ? — Young Ireland (very quickly). Whaat's that 1
■ — Old England. Can you make figures ? — Young Ireland.
I can make a nought, which is not asy, being rocnd. — Old
England. I say, old boy ! Wasn't it you I saw on Sunday
morning in the Hall, in a soldier's cap 1 You know ! — In
a soldier's cap? — Fo ungf /re^?i(Z (cogitating deeply). Was
it a very good cap ? — Old England. Yes. — Young Ireland.
Did it fit ankommon ? — Old England. Yes. — Young
Ireland. Dat was me ! "

And nothing indicates the delicacy of his perception
more wonderfully than this exquisite criticism in
1855 on the acting of Frederic Lemaitre : —

' Incomparably the finest acting I ever saw, I saw last
night at the Ambigu. They have revived that old piece,
once immensely popular in London under the name of
Thirty Years of a Gambler's Life. Old Lemaitre plays his
famous character, and never did I see anything, in art, so
exaltedly horrible and awful. In the earlier acts he was
so well made up, and so light and active, that he really
looked sufficiently young. But in the last two, when he
had grown old and miserable, he did the finest things, I

XI CHARLES DICKENS'S LIFE 101

really believe, tliat are within tlie power of acting. Two
or three times, a great cry of horror went all round the
house. When he met, in the inn yard, the traveller
whom he murders, and first saw his money, the manner
in which the crime came into his head — and eyes — was
as truthful as it was terrific. This traveller, being a good
fellow, gives him wine. You should see the dim remem-
brance of his better days that comes over him as he takes
the glass, and in a strange dazed way makes as if he were
going to touch the other man's, or do some airy thing
with it ; and then stops and flings the contents down his
hot throat, as if he were pouring it into a lime-kiln.
But this was nothing to what follows after he has done
the murder, and comes home, with a basket of provisions,
a ragged pocket full of money, and a badly- washed bloody
right hand — which his little girl finds out. After the
child asked him if he had hurt his hand, his going aside,
turning himself round, and looking over all his clothes
for spots, was so inexpressibly dreadful that it really
scared one. He called for wine, and the sickness that
came upon him when he saw the colour, was one of the
things that brought out the curious cry I have spoken of,
from the audience. Then he fell into a sort of bloody
mist, and went on to the end groping about, with no
mind for anything, except making his fortune by staking
this money, and a faint dull kind of love for the child.
It is quite impossible to satisfy one's-self by saying enough
of such a magnificent performance. I have never seen
him come near its finest points, in anything else. He
said two things in a way that alone would put him far
apart from aU otlier actors. One to his wife, when he
has exultingly shown her the money and she has asked
him how he got it — ' I found it ' — and the other to his
old companion and tempter, when he charged him with
ha^dng killed that traveller, and he suddenly went head-
long mad, and took him by the throat and howled out,
' It wasn't I who murdered him, — it was Misery ! ' And
such a dress ; such a face ; and, above all, such an

102 CHARLES DICKENS'S LIFE XI

extraordinary, guilty wicked thing as he made of a
knotted branch of a tree which was his walking-stick,
from the moment when the idea of the murder came into
his head ! I could write pages about him. It is an
impression quite ineffaceable. He got half-boastful of
that walking-staff to himself, and half-afraid of it ; and
didn't know whether to be grimly pleased that it had the
jagged end, or to hate it and be horrified at it. He sat
at a little table in the inn-yard, drinking with the
traveller ; and this horrible stick got between them like
the Devil, while he counted on his fingers the uses he
could put the money to."

On the whole, I cannot deny either that Mr.
Forster's biography was a very difficult book indeed
to write, or that it has been well done. It has
painted for us a picture morally much more dis-
appointing than was expected, and it has perhaps
dwelt on some of the most disappointing features at
unnecessary length, and with a certain awkward air
of half-admission, half-deprecation. There is far too
much criticism on individual works of Dickens, to
some of which Mr. Forster recurs repeatedly ; and it
does not appear to me that the criticism is always
sound. His attack on Mr. Lewes in the present
volume is very fierce, but by no means as eflfective
as it is fierce, and though I cannot pretend to accept
Mr. Lewes's judgment, — I believe Dickens to be
certainly the greatest humourist of his nation, while
Mr. Lewes appears to give him credit only for fun,
— Mr. Forster quite fails to make good against Mr.
Lewes the largeness and wholeness of the humanity
in Dickens's creations. But with all these faults
and shortcomings, Mr. Forster's life of Dickens will
always be eagerly read as long as Dickens himself
is eagerly read ; and that will be as long as English-
men retain their delight in English literature.

XII

THE FUTURE OF ENGLISH HUMOUR
Mr. Ainger's " Charles Lamb "

1882

The publication of Mr. Ainger's little book on Charles
Lamb, one of the truest and most unique of all the
great English humourists, has set people talking, as
people always will talk, of the superiority of the past
over the present, and the gradual decay of the forms
of life which make the past so fascinating. ' Will
there ever be such another humourist as Charles
Lamb?' said one literary man, during the present
week, to another, ' Is there not a tendency at work
in our modern life to the peitification of everything,
till the highest form of humour which the public will
enjoy is the form given in Mr. Gilbert's operettas
and Mr. Burnand's " Happy thoughts " ? ' The
interlocutor interrogated wisely reserved judgment,
thinking reserve wise, as the Judges do on great
occasions, and suspecting that pessimism is always
apt to be out in its reckoning ; moreover, that it is
rather a hasty thing to assume that because our
cleverest operettas and contributions to Punch may
leave something in the way of largeness to be desired,

104 THE FUTURE OF ENGLISH HUMOUR XII

largeness of humour is dying out in the world. And,
indeed, if we only consider what stores of fun Hood,
who was one of Lamb's youngest friends, produced ;
then that before Lamb's death, the greatest English
humourist of any age — Shakespeare himself not
excepted — was beginning to try his wings ; further,
that one of the greatest of Dickens's contemporaries,
Thackeray, though much more of a satirist than a
humourist, was still a humourist of a very high order ;
moreover, that while both of them were in the
maturity of their powers, a totally new school of
humour of the most original kind sprang into exist-
ence on the other side of the Atlantic, of which the
present American Minister to this country is the
acknowledged master, — the Biglow Papers having
scarcely been surpassed in either kind or scale of
humour since the world began ; and finally, that to
prove that very true humour of slighter calibre
is plentiful enough, we have the extraordinary
popularity and originality of such books as Alice
in Wonderland on this side of the Atlantic, and of
trifles like Artemus Ward's various lectures, Hans
Breitmann's ballads, and Bret Harte's "Heathen
Chinee," on the other side of the Atlantic, to bring
up in evidence, — I suspect that it would be much
more plausible, looking at the matter from the point
of view of mere experience, to argue that English
humour is only in its infancy, and that we are likely
to have an immense multiplication of its surprises,
rather than that it is already in the sere and yellow
leaf. The truth is, no doubt, that as human com-
petition increases, there is a tendency to refine and
subdivide and think more exclusively about a suc-
cession of trifles, which is not favourable to the larger
humour; but then this very tendency drives men

zn THE FUTURE OF ENGLISH HUMOUR 105

into opposition to it, makes them eager to steep
themselves, as Charles Lamb steeped himself, in the
dramatic life of a more spontaneous age, and the
contrast brings to light ever new forms of that gro-
tesque and conscious inconsistency and incompatibility
between human desire and human condition, on
which the sense of humour feeds. When Charles
Lamb called Coleridge "an archangel, — a little
damaged," he painted this contrast between human
ideals and human experience in its most perfect form.
But every new generation is probably richer in
suggestions of that kind than all the preceding
generations put together, for this, if for no other
reason, — that whether we still believe in the ideals
of the past or not, as future realities, we never cease
to yearn after them, and to yearn after them all the
more that they excite less active hope, while the
accumulating experience of centuries brings us face
to face with the oddest and most grotesque forms of
disappointment and disillusion. No contrast could
have been more striking, for instance, than that
between Coleridge's eloquent expositions of divine
philosophy and faith, and his own helpless life,
sponging on the hospitality of Good Samaritans, and
leaving his family to the generosity of friends. And
no condition of the world can be reasonably expected
in which contrasts of that pathetic kind will not be
multiplied rather than diminished in number, or in
which it may not reasonably be expected that the
eye to discern and the power to make us feel these
contrasts will be multiplied at the same time.

In some respects, though in some only, Charles
Lamb's humour anticipates the type of humour which
we now call, in the main, American. When, for
instance, he gravely narrated the origin of the Chinese

106 THE FUTURE OF ENGLISH HUMOUR Xli

invention of roast pig, in the burning down of a
house, — when he told a friend that he had moved
just forty-two inches nearer to his beloved London,
— and again, when he wrote to Manning in China
that the new Persian Ambassador was called "Shaw
Ali Mirza," but that the common people called him
"Shaw Nonsense," we might think we were listening
to Artemus Ward's or Mark Twain's minute and
serious nonsense. But for the most part, Charles
Lamb's humour is more frolicsome, more whimsical,
and less subdued in its extravagance ; more like the
gambolling of a mind which did not care to conceal
its enjoyment of paradox, and less like the inward
invisible laughter in which the Yankees most delight.
Lamb dearly loved a frisk. And when, for instance,
he blandly proposed to some friend who offered to
wrap up for him a bit of old cheese which he had
seemed to like at dinner, to let him have a bit of
string with which he could probably " lead it home,"
there was certainly nothing in him of the grim
impassiveness of Yankee extravagance.

It might be asserted, perhaps, that even if the
prospect of a great future for English humour is good,
there is still reason to fear that it must dwindle in
largeness of conception, so that such massive forms
of humour as we find, for instance, in Gulliver's
Travels are not likely to return. But even this I
greatly doubt. As I noticed just now, Dickens, who,
as a humourist was probably not inferior in concep-
tion, and certainly more abundant in creation, than
any humourist in the world — is wholly modern, and
yet he has by no means exhausted the field even of
that sort of humour in which he himself was most
potent. The field of what we may call idealised
vulgarities, which includes sketches of the abstract

XII THE FUTURE OF ENGLISH HUMOUR 107

monthly nurse whose every thought and action
breathe the fawning brutalities of the Mrs. Gamp
species, — of beadles who incarnate all beadledom, —
of London pickpockets who have assimilated all that
is entertaining in the world of professional slang and
nothing that is disgusting, — of boarding-house keepers
whose whole mind is transformed into an instrument
for providing enough food and gravy and amusement
for their commercial gentlemen, — of water-rate col-
lectors glorified by one ideal passion for the ballet,
— of rascally schoolmasters whose every action betrays
the coward and the bully, — or of hypocrites who
secrete airs of pretentious benevolence as an oil-gland
secretes oil, is by no means exhausted, hardly more
than attacked. And yet it promises a sort of
humour particularly well adapted to this period of
at once almost sordid realism and ingenious abstrac-
tion. Nor can it be denied that, Alice in Wonder-
land^ especially such plaintive ballads as that of the
walrus and the carpenter, provide us with a type of
grotesque fancy almost cut free from the realities of
life, and yet quaintly reproducing all the old human
tendencies under absurdl}'' new conditions ; nor that
this promises well for the infinite flexibility of the
laughing faculty in man.

I quite admit that we never expect to see the
greater types of Transatlantic humour reproduced on
this side of the Atlantic. These, for the most part,
imply a rare faculty for turning the mind aside from
the direct way of saying a thing to one that is so
indirect as to lead you travelling on a totally opposite
track, as, for example, when Bret Harte declares that
one of his rowdies, —

" Took a point of order when
A chunk of old red sandstone hit him in the abdomen,

108 THE FUTURE OF ENGLISH HUMOUR xii

And lie smiled a kind o' sickly smile, and curled up on

tlie floor,
And the subsekent proceedings interested him no more ; "

or when the American blasphemer retorted that if
his censor had but "jumped out of bed on to the
business end of a tin-tack, even he would have cursed
some." This wonderful power of suggesting mislead-
ing analogies taken from the very province which
would seem to be least suggested either by» analogy
or contrast, seems to be, in some sense, indigenous
in the United States, and no one is so great a master
of it as Mr. Lowell himself, who has made the sayings
of John P. Robinson and of Bird-o'-freedum Sawin
famous all over the world, for their illustration of
this very power of interlacing thoughts which are
neither mental neighbours nor mental contrasts, but
simply utterly unlikely to suggest each other. To
give one instance of this, I will recall Bird-o'-freedum
Sawin's comment on the powerfully persuasive
influence of being tarred and feathered, and taken
round the village astride of a rail, on your opinions,
where he remarks that, —

" Riding on a rail
Makes a man feel unanermous as Jonah in the whale."

Why the United States should seem to have a very
special afl&nity for this species of humour it may seem
difficult to divine. Perhaps it is that amongst our
kinsmen there the principle of utility has gained
what we may call a really imaginative ascendancy
over all minds, to a degree to which it has never yet
touched the imagination of Europe, and that this
has resulted not only in the marvellous inventiveness
which Americans have always shown in the small
devices of practical life, but in the discovery of an

xn THE FUTURE OF ENGLISH HUMOUR 109

almost new class of mental associations, — such as
that which distinguishes the head of the nail from
the point as sleeping and working partners in the
same operation, or such as that which suggested to
a reader of the story of Jonah, that if the prophet
had had to pass resolutions as to the desirability of
getting out of the whale's belly, he would certainly
have passed them with something very much like
the unanimity of an assembly in which the complete-
ness of the concord is caused by stress of circum-
stances. The humour of the United States, if closely
examined, will be found to depend in great measure
on the ascendancy which the principle of utility has
gained over the imaginations of a rather imaginative
people. And utility is a principle which has certainly
not yet completed its career, even in the way of
suggesting what seems to us the strangest and
quaintest of all strange and quaint analogies.

XIII

MR. FITZJAMES STEPHEN'S CREEDS
1874

Mr. FiTZJAMES Stephen has added a preface to the
second edition of his Libeiiy, Equality, Fraternity,^
in answer to some criticisms passed upon hip work by
Mr. Morley and Mr. Harrison. As I do not, except
on one point, very materially differ from Mr. Stephen
on the subject of his controversies with these two
critics, so far, at least, as he answers them in this
preface, but am inclined to think he has the best of
the argument, I should not notice this further
explanation of his views, but for the opportunity it
gives me for referring to a subject on which, when 1
reviewed Mr. Stephen's book in June last, I had no
space to comment adequately, — I mean, on Mr.
Stephen's somewhat remarkable type of moral and
religious creed. He says, in a very brief reference to
my criticism, " Of this critic, I will only say that he
and I write different languages, so far as the funda-
mental terms employed are concerned," — a fact of
which I sufficiently showed that I, too, was aware in
my reviews of Mr. Stephen's book. And since the

* Now Sir James Fitzjames Stephen.
2 Smith, Elder, and Co.

xril MR. FITZJAMES STEPHEN'S CREED 111

illustration which Mr. Stephen gives of this extra-
ordinary difference between us in our fundamental
conceptions of morals, religion, and their intellectual
conditions, will introduce very well what I have to
say of Mr. Stephen's form of creed, I will presently
quote it. In the substance of his work Mr. Stephen
had laid it down that all actions are 'free,' of which
hope is the motive, and that all are done under
compulsion or omitted under restraint, of which fear
is the motive. It appeared and appears to me that
a definition wider of the commonest and also the
deepest meaning of the word ' free ' could not possibly
be given, — first, because fear and hope are often only
different modes of describing the same motive. Mr.
Stephen, for instance, says that if a woman marries
*' from the ordinary motives " she does it freely, but if
she submits '' in order to avoid a greater evil," she acts
under compulsion, and not freely. But how are you
to distinguish between the woman who marries from
the hope of comfort or luxury, and from the
fear of the poverty and discomfort she escapes 1
It is quite clear that the two motives are identical,
though looked at from different points of view. I
had spoken of an act as ' free ' "if it proceeds from
the deliberate and rational act of the mind itself," on
which Mr. Stephen comments: — "So that if a man
gives up his purse to a robber, he does it freely,
provided only that the robber gives him time to
consider deliberately the alternatives, ' Your money
or your life ? ' " I should answer that, as between
these two alternatives of death or surrender of the
purse, the choice is free, on the condition stated, and
that there is no paradox in saying so. Of course,
you are not left free to retain both money and life.
The robber puts that out of the question by his

112 MR. FITZJAMES STEPHEN'S CREED xili

alternative, but within the range left to you, you are
free, if you are left time to choose deliberately. To
call a man free who turns Queen's evidence on the
promise of a pardon, and to say that he acts under
compulsion if he turns Queen's evidence under the
fear of death, seems to me to be playing with words,
and not using them, as Mr. Stephen in one of his
chapters finely says that all words on the highest
subjects must be used as " signals " made by " spirits
in prison " to each other, " with a world of things to
think and to say which our signals cannot describe
at all." I hold that the word 'free' is a sign of a
great deal in the world of things " which our signals
cannot describe at all," and that it becomes a mere
false sign when it is made to stand for an act done
under an impulse of hope, and not under one of fear.
We fear for the loss of our hopes as we hope for the
loss of our fears, so that the two motives are the
same from different points of view. 'Freedom'
and 'free' seem to me to be words as old as any
civilised language, with a meaning far less open to
juggling than this, and always to have had more or
less reference to the exercise, or the opportunity for
the exercise, of rational volition. A slave may,
under conditions of martyrdom, prefer his own
highest mind to his master's will. A free man has
thousands of opportunities for the exercise of this
voluntary energy, to every one of the slave's.

But this strange obtuseness of Mr. Stephen's to
the higher and positive implications of the word
'liberty' seems to me characteristic of one of the
most curious aspects of his creed, which condenses in
itself a strong and manly, though wonderfully
maimed religion, — a religion breaking down suddenly
into the most unexpected and abrupt chasms, mis-

113

shapen here, stunted there, and elsewhere again
exhibiting the most massive and even pathetic
grandeur. For instance, this blunt and, as it seems
to me, almost supercilious refusal to see any question
at all in the freedom of the will, might be expected
a pru/i'i to go with an equally contemptuous view of
the mystery of personality and personal identity.
Certainly I should have said that if there is one
experience more than another by which the " I " is
known, and known as something not to be explained
by "a series of states of feeling," it is the sense of
creative power connected with the feeling of effort,
the consciousness that you can by a heave of the will
alter your whole life, and that that heave of the will,
or refusal to exert it, is not the mere resultant of the
motives present to you, but is undetermined by the
past, — is free. This view Mr. Stephen not merely
rejects, but regards as unmeaning ; he quotes con-
cerning it Locke's unintelligent remark that "the
question whether the will is free, is as unintelligible
and as insignificant as to ask whether a man's virtue
is square." One might have thought, therefore, that
he would go on with Locke as he began, and accept
Locke's equally superficial judgment on "personal
identity," which makes it to consist solely in the
continuous series of conscious memories, and which
would deny personal identity to two diflferent parts
of the same life, supposing the tie of memory between
them was irrevocably dissolved. That, however, is
clearly not Mr. Stephen's view at all. He has the
deepest sense of the identity of the " I " as one of
the inexplicable facts at the basis of the expectation
of immortality. He reproaches Mr. Mill for not
putting explicitly enough the fair inference from the
sense of fixity belonging to the "I am." "All
VOL. I I

114 MR. FITZJAMES STEPHEN'S CREED XIII

human language," says Mr. Stephen, "all human
observation, implies that the mind, the *!,' is a
thing in itself, a fixed point in the midst of a world
of change, of which world of change its own organs
form a part. It is the same yesterday,' to-day, and
to-morrow. It was what it is, when its organs were
of a different shape, and consisted of different matter
from their present shape and matter. It will be
what it is, when they have gone through other
changes. I do not say that this proves, but surely
it suggests, it renders probable, the belief that this
ultimate fact, this starting-point of all knowledge,
thought, feeling, and language, this 'final inexplica-
bility ' (an emphatic, though a clumsy phrase,) is
independent of its organs ; that it may have existed
before they were collected out of the elements, and
may continue to exist after they are dissolved into
the elements. The belief thus suggested by the
most intimate, the most abiding, the most wide-
spread of all experiences, not to say by universal
experience, as recorded by nearly every word of
every language in the world, is what I mean by a
belief in a future state, if indeed it should not rather
be called a past, present, and future state, all in one,
a state which rises above and transcends time and
change. I do not say that this is proved, but I do
say that it is strongly suggested by the one item
of knowledge which rises above logic, argument,
language, sensation, and even distinct thought, that
one clear instance of direct consciousness in virtue
of which we say 'I am.' This belief is that there
is in man, or rather that man is that which rises
above words and above thoughts, which are but
unuttered words ; that to each one of us, ' I ' is the
ultimate central fact which renders thought and

XIII MR. FITZJAMES STEPHEN'S CREED 115

language possible." Now that passage goes as far
beyond Locke's thin and meagre view of personal
identity, as our belief in the freedom of the will goes
beyond either Locke's or Mr. Stephen's view of the
will. And yet, while I heartily agree, and more than
agree, with every word in that passage, I should have
said that the one central fact which makes this sense
of the ' I ' so unequivocal, is the consciousness of
being able to put out on occasions, or to refuse to
put out, free, undetermined effort, and that it is in
virtue of this fact that we recognise that self goes
deep beneath, or rises high above, the world of
determined change in which it lives. Mr. Stephen,
however, characteristically as I think, has the most
profound feeling of the depth and the mystery of the
self, but not the least feeling of the one central and
characteristic fact about it, — its qualified liberty.

Equally strong, vivid, and curiously stunted with
Mr. Stephen's sense of the personal self, is also his
view of human ethics. He holds that all men act, and
must act with a view to their own happiness ; that
rational considerations show how closely the happiness
of one man is bound up with that of another ; that
without any belief in a revealed law of God or in
immortality, this community of interests would only
affect a man's own actions so far as his affections com-
pelled him to rate others' happiness as part of his own,
or again, so far as prudential considerations showed
what he must concede to them, in order to get them
to concede what he needed to him ; but that, with a
belief in a revealed law of God and in immortality,
men may find it their interest and therefore their
duty to do much that is not for their own happiness,
though it is for other people's, and this during a
whole life-time, with a view to forming a character

116 MR. FITZJAMES STEPHEN'S CREED XIII

that, in conformity with God's law, will much more
conduce to their own happiness during the life to
come. For all disinterested actions which are not in
some remote sense interested, either as required by
the personal affections for others, or as enjoined by
God, who has power to reward and punish, Mr.
Stephen has a great contempt; and even for some
which are required by what he deems a morbid and
unhealthy affection for the human race in general, he
expresses a very deep scorn. As far as any religion
forbids, under pains and penalties, actions hurtful to
others which we should otherwise like to do, Mr.
Stephen thinks it not only right for those who hold
such a religion to abstain, but, — and this it is that
puzzles me — he also admires those who abstain, for
some strange reason, for their abstinence. He
admires them apparently because he thinks the type
of character which postpones present to future enjoy-
ments stronger and manlier than that which takes
no heed to threats or promises affecting only a far-off
future. He calls the constitution of mind which
habitually has regard to these distant considerations
" conscience," speaks of it as one of the most personal
and deep-rooted of the mental faculties, and altogether
holds it in high honour, though, failing any presump-
tive belief in immortality and a personal God whose
moral will is revealed, he hardly admits that such a
faculty exists. Here, again, I regard with wonder
not so much Mr. Stephen's negative views, which are
common to him with the Benthamites, but his pro-
found positive reverence for the "prudent, steady,
hardy, enduring race of people, who are neither fools
nor cowards, who have no particular love for those
who are, who distinctly know what they want, and
are determined to use all lawful means to get it," —

XIII MR. FITZJAMES STEPHEN'S CREED 117

the type of character this form of creed tends, in his
opinion, to perpetuate. What I find it difficult to
understand is the hearty warmth with which Mr.
Stephen says that " the class of pleasures and pains
which come from virtue and vice respectively, cannot
be measured against those " of health and disease, —
a statement which seems to me a rare paradox as
coming from one who not only admits, but maintains,
that the difference between the two classes is one
which might totally disappear if we were all to die
at twenty, instead of to be immortal. In that case,
says Mr. Stephen, health and disease and moderate
wealth would be of infinitely more importance than
virtue and vice ; but if we are to be immortal, they
are infinitely less important ; and if we were to live
1000 years and no more, then, apparently, some
mean would have to be discovered between virtue as
calculated for immortality, and the health and moder-
ate wealth which is the most reasonable aim for men
living a short life. I am struck with the strongest
sense of incongruity at these statements. Sometimes
Mr. Stephen speaks as if virtue, even as we know it,
were an experience wholly different in kind and in-
finitely higher than any other human expei ieuce. In
the next breath he speaks of it as a pleasure which
would vanish altogether if the belief in immortal
consequences of pleasure and pain were to disappear.
Such views are not a morality : they are a sort of torso
of morality, with some of the finest portions of the
figure wanting.

And so of Mr. Stephen's conception of God. He
speaks of him as a being above all moral attributes,
to whom it is unmeaning to ascribe justice, for in-
stance. " I think of him as conscious, and having
will, as infinitely powerful, and as one who, whatever

118

he be in his own nature, has so arranged the world
or worlds in which I live a^ to let me know that
virtue is the law which he has prescribed to me and
to others. If still further asked, ' Can you love such
a Being 1 ' I should answer, Love is not the word I
should choose, but awe. The law under which we
live is stern and, as far as we can judge, inflexible,
but it is noble," [why noble?] "and excites a feeling
of awful respect for its Author and for the constitu-
tion established in the world which it governs, and a
sincere wish to act up to it and carry it out as far as
possible." Now I can't understand that. If the
law-giver is incapable of moral attributes, and the
only sense of ' virtue ' is the law whicli his will has
established amongst us, why is there anything ' noble '
in its sternness and inflexibility 1 Is a law of the
Medes and Persians 'noble,' apart from its morality,
simply for its sternness, because it altereth not ? Mr.
Stephen's religion, like his morality and his moral
psychology, consists of one or two fine, but rugged
fragments. He believes in the 'I,' but not in its only
striking characteristic ; he believes in the infinitely
deeper joy of virtue than of any other mental experi-
ence, but thinks there would be no such distinction
to a being of definitely limited hopes ; he believes in
the nobility of God's law, but not in the righteousness
of God. In fact, Mr. Stephen's creed consists of a
few huge, almost Cyclopean, masses of moral convic-
tion, impressive and striking enough, but broken off"
just at the most critical points, and as striking from
their apparently almost wilful insufl&ciency and isola-
tion, as from their solidity and strength.

XIV

MR. STEPHEN 1 ON LIBERTY, EQUALITY,
FRATERNITY 2

1873

There is certainly a quality in books, even of pure
discussion like the present, which makes them strong
or weak quite independently of the amount of just
intellectual discernment they embody. This is a
very strong book, the expression of a very strong
character, but it is a book so limited in its power of
apprehension and judgment, even in relation to the
subjects to which it is devoted, that there is something
almost grotesque in the general intellectual effect
produced by its collective teachings, when we grasp
them in a single whole. Mr. Stephen has been
graphically described as a Calvinist with the bottom
knocked out, and it is difficult to describe him better.
Before touching on the main subject of which he
treats, in the heterogeneous conclusions of which I
find both much to differ from and much to agree
with, it may be just as well to group together the
main positive features of Mr. Stephen's philosophical
faith, so as to obtain as complete a picture as possible

^ Now Sir James Fitzjames Stephen.

'^ Liberty, Equality, Fraternity. By James Fitzjames
Stephen, Q.C. Loudon : Smith, Elder, and Co.

120 MR. STEPHEN ON LIBERTY, XIV

of the quaint, and as it seems to me, very ill-assorted
details of his creed.

Mr. Stephen is a utilitarian in this sense, that he
believes that the only ultimate test of right is the
tendency of actions to produce happiness, though he
admits that men have a derivative conscience, as a
result of which they pass, at least as soon as their
character is formed, very strong moral judgments
on their own actions and those of others, without
having verified for themselves the issues in happiness
or unhappiness which those actions are likely to
have. Moreover, Mr. Stephen, if I understand him
aright, is a utilitarian of Bentham's own school, and
not of Mr. Mill's ; that is, he thinks every man
always acts with a view to his own happiness and
his own happiness solely, and that every other view
is simply unthinkable. " When, and in so far as
we seek to please others," he says, "it is because it
pleases us to give them pleasure" (p. 273), and he
maintains that acts of self-sacrifice are mere mis-
nomers, and do not mean acts of self-sacrifice at all
(self-sacrifice being inconceivable) ; but what they do
mean is, acts of an exceptionally constituted person,
in which " the motives which have reference to others
immediately and to self only mediately, happen to
be stronger than the motives which have immediate
reference to self and only a mediate relation to
others." Mr. Stephen illustrates his meaning by
saying that in ordinary society politeness is not self-
sacrifice, because it has become much pleasanter to
almost all men to consider others before themselves
in trifling matters ; but that if a man gives up a
marriage on which he had set his heart in order to
provide for destitute and disagreeable relations, that
is called self-sacrifice, not because he really sacrifices

XIV EQUALITY, FRATERNITY 121

himself, any more than the man who gives up the
best seat to a lady, but because he is peculiarly
constituted, and finds his pleasure more in acts which
please him only through the pleasure they give to
others, than ordinary men. Men call such acts acts
of self-sacrifice — so I infer from Mr. Stephen — because
if such acts were ever performed at all (which thej^
never can be) by the majority of men, in them
they would be self-sacrifice. A taste so peculiarly
formed as to suggest to ordinary men the notion
that the doer prefers somebody else to himself, — an
assumption, as Mr. Stephen thinks, simply irrational,
— is the sole origin of the term. " That any human
creature ever, under any conceivable circumstances,
acted otherwise than in obedience to that which
for the time being was his strongest wish, is to
me an assertion as incredible and as unmeaning as
that on a particular occasion two straight lines
enclosed a space." So far Mr. Stephen's philosophy
is very simple, very old, and about as false and
contrary to the testimony of human experience
as extremely simple theories of human nature usually
are.

But here comes grotesque inconsistency number
one. Having made it clear that men are always and
everywhere driven hither and thither by their
strongest wishes, and that such a thing as a will, in
the sense of an independent source of force in human
nature, does not exist, Mr. Stephen is compelled to
testify to a truth utterly inconsistent with his
fundamental principle, which he does in the following
fine passage. After quoting a characteristic passage
from Carlyle about the transcendental self within the
body, — the eloquence of which, only half veracious
and very self-conscious as it seems to me, I confess I

122 MR. STEPHEN ON LIBERTY, xiv

think Mr. Stephen overrates, — Mr. Stephen continues
thus : —

" I know of no statement which puts in so intense
and impressive a form the helief which appears to me to
lie at the very root of all morals whatever — the belief,
that is, that I am one ; that my organs are not I ; that
my happiness and their well-being are different and may
be inconsistent with each other ; that pains and pleasures
differ in kind as well as in degree ; that the class of
pleasures and pains which arise from virtue and vice
respectively cannot be measured against those say of
health and disease, inasmuch as they affect different
subjects or affect the same subjects in a totally different
manner. The solution of all moral and social problems
lies in the answer we give to the questions, what am
I ? How am I related to others ? If my body and I are
one and the same thing — if, to use a phrase in which an
eminent man of letters once summed up the opinions
which he believed to be held by an eminent scientific
man — we are all ' sarcoidous peripatetic funguses,' and
nothing more, good health and moderate wealth are
blessings infinitely and out of all comparison greater
than any others. I think that a reasonable fungus would
systematically repress many other so-called virtues which
often interfere with health and the acquisition of a
reasonable amount of wealth. If, however, I am some-
thing more than a fungus — if, properly speaking, the
fungus is not I at all, but only my instrument, and if I
am a mysteriously permanent being who may be entering
on all sorts of unknown destinies — a scale is at once
established among my faculties and desires, and it becomes
natural to subordinate, and if necessary to sacrifice, some
of them to others. To take a single instance. By means
which may easily be suggested, every man can accustom
himself to practise a variety of what are commonly called
vices, and, still more, to neglect a variety of what are
generally regarded as duties, without compunction.

XIV EQUALITY, FRATERNITY 123

Would a wise man do this or not ? If he regards him-
self as a spiritual creature, certainly not, because conscience
is that which lies deepest in a man."

If every man always acts from the strongest wish,
or complex combination of wishes, impressed upon
him at the moment, and can no other, where the
room may be for this spiritual individuality and the
power of choice which Mr. Stephen assigns to it, it
is hard to see. Admitting there is a higher and
lower class of pleasures, how can the former belong
more to the essence of the man than the latter unless
they actually conquer? Is it not self-contradiction
itself to say that that which is vanquished and
subdued is more of the essence of a necessary being,
— which man not only is, but is by the very laws of
thought itself, according to Mr. Stephen, — than that
which vanquishes and subdues it? Surely the
question of essence, in a necessary being, must be
judged by the result 1 If the pleasures o'f virtue are
more of the essence of the man, they will come out
in the man, and triumph over the lower pleasures.
If, on the contrary, the pleasures of vice are more
of the essence of the man, they will triumph over
the higher pleasures. Whether " conscience is that
which lies deepest in a man " can only be proved, —
if man be a necessary being, — by the result. It is
most inconsistent first to lay it down that a man from
moment to moment is the mere victim of the strongest
motive acting upon him, and then to speak of the
conscience as that which is more of his essence than
his other desires. If it conquers his other desires,
doubtless so it is. If not, then it is not so. Mr.
Stephen may assert an indestructible essence of
higher desires for those whose higher desires get the
victory, if he pleases. But he has no business at all

124 MR. STEPHEN ON LIBERTY, XIV

to say that the higher desires are of the essence ol
the man of conscience, unless he also says that the
lower desires are of the essence of the man of sense.
He should stick to his Calvinistic scheme, in spite of
the loss of its religious basis, if he would be consistent
with himself, and assert boldly that ' the elect ' are
those who have a spiritual essence, while ' the
damned ' are those who have a sensual or unspiritual
essence. And in both cases the essence is not to be
considered as ' will,' but simply as a constitution of
latent properties which is developed under the fitting
external conditions, so as to display what was from
the first implicitly contained in it.

Again, when Mr. Stephen asserts that " right and
wrong depend upon the tendency of actions to
produce happiness," and then goes on to tell us that
we are to decide for men what sort of happiness they
ought to desire, and to promote that, and that only,
he is guilty of one of the most extraordinary of
philosophical inconsistencies, . explicable only by
reference to that broken-down Calvinism to which
we have before referred. He tells us : —

" For these reasons I should amend Mr. Mill's doctrine
thus : — The utilitarian standard is not the greatest
amount of happiness altogether (as might be the case if
happiness was as distinct an idea as bodily health), but
the widest possible extension of the ideal of life formed
by the person who sets up the standard. ... A friend
of mine was once remonstrating with an Afghan chief on
the vicious habits which he shared with many of his
countrymen, and was pointing out to hiin their enormity
according to European notions. ' My friend,' said the
Afghan, ' why will you talk about what you do not
understand ? Give our way of life a fair trial, and then
you will know something about it.' To say to a man

XIV EQUALITY, FRATERNITY 125

who is grossly sensual, false all through, coldly cruel and
ungrateful, and absolutely incapable of caring for any one
but himself, — ' We, for reasons which satisfy us, will in
various ways discourage and stigmatise your way of life,
and in some cases punish you for living according to your
nature,' — is to speak in an intelligible, straightforward way.
To say to him, — ' We act thus because we love you, and
with a view to your own happiness' — appears to me to be
a double untruth. In the first place, I for one do not
love such people, but hate them. In the second place, if
I wanted to make them happy, which I do not, I should
do 80 by pampering their vices, which I will not."

In other words, Mr. Stephen thinks that the test of
a true moral rule is not its tendency to promote the
actual happiness even of whole races for long periods
of time, but to promote a type of character to which
he knows (by secret criteria of his own), that a
higher kind of happiness must ultimately belong.
Well, but this is not utilitarianism in any sense what-
ever, unless he is willing to admit that the revealed
will of God, accompanied by a revelation of the
happy consequences of obedience and the unhappy
consequences of disobedience, is the basis of this
secret knowledge. If that be so, why, of course, Mr.
►Stephen is still a good utilitarian, going, like Paley,
on the basis of an explicit revelation. If not, — and
he sedulously hides from his readers whether there
really be such a thing, in his opinion, as a revelation
or not, — nothing can be more absurdly inconsistent
than his claim for the moralist of the right to impose
on men, out of his own self-consciousness, rules of
conduct which he admits will not promote their
happiness, or that of even their immediate descend-
ants, and the origin of which can only be a sort of
absolute caprice, — for he will not admit an original

126 MR. STEPHEN ON LIBERTY, xiv

moral faculty apart from the calculation of happiness ;
— so that men are to be compelled to do what will
make them and their posterity unhappy or far less
happy than they might be, on the strength of the
ipse dixit of a person who first tells you that happiness
is the true test of morality, and then enjoins you to
prefer an indefinitely lesser happiness attained by
a particular set of rules, to an indefinitely greater
amount attained by another set of rules. Is it not
perfectly evident that in his heart Mr. Stephen
assumes that he knows a shorter cut to the highest
moral type of man, than can be found by any elabor-
ate calculation of happiness ? Yet if he does, he is
either not a utilitarian at all, but a man who holds
that the conscience is ultimate, — which he denies, —
or he is a utilitarian only because he believes that
God has revealed that certain modes of life will result
in certain eternal consequences, which far outweigh
the temporary consequences ; but if he believes that,
he should confess it, and base his moral principles at
once upon revelation, as lying at their very root.
But Mr. Stephen throughout his book, while most
eloquent on the hypothetical importance of Revelation
to human morality, elects to leave the truth of the
hypothesis perfectly open. There, again, his system
is Calvinistic, minus its foundations. It relies on
the threat of damnation for its moral power, but
declines to say whether that threat is true or false.

Once more, Mr. Stephen is always urging that
morality must, in a large degree, depend on religious
belief. He holds the theological creed to be the basis
of conduct in a sense specially appropriate to the
utilitarian, who. as we have seen, can only overrule
the conclusions to be derived from definite calcula-
tions of human happiness by a divine revelation as to

XIV EQUALITY, FRATERNITY 127

some otherwise unknown results of those actions.
He therefore argues, and argues most eloquently, that
if States are to have any regard at all for morality,
or the type of character which they should aim at
producing, they must more or less assume the truth
of some creeds and the falsehood of others : —

" The object of forbidding men. to deny the existence
of God and a future life would be to cause those doctrines
to be universally believed, and upon my principles this
raises three questions — -1. Is the object good ? 2. Are
the means proposed likely to be effective 1 3. What is the
comparative importance of the object secured and of the
means by which it is secured ? That the object is good
if the doctrines are true, admits, in my opinion, of no
doubt whatever. I entirely agree with the common-places
about the importance of these doctrines. If these beliefs
are mere dreams, life is a very much poorer and pettier
thing ; men are beings of much less importance ; trouble,
danger, and physical pain are much greater evils, and the
prudence of virtue is much more questionable than has
hitherto been supposed to be the case. If men follow the
advice so often pressed upon them, to cease to think of
these subjects otherwise than as insoluble riddles, all the
existing conceptions of morality will have to be changed,
all social tendencies will be weakened. Merely personal
inclinations will be greatly strengthened. Men who say
' to-morrow we die,' will add ' let us eat and drink.' It
would be not merely difficult, but impossible in such a
state of society to address any argument save that of
criminal law (which Mr. Mill's doctrine about liberty
would reduce to a minimum) to a man who had avowed
to himself that he was consistently bad. A few people
love virtue for its own sake. Many have no particular
objection to a mild, but useful form of it, if they are
trained to believe that it will answer in the long run ;
but many, probably most of them, would like it dashed
with a liberal allowance of vice, if they thought that no

128 MR. STEPHEN ON LIBERTY^ XIV

risk would be run by making tlie mixture. A strong
minority, again, are so viciously disposed that all the
considerations which can be drawn from any world, present
or future, certain or possible, do not avail to hold them
in. Many a man too stupid for speculative doubt or for
thought of any kind says, 'I've no doubt at all I shall
be damned for it, but I must, and I will.' In short, all
experience shows that almost all men require at times both
the spur of hope and the bridle of fear, and that religious
hope and fear are an effective spur and bridle, though some
people are too hard-mouthed and thick-skinned to care
much for either, and though others will now and then take
the bit in their teeth and rush where passion carries them,
notwithstanding both. If, then, virtue is good, it seems
to me clear that to promote the belief of the fundamental
doctrines of religion is good also, for I am convinced that
in Europe at least the two must stand or fall together."

I confess that seems to me quite unanswerable, as far
as it goes. Why should not polygamy, or polyandry,
or any other such institution, be legalised, if there be
no moral evil involved in it 1 But the most that
Mr. Stephen does assume in this book is not that any
religious creed whatever is true, — not even the faith
in a God who has proclaimed a simple moral code,
and one in which the obedience to that code is to
work happiness and disobedience unhappiness, — but
only that in all probability one or two creeds, — .
especially, one might infer, Roman Catholicism,
Mahometanism, and Hindooism, — are false. But how
will the assumption that Roman Catholicism or any
other religion is false help Mr. Stephen in his legis-
lation on moral questions ? Roman Catholicism and
Mahometanism may clearly be false, and all the Ten
Commandments fictions also. There is nothing in
the falsehood of any of these religions to offer any
presumption of the truth of Christian morality, —

XIV EQUALITY, FRATERNITY 129

rather the reverse. Mr. Stephen tells us explicitly
that there are races which, in his opinion, won't be
mnde any happier by our European morality. How,
then, can we be justified in imposing upon them our
morality, unless we are sure that it does represent
God's eternal laws ? Here, again, his view breaks
down entirely, in consequence of the bottom being
lost out of his Calvinism. He believes in no intuitive
morality to embody in legislation ; he is dependent
for his justification of any morality on the evidence
that it will promote human happiness. He wants,
nevertheless, to embody the law of our own social
state in our legislation for lower races, but he is quite
uncertain whether, after all, it is a divine law.
Nothing would suit him better than Calvin's concep-
tion of what law ought to be as embodied in his
Genevan legislation, — only Mr. Stephen has lost his
grasp of Calvin's faith. He wants the State to be ^
placed on a religious basis, if only he knew which
religion were true. As he does not, he is content
with pleading feebly that one or two religions are I
certainly false, and they may be discouraged. Grant '
it. How will that justify what is being continually
done in India, — which Mr. Stephen seems to admit
is not for the happiness of the natives in any sense
in which we can make it clear even to ourselves that
it is so, — and which assumes a definite morality to be
obligatory even in case it does not conduce to the
happiness of the present or any very near generation ?
From the beginning to the end of his book Mr.
Stephen writes on the basis of belief in a hypothetical
creed, — a creed of pitiless necessarianism garnished
by threats and bribes which serve to discriminate the
elect from the damned, — which he wishes he held,
but is tolerably well aware he does not hold. And
VOL. I K

130 MR. STEPHEN ON LIBERTY, xiv

this gives a most ludicrous air of intellectual helpless-
ness, and sometimes almost intellectual imbecility, to
one of the strongest books by one of the strongest
men of our day.

Mr. Stephen is not only a necessarian as regards
the doctrine of motives, but, characteristically enough,
he regards the free-will doctrine as not a doctrine at
all, but simply an inconceivable confusion of ideas.
Mr. Stephen is not only a utilitarian, but, again
characteristically enough, regards the doctrine that
any disinterested action is possible to men as a mere
confusion of ideas, a muddle-headed way of saying
that peculiar people have peculiar pleasures, which,
viewed from the point of view of the majority of
mankind, look like disinterested actions, — just as fox-
hunting would look like self-sacrifice to a book-worm,
or reading would appear the most heroic kind of
voluntary martyrdom to a prize-fighter. Of course
with such a philosophy Mr. Stephen sees no magic
in the idea or the word 'liberty.' 'Liberty' to
him only means freedom from constraint, and
constraint only means the introduction of threats, or
other modifications of the principle of fear, into the
motives of our voluntary actions. Here is his state-
ment of the case : —

" All voluntary acts are caused by motives. All
motives may be placed in one of two categories — hope
and fear, pleasure and pain. Voluntary acts of which hope
is the motive are said to be free. Voluntary acts of which
fear is the motive are said to be done under compulsion,
or omitted under restraint. A woman marries. This in
every case is a voluntary action. If she regards the
marriage with the ordinary feelings and acts from the
ordinary motives, she is said to act freely. If she regards
it as a necessity, to which she submits in order to avoid

xrv EQUALITY, FRATERNITY 131

greater evil, she is said to act under compulsion and not
freely."

I should have thought that Bishop Butler had ex-
posed the utter unsoundness of saying that any one
of the acts which springs from the primary impulses
and instincts, is done from either hope or fear. If a
man kills another in revenge, or in a fit of jealousy,
it is untrue to say that his motive is the desire of
any pleasure or dread of any pain. It is conceiv-
able, and no doubt often true, that men who have
experienced these and other passions frequently, and
reflected on the emotions which succeed their satisfac-
tion or mortification, may act from the desire of the
pleasure or the fear of the pain which followed the
satisfaction or mortification. This is indeed the
precise difference between the man who acts on self-
conscious calculation, and the man who acts on
impulse, and the difference is so great as to alter the
whole mould of the character. But not only does it
seem totally false that the only motives of voluntary
actions are hope or fear, but I believe it to be also
quite false that, even of those actions which are
governed by hope and fear, 'voluntary actions of
which hope is the motive ' are necessarily at all more
free than those of which fear is the motive. The
identification of liberty with liking is a fallacy as old
as Hobbes. An action is free if it proceeds from the
deliberate and rational act of the mind itself, and
that deliberate and rational act may be prevented as
completely by the sudden and violent action of a
hope as by the sudden and violent action of a
fear. A faint and long-pondered fear interferes far
less with moral freedom than a violent and sudden
hope. A statesman who stifles his conscience to

132 MR. STEPHEN ON LIBERTY, XIV

seize a great prize suddenly placed within his grasp,
may be far less morally free than one who stifles his
sense of public duty and retires from public life under
the influence of a faint but long-pondered fear of
death as likely to result earlier from his over-exertion.
According to my view, moral freedom depends on
the controlling power which the mind has over its
own motives. According to Mr. Stephen, there is
no such power at all, either actual or conceivable.
He holds that all the power of the mind is the power
of its own motives, either open or in disguise, and
that the only difference is between motives which
attract and motives which repel. This appears to
me so monstrously inconsistent with all the facts of
human consciousness and the consequent usages of
human language, that studying the writings of a man
who holds it is rather like reading a message sent in
a cypher, where every word means something quite
different from that attached to it in the ordinary
tongue, so that you have to translate by substituting
at every step for a commonly accepted meaning, one
which is wholly foreign to that meaning. Mr.
Stephen himself is not consistent with himself.
Indeed no writer so forcible as he, could be consistent
with such a false and artificial theory as is here given.
He tells us (p. 99), "The essence of life is force, and
force is the negation of liberty." Now it is hard to
say which is the falser of the two propositions, —
" voluntary actions of which hope is the motive are
said to be free," and " the essence of life is force, and
force is the negation of liberty, "^but while both are
false, they are also quite inconsistent with each other.
There is just as much force, I suppose, in fascination
as in repulsion. If " the essence of life is force," the
essence of life is, I suppose, strong hope as well as

XIV EQUALITY, FRATERNITY 133

strong fear. But according to Mr. Stephen, strong
hope is not the negation of liberty, thougli strong fear
is. Hence you might have the essence of life without
the negation of liberty. The truth is, Mr. Stephen's
psychology is not his strong point. There is a sense
in which force is the negation of liberty, but it is in
the sense in which force means a violent intrusive
constraint, acting against the grain of any man's
judgment, and reason, and conscience ; and in that
sense certainly it is not the essence of life. Again,
constraining force may sometimes, as Mr. Stephen
truly points out, elicit a very strong force of reaction
and resistance from strong minds j "coercion and
restraint," he says (p. 44), "are necessary astringents
to most human beings, to give them the maximum
of power " they are capable of attaining. But then
in this case force is not the negation, but a stimulus
to the assertion of liberty. It is worth noting that
Mr. Stephen is so little influenced by his own avowed
system of thought, that he hardly sticks to it in any
of his more powerful passages at all.

My readers will now understand pretty well how
and why I differ from the main doctrine of Mr.
Stephen's book about Liberty, which is most tersely
stated in the following passage : —

" To me the question whether liberty is a good or a
bad thing appears as irrational as the question whether
lire is a good or a bad thing ? It is both good and bad
according to time, place, and circumstance, and a complete
answer to the question, In what cases is liberty good and
in what cases is it bad ? would involve not merely a
universal history of mankind, but a complete solution of
tlie problems which such a history would offer. I do not
believe that the state of our knowledge is such as to
enable us to enunciate any ' very simple principle as

134 MR. STEPHEN Ox\ LIBERTY, xiv

entitled to govern absolutely the dealings of society with
the individual in the way of compulsion and control.'
We must proceed in a far more cautious way, and confine
ourselves to such remarks as experience suggests about the
advantages and disadvantages of compulsion and liberty
respectively in particular cases. The following way of
stating the matter is not and does not pretend to be a
solution of the question, In what cases is liberty good 1
but it will serve to show how the question ought to be
discussed when it arises. I do not see how Mr. Mill
could deny its correctness consistently with the general
principles of the ethical theory whicli is to a certain
extent common to us both. Compulsion is bad — 1.
When the object aimed at is bad. 2. When the object
aimed at is good, but the compulsion employed is not
calculated to obtain it. 3. When the object aimed at ia
good, and the compulsion employed is calculated to obtain
it, but at two great an expense. Thus to compel a man
to commit murder is bad, because the object is bad. To
inflict a punishment sufficient to irritate but not sufficient
to deter or to destroy for holding particular religious
opinions is bad, because such compulsion is not calculated
to eflfect its purpose, assuming it to be good. To compel
people not to trespass by shooting them with spring-guns
is bad, because the harm done is out of all proportion to
the harm avoided. If, however, the object aimed at is
good, if the compulsion employed is such as to attain it,
and if the good obtained overbalances the inconvenience
of the compulsion itself, I do not understand how, upon
utilitarian principles, the compulsion can be bad."

Now I differ from that, because it entirely denies
what seems to us the central fact of human morality,
— that man rises in the scale of being in proportion
as, instead of being driven about by hopes and fears
of which he is the shuttlecock, he shapes his own
course by lending the whole force of his will to the

XIV EQUALITY, FRATERNITY 135

pursuit of the nobler aims of life. Free choice of the
good is a higher thing than even the fascination of
desire for what is good. Liberty of action, therefore,
is morally desirable on its own account. It is much
liigher for men to be free to choose between evil and
good, and some to choose good and some evil, than
for men not to be free to choose, even though the
result were that the compulsion to which they were
subjected ended in their all attaining the seeming
equivalent for good. Good chosen has so much more
of good in it than good enforced, that it leaves room
for a considerable margin of evil chosen, before any
wise man would think of wishing to interpose con-
straints. This is where I differ from Mr. Stephen.
It seems to me the end of all legislation, spiritual,
moral, and political, to enlarge the sphere of true
moral liberty, — in the existence of which we believe,
and Mr. Stephen does not believe at all. I should,
therefore, add to the canons which he lays down in
the above passage that all true liberty is always good,
the highest good, but that you may often protect the
liberty of the many by interfering with the liberty
of the few. Criminal law, for instance, is cer-
tainly adapted and intended to put theft and,
murder, and many other acts out of the category of
those which ordinary men feel they have a real option
of committing. When these acts are punished as
they are by the criminal law, the majority of men
feel that the threats it enforces are so strong, that it
takes these crimes away out of the region of open
questions altogether, and so to some extent narrows
the sphere of vulgar men's field of moral trial. And
this is advisable, because there is a solidarity amongst
men living in society which makes it impossible for
the higher fields of morality to be seriously entered

136 MB, STEPHEN ON LIBERTY, xiv

upon by the majority, while the lower fields are
still open ; and when, therefore, the conscience of any
society is virtually unanimous up to a certain point,
it is a guarantee for the exercise of moral liberty in
a higher field, that the lower field should as far as
possible be excluded by common consent from any
competition with it. I should add, therefore, to Mr.
Stephen's list of cases in Avhich compulsion is bad, the
following, as the most important of all : — Compulsion
is bad whenever it really interferes with the free
action of the conscience and the will, on subjects on
which there is danger of a conventional as distin-
guished from a real moral conviction. Of course,
this might come under Mr. Stephen's third principle,
as a case in which the moral cost of applying the com-
pulsion is too great ; but I see no sign that Mr.
Stephen really means to reckon this as one of the
greater dangers, nor can he do so, because he does not
recognise moral liberty as one of the characteristics
of man at all, still less as one which, even when
exercised amiss, points to a far higher nature and
far higher possibilities than any moral constitution
determined only by overwhelming constraints to
what is good, could suggest. Of course, this funda-
mental difference from Mr. Stephen affects profoundly
my estimate of his practical application of the theory
of Liberty. He thinks nothing of liberty except as
a means to an end. " To me the question whether
liberty is a good or a bad thing appears as irrational
as the question whether fire is a good or a bad thing.
It is both good and bad, according to time, place,
and circumstance." To me that reply appears much
more irrational than the statement that happiness is
neither a good nor a bad thing, but both good and bad,
according to time, place, and circumstance. Indeed,

XIV EQUALITY, FRATERNITY 137

to my mind, man lives much more for the sake of
learning to be truly free, than for the sake of learning
to be truly happy. Liberty is only a bad thing
where it is not really liberty, where the mind appears
to have a liberty it has not really, — as where you
leave to a child to choose what it has not the mental
or moral experience adequate to enable it to choose
with discrimination. And of course, therefore, I do
not go with Mr. Stephen in his apparent longing for
the restoration of something very like persecution of
those religions which he holds to be false. Even the
moral law should not be embodied in legislation
based upon a moral standard higher than that of
the average conscience of the community, or this
legislation will stifle more liberty than it will protect.
The object is to get the largest possible amount of
free co-operation with the moral law ; and that can
not be attained except where its threats are needed
only for the few, where to the many it represents
their own inward sense of right and shame. As for
religion, it seems to me a strange mistake to found
morality upon it, as Mr. Stephen does. It is much
truer to say that morality is the foundation of
religion, that religion is the highest point of morality,
— and that any coarse interference with it by threats
and penalties only corrupts it. Mr. Stephen is
compelled by his common-sense to see this as to a
great number of religious beliefs, though his theory
does not teach it him ; but why he stops short where
he does is a mystery : —

" When you persecute a religion as a whole, you must
generally persecute truth and goodness as well as falsehood.
Coercion as to religion will therefore chiefly occur in the
indirect form, in the shape of treating certain parts — vital
parts, it may be — of particular systems as mischievous and

138 MR. STEPHEN ON LIBERTY, XIV

possibly even as criminal falsehoods when they come in
the legislator's way. When priests, of whatever creed,
claim to hold the keys of heaven and to work invisible
miracles, it will practically become necessary for many
purposes to decide whether they really are the represen-
tatives of God upon earth, or whether they are mere
impostors, for there is no way of avoiding the question,
and it admits of no other solution."

And of course Mr. Stephen means that the State
should decide them to be " impostors," and so treat
them. I maintain, on the contrary, that no line of
action could be sillier or more fatal. The real
question is, ' as a matter of fact, are priests in general
impostors ? Do those who know them usually find
them interested, insincere, full of trickery and conscious
insincerity, or more or less average men, not im-
maculate, but often possessed of the highest
enthusiasm, and generally perhaps of more disinter-
estedness, if perhaps less manliness, than other human
beings of their class % ' If the latter is true by the
testimony of those who know them, what is the use
of setting up a fictitious morality, and saying, ' Their
religion is false, and therefore they are impostors 1 '
Is it not a great deal easier to judge whether they
are impostors or not, directly, than indirectly as an
inference from their religion? Do we not know
hosts of people whose religion must be false, — if more
than one religion cannot be true, — and who are yet
at the furthest possible extreme from impostors ?

The whole system of Mr. Stephen's book is
artificial. His utilitarianism is artificial. His notion
of liberty is wholly artificial. His idea of morality
as a mere derivative from creed is most artificial of
all. I maintain that morality lies at the root of
religion and is its base rather than its superstructure ;

XIV EQUALITY, FRATERNITY 139

that men are much more agreed about the former
than they are about the latter ; that in choosing the
latter the exercise of the most delicate and the
highest kind of liberty is needed, and that to inter-
fere with that exercise by pains and penalties, on an
abstract theory that this or that is ' imposture,' is to
mar what we shall never mend. Mr. Stephen's
theory tramps over the most delicate blossoms of
human life and character with a heavy elephantine
tread. There is one view, and but one, which would
justify him ; — if religious truth were, as he seems to
think, absolutely unattainable by any exercise of in-
tellectual liberty, he might perhaps justify the manu-
facture of a sort of coarse substitute for it, to act as
stays to the human conscience, which has an in-
destructible longing for truth. Indeed, Mr. Stephen
glances once longingly at this notion ; but is obliged
to dismiss it with some reluctance as intrinsically
hopeless, — in which I hold him to be right.

MR LESLIE STEPHEN AND THE
SCEPTICISM OF BELIEVERS

1877

Mr. Leslie Stephen is a powerful writer, but he
would be more, not less powerful, if there were less
of the sneering tone in his writings, and more anxiety
to do justice to the views of his opponents. The
first position Mr. Stephen takes up in his paper on
"the Scepticism of Believers" in the September
Fortnightly is not only true, but so obviously true,
that he need hardly have laboured it as he has done.
It is, that just as the sceptic is a doubter as to the
religious creeds which he rejects, so the believer is
a doubter of the sceptical creeds which he in his turn
rejects, — that there is as much scepticism of the
adequacy of the sceptic's creed in the religious be-
liever, as there is scepticism of the adequacy of the
Christian's creed in the sceptic. That is perfectly
true, and hardly needed stating. The man who
believes in miracle is a sceptic as to the absolute
uniformity of physical order. The man who believes
in revelation is a sceptic as to the mere humanity of
the conscience and of the spiritual ajffections of man.
The man who believes in immortality is a sceptic as

XV THE SCEPTICISM OF BELIEVERS 141

to the extinction of the person with the dissolution
of the visible body. All this is self-evident. And
it is self-evident, too, that Mr. Stephen is right in
assuming that if scepticism is to be saddled with a
reproachful meaning at all, the greatest scepticism
should be defined as the scepticism which resists the
greatest weight of evidence, so that a believer who
believes something arbitrarily and against all sound
reason is, in this sense, as true a sceptic as any one
who rejects something arbitrarily and against all
sound reason. So far I go entirely with Mr. Leslie
Stephen, and only wonder that he should have taken
so much pains to establish what is so obvious. If it
would please anybody to invert the names ordinarily
in use, and to call one who believes in the separable-
ness of the mind and body, a sceptic of physiological
psychology, — or one who believes in God, a sceptic
of humanism, — or one who believes in miracle a
sceptic of naturalism, — there could be no objection,
and no further difficulty about the matter than the
difficulty of getting the new language properly
popularised and understood. But all this would
change nothing in reality. It would soon be as-
certained that it was the unbeliever in the finality
of death who had the most belief in the moral and
spiritual individuality of man ; that it was the
unbeliever in the self-sufficiency of humanity, who
trusted in God ; that it was the unbeliever in the
self-evolution of nature who had the most belief in
it as the creation of divine thought. Nothing isi
affected by showing that from an eccentric point of
view you may find some sort of justification for a
topsy-turvy use of human language. After all,
language can be nothing but short-hand notes of the
facts it describes. And however true it is that belief

142 MR. LESLIE STEPHEN AND xv

is unbelief in unbelief, — and that unbelief is belief
in that unbelief, the multitude will class as believers
those who ascribe their existence and its conditions
to a spirit mightier than their own, and as unbelievers
those who find no traces in themselves of a guidance
that is of diviner origin, or that points to a greater
destiny than anything which they can identify in
germ.

This being premised, I am not only willing but
eager to plead guilty to the main charge of scepticism
which Mr. Leslie Stephen brings against all theo-
logical belief, — the scepticism, I mean, as to the
sufficiency of what he calls the scientific or, more
barbarously, the " sociological " basis, for the explana-
tion of our moral nature. Mr. Leslie Stephen clearly
sees the vital connection between the absolute and
inexplicable "imperative" in all the phenomena of
moral obligation, and theological belief. He sees
and is most anxious to clear it away. He declares
that there is nothing supernatural about the origin
of morality; that the human race has learnt that
murder is injurious to its welfare "by trying the
experiment on a large scale " ; that the moral code,
so far as it is generally accepted, is the formulated
result of this kind of practical experience ; that a
disregard of morality is nothing " but a disregard of
the conditions of social welfare " ; that if any one
asks why he is bound to regard the conditions of
social welfare, you can say no more than that he
recognises in himself that he does owe allegiance to
the society to which he . belongs, and that all the
theological sanctions you discover or invent, only give
articulate expression to that sense of allegiance,
without either making it more sacred or more intelli-
gible. Mr. Stephen then goes on to explain that

rv THE SCEPTICISM OF BELIEVERS 143

this mysterious impulse of allegiance to the claims
of society on the part of the individual heart, is
quite sufficiently gratified by the performance of
very minute services to a very finite thing. " The
planet itself will ultimately, we are told, become
a mere travelling gravestone, and before that time
comes, men and their dreams must have vanished
together. Our hopes must be finite, like most things.
We must be content with hopes sufficient to stimulate
action. We must believe in a future harvest
sufficiently to make it worth while to sow, or in
other words, that honest and unselfish work will
leave the world rather better off tlian we found it."

Now I not only admit, but am willing even to
boast that this kind of exposition of the meaning
and force of moral obligation, which we have had in
abundance lately from men as able as Professor
Clifford and Mr. Leslie Stephen, does awaken in us
the most absolute and hopeless scepticism. And I
notice, in the first place, that it is not those external
things, of the social mischief of which men are said
to have had so much experience, namely, slaughter,
or error, or the false relations of the sexes, which
appeal to the moral faculty of man at all, but very
different things, — things of which the hidden motive
is the very essence, — namely, murder, which may be
committed in the heart without taking the form of
slaughter at all, while slaughter may and does happen
probably a hundred thousand times for every true
murder, — and again, lying, which is as distinct from
mischief-making error as slaughter is from murder,
— and lastly, impurity, which is as distinct from
mere evil relations of the sexes, such as are often to
be found among savages or half -civilised peoples
without any impurity, as error is from lying ; these

144 MR. LESLIE STEPHEN AND XV

are the things which conscience forbids, and haunts
us with perpetual remorse for committing, not the
external acts, the evil of which, we are told, society
has learned purely by experience. Will Mr. Stephen
allege that it is solely as the spring and fertile source
of mischief-making and society-marring acts, that
these interior motives are searched out and condemned
and forbidden by the secret conscience ? Will he
say that, except in relation to the conduct of which
they might be the causes, it would be a pure super-
stition to condemn them, — that, for example, for an
unbeliever in human immortality who is to die in an
hour, to try and resist a vengeful or an impure
thought would be fatuity 1 If he does make this
latter assertion, I should certainly reject his
analysis of the facts as the most utterly incompatible
with our moral nature as it is, that I ever heard of
Yet it is the very boast of his " sociological " method
that, rejecting all irrelevant hypotheses which go
outside human nature, it does account for our moral
nature as it is. And judging it therefore even by
its own claims, the thorough -going scepticism I
acknowledge concerning it would be amply justified.
In the next place, as to Mr. Stephen's assertion
that "a disregard of morality is nothing but a
disregard of the conditions of social welfare," I feel
a scepticism at least equally profound. The late Mr.
Bagehot, in his striking little book on Physics aiid
Politics, showed, I think with great force, that for
long ages of the world that which is of the very
essence of modern progress would have been most
detrimental to social welfare, — that in those ages,
the problem was much rather how to subdue the
disintegrating impulses of men, and get them to hold
together, though even by a rough and bad method,

XV THE SCEPTICISM OF BELIEVERS 145

than how to give them true ideas of their best relations
to each other. Socrates, for instance, was very
probably put to death for " disregard of the con-
ditions of social welfare" as they applied to the
Athens in which he lived. Now, assuming this to
have been so, would Mr. Stephen maintain that this
was really equivalent to disregard of morality 1 Is
the individual man so merged in the society to which
he belongs, that he must strangle his own highest
nature because it undermines the morality of his age ?
Above all, does such a view represent the facts of
moral experience ? Is a man who — even hopelessly
— breaks with the society in which he lives, under
the constraint of a far more advanced morality, con-
scious of sin in so doing ? The statement is absurd.
Nothing can be less true to the facts of human
nature than that " the disregard of morality is nothing
but a disregard of the conditions of social welfare."
So far is this from being true, that we attach a
conception of the highest heroism to many acts of
"disregard of the conditions of social welfare," if
they have been the acts of one who had a heart or
mind too large for the society in which he lived.
But if this be so, there must be something in morality
beyond its ordinary tendency to contribute to the
welfare of society. In other words, the moral
problem is deeper than the social problem ; morality
cannot be defined as that which ensures the welfare
of society ; indeed, we cannot determine what
constitutes the welfare of society without assuming
many of the princi])les of morality.

Finally, when Mr. Stephen admits that he can
assign no reason why a man should sacrifice himself
to society, except that he recognises the virtuousness
of the impulse which urges him to do so, he throws

VOL. I L

146 MR. LESLIE STEPHEN AND XV

up his case altogether for an empirical morality, and
becomes a transcendentalist — a theologian even —
without admitting it. All that, even in his view,
experience can teach, is that society will benefit by
a man's self-sacrifice, if wisely made after a study of
social laws ; but certainly not that he is bound to
confer on society that benefit. If the man himself
desires to benefit society more than he desires his
own happiness, well and good, — he will, we suppose,
do as he desires. But if he does not, — if he desires
his own happiness most, — how can he say that
experience teaches him that he is hound to sacrifice
himself? Experience could not by any possibility
teach him anything of the kind, for it is the very
contention of the philosophy of Mr. Stephen that
moral obligation is only a name for the teaching of
experience as to the laws of cause and eff'ect in human
conduct ; and clearly no empirical evidence as to the
laws of cause and effect in human conduct, can prove
that I am " bound "to do what is not for my own
happiness and what I dislike. If, therefore, Mr.
Stephen says that it is " virtuous " to do so against
one's wishes, he assumes an ultimate claim on the
will which is absolutely independent of mere know-
ledge, and different in kind from anything which
knowledge conveys. And then Mr. Stephen goes on,
with his usual cou,rage, to confess and even maintain
that this tremendous and inexplicable obligation is
imposed on us only in virtue of our anticipation of
the modicum of blessing we may thus render to a
society which, in a few thousand years at most, must
die out, and leave the earth a mere revolving " grave-
stone,"— the mere monument of all its perished joys
and sorrows. Well, the more perishable, petty, and
uncertain the result, as compared with the certain

XV THE SCEPTICISM OF BELIEVERS 147

dictates of imperious desire in the present, — the more
mysterious is this ' categorical imperative ' of which
Mr. Stephen confesses that his scepticism gives us
no account. And in fact the authority and urgency
and the complete indifference to apparent results,
which is of the very essence of moral obligation,
always has been and always will be a rock confront-
ing scepticism of Mr. Stephen's type, and driving it
to hopeless and final defeat. It is the moral experi-
ence of man, witnessing to the independence of the
moral element in our nature of all time-considerations,
and to the close affinity of that part of us with a
nature purer and holier than our own, standing far
above temporary circumstances, which teaches us the
reality of the spiritual world.

In a word, I am not at all afraid of the charges
of scepticism correlative with our faith, which Mr.
Leslie Stephen brings against us. I cordially admit
them, and should be quite as willing to take the
issue on the ground of those scepticisms as on the
ground of faith. Indeed, you hardly see the full
strength of the case for faith, till you look into the
recriminations of so able a writer as Mr. Leslie
Stephen on the "scepticism of believers." Most of
his accusations seem to me accusations of indulging
freely in sobriety of judgment and in a considerate
intellectual temper which cannot ignore spiritual
things only because they are not visible.

XVI

MR. LESLIE STEPHEN'S "SCIENCE OF
ETHICS." 1

1882

This is an able book, and extremely fair in its
endeavour to state those views which Mr. Stephen
rejects, but it is hardly necessary to say that Mr.
Stephen's view of the "Science of Ethics" ignores
altogether, in my opinion, the most distinctive quality
of moral obligation. Mr. Leslie Stephen's view is
that morality arises out of the indisputable fact that
certain instincts and modes of conduct are essential
to social vitality, and that other impulses and modes
of conduct are pernicious to socia^l vitality. Those
men who instinctively desire to have the social vitality
strengthened, and who discriminate truly, — whether
consciously or unconsciously, — how it can best be
strengthened, and act upon this desire and discrimina-
tion, are good men. Those men who either do not
desire this, or do not desire it so strongly as they
desire other ends inconsistent with this,ror even, if I
rightly understand Mr. Stephen's drift, wBo, though
they desire the strengthening of the social vitality

^ TVte Science of Ethics. By LesUe Stephen. London :
Smith, Elder, and Co.

XVI "SCIENCE OF ethics" 149

more tlian they desire personal ends inconsistent
with it, still discriminate wrongly what is and what
is not for the advantage of society, and embark on a
wrong tack for its refornAare not good men, but bad
in proportion to the eflStnency of their disorganising
influence over the society to which they belong. Mr.
Stephen rejects entirely the purely selfish theory of
human nature. He not only holds indeed, but
maintains, that every human action follows the law
of least resistance, that we do at any moment what,
under the influence of the complex feelings which
solicit or deter us, it is easiest, or least difficult for
us to do. But he affirms resolutely that it is by no
means always easiest for us to do that which will
most certainly contribute to our own sum-total of
happiness ; that it may be much easier for a man to
do that which involves the sacrifice of his own
happiness to the happiness of his fellow-creatures;
and if it is the easier for him so to do, then he is, in
Mr. Leslie Stephen's sense, a man of the virtuous
type, one of those whom the selective influence of the
competition between difierent racies has so far moulded
into the right shape, that his feelings impel him to care
more for the good of his fellow-men than he can care
for his own enjoyment. From this brief statement
it will be evident that Mr. Leslie Stephen, though
he is a strict " determinist," and though he rejects a
conscience or distinctive moral faculty of any kind,
is not in the least disposed to adopt the "selfish
system" of Hobbes. Perhaps, indeed, one of the
greatest advantages of the new insight to which Mr.
Darwin's instructive teaching as to the involuntary
adaptation of species to the outward conditions of
their existence, has led us, is this, — that it has
become almost impossible for any wise man to think

150 MR. LESLIE STEPHEN'S XVI

of any moral agent as always acting from one and
the same conscious motive. The number of really
unconscious influences by which Mr. Darwin has
shown that all living organisms are induced to act in
this way or that, is so great, that it has become quite
impossible to regard "the selfish system," or any
other system which reduces all the principles of action
to a single conscious motive, as in any degree tenable.
An organised being whose life is made what it is by
so many instincts of which he neither knows the
origin, nor understands the exact significance, is but
little likely when he comes to consciousness to find
that he has but one and the same conscious motive
for action, in which the differences are only diff'er-
ences of degree, and not of kind. In some sense, it
may be truly said that the " selfish system " is now
not merely gone out of fashion, but that it has
become obsolete, through the wealth of discoveries
recently made in relation to the organic structure
and the various origin of the instincts and impulses
which beset us. A nature moulded by so many
subtle influences into grooves and habits of its own,
inexplicable to its owner, and yet rich in significance,
is not the sort of nature to disclose one dead-level of
uniformity in relation to all those springs of action
of which man is clearly conscious. In recognising
the simple disinterestedness, as Bishop Butler termed
it, or as Mr. Leslie Stephen prefers to call it, — not we
think, very wisely, — the genuine " altruism," of many
of the human sympathies and passions, he opens
the way for that portion of the Science of Ethics, in
which, so far as I can judge, he is on the right track.
This book has one great evidence of candour
about it, — that Mr. Stephen never seems to satisfy
himself with his own discussion of any part of the

x\T " SCIENCE OF ETHICS " 151

subject, but rather pursues his ethical questions
through one phase after another of constantly
changing form, till he leaves, as it seems to me, the
most important of them not only unanswered, but
with something like the impression that they are
unanswerable, at the close. Through the whole book
we seem to be interrogating a sort of Proteus, who
is always changing his shape, but who escapes from
us without giving his reply, even at the last. For
instance, the questions soon arise — Is there such a
thing as human volition ? Is there such a thing as
moral obligation *? Is there any power by which a
bad man can become good, or any reason which you
can expect him to recognise why he should become
good 1 If all these questions cannot be answered
explicitly, and answered in the affirmative, I should
have said that there is no proper ethical science,
though there may be an explanation of the distinc-
tion between good and bad, just as there is an
explanation of the distinction between wise and
foolish, or between beautiful and ugly. Mr. Leslie
Stephen seems to reply to the first two questions
with a direct negative, though he himself probably
would not acquiesce in that statement. To the third
I understand him to reply that a bad man who is
also sensible, and a man of some force of character,
might easily find very good selfish reasons for
bringing himself up to the average moral standard
of his age and class, if he could but find the means
for eff'ecting this change in himself, but that it is
almost impossible to assign any selfish reason why
a man not already virtuous should even wish to be
better than the average moral standard of his day, the
standard that the class to which he belongs would be
apt to require ; and that even a highly virtuous man,

152 MR. LESLIE Stephen's xvi

who, being virtuous, would be, of course, rendered
to a certain extent miserable by falling below his
own standard, might, nevertheless, succeed in very
effectually stilling his own remorse, and in persuading
himself that he had chosen rightly, in choosing not
to sacrifice life and happiness and every pleasant
prospect to an ideal martyrdom. For the rest, Mr.
Leslie Stephen holds that there will be martyrs in
the good cause all the same ; and that they will only
be the better and truer martyrs for having no
command of what he evidently deems that moral
sleight-of-hand by which religious people first take
credit for virtue, as if it were purely disinterested,
and then claim all the advantages of the so-called
selfish system, by parading the rewards of another
life for what they have disinterestedly done.

In order to review this book with any profit, one
must keep very close to one or two main questions
which it raises. And first, I will deal with one which
arises as follows : — Mr. Leslie Stephen regards the
Moral Law as enjoining those qualities which are
found to tend to the health and strength of the
society to which those who possess them belong.
He admits, and, indeed, maintains, that this is not
the uniform or, usually, the explicit reason given for
admiring those qualities. On the contrary, as the
swifter birds gain an advantage by their swiftness, of
which they probably never know the magnitude,
and as the caterpillars marked like the leaves on
which they feed, gain a protection from their mark-
ings, of which they are quite unconscious, so he
holds that courage and temperance and truthfulness,
and justice and pity, add so much to the moral
stamina of the race in which those qualities are
developed, that numberless individuals in whom these

XVI "SCIENCE OF ethics" 153

virtues are inbred, are quite unaware of the grounds
of their own preference for them. Granted ; but it
is obvious, and Mr. Leslie Stephen no doubt admits,
that any one who accepts this mode of defining the
moral virtues as qualities tending to the health and
strength of a society, must not import into the
meaning of the words " the health and strength of
society " the many qualities which he proposes to
explain as the means to this health and strength.
When you speak of the length of a bird's wing as
being an advantage to it, or of the spots on a cater-
pillar or grub as preserving it from destruction, you
mean, of course, that these qualities are physical
advantages, that they save it from physical danger.
So, too, you must mean by the qualities which
minister to the health and strength of society,
qualities which save it from danger or death as a
society, which give it cohesion, which enable it to
hold together when assailed by force, or conquered,
or tempted by influences which have disintegrated
other societies. The moral qualities are, in Mr.
Stephen's view, means to this quasi-physical end, —
antiseptics preventing the decay of the social
cohesion. These qualities come to be valued in the
end so highly as they are, — come, in short, to be
esteemed moral qualities, — because they keep up this
vitality, this cohesion. If lying, instead of truthful-
ness, could be essential to this social cohesion and
vitality, lying instead of truthfulness would, so I
understand Mr. Stephen, become one of the features
of the Moral Law. Well, that being so, what I want
to ask is this, — how is it that qualities which come
into such high repute because they tend to social
cohesion, ever lead us to put a much higher value on
themselves than on the social vitality and cohesion

154 MR. LESLIE Stephen's xvi

to which they are subordinate 1 Supposing the bird
came to know the importance of his greater swiftness
of flight in preserving his race, would he ever think
of putting the means above the end, and preferring
to hold fast by his swiftness of flight, even though
it should threaten the existence of his race 1 Suppos-
ing a caterpillar could foresee that his markings,
instead of preserving his life, would, by some sudden
change in the environment, become the chief cause
of risk, would not the caterpillar at once sigli for the
power of changing his dangerous markings for other
safer markings 1 If this be so, I want to know why
it is that the moral qualities which, according to Mr.
Leslie Stephen, have come to be so valuable to us only
as protective of the cohesion and vitality of society,
should ever be valued very much more than we value
the cohesion and vitality of the society which they
protect ? And especially I want to know how Mr.
Leslie Stejihen explains, what he never discusses in
this book, how it happens that a change in the con-
ditions of life which obviously leads to the disintegra-
tion of society in a given time and place, can seem
to be not only right, but morally obligatory on an
ordinary human mind — on a mind, that is, which can-
not, of course, venture to anticipate, without the
teaching of experience, that this disintegration will
tend to form a new and stronger society, in another
time and another place 1 I understand antiseptics for
society. But how are antiseptics, the first eff'ect of
which is profoundly disintegrating to society, to be
justified ; and how, especially, are we to justify these
on the basis of a pure experience-philosophy, like Mr.
Leslie Stephen's 1

My first criticism on this book is, then, the follow-
ing. I hold that, as a matter of fact, men have a

XVI "SCIENCE OF ethics" 155

great deal more direct insight into moral laws than
they have either implicit or explicit apprehension of
the principles which tend to the health and vitality
of society ; — that we judge of the health and vitality
of society by the respect paid to moral laws, instead
of judging of the moral laws by the health and
vitality of the society ; in other words, that Mr.
Leslie Stephen has endeavoured to explain the more
known by the less known, instead of the less known
by the more known, — that the very cohesion of
society which he makes the true end of the moral
laws, is only measurable by us in terms of those very
moral laws which are treated by Mr. Stephen as the
mere means to that much less intelligible end.

I have now given concisely the drift of Mr. Leslie
Stephen's theory of Ethics, and have insisted on one
principal objection to it. The doctrine that morality
consists in being and doing wh5t tends to the health
and vitality of the social organism, implies two
things, — (1), that we can judge better what tends
towards the health and vitality of the social organism
than we can what tends to morality, — which seems
to me the contrary of the truth ; (2), that when the
two ends appear on the surface of things to be in
conflict, — as, for instance, the Socratic morality with
the health and vitality of Greek society, — the high-
minded man would either regard the innovating and
reforming morality as intrinsically condemned by
the fact of its tending to dissolve the existing social
bond ; or if he did not, he must ground his defence
of the innovating morality on a prophetic certainty
(which no ordinary mortal could well feel) that out
of the ruins of the Society about to be dissolved,
there would arise a much healthier and stronger
Society than that which which the morality he was

156 MR. LESLIE STEPHEN'S XVI

advocating tended to undermine. In short, I
contend, that in regarding the health and vitality of
Society as the test of moral virtue, Mr. Leslie Stephen
derives the better known from the less known, and
farther renders developments of morality which
threaten, as developments of morality have so often
threatened, the cohesion of an existing society, from any
moral point of view almost unintelligible and suicidal.

I must now say a word or two in relation to the
replies which Mr. Leslie Stephen gives to what I
have termed the fundamental questions of Ethics,
namely, — Is there such a thing as volition, and if so,
what is it ? Is there such a thing as moral obliga-
tion 1 Is there any power by which a bad man can
become good, or any reason which you can expect
him to recognise why he should become good ?

I have already stated that, in my sense of the
words, though not, f believe, in his own, Mr. Leslie
Stephen gives a negative reply to the first two
questions, and a very modified affirmative to the
third. Let me take them in order. Mr. Stephen
has nowhere explained distinctly what he means by
" volition," but he has indirectly suggested what he
means by it in several places. Thus, he says (p. 51),
in stating that the law of " least resistance " really
governs human action, "The various desires operate
in such a way that the volition discharges itself
along that line in which the balance of pleasure over
pain is a maximum " (p. 51). That appears to make
volition a mere equivalent for the resultant of all
the desires acting upon us, — in other words, to deny
that it is anything but a name for that resultant, for
where is the scientific necessity for supposing a
separate faculty like " volition " at all, if you only
mean by it the man himself under the influence of a

XVI " SCIENCE OF ETHICS " 157

simple or complex state of desire ? And everything
which Mr. Leslie Stephen says on the subject of the
words " volition " and " voluntary " appears to me to
express this view, — that they are in reality words of
supererogation in his system of thought, which he
would do much better to dispense with altogether.
Thus — " Anticipation and volition spring from the
same root" (p. 55), which the context explains to be
the root of desire. Again, he says (p. 159) that if a
man is hungry, there is usually a volition to eat
whenever tjiere is opportunity, but that if there be
some fear which prevents him from eating, as, for
example, the fear of poison, " for a volition, we then
have only a velleity," — from which I plainly enough
gather that a volition is merely a desire which
takes effect. So, again, Mr. Stephen complains
(p. 286) of the language about a man being a slave
to his passions, saying that, in using such language,
" we declare a man incapable of choice just because
he chooses so strongly." Again, Mr. Stephen tells
us (p. 271) precisely what he means by the word
"voluntary": — "A man is meritorious so far as he
acts in a way which the average man will only act
under from the stimulus of some extrinsic motive.
The act, therefore, must spring from his character;
it must be the fruit of some motive which we regard
as excellent ; and if it did not arise from a motive —
Off in other words, were not voluntary, — it would not,
properly speaking, be his conduct at all." The
words I have italicised appear to me to come nearer
to an explicit definition of volition as the desire
which causes action than any other passage in the
book, but throughout it I understand Mr. Stephen
to be making the same assertion that volition means
nothing in the world except executive desire, — the

158 MR. LESLIE Stephen's xn

net desire which takes effect. So, when he analyses
what he calls "an act of free-will " (p. 53), he brings
out this result : "I decide by the simple process of
feeling one course to be the easiest." Well, if all
this does not amount to saying that volition is not
a state of mind distinct from desire at all, — that it
has, indeed, no right to a separate name, because,
though that name, of course discriminates the effective
desire from the non-effective, that discrimination
would be much better effected by a word character-
ising the resultant desire, and not by a new term, —
I am wholly incapable of appreciating what Mr.
Stephen's true drift is. But I believe that he would
not question my inference in this case ; nay, he might
probably maintain that it is a great misfortune for
philosophy that words like " volition " and " will "
should have been introduced to darken its horizon,
and divert the mind from what he certainly holds to
be the true view, that the whole of the active forces
of the human character are emotions or desires,
either single or in combination. All I can say to
this view is that it disposes of ethics as the science
of moral obligation altogether. If the struggle of
the man against a wrong action only means the
struggle of some of his emotions against others of
his emotions, it may, indeed, be a most important
matter for him what emotions he has, and which of
them are stimulated from outside ; but the emotions
once granted, and the stimulus once applied to them,
he has no more to do with the matter. This so-called
"will" is merely an expression for the resulting
emotion which encounters least resistance and in that
case to talk of any resistance to it is to talk nonsense.
Mr. Stephen still retains, of course, an ideal of char-
acter, still retains the right to exhort us all so to

XVI " SCIENCE OF ETHICS " 159

mould any human character over which we may
have influence, that the line of least resistance for it
may be the line of progress for society ; but he gives
up the notion that any man can, or ever does, resist
the resultant of all the emotional influences acting
upon him, and that, in any intelligible sense, there-
fore, he can be said to be under an obligation to do
that which, as a matter of fact, he does not^ -and
therefore in Mr. Stephen's view cannot, do. * *

It is a very curious thing that Mr. Stephen, who
appears to be a thorough-going defender of the
experience philosophy, grounds this thorough-going
denial of true volition — which is, of course, the
absolute condition of moral obligation — on what I
should myself describe as an intuition a priori that no
other view is even possible ; and though he would
not so describe his own meaning, he certainly expresses
it in exactly the same kind of language as an intui-
tionist would use to describe an intuition a priori.
Take, for instance, the following : —

" The universe is a continuous system ; no abrupt
changes suddenly, take place. We could not suppose
them to take place without supposing that identical
processes might suddenly become different, which is like
supposing that a straight line may be produced in two
different directions. Hence, every agent is a continuation
of some preceding process. He has not suddenly sprung
into existence from nowhere in particular ; the man has
grown out of the child. We might (thougli the language
would be somewhat strained) call the child in this sense
the ' cause ' of the man. But for the child, the man
would not exist. But there is not a child plus a man, in
which case there might be a coercion of the man by the
child. The child and man form a continuous whole,
with properties slowly varying according to its character

160 MR. LESLIE Stephen's xvi

and the external circumstances. A man, again, has of
course qualities which he has inherited ; but this is not to
be understood as if there were a man plus inherited quali-
ties, which, therefore, somehow, diminish his responsibility.
The whole man is inherited, if we may use such a
phrase" (p. 289).

And again : —

" When we know from one phenomenon that another
exists, it is simply that we can (for some reason) identify
the two as parts of a whole of mutually dependent parts.
From an eye we infer an ear or a leg ; it is not because
the eye has a power to make ears and legs out of
formless matter, or because, besides eyes and ears and
and legs and every part of the organism, there is some
additional coercive force which holds them together, but
simply that each part carries with it a reference to the
rest. The difficulty is dispelled so far as it can be
dispelled when we have got rid of the troublesome con-
ception of necessity, as a name for something more than
the certainty of the observer. When we firmly grasp and
push to its legitimate consequences the truth that proba-
bility, chance, necessity, determination, and so forth, are
simply names of our own states of mind, or, in other words,
have only a subjective validity ; that a thing either exists
or does not exist, and that no fresh quality is predicated
when we say that it exists necessarily ; and that all
dependence of one thing upon another implies a mutual
relation, and not an abolition of one of the things, — we
have got as far as we can towards removing the perplexity
now under consideration " (p. 293-4).

If I rightly apprehend these passages, Mr. Leslie
Stephen means by them that any one who introduces
volition into human nature as a real power of resisting
the resultant of all the desires by which man is
actuated, — in other words, who conceives man as

XVI " SCIENCE OF ETHICS " 161

capable of making what Dr. Ward has called an
anti-impulsive effort, — is guilty of offending against
the laws of thought, — is guilty of the same absurdity
as a man who supposes that a straight line can be
produced in two different directions. But then, is
not Mr. Stephen bound to explain how it comes
about that men ever do make such a supposition ?
No one ever does make the supposition that a straight
line can be produced in more directions than one,
after he has been made to understand the statement.
But numbers of men do believe firmly that they
themselves might have been very different from what
they are, and this, too, without any change at all,
either of external circumstances or of the internal
conditions of choice ; and surely, therefore, Mr,
Stephen is bound to explain how so amazing a
contradiction of what he evidently regards as a law
of thought, is not only possible, but amongst the com-
monest of all assumptions made both by thinking and
by unthinking men. I can understand very well
how it may happen that the mere teaching of expe-
rience is sometimes mistaken for an ap'iori intuition ;
but I confess I can hardly understand how the
teaching of experience, if it be, as Mr. Stephen holds
it to be, so constant that even thinkers like himself
describe it just as the school opposed to him describe
an a priori intuition, can produce so little eff'ect on
the imagination alike of ordinary and of carefully-
educated men, that they persist in founding their
whole moral practice on assumptions which this
alleged stream of experience is declared to prove not
merely false, but inconceivable.

With regard to the third question discussed in
Mr. Leslie Stephen's book, — the question whether
there be any power by which bad men can become

VOL. I M

162 MR. LESLIE STEPHEN'S xvi

good men, and any reason which we can bring home
to the bad man himself why he should use this
power, if he has it, Mr. Stephen, as I have already
indicated, replies with a very modified affirmative.
We may succeed, he thinks, in convincing a selfish
man that it is his interest to conform himself to
something like the average standard of the men with
wliom he must pass his life ; but it is impossible to
convince an average man that he will be the happier
for exceeding that standard, and impossible for this
very excellent reason, — that it is not by any means
generally true. It is a much happier thing, says
Mr. Stephen, for a man whose dispositions are
already virtuous to live a reasonably virtuous life,
than to live below his own standard ; but even then,
if his own standard required a very great sacrifice —
like the sacrifice of life itself — it might well be that
he would judge more wisely for his own ultimate
happiness by acting below his standard for once, and
thinking about this dereliction of duty as little as
might be, or even trying to persuade himself that he
was justified in making it. Such is Mr. Stephen's
view. But I cannot really make out why, on his
conception of ethical obligation, — which involves no
" categorical imperative," no absolute moral law
which your conscience cannot evade, — the virtuous
man should not be justified in declining to cement
the social tie or to stimulate social vitality by the
sacrifice of himself. Mr. Leslie Stephen admits that
to the question, ' Why should I do what tends to
the welfare of society 1 ' there is no adequate reply,
except this, — ' I care more for the welfare of society
than for my own welfare.' And that of course need
not be a true reply. But he does not even say that
a man ought to care more for the welfare of society

XVI " SCIENCE OF ETHICS " 163

than his own welfare ; indeed, he does not like the
word "ought." He only says as much as this, —
that the disposition to take delight in others' welfare
does, as a matter of fact, grow up in every mind of
the type which men praise, and that a man who
does sacrifice himself for the welfare of society would
certainly belong to the type which men praise.
That may be quite true, and the man who declines
to sacrifice more than a certain quantity of his own
happiness for the welfare of society may well admit
it to be true. And yet he might go on to say that
though he admits it to be true, he does not see that
he " ought " to belong to the type which men agree
to praise, unless he prefers to do so, and that he is
only prepared to pay a limited and not an unlimited
price for the privilege of belonging to that type.

This being so, I cannot admit Mr. Leslie Stephen
to have laid down a Science of Ethics at all. In the
first place, ethical principles are both clearer and
higher than the principle that we ought to contribute
to the health and cohesion of society. In the next
place, a system which does not recognise the will of
man as anything distinct from his desires, cannot be
regarded as an ethical system. Lastly, a system
which admits virtually that the idea " ought," exists
only for the virtuous, and only so far as they are
virtuous, ignores the most distinguishing and char-
acteristic of all the features of the moral life. Mr.
Leslie Stephen has written, not on the Science of
Ethics, but a very thoughtful and, in many respects,
a very candid book to prove that Science, and what
most men mean by Ethics, are incompatible ideas.

XVII

MR. LESLIE STEPHEN ON JOHNSON

1878

Mr. Leslie Stephen's interesting and graphic ac-
count of Johnson, in Mr. John Morley's new series
of English Men of Letters,^ will make that great
man's figure familiar to many who would not other-
wise recognise its singular interest for the present
day. Most men of letters, like most men of science,
have gained their reputation by their power of
entering into and understanding that which was out-
side of them and different from them. Johnson
gained his reputation by his unrivalled power of con-
centrating his own forces, of defending himself
against the aggression of outer influences, — and
striking a light in the process. Of course Johnson
was a man of very strong general understanding.
Had he not been so, he could not have commanded
the respect he did, for those who do not in a con-
siderable degree understand others, will never be a
themselves understood. Still, admitting freely that "
it both takes a man of some character as well as l
insight, to understand distinctly what is beyond his
own sphere, and a man of some insight as well as
^ Macmillan and Co.

XVII MR. LESLIE STEPHEN ON JOHNSON 165

character, to teach others to understand distinctly
what is within himself, it is clear that Johnson's
genius lay in the latter, not in the former direction,
— in maintaining himself against the encroachments
of the world, and in interpreting himself to that
world, not in enlarging materially the world's
sympathies and horizons, except so far as he taught
them to include himself. The best things he did of
any kind were all expressions of himself. His poems,
— " London " and " The Vanity of Human Wishes," —
many parts even of his biographies, like his Life of
Savage^ — almost all his moral essays of any value,
and above everything, his brilliant conversation, were
all shadows or reflections of that large and dictatorial,
but in the main, benign character which he has
stamped for us on all he did. Of his companions
and contemporaries, ail but himself won their fame
by entering into something different from themselves,
— Burke by his political sagacity, Garrick by
imitating men and manners, Goldsmith by reflecting
them, Reynolds by painting them, Boswell by devot-
ing his whole soul to the faithful portraiture of Johnson.
But Johnson became great by concentrating his
power in himself, though in no selfish fashion, for he
concentrated it even more vigorously in his un-
selfish tastes, — for example, in the home which he so
generously and eccentrically made for so many un-
attractive dependents, — than in the mere self-assertion
of his impressions and his convictions. What made
Johnson loom so large in the world was this moral
concentrativeness, this incapacity for ceasing to be
himself, and becoming something different in defer-
ence to either authority or influence. His character
was one the surface of which was safe against rust, or
any other moral encroachment by things without.

166 MR. LESLIE STEPHEN ON JOHNSON xvil

And it is his capacity for not only making this
visible, but for making it visible by a sort of electric
shock which announces his genius for repelling any
threatening influence, that constitutes the essence of
his humour. Some of his finest sayings are conces-
sions in form to his opponent, while in reality they
reassert with far greater strength his original position.
They are, in fact, fortifications of his personal paradox,
instead of modifications of it, — the fortification being
all the more telling because it took the form of an
apparent concession. Thus when he said of the poet
Gray, " He was dull in company, dull in his closet,
dull everywhere, — he was dull in a new way, and
that made people think him great," his concession of
novelty to Gray was, in fact, an aggravation of his
attack upon him. And still more effective was his
attack on Gray's friend. Mason. When Boswell said
that there were good passages in Mason's Elfrida,
Johnson replied that " there were now and then some
good imitations of Milton's bad manner." Or take
his saying of Sheridan, " Why, Sir, Sherry is dull,
naturally dull ; but it must have taken him a great
deal of pains to become what we now see him. Such
an excess of stupidity, Sir, is not in nature." Of
course you are not prepared to find that Sheridan's
improvements on " nature " were all in the direction
of the dulness of which Johnson had been accusing
him. Johnson's humour, indeed, generally consists
in using the forms of speech appropriate to giving
way, just as he puts the crown on his self-assertion,
as in the celebrated case of his attack on Scotch
scenery, in answer to the Scotchman's praise of the
" noble, wild prospects " to be found in Scotland : —
"I believe. Sir, you have a great many. Norway,
too, has noble, wild prospects, and Lapland is

XVII MR. LESLIE STEPHEN ON JOHNSON 167

remarkable for prodigious noble, wild prospects. But,
Sir, let me tell you, the noblest prospect which a
Scotchman ever sees, is the high-road that leads him
to England."

But this curious power of Johnson's of strengthen-
ing himself in his position the moment it was
threatened, was the secret of a great deal that was
morally grand in him, as well as of a great deal of
his humour. His great saying to Boswell, on which
Carlyle lays so much stress, that he should clear his
mind of cant, and not affect a depression about public
affairs which he did not really feel, was, in fact, a
protest against the demands which conventionalism
makes on men's sincerity. Distinctly aware, as he
was, that the state of public affairs seldom or never
made him really unhappy, he resented the habit of
speaking as if it did, as an act of treachery to his
own self-respect. So nothing irritated him like a
sentimental eulogy on "a state of nature," because
it demanded from him an admission that one of the
strongest and soundest of his own instincts was
utterly untrustworthy. When somebody had told
him with admiration of the soliloquy of an officer who
lived in the wilds of America, — " Here am I free
and unrestrained, amidst the rude magnificence of
nature, with the Indian woman by my side, and this
gun, with which I can procure food when I want it !
What more can be desired for human happiness 1 " —
Johnson, well aware that what he, and indeed what
every sane man, valued most was partly the product
of intellectual labour and civilisation, retorted, " Do
not allow yourself, Sir, to be imposed upon by such
gross absurdity. It is sad stuff. It is brutish. If
a bull could speak, he might as well exclaim, ' Here
am I, with this cow and this grass ; what being can

168 MR. LESLIE STEPHEN ON JOHNSON xvii

enjoy greater felicity ? ' " Nor would Johnson ever
allow himself to be betrayed into pi*etending to
approve what he hated, simply because such approval
would have fitted in with other prejudices and tastes
that were very deep in him. High Tory as he was,
when any one defended slavery he would burst out
into vehement attacks. On one occasion, says Mr.
Stephen, he gave as a toast to some " very grave men "
at Oxford, " Here's to the next insurrection of negroes
in the West Indies " ; and he was accustomed to ask,
" How is it that we always have the loudest yelps
for liberty amongst the drivers of negroes ^ " Indeed,
the hearty old man would have been a most valuable
ally during the American Civil War of seventeen
years back, when English society got quite sentimental
about slave-drivers who were yelping their loudest for
liberty to drive slaves.

But no matter Avhat the subject was, nor what
was to be the logical or analogical consequence of his
confession of his own belief, — whether he were to
be called cold-hearted for confessing (perhaps mis-
takenly) that he should not eat one bit of plum pudding
the less if an acquaintance of his were found guilty
of a crime and condemned to die, — or were to be
branded as grossly inconsistent for admiring such a
" bottomless Whig " as Burke, — or were to be taxed
with ridiculing Garrick one day as a mere trick-
playing monkey, and defending him vigorously the
next when attacked by some one else, — Johnson was
always determined to be himself, and always was
himself. He was himself in collecting round him so
strange a household of companions, who would have
been miserable but for his generosity, and were to
some extent miserable, and the causes of misery, in
spite of his generosity, and in remaining true to them

XVII MR. LESLIE STEPHEN ON JOHNSON 169

in spite of their taunts and complaints against him.
He was himself, in spurning the patronage of
Chesterfield when he found out its utter insincerity ;
himself, in his strange acts of occasional penance ; in
his loudly and even scornfully avowed value for his
dinner, — and for a good dinner ; himself, in his
strange and tender acts of humanity to the lower
animals ; himself, in his knock-down blows to his
conversational companions ; himself, in his curious
superstitions, and in his not less curious scepticisms.
For a long time he disbelieved, as Mr. Stephen notes,
the earthquake which destroyed Lisbon, though he
believed in the Cock Lane Ghost. But whatever he
did or declined to do, whatever he believed or
rejected, he was always the first to avow it, and to
assert himself as not only not ashamed, but eager to
avow it, even though it were an act which he thought
a blot on his own past life. It was this indomitable
self-respect and dignity, in the highest sense, which
gave not only much of the freshness and force to his
conversation, but the grandeur to his life. His
devotion to his wife and to his wife's memory, — she
was said by those who knew her to have been an
affected woman, who painted herself, and took on her
all the airs and graces of an elderly beauty, though
she was fifteen years older than he was, — his courage
in carrying home a half -dying woman of bad char-
acter whom he found in the streets, and did his best
to cure and to reform, — his incessant, though rough
benevolence to his poor dependents, and indeed
almost all the traits of his remarkable character,
bespeak a man who was never ashamed of himself
when he thought himself right, and was nevei-
ashamed to be publicly ashamed of himself, when he
thought himself wrong. It was this quality, almost

170 MR. LESLIE STEPHEN ON JOHNSON xvil

as much as his great wit and strength of conversation,
which made him the literary dictator of his time, —
and it is in this quality that our own day needs his
example most. A day in which men are almost
ashamed to be odd, and quite ashamed to be incon-
sistent, in which a singular life, even if the result of
intelligent and intelligible purpose, is almost regarded
as a sign of insanity, and in which society imposes
its conventional assumptions and insincerities on
almost every one of us, is certainly a day when it
will do more than usual good to revive the memory
of that dangerous and yet tender literary bear who
stood out amongst the men even of his day as one
who, whatever else he was, was always true to him-
self, and that too almost at the most trying time of all,
even when he had not been faithful to himself, — a
man who was more afraid of his conscience than of
all the world's opinion — and who towers above our
o^vn generation, just because he had the courage to
be what so few of us are, — proudly independent of
the opinion in the midst of which he lived.

XVIII
JOHN STUART MILL'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY i

1873

That this curious volume delineates, on the whole,
a man marked by the most earnest devotion to
human good, and the widest intellectual sympathies,
no one who reads it with any discernment can doubt.
But it is both a very melancholy book to read, and
one full of moral paradoxes. It is very sad, in the
first instance, to read the story of the over-tutored
boy, constantly incurring his father's displeasure for
not being able to do what by no possibility could he
have done, and apparently without any one to love.
Mr. James Mill, vivacious talker, and in a narrow
way powerful thinker as he was, was evidently as
an educator, on his son's own showing, a hard master,
anxious to reap what he had not sown, and to gather
what he had not strawed, or as that son himself puts
it, expecting " effects without causes." Not that
the father did not teach the child with all his might,
and teach in many respects well ; but then he taught
the boy far too much, and expected him to learn
besides a great deal that he neither taught him nor
^ AiUobiography by John Stuart Mill. London : Longmans.

172 JOHN STUART MILL's AUTOBIOGRAPHY xvill

showed him where to find. The child began Greek
at three years old, read a good deal of Plato at seven,
and was writing what he flattered himself was
" something serious," a history of the Roman Govern-
ment,— not a popular history, but a constitutional
history of Rome, — by the time he was nine years
old. He began logic at twelve, went through a
" complete course of political economy " at thirteen,
including the most intricate points of the theory of
currency. He was a constant writer for the JFest-
minster Review at eighteen, was editing Bentham's
Theory of Evidence and writing habitual criticisms of
the Parliamentary debates at nineteen. At twenty
he fell into a profound melancholy, on discovering
that the only objects of life for which he lived, — the
objects of social and political reformers, — would, if
suddenly and completely granted, give him no
happiness whatever. Such a childhood and youth,
lived apparently without a single strong affection, —
for his relation to his father was one of deep respect
and fear, rather than love, and he tells us frankly,
in describing the melancholy to which I have alluded,
that if he had loved any one well enough to confide
in him, the melancholy would not have been, —
resulting at the age of eighteen in the production of
what Mr. Mill himself says might, with as little extra-
vagance as would ever be involved in the application
of such a phrase to a human being, be called "a
mere reasoning machine," — are not pleasant subjects
of contemplation, even though it be true, as Mr. Mill
asserts, that the over-supply of study and under-
supply of love, did not prevent his childhood from
being a happy one. Nor are the other personal
incidents of the autobiography of a difi'erent cast.
Nothing is more remarkable than the fewness, limited

XVITI JOHN STUART MILL'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 173

character, and apparently, so far as close intercourse
was concerned, temporary duration, of most of Mr.
Mill's friendships. The one close and intimate
friendship of his life, which made up to him for the
insufficiency of all others, that with the married lady
who, after the death of her husband, became his wife,
was one which for a long time subjected him to
slanders, the pain of which his sensitive nature
evidently felt very keenly. And yet he must have
been aware that though in his own conduct he had
kept free from all stain, his example was an exceed-
ingly dangerous and mischievous one for others,
who might be tempted by his moral authority to
follow in a track in which they would not have had
the strength to tread. Add to this that his married
life was very brief, only seven years and a half, being
unexpectedly cut short, and that his passionate
reverence for his wife's memory and genius — in his
own words, "a religion" — was one which, as he
must have been perfectly sensible, he could not
possibly make to appear otherwise than extravagant,
not to say an hallucination, in the eyes of the rest
of mankind, and yet that he was possessed by an
irresistible yearning to attempt to embody it in all
the tender and enthusiastic hyperbole of which it is
so pathetic to find a man w^ho gained his fame by
his " dry-light " a master, and it is impossible not to
feel that the human incidents in Mr. Mill's career
are very sad. True, his short service in Parliament,
when he was already advanced in years, was one to
bring him much intellectual consideration and a
certain amount of popularity. But even that termin-
ated in a defeat, and was hardly successful enough
to repay him for the loss of literary productiveness
which those three years of practical drudgery imposed.

174 JOHN STUART MILL'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY XVIII

In spite of the evident satisfaction and pride with
which Mr. Mill saw that his school of philosophy
had gained rapid ground since the publication of his
Logic, and that his large and liberal view of the
science of political economy had made still more
rapid way amongst all classes, the record of his life
which he leaves behind him is not even in its own
tone, and still less in the effect produced on the
reader, a bright and happy one. It is " sicklied o'er
with the pale cast of thought," — and of thought that
has to do duty for much, both of feeling and of action,
which usually goes to constitute the full life of a
large mind.

And besides the sense of sadness which the human
incident of the autobiography produces, the in-
tellectual and moral story itself is full of paradox
which weighs upon the heart as well as the mind.
Mr. Mill was brought up by his father to believe
that Christianity was false, and that even as regards
natural religion there was no ground for faith. How
far he retained the latter opinion, — he evidently did
retain the former, — it is understood that some future
work will tell us. But in the meantime, he is most
anxious to point out that religion, in what he thinks
the best sense, is possible even to one who does not
believe in God. That best sense is the sense in
which religion stands for an ideal conception of a
Perfect Being to which those who have such a concep-
tion "habitually refer as the guide of their con-
science," an ideal, he says, "far nearer to perfection
than the objective Deity of those who think them-
selves obliged to find absolute goodness in the author
of a world so crowded with suffering and so deformed
by injustice as ours." Unfortunately, however, this
" ideal conception of a perfect Being " is not a power

XVIII JOHN STUART MILL'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 175

on which human nature can lean. It is merely its
own best thought of itself ; so that it dwindles when
the mind and heart contract, and vanishes just when
there is most need of help. This Mr. Mill himself
felt at one period of his life. At the age of twenty he
underwent a crisis which apparently corresponded
in his own opinion to the state of mind that leads to
" a Wesleyan's conversion." I wish we could extract
in full his eloquent and impressive description of this
rather thin moral crisis. Here is his description of
the first stage : —

" From the winter of 1821, when first I read Bentham,
and especially from the commencement of the Westminster
Revieiv, I had what might truly be called an object in life ;
to be a reformer of the world. My conception of my
own happiness was entirely identified with this object.
The personal sympathies I wished for were those of fellow-
labourers in this enterprise. I endeavoured to pick up
as many flowers as I could by the way ; but as a serious
and permanent personal satisfaction to rest upon, my
whole reliance was placed on this ; and 1 was accustomed
to felicitate myself on the certainty of a happy life which
I enjoyed, through placing my happiness in something
durable and distant, in which some progress might be
always making, while it could never be exhausted by
complete attainment. This did very well for several
years, during which the general improvement going on
in the world and the idea of myself as engaged with others
in struggling to promote it, seemed enough to fill up an
interesting and animated existence. But the time came
when I awakened from this as from a dream. It was in
the autumn of 1826. I was in a dull state of nerves,
such as everybody is occasionally liable to ; unsusceptible
to enjoyment or pleasurable excitement ; one of those
moods when what is pleasure at other times, becomes
insipid or indifferent ; the state, I should think, in which

176 JOHN STUART MILL'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY xvill

converts to Methodism usually are, when smitten by their
first ' conviction of sin.' In this frame of mind it occurred
to me to put the question directly to myself : ' Suppose
that all your objects in life were realised ; that all the
changes in institutions and opinions which you are looking
forward to could be completely effected at this very
instant ; would this be a great joy and happiness to you 1 '
And an irrepressible self-consciousness distinctly answered,
' No ! ' At this my heart sank within me : the whole
foundation on which my life was constructed fell down.
All my happiness was to have been found in the continual
pursuit of this end. The end had ceased to charm, and
how could there ever again be any interest in the means ?
I seemed to have nothing left to live for. At first I
hoped that the cloud would pass away of itself ; but it
did not. A night's sleep, the sovereign remedy for the
smaller vexations of life, had no effect on it. I awoke to
a renewed consciousness of the woful fact. I carried it
with me into all companies, into all occupations. Hardly
anything had power to cause me even a few minutes'
oblivion of it. For some months the cloud seemed to
grow thicker and thicker. The lines in Coleridge's
' Dejection ' — I was not then acquainted with them —
exactly describe my case : —

' A giiaf mthout a pang, void, dark and drear,
A drowsy, stifled, unimpassioned grief,
Which finds no natural outlet or relief
In word, or sigh, or tear.'

In vain I sought relief from my favourite books ; those
memorials of past nobleness and greatness from which I
had always hitherto drawn strength and animation. I
read them now without feeling, or with the accustomed
feeling minus all its charm ; and I became persuaded,
that my love of mankind, and of excellence for its own
sake, had worn itself out. I sought no comfort by speak-
ing to others of what I felt. If I had loved any one
sufficiently to make confiding my griefs a necessity, I
should not have been in the condition I was."

XVIII JOHN STUART MILL's AUTOBIOGRAPHY 177

It is clear that Mr. Mill felt the deep craving for
a more permanent and durable source of spiritual life
than any which the most beneficent activity spent
in patching up human institutions and laboriously
recasting the structure of human society, could
secure him, — that he himself had a suspicion that,
to use the language of a book he had been taught to
make light of, his soul was thirsting for God, and
groping after an eternal presence, in which he lived
and moved and had his being. What is strange and
almost burlesque, if it were not so melancholy, is
the mode in which this moral crisis culminates. A
few tears shed over Marmontel's M4moires, and the
fit passed away : —

" Two lines of Coleridge, in whom alone of all writers
I have found a true description of what I felt, were often in
my thoughts, not at this time (for I had never read them),
but in a later period of the same mental malady : —
* Work without hop* draws nectar in a sieve,
And hope without an object cannot live.'

In all probability my case was by no means so peculiar
as I fancied it, and I doubt not that many others have
passed through a similar state ; but the idiosyncrasies of
my education had given to the general phenomenon a
special character, which made it seem the natural effect
of causes that it was hardly possible for time to remove.
I frequently asked myself, if I could, or if I was bound
to go on living, when life must be passed in this manner.
I generally answered to myself, that I did not think I
could possibly bear it beyond a year. When, however,
not more than half that duration of time had elapsed, a
small ray of light broke in upon my gloom. I was
reading, accidentally, Marmontel's M^ioires, and came
to the passage which relates his father's death, the
distressed position of the family, and the sudden inspira-
tion by which he, then a mere boy, felt and made them
VOL. I N

178 JOHN STUART MILL'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY xvili

feel that he would be ever3^thing to them — would supply
the place of all that they had lost. A vivid conception
of the scene and its feelings came over rae, and I was
moved to tears. From this moment my burden grew
lighter. The oppression of the thought that all feeling
was dead within me, was gone. 1 was no longer hopeless ;
I was not a stock or a stone. I had still, it seemed, some
of the material out of jvhich all worth of character,
and all capacity for happiness, are made. Relieved from
my ever present sense of irremediable wretchedness, I
gradually found that the ordinary incidents of life could
again give me some pleasure ; that I could again find
enjoyment, not intense, but sufficient for cheerfulness, in
sunshine and sky, in books, in conversation, in public
affairs ; and that there was, once more excitement, though
of a moderate kind, in exerting myself for my opinions,
and for the public good. Thus the cloud gradually drew
off, and I again enjoyed life : and though I had several
relapses, some of which lasted many months, I never again
was as miserable as I had been."

And the only permanent fruit which this experi-
ence left behind it seems to have been curiously
slight. It produced a threefold moral result, — first,
a grave alarm at the dangerously undermining capaci-
ties of his own power of moral analysis, vrhich
promised to unravel all those artificial moral webs of
painful and pleasurable associations with injurious
and useful actions, respectively, which his father had
so laboriously woven for him during his childhood
and youth ; and further, two notable practical con-
clusions,— one, that in order to attain happiness
(which he "never wavered" in regarding as "the
test of all rules of conduct and the end of life "), the
best strategy is a kind of flank march,^ — to aim at
something else, at some ideal end, not consciously as

XVIII JOHN STUART MILL'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 179

a means to happiness, but as an end in itself, — so,
he held, may you have a better chance of securing
happiness by the way, than you can by any direct
pursuit of it, — and the other, that it is most desirable
to cultivate the feelings, the passive susceptibilities,
as well as the reasoning and active powers, if the
utilitarian life is to be made enjoyable. Surely a
profound sense of the inadequacy of ordinary human
success to the cravings of the human spirit was never
followed by a less radical moral change. That it
resulted in a new breadth of sympathy with writers
like Coleridge and Wordsworth, whose fundamental
modes of thought and faith Mr. Mill entirely rejected,
but for whose modes of sentiment, after this period
of his life, he somehow managed, not very intelligibly,
to make room, is very true ; and it is also true that
this lent a new largeness of tone to his writings, and
gave him a real superiority in all matters of taste to
that of the utilitarian clique to which he had belonged,
— results which enormously widened the scope of his
influence, and changed him from the mere expositor
of a single school of psychology into the thoughtful
critic of many difi'erent schools. But as far as I can
judge, all this new breadth was gained at the cost of
a certain haze which, from this time forth, spread it-
self over his grasp of the first principles which he
still professed to hold. He did not cease to be a
utilitarian, but he ceased to distinguish between the
duty of promoting your own happiness and of pro-
moting anybody else's, and never could make it clear
where he found his moral obligation to sacrifice the
former to the latter. He still maintained that actions,
and not sentiments, are the true subjects of ethical
discrimination ; but he discovered that there was a
significance which he had never before suspected even

180 JOHN STUART MILL'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY xvill

in sentiments and emotions of which he continued to
maintain that the origin was artificial and arbitrary.
He did not cease to declaim against the prejudices
engendered by the intuitional theory of philosophy,
but he made it one of his peculiar distinctions as an
Experience -philosopher, that he recommended the
fostering of new prepossessions, only distinguished
from the prejudices he strove to dissipate by being,
in his opinion, harmless, though quite as little based
as those in ultimate or objective truth. He main-
tained as strongly as ever that the character of man
is formed by circumstances, but he discovered that
the will can act upon circumstances, and so modify
its own future capability of willing ; and though it is
in his opinion circumstances which enable or induce
the will thus to act upon circumstances, he thought
and taught that this makes all the difference between
fatalism and the doctrine of cause and effect as applied
to character. After his influx of new light, he re-
mained as strong ^a democrat as ever, but he ceased
to believe in the self-interest principle as universally
efficient to produce good government when applied
to multitudes, and indeed qualified his democratic
theory by an intellectual aristocracy of feeling which
to our minds is the essence of exclusiveness. "A
person of high intellect," he writes " should never go
into unintellectual society, unless he can enter it as
an apostle; yet he is the only person with high
objects, who can ever enter it at all." You can
hardly have exclusiveness more extreme than that,
or a doctrine more strangely out of moral sympathy
with the would-be universalism of the Benthamite
theory. In fact, as it seems to me, Mr. Mill's un-
questionable breadth of philosophic treatment was
gained at the cost of a certain ambiguity which fell

XVIII JOHN STUART MILL'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY 181

over the root-principles of his philosophy, — an am-
biguity by which he won for it a more catholic repute
than it deserved. The result of the moral crisis
through which Mr. Mill passed at the age of 20 may
be described briefly, in my opinion, as this, — that it
gave him tastes far in advance of his philosophy, fore-
tastes in fact of a true philosophy ; and that this
moral flavour of something truer and wider, served
him in place of the substance of anything truer and
wider, during the rest of his life.

The part of the Autobiography which I like least,
though it is, on the whole, that on which I am most
at one with Mr. Mill, is the section in which he re-
views his short, but thoughtful Parliamentary career.
The tone of this portion of the book is too self-
important, too minutely egotistic, for the dry and
abstract style in which it is told. It adds little to
our knowledge of the Parliamentary struggles in
which he was engaged, and nothing to our knowledge
of any of the actors in them except himself. The
best part of the Autobiography, except the remarkable
and masterly sketch of his father, Mr. James Mill, is
the account of the growth of his own philosophic
creed in relation to Logic and Political Economy
but this is of course a part only intelligible to the
students of his more abstract works.

On the whole, the book will be found, I think,
even by Mr. Mill's most strenuous disciples, a dreary
one. It shows that in spite of all Mr. Mill's genuine
and generous compassion for human misery and his
keen desire to alleviate it, his relation to concrete
humanity was of a very confined and reserved kind,
— one brightened by few personal ties, and those few
not, except in about two cases, really hearty ones.
The multitude was to him an object of compassion and

182 JOHN STUART MILL'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY xviii

of genuine beneficence, but he had no pleasure in men,
no delight in actual intercourse with this strange, vari-
ous, homely world of motley faults and virtues. His
nature was composed of a few very fine threads, but
wanted a certain strength of basis, and the general eff'ect,
though one of high and even enthusiastic disinterested-
ness, is meagre and pallid. His tastes were refined,
but there was a want of homeliness about his hopes.
He was too strenuously didactic to be in sympathy
with man, and too incessantly analytic to throw his
burden upon God. There was something overstrained
in all that was noblest in him, this excess seeming
to be by way of compensation, as it were, for the
number of regions of life in which he found little or
nothing where other men find so much. He was
strangely deficient in humour, which, perhaps, we
ought not to regret, for had he had it, his best work
would in all probability have been greatly hampered
by such a gift. Unique in intellectual ardour and
moral disinterestedness, of tender heart and fastidious
tastes, though narrow in his range of practical sym-
pathies, his name will long be famous as that of the
most wide-minded and generous of political economists,
the most disinterested of utilitarian moralists, and
the most accomplished and impartial of empirical
philosophers. But as a man, there was in him a cer-
tain poverty of nature, in spite of the nobleness in
him, — a monotonous joylessness, in spite of the hectic
sanguineness of his theoretic creed, — a want of genial
trust, which spurred on into an almost artificial zeal
his ardour for philosophic reconstruction ; and these
are qualities which will probably put a well-marked
limit on the future propagation of an influence
such as few writers on such subjects have ever before
attained within the period of their own lifetime.

XIX

JOHN STUART MILL'S PHILOSOPHY
AS TESTED IN HIS LIFE

1873

In the previous essay attention was drawn to a
remarkable passage in Mr. J. S. Mill's "Autobi-
ography " describing a moral crisis through which he
passed at the age of twenty. I return to it now to
notice the curious bearing which that passage has on
Mr. Mill's philosophy, a bearing of which he seems to
have been himself only obscurely conscious. It will
be remembered that the melancholy into which he
fell was caused, as far as he knew, by suddenly
becoming aware that, if all the chief aims which he
had in life, — his aims as a social and political
reformer, — were in an instant completely effected,
instead of deriving a great happiness from the know-
ledge, he would have derived none, nay, apparently,
would have been conscious of a great blank, from
the sudden failure of all the moral claims on his
energies. This induced him to consider more care-
fully the view of life in which he had been educated,
and though he " never wavered in the conviction
that happiness is the test of all rules of conduct and
the end of life," he was led by his new experience to

184 JOHN STUART MILL's PHILOSOPHY xix

modify his general conception of life in two directions.
First, he made up his mind that though happiness is
the only end of life, it must not be directly aimed
at, if it is to be successfully secured. Next, he
discovered that no manipulation of mere outward
circumstances without a special culture of the feel-
ings, can so educate the character as to make a man
what he should be. Let me take the first point first.
Happiness, Mr. Mill said, is the true measure of
human good, and the one thing that makes life worth
having ; — but, nevertheless, he had now discovered
that there is this peculiarity about it, that it cannot
be obtained by driving directly at it ; you must aim
at something else, and then you may get happiness in
the rebound. " Those only are happy (I thought),
who have their minds fixed on some object other than
their own happiness ; on the happiness of others, on
the improvement of mankind, even on some art or
pursuit, followed not as a means, but as itself an
ideal end. The enjoyments of life (such was now
my theory) are sufficient to make it a pleasant thing,
when they are taken en passant, without being made
a principal object. Once make them so, and they are
immediately felt to be insufficient. They will not bear
a scrutinising examination. Ask yourself whether
you are happy, and you cease to be so. The only
chance, is to treat not happiness, but some end external to
it, as the purpose of life. Let your self-consciousness,
your scrutiny, your self-interrogation, exhaust them-
selves on that ; and if otherwise fortunately circum-
stanced, you will inhale happiness with the air you
breathe, without dwelling on it or thinking about it,
without either forestalling it in imagination or
putting it to flight by fatal questioning. This theory
now became the basis of my philosophy of life. And

XIX AS TESTED IN HIS LIFE 185

I still hold to it as the best theory for all those who
have but a moderate degree of sensibility and of
capacity for enjoyment, that is, for the great majority
of mankind."

Now surely it is a very curious comment on the
utilitarian principle, to discover that the one
absolute end, according to the utilitarian theory, of
human existence, won't bear being made the direct
and acknowledged end, but can only be successfully
obtained, if at all, as the reward of aiming at some-
thing else which is not the true end of human life,
but utterly subordinate to it. Is not this a paradox
which should suggest to utilitarians the deepest
possible suspicion of the truth of the fundamental
idea of their philosophy 1 That the true end of life
should be always in the position of the old gentleman's
macaroons, which he hid about amongst his papers
and books, because he said he enjoyed them so much
more when he came upon them unawares, than he
did if he went to the cupboard avowedly for them,
is surely a very odd compliment to the true end of
life. The old gentleman in question did not regard
the macaroons as the true end of life ; and as a rule,
unquestionably what we do regard as the true end
of life will bear contemplating and working for as
such, while only the secondary and incidental ends
are the better for being taken in by side glimpses, in
the way which Mr, Mill seems to regard as the best
mode of mastering the main end. We hear, no
doubt, sometimes of ambitious men who lose the
prize of their ambition by aiming directly at power,
while others who are not ambitious, and who aim
directly at the public good, gain power by the very
indifference to power which they show. Of course
that is so, but the reason is very plain. It is obvious

186 JOHN STUART MILL'S PHILOSOPHY xix

that it is so because the desire of power itself is
universally held to be inferior to the desire of the
public good as the ulterior end of power, and because,
therefore, the man who has the inferior desire para-
mount, is distrusted by society whose help is needful
for the possession of power, while he who has the
superior desire paramount is trusted and aided to
obtain it. But in the case of happiness, there is no
such reason for the failure of the direct aim.
According to the utilitarian, the final aim is happiness,
and any other ideal aim is good only so far as it
results in happiness. Why, then, should it be neces-
sary to put the cart before the horse, the means
before the end 1 In the other case, the public good
is held to be a better end than the possession of
power, to which power should only be a means, and
therefore the man who visibly pursues the means
with more eagerness than the end, is not likely to
succeed even in getting the means. But in the
belief of utilitarians, all ideal ends, even including
' good ' itself, are only names for the various ways to
happiness. It seems, then, to be perfectly inexplic-
able why it should be advisable to hoodwink yourself
as to the end, and aim only at the means for the
purpose of attaining the end. Take another case
where the pursuit of the end defeats itself. The love
of being loved, the love of social admiration and
popularity, is, as we all know, apt to defeat itself.
The man who aims at being popular and admired
is not nearly so likely to be popular and admired as
the man who thinks little or nothing about it, but
aims simply at his own individual ideal. Here, again,
the failure of the direct aim appears to be due to its
real and perceived inferiority to those aims which
usually secure it. The man who directly aims at

XIX AS TESTED IN HIS LIFE 187

getting admiration and esteem will hardly deserve
them, for he cannot deserve them without cherishing
plenty of aims which would be very likely to risk or
forfeit other persons' admiration and esteem. The
man who lives for the good opinions of others cannot
be deserving of those good opinions, for he cannot
contribute much to teach others, by the independence
of his own life, to what those good opinions ought to
be given. In this case also, then, the ill-success of
the direct pursuit of admiration is simply due to the
fact that that pursuit is a lower aim than any con-
sistent with the attainment of the admiration pursued.
But if happiness be the true standard and end of life,
why should it fall into the hands only of those who
do not directly seek it 1 Surely, if it is not safe to
pursue it directly, it can only be because it is not the
proper end and aim of life, — because while it may be
the natural reward of the pursuit of better ends, it is
not itself the chief end. Nothing could well be more
improbable than that the one standard and best fruit
of human action should be carefully wrapped up in
the folds of inferior ends, so that you may come upon
it by accident, if you are to taste it properly at all.
The very fact that pleasures are so much more
enjoyable when they are not made the ultimate aims
of life, seems to us to be something very like proof that
they are not the ultimate aims of life, but only the
incidental refreshments which help us to attain them.
Again, it seems to be deducible from Mr. Mill's
second result of the moral crisis through which he
had passed, that the great principle of " the associa-
tion of ideas " from which his father and he derived
so much, was no more equal to what was expected
from it, than the utilitarian theory had been. He
had learned to believe implicitly in the hard-worked

188 JOHN STUART MILL'S PHILOSOPHY XIX

doctrine of "the association of ideas," and especially
to believe as one application of that doctrine, that
" all mental and moral feelings and qualities, whether
of a good or of a bad kind, were the results of
associations ; that we love one thing and hate
another, take pleasure in one sort of action or con-
templation, and pain in another sort, through the
clinging of pleasurable or painful ideas to those
things from the effect of education or of experience."
All our loves and hatreds, therefore, are, to a very
great extent, of an arbitrary kind, dependent on
habits of association. " There must always be some-
thing artificial and casual in associations thus produced.
The pains and pleasures thus forcibly associated with
things are not connected with them by any natural
tie, and it is therefore, I thought, essential to the
durability of these associations, that they should
have become so intense and inveterate as to be
practically indissoluble before the habitual exercise
of the power of analysis had commenced." As it
was not so with Mr. Mill himself, — as he found on
experiment that he could dissolve again the tie
between the personal pleasure he had learnt to
associate with the happiness of others and the per-
ception of that happiness, and that he was liable to
find himself none the happier for seeing other men
suddenly made more prosperous, he at first saw no
hope for his own future. The principle of "the
association of ideas " had left him at the commence-
ment of his voyage "with a well-equipped ship and
a rudder, but no sail," "without any real desire for
the ends which I had been so carefully fitted out to
work for, no delight in virtue or the general good,
but also just as little in anything else." And what
was his remedy for this 'i Why, the cultivation of

XIX AS TESTED IN HIS LIFE 189

the same class of artificial emotions which had thus
left him stranded, only in a direction a little more
inward than before ; — to try and take delight in that
in which he found it so difficult to take delight, by
the help of his imagination, — to try and create anew
more subtle ties of association between the happiness
of others and his own. He thought he knew that
all such feelings were purely artificial, liable to
be dissolved at the touch of analysis into their separ-
ate elements, — namely, a pleasure of his own, felt
simultaneously with a perception of another's happi-
ness,— the selfish pleasure being, however, not
connected with the perception of external happiness
by any real tie, except indeed the almost accidental
one of contiguity in time. And yet he encouraged
himself and others to try and form more and more
of these artificial emotions by the use of more subtle
means, and he praises the poet Wordsworth especially
for helping him in this delicate attempt, — for having
developed a happy knack of connecting a personal
pleasure of fancy or imagination with a vivid vision
of the common joys of ordinary human beings.
Indeed this culture of the feelings, — this deliberate
attempt to associate, as Wordsworth's poetry succeeds
in doing, personal enjoyments of the imagination
with the picture of even common-place persons'
common-place happiness, — became a part, he tells us,
of his new philosophy. Instead of only studying as
in time past how to make external circumstances
contribute to the happiness-producing qualities of
human character, he proposed for the future to teach
men that they might so form their internal circum-
stances as to get various subtle and artificial enjoy-
ments out of associations between their own visionary
faculty and the common ways of vulgar men. It was

190 JOHN STUART MILL'S PHILOSOPHY xix

true, of course, that this association of ideas was as
purely artificial as any one of those associations which
had lost their power for him so early. There could
be no real connection (except of time and habit)
between the thrill of imaginative pleasure in his own
intellect, and the perception of the common-place
sources of human enjoyment which accompanied it ;
but none the less — rather, indeed, the more heartily
— would he strive to rivet the artificial link between
the two, if it promised, from the very fact of its
intellectual character, to survive in minds in which
powers of analysis had done so much to dissolve the
ordinary rivets of the associative faculty.

I confess I can hardly imagine a more remarkable
admission than all this, that the principle of the
association of ideas was as insufficient for the explana-
tion of Mr. IVIill's real state of mind on this second
point, as the utilitarian principle had been for the
explanation of his state of mind on the first point.
Is it not clear that Mr. Mill's spirit of philanthropic
reform was very far indeed from that artificial com-
pound of pleasant associations with a particular kind
of effort, which, for example, will sometimes make
any study closely associated with childish memories
of marmalade or treacle, delightful not only to the
child, but to the man ? If that kind of accidental
association had been the origin of Mr. Mill's feeling,
why should it have grieved him to think that the
complete success of his efforts would not make him
happy ? According to the associative theory, it was
the effort itself which was delightful, — as riding is
delightful for the sake of the motion and the air, —
not any end which it might attain. The rider does
not lose his pleasure in riding, because the place he
reaches in his ride is uninteresting to him ; nor the

XIX AS TESTED IN HIS LIFE 191

child his pleasure in the study associated with marma-
lade or other such delights, because he finds the
ultimate outcome of that study flat and profitless.
Mr. Mill's melancholy itself proves that his reforming
zeal was not due to the artificial compound of associa-
tions to which he attributed it. Analysis does not
weaken the pleasure of memories associated with the
fragrance of violets and primroses and the spring
woods ; and analysis would not have weakened Mr.
Mill's delight in philanthropic labours, if his delight
had ever been due to the mere strength of pleasant
early associations. The very fact that he lost his
pleasure in the means, directly he fancied that he
felt no delight in the end, shows that it was the pre-
sumed nobility of his desire or purpose which had
animated him, and not the mere thrill of pleasant
associations. Nothing could show more clearly than
this how false is that analysis of his father's school
which makes a desire to consist in "the idea of a
pleasure," instead of a pleasure in the satisfaction
of a desire, — which makes the pleasure generate
the desire, instead of the desire generating the
pleasure. And then, again, how could the remedy
he discovered for his melancholy have been a
real remedy, if the "associative" theory had been
adequate 1 Wordsworth taught him to cultivate
a new class of meditative exercises, by the help of
which he might find personal delight in realising to
himself the common pleasures of the common lot.
But if that remedy were due merely to the forging
of a new link of association between the pleasures of
his own imagination and the lot of the multitude, it
would not have been a remedy at all, for it would
have associated the pains quite as much as the
pleasures of the multitude with this new imaginative

192 JOHN STUART MILL's PHILOSOPHY xix

joy. In point of fact, Wordsworth's poems on the
sufferings of common hearts are as fine or finer than
those on the joys, and inspire as much meditative
rapture in the reader. The obvious explanation of
the moral crisis is that Mill, in the ardour of his study
of the means, had lost his full grasp of the meaning
of the end in view, — had forgotten, in his various
abstract prescriptions for the diminution of social
miseries, the comprehensive human detail involved in
all popular joys and miseries. Wordsworth's homely
raptures restored to him the fulness of that meaning,
helped him to see what common human joys and
sufferings were, and so flooded once more the failing
well-springs of his sympathy. But this they could
never have done, without the real existence of that
sympathy in him. Wordsworth's poems did rot make
for him a new feeling, but only appealed to an old one,
well-nigh choked up by the fragments of a dreary and
false philosophy. In short, the chief use of Mr. Mill's
curious "moral crisis" is to show that, tried by the
standard of his own experience, his utilitarianism
would not hold water ; and again, that the great
magic-wand to which such extraordinary transforma-
tion scenes are due in the dissolving views of his own
and his father's psychology, — the vaunted principle
of 'the association of Ideas,' — is quite innocent of
nine-tenths of the wonders to which it is supposed to
give rise. Nothing is stranger than that Mr. Mill
did not see how ill his own philosophy explains the
most unique and intense of his own moral experiences.
But it may help others to discover what he never
discovered himself, — that his father's psychology was,
to a true psychology of human nature, much what the
science of the manufacture of artificial flowers is to the
science of the growth of blade and leaf and blossom.

J. S. MILL'S ESSAYS ON RELIGION i

1874

It is a little hard on Mr. John Stuart Mill that the
school which once treated him as an oracle, now turns
round on him, because he has in many respects trans-
gressed its very narrow limits, and speaks of him as
little better than a crack-brained fanatic. As far as
his wordly repute is concerned, he would have done
much better to abide in those tents of Kedar in which
he was brought up. The wider and wider flights
which he indulged in round the centre of his heredit-
ary philosophy, — a philosophy never really deserted,
though he circled so far beyond its customary bound-
aries that his brethren in the craft almost looked
upon him as a renegade and an adventurer, — never
had the efi'ect of convincing any fresh class of minds
that he was of their kith and kin, though these ex-
cursions had the effect of exciting suspicion, jealousy,
and contempt amongst his colleagues of the empirical
school. And the result is that he has to some extent
fallen between the two stools. The Millites of fifteen
years ago know him no more. The believers in an

^Nature, the, Utility of Religion, aixd Theism. By John
Stuart Mill. London : Longmans.

VOL. I 0

194 J. S. mill's essays on religion XX

Ethics that are something more than utility in dis-
guise, and in a Religion which is something beyond
a naked induction from the facts of human life, are
disposed to claim him rather as an instance of a mind
too great for the philosophy on which he was nour-
ished, than as one great enough to throw off the
trammels of its origin and grasp at the higher truth
beyond. And no doubt this is the natural reward of
Mr. Mill's candour, and of that expansion of his intel-
lectual apprehensions which his candour betrayed.
His step-daughter tells us, in the preface to these
essays, that "whatever discrepancies may seem to re-
main after a really careful comparison between different
passages " cannot properly be held to be really funda-
mental, since he himself was intending to publish the
first essay, — that on "Nature," — in the year 1873,
after he had already completed the last of the three,
and that which is most religious in tone, namely,
that on "Theism." But in truth, by far the most
striking discrepancy in view in these essays is not
one between anything in the first essay and the third,
but one between a passage in the second essay and
the third, — i.e., between the essay on the " Utility of
Religion" and that on "Theism." In the former of
these, Mr. Mill expressly declares that an ideal relig-
ion,— i.e. , a religion without any personal ohjed, which
consists solely in the cultivation of a particular class
of ideal admirations and hopes in relation to humanity,
is not only capable of fulfilling "every important
function of religion, but would fulfil them better than
any form whatever of supernaturalism. It is not
only entitled to be called a religion, it is a better
religion than any of those which are ordinarily called
by that title." It is true that even in the course of
the same essay, he makes a great exception to this

XX J. s. mill's essays on religion 195

assertion. He admits that to give up the hope of
reunion in another world with those who have gone
before us in this, is a loss " neither to be denied nor
extenuated. In many cases, it is beyond the reach
of comparison or estimate." But there Mr. Mill is
speaking of a loss to the human heart, more than of
one to the religious affections properly so called. In
the final essay on " Theism," he goes far beyond this,
and deals a blow at the relative influence of mere
religious idealisms of all kinds, as compared with that
of religious supernaturalism properly so called. " It
cannot be questioned," he says, " that the undoubting
belief of the real existence of a Being who realises
our own best ideas of perfection, and of our being in
the hands of that Being as the ruler of the universe,
gives an increase of power to these feelings [aspira-
tions towards goodness] beyond what they can receive
from reference to a merely ideal conception." That
seems to me in direct contradiction of the assertion
that the idealisation of human life is not only a religion,
but a better religion than any which supernaturalism
is capable of affording us. In fact, it is evident that
this progress of his mind from religious idealism to-
wards religious realism, no less than its progress from
something like pure indifference to Christianity to a
genuine enthusiasm for Christ, shows Mr. Mill to have
been unconsciously working his way out of the philo-
sophical system in which he was cast, and so earning
for himself the agreeable reputation of presenting to
the world fruit " sour and cankered with a worm at
its wasted core." For my own part, Mr. Mill's pro-
gress from a narrow and barren set of word-bound
notions into a true religion of what he himself calls
"hope," — though it was nothing more, — seems to
show that he had a nature far richer than his intellect.

196 J. s. mill's essays on religion

and even an intellect capable of discerning in what
direction the growth of his life was breaking down
the barrier of his preconceived thoughts.

Still, though these essays contain ample evidence
of a growing mind, it would be impossible to say that
the great subjects treated in them are treated with
the fulness and care exhibited in Mr. Mill's earlier
works. They are rather outlines than dissertations,
outlines which require filling up to produce their full
effect on the reader. There are writers, as there are
artists, with whom the rough sketch is even more
than the finished work, — whose first designs are more
fruitful of impression and suggestion than the elabor-
ately executed picture. But Mr. Mill was never one
of that class. Execution and elaboration were his
forte ; he exerted half his influence through the fide-
lity of his detail, and essays like these, which are
mere rough outlines, do not produce the characteristic
effect of painstaking exhaustiveness which we find in
his Logic, or his Examination of Sir William Hamilton.
Consider, for instance, how exceedingly faint and
imperfect is his exposition here of the most remark-
able and characteristic idea of this work. That
idea I take to be that the existence of pain, and evil,
and even of contrivance and design, in the Universe,
is in itself ample evidence that the Creator of it, if
there be a Creator, is either greatly limited in power,
or morally imperfect, or both. This is the idea
running through all the essays. To Mr. Mill, the
Creator, if there be one, must be the Demiurgus of
the Gnostics, hampered by the obstructions of some
intractable material, not the Omnipotent being of
Christian theology. Here are fair specimens of his
mode of supporting his view : —

XX J. s. mill's essays on religion 197

" If there are any marks at all of special design in
creation, one of the things most evidently designed is that
a large proportion of all animals should pass their exist-
ence in tormenting and devouring other animals. They
have been lavishly fitted out with the instruments neces-
sary for that purpose ; their strongest instincts impel them
to it, and many of them seem to have been constructed
incapable of supporting themselves by any other food.
If a tenth part of the pains which have been expended in
finding benevolent adaptations in all nature had been
employed in collecting evidence to blacken the character
of the Creator, what scope for comment would not have
been found in the entire existence of the lower animals,
divided, with scarcely an exception, into devourers and
devoured, and a prey to a thousand ills from which they
are denied the faculties necessary for protecting them-
selves ! If we are not obliged to believe the animal
creation to be the work of a demon, it is because we need
not suppose it to have been made by a Being of infinite
power. ... It is not too much to say that every indication
of Design in the Kosmos is so much evidence against the
Omnipotence of the Designer. For what is meant by
Design ? Contrivance : the adaptation of means to an end.
But the necessity for contrivance — the need of employing
means — is a consequence of the limitation of power.
Who would have recourse to means, if to attain his end
his mere word was sufficient ? The very idea of means
implies that the means have an efficacy which the direct
action of the being who employs them has not. Other-
wise they are not means, but an incumbrance. A man
does not use machinery to move his arms. If he did, it
could only be when paralysis had deprived him of the
power of moving them by volition. But if the em-
ployment of contrivance is in itself a sign of limited
power, how much more so is the careful and skilful choice
of contrivances ? Can any wisdom be shown in the selec-
tion of means, when the means have no efficacy but what
is given them by the will of him who employs them, and

198 J. S. mill's essays on religion XX

when liis will could have bestowed the same efficacy on
any other means ? Wisdom and contrivance are shown
in overcoming difficulties, and there is no room for them
in a Being for whom no difficulties exist. The evidences,
therefore, of Natural Theology distinctly imply that the
author of the Kosmos worked under limitations ; that he
was obliged to adapt himself to conditions independent of
his will, and to attain his ends by such arrangements as
those conditions admitted of."

Now, in these and many other passages, Mr. Mill has
assumed that Omnipotence is a perfectly intelligible
conception to finite minds, the absence of which, or
else the absence of perfect goodness, it is perfectly
possible for us to prove, by merely producing evidence
of pain or evil, and reasoning that if God were both
perfectly good in the human sense, and could have
removed such pain or evil, he must have done so ; —
therefore, either he is not omnipotent, or he is not
perfectly good. But this seems to me to be mere
groping in the dark. No doubt, goodness must mean,
in an infinite being, the same quality which it means
in a finite one, or it can mean nothing at all to us.
But it does not in the least follow that because it
must mean the same quality, it must involve, to an
omniscient Creator, the same actions. When we,
who never have any but the most strictly conditioned
and minute power, come to lay down the laws regu-
lating the exercise of his power by a being of infinite
power, we are wholly out of our depth. Is, for in-
stance, Omnipotence, or infinitude of power, better
shown by the production of an infinitude of grades,
and scales, and modes of moral being, or by the pro-
duction of only one, — the perfect mode ? Is it more
an evidence of Omnipotence to exhibit a world of
power and joy growing within the very heart of

XX J. s. mill's essays on religion 199

weakness and suffering, or to limit itself to the creation
of beings in whom there are no paradoxes 1 Are a
number of true gaps, — of really dark lines, — in the
moral spectrum of existence, greater proofs of power
than the discovery that within these dark lines them-
selves there are a host of previously unsuspected
bright lines, the light of which is only the brighter
and tenderer by the contrast with the darkness ?
The truth is, that we no sooner come to try the idea
of Omnipotence, than we see how utterly impossible
it is for such a creature as man to say what is, and
what is not, consistent with Omnipotence. Mr. IVIill
lays it down very peremptorily that an Omnipotent
Being who permits the existence of a moral imperfec-
tion or a sensitive pain, cannot be a perfect Being.
But what if the very idea of the maximum of moral
being, positively includes, as it well may, the existence
of relations between moral perfection and moral pro-
gression (which last implies, of course, moral imperfec-
tion) 1 What if a universe consisting exclusively of
perfect beings would be a smaller and poorer moral
universe than one consisting both of perfect and of
imperfect beings, with a real relation between the
two 1 What if the world of pain, as treated by God,
includes secrets of moral glory and beauty, of which
a world without pain would be incapable ? Mr. Mill
would apparently reply, — "That only means that
God is not Omnipotent. If he were, he could do as
much without pain, which is in itself an evil, as with
it. And if he cannot, he works under conditions
which exclude Omnipotence." Such I understand,
for instance, to be the drift of the following
passage : —

" It is usual to dispose of arguments of this description
by the easy answer, that we do not know what wise reasons

200 J. S. mill's essays on religion XX

the Omniscient may have had for leaving undone things
which he had the power to do. It is not perceived that
this plea itself implies a limit to Omnipotence. When a
thing is obviously good and obviously in accordance with
what all the evidences of creation imply to have been the
Creator's design, and we say we do not know what good
reason he may have had for not doing it, we mean that we
do not know to what other, still better object — to what
object still more completely in the line of his purposes — he
may have seen fit to postpone it. But the necessity of post-
poning one thing to another belongs only to limited power.
Omnipotence could have made the objects compatible.
Omnipotence does not need to weigh one consideration
against another. If the Creator, like a human ruler, had
to adapt himself to a set of conditions which he did not
make, it is as unphilosophical as presumptuous in us to
call him to account for any imperfections in his work ; to
complain that he left anything in it contrary to what, if
the indications of design prove anything, he must have
intended. He must at least know more than we know,
and we cannot judge what greater good would have had
to be sacrificed, or what greater evil incurred, if he had
decided to remove this particular blot. Not so if he be
omnipotent. If he be that, he must himself have willed
that the two desirable objects should be incompatible ; he
must himself have willed that the obstacle to his supposed
design should be insuperable. It cannot therefore be his
design. It will not do to say that it was, but that he had
other designs which interfered with it ; for no one purpose
imposes necessary limitations on another in the case of a
Being not restricted by conditions of possibility."

But this kind of reasoning seems to me purely verbal.
Even Mr. Mill can hardly include in his idea of
Omnipotence the power to make a thing both be and
not be at the same time. All we can mean by Omnipo-
tence is the power to do anything not self-contra-

XX J. s. mill's essays on religion 201

dictory. Now the poAver both to create the joy
appropriate to the heart of pain, — what Mr Arnold
calls "the secret of Jesus," — and to keep all pain
itself out of existence, is a power to reconcile contra-
dictions. Mr. Mill might have said, perhaps, that in
a strict sense. Omnipotence would imply the power
to prevent any association between joy and pain, to
keep all the highest joys pure and independent of
self-abnegation or sorrow of any kind. Possibly.
But as we really cannot conceive Omnipotence, and
yet can compare together two different degrees of
power, is it not the more instructive for us to com-
pare the power which brings a divine joy out of pain
and self -surrender, with the power which keeps joy
quite aloof from pain ; and if we do so, will not the
former exercise of power seem much the greater of
the two? The truth is, Mr. Mill evidently never
gave himself the trouble to compare relative degrees
of power, or he would have seen at once that a uni-
verse containing absolute perfection in an infinite
variety of relations with imperfection is a universe
which would at once impress us as one of larger scope
and power, than one containing only the former.
And this is really all man can do towards judging
of Omnipotence. We are utterly unable to conceive
the absolute attribute. But we are able to say
whether a power that has created, and is always
creating, all shades and degrees and varieties of pro-
gressive life, as well as perfect life, is greater or less
than one which produces and sustains perfection only.
It seems to me perfectly obvious that though moral
goodness in man and in God must be of the same
kind, it is childish to say that actions which are wicked
in man, in whom they imply one kind of motive,
must be evil in God, who sees the whole scope of

202 J. S. mill's essays on religion XX

what he is doing, and in whom they may imply a
totally different kind of motive. You might much
more reasonably identify capital punishment with
murder, than identify, as Mr. Mill does, the infliction
of death by the imposition of natural laws, with
murder. Yet this confusion between the moral evil
involved in the rash actions of ignorant and finite
beings, and the same when proceeding from utterly
different motives in an omniscient Being, pervades the
whole of Mr. Mill's essay on " Nature."

Such is a characteristic specimen of the feebleness
of thought and execution visible in these Essays. It
will be replied, no doubt, that even if Mr. Mill were
hazy in conceiving, or rather, in his disinclination to
test his own power of conceiving, what is meant by
Divine Omnipotence, he was not bound to attempt to
apprehend an idea which is purely abstract to man,
and one over the positive contents of which, as I
have always admitted, man can have no command.
If we cannot approximate to the meaning of Omnipo-
tence, what business has such a notion in Religion at
all, whether Natural or Eevealed ? To this I can only
reply that the idealising faculty, of which even Mr.
Mill thinks so highly as the foundation of a religion
which is purely aspiration, blends itself so inevitably
with the conviction that there is some real Power in
communication with man, and one infinitely superior
to him in knowledge, goodness, might, and life
generally, that it becomes an effort, and an exceedingly
unnatural effort, to disentangle the two lines of
thought, and maintain that while our ideal faculty
leads us to imagine One infinite in knowledge, good-
ness, and power, and our actual experience to believe
in One infinitely above ourselves in all these qualities,
the two modes of thought have no right to coalesce

XX J. s. mill's essays on religion 203

and blend into an actual faith in a God infinite in
wisdom, power, and goodness. That such an effort
of discrimination is conceivable enough, no one can
deny. But I must say I think Mr. Mill has signally
failed in his attempt to prove that if God were both
perfect morally and also omnipotent, the state of the
world could not be what it is. Were the fragment
of the universe we see all, his case might be better ;
for it will be found that his implicit assumption
throughout is, that the world of which we are cognis-
ant is, morally speaking, the whole, instead of (prob-
ably) an infinitely small part. Now, it is quite
beyond us to affirm that infinite goodness and power
must at once annihilate moral evil and misery in all
portions of the universe, when we know, as a matter
of fact, that the highest pinnacles of goodness and
power of which we have any personal knowledge are
reached in the struggle with moral evil and misery,
and that the absolute exclusion of such evil and misery
would have involved the absolute exclusion also of
the brightest summits of divine love. On the whole,
Mr, Mill's chief endeavour, — his attempt to prove
that God, if he exists, — which, as I understand him
(though his language wavers), Mr, Mill thought more
probable than not, — is either a being of considerable,
but very limited power, or not a good being, appears
to collapse utterly. But Mr. Mill was precluded by
his philosophy from taking note at all of the attesta-
tion of God's goodness by the human conscience, and
on this side also his essays seem to me deplorably
defective for the purpose to which he intended them
to contributa

XXI

AMIEL AND OLOUGH

1886

Mrs. Humphry Ward, in the interesting intro-
duction which she has prefixed to her beautiful
translation of AmieVs Journal indicates, though not
as distinctly as I should like, the close analogy
between Amiel's dread of practical life and Clough's
dread of practical life. And there certainly w?is a
close analogy, as well as a wide difference, between
their views. Amiel, it is clear, never did anything
at all equal to his powers, through a jealous regard
for his Qwn intellectual independence. He could not
bear to commit himself to any practical course
which would mortgage, as it were, his intellectual
freedom. "The life of thought alone," he wrote,
"seems to me to have enough elasticity and
immensity, to be free enough from the irreparable ;
practical life makes me afraid." And yet he knew
that a certain amount of practical life was essential
even to a true intellectual life, only he was anxious
to reduce that practical life to a minimum, in order
that the intellectual life might remain as free as
possible. Clough, too, had the greatest distrust of
the practical ties into which he felt that the tender-

XXI AMIEL AND CLOUGH 205

ness of his nature would bring him. The whole
drift of his Amours de Voyage was to show that
fidelity to the intellectual vision is inconsistent with
the class of connections into which the sentiments of
a tender heart bring men ; and not only inconsistent
with them, but so superior to them, that sooner or
later the intellect would assert its independence and
break through the dreams to which, under the
influence of feeling, men submit themselves. The
difference between the two men's views was in
substance this, — Amiel rather condenmed himself for
his fastidious assertion of intellectual freedom, and
held that had his character been stronger, he would
have embarked more boldly on practical life, and
would have made a better use of his talents in con-
sequence ; Clough, on the contrary, rather condemned
himself for the weakness which allowed him to drift
into the closer human ties. He speaks of them as
more or less unreal, as more or less illusions, out of
which he must some day recover, and return to the
assertion of his old intellectual freedom. Amiel
reproached himself for not trusting his instincts more,
and for living the self-conscious lif^ so much ; ^ Clough
reproached himself for letting his instincts dispose
of him so much, and for not resisting the illusions
into which his instincts betrayed him. It is very
curious to compare the different modes in which the
Genevan student of Hegelian philosophy and the
English student of Greek thought, writing at very
nearly the same time, express the ^ same profound
terror of embarrassing themselves by all sorts of ties
with the narrownesses and imperfections of the human
lot. In Amiel's case, however, in spite of the moral
self-reproach with which he viewed his intellectual
fastidiousness, it was undoubtedly in great measure

206 AMIEL AND CLOUGH xxi

the contagion of Hegelian Pantheism which made
him fancy that he could identify himself with the
universal soul of things ; and, on the the other hand,
it was the timidity of an excessive moral sensitiveness
which made it intolerable to him to enter into the
very heart of practical life, with the fear before his
eyes that he might create for himself a lifelong
regret by taking an irreparable false step. This, he
seems to say, was the reason why he never married,
just as it was in part the reason why Clough, in the
Amours de Voyage, makes his hero reproach himself
for his desire to marry. Amiel felt that to enter
into a relation of which he had the highest ideal, and
then to find it far below his ideal, would entail on
him a shame and a remorse which he would simply
be unable to endure. And at the very close of his
life, he writes, with much less than his usual feeling
of self-reproach, a sort of defence of his own detach-
ment from the world. He declares that to have
done anything voluntarily which should bring upon
him an inner shame, would have been unendurable
to him. "I think," he says, "I fear shame worse
than death. Tacitus said, 'Omnia serviliter pro
dominatione.' My tendency is just the contrary.
Even when it is voluntary, dependence is a burden
to me.' I should blush to find myself determined
by interest, submitting to constraint, or becoming the
slave of any will whatever. To me, vanity is slavery,
self-love degrading, and utilitarianism meanness. I
detest the ambition which makes you the liege man
of something or some one. I desire simply to be
my own master. If I had health, I should be the
freest man I know. Although perhaps a little hard-
ness of heart would be desirable to make me still
more independent. ... I only desire what I am

XXI AMIEL AND CLOUGH 207

able for ; and in this way I run my head against no
wall, I cease even to be conscious of the boundaries
which enslave me. I take care to wish for rather
less than is in my power, that I may not even be
reminded of the obstacles in my way. Renunciation
is the safeguard of dignity. Let us strip ourselves,
if we would not be stripped." There you have the
moral secret of Amiel's pride, without the self-blame
with which he usually accompanied it. His pride
was due partly to a moral dread of incurring
responsibilities he could not bear, — "responsibility,"
as he said, " is my invisible nightmare," — and partly
to the dread of appearing ridiculous and contemptible
to himself if he should find himself unequal to them.
That reminds one of the spirit which Cardinal New-
man, as a young man, — before he entered on his
great Tractarian mission, — rebuked in himself : —

" Time was, I shrank from what was right
From fear of what was wrong ;
I would not brave the sacred fight
Because the foe was strong.

But now I cast that finer sense

And sorer shame aside ;
Such dread of sin was indolence.
Such aim at Heaven was pride."

Amiel's feeling is absolutely described in these lines,
though the keen censure cast upon it by Dr. Newman
was probably not reflected, — at least in the latter
part of his career, — in Amiel's own conscience. But,
as I have already hinted, there was doubtless another
and a more intellectual strand in the feeling, — the
deep impression that by binding himself in a number
of complex relations to only half-known or utterly
unknown human beings, — to persons who might

208 AMIEL AND CLOUGH xxi

disappoint him bitterly, and to children unborn who
might turn out anything but the beings to whom he
could sustain the close tie of fatherhood, — he should
fritter away the power of reverie in which he took
such delight. Under the spell of some of the more
ambitious German philosophies, he fancied that he
could identify himself with the soul of things ; and
this dreaming power he valued, as it seems to me,
much beyond its real worth, if indeed that worth
were real at all : —

" My privilege is to be the spectator of my own life-
drama, to be fully conscious of the tragi-comedy of my
own destiny, and, more than that, to be in the secret of
the tragi-comic itself — that is to say, to be unable to take
my illusions seriously, to see myself, so to speak, from
the theatre on the stage, or to be like a man looking from
beyond the tomb into existence. I feel myself forced to
feign a particular interest in my in(Jividual part, while
all the time I am living in the confidence of the poet
who is playing with all these agents which seem so
important, and knows all that they are ignorant of. It
is a strange position, and one which becomes painful as
soon as grief obliges me to betake myself once more to
my own little rSle, binding me closely to it, and warning
me that I am going too far in imagining myself, because
of my conversations with the poet, dispensed from taking
up again my modest part of valet in the piece. — Shake-
speare must have experienced this feeling often, and
Hamlet, I think, must express it somewhere. It is a
Doppelgdngerei, quite German in character, and which
explains the disgust with reality, and the repugnance to
public life, so common among the thinkers of Germany.
There is, as it were, a degradation, a Gnostic fall in thus
folding one's wings and going back again into the vulgar
shell of one's own individuality. Without grief, which is
the string of this venturesome kite, man would soar too

XXI AMIEL AND CLOUGH 209

quickly and too high, and the chosen souls would be lost
for the race, like balloons which, save for gravitation,
would never return from the empyrean."

This passage gives the intellectual facet of the moral
feeling at the root of Amiel's "finer sense" and
" sorer shame," — the moral feeling which made him
shrink back from all sorts of practical responsibility,
lest he should undertake what was beyond him, or
lose his complete detachment from the narrowness
of life. The two feelings together — the love of
reverie in the larger sense, and the dread of responsi-
bility,— sealed up his life almost hermetically within
his own bosom, and made him a stranger to the
world. He longed to free himself from the narrow
shell of his own individuality, and consequently
dreaded accepting duties and obligations which would
have made that individuality more definite and more
oppressive. And yet Amiel felt himself tied down
to this narrower life by one string which he could
not ignore. When he felt the touch of grief, —
which, as Mrs. Browning says, is something more
than love, since "grief, indeed, is love, and grief
beside," — then he was aware that he was hemmed
within the conditions of a distinct individual lot,
that he was seeking something which he could not
obtain, while yet he could not suppress, or even wish
to suppress, his desire to obtain it. Grief brought
home to him the strict limits of his individuality as
nothing else brought them home. He could deny
himself the more intimate ties of life, but he could
not deny himself grief for the severance of such ties
as he had. He could not soar above his own
individual nature when his heart was bleeding.
Then he felt that it was not for him to look at his
VOL. I p

210 AMIEL AND CLOUGH XXI

own life with an impartial imagination, as he would
look at any other person's, or as Shakespeare might
have looked at one of the characters he created ; for
then he felt that throb of anguish which he could
not evade by any soaring on imaginative wings,
however lofty and free the flight. His intellect was
held captive by his griefs, — otherwise, as he said, he
might have almost lost his individuality in the ecstasy
of reverie.

Clough's attitude of mind towards these practical
ties, of which he, too, dreaded the constraining
power, was very different. He evidently regarded
the intellectual life as the true life, and the life of
ordinary man as more or less a condescension to
conditions within which his nature could never suffer
itself to be long confined. He looked on at the
actual experience of his sensitive and tender nature
with a little amusement and a good deal of contempt.
This is how he makes his hero lecture himself, for
instance, when he finds himself gradually falling in
love : —

"Yes, I am going, I feel it, — I feel and cannot recall it, —
Fusing with this thing and that, entering into all sorts

of relations.
Tying I know not what ties, which, whatever they are,

I know one thing.
Will and must, woe is me, be one day painfully broken —
Broken with painful remorses, with shrinkings of soul

and relentings,
Foolish delays, more foolish evasions, most foolish

renewals.
But I have made the step, have quitted the shij) of

Ulysses ;
Quitted the sea and the shore, passed into the magical

island ;

XXI AJyilEL AND CLOUGH 211

Yet on my lips is the molyj medicinal, offered of Hermes.
I have come into the precinct, the labyrinth closes

around me.
Path into path rounding slyly ; I pace slowly on, and

the fancy
Struggling awhile to sustain the long sequences, weary,

bewildered,
Fain must collapse in despair ; I yield, I am lost, and

know nothing ;
Yet in my bosom unbroken remaineth the clue ; I shall

use it.
Lo, with the rope of my loins, I descend through the

fissure, I sink, yet
Truly secure in the strength of invisible arms up above

me.
Still, wheresoever I swing, wherever to shore, or to

shelf, or
Floor of cavern uu trodden, shell-sprinkled, enchanting,

I know I
Yet shall one time feel the strong cord tighten about

me, —
Feel it relentless upbear me from spots I would rest in,

and though the
Rope swing wildly, I faint, crags wound me, from crag

unto crag re-
Bounding, or, wide in the void, I die ten deaths, ere the

end, I
Yet shall plant firm foot on the broad lofty spaces I

quit, shall
Feel underneath me again the great massy strengths of

abstraction.
Look yet abroad from the height, o'er the sea whose salt

wave I have tasted."

Evidently, to Clough's mind, "the great massy
strengths of abstraction " were the levels on which
only he could tread firmly, while all the experiences

212 AMIEL AND CLOUGH

XXI

he was destined to undergo in the region of feeling
were a sort of illusion, a sort of dream. To Amiel,
grief was the cord which kept him from soaring into
aimless reverie. To Clough, thought was the rope
which kept him from sinking into the enchantments
of a world of illusions. He trusted his thoughts, not
his feelings. Clough's feelings charmed him away
from the life of thought, and thought brought him
home again to the real and solid. Amiel's thoughts
charmed him away from the life of feeling, and his
feelings brought him home again to the real and
solid.

Was either of them right 1 I should say not.
Thought undoubtedly does correct, and correct with
most salutary inexorability, the illusions of feeling.
And, again, feeling does correct, and correct with
equally salutary inexorability, the day-dreams of
thought. The man who habitually distrusts his
feelings is just as certain to live in a world of illusion
las the man who habitually distrusts his thoughts.
But undoubtedly Amiel, who allowed the illusion of
imaginative reverie and intellectual freedom to govern
his career much more absolutely than Clough ever
allowed his faith in " the massy strengths of abstract-
tion " to govern his career, made the greater mistake
of the two. Had Amiel not been so sedulous to
ward off the pressure of responsibilities to which he
did not feel fully equal, he might doubtless have
made mistakes, and entered into relations which he
would have found painful to him and a shock to his
ideal. But the truth is that those relations which
are not all that we desire them to be in human life,
which are not ideal relations, are of the very essence
of the discipline of the will and of the affections, and
no man ever yet escaped them, without escaping one

XXI AMIEL AND CLOUGH 213

of the most useful experiences of life. Amiel, like
Clough, was far too much afraid of hampering the
free play of his intellect. No man ever yet did a
great work for the world, without hampering the
free play of his intellect. And yet it is no paradox
to say that no man ever yet had the highest command
of his intellect who had not times without number
hampered its free play, in order that he might enter
the more deeply into the deeper relations of the
human heart.

XXII

MR. ARNOLD'S SUBLIMATED BIBLE

1874

Mr. Matthew Arnold returns, in the October num-
ber of the Contemporary Eeview,to his curiously hopeless
task of convincing people that the Bible can be read,
understood, enjoyed, and turned to the most fruitful
moral account, without according any credit to the
supernatural experience and beliefs of its writers ; —
that all that is most characteristic and noblest in the
Bible can be appropriated without even once assuming
that its solemnly reiterated, century-long belief in a
divine Love and Care, was due to anything but the
imaginative mould of poetic thought. That this hope-
less task is undertaken by Mr. Arnold in the interests
of the Bible, and with no other view, I heartily believe.
He thinks the only scientific substratum in the
meaning of the word ' God ' which needs to be assumed
in reading the Bible, is "the Eternal not-ourselves
which makes for righteousness," and that everything
which imputes to God affections, and rule, and pur-
pose, is of the nature of poetry, to be paralleled, we
suppose, rather in Wordsworth's poetical language
about Nature than in the thoughts which children
entertain about their father's and mother's care. This

XXII MR. ARNOLD'S SUBLIMATED BIBLE 215

extraordinary view, — which seems to me nearer pure
illusion and extravagance than I ever before found
in connection with the fine, critical judgment of a
man as calm and clear in insight as Mr. Arnold, — he
presses with the greatest earnestness through a great
part of the book on ' Literature and Dogma,' and now
again through the answer he makes to the various
criticisms upon it. Well, if the personifying language
about God is mere poetry, it seems quite impossible
to say where the poetry of the Bible ends and its
serious meaning begins. Mr. Arnold thinks that all
which concerns the law of righteousness and the
secret of the sweetness of self-surrender, is serious
meaning. But how is any one to feel the least
security of that, who takes Mr. Arnold's view about
the poetical vagueness and uncertainty of the lan-
guage ascribing care and love and judgment to God 1
Open the Bible anywhere where it speaks of righteous-
ness in connection with God, — and that is almost
everywhere, — and see whether there is any more
exactness or realism, any less poetic vagueness in
speaking of the former than of the latter. "The
Lord hath made known his salvation : his righteous-
ness hath he openly showed in the sight of the
heathen. He hath remembered his mercy and his
truth towards the House of Israel ; all the ends of
the earth have seen the salvation of God." Now,
that is an average passage, chosen almost at random,
and not peculiar in any way in its mention of " God "
or of " righteousness." Is it in any degree easier to
ascribe a vague, poetical sense to the words in this
passage which express activity, will, love, mercy,
than to the word " righteousness " itself 1 If one
were painfully to paraphrase the passage, so as to get
rid of all personification in it, one might construe it

216 MR. Arnold's sublimated bible xxh

as asserting that a specific stream of tendency had re-
sulted in man's knowledge of his proper wholeness and
integrity, and had further resulted in a clear conviction
on the part of foreign races that tendencies " making
for righteousness" are in the ascendant on earth;
nay, that a certain similarity between the existing
drift of things and that of former days, even suggests
an analogy between the recurrences of specific results
after specific historical causes, and that which in the
life of a man we should call memory of his former acts
of mercy and fidelity; and further, that the whole
Earth had come to know in what human wholeness
and integrity consist. Now, is not such a paraphrase
far more monstrous and alien to the Bible, in a liter-
ary sense, far less in keeping with the whole tenor of
its thought, than one which should keep the literal
meaning of all the personal words, but which should
sublimate the meaning of ' righteousness ' into a mere
disposition to accommodate oneself to the supreme
volition, no matter what that might be ?

I maintain that if Mr. Arnold will treat the most
characteristic thoughts and words of the Bible as
vague, poetical metaphors, he cannot by any possi-
bility be allowed to assign a strict and uniform inter-
pretation to the one word on which his whole
construction of the Bible rests. I am not arguing
that " righteousness " has no specific meaning in the
Bible. I believe it has. In the Fifteenth Psalm, for
instance, the righteous man is described as one who
speaketh the truth in his heart, backbiteth not with
his tongue, nor doeth evil to his neighbour ; in whose
eyes a vile person is contemned, but who honoureth
them that fear the Lord ; who sweareth to his own
hurt and changeth not ; who is not an usurer, and
who takes no reward to injure the innocent. No

XXII MR. Arnold's sublimated bible 217

description can be more definite, so far as it goes, and
there are plenty of passages where similar descrip-
tions of what is meant by righteousness are given.
But descriptions of God's love and care and judgment
quite as definite are given quite as repeatedly.
" The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger,
and plenteous in mercy. He will not always chide,
neither will he keep his anger for ever. He hath
not dealt with us after our sins, nor rewarded us
according to our iniquities ; for as the heaven is high
above the earth, so great is his mercy towards them
that fear him." Now how is it conceivable that lan-
guage of this kind should be treated as poetical
metaphor, if the language describing human righteous-
ness is to be treated as exact definition ? Mr. Arnold
must choose between two alternatives. He must
evaporate the whole ; must make the prophecies and
teachings of the Bible a mere series of imaginative
lyrics, in which no one can say, with any certainty,
what is fancy and what is fact ; or he must take the
personal language about God as straightforwardly as
he takes the moral language about man. It is not
criticism at all, it is playing fast-and-loose with lan-
guage in the most ridiculous manner, to regard the
long series of passionate appeals to God by his faith-
fulness and his mercy and his truth as mere efforts
of poetry, while all the words describing the moral
conceptions of man are interpreted with scientific
strictness. If Mr. Arnold compares the personifying
language of the Bible about God, with the personify-
ing language of Wordsworth about Nature, I can only
ask where it appears that Wordsworth seriously incul-
cates prayer to Nature, or treats distrust in the
promises of Nature as a sin, or addresses her in the
matter-of-fact, down-right, eager mood of real expecta-

218 MR. Arnold's sublimated bible xxii

tion and confidence so common in the Psalms, " Thy
word is a lamp unto my feet and a lantern to my
path. I have sworn and I will perform it, that I
will keep thy righteous judgments. I am afflicted
very much. Quicken me, 0 Lord, according unto
thy word." Could 'Nature' be addressed in that
way 1 The truth is, that one has a real difficulty in
believing, what is, nevertheless, evident, that Mr.
Arnold is serious on this head. He seems to me to
have taken up a purely childish position in relation
to it. Of course, a rational man may hold that the
Bible represents nothing but the imaginative side of
man, more or less mixed with other purely human
apprehensions. But it seems to me very nearly im-
possible for a rational man to assert that the authors
of the Bible used the personal language about God
in any less serious and profoundly convinced sense
than that in which they spoke of the secrets of man's
moral experience. The teaching as to the human
and as to the divine character may stand together
or fall together. But it is not serious criticism, it is
playing on human credulity, to maintain that the
prophets are less convinced of God's care and love
and mercy and judgment, in relation to man, than
they are of the best mode of attaining inward peace.
Sublimate the Bible, if you will. But at least let
Mr. Arnold be a reasonable critic, and sublimate all
its serious teaching together. He cannot pick and
choose, and say that this is poetry, because he does
not think its drift can be ' verified ' ; and that that,
on the other hand, is prose, because he has persuaded
himself that he has ' verified ' it.

And so, again, in relation to Mr. Arnold's view as
to " the secret of Jesus," — dying that we may live,
— giving up the eager human longing, that we may

XXII MR. ARNOLD'S SUBLIMATED BIBLE 219

have the higher and purer life which consists in re-
nouncing your own will for something better. No
one can write more eloquently of this than Mr. Arnold.
No one can, so far, interpret more truly and delicately
the teaching of our Lord and of St. Paul. But it is
not criticism, it is not sense, to separate their language
on this subject from their language as to the springs
of the new life which they gain by dying to this.
Nothing can be more explicit than the language held.
It is not the sweetness of mere renunciation, it is the
sweetness of the life in 1pm who demands the renun-
ciation, which Christ and St. Paul preach. If you
are to suppose that they are only talking poetry on
the latter head, why not on the former also ? The
secret of the sweetness of renunciation is set forth in
such words as these : — " I have glorified thee on the
earth : I have finished the work which thou gavest me
to do. And now, 0 Father ! glorify me with thine own
self, with the glory which I had with thee before the
world was." " In all these things we are more than
conquerors, through Bim who loved us. For I am
persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor
principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor
things to come. Nor height, nor depth, nor any other
creature, shall be able to separate us from the love
of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." Now,
is it conceivable that any critic can read this language
and think of the personification of God in it as
poetical metaphor, and not serious in every sense in
which the secret of self-renunciation is regarded as
serious 1 Why, the gain of the self-renunciation is the
gain of God's love ; and without God's love, where
would be the gain 1 St. Paul even goes so far as to say,
perha^s_wlth_s©me_ exaggeration, that without this
hope of a life in God alter death, he should be of all

220 MR. Arnold's sublimated bible xxii

men the most miserable. And what sane critic could
substitute for the personal language in such passages as
these, Mr. Arnold's equivalent for God, " the Eternal
not-ourselves that makes for righteousness," — I do not
mean, of course, for the clumsiness of the literary
effect, that Mr. Arnold would grant at once, — but even
with any hope of saving the sense ? How could an im-
personal tendency glorify Christ with the glory that
he had with it before the world was ? How could
an impersonal tendency be so dear to St. Paul as to
make him more than a conqueror, and wrap him in
the ecstasy of a perfect union ? These are questions
which do not bear even asking. Mr. Arnold seems
to be merely imposing on us. It is open to him to
maintain that the Bible is a dream, but it is not open
to him to maintain that it never seriously expresses
faith in the personal life and love and goodness of
God, in the very same sense in which it attaches the
most intense moral significance to the righteousness
of man.

XXIll

MATTHEW ARNOLD AS CRITIC
1888

The volume of Essays in Criticism which had been
collected by Matthew Arnold from various periodicals
before his death, and which has just been published
by Messrs. Macmillan with a few admirable words of
preface, — I suppose by Lord Coleridge, — is a worthy
memorial of the great critic we have lost. For
sureness as well as confidence of literary judg-
ment, I doubt whether Matthew Arnold had his
equal. Some very good critics are sure without
having sufficient confidence to speak out plainly their
sure judgments when those judgments are likely to
be unpopular. Others, — not usually good, — are
confident without being sure. But it is very rarely
that we meet with a critic so nearly infallible as
Matthew Arnold on any question of the finer taste,
who has the confidence to express a judgment that
is not welcome to the public at large with the calm
authority of Matthew Arnold. I cannot give a
better instance of what I mean than the authority
with which he declines to regard the sentiment
expressed in Burns's singularly popular poem, "A
man's a man for a' that," as expressing the core of

222 MATTHEW ARNOLD AS CRITIC xxill

Burns's most serious conviction. " The accent of high
seriousness born of absolute sincerity," he decides, is
not there. " Surely, if our sense is quick, we must per-
ceive that we have not in these passages" [one of which
is chosen from " A man's a man for a' that "] " a voice
from the very inmost soul of the genuine Burns ; he is
not speaking to us from those depths ; he is more or
less preaching. And the compensation for admiring
these passages the less, for missing the perfect poetic
accent in them, will be that we shall admire more the
poetry where that accent is found." This is admirably
said, and the general judgment on Burns is as sound as
it is incisive : — " His genuine criticism of life, when
the sheer poet in him speaks, is ironic ; it is not —

* Thou. Power Supreme, whose mighty scheme
These woes of mine fulfil.
Here firm I rest ; they must be best.
Because they are Thy will : '

it is far rather ' Whistle owre the lave o't.' Yet we
may say of. him, as we say of Chaucer, that of life
and the world as they come before him, his view is
large, free, shrewd, benignant, — truly poetic there-
fore,"— but still that Burns has not " the accent of
the poetic virtues of the highest masters." Matthew
Arnold sees with admiration "the spring," the
"bounding swiftness" in Burns's manner. He
reckons Burns a far greater force than Chaucer,
though " the world of Chaucer is fairer, richer, more
significant than that of Burns ; but when the large-
ness and freedom of Burns gets full sweep, as in
*Tam O'Shanter,' or still more in that puissant and
splendid production, ' The Jolly Beggars,' his world
may be what it will, his genius triumphs over it."
No bolder and yet surer piece of criticism was probably

XXIII MATTHEW ARNOLD AS CRITIC 223

ever written than that which virtually puts not only
"Tarn O'Shanter," but "The Jolly Beggars," above
" The Cotter's Saturday Night " and " A man's a man
for a' that," — and yet the criticism is sound. In the
two latter pieces, Burns was expressing what he wished
to feel, but on the whole did not succeed in feeling,
though it would have been better for him if he had
succeeded. But in the two former he gave his genius
full swing, and succeeded in impressing on them a
perfectly superb effect of force and reality. Of " The
Jolly Beggars "Matthew Arnold justly remarks, that in
spite of its hideousness, squalor, and even bestiality,
" it has a breadth, truth, and power which make the
famous scene in Auerbach's Cellar, of Goethe's Faust^
seem artifical and tame beside it, and which are only
matched by Shakespeare and Aristophanes."

Bolder and surer criticism than that it would be
hard to find, and we shall not easily find it again,
now that Mr. Arnold has left us. But when I speak
of Mr. Arnold's criticism as "sure," I should limit
this judgment to his criticism of that sort of poetry
which aims at giving us reality, for occasionally,
in dealing with Shelley, who certainly managed to
create an unearthly sphere of his own and to fill it
with music, Arnold's judgment is not so sure. And
one might gather as much from the theoretic part of
his critical essays. His chief conception of the
sphere of true poetry is what he calls the higher
criticism of life, and on all poetry which can properly
be called the criticism of life, whether it be criticism
of the life of a flower or a bird, or criticism of the
higher life of man, his judgment is most sure. But
poets like Shelley cannot be tested by any standard
of this kind. They create a world of their own, and
it will be the few rather than the many who enjoy

224 MATTHEW ARNOLD AS CRITIC xxill

such a world and can live in it. And for apprecia-
tion of that kind of poetry, Matthew Arnold's
judgment, fine as it was, was not light and flexible
enough. He loved clear outlines and unambiguous
drift. He did not understand either the fine witchery
of Shelley, or his air spirits and earth spirits, his
power of wailing like a banshee, or of singing a song
of triumph over the evanescence of his shadowy
conceptions. That was not criticism of life, and
Matthew Arnold's vivacity of sympathy hardly
extended to worlds of which it was so difficult to
judge whether or not they really call up a corre-
sponding world of emotion that has a beauty and
unity of its own, though it is not ordinary human
emotion, and does not answer to the ordinary exciting
causes of human joy or grief. Of course, there will
necessarily be something hazardous in the criticism
of poets who are, like Shelley, essentially poets of
the unreal, who, when their spell is most powerful,
make shadows take the place of things, and fill the
ear with the vibrations of a new geolian harp con-
structed out of the sensitive nerves of a unique
nature. Sure as Mr. Arnold's criticism is when he
is dealing with Milton, or Gray, or Burns, or Words-
worth, or Keats, or Byron, he is thrown out when he
touches Shelley, more perhaps by the want of a
standard by which to judge him, than by want of
sympathy, but probably to some extent by both
causes. Indeed, this defect is connected with one of
Arnold's merits as a critic. He always asked himself
so pointedly what it was that a poet meant to
convey, and whether he had really succeeded in
conveying it, that his method almost debarred him
from answering the very difficult question whether
Shelley's evanescent lights and shadows and essences

XXIII MATTHEW ARNOLD AS CRITIC 225

and potencies of melody, did or did not constitute a
genuine new creation at all. The very qualities
which made him a most sure critic of poets who, to
use his own phrase, attempted the highest criticism
of life, made him an uncertain critic of poets who
attempted something altogether different, — the com-
position of a fantasia of which the only test was its
delightfulness to the ear that heard it. Matthew
Arnold's mind was essentially positive. He knew
what was false and true to life, and hardly ever failed
to point out where the truth was, where the falsetto
note came in. But his confidence in this positive
ear of his was a disqualification for criticising those
unique efforts to supply both the world to be
criticised and the standard of criticism, in which
once and again strange spirits like Shelley's have
attained success.

Matthew Arnold as a critic has rendered us all
his debtors not only by the substance of his
criticisms, but by their style. He has celebrated
duly the grand style of Milton, and he has done
something to give to his own literary judgments that
air of sincerity, confidence, and clear authority which
give to true criticisms almost all their charm and
half their finality. Here is Matthew Arnold's fine
criticism on Milton's style : —

" Virgil, whom Milton loved and honoured, has at the
end of the ^neid a noble passage, where Juno, seeing the
defeat of Tumus and the Italians imminent, the victory
of the Trojan invaders assured, entreats Jupiter that Italy
may nevertheless survive and be herself still, may retain
her own mhid. manners, and language, and not adopt
those of the conqueror,

' Sit Latium, sint Albani per sccula reges ! '
VOL. I Q

226

MATTHEW ARNOLD AS CRITIC

Jupiter grants the prayer; he promises perpetuity and
the future to Italy — Italy reinforced by whatever virtue
the Trojan race has, but Italy, not Troy. This we may
take as a sort of parable suiting ourselves. All the
Anglo-Saxon contagion, all the flood of Anglo-Saxon
commonness, beats vainly against the great style but
cannot shake it, and has to accept its triumph. But it
triumphs in Milton, in one of our own race, tongue, faith,
and morals. Milton has made the great style no longer
an exotic here ; he has made it an inmate amongst us, a
leaven, and a power. Nevertheless he, and his hearers
on both sides of the Atlantic, are English, and will
remain English —

•Sermonem Ausonii patrium moresque tenebunt.'

The English race overspreads the world, and at the same
time the ideal of an excellence the most high and the
most rare abides a possession with it for ever."

Has Matthew Arnold not almost rendered Milton's
poetic style into prose, — prose far better than
Milton's prose, which was turgid and violent, — prose
which is at once stately and lucid, sonorous and
simple, graceful and vigorous ?

XXIV
M. RENAN

1883

There is hardly so curious a study among the many
curious autobiographical studies to be found in
English literature, as that which M. Renan has
recently given to the world in the Revm des Deux
Mondes, under the title of " Memories of Infancy and
Youth." It is much franker, if I remember Gibbon's
autobiography accurately, than that of Gibbon,
though it has a somewhat similar ring of calm self-
complacency. Of course, there is nothing in M.
Renan of Gibbon's old-fashioned pomp. Renan is,
as he says, a man of his age, and the culture of his
age ridicules the pomp of manner which the culture
of Gibbon's age admired, though, by the way, there
is a little of the same stiltedness in the records
remaining from Renan's youth. The letter to his
Director, in which he avowed his doubts and his
inability to return to Saint Sulpice, has the air of a
somewhat pompous young man. In it he magni-
ficently reproaches God for having brought him into
such straits, and takes credit to himself for the
generous confidence which, in spite of this ill-treat-
ment, he still placed, — though he did not continue

228 M. RENAN

XXIV

to place it very long, — in God's providence and
government. There is a note of grandiosity in this :
— "In fact, Monsieur, when I contemplate the
inextricable thread in which God has entangled me
during the sleep of my reason and my liberty, at a
time when I was following docilely the path which
he traced before me, desolating thoughts spring up
in my soul. ... I have never doubted that a wise
and good Providence guides the universe, guides me
to conduct me to ray goal. Nevertheless, it is not
without effort that I have been able to give a formal
contradiction to apparent facts. I often tell myself
that common good-sense is hardly capable of appre-
ciating the government of Providence, whether it be
of humanity, or of the universe, or of the individual.
The isolated consideration of facts would never lead
one into optimism. It needs some courage to make
this generous admission to God, in spite of experience.
I hope never to hesitate on this point, and whatever
may be the evils which Providence still reserves for
me, I shall always believe that he leads me to my
greatest possible good, by way of the least possible
evil." However, this generous admission was not
persevered in for any very long time. M. Renan
had hardly emancipated himself from the rule of the
Seminary, when he withdrew his confidence from
Providence. With his belief in verbal inspiration,
the whole of his theological creed collapsed at once.
For him, everything appears to have depended on
his power of retaining his belief that the Book of
Judith was not a physical impossibility ; that the
second part of Isaiah was written by the same
prophet who wrote the first part ; that the Fourth
Gospel is never in the smallest contradiction with
the first three, nor any of these last with each other.

XXIV M. RENAN 229

So soon as this belief went, all belief went ; and this
though, so far as I know, the Roman Catholic Church
has never yet defined the meaning it attaches to the
word "inspiration," or the amount of those finite
and human misconceptions the traces of which
may be permitted to remain embodied amidst the
evidences of an overruling divinity. Doubtless, the
Protestant Church has usually inclined to a much
greater liberality in this matter than the great
majority of Roman Catholic divines. Still, there
seems to be very little excuse in the actual decisions
of the Roman Church for M. Renan's eagerness — I
may almost call it — to stake everything on the
question of the verbal infallibility of Scripture. He
repeats again and again in these recollections of his
youth that to detect Scripture in a single minute
error was enough for him. "Let us assume that
amidst the thousand skirmishes in which criticism,
and the apology of the orthodox faith have engaged,
there have been some in which, by accident and
contrary to appearances, the orthodox side is right ;
it is impossible that it is right a thousand times in its
wager, and it is enough that it should be wrong in
but a single instance for the thesis of inspiration to
be annihilated." Of course if the Roman Church
had ever committed itself absolutely to the rigid
accuracy of every number and every human phrase
in Scripture, clear evidence of a single error would
be enough to extinguish belief in the infallibility of
that Church. But the Roman theologians utterly
deny that this is so, and at all events, M. Renan
knew perfectly well that in other Christian com-
munions there is ample liberty of criticism of the
human documents in which revelation is embodied,
and ample freedom to combine this liberty of

230 M. RENAN XXIV

criticism with a profound belief in the reality of
that revelation. But in truth, if we may trust his
account of himself, that opinion which he describes
as being formed " by a sort of impersonal concretion
outside oneself, of which one is in some manner
nothing but the spectator," was at work almost
immediately after his exit from the Catholic Church,
forming itself into the most polished concrete of
absolute sceptical impenetrability to supernatural
influenca imaginable by man. Supernatural influence
has, indeed, no existence for M. Renan, except as a
dream of the past, which stimulates more than any-
thing else the play of his good-humoured irony and
his genial contempt. It is true that he speaks of
his first impressions of life after giving up Christianity
as very desolate impressions, — impressions of a
world from which all that was great had vanished
away ; but even this portion of his reminiscences
does not convey to us any very deep feeling of
reality. One gathers rather that it was the giving-
way of the ecclesiastical framework of life that M.
Renan missed, much more than his faith itself.
"Like an enchanted circle," he says, "Catholicism
embraces the whole life with so much force that,
when one is deprived of it, everything seems fade
and sad. I felt terribly like an exile (dSpaysd). The
universe produced on me the effect of a dry, cold
desert. From the moment that Christianity ceased
to be the truth, the rest appeared to me frivolous,
and hardly worth taking an interest in. The
collapse of my life upon itself left me with a feeling
of vacuity, like that which follows a fever or a
disappointed love. The struggle Avhich had entirely
occupied me had been so intense that I now found
everything narrow and contemptible. The world

XXIV M. REN AN 231

seemed to me mediocre and poor in virtue. What I
saw appeared to me a fall, a decadence ; I regarded
myself as lost in an ant-hill of pigmies." That has
more in it of the dejection which attends the loss of
the sense of a mighty organisation behind one, than
the loss of a mighty companionship within one.
And, indeed, there is no evidence at all in these
reminiscences that M. Eenan ever did lose this
conviction, or, indeed, that he ever held it as more
than a creed vouched for by the highest dogmatic
authority. It is true, he says in one place, " The
idea that in abandoning the Church, I should
remain faithful to Jesus, got full control of me ; and
if I had been capable of a belief in apparitions, I
should certainly have seen Jesus saying to me,
'Abandon me, in order to be my disciple.'" But, as
a matter of fact, whatever, as M. Renan so quaintly
says, he might or might not have seen, if he had
been "capable of" a particular belief, — which I take
the liberty of remarking that he no more knows,
than any of us know what we might see, if we
thought something different from what we do think,
— there is nothing approaching to the attitude of
discipleship towards Christ visible either in this or
any other of his writings known to the world. On
the contrary, what one feels is that from the moment
when he abandoned Christianity, M. Renan took
Christ under his historical patronage, and made a
sort of vow to himself to be a generous sceptic,
courteous and benignant to his old Roman-Catholic
masters, full of gracious sentiment to his former
Lord, and constant to maintain the fascinating
character of the childish faith which he had
deliberately renounced. Unlike Gibbon, M. Renan
would mingle suavity with all his scepticismj thereby,

232 M. REN AN xxi\

as he well knew, making it all the more eiFective.
The scorn which is really kindly and appreciative,
tells much more effectively than the scorn which is
purely contemptuous. When you can afford frankly
to praise, — as you praise a child, — there is no danger
of your returning to adore, M. Eenan certainly
misled himself, if he supposed, as he tells us, that
the papers, even of his earliest sceptical period, were
in any sense Christian. No doubt, they expressed
" a lively liking [goUt] for the Evangelical ideal, and
for the character of the Founder of Christianity,"
just as they also expressed a lively liking for the
fathers of Saint Sulpice. So Wordsworth had
undoubtedly a lively liking for the little girl at
Goodrich Castle, who spoke of her dead brother and
sister as still belonging to the little family of which
she herself was the joy, and as lying under the grass
to listen while she sat and sang to them. But the
whole spirit of M. Kenan's reminiscences, as well as
of his better known writings, belies the notion that
he ever carried a Christianity of any sort out of his
E-oman Catholicism. From the time he left the
Roman Church, he lived apparently under a sort of
honourable understanding with himself, that he
would be tender and gentle and generous in his
recognition of the better aspects of the religion he
had thrown off. But every trace of obedience to it,
of reverence for it, of inward piety towards it, dis-
appeared finally from the moment when he escaped
into the shade, — as he reminds himself that
chrysalises do when they are about to assume the
form of a butterfly, — when he cast off his soutane^
and took the dress of a layman.

Nothing is so disagreeable in these reminiscences
as Kenan's account of the change which his scepticism

XXIV M. RENAN 233

gradually made in his estimate of moral conduct
It is not, indeed, always easy to say when M. Renan
is talking seriously, and when he is talking in a tone
of deliberate badinage. He has a large fund of mild
humour, and does not scruple to avail himself of it
to mystify his readers. When, for instance, he tells
us of his publisher's first visit to him, and of that
imposing stamped agreement which M. Levy brought
with him, the very sight of which prevented M.
Renan from making the few suggestions which were
in his mind to obtrude, lest so beautiful a sheet of
paper should be lost, he is no more serious than
when he tells us how he had to renounce travelling
by omnibus, because the conductors had ceased to
regard him as a passenger of whom any account
need be taken. Possibly he is not quite serious
when he explains how pleasant it is in the East to
go accompanied by an armed man whom one
positively forbids to use his arms, or how much he
should like to have the power of life and death over
every one, in order not to use it ; or how he should
delight to keep slaves, solely in order to pet them
and make them adore him. But if he is not serious
when he tells us that after being emancipated from
Christianity, he continued to live a strictly moral life
only because no man should allow himself more than
one breach of social convenances at the same time,
and that, therefore, and therefore only, he can boast
of having been loved only by four women, his mother,
his sister, his wife, and his daughter ; or again, Avhen
he says that he soon discovered the vanity of the
virtue of chastity, " as of all others," and recognised
especially that Nature does not in any way " attach any
importance to man being chaste " ; when he assures
us that there is "something ridiculous in being

234 M. RENAN XXIV

virtuous, when one is not obliged to be so by any-
professional obligation"; that "the priest, recognising
it as his object in life to be chaste, just as the soldier
recognises it as his to be brave, is almost the only
one who can, without ridicule, hold to the principles
concerning which morality and fashion indulge them-
selves in such strange combats " ; if M. Renan is not
serious, I say, in all this part of his autobiography,
I can only express my opinion that the net result is
very nearly as bad as if he is. To write in this
fashion, with the wish to mystify the world, and
make every one believe that morality, like religion,
is mere matter for badinage, is at least as bad as
holding specifically that unprofessional virtue is
rather ridiculous than otherwise. M. Renan says
that a good deal of his gentleness is probably due
to a bottom of indifference, — and, on the whole,
I agree with him. Complacency with himself, a
sentiment of kindliness to the world at large, a
deeply-rooted horror of the selfishness of exclusive
friendships, a vague feeling of gratitude to some one,
" without exactly knowing to whom I ought to be
grateful," — this last naturally enough, as M. Renan
is deeply convinced that there is no appreciable trace
of the action of any Will in the world superior to
that of man, — such is the stock of moral virtues of
which M. Renan has made salvage, after the wreck
of his faith. In fine, they do not leave me with any
very deep respect for this smooth, humorous, learned,
industrious, imaginative man, who has slipped so
easily along the "charming promenade" of his
extremely sentimental existence.

XXV

PROFESSOR TYNDALL ON PHYSICAL AND
MORAL NECESSITY

1877

Professor Tyndall is a great populariser, and I
cannot doubt that his attempt at the Midland
Institute on Monday to reason from the principle
that the quantity of physical energy in the world is
a fixed amount, and that none is ever either lost or
gained, to the principle of moral necessity, namely,
that every man is merely what his circumstances
and his wishes make him, his wishes being as truly
circumstances dependent on the hereditary and
other conditions of his organisation as any other of
the determining forces around him, — may have a
great effect on the ripening intelligence of the
country, if only from the influence naturally attach-
ing to his name. But though he puts his case with
his usual force and vivacity, he adds nothing what-
ever to the substance of what has been stated and re-
stated hundreds of times by his predecessors in the
same field. Indeed, the force with which he states
the case conduces, as all force of statement naturally
must, to a clear indication of the points at which his
view entirely fails to meet the facts ; and the

236

PROFESSOR TYNDALL ON

XXV

natural candour of a genuinely scientific man renders
the exposition of these glaring deficiencies of his
view more striking still. I hope, therefore, that
those who do not merely accept Professor Tyndall's
authority as conclusive, but who go over the same
ground without his obvious bias towards the
physical explanation of our moral nature, will
soon find themselves pulled up by difficulties far
more striking than any which are involved in the
view of life which Professor Tyndall was endeavour-
ing to refute. These difficulties accordingly I shall
attempt to point out, and I shall succeed best
probably in doing this by humbly following in
Professor Tyndall's footsteps, only pushing to their
legitimate consequences all the principles of his
address.

Professor Tyndall teaches us, then, first, that as
a given stock of heat is generated by a given amount
of motion, and that the same amount of motion may
be produced by the loss of that stated amount of
heat, so also the force we employ in muscular exer-
tion is the force due to a given amount of fuel sup-
plied to the body. The oxidation of food within
the body leads to the development of an exactly
equivalent amount of heat, some of it within the
body, some of it outside it. "We place food in
our stomachs as so much combustible matter. It is
first dissolved by purely chemical processes, and the
nutritive fluid is poured into the blood. Then it
comes into contact with atmospheric oxygen, ad-
mitted by the lungs. It unites with oxygen, as
wood or coal might unite with it in a furnace. The
matter-products of the union, if I may use the term,
are the same in both cases, — namel}^, carbonic acid
and water. The force-products are also the same,

XXV PHYSICAL AND MORAL NECESSITY 237

heat within the body, or heat and work outside the
body. Thus far, every action of the body belongs
to the domain either of physics or of chemistry."
Further, Professor Tyndall shows us how the action
of the nerves consists in liberating a vast amount
of stored force which is latent in the muscles, just
as the power of steam is latent in the steam-engine
till some one opens a valve which sets the steam to
work, or as the electric force is stored in a galvanic
battery till some one completes the circuit which sets
the battery to work. It is not that the nervous
energy directly produces the muscular energy, but
that it liberates muscular energy which had been
previously stored up. Then Professor Tyndall
quotes from Lange the following illustration of this
liberation of pent-up force : —

" A merchant sits complacently in his easy chair, not
knowing whether smoking, sleeping, newspaper-reading,
or the digestion of food occupies the largest portion of
his personality, A servant enters the room with a
telegram bearing the words 'Antwerp, etc. — Jones and
Co. have failed.' — 'Tell James to harness the horses.'
The servant flies. Up starts the merchant, wide awake,
makes a dozen paces through the room, descends to the
counting-house, dictates letters and forwards despatches.
He jumps into his carriage, the horses snort, and their
driver is immediately at the Bank, on the Bourse, and
among his commercial friends. Before an hour has
elapsed he is again at home, when he throws himself
once more into his easy chair, with a deep-drawn
sigh, ' Thank God, I am protected against the worst !
And now for further reflection.' This complex mass of
action, emotional, intellectual, and mechanical, is evolved
by the impact upon the retina of the infinitesimal waves
of light coming from a few pencil-marks on a bit of
paper. We have, as Lange says, terror, hope, sensation,

238 PROFESSOR TYNDALL ON xxv

calculation, possible ruin, and victory compressed into a
moment. What caused the merchant to spring out of
his chair ? The contraction of his muscles. What made
his muscles con<:ract ? An impulse of the nerves, which
lifted the proper latch, and liberated the muscular power.
Whence this impulse ? From the centre of the nervous
system. But how did it originate there 1 This is the
critical question."

And Professor Tyndall warns us not to assume that
it was a soul or intelligence within the body which,
stimulated by an act of knowledge and a consequent
emotion of apprehension, set all this chain of nervous
antecedents and muscular consequents in motion,
lest we try to explain the little known by the less
known, or indeed, by the absolutely unknown. On
the contrary, he assures us that the only scientific
procedure is to refer this impulse originating in the
centre of the nervous system to other changes in
nerve-tissue which have preceded it, seeing that all
our scientific knowledge teaches us to refer physical
effects to physical causes. "Who or what is it,"
says Professor Tyndall, " that sends and receives
these messages through the bodily organism 1 You
picture the muscles as hearkening to the commands
sent through the motor-nerves, and you picture the
sensor-nerves as the vehicles of incoming intelligence ;
are you not bound to supplement this mechanism by
the assumption of an entity which uses it ? In other
words, are you not forced by your own exposition
into the hypothesis of a free human soul 1 That
hy230thesis is offered as an explanation or simplifica-
tion of a series of phenomena more or less obscure.
But adequate reflection shows that, instead of intro-
ducing light into our minds, it increases our dark-
ness. You do not in this case explain the unknown

XXV PHYSICAL AND MORAL NECESSITY 239

in terms of the known, which, as stated above, is the
method of science, but you explain the unknown in
terms of the more unknown." "The warrant of
science extends only to the statement that the terror,
hope, sensation, and calculation of Lange's merchant
are psychical phenomena, produced by or associated
with the molecular motion set up by the waves of
light in a previously prepared brain." On these
principles, then, it is obvious that heat and motion,
and nervous action and muscular tissue, and the
mode in which touching a valve liberates steam,
are all phenomena which are knowable in a sense in
which the subject that knows them is not knowable.
It is scientific to be quite certain that "a bowler
who imparts a velocity of thirty feet to an 8-lb. ball
consumes in the act one-tenth of a grain of carbon."
But it is thoroughly unscientific to be certain that
there is "some one" who has this knowledge and
who acts on it. It is scientific to be sure of the
laws of motion. It is thoroughly unscientific to be
sure of the existence of the person who is thus sure.
The self which is the assumed centre of all know-
ledge, is a mere centre of darkness, and while
various true propositions can be stated, the assertion
that I or any one can know them to be true is a false
and unscientific one, which confounds the relation
between phenomena with an unknowable personality
that has no relation to them. But then, if there be
no true nominative to the verb " to know," does not
that throw doubts at least as great on the object of
knowledge ? If I seem to myself to have observed
and mastered the laws of heat and motion, and am
yet going quite astray in assuming that there is any
self to master those laws, how am I to be certain
that the heat or motion which is the thing I appear

240 PROFESSOR TYNDALL ON XXV

to know, has any existence either 1 Deny all reality,
as Professor Tyndall teaches us to do, to the nomina-
tive of the sentence, " I know heat and motion," and
can any one he sure that the accusatives have any
reality either ? They exist to me only as they
exist in my consciousness. But if the very pronoun
' my ' is an illusion, how can I be sure that the
illusion does not affect all that that little word
qualifies 1 Expunge the delusive notion that there
is really an ' I,' — there is no need to use the word
'soul' at all, — to perceive, to receive sensations, and
to transmit commands, and why should not that
which is as closely coupled to this ' I ' in the very
act of perception as one end of a stick is to the
other end by the stick itself, be rejected with HI
Professor Tyndall is untrue to his own principles.
If it is thoroughly unscientific to assume an entity
who perceives and feels and wills, it is clearly un-
scientific to assume that there is anything perceived,
or felt, or willed. The fictitious character of the
whole act of knowledge must surely follow from the
fictitious character of the central assumption which
gives that act a meaning. If there is no reason to
suppose that there is a person to apprehend the
external world, there can be no reason to suppose
that there is an external world to apprehend, for it is
only through the act of apprehension that any one
even supposes himself to reach it.

Again, Professor Tyndall teaches us that because
we cannot produce physical energy, but can only re-
lease or direct it, therefore the supposed human will
can play no real part in human affairs, — meaning,
as I understand him, that it always takes other
y physical energy to determine how any special stock

of physical energy shall be released or expended, so

XXV PHYSICAL AND MORAL NECESSITY 241

that it as much depends on the set of the currents
in the previously existing physical energy, which
valve shall be opened and which kept shut, as
it depends on the previous accumulations of such
energy how much energy shall emerge when the
particular valve is opened. Professor Tyndall,
following Mill, and other such teachers, warns us
that though we can determine our actions according
to our wishes, we cannot determine our wishes,
these being determined for us by the laws of physical
organisation, of hereditary transmission, of social
circumstance, and other conditions of our previous
life. But assuming this teaching to be true, whither
does it lead us ? Why, of course, to the doctrine of
pure materialism, that physical energy is the primal
fount from which all mental phenomena ultimately
proceed, — and proceed by an immutable process of
evolution. If not only is the stock of physical
energy in the universe a fixed stock, but if also the
distribution of that stock is absolutely dependent on
the character and amount of it, then it is clear there
is nowhere for wishes and other such mental pheno-
mena to come out of, except the one stock of physical
energy which is the primary assumption with which
Professor Tyndall starts, and it cannot, in his belief,
be wholly uncreated and self-caused. Wishes,
motives, volitions, aspirations, and the rest, must
either be unexplained i:>henomena somehow due to
this primary stock of physical energy, or must be
uncaused, which is clearly not Professor Tyndall's
view, since he defines science as the effort to explain
the unknown by what is better known. If, then,
he believes, as we understand him, that physical
energy contains within itself the laws and causes of
its own distribution, mind is a mere unexplained
VOL. I B.

242 PROFESSOR TYNDALL ON xxv

phenomenon of physics. If that be not true, if ' the
whole stock of physical energy in existence ' does
not regulate its own laws of distribution, then there
must be something else which does regulate it, and
human will might well be defined as that which,
though not able to create physical energy, is able to
liberate and direct it in this direction or that, to
concentrate it on one purpose or on another, within
certain limits, as it will. Evidently, then. Professor
Tyndall either teaches us pure materialism, or leaves
us free to believe that though the stock of physical
energy in the world is always the same, incapable of
increase or decrease, the way in which it is to be
applied, whether by one channel to one purpose, or
by another channel to another purpose, is left more
or less at our disposal. Yet, as I understand him,
he forbids us to believe either of these alternatives.
He wishes us to regard physical energy as containing
in itself the precise laws of its own distribution, in
one place, and yet forbids us in another to refer
consciousness and its states to these laws. He says,
almost in the same breath, " molecular motion pro-
duces consciousness," and then again, "physical
science offers no justification for the notion that
states of consciousness can be generated by molecular
motion." Which does he wish us to believe ? If
the first, then we know what he means, and that it
is pure materialism. If the second, he leaves plenty
of room for the influence of freewill, in spite of that
absolute limitation of the stock of physical energy in
the world which he teaches. But it is hardly
reasonable to take credit for both assumptions, — that
molecular motion is the ultimate cause of everything
— and that mental states are not caused by it, any
more than it is caused by them.

XXV PHYSICAL AND MORAL NECESSITY 243

Still more difficult is it to follow out Professor
Tyndall's teaching as to moral necessity, when at
length he has somehow skipped the gulf between
physics and morals, and come to assume moral
necessity as the truth. He says, very justly, that if
the doctrine of Necessity does away with moral re-
sponsibility, it yet leaves in all their strength the
motives for discouraging actions injurious to society,
and encouraging those which are beneficial to society.
That is quite true. But Professor Tyndall appears
to admit that though we should encourage what we
find useful and discourage what is injurious by every
means in our power, approbation and disapprobation
are unmeaning, except on that hypothesis of moral
freedom which he has rejected. We may visit what
is injurious with disagreeable results in order to
prevent others doing it, but it is childish to talk of
being morally offended Avith what was as inevitable
as the fall of an apple when its stalk breaks. This
being granted, then, being shut off from the dis-
pensing of approbation and disapprobation, we shall
be unfortunately also shut off from using by far the
most powerful of the moral hindrances to wrong and 0
crime. As the German thinkf^r ^i\](\ f\i rfnr| \\^^t if *
He did not exist, it would be necessary to invent . /i )rT A/
Him, so we might fairly say of moral approbation v^ ^^
and disapprobation. If they did not exist, we should
be obliged to invent them. Mere bestowal of
pleasure or pain would be of little use without that
approbation and disapprobation which make the
pleasure and pain really effective, and give them
their stimulating or deterrent power. It is not
shutting up a man in prison, but shutting him up
because his action is treated by society as morally
disgraceful, which is the formidable thing. Professor

244 PROFESSOR TYNDALL ON xxv

Tyndall in giving this up, gives up the very sting of
the penalty, and deprives it of more than half its
deterrent effect. And as for the preacher, — why,
to suppose that the preacher could preach against
iniquity with good effect, as Professor Tyndall says,
after he had ceased to believe that there was such a
thing at all as iniquity in any sense except that in
which deformity and iniquity are the same, Professor
Tyndall is the most sanguine of men if he thinks so.
Indeed the punishment of persons who are believed
to have been incapable of doing anything but what
they did, would soon become as impossible as it has
already become impossible to punish criminal lunatics.
Follow Professor Tyndall's principles out to their
proper limits, and all punishment, properly so-called,
would cease.

One word more. Why does Professor Tyndall
say so airily that he has no objection to talk '• poetic-
ally " of a soul, though he has a strong objection to
believe in one really 1 " If you are content to make
your soul a poetic rendering of a phenomenon which
refuses the yoke of ordinary mechanical laws, I, for
one, would not object to this exercise of ideality."
But surely he ought to object to it, if it is false and
misleading. We mean by the 'self a real thing,
altogether distinguishable from any organisation ;
and if it is not that, the use of the word * self,' or
'I,' or 'soul,' is not a harmless exercise of "ideality,"
but a falsehood, and a very dangerous one. I do
not understand this liberty granted by Professor
Tyndall to tell " poetically " all sorts of fibs which
he objects to as matter of serious belief. The belief
in the free self is either a most dangerous fiction or
the greatest of truths, and Professor Tyndall's will-
ingness to deal with it in a poetic and ideal way,

XXV PHYSICAL AND MORAL NECESSITY 245

without insisting on the strict truth about it, as it
seems to him, is not, I think, quite so catholic a
feature of his character, or so creditable to him as
he evidently supposes it to be. Let us tell the truth
about ourselves^ even if that truth be only that
there is no truth to tell.

XXVI
THE APPROACH OF DOGMATIC ATHEISM

1874

Professor Huxley has said something lately about
the drum ecclesiastic, but it seems that there is
another kind of drum whose low reverberations are
beginning to be heard, nay, whose vibrations send
very perceptible tremors down the sensitive nerves
of our modern society, and which is far from unlikely
to take the place of the ancient drum ecclesiastic, both
in relation to the power of which it may become the
signal, and the terror which its notes may carry with
them. About three years ago, when Professor Huxley
intimated, in a very telling speech at the London
School Board, that there were enemies of the human
race whom it might become quite necessary for wise
men to disqualify at least for the function of educa-
tion,—I do not profess to quote his words, but only
the impression they produced at the time on almost
all who heard them, — I remarked on the tendency of
the modern representatives of physical science, while
denying all absolute certainty, to draw the most im-
periously dogmatic conclusions from the most ostenta-
tiously hypothetic premisses. That tendency has
certainly persevered, and rather more than persevered,

XXVI THE APPROACH OF DOGMATIC ATHEISM 247

among scientific Englishmen in the intervening
period ; and now, in Professor Clifford, one of the
most able and eloquent of the school, scientific thought
in relation to religion and morality appears to be
undergoing a transformation from its chrysalis con-
dition of Agnosticism, in which it fed so heartily and
throve so fast on the vague hopes it killed, and to be
taking to itself ephemeral wings with which it pro-
poses to soar high above the humility of its previous
condition, and, indeed, to flutter up into those empty
spaces from which science, we are now told, has all
but succeeded in expelling the empty dreams of a
presiding Mind in the universe, and of a life after
death. Automatism, which was a wild hypothesis
yesterday, and is still so difficult to state without self-
contradiction that Professor Clifford's own language
is constantly at cross-purposes with his theory, is, if
one may trust his paper, published in the December
Fortnightly, to become the creed of all reasonable men
to-morrow ; the faith in Providence is soon to be re-
cognised as " immoral " ; and we are to expect before
long evidence that "no intelligence or volition has
been concerned in events happening within the range
of the solar system, except that of animals living on
the planets," — nay, evidence "of the same kind and
of the same cogency " as that which forbids us to
assume the existence between the Earth and Venus
of a planet as large as either of them. These calm
anticipations, moreover, are recorded in a lecture
which is as much distinguished by confident but
utterly unreasoned assertions, and wild but dogmatic
surmises, as it is by the eloquent audacity of its nega-
tive teaching, and by the scorn with which it com-
pares the region of faith to that " good man's croft "
of the Scotch superstition, which is left untilled for

248 THE APPROACH OF DOGMATIC ATHEISM XXVI

the Brownie to live in, in the hope that " if you grant
him this grace, he will do a great deal of your house-
hold work for you in the night while you sleep."
Let us just look at this body of " truth," as Professor
Clifford regards it, and enumerate the theses which
he either holds to be established now, or to form
part of those sagacious divinations of scientific pre-
science, the verification of which we may expect in
the immediate future.

1. "All the evidence that we have goes to show
that the physical world gets along entirely by itself,
according to practically universal rules. That is to
say, the laws which hold good in the physical world
hold good everywhere in it, — they hold good with
practical universality, and there is no reason to sup-
pose anything else but those laws in order to account
for any physical fact." In other words, men and
animals are physical automatons, with more or less
of a consciousness annexed, the states of that con-
sciousness, however, not forming necessary links, or
any links at all, in the chain of physical events.
" There is no reason why we should not regard the
human body as merely an exceedingly complicated
machine, which is wound up by putting food into the
mouth." This I understand Professor Clifford to re-
gard as practically certain.

2. "If anybody says that the will influences
matter, the statement is not untrue, but it is
nonsense."

3. " The only thing which influences matter is the
position of surrounding matter or the motion of sur-
rounding matter." (These two latter propositions
are quite certain, I gather, in Professor Clifford's
view, the contradictory of them being simply unin-
telligible. He reiterates his statement thus : — " The

XXVI THE APPROACH OF DOGMATIC ATHEISM 249

assertion that another man's volition, a feeling in his
consciousness which I cannot perceive, is part of the
train of physical facts which I may perceive, — this
is neither true nor untrue, but nonsense : it is a
combination of words whose corresponding ideas will
not go together.")

4. " The human race, as a whole, has made itself
during the process of ages. The action of the whole
race at any time determines what the character of
the race shall be in the future."

5. " The doctrine of a destiny or providence out-
side of us, overruling human efforts and guiding
history to a foregone conclusion," is "immoral,'
"if it is right to call any doctrine immoral," — the
reason for the strong epithet thus applied to this
doctrine being that the authority of this doctrine has
so often been used to " paralyse the eflForts of those
who were climbing honestly up the hill-side towards
the light and the right," and has so often also " nerved
the sacrilegious arm of the fanatic or the adventurer
who was conspiring against society." (How loose
and rhetorical, by the way, is the moral language of
the Professor ! What is the sin of conspiring against
society ? If there were two or three scientific men
united with Professor Clifford in his propaganda,
would not that be as near to a "conspiracy against
society " as ordinary men, who hold religion to be
the chief bond of society, could conceive ?) I do not
know with how much intellectual confidence the Pro-
fessor regards this purely moral thesis, but it will be
admitted that it is very dogmatically expressed.

6. The following, however, is a probable hypothesis
only : — " The reality which underlies matter, the
reality which we perceive as matter, is that same
stuff which, being compounded together in a particu-

250 THE APPROACH OF DOGMATIC ATHEISM xxvi

lar, way produces mind." " The actual reality which
underlies what we call matter is not the same thing
as the mind, is not the same thing as our perception,
but it is made up of the same stuff." It is not " of
the same substance as mind (homo-ousion), but it is
of like substance, — it is made of similar stuff differ-
ently compacted together (homoiousion)."

7. If this last proposition be true, as seems prob-
able to Professor Clifford, then, as " mind is the
reality or substance of that which appears to us as
brain-action, the supposition of mind without brain "
is "a contradiction in terais."

8. On the same supposition, there can be no mind
in the universe except where there are animals with
animal brains. And of this opinion we may expect
to be one day as certain as we are now that there is
no planet between the Earth and Venus as large as
either of them.

Such are the main theses of this remarkable essay,
of which the first five, if I understand Professor
Clifford rightly, are moral certainties of the highest
conceivable validity, w^hile the last three are as yet
but divinations of science, but divinations of high
scientific probability. As Professor Clifford says that
not one man in a million has a right to any opinion
on the subjects on which his own opinion is so very
confidently expressed, — and I certainly do not sup-
pose that I am one of thirty-two men in the United
Kingdom alone qualified to have a view on the sub-
ject,— it may be desirable to say why I cannot regard
Professor Clifford's authority on the subject, in spite
of his obviously great ability, as worth very much,
and why therefore I need not accept his warning of
the temerity of entering the lists against one of the
thirty-two. In his very clever, though, as usual.

XXVI THE APPROACH OF DOGMATIC ATHEISM 261

arrogant introductory observations, Professor Clifford
admirably calls science "organised common-sense."
Now there is not one of the eight propositions I have
treated as the leading dogmatic principles of his
lecture which seems to me to deserve that character ;
and those seven of the eight which alone I clearly
understand, might, I think, be more nearly described
as disorganising but fortunately very uncommon
nonsense. With regard, first, to the first thesis : —
If the physical world gets along by itself, without
any interference from the mental world, — if the
human body is an automaton wound up by putting
food into the mouth, — why, I should like to know,
is Professor Clifford so impressed with the mischief
worked by the doctrine of Providence, and why does
he describe it as " nerving the sacrilegious arm of the
fanatic"^ In his view, no belief ever nerves any
arm at all. " The food which is put into the mouth,"
and which winds up the automaton, at once nerves
the arm and results in the belief ; but on his theory,
])elief nerves no arm, and it is not so much untrue
as " nonsense," — words without a meaning, — to say
that it does nerve any arm. I am perfectly aware that
popular language, like our language about sunrise
for instance, often involves a fundamental blunder,
and that not the less men go on using the blunder,
on the tacit understanding that it shall be interpreted
to stand for its own correction. And of course.
Professor Clifford would say that what he means by
condemning a belief for nerving the sacrilegious arm
of the fanatic, is that the condition of nerve and
brain which at one and the same time produces the
belief and also "nerves the sacrilegious arm of
the fanatic," is a degenerate or diseased condition.
But substitute the one phrase for the other, and you

252 THE APPROACH OF DOGMATIC ATHEISM xxvi

destroy its whole meaning. If the belief is not even
a link in the chain, if no belief is capable of being a
link in the chain of causes leading to bad actions, if
the mischief altogether arises in the nervous structure,
in the unhealthy organism, or the inadequate, or
else the too violent v^inding-up of the automaton, —
then why blame the belief, instead of the antecedent
of the belief? Talk no more of sacrilegious beliefs,
but only of the evil cellular tissues, the disgraceful
foods, and the infamous air, leading to such beliefs.
On the theory of Professor Clifford, the physical
structure of the automaton is a whole in itself, with
the movement of which consciousness never inter-
feres, though it varies with it. You might reform
the belief by reforming the brain, but you could not
reform the brain by reforming the belief. Again,
to go to the next thesis, what assumption can be
more bewilderingly arbitrary than the assumption
that " volition cannot influence matter " ? I had
always thought that the tendency of the new physical
science was not to say what can or cannot be, but
what is or is not ; and that in its language,
"influence" is only a word for invariable ante-
cedence. Now it is quite certain that, be volition
what it may, it invariably precedes all the actions
we call voluntary, and that these actions do influence
matter, — my present volition to write on this paper,
for instance, causing a rearrangement of certain
particles of ink. If the only thing which can
influence matter is "the position of surrounding
matter or the motion of surrounding matter," the
question is of course at an end. But this assumption
appears to be a return into that region of a prion
necessity which Professor Cliff*ord's school usually
regards as so sterile, and so much condemns. As a

XXVI THE APPROACH OF DOGMATIC ATHEISM 253

matter of fact, I know that thoughts are as invariable
antecedents of certain classes of actions as any
physical conditions could be, and it is the mere
omniscience of an a jpricni materialism to declare the
former mere conjoint consequents of the same ante-
cedents, instead of causes of the actions. As for the
doctrines that the human race has "made itself,"
that the faith in providence has paralysed honest
upward effort, — a doctrine which I have shown to be
unintelligible on Professor Clifford's theory, — and
the assertion that we may soon have proof that what
we call "mind" cannot exist without a "brain," and
that it will then be as easy to disprove God as to
disprove the existence of a planet between the Earth
and Venus of the same size as either of them, — it
seems to me that these doctrines are the very
extravagances of a riotous imagination. The first of
these three statements is, I suppose, only an intel-
lectual inference from the last, since unless the
existence of God, — in men's usual understanding of
the word, — can be disproved, it certainly is not true
that the human race made itself. And as for the
second of them, the contradictory is just as true,
even for the very reason Professor Clifford gives as
the thesis itself. If the appeal to the doctrine of
Providence has been used to keep down some honest
effort, it has animated and nerved a great deal that
Professor Clifford himself would acknowledge, — as,
for example, Luther's whole life. If the disbelief in
Providential guidance has ever, — which I doubt, —
relieved any honest effort of an incubus, it is matter
of biographical record that it has quenched a good
deal more honest effort in utter despair. A more
luxuriant use of unreasoned assumptions than is to
be found in Professor Clifford's lecture I do not think

254 THE APPROACH OF DOGMATIC ATHEISM xxvi

it would be possible to discover, even in the most
desolate wastes of theological literature.

But what is the most striking point in this lecture
is that a thinker who throws the word ' nonsense ' so
recklessly at the head of his opponents, should treat
the whole domain of religious belief as one springing
out of pure intellectual hypothesis, and as one for
which there is no conceivable excuse apart from
theories of body and mind. That religious belief
has its source in a totally different region of life,
which is no less real than the external world itself
to those who have never even heard of any theory
of the relation of body to mind, he either disbelieves
or wholly ignores. And yet to millions of men who
have heard no more about the relation of brain to
consciousness, than they have about Berkeley's theory
of vision, the love of God has been as true a con-
stituent of their life as the light of the sun. For
the consciousness of sin and the dread and remorse
caused by it, Professor Clifford has no room in his
theory except that he may of course, if he will,
admit that our automatons are all of very defective
structure, and that by dint of greater care in selecting
the reproductive machines, and more scientific caution
in winding them up, their works may be improved.
Responsibility, he expressly states, cannot exist
unless a man's brain is as much the source of his
actions as the springs of a machine are of its opera-
tions. "The notion that we are not automata
destroys responsibility, because, if my actions are
not determined by my character [brain], in accordance
with the particular circumstances which occur, then
I am not responsible for them, and it is not I that
do them " ; so that a man is responsible only for
what he cannot help doing, which means that he is

XXVI THE APPROACH OF DOGMATIC ATHEISM 255

responsible for the twitch of his eyebrows, and the
consumptive tendency in his lungs, and the heat or
coldness of his inherited passions, and the alertness
or dullness of his constitutional intelligence, — but
that if it be conceivable that at any point he had a
true choice as to what he would or would not do,
then he would not be responsible, because it would
be only the free, momentary "self," and not the
mere sum and issue of all the streams of previous
tendency, which made the choice. Professor Clifford's
fallacy is a very old one, which has been repeated
thousands of times before, but it is one the plausi-
bility of which the human mind steadily resists, —
the laws of all civilised peoples declining every day
to punish a man for what there is evidence that he
could not help, and taking pity even on the lunatic,
who may possibly be responsible for being a lunatic
at all, but who, if he be not responsible for that,
cannot usually be responsible for the individual
crimes which, as a lunatic, he commits. The doctrine
which this clever theorist professes to substitute for
the old faith in God and duty, is one which has
repeatedly proved too unreal to overcome the
" organised common-sense " of the human race, and
it is likely enough to prove equally feeble again ;
but if ever it does conquer the belief of an intelligent
people, we are likely to have such a result as no
necessitarianism of the Calvinist or Augustinian type
could ever produce. Suppose for a moment that the
Scotch, — a people, as I believe, far more really
competent to master and apply abstract ideas than
the Germans, — were, in the intimate confidence of
their belief in the "conservation of energy," as Mr.
Clifford interprets that hypothesis, to take to the
automaton doctrine in all its nakedness, — in other

256 THE APPROACH OF DOGMATIC ATHEISM XXVI

words, to a materialistic Calvinism, without the
sublimity of the belief in an Almighty AVill that
forces purity on at least some of us, or the terror of
the belief in an awful torment for those of us who
cannot hate the evil at their heart. Is it conceivable
that a people really believing that the body is a
machine which goes on, when it is wound up, in-
dependently of consciousness, would struggle against
temptations which they would regard as modes of a
mechanical force, the antagonism to which, if it were
possible to resist it, would manifest itself in their
natures as powerfully as the temptation itself *? Why
should they refuse to wind up the automaton, say
with whiskey, or any other watch-key that might
seem most attractive, if they confidently held that
whatever it was which they might do, they would
do as inevitably as a clock goes right or goes wrong ?
Effort against the grain is altogether a superfluity
of worry for one who believes that his interior
mechanism settles for him whether he shall make it
or no. Of course if he makes it, he could not but
make it. But if he does not make it, he could not
help not making it, and why not, therefore, drift, if
drifting seem the easier '? I venture to affirm that
the automato- atheistic theory once earnestly adopted
by a nation of graphic and logical mind, like the
Scotch, would make such a hell upon earth, such a
world of languors where languors were most agreeable,
and of vehement and lawless moral pressures where
the application of such pressures was most in keeping
with the temperament of the individual, as civilised
men would never have seen before. The happy
device of combining Atheism with a distinct and vivid
confidence in the absolutely mechanical character of
man's bodily life, may be consistent, in a few isolated

XXVI THE APPROACH OF DOGMATIC ATHEISM 257

instances, as doubtless it is in Professor Clifford's
case, with a lofty mind, a strenuous character, and a
firm will, but in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred
it would lead to the natural or artificial selection and
elaboration of those wheels in the corporeal machine
which would produce the kind of motion their owners
found most pleasurable; — ^and then the crash and
battle of the various revolving cogs of self-interest
would be such as even savage life could not rival.
Professor Clifford is great in his own field. In the
field he has now chosen he is hurling about wildly
loose thoughts over which he has no intellectual
control. These are indeed what Mr. Kingsley once
called some suggestions of his own, " loose thoughts
for loose thinkers."

VOL. 1

XXVII

CLIFFORD'S "LECTURES AND ESSAYS "^
1879

The late Professor Clifford was a meteoric sort of
moral phenomenon, who to many, even of those who
had some personal knowledge of his extraordinary-
powers, was more of a bewilderment than a light.
He was a man of rare wit and rare powers of fascina-
tion, of extraordinary courage and extraordinary
agility — both physical and mental, very great kind-
liness and very great audacity, enthusiastic disin-
terestedness and almost measureless irreverence.
He was a great master of gymnastic, who, when he
came out second wrangler at Cambridge, was much
prouder of being mentioned in JBeU's Life as a great
athlete, than of being second wrangler. " His nerve
at dangerous heights," wrote a friend who was his
rival in gymnastic feats, " was extraordinary. I am
appalled now to think that he climbed up and sat on
the cross-bars of the weather-cock on a church-tower ;
and when, by way of doing something worse, I went

^ Lectures and Essays. By the late William Kingdon
Clifford, F.R.S. Edited by Leslie Stephen and Frederick
Pollock. With an Introduction by F. Pollock. London :
Macmillan and Go.

XXVII CLIFFORD'S " LECTURES AND ESSAYS " 259

up and hung by my toes to the bars, he did the
same." During a journey in France, when the boat
had left the quay at Havre, Clifford, arriving late,
jumped on board it, "with one of those apparently
unpremeditated springs which look so well in the
gymnasium." His flexibility and complete command
of his own powers, both of mind and body, were
probably as great as any human being ever possessed.
And as he seems to have been entirely free from
anything like giddiness in his gymnastic feats, so he
seems to have been equally free from anything like
awe in the equally marvellous gymnastic feats of his
mind, treating the infinity and eternity in which his
fellow-creatures believed mth the same sort of con-
temptuous familiarity with which he treated the
ecclesiastical height he had once reached, only to
balance himself by his toes on the weather-vane. He
speaks, indeed, in the least irreverent of his antithe-
istic papers, of having parted from his faith in God
" with such searching trouble as only cradle faiths can
cause." ^ And no doubt he must have felt something
which entitled him to use this language, for Clifford
was sincerity itself. Nevertheless, this is almost the
only passage I have met with which points to his
having gone through any crisis of the kind, while there
are a great many in which he treats the faith in God
with such utter, such cold contempt, that it is not easy
to understand how he could ever have regarded it as
being the light of his light and the life of his life, and
much less how he could have realised that other men
were still so regarding it, while he was launching his
satire at them. In such a passage as the following,
for example, he seems to be trying to show that he

^ The Influence upon Morality of a Decline in Religioiis
Belief. Vol. ii., p. 247.

260 Clifford's "lectures and essays xxvh

was as reckless of the awe which the faith in God and
eternal life generate, as when hanging with his toes
on the church vane, he was reckless of the fears
which such a position as his would impart to most
men : — " For, after all, such a helper of man outside
of humanity, the truth will not allow us to see. The
dim and shadowy outlines of the superhuman deity
fade slowly away from before us ; and as the mist of
his presence floats aside, we perceive with greater
and greater clearness the shape of a yet grander and
nobler figure, — of Him who made all gods, and shall
unmake them. From the dim dawn of history, and
from the inmost depth of every soul, the face of our
father Man looks out upon us with the fire of eternal
youth in his eyes, and says, ' Before Jehovah was, I
am.' " I transcribe the words of this parody with
reluctance, and something almost of shame, but still
with the feeling that they are essential to the under-
standing of the erratic man who wrote them, and
who never could have written them if he had not
been strangely deficient in those many fine chords of
sympathy with his fellow-men which in other sceptics
like himself remain vibrating, and securing for them
a certain community of sentiment with their fellows,
long after the sympathy of conviction necessary
originally to agitate them to their full extent, has
vanished. Doubtless, Clifford held all moral con-
ventionality in utter horror. As he once told an
audience, — in face of the great danger which threatens
nations that they may crystallise, like the Chinese,
into inflexible habits of thought and feeling which
would shut them out from progress, " it is not right
to be proper." But still such a parody as I have
quoted on what is to so many men the most sacred
of human utterances, — one, indeed, embodying the

XXVII Clifford's " lectures and essays " 261

most solemn passion of conviction, through which
the heart of man has ever passed, — would not have
been, in most men's mouths, so much a violation of
propriety, as a deliberate insult to the heart of
multitudes. That Professor Clifford did not so
regard it, seems quite evident. But that only shows
how curiously destitute he was of some of those
thords of sympathetic feeling, without the help of
which it is impossible to judge with any adequacy
the moral world in which you live. And with all
his wonderful talent for society, and that extreme
kindliness of his nature which so fascinated children.
Professor Clifford certainly showed signs of a curious
nakedness of the finer moral sympathies, a nakedness
diminishing in great degree both the impression of
cruelty which the mordant and contemptuous char-
acter of his attacks on religion would otherwise make
upon us, and also, in some degree at least, the
intellectual weight to be attached to his undoubted
genius, when it worked upon subjects of this kind.
It is clear that Professor Clifford must have enjoyed
dealing a stunning because a contemptuous blow at
those who acknowledge the deepest of human beliefs.
He does it not only in the passage just quoted, but
in many other passages of his addresses, — that, for in-
stance, in his lecture on " Body and Mind," in which
he coolly estimates the chance of an early and final
disproof of God ; and again, in such a sarcasm as
this, contained in his review of The Unseen Universe : —

" Our authors * assume as absolutely self-evident the
existence of a Deity who is the creator of all things.'
They must both have had enough to do with examinations
to be aware that ' it is evident ' means ' I do not know
how to prove.' The creation, however, was not necessarily
a direct process ; the great likeness of atoms gives them

262 Clifford's " lectures and essays " xxvii

' the stamp of the manufactured article,' and so they must
have been made by intelligent agency ; but this may
have been the agency of finite and conditioned beings.
As such beings would have bodies made of one or other
of the ethers, this form of the argument escapes at least
one difficulty of the more common form, which may be
stated as follows : — ' Because atoms are exactly alike and
apparently indestructible, they must at one time have
come into existence out of nothing. This can only have
been effected by the agency of a conscious mind, not
associated with a material organism.' Forasmuch as the
momentous character of the issue is apt to blind us to the
logic of such arguments as these, it may not be useless to
offer for consideration the following parody : — ' Because
the sea is salt and will put out a fire, there must tit one
time have been a large fire lighted at the bottom of it ;
this can only have been effected by the agency of the
whale who lives in the middle of Sahara.' "

It would have been fairer to have quoted the
imbecile argument adduced from some outwardly
respectable authority, than to have manufactured it
in a form inviting a parody so crushing as this. But
I am far from denying that Professor Clifford might
have found in the rubbish-heaps of natural theology
an argument as silly as the one which he made in
order that he might travesty it. I quote his travesty
only to illustrate the grim delight with which he
appears to have driven his knife up to the quick
into the faith of unintelligent believers. These
bitter sarcasms, — and these are but specimens of
many, — would certainly do more to confirm those
who hold that the abler antagonists of Theism
indulge a sort of personal anger against the belief in
God and all who entertain it, and wish to punish
them for clinging to it, — than to kill that belief in

XXVII Clifford's " lectures and essays " 263

the mind of anybody. Parodies, however witty, on
sacred subjects, borrow half their pungency from
their irreverence, and seldom have much force as
arguments, — more especially when the arguments
which they parody are not derived from any actual
author. Professor Clifford did not, I believe, really
enjoy inflicting pain on any one. But he was totally
unable to enter into the moral atmosphere which
surrounds these subjects in the minds of those
against whom he launched his ridicule. Evidently
he was a very great and a very original mathematician.
As evidently, I should say, he had no large grasp of
the moral and spiritual world, and had never entered
at all* into the minds and hearts from which he did
his best to expel all religion, and even, as I should
say, very nearly all moral faith, endeavouring to
substitute for it the very remarkable assortment of
opinions set forth in the raw and curious theories
hastily invented by an intellectual acrobat.

And what are these opinions 1 Professor Clifford
was far too acute and too strong a thinker not to
have got hold of a philosophy of his own which he
proposed to substitute for the faith which he so
utterly scorned. He saw, for instance, that an
Atheistic philosophy which held by the principle of
evolution, must be able to identify the germs of the
higher mental, no less than the germs of the higher
material phenomena, in those initial rudiments or
elements from which he supposed everything to
have been evolved. And this. Professor Clifford
effected — to his own satisfaction. He regarded
consciousness as the inside view of the highest
form of that which we call organised matter when
we look at it from outside. But he held conscious-
ness to be a highly complex form of what he called

264 CLIFFORD'S " LECTURES AND ESSAYS " XXVII

" mind-stuff," ie., a highly-organised tissue of simplei
feelings, just as he regarded the human brain as a
highly complex form of material tissue. And he
thought that there was some simpler element of
"mind-stuff" in the simplest forms of matter, just
as there is a highly complex kind of mind-stuff in
the highest forms of matter ; — and that as elementary
cells by aggregation and organisation at last reach
the highly -organised form of a nervous system, so
the elementary forms of mind-stuff, those simple
feelings far below the range of what is called con-
sciousness, which he attributed to inorganic and the
lower forms of organic matter, get aggregated and
organised, as the matter which is the outside form of
them gets aggregated and organised, till at last in
the highest forms of organic existence, they appear
in those complex " streams of feeling " which we call
consciousness. Thus, by the help of "a law of
evolution," did Professor Clifford eventually evolve
mind out of the supposed " simple feelings " inherent
in wood, and even in stone, just as he conceived the
brain to be evolved out of the simple elements of
inorganic chemistry. He never seems to have con-
sidered the difficulty that we are acquainted with
very high forms of organised matter, — the gray
matter in the brain for instance, the outer skin, the
blood, the nails, and the hair, — which either have no
high form of mind-stuff belonging to them at all, —
certainly no consciousness, — or else have one that is
entirely outside the range of that consciousness on
which alone he relies for his proof that the higher
forms of organised matter are the outside forms of
that which, from the inside, we call consciousness.
If consciousness be the reality, as Professor Clifford
held, behind the human organisation, — the " thing in

XXVII Clifford's " LECTURES AND ESSAYS " 265

itself," of which the nervous bodily organisation is
the mere external vesture, — how is it that parts of
that organisation either have no more "mind-stuff"
than a tree or grass or stone, or else have it in some
region quite outside the range of that which he
regards as the "mind-stuff" of the brain. His view,
if I understand it rightly, would assign a full con-
sciousness to all the highest organised matter, by
virtue of its high organisation, — just as it attributes
the lowest forms of "mind-stuff" to the lowest forms
of matter. But there are very high forms of
organised matter, — perhaps some of the highest, —
which can be dealt with as you T\all, without any
reflection of your dealings with them in consciousness
at all, at least in that consciousness in which there
is the fullest reflection of our dealings with other
parts of the same organisation. If Professor Clifford's
theory were worth anything, consciousness would
develop pari passu with the organic development of
all forms of matter, and we ought to have as much
consciousness behind the action of the motor nerves
as behind the action of the sensitive nerves, as
much consciousness of the growth of our hair,
as of the flush on our cheeks or the music in our
ears. Eeally and truly, consciousness belongs only
in the most fitful way even to the very highest
parts of our bodily organisation, of which many
elements are as little represented in that conscious-
ness or, so far as we know, in "mind-stuff" of any
kind, as the trees in the field or the stones in the
road. The wish to discover "mind-stuff" to evolve
into higher forms, wherever he found matter to evolve
into higher forms, seems to have caused this very
wild leap of Professor Clifford's nimble imagination.
The next great effort of these lectures is to find a

266 Clifford's "lectures and essays" xxvh

theory of ethics which will dispense with the old
morality, as Professor Clifford had already found a
theory of mind-stuff which would dispense with the
old view of iaind. This theory is the theory of the
tribal self, or the partly -inherited, partly -acquired
sense of what the good of your clan requires, which
must often be at war with what your own individual
pleasure seems to require, — the conflict representing
the first emergence of conscience. From this prin-
ciple of course it follows, as Professor Clifford is never
tired of repeating, that there is no such thing' as a self-
regarding virtue, — the idea of virtue not arising at
all till the notion of what you owe to the group in
which you live, — be it family, tribe, or nation, — begins
to conflict with the notion of what you would like
for yourself alone. " The virtue of purity, for ex-
ample, attains in this way a fairly exact definition ;
purity in a man is that course of conduct which
makes him to be a good husband and father, in a
woman that which makes her to be a good wife and
mother, or which helps other people so to prepare
and keep themselves. It is easy to see how many
false ideas and pernicious precepts are swept away
by even so simple a definition as that," — and how
many true ones, too, I should add. Again, of course,
under Professor Clifford's hands, praise and blame
become, what they must be in this philosophy, pro-
spective calculations, intended to affect the future con-
duct both of the persons praised and blamed and of
the rest of the community, but wholly irrelevant
otherwise, — the idea of moral desert having, of course,
wholly vanished with the moral freedom which is its
first condition. The vital defect of the philosophy
which makes the tribal self the source of conscience,
is clearly that it does not account for the facts. It

XXVII CLIFFORD'S " LECTURES AND ESSAYS " 267

is not true that the only reason for being sincere
with yourself, is that duty to your fellow-men re-
quires it. It is not true that purity means only the
conduct which will make you the best domestic char-
acter. The tribal self has often lower claims than
the individual self ; and can only be purified by the
revolt of the individual self against the tribal self.

Finally, for religion, Professor Clifford proposes
to substitute the cultivation of what he calls " cosmic
emotion," — emotion, that is, roused in us by the con-
sideration of the external and internal laws of the
cosmos in which we live. Professor Clifford selects,
as the most refreshing and religious of these emo-
tions, as the one most calculated to supply the place
of lost faith, the reverence which an evolutionist
feels for changes produced by the spontaneous vital
movements of society from within, as distinguished
from those which are imposed on it by the conditions
of the external environment in which it lives. All
those variations due to spontaneous variation from
within, testify, he says, to the vitality of an organ-
ism, and increase its elasticity. But this is too deli-
cate a point for me to explain, except in Professor
Clifford's own words. I quote his account of those
higher actions which are fitting subjects for " cosmic
emotion " : —

" Only actions originating in the living part of the
organism are to be regarded as actions from within ; the
dead part is for our purposes a portion of the external
world. And so, from the internal point of view, there
are rudiments and survivals in the mind which are to be
excluded from that me, whose free action tends to progress ;
that baneful strife which lurheth inborn in us is the foe of
freedom — this let not a man stir up, but avoid and flee.
The way in which freedom, or action from within, has

268 Clifford's " LECTURES AND ESSAYS " xxvn

effected the evolution of organisms, is clearly brouglit out
by tlie theory of Natural Selection. For the improve-
ment of a breed depends upon the selection of sports —
that is to sajjr, of modifications due to the overflowing
energy of the organism, which happen to be useful to it
in its special circumstances. Modifications may take
place by direct pressure of external circumstances ; the
whole organism or any organ may lose in size and strength
from failure of the proper food, but such modifications
are in the downward, not in the upward, direction. In-
directly external circumstances may of course produce up-
ward changes ; thus the drying-up of axolotl ponds caused
the survival of individuals which had 'sported' in the
direction of lungs. But the immediate cause of change in
the direction of higher organisation is always the internal
and quasi-spontaneous action of the organism.

'Freedom we call it, for holier
Name of the soul there is none ;
Surelier it labours, if slowlier,

Than the metres of star or of sun ;
SlowHer than life into breath,
Surelier than time into death,
It moves till its labour be done.'

The highest of organisms is the social organism. To Mr.
Herbert Spencer, who has done so much for the whole
doctrine of evolution, and for all that is connected with
it, we owe the first clear and rational statement of the
analogy between the individual and the social organism,
which, indeed, is more than an analogy, being in many
respects a true identity of process, and structure, and
function. Our main business is with one property which
the social organism has in common with the individual,
namely, this, that it aggregates molecular motions into
molar ones. The molecules of a social organism are the
individual men, women, and children of which it is com-
posed. By means of it, actions which, as individual, are
insignificant, are massed together into the important
movements of a society. Co-operation, or band-work, is

XXVII CLIFFORD'S " LECTURES AND ESSAYS " 269

the life of it. Thus it is able to ' originate events inde-
pendently of foreign determining causes,' or to act with
freedom."

I am never quite sure that I understand these great
thoughts. To me it seems that the spontaneous, not
to say capricious changes, which we call changes of
fashion, most nearly satisfy the conditions here laid
down as proper subjects for cosmic emotion. — I
should admit, however, that the great poets of " cos-
mic emotion " quoted by Professor Clifford appear to
be Mr. Swinburne and Mr. Walt Whitman, and I
do not suppose that either of them are exactly oracles
of the world of fashion. The defect of these cosmic
emotions, as substitutes for religious emotions, seems
to be that so far from strengthening us and subduing
us for our duty here, they dissipate us in a world so
vague and so unintelligible, that we are left weaker
than before. Fancy striving hard to develop in our
society, as a good per se, some spontaneous variation
which is not one of conformity to our environment,
but put forth from within, and indulging ourselves
in grand emotions of delight at the freedom of these
stirrings in the heart of a people associated in band-
work? The only cosmic emotion which appears
appropriate to his genuinely scientific expectations,
is one on which Professor Clifford does not dwell.
He tells us, in the paper on "The Influence upon
Morality of a Decline in Religious Belief," that " we
are all to be swept away in the final ruin of the
earth," and that " the thought of that ending is a sad
thought " ; but he does not recommend it as a fitting
theme for " cosmic emotion," because, I suppose, this
is not an emotion arising in any spontaneous action
of the organism, but rather in reflecting on the

270 Clifford's "lectures and essays" xxvn

destiny which will be imposed upon us by the hard
laws of the environment. Still, I should have thought
it one of the most natural and one of the most dis-
tinct of the '' cosmic emotions " possible to scientific
atheists, — though it is, perhaps, characteristic of a
philosophy of materialistic evolution, to bid us think
as little as may be of the depressing aspects of that
evolution, and do all in our power to rally whatever
spontaneous force there may be in us to rebellion
against its sway. Yet without the help of a different
creed, there would not be much power left in us to
rally. Professor Clifford says in one place, in his
usual witty way, that it is a very bad habit of re-
ligious people that they are always trying to climb
up " the backstairs of a universe which has no back-
stairs." And yet this indulgence in cosmic emotion
seems very like pitching ourselves down the backstairs
of a universe which has backstairs, — the backstairs of
gradual dissolution and decay, — which backstairs,
however, we need not descend quite so rapidly, if we
only refused to indulge in such cosmic emotions as
Mr. Swinburne's and Mr. Walt Whitman's,

XXVIII

MR. COTTER MORISON ON "THE SERVICE

OF MAN"

1887

Mr. Cotter Morison has published a very vigorous
book on Ths Service of Man which will make a
sensation, and a sensation of a highly complicated
kind. Its object is to preach the service of man,
and to abolish the service of God as obsolete. Mr.
Morison runs down Christianity, but patronises the
Christian saints. He ridicules theology, but recog-
nises with gratitude the service which the false
hypothesis of a God rendered to humanity after the
fall of the Roman Empire, and even reproves Gibbon
for making light of the consubstantiality of the
divine Son. He tells more unpleasant stories than
were at all necessary for his purpose, of the dissolute-
ness of the Christian clergy in various periods of the
Church, but he balances them by stories of ascetic
saintliness which are not to his purpose at all, except
so far as it may be part of his purpose to concentrate
a strong light on Positivist candour at the cost
of Positivist teaching. Indeed, the book, which
contains in its preface a high compliment to Mr.
Bradlaugh for his proclamation of the necessity of

272 MR. COTTER MORISON ON xxviii

checking the increase of population, is a curious
compound of excerpts reminding us of The Con-
vent Exposed^ with excerpts reminding us of the
Lives of the Saints and excerpts reminding us of
the National Beforimr, or some other publication
meant to bring all theology into contempt. The
result is a book which produces, in Christians at
least, a certain creeping sensation like that excited
by a vivisector's dissertation on the gratitude which
he feels to the dog to which he owes the success of
a painful experiment on its vitals, or by one of
Robespierre's skilful preparations of the minds of
his audience for the proposal of a fresh batch of
massacres. Mr. Cotter Morison will probably say
that it is not his fault that in attempting to demolish
a complex system like Christianity, in which the
most various threads of what he holds to be true
and false sentiment are inextricably interwoven, he
excites the most painfully discordant feelings in
those who believe in that which he would like to
sweep away. Nor do I deny that this plea is fair
enough. Only I think that he might reasonably
have spared us a little of the unction with which he
has enlarged on the character of the saints, and
which, coming where it does, affects us rather as a
pressing offer of pork-chops affects a sea-sick person.
It was to his purpose, no doubt, to show that he
could appreciate what Christianity had done to intro-
duce a nobler element into human society. But
his whole book shows that it was n^t to his purpose,
— that it was, indeed, absolutely inconsistent with
his purpose, — to give credit to any influence what-
ever for filling human hearts with passionate hatred
of their own sins, as distinguished from strong dis-
satisfaction at the mischiefs those sins might have

XXVIII "THE SERVICE OF MAN" 273

caused to others and the desire never to be the cause
of such mischiefs again. Mr. Morison regards as a
grave and grievous waste of power that sense of
responsibility for evil-doing of which he encourages
us to rid ourselves as soon as we can, though that
feeling was at the very core of the passionate self-
reproach and contrition in which the heart of the
Christian saint expressed itself most vividly. He
does not, of course, morally condemn it, for he wishes
to rid human society of the idea of moral condemna-
tion altogether. He thinks that the saint was no
more responsible for the waste of power in which he
delighted, than is the criminal for his lusts and
crimes. But as he regards all that side of the saint's
character as part of the necessary moral waste in
the process of evolution, I think that he might
have spared us so many unctuous references to that
world of interior passion ; for they add much to the
disagreeableness of the complicated emotions excited
by his book. I do full justice to the sense of fair-
ness which leads Mr. Cotter Morison to express his
high appreciation of the disinterestedness, or, as he
and his school prefer to call it, barbarous as the
phrase is, the 'altruism,' which the true Christian
saint has so gloriously displayed. But since he does
not approve, nay, cordially disapproves of the waste,
on penitence, of power which he thinks ought all to
be directed into the formation of better habits, I do
think that he might have suppressed the pages in
which he gloats over the spiritual experience of
saints. Holding their misapplied meditations and
emotions to be instruments as clumsy and inferior
for the production of altruism, compared with the
true Positivist's teaching, as the savage's clumsy and
often abortive method of obtaining fire is inferior to
VOL. I T

274 MR. COTTER MORISON ON xxvili

a modern safety-match, he need not, I think, have
withdrawn the veil from experiences which he must
deem so unedifying.

However, let me come to Mr. Morison's main
end, which is to recommend his new religion, " the
Service of Man," as well-nigh ripe for superseding
the old religion of the service of God as manifested
in Christ. His indictment against Christianity is,
first, that it is neither true, nor even in modern times
so much as believable ; next, that it is not serviceable
for the production of virtue in average men and
women, though it has produced a very high kind of
virtue in those few exceptional characters which
reach or approach the saintly type. And on these
assertions, — for his acceptance of which he gives a
great variety of reasons, — he founds, of course, the
inference that the time has come for getting rid of
an obsolete creed which is no longer doing its work,
and for setting up Positivism in its place. It is
impossible to pass over in an article a surface of
criticism which occupies a volume. I can only
indicate the points at which I regard Mr. Cotter
Morison's attack as breaking down. With a great
deal that he says as to the untenability of the old view
of inspiration, I heartily agree. The Roman Church
will find some day, I suspect, that the only way in
which it can explain the words of the Vatican
Council that all the Scriptures have God for their
originator, liahent Deum audorem, will be tantamount
to explaining them away, and making every wise
Catholic regret that such words should ever have
been used. But the real value of the Bible as the
record of a race whose greatest rulers and most
trusted guides were taught from above, and who
recognised the influence of a higher nature on their

XXVIII " THE SERVICE OF MAN " 275

own as the primary certainty of their life, is not
affected by the recognition that its books are full of
human elements, including both good and ill. If we
can read the Bible and believe that all who recognised
the reality of this personal divine influence as acting
upon them and leading them into the way of
righteousness, were mistaken enthusiasts misled by
the complexity of the human consciousness, we may
acquiesce in Mr. Cotter Morison's view; and if
not, not. But those who utterly reject that view,
have no reason in the world to burden themselves
with the defence of all the defective science and
defective history, and all the evidence of ordinary
human passions, which the Bible, like all other
human literatures, contains. If the central fact be
true, as I do not doubt for a moment, that the Bible
contains in outline the history of a race guided into
righteousness by an invisible divine person with
whom the communion of all their greatest minds
was constant and ardent, and that this communion
reached its perfection, its absolute climax, in our
Lord's life and death, that is a fact the significance
of which no evidence as to the errors and passions
to which the human authors of the Bible were
subject, can in the least tend to undermine. I am
not even anxious to meet Mr. Cotter Morison's
contention that Genesis is unscientific; and as for
his position that the whole conception of original
sin, of a transmitted taint which revealed religion
was intended to help us to counteract, is morally
false, I can only say that a more demonstrable moral
truth is not to be found in the range even of
Positivist dogmas. Mr. Cotter Morison's favourite
doctrine as to the force of habit itself is not indeed
more certain. When he speaks of the Fall as an

276 MR. COTTER MORISON ON xxviii

evident falsehood, he uses the Fall in a sense in
which no theologian ever yet understood it. It is
childish to suppose that the doctrine of the intel-
lectual degeneration of man, — of which there is no
trace in Hebrew literature, — is so much as hinted at
in Scripture. But that there is such a thing as sin
in human nature, and that the tendency to sin
is transmitted from father to son, is as conspicuous
a truth to every one who believes in sin at all, — of
course, Mr. Cotter Morison does not, — as the truth
that physical characteristics are so transmitted.
Naturally, if there be no sin, there is no transmission
of sinfulness. It needs no Positivist to tell us that.
But what in the world is the subject of the great
literature of human remorse and contrition, if the
notion be a pure chimera that sin is something as
altogether different in kind from faultiness, as is
disobedience from misunderstanding? Again, there
is no occasion to meet Mr. Cotter Morison's perfectly
true charge against theologians of almost all sects
that they have preached about Hell in a way to
malign God, and, as I believe, to travesty frightfully
the teaching of Christ. None the less is it true that
the worst fate which man can conceive, is the fate of
those who, when they have the choice between the
upward and the downward path in their moral life,
choose the latter. Mr. Morison believes that there
neither is nor can be any such choice for any man.
And he is, of course, therefore logically quite right
in regarding Christianity as a gigantic development
of misleading error. That is no reason at all why
those should be dismayed at his teaching who are a
great deal surer that freedom, responsibility, and sin
are realities and not dreams, than they are that the
sun, the moon, and the earth are realities and not
dreams.

XXVIII " THE SERVICE OF MAN " " 277

Mr. Cotter Morison's proof that even if Christianity
were true, it is not believable by the present genera-
tion, is open to a similar criticism. Of course, it is
not believable by those who have borrowed for the
moral and spiritual world the lessons of physic(il
science, and imagine that by doing so they have
rendered a service to humanity, instead of having
led men off on a most misleading track. But the
truth is, that even the devotees of science are
beginning to be aware that they must shut their
eyes very hard, if they are to deny phenomena
utterly inexplicable by any of the physical sciences,
if they are to deny, for instance, that " phantasms of
the living" do appear at great distances from the
living organisations to which they are due, and do
convey impressions which turn out to be true
impressions and utterly inexplicable by any physical
science hitherto known. Mr. Morison refers to this
subject with the usual sarcasm that it is the straw
at which the supernaturalists catch, in the vain hope
of sustaining their dying faith, — being quite unaware,
I suppose, that some of the leading men in the
Society which has got together this evidence are as
sceptical as himself, and as well-disposed to turn the
evidence, — as it may be turned, — against the Christian
miracles, as to turn it,^ — as it may be turned, — in
their favour. But the truth certainly is that the
longer the phenomena of mesmerism and trance and
of the less ordinary psychical states are examined,
the more certain it becomes, on evidence which no
candid mind can reject, that even in this life there
is something in man which can occasionally pass far
beyond the limits of sense, and that after death there
are, in cases relatively rare, but collectively very
numerous, phenomena which are not to be explained

278 MR. COTTER MORISON ON xxnil

at all, unless they can be explained as manifestations
of a still existing personality. As for the plea that
Christianity, even when earnestly believed, produces
its effect only on a few sensitive minds, and not on
any great number of minds, Mr. Morison does not
bring any proof at all beyond the vague charge of
rhetorical preachers. History and experience are
dead against him. Of course, there have always
been multitudes who, while professing to believe
Christianity, paid no attention to its precepts. He
himself admits, — too freely as I think, considering
the very different ideals of Christianity and Positivism,
— that there have always been a fair sprinkling of
men of what even he regards as the most elevated
type, produced by Christianity. But between these
extremes, all who know anything of our Churches
now, or knew anything of them at any time, have
always discerned a very large number of men and
women restrained from sins which they would other-
wise have committed, and prompted to good works
which they would otherwise have neglected, by the
constant influence of a religion by which, neverthe-
less, they were only imperfectly penetrated. Will
Positivists ever produce a result one-tenth part as
satisfactory 1

But the real drift of Mr. Cotter Morison's book
is in his plea for a service of man as distinguished
from the service of God ; and here, too, is its greatest
weakness. His design is to show that in attempting
to train men to be serviceable to each other, there is
room for a religion free from superstition, which
may yet become most potent, — as, indeed, it has, he
thinks, already become potent, — and which will be
involved in none of the difficulties of Christianity,
though it will retain all that, for the purposes of

XXVIII " THE SERVICE OF MAN " 279

this life is useful in that great religion. But, as I
have said, it is the weakest part of his book. In
his attack on Christianity, he often assails vigorously
what is not of the essence of Christian teaching, but
what has been unfortunately incorporated with it.
In his exposition of the " Service of Man " as a
religion, he is not vigorous at all. In the first place,
by giving up ostentatiously the reality of responsi-
bility, and treating repentance as almost irrelevant,
and as most ineffectual exactly where it is most
needed, he falls back on training and habit as the
only moral forces of the world. " By morality," he
says, " is meant right conduct here on earth, — those
outward acts and inward sentiments which, by the
suppression of the selfish passions, conduce most to
the public and the private well-being of the race."
Very well, then, wherever those outward acts are
absolutely wanting, and those inward sentiments do
not exist, there is practically no hope. And that is
precisely Mr. Morison's teaching. If we could but
stop "the devastating torrent of children for a few
years," he says, and organise on right lines the
teaching necessary for the new generation, he thinks
that all might be hopeful ; but in his view there is
no hope for degraded adults, and still less for their
degraded offspring, unless they can be wholly rescued
from their parents' care. And there is a still more
serious stumbling-block beyond. What is to be the
ideal of man for teachers who do not believe in God's
love and mercy ? Altruism, they teU us. But what
is altruism to mean ? Is it not in the highest degree
altruistic for men who repudiate repentance and
regeneration to extirpate a bad moral stock? If
self-reproach is to cease as a waste of power and an
utter delusion, must not the corrective system be

280 " THE SERVICE OF MAN "

XXVIIl

indefinitely extended, and penalties attached at every
step to human misdoings, not, of course, as punitive
or retributive, but as supplying motives not to go
wrong again? And on altruistic principles, must
not a status of evil condition be recognised quite
apart from any overt crime, placing all who belong
to it under the strictest disability to marry, even if
the stock is not to be absolutely exterminated.
What a new ideal of moral conduct this implies, —
what cultivated mercilessness, what inexorable hard-
ness of heart, what rigidity of moral dogmatism,
what indifference to repentance and remorse !
The longer Mr. Cotter Morison's ideal for the true
*' Service of Man " is contemplated, the more evident
it will be that, if he is right, Christianity has not
only missed the truth, but taught the most deadly
falsehood, and that the Christian saint, so far from
deserving Mr. Morison's kind patronage, will become
to the new teachers who deny responsibility and
ridicule repentance, the awful warning from whose
example the new generation must be taught to recoil
in horror. " Nothing is gained," says Mr. Morison,
" by disguising the fact that there is no remedy for
a bad heart, and no substitute for a good one." Let
that doctrine supersede the belief in God's grace,
and we may confidently predict that the Positivists
of the future will absolutely reverse Christian
morality, and substitute for it a petrifying terror of
their own, — ^a Medusa-head from which average men
will start back in horror and dismay.

XXIX

ARDENT AGNOSTICISM
1888

The death of Mr. Cotter Morison has deprived the
English literary world of one of the most learned and
brilliant of that paradoxical group of men who may
properly be termed ardent agnostics, men who press
their agnosticism with a sort of apostolic unction, and
ask us to serve man, as the best men serve God, with
a zeal as disinterested and as absorbing as ever mis-
sionaries have displayed in the conversion of the
heathen. Mr. Cotter Morison has left no work be-
hind him at all adequate to the impression of ability
which he produced on the minds of those who could
appreciate what he had done. But his studies of St.
Bernard, of Gibbon, of Macaulay, and of Madame
de Maintenon, have supplied no mean test of his
purely literary skill ; while his last work, on The
Service of Man burns with the zeal of a sombre
enthusiast who would risk as much to suppress the
degraded classes, or at least to prevent them from
transmitting their degraded nature to a future gen-
eration, as ever an Apostle risked in order to infuse
into those classes the spiritual fire of a divine re-
novation. Mr. Cotter Morison, though he was so

282 ARDENT AGNOSTICISM xxix

thoroughgoing an agnostic that he eagerly desired to
sweep what he regarded as the obstacle now presented
by Christianity out of the path of human progress,
was nothing if not, in his own peculiar sense, relig-
ious. His books are full of what we may call unction.
He says of Gibbon that women who could enter into
his great book " are better fitted than men to appre-
ciate and to be shocked by his defective side, which
is a prevailing want of moral elevation and nobility
of sentiment. His cheek rarely flushes in enthusiasm
for a good cause. The tragedy of human life never
seems to touch him ; no glimpse of the infinite ever
calms and raises the reader of his pages. Like nearly
all the men of his day, he was of the earth earthy,
and it is impossible to get over the fact." Of
Macaulay he says that his "utter inability to com-
prehend piety of mind, is one of the most singular
traits in his character, considering his antecedents,"
and it is evident that he regards it as one of the
most serious blemishes in Macaulay's character. Of
Madame de Maintenon he writes with even sterner
reprobation when he is describing what George Eliot
called the " other-worldliness " of her religious obser-
vances : — " With reference to spiritual affairs, though
punctilious about her salvation, she always treats the
matter as a sort of prudent investment, a preparation
against a rainy day which only the thoughtless could
neglect. All dark travail of soul, anguish, or ecstasy
of spirit were hidden from her." And he marks
strongly his dislike of her " utter lack of all spiritual
— we will not say fervour, but sensibility." On the
other hand, no one can reproach Mr. Cotter Morison
with any want of such sensibility, if that is to be
called spiritual sensibility which seems to covet the
feelings of a saint without believing in any object for

XXIX

ARDENT AGNOSTICISM 283

those feelings. "The true Christian saint," he says
in The Service of Man (p. 196), "though a rare
phenomenon, is one of the most wonderful to be wit-
nessed in the moral world ; so lofty, so pure, so
attractive, that he ravishes men's souls into oblivion
of the patent and general fact that he is an exception
amongst thousands or millions of professing Chris-
tians. The saints have saved the Churches from
neglect and disdain." "What needs admitting, or
rather proclaiming, by agnostics who would be just,
is that the Christian doctrine has a power of cultivat-
ing and developing saintliness which has had no
equal in any other creed or philosophy. When it
gets firm hold of a promising subject, one with a
heart and head warm and strong enough to grasp its
full import and scope, then it strengthens the will,
raises and purifies the affections, and finally achieves
a conquest over the baser self in man of which the
result is a character none the less beautiful and soul-
subduing because it is wholly beyond imitation by
the less spiritually endowed. The 'blessed saints'
are artists who work with unearthly colours in the
liquid and transparent tints of a loftier sky than any
accessible or visible to common mortals." Clearly
there is no lack of " religious sensibility " here. And
the amazing thing is that those saints whom Mr.
Cotter Morison so much admired, not only filled
their souls with the worship of what he regarded as
an empty dream which had no existence in any world,
but trained their hearts and minds on a firm belief
in what he held to be a moral delusion which could
not be too soon exposed and expelled from all rea-
sonable natures, namely, that there are such realities
as human responsibility, sin, merit, demerit, and
penitence. In a word, Mr. Cotter Morison wanted

284 ARDENT AGNOSTICISM xxix

to keep the saintly character without its daily bread,
— to keep the " anguish or ecstasy of spirit," which
arises exclusively from the faith in a perfect Being
who condemns or approves us, without the faith to
which it is solely and exclusively due. It was a
very strange state of mind. I can understand the
saint, and I can understand the scoffer at saintly
illusions. But I cannot understand the fervour with
which the man who wants to expose the illusions,
delights in the spiritual delirium which these illu-
sions have produced.

Certainly it is not easy to explain how a man
with so keen an insight into both character and
history as Mr. Cotter Morison's study of Madame de
Maintenon, for instance, betrays, could have admired
passionately the type of character which was pro-
duced by the belief in what he held to be mischievous
superstitions, and could have desired to sweep away
those superstitions while retaining the type. Per-
haps the best explanation of these ardent agnostics,
of these believers in the ecstasy of a spiritual com-
munion with mere memories and hopes, is to be
found in the fact that they are all more or less
capricious in their individual prejudices, men who, like
Comte, institute impossible devotions which make
nobod}'^ devout, and draw up calendars of miscel-
laneous notables which are to include some of the
saints, and replace the others by persons of very
dubious merit. Mr. Cotter Morison, with all his
learning and all his enthusiasm and unction, fre-
quently showed traces of a singularly capricious and
uncatholic judgment, which accounts in some degree,
perhaps, for his admiration of air-fed idealists. Thus,
in his little study of Macaulay, he expends much
indignant wrath upon him for repeating to himself a

XXIX ARDENT AGNOSTICISM 285

great part of Milton's Paradise Lost on board the
ship which was taking him to Ireland : — " The com-
plaint is," he wrote, " that Macaulay's writings lack
meditation and thoughtfulness. Can it be wondered
at, when we see the way in which he passed his
leisure hours? One would have supposed that an
historian and statesman, sailing for Ireland, in the
night on that Irish Sea would have been visited by
thoughts too full and bitter and mournful to have
left him any taste even for the splendours of Milton's
verse. He was about to write on Ireland and the
Battle of the Boyne, and had got up his subject with
his usual care before starting. Is it not next to in-
credible that he could have thought of anything else
than the pathetic, miserable, humiliating story of the
connection between the two islands 1 And he knew
that story better than most men. Yet it did not
kindle his mind on such an occasion as this. There
was a defect of deep sensibility in Macaulay, — a
want of moral draught and earnestness, — which is
characteristic of his writing and thinking." Surely
there never was a more amazing outburst of indigna-
tion than this. It would seem that Mr. Cotter
Morison wants men of genius always to reflect the
reflections which are specially appropriate to the
particular situation in which they find themselves ;
to be in a mood appropriate to Ireland as they
approach Ireland, and a mood for historical survey
as they prepare thenselves for the writing of history.
A more capricious assumption of pedantic appropriate-
ness between the mind and its anticipated interests
could hardly be conceived. Shakespeare might have
taught a man of much less capacity than Mr. Cotter
Morison that some of the most reflective characters are
disposed to joke when they ai-e on the very edge of the

286 ARDENT AGNOSTICISM xxix

most solemn experience, and to risf lightly, as it were,
with wings into the air, on the eve of approaching
calamity. It is the mark of a doctrinaire to demand,
on pain of censure, the mood conventionally appro-
priate for the occasion from such men as Macaulay.
And the same remark may be made concerning Mr.
Cotter Morison's still stranger criticism on Macaulay's
Lays of Ancient Bome, — all the more remarkable
that it is preceded by a very fine and true apprecia-
tion of the literary value of the ballads themselves,
— namely, that it was not " worthy of a serious
scholar to spend his time in producing mere fancy
pictures which could have no value beyond a certain
prettiness, 'in the prolongation from age to age of
romantic historical descriptions instead of sifted
truth.'" "Could we imagine," he asks, "Croteor
Mommsen or Ranke or Freeman engaged in such a
way without a certain sense of degradation]" To
which I should certainly answer, not merely with an
emphatic yes, but further, that if these historians had
the capacity to produce such ballads as Macaulay's
La?js, they would rise indefinitely in our esteem by
producing them, instead of falling lower in it, as Mr.
Morison thought they should, because they did not
employ their time in " sifting " truth, instead. Criti-
cisms like this seem to betray the wilfulness and
caprice which have entered as an alloy into the char-
acteristics of most of the curious group of men who
have been what I have called ardent agnostics. They
are men who indulge themselves in arbitrary intel-
lectual caprices of their own, — ^in killing the root of
what is great, while insisting on keeping the great-
ness ; in lamenting the absence of some petty habit
of thought by which they lay great store, and attri-
Wting to it a kind of value of which it is wholly

XXIX AKDENT AGNOSTICISM 287

destitute. Mr. Cotter Morison strangely combined
the eloquence and fervour of Christian sentiment
with the scornful fastidiousness and critical pedantry
of a systematic thinker who sternly rejected all that
did not fit into his system. " Agnostics," he boasts,
"when smitten by the sharp arrows of fate, by
disease, poverty, bereavement, do not complicate
their misery by anxious misgivings and fearful wonder
why they are thus treated by the God of their salva-
tion. The pitiless, brazen Heavens overarch them
and believers alike ; they bear their trials or their
hearts break, according to their strength. But one
pang is spared them, — ^the mystery of God's wrath,
that he should visit them so sorely." Yes, that pang
is spared them, and the strength which it gives is
spared them also. The Christian knows that whether
it is retribution for his sins, or purging for purifica-
tion, or stimulus intended to give him higher spiritual
strength, the pang which comes from above is full of
power. But the ardent agnostics of our own day
want to throw all the ardour of faith into the pro-
pagation of an agnostic service of humanity, and that
is an impossible combination which only a capricious
intellect could imagine. You cannot combine Gibbon's
cold intellect with a saint's passion for communion
with "the infinite." You cannot advocate the ser-
vice of a limited posterity of mortal beings with the
passion which is due to the regeneration of a world
of immortal beings ; and though here and there, as
in such eloquent critics as Mr. Cotter Morison, the
paradox may seem to be achieved, we may be quite
sure that either the agnostics of the future will cease
to be ardent, or that the ardours of the future will
cease to be agnostic.

XXX

ASTEONOMY AND THEOLOGY

1888

In his recent apology for what he is pleased to call
the Positivist " faith," Mr. Frederic Harrison has re-
stated with his usual eloquence the position which
we have so often seen taken before, that the Christian
faith could not possibly have been first originated in
an age that had had a heliocentric astronomy. "To the
old theology, the Earth was the grand centre and sum
of the Universe, and the other heavenly bodies were
adjuncts and auxiliaries to it. With a geocentric
astronomy as the root-idea of science, the anthropo-
morphic Creator, the celestial resurrection, and the
Divine Atonement, were natural and homogenous
ideas. No one can conceive the Scheme of Salvation
growing up with anything but a geocentric system of
thought. With a geocentric science and an anthropo-
morphic philosophy, all this was natural enough.
But with a science where this planet shrinks into an
unconsidered atom with a transcendental philosophy
to which the anthropomorphic is the contemptible,
the Augustinian Theology goes overboard." And the
Head-Master of Clifton College, speaking as a
Christian clergyman, to some extent echoes, and to

XXX ASTRONOMY AND THEOLOGY 289

some extent goes beyond, Mr. Harrison : — " Our
whole attitude towards theology," he says, " has been
profoundly altered by the conviction that we have
attained, though perhaps scarcely formulated, of. the
unity of nature. It is seen in many ways. The
remotest ages of the past are now linked with ours
in one continuous physical and biological history, and
the most distant stars reveal a kinship to our own
sun and earth. Our theology has, therefore, to be a
theology not of this planet alone, or of this age alone,
but a theology of the universe and of all time. The
earth cannot be for us any longer the one stage on
which the divine drama is played. It is this thought
more than anything else which has unconsciously but
irresistibly antiquated for us so much of theological
speculation.^^ The most marked and direct effect on
theology of this conception of the unity of nature,
has, of course, come from the alteration it has made
in the position of man. Man was formerly regarded
as unique, as separate from nature. The earth was
a platform on which Adam and his posterity were
working out their eternal destiny in the sight of all
creation. But man is now seen to be a part of nature,
instead of separate from it. The unity of nature has
embraced even ourselves. And the effect of this
tremendous reversal of ideas must be felt in our
theology." ^ In some respects, then, Mr. Wilson, the
Christian clergyman, presents the supposed revolution
in our thoughts as even more tremendous than Mr.
Harrison had declared it to be. If, indeed, in the
ordinary meaning of the words, man had been
found to be "a part of nature," — in the sense

^ Some Contributions to the Eeligious Thought of Our Time.
By the Rev. James M. Wilson, M.A., Head-Master of Clifton
College. Macmillan and Co. (See pp. 253-254.)

VOL. I U

290 ASTRONOMY AND THEOLOGY XXX

of a mere outcome of the energies germinating in
nature, — the obvious inference would be far more
fatal to our ethics, and therefore to our theology,
than any heliocentric astronomy possibly could be ;
for then free-will and responsibility would be dreams,
and God's laws nothing but more or less potent in-
ducements which must take their chance of producing
an effect upon us amongst the crowd of other induce-
ments, without finding in us any free power on whicli
to make a claim. That implies a revolution of a
more astounding kind than any that only leads man
to think of his own planet as a sort of petty ant-hill
among the mighty suns and planets of an infinite
universe. But Mr. Wilson also seems to hold that
the mere extinction of the geocentric astronomy has
vitally affected the whole world of theological convic-
tion, and that if the Jews had but known that there
are hundreds of thousands of other suns in the
universe, and, for anything we know, millions of
other planets inhabited by races of all possible
varieties of physical, mental, and moral stature,
there could have been no theology exactly of the
type of that which we have inherited from them.

While heartily admitting that if man be nothing
but a link in the chain of natural causes, Christian
theology must be utterly revolutionised, — a point on
which I do not now propose to dwell, — I venture to
differ very respectfully from Mr. Wilson in thinking,
with him and Mr. Frederic Harrison, that heliocentric
astronomy has in any vital respect altered at all the
validity of the theological conceptions of the Jewish
and Christian revelations. Nay, I would go further,
and say that if our astronomy could have been known
to the Jews, it would have decidedly reinforced in-
stead of undermining, the general teaching of their

XXX ' ASTRONOMY AND THEOLOGY 291

inspired books. Indeed, so far as the Jewish pro-
phets made use of such astronomy as they had, they
used it altogether in the sense in which the modern
agnostics use their heliocentric astronomy, — to im-
press upon man his utter insignificance in creation.
When Isaiah wants to make his countrymen feel that
princes are mere dust, what does he say ? God, he
says, "brought princes to nothing; he maketh the
judges of the earth as vanity. Yea, they have not
been planted ; yea, they have not been sown ; yea,
their stock hath not taken root in the earth : more-
over, he bloweth upon them and they wither, and
the whirlwind taketh them away as stubble. To
whom, then, will ye Hken me that I should be equal ?
saith the Holy One. Lift up your eyes on high ;
and see who hath created these, that bringeth out
their host by number ; he calleth them all by name ;
by the greatness of his might, and for that he is
strong in power, not one faileth." When the author
of the Book of Job, in urging what another prophet
calls " the Lord's controversy," wants to convince Job
of his nothingness, what is his most impressive
illustration ? — " Canst thou bind the sweet influences
of the Pleiades" — [or, as the Kevised Version puts
it, " Canst thou bind the cluster of the Pleiades 1 "]
— " or loose the bands of Orion 1 Canst thou lead
forth the signs of the Zodiac in their season, or canst
thou guide the Bear with her train 1 Knowest thou
the ordinances of the heavens 1 Canst thou establish
the dominion thereof in the earth 1 " — language
surely, if ever language could be used, which suggests
that to control the heavenly bodies implies a force
of far mightier scope and magnitude than any which
is needed only for our little planet. Or take the
prophet Amos : — " Ye that turn judgment to worm-

292 ASTRONOMY AND THEOLOGY XXX

wood, and cast down righteousness to the earth, seek
him that maketh the Pleiades and Orion, and turneth
the shadow of death into the morning, that maketh
the day dark with night," — a. passage which seems
a sort of anticipation of Wordsworth's apostrophe to
Duty :—

" Thou canst preserve the stars from wrong,
And the most ancient heavens through thee are fresh
and strong."

The prophets of Judaea certainly used astronomy,
so far as they used it at all, entirely in the modern
sense, to lower the pride of man, and to convince him,
as Isaiah says, that "My thoughts are not your
thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the
Lord ; for as the heavens are higher than the earth, so
are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts
than your thoughts." Clearly the higher the heavens
had been known to be from the earth, the more
effective, not the less effective for its purpose, would
have been such language as this. I do not, of course,
imagine for a moment that the Jewish prophets had
any inkling of modern astronomy; but this I do
assert, that if they had known it in all its physical
magnificence, they could hardly have used astronomi-
cal images with surer effect for the very purpose for
which they did use them, — namely, to make man
feel his own utter insignificance in the presence of
him who, to cite the striking and almost scientific
language of Isaiah, had "weighed the mountains in
scales, and the hills in a balance."

But I go much further, and deny entirely that if
the physics and astronomy of a later age had been
familiar to the generation which saw the rise of
Christianity, it would have made any such difference

XXX ASTRONOMY AND THEOLOGY 293

in the character of its theology as Mr. Frederic
Harrison maintains. He thinks, as we have seen,
that it would have been impossible to believe in an
Incarnation and an Atonement, for the benefit of our
petty human race, if it had been known that our
world is one of the mere atoms of the physical
universe, and that for anything we know, there may
be countless multitudes of worlds far more important
and far more advanced in the story of evolution than
this little earth. This assertion is the purest and,
as I believe, the most groundless of assumptions.
Where can you find the mind of the Christian theo-
logian of that early day better set forth than in the
Epistle to the Hebrews, whoever may be the writer.
And what position does he take up ? He begins by
stating that the Son of God is the " heir of all things,
through whom also he made the worlds " (the revisers
of our version think that "the ages" may perhaps
be the true meaning, instead of " the worlds," though
they adhere to the old translation) ; " who being the
eflulgence of his glory, and the express image of his
person, and upholding all things by the word of his
power, when he had made purification of sins, sat
down on the right hand of the Majesty on high ;
having become so much better than the angels, as he
hath inherited a more excellent name than they."
And then he goes on to argue at length that whereas
the higher spiritual orders of being whom the Jews
called angels, and who were God's ministers, though
not bound by earthly conditions, all rank beneath the
Son of God, this Son of God nevertheless manifested
himself in this petty world of ours to purify us from
sin, and obtain for us the blessedness which sin for-
feits. Of course, I do not dream of attributing to
any writer of the first century speculations like

294 ASTRONOMY AND THEOLOGY XXX

Professor AVhewell's on " The Plurality of Worlds."
But I do say that such writers had gathered, probably
from the time of the Babylonian exile, a very stead-
fast belief in a vast hierarchy of beings in power far
superior to man, and that their belief in this hierarchy
of superior beings in no degree affected their convic-
tion that the redemption of man from sin is a work
worthy of the divine Incarnation, and of that divine
suffering to which the Incarnation led and in which
it was fulfilled. Why should that conviction have
been altered, if it had been supposed that this
hierarchy of angels, instead of ' being placed vaguely
in the heavens, were the fixed inhabitants of any of
those shining worlds of which the prophets had
spoken as showing forth the wonderful power of
God ? How could any illustration of the utter insig-
nificance of man have carried the belief in that insig-
nificance further than it was carried by teachers who
declared that " all flesh is grass, and all the goodliness
thereof is as the flower of the field ; the grass
withereth, the flower fadeth, because the breath of
the Lord bloweth upon it ; surely the people is grass ;
the grass withereth, the flower fadeth, but the word
of our God shall stand for ever." It seems to me
that had the Hebrew teachers of the first or any
previous century been told that there are in creation
myriads of planets infinitely greater than our world,
and possibly inhabited by beings as much more ex-
alted than man as their dwelling-places are greater,
they would not have been staggered in the very least.
They would have said that if in such worlds what
corresponds to human sin had taken place, — which
would, of course, be matter of pure conjecture, — they
had no doubt that the mercy of God would equally
have provided something corresponding to human re-

XXX ASTRONOMY AND THEOLOGY 295

demption ; but that, at all events, we cannot ground
any but the most worthless objection to what we do
know, on conjectures as to what we do not know.
We do kT]^nw what God is. and what sin is, and what
redemption is, and we must act on what we do know.
To disbelieve in a revealed spiritual power of which
we stand in the greatest need, only because physical
astronomers have suggested that there may be count-
less other races needing the same aid that we need,
or even needing it more, but of the answer to whose
need we can know nothing because we know nothing
about the real existence of it, would be as frivolous
as to shut our eyes to the actual light we have and
ignore its existence, only because we may conjecture
with some plausibility that countless other beings in
other worlds need light as much or more than we
do, while we have no absolute assurance that, if they
do need it, they have it in the same rich abundance.
If the ants in an ant-hill were capable of duty and
sin in the sense in which we are capable of it, why
should not they, too, yearn for and obtain redemp-
tion 1 And to show that we are ants in a moral and
spiritual ant-hill relatively to the infinite universe
around us, far from showing that we can afford to
ignore the mercy of God, only because we are such
poor creatures, would only show that we are all the
more bound to accept with gratitude that which pre-
vents us from being poorer than we need be, — poorer
especially in that highest of all blessings which re-
conciles us to the spirit of God.

XXXI

THE MAGNANIMITY OF UNBELIEF

1877

In the papers which Mr. Frederic Harrison has con-
tributed to the Nineteenth Century on " The Soul and
Future Life," and in his reply to the many criticisms
which those papers drew down upon him, there is
visible precisely the same state of mind which is so
curiously illustrated in Harriet Martineau's Auto-
biography,— the state of mind, we mean, which
Miss Cobbe, in her striking contribution to a
recent Theological Review, happily terms one of
"magnanimous atheism." Any one who has seen a
shrunken and withered apple apparently revive under
the exhausted receiver of an air-pump, may perhaps
have some notion, derived from that analogy, of the
reason of this swelling of the heart in a sort of
triumphant relief at the imaginary evanescence of
the religious influences under the pressure of which
it had lived. The apple swells out because the
atmospheric pressure on the outside is removed, and
the confined air in it consequently expands till it
seems as sound and plump as it was while all its
juices were rich and full. And so, we take it, the
elation of mind which Harriet Martineau so vividly

XXXI THE MAGNANIMITY OF UNBELIEF 297

describes, the gratulation wherewith she looked up
to the midnight stars, and thought within herself
that the creeds of her youth were a system of illusions |
which she and Mr. Atkinson had contrived to throw
off, was due to the cessation of the pressure of that
sense of constant obligation and claim under which
she had formerly been living, and its exchange for
the conviction that instead of trying to interpret
painfully the demands of another and higher spirit
upon her own, all she had to do was to give free
vent to her own aspirations, and follow the impulses
of her own thought. " When," wrote Miss Martineau,^
"in the evenings of that spring, I went out (as I
always do when in health) to meet the midnight on
my terrace, or in bad weather in the porch, and saw
and felt what I always do see and feel there at that
hour, what did it matter whether people who were
nothing to me had smiled or frowned when I passed
them in the village in the morning? When I ex-
perienced the still new joy of feeling myself to be a
portion of the universe, resting on the security of its
everlasting laws, certain that its Cause was wholly
out of the sphere of human attributes, and that the
special destination of my race is infinitely nobler
than the highest prepared under a scheme of divine
moral government, how could it matter to me that
the adherents of a decaying mythology (the Christian
following the heathen as the heathen followed the
barbaric-fetish) were fiercely clinging to their Man-
God, their scheme of salvation, their reward and
punishment, their essential pay -system, as ordered
by their mythology ? . . . To the emancipated, it is
a small matter that those who remain imprisoned
are shocked at the daring which goes forth into the
^ Autobiography, vol. ii. p. 355.

298 THE MAGNANIMITY OF UNBELIEF XXXI

sunshine and under the stars to study and enjoy,
without leave asked, or the fear of penalty." In
precisely the same tone, Mr. Frederic Harrison ex-
pounds his 'religion of humanity,' and throws off all
the beliefs of the theologians, as constructed out of
" dithyrambic hypotheses and evasive tropes." There
is in all the Positivists, a note of scornful triumph
as they clear their souls of what they call the super-
stitions of ages, and exhort us to be content with
worshipping the providence which the race of man
exercises over individual men, and with anticipating
the ' posthumous activities ' which are to be the some-
what worthless, but the only conceivable, equivalents
for immortal growth. In all the soliloquies and all
the homilies to which the Positivists give utterance,
you can see the same sense of relief, in fact the air
which Miss Cobbe so well describes as the air of
magnanimity, — as if they were doing something
rather grand, and rising in their own estimation, as
they cast to the winds the old faiths. Yet Miss
Martineau, as Miss Cobbe reminds us, was almost
dismayed when she thought of the pain which her
new belief in personal annihilation would carry to
the heart of some friends of hers who were widows,
and who lived in the hope not only of a future life
in God, but of a future reunion with the objects of
their warmest earthly love, and whom she feared it
might even deprive of reason to have this hope taken
away from them. Yet with all this dismay, she
speaks of her new disbelief as a potent remedy for
human ills which it would be selfish in her to keep
to herself. "My comrade and I both care for our
kind, and we could not see them suffering as we had
suffered, without imparting to them our consolation
and our joy. Having found, as my friend said, a

XXXI THE MAGNANIMITY OF UNBELIEF 299

spring in the desert, should we see the multitude
wandering in desolation and not show them our
refreshment 1 " Whereupon Miss Cobbe remarks,
" Would it not have been a more appropriate simile
to say, ' Having found that the promised land was a
mirage, we hastened back joyfully to bring the inter-
esting tidings to our friends in the wilderness, some
of whom we expected would go mad when they re-
ceived our intelligence, to which, from their great
respect for us, we knew they would attach the utmost
importance. By some strange fortuity, however,
they did not quite believe our report, and went on
their way as before, under the pillar of cloud ' 1 "
Yet it is evident that while, on the one hand, the
Positivists are conscious that they are trying to re-
move a faith in which the human spirit profoundly
rests, they do really feel, on the other hand, as if
those who can share their point of view were throw-
ing off a weight of care, and growing freer and nobler
and more dignified beings in so doing, — as if in fact,
to use Miss Martineau's phrase, going "to meet the
midnight " were an infinitely freer and less humiliat-
ing act of mind than going to meet God. They
move more easily when they imagine themselves
merely under the midnight than they could under
the eye of Divine righteousness, and they become
higher beings in their own estimation, just as the
apple blooms out again under the exhausted receiver.
Mr. Harrison, indeed, expressly finds fault with the
Christian order of thought for thinking so poorly of
man as he is. He speaks of the view of their own
lives taken by men who hold that much of what they
have done will result in 'posthumous activities' of a
very unsatisfactory kind, and a great proportion of
their past in posthumous activities that are simply

300 THE MAGNANIMITY OF UNBELIEF xxxi

morally indifferent, being neither bad nor good, as
they were mere pessimists, and adds, " Pessimism as to
/ the essential dignity of man, and the steady develop-
ment of his race, is one of the surest marks of the
enervating influence of this dream of a celestial glory."
In other words, to Mr. Harrison, as certainly to Miss
Martineau, all humiliation is pessimism, — even though
it touches in no way the essential dignity of man,
but rather only the unsuccessful attempts of the in-
dividual ego to reach that essential dignity of man.
As the belief in God vanishes, the satisfaction with
ourselves as we are, grows, and we begin to be quite
sure that the vast majority of all our "posthumous
activities " will go to increase the store of testimony
accumulating to all future ages of "the essential
dignity of man."

I am far from blaming the Positivists for this re-
sult of their scepticism. It seems to me to be in
most cases a certain result of it ; — of course not in
all cases, because the vanishing of the belief in God
does not in the least extinguish Him ; and to those
few who are real enough to see the truth about them-
selves^ in spite of the intellectual bewilderment in
which they may live as to the Author of their being,
the consciousness of the poverty of their motives, and
of the vein of selfishness in even their best actions,
of the half-and-halfness of their aspirations, of the
mixture of self-love in their affections, and of the
dull edge of their virtue, must be as keen as if they
fully recognised the Presence which really shows
them all this about themselves. But there are very
few of us who are thus realists. Inevitably, in the
cultivated at least, the failure to recognise anything
higher than man above us must make man himself,
— even as he is, — seem a more satisfactory being

XXXI THE MAGNANIMITY OF UNBELIEF 301

than he can ever seem to those who compare him
constantly with Christ. As certainly as the failure
to recognise the attraction of the sun led our fore-
fathers into all sorts of exaggerations of the stability
of the earth, the failure to recognise the divine love
and righteousness, will lead those who miss them to
exaggerate the worth and value of human love and
righteousness. It is the weight of our debt and
obligation which makes us sc»e what poor creatures,
except through the divine help, we really are. Re-
move the sense of these higher obligations, and we
grow inevitably in our own estimation, just as the
withered apple revives when the air ceases to press
upon it. Indeed, the real issue between the Positivist
and the Christian might fairly well be summed-up in
the one question whether humility be a morbid and
misleading quality, or the very truth and core of all
real self-knowledge. If the former, the Positivists
are right ; if the latter, the Christians. But what
shall be the test 1 Surely the experience of the past
affords us test enough. Mr. Harrison says in effect
that the tendency to think lightly of man as he is, is
the result, — and I agree with him, — of man's "dream
of celestial glory." Well, but what has been the
moral fruit of that stoic self-estimation and magnan-
imity which is now a'gain lifting up Its head, as com-
pared^ with the attitude of moral humiliation which
Mr. Harrison calls " pessimism " ? Whence have the
great beneficent moral agencies of the world sprung ?
From the optimism of self-satisfied human dignity,
or from the pessimism, — if so it is to be called, — of /
the ages of humility? Surely all that is morally j
great in man, from the greater works of charity to I
the greater triumphs of the spirit of truth, have |
sprung out of that humility which has ascribed all

302 THE MAGNANIMITY OF UNBELIEF xxxi

its achievements to the power of God, and has found
the confidence necessary for effecting even the great-
est revolutions in human society only because it be-
lieved itself to be driven on by Him. The grand
picturesque magnanimity of the Stoic school has done
nothing for humanity, compared with the spirit of
Christian humiliation ; and, tested by the past at
least, the equanimity or magnanimity which seems
to spring from unbelief will be barren indeed, com-
pared with the self-depreciation, or even, if you please
to call it so, self-disgust, springing out of the know-
ledge of a diviner Presence and a. mightier Will.

XXXII

AUGUSTS COMTE'S ASPIRATION

1877

Sir Ersktne Perry's account, in the Nineteenth
Century for November, of his interview with Auguste
Comte in the year 1853 is not one to be easily
forgotten. It brings out in full relief, as one of the
most distinguished of his disciples has lately brought
out in the same journal, that the daring experiment
of Comte was this, — to see if, by renouncing all talk
about causes, he could not so manage that men
should both reject their faith and keep it, eat their
cake and have it too. It has always been a griev-
ance with ordinary men that this seems impossible.
Comte boldly availed himself of this sense of griev-
ance, and by persuading himself that if we would
give up talking about causes we might cease to
suffer from this grievance, really persuaded a school,
comprehending some extremely able men, to make a
fight for the chance of uniting all the pleasures of
aristocratic scepticism with all the pleasures of a
glowing faith. And Sir Erskine Perry's picture
helps us to see the kind of man to whom such an
experiment was possible. The "smallish, stooping
man, in long tweed dressing-gown, much bloodshot

304 AUGUSTE COMTE's ASPIRATION xxxil

in one eye, healthy rose tint, short black hair, small
Celtic features, forehead unremarkable, agreeable
physiognomy," who believed that in 1857 he should
be preaching Positivism "from the pulpit of Ndtre
Dame" (in 1857 he died); who was so keen for
the government of an intellectual aristocracy, and
so confident that he should found a school "like
Aristotle or St. Paul " (note the disjunctive conjunc-
tion, associating the two most different types of
founders in the world), " and one that will probably
be more important than those two joined together ; "
who anticipated the time when journalism should be
replaced by broadsheets affixed to the walls of great
towns, wherein those who had anything to say should
say to the people just what they wanted, and no
more; who had given up reading altogether, ex-
cept now and then something from a favourite poet ;
who spoke of the spirit of Christianity as com-
pletely egotistical and not sufficiently ' altruistic ' —
i.e., unselfish — for "positive" thinkers; who weekly
visited the grave of Clotilde de Vaux, and continued
to rent the apartment he had hired in more
prosperous days chiefly because, as he mentioned
with tears in his eyes, it was the scene of his inter-
course with that " holy colleague " ; and who showed
with a certain solemnity to his visitor the little
ante -room in which "many important sacraments
have already been performed, — marriages, presenta-
tion of children, etc." — the man, we say, who stood
for this picture seems a perfect equivalent in the
intellectual sphere for those tenacious dingers to the
shadow of the past after the substance has been
abandoned, of whom we so often read amongst needy
nobles of blue-blood, men who go through the solemn
form of stately life, and persuade themselves that it

XXXII AUGUSTE COMTE'S ASPIRATION 305

is as stately as ever, when all that gave it meaning
is passed away. Yet Sir Erskine Perry's picture is
evidently both a faithful and friendly one, indeed
the picture drawn by a disciple, or something like a
disciple. Comte evidently hoped, and Mr. Harrison
evidently hopes, to make as grand a use of the
feelings which grow out of a profound faith, in the
absence as in the presence of that faith. And this
he called Positivism, — ^that is, sticking to what you
have got in human nature, without troubling your-
self as to its roots. It was Professor Huxley, we
think, who first described Positivism as Catholicism
without God. And I am disposed to think that
that epigrammatic description was by no means dis-
pleasing to some of the best Positivists themselves.
Certainly Mr. Frederic Harrison has been doing a
good deal, in those eloquent articles of his on
" The Soul and Future Life," to justify the phrase.
He uses all the words appropriate to Catholic faith
in the new sense which excludes that faith, — speaks,
for instance, of the " Soul " as the mere " harmony
of man's various powers," — of " Providence " as the
mysterious power by which man controls his own
destiny, — of " immortality " as " posthumous energy,"
and then boldly claims for words which he has care-
fully disembowelled of their old meaning, all the
charm and magic of associations which that old
meaning had alone bestowed. Now, the picture of
the founder of this system, as painted by the kindly
and admiring hand of Sir Erskine Perry, more than
justifies this procedure. He paints us a man of
thin fanaticism, a dreamer who lived on a few
unsubstantial ideas ^plus an excitability of brain
which made the eye bloodshot and the unreal seem
real. Comte thought it a duty to * personify,' after
VOL. I X

306 AUGUSTK COMTE'S ASPIRATION xxxii

he had given up believing in a person. He dis-
coursed at great length to Sir Erskine Perry, in reply-
to that gentleman's sturdy English objections to such
a procedure, and discoursed with what Sir Erskine
Perry called " his brilliant flow of words, "^on the neces-
sity for speaking of humanity as a Grand Eire, " in order
to concentrate ideas." Nay, he justified the use of the
female form, as the most natural " type of what is excel-
lent and loveable," for the purpose of rendering the
personification more lively, and justified expressly on
that ground his habit of frequently substituting the
strange phrase Ddesse for Grand Eire. In the same
way, Comte made as much or more of the Sacraments
— minus their ancient meaning — as the Roman
Catholics themselves who regard them as conveying
a real stream of divine grace. He wanted, too, to
get all the advantages exerted by a sacred caste — a
priesthood — in subduing the minds of the people,
without attributing to the priesthood any of those
supernatural gifts on the belief in which the power
of the priesthood really rests. If any one thwarted
him in this attempt to combine what seemed
legitimately uncombinable, his method of dealing
with his critic was remarkable. For instance, Sir
Erskine Perry, as I have already intimated, told him
he did not think the coarse common-sense of mankind
would stand being told to worship a Grand Eire or
even a Ddesse which had no more existence than an
abstract idea. Comte was equal to the occasion.
" Ah ! " said he, " I fear you do not render justice to
the middle-ages, and have too many prejudices still
in your mind belonging to the last century. The
services which the Church rendered during a very
long period, though for five centuries it has been un-
doubtedly retrograde, are inestimable. The spiritual

XXXII AUGUSTS COMTE's ASPIRATION 307

dominion erected as a Power, the complete union of
the affections and the intellect in pursuit of a com-
mon object, yielded fruits such as the world now
knows nothing of." No doubt the world has nothing
like it now ; and why ? Because M. Comte and
others have done their best to persuade the world
that the affections of Christians in the middle-ages
were fixed not on real objects, but on a vacuum,
occupied only by the empty intellectual abstractions
of the human intellect. And then he endeavoured
to restore the warmth of the old affections, after he
had himself done all in his power to dry up the very
source of them. The attempt to love a Grand Mre,
or even a D4esse, in the existence of which the mind
does not believe, must always be a futile one, which
only men of more fancy than realism, or some lesion
of the brain, will be able to accomplish. Comte
would probably say that as the affections formerly
fixed on what he held to be a non-existent Deity
were really strong, there is no reason why they
should not become strong again, even though the
existence before imagined were now intellectually
denied. And of course for those who hold, as I
do, that the frightful blunder is made by the deniers
and not by the believers, it is impossible to argue
with those who would prove the possibility of strong
ideal affections by showing how strong they have
been when fixed on beings who (mistakenly) seem to
them merely ideal, though as they hold, superstitiously
supposed by the common people to be real. Still,
I should think that even Positivists must be struck
by the actual results to those affections they say so
much of, caused by dispelling what they deem the
illusion as to the reality of their object. You may
in a dream fall in love with a phantom, so long as

308 AUGUSTE COMTE'S ASPIRATION XXXII

you believe it to be real ; but, once convinced
(whether rightly or wrongly) that it is a pure
phantom, the power to love it vanishes at once.
Comte, hov/ever, and his disciples will have it other-
wise. They think by the mere force of their in-
sistency, and the glowing words they use, to recon-
cile in man the sceptical mind and the believing
heart, — to inspire in him all the contempt for the
supernatural which is fostered by modern science,
and all the fervour of humility and affection towards
a caste of spiritual teachers which can only be felt
for men regarded as the depository of supernatural
inspiration or supernatural grace. In a word, the
aspiration of Positivism is an aspiration to combine
all sorts of moral contradictions ; to get the masses
of the people to obey an intellectual oligarchy, without
attributing to that oligarchy any qualities which the
masses of the people can really revere, — to get them
to love what is unreal more fervently than they love
those whom they come across in the ordinary paths
of life ; to regard with awe sacraments in which
nothing is ever supposed to pass, except an electric
spark of feeling between human beings ; to worship
a Providence whose decrees are half of them mistakes,
and the other half mere conclusions of common-sense ;
and to dwell in imagination on a future life in which
nothing will live that has any but an historical
relation to the nature which anticipates it. Comte
deliberately contemplated, no doubt, combining all
the advantages of caste government with all the
advantages of popular liberty ; all the authority of
a Church, with all the scorn for superstition
characteristic of free thought ; all the meditative
ecstasy of those who wished to live in God, with the
cold conviction of the student of mere phenomena

XXXII AUGUSTE COMTE'S ASPIRATION 309

that there was no God to live in ; (Comte read a
page of the Imitatio every day) ; all the rigidity and
superficial simplicity of the phenomenal philosophy,
with all the devout earnestness of devotees to a
supernatural regime. Now one can, of course, well
understand and appreciate the wish to indulge at
once the habit of doubt and the habit of faith, just
as one can appreciate the desire of children both to
eat their cake and have it. But in such a world as
the present, it does not seem to be a wise aspiration.
Thinkers, like other men, should be content to take
the good and evil of their systems as they are, and
not aim at combining all the good of all sorts of
incompatible systems, and then expect credit for
their logic as well as for their breadth. Hegelianism
is not usually thought to have much affinity with
Comteism. But even Hegel never assumed to re-
concile such utterly opposite and mutually incon-
sistent habits of mind as Sir Erskine Perry's dis-
tinguished teacher, Auguste Comte.

XXXIU

MATERIALISM AND ITS LESSONS
1879

Under this title, Dr. Maudsley dilates, in the August
number of the Fortnightly Review, on the lessons to
be learned from Materialism, and on the injustice of
the reproaches so often directed against it. His
paper, however, will hardly strike readers accustomed
to discuss the questions on which it turns, as a very
strong one. In the first place. Dr. Maudsley avails
himself of the fact that a few great believers in the
orthodox theology have, like Milton, and, at one
time, Robert Hall, been materialists, to plead that
Materialism is not inconsistent with orthodox
theology ; while the whole implicit tenor of his
paper, and the explicit tenor of its conclusion, is to
depreciate prayer, and even " penitence," — indeed all
the religious exercises on which theology of any
school whatever would insist, — in favour of a strict
conformity to the laws of social " evolution," what-
ever they may be, as the only upward path for man.
His earlier plea, then, that a man may be a
materialist and yet retain a tolerably orthodox creed,
is a plea which weakens the effect of the rest of the
paper, and gives an impression that Dr. Maudsley is

XXXIII MATERIALISM AND ITS LESSONS 311

anxious to find a mode of escape from the conclusions
which, to him at least, seem the right and logical
consequences of Materialism, for such of his readers
as may shrink from holding those logical consequences
as he holds them. And it always puts a writer in a
false position, that he should go painfully out of his
way to show weaker brethren how they may, if they
please, adopt his premises, without being absolutely
compelled to come to his conclusions, though it is
plain enough that he thinks the latter the only
proper inferences deducible from the former. This
is the first note of weakness in the paper. The
second is more serious, — namely, that while Dr.
Maudsley is very strong on " the lessons of Material-
ism," so far as they appear to sustain the accepted
morality of the day, he does not seem to have the
courage to note the lessons which are of an opposite
tendency, though they appear to follow as clearly
from his materialistic principles as the others. Thus,
he says, "When we look sincerely at the facts, we
cannot help perceiving that it [moral feeling] is just
as closely dependent upon organisation as the
meanest function of mind ; that there is not an
argument to prove the so-called Materialism of one
part of mind, which does not apply with equal force
to the whole mind;" and he argues therefrom that
all the highest phenomena of conscience and will are
just as much functions of the physical organisation,
as the suspension of conscious life is the result of the
pressure of a piece of bone upon the brain. That, I
understand ; and I understand also the satisfaction
w^ith which Dr. Maudsley notes the interchangeability
of mental disease and moral degeneracy, the emphasis
with which he insists that moral degeneracy is often
the first sign of a coming mental alienation ; and

312 MATERIALISM AND ITS LESSONS XXXIII

again, that mental deficiency in the parent will come
out sometimes in descendants, in the form of a
deficiency of moral sense. All this is evidently part
and parcel of Dr. Maudsley's case. But then, what
can be clearer than that it is also part and parcel of
the same case to maintain that in no intelligible
sense of the term is any man more " responsible "
for anything he is, does, or suffers, than is the
victim of a fracture of the brain for the suspension
of consciousness which that fracture of the brain
causes. Dr. Maudsley is never weary of insisting
that all the phenomena of mind, great and small,
are just as much functions of the material organisa-
tion, as are the phenomena of brain-disease in a
man whose brain has been staved in by the kick of a
horse, or whose blood has been drugged with opium.
Well, if that be true, he is, of course, quite right in
saying, " Whether this man goes upwards or down-
wards, undergoes development or degeneration, we
have equally to do with matters of stern law." But
what can he mean by his very next sentence ? —
" Provision has been made for both ways ; it has
been left to him to find out and determine which way
he shall take." Why, if Dr. Maudsley's philosophy
has any truth in it at all, this is precisely what is
not " left to him." It may, indeed, be given to men
of acuteness, if they be adequately endowed, to find
out which way they are to take, but as for determina-
tion,— that is, as Dr. Maudsley himself insists,
according to his belief, a "matter of stern law." It
has been determined for them by the long and iron
chain of natural law, or else his doctrine is vicious
from beginning to end. If it be, in any conceivable
sense of the word, more "left" to man whether he
shall take the upward path of development or the

XXXIII MATERIALISM AND ITS LESSONS . 313

downward path of degeneration, than it is "left"
to the particle of dust whether it shall be blown
this way or that way by the wind, the whole meaning
of Dr. Maudsley's essay vanishes. What would he
have said, if any one had told him that it was
"left" to the lad whose brain was exposed, and on
the exposed part of whose brain the doctor was
sometimes pressing, and sometimes ceasing to press,
whether he would answer the question put to him
or not He would have laughed at the unscientific
statement, and ridiculed it as pure ignorance. Yet
he has himself maintained that this case is a typical
case, illustrating, so far as dependence on the physical
organisation is concerned, all man's reasonable and
moral life. If there is any reason at all in Dr.
Maudsley's assertion that "when we look sincerely
at the facts, we cannot help perceiving that it
[moral feeling] is just as closely dependent upon
organisation as is the meanest function of mind ; that
there is not an argument to prove the so-called
Materialism of one part of mind, which does not
apply with equal force to the whole mind," what he
means is this, — that the physician who experimented
on the lad's exposed brain, by asking him a question,
and then pressing on it, so producing complete
unconsciousness, and then, again, discontinuing the
pressure, when the lad answered the question just as
if it had only been that instant asked, was just as
much, and just as little, able to determine for himself
whether he would or would not press on that exposed
brain, or act otherwise than he did act, his own
physical organisation and his own antecedents being
what they were, as the boy under his finger was to
determine whether he would or would not answer
the question put to him, without reference to the

314 MATERIALISM AND ITS LESSONS XXXIII

continuance or discontinuance of the pressure. At
least if this be not Dr. Maudsley's doctrine, the
whole paper seems to me simpl}'^ without meaning.
Once admit that man, at any moment in his existence,
has a real power of choosing in which of two
alternative ways he will go, — the upward path of
development, or the downward path of degeneration,
— and Dr. Maudsley's doctrine that " there is not an
argument to prove the so-called materialism of one
part of mind which does not apply with equal force
to the whole mind," is false. For unquestionably he
believes that the lad with an exposed brain of whom
he speaks had no choice whether he would answer or
no, so long as the physician was pressing on that
exposed part of his brain ; and unless therefore,
there is precisely as absolute a dependence between
the determination which any man takes, at every
epoch in his life, whether he will choose the upward
path of development or the downward path of
degeneration, and the organisation which induces
him to take that determination, the general doctrine
announced by Dr. Maudsley cannot be sustained.
Yet the whole essay assumes its truth, and so far as
I can grasp its meaning, has no point, unless its
truth be assumed. The whole attack upon the
doctrine of sudden solutions of continuity, the whole
"lesson" derived from the gradual enlargement, by
minute, but constant causes, of the brain of the
savage into the brain of modern civilisation, appears
to go for nothing, if it be admitted that any man
can so far emancipate himself from the influence of
his own organisation as to change its line of develop-
ment, counteract the resultant of its existing forces,
and shift it from the downward to the upward path
of evolution, or vice versd. And yet, despite this

XXXIII MATERIALISM AND ITS LESSONS 315

apparent confidence of Dr. Maudsley's in the iron
logic of his position, he puzzles this reading by
continually insisting on what he calls the "stern
feeling of responsibility " which his principles enforce,
and repeating that it is left to man " to determine
which way he shall take." All we can say is that
if it is so left to man, in any case whatever, to
determine which way he shall take, there is no real
analogy between the case of the patient with the
exposed brain, who had no power at all to determine
whether he would answer the question put to him or
not, so long as the physician's finger pressed on his
brain, and ordinary human beings in the act of
determining on their course ; whereas, if there be no
such analogy, the large materialistic generalisation
of Dr. Maudsley's essay is a false generalisation, and
the moral significance of his elaborate introduction
is utterly unintelligible. As it seems to me. Dr.
Maudsley uses the materialistic hypothesis so long
as he likes it, and dispenses with it just when it
suits him to dispense with it, though, of course, he
is not conscious of his own inconsistency. While he
wants to enforce the absolute dependence of the
mind on the body for the purpose of ridiculing the
hypothesis of a separate spirit, he keeps our attention
constantly fixed on those phenomena which are
typical of this dependence, — on the injured brain,
the mental phenomena in connection with which you
can produce at will by physical means as you play
on a piano with your fingers, — on the moral effect
of drugs which in some directions is equally sure, —
on the connection finally between physical and
mental disease. But the moment he wishes to
expound the high "morality" of materialism, he
changes his policy; he then begins to talk quite

316 MATERIALISM AND ITS LESSONS XXXIll

freely of our power of determining whether we will
strike into the upward or downward track ; of our
stern responsibility for our choice ; and so forth.
While he is in this vein, we hear nothing of our
moral actions being as much functions of our
physical organisation, as insane illusion is a func-
tion of physical disease. We are, on the contrary,
represented as having real alternatives before us,
and as if no tyrannical physical organisation were
dictating to us what we should be. The analogy
of the trephined patient is here utterly forgotten.
The higher moral feelings are appealed to as if they
were the feelings of a totally different being from
him who is thus made to respond to the proper
stimulus, just as a nerve responds to an electric
excitement, — and the great law of Dr. Maudsley's
essay is forgotten. Now, I submit that this is not
philosophy. Let Dr. Maudsley choose which he
will have. Is the patient on whose brain you can
play as certainly as on a piano, the type of all moral
agents in all moral actions, or not ? If he is, let us
hear nothing of the high morality which gives us a
choice between the upward and downward path.
If he is not, let us hear nothing of the great general-
isation which deduces that " there is not an argument
to prove the so-called materialism of one part of
mind, which does not apply with equal force to the
whole mind."

For my part, I have no hesitation in saying that
Dr. Maudsley is quite right when he recognises that
there are acts as to which we have an absolute
choice, and quite wrong when he tries to make the
wholly involuntary response of the mind to a
physical stimulus, the type of all our mental actions.
The structure of our language, the laws of our

XXXIII MATERIALISM AND ITS LESSONS 317

country, the assumptions of common-sense in every
minute of our lives, all affirm this ; and yet all affirm
that there are also mental functions which follow as
inevitably from the application of a physical stimulus,
as the striking of a clock follows the descent of the
striking-weight. But then, if there be two quite
different types of the workings of our mental life, —
the optional and the involuntary, — the free cause
and the bound effect, — the philosophy of Dr.
Maudsley falls to pieces. Not only is his rationale
of the mind incomplete, and incomplete at the most
important point, but his rationale of the universe
fails with his rationale of the mind. If the mind be
not a mere function of a material organisation, the
whole of his dogmatic denial that there is any room
for the spiritual interaction of a divine mind with
the human, collapses at once, and indeed, the thesis
of his paper becomes false. Of course, Dr. Maudsley
will not admit this. He will zealously maintain
that what he calls the responsible act of man in
choosing between " development" and "degeneration,"
is quite as much an effect of material organisation as
any other. And of course, he has a perfect philo-
sophic right to maintain this, only I think he should
explain clearly that what he means when he speaks
of the momentous responsibility of choice, is nothing
at all, — ^nothing, at least, more than what Calvinism
means when it talks of the same thing. He should
confess frankly that it is a mere illusion, not a reality,
that he refers to, — that the question between
development and degeneration is determined for
everybody for all time, as surely as it was deter-
mined for all time whether the seed which existed
before animal life had ever appeared on the earth,
should develop into the flower, or should rot into

318 MATERIALISM AND ITS LESSONS XXXIII

the elements from which it sprang. Again, if this
be, as I suppose, Dr. Maudsley's sohition of the
question, why, instead of assuming that the pheno-
menon of a spontaneous resj)onse to physical
stimulus is the type of all mental action, did he not
endeavour very carefully to prove this, and to bridge
over the immense chasm between such cases as that
of the lad whose mind was prevented from acting by
pressure on the brain, and that of the man who
stands at the meeting of the two ways between
"development" and "degeneration," and to whom
he himself ascribes the stern responsibility of choos-
ing between the two ] In shirking this demonstra-
tion, Dr. Maudsley shirks the very kernel of the
question he was discussing.

XXXIV

MOZLEY'S UNIVERSITY SEEMONS

1876

It is curious, and to some extent, no doubt, a bitter
disappointment to those who believe in the Christian
faith, to see how very few traces we have had, of late
years, of what may be called religious genius, — such
genius, for instance, as shows itself in the sermons of
Dr. Newman ; and again, though in a very different
form, in the sermons of Mr. Maurice ; or again,
under another totally different shape, in the sermons
of Dr. Martineau. As a rule, just in proportion as a
subject is capable of exciting strong feeling, it is
capable of attracting originality and creative power.
Science and Art get their full share of genius, and so,
till lately, have fiction and politics. But for many
years back, religion has hardly been able to boast of
any real genius specially appropriate to its own
sphere. Mr. Kingsley, for instance, was a man of
genius, but the special sphere of his genius was
assuredly not religious. He could throw infinitely
more genius into a page or two of his description of
a hunt than he put into a whole volume of sermons,
excellent and earnest as some of those sermons were.
Sermons are by no means the dreary things they are

320 MOZLEY'S university sermons XXXIV

called. One is always meeting with good sermons,
thoughtful, earnest, even wise. But what one now
hardly ever meets with are sermons wherein it is
clear that an original mind is working under the
influence of that specially congenial atmosphere
which breathes a new life into its powers. For some
time back, it has seemed as if original genius of a
specially appropriate kind were developed by almost
every kind of strong influence except religion. And
years had elapsed since I took up any new religious
book showing the sort of special power to deal, after
a masterly and peculiar fashion of its own, with the
subject treated in it, till a few weeks ago there
appeared the Oxford University sermons of Dr. J. B.
Mozley. Here, at last, I found something more than
capacity and clearness of thought and earnestness
and qualities of that kind. I found, or thought I
found, that special aptitude to deal with the subject
which, though of course in a far higher degree, has
obtained for Dr. Newman's Oxford University
sermons their wide and very just celebrity. Dr.
Mozely is not so wide in his scope as Dr. Newman.
There is probably far less in him of that marvellous
capacity for illustrating the secrets of character,
which made even the plainest of Dr. Newman's
sermons so wonderful as studies of the natural
history of the moral nature of man. Dr. Mozley's
genius is of a slighter kind, and runs within narrower
limits. Still, it seems to me to be true genius, and
true genius of the religious kind, — the sort of genius
which would not have been equally elicited by
ethical or psychological questions of any other sort,
but which is brought into play only under the
definite influence of the faith of which these sermons
are scattered expositions. There is in Dr. Mozley

XXXI V mozley's university sermons 321

that reality and simplicity of style which, though it
does not necessarily imply genius, does imply that,
where there is genius, it is in its natural home, and
not merely borrowed from some other sphere. 'Take,
for instance, such a sentence as the following, a.bout
a future life : — " No ground lays firm hold on our
minds for a continuation of existence at all, except
such a ground as makes that continuation an ascent.
The prolongation of it and the rise in the scale of it
go together, because the true belief is, in its very
nature, an aspiration, and not a mere level expecta-
tion of the mind ; and therefore, while a low <3ternity
obtained no credit, the Gospel doctrine inspired a
strong conviction, because it dared to introduce the
element of glory into the destiny of man." That is
a noble saying, and one which should warn the
Spiritualists of to-day that even if they can persuade
the world of the facts they insist on, they will
substitute, not a faith like that of Christ for a doubt
or a guess, but a certainty which may be in great
danger of making the invisible world as dusty and
wearisome to many of us as the visible world already
is. Or take, again, the following, as to the test of
true faith : — " Activity is not the Gospel's sole test.
It requires faith too. It speaks of much work, and
work which we know was not mere formal and
ceremonial, but real work, — active, strong work, —
as dross ; as dead works, which had physical vivacity,
but not the breath of heaven in them. Activity is
naturally, at first sight, our one test of faith, — what
else should it spring from? we say; and yet ex-
perience corrects this natural assumption, for active
men can be active almost about anything, and
amongst other things, about a religion in which they
do not believe. They can throw themselves into
VOL. I Y

322 mozley's university sermons xxxiv

public machinery and the bustle of crowds, when, if
two were left together to make their confession of
faith to each other, they would feel awkward. But
there is something flat, after all, in the activities of
men who accommodate themselves to the Gospel."
Or again, take this fine description of the effect
produced by the realistic sceptic, who sees that the
belief in the future life is, in great multitudes, a
mere customary idea or picture, not founded deep in
their spiritual nature, and therefore that it can be
dispelled by the kind of questions which make the
unsubstantial character of the vision suddenly
apparent to them : — " Do you really believe in this
idea 1 Examine it, he says — is it not a mere idea, a
mere image that you have raised, or that has been
raised for you ? Where is this heaven that you talk
about % Is it above your head ? Is it beneath your
feef? Do you seriously think that if you were to
go millions of miles in any quarter of the compass,
you would find it? Is it anywhere in all space?
And if not, what is its where? Is there another
world besides the whole world? When thus
suddenly challenged then, what can such minds
do? The secret is out, and the disclosure is
made to them that the idea in them is only
an idea. The world to come disappears in a
moment like a phantom; the reign of the ap-
parition is over, and a dream is dispelled. It
is the unbelieving counterpart of conversion ;
a man awakens in conversion to the reality of the
invisible world; here he awakens to the nonen-
tity of it."

This keen simplicity and reality in the way of
putting things is characteristic of these sermons of
Dr. Mozley's, but not less characteristic of them, —

XXXIV mozley's university sermons 323

and this is what shows that the Christian faith has
in him appealed to a certain original faculty of the
kind which we call "genius," — is the instinctive
sympathy which he seems to have with the subtler
shades of Christ's teaching, so as to make it suddenly
seem new to us, as well as more wonderful than ever.
Take, for instance, this comment on the often quoted
passage, "Many will say to me in that day, 'Lord,
Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name, and in
thy name cast out devils, and in thy name doiie
many wonderful works ? ' And then will I profess
unto them, * I never knew you.' " This, says Dr.
Mozley, most truly, " is a very remarkable prophecy,
for one reason, that in the very first start of
Christianity, upon the very threshold of its entrance
into the world, it looks through its success and
universal reception, into an ulterior result of that
victory, — a counterfeit profession of it. It sees
before the first nakedness of its birth is over, a
prosperous and flourishing religion, which it is worth
while for others to pay homage to, because it reflects
credit on its champion. Our Lord anticipates
the time when active zeal for himself will be no
guarantee. And we may observe the difference
between Christ and human founders. The latter are
too glad of any zeal in their favour, to examine very
strictly the tone and quality of it. They grasp at it
at once ; not so our Lord. He does not want it even
for himself, unless it is pure in the individual." Or
as Dr. Mozley remarks, in another place, Christ is
always reversing human judgments, and impressing
us, with what we have now the means of knowing
to have been his sagacious and salutary distrust of
them, even when they seemed most favourable to his
purposes. He is sanguine beyond all reason, and

324 MOZLEY'S university sermons XXXIV

yet warns his followers that half their own sanguine
judgments will have to be reversed ; 'Believe it not,'
• take heed that no man deceive you.' When their
hope swells high, then they are to distrust them-
selves; and when despair sets in, then they are
to distrust themselves still more. The source
of their confidence will mortify their hopes and
will rebuke their fears ; for it is deeper than
either.

Such qualities as I have dwelt upon run
through Dr. Mozley's sermons. Nay, now and then
they are diversified by some passage showing a
power of touch which again recalls the same name
I have before ventured to utter in connection with
him. Dr. Newman's. In the passage, for instance,
in the sermon on 'The Pharisees,' in which Dr.
Mozley contrasts the conscience of the heathens,
"this wild, this dreadful, but still this great visit-
ant from another world," full of dark and troubled
dreams, awakening them out of their sleep, and urg-
ing them to fly, without telling them whither they
could fly, with the "pacified," "domesticated,"
" tame " conscience of the Pharisee, " converted into
a manageable, an applauding companion, vulgarised,
humiliated, and chained," Dr. Mozley touches a
chord which for many a year has been little sounded.
For religious genius has long been a stranger to our
Churches, though there has been plenty of the best
kind of religious purpose and sincerity. It seemed
that for a few years the magic spell of Christianity
for the heart of Englishmen had thus far been lost,
that no special faculty prepared by the past, and fed
with the specific food which is alone fitted to stimu-
late faculty of the higher order, had been germinated
by the Christianity of our own day, so that as the

XXXIV mozley's university sermons 325

greater religious minds of the past lost their control
of one generation, none appeared in their place to
teach us anew, in the dialect of our own time, the
secret of the Christian life. In Dr. Mozley's Oxford
University sermons, such a mind, I think, will be
recognised.

XXXV

PROFESSOR HUXLEY ON THE EVOLUTION
OF THEOLOGY

1886

Professor Huxley's article in the Nineteenth
Century for March on " The Evolution of Theology "
is not, I think, worthy of his great ability. There
is little in it that properly justifies the word " evolu-
tion " at all, and it is marked by a scornful tone of
contempt for those who are likely "to meet with
anything they dislike " in his pages, which is hardly
conceived in good taste. Still I am not amongst
those who think that " in dealing with theology we
ought to be guided by considerations different from
those which would be thought appropriate if the
problem lay in the province of chemistry or miner-
alogy," except, indeed, so far as the difference of
province involves necessarily a difference of method.
I should be eager to maintain that there is as
genuine evolution in theology, as there is in any
human science. If Mr. Spencer is right in holding
that the development of organisation in general,
means the gradual increase in the correspondence
between the organ and that which environs it, it is
as true of the development of theology, as of any

XXXV EVOLUTION OF THEOLOGY 327

•
other department of human life. But I do not hold,
as some evolutionists appear to hold, that there is
no real object external to man into a more complete
correspondence with which the evolution of theology
brings us ; nor does that appear to me an opinion
proper to true evolutionists at alL On the contrary,
I hold that there is such an object ; that that object
is the great Being infinitely above us, in whom all
the tentatives towards a more complete correspond-
ence between us and him have originated, and from
whom they go forth ; and that the Bible, though it
undoubtedly is what Professor Huxley calls it, a
literature and not a book, has its unity in the fact
that it is the literature of a race specially educated
by that great invisible Being himself, to perceive
that righteousness is of his essence, and that no
" correspondence " between man and God is possible
except on condition of a greater and greater reflection
by man of that essence. Why it should be held, as
it seems to be held by some of the evolutionists,
that while every other regular development of man's
nature issues in a more delicate and a more compre-
hensive "correspondence" between man and the
universe outside him, theology should be the one
exception in which the development of our mind
only brings upon us a liability to greater and greater
illusions, I cannot conceive. The nerve which is at
first only dimly sensitive to light, is supposed by
the evolutionists to emerge at last in that wonderful
combination of all kinds of co-operating powers, the
eye of man. The nerve, which is at first but dimly
sensitive to the vibrations of the atmosphere, is
supposed by the evolutionists to emerge at last in
that wonderful organ to which the oratorio speaks in
mystic language such as the highest mind cannot

328 PROFESSOR HUXLEY ON THE XXXV

adequately interpret. The feeble faculty of counting
on the fingers is supposed by the evolutionists to
develop into that wonderful calculus by which we com-
pute the path of the comet, and weigh the sun itself
in a balance. Can it possibly be true that the mind
and the conscience are exceptions to this law of the
senses and the judgment ? Is the mind alone not in
" correspondence " with the law of the environment,
when it discerns purpose in the universe ? Is the
highest aspect of man's mind, his sense of duty, not
in correspondence with the spirit of the environment
when it discerns righteousness and purity at the
heart of the universe 1 If so, surely man is indeed
what some of the evolutionists hold, — what, indeed,
Professor Huxley seems to hold, — a worshipper of
magnified ghosts. But why sensitive nerves should
bring us true knowledge of what is outside us, and
sensitive consciences false knowledge of what is
outside us, it passes my comprehension to say.

Nevertheless, those who read the article on " The
Evolution of Theology " will find him, as it seems to
me, extremely anxious to make the most of what
may fairly be called the crude theology of the earlier
parts of the Old Testament, not with a view to
showing how it develops into what is greater and
nobler, but with a view, on the contrary, to dwelling
with a kind of triumph on its poverty. I have no
objection to admit to the fullest extent the poverty
of these elements. I think it quite probable that, as
Professor Huxley holds, the writer of the third
chapter of Genesis conceived the Lord God walking
in the Garden in the cool of the day as a figure in
the form of man. I believe it to be true that in the
earlier books of the Bible, Jehovah — (why does
Professor Huxley insist on the pedantic Jahveh ?) —

XXXV EVOLUTION OF THEOLOGY 329

was conceived only as a much mightier God than
the gods of the heathen, — a mightier being of the
same order. I have no objection to admit that in
the earlier days of Israel it was supposed, — as Isaiah
certainly shows evidence that it was supposed, or he
would not so passionately denounce the impression,
— that God took delight in the burnt sacrifices. In
a word, nothing can be truer than that the Bible
shows a steady evolution of the conception of God,
from the early chapters of Genesis to the revelation
of Christ. If it be true that the teraphim of the
Israelites were something like the lares of the
Eomans, I am not startled by it. But what
surprises me in Professor Huxley's essay is the
apparent inability to see the vast gulf between
the most inchoate forms of Israelite theology and
the foolish superstitions of the natives of Torres
Straits, — whom, by the way, he and his friend very
unjustifiably did their best to confirm in the most
foolish of those superstitions, simply in order that
they might avail themselves of them to widen their
own anthropological knowledge, — or of the natives
of the Tonga Islands. Nothing can be more in-
structive than the comparison between these super-
stitions and the rudest of all the forms of Israelite
theology, as showing not only that the latter had the
power of firmly impressing spiritual truth from which
whole nations have derived their highest elements of
civilisation, but also that the earliest germs of the
Jewish theology' were far beyond what they could
have been, had they not been developed ah initio by
an impulse not from within, but from above. Take
what Professor Huxley calls the " freshest," — mean-
ing, I think, the oldest and rudest, — of the " fossili-
ferous strata " in the Books of Judges and Samuel,

330 PROFESSOR HUXLEY ON THE XXXV

and compare them with the superstitions which he
relates with such gusto as those in which his friend
and he confirmed the natives of the Torres Straits,
and which Mariner discovered in the Tonga Islands.
We seem to be in a totally different world. From
the beginning to the end of Jewish history we find
the deep, though ever-growing, belief in a personal
power, who from the first " killeth and maketh alive,
bringeth down to Sheol and bringeth up ; " who sets
his brand upon the murderer's forehead ; who tasks
to the utmost the love of him whom he recognises as
his friend; who gives a strict moral law to a
licentious people, by which they are to be severed
from the rest of the nations ; who expects his people
to recognise the invisible impress of his spirit on the
hearts of their judges and prophets, and not only to
recognise it, but to recognise also the disloyalty to it
of which those judges and prophets were often guilty ;
who chooses the king most after his own heart, and
then sternly rebukes him when he breaks his law ;
who inspires the noblest devotional lyrics which the
world has ever knovm, and the noblest prophecies
of a divine universalism, amidst the narrowest of
fierce race prejudices ; and who finally reveals himself
in the one character which, after two thousand
years, even sceptics treat as raised so high above the
level of humanity, that we can only toil after it
through the ages with a growing sense of its hopeless
superiority to human aspiration. That is what I
call " evolution," and evolution of the highest kind.
Do the superstitions of the Torres Straits, to which
Professor Huxley's friend and he himself lent their
sanction, show any sign of an evolution such as this 1
Do the superstitions of the Tonga Islands develop
into a great history and divine order such as this ?

XXXV EVOLUTION OF THEOLOGY 331

They are, in fact, what Professor Huxley calls them,
"ghost-worship." But, whatever he may say, there
is absolutely no sign of ghost- worship in Israel, unless
Saul's visit to the witch of Endor, — a visit which on
the face of it was unfaithful to all the higher
principles of his own life, and of the law in which
his faith had resulted, — is to be so called. Never
was a paper with a noble title so disappointing as
that in which Professor Huxley endeavours to
minimise the true significance of Jewish theology by
grouping together all the poorer elements in the
Israelite religion, and showing their (very slight)
affinity to the savage superstitions of the present
day.

Professor Huxley's second paper on " The Evolu-
tion of Theology " is even more unsatisfactory than
the first. So far as he confines himself to the
exposition of the superstitions of the Tonga islanders
or the Samoan islanders, he does not throw any
light on what he means by evolution. He shows
that there was a certain similarity between the
practices by which Saul, for instance, endeavoured
to discover something hidden from him, and the
practices of the Pacific islanders when they attempt
divination of the same kind ; and that there is a
close analogy between David's prayer to have his
ofi'ence visited exclusively on his own head, and the
desire of a Tongan prince to secure the same result.
I cannot say that either of these analogies seems to
me at all important. The impression that you can
discover by a sort of natural magic what you do not
know, and desire to know, is not confined to rude
peoples. It is implied in the popular usages of
almost every people in the world, and I do not

332 PROFESSOR HUXLEY ON THE XXXV

believe that it is half so vivid an impression among
any class of minds on which revealed religion has
taken a strong hold, as it is among those given up
to the eager superstitions of the uneducated heart.
That Jehovah was consulted by Urim and Thummim,
by casting lots, and other Hebrew methods of
divination, is quite true ; but the question is not
whether such modes of discovering the secrets of
destiny prevailed among the Hebrews, but whether
they did not prevail much less among the Hebrews
in consequence of the revelation they had received,
than they prevailed amongst the Gentile nations to
whom there was no such revelation, and who sent
near and far to consult oracles in time of danger.
Again, that David prayed that the consequence of
his supposed disobedience might be visited exdusively
upon himself, is no doubt as true as it is true that
the Tongan chief did the same ; and, indeed, there is
hardly a noble-minded ruler, or a true father or
mother, in existence, who has not prayed to be
allowed to bear, on behalf of those for whom the
heart has been deeply moved, the penalty which,
might otherwise be expected to descend on those
whom it is desired to shield. But I think it would
be easy to show that, natural as this passionate
desire to be allowed to suffer vicariously for another
is, to the heart of a loyal ruler, or parent, or
protector of any kind, revelation has always tempered,
instead of stimulating, this unchastened eagerness,
by enlightening the conscience, and showing those
who have any real knowledge of God that his ways
are higher than our ways, and his thoughts tlian our
thoughts. What Professor Huxley utterly fails to
do is to show that in any sense whatever the higher
ideas of revelation can be traced to the gradual

XXXV EVOLUTION OF THEOLOGY 333

accretions of human superstition. For all we know,
the religion of the Tongan islanders has had a longer
time in which to evolve itself than the religion of
the Jewish Prophets had had in the days of Isaiah.
But compare the two results. The one is all magic
and intellectual groping ; the other was a coherent,
severe, and sublime faith.

But, as I understand Professor Huxley, the
Prophets did not, in his opinion, continue the line
of theological evolution. On the contrary, they did
their best to purge away the adventitious sacerdotal
and ceremonial elements from the Hebrew religion.
They tried to bring Israel back to the worship of a
" moral ideal," — Jehovah being, in Professor Huxley's
opinion, a mere moral ideal. In Professor Huxley's
view, the Prophets were the reformers, the Puritans
of the Hebrew people. Far from developing the
dogmas and ceremonies handed down to them,
"they are constantly striving to free the moral ideal
from the stifling embrace of the current theology
and its concomitant ritual." Yet in spite of his two
papers on "The Evolution of Theology," I have
arrived at no clear impression at all of what Professor
Huxley understands by theology ; for a more extra-
ordinary statement as to the aim of the Prophets
than that they were always engaged in attempting
to free their moral ideal from the stifling embrace of
the current theology, I never read. As I understand
the Prophets, a theological revelation is the alpha
and the omega of their power. "Thus saith the
Lord" is not only the formula under which they
speak, but the key-note of their convictions. It is
because they believe, and only because they believe,
that they can announce the true will of God, that
they hope to be able to elevate the true nature of

334 PROFESSOR HUXLEY ON THE xxxv

man. If Professor Huxley should reply that he
meant to lay a special emphasis on the adjective
" current " which he attached to the word "theology,"
and that he regards the Prophets as endeavouring to
refute the prevalent theology, and to set up a purer
theology in its place, I should reply that it was not
a theology at all which the Prophets tried to clear
away, but a conventional and punctilious faith in
religious observances, and that he cannot produce
the least trace in Hebrew history of the false theology
which he supposes. On the contrary, the cere-
monialism and formalism which the Prophets assailed
were rooted in the oblivion of theology, in the loss
of that very revelation of himself by God of which
from the earliest times we have a continuous sferies
of records in the Old Testament. And why, while
Professor Huxley dwells so much on ephods, and
high priests' bells, and the Witch of Endor's
incantation, and the casting of lots, and the offering
of sin-ofFerings, he steadily ignores all the true
theology of the Old Testament, — I mean • the
declarations of God concerning his own will and
purposes, — I cannot even imagine. "From one end
to the other of the Books of Judges and Samuel,"
he says, "the only 'commandments of Jahveh'
which are specially adduced refer to the prohibition
of the worship of other gods, or are orders given
ad hoc, and have nothing to do with questions of
morality." Undoubtedly the Book of Judges is a
story of barbarous times, in which it is often difficult
to trace the predominance of any moral spirit ; but
equally undoubtedly the Book of Samuel begins with
the announcement of the severe sentence of God on
the immorality of the sons of Eli, and on the weak
indulgence shown to them by their father ; and how

XXXV EVOLUTION OF THEOLOGY 335

it is possible even for Professor Huxle)^ to ignore
the moral revelation running through these books,
which, contain, for instance, Samuel's grand protest
against the popular unbelief which could not accept
God's guidance through the agency of uncrowned
kings, but craved the outward show of a regular
monarchy ; and again, the noble Psalm in which
David anticipates the building of a temple for the
Ark, and expresses his own deep humility and infinite
trust in God ; and most of all, the announcement to
him by Nathan of the judgment of God upon his
sin, in the beautiful parable of the rich man's
seizure of the poor man's pet lamb, — is to me quitef
inexplicable. Nor is the record of the revelation of
the Divine nature during the time of these chronicles
confined to these books, for all those of the Psalms
which belong to this period, — and even the most
sceptical critics assign a few of them to this period,
— tell us far more of the real progress of revelation
than the terse chronicles of those violent times
themselves. As it seems to me, from the judgment
on the first murderer in Genesis to the times of the
Prophets, there is one continuous and steadily
increasing testimony to the righteousness and purity
of God, which, so far from being in any way incon-
sistent with the prophetic teachings, is the very
heart of them. Indeed, Professor Huxley is incon-
sistent with himself when, on the one hand, he is so
anxious to show that a great part of the Levitical
law dates from a far later period than that to which
it is referred ; and yet, on the other hand, is so
eager to attribute to the Prophets an effort to purify
the Jewish religion from " the stifling embrace " of a
ceremonialism which, according to his view, had not
at that time been even conceived.

336 PROFESSOR HUXLEY ON THE XXXV

Where Professor Huxley gets his evidence for
that worship of ancestors among the Hebrews to
which he refers so large a part of all theology, is to
me a profound mystery. He referred in his first
article to the evidence that the Patriarchs carried
about teraphim, and he enlarged greatly on the story
of the Witch of Endor. But when he has made the
most of these matters, he has done nothing more
than show that superstitions common everywhere
else were not absolutely excluded by the light of
revelation from Hebrew religion. This may be
granted. But to grant this is no more to assert that
the belief in a righteous God, which is the main
subject of the Hebrew revelation, originated in
these superficial superstitions, than to grant that the
Celts believe in second-sight is to assert that they
regard second-sight as the root of their religion.
The truth is that Professor Huxley has no consistent
conception of what it is that he means by evolution.
He seems to think that to trace out a few superficial
analogies between the superstitions of savages and
the superstitions of the Hebrew people, establishes a
high probability that the noblest beliefs of that
people originated exactly as the superstitions of
savages have originated. I should have supposed
that a very different inference was justified by these
analogies. The superstitions of the Tongan and
Samoan islanders are still, after we know not what
period of development, crude, inconsistent, debasing.
The faith of the Israelite attained, on Professor
Huxley's own showing, in the time of the Prophets,
to a noble and sublime type, of which the very
essence was not, as Professor Huxley puts it, " to do
justice, love mercy, and bear himself humbly before
the Infinite," but "to do justice, love mercy, and

XXXV EVOLUTION OF THEOLOGY 337

walk humbly with God," — God being to the Hebrew
in every sense a real person, one in whom he had
trusted and did trust, and through his trust in whom,
and through that alone, he found it possible to do
the justice and love the mercy which had their
fountain in the Divine nature. Was this great
result due to precisely the same groping of the
unassisted human understanding at great problems
which, in the case of savage tribes, has issued in
results so confused and unmeaning 1 Or was it due
to the direct influence of him whose mighty hand
and stretched -out arm had, in the belief of the
Hebrews, guided the destiny of the nation 1 Surely
evolution in theology has a far better meaning, a
meaning far more closely analogous to its meaning
in science, if it be taken to express the gradually
unfolding conformity of the inward creed to external
realities, than it can ever have if it is only taken to
express the shifting mists and vapours in which the
nervous affections of man unfold themselves when
they recall the ancestors who are lost to their view,
and dream of other invisible agencies which may be
even more formidable than those of their ancestors
themselves. I believe in a real evolution of theology,
— an evolution in conformity with the revealing
righteousness in which alone theology originates.
So far as I understand him. Professor Huxley believes
only in the evolution of a dreamland of confused
fears and hopes, which it is the true function of the
ethical nature to repress, if not to extinguish.

VOL. I.

XXXVI
MR SCOTT HOLLAND'S SERMONS ^

1882

There is a great difference between the power of
the different sermons in this volume, but some of
them are as powerful as any preached in this
generation, and, indeed, full of genius, original
thought, and spiritual veracity. Of the three first,
it would be hard to speak in terms too high ; — they
show something of the painstaking originality, the
careful searchingness, the candid courage, of Bishop
Butler, though clothed in an oratory of higher force
than anything which was at all in Bishop Butler's
way, — an oratory, indeed, which men who choose to
judge a priori would suppose to be inconsistent with
any gifts at all resembling those displayed by Bishop
Butler. Still, the fact is that Mr. Holland combines
with an oratorical power which sometimes runs
away with him, and diffuses itself like a flood till
the mind is almost overpowered by the wealth of his
accumulated illustration, very nearly as careful and
precise an appreciation of the ins and outs of the

^ Logic and Life, with other Sermons. By the Rev. H. Scott
Holland, M.A., Senior Student of Christ Church, Oxford.
London : Rivingtons,

XXXVI MR. SCOTT HOLLAND'S SERMONS 339

question with which he is dealing, the qualiiScations
of a truth, the set-oflfs against an argument, the
difficulties in a true position, the plausibilities in a
false one, as the great bishop himself could have
displayed. I do not say that any of the sermons
in this volume cover anything like as wide a ground
as the great sermons on human nature, nor even that
they display a strength as remarkable as the sermons
on " Compassion," " Eesentment," and "The Ignorance
of Man." But the first three sermons in this volume,
to say the least, — and several of the others approach
them in power, — appear to me sermons that deserve
to rank high in the theological literature of England,
and that appear likely to maintain their place there
as long as sermons on the greatest subjects that
affect human nature continue to be preached and
read.

The first is on the place of reasoning in relation
to its influence over life, especially, of course, with
regard to the assertion of the Eationalists that
spiritual truths are not verified. After pointing out
that men now pay less and less attention to abstract
arguments, and appeal from all such abstract
arguments, — especially, for instance, in relation to
politics, — to the concrete lessons of experience, and
that even men of science are perfectly indifferent to
the verification of the great primary assumptions of
all science, like the law of causation, so long as they
find that they actually gain power over nature by
virtue of their scientific discoveries, Mr. Holland goes
on : —

"This modern way of regarding things does not in
reality suppose itself irrational, because it distrusts
abstract argument : rather, it is the conception of reason
itself which is changed ; reason is regarded, not in its

340 MR. SCOTT HOLLAND'S SERMONS xxxvi

isolated character as an engine with which every man
starts equipped, capable of doing a certain job whenever
required, with a definite and certain mode of action ; but
it is taken as a living and pliable process by and in
which man brings himself into rational and intelligent re-
lation with his surroundings, with his experience. As
these press in upon him, and stir him, and move about
and around him, he sets himself to introduce into his
abounding and multitudinous impressions, something of
order, and system, and settlement. He has got to act
upon all this engirdling matter, and he must discover
how action is most possible and most successful ; he must
watch, and consider, and arrange, and find accordance
between his desires and their outward realisation : so it is
that he names and classifies : so it is that he learns to
expect, to foretell, to anticipate, to manage, to control : so
it is that he rouses his curiosity to ever new efforts, and
cannot rest content until he has^ot clearer and surer
hold on the infinite intricacies that offer themselves to hand,
and eye, and ear, and taste. Continually he reshapes
his anticipations, continually he corrects his judgments,
continually he turns to new researches, continually he
moulds and enlarges, and enriches, and fortifies, and
advances, and improves the conceptions which he finds
most cardinal and most effective. Undisturbed in his
primary confidence that he has a rational hold upon the
reality of the things which he feels and sees, he acts on
the essential assumption that, in advancing the active
effectiveness of his ideas, he is arriving at a more real
apprehension of that world which he finds to move in
increasing harmony with his own inner expectations.
This effective and growing apprehension is what he calls
his reason ; and its final test lies in the actual harmony,
which is found to result from its better endeavours,
between the life at work within and the life at work
without. Keason is the slowly formed power of har-
monising the world of facts ; and its justification lies,
not in its deductive certainty so much as in its capacity

XXXVI MK. SCOTT HOLLAND'S SERMONS 341

of advance. It proves its trust-worthiness by its power to
grow. It could not have come so far, if it were not on
the right road ; it must be right, because ever, in front
of it, it discovers the road continuing. Reason moves
towards its place, its fulfilment, so far as it settles itself
into responsive agreement with the facts covered by its
activity, so far as its expectations encounter no jar or
surprise, so far as its survey is baffled by no blank and
unpenetrated barrier. Every step that tends to complete
and achieve this successful response tends, in that same
degree, to enforce its confident security in itself and in
its method. ... It is on our inner and actual life, then,
that the action of our reasoning depends. Deep down in
the long record of our past, far away in the ancient homes
and habits of the soul, — back, far back, in all that age-
long experience which has nursed, and tended, and
moulded the making of my manhood, — lies the secret of
that efficacy which reason exerts in me to-day. That
efficacy has, through long pressure, become an imbedded
habit, which if I turn round upon it and suddenly
inspect it, will appear to me inexplicable. Why this
gigantic conclusion? Why this emphatic pronounce-
ment ? Why this array of dogmatic assumptions ?
I may take those assumptions up in my hands, and
look them all over, and poke and probe them, and
find no answer in them for their mysterious audacity.
No, for they have no answer within themselves : their
answer, their verification, their evidence, their very
significance, can only be got by turning to and intro-
ducing all that vast sum of ever-gathering facts which the
generations before me, under the weight of the moving
centuries, pressed into these formulae, ordered under these
categories, wielded by the efficacy of these instmments, har-
monised, mastered, controlled in obedience to the judg-
ments,— ^judgments which justified their reality and their
power by the constant and unwavering welcome with which
the advance of life unfailingly greeted their anticipations,
and fulfilled their trust I am, of necessity, blind to their

342 MR. SCOTT HOLLAND'S SERMONS XXXVI

force as long as I have no corresponding experience, — so
long as that body of fact which they make explicable
remains to me unverified and unexplored. What to me,
for instance, can be the potency of the conception of Soul,
if I have no soul-facts that require explication ? I feel
the need and necessity of a name only when there are
certain phenomena before me which no other name suits
or sorts. What need or necessity, then, can I see for
the word Spirit, unless I have, within my experience,
those spiritual activities which were to my forefathers
so marked, so distinct, so unmistakable, so constant, that
it became to them a mental impossibility to retain • them
under a material name, and a practical impossibility to
carry on an intelligible common life without distinguish-
ing those activities from the motions of their flesh ?
What sense or reason can I discover for the assumption
of a God, unless I can repeat and re-enact in the abysses
of my own hidden being those profound impressions,
those ineradicable experiences, those awful and sublime
ventures of faith to which the existence of God has been
the sole clue, the sole necessity, the one and only in-
terpretation, the irresistible response, the obvious evidence,
the unceasing justification ? "

Thus far the first sermon takes us. In the next
one, "The Venture of Faith," Mr. Holland paints a
most powerful picture of the manner in which man
is impelled by the imperious nature within him to
assume that the outside world is really akin in its
laws and principles to the world within him ; that
even though nature is wholly independent of our
feelings, yet it is not by discharging all feeling, but
rather by the free use of our feelings, as well as of
our reason, that we can best learn to control nature ;
that even our passions become intelligent, and help
to feed the force of our intellectual power; that
without passions and emotions and afi'ections which

XXXVI MR. SCOTT Holland's sermons 343

have so often been called irrational, we could never
have, or make manifest to others, that fundamental
basis of personal character on which alone men can
rely for the purposes even of intellectual life ; — in
short, that what seems most alien in us to the causes
at work in the external universe, is really essential
to the progress which we make in investigating the
nature of that universe, and building up the habits
and rules by w^hich we learn to make the most use
of it. I have rarely read a passage of more pregnant
and. impressive force than the following, for instance,
describing how the passions essentially contribute to
the growth of that natural order with which, as it is
so often supposed, they are at variance : —

" We each individually reveal a character built up out
of feelings which, at first sight, we class with the instincts
of the animal, or attribute to the blind influences of
fleshly impressions. And yet, after all, it is out of these
that our rational character emerges ; it is out of these
feelings that we elaborate a history which is perpetually
advancing its problems, its needs, its solutions, its satis-
factions ; it is in these very feelings that we make
manifest to all who have eyes to see, or ears to listen, the
tokens of an enduring self, whose actions men can count
upon and calculate, whose movements they can classify
and connect, whose growth they can confidently anticipate.
And still deeper down in our self-study, we discover
strange effects in those impulses which at first we called
animal. They are not content to lie back behind the
narrow barriers within which the simple passions of that
dim animal world run their unchanging round. They
break through that ancient monotony ; they take to
themselves larger powers ; they feel their way towards
new possibilities ; they increase the force and extend the
range of their desires. The passions, in becoming human,
are no longer animal. It is not that they are differently

344 MR. SCOTT HOLLAND'S SERMONS xxxvi

managed and treated ; it is that they themselves are
changed ; they themselves desire what no animal desires ;
they themselves exceed, as no animal exceeds ; they them-
selves disclose in their very excess a secret instinct of self-
discipline, in which lies the seed of the new law, the law
of Purity and Holiness. The appetite that is capable of
self-assertion is driven by its own inner necessities to the
task of self-control. Morality, as we look at it closely and
carefully, is no system imposed on passion from without ;
it is itself the very heart of all desire, the very principle
of all human impulse, the very inspiration of all passion.
Out of the growth and increase of these vaster passions,
righteousness springs like a flower to perftct, like a
revelation to interpret, all that without its manifestation
is left unfulfilled and unexplained. And if so, then
these passions, these impulses, cannot be altogether blind
and unpurposing. They have- it in them to produce a
rational order ; they hold, hidden within their extravag-
ance, the mystery of control ; they inevitably tend
towards temperance and chastity. They are, then, already
rational ; they are, from the very start, already moral."

And yet, as Mr. Holland shows, this essential
individuality of the reason in every man, which
makes that reason blend with his passions and
affections, so that you can hardly say whether his
impulses be rational, or his reason impulsive, is so
far from making men really solitary, — so far from
separating them into units, that, on the contrary, it
is always found that the literatures and languages
which most powerfully represent the turns and
distinctions of individual feeling and thought, also
appeal most powerfully to the reason and imagination
of the whole race. In short, the intensely individual
character of reason in each man is not only not
inconsistent with the power to awaken response in
the race, but is essential to it : —

XXXVI MR. SCOTT HOLLAND'S SERMONS 345

" Do men find that there follows, on the use of their
reason, a sense of hitter loneliness, of horrible isolation 1
Do they, the more they think, hold ever more aloof from
their fellows? Do they find themselves thrown back,
shocked, jostled, when they utter their minds? Are
they, when they try to argue or discuss, ever running
their heads against hard walls ? Or is it not exactly the
contrary ? Is it not in ignorance of each other's minds that
men meet with rude rejections, and batter vainly against
blind barriers ? Is not the exercise of thought one long
and delightful discovery of the identity that knits us up
into the main body of mankind ? If ever we do succeed
in putting our thoughts into words that others understand,
is it not a sure road to their hearts ? Do they not run
to greet us with open arms ? Our sympathies, our hopes,
our desires, do we not, when once we can find a language
to express what they are to us, rediscover them all in the
soul of our fellows? Is not all language one enduring
and irresistible witness to the reality and depth of the
communion which our thought arrives at, as soon as man
touches man ? And each new tongue or dialect brings
with it new and delicious proof."

So that even in relation to society, the growtli of
the reason is not only identified with the growth of
the passions and affections, but inseparable from it ;
and you cannot wield a great power over others,
without digging down deep into that part of your
nature which seems most purely individual. Not
only does the love of righteousness, the love of holi-
ness, the love of all things most potent for the
government of society, grow out of the grafting of
what seemed purely individual emotion and desire
on the reason, but we learn that the very constitution
of the universe is at bottom based upon this blending
of reason with desire and affection against which we

346 MR. SCOTT Holland's sermons xxxvi

are often warned, as if it prejudiced our minds
against the light of truth : —

" Does reason itself refuse to exist, except to those who
venture with "no faint heart to follow the fascination of
hope 1 Is it impossible to be rational without passing be-
yond the bounds of reason, without surrendering reason
itself to the compulsion of a prophetic inspiration ?
Does all thinking hang on an act of faith ? Can it
be true that we can never attain to intellectual appre-
hension unless the entire man in us throws his spirit
forward, with a willing confidence, with an unfaltering
trust, into an adventurous movement ; unless the entire
man can bring himself to respond to a summons from
without, which appeals to him by some instinctive touch
of strange and unknown kinship to rely on its attraction,
to risk all on the assumption of its reality 1 A touch of
kinship ! Yes, kinship alone could so stir faith ; and the
call, therefore, to which it responds must issue from a
Will as living, as personal, as itself. Ah ! surely, then,
'God is in this place, and I knew it not.' From the
first dawn of our earliest intelligent activity we move
under the mighty breath of One higher and lordlier than
we wot of ; we walk in the high places, we are carried
we know not whither. Not for one instant may we re-
main within the narrow security of our private domain ;
not for one moment may we claim to be self-possessed,
self-contained, self-centred, self-controlled. Every action
carries us outside ourselves ; every thought that we can
think is a revelation of powers that draw us forward, of
influences that lift us out of the safety of self-control.
To reason is to have abandoned the quiet haven of self-
possession ; for already in its first acts we feel the big
waters move under us, and the great winds blow."

The third sermon is on M. Kenan's assertion that
" A man who would wi'ite the history of a faith must
believe it no longer, but must have believed it once,"

XXXVI MR. SCOTT HOLLAND'S SERMONS 347

a maxim on which Mr. Holland comments with
curious power : —

" How, then, are we to prepare ourselves for historical
and critical treatment of religion ? How can we be sure
of securing the fit conditions ? Can we believe experi-
mentally merely for the purposes of discovery ? Can
we be certain of being able to cease from our belief at the
moment at which we propose to begin our critical ex-
amination ? Or must all then be left to happy chance ?
Must the historical study of religions be confined to those
who have happened by good luck to fall outside the faiths
which once they held ? It is an awkward test to have
to apply to candidates for the study. And, again, are
we to consider them fortunate or unfortunate to find
themselves so qualified ? Which is the healthier condition
of mind, — the earlier, or the later ? If the later is the
more natural and the more perfect, how can the earlier
be at all sound or entire ? And, if not sound, how can
it be the essential groundwork of the critical temper ?
It can hardly be that the later temper is a product of the
earlier, — that the natural evolution of uncritical faith is
into critical doubt. For what happens in the loss of the
temper of faith is, that we abandon the attempt to develop
our faith."

And he goes on to observe that we accept implicitly
the ordinary assumptions as to the freedom from
preconception in which all history ought to be written,
until we discover that the very forces of history are
passions, that unless we can enter into these passions,
we cannot write history at all, and that the spirit of
indifference has no balance by which " it can test the
fury of warring opposites." "Without some living
interest in the issue, history looks to us as the wild
melody of madmen, whose rage, and anxieties, and
dangers, fill us with a painful distress at their reck-

348 MR. SCOTT HOLLAND'S SERMONS xxxvi

less exaggeration, and their ungentle obstinacy." If,
then, a strong sympathy with one kind of issue is far
from a disqualification for entering into history, it is
hardly posdble that the possession of a belief is a
positive disqualification for the study of ecclesiastical
history or theological controversy. Mr. Holland, in
the most powerful pages of his book, recalls to us
what it is that faith really means, — over how many
of the various chords of human life it has the mastery,
— and how impossible it is even for the believer to
recall fully all the influence which from time to time
his faith has exerted over the spirit and practice of
his life. Yet if it be difficult for the believer to
recall that of which he has still the moral traces left
in him and the full possibility of experiencing again,
how much less possible must it be for one who has
left behind him what he thinks illegitimate spiritual
emotions, so to recover and revive them, as to present
to the rest of the world an adequate insight into
their essence and significance. He reminds us how
widely the historical criticism of a religion depends
for its results on the critic's apprehension of the forces
actually at work in the world, on his " experimental
insight into the Presences and Powers whose efforts
he is measuring, and whose significance he professes
to declare." It is, he says justly enough, at once
rational and inevitable, that one who does not believe
any longer in special supernatural influences, should
distrust the statements of all who profess to record
facts assuming such influences ; and that he should
consequently look at the assertions of fact which
imply such occurrences, in a wholly incredulous spirit.
Mr. Holland concludes, then, that if to have believed
once is necessary for a true historian of religion, it is
impossible that he should ever enter into the history

XXXVI MR. SCOTT HOLLAND'S SERMONS 349

truly when lie has ceased to believe and has declared
to himself that all the cardinal facts with which he
has to deal are founded on illusion ; but he adds the
following fine remark, on the true drift of M. Kenan's
warning : —

"Has belief, then, by its own faithlessness, incurred
this taunt against its honesty, its uprightness, its courage 1
Has it, indeed, feared to face its own problems with the
reality and the singleness of heart which unbelief can
bring to their unravelling ? Has its sincerity, then, fallen
so low that it cannot be trusted to use an equal scale 1 Has
it had to appeal to those who have not enjoyed its good
chances, nor possess its excellent tools, to assist it in the
task for which it alone is adequately equipped ? These
are solemn questions for us. They cannot be dismissed
by a brave word of frank denial ; they arouse in us
shameful and humiliating doubts. We ought to have
seen for ourselves long ago much that now we are shown
by others' guidance. We ought to have learned to correct
our blundering misapprehensions, without having had to
undergo such late and painful schooling."

I have tried to show something of the power
of these sermons. They are, I think, the finest,
in a volume of which the majority are really fine ;
but they are not so much finer than many others,
that, even had these been wanting, we should
have failed to discern the great powers of this
preacher, and the promise of this volume for the
Christian Church of our day.

XXXVII

SIR JAMES PAGET ON SCIENCE A^D
THEOLOGY

1881

The Address delivered by Sir James Paget to the
students preparing for ordination at the clergy school
of Leeds, which has just been published by Messrs.
Rivington, might very well supply the basis of a very
original and very striking book on the divergences
and the points of approach between Theology and
Science. It is marked not only by the rare moral
thoughtfulness and candour of the most accomplished
of the great surgeons of his day, but by that keen
insight into the limitations of science which only the
habitual study of science and the mastery of its
principles can give. Sir James Paget points out, in
a passage of much beauty, that though, as amongst
the various branches of Science, the specialisation
which has become so extreme of late years has tended
to estrange the master of one from the master of the
other, and to render the very language of the students
of the different departments unknown tongues
to each other, yet that, nevertheless, this extreme
division of labour ends in bringing all the different
departments of science to converge, in ways hitherto

XXXVII SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY 351

quite unsuspected, in the great central truth of that
unity of method which implies unity of authorship
and unity of purpose : —

"It may even seem likely that, in the future, as
knowledge widens and divides its fields, and men'b
studies become more specialised and distinct, the opposi-
tion wiU become more intense, the deviations wider, the
difficulty of reconciliation greater ; for each group will
become less and less able to appreciate the works of the
others. A learned professor of Tubingen speaking, not
long ago, of the progress of knowledge, said that he
feared that the temple of science would fail of being
finished for the same reason as did the Tower of Babel,
because the workmen did not know each other's
language. And there is, indeed, great truth in the
symbol. There are very few men living who can, I will
not say study, but even understand the language of the
whole of any recent volume of the Philosophical Trans-
actions of the Royal Society. But on this point the
history of science is opposed to what we might expect.
As the field of science has been more divided, and studies
have been more special, and men have worked on
narrower fields, so has the unity of nature become more
evident ; they have dug deeper and come nearer to a
centre. Here is a point which seems to me most worthy
of your regard. Let me illustrate it by some instances.
In my early studies it was held by many that life, or the
vital principle, that which was deemed the active power
in all living things, was not only different from the
principles at work in dead matter, but absolutely and
essentially opposed to them all. It was thought in
some "measure profane and irreligious to hold that life,
regarded not as a condition but as a thing, could be in
any kind of relation or alliance ^vitll anything acting in
dead matter, as with chemical affinity, caloric, magnetism,
or anything of the kind. But, while men have been
more and more separating themselves into groups of

352 SIR JAMES PAGET ON xxxvil

physiologists, and physicists, and chemists, and each of
these again into lesser groups, the intimate relation of all
the forces of matter, whether living or dead, their
correlations ?nd mutual convertibility, have become more
and more evident. Similarly, it was believed, hardly
more than half a century ago, that the chemical com-
positions of organic and of inorganic matter were
essentially unlike, and that the organic could not be
attained except through operations of a vital power.
Now, chemistry makes hundreds of compounds not dis-
tinguishable from those formed in living bodies ; and the
late researches of M. Friedel, showing that carbon, the
most characteristic element of organic compounds, can be
replaced in some of them by silicon, one of the most
characteristic elements of the inorganic, seem to show
that all attempts to indicate a clear line of distinction
between the chemistry of the' living and that of the dead
will fail. Again, the likeness of things that were deemed
diverse is illustrated by Darwin's observations on the
carnivorous plants. One used to think that if there were
a sure mark of distinction between plants and animals,
it was that these had, and those had not, stomachs with
which they could digest, change, and appropriate alien
nutritive substances. He has shown as true digestion in
plants — especially by the leaves of the Drosera, the little
Sun-dew which you may gather on the moors — as can
take place in any of our own stomachs ; a digestion true,
complete, and similar to our own. Yet further, Darwin's
last book, on the Movements of Plants, makes it more
than ever clear that we must think very cautiously in
assigning the existence of a nervous system as a really
characteristic distinction between plants and animals.
So, in respect of diseases, I have lately tried to show that
between ours and theirs there is no difference of kind,
however much theirs may be, in comparison, free from
the complications of nervous system, moving blood and
mind in which we have to study our own. Nay, even
beyond plants ; I have ventured to suggest that a truly

XXXVII SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY 353

elemental pathology must be studied in crystals, after
mechanical injuries or other disturbing forces. I might
cite many instances more, but these may suffice for
illustration of the general fact, that in the progress of
knowledge, while scientific men have seemed to be
working more and more widely apart, they have found
more and more near relations among all the objects of
their study. As the rays of knowledge have extended
and diverged, so has their relation to one common centre
become more evident, and the unity of nature has become
more significant of the unity of God.

And what Sir James Paget insists upon as the result
of pursuing the teaching of facts in different depart-
ments of science, however widely they appear to
diverge from each other, he believes to be equally
applicable to the opposite divergences between the
drift of theology and the drift of science as a
whole. In point of fact, of course, theology first
taught us that unity of cause and drift which science
is slowly verifying, though it insisted boldly on a
mental origin for that unity which the modern
scientific school strives in vain to dispense with.
And not only did theology anticipate science in
teaching us the unity of creation, before that unity
had been verified by study, but as Sir James Paget
hints, it also anticipated science in warning us that
we must not trust our reasoning powers too con-
fidently, when they appear to us to deduce positively
from one truth what seems inconsistent with another
truth. Theology teaches us, for instance, the fore-
knowledge of God, and as positively the responsibility
and free-will of man ; and yet to very many men's
minds, these truths appear wholly incompatible, just as
the evidence of our senses appeared to teach us that
the sun moves round the earth, while the evidence of a
VOL. I 2 A

354 SIR JAMES PAGET ON xxxvil

much more important body of fact taught, on the
contrary, that the earth moved round the sun. Alike
by revelation and by science we have been warned
not to believe too easily in the incompatibility of
truths independently established on firm grounds,
simply because we fancy that we can demonstrate to
ourselves their inconsistency : —

"And yet more, let me venture to say, each side
should avoid the habit of thinking that they can safely
impute inferences as necessary consequences of the
beliefs held by the other ; that they can easily show
what must come of carrying-out a belief to what they call
its logical consequences. It is from this that much of the
bitterest part of controversy is derived. It is declared
that if this or that probably harmless opinion be allowed,
some grievous error or some utter folly must come next.
* It stands to reason,' they say. * Stands to reason.' One
is tempted to ask, first, whose reason ? Is it the reason
of a really reasonable man ? and of one well instructed
in the subject of inquiry ? But in any case, it should be
remembered how many things that did stand to reason
have fallen at the test of fact. I am sure it is true in
science — I suspect it is true in theology — that all the
beliefs which we now know to have been erroneous, and
all the denials of what we now know to have been true,
did once ' stand to reason.' They did so stand, with all
seeming strength and security, in the minds of those who
maintained them and were ready to defend them as
certain truths. It stood to reason that the sun moved
round the earth, and that people could be bewitched, and
that the moon had much to do with lunatics ; it stood to
reason, even with the rare power of reasoning of Bishop
Berkeley, that tar- water would cure and prevent many
serious diseases. And I suppose that in every heresy the
error has stood to reason in the minds of many who held
to it. There are few expressions which, in serious

XXXVII SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY 355

matters, we should more carefully avoid than this, or any
which imply that we can of our own mental power infer
certainties, or settle the boundaries of probabilities, or the
consequences of beliefs, in subjects which we have not
thoroughly studied."

And most aptly does Sir James Paget quote from
the late Canon Mozley the weighty sentence — "It
were to be wished that the active penetration and
close and acute attention which mankind have
applied to so many subjects of knowledge, and so
successfully, had been applied in a somewhat greater
proportion than it has been to the due apprehension
of that very important article of knowledge, — their
own ignorance."

On the theological side, however, Sir James
Paget's fine address certainly needs some expansion
and illustration. Much that he says goes to prove
not only that the supposed divergency of drift
between the different sciences is more or less im-
aginary, but that "our future knowledge will not be
merely heaped on the surface of that we now possess,"
but that "it will penetrate the mass and fill its gaps
and interspaces, and make many things one, which
as yet seem multiple and alien." What he does not
do quite so successfully, and what is yet quite within
the scope of his address, is to show that this fiUing-in
of the blank " interstitial spaces " between science
and science, will be accompanied by a similar fiUing-
in of the blank interstitial spaces between science
and revelation. If it be so, there should already be
instances in which science has verified, from a totally
new side, truths anticipated by revelation, though
not anticipated in the manner or form in which
science brings its truths to light. I have already
referred to one case of this kind suggested in Sir

356 SIR JAMES PAGET ON XXXVII

James Paget's address, namely, to the anticipation
by revelation of the unity of Nature. But there is,
of course, a possible interpretation of this anticipa-
tion which would deny that it was, properly speaking,
an anticipation of an important truth at all. I turn,
therefore, to what I hold to be the most striking
of all the anticipations by revelation of a doctrine
only now being slowly verified by science, and one
filling up " the interspace " between two very different
regions of human investigation. Sir James Paget
refers to Mr. Darwin's teaching as to "the survival
of the fittest " thus : — " Man has reached his present
state in civilised races through an incessant struggle
not only for food and life, but for intellectual
mastery ; for virtue, as against those vices that are
only brutality surviving ; for truth, as against error.
The influences of Christianity and of civilisation
have made the struggle more gentle ; the better
sort of men do not destroy one another; but the
law of conflict is not abrogated. The struggle which,
from age to age, has ensured the survival of the
fittest, has been under a law which includes in-
tellectual conflicts, and has constantly helped to the
attainment of the truth." Sir James Paget here
uses the phrase " survival of the fittest " in a sense
different from Mr. Darwin's, but one of which it is
most important to notice the true applicability to
moral types. Mr. Darwin's " survival " depends on
the organic transmission to descendants of all the
habits and variations of physical organisation favour-
able to the preservation or multiplication of a race,
and on the tendency which those habits and physical
variations have to shelter the individuals possessing
them from destruction, and to give them special
advantages in the conflict with other races for food

XXXVII SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY 357

and mastery. But Sir James Paget uses the phrase
in a very different sense. The only sense in which
controversy and collision amongst human minds
tend to the "survival of the fittest creed," is by
sifting belief, and bringing to the side of the more
reasonable or more potent and inspiring thought,
those who were previously on the side of the less
reasonable or less potent and inspiring thought, — in
other words, by persuading men who were not
adherents of a particular conviction to adopt and act
upon that conviction. It is the ultimate power of
gaining adherents which in this sense secures the
survival of beliefs; and if those be the "fittest"
beliefs which seem most to strengthen and vivify the
minds of the most dominant races of men, just as
those are the fittest races for the earth which gain the
securest and most dominant position in it, then, no
doubt, revelation has anticipated in a most astounding
way the survival, and therefore, the fitness of certain
beliefs which had nothing in the world to suggest
them as fit beliefs for men at all, unless we can
ascribe that suggestion to the inspiration of a super-
human mind. For revelation anticipated that that
belief should most " survive " which should range on
its side the most profound indifference to its own
adherents' survival; that the survival of the belief
should be secured by the suffering and death of the
believer ; that it should triumph through his defeat ;
become strong by virtue of his weakness, and
conquer in his humiliation. In the Jewish revelation,
the promise is to the righteous servant who shall
go like a lamb to the slaughter, and who, as the
sheep before the shearers is dumb, openeth not his
mouth, and who is even to be "numbered with the
transgressors." But in the Christian revelation the

358 SIR JAMES PAGET ON xxxvii

principle of a survival ensured by death is carried to
its utmost extent. It is made in some sense a con-
dition of the triumph of Christianity that with no
weapons of the flesh shall it resist evil, — that it is
to yield before injustice and indignities, as the air
yields before a blow ; — that unless it can face death
as the ear of wheat does when it is sown, it shall not
" bring forth much fruit " ; that without shame it
cannot be glorified ; that without taking the lowest
place, it can never reach the highest. Now I venture
to say that the power which could steadily predict,
as the most fitting of human beliefs to survive all
other beliefs, and to inspire those in whom it does
survive to great achievements, such readiness, not to
say ardour, to lose, to suff'er, to die, in its name, was
a power which Science itself ought to admit, — now
that history has verified the prediction, — to the rank
of superhuman. What could seem less likely to
improve the position of life on this earth, than the
teaching that earthly life itself was utterly insignifi-
cant, compared with a particular state of heart
towards a world which nobody could see ? What
could promise less of dominance, less of achievement,
less of distinction, than this constant exhortation to
covet lowliness, to be patient of injustice, to welcome
dishonour^ Imagine the world from the Agnostic
point of view, and you can hardly conceive a doctrine
more likely to secure its own speedy extinction, than
the doctrine that the world is to be won only by
despising the world, and true life gained only by
encountering death. Yet this is precisely the
paradox which Judaism first taught, and Christ
accepted as the very key-note of his revelation, but
of which it has taken centuries to verify the power.
Ought not Science to admit that not even the first

XXXVII SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY 359

predicted and verified eclipse of the sun, tested the
principles of science more effectually than this
century-old anticipation of a type of belief as the
fittest to survive all other human beliefs and to
dominate the mind of man, which no one with-
out superhuman help could have conceived as appro-
priate to earthly life at all ?

XXXVIII
MR. WILFEID WARD'S WISH TO BELIEVE

1882

Mr. Wilfrid Ward, in an extremely thoughtful and
able dialogue on "The Wish to Believe," which
appears in the new number of the Nineteenth Century,
maintains that it is very far from true that in the
case of any serious belief, the wish is father to the
thought. On the contrary, he holds, — or at least
the chief interlocutor in the dialogue, whom I take
to be the spokesman of the author, holds, — that the
more we wish to believe in anything which it is of
the first importance to us to find true, the less
importance do we attach to our own wishes as
affecting the truth, nay, the more jealously do we
guard ourselves against being misled by these wishes.
When, on the other hand, it is not of any critical
importance to us to know the truth, when it is of
much more importance to us to be able to indulge
comfortably a dream of our own as if it were the
truth, than to know what is truth, and what is not,
then Mr. Wilfrid Ward holds that the wish is often
father to the thought. For example, — the example,
is mine, not his, I will give his own example
directly, — a man finds that his hereditary religious

XXXVIU WILFRID ward's WISH TO BELIEVE 361

creed is an obstacle in his way in some important
concern of life. It hinders his chance of marrying
the wife on whom his heart is set, or it hinders his
chance of moving in the social circles in which it is
his ambition to move. If this be his only reason
for being well inclined to reconsider his faith, and
see the error of his ways, and, indeed, to adopt, if
he can, the creed which will aid his suit, or help him
in liis social aspirations, it is very likely that the
wish will be father to the thought of a change of
belief. What he really desires is not to know the
actual truth, but to be able to take up a certain
attitude of mind without conscious insincerity, — that
is, to have sufficient to say for it to render this
attitude of mind tolerably consistent with self-respect.
And in that case, the wish not so much to believe, as
to entertain a view that may do duty for belief,, will
probably render it very easy to entertain that view,
and will hoodwink the mind to the fact that this
view is not in any strict sense a belief at all, but is
only such an equivalent for it as the mental and
moral proprieties require. But if, on the contrary,
the man's one desire is to be sure that what he
believes corresponds to reality, — that by believing it
he will not be li\4ng in a fool's paradise of hope, but
will know the truth about the highest end of life,
and about the great hereafter, — then the desire to
believe this or that, will not in the least help him to
the belief, unless he can find evidence that is to his
mind demonstrative that the belief is true. So far
from being able to hoodwink himself by any juggle
between his wish and the reality, he will find it all
the more difficult to believe as really true what he
wishes to find true ; his strong wish will make him
all the more imable to be credulous in the matter.

362 WILFRID ward's WISH TO BELIEVE XXXVIII

The very strength of his wish will render him
nervously sensitive to the weakness of the evidence
for what he wishes to believe, where it is weak, and
to the strength of the opposite case, where it is
strong ; he will be in the condition of mind of the
father or mother who is listening to a consultation
of physicians on the crisis through which a beloved
child is passing. He will hear what can be said on
the side of hope with hungry avidity, but he will
hear what can be said on the side of despair with at
least an equal passion of appreciation of its signifi-
cance and terror. He will be almost overwhelmingly
afraid to hope ; he will dwell even more intensely
than he ought on the ground for fear; and he will
be in the end much slower than the physician himself
to anticipate recovery. Such I understand to be
Mr. Wilfrid Ward's view of the relation of the wish
to believe, to actual and genuine belief. And now
I will give his own illustration of the connection
between the two : —

"'Then,' said Darlington, slowly, 'as I understand
you, you hold that where there is a real anxiety and wish
about the thing — an honest desire for the truth of the
thing, and not merely for the pleasure of the thought —
that desire makes you less ready rather than more ready
to believe.' ' Precisely,' said Walton ; ' a shallow, self-
deceitful thought, called only by a misnomer "belief,"
may well enough be the result of wishing to believe;
but true conviction never. I remember well a lady of
my acquaintance who used to think her nephew a perfect
paragon of perfection, and far the cleverest man at his
college at Oxford. She sucked in eagerly all the civil
things that people said in his favour, and systematically
disbelieved less flattering reports. Here was one sort of
belief. It arose from her wish — but her wish for what ?

XXXVIII WILFRID ward's WISH TO BELIEVE 363

That her nephew should really be the cleverest and most
successful man V '1 suppose so,' said Ashley, un-
guardedly. ' Not entirely so, I think,' said Walton ;
' but mainly from her wish for the satisfaction of thinking
that he was so. The actual fact was of secondary
importance to her ; but it is of primary importance to
him who wants a real and deep conviction. I remember,
too, in that very case that the truth of this was evidenced
in a most amusing manner when this brilliant nephew
was trying for a fellowship which was of some consequence
to him. She paid far more attention to and was rendered
far more anxious by arguments against the probability of
his success, and seemed very doubtful as to the result —
— quite prepared for his failure ; and why ? Because
liere it was the fact of his success which was of moment,
and not the pleasure of her own subjective impression.' "

And again, Mr. Wilfrid AVard illustrates the same
conception of the relation between the wish to have
a decent excuse for believing, on the one hand, and
the earnest wish to believe, if it be possible to
believe truly, on the other, by a second hypothesis
which may seem to some to cast an even stronger
light on the discussion : —

" ' Well,' said Walton, ' I have been trying while you
were talking to see the essential distinction between the
cases that have been cited on both sides. I think I can
point it out by an example which has occurred to me,
which I think you will admit to be true to nature.
There are two very different states of mind — anxiety that
something should be really true, and the wish to have
the pleasure of believing something. Here are two
pictures. First take some lazy, comfort -loving, and
selfish man. He is walking with a companion on a sea-
beach. No one is visible near him. Suddenly he hears
what he takes to be the shriek of a drowning man,

364 WILFRID ward's wish to believe XXXVIII

beyond some rocks at the end of tlie beach. His com-
panion thinks it is only children at play. The rocks are
hard to climb, and at some distance off. The man is
readily persuaded that it is only children at play, and
that there is no call on him to climb the rocks, or assist
anybody. There is one attitude of mind — one picture.
Now for another. An affectionate mother is placed in
exactly the same circumstances as my lazy man. She
thinks she recognises in the shriek her son's voice. Her
companion says it is only children at play ; but this does
not satisfy her. She entreats him to help her to climb
the rocks, and they arrive just in time to rescue her son
— for it is her son — from drowning. Now, surely you
won't deny that the mother would be far more desirous
to be convinced that her son was not drowning than the
lazy man in the parallel case ; yet her wish, far from
making her believe it, only niakes her take all the more
pains to satisfy herself as to the true state of the case.
Genuine conviction that the fact is really as she hoped is
what she wants ; and wishing for it does not help her a
bit to get it. Our other friend, on the contrary, was not
really and truly anxious to ascertain the fact. He \vished
to banish an unpleasant idea from his mind, I do not
think he was truly or deeply convinced that there was no
call on him to climb the rocks. He was not anxious to
be convinced that there was no call ; he only cared to
think that there was none. He did not care to adjust his
mind to the fact at all ; he only wished to have a comfort-
able idea, and to banish an uncomfortable suspicion. He
was not anxious that the fact should be as he wished ; if
he had been, he would have used every means to ascer-
tain whether it were so or not.' "

I hold that Mr. Wilfrid Ward is substantially
right in the very important distinction here drawn.
In other words, I am quite willing to admit that the
earnest desire to believe in a particular state of facts

XXXVIlI WILFRID ward's WISH TO BELIEVE 365

of vast importance to the person entertaining that
desire, does not usually tend to make men in general
more credulous of that belief. It has that effect on
what are called sanguine or optimistic men, — that
is, on men of a special temperament, who are in the
habit of confounding their eager wishes with their
confident expectations. On the other hand, it has
the opposite effect on men of the pessimistic turn of
mind, who are in the habit of thinking that what
they very earnestly hope for is hardly possible. But
on mankind in general, on men whose tempera-
ment is neither specially sanguine, nor specially the
reverse, I agree with Mr. Wilfrid Ward that the
keener the desire, the less disposed we are, as a rule,
to mistake the mere desire for evidence of the thing
desired.

But this conclusion, valuable and important as it
is, does not by any means exhaust the question as to
what the total influence of a desire to believe, on
the actual state of human belief, is. And some
further light on this subject may, I think, be arrived
at, by asking what the causes are by virtue of which
optimists are made credulous of the things they hope,
and pessimists are made credulous of the things they
fear. I believe that, in the main, optimists become
optimists through the habit of fixing their attention
much more vividly and steadily on those tendencies
which indicate the result they desire to believe in,
than they fix them on the causes which tend to
bring about the disappointment of their hopes ; and
that pessimists become pessimists by the habit of
vividly dwelling on the causes which tend to produce
the events which they fear, and passing over, com-
paratively speaking, those which are of better omen.
And the same thing happens, though from other

366 WILFRID ward's wish to believe XXXVIII

causes, in the case of persons of average temperament
Wherever a man who is neither optimist nor passim
ist in ordinary affairs knows very much more of the
modus operandi of the set of causes leading to one
result, than he does of those leading to an opposite
result, he is almost sure to exaggerate the chances of
the result with the approaches to which he is so
much more familiar than he is with the approaches .
to the opposite result. Take the case of two
tolerably equal players at chess, neither of them
particularly inclined to expect what they wish for,
or to anticipate what they fear. Each of them,
however, knows his own plans and his own strategy
much better than he can possibly know those of his
antagonist; and the result is that, however strongly
experience may asseverate that till the game is really
won his antagonist has just as good a chance as he,
you will, on interrogating them, almost always find
that each player believes himself to have the
advantage, long before he really has gained any
advantage worth the name. It is an illusion due to
having preoccupied your imagination with all the
modes by which you may gain the victory, and
having failed to appreciate equally, — because you
had no equal insight into your adversary's plans, —
the modes by which you may be crushed. Of
course, even in such a case as this, temperament
tells. A sanguine player will be much more com-
pletely occupied with his own plans for victory than
a timid player, — and consequently, he will be even
more sure that he has got a definite advantage, when
he has got nothing of the kind, than a timid player.
But even the timid player will often be found to
have over-calculated his chances of success, not from
any predisposition so to do (for his predisposition is

xxxviri WILFRID ward's WISH TO BELIEVE 367

the other way), but because his mind is much more
occupied with the avenues which would lead to
success, than it is with the avenues that would
lead to failure. Indeed, I am strongly disposed to
believe that what is called a cheerful or sanguine
temperament does not really aflfect at all the esti-
mates formed of particular evidence ; but that what it
does afiect is the choice of the evidence to which
special attention is paid, and the choice of the evi-
dence which is allowed to fall into the shade. A
sanguine man will see the weakness of a weak case
as well as another, but his mind dwells more con-
stantly and vividly on the strong evidence which
favours the belief he wishes to entertain, and less
constantly and vividly on the strong evidence against
that belief, while in the mind of a timid and fearful
man just the reverse takes place, and so it comes to
pass that the mind of each is disproportionately
influenced by the kind of evidence on which it has
most anxiously dwelt. Even with people who are
neither sanguine nor fearful, the same kind of thing
happens, wherever there are other circumstances
helping them to master one side of a case, and to
keep the other hidden from them. And on the
whole, I should say that any man who has forced
his mind to weigh carefully all that is advanced
against a belief that he wishes to entertain, and is
still satisfied that that belief is true, need not fear
that the wish is, in his case, father to the belief.
With a certain kind of mind, the wish to believe is
just as likely to be father to a disbelief ; and in any
case, the way in which the wish biases towards
belief is, I take it, not a direct way, but depends on
securing an amount of attention to one side of the
case disproportionate to that which is given to the

368 WILFRID ward's WISH TO BELIEVE xxxviii

other side of the case. The cynic who habitually
dwells on the deceitfulness of human nature has
often a painfully strong desire to believe in the
goodness of a. particular character, and yet cannot
succeed in doing so simply and solely because he
is so accustomed to interpret apparent goodness as
hypocrisy, that he has lost the power of regarding a
frank and cordial air as anything but assumed for a
selfish purpose.

XXXIX

THE METAPHYSICS OF CONVERSION

1875

I never felt any doubt at all that the process known
in the terminology of Evangelical Churches as ' con-
version' is in very many cases indeed a real one,
though it is a very mischievous sort of thing for
Revivalists or any one else to teach that there can be
no true religion without some sudden spiritual crisis,
such as John Wesley, for instance, dated in his own
case as having happened precisely at a quarter before
nine on the 24th May 1738. No doubt there are
many persons and some social classes for whom there
is far more chance of ' conversion,' in Messrs. Moody's
and Sankey's sense, than of any gradual change ;
and unquestionably this would be true of all persons
like the famous Colonel Gardiner, for instance (the
officer whose life and marvellous conversion was
recounted by his friend. Dr. Doddridge) — persons, I
mean, embarked in a life of conscious evil, — a life
which, unless arrested in mid-career, is pretty sure to
waste the available forces of character, and before
long to leave too little strength of purpose of any
kind for an effectual change. But the curious thing
is that the high doctrine of ' conversion,' though it
may have won its greatest number of apparent
triumphs over persons, whether poor or rich, of
VOL. I 2 B

370 THE METAPHYSICS OF CONVERSION xxxix

Colonel Gardiner's type — i.e., persons who had never
been earnest either in morality or religion till the
moment of their conversion, — has derived all its
authority from men of a very different type indeed,
men like St. Paul and John Wesley, whose whole
life has been in some sense profoundly religious, and
in whom the convulsive change called ' conversion '
has represented not a change from a life of reckless
pleasure or license to a life of faith, but only a
change from one type of faith to another type of
faith, — the distinction between the two being fre-
quently by no means apparent to the external world.
In St. Paul, no doubt, the change was intelligible
enough,, because it marked the moment when he
surrendered his character to a new personal influence,
an influence in many respects in vivid contrast to
that exerted by the Judaic hopes and traditions in
which he had been brought up. But in a great many
famous cases of * conversion,' there is no passage
over an external boundary of this kind to mark
the change. John Wesley, for instance, had been
engaged in voluntary spiritual and religious duties of
precisely the same kind as those of his later life, for.
nearly ten years before he admitted his own conver-
sion. Eight years before its date he had cut himself
off from the Academic world around him, had visited
the prisons of Oxford till all his friends thought him
mad, and had sailed with some Moravians to Georgia
to help in the work of the Gospel there ; — and yet
it was not till after his return to England that, under
the teaching of Peter Bohler, he became suddenly
convinced that he had at last obtained the saving
faith of which he was in search. He had persuaded
himself that faith must be all or nothing, that it
hardl}'^ admitted of degrees, and that for eight years
and more before he obtained it he had had as little

XXXIX THE METAPHYSICS UF CONVERSION 371

of what he held to be saving faith as in the days
of his school-boy unconcern. Yet so fine was the
change, even to his own consciousness, that though
Wesley could date the minute of his conversion, he
was compelled to note that at first it brought him
no joy, even if it brought him comparative peace,
and that it was consistent with much doubt and fear ;
and he was fain to apologise for his state to the
teachers of a yet higher doctrine, who held that any
one who could feel doubt or fear, could not be said
to have even a weak faith, but must be declared to
have no faith at all, by quoting St. Paul's language
to the Corinthians, whom he declared to be "not
able to bear strong meat," and to be even " carnal,"
" Ye are God's building, ye are the temple of God,"
which, argued "Wesley, could not have been said of
them if they had had no saving faith at all, but must
have referred to persons who had saving faith, but
who had it in a weak form. Thus we see that this
great preacher of conversion had already been com-
pelled to distinguish sharply between three very
fine shades of his own religious belief, — the shade of
mere belief, which left him still beyond the pale of
salvation owing to want of faith, though he was
earnestly and persistently seeking it, — the shade
which amounted to saving faith, but only in a weak
measure, like that of the Corinthians who were still
'carnal,' — and the shade which was not only ade-
quate for salvation, but adequate also for producing
peace and perfect freedom from doubt.

Now what is the mental rationale of this curious
religious tendency to insist not merely on ' conversion '
in the sense of a great change from one kind of aim,
and purpose, and drift in life to a totally different
one, but on conversion within conversion, — on a
conversion which affects not so much the attitude

372 THE METAPHYSICS OF CONVERSION xxxix

and direction of the mind's movement, as the refine-
ments of its own conscious manipulation of its inward
condition^ St. Paul, though his own change was
much more tangible, since it marked his acknowledg-
ment of a new master, yet set the example of this
anxious manipulation of the intricate inward drama
of the heart, in his careful discrimination of the
" law " by which he was condemned as dead in tres-
passes and sins, from the new personal life in which
he was restored to peace and freedom. It would
seem, indeed, that there is a large class of religious
minds in whom the real change from worldly to
spiritual life is so far from sudden that nothing could
well be- more gradual, and yet in whom there is,
nevertheless, some imperious subjective necessity
compelling them to draw an invisible equator between
the opposite hemispheres of condemnation and salva-
tion. Is there not something strange in the fact
that the metaphysics of Conversion, as one may call
them, do not really arise out of the cases of sudden
change from a life of crime or profligacy to a life of
self-devotion, but rather out of the cases of the most
gradual change — change which has been as steady
and uniform as the growth of the dawn into the day?
I believe that the explanation of this curious fact
is to be discovered in the craving, which marks all
religious as distinct from merely moral life, for find-
ing a completely new spiritual departure from a base
that can be contrasted in the broadest w^ay with the
structure of the character itself standing in need of
regeneration. The most fundamental phenomenon
of the religious life in all Churches and Creeds is
weariness, not to say sickness, of self, and a passion-
ate desire to find some new centre of life — a " not-
ourselves," as Mr. Arnold would say — which can re-
novate the springs and purify the aims of the soiled

XXXIX THE METAPHYSICS OF CONVERSION 373

aud exhausted nature. Now this craving, so far from
being confined to those who have led a life of vice or
self-indulgence, is perhaps even more powerfully ex-
hibited in men of strong self-control and highly-
disciplined nature, provided their spiritual affections
be also deep and warm. In men like John Wesley,
for instance, the weariness of self probably arises in
large measure from the very constant use of the will
in small manipulations of the inner life. Nothing is
more touching in John Wesley's journal than the
constant recurrence of lamentations that he cannot
permanently feel the new wave of emotion which
swept over his mind about the period which he calls
his "conversion," that he *' cannot find in himself
the love of God and of Christ," that he is conscious of
'* deadness " and of " wanderings " in prayer, and so
forth. What he is craving is not at all a new habit
of the will, but a refreshing spring of external in-
fluence of which he may always be conscious. It is
in great part against the accurate and formal goodness
of old habit that his heart really protests. He wants
to feel himself borne up on a tide that sweeps him
away with it, not pacing carefully on a dusty road
of small duties. The passionate need for a release
from themselves is certainly felt even more by the
patient and painstaking souls that have always been
carefully disciplined, than by those who, like Colonel
Gardiner, make a vast change in their outward lives
at the moment when they acknowledge the inward
change. And there is a natural enough reason for
this. In the case of the conversions which cause a
great change of outward life and habit, a good deal
is apt to be referred to new divine influence, which
is really nothing but the reassertion of itself by a
temporarily suppressed element of character or in-
herited disposition. Colonel Gardiner, when he saw

374 THE METAPHYSICS OF CONVERSION XXXIX

the light shine about him, and believed that Christ
upon the cross was reproaching him with his share
in the sufferings of Calvary, was probably totally
unaware of the strong protest which the moral nature
inherited from his mother, and carefully cultivated
in childhood by both Mother and Aunt, had long
been making in him against the course of profligacy
in which he was engaged. He referred to this super-
natural event in his life, as he at least deemed it,
almost the whole stock of new emotions which now
overwhelmed him ; and yet it is quite certain, I take
it, on the evidence he himself furnishes, that the
sense of the misery of his vices had been long grow-
ing on him, and the lessons of his childhood long
reasserting themselves, — and reasserting themselves
almost in direct proportion to the weights he had
been piling over that compressed spring of inherited
piety and childish integrity. When he came to him-
self, and with the military courage which was so
conspicuous a characteristic in him, broke off at once
and finally with his pleasant vices, he hardly recog-
nised in his new mind the suppressed and neglected
currents of his old mind ; rather he referred the
whole change to the supernatural revelation which
he had, as he did not doubt, received. Nevertheless,
no one with any judgment can question at all, after
reading Dr. Doddridge's account of his own state-
ments, that the new self was, in a considerable
measure, a reassertion of the nature partly inherited
from and partly cultivated in him by his mother ;
and the same may be said of St. Augustine's character
after his conversion, and of that of a great many
other converts manifested in the same manner. No
small part of the elasticity and joy which ' conver-
sion' causes in those whose external life it really
revolutionises is, I do not doubt, due to the satis-

XXXIX THE METAPHYSICS OF CONVERSION 375

faction the change gives to an overpowered element
in the men themselves, which, like a compressed
spring, has been steadily pushing against the life led
in the past. The proof of this I take to be that it
is far rarer to find that wonderful exhilaration and
joy which there showed themselves, for instance, in
the life of Colonel Gardiner and of St. Augustine, in
the so-called 'conversions' of men who have never
given the rein to their lower nature ; and again, that
it is still rarer to find it in the case of the criminal
classes, whose lives are reformed, if at all, slowly, and
not ^^e?- saltum. After all, the theory of inherited
modifications of character, — the theory which is now
so much connected with the name of Darwin, though
this part of it at least was preached long before Mr.
Darwin's speculations were known, and is closely
connected with the theory of inherited automatic
habits, — accounts for a good deal of the passionate joy
with which misdirected characters spring back into
the deeper groove of feeling impressed on their
parents, or themselves, or both, long before the super-
ficial aberrations began.

And yet, as I have said, the best explanation of
Conversion is to be traced to quite another source, —
to the supreme weariness of self which is apt to be felt
even more intensely by strongly-controlled natures,
capable of deep spiritual afi'ections, than even by
those who have gone far astray. It was St. Paul
who had lived " in all good conscience before God "
up to the very day of his conversion, who first ex-
pounded the metaphysics of conversion ; — he who was
ever yearning to say, when asked as to the source of
his own highest feelings and actions, — "Not I, but
Christ that dwelleth in me." It is not those who
can speak of their conversion as bringing with it
directly, as Colonel Gardiner did, seven years of

376 THE METAPHYSICS OF CONVERSION xxxix

something like transport, who are apt to expound the
metaphysics of conversion at all ; — for such happiness
as that, there must be a concurrence between the
belief in divine help and the release of a long sup-
pressed, but deeply ingrained natural bias. The
"conversions" of men like Wesley are dim and
twilight affairs of extremely gradual and ambiguous
character, as compared Avith such conversions as
Colonel Gardiner's. And yet it is the profound re-
coil from self in men whose own habitual goodness
has shown them how superficial even the best habit-
ual goodness is, that has led to all the dogmatising
about the character of conversion, about the complete
repudiation of human good works, and the absolute
reliance on the merits of another as the only source
of true life. Indeed nothing seems more instructive
than to observe that the specific religious yearning
for a complete escape from self is strongest in those
who have the best self from which to escape rather
than the worst ; and this is so, simply because it is
j in them that the contrast between the new and old
iself seems the least complete and satisfactory, —
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Criticisms on contemporary
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