Makers of man : a study of human initiative

MAKERS OF MAN

CAESAR.

Frontispiece.

MAKERS OF MAN

A STUDY OF HUMAN INITIATIVE

CHARLES J.' WHITBYT M.D. (CANTAB.)

AUTHOR OF

"THE LOGIC OF HUMAN CHARACTER" "THE WISDOM OF PLOTINUS"
ETC. ETC.

WITH FORTY-SEVEN HALF-TONE AND OTHER PLATES

NEW YORK
REBMAN COMPANY

1123 P R O A D \V A Y

To C. AND M.

IF in this book the Great World findeth aught

Of high endeavour or enduring thought

Worthy the lustre of their deathless fames

Whose might and majesty its page acclaims ;

If haply of their faculty divine

Stray gleams reflected here and there outshine,

Chance phrases of their spheral melody

On wings of reminiscence wander by,

Or glimpses of that Magic be revealed

Whose runes to ears and eyes profane are. sealed ;

If, greatly dating, I, by chance or art,

Have charmed some doors of Mystery apart,

Have probed one secret of the soul of Man

Unfathomed since its problem-play began,

Lit up one corner in the House of Truth,

Aroused from slumber one dream -dowered youth,

Awakened in one breast the great surmise

Of Genius beckoning with syren eyes, —

Then to our love the Great World's thanks are due,
Since all that I have done — was done for you.

PREFACE

IN this work I have essayed the experiment of dealing with the
lives of great men as problems capable, through and through, of
psychological treatment and elucidation. Even their physical
organisms are, from this point of view, to be regarded not as
mere animated " matter," but each one as organised experience,
a psychosis, the sub-conscious and super-conscious factors of
which all play their part in contributing to the feeling-tone,
modifying the opinions, or determining the motives of conduct.
Partly because the lives of great men show in higher degree than
those of the rank and file that unity of manifestation which we
expect from the exfoliation of a self-determining spontaneity,
partly, too, in indulgence of an epic taste for profound issues and
a comprehensive survey, I have chosen for the subjects of my
experiment the lives of forty world-famous individuals. I think
I may claim to have avoided the danger of burying the human
interest of my problem under a debris of dry-as-dust technical-
ities. On the other hand, I have made no concessions to those
whose ideal of a scientific or philosophical treatise would seem
to be one written in words of not more than two syllables, making
no sort of demand on the culture or intelligence of its readers.
Nor am I greatly concerned for the approval or censure of those
who affect to regard the lives of great men, apart from their
official achievements, as a matter for gingerly treatment —
not to say hypocritical Bowdlerisation. The great man has,

viii PREFACE

properly speaking, no private life : all his thoughts, words,
actions, are, in their degree, factors of his power and influence,
and, as such, worthy of respectful study. If we sometimes find
them shocking, we shall then, oftener than not, find them
shedding floods of light upon otherwise impenetrable obscurities
in the inner and outer life of their subjects.1 It is time that
biography were taken seriously as a department of Science, that
biographers began to realise their responsibilities as purveyors of
the raw material of inductive psychology. To turn out a
" readable " book upon the life-history of a famous poet or
statesman — that is mere child's play, of course. But if no more
be accomplished, the subject has been exploited, not honourably
dealt with ; and the result will be a jerry-built affair, whose
decorative front is a poor apology for the hidden vices of its
construction. Underlying the psychological argument, the
discriminating reader will discern in my book the ground-motif
of a deeper curiosity, pervading and actuating all. Psychology
is the Jacob's ladder by which the modern mind hopes to reach
the heaven of Philosophy : in its domain we are faced at every
turn by the ultimate questions — one would be more or less than
human if one were never tempted to guess at an answer, here
and there. In my last chapter I have given scientific reticence
a holiday, and speculative imagination the licence it may, on
occasion, justly demand. That demonstration of the predomin-
ance of a super-mechanical, super-physiological spontaneity in
the determination of human careers, which I take to be the
main result of my inquiry, is in no way affected by the accept-
ance or denial of the speculative position tentatively assumed
in the said chapter, or, incidentally, in other parts of my book.

1 And of other men, too, almost needless to add.

PREFACE ix

Of course, in dealing with so great a number of lives it has
been impossible to give equal attention to each. On the other
hand, without a sufficient number of examples, no general
conclusions could safely have been attained. What is, in some
cases, lacking in the way of precise knowledge of the details of
personal conduct and private life, is more than compensated by
the importance of recorded public achievements ; while the
fuller information available in the case of the more modern
exemplars has enabled me to dispense with the lack of it, without
serious detriment, in other cases. Quotations have in many
instances been indicated by footnotes ; or, if only by the use of
inverted commas, can readily be identified by reference to the
list of authorities at the end of the book.

In regard to my choice of examples, my chief aim has been
the exclusion of second-rate personalities. Considerations of
expediency have, even here, inevitably made themselves felt :
it would, for instance, have been useless to include Shakespeare,
of whose private life practically nothing is known.1 Again,
among the moderns, men like Ibsen, Wagner, Whitman, and
Nietzsche, whose influence is as yet quite indeterminate, is,
as it were, in a yeasty, unfermented phase, could only have
proved a source of embarrassment and confusion; and, in a
subject necessarily rife with so many intrinsic difficulties, the ad-
mission of irrelevant controversies was obviously to be avoided.
Some readers may sympathise with my confession, that I had
grave doubts as to the claim of Walter Scott to the high com-
pany among whom I have placed him, in the class to which he
belongs. Byron or Shelley would in some ways have seemed
to me worthier of such a place. But Lockhart's magnificent

1 For much the same reason I rejected Columbus in favour of Drake.

x PREFACE

biography was a document whose temptation proved irresist-
ible ; and, upon the whole, I am satisfied that my decision was,
even upon the grounds of his own personal claims, for the best.
After all, Scott was, pre-eminently, a man of the centre (too
much so, or too stolidly so, if the truth must be told) ; his fame
to-day is more cosmopolitan than that of any of his contem-
poraries ; he was also a lyric poet, who produced several
absolutely flawless gems of song. How much, too, of our modern
poetry and fiction is in greater or less degree derivative from
Scott. Yes, I think I was right in disregarding my tempera-
mental scruples : it would have been an error to have left Scott
out of my Pantheon.

C. J. WHITBY.
October 1910.

CONTENTS

TAOB

DEDICATION ........ v

PREFACE ........ vii

CHAP.

I. INTRODUCTORY ...... 1

The Body as Organised Experience — The Unity of
Consciousness — Instinct — Heredity — Acquired Quali-
ties— Theories of the Ego.

II. CLASSIFICATION . . . . . .20

The Man of Action — The Artist — The Philosopher and the
Scientific Discoverer — The Ethico-Religious Pioneer —
Subsidiary and Mixed Types — Examples and Quali-
fications.

III. FAMILY HISTORY, PARENTAGE, CONSTITUTION . . 46

Size of Paternal and Maternal Family — Place in Family
— Longevity — Relation of Paternal and Maternal
Factors — Examples — Maternal Insanity — Tuberculosis,
etc. — Sterility of Genius — Summary.

IV. PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS . . . . .64

Men of Action — Artists, Poets, and Composers.

V. PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS — Continued . . .83

Intellectuals — Their Mediocre Physique — Ethico-
Religious Group — Physiognomy of Jesus — Examples
— Summary.

VI. NATURAL VOCATION ...... 101

Twins — Versatility and Adaptability — Forms of Natural
Vocation : I. and II. Examples.

VII. NATURAL VOCATION — Continued . . . .132

Forms of Natural Vocation : III. and IV. Examples —
Recapitulation.

xii CONTENTS

CHAP. l-AOK

VIII. THE NATURAL HISTORY OP PURPOSE . . . 159

Significance of Purpose — I. Men of Action — Negative
and Positive Phases of Purpose — II. Esthetic Types.

IX. THE NATURAL HISTORY OP PURPOSE— Conlinu ed . . 209

III. Intellectual Type— IV. Ethico -Religious Type—
The Higher Criticism — V. Recapitulation.

X. POWER IN THE CRUCIBLE ..... 291

I. Danger and Solitude.

XI. POWER IN THE CRUCIBLE — Continued . . . 316

II. Woman — Classification of Sexual Types — Am-
biguities — Need of Detachment — Woman in relation
to Man's Ideals — Sexual Versatility of Genius —
Examples — " The Higher Monogamy."

XII. LIMITATION AND CRIME . . . . .351

Definition of Terms — Universality of Crime — Examples
— " The Guilt of Innocency."

XIII. INDIVIDUALITY : ITS NATURE AND POWER . . . 379

Mechanism versus Psychism — " Back to Leibnitz " —
Heredity — Eugenics — A Parable — Soul and Spirit
— Fechner's Hypothesis, "Immortality" — The Social
Factor — Valedictory Survey.

AUTHORITIES. . . . . . . . .411

INDEX . 415

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

CASAR ....... Frontispiece

C-ESAR ....... Facing p. 66

CHARLEMAGNE . . . . . . „ 32

WILLIAM THE SILENT . . . . „ 62

SIB FRANCIS DRAKE . . . . . . „ 70

CARDINAL RICHELIEU . . . . „ 72

OLIVER CROMWELL . . . . . . „ 74

FREDERICK THE GREAT ...... 104

LORD NELSON ....... 108

NAPOLEON BONAPARTE, LIEUTENANT D'ARTILLERIE . „ 110

NAPOLEON . . . . . . . ,, 182

NAPOLEON ........ 300

ABRAHAM LINCOLN ....... 112

DANTE . . . . . . . „ 118

DANTE ........ 398

LEONARDO DA VINCI . . . . „ 154

TITIAN . . . . . . 194

CERVANTES ........ 196

MOZART . . . . . . „ 198

MOZART ........ 302

GOETHE ........ 200

GOETHE ........ 340

BEETHOVEN ........ 202

SIR WALTER SCOTT ......,, 204

TURNER 200

xiv LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

GUSTAVE FLAUBERT ...... Facing p. 208

BACON . . . . . . „ 21C

GALILEO . . . . . . „ 212

HARVEY ........ 214

DESCARTES ........ 218

SPINOZA . . . . . . „ 22C

SIR ISAAC NEWTON ....... 224

LEIBNITZ . . . . . . „ 228

KANT . . . . . . . 23(

HEOEL . . . . . . „ 234

CHARLES DARWIN . . . . . „ 236

CHRIST AND THE TRIBUTE MONEY . . . „ 92

HEAD OF CHRIST . . . . . „ 242

ST. PAUL . . . . . . 248

MARCUS AURELIUS . . . . . . ,, 25(

ST. AUGUSTINE . . . . . „ 254

ST. GREGORY THE GREAT . . . . „ 31$

MAHOMET . . . . . . „ 314

ST. FRANCIS o'Assisi . . . . „ 31(

MARTIN LUTHER ....... 37f

R. W. EMERSON . . . . . „ 40(

ERNEST RENAN . . . . . „ 408

N.B. — The strict order of sequence has been departed from in the abovi
list, portraits of the same individual being grouped together fo:
convenience of reference.

MAKERS OF MAN

INTRODUCTOEY

The body as organised experience — The unity of consciousness — Instinct —
Heredity — Acquired qualities — Theories of the Ego.

I DO not propose here to set forth in explicit detail my
personal view as to the nature of human individuality. To do
so would be to prejudice in advance the prudent reader against
my claim to be regarded as a trustworthy guide through this
region of mystery, so thickly beset with pitfalls for unwary
feet. Nor, on the other hand, will I dissemble the fact that such
a personal view, the product of long meditation and no little
research, I do indeed possess, and purpose in due course to
unfold in these pages. But it seems best in every way that this
view of mine should so far as possible be objectively presented,
that is, should speak mainly not in its own person, but through
the lips of accredited facts. So far as these facts appear to
establish its claim to existence, it will inevitably command the
assent of impartial readers. So far as it rests on unverified or
perhaps unverifiable speculation, it could of course expect but
a doubtful or grudging welcome, even where it escaped the rebuff
of downright hostility. Later, perhaps, when our survey of
the field of research has carried us well into the heart of the
matter, I may find it necessary to be more outspoken. A
subject so profound and so significant will not yield up its secret
at the behest of a timid or half-hearted inquirer. Nor will it
fail to confound the presumption born of an inadequate sense
of the difficulties of the inquiry. There is need of audacity,

2 MAKERS OF MAN

and there is need of caution : it would be hard to say which is
the more indispensable to success in an investigation so arduous
yet so alluring.

From the point of view of psychology, a new-born infant
may be regarded as a specific embodiment of the organised
experience of the race. Nay more ; it is a specific embodiment
of all organised experience whatsoever that enters into the direct
line of its human and pre-human ancestry. And if we admit,
as many are prepared in these days to admit, that there may
be such a thing as a psychology of the inorganic, that too will
be an element underlying the most primitive vital traits. On
the physical side, inorganic nature is represented in the human
body by the stratified lime-salts deposited in the bones, and
by the fact that these bones, once growth has been completed,
are in a very limited sense living as we understand the word.
Much the same could be said as to the teeth, tendons, fibrous
and elastic tissue, etc. So, on the pyschological side, it seems
hardly too fanciful to assert that man inherits from the inorganic
sphere some deep-seated elemental qualities of rock-like strength
and tenacity, or ground-tones of affective rhythm perpetuating
the oceanic ebb and flow. All this, at least, has demonstrably
gone to his making, and every cause must in some degree pass
over into its effect. To think of the human body as organised
racial and sub-racial experience, is not necessarily to imply the
inheritance of acquired characteristics. An inborn variation
qua psychic potentiality is not less credible than qua structural
new departure. The subject of such a variation starts life with
a new capacity or the germ of one, and the inheritance as well
as the development of this are elements of its experience. The
inheritance or non-inheritance of acquired characters is a
question of fact. Still it is true that from the psychological side
the a priori difficulties of the extreme view represented by
Weismann and Reid are more obvious than from the physio-
logical. What presents itself on the physical side as a newly-
perfected neuro-muscular system, is on the psychical side a
newly-established habit. Supposing such a habit to be of
advantage to its possessor, and so to escape the eliminative
effect of natural selection, it seems but reasonable to anticipate

INTRODUCTORY 3

that its perpetuation will be in some way positively provided
for.1 If not inherited in its fulness, there may be at least for
succeeding generations a cumulative facility in the establishment
of such a habit. It must not be forgotten that there is a struggle
for existence within the sphere of the individual consciousness.
Efforts resulting in successful activity tend by this law of
Hedonic Selection to be repeated and to perpetuate themselves,
for the individual at least, in the form of habits. Unsuccessful
efforts, on the contrary, tend to be superseded and to disappear.
Has this fact no significance for those who deny the inheritance
of acquired characters ?

The starting-point of human evolution may, according to
Haeckel, be found in the lowest form of infusorian — a practically
homogeneous anucleated monocellular protist. There may
well be yet lower rungs in the ladder, but if so, they await
identification. It is the first step that counts ; we will therefore
try for a moment to formulate a conception of the psychology of
such a monocellular unit. It has presumably consciousness of
some kind or degree, and that consciousness will bear to that
of a human individual a relation analogous to the structural
relation of the simple cell-body to a complex human organism.
There is in the cell-body of the protozoon no appreciable
structural differentiation, and without that there can be no
division of labour. Every part of the cell is a potential mouth,
stomach, intestine, organ of prehension, excretion, or locomotion.
Any part indifferently will respond in one or other of these
modes to appropriate stimulus. Similarly, the psychology of
such a cell will be simple, primitive, undifferentiated. It will
comprise the raw material of all higher forms of soul-life, of
what ages later will manifest itself as intellect, and also of what
will manifest itself as will. In other words, the presentative
and the affective elements of mind will co-exist in their primitive
integral unity. The protozoon will have a direct intuition of
its own state, and of that which concerns it in its immediate
surroundings, a direct impulse to react in such or such a way to
a given stimulus. Physiologists usually define the presentative

1 Hence the importance of Haeckel's theory of "Unconscious Memory"
as a factor in evolution.

4 MAKERS OF MAN

reactions of these anucleated protozoa as " Sensations," and
limit their consciousness to these. But sensation is not the raw
material of consciousness in general ; it is rather an abstraction
from the unity of human perception. One might as well talk
of the protist as having ideas ! It has the unitary potentiality
of every form of soul-life, just as it has the unitary potentiality
of every specific bodily function. The unity of primitive mind
comprehends the germ of both will and idea ; that is the main
lesson we learn from the contemplation of our monocellular
forebear.

The next thing to be noted is the ectodermic origin of the
nervous system, a point of which the psychological import has
hitherto been strangely ignored. Solipsists and rationalists are
prone to lay undue stress on the insulation of the human cere-
brum, its apparent dependency on the peripheral nerves for
knowledge of the " external world." They must surely be
aware that, phylogenetically, the entire nervous system, in-
cluding the brain, is an external organ, the analogue of the epi-
thelium of a gastraead (so far as that functions as a sense-organ),
the analogue of the peripheral portion of the protoplasm of an
anucleated infusorian. Haeckel has pointed out the importance
of the conception of " unconscious memory " from a develop-
mental point of view. May we not regard the external reference
of perception as an objective interpretation of one such un-
conscious memory — that, namely, of direct intuition, on the
part of protozoic and metazoic ancestors, of a contiguous
external medium ?

Before we take leave of our protozoon, there is one other
element of its inferred psychology, to the speculative significance
of which I must call attention. The continuity and homogeneity
of its structure — I refer, of course, to the anucleated protist —
inevitably suggest a like simplicity of psychic function. The
consciousness or quasi-consciousness of the cell must be a
totality, what happens hi one part will be intuited, and reacted
to, locally or generally, not by that part only, but by the cell
as a whole. That is to say, the cell as a whole will have an
intuition of local stimulus, and the cell as a whole will determine
the local or general reaction. The generalisation of a given

INTRODUCTORY 5

intuition may not be strictly instantaneous ; it may be the
correlative of a wave-like impulse traversing the cell-substance ;
but it is obviously bound to occur. This view is confirmed by
the fact that the next step in evolution shows us the protozoon
in possession of a nucleus. Recent cytology strongly tends to
regard the nucleus as a central organ, dominating the cell-life, as,
in fact, a nerve-centre. The psychic unity of the cell here finds
full expression : perhaps no individuation so complete (within
its limits) will be found again until we reach the highest self-
consciousness of man. Now since, from the psychological side,
organic structure is but organised racial and subracial experience,
and since every human being begins life as a monocellular
protozoon (fertilised ovum), may not the unity of human con-
sciousness be in some degree a debt due to our own immemorial
protozoic lineage ? That the lesson learned then was not
forgotten is proved by the fact that it is repeated, so to speak,
by each one of us. The monocellular stage might by this time
have been slurred over, or taken for granted ; but it is, we
know, invariable and well defined. Spermatozoon merges
with ovum, and then only, from the resultant unity, the new
life can begin. Thus the fact that the human body is, in all
its complexity and vital multiplicity, the offspring of a single
cell, gives it an organic unity that would otherwise be unattain-
able. Yet this unity, so far as present knowledge shows, is
in the case of the human body merely a physiological, not, as
with the protozoon, a physico-psychical unity. Not, at any
rate, so far as the distinctively human self-consciousness is
concerned. The living human organism, like any other, may,
it is true, be regarded as in some sense a psychosis, but it is a
psychosis which for the most part goes on quite below the
threshold of conscious mentality. It is a somatic as distinguished
from a cerebral psychosis. Under exceptional circumstances
it sometimes, doubtless, overflows its normal bounds, welling
up into the sphere of cerebral consciousness, but apart from
certain rare or vague intimations of its presence, and apart
from its contribution to the general feeling-tone, it lies per-
manently beyond our ken. Now, as regards the normal,
distinctively human, cerebral consciousness, it is of the greatest

6 MAKERS OF MAN

interest to note that Science has utterly failed to identify any
unitary centre of such consciousness in the brain. Descartes
long ago, on a priori grounds, located it in the pineal gland,
but this was mere guesswork, of course. So far from there
being any one centre of consciousness, it would appear that
there are many, for modern research strongly favours the view
that it is " generated " in the sensory cortex of the brain at the
synapses or junctions of the innumerable neurones which arise
or terminate therein. The apposed parts of two meeting
neurones are probably joined by a thin layer of highly-specialised
material, the so-called psycho-physical substance. This
material offers a certain resistance to the flow across it of the
nervous impulse, but when the nervous impulse avails to over-
come this resistance, consciousness is " generated " by its
passage from neurone to neurone through the intervening
substance or synapse. Thus, though the sensory area of the
cortex may in a sense be regarded as the seat of consciousness,
it is not a unitary centre, but multiple, diffused centres, that we
find therein. Sparks of consciousness, bright or dim, scintillate
here and there, as the conquering nervous impulses pass to and
fro. Where are these sparks conjoined in the unitary flame
of self-consciousness ? The question is either crucial or meaning-
less, it seems to me. They are the vivid centre of that picture
of which the feeling-tone, the general somatic psychosis, is the
dim unfocussed background. That they are somehow fused
and synthetised, introspection, it is alleged, plainly declares.
But not, it would seem, in the brain. Why not, then, in the
brain-psychosis, in the brain as racial, plus individual, ex-
perience, in the brain as focus of that wider and vaguer experi-
ence which we call our body, of which, too, with all its complex
multiplicity, we are conscious as one totality ? On this view,
what happens at the synapses is not the generation, but rather
the intensification of a pre-existent, the concentration of a
diffused, consciousness. Nothing new comes into existence,
but something hitherto imperceptible, vivified by self-limitation,
flashes across the chiaroscuro of the mental arena. Conscious-
ness has unity, at least in the sense that it is continuous, for
the brain, the entire organism, is at least a dynamic unity.

INTRODUCTORY 7

A participate emphasis of some psychic element is not incom-
patible with such unity as this implies. If the mind claims
a higher, supra-cerebral unity, it must condescend to justify
its claim.

Nothing brings home to us more forcibly the presence and
power of the remote past within us than a consideration of the
part played by Instinct in human life. Anatomically, a true
instinct is a congenitally organised or at least predetermined
neural system. Physiologically, it is a mechanism by which a
relevant perception,or the idea of such a perception in the absence
of any inhibiting preoccupation, starts a whole train of purposive
actions, more or less complex and prolonged. Psychologically,
it is the organic subconscious memory of racial activities that,
being more or less vital to existence, have successfully run the
gauntlet of natural selection and established their claim to
survival. Yet this description is quite inadequate, if we do not
add that an instinct is self-effectuating, dynamised by the
momentum of innumerable repetitions, the embodiment of
some primal need, that, as a psychologist well remarks, is apt
to rough-hew our ends, shape them, in detail, as we will. The
man who spends a long life in the accumulation of millions
is obeying the same instinct as the dog who buries a bone.
Eliminate from humanity the reproductive instinct and its
correlatives, and what would remain of poetry, art, religion ?
The entire paraphernalia of militarism is but the elaboration of
the combatant and allied instincts, and the devotee of sport is
the spiritual kinsman of the fox that he hunts and the tiger
for which he lies in wait. No dude or professional beauty, no
actor, I might add, can afford to throw stones at a peacock ;
no devotee of postage-stamps or bric-a-brac to make merry at
the expense of a jackdaw or a monkey. There are instincts
and instincts, of course ; the main division is into those which
are self-regarding and those which are concerned with the
interests of the race. Thus the instinct for co-operation, shared
by all social animals, is the basis of all human civilisation and
industry.1 We cannot do without instincts ; they are the raw
material of life ; but we can and must choose whether we will
1 What Maeterlinck, writing of Bees, calls the Spirit of the Hive.

8 MAKERS OF MAN

serve them or make them serve us. To be the lifelong thrall
of some paltry self -regarding instinct (" sport " or what not) is
to be a mere part of nature. And Hegel has well said — though
for some readers it may be a hard saying — that in so far as a
man is a mere part of nature, he is everything that he ought
not to be. Still it must not be forgotten that, though, from a
superficial point of view innate qualities and capacities —
instincts are capacities — may be regarded as free gifts, yet this
conception of their nature is not ultimate. A given organism
is from the evolutionary standpoint not something definitely
isolated from the unity of nature. It is merely the growing-
point, or one among many growing-points, of a continuous
life-process that began countless ages ago at, or below, the
bottom rung of the organic scale, and has mounted without
intermission to its present stage of development. Life is a
torch that is never extinguished, but is handed on from one
generation to another, with all its established potencies intact.
They smoulder quiescent in the gametes, but infallibly revive in
the developed organism to which these give birth. So regarded,
instincts are clearly no free gift of nature. They are dearly-won
adaptations, hard-bought victories of life over its environment ;
and it is one and the same life that wins and that wears the
crown.

A word must now be said on the subject of heredity in its
narrower proximate sense, the inheritance of human character-
istics in general and of family traits in particular. So much
good work is now being done in this field, that every year, nay,
every month, contributes to the sum of our positive knowledge.
Facts come in faster than theory can assimilate them ; and the
conclusions of to-day may be falsified to-morrow. However,
the importance of the subject is obvious, and any discussion
of the problems of individuality, which — as in the case of certain
loud and confident apostles of a shallow transcendentalism —
conveniently ignores its difficulties, is thereby self-condemned
as inadequate and false. And, first, it is to be noted that the
modern view of heredity makes no distinction between the
inheritance of so-called mental and physical qualities. Both are,
in fact, demonstrably inherited in the same numerical propor-

INTRODUCTORY 9

tion. Pearson, by a separate investigation of the inheritance
of definite mental and bodily characteristics in school children,
found that, as regards both sets of qualities, the resemblance
between children of the same parents amounted to fifty per
cent. Galton, on the basis of an investigation of heredity in
certain animals, has formulated his results to the effect that,
in a given case, '5 of the inborn characteristics will be derived
from the two parents ('25 from each), '25 from the grandparents
collectively ('0625 from each), '125 from the great-grand-
parents taken together (-015625 from each), and so on in
similarly diminishing proportion. This law, further elaborated
by Pearson, and in some slight degree corrected on abstruse
mathematical grounds, is by him acclaimed as a scientific
generalisation of immense importance, comparable, for its power
of resuming in one brief statement innumerable facts, to Newton's
famous law of gravitation. Apparently, on this hypothesis,
the inborn qualities of an individual will be fully covered by the
sum of inherited qualities (S = 1) only when the lineage has been
carried back ad infinitum. Go back only a few, say ten, genera-
tions, and you have already reached the source of the great
majority — some nine hundred and ninety-eight out of each
thousand — of inherited characteristics. But go back as many
generations as you like, and a residue, albeit infinitesimal, of
inborn qualities, not yet accounted for, will confront you still.
And in dealing with human individuality it is to be noted
that some quite inconspicuous but deep-seated quality, of remote
and obscure origin, may quite well be, in any given case, the
little leaven that leavens the whole lump. Hence, in part, the
apparently paradoxical results often attained by consideration
of the recent family history of remarkable personalities. Beyond
all available human records, beyond all human ancestry, beyond
the pre-human mammalian and sub-mammalian stock, beyond
the primeval monocellular starting-point, even to the ground-
work of inorganic nature, we must pass for our ideal completion
of the sum of inborn mental and physical characteristics. There
the manifestation of the contemporary human career has its
dawn ; there the Ego begins its aeonic march towards the
fulness of predestined activity. It is further to be noted with

TO MAKERS OF7MAN

reference to Gallon's law, that it is a statement of averages only
for, "the introduction of the Mendelian law, combined with
the results of recent cytology, makes it likely that in any given
individual the maternal and paternal factors lie side by side
and separate out in the gametes (ova or spermatozoa) of that
individual, so that we do not inherit equally from all grand-
parents of each generation, but all from some and nothing
from others." * It must not be forgotten, however, that great
as is the role of heredity, there are other factors to be taken into
consideration, which to some extent certainly limit its deter-
mining power. The anatomical basis of a fully-developed
individuality contains many structural elements not organised
at birth, corresponding with qualities and faculties peculiar
to the individual, acquired, not innate. The nervous system
of Man may be roughly described as consisting of sensori-motor
arcs of three principal levels, lower (or spinal), intermediate (or
sensorial), and higher (or associational). Professor Flechsig
has clearly demonstrated that the neurones composing the arcs
of the higher (association) level attain structural perfection at
a much later age than those of other parts of the nervous system.
Moreover, "it is characteristic of these arcs of the higher or
third level that their organisation, their inter-connections, by
means of which the simpler neural systems of the first and
second levels are combined to form systems of great complexity,
are congenitally determined in a very partial degree only, and
are principally determined in each individual by the course of
its experience." : We see then, that in this highest and hence
most humanly significant region of the nervous system, the
ultimate physiological disposition is not rigidly predetermined
by innate structural configuration, but in great measure plastic
to the play of those internal and external processes of action,
reaction, and adaptation, which are summarised as " experi-
ence." 3 Now, experience is never mere passivity, and if, as is

1 Communicated by Dr. W. Nevill Heard.

2 Physiological Psychology, by W. McDougall, M.A., M.B.

3 Prof. Spitzka, by investigation of the brains of distinguished men, has
established the fact that they are exceptionally rich in association fibres.
Cf. Brit. Med. Journ., 15th Feb. 1908, " The Brains of Distinguished Men."

INTRODUCTORY n

conceivable, there is in every individuality some unique and
original potency, something wholly self-derived, it is here in
particular that its traces will presumably be found. On this
view, a human individuality would be regarded as a centre of
force in a far higher sense than any mere lump of radium ; it
would have, so to speak, a dynamic apriorism, by which its
ultimate character, as recorded in the final organisation of the
arcs of highest level, would be, in part at least, determined.
McDougall holds that in true volition there is a concentration
of neural energy apparently contravening the law of least
resistance and strongly suggestive of a unique activity of will.
Here, it may be, we are on the threshold of a mystery which
has long puzzled the wisest. The word " will " is one which is
in a high degree ambiguous, but, in the sense in which McDougall
uses it, it may well signify the intervention of that underived
and unshared power which, if it exist, constitutes the dynamic
apriorism of the Ego. The question is one for experimental
investigation, rather than for argument. Even if it were
settled in the affirmative sense, the question would still remain
whether such a dynamic apriorism were not a manifestation
of a higher logical apriorism ; whether, that is, the develop-
ment of individual character, granted its autonomous basis,
does not conform to the type of a dialectical process more
fundamentally than to that of a mere system and centre of
" force." If Man be a mere mechanism, no matter whether or
not in part self-impelled, his life must conform to mechanical
principles ; he must inevitably follow the path of least resist-
ance ; and any appearance of other than mechanically-deter-
mined conduct, of strictly rational or purposive conduct, must,
of course, be illusory. If, on the other hand, we find that the
life-work of typical characters invariably demonstrates in greater
or less degrees the efficient control of some deliberately adopted
and consistently executed principle or purpose, the mechanical
hypothesis is obviously out of court. The more so, if it also
proves to be the case that precisely those types of individuality
which are universally acclaimed as the highest andmost significant,
are those most hopelessly unintelligible from the mechanical
point of view.

12 MAKERS OF MAN

McDougall inclines to the belief that the activities of the
neurones of the third or highest level have no immediate psychical
correlates, and serve merely to combine and co-ordinate the
activities of those arcs of the sensory level that do contribute
psychical elements. In other words, that part of the general
brain-psychosis which goes on in these arcs of the third level
is normally above consciousness, just as the somatic psychosis
of the body in general is normally below it. The former belongs
in fact to the trans-liminal or supra-liminal, just as the latter
belongs to the subliminal self. But under exceptional condi-
tions, in those moments of stress or exaltation, when, doubtless,
new tracts are opened up in the arcs of the higher level, and
new combinations effected between the sub-systems of the
sensory level, it may well be otherwise. Such moments are
commonly accompanied by a feeling of expansion, a sense of
enlarged power, which may plausibly be interpreted as the
psychical correlates of the opening up of a fresh neuronal tract
in the higher level, or the establishment of a fresh neuronal
anastomosis. The feeling of expansion is no delusion, since,
by the functional change that accompanies it, the mental or
practical powers are in some degree permanently enlarged.

It may not be without interest as a further introduction to
the study of individuality in the field of concrete life and action,
to recount very briefly the main views as to the nature of the
Ego set forth by leading philosophers, those of them, at least,
who have held positive as opposed to merely critical or de-
structive theories on the subject. Socrates first demands
mention, but hardly more than that, on account of his peculiar
attribution of otherwise unaccountable premonitions and
intimations to an inner divine voice, a " demonic " element,
underlying his consciousness. For Plato the soul is in itself
indestructible, and, through reason, in which it participates,
of a divine nature. It sways and controls the body ; but, on
the other hand, the body no less sways and controls the soul.
This interaction is mediated by a lower sensuous, irrational
and mortal faculty of the soul. Between the rational and
irrational parts of the soul appears a faculty called dvpos,
courage, heart — the " irrascible " element of the personality.

INTRODUCTORY 13

The soul by its participation in reason inclines to the ideal and
eternal sphere, by its participation in sense to the material
and temporal order ; and accordingly alternates between them.
For Aristotle, the soul is related to the body as form to matter ;
it is animating principle. Apart from that of the body its exist-
ence is inconceivable. The highest faculty of the Ego is thought
or reason (i>oO?), which is absolutely simple, immaterial,
self-subsistent, and underived. This pure activity is independent
of and unaffected by matter, and on the death of the body
remains eternal and immortal. For the Stoics, nothing in-
corporeal exists, and the interaction of anything purely ideal
with anything material is inconceivable. What things mutually
act must be of like nature ; spirit, divinity, the soul, conse-
quently, is a body, but of another sort than matter and the
outward body. For Plotinus and the Neoplatonist School,
individual souls are " amphibia," intermediate in nature between
the higher element of reason and the lower of sense ; now involved
in the latter, now returning to their source.1 Turning now to
the moderns, we find at most but vague and dubious recogni-
tion of the entity of the Ego in Descartes and Spinoza. In
Leibnitz, on the contrary, we find a wealth of deeply interesting
and suggestive thoughts upon the subject. Extension was for
him but an abstraction necessitated by " the grossness of our
senses," a metaphor in fact. The true connections of things
are not causal, as causality is commonly conceived, but intellectual.
Leibnitz, after having reduced the geometrical extension of the
atom to zero, endowed it with an infinite extension in the
direction of its metaphysical dimension.2 External causation
being, like space, an illusion, all activity is a logical develop-
ment from within, and the apparent actions and reactions of
individual things are due to the fact that, having a common
divine origin they are in pre-established harmony. The
infinite number of monads (reals or individuals) express, each
from its own specific point of view, yet each thus far compre-
hensively, the universe as a whole, the function of each being

1 For most of the above details I am indebted to Schwegler. Cf. Hist, of
Phil., pp. 41, 84, 114-5, 125, 142.
»J. T. Merz,

14 MAKERS OF MAN

ideally complemented by that of all the others. Such profound
conceptions are necessarily misrepresented in any brief and
abstract statement, but we shall have a good deal more to say
about them and their author in the later chapters of this work.
In modern terms the formula for the Leibnitzian doctrine would
be : Involution is the truth of Evolution, and Logic is the truth
of Involution. Kant, like Aristotle, was at the same time a
thorough empiricist and a transcendentalist in his theory (or
theories) of the Ego. He believed, without doubt, that there
is behind every human personality a noumenal subjectivity,
whose immortality, though unproved and incapable of proof,
could legitimately be postulated. " In an act of moral volition,
he," says Dr. Stirling, " will have no pathological element what-
ever present ; our rational will shall be absolutely free." Theo-
retically, the soul is to be regarded as a mere phenomenon ;
in the interests of morality we must assume the rational freedom
of the will — " / ought, therefore I can" His self-styled, but —
ultimately — rejected, disciple Fichte followed Leibnitz rather
than Kant in his view as to the nature of the ego, but surpassed
even Leibnitz in the claims made on its behalf. The ego —
noumenal, not empirical — is for Fichte everything : it is the
Absolute and all its determinations. Its appearance is the
result of a self-limitation of its true universality. " As many
parts of reality as the ego determines in itself, so many parts of
negation it determines in the non-ego, and, conversely, as many
parts of reality as the ego determines in the non-ego, so many
parts of negation it determines in itself." x In Hegel's philo-
sophy the ego as individual is again completely dwarfed by the
Ego as universal. I do not discuss the ultimate validity of
this view ; it is obviously too rigidly logical to be at present
largely available for the interpretation of actual personalities.
We shall have more to say about Hegel later on. The clearer,
because more analytical and shallower, philosophy of Schopen-
hauer, in that it regards all external happenings as dependent
upon an occult reality somewhat unfortunately denominated
" will," seems more to our present purpose. What I dispute,
however, is that the so-called " will," in so far as it is admittedly

1 Schwegler, Hist, of Phil., trans, by Stirling.

INTRODUCTORY 15

blind and unselfconscious, has any right to its exalted title or
claims. Blind purpose or appetite is one thing, and true voli-
tion is quite another. What is worth noting in Schopenhauer is
his insistence on the fact that character is ultimately determined
not from without but from within ; also that it is a much less
tractable, more stubbornly self -maintaining thing, upon the
whole, than is commonly admitted. Herbert Spencer, borrowing
from Coleridge the hint that life is a tendency towards individua-
tion, and enlarging its scope, finds this tendency in all processes
characterised by the integration of matter and the dissipation
of motion, that is, in all evolutionary processes. He traces in
detail the transition of a relatively-homogeneous matrix, through
successive differentiations and integrations, to a definite co-
herent heterogeneity of structure and function — that is, to
complete individuation. This point reached, there is a longer
or shorter period of equilibrium, during which the adjustment
of internal to external relations is more or less adequately main-
tained. Then the entire process is reversed, dissolution succeeds
to evolution, and we arrive once more at our starting-point —
an indefinite incoherent homogeneity. Such, in terms of motion,
or force and matter, is the generalised statement of the pheno-
menal order, in which Man as an individual is of course included.
The principle has been almost universally accepted ; it is, indeed,
too often hypostatised, so that foolish and unthinking persons
talk of " Evolution " as though it were some god, and fancy
that when they have shown how such or such an organism was
" evolved," there is no more to be said. Of the so-called axioms
underlying Spencer's deduction, one at least, the dictum that
the Force of the Universe is constant in amount, since it " can
neither arise out of nothing nor lapse into nothing," seems
disrespectful to the resources of the " Unknowable," and is,
to say the least, of a highly disputable character. The
universal tendency towards individuation does not seem to
have suggested to Spencer that the whole process of evolution,
as elaborated by him in numerous volumes, might be but a
manifestation of individualities and of Individuality in general ;
that the individual is perhaps not the creature of evolution, but
evolution the self-display of the individual. Or that the mean-

16 MAKERS OF MAN

ingless revolution of barren cosmic machinery, returning ever
in lame and impotent conclusion to its indefinite incoherent
origin, would bear another and more intelligible aspect if we
admit the possibility that the individual ego underlies and con-
ditions a given focus of evolution ; and that, having reached its
highest present attainable level of manifestation, this ego
withdraws to assimilate the products of experience, leaving
the world enriched by the results of its creative work. It is
true, of course, that the entertainment of such a possibility
would involve the conception of the universe, dynamically
regarded, not as a closed circuit of unvarying magnitude, but
as a stream of ever-increasing, self-renewed volume and flow.
Such a supposition is neither more nor less legitimate than
Spencer's own, as regards compatibility with ascertained laws ;
while some will consider that it is far more satisfactory in all
other ways.

Mr. Bradley considers that the self, whether identified with
the body, the total contents of experience at a given moment,
the average contents of experience, the " essential " self, the
personal identity, whether regarded as a monad, as what
interests, as opposed to the not-self, as mere subjectivity, or
as will, cannot be so conceived as to cover the known facts and
at the same time escape the just charge of being in many ways
contradictory. He therefore declines to accept the final reality
of the self, though assigning to it a high rank in the phenomenal
order. " Body and soul are mere appearances, distinctions
set up and held apart in the whole. . . . The soul and its
organism are each a phenomenal series. Each, to speak in
general, is implicated in the changes of the other." *• Mr.
Bradley does not believe in the interaction of mind and body
in the sense that mere body can act upon bare mind, or con-
versely. But he does believe that the physical and psychical
series, going on side by side, are each modified by the presence
of the other, and that sometimes the one predominates while
its fellow becomes, as it were, latent ; and sometimes the other.
It is only for convenience sake that we are justified in considering
either series as independent. Mr. Bradley assents to the

1 Appearance and Reality.

INTRODUCTORY 17

physical origin of mind, but with certain reservations. Matter
is an abstraction ; and the material cause of the soul will never
be the whole cause. Compared with the physical world, the
soul is by far less unreal. It shows to a larger extent that self-
dependence in which Reality consists. This from the author
of Appearance and Reality is a high testimonial, since he con-
cedes final reality to nothing short of the Absolute itself.

So much then for the philosophers. Before summarising
their main conclusions, I will add a few words with regard to
the results of psychic research. It is, of course, as yet in its
infancy, and is regarded with great suspicion in many quarters,
particularly by those who know little or nothing about the
matter. As one who has followed the chief available records
with close interest for some years, I assert without hesitation
that work is now being done in this department which, as
regards precision of method and impartiality of inference, can
challenge comparison with more favoured investigations. At
the point now reached it would be an exaggeration to say that
the survivial of personal consciousness after death, and the
possibility of entering into communication with post-mortem
personalities, have been fully established. But no competent
and impartial reader of Hyslop's work, Science and a Future
Life — to give one example out of many — will deny that enough
carefully-sifted evidence has been collected to make good a
strong prima facie case for further investigation.1

Roughly speaking, it would seem then that we have to
choose between three main conceptions as to the nature of
things, using that word in its widest and, I fear I must add,
its vaguest significance. First, from the Spencerian, a posteriori,
standpoint, the ego may be regarded as the final meeting-point
of innumerable converging activities, whence, as it were by
resilience, they reissue to modify the environment. From
this point of view, whose provisional validity is within certain
limits unquestioned, the ego is, at most, a mere ephemeral
product, whose essence is its visible processes of becoming,

1 1 will also call attention to the remarkable case of the daughter of Judge
Edwards, reported in the Annals of Psychical Science, vol. vi.f No. 31, pp.
508-10.

2

i8 MAKERS OF MAN

and, at least, — nominis umbra. Secondly, we may conceive
of the ego as an entity, substantial, if not material, the per-
manent basis or ground of mental and organic unity. And
some, no doubt, would so extend the range of its influence as
to maintain that all the processes which directly prepare, cul-
minate in, constitute, and result from a given human career,
are in a sense manifestations of this underlying pre-existent
power and reality. From this point of view the " empirical
ego " is as it were the lens, which, by a certain specific affinity,
selects from every part and every past period of the universe,
and brings to a focus, those rays and those only which emanate
from its own noumenal ego. The externalised forces which
build themselves up into the physical basis of individuality
are, at a certain point, or certain points, of development, met
by a current of inverse direction, and thenceforth become
increasingly subject to its modifying power and control. The
third and last view as to the nature of the ego, is that which
acknowledges that the basis of a particular individuality, how-
ever great and exalted, is not ultimately an independent
substance or, if you prefer the term, entity (though both in a
far higher degree and truer sense than any merely physical
existence), but rather a permanent and essential factor of some
higher and more comprehensive existence. One or other of
these three views will be found, I think, to correspond in essen-
tials with any theory of the ego that can lay claim to serious
attention. It may be asked whether the second and third
of these three conceptions of the ego regard Man in his entirety
as a part and product of Nature. Obviously, this must depend
on what we understand by Nature, a word of convenient
ambiguity, — which can be made to include everything or to
exclude anything, as required by the exigencies of the moment.
As Mr. Bradley points out, there is the Nature of prosaic
empiricism ; but there is also the Nature of the poet. If
Nature is to be taken as a closed system of more or less measur-
able and identifiable " forces," from which all that is as yet
refractory to the inquisition of the test-tube and the scalpel
is rigidly excluded, then without doubt all supporters of the
second and third theories of the ego must regard Man as a

INTRODUCTORY 19

supernatural being. But this, if wise, they will do without
the least hope or desire of limiting the search for causal uniform-
ities underlying, or, if you will, governing his life and conduct.
The seeming paradox will be a stumbling-block only to those
who are obfuscated by confusion of a higher and lower point of
view. Cerebral growth and organisation are one aspect of
character, and a most important one, doubtless. The other
and more essential is its manifestation as human thought and
action, and the ideal significance of these. And this will be
our subject in the ensuing pages. Valuable works have already
been published, dealing almost exclusively with the physio-
logical and pathological aspects of human " genius." As a
medical man, I fully appreciate the importance of this side of
the problem, but I cannot, as a human being, admit the finality
or even the provisional adequacy of the implied point of view.

The Science of human character has many departments,
but all specific investigations of its genetic or physical conditions,
morbid correlations, and aberrant vagaries, must be regarded
as ancillary to the supreme interest of its teleological significance

II

CLASSIFICATION

Ambiguities — The man of action — The artist — The philosopher and the
scientific discoverer — The ethico-religious pioneer — Subsidiary or mixed
types — Examples and qualifications.

THE practice of labelling distinguished men, in accordance with
their official sphere of activity, as " men of action," " men of
thought, "and so forth, is one which has many conveniences, but is
nevertheless, in the absence of due precautions, a fertile source of
error from the true psychological point of view. Uncritically
employed, it assumes, without demonstration, fundamental dis-
tinctions of temperament and predisposition, which may or
may not exist. That the great statesman or conqueror, the
poet or musician, the philosopher or man of science, the saint
or religious founder, is such, in each case, not by mere force of
circumstance, wholly, or at least in some degree, but by con-
straint of inborn irresistible proclivity, native genius, or heaven-
born mission, is not so evident as to many it would seem to
appear. We all wish to be exceptional, and the man of leisure
who has a fancy for versification is not disinclined to believe
himself thrown away upon more sternly utilitarian employ-
ment. But in the absence of patronage for his verses he may
make a tolerable bank-clerk or solicitor. This unproved
assumption that, for success in the more highly-esteemed social
functions, inborn " genius " is all, and mere environment nothing,
is one of the many unwarranted beliefs with which we tacitly
conspire to natter our amour propre at the expense of reason.
The point requires investigation, and I propose to deal with it
later. In the mean time it may be admitted that some attempt
at classification is not merely expedient, but even essential to

CLASSIFICATION 21

the systematic treatment of human faculty, and I therefore
propose, without prejudice, as the lawyers say, to avail myself
of that which I find ready to hand. Famous men may be
roughly divided into four great classes, according as their
achievements affect mainly the sphere of common life, of
imagination, of knowledge, or of morality and religion. The
four types of human greatness are, accordingly, the practical,
aesthetic, intellectual, and ethical ; and this is the method of
classification which I have provisionally adopted. Of each of
these types I have chosen ten great exemplars, beginning with
Julius Caesar in the first group, and ending with Ernest Renan
in the fourth. The analytical study of these forty world-
famous careers should yield results of substantial value, and
can hardly be lacking in interest even for the most casual
student of human affairs. In assigning particular individuals
to one or another of my four categories, I have in the main been
guided by conventional rather than deep-seated psychological
considerations, and I do not conceal from myself, or the reader,
that in several instances the question might fairly be raised
whether the classification adopted is finally appropriate. The
several types are by no means sharply defined, but overlap and
interweave in a somewhat perplexing fashion. This will perhaps
be more clearly seen if I indicate briefly the broad characteristics
of each type of career, and then give examples of the ambiguities
that present themselves in the case of particular personalities.

The man of action comes first, because his type is upon
the whole the simplest and most primitive that we have to
deal with. He works upon the raw material of contemporary
life, making it subserve the ends of his ambition, rough-hewing
it in various ways, but seldom attempting to shape it in accord-
ance with any high ideal or far-seeing purpose. For the future
as such he cares little ; the exigencies of the moment are, for
the most part, all-absorbing ; he meets them and masters them
from day to day, well knowing that fresh difficulties will con-
front him on the morrow. His own history is inextricably
involved in the history of his country and his age : to under-
stand the one you must be familiar with the other, for his
instinctive objectivity enables him to lavish himself on the field

22 MAKERS OF MAN

of public life, rendering futile the most industrious gleaning of
mere personal traits and anecdotal gossip. The same is true, in
a way, of all men who achieve anything noteworthy ; but in
the case of the artist, or the man of letters, we have at least a
definite and fairly comprehensive body of work, by the study
of which we may hope to learn much of the personality offici-
ally expressed therein. The life-work of the man of action has
no such clear-cut limitations : it is merged in the achievements
of his contemporaries, and even of his predecessors. But the
fact that the man of action concentrates upon the production
of immediate effects undoubtedly renders these more con-
spicuous and more readily identifiable than they would other-
wise be, and this is a compensating advantage. From the point
of view of our investigation, that is, from that of the country or
countries governed by him, this absorption of the man of action
in the consideration of things making for immediate prestige
and profit has most serious drawbacks. If Kichelieu, for
example, had not contented himself with an untiring devotion
to the cause of the monarchy, and indomitable efforts to increase
the importance of his country as a power among the nations,
but had also carried out his early schemes of internal reform,
how different, and how much happier, the history of that
country might have been. The taille and the iniquitous gabelle,
the sale of offices, and kindred abuses, were, after a few tentative
efforts at reform, left practically untouched. The policy of
laissez alter in regard to fiscal matters,- sanctioned by the great
name of her supreme statesman, became traditional in France.
The horrors of the Revolution were the inevitable outcome of
this neglect. So, too, we have to thank the bigotry and the
brutal haste of Cromwell to be done with his black task in
Ireland, for the existence of two irreconcilable nations within
the bounds of that ill-starred isle. By encouraging foreign
states to accept Irish volunteers, he got rid of some forty
thousand able-bodied Catholic malcontents, while, to replace
them, immense tracts of Ulster, Leinster, and Munster were
allotted to Protestant settlers. Cromwell returned to England
in triumph, to be greeted by immense throngs with a paean of
praise, for which, to do him justice, he seems to have cared

CLASSIFICATION 23

little. The voice of rebellion was for the moment silenced, but
at what a cost, for future generations, in bitterness, faction-
fury and unavailing remorse ! Such, broadly-speaking, is the
man of action, a man instinctively objective, fiercely impatient
of the slow methods of nature, living for his own race and his
own little hour, ruthlessly determined on the reaping of an
unripe harvest, producing immense apparent benefits that are,
too often, grievous curses in disguise. His type is, for humanity,
what a robust, but morally undeveloped childhood is for the
individual, at the stage when the youngster is first rejoicing in
the unrestrained activity of its ill-governed and, too often,
destructive limbs.

In strong contrast with the man of action, the representative
of the aesthetic type is pre-occupied with ideals, and his activi-
ties are increasingly devoted to the expression of these. He
is objective in a far less degree than the man of action, — only
becomes so, as a rule, when his powers have reached their full
maturity, and even then only to that extent essential to the
clear manifestation (as distinguished from the full realisation)
of his cherished subjectivity. This weakness in relation to
actualities is a characteristic limitation of the aesthetic type of
personality, and it has not escaped the keen eye of one who,
while, upon the whole, he must certainly be assigned to this
category, was in many ways an exception to its rules. " It is
ever the besetting fault of cultivated men," says Goethe,
" that they wish to spend their whole resources on some
idea, scarcely any part of them on tangible existing objects."
And again, more drastically, in the Articles of Wilhelm
Meister's Indenture : " Whoever works with symbols only, is a
pedant, a hypocrite, or a bungler." And Coupland has called
attention to the significant fact that in Act III. of the second
part of Goethe's " Fatist," first Euphorion, the embodiment of
poetic genius, then Helena, his mother, the personification of
classic beauty, vanish, never to return. " Faust was not
always to remain at the stage of Art." It is true that Helena
has bequeathed to him her garment and veil. In these he
envelops himself ; they raise him aloft, bear him away from
the dream-world of Arcadia, and set him down on the solid soil of

24 MAKERS OF MAN

actuality — a journey so vast that even Mephistopheles lags
behind him, in spite of his seven-league boots. Faust has not
brought with him Euphorion's abandoned lyre, for his task
henceforward is not the perfecting of symbols but the wresting
of barren wastes from the sea, and their subdual to the service
of man. Yet this weakness of the poet or artist in relation to
actualities is to some extent compensated by the austerity of
his attitude towards the more tenuous and plastic material with
which by preference, and perhaps too exclusively, he deals.
As to his choice of this material, whether he works in marble, on
canvas, with language or musical tones, the question how far
this choice is predetermined by inborn capacity, how far
subject to environmental modification, will confront us later on.
The point now to be noted is that the true artist will be content
with nothing short of what he considers perfection, yet that
perfect representation of an ideal conception, even in marble, is
far more easily attained than the full realisation of an analogous
ideal in the moral or intellectual order as a governing principle
of life. But on this aspect of his function the artist commonly
turns his back, affecting a fastidious contempt for the ill-ordered
world of actuality, or querulously harping on the contrast
between the harmonious grace of his own ideal " creations "
and the vulgarity, crudity, and discord which elsewhere offend
his jaundiced eye. So he betakes himself to the magnification
of his office, sulks if excluded from the place of honour at the
King's banquet, refuses his food, and, in justification, an-
nounces that :

" If the Arts should perish,

The world that lacked them would be like a woman
Who, looking on the cloven lips of a hare,
Brings forth a hare-lipped child."

As a pathological theory, this attribution of an atavistic
abnormality to the morbid susceptibility of a pregnant woman
is distinctly original, but, I fear, will not hold water. The
position of the hypothesis of " maternal impressions " in general
is nothing if not precarious, and the particular deformity named
is in any case not so to be explained. Such presumptuous
bards need to be reminded that if " the Arts " (read " fine arts "

CLASSIFICATION 25

and, in particular, poetry) should perish, beauty and sublimity
would not thereby be banished from the universe. Conceivably,
the day may come — it may be nearer now than we think — when
such inculcation of high aims fed by rapt contemplation and
illumined insight as " the Arts " can proffer shall so far have
been effected that exclusive preoccupation with symbols and
fictions will no longer, as in the past, command the lifelong
interest of the elect spirits of the race. Truly, as Zarathustra
complains, the poets lie too much ; and they have also (pace
Upton Sinclair) been flattered and coddled to an altogether un-
warrantable extent.1 Physiologically speaking, though I am
far from asserting the final adequacy of any physical' cause, the
poetic impulse is an affair of adolescence, of that wonderful
quickening of the sensuous and emotional affectivities which
accompanies the dawn of sexual appetite and power. Is not
every lover, in some sort, a poet ? But, inasmuch as it requires
almost a lifetime to achieve and manifest beyond fear of cavil
the mastery of any even symbolic mode of self-expression, the
poet or artist must, if he is not to lose the motive-power before
it has been translated into action, remain approximately at the
adolescent stage of emotional exaltation all his days. And, in
fact, Coleridge has defined genius (in a too-limited sense, I
contend) as the faculty of carrying on the feelings of childhood
into the powers of manhood. This is a characteristic instance
of the sort of uncritical adulation which men of these sthetic
type have come to expect, in so far, that is, as it assumes
that the peculiarity in question is purely positive, that the
powers of manhood are merely enhanced, not also limited,
by the persistency of supernormal affectivity throughout life.
Meredith suggests a truer view when he says of happiness, " we
distil that fine essence through the senses ; and the act is called
the pain of life. It is the death of them." For happiness,
read wisdom, and the statement will be not less true. Higher
faculties must, by inexorable necessity, develop out of and at
expense of lower. Coleridge's definition of genius degrades
that quality while seeking to exalt it. Not all men of genius are,

1 It is true that most of these attentions have been, so far as the recipients
were concerned, of a -post-mortem character. But this is a detail.

26 MAKERS OF MAN

like him, vague, dreamy sentimentalists. Those who are and
remain such are cases of arrested development. The penalty of
living in the imagination is that one is not deprived of one's
illusions. That Goethe at the age of seventy-three betrayed
his facile susceptibility by falling so violently in love with
Ulrica von Levezow as to set the tongues of all the gossips of
Marienbad wagging, is a fact which excites the naive enthusiasm
of some ingenuous biographers. It is really more amusing than
impressive ; and I fearlessly assert that if, with honest boyish
imprudence, he had married Frederica at the age of twenty-one,
or Lili (his fifth flame, or thereabouts) at twenty-six, he would
have learned more about woman in twelve months than, by
his peculiarly-cautious method, he actually learned in as many
years. But all this is to some extent digressive, and, in con-
clusion of my preliminary discussion of the aesthetic type, I will
merely point out the significant fact that, between the birth of
Titian, " the greatest painter, if not the greatest genius in art
that the world has produced," and that of Bacon, nearly the
first of a long line of intellectual pioneers and discoverers, almost
a hundred years intervened. The sun of Science dawns when
that of Art is in process of decline.

Taking the man of action as our primitive type of mere
unreflective objectivity, and the random pursuit of power for
the satisfaction of instinctive needs and capacities, it is obvious
that the aesthetic type is, in some important respects, higher
and more advanced. Ambition, as motive, has to some extent,
as we shall find, been replaced by aspiration. The activities
conform less closely to the reflex type ; they are mediated by
reference to an ideal standard of beauty or fitness, more or
less consciously and coherently formulated. But this, un-
fortunately, only applies to the official activities, the art-work
pure and simple : in matters of everyday life we shall discover
abundant evidence of weakness, vagary, and caprice, It is
true that Goethe informed Eckermann that he wished all his
actions to be regarded as of symbolic import. Goethe, I
consider, upon the whole, about the most interesting personality
who ever lived on this earth, but not by any means the greatest.
He is also in many ways atypical, despite of the fact that he

CLASSIFICATION 27

sometimes acted weakly and even contemptibly. Our third
type of greatness — the intellectual — comprises two main
groups, the philosophers and the scientific discoverers. Of
these, the former group is in some respect intermediate, for
many poets have in later life turned to philosophy and achieved
some distinction therein. The transition from art to science
is mediated by cosmic emotion, by that sense of the grandeur
and beauty of the universe which first seeks expression in
the solitary excogitation, later in the organised investigation
of its hidden purpose or law. The man of science, it will be
said, is born, not made. In a sense, yes, but with reservations.
The aesthetic phase may be almost imperceptible, it may be
passed over very lightly, but there is at least no doubt that it
often occurs. Spinoza drew portraits of his friends ; Newton
as a lad drew and painted from nature, besides indulging in
versification ; Bacon's prose has been praised for its beauty by
Shelley ; Galileo's dramatic sense compelled him to embody
his astronomical discoveries in dialogues of singular force and
charm ; his memory was stored with a vast variety of old songs
and stories, and many of the poems of Ariosto, Petrarca, and
Bernini. Hegel during his early manhood perpetrated some
rather melancholy verse, but later, during his courtship, dis-
played a transient proficiency in the art. Darwin was a lover
of great music, and, at least until the date of his marriage
(aged twenty-eight), an ardent reader of Shakespeare, Milton,
Scott, Byron, and Wordsworth. As a little boy, too, he had
a mania for inventive lying, which, doubtless, indicates the
potential novelist, or so it seems to me. D'Arcy Power says
of Harvey that he could formulate his knowledge " in exquisite
language," and that so familiar was it (i.e. his knowledge) that
he could afford to indulge in similes and images. Descartes,
at the age of twenty-five, experienced a sort of ecstatic vision, in
which what he took to be his evil genius, symbolised as a terrible
storm, seemed to be driving him in the direction of a church.
So of the ten examples of the intellectual type which I propose
to study, only two, Leibnitz and Kant, seem to show no aptitude
or inclination for imaginative as distinguished from purely
theoretic pursuits. Yet the lifework of these also is clearly

28 MAKERS OF MAN

motived by that cosmic emotion which I regard as an austerely-
exalted form of poetic impulse. In character, as evinced by
the general conduct of life, the truth-seekers compare, in some
respects, favourably with the seekers after beauty. This may
be partly attributable to innate differences of temperament
and susceptibility, but is also in great measure due to the
superiority of science to art as a mental and moral discipline.
There is less room for vagary and caprice, a sterner demand
for the subjection of wayward impulses. An artist has only
to please himself, and he knows that he will command the
approbation of many others ; the results of scientific research
are invariably subjected to the coldest and most ruthless criti-
cism. The sex-element is much less in evidence as a disturbing
factor in the lives of great thinkers or discoverers than in those
of great poets, artists, or composers. The reason of this
discrepancy is not far to seek : the aesthetic worker is always
pre-occupied with sex problems and relations, and for success
in exploiting these he needs to identify himself in imagination
with his own most impassioned conceptions. Only the strongest
and most self-contained individuality can be proof against the
perils of such exploitation of sex-emotion. Then again, the
man of science at least, perhaps even the philosopher, is in
a higher degree dependent upon co-operation than the artist.
Co-operation strongly favours the development of moral
character ; the independence of it, as we see in the case of young
men born to great wealth, makes for egotism and conceit. As
a matter of fact it is rare to find a scientific discoverer of the
first rank who is not in some degree a speculative thinker, or a
philosopher of the first rank who has altogether shirked the
discipline of empirical research.

Upon the whole it is clear that the intellectual is a more
advanced type than the aesthetic, both on a 'priori grounds,
and because, historically and biographically, it matures later.
The typical artist will appear somewhat boyish and crude in the
company of typical thinkers or men of science. We need not
regret this, because there is an aesthetic side to science, as yet
little appreciated, which will amply compensate any loss by
the inevitable defection from purely aesthetic pursuits of our

CLASSIFICATION 29

abler and more exalted spirits. So far as' mere art survives,
it is largely by assimilation of scientific methods and aims.

Our fourth type, which I consider the highest and most
humanly-significant, is one for which it is difficult to find
an apt and comprehensive title. For want of a better name I
have called this the ethical type of personality, but it might
also be called religious, or — but for the fear of misunderstanding
— spiritual. It includes the religious founder, the prophet, the
saint, the theologian — using that word in its widest sense — the
moralist, and the social reformer. It includes, in short, all
whose main interest and endeavour is to exalt the dignity and
worth of human life, either by the mere force of example, by
precept and moral suasion, or by profound investigation of
the ends and motives of conduct. Properly speaking, it ex-
cludes all who rely, in so far as they rely, on compulsion, even
for the advance of ideal ends — for this is the method peculiar
to the man of action. But this is a test which cannot be too
rigidly enforced, since it would exclude Mahomet, Luther, and
even Gregory the Great from the class to which, on general
grounds, they obviously belong. The man of action bears
to the ethical man a relation analogous to that of the artisan
to the artist. The material of each is human life in general,
but whereas the man of action is guided mainly by considerations
of common everyday utility or expediency, the ethical man
strives for the realisation of consciously-formulated universal
and ideal ends. And in so far as he is true to his type, he cares
only for such results as are brought about by the free voluntary
acceptance of his doctrines and aims. The will of man is his
noble material : to evoke its hidden potencies, to kindle its
latent ardours, to reveal its implied aspirations, is the high
task that he undertakes. He is the only true alchemist, agon-
ising to achieve the transmutation of the base metal of sordid
aims and low motives into the gold of brave beliefs and generous
actions. He synthetises the qualities of the three subordinate
types of character, sharing at his best the objective aims and
the human material of the man of action, the ideal standard
of the artist, the fidelity tc fact of the man of science. The
ethical man, like the man of action, has been in evidence,

30 MAKERS OF MAN

not merely at particular epochs — like the artist and the man
of science — but at irregular intervals throughout history. He
is indispensable, since, without him and what he stands for,
life would be valueless. He is in fact the supreme valuer, and
though, of course, not exempt from the faults and illusions
of his time and race, has proved, upon the whole, not altogether
unworthy of his godlike function. I have spoken of the aesthetic
and ethical personalities as idealistic, and so, broadly speaking,
they are and must be, but, needless to state, they may not all
be professors of idealism in the technical sense. Even the
blankest materialism, the crudest realism, is in some sense an
ideal to its devotee and exponent. It is a deliberately adopted
formula, the highest truth known to him, something which he
accepts and promulgates without reference to its acceptability
to others or consequences to himself. And so even an " im-
moralist " like Nietzsche, whose principle is the futility of all
principles, must be classed among representatives of the ethical
type. I mention these extreme cases as a warning that I
decline to commit myself in advance to the advocacy of any
popular branch of ethical theory. I may have my own views,
but I am not so arrogant as to expect all men to share them ;
and if a given individual teaches the unlimited rights of the
irresponsible ego, the apotheosis of brute force, or the sanctitude
of Dionysian frenzy, that does not alter the fact that, as a
valuer of life, he is entitled to a place among representatives of
the ethical type of personality. There are philosophers who
reject philosophy, and saints who do not believe in religion.

Such, then, are our four types of individuality ; we have
now to discuss the necessary qualifications of such a classification.
In the first place, it may be asked why I have not assigned a
place to the inventors. Not because I am unaware of their
importance, for it is of course obvious that such epochal in-
ventions as that of printing, of the steam locomotive, and the
telegraph, have simply revolutionised social and economic
arrangements. The importance of his function must not,
however, blind us to the fact that the inventor, as such, is not
a primary but a mixed type of individuality. He combines
the characteristics of the intellectual (scientific), the aesthetic

CLASSIFICATION 31

(or constructive), and the practical types. Obviously, the
consideration of the four primary types is a task more than
sufficient, and logically precedes that of subsidiary or mixed
ones. I confess, too, that while freely recognising the debt
that we owe to the inventor, I find him less interesting, humanly
speaking, than the man of action, the artist, the thinker, or the
saint.1 The excellent Mr. Smiles may perhaps have bequeathed
his enthusiasm for research in this field to some less didactic
admirer. Let us hope so, and that the result may be forthcoming
in the shape of an adequate discussion of the soul of the inventor.
The inventor is not, of course, peculiar, as an individual, in
that he combines the qualities of several primary types. All
individuals do that in some degree, for the purely typical
personality is an abstraction which does not actually occur.
What excludes the inventor from ranking as representative of
a primary human category is, that, however true to his type,
we know that we shall find in him something of the man of
action, something of the artist, and something of the man of
science.2 Representatives of the primary types, on the other
hand, though they always vary in some degree from the type
to which they predominantly belong, do so in an indefinite
and unforeseen way. Csesar, for example, probably the greatest
man of action that the world has yet produced, would not have
been so great had not the faults peculiar to his type been, in
his case, largely counterbalanced by a strong ethical bias. He
was the supreme ruler of men just because he was also some-
thing more, because, although he certainly relied mainly on
compulsion, he used it as a rule with strict moderation, and,
whenever he thought it safe, gladly availed himself of the
higher method of moral suasion. Charlemagne, too, though
in most respects a typical representative of the man of action,
has points of affinity with the ethical type. His policy, though
largely opportunist, was also, and, I think, increasingly, motived

1 Bacon has truly observed that many of the most important invention
have been rather the result of happy chance than reasoned investigation.
Novum Organum, bk. i. Aph. cix.

2 The highest type of inventor is hardly distinguishable from the scientific
discoverer.

32 MAKERS OF MAN

by higher considerations. He loved no book better than
Augustine's City of God, wherein he found the description of
the perfect Emperor, who holds his power as something given
or lent by God. His friendships with Alcuin the theologian,
Pope Hadrian, and Abbot Sturm, no doubt fostered the sense of
high responsibility and of a heaven-derived mission, which is
clearly indicated by many of his actions. The career of William
the Silent furnishes, however, the most salient example known
to me of the great man of action whose public activities are
determined not by personal ambition but by loyalty to an
ideal aim. From the time when, as a young man of twenty-six,
he listened in silent horror to the French king's revelation of
the ruthless plan concocted with Philip n. for the extirpation
of heresy (and heretics) in the Netherlands, he never faltered
in his resolve " to drive this Spanish vermin from the land."
He was born a Prince in a day when that meant more than we
can even dimly realise. He died a " Beggar " in almost the
literal, as well as the adoptive, sense of the word. Yet, though
he might challenge the title of saint against many who bear it
in the market-place, he must upon the whole be accounted a
man of action. In virtue, that is, of his methods, not of his
ends, which were altogether unexceptionable ; and, indeed, of
the characteristic faults and limitations of the typical man of
action we find in him hardly a trace. The case of Oliver Crom-
well is in many ways obviously analogous to that of William
of Orange. He, too, may fairly claim to have entered the field
of action, not primarily in pursuit of personal gain or advance-
ment, but under strong compulsion of a sense that there was
work which needed to be done, which could be done by no other
man but himself. " I would have been glad," he exclaimed,
in an hour, truly, of bitterness and disillusionment, yet with
undoubted sincerity, " I would have been glad to have lived
under my woodside, to have kept a flock of sheep — rather than
undertake such a government as this." Yet Cromwell's career
is more typically practical (as distinguished from ethical), both
in its weakness and strength, than is that of William the Silent.
No one can fairly cavil at the inclusion of Drake, Richelieu, or
Frederic the Great, among representative men of action, though

CHARLEMAGNE.
Boiztt del. ; Jiartcnv, Sculp.

To face /. 32.

CLASSIFICATION 33

the two last-named have subsidiary indications of an aesthetic
and intellectual bias. Nelson is, in his own way, as unique as
Alexander, and, indeed, with his fiery passion for distinction — a
passion which enabled him to triumph over the most serious
drawbacks of bodily weakness, prejudice, and misfortune —
reminds one a little of the great Macedonian. There is in the
temperament of Nelson a striking analogy with that of the
typical poet ; but, so far as I have been able to ascertain, it was,
from the first, purely objective in tendency and aim. With
regard to Napoleon, it need merely be said at present that
we may search the history of mankind in vain to find a more
thoroughly representative specimen of the man of action. Of
aspiration, as distinct from ambition — the desire to shine and
the determination to use men as otherwise negligible instruments
to that ignoble purpose — there are, except possibly in its quite
early stages, no indications whatever in his career. Its leading
notes are tireless energy, instinctive objectivity, furious egotism,
a keen eye to dramatic, or theatrical, effect, and a brutal direct-
ness of method. Very different is the case of Lincoln, a true
man of action, yet with strong affinities to the ethical type.
Leland doubts " whether there was ever so great a man who
was, on the whole, so good." But this is not the question —
goodness in the domestic sense is quite compatible with ruthless
violence and rapacity in the public sphere of action. But
Lincoln's relation to the slavery question fairly entitles him to
rank as a man in many ways superior to mere ambition and
lust for power. Still, the problem is not so simple as it appears
— there was a good deal of mere ambition, and even perhaps
a suspicion of demagogy and time-serving, in his conduct at
times.

Fewer ambiguities present themselves with regard to the
classification of representatives of the aesthetic type. Dante
had in him some inkling of a practical bias, but it did not long
survive the discouragement of his condemnation and exile.
Not more of it, perhaps, than is common to all artists of the
first class, for it is only those of the second rank who are devoid
of a leaven of Philistinism. But in spite of the unsurpassed
beauty^of his verse, and the superb virtuosity of his method,
3

34 MAKERS OF MAN

Dante may claim to be almost as great intellectually as poetically,
and perhaps even greater as an ethical influence. No Art for
Art's sake man this, but a spirit aflame with zeal for the good,
and with absolute loathing for all that it deemed false, mean,
or sordid. The case of Leonardo is one of great interest and
importance, and strongly supports my contention that the
intellectual type must, broadly speaking, be regarded as more
advanced than the aesthetic. The little that remains to us of
his art-work amply suffices to prove that in capacity, in equip-
ment, he was one of the two or three supreme artists of the world.
But Leonardo was singularly free from the vanity and the greed
for fame of the typical artist. Painting never captured more
than the half of his mind ; and as he grew older he turned with
ever-increasing ardour to purely intellectual interests and wonder-
ful previsionary glimpses of the future of Science. He too, like
Faust, was not content to remain at the stage of Art. In a more
favourable environment he would probably have been even
greater as a scientific discoverer than he actually became as an
artist. As a blend of the man of action, the aesthetic, and the
intellectual, he inevitably displayed an aptitude for engineering
and mechanical invention. In Titian, the practical worldly
element seldom lacking in artistic or poetic genius of the first
order, is almost unduly evident, yet with strangely little pre-
judice to the aesthetic value of his work. Perhaps no artist so
great in other ways was ever so devoid of the qualities of the
highest or ethical type. I do not, of course, assert or believe
that great artists are necessarily didactic — their works may have
no moral, but they have at least a morale. And this, in much,
even of Titian's latest work, is confessedly wanting. Cervantes,
again, seems by disposition to have had almost as decided a
bent for action as for literature. Up to the time of his ransom
from slavery at Algiers we hear but little of any pursuits of an
imaginative kind, and his early ambition seems to have been
for military distinction. But the barren glory of Lepanto,
which cost him the use of a hand and brought him no com-
pensating advantage, began a process of disillusionment which
was completed by the five years' ordeal of bondage. The
brutality of the world had so far destroyed his romantic dreams

CLASSIFICATION 35

that he contented himself henceforth with describing — not
without irony and self-derision — the chivalrous exploits and
ideals "which he had once aspired to express in action. His loss
was the world's gain, however, and he could not have become
the supreme artist he was if he had been spared the rebuffs
incurred by his prior invasion of the practical sphere. Mozart
is almost as perfect a representative of the aesthetic type as
Napoleon is of the man of affairs. Goethe's complex personality
belongs in almost equal measure to each of the four primitive
types, the poet upon the whole predominating in him, and the
ethical factor, though ultimately pronounced enough, developing
latest. Beethoven, again, is an artist and something more ; he
never meddled with action ; he was not really intellectual ; but
there is in all his great works a breath of spiritual exaltation,
a something that not merely expands and uplifts, but edifies,
incites, and ennobles. His music is, as it were, an emotional
embodiment of absolute religion, of religion that has outgrown
formulas and superstitions ; it is at once a psean of emancipation
and a proud challenge to destiny. Its appeal is, in short,
not merely to the imagination, but also, and in perhaps unique
degree, to the mil of the listener. By this peculiarity Beethoven's
music is related to the poetry of Dante, Milton, and Shelley,
rather than to that of Chaucer, Shakespeare, or Keats. In
Walter Scott we have a well-marked example of the blending
of imaginative with practical capacity. The artist in him was
overshadowed and in some degree vitiated by the man of action.
It would hardly be an exaggeration to say that he cared as much,
or even more, for worldly and social success as for excellence in
his artistic endeavours — that ambition rather than aspiration
was his fundamental motive. Once, soon after entering the
High School at Edinburgh, Scott, having found himself at a
disadvantage through his ignorance of Greek, expressed con-
tempt for the language, whereupon a schoolfellow, the son of an
innkeeper, himself an excellent Greek scholar, ventured to
remonstrate with him. Scott received the friendly rebuke
" with sulky civility, because, forsooth, the birth of my mentor
did not, as I thought in my folly, authorise him to intrude upon
me his advice." All his life, in fact, though less obtrusively,

36 MAKERS OF MAN

no doubt, Scott maintained a certain deference for rank as such,
hardly compatible with a due regard for ideal standards. He
was a little ashamed of being a professional author, a little over-
anxious lest it should be forgotten that he was also a " gentle-
man." Lockhart significantly remarks that Scott's wife gaily
acknowledged the pleasure she took in being " My Lady." It
would be a mistake, of course, to make too much of this worldly
element in Scott's nature, to regard him as a mere worldling
impelled by a sordid land-hunger. There was a great deal of the
child in him : a title and estate were the toys that pleased him.
He wanted, as Lockhart remarks, to revive the interior life of
the castles he had emulated — their wide-open, joyous reception
of all comers — ballads and pibrochs — jolly hunting fields —
mirthful dancers. What is a more serious flaw is his aesthetic
opportunism — his willingness to court popularity by the sacrifice
of truth or beauty. Thus, in the original version of St. Ronan's
Well, the mock marriage of Miss Mowbray was represented as
having been consummated. His publisher shrank from ob-
truding on the public the suggestion of any personal con-
tamination of a high-born damsel of the nineteenth century.
Scott, protesting that James Ballantyne would not have
quarrelled with the incident had it befallen a girl in gingham,
and that the silk petticoat made no real difference, ultimately
gave way very reluctantly and re-wrote the episode. He always
protested that the story was marred by the change. As to his
practical ability, I need only recall the amazing zeal and energy
with which Scott threw himself into the preparation of the
festivities and processional pageants which celebrated the
King's visit to Edinburgh in 1822. " The strongest impression
which the whole affair left on my mind," observes Lockhart,
" was that I had never till then formed any just notion of his
capacity for practical dealings and rule among men. ... I am
mistaken if Scott could not have played in other times either
the Cecil or the Gondomar." To have done things worthy to be
written was, in his eyes, we are told, a dignity to which no man
made any approach who had only written things worthy to be
read. True ; but this is no sort of justification of the man, who,
having chosen writing as his vocation, is, through weakness or

CLASSIFICATION 37

fear of loss or censure, thus false to his own insight and con-
science. What Scott failed to realise is that wordswhich produce
actions partake in some degree of the nature of action. His
work is, consequently, creative only in a secondary sense : it
charms, but it does not ennoble. Scott never truly attained to
the intellectual, still less to the ethical type of greatness. Of
Turner we may first remark that in physical energy he far
exceeded the degree typical of the {esthetic temperament.
We are told that he had worked as many hours as would make
the lives of two men of his own age. He had in him enough of
the man of action to subserve without serious detriment the
main purpose of his life. Intellectually, he was by no means
remarkable : he could not express himself clearly in words at any
length, but was, as it wore, bound down by natural limitations
to the one outlet prescribed. His forehead projected above
the eyes, but its upper portion was narrow and sloped towards
the cranial vertex. It is probable, however, that in his art-
work, particularly the mythological pictures, Turner endeavoured
to set forth some dimly-felt ethical purpose or warning. He
seems to have considered the tragic fate of Carthage, ascribable
to the neglect of agriculture, the increase of luxury, and besotted
blindness to the insatiable ambition of Rome, as in some sort
symbolic of the dangers that threatened the England of his day.
So, too, in the proof of an engraving of WicklifE's birthplace,
he introduced a burst of light which was not in the drawing.
" There is the light of the glorious Reformation," he explained
to an inquirer. Some fluttering geese in the foreground were
the superstitions which the genius of the reformer was to drive
away. Such vague intimations of the hidden motives of an
artist are of great interest : they have more to do with the
settlement of his ultimate rank in the world's esteem than many
dilettanti are willing to admit.

Our last example of the aesthetic type is Flaubert, one of
the most interesting personalities of his class. The son of an
eminent surgeon, he inherited a strong proclivity to almost
microscopic accuracy of detail and precision of method. All
his early surroundings tended to enhance this inborn scrupu-
losity in regard to the hard facts of life. His temperament

38 MAKERS OF MAN

made him an artist, but his intellect made him the pioneer of
realism in art. His motives were unique in their purity ; of
vulgar ambition we find in him hardly a trace. " Do I long to
be successful, I, to be a great man, a man known in a district,
in a department, in three provinces, a thin man, a man with
a weak digestion ? Have I ambition, like shoeblacks who
aspire to be bootmakers, drivers to be stud-grooms, footmen to
play the master, your man of ambition to be a deputy or a
minister, to wear a ribbon, be a town councillor ? All that
seems to me very dismal, and attracts me as little as a f ourpenny
dinner or a humanitarian lecture." As to what does attract
him, he is equally explicit. " For me there is nothing in the
world except beautiful verses, well-turned, harmonious, resonant
phrases, glorious sunsets, moonlight, coloured paintings, antique
marble, and shapely heads. Beyond that, nothing." But this
is not wholly accurate, unless we add that, for Flaubert, the
true and the beautiful were one, and that no subject was too
gross or sordid to yield to the enchantment of style. Art, he
insisted, should be raised above personal affections and nervous
susceptibilities. " It is time to give it, by means of pitiless
method, the precision of the physical sciences." He declared
that there is no particle of matter which does not contain poetry ;
that the artist should regard the universe as a work of art, whose
processes he must reproduce in his works. He had a horror
of " people of taste, the people of pretty touches, of purification,
of illusions, those who with manuals of anatomy for ladies,
science within the grasp of all, pretty sentiments, and honeyed
art, change, erase, remove, and call themselves classic." In
virtue of his unquestioned, unfaltering, life-long fidelity to this
austere ideal, Flaubert is more than an artist, more than a
philosopher : he is in some sense — much as he would have
resented the imputation — a prophet and a seer.

I have already submitted evidence of the aesthetic bias
which commonly underlies, and, no doubt, in some degree
conditions the mental activities of the philosopher and the man
of science. Men of this class are seldom strongly drawn to the
field of action. Bacon is, of course, an exception, but the results
of his worldly ambition were, we all know, disastrous to his fame

CLASSIFICATION 39

and happiness. The rule seems to be that a man of great in-
tellectuality can earn a modest living, but cares little for success
in the vulgar sense of the word. Harvey and Spinoza are good
examples ; Kant, Hegel, and Newton were all comparatively
impecunious for at least the greater portion of their lives.
Descartes and Darwin were men of independent means ; the
former in early life renounced a title as a useless encumbrance.
Leibnitz, as the reward of a life of arduous and disinterested toil
for humanity, died poor and almost friendless, and " was buried
more like a robber than the ornament of his country." As to
the ethico-religious affinities of the intellectual type, these are
naturally most obvious in the professed philosophers — Spinoza,
Kant, Hegel. But may not Galileo, Newton, and Darwin, by
the revolution they effected in the current cosmic and biological
conceptions of their times, by the firmness with which, in the face
of bitter opposition, even persecution, they maintained the
truth of their discoveries, by the reaction of these discoveries
upon the ethico-religious consciousness of the civilised world —
may not such names be regarded as of more spiritual significance
than those of innumerable preachers and theologians ? We
divide life up into sections, labelling this profane and that
sacred, but Nature makes light of our petty discriminations,
and Truth remains one, organic and ultimately indivisible.

We have now only to deal with the anomalies qualifying our
recognition of the fourth or ethico-religious type of personality.
As I have already implied, this type of individuality is funda-
mental in a somewhat different sense from the three preceding
ones. It synthetises their characteristics into the unity of a
higher manifestation. The immediate simplicity of the objec-
tive or practical nature is in the artist withdrawn from exclusive
relation to actualities, and comes into sensuous or intuitive
touch with an ideal order. This ideal order the artist endeavours
to reproduce by the manipulation of symbols. Guided by
cosmic emotion in the first place, the intellectual man takes a
further step. He seeks for the unchanging law underlying the
changing features of actuality, with a view to the mastery of
fate. The ethico-religious type restores to unity the character-
istics thus differentiated — sharing the practical aims of the man

40 MAKERS OF MAN

of action, the ideal standard of the artist, and the stern fidelity
to fact of the man of science. This type is therefore the final
term of a logical sequence, and, in so far as it is realised, the
ideal has become the actual. It may be objected that since the
inventor has, by my showing, some of the characteristics of the
practical, the aesthetic, and the intellectual individuality, he
too may be regarded as a supreme type. But the inventor is
concerned rather with the means than the ends of life ; he
partakes rather of the constructive than the creative activity
of the artist ; he is not philosophical but methodical, not in-
tellectual but acute.

The first question that confronts us with regard to my re-
presentatives of the ethico-religious type is that of the propriety
of including the personality of Jesus. The ultra-orthodox will,
of course, protest against it, on the ground that Jesus was no
mere man, and ought not to be assigned a place in a merely
human category. Also, they will regard as irreverent, if not
blasphemous, the very notion of an attempt at dispassionate
study of one towards whom the only justifiable attitude is that
of uncritical adoration. In the first place, I shall reply that if
they regard Jesus as truly Divine, they also profess to regard
him as truly human, and have no right to object to investigation
of his humanity. In the second place, I assert that, properly
understood, the dispassionate study of a given personality is
really a higher and more worthy tribute than the adoption of an
attitude of uncritical adoration. It is, at any rate, far more
difficult, and the results are like to be of more permanent value.1
The ultra-sceptical, on the other hand, will ridicule the inclusion
of what they consider a mythical among historical personalities.
To them I shall reply that, having read the objections of
Robertson and others to the historicity of Jesus, I cannot admit
for a moment that they have proved their case. To prove a
negative is proverbially difficult, and this is no exception to the
rule. This much they have certainly done — they have de-
monstrated the extreme slenderness of the grounds upon which

1 " His glory does not consist in being relegated out of history, we render
him a truer worship in showing that all history is incomprehensible without
him" (Renan).

CLASSIFICATION 41

the inference in favour of the historicity of Jesus really rests.
No one certainly knows whether such a man actually lived ;
only those who have deeply studied the evidence have any
right to an opinion on the matter. I, for my part, agree with
Schmiedel (not entirely on account of his " nine pillars," *
however) and with Carpenter, that upon the whole the balance
of evidence is in favour of the affirmative inference. I do not
presume to censure those who think otherwise. But my main
reasons for including this personality are : first, that his character,
as I have, after much thought and labour, come to conceive
of it, is to my mind supremely interesting and significant ;
secondly, that it is almost the only available example of a
purely ethical type ; thirdly, that its consideration is intimately
bound up with that of nearly all the other members of its class,
as chosen, without preconception, by me. It seems to me
impossible to discredit the substantial genuineness of Paul's
Epistles, and, in a less degree, of the Acts, which bring us into
touch with blood relations and intimate associates of Jesus,
and, by their naive revelation of the feuds and dissensions of
the primitive Church, render the hypothesis of wholesale fraud
futile and meaningless. I do not, on the other hand, regard the
Gospels, not even that of Mark, as in strict sense historical.
They were fashioned under the impulse of " creative love and
insight," moulded by the preconceived idea of the Messianic
role of their hero ; but there is a central core of historic fact
giving verisimilitude to the whole story, which will, I believe,
prove indissoluble by the corrosive attack of the most deter-
mined criticism. " What is indubitable," says Renan, " is
that very early the discourses of Jesus were written in the
Aramean language, and very early also his remarkable actions
were recorded. . . . Who does not see the value of documents
thus composed by the tender remembrances and simple narra-
tives of the first two Christian generations, still full of the strong
impression which the illustrious founder had produced, which
seemed long to survive him ? "

1 Je<nt# in Modern Criticism, by Dr. Paul W. Schraiedol, trans, by M. A.
Canney. For Criticism, see " The Historicity of Jesus," by J. M. Robertson,
Agnostic Annual, 1907.

42 MAKERS OF MAN

That the Gospels, as we have them, were amplified by the
addition of orally-derived mythical elements, is, of course,
clear, and we have a modern example of the rapidity with which
a mythos can be elaborated in the case of Bahaism, the new
Persian religion. Startling analogies can be made out, for
example, between the Nativity legend of Jesus and the miracul-
ous episodes related concerning the birth and childhood of
Gautama, Krishna, and Confucius. But the historicity of these
persons is not seriously impugned.

The only respect in which the personality of Jesus fails to
be typical of the fourth or ethico-religious category, is its
intellectual aspect. In capacity his mind may have been
of a very high order, but his environment negatived the possi-
bility of its full development. The dualistic or ascetic tendency
of Christianity is the result not so much of the direct teaching
of its founder, who was at heart no ascetic, but of his ignorance
and consequent lack of appreciation of mundane affairs. We
are told that he affirmed the unity, or at least the affinity, of
man's obligation to God and to his fellow-men. But the
primitive, almost Utopian, simplicity of his Galilean surround-
ings rendered him permanently antipathetic to the complexity
of a more highly-organised system of life. Hence, in a sort
of despair of understanding it, he condemned the whole business :
" My kingdom is not of this world." Unhappily he was
taken at his word by posterity, and untold misery, injustice,
and confusion were the result.

With regard to the Apostle Paul, not much need be added
to or deducted from the verdict of Renan. Paul, he affirms,
was no saint, was not pre-eminently good. He is assertive of
his rights, combative on occasion, has harsh words for his
opponents, and embroils himself in unseemly controversies. He
is, in measure, a man of action, a strong soul, impulsive, zealous,
ardent, a conqueror, a missionary, a propagandist, all the
more ardent because he had employed his fanaticism in a contrary
sense. " One is strong in action by his faults, one is weak by
his virtues." Granting all this, even perhaps the further
charge of responsibility for the principal defects of Christian
theology (a charge warmly disputed by Arnold), I must still insist

CLASSIFICATION 43

that his high aim, and the purely spiritual sphere of his main
activities, render it impossible to assign Paul to any other
than the ethico-religious category. The case of Marcus Aurelius
is the exact converse of that of the apostle to the Gentiles.
A moralist, nay, a saint, by temperament, he was a man of
action by the necessity of his imperial position. Guilt, the
nemesis of action, surprised him in the person of his noblest
victim, Blandina, the girl-martyr of Lyons. It is the one
blot on his escutcheon that, through very excess of scruple,
and over-anxious fidelity to his official responsibilities, he
became, in his own despite, a persecutor. Very different
is the case of Augustine, an artist by temperament, if there
ever were one, whose claim to sanctity rests exclusively on
the self-subdual achieved by the fierce intensity of that inner
conflict so marvellously depicted in the deathless pages of
his Confessions. The psychological interest of his career
abruptly ceases with his ultimate conversion. Gregory the
Great, on the other hand, seems never to have known one
lawless desire. Like Aurelius, he was a natural recluse, loyally,
though always reluctantly, and with wistful backward glances
towards the forbidden peace of his monastery on the Coelian,
obeying an imperious call to the fulfilment of world-wide respon-
sibilities. Mahomet and Luther are two striking examples
of the ethico-religious type blended with and almost dominated
by the masterful temper of the man of action. Yet it should
be remembered that the first did not make appeal to the sword
before he had reached the age of fifty-three, when " thirteen
years of meek endurance had been rewarded by nothing but
aggravated injury and insult." And the second, when, at
almost the same age, he declared that resistance to the aggres-
sion of " blood-thirsty Papists " would not be rebellion, was
for the moment disillusioned and embittered by the failure
of the Emperor to maintain at the Diet of Augsburg that
attitude of impartiality which Luther had rightly expected
of him. The wonder is, not that men of such power and energy
to some extent confused might with right, but that upon the
whole their lives manifest so clear a recognition of the differ-
ence between them. In Francis d'Assisi we have a saint

44 MAKERS OF MAN

of what might well be called the impulsive or " lyric " order — a
lovely personality ; yet the purity of his exaltation must not
blind us to the hopelessly impracticable and in great part
mischievous tendency of his aims. To all intellectual interests
Francis was not merely indifferent, but actively hostile : " God
will confound you through your knowledge and your wisdom."
He was, in fact, an obscurantist : if you want to know which
road to take, turn round and round until you are dizzy, and
the direction in which you fall is that of your God-revealed
route. If you wish to convert a foreign country, go there
without troubling to learn the language in which you will have
to preach. But for single-hearted devotion to the highest,
as he too austerely conceived it, Francis has never been excelled
and hardly equalled. Hence the exalted place he must ever
hold among representatives of the ethico -religious category.
It only remains to speak of my two modern exemplars of the
supreme type — Emerson and Renan. As to the first, probably
no one will seriously dispute the appropriateness of the classi-
fication, but many may demur to my estimate of his import-
ance in the class to which he belongs. Emerson is great as
a poet, great as an artist in prose, great as an unsystematic
philosopher, but greatest of all as a man. His intellectual
and moral influence, both distinctively as an emancipator from
obsolete shibboleths and constructively as a prophet and
pioneer, can hardly be over- appraised. There is not in him,
as undoubtedly in Whitman, a histrionic element, a taint of pose
and pseudo-Bohemianism. His good sense was the outcome
of his profound sincerity, and proves, what our demagogues
and Jacobins are so slow (to their cost) in learning, that respect-
ability deserves, and, in the long-run, will command, respect.
Kenan's case is far more complex, and, in some ways, dubious ;
but, since the ultimate problems of life and religion were his
lifelong sphere of research and teaching, he can hardly be
denied a place in the ethico -religious class. And if the Church
denied him, he never denied the Church, but almost with his
last breath deplored his exclusion from it, proudly claiming
the title of a conservator of its essential truths. He was, both
by his defects and qualities, more distinctively modern than

CLASSIFICATION 45

Emerson, who has, after all, something staid and academic
in his attitude towards life. In his private life Re nan was more
than blameless, was, indeed, a hero and a saint. The beauty
and distinction of his style were the outcome of unflinching
fidelity to his individual convictions and ideals, chastened
by the subtlest discriminations and the tenderest regard for
his opponents' point of view.

Such, then, are the principal qualifications affecting the
distribution of our typical personalities into four main groups.
I have dealt with them at considerable length, but by so doing
have been able to bring the reader into touch with what might
be called the keynote or leading motive of each career, and
this will, I hope, facilitate the task of more detailed investiga-
tion. It has, I think, been made abundantly clear that any
clean-cut division of human individualities into separate classes
is really impracticable, and that, though the attempt is justifi-
able, and even necessary, on the ground of convenience, the
overlapping of the several groups is a fact to be kept constantly
in mind. All that we can truthfully assert is, that in this or
the other personality, such or such qualities — practical, aesthetic,
intellectual, or ethical — predominate. The others — too — will in
greater or less degree be represented, either as undeveloped
potentialities, or as actively-modifying and complicating
influences.

Ill

FAMILY HISTORY, PARENTAGE, AND CONSTITUTION

Size of paternal family — Place in family — Longevity — Relation of paternal
and maternal factors — Examples — Maternal insanity — Tuberculosis,
[, etc. — Sterility of genius — Summary.

ALTHOUGH we are concerned in the present work not primarily
with the physical but the mental characteristics of great men,
it is impossible to pass over in silence those prominent facts of
heredity and constitutional proclivity which have an obvious
bearing on our subject. A long course of biographical reading
has, however, strongly impressed upon me the deficiencies of
the average litterateur in respect of scientific acumen. Just
those things which one wants most to know are those which he
commonly ignores or slurs over. In his remarks on parentage
and family history, he, as a rule, confines himself to a cursory
account of the paternal stock. The at least equally important
maternal element is nearly always dismissed in a few lines of
vague unimportant gossip. There are honourable exceptions ;
but this is the rule, and it is deplorable. Biography should be
regarded as primarily scientific rather than aesthetic in aim ;
and although there is really no incompatibility between the
two ideals, the former should here have precedence wherever
their claims appear to be at variance.

The parents of great men, taken collectively, are not very
prolific. Excluding two or three of my forty instances, with
reference to the size of whose parents' families my information
is too vague or dubious, I find that the average number of
brothers or sisters, or both (including my representative men),
is 4'9. And, curiously enough, there seems to be a gradual
diminution in the size of the families as we proceed from the

HISTORY, PARENTAGE, CONSTITUTION 47

first or most primitive group (men of action) to the last or
ethico-religious. The numbers are as follows : * Men of action
— average number, 7'9 ; aesthetic type, 4'3 ; intellectual type,
4*2 ; ethico-religious type, 3*2. The average of the last group
is based in part on the assumption that Jesus had four brothers
and two sisters, and Paul one brother and sister.2 If we exclude
these doubtful instances, the average will be somewhat lower.
It is interesting to notice the large proportion of great men who
have been only children — particularly in the last group. Dante,
Turner, Newton (his mother, however, had children by a second
husband), Leibnitz (only son by father's third wife), Marcus
Aurelius (so far as I am aware), Augustine, Gregory, Mahomet
— just one fifth of the whole — were the only children of their
two parents. Leonardo I exclude, for he was illegitimate.
His mother, a peasant girl, married, and may have had a large
family. His father had subsequently no less than four wives,
and some children. With regard to the question whether great
men come early or late in their respective families, the evidence
clearly points in the former direction. The average place in a
family averaging a number of eight is for my men of action, 2'2 ;
for the aesthetic type, 1*7 in a family of average number, 4' 3 ;
for the intellectuals, T9 in 4'2 ; and for the last group, 1'4 in
families averaging 3*2. For the four groups taken together,
the average place is T8 in 4-9. That is to say, that the families
into which are born great men, in general appear to average
nearly five members, and that the chances are somewhat less
of the great man being the eldest than the second-born. Another
point of some slight interest is the fact that of my ten intellectuals,
Bacon and Spinoza were the offspring of their father's second,
and Leibnitz was the son of his father's third wife. This
perhaps might indicate that a considerable seniority on the
part of the husband to the wife is a condition favouring intel-
lectual eminence in the offspring. That the average size of

1 Where one or both parents have been married more than once I have
counted only the mother's children, as I consider the maternal element the
better test of prolificity in a given stock. The mother of William the Silent
had 17 children, 5 being by a former husband.

2 Kenan's estimate.

48 MAKERS OF MAN

the family should gradually diminish as we pass from what I
consider the most primitive to the most advanced type, is, as
far as it goes, confirmatory of the genuineness of my principle
of classification. To be fair, it must be owned that the two
intermediate groups (aesthetic and intellectual) are practically
equal in this respect (4'3 and 4-2), but on my own showing
the distinction between these is not organically well marked or
abrupt, but graduated by mutual affinities. Let us now apply
the test of relative longevity, and we shall find that it points
in much the same direction. Excluding, of course, those indi-
viduals (Caesar, William the Silent, Nelson, Lincoln) who died
by violence, the average longevity of my great men, taken
conjointly, is 65' 7 years. For the separate groups, the average
longevities are : men of action, 61 '1 ; aesthetic type, 66' 1 ;
intellectuals, 69 ; ethical type, 64- 7. It would appear that
men of action are the most short-lived, that there is a consider-
able rise when we come to the poets and artists, a distinct
further rise to a maximum duration among philosophers and
men of science, and a definite fall towards the minimum with
members of the last group. Assuming — it is a bold assumption,
perhaps — that results based on so few examples can be trusted,
what is their most natural interpretation ? My standard is a
very high one ; large numbers are not available ; for men like
Caesar, Newton, Dante, and Gregory do not grow on every bush.
It is, at all events, clear that men of the highest orders of great-
ness are, as a whole, distinctly long-lived. The reason probably
is that a man who starts with a good stock of " vitality " is,
other things being equal, more likely to distinguish himself
than one who is not so equipped. And, obviously, he will be
likely to live longer too. As regards the higher average longevity
of those engaged in abstract (aesthetic and intellectual) rather
than concrete spheres of activity, or those pointing in that
direction, the most probable explanation is that the physical
organism encounters more severe obstacles and undergoes more
wear and tear in the latter than in the former cases. The
supremacy of the intellectuals in respect of longevity, with
their very high average of sixty-nine years, seems to support the
popular belief in the positively conservative effect upon the

HISTORY, PARENTAGE, CONSTITUTION 49

physical organism of great mental effort.1 And this is confirmed
by the fact that, of the members of my last (ethico-religious)
group, the three most distinctly intellectual men — Augustine,
Emerson, and Renan — were by far the longest lived. Augustine
lived to be seventy-six, Emerson to be seventy-nine, and Renan
to be sixty-nine. Luther, who died at sixty-three, lived, in many
respects, the life of a man of action. Francis d'Assisi, who can
hardly be called a thinker, died at forty-five. This last group
is, in fact, far less homogeneous than the others ; and general
conclusions with regard to it are correspondingly precarious.

We will now consider such facts with regard to the parentage
of particular individuals as appear likely to throw light upon
the main problems with which we are concerned. Of Caesar's
lineage, it is noteworthy that for eight generations his fore-
fathers had held prominent positions in the State. Nature
had been slowly working up towards the production of the
greatest ruler of men that the world has yet seen. In politics
they had been moderate aristocrats, and although Caesar, led
by clear-sighted ambition, inevitably adopted the democratic
policy of Marius, his uncle by marriage, traces of the inherited
moderation and conservatism of his nature are clearly evidenced
by his public actions throughout life. He loathed vulgar display,
and had an unerring instinct of good taste, so fastidious that it
almost ranks as a moral rather than a merely-aesthetic trait. Of
his father, who had been praetor, nothing more need be said.
Of his mother, Aurelia, we read that she was a strict and stately
lady of the old school, uninfected by the cosmopolitan laxity
of her day. Consequently, though the Caesars were wealthy,
the habits of Aurelia's household were simple and severe.
Caesar was always passionately devoted to his mother, who
shared his house up to the time of her death, when Caesar was
forty-six years old. Her influence upon him was doubtless
great and beneficial. Precisely the same can be said as to
Charlemagne, whose private life at anyrate grossly deteriorated
from the date of his mother's death in his own forty-second

1 The trophic influence of mental activity is negatively indicated by the
extreme liability of the insane to fractures, bruises, and other traumatic or
inflammatory lesions.

4

50 MAKERS OF MAN

year. Bertha was, like Aurelia, a matron of the old school,
strongly opposed to the Romanising tendencies of the West
Franks of Aquitaine and Neustria. It was doubtless in great
measure due to her that Charles remained faithful to the
traditional dress and the hardy customs of his Frankish fore-
fathers. On the paternal side Charlemagne came of a race
whose growing instinct for power and sovereignty is evident
enough. His great-grandfather and grandfather had been
mayors only of the royal palace by title, but in actuality the
true rulers of Austrasia, the Merovingian kings, whom they
found it convenient for the present to uphold in formal sway,
having become the merest puppets in their hands. The gradual
process of usurpation was completed by Charlemagne's father,
Pepin the Short, who in 750 (when Charles was eight years old)
supplanted Childeric in. and assumed the royal title. He
made good use of it too, but in the light of history his achiev-
ments have a tentative or preparatory aspect beside those of
his greater son. For, though a man of real force and originality,
Pepin somehow lacked that personal magnetism, that inexplic-
able assurance of authority, which marks the born leader of
men. " The Franks, we are told," says his son's biographer,1
" followed Pepin across the snow-clad Alps, but did so with
doubts and murmurings." The statement is decisive, as
against the claim of Pepin to military genius. The fact that
great men often win their supreme distinction in the same
sphere as that which was invaded with some success by their
fathers and forefathers, must not blind us to the other fact that
the difference between their performances in this given sphere
is one of kind, not of degree. It is talent rather than genius,
character rather than temperament, that repeats itself in father
and son. The transforming increment of power and insight,
whatever its ultimate, possibly transcendent origin, has,
genetically-speaking, commonly a maternal, or at least a
feminine, source. So it was with Cromwell, whose mother,
Elizabeth Steward, must have been a remarkable woman. She
was thirty-four at least when Oliver, her fifth child, was born ;
forty-five when she bore her eleventh. Her portrait shows a

1 H. Carlcss Davis.

HISTORY, PARENTAGE, CONSTITUTION 51

striking resemblance to the great Protector, the face being
" strong, homely, keen, with firm mouth and penetrating eyes,
a womanly goodness and peacefulness of expression." Of the
precise part played by her in guiding the career of Oliver we do
not know much, but we know that he thought more of her than
of any other woman, more than of his wife. She survived her
husband thirty-seven years, remaining throughout life — to her
ninetieth year — by Oliver's side; was lodged by him in Whitehall
Palace, and royally interred in the Abbey. Of Cromwell's
father we read that he was a man of good sense, of competent
learning and great spirit, but unambitious, methodical, reserved,
and proud. The Cromwells were a sound stock, by wealth
and alliances in the front rank of untitled gentry, prolific and
long-lived. For generations they had been conspicuous for
loyalty, chivalry, and public spirit, some tending to Puritan
austerity, others to the opposite extreme. Precisely analogous
is the case of William the Silent, whose father, William, Count
of Nassau, the heir of a House which had produced many
chiefs illustrious in war and council, is himself described as a
" pale, dull, local type." His wife, the hero's mother, was in
all ways an exceptional woman. She bore seventeen children
in all, five by a previous husband. Strong, devout, affectionate,
a sincere but temperate Protestant, she endured a long life
of calamity and bereavement with heroic serenity and courage,
dying at the age of seventy-seven.

That Napoleon thought highly of his mother we know from
the fact that he attributed his elevation to her training, laying
down the maxim that the future good or bad conduct of a
child depends entirely on the mother. On the eve of his de-
parture from Elba, it was to her, and her alone of those he left
behind him, that the secret of his desperate venture was confided.
From her he is thought to have inherited his astounding
energy, as his disposition did not resemble that of his father,
a somewhat indolent Italian gentleman of literary tastes.
Both father and son, however, died of cancer of the stomach.
The predominance of the maternal element as a determinant
of genius is further shown in the cases of Mozart, Goethe, Scott,
Leibnitz, Augustine, Gregory, Francis d'Assisi — to mention

52 MAKERS OF MAN

only the most salient instances. The fathers of these men
were in most cases worthy citizens (Augustine's was, however,
an unprincipled scamp), but quite lacking in point of distinction.
They supply, as it were, the general or special form of capacity
which is vitalised by the temperamental endowment derived
from the mothers. Thus Mozart's father had an innate love
of music and skill as a violinist, which led to his desertion of the
study of law and acquisition of the post of director of the Prince
Archbishop's orchestra at Salzburg. He was an industrious
composer of works long forgotten, but his chef d'ceuvre was a
Violin Instructor, which achieved a considerable popularity.
Obviously a man of talent, a man of genuine and specialised
ability — but obviously nothing more. It was the light-hearted,
easy, warm, and affectionate nature of Anna Maria Pertl that
conferred upon her son that " kiss of the fairies " which her
husband in his own cradle had lacked. Of her seven children,
the five youngest died in infancy. Mozart himself seems to
have suffered from some undiagnosed pyrexial condition,
probably tubercular, and to have died of tubercular nephritis.
I call attention to this fact, being decidedly of opinion that a
tubercular or strumous taint is in some ill-understood way a
favouring condition of certain types of aesthetic and intellectual
capacity. The cases of Goethe and Scott were in respect of
parentage so curiously similar that they might almost be described
together. Both were the sons of lawyers, both were designed
to follow the same profession (of law), both derived much from
their fathers, but the love of poetry and romance from their
mothers. Goethe says of himself that he inherited his powerful
frame of body and the earnest conduct of life from his father ;
his joyous temperament and fondness for story-telling from
his mother ; his devotion to the fair sex from a great-grandfather :
and the love of finery and gew-gaws from a great-grandmother.
He does not mention the curious fact that there are three
tailors 1 to be found among his ancestry, one being his grand-
father— for the Goethes were nouveaux riches. It is worth
noticing that Goethe's father was thirty-nine, and his mother,
the bright, imaginative, and sentimental correspondent (later)

1 As bearing on what might be called his decided " feeling for clothes."

WILLIAM THE SILENT.
From an fngra-'i ng .

To /ace /. 52.

HISTORY, PARENTAGE, CONSTITUTION 53

of many eminent persons, only eighteen, at the time of his birth.
Pace Weismann, this may be in some way related to the com-
plexities and inconsistencies of his character. The paternal
and maternal elements within him had a long and stubborn
contest before any tolerable modus vivendi could be thrashed
out between them. The father of Leibnitz was an eminent
jurist and professor of moral philosophy, born of a good
Protestant family. Leibnitz inherited from him the same
intellectual interests, coloured and vivified by the temperament
of his third wife, the great philosopher's mother. She was
a woman who overcame all personal difficulties with patience,
trying to live with everyone in peace and quiet. " This con-
ciliatory spirit showed itself in her son's celebrated attempts
to bring about political and religious union, and has found its
classical expression in his philosophical system." Leibnitz
remained a Protestant, but it was the dream of his life to see
unity and universality restored to the Church of Christendom.
His negotiations with political and ecclesiastical rulers on behalf
of religious unity extend over some thirty-two years. The same
hereditary disposition to avoid a one-sided attitude is evinced
by his refusal to join in the depreciation of ancient philosophy
(Aristotle's in particular), so fashionable among the thinkers
of his day. Himself in the vanguard of progress, " he blames
the moderns for being more anxious to propound their own
ideas than to bring out what was great and true in Aristotle
and the schoolmen." He maintains — and as to the justice
of the contention there can hardly be two opinions — that much
of what was thought to be new is to be found in the older writers.
This catholicity was perhaps the innermost factor of Leibnitz'
greatness ; and he had it direct from his mother, though in
her it was merely a domestic and moral, not an intellectual
characteristic.

It can scarcely be necessary to call attention to the pre-
dominance of the maternal element in the ultimate determina-
tion of the genius of Augustine. What is most interesting in
his case is the evidence afforded by his writings of a long and
arduous contest between the sensual and lawless proclivities
which he inherited from his worthless father, resulting in freaks

54 MAKERS OF MAN

and vagaries which appear to have been an actual source of
satisfaction to that irresponsible gentleman, and the latent but
slowly-emerging endowment, culminating at last in a spirit of
pitiless introspective self-scrutiny and austere self-discipline,
which he doubtless inherited from the saintly Monica. Of her
we read that, having in childhood been sent many times to
draw wine for the household, she inadvertently acquired a
precocious passion for wine-bibbing. The reproach of a servant
opened her eyes to the enormity of her offence, and she at once
resolved to abandon the vice. It was at about the same time
that she began to manifest that spirit of deep and passionate
devotion which henceforth was the ruling principle of her life.
She married very young, and was often beaten by her husband,
who was also a drunkard and a profligate, but seems not to have
been devoid of affection, and ultimately became a Christian.
Monica was the subject of many visions. Once, for example,
at a time when she had almost despaired of her son's conversion
from the Manichean heresy to Catholic orthodoxy, " a shining
one " showed her Augustine standing with her " in the same
rule." Augustine objected to her interpretation, and said that
the vision showed that she need not despair of being one day
what he was. He was deeply impressed by her reply that it
had not been said by the angel, " Where he, there thou also ; but
where thou, there he also." And I think the shrewdness of
this retort fairly justifies the inference that Augustine owed to
his mother not only the fundamental seriousness and sincerity
of his nature, but much too of that dialectical subtlety which
has excited the wonder and admiration of countless readers
of his Confessions. Yet it is to be remembered that without
the antinomian tendencies which he got from Patricius, the com-
plex personality of Augastine would have lacked an essential
ingredient of its perennial interest and significance. If he had
not lied and robbed orchards in his boyhood, if in his youth he
had not indulged in lawless loves, if he had escaped the bondage
of that Manichean heresy, whose chains, while they galled him,
he yet so long was unable to break, Augustine's Confessions
would have lacked the intense dramatic appeal which constitutes
their unique value as a psychological document. In striking

HISTORY, PARENTAGE, CONSTITUTION 55

contrast with the case of Augustine is that of Gregory the Great,
whose sanctity belongs to a type of comparative unity and
simplicity. His father, Gordianus, was a wealthy and influential
member of the Anicii (a family noted in history), and lived in a
palace on the Coelian, subsequently converted by Gregory into
a monastery, where his happiest days were spent. Two sisters
of Gordianus were noted for the sanctity of their lives, and their
father had sat in the chair of Peter. Gregory's mother, Sylvia,
who was also reckoned a saint, is described as " blending the
noble qualities of the typical Roman matron with the higher
discipline of Christian virtues." On her husband's death Sylvia
retired to the Cella Nuova and devoted herself to prayer and
asceticism. Reading between the lines of this family history,
it is easy to understand how the son of Gordianus and Sylvia
seems from the first to have had no dearer wish than to devote
himself to a life of contemplative religious fervour. His mind,
we are told, matured early ; he was venerated by all his associates,
and in Rome was deemed second to none. Few lives are more
devoid of evidence of any period of struggle for self-mastery,
of any hesitation as to the objects to be deemed supremely
worthy of attainment. Gregory would gladly have lived and
died an obscure monk ; he was always a monk at heart. But
those who knew him better perhaps than he knew himself,
recognised in him the inborn capacity of a genuine ruler of men.
Their wish prevailed, and Gregory became the supreme ecclesi-
astical statesman of the Catholic Church. Unmistakable is
the predominance of maternal traits in the genius of that saintly
Bohemian, Francis d' Assisi, of whom with pardonable enthusiasm
it has been said that he was in certain respects " well-nigh
another Christ given to the world." Of his father, Pier Ber-
nardone, a travelling silk and cloth merchant, one thinks as a
typical bourgeois personality, not perhaps devoid of culture, for
in those days such men were the trusted agents and messengers
of princes and legates, but obviously incapable of understanding,
still more of sympathising with, what he must have deemed the
high-flown visions and impracticable aspirationsvof his ^eldest
son. His wife, Madonna Pica, was a Proven9al lady, probably
of more exalted rank than her husband, by whom she was wooed

56 MAKERS OF MAN

in one of his mercantile tours in South France. From her
Francis inherited his delicate body, gracious nature, courteous
manners, intuitive reverence, and that dainty fastidiousness as
to dress, food, and person, which it cost him grievous pains to
overcome. His love of cleanliness was, we are told, a lifelong
trait, but it must, through the rigour of his life of voluntary
mendicancy, have suffered many a rude rebuff. In fact, we are
expressly informed that it was at first very hard for him to
conquer his loathing for the scraps and leavings of food procured
by begging — him who had ever shrunk from animal foods and
messes, loving sweetmeats, cakes, and all delicate dishes. To a
strain of gentle birth his biographer attributes his preference
for the beautiful and romantic, to which we may perhaps add
that fastidious vanity which in his early youth made him delight
to adorn his slim person, " investing it in mantles of beautiful
texture and colour, and loving the sheen and flash of jewelled
clasp and brooch." Of his mother's devoutness there can be
no question ; she prayed for him without ceasing, and openly
expressed a hope that, if it pleased God, he might become a
good Christian.

I have next to call attention to the significant fact that, of
our forty individuals, three (Bacon, Turner, and Lincoln) were
born of mothers who were mentally x unsound. Bacon's mother
was a most accomplished woman, a genuine scholar, affectionate,
devout, of a markedly suspicious temperament, and showed
leanings to religious dissent. She became insane towards the
end of her life. That Bacon had a high regard for her is
evidenced by the fact that he expressed a wish to be buried by
her side. His father, a genial, impulsive soul, generous and
jocose, may have been a lovable person, but was not a great
lawyer. Here, again, the maternal inheritance is evidently a
predominant factor. Turner's mother was a woman of ungovern-
able temper, who also became insane. His father was a garrulous,
miserly little hairdresser of Devonshire extraction, and though
the great artist certainly resembled him in appearance and
inherited his penurious disposition, I suspect that his artistic

1 Emotionally unstable, in the first place, however, not of course intellec-
tually deficient.

HISTORY, PARENTAGE, CONSTITUTION 57

bias was derived from the maternal side. Lincoln's mother,
Nancy Hanks, a tall and beautiful brunette, though never
actually insane, suffered from habitual depression, almost
amounting to melancholia, as, of course, did her son Abraham.
In his case, the morbid inheritance was clearly manifested by
something very like an attack of mental alienation, for after
the death of a girl whom he had loved, he became at the age of
twenty-four for some weeks " nearly insane," lost his youth,
became subject to frequent attacks of intense depression, and
was finally the subject of a settled melancholy which never
left him. Yet his mother, though uneducated, was acknowledged
to be a woman of exceptional understanding. Lincoln's father
was an idle, thriftless ne'er-do-well, a man of immense physical
strength (which Abraham certainly inherited) and an inveterate
anecdotist. He was always in debt and difficulty, and must
have been something of a brute, since he has been seen to knock
his little son headlong from a fence while civilly answering a
traveller's question. Advocates of the policy of prohibiting
marriage or child-birth to persons predisposed to insanity,
should not overlook the fact that one of the greatest philosophers,
one of the greatest painters, one of the greatest statesmen, that
the world has produced, were each the son of a mother pre-
disposed to insanity, two of the three women being destined to
become actually insane. Such questions, however important,
are by no means to be settled off-hand, for no one, I imagine,
would go so far as to contend that Bacon, Turner, or Lincoln
ought never to have been born. A precisely analogous difficulty
presents itself with reference to the children of parents pre-
disposed to tuberculosis. A phthisical tendency, probably
innate, is either expressly recorded or may safely be inferred in
regard to Richelieu, Nelson,1 Mozart, Descartes, Spinoza, and
Francis d'Assisi. Every type of greatness is represented, and
the correlation seems far too frequent to be merely coincidental.2

1 On Nelson's return from three years' service on the Boreas in the West
Indies, aged twenty-seven, his health was in a wretched condition, and he was
considered to be consumptive. At this time he had serious thoughts of
leaving the Navy.

J In a random sample of over 600 families taken from the modern popula-
tion of Great Britain, Prof. Karl Pearson found that, in one of every sixteen

58 MAKERS OF MAN

Nor, while speaking of the relation of morbid predispositions,
mental or physical, to intellectual distinction, should I omit
to mention that Isaac Newton was, for a considerable period,
actually insane.1 I profess myself, nevertheless, in general
sympathy with the objects of the eugenic school ; I merely
enter this caveat against rash conclusions and unconsidered
action.

The case of Frederick the Great presents features of peculiar
interest, for, while bearing out my view of the frequent pre-
dominance of the feminine element as a source of genius, it differs
from the examples hitherto adduced in some respects. The
marked intellectuality of Frederick can certainly not have been
derived from his father, an uncultivated boor, with a hatred
for the arts and literature that reached the point of fanatical
fury, and a positive mania for collecting gigantic dragoons, the
majority of whom were probably ungainly louts, quite useless
for military purposes. Frederick's mother, a daughter of
George I., though she secretly encouraged her son's forbidden
indulgence in flute-playing and poetising, seems to have done
so rather in a spirit of mischief and contrariety than out of a
genuine sympathy with his artistic or literary aims. But
Frederick's paternal grandmother, Sophia Charlotte, a sister of
George i., was undoubtedly a remarkable woman. She was an
intimate friend of Leibnitz, whose best-known philosophical
work appears to have been conceived on the basis of conversa-
tions with her, whom, too, she zealously assisted in the founda-
tion of an Academy of Science at Berlin. She received from her
German subjects the significant title of the "Republican Queen."
Many of her characteristics unmistakably recur in the person-
ality of her grandson. From his father he derived, no doubt,
indomitable will and military talent, but, without the spark of
intellectuality, these would not have carried him very far. In
this connection it will be of interest to consider the case of

families, one or both parents died of phthisis. He estimates that about half
the children of phthisical parents incur tuberculosis. Cf. Brit. Med. Journ.,
2nd Nov. 1907, " The Inheritance of Pulmonary Tuberculosis."

1 Newton's father died young, and he himself was born prematurely
and not expected to live. He lived to be eighty-four, never wore spectacles,
and only lost one tooth !

HISTORY, PARENTAGE, CONSTITUTION 59

Darwin, concerning whom his son writes : " We may hazard the
guess that Darwin inherited the sweetness of his disposition
from the Wedgwood (maternal) side, while the character of his
genius came rather from the Darwin grandfather." This grand-
father, Erasmus Darwin, poet, naturalist, and physician, was
the author of Zoonomia, a work which, in many respects,
anticipated the evolutionary theories of Lamarck. Darwin's
father was a successful physician, keenly observant, so intuitive
that he could read the characters, even the thoughts, of men,
sociable and sympathetic, but quite destitute of capacity for
scientific generalisation. It seems to me to be credible that
intellectual, as distinguished from aesthetic, genius may be in
some cases traceable mainly to a masculine source. In Galileo's
case, for example, of whose mother, however, I have been able
to acquire no information, there is evidence that his father was
a man of unusual originality. He was a good mathematician,
and wrote several treatises on music, which reveal considerable
knowledge and insight. In his Dialogue on Ancient and
Modern Music, one speaker says, " They who in proof of my
assertion rely simply on the weight of authority, without ad-
vancing any argument in support of it, act very absurdly."
Not only is this a sentiment rarely held (or expressed, at any
rate) by sixteenth century writers, it is also quite in the
spirit of his son's protest against the dogmatic apriorism of
Kepler. In the cases of Kant and Hegel, however, though the
fathers of both were men of high character, the mothers appear
to have been more exceptional in point of mental capacity.
But Kant and Hegel were philosophers, not men of science in
the now accepted sense ; and the philosopher has aesthetic
affinities. It is interesting to note that Kant was, on the
paternal side, of Scots descent — a blend of the Scots and the
German could hardly lack metaphysical capacity^! The Hegel
family seem to have had a sort of traditional^bias towards
officialism, for many of its members held posts in the civil
service during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and
Hegel p&re was himself an officer in the fiscal^department of
Stuttgart. I think this has an obvious bearing on what might per-
haps be called the bureaucratic flavour of Hegelian philosophy.

60 MAKERS OF MAN

The prophet Mahomet came of a valiant and illustrious
tribe, his great-grandfather, Haschem, being the guardian of
the Sacred Shrine at Mecca, and his grandfather famed as the
deliverer of the city from troops sent against it by the Christian
princes of Abyssinia. Mahomet was the only son of parents
both of whom died young, his father when Mahomet was only
two years old, his mother, Amina, some six years later. One
cannot but suspect a tubercular taint in one or both parents,
but I have no positive evidence of its existence. Of all
Mahomet's children, by one or another of his fifteen to twenty-
five wives (the exact number is not ascertainable), only his
daughter Fatima survived him, and she only for a short time.
This is a striking example of what I believe to be a fairly general
rule — the relative sterility of great men, and the excessive
morbidity and early mortality of their offspring. Compare the
cases of Mozart, of whose seven children only two survived
infancy ; Goethe, of whose five children the eldest had a mal-
formed brain which led to his becoming an inebriate, while three
were still-born,1 and the youngest died in infancy ; Leonardo,
who seems to have been devoid of sexual appetite ; Beethoven,
Spinoza, Leibnitz, Kant, all of whom were celibates (or bache-
lors). Eeverting to the subject of Mahomet's parentage, his
mother, Amina, is stated (by Jonathan Hutchinson) to have
been a Christian Jewess, noted, says Carlyle, " for her beauty,
her worth, and her sense." In the zenith of his power Mahomet
visited her grave and wept over it, but declared that Allah
would not permit him to pray for her salvation, because she
had died an unbeliever. Of Mahomet's father I know only
that he was the youngest and best-beloved of the sons of Abdul
Motalleb. Some of the personal charm which distinguished the
prophet was doubtless inherited from this short-lived father,
but the maternal inheritance would seem to have been the
predominant factor of his originality. Of Luther, too, we are
expressly told that he strongly resembled his mother, and the
fact is obvious on comparison of their portraits. From some

1 This may have been due to maternal disease, rather than original defect
of reproductive power on the part of one or both parents. Or, more probably,
both factors were concerned.

HISTORY, PARENTAGE, CONSTITUTION 61

unknown progenitor he inherited his tall and sturdy frame,
which exceeded that of either of his parents. Luther's mother
is described as modest, extremely devout, mild, and meditative.
As regards the mildness one cannot feel entire confidence, as
the good woman is said to have whipped little Martin " till the
blood came " for stealing a nut ! Heaven defend us (and our
children) from such mildness ! Martin's father was typical
of the fathers of great men — a man of high character, universally
esteemed, but not otherwise very remarkable. Of the Luther
stock in general, the Reformer's own blunt description is no
doubt valid : " All my ancestors were thorough peasants."

When pointing out the frequency of mental instability
among the parents of great men, I might have strengthened
my case by the mention of Renan's father, a dreamy and feck-
less Breton seaman, concerning the mystery of whose death at
sea suicide appears by far the most likely solution. Renan's
mother, a tradesman's daughter with Gascon blood in her
veins, is described as " a lively little gipsy," who had ever a
witty answer ready, well able to defend her extreme loyalist
convictions, and to " bring the laugh on her side." Her " sharp
brilliance " was mitigated by a leaven of devout Catholicism,
and it was the dearest wish of her heart that her Ernest should
be a priest. A woman of " courageous gaiety," of solid judg-
ment, yet a lover of the old myths and legends, not above con-
salting the local witch, Gude, as to the chance of her seven-
months child's survival. If it be true of Renan that he " felt
like a woman, thought like a man, and acted like a child," it
would seem that he owed the excess of sensibility and the un-
practical impulses of his nature to the paternal, the intellectual
force and subtlety of his mind to the maternal stock. Both were
essential factors of his idiosyncrasy and charm, yet there can
be little doubt as to which constitutes the heavier debt.

The family history reserved for latest consideration, that
of Emerson, presents features of special interest. His father,
a Unitarian minister, broadly liberal in theological matters,
genial and social, came of a stock whose traditional Calvinism
had never been extreme. He was the founder of a Philosophical
Club, and had a decided literary bent. Yet he was not markedly

62 MAKERS OF MAN

original, and Dr. Garnett does not hesitate to accredit the
higher and rarer qualities of Emerson's mind to inheritance
from a mother " remarkable for mild softness, natural grace,
and dignity." But when we look more closely, we find in a
sister of Emerson's father — Mary Moody Emerson, decided
indications of originality, one is tempted to say, of genius.
She is described as " eccentric, unconventional, orthodox by
conviction, "heterodox by temperament, witty and epigram-
matic." Her letters are strikingly Emersonian in style.
" Scorn trifles, lift your aims," was, we are told, the burden
of her discourse. It would seem that Emerson received from
his father, or through him, in its fulness, some hitherto latent
germ of idiosyncrasy, already, though less perfectly, mani-
fested in the aunt. A younger brother of Emerson's, pre-
maturely hailed as the genius of the family, developed insanity.
He recovered, but died young. Another brother was weak-
minded, if not imbecile. Altogether an instructive and
fairly typical family history.

I will now briefly summarise the results of our examination
of the very imperfect records considered in this chapter. We
found that the families into which great men, taken collectively,
are born, average nearly five members. The families into
which men of action are born are the most numerous, those
of the aesthetic and intellectual groups intermediate in size,
and those of the ethical group the least numerous. In respect
of position in family, we found that the rule is for great men
to be born either first or, more commonly, second, although
there are of course exceptions. Great men are upon the
whole somewhat long-lived ; the intellectuals have the longest,
and the men of action the shortest, average duration of life.
Although, for want of necessary data, we were unable to make
anything approaching an exhaustive examination of the in-
heritance of personal characteristics in any case, we did find
in the recorded traits of the parents and grandparents of great
men abundant evidence of transmitted tendencies and capa-
cities. Nothing that we found is in my opinion inconsistent
with the truth of the important generalisation known as Galton's
law. The evidence appears to show that while the fathers

HISTORY, PARENTAGE, CONSTITUTION 63

and grandfathers of great men are, as a rule, men of excep-
tional capacity, often achieving some distinction in the same
field of life as that destined to be entered by their sons, the
definite emergence of genius is commonly traceable to a feminine
source. The mothers or grandmothers of great men are nearly
always remarkable women, remarkable in a way obviously
relevant to the peculiar endowment of their sons or grandsons.
Nevertheless, as regards the particular form of endowment,
the special talent, which is energised and qualitatively enhanced
or transformed by contribution from a feminine source, the
importance of the paternal stock is by no means to be ignored.
Such talent may be regarded as a latent strain or tendency
in a given family line, gradually emerging, and, at last, under
the influence of a specially favourable marriage, attaining to full
realisation in the birth of a man of genius.

I have no patience with people who affect to regard genius
as essentially pathological, as a disease. Great men are so
called because they achieve things which to other men are
impossible. Greatness is essentially positive, but as Nature
exacts a price for all her benefits it has inevitably a negative side.
Hence the morbid correlations of genius which we have found
so conspicuous, the dangers, mental and physical, that beset
its path. Hence its frequent association with consumptivity,
with insanity, with emotional aberrations and vagaries, with
celibacy, with sterility, absolute or partial, with an abnormal
mortality in such offspring as may be born to its possessors.

No higher task demands the attention of science than the
solution of this problem. How can we, by the encouragement
of suitable unions, at the same time favour the birth of men
of great capacity, and minimise the risk of correlative morbid
predispositions ? How can we buy genius from Nature on
the cheapest possible terms ?

IV

PHYSICAL CHAKACTERISTICS

Men of action — Artists, poets, and composers.

BEFORE turning to our special task of investigating the inner
lives of great men, as expressed or suggested by their words
and actions, I must ask the reader to bear with me while I
discuss their physical characteristics. Inasmuch, however,
as the available records refer mainly to the physiognomies of
great men in adult life rather than in infancy or childhood,
we shall in this chapter be to some extent anticipating the
natural sequence of our argument. That cannot be helped ;
and if it have the effect of bringing before us, more or less
vividly, the lineaments of some of the great men with whom
we are concerned, the digression will be justified. For to see
a man, even with the mind's eye, and imperfectly at that, is
in some degree to be prepared for an understanding of his
inner self. So that, even if we seem to have gained little
in the way of definite results or generalisations by our
study of the physical basis of human greatness, that
study will probably have been less barren than it appears.
The first and most obvious essential for success in the field of
action would seem to be an adequate supply of energy, and
it would be surprising if in the biographies of men of this class
we failed to find evidence of superior endowment in this respect.
Energy, as it manifests itself in a living organism, assumes
and is limited by the forms of specific functional activities.
Its basis is not a mere generic potentiality, but a definite
organised capacity of some kind — nutritive, metabolic, repro-
ductive, muscular, mental, cerebral, perhaps we may add

psychic or spiritual — as the case may be. There is ample

64

PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS 65

evidence apart from the tale of his achievements, that the
typical man of action is richly endowed with vital energy of
such kinds as are inseparable from a well-developed, powerful
frame, an alert nervous system, and a vigorous brain. In two
cases only of our ten examples we shall find some apparent
discrepancy between the physical endowment and the energies
displayed. For purposes of comparison I have divided these
ten examples into four minor groups as follows : —

. ._» , ( Charlemagne.

Heroic stature ; exceptional muscular power . -j -,. ,

/ Caesar.

Tall or medium stature ; muscular strength some- I William the Silent,
what above average . . . . j Cromwell.

' Frederick the Great.

( Drake
Short, thick-set frame ; strength above average . -!

\ JN & jK} icon.

Medium or small stature; muscular strength \

probably below average; great neuro-cerebral V l eu>
activity ... . INelBon-

With regard to the second of these minor groups, it should be
added that Caesar and Frederick were men of the " wiry " type ;
William the Silent and Cromwell, especially the latter, somewhat
heavily built ; Napoleon, of course, was lean and ascetic-looking
in his early manhood, but towards middle life assumed the
more corpulent shape with which we are all familiar. The
cases of Kichelieu and Nelson are of great interest, as those of
men who achieved supreme distinction in the field of action
(including military service) in spite of physical disabilities which
might a priori almost have been considered prohibitive. It is,
for example, a well-known fact that Nelson was invariably
sea-sick at the beginning of every voyage. Obviously much
more than mere bodily vigour goes to the making of a great man
of action : the utmost we seem warranted in concluding is that
exceptional vigour may be looked for in the great majority of
men who achieve distinction in war or statesmanship. Where
it is lacking, its absence must obviously be compensated by
excess of some (higher) qualities. It may be of interest to add
some further details of the physique and physiognomy of men of
action, and in doing so I will adhere approximately to the order
5

66 MAKERS OF MAN

of sequence given above, which forms a kind of descending scale.
Of Charlemagne we are told that he was tall above the common,
broad-shouldered and strongly built. His neck was noticeably
short and muscular : he was, in fact, " bull-necked." He had a
prominent, hawk-like nose, large eyes, and a high forehead. His
aspect was alert and cheerful, his voice clear but not loud, and
his energy was apparently inexhaustible. He became corpulent
in his later days. With regard to his muscular strength, we
learn that he could straighten four horse-shoes together, could
fell a horse and its rider with his fist, or lift a fully-equipped
warrior with one hand to the height of his own head.

Lincoln's height in his prime was six feet four inches. He
was always a lean man,ungainly as to gait, and though exception-
ally strong had a constitutional indolence in regard to physical
(not mental) exertion. His hair was very dark. So was his
complexion, and the skin of his face was lined and shrivelled,
perhaps from exposure during his early farm life. He could
carry six hundred pounds with ease, and once picked up some
huge posts which four men were preparing to lift, and bore them
away with little effort. When Lincoln was a young man there
was no one far or near who dared compete with him in wrestling.

Julius Csesar was tall and somewhat slight, with dark grey
eyes, refined features, and wide lofty brow. His muscular
development was no doubt excellent, for the long neck was
erect and sinewy, a conditon always, I believe, indicative of
exceptional strength and activity. Caesar's head was somewhat
small, relatively to his height, and his hair was thin and scanty.
He suffered from epilepsy towards the end of his life, and seems
to have had no sense of smell worth mentioning, as he ate
rancid oil on one occasion without remark.

William the Silent was somewhat above the medium height,
spare, well-proportioned, and fairly strong. His complexion was
brownish ; he had curling auburn hair and brown eyes, large,
bright, and penetrating. The forehead was open and domed ;
the nose large, powerfully formed, and wide at the base. He had
a fine round massive chin ; the mouth was full but closely set,
rather severe and melancholy. His general aspect at the age of
twenty-five was one of power, self-control, intensity, and pro-

<".Fv\R.

Tofacefi. 66.

PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS 67

found thoughtfulness. In strict keeping with his physiognomy
is the account given of William by a Catholic opponent : " Never
did arrogant or indiscreet word issue from his mouth under the
impulse of anger or other passion. He was master of a sweet
and winning power of persuasion, by means of which he gave
form to the great ideas within him, and thus he succeeded
in bending to his will the other lords about the court as he
chose. He was beloved and in high favour above all men with
the people." The last twelve years of William's life were
passed in hourly peril of assassination, and so great were the
hardships and so many the vicissitudes he endured, that at the
age of fifty-one he was bald, wrinkled, furrowed with ague and
sorrow. The mouth now is not merely firm-set, but locked as it
were with iron, and there is a strained look in the deep-set
watchful eyes. Yet the old charm of manner persisted, and in
all his converse " an outward passage of inward greatness "
was observed. It is noteworthy that William was four times
married, and was the father of three sons and nine daughters.

Oliver Cromwell was of the stature of five feet ten inches,
powerfully and somewhat heavily built. His head was large and
square, his countenance massive, red, and swollen. He had a
thick, prominent red nose (perhaps indicating dyspepsia) ; a
heavy, gnarled brow ; firm, penetrating, sad eyes ; a square jaw,
and close-set mouth. His upper lip and chin were clothed with
scanty tufts of hair, his head with flowing brown locks. His
general aspect bespoke energy, firmness, passion, pity, and
sorrow. In his childhood he was afflicted with fearful dreams
and dreadful visions, and in manhood be became a religious
hypochondriac. Dr. Simcott of Huntingdon calls him " most
splenetic," and was often summoned at midnight by Oliver to
dispel " phansyes " and convictions of imminent death. Crom-
well's voice was described by a contemporary as " harsh and
untuneable " ; such a voice is, I believe, a not infrequent accom-
paniment of hypochondria, and readily assumes a querulous
tone.

Frederick the Great was of medium stature, his limbs well
formed, his aspect vigorous and healthy. His features were
highly pleasing, the expression animated and noble. His

68 MAKERS OF MAN

large blue eyes were at once severe, soft, and gracious. His
bright brown hair was carelessly curled, and, in characteristic
defiance of the convenances, he refused to wear a wig. As
to his manners, Bielfeld considered him the most polite man
in the kingdom, though he could be dry enough, even caustic,
on occasion. Such was Frederick in 1738 (aged twenty-six),
two years before the beginning of that long reign of which
the first twenty-two years were to be spent in almost incessant
warfare against enemies whose numbers seemed ever to increase.
At forty-eight Frederick was already old. To the Countess de
Camas he writes in 1760 : " This is, I swear, such a dog's
life as no one except Don Quixote ever led but myself. All
this bustle, all this confusion has made me such an old fellow,
that you would hardly know me again. The hair on the right
side of my head is grown quite grey ; my teeth break and fall
out ; my face is full of wrinkles as the furbelow of a petticoat ;
and my body is arched like a monk's of La Trappe." Like
Napoleon and other great generals, Frederick seems to have
had the faculty of sleeping at will. After the defeat of Kuners-
dorff, where he had two horses killed under him, his clothes
riddled with bullets, lost twenty thousand men and all his
artillery, he was found lying, with his bare sword beside him,
guarded by a single grenadier, sleeping as quietly and soundly
as if he had been in the securest place. But this may after
all have been but the sleep of utter exhaustion, and as such
less exceptional than it appears. What is unquestionable
is the extraordinary power of recovery, in virtue of which it
has been truly said that Frederick was never greater or more
formidable than after a disaster or defeat. Frederick appears
to have been singularly deficient in sexual susceptibility, and,
it is asserted, never cohabited with his wife. Voltaire says of him
that " he did not love the ladies," and that in his palace at
Sans Souci neither women nor priests were ever seen. It
should, however, be mentioned that when Frederick was about
eighteen his father learnt of an intrigue conducted by him
with a schoolmaster's daughter — she happened to be musical,
a distinct aggravation of her offence — and the old scoundrel
had her whipped through Berlin, making his son witness the

PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS 6g

scene. Perhaps it is not surprising that Frederick repudiated
the bride forced upon him by such a father, although Eliza-
beth Christina is described as a beautiful and accomplished
princess.

The portrait of Drake shows a man below medium stature,
broad-shouldered and thick-set, with good features, curly hair,
a high forehead, and alert expression. The eyes are some-
what small, and the plump hands finely shaped. A man of
unbounded self-confidence and of magnetic personality he looks,
and undoubtedly was. The neck is short, and the complexion,
presumably, florid. Far more difficult is the task of summar-
ising the physical characteristics of Napoleon. At twenty-
eight he is described as small in stature, thin and pale, with an
air of fatigue and abstraction. The weary look may be attrib-
utable to his recent exertions in his Italian campaign, from
which it is, I think, probable that he never wholly recovered.
Bourrierme says of Napoleon that his finely shaped head, his
superb forehead, his pale and elongated visage, his medita-
tive look, have been transported to the canvas, but the quick-
ness of his glance and the rapidity of his changes of expression
were beyond imitation. Napoleon was particularly proud of
his beautiful hands, was fastidiously neat as to his toilet, very
temperate, in regard to diet, and had a mania for hot baths,
in which he would sometimes remain for hours. Perhaps there
is no better test of constitutional vigour than the early or late
decay of the teeth, and it is therefore noteworthy that Napoleon's
first tooth extraction (unnecessary even then) occurred at St.
Helena when he was over fifty-six. In his prime, says Lord
Rosebery, he was incapable of fatigue. He fought Alvinzy
once for five days without taking off his boots. He would
post from Poland to Paris, summon a council at once, and
preside over it for eight or ten hours. Once, at 2.0 a.m., the
councillors were all worn out, one Minister fast asleep.
Napoleon still urged them — " Come, gentlemen, pull yourselves
together ; we must earn the money that the nation gives us."
He could work for eighteen hours at a stretch, sometimes at one
subject, sometimes at a variety. The portrait of Napoleon by
Paul Delaroche, painted apparently at the age of thirty-five or

70 MAKERS OF MAN

perhaps a little later, shows him already becoming corpulent,
but with a look of almost godlike power. A son of Lord Glen-
bervie, who had seen him at Elba, says that his features were
rather coarse, and his eyes very light and particularly dull.
But his mouth, when he smiled, was full of a very sweet, good-
humoured expression — perhaps the secret of his never-failing
charm. This witness, in agreement with most others, was
greatly disappointed at the first aspect of Napoleon, thinking
him " a very common-looking man." But upon observing
him and conversing with him " you perceive that his counten-
ance is full of deep thought and decision." The personal
magnetism of Napoleon is a fact hardly accountable by the
above description, but of its existence and extraordinary power
of attraction upon almost all who were brought into personal
touch with him, there can be no possible doubt. " Were I you,"
said Montchenu to Hudson Lowe, " I would not allow a single
stranger to visit Longwood, for they all leave it in a transport
of devotion, which they take back to Europe." " What is
most astonishing," says the Eussian Commissioner, " is the
ascendancy that this man, dethroned, a prisoner, exercises
on all who come near him. No one dares to treat him as an
equal." The crew of the Bellerophon who conveyed him to
St. Helena, sounded by Maitland, said : " If the English knew
him as well as we do, they would not touch a hair of his head."
The crew of the Northumberland said : " He is a fine fellow,
who does not deserve his fate." On his leaving the Undaunted,
which had brought him to Elba, the boatswain, for the ship's
company, wished him long life and prosperity, and " better
luck next time." Thinkers of the Tolstoyan school may belittle
the role of the leader of men, and labour to reduce him to the
insignificance of a mere figurehead, but such facts, among
many others, give the lie direct to their contention.

Of the eleven children borne by Nelson's mother, only
two lived to be old, and she herself died at forty-two. The
delicacy of Nelson's own constitution is thus clearly of maternal
origin. His diminutive figure, shock head, and pronounced
features are too familiar to need description. Nelson's con-
versation and manners have been described by contemporaries

SIR FRANCIS DRAKE.
Engraved by .V. fr'rcetnan/roni an oiiginal painting.

PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS 71

as " irresistibly pleasing," and it is certain that he possessed
the secret of endearing himself to gentle and simple. He
was idolised by his men, who did far more for love of him than
they did through fear of sterner disciplinarians. Nelson's
excitable temperament, by turns enthusiastic and sombre,
sometimes betrayed him into a boastfulness or ostentation
which made him slightly ridiculous. The famous interview
with Wellington on the basis of which George Bernard Shaw
indulges in some characteristically insolent depreciation l is,
however, probably mythical. Wellington's own account of
his personal relations with Nelson is to the effect that he once
met him on the stairs !

Richelieu, our last example of the men of action, was in
all but the constitutional weakness and tubercular tendency
which they shared, the antithesis of the impulsive, indiscreet
Nelson. Tall and slight, with clear-cut distinguished features,
arched eyebrows, piercing black eyes, thin compressed lips and
aloof manner, he looked, superficially, rather the man of letters
or the ascetic priest than the masterful politician. But though
he never felt, he could inspire, unlimited devotion, and the rare
smile of those thin lips had a singular charm of its own.
Richelieu looked really what he was — incarnate will to power,
intellectual but not passionate, implacable but not cruel.
He suffered from excruciating headaches, probably of malarial
origin, though he is of the type commonly subject to migraine ;
and died of pulmonary haemorrhage, supervening on a tubercular
abscess of the arm. Such was the frail casket which enclosed "the
greatest political genius France has ever produced," such was
he whose life is, for an eventful period of nearly twenty years,
the history of his country, and " to a great extent of Europe,"
rightly acclaimed by a biographer 2 as " the grandest figure
among those who have contributed most to the greatness of
France."

Probably most people, if challenged off-hand to give their
opinion of the physique of the typical artist, poet, or musician,
would without hesitation describe a pale and sickly individual

1 " Preface for Politicians," John Butt's Other Island, and Major Barbara.
8 Prof. Richard Lodge.

72 MAKERS OF MAN

of ill-developed frame, poor muscular development, and
sedentary habit. Such a view of the matter will, so far at
least as artists of the first rank are concerned, be summarily
dismissed by those who appeal to the facts. The morbid
correlations of aesthetic genius are undoubted, but for the
most part of a less obvious kind than mere (external) physical
defect or debility. This will be evident from a glance at the
subjoined classification : —

{Leonardo.
Titian (lived to be 99).
Goethe.
Flaubert.
Scott.

ir ,. I Cervantes.

Medium stature, average strength. . • 1 T) t

Short or " stocky " frame, strength good or fair . ^ T> ^
Short stature, poor physique (brain excepted) . Mozart.

So far as my examples go, it would seem that the aesthetic in-
dividual, physically regarded, can quite hold his own with the
man of action. It may even be questioned whether he have
not the better of the comparison, for if no poet or artist in my
list reaches the physical standard of Charlemagne or Lincoln
(and with regard to Leonardo at least, even this is doubtful),
the proportion of distinctly " fine " men seems to be a little
higher among my aesthetic than my practical group. However,
such very rough attempts at classification must not be pressed
too far, nor trusted as the grounds of hasty conclusions.

Descending now to details, we find in our first example of
the aesthetic type, Leonardo, a man, though on the maternal
side of peasant origin, of truly prince-like presence and bearing.
His pastel portrait of himself in old age is that of a superb
type of virile beauty — aquiline features, large impressive
eyes with shaggy eyebrows, thoughtful furrowed brow, long
flowing hair and beard. He was a man of large ideas, one who
loved fine horses and handsome men. Salai and Menz, two
art pupils who in his later life were much with him, were men of

1 As regards Flaubert, it is to be noted that he seems never to have been
the same after his illness in early manhood.

CARDINAL RICHELIEU.

Engraved by //. Robinson from a painting by 1\ tie Cfian/Jagne.

To/act /. 71.

PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS 73

decided beauty. Leonardo was a man of quite exceptional
strength — a true superman, if there ever were one — and of
remarkable physical dexterity. In dress he ignored to some
extent the conventions of his day.

Of the physique and personality of Titian my authorities
give no detailed account, but from a reproduction of his portrait
of himself in old age one gets the impression of strength, beauty,
and distinction. All that is known of his life and of the re-
tention, rather the unchecked growth, of his artistry into
extreme age, points emphatically to the conclusion that the
physique of Titian was exceptionally good. The Field upon
which Titian was probably at work when struck down at the
age of ninety-nine by plague, is in some respects his most
sublime invention. The figures of Moses and the Sybil are,
says Claude Phillips, products of a religious awe nearly akin
to terror. Stranger yet is the sting of earthly passion still
so evident in some of his latest work.

Goethe, like his mother, had brown hair and lustrous dark
eyes, the penetrating glance of which, we are told, " never
failed to impress those who met him." Like his father, he
became a man of robust build, vigorous and active, and above
medium height. Goethe, in his youth, was wild and even
dissipated, and his mental and bodily health were for a time
seriously impaired. In his nineteenth year he had severe
haemoptysis, by far the commonest cause of which is of
course a tubercular invasion.

In his twentieth year he was again very ill, suffered greatly
from depression, and, under the influence of Fraulein von Ketten-
burg, became deeply interested in religious mysticism and
occult studies, the results of which are plainly seen in Faust.
It speaks well for the reparative powers of his constitution
that Johanna Schopenhauer, meeting him at the age of
fifty-seven, could describe Goethe as follows : " He is the
most perfect being I ever knew, even in appearance. A tall,
fine figure which holds itself erect, very carefully clad,
always in black or quite dark blue, the hair tastefully dressed
and powdered as becomes his age, and a splendid face with
lustrous brown eyes which are at once mild and penetrating."

74 MAKERS OF MAN

Napoleon, when, a little later, Goethe was presented to him at
Erfurt, exclaimed with enthusiasm, " Voila un homme ! " And
everyone must recall the famous visit of young Heine to the
great poet, then over seventy, at Weimar, and how, impressed
by his Olympian bearing, he looked involuntarily for the eagle
at his side. " The accordance of personal appearance with
genius," he tells us, " was conspicuous in Goethe. His eyes
were tranquil as those of a god. Time had been powerful
enough to cover his head with snow, but not to bend it ; he
carried it ever proud and high ; and when he spoke he seemed
to grow bigger."

Equally striking in its own way was the appearance of
Gustave Flaubert, who from his childhood was remarkable for
beauty of form and colour. A contemporary 1 meeting him at
the age of twenty-one, describes him as " a tall fellow with a
long fair beard, and his hat over his ear. . . . He was of heroic
beauty. With his white skin, slightly flushed upon the cheeks,
his long floating hair, his tall broad-shouldered figure, his
abundant golden beard, his enormous eyes — the colour of the
green of the sea — veiled under black eyelashes, with his voice
sonorous as the blast of a trumpet, his exaggerated gestures
and resounding laugh ; he was like those young Gallic chiefs who
fought against the Roman armies." An interesting fact re-
corded about Flaubert is his possession of an ear so sensitive
to harmonious or discordant sounds as to be at times a source of
positive torture.2 This peculiarity is obviously relevant to the
extreme fastidiousness of the author of Salammbo in the matter
of literary style. His mother once said of it to him — hugely
to his own delight — that the mania for phrases had dried up
his heart. Nothing short of perfection contented him — he
must have the right word or none. He loved bizarre names
and exotic splendours, and in the throes of writing would groan,
howl, chant the newly-finished phrases, even burst into tears of
despair. " I. am driven wild with writing," he complains to a
correspondent. " Style, which is a thing that I take very much

1 Maxima Ducamp.

2 Ho speaks of having heard people speaking in a low voice thirty yards
away and through closed doors.

OLIVER CROMWELL.

Engravedby W. Sharp fro,,, an original picture /„ the /„,«„/„„ „/
K. Dalian, Esq., London.

To/act /.

PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS 75

in earnest, agitates my nerves horribly. I vex myself, I prey
on myself ; there are days when I am quite ill from it, and
when I am feverish at night. . . . To-day, for example, I
have spent eight hours in correcting five pages, and I think
that I have worked well ; judge of the rest ! It is pitiful."
With such a temperament it is hardly surprising that at the age
of twenty-one Flaubert became the subject of severe attacks of
hystero-epilepsy. The illness was attributed by his worthy
father to " excess of vitality " (whatever that may be), and
treated on drastically depletive lines. The seizures passed off
gradually, but left much depression and weakness. " Hence-
forth," he tells us, " I was afraid of life." I hesitate whether
to attribute this misfortune to the malady itself or to the paternal
treatment. Flaubert, of course, never married, but he had a
love affair of eight years' duration with a married woman,1
which, if not perhaps entirely Platonic, was at any rate largely
a matter of correspondence. There is little doubt that he was
weary of the connection long before he could bring it to an end.
He himself attributes his comparative celibacy to principle,
professing to regard the marriage of an artist as a supreme
apostasy. One suspects, however, an instinctive sense of his
own physical unfitness, unacknowledged even to himself.
Men do not remain bachelors on principle, unless they; have
taken vows, and, in the physiological sense, not always then.

Our last example of the " fine man " among members of the
aesthetic group is Walter Scott, who at nineteen was a youth of
tall stature, with a chest and throat of Herculean mould, a fresh,
brilliant complexion, clear, open eyes of a lightish grey, well-set
and of changeful radiance, a noble expanse of brow, long upper
lip, brown hair and eyelashes, flaxen eyebrows. Scott's homely
features were often lit up by a charming smile ; his expression
was by turns tender, grave, playful, and humorous. His small
head was erect, his hands were finely moulded, and his general
aspect and bearing bespoke vigour without clumsiness. He had
a verbal memory of astounding tenacity, but his appreciation
of music was not keen or accurate, and he had little sense of
odour. Nor was his talk in any way brilliant ; rather it was
1 Living apart from her husband in a literary set in Paris.

76 MAKERS OF MAN

remarkable for a certain homespun quality of unfailing good
sense and sobriety. Lord Cockburn said of him that his plain
sense was even more wonderful than his genius. Scott was lame
in the right leg as the result of an attack of infantile paralysis
which he incurred at the age of eighteen months. I do not
consider this defect necessarily attributable to any hereditary
taint, as the disease in question, an inflammatory lesion of the
nerve cells in the anterior portion of the grey matter of the spinal
cord, conforms in type to the specific febrile maladies of child-
hood, and has possibly a microbic origin. Scott's lameness may
therefore be regarded as an accident, and if there be any truth
in the view of his tutor that his turn for reading was fostered
by the limitations it imposed, must be accounted a blessing in
disguise. His brain, on examination, was " not large." James
Ballantyne, whose familiarity with him dates from the time
when they were boys together, testifies to the quite remarkable
ascendency which in his early days he never failed to exhibit
over his young companions, handicapped as he was in all active
pursuits by his lameness. This personal magnetism, usually
associated with a constitution of more than average vigour, is a
common characteristic of the born leader of men. Its possession
by Scott confirms me in the impression that but for his lameness
and its effect in confirming his early romantic and literary bias,
he might ultimately have deserted literature for politics or any
other field promising freer scope to his vast energy and a fuller
attainment of the social and civic prizes that he unquestionably
valued. There was nothing morbid in Scott's temperament :
he loved youth and sunshine, and, sexually, appears to have been
entirely normal.

Cervantes, at the age of thirty-three, on his return from five
years' slavery at Algiers, was by his own account a man of
medium height, heavily built about the shoulders, of a bright
fair complexion, with aquiline features, chestnut hair, smooth
unruffled brow, arched nose, sparkling eyes, a silver beard, large
moustache, small mouth, and only six teeth in his head. He
was near-sighted and of hesitant speech. There can be no doubt
that the personality of this great man had an extraordinary
charm, nor that he was brave to a fault. During his captivity

PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS 77

he was the promoter of three or four daring attempts to effect his
own escape and that of many of his companions in misfortune,
always foiled by the cowardice or treachery of some comrade.
Such attempts on the part of the Christian slaves were the one
unpardonable crime — the usual punishment was torture or
death. Yet Cervantes, always eager to take the full blame on his
own shoulders, was inexplicably spared by the viceroy, Hassan
Pasha, a man of whom Cervantes himself says that " every day
he hanged some one, impaled another, and cut off the ears of a
third . . . for nothing else than because it was his will to do it."
Brought before this terrible man, with a rope already round his
neck, even the threat of torture failed to induce Cervantes to
implicate any one save himself. Hassan seems even to have had
a strange fear of this indomitable captive : he never spoke to him
an ill word, and was heard once to say that, could he preserve
himself against this maimed Spaniard — Cervantes had lost the
use of his left hand at Lepanto — he would hold safe his
Christians, his ships, and his money.

The generalisation of Havelock Ellis, to the effect that
in stature the man of genius tends to one or the other extreme,
finds another and a crushing exception in Dante, who was a
slender man of only medium height. For Dante is not merely
a poet : he is rather the very spirit of poesy at its highest
and greatest incarnate. Poetry, which in our day has become
the transient foible of dejected undergraduates, the happy
hunting-ground of pawky reviewers, was for him a sublime
Presence proffering the keys of the ultimate arcana. The
familiar portrait by Giotto of Dante in early manhood shows
us in profile a face combining inexplicably the opposed extremes
of virile strength and feminine refinement. One might call
it at this moment a truly androgynous countenance, but with
the passage of years and under stress of adversity, the look of
strength and suppressed passion became so far predominant as
well-nigh to obscure the gentler qualities that had formerly
been so evident. Dante in middle age is described as a man of
grave dignity, somewhat bent figure, with a long face, prominent
nose, large eyes, broad foreiiead, wide chin, heavy jaw, and
protruded underlip. His hair and beard were black and crisp,

78 MAKERS OF MAN

and his complexion somewhat swarthy. Once as he passed a
doorway in Verona where several women sat, he heard one
say : " Do you see the man who goes down to hell, and returns
at his pleasure ? " To which one replied : " Indeed, what you
say must be true ; don't you see how his beard is crisped and his
colour darkened by the heat and smoke down below ? " Dante,
not ill-pleased, smiled a little, and passed on his way. Of his
manner there are conflicting accounts ; one biographer describes
him as courteous and calm, though reserved, but Villani tells
us that he was " little gracious, not adapting himself to the
converse of the unlearned." Probably he was a man of many
moods, and there is no doubt that he was extremely passionate
in more senses than one. We are, in fact, plainly told that
lustfulness was a besetting sin of Dante, and in the Purgatorio,
on his first meeting with^Beatrice in his pilgrimage, he depicts
himself as overwhelmed with shame while she upbraids him
for belying the gracious promise of his youth :

" Si tosto come in sulla soglia fui
Di mia seconda etade, e mutai vita,
Questi si tolse a me, e diessi altrui." 1

Instead of valuing her more now that she had cast off the dross
of earth, he had held her less dear, followed " false images of
good," and condemned the warnings with which in dreams of
night she strove to call him back.

" Tanto giu cadde, che tutti argomenti
Alia saluta sua eran gia corti
Fuor che mostrargli le perdute gente." 2

Dante's marriage, which took place when he was about thirty-
three, was, Boccaccio says, arranged by his friends to console
him for the loss of Beatrice. He had four children by her,
but left her in Florence at the time of his exile, some four years

1 " Soon as I had reached
The threshold of my second age, I changed
My mortal for immortal ; then he left me,

And gave himself to others." — Purg. xxx. 126-9 (Cary's Trans.).
- " Such depth he fell that all device was short
Of his preserving, save that he should view
The children of perdition." — Purg. xxx. 139-41 (Cary's Trans.).

PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS 79

after their marriage, and would never see her again. He
seems to have made conquest of a lady called Gentucca soon
after his condemnation. The panther which confronts Dante
at the outset of his journey through the invisible, symbolises
lust, as the lion symbolises pride and the she-wolf avarice.
With regard to the reputed death-mask of Dante at Uffizi and
the three existing casts from it, Prof. C. E. Norton says : " The
face is one of the most pathetic upon which human eyes ever
looked, for it exhibits in its expression the conflict between
the strong nature of the man and the hard dealings of fortune- -
between the idea of his life and its practical experience.
Strength is the most striking attribute of the countenance. . . .
The look is grave and stern almost to grimness ; . . . obscured
under this look, yet not lost, are the marks of tenderness, refine-
ment, and self-mastery . . . ineffable dignity and melancholy.
. . . Neither weakness nor failure here ! A strong soul
' buttressed on conscience and impregnable will.' "

We have now to consider the physiognomy of Turner, who
was a man of decidedly short stature, but of immense energy
and considerable strength. Dance's portrait, for which Turner
sat at the age of twenty-five, shows us a handsome young man
with rather large features, a full prominent nose, staring bluish
grey eyes, fine strong chin and rather sensual mouth, the lower
Hp fleshy, the upper beautifully curved. The eyebrows were
arched, the eyelids long, presenting great depth between eye-
brow and eye. The forehead was full below, receding above,
indicative perhaps rather of great power of observation than
of high intellectuality ; and, pace Ruskin, there is little doubt
that Turner lacked the power of clear thought or logical expres-
sion. Hi a mind was a chiaroscuro of exalted incoherencies,
as one glance through his extraordinary " poetic " effusions
must convince any impartial critic. In later life Turner became
the " very moral " of a master carpenter, with lobster-red face
and twinkling, watchful eyes, usually attired in a blue coat with
brass buttons, and bearing an enormous umbrella. His weather-
beaten cuticle resembled that of a boatswain or a stage-coachman,
and he had the smallest and dirtiest hands on record. Many
of the distinctive qualities of his art are probably due to the

8o MAKERS OF MAN

fact that he was myopic, and towards the end of his life he
became to some extent colour blind.1 He was a man of coarse
tastes, who drank heavily, and, although he never married, was
by no means a celibate. He would paint hard all the week until
Saturday night, then slip a five-pound-note in his pocket,
button it up securely, and set out for some low sailors' tavern
in Wapping or Rotherhithe, there to wallow until Monday
morning.

Beethoven, like Turner, was a man of less than medium
stature, but of average physique. His appearance was no
doubt striking, but probably less attractive than his familiar
portrait suggests, on account of his dark skin and the unkempt
negligence of his toilet. He had a flat broad nose, a rather
wide mouth, small piercing bluish grey eyes, and a magnificent
forehead, surmounted by rich curling locks of blue-black hair.
When, as often, Beethoven's mane was uncombed and in
disarray, he looked " veritably demoniacal." Schindler com-
pares his appearance in moments of inspiration to that of
Jupiter. Genius in action invariably beautifies its examplar,
triumphing over the most unfavourable physiognomical con-
ditions by the sublime transfiguration it efEects. This no doubt
is the explanation of the fact that Beethoven, despite of his
deafness, his uncouth manners, and his ugliness (in the con-
ventional sense), " often succeeded in making a conquest where
many an Adonis would have found it most difficult to gain
a hearing." He was evidently in a high degree attractive to
women. " The truth is, " Dr. Wegeler asserts, " that Beeth-
oven was always in love, and generally with some lady of high
rank." Magdalena Willmann, a beautiful singer whom he
had befriended, whom subsequently he besought to marry him,
refused him " because he was very ugly and half crazed." The
central passion of his life was probably that which he felt to
his pupil Giulietta Guiccardi, of whom he writes to Ries :

1 Liebreich's theory is that at fifty-five Turner began to suffer from a diffuse
haze of the crystalline lens, which dispersed the light more strongly and threw
a bluish haze over illuminated objects. Later, a definite opacity was formed
in the lens, causing a vertical diffusion, the consequence being (after 1833)
a peculiar vertical striation of his pictures. Cf. " The Influence of Abnor-
malities of Vision on Art," Brit. Med. Journ., 25th April 1908.

PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS 81

" I found only one, but I could not have her." J The fact is,
that Beethoven was at once peculiarly susceptible and ex-
tremely fickle, and although at times oppressed by the solitude
of his life, was upon the whole averse to the sacrifice of freedom
implied by marriage, and even, on general grounds, to the
institution itself. " If I had given up inborn inspirations for
marriage, what would have become of my higher better self ? "
The typical artist is a man of sentiment rather than of passion ;
in any one of his many love affairs the whole of his nature is but
seldom deeplyinvolved. The deafness of Beethoven, which began
when he was about thirty, gradually increased, and ultimately
became complete, is apparently attributable to a severe wetting
incurred during a period of " utter recklessness of his physical
condition ! " There must have been some hereditary pre-
disposition, one supposes, although deafness is a calamity
only too easily incurred.

Mozart, like Beethoven, was below medium height, slender
in his youth, but afterwards rather stout. His well-shaped head
was large in proportion to his body, and the concha of his left
ear was congenitally lacking, a peculiarity transmitted to his
youngest son. In his boyhood Mozart had a rosy chubby
face, eyes of clear blue, profuse light brown hair, fine and
silky. His prominent nose may have indicated a Jewish origin.
His temperament was bright, fearless, and affectionate ; he was,
by turn, gay and thoughtful. At Vienna, aged six, when
Marie Antoinette, charmed by his playing, took him into her
arms, he made her an offer of marriage. It is also recorded
that on this occasion the child genius frankly rebuked the
Crown Prince Joseph for his bad singing. I have already ad-
verted to the tendency to frequent pyrexial attacks, which
from his boyhood gave warning of what was in all probability
a tubercular taint. I spoke just now of the transfiguring ill-
umination which, in moments of exalted power, reveals the
presence of genius. An onlooker who was present at the first
production of Mozart's Figaro, received with unprecedented
enthusiasm by the crowded audience, writes thus of the hero
of the occasion : "I shall never forget my impression of
1 Possibly, however, he is referring here to Therese.

6

82 MAKERS OF MAN

Mozart as he appeared at this moment. His little face seemed
lighted up by the glowing rays of genius — to describe it perfectly
would be as impossible as to paint sunbeams." Towards
the end of his life Mozart became the prey of intense melancholy,
and was obsessed by the idea that he had been poisoned —
traversed in part the thin line dividing genius from insanity.

PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS-<7em*»nwed

Intellectuals — Their mediocre physique — Ethico-religious group —
Physiognomy of Jesus — Examples — Summary. .

PURSUING the task begun in the last chapter, I have now to
discuss the physical characteristics of the intellectual and
ethico-religious groups. With regard to the intellectual, the
first point which demands attention is that our ten examples
may be divided into two equal divisions, the first consisting of
five men whose physique and health were moderate or good ;
and the second, of five whose development or constitution, or
both, were indifferent or bad. The following table embodies
this and some further information :—

I. Tall, well built. Health fair on the whole, but hypochron- 1 „

driacal .... JGahleo.

Medium stature with stoop, slim, dark. Healthy . Leibnitz.

Shortish. Average physique and health . . . Hegel.

Short. Physical health good, and well preserved. . Newton.

Very short, healthy and energetic . . . Harvey.

II. Tall. Average physique. Neurotic . . . Darwin.

Medium stature. Physique poor. Phthisis . . Spinoza.

Medium stature. Always ailing. Hypochondriac . Bacon.

Rather short, slight physique. Large head, timid, weakly)

and indolent j Descartes.

Very short (barely 5 ft.). Flat chest. Stoop. HypoO
chondriac J-Kant.

Obviously, there is no member of this group, with the doubt-
ful exception of Galileo, who can, in the physical sense, bear
comparison with such splendid animals of the genus homo as
were Charlemagne, Lincoln, William the Silent, Leonardo,
Goethe, Scott, Flaubert, not to mention Titian, Cromwell,

Caesar, Napoleon. Five of our ten examples — our nine rather,

83

84 MAKERS OF MAN

for I have no certain information as to the stature of Bacon —
were distinctly undersized men ; and of none is it recorded
that he displayed exceptional muscular power. Four — Galileo,
Bacon, Kant, and Darwin — were hypochondriacal, or at any
rate markedly neurotic ; one, Isaac Newton, was for a consider-
able time actually insane. It would almost seem that physical
mediocrity (if not inferiority) is a necessary correlative of great
intellectual power, for I see no reason to doubt that my ten
examples may fairly be regarded as typical.

The first of these, Galileo, was a man above middle height,
square-built and well-proportioned. He had reddish hair and
a fair, sanguine complexion, brilliant eyes (colour not stated),
and a cheerful, pleasant expression. About 1594 (set. 30),
Galileo is stated to have incurred a severe chill from sitting in a
draught. Henceforward his health, naturally robust, was
permanently impaired : he became subject to acute pains in
the chest, back, and limbs, insomnia, anorexia, and frequent
haemorrhages. Galileo was also the victim of frequent attacks
of hypochondriasis, aggravated, if not induced, by his nocturnal
vigils in the interest of astronomy.1 He was a man of abstemi-
ous habits, fastidious as to his wine — which was the product
his own vineyards — generous, impulsive, irascible, but easily
pacified. His memory was retentive, stored with a vast
number of old songs and legends, and many of the poems
of Ariosto, Petrarca, and Berni. Towards the end of his life
Galileo's despondency deepened to " immeasurable sadness " ;
he became hateful to himself, lost his sight, and suffered from
hernia. As to this last, there is a sinister doubt whether the
affliction was not the result of torture — for there is reason to
suspect that Galileo was racked in 1633, and rupture was a
common result of " the cord." At the time of his death (set. 78)
Galileo was engaged in considering with unimpaired intellect
the nature of the force of percussion. By his mistress, Marina
Gamba, he was the father of a son and two daughters.

Leibnitz, a man of much colder and more serene tempera-
ment than Galileo, was of medium height, slenderly built, with

1 Not to mention the brutal treatment which he underwent in his late years
at the hands of the Inquisition.

PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS 85

brown hair and small, dark, piercing eyes. He walked with
bowed head ; was kind and generous, but more from principle
than emotion ; had an excellent memory ; was prudent in
money matters, and quite free from sordid ambition. Thus,
when as a young man at Altdorf , he was offered a professorship,
he declined it, shrinking from the defects and narrowness of
a German university career. In this care as to his intellectual
freedom Leibnitz resembled Spinoza. He died at seventy of
gout and stone, his academical projects, desire for religious
unity, plan for a general scientific language, and views as to the
extension of geometry, all having ended in apparent failure.
But such is the common fate of pioneers.

More interesting details are available with regard to the
physical characteristics and personality of Hegel, who was the
eldest son of a methodical civil servant of Stuttgart. He was
docile and industrious hi his boyhood, but in early manhood
passed through a period of mental fermentation, and became
self-contained and moody, with a tendency to melancholy
and sentiment. In the days of his Berlin professorate, held
from his forty-eighth year to his death, he is described as a
man of no imposing height or charm of manner, " his figure
bent with premature age, yet with a look of native toughness
and strength. . . . Pale and relaxed, his features hung down
as if lifeless ; no destructive passion was mirrored in them,
but only a long history of patient thought. . . . When his
mind awoke his features expressed all the earnestness and
strength of a thought . . . developed to completeness. What
dignity lay in the whole head, in the finely-formed nose, the
high but somewhat retreating brow, the peaceful chin ! Ever
ready for talk, he sought rather to avoid than to encourage
scientific subjects. Repellent personalities, who were opposed
to the whole direction of his efforts, he could not abide ; . . .
but when friends gathered around him, what an attractive,
loving camaraderie distinguished him from all others ! . . .
He was fond of the society of ladies, . . . the fairest were
always sure of a sportive devotion. ... At times he took
pleasure in people of the commonest stamp, and even seemed
to cherish for them a kind of good-humoured preference."

86 MAKERS OF MAN

To this description by Hotho I will add a picturesque but
somewhat high-flown impression by Rosenkranz, translated
by Ferrier, of Hegel as lecturer. " Utterly careless about the
graces of rhetoric . . . Hegel enchained his students by the
intensity of his speculative power. His voice was in harmony
with his eye. It was a great eye, but it looked inwards ; and
the momentary glances which it threw outwards seemed to
issue from the very depths of idealism and arrested the be-
holder like a spell. His accent was rather broad, and without
sonorous ring ; but through its apparent commonness there
broke that lofty animation which the might of knowledge
inspires, which in moments when the genius of humanity was
adjuring the audience through his lips, left no hearer unmoved.
In the sternness of his noble features there was something
almost calculated to strike terror, had not the hearer been again
propitiated by the gentleness and cordiality of the expression.
A peculiar smile bore witness to the purest benevolence, but it
was blended with something harsh, cutting, sorrowful, or rather
ironical. His, in short, were the tragic lineaments of the philo-
sopher, of the hero whose destiny it is to struggle with the
riddle of the universe."

Hegel's death may be considered accidental. On the 10th
and llth November of his sixty-first year (1831) he had lectured
" with surprising fire and energy." On the 13th a virulent
attack of cholera declared itself, to which he succumbed in
sleep on the following day.

Isaac Newton, the posthumous son of a father who died at
thirty-six, was born prematurely, " so little that they might have
put him into a pint mug," and was not expected to live. He
lived, however, to be eighty-four, enjoyed a vigorous maturity,
never wore spectacles, and lost only one tooth. He was of
decidedly short stature, and became stout after middle life.
Conduit describes him as having a very " lively and piercing
eye," but Bishop Atterbury denies this, asserting that at any rate
during the last twenty years of his life " his appearance was
rather languid, and did not raise any great expectations in
strangers." In his fiftieth year (1692) Newton suffered a severe
shock. A dog upset a lighted taper, and manuscripts embodying

PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS 87

the results of many years' experiments in optics were consumed.
Newton's mind certainly became seriously deranged, and it is
asserted, though Brewster denies this, that he was placed under
restraint by his friends. At any rate, in 1693, Newton, in an
incoherent letter, complained to Pepys of insomnia and mental
disturbance ; and about the same time, in another extraordinary
epistle addressed to Locke, called that worthy man a " Hobbist,"
accused him of wishing to embroil him with women, and wished
him dead. After his recovery, Newton was, in 1695, appointed
Master of the Mint. He discharged his duties efficiently, but
made no more discoveries of any moment. So that, if in the
matter of physical health (as commonly understood) Newton
appears exceptional among intellectuals, it is evident that there
are serious qualifications to be made. His death was due to
stone, whether of the bladder or kidney I am unable to say. His
portrait by Kneller shows a man of good features, with wide
forehead, rather large eyes, well-defined eyebrows, straight
nose, benevolent mouth, square chin, and plump, shapely
hands. Serenity is here the prevailing expression.

We have next to consider the case of William Harvey, who
is in several respects an exception to the class to which, never-
theless, upon the whole he undoubtedly belongs. Although his
treatise De Motu Cordis et Sanguinis is a perfect model of close
reasoning from the products of keenest observation, and in its
way a classic, I do not consider that Harvey was in the highest
sense an intellectual man. His discovery was an epoch-making
one, no doubt, and no praise can be too high for the acumen
which interpreted anatomical facts at once universally known
and universally misunderstood by his predecessors and con-
temporaries, to say nothing of the bull-dog tenacity and un-
flinching courage which enabled him to meet and conquer
the inevitable opposition of officialdom. Harvey was, in short,
a man of genius, but of a genius distinctly specialised, if not
narrow ; and his efficiency as a pioneer was in large measure due
to the stubborn energy with which he devoted himself to the
exploitation of a single illuminating conception. If, therefore,
Harvey compares favourably in the matter of health with the
majority of intellectuals, the limitations of his genius are to be

88 MAKERS OF MAN

borne in mind. The following is a description of him at the age
of thirty-seven : " A man of the lowest stature, round-faced, with
a complexion like the wainscot ; his eyes small, round, very
black and full of spirit ; his hair black as a raven and curling ;
rapid in his utterance, choleric, given to gesture, and used when
in discourse with any one to play unconsciously with the handle
of a small dagger he wore at his side."

Harvey married, at twenty-six, Elizabeth Brown, aged
twenty-four. His wife was still alive forty-one years later,
but, significantly enough, the union had been childless. Was
this, perhaps, another instance of the sterility of genius ?
Although Harvey lived to be seventy-nine, and, apart from
what might perhaps be called a healthy tendency to typical
gouty arthritis, was a physically sound man, he seems to have
been eccentric to a somewhat marked extent. To cure a gouty
attack he would sit bare-legged in frost on the leads of Cockaine
House, soak his feet in cold water, then betake himself to the
stove, " and so 'twas gone." His salt-cellar was always full
of sugar. He combed his hair in the fields. He had caves
made in the ground for summer meditation at Combe, and
loved to ruminate in the dark. There was method in much
of his madness (so to speak) — as in the habit of pacing the
bedroom in his shirt when unable to sleep, a plan often recom-
mended in these days for insomnia, and sometimes effectual
enough.

It can hardly be necessary to describe in much detail the
physiognomy of Darwin, at least in his later years. Every one
knows the gentle, humorous face, with its high, deeply-furrowed
forehead, bushy eyebrows, overarching keen bluish grey eyes,
rough-hewed moustache, and ragged white beard. The some-
what shapeless or " bottle " nose deserves mention, as the
feature to which Fitz-Roy of the Beagle took serious excep-
tion at the time of Darwin's candidature for the post of natural-
ist to the expedition. This ardent disciple of Lavater doubted
whether any one with a nose like Darwin's could have energy
and determination for the duties of such a post. " But I think
.he was afterwards well satisfied that my nose had spoken
falsely." Darwin was a tall, stooping man of six feet, with

PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS 89

shoulders neither broad nor distinctly narrow. In his youth
he was active rather than strong, but capable of great endurance.
He was awkward in the use of his hands, never became a real
dissector or excelled in anything requiring delicate manipula-
tion. He used his hands freely in gesticulation when his talk
became animated. What was very exceptional in Darwin
was his marvellous power of observation. He was a wonderful
shot, and in his early days the love of sport was a veritable
passion. In his walks he never missed seeing a bird's nest if
there was one to be seen — a sure test of the keenness of vision.
But his health after early middle life was feeble in the extreme.
He was apparently dyspeptic and neurasthenic, if not in some
degree (unselfishly) hypochondriacal. His son emphatically
asserts that for forty years Darwin never knew one day of the
health of ordinary men. His life was one long struggle against
the weariness and strain of sickness. " I never," he says
himself, " pass one day without many hours of discomfort, when
I can do nothing whatever." Yet he lived to be seventy-three,
was the father of a family, and, by dint of rigid economy in
regard to his physical resources, accomplished a body of work
which, to say nothing of its quality, is astonishing in the matter
of mere bulk.

Spinoza, who died of phthisis at forty-five, looked what
he was by birth, a Portuguese Jew. He was of middle size,
had good features in his face, the skin somewhat swarthy,
curling black hair, long black eyebrows. He was intensely
reserved, a man of recluse habit, and abstemious in the matter
of dietary to the point of asceticism. For example, he has
been known to subsist for a whole day upon a little gruel, or
upon a milk sop and a pot of beer. The motive for this frugality
was presumably a horror of debt, but it probably shortened
his life.

Of Bacon's physical characteristics I can offer but an
imperfect account. The portraits give an impression of decided
beauty — showing a very high well-shaped forehead, finely
arched eyebrows, dark but not large eyes, aquiline nose, full
under lip, short beard, and curling dark hair. He married
at forty-five, but the union, which was childless, was not dictated

go MAKERS OF MAN

by passion, for, pace the amusing folk who regard Bacon as a
poet, a more passionless man never lived. With regard
to his health, D'Arcy Power asserts, I know not on whose
authority, that he was always a weak and ailing man, and
something of a hypochondriac. He died at sixty-five, of
bronchitis.

It would be difficult to find a more typical example of the
intellectual genius than we have in the philosopher and mathe-
matician, Rene Descartes. For, in the intellectual sphere,
mathematics holds a position very analogous to that of music
in the arts. Mathematical facility is a thing inborn and sui
generis : it cannot be acquired, only developed, by toil. Some-
thing more, that universality of mind and constructive power
which go to the making of the philosopher, is no doubt necessary
to the highest order of intellectuality, and that something
Descartes possessed. But in all his philosophising he remained
fundamentally a mathematician, one whose facility in the
rapid solution of the most abstruse problems, and, what is
more, the determination of the possibility or formal conditions
of solution, were the wonder of his contemporaries. Let us
therefore consider with special attention the physical attributes
recorded of Descartes. He was the youngest of three children,
and his mother, who was consumptive, died soon after his
birth. As a boy he was pale and sickly, and had a constant
dry cough — was, in fact, more or less infected by the same
disease. All his life he had the habit of spending the forenoon
in bed, under which conditions, he alleged, his best work was
always done. He never married, but had one illegitimate
daughter, who only lived five years. In person Descartes was
undersized, but with a head somewhat large in proportion to his
body. His complexion was sallow. He was careful with regard
to his toilet, dressed usually in black, and his diet was plain and
methodical. Such was Descartes, mathematician par excellence ;
and it is instructive to note the points of resemblance or analogy
between his case and that of Mozart, the typical musician.

How many, I wonder, of the cultured gentlemen who
in learned monographs invoke or conjure with the mighty
name of the Sage of Konigsberg, " that arch-destroyer in

PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS 91

the realms of thought," Immanuel Kant, have ever clearly
realised the physical insignificance of their hero ? How many —
how few, rather — if they encountered in the flesh a puny manikin
barely five feet high, pigeon-chested, one shoulder higher than
its fellow, if they listened to the medical talk dear to Kant,
as to every valetudinarian, his expatiation on the virtues of
" nose-breathing," dietetic fads, and so forth, would recognise
in such a caricature of humanity one acclaimed by contem-
poraries as a " second Messias," the author of a book esteemed
by a critic of genius the greatest ever written by man.1 Let
no one accuse me of undue gloating over the fact that the
great Kant was a pygmy. The interests of Truth are supreme ;
and it is by no means a negligible fact that an intellectual
giant may be, in physical aspect, contemptible. Prudence,
however, forbids me to state how many fine, healthy barbarians
I would cheerfully sacrifice to preserve unscathed every hair
on the head of such a pygmy. Kant had several mild but
abortive love episodes, one for a prepossessing young widow,
who, while the too cautious philosopher — there was a strain
of Caledonian blood in him, we know — calculated and wavered,
left Konigsberg and married a more ardent suitor. His celibacy
was rather a sore subject with him, but no doubt it was a part
of his true vocation. At seventy-three he began to lose his
memory. Two years later he became the subject of de-
lusions ; gradually wasted to a mere skeleton, and died at
eighty.

We have now only to consider the physical characteristics
of the ethico-religious type of personality, and briefly to sum-
marise the main results of this preliminary inquiry, before
finding ourselves free to enter with a good conscience upon
the psychological problems which are to be our main concern.
Of the ten personalities representative of my fourth category,
three, however, may be dismissed very briefly. As to the
physique of Marcus Aurelius, my chief authorities (Renan and
Pater) give no information beyond the expression of a belief
that his health was not good, that he suffered from severe
migraine, and that his vision failed towards the end of his life.
1 Otto Weininger, re The Critique of Practical Reason.

92 MAKERS OF MAN

He died, at or about sixty, of some kind of camp fever. Of
Augustine's physique and physiognomy I have obtained no
trustworthy account. He lived to be seventy-six, but I cannot
picture him as a man of imposing appearance, except inasmuch
as his features and expression combined the charms of a tempera-
ment at the same time sensuous and intellectual. With regard
to the physical characteristics of Jesus, it is obviously unsafe,
and therefore, for our present purpose, unjustifiable to venture
an opinion. Renan, indeed, hazards the guess that his infinite
attraction was in some degree the effect of " one of those lovely
faces which sometimes appear in the Jewish race." On the
other hand, the early tradition, attributable very likely to a
desire to find confirmation of a certain assumed prophetic
description, was to the effect that the appearance of Jesus
was the reverse of pleasing. As to the familiar art-conception
of the Christ, that, no doubt, though obviously in some degree
an ideal construction, may well be in great measure authentic.
But it may equally well be in its entirety fallacious, and cannot
possibly be used as one of the bases of any attempt at inductive
generalisation upon the type to which its subject belongs.
The same instinct which makes the savage choose, for the
predestined victim of sacrifice, and for brief personification of
his deity, the most perfect specimen of his tribe, has quite
probably been at work in the determination of the " ideal "
features of the Saviour.

For my own part I find very few of the world-famous repre-
sentations of Jesus humanly satisfying. One of the finest is
in Titian's painting of the episode of the tribute money — or
so I think it. Intensity and depth are incompatible with dis-
tinctly fair hair and complexion, yet Jesus is commonly por-
trayed as a fair man. I imagine him as olive- skinned, with
dark grey or brown eyes, dark brown or black hair, and strongly
marked features. I much doubt the possession by him of
" beauty " in the commonly accepted sense. Self-dominance is
a central note in the character, as I conceive it, and, in a strong
temperament, is won by such tension of will as cannot but
enforce the features of mere comeliness to a more virile and
awe-compelling contour. The following is a tabular statement

CHRIST AND THE TRIBUTE MONEY.
Front a fainting by Titian.

To face }. 5 a.

PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS 93

of the chief bodily characteristics of our seven remaining per-
sonalities : —

Tall, slight, with stoop. Fair health . . . . Emerson.

Medium stature, robust. Epilepsy (?) . . . . Mahomet.

Medium stature, robust. Hallucinations . . . Luther.

Medium stature. Health moderate .... Gregory.

Short and thick-set ...... Paul

Short and thick-set. Health moderate. . . . Renan.

Very short. Frail physique. Phthisis. . . . Francis.

Here, more even than in the case of the intellectuals, physical
mediocrity, or indeed inferiority, is, I think, the prevailing
note. Emerson, though healthy in his way, could hardly be
called a fine man. Luther while in retreat at the Wartburg,
suffered from hallucinations. Gregory was tormented con-
tinuously for many years by gout in its most agonising form ;
Paul suffered from a mysterious " thorn in the flesh " ; Renan,
from neuralgia and cardiac weakness ; Francis d'Assisi, from
consumption. Certainly these men, endowed with such price-
less gifts for our behoof, did not buy them in a cheap market.
But we will descend once more to particulars.

Emerson's tall, stooping figure was crowned by a head of
good shape ; the face was narrow, the features aquiline ; the
brow not very high, but finely moulded ; the eyes intensely blue,
deep set ; the mouth firm but sensitive ; the expression at once
enthusiastic and shrewdly benevolent. He seems to have
possessed a peculiarly magnetic personality. C. J. Woodbury,
in the course of some reminiscences, calls attention to the fact.
" There was," he says, " something catching about him. No
one could exactly explain or even understand it, but every one
was sensible of it. Nor was it well to be loved by him too
dearly. . . . The fact is, no one, meeting Emerson, was ever
the same again. His natural force was so resistless and so
imperceptible that it commanded men before they were aware."
Haskins confirms this observation. Thoreau's manner, after his
residence with Emerson, startlingly recalled that of his host.
Mahomet was a man of medium stature, square built and sinewy.
He had large hands and feet ; was very strong in his youth,
corpulent in later life. His head was large and shapely ; he

94 MAKERS OF MAN

had a broad forehead, oval face, ruddy complexion, aquiline
nose, well-marked arched eyebrows, black eyes and hair. His
mouth was large, his teeth very white, and he wore a full beard.
His deportment was calm, usually grave, but sometimes jocose.
He was an attractive personality, very successful with women,
and very susceptible to their charms, and his smile was of
captivating sweetness. He was scrupulously clean, frugal in
regard to diet, affected the use of perfumes, and in disposition
was kind but passionate. In his middle age Mahomet became
subject to dreams, ecstasies, and " trances," the last possibly
an euphemistic title for epileptic seizures. Of the children
born to him by his many wives, all proved short-lived. He
lived to be sixty-three, and his last illness was apparently of
a cerebral nature, being attended with vertigo, headache, and
delirium.

Luther was a man of average height, somewhat broad
shouldered and clumsy in build. Mosellanus, who saw him at
Leipsic (aged thirty-six) at the time of his disputation with
Eck, describes him as "so wasted by care that all his bones
may be counted." This emaciation was no doubt due to
special causes, and was not permanent. His features, as
depicted in Cranach's many portraits, are pronounced, irregular,
and distinctly suggestive of his plebeian origin. In some, the
face appears wasted by anxiety, but in others, perhaps the
majority, it is full, somewhat heavy below the eyes, and con-
veys the impression of a passionate rather than an intellectual
or poetic nature. The hair is black ; the forehead not very
large ; the eyebrows marked ; the nose thickish and prominent ;
the upper lip well removed from the nose ; the mouth humorous
and eloquent, but far from beautiful ; the chin strong, and the
neck short and fleshy. Of Luther's dark, deep-set eyes, which
revealed his genius, Kessler says that they " twinkled and
sparkled like stars, so that no one could hardly look steadily
at them." By others they were compared to the eyes of a
lion or a falcon. Luther's gait l was peculiarly characteristic,
and far from typical of the monk or scholar. He carried
himself so upright that he seemed to lean backwards (having
1 As observed by Kessler in 1622.

PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS 95

become rather stout,1 and his face was upturned towards
the sky. From his earliest years Luther was subject to fits
of depression, verging upon religious melancholia, and, as I
have already stated, was at one time the victim of hallucina-
tions, both auditory and visual. He suffered severely from
gout and stone, also from cardiac oppression and vertigo. His
reproductive powers were quite normal. His life-period (sixty-
three years) is, like Mahomet's, characteristic of the man of
action, which in many respects he was, rather than of the
thinker. Such, too — curiously enough — was the case with our
next example, Gregory the Great, who lived sixty-four years,
and was, of course, a statesman of the highest rank in addition
to being a man of genuine sanctity. He was of average height,
well-shaped, and had slender, graceful hands. His face com-
bined the length of his father's and the fulness of his mother's.
He had a handsome forehead ; greenish eyes, not large ; full,
ruddy lips ; a projecting chin, sallow complexion, scanty beard,
and bald crown. I believe there is truth in the observation I
have read, that men of cool temperament are apt to have a thin
growth of hair, and the converse combination is frequent also.
Gregory's expression was gentle ; his manners were mild
and conciliatory. He was liable to attacks of the gout, con-
cerning which his own account is, " I know not what fire spreads
itself over my whole body." His health seems to have been
undermined by his asceticism in early manhood, when he lived
on a little pulse, and became so weak that he became subject
to syncope of alarming severity. For two whole years (when
he was about sixty) the gout kept him constantly in bed.
" Sometimes the pain is moderate, sometimes excessive ; but it
is never so moderate as to leave me, nor so excessive as to kill
me." It did kill him, ultimately.

St. Paul is described by Renan as ugly, short, thick-set,
and stooping. He had broad shoulders, bearing a diminutive
bald head. His wan face was invaded by a thick, dark beard ;
he had an aquiline nose, beetling black eyebrows, and piercing
eyes. His manners were exquisite, but in speech he was

1 Such a bearing is considered by Mantcgazza indicative of an arrogant,
domineering, and ambitious nature.

96 MAKERS OF MAN

hesitant and timid. By temperament he was passionate and
impulsive, a man who did nothing by halves. During his
residence in Galatea, from about his thirty-sixth to fortieth
year, Paul seems to have been afflicted with attacks of weak-
ness, or of the unknown malady to which he refers. His lasting
preference for the Galatean churches was no doubt in a measure
due to the tenderness with which he was cared for by his devoted
proselytes during this time of sickness. There is little doubt
that his constitution was unhealthy, but as he is traditionally
held to have suffered martyrdom under Nero (aet. 54 or 56),
we can draw no safe conclusions on the score of longevity or
the reverse.

Ernest Renan was a little, short-limbed man, with heavy,
sloping shoulders carrying a huge head. His features were
large, the mouth sensitive though wide, the nose prominent
and fleshy, the chin shapely and indented. The eyes were
small and had a peering look — their colour I do not know.
The shape of the face in youth and early manhood was oval ;
after middle life it became somewhat full and puffy. Renan
enjoyed fair health up to the time of his Syrian expedition.
There, on the point of leaving, he and his sister were attacked
by fever, of which the latter died. Renan, who was then
thirty-seven, recovered, but was never the same again. He
became subject to rheumatism, to heart trouble, and to
neuralgia of torturing severity. At fifty-two he was pre-
maturely aged, though he lived on until his sixty-ninth year.
He was the father of two children, of whom one died in infancy.
He was bashful, but, when at his ease, could talk fluently and
clearly. His manners had the gentle charm of the best type
of Catholic clergy. Of the facile give-and-take of the ready
talker, he was, according to Madame Darmesteter, utterly
devoid. Nor did he affect epigram, although the strong vein
of irony so frequent in the writings of his later period must
sometimes, one imagines, have made itself slyly evident in his
talk.

Concerning Francis d'Assisi I have not much to add to the
particulars already given. He was of short stature, slim,
graceful, dainty — before his conversion — in dress and habit.

PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS 97

Hia personality had, by all accounts, a singular charm, by
reason of his gay vivacity and gift of song, and in the days
of his early manhood he was the central figure of a group of
pleasure-seekers of the jeunesse doree in his native town. But
there is no reason to believe that at this time his personal
conduct was in any way gross or vicious. He seems from
the first to have had a sense of high destiny, and there is evidence
that this instinct was not peculiar to himself. A man accounted
a character in Assisi was in the habit of spreading his mantle
for young Francis to tread upon, bidding men note him as a
youth called to greatness. When he was about twenty-one,
he, with many other Assisans, was captured by a force led
by Count Girardo di Gislerio. A year's endurance of
prison fare and monotony debilitated and demoralised him
to a considerable extent ; and after his release he seems to have
fallen into evil ways. Then followed a long and very serious
illness, which was perhaps the turning-point of his career.
The physical element of his charm was probably ephemeral,
for we read of him in the days of his sanctity as " a man despic-
able and small of body, and esteemed, therefore, a vile mendicant
by many who knew him not." At about forty-five, old age
descended suddenly upon him : he became purblind, and suffered
from sickness and haemoptysis. The majority of extant por-
traits represent him with a face of delicate oval contour and
refined features, the forehead rather broad than high.

The facts dealt with in this and the preceding chapter are
of so heterogeneous a kind that any attempt as a complete
summary must prove futile. The general result seems, however,
to be to the effect that, physically speaking, the man of action
and the artist have the advantage of the intellectual and the
ethico-religious man in almost all respects. In stature, at
least, the artist quite holds his own with the man of action ;
probably in energy and strength he is somewhat his inferior,
though I am not quite certain of this. The intellectual man
is, on the average, of mediocre or inferior stature, physique, and
health, and the ethico-religious man also. As to the inter-
pretation of these facts, one may venture this much, at least,
that they seem to indicate, not perhaps the complete incom-
7

98 MAKERS OF MAN

patibility, bat at all events a certain degree of antagonism,
between the highest mental and spiritual endowments on the
one side, and a great degree of bodily development in regard
to size, health, or vigour on the other. It seems as though the
relation of the brain to the organism in general were in such
cases of a quasi-parasitic nature, as if the one organ fed upon
and developed itself at the expense of all the others. The
extreme longevity of the intellectual class does indeed suggest,
that what the brain abstracts in the way of muscular and
animal vigour, it in part compensates by enhanced resisting
power of some kind, perhaps due to a regulative unifying
control of the diverse functions, perhaps to the fortifying con-
tribution of some internal secretion. Coarsely put, it amounts
in short to this, that while, in a sense, intellectual toil tends to
cripple a man in regard to every-day activities, it also tends
to keep him alive longer than his mental inferiors.

One further point concerning the physiognomy of great
men I have had frequent occasion to illustrate. This is the
strength of the impression made by the personalities of so many
of them upon their associates, the evident sense of them as
beings in some way set apart by fate as exceptional, predestined.
Sometimes it makes itself felt as a dominating power, a mag-
netic emanation, subduing or enthralling the will, sometimes
as a mere charm of irresistible sweetness ; in other cases the
mystery of inspiration transfigures a poet's or composer's
face, suggests to the beholder an ineffable source. It does
not always coexist with a powerful physique, witness the
examples of Richelieu, Nelson, St. Francis. In one form or
another we have discovered testimony to its reality and power in
the cases also of William the Silent, Lincoln, Frederick, Napoleon,
Leonardo, Goethe, Flaubert, Scott, Cervantes, Dante, Beethoven,
Mozart, Hegel, Emerson, Mahomet, Luther — practically in
fifty per cent, of the personalities under consideration. This
is a fact in the natural history of human greatness as well
worthy of attention as any other — even the most prosaic.
That men discover or believe themselves to discover in certain
individuals a something magical, inexplicable, awful — is, I
believe, a perfectly verifiable proposition. It is just this

PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS 99

element which we shall probably seek in vain to account for
genealogically, for though its potentiality is obviously inborn,
it does not seem to be inherited. It is, in fact, the incalculable
element called genius, revealed by look or gesture, appraised
by instinct, but unmistakable enough, in many cases, at least.
Least so, it would appear, by my evidence, in the case of in-
tellectual initiative, though that may be in part due to the
comparative neglect of any close or loving study of the lives
of men belonging to this type. Those who are sceptical on
the point of the possession by genius of a characteristic physi-
ognomy, at once indescribable and yet perfectly self-substanti-
ating, should compare almost any portrait of Napoleon with
those of his brothers Louis and Joseph. It is difficult to decide
which is the more startling — the close resemblance of separate
features, or the absolute qualitative difference of general
impression conveyed. Nor can this difference be waived as
the effect of mere idealisation. The brothers of Napoleon,
at the time when their portraits were painted, occupied positions
exalted enough to provide ample motive to any artist to make
the best of his subject. The lives of the three men afford abund-
ant evidence that in one of them inhered a daimonic element
denied to the others. Why, then, should we be in any way
surprised that their portraits tell the same tale ? Lavater
believed that the eye of a man of genius has emanations, that
the rays of light are, at any rate, reflected from it in a manner
peculiar to itself ; and that it is thus productive of stronger
sensations in the observer than those of ordinary men. Mante-
gazza says : " There are some expressions which only belong to
genius, and if we had a photometer which could measure the
light issuing from the eye, we might perhaps judge of the value
of a picture or a poem or of a book by the vividness of the
light that gleams in the pupil of the artist or the writer." He
also caUs attention to the superior tonicity of the facial muscles
of highly intelligent men, as contrasted with the comparative
flaccidity of commonplace countenances. Such highly-strung
semi-contracted muscles are at all times ready to express the
transient play of the subtlest emotions. " The face of a man
of genius is a soldier with arms and baggage, always ready to

ioo MAKERS OF MAN

fight ; that of the stupid man is an ex-lazzarone, always minded
to sleep.1

The mean craving of all democratic epochs for a dead level
of mediocre capacity must, in the interests of truth and justice,
be met with a curt denial. It is not, never has been, and —
never shall be so.

1 W. P. Mantegazza, Physiognomy and Expression, But intensely
introspective meditation may by its centripetal effect simulate vacuity and
conduce to relaxation of the facial muscles. Cf. the description of Hegel's
physiognomy above, p. 85.

VI
NATURAL VOCATION

Twins — Versatility and adaptability — Forms of natural vocation : I. and IL

Examples.

THE task of apportioning, in the life of a given individual,
the respective roles of inborn capacity on the one hand and
environmental influence on the other, is one of extreme interest
but of no little difficulty. The problem has been investigated
on diverse lines, notably by Galton, whose ingenious plan of
comparing the life-histories of twins has thrown much light on
the subject.1 Roughly speaking, there are two varieties of
twins, those of similar and those of complementary or sharply
contrasted characteristics. The mass of evidence collected
by Galton tends decidedly to the conclusions that, whereas
those twins whose inborn qualities are similar persist in their
similarity, no matter how different their external circumstances
may be, those of the complementary type remain dissimilar,
even though, from their birth up, subjected to almost identical
conditions. Twins of the similar type frequently suffer from
the same ailments at the same time, and even incur what might
almost be considered accidental maladies (ophthalmia and the
like) simultaneously when living in different parts of the world.
Their coincidences of mental impulse are sometimes extra-
ordinarily dramatic. Galton relates a case in which " one
twin, A, who happened to be in a town in Scotland, bought
a set of champagne glasses which caught his attention as a
surprise for his brother B ; while at the same time B, being
in England, bought a set of precisely the same pattern as a
surprise for A."

1 Cf. Inquiries into Human Faculty (History of Twins), by F. Galton. F.R.S.

102 MAKERS OF MAN

The only factor which appears capable of modifying to
any notable extent the inborn similarity of twins, is a serious
illness of some kind from which one suffers and the other
escapes. In the absence of such a disturbing factor, Galton
found that those twins who started life with mental and bodily
resemblances always retained these resemblances even up to
old-age, no matter how different the conditions of their lives
might have been. Not only does the evidence produced by
him lead him to the conclusion that nature is far stronger
than nurture, it even arouses in his mind " some wonder
whether nurture can do anything at all," that is, in the way
of modifying, as opposed to educating, inborn capacities. With
regard to the effect of education, Galton shrewdly remarks
that " those teachings which conform to the natural aptitudes
of the child leave much more enduring marks than others."
It is, in fact, just those things which a child learns in its first few
years and from its parents, whose qualities in some respects
resemble its own, which are most likely so to conform with its
own predisposition. This fact obviously increases the difficulty
of determining how far a given tendency, persisting through
life, does so solely in virtue of its own original strength, how
far also in virtue of parental or other encouragement and
guidance, bestowed at a favourably receptive phase of develop-
ment. But it also justifies the assumption that no training,
however early, judicious, and persevering, will in itself afford
a full explanation of extraordinary achievements on the part
of its recipient. A mediocre individual will remain mediocre
to the end of the chapter, for you can only educate previously
existent faculties, you cannot create non-existent, nor, pro-
bably, greatly strengthen rudimentary ones.

Confusion also arises from our habit of regarding such
highly specialised and complex mental products as music,
mathematics, painting, science, as perennial pre-existent
institutions, to which, thus regarded, it appears well-nigh
miraculous that human beings are born so pre-adapted that
they take to them with the same instinctive confidence and
success as a duckling to water. How singular that when
square, oval, and round pegs appear, square, oval, and round

NATURAL VOCATION 103

holes are found ready to receive them ! No wonder that our
good friends the theosophists, when an infant prodigy exhibits
his ready-made technique in the mastery of violin or pianoforte,
exclaim with confidence that here is one more proof of the
reality of reincarnation. A " musical entity," a soul deliber-
ately self-destined to virtuosity, has entered, and at once
dominates its living instrument, the little organism of the
prodigy in question. How delightfully simple and — how
naive ! Believe it, if you will — I know nothing conclusive
to the contrary — but do not fail to investigate the family
record of your prodigy. It will not, I venture to predict, fail
to throw light on the genesis of the " instrument " at least, if
not also on that of the aspiration of its governing entity. More
convincing proofs of your charming theory are very far from
being superfluous.

In any case, the pre-existence of square, oval, and round
holes is precisely the result of innumerable previous impressions
on the social medium, by human pegs of corresponding contours.
Music, in its present highly complex, highly developed and
specialised condition, only exists because, from time to time,
individuals have always been born who could fully express
their emotional cravings and aspirations not otherwise than
in the form of music. If they had found no music in the world,
they would infallibly have set to work to create it. And the
same is true, mutatis mutandis, of painting, science, mathe-
matics. A peg must have some contour, and however excep-
tional that contour may be, it is quite safe to predict that it
will not prove unprecedented. Somewhere in the world of
established activities the most unique soul will find that specific
task begun to which it feels itself drawn by invincible affinities.

I do not mean to imply that the matter is quite so simple as
a too facile interpretation of the peg-and-hole metaphor might
suggest. The one-man-one-capacity hypothesis will not by any
means cover the complex actualities of human greatness. The
element of versatility has a decided claim to recognition : of
many potentialities, not all, in the nature of things, can expect
realisation. For the development of some the environmental
conditions may be adverse, even prohibitive ; others, more

104 MAKERS OF MAN

opportune, may prosper at their expense. Nor is it even a
foregone conclusion that the capacity which finds fruition was
originally the dominant central potentiality of the nature.
Adaptability is one element of greatness ; if need be, it must
stoop to conquer. By the law of hedonic selection, persistence in
a given course of activity is conditioned by the pleasurable
accompaniment of a sense of difficulties overcome — of some kind
or degree of success. Thwarted efforts tend to be relinquished in
favour of others whose issue is, or seems likely to be, more
favourable. This consideration obviously complicates the
problem of natural vocation, raising, among others, the question
whether a man, who in a bygone age achieved fame as a poet
or painter, might not, if born in our time, have invaded the field
of science or speculation. Leonardo's is, in my opinion, a case
in point : he was versatile to the degree of universal potentiality,
and it is quite an open question whether the line he chose, or I
should say accepted, was that most suited for the full develop-
ment of his powers. And Frederick the Great, if he had been
born to an obscure station, among literary or musical folk, might
conceivably have developed to the point of genuine distinction
one of those potentialities destined in reality to decline to the
position of mere by-activities in his adventurous career. What
was fundamental in his nature was the desire, the unswerving,
impassioned will, to command admiration : by a process of
exclusion he was, grudgingly enough to my thinking, driven to
the adoption of the Instrument, the inborn capacity, best
adapted to his need. "To be a king is a chance, but never
forget that you are a man." The chance was too good to be
thrown away ! Why fight with naked hands when a sword has
been thrust into them by Fate ? Still, upon the whole, it is
probably exceptional for a man to achieve great things on the
basis of any other than the central predominant capacity of his
nature.

In the present chapter I intend, so far as possible, to confine
my attention to facts indicative of a spontaneous tendency
towards one or another special form of activity — to evidences
of natural vocation, in short. Questions of environmental or
personal influence will, on account of their obvious interest and

FREDERICK THE GREAT.

F.ngraved by E. Scrivenfroni the original painting ly Carlo yanloo in tht private
collection of the King of the French,

To face p. 104.

NATURAL VOCATION 105

importance, as also for the sake of lucidity, receive separate con-
sideration. There are, I believe, several distinct and alternative
modes of manifestation of dominant or even of an ultimately
single capacity. By careful collation and comparison of the
somewhat meagre evidence on this point, gleaned from the
biographies of my subjects, I have arrived at the following
classification, the lines of which, though by no means in all cases
obvious or sharply defined, will yet upon the whole be found to
correspond with genuine distinctions. Here and there we may
encounter a life-history not easily assignable to any of my four
categories ; but such cases are exceptional, and will usually prove
amenable to impartial scrutiny.
Natural Vocation may be : —

(1) Decisive and single from the first. Examples : Drake,

Nelson, Napoleon, Lincoln, Titian, Mozart, Beeth-
oven, Flaubert, Harvey, Descartes, Jesus.

(2) Decisive from the first, but associated with collateral

activities. Examples : Csesar, Charlemagne,

Richelieu, Dante, Goethe, Scott, Turner, Bacon,

Spinoza, Leibnitz, Marcus Aurelius, Gregory,
Emerson.

(3) Dubious at first, ultimately decisive and single.

Examples : William the Silent, Cromwell, Cervantes,
Galileo, Newton, Kant, Hegel, Darwin, Paul,
Augustine, Mahomet, Francis, Renan.

(4) Dubious at first, ultimately predominant, but with

survival of collateral activities. Examples :

Frederick, Leonaro, Luther.

Much of the evidence upon which the above classification
is founded will come out in the course of our present chapter,
but if its accuracy in the main be provisionally assumed, it will
be seen that the law of hedonic selection is amply verified by
appeal to the facts. In the eleven careers assigned to my
first, and the thirteen assigned to my third category — twenty-
four out of the forty — the main activity was either unrivalled
by competing tendencies from the first, or ultimately became
so. In the majority of the twelve careers assigned to the
second category, the collateral activities were either speedily

io6 MAKERS OF MAN

dropped, as Dante resigned Ms political ambitions, Goethe and
Scott their attempts at drawing and music ; subordinated to
the main purpose of life, as his literary ambitions were by
Caesar ; found a barren or disastrous issue, as did the poetic
attempts of Richelieu and Turner and the public activities of
Bacon; or were continued only by sheer pressure of circumstance,
witness the statesmanship of Marcus Aurelius and Gregory,
and the optical works of Spinoza. The poetic by-activity of
Emerson is really part and parcel of his dominant ethical voca-
tion. In only three of our forty examples — so irresistible is the
specialising tendency of life — do we find a well-marked survival
of activities rivalling in some degree the central purpose through-
out life. Luther was from the first a musician of considerable
merit, and kept up his flute-playing if not his singing through-
out the vicissitudes of his chequered and stormy career. The
strength of his original aesthetic impulse is, in the case of
Frederick the Great, amply proved by his lifelong constancy
to music and literature. Leonardo, as he grew in age and
enlightenment, ever loved art less and science more. Any
specific tendency which for a long time proves itself independent
of the stimuli of external recognition or success, is presumably
based upon inborn capacity and not mere caprice. If it issue
in no remarkable achievement, this is probably due to the lack
of external encouragement, to the diversion of energy into other
channels, and to subsequent partial atrophy of the original
capacity which it represents. There are exceptions to this rule,
however, for it is, to me, quite inconceivable that Turner,
despite his dogged and indefatigable devotion to the muse,
could ever have become even a passable poet.

I. Of those who from the first and without afterthought
devote themselves to one single vocation, only Jesus belongs
to the ethico-religious type. And the evidence in his case rests
practically on Luke's anecdote relating how the boy remained
behind when his parents had left Jerusalem, and was found
engaged in disputation among the teachers in the temple,
amazing all hearers by the maturity of his understanding and
the wisdom of his replies. It is confirmed by passages in the
same chapter, stating that Jesus was in his childhood remark-

NATURAL VOCATION 107

able as being " filled with wisdom," that the " grace of God
was upon him," and that as he grew in age and stature he
found increasing favour " with God and men." The story
seems credible on the face of it, and it would indeed be strange
if so unique a destiny had not been foreshadowed in early life.
The other types of personality are about equally represented
in this first and simplest category. Francis Drake was almost
literally cradled on the deep, for his father, flying from Catholic
enemies in Tavistock, had been assigned, in his new capacity
of reader of prayers to the Navy, the tenancy of a disused
warship in Chatham reach. Francis himself was one of twelve
sons, mostly of seafaring life, and seems never to have given
a thought to any other vocation. Very early in life we find him
apprenticed to the skipper of a small craft trading to France
and Holland, whereon " even as his frame was being rudely
forged into the thick-set solidity that distinguished his man-
hood, so was his spirit being tempered in the subtlest medium
that destiny could have chosen. On quay and market and
ship-board the horror of the Inquisition was the only talk,
and the Flemings were flying from the persecutions of Philip."
Some of them perhaps came to England on this very vessel.
That Drake found sea life congenial is fairly evident from
the fact that when his master died he bequeathed the ship
to his young pupil. Drake, however, sold it, and presumably
invested the proceeds in the ventures of his kinsmen, the sons
of old William Hawkins, in whose employ the historic drama
of his career fairly begins. The vocation of Nelson seems to
have been decided with equal precision and promptitude. At
the age of twelve, we are told, he himself expressed a desire to
go to sea with his uncle, Maurice Suckling, then appointed to
the Raisonnable. To sea he accordingly went, joining his
uncle's ship in the Medway, and a thoroughly wretched time he
seems to have had there. Later, he was sent on a merchant
ship to the West Indies, and returned a practical seaman, but
disgusted with the Navy. This disgust often returned ; the
Navy was in fact an exacting and not over-grateful mistress
to Horatio Nelson, but she was his first, and in the deepest
sense his only love. Nelson's unique vocation is evidenced

io8 MAKERS OF MAN

not only by the actual choice of and fidelity to a particular
profession, but by the peculiar strain of Quixotic chivalry,
the romantic ardour which, from early boyhood, throughout
life impelled him to court danger with an eagerness almost
approaching to greed. Of the sincerity of this passion there
can (pace Bernard Shaw) be no question with any competent
psychologist. It must have been in the mind of Nelson's father
when he said of the boy that, in whatever station, he would
climb, if possible, to the very top of the tree.

Equally decisive were the early tastes of Napoleon. He
was a taciturn, haughty, unsociable boy, full of self-love and
unbounded ambition. His education, from his tenth year,
was purely military, and it is impossible to doubt that this was
in great measure due to the fact that he had shown a strong
predilection for such a career. He did not inherit his father's
linguistic tastes, but loved solid reading, especially history,
and showed pronounced mathematical and geographical
abilities. Very significant is the story of how, at fourteen,
the churlish lad for once came out of his shell, incited his school-
fellows to dig trenches and raise parapets of snow, organised
a miniature siege, and himself led the attack for fifteen successive
days. Even more so is the fact that on his entrance into the
military school at Paris, Napoleon, a boy of fifteen, ventured
to remonstrate jwith the vice-principal in regard to the luxurious
and extravagant habits countenanced among the students,
which, rightly enough, he considered the very worst prepara-
tion for a soldier's career. As a boy, Napoleon affected the
revolutionary works of Rousseau and Kaynal, and professed
sympathy with the nationalist aspirations of his native Corsica.
What attracted him in such writers was, no doubt, the negative
spirit of general disaffection, rather than any sort of humani-
tarian zeal. When as a young man of twenty-four, having
returned to Corsica on leave, he was approached by Paoli, the
leader of the patriotic party, Napoleon refused to be drawn
into a cause which promised so little and exacted so much.
He had renounced his Corsican birthright, and chosen France
for the spring-board of his world- wide ambition. A point
of some interest in reference to Napoleon is the fact that he

ADMIRAL LORD NELSON.
F.ngraz>ei{ for Captain Hn-n ton's "Naval History."

7Y»/rttr/. io&

NATURAL VOCATION 109

seems to have been subject to the hallucinatory perception
of a star, which appeared to him on all great occasions, com-
manding him to go forwards. He considered it a sign of good
fortune, and in 1806 expressed surprise because it was invisible
to General Rapp, to whom he had pointed it out. Such stars
are a not uncommon hallucinatory phenomenon in the con-
sciousness of great men.1 When Nelson, in his youth, returned,
almost a skeleton, from his first voyage to the East Indies, he
became greatly discouraged, and convinced that he could
never rise in his profession. But he relates how, one day,
" after a long and gloomy reverie, a sudden glow of patriotism
was kindled within me, and presented my king and country
as my patrons. * Well, then,' I exclaimed, ' I will be a hero ! '"
From that time, he often said, a radiant orb was suspended in
his mind's eye, which urged him onward to renown. The
analogy with the case of Napoleon is rather striking, although
with Nelson there is no claim for the objectivity of the appear-
ance. But was Napoleon quite sincere in the belief he ex-
pressed in his own star ? Doubtful, in the extreme !

With Abraham Lincoln, the earliest indication of excep-
tional destiny is perhaps found in an omnivorous quest of
general knowledge. Of education, properly so called, he had
almost none, barely so many days' schooling as to make up
one year in all his life. To attend one school he was obliged
to walk nine miles from home. But what scanty leisure he
could steal from farm labour and odd jobs was devoted to
hard study, and his custom was to write out summaries of all
the books he read and to learn them by heart. One who knew
him at this time says : " He was always reading, scribbling,
ciphering, writing poetry, and the like." This may seem to
suggest literary aspirations, but I do not myself believe that
he was ever seriously drawn towards a career of authorship.
The books he read were of a distinctly practical trend — national
history, the lives of great statesmen, and so forth. At
sixteen we find him frequenting religious and political meetings,
and on the day after he would mount a stump and declaim to
his companions the speeches Le had heard. Quite early, too,
1 Cf. Inquiries into Human Faculty (Visionaries), by F. Galton,

no MAKERS OF MAN

he turned to the study of law, and, by the time he was twenty-
five, had by his unaided efforts made himself a sound lawyer.
There is no doubt that from early youth Lincoln had quietly
determined to achieve greatness. He set himself deliberately
to test his own qualities, and could not fail to discover that
one of the most valuable of these was his power of winning
popularity. In all his troubles, and they were many and
grievous, he never lacked the aid of true friends. He had
an iron will, indomitable perseverance, and for all his geniality
was so self-centred that one who knew him well opines that
" no human being ever had the slightest personal influence on
him." As to his popularity, we read that " his wit and humour,
his inexhaustible fund of stories, and, above all, his kind heart,
made him everywhere a favourite." His own stepmother,
whom he called his " saintly mother," says of him that he
was the best boy she ever saw or ever expected to see. That
the main trend of his ambition was early defined, is proved
by the fact that a Mr. Ofiatt, who employed him in looking
after a store at New Salem, said of Lincoln that " he knew more
than any man in the United States, and would some day be
President" This when Abraham was only twenty- two !

Of the boyhood of Titian we know little, but that little
is fairly decisive as to the plastic unity of his aesthetic impulse.
He is recorded to have shown an early aptitude for painting,
and one of the earliest manifestations of his genius was, we are
also told, the decoration of a wall with a Holy Family, limned
in the juices of flowers ! At any rate, we know that at the
early age of nine or thereabouts, he was sent to lodge with
an uncle in Venice, and placed under the tuition of Giovanni
Bellini. Titian came of an ancient family, the Vecelli of Pieve
di Cadore in the southern Tyrol. It is a hilly district, and Josiah
Gilbert suggests that the strong acquisitiveness of the artist
may not be unrelated to the mountain origin of his race. But
though somewhat covetous, Titian was liberal in the spending
of the bounteous earnings of his art, a man of large ideas, in-
clined to splendour and voluptuousness. The artist in him
was tempered by the man of the world, the courtier, and, I
must add, the sensualist. But his ambition, from the first

NAPOLEON BONAPARTE, LIEUTENANT I> ARTILI.ERIE.
Front a fainting fy ]• B. G 'rente

To face p. no.

NATURAL VOCATION in

and throughout his long life, was, in essentials, one and indivis-
ible, based on an indisputably single and inborn vocation.
One and indivisible, too, was the lifelong ambition, or, I should
say, aspiration, of Mozart, who, bat for a little episode which I
shall presently relate, might pass as an embodiment of the
Platonic idea of aesthetic genius. Some one once asked Rossini
who was the greatest musician. " Beethoven ! " " What
of Mozart, then ? " " Oh ! Mozart is not the greatest, he is
the only musician in the world." Every one, of course, knows
how Mozart was an infant prodigy ; how his skill in playing
the harpsichord was, almost in his babyhood, already the talk
of Salzburg ; how, not content with this, he secretly studied
the violin, mastering it to a degree which, in the competent
opinion of his father, afforded a guarantee that he might
easily become the first violinist in Europe. How he com-
posed, at the age of seven years, sonatas 6, 7, 8, 9, which, when
published, " revealed within their scope an impeccable correct-
ness of form." How, in his ninth year, he was working upon
an orchestral symphony ; and in his fifteenth, at Florence,
amazed a too sceptical Grand Duke by improvising fugal
elaborations of allotted themes, " as easily as one eats a piece
of bread." The episode referred to above, to which I invite
attention, is the fleeting inclination of the boy to mathematics.
We read of him " covering walls, tables, etc., with figures and
numerals." The fancy soon passed, crowded out by the musical
preoccupation so strongly inherent in his nature, and so pre-
dominantly favoured by his environment. But how if Mozart
had been the adopted son of a mathematician, imbued with a
proselytising zeal for his own avocation and a contempt for
aesthetics ? The musical composer and the mathematician
possess in common a deep-seated psychological bias which
might perhaps be defined as the feeling for abstract expression,
in the one case of emotional, and in the other of purely formal
conceptions. There is an intellectual element in the severity
of all art-work of the highest order (in the construction of a
fugue or a symphony, for example), divorced from which the
practice of art deteriorates into the flabbiness of mere senti-
mentality, if And there is an aesthetic side to pure science, a.

112 MAKERS OF MAN

stern beauty in the symbolic formulae so tersely yet adequately
summarising, so triumphantly annexing for ideal manipulation,
innumerable factors of experience. In the nests of birds, the
honeycombs of bees, the polished flint implements of primitive
man, we find germinal manifestations of the same constructive
instinct which effloresces in the sublime architectonics of the
Jupiter Symphony, as well as in the pregnant logical symmetry
of the infinitesimal calculus.

The boyhood of Beethoven, though lacking the sensational
features of Mozart's precocity, gave ample promise of musical
pre-eminence. He himself, while very young, spoke of the
possibility of his becoming " a great man." His love of music
showed at a very early age, and his father, a singer at the Court
of the Elector Maximilian Friedrich, made him work at the
violin and spinet. At the age of twelve he became deputy
organist, and could play most of Bach's forty-eight fugues.
When he was about seventeen he visited Mozart at Vienna,
received a few lessons from him, but was recalled to Bonn
through the illness of his mother. '* Mark that young man :
he will make to himself a name in the world," was the verdict
of the elder musician. In 1792 (aet. 21), Beethoven removed
to Vienna, took lessons from Haydn, Schenk, Salieri, and
Albrechtsberger, floated at once, as a performer, on the spring-
tide of popular favour, and in 1801 could write : " I have more
orders (from publishers) than I can satisfy." ..." There is
no longer any bargaining with me : I demand, and the money
is paid."

Gustave Flaubert showed the imaginative bent of his mind
by improvising scenes and dialogues, in which he took all the
parts, before he could read. A strong feeling for style and a
passionate aspiration are displayed in the letters he wrote to
a companion between the ages of nine and eleven. The paternal
billiard-table was commandeered for a stage, whereon Gustave
and his friends declaimed tragedies and comedies to an audience
of admiring relatives. He soon became the central figure of
a circle of romantic youths who mutually excited one another
into a condition of literary exaltation. One of them carried
the pose a little too far, and hanged himself. % In deference to

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

To/act f. 112.

NATURAL VOCATION 113

his father's wish, Flaubert made a conscientious effort to study
law. He could make nothing of it, and soon gave it up in dis-
gust. To be a man of letters, an artist, that alone made it
worth his while to live.

Concerning William Harvey, D'Arcy Power says that " his
habits of minute observation, his fondness for dissection, and his
love of comparative anatomy, had probably shown the bias of
his mind from his earliest years." Hence he entered Caius
College at sixteen, graduated there in Arts, and travelled through
France to Padua, where he studied under Fabricius, a surgical
anatomist who had made a special study of the valves of the
veins, but without discovering their true function. At twenty-
two Harvey left Padua, armed with a highly eulogistic diploma,
setting forth how " he had conducted himself so wonderfully
well in the examinations, and had shown such skill, memory, and
learning, that he had far surpassed even the great hopes which
his examiners had formed of him." There is not a trace of
uncertainty or ambiguity in regard to the choice of a vocation
in the record of Harvey's early life ; and throughout his career
he remained entirely absorbed in the scientific interests of his
work. At the same time, he was a man of good general culture.
In particular, he was devoted to the poems of Virgil, after a
reading of which he would sometimes throw aside the book,
exclaiming, " He hath a devil ! "

The early inclination of Descartes towards intellectual
pursuits is clearly shown by the fact that he was called by
his father " his little philosopher." His early education was
received from the Jesuits at La Fleche, an order for which he
retained a lifelong regard. For the first few years he studied
the humanities, moral philosophy, and logic. It was not
until he was eighteen that he turned his attention to mathe-
mathics. Here he at once found himself at home, being
conscious of a strong fascination in the clearness and pre-
cision of mathematical processes. He learned to solve the
more abstruse problems with extraordinary ease and rapidity,
and all his life was constantly tempted to turn aside from
other tasks in order to indulge this master-passion. No better
example of inborn capacity of a highly specialised form could
8

H4 MAKERS OF MAN

well be desired. The entire philosophy of Descartes is based
upon his conviction of the necessity of extending the mathe-
matical ideal so as to embrace the whole field of knowledge.
His logical rules were — (a) to admit as true only what was
perfectly clear and distinct ; (6) to resolve all difficulties into
their elements ; (c) to pass from the solution of the easier to the
more difficult questions ; and (d) to omit nothing. " Apud
me omnia sunt mathematica in naturd," he declared ; and
to-day it is a commonplace that only those aspects of
reality which are already capable of mathematical formu-
lation can be regarded as really subject to the dominion of
science.

II. We have now to consider some examples of lives in
which the predominant capacity, though decisive from the first,
is associated with one or another collateral activity. The first
case, that of Caesar, need not detain us long, because his pursuit
of literature, though hardly an essential factor of his contem-
porary efficiency, was, after all, only one more expression of his
main central interest and purpose as a statesman and a man of
action. It is interesting to learn that Caesar in his boyhood
wrote a poem in honour of Hercules, and composed a tragedy on
(Edipus, but it would be easy to exaggerate the importance of
the fact. He seems to have turned instinctively to politics, and
his promise of distinction in this field was not overlooked by
Marius, who, during the brief period of his seventh consulship,
made his nephew (aged fourteen) a priest of Jupiter and a
member of the sacred college, thus placing at his disposal a
munificent salary. On the death of his father, Caesar, aged
sixteen, gave further proof of exceptional strength and acumen,
by breaking off his engagement with the lady chosen for him,
and marrying Cornelia, daughter of the all-powerful Cinna. By
this match he entered into decisive alliance with the popular
as opposed to the Senatorial party. Nor was he shaken in his
resolve by the catastrophe which, on the return of Sylla,
overwhelmed the cause of the progressives. The popular
army was cut to pieces, his father-in-law, Cinna, was killed,
and Sylla, appointed Dictator by the Senate, sought to persuade
young Caesar to divorce his wife and to ally himself by a new

NATURAL VOCATION 115

marriage with the patrician interest. Caesar firmly rejected
these overtures, whereupon Sylla deprived him of his priest-
hood, confiscated his estate, seized his wife's dowry, and finally
set a price upon his head. Caesar's life was, however, saved by
the intervention of powerful friends, and Sylla gave way,
sullenly predicting that this young Caesar — " in whom there are
many Mariuses " — would overthrow the aristocracy. When
we consider that the unmoved subject of this violent but futile
attack was a mere youth of eighteen, we cannot but realise the
exceptional impression thus early produced by Caesar's per-
sonality upon his contemporaries, their evident sense of him
as a factor of already serious import in the political situation.
Nor is it easy to reconcile the firm dignity of Caesar's attitude
at this trying moment, or his unswerving loyalty to the appar-
ently ruined cause of his adoption, with the views of those who
regard him as a mere timeserver, whose public policy was based
on nothing deeper that selfish ambition. Napoleon in his
youth had professed to sympathise with the nationalist aspira-
tions of the Corsicans, but when invited by Paoli to throw in
his lot with the patriotic party, he at once discovered that the
island was too small for independence. What would have been
easier for Csesar than to have joined the party of reaction in the
moment of its triumph ? That he resisted, rather, contemned
the inducements proffered, is a strong testimony to the sincerity
of his convictions. With regard to the literary activities of
Csesar, it is, as I have already suggested, a noteworthy fact that
they assumed the form of a succinct record of his military
exploits and experiences. They were, therefore, no mere
irrelevant by-activity, as were, for example, the poetic dramas
of Richelieu, but an integral part of his career as a man of
action.

They are also remarkable for the severely impersonal,
detached tone of the narrative, and for the absence of rhetorical
flourish or egotistical display. The Eoman simplicity of these
writings has an austere beauty of its own ; Circero — no partial
critic — said of Caesar's literary style, that fools might think
to improve it, but only fools would try. Few lives, upon the
whole, have manifested the high quality of moral unity in

n6 MAKERS OF MAN

the degree which we find it in Cassar's.1 It has, too, the note
of reticence, of a noble pride that disdains to justify itself to
lower natures, confident of the integrity of its aims and secure
of the favourable verdict of posterity. Truly, as Froude
remarks, " this great man moved through life, calm and irre-
sistible, like a force of Nature."

Of the boyhood of Charlemagne we possess few details, and
the fact that he was already twenty-six when he succeeded
his father necessarily deprives us of the opportunity of gauging
at all fully his early bias for government and warfare. He
had had the advantage of a long training in the adroit methods
of Pepin the Short, but the skill with which he took up the
reins and the unmistakable continuity of his policy with
that of his predecessors, point decisively to the conclusion
that he found both task and policy congenial. War was, of
course, the main activity of his long and glorious reign, but
amid the turmoil of his incessant campaigns and ever-growing
burdens of responsibility, Charles, under the guidance of Alcuin,
found time to supplement the deficiencies of his academic
education by the study of Latin, Greek, rhetoric, astronomy,
grammar, and logic. He naturally assimilated the current
view that all learning was ancillary to theological and ecclesi-
astical interests, became a keen controversialist, and the chief
patron, if not the prime instigator, of a classico-theological
renascence. Under his pillow he kept writing materials to
note down suitable subjects for discussion. He loved to pose
rich prelates by sudden demands for the solution of some subtle
casuistical problem. In the Libri Carolini he maintained
his own view with regard to the burning question of image-
worship in the teeth of Pope Hadrian himself. Upon the
whole, the intellectual pursuits of Charlemagne, like the literary
activities of Caesar, form an integral portion of the general
purpose of his career.

Richelieu, who was the youngest son of a man who rendered
valuable services to Henri d'Anjou and was made grand provost

1 " Strictly ... we should not speak of solitary performances of Cassar ;
he created nothing solitary. . . . Caesar is the complete and perfect man "
(Mommsen).

NATURAL VOCATION 117

of France, also inherited much practical ability from his mother,
Suzanne de la Porte, the daughter of a famous avocat. Pro-
fessor Lodge considers that we have no evidence that he showed
any youthful precocity or gave any signs of his future greatness,
while his health was from the first sickly in the extreme. He
was at first intended for a military career, and the training
which he received at the Academic to this end must have
proved congenial, for in the course of his career he on several
occasions, notably in Italy in 1630, took a leading part with
evident gusto in the business of war. But on the refusal of
an elder brother to be consecrated Bishop of Lu9on, the du
Plessis family, rather than forfeit the emoluments of the office,
effected the transfer of young Armand to the ecclesiastical
career. Five years later, at the age of twenty-two, he was
consecrated Bishop, and by this time he seems to have con-
ceived a definite purpose of achieving political distinction,
his avowed model being the Cardinal du Perron, a notable
anti-Huguenot champion. For several years, however, he
remained quietly working in his diocese, but no doubt he was
on the look-out for an opportunity of initiating a more pro-
minent role. The death of Henri iv. evoked in him the deter-
mination of making frequent visits to Paris. In 1610, aged
twenty-five, he spent six months there, got to know Concini,
and resolved to side with the Court against the nobility in the
struggle for supremacy, which he clearly foresaw. Five years
later, having got himself elected as deputy for the clergy of
Poitou, he harangued the States-General for an hour in a speech
which attracted great attention, and from this time Kichelieu
was a man of mark. The Church policy defined in this speech
was distinctly Ultramontanist in tendency, representing rather
the sentiments of the majority at the moment than those under-
lying his own future career. The above outline of Richelieu's
first steps in public life indicates an instinctive bias towards
action, as unmistakable in its way as that of Caesar or Charle-
magne. In regard to his literary pursuits, however, he is
different in this respect, that they remained a mere by-activity,
an irrelevance, and, one may even add, a waste product upon
the whole. His indefatigable and lifelong industry in the

n8 MAKERS OF MAN

production of versified dramas never commanded any real
Buccess, and even the immense prestige of his political authority
could not extort any substantial measure of recognition from
contemporary judges of his merits as an author. If the truth
were to be told, I daresay that his pretensions to poetic genius
were the subject of many sly jests. In a less exalted or less
ambitious field he was more successful ; his Instruction du
Chretien passed, in his lifetime, through thirty editions.
Nor must we forget that we owe to him the foundation of the
French Academy, and, to his grant of a license for the publica-
tion of the Gazette,1 the inauguration of the French newspaper
press. So that it is, after all, only in the narrowly personal
sense that his literary aspirations proved barren of results.

Caesar in his boyhood wrote poems, but soon felt and obeyed
the stronger instinct summoning him to the arena of war and
government. Similarly, or conversely, Dante for a time aspired
to play a prominent part in the fierce politics of his day, but,
sternly rebuffed by destiny, recoiled upon his inner life, and
there achieved the mastery denied him in the objective sphere.
He was a mere child of nine when, at the house of his parents,
he first beheld Beatrice Portinari, and at once conceived that
deep yearning passion which thenceforth became the central
motif of his intense and lonely life. When he first began to
write of his love we do not know, but it was nine years later
when, having met her dressed in pure white and received her
mute salutation, he returned home ecstatic, fell asleep, and
while sleeping beheld a " marvellous vision." Awaking, he
composed a sonnet beginning, " To every captive soul and gentle
heart," which he sent to Guido Cavalcanti, who recognised
the utterance of a brother poet and became his friend. At
this time Dante also practised drawing, for we read of an attempt
to delineate an angel " upon certain tablets," and we think
it would not be difficult to give a name to the model who posed
in his mind's eye. Beatrice, as we all know, married another,
and it may have been at her wedding that his visible and un-
controllable emotion excited the derision of bystanders, and
even, alas, of the loved one herself. She died soon after, and
1 To which he himself _ was a frequent contributor.

DANTE.
From the portrait by Giotto in the Bargello at Florence.

To fact p. 118.

NATURAL VOCATION 119

Dante for a while turned to lower things ; then, again, tried
to drown his grief in the study of Bosthius and Cicero. But
in or about his thirtieth year, political ambition led him to
enrol himself in the Medical Guild, thus qualifying for official
rank. Five years later he achieved the distinction of election
to one of the six Priorates, the highest office in the Republic
of Florence. " All my woes," he truly asserts, " had their
origin in my unlucky election." It is needless to recount the
complex events which resulted in Dante's leaving the Papal
or Guelf party and becoming one of the Ghibelline or Imperialist
faction, or those which ended in his conviction in absence on
a trumped-up charge of peculation and conspiring against the
Pope. Having ignored the first verdict, he was re-condemned
to exile, and to be burned alive if caught. The blow was a
crushing one ; after a brief period of burning resentment and
a futile quest of vengeance, Dante resigned himself to the
inevitable. His political ambition died, and the remaining
twenty years of his life, spent in exile and for the most part
in poverty, were mainly devoted to the completion of the poem
whose object was " to rebuke and to glorify the lives of men
according to their several deserts."

It was thus, in a sense, the continuance of his practical
aims, transferred to the ideal plane, for Dante embodied in his
Commedia a complete system of civil and ecclesiastical govern-
ment, being in truth " a man with a mission, eaten up with
zeal for the House of God, and aflame with a more than Shelleyan
passion for reforming the world."

A superficial examination of the early life of Goethe might
lead one to suppose that his vocation was at first doubtful.
He had at least the semblance of an all-round ability, and
in his youth inspired interest in men of various callings, each
of whom had a career ready for him. " One saw in him a pre-
destined man of science ; a second, a born artist ; a third,
an erudite theologian ; a fourth, an accomplished courtier ; a
fifth, a jurisconsult." His father, while unable to conceal
his interest and pride in Johann's poetic effusions (provided
they were in rhymed verse), desired that he should become a
lawyer, for which he did in fact qualify himself, though he

120 MAKERS OF MAN

soon abandoned the profession. But casual acquaintances
might easily mistake the universality of interest characteristic
of a first-rate intellect for a genuine practical bias in one or
another direction. If we look deeper into the matter, indica-
tions of an aesthetic and literary tendency are abundantly
visible from the first. Thus, at the age of three, he refused
firmly to play with another child whose ugliness he could not
away with. And Linne recalls how in childhood " he used to
sit at the window of a play-room and watch thunderstorms and
sunsets," and " how the spectacle of nature, combined with the
sight of children playing in the gardens and the sound of balls
rolling and ninepins falling, often filled him with a feeling
of solitude and a vague sense of Icr.ging." Very character-
istic of the imaginative temperament is his vivid memory of
the gilt weathercock on the bridge of the Main, gleaming in the
sunshine, and of watching the arrival of boats laden with goods
for the market. Exercise-books, written between the age of
seven and nine, are crowded with poetical effusions, familiar
dialogues, and moral reflections.

" Even in early boyhood," we read, " groups of companions
delighted to gather around him to hear his entrancing tales,"
and he also formed one of a number of boys who met every
Sunday to produce and compare verses, himself drily remarking
that each thought his own the best. In these respects his
boyhood presents a remarkable resemblance to that of Walter
Scott. Perhaps I need only add that Goethe's earliest drama
was written at the age of ten, and he informs us, credibly enough,
that it contained " no lack of kings' daughters, princes, or gods."
There is, however, no doubt that Goethe himself only by degrees
came to recognise clearly the predominant bias of his innate
capacity. He tried very hard to master drawing, for which he
at last found he had no talent whatever. Time after time he
made a bonfire of his manuscripts : what he approved was only
shown to a few friends ; and " it was with hesitation and
reluctance that he was induced to come fairly, broadly, and
openly before the greater public." Goetz von Berlichingen,
which he regarded as a mere exercise or experiment, was pub-
lished by Merck's insistent advice and help, when Goethe was

NATURAL VOCATION 121

twenty-four. It created a sensation ; the demand exceeded
the supply, and a pirated edition came out. But Goethe did
not altogether deceive himself in believing, as he evidently did
believe, that there was more in him than could find full ex-
pression in poetic or imaginative literature. It was a fixed
idea with him that no one should be content to work solely in
symbols. " The pressure of affairs is very good for the mind ;
when it has disburdened itself, it plays more freely and enjoys
life,'5 he said. As privy councillor and war commissioner at
the Court of Weimar he was responsible for duties which were
by no means light. He attended the council meetings with strict
regularity, devoted special attention to questions of finance,
studied the principles of mining, and organised the re-opening
of the mines of Ilmenau. He carefully promoted the welfare
of the University of Jena, also that of popular education,
reformed the system by which troops were levied, managed the
demesne lands, and supervised the department of public high-
ways. Pretty good work for a poet — for the author of Werther
and Faust ! Goethe's connection with the mines at Ilmenau
led him to the study of mineralogy, thus reviving a love of
science which had led him to dally with medicine in his university
days. From mineralogy he passed to osteology and botany,
and at the age of thirty-five made the really important discovery
of the human pre-maxillary bone (or of what he so named, for
it is doubtful if his view is entirely correct),1 which he described
in a Latin Essay. Six years later he published a work on
the Metamorphosis of Plants, showing that every part of a plant
may be regarded as a leaf, or the modification of one. He also
elaborated a theory of colour, of which he was so proud that he con-
sidered it of greater importance than all his poetry. The practical
and scientific work of Goethe were therefore no mere hobbies ;
they were the outcome of a normal development of his pro-
foundly original nature, a nature too advanced, too modern, too
catholic, to be fitted neatly into any of our conventional pigeon-
holes, labelled " poet," " man of science," or " man of affairs."

1 Dr. E. Fawcett believes that the true pre-maxilla has escaped notice in
man, having lost its alveolo-facial part. Cf. Bristol Medico-Chintrgical
Journal, Sept. 1906, pp. 237-49.

122 MAKERS OF MAN

Walter Scott's early life resembles that of his great German
contemporary in several respects. He early developed an
intense love of Nature and of romantic literature and folklore.
His memory for ballads and poems was prodigious, and his love
of recitation something of a trial to matter-of-fact associates.
He made an agreement with his intimate friend, John Irving, by
which each of the boys were periodically to compose a romance
for the other's delectation. This was kept up for several years,
but Irving's contributions were of a perfunctory nature. Scott
was popular among his school-fellows, who in the winter play-
hours used to gather around him eagerly listening to the tales
he never tired of telling. Like Goethe, he was impelled by his
love of nature to make arduous attempts at sketching, for
which he possessed no gift whatever. In music he failed even
more signally — the defects of voice and ear soon drove his
teacher to desperation. Like Goethe, again, he was educated
for the law, but, unlike him, he studied conscientiously, and
after being called to the bar (aged twenty-one) his earnings
increased from £24 in his first year to £144 in the fifth. In his
twenty-sixth year, Scott became quartermaster to a newly-
raised corps of cavalry volunteers. " He took his full share
in all the labours and duties of the corps, had the highest pride
in its progress and proficiency, and was such a trooper himself
as only a very powerful frame of body and the warmest zeal in
the cause could have enabled any one to be."

Scott's aim was, for a long time at least, to make literature
" a staff, but not a crutch," believing (like Goethe again) that
" to spend some hours every day in any matter-of-fact occupa-
tion is good for the higher faculties themselves." Accordingly
he was at pains to secure, first the position of Sheriff of Selkirk-
shire (aged twenty-eight), then (aged thirty-five) that of Clerk
to the Supreme Court of Sessions at Edinburgh. The duties
of the latter post were by no means onerous, but the salary
was £800. He also, of course, jointly with the Ballantynes,
engaged, with disastrous results, in publishing, and was the
promoter of the Quarterly Review. Moreover, in his later years
he took an active part in politics and civic affairs, presiding
over public meetings of almost every sort, speaking against the

NATURAL VOCATION 123

Reform Bill, and so forth. In his fortieth year, Scott purchased
the site of Abbotsford, the planning, building, and enlargement
of which as a family mansion and estate, was henceforth to be
the true master-passion of his life. In five years the estate
had grown by repeated purchases from 150 to near 1000 acres.
Scott's nature was essentially energic, centrifugal rather
than intense ; and although he doubtless utilised much of what
he learned by these various by-activities in his novels, their
quality as literature can hardly have gained by them upon the
whole. Nor can it be said that these by-activities, however
impressive as manifestations of superabundant vitality, have
in themselves a value or significance comparable with the
constructive statesmanship or the scientific achievements of
Goethe. Scott's first and last ambition was " to found a
family." In all other ways he lived in and for the moment,
having no real respect for his art. " You know I don't care a
curse about what I write or what becomes of it." In the heyday
of his prosperity he had sought also — and here we discern the
fine thread of romanticism that unifies his career — to revive
at Abbotsford " the interior life of the castles he had emulated
— their wide open, joyous reception of all comers — ballads and
pibrochs — jolly hunting fields — mirthful dances."

The art-vocation of Turner was decisive from the first, and
could have owed little or nothing to environment, though no
doubt his father's shop in Maiden Lane was often visited by
artists. His taste for drawing asserted itself when he was only
five years old ; his profession was decided upon then or soon
after, and he was a mere lad when he began his sketching
expeditions with Girtin, the attendance at Sandby's drawing
school, and the addition of skies to architectural drawings
which constituted his first steps in art. It is worth noting that
his perspective master, Tom Malton, twice dismissed him as
" impenetrably dull," bidding his father make him a tinker or
a cobbler rather than a perspective artist. At fourteen, after
a brief trial of architectural study, he entered the Royal Academy
school of art, where, if Ruskin is to be believed, he was taught
nothing of the least value, not even the rudiments of the tech-
nical side of painting. With regard to Turner's one by-activity,

124 MAKERS OF MAN

his grotesque, life-Jong attempts at poetry, but for the psycho-
logical interest of the thing, it might be passed over as mere
waste of time. Turner could never express himself clearly
in speech or letter ; he could not even spell ; yet, as inter-
minable pages of sheer drivel, jotted down in his sketch-books,
testify, he harboured the pathetic delusion that he was, or
might become, a poet. Passages from an undiscovered MS.
poem, appropriately entitled " Fallacies of Hope," formed,
after his thirty-eighth year, portions of the titles of many
important pictures. Yet, after all — Turner was a poet. Shut
in by Nature to one form of expression, his lips, his very brain
sealed with the seal of incoherency, as Beethoven was imprisoned
by deafness — Turner, the dumb poet, the poet of colour and
atmosphere — at once obeys and rebels. There is a gleam of
poetry, now and again, amid the meaningless verbiage.
Napoleon at St. Helena muses, gazing down on the sunset-dyed
rock -limpet at his feet : —

' 'Ah I thy tent-formed shell is like
A soldier's nightly bivouac, alone
Amidst a sea of blood. . . .
. . . But you can join your comrades ! " . . .

Who can deny the pathos of this tersely-outlined conception ?

Men of genius, it may here be noted, can be roughly divided
into two great classes — those whose power is their instrument,
and those who are the instruments of their power. To the first
division, whose destiny is to attain lucidity, to understand fully
the value and significance of their lifework, belong a few
supreme statesmen, like Caesar, most great poets, like Dante
and G-oethe, not many musical composers or painters —
Leonardo's case is an exception — all great philosophers, and
the greatest of the ethico-religious pioneers. To the second
belong many men of action — Drake, Nelson — artists of the
sensuous rather than the intellectual type, scientific discoverers
as opposed to philosophers, and perhaps reformers of the
Lutheran type. ;,^These men of the latter group are instinctively
great ; their genius is permanently centred in the subconscious
mental and emotional strata ; they are greater than they know

NATURAL VOCATION 125

or understand. To this class belong Turner and, in leas degree,
Scott, Mozart, perhaps even Beethoven and Titian.

The intellectual distinction of Bacon dates from his under-
graduate days. He entered Trinity College, Cambridge, in
his twelfth and graduated in his fourteenth year, leaving behind
him a reputation for precocious learning and for an already
marked hostility to the Aristotelian philosophy, to dethrone
which was to be the central interest of his mental career. He
was admitted to the society of Gray's Inn in his sixteenth
year ; then spent three years on the Continent in the house-
hold of Sir Amyas Poulet. Soon after his return he was called
to the bar (1582), and he became the member for Melcombe
Regis in his twenty-third year. His importunate appeals
for patronage to his maternal aunt, Lady Burghley, date from
his twenty-first year. Three years later he wrote a short Latin
treatise entitled The Greatest Birth of Time. Almost from
the first, then, his intellectual and political ambitions had
existed side by side in his nature, and it is hard to say which
was the dearer object of desire. His wonderful power as an
orator must naturally have impelled him towards public life.
Ben Jonson says that " no man ever spoke more neatly, more
pressedly, more weightily. . . . His hearers could not cough
or look aside from him without loss. The fear of every man
that heard him was lest he should make an end." Professor
Nichol aptly remarks of Bacon that " his consciousness of almost
boundless powers was accompanied by an almost physical
craving to secure for them ample scope." The more one
studies their lives, the stronger grows one's conviction that
men of first-rate intellect seldom if ever find full satisfaction
in purely contemplative ends. Bacon was not merely a thorough
patriot, but a sincere lover of mankind, and, although no demo-
crat, was as a statesman substantially in sympathy with the
best tendencies of his day. In Ireland he was for conciliation
and the redress of grievances ; in religious controversy his
guiding principle was " one faith, one baptism ; not one hierarchy,
one ceremonial." His temperate yet firm advocacy of the Scots
Union has been amply justified by the event. In the Privy
Council he stood a head and shoulders above his associates.

126 MAKERS OF MAN

Nichol points out that as an advocate Bacon excelled only in
attack, and has left no great defence on record — even his own
was a failure — and attributes this to his tendency " to maintain
the abstract and attack the particular." While on the subject
of Bacon's collateral activities, it may fairly be expected that
something be said as to his hypothetical authorship of Shake-
speare's plays, not to mention those of Marlowe, Green, Beau-
mont and Fletcher, the Anatomy of Melancholy, and Spenser's
Faerie Queen. With regard to the alleged cryptograms, I
intend to say just this, that the specimen passages I have seen
are not in any way worthy of Bacon, and I do not believe they
are Elizabethan prose. There are, however, sundry facts which
do seem to suggest some sort of connection between Bacon and
the dramatic literature of his day. In the first place, it is, to
say the least, strange that until 1605 (Bacon's forty-fifth year)
he published nothing except a few pamphlets and the Essays.
After 1605, when the Advancement of learning appeared, there
was a further silence of fifteen years until 1630, when the Novum
Organum was published. But Mr. Lee states that Bacon's
literary work occupied most of his time throughout life. Secondly,
it is alleged by Harold Bay ley, that in a letter to the Queen,
Essex complains of Antony and Francis Bacon, that " already
they print me and make me speak to the world, and shortly
they will play me in what form they list on the stage." Thirdly,
it appears that the day before the rising of Essex, a performance
of Richard II. was given at the Globe in recognition of a bribe
from the rebels, who thought the scene representing the killing
of a Bang likely to encourage a popular outbreak. Urged by
the Queen to include this matter in the list of the crimes of
Essex, Bacon excused himself thus : "I having been wronged
by bruits before, this would expose me to them more, and it
would be said I gave in evidence my own tales." Fourthly,
in the 1604 edition of Hamlet occurs the line, " Sense sure you
have, else could you not have motion." And in the Advance-
ment, published 1605, " some of the ancient philosophers could
not conceive how there can be voluntary motion without sense."
In the De Augmentis (1623) Bacon expressly repudiates this
opinion as untrue, and in the folio Shakespeare (1623) the corre-

NATURAL VOCATION 127

spending passage is absent. Fifthly, it is to be noted that the
court of Cymbeline was at Verulamium (Verulam by St. Albans),
and that whereas the town of Stratford is (it is alleged) never
mentioned by Shakespeare, that of St. Albans is referred to
twenty-three times. Finally, there is the suggestion of an auto-
biographical reference to his own fall by Bacon in the play^of
Henry VIII.1 Is it possible that Bacon, who was described by
John Aubrey as a " concealed poet," secretly collaborated with
Shakespeare and others ? I can believe that he may have
supplied the intellectual, but not the rhythmic, element ; and
this, after all, is the life-pulse and ultimate secret of poetry.
Did Bacon perhaps, in consequence, unduly depreciate the
role of his poetical collaborators, overlooking the infinite differ-
ence between the bare skeleton (which he may have supplied
in some instances) and the living, breathing creation which
issued from the hands of this or the other dramatist ? If so,
he may have come to regard himself as the author of any plays
in the planning of which he had some share, however insignifi-
cant from the point of view of the creative artist. There are not
wanting coincidences to connect Bacon with other contem-
porary dramatists. Thus we find him writing : " The gods
have woollen feet " ; and Marlowe : " Thus as the gods creep on
with feet of wool." But I must leave this matter to the further
investigation of the curious.

Spinoza's intellectuality showed itself at an early age.
At fifteen he was one of Rabbi Morteira's most promising
pupils in the Talmud. He studied the philosophical writings
of Maimonides and Ibn Ezra, and read Latin with a free-thinking
physician, also science and physiology. At the age of twenty-
four he was solemnly cursed and excommunicated for teaching
and practising heresy, by the authorities of the synagogue,
who also induced the civil powers to banish him from Amster-
dam. Spinoza, who had declined the offer of an annuity of
1000 florins for a promise of conformity, changed his Jewish
name of Baruch to Benedict, but received the anathema with
equanimity. " This compels me to nothing which I should not

1 These instances arc drawn from The Tragedy of Sir Francis Bacon, an
interesting if somewhat chimerical book by Harold Bayley.

128 MAKERS OF MAN

otherwise have done." As to his by-activities, Colerus mentions
a book he had full of portrait-sketches, and he, of course, earned
his livelihood by the grinding of lenses.

Leibnitz, as the son of a professor, had access to a well-
stocked library, of which from the first he eagerly availed
himself. At the age of ten he was immersed in Cicero, Quinc-
tilian, Seneca, Pliny, Herodotus, Xenophon, and Plato. He
speaks himself of his early thirst for knowledge, and striving
towards clearness of expression and utility of subject-matter.
To these ideals he remained constant throughout life. At
seventeen, in a thesis, De Principio Individui, he defended
the position that whatever exists is individual. The various
practical activities of Leibnitz — his unwearied efforts to pro-
mote re-union of the Catholic and Protestant Churches, his
endeavours to arrest or divert the aggressive ambition of Louis
xiv., his promotion of Imperial unity and reform, his negotia-
tions with the courts of Vienna, Dresden, St. Petersburg, and
Berlin on behalf of the foundation of scientific academies —
were no mere irrelevant hobbies, but as genuine expressions of
his intrinsic aspirations as the discovery of the calculus or the
composition of the Theodicee,

Marcus Aurelius, at the age of eight, in the capacity of
prcesul of the Salian priests, attracted the attention of Hadrian
by his goodness, docility, and incapacity for falsehood. At the
age of twelve, Marcus donned the philosopher's cloak, learned to
sleep on bare boards, and injured his health by the rigour of his
self-discipline. Here, truly, the boy was father to the man.
Marcus was an ascetic moralist by vocation, an Emperor and man
of affairs by necessity. A reviewer, who shall be nameless,
has on grounds which appear to me ridiculous, pronounced
Marcus Aurelius a " tragic failure," stigmatising the twenty
years of his rule as '' the definite beginning of Rome's downfall."
The verdict of Renan, which will have more weight with the
judicious, is to the contrary effect. He justly remarks that,
assuming a due sense of responsibility in the sovereign, king-
ship is an aid to virtue, by the limitations it imposes on caprice.
The test- question for a man like Aurelius will be, How did he
succeed in war ? He disliked war, but a great part of his reign

NATURAL VOCATION 129

was perforce devoted to it, and " his sense of duty made him
a great captain. ... He completely freed Pannonia, beat
back the barbarians to the left bank of the Danube, even made
long marches beyond that river. ... It may be that, but for
the revolt of Avidius Cassius, he would have succeeded in making
a province of Marcomannia and another of Samatia, and in
securing the safety of the future. . . . He firmly maintained
the military frontier . . . and upheld the prestige of the
Empire." Further, he greatly improved the legal position of
slaves, making cruelty to them a crime, giving them the right
to their earnings, and to a share in unclaimed estates, also
prohibiting the separate sale of husband, wife, and child.
Granted that Marcus Aurelius behaved with undue leniency
to his wife and to the vile Commodus, and at least sanctioned
the cruel persecution of Christians — if the life of every man
who commits one or two blunders or connives at one crime
is to be accounted a " tragic failure," who shall escape con-
demnation ? The Emperor was adored by his contemporaries,
and his career must be esteemed a triumph of self-disciplined
will over temperament, by all unbiassed judges.

Gregory the Great presents in several respects a curious
parallelism of nature and destiny with the Stoic Emperor.
From early boyhood he inclined to monasticism, and throughout
life, even after he became Pope, loved best the society of monks,
seizing every opportunity of temporary retirement to the
monastery he had founded on the Coelian. But Gregory was
at first destined for forensic work, and his father would not
sanction the renouncement of his legal studies. His mind
matured early — probably he was never young in the ordinary
sense of the word — and even as a youth he seems to have attained
a reputation among his fellow-citizens as one marked out by
exceptional probity and high gifts for a great career. Justin
made him Praetor at the age of twenty-four, a position in which,
by wielding the chief judicial authority with combined justice
and charity, he made himself more popular than ever. On
succeeding to his father's wealth, however, the old passion
revived : he spent most of his inheritance on the Church, turned
his palace into a monastery, and himself took the humblest
9

130 MAKERS OF MAN

place among the brethren. But it was not to be. The people
of Rome would not even sanction his leaving on a mission to
England, for he had been made a deacon, and they felt that
he could not be spared. Public life absorbed him, and on
his return from Byzantium (aged forty-four) he became, first
papal secretary, and then Pope. He begged the Emperor to
refuse approbation of the election, but Maurice expressed him-
self as delighted with the choice that had been made. Hence-
forth Gregory had, as best he could, to reconcile the cares of
a world-wide statesmanship with the innate craving for sanctity
and the contemplative life. The old yearning never wholly
died in his heart, for in the days of his power and renown he
could write to a priest of Isauria : "In this I look upon you as
exalted, I look upon you as great, for before human eyes you
have not attained a great and exalted position, in which often,
while honour is given outwardly by men, the soul is submerged
to the depths by wrecking cares." In one sense, all the official
work of Gregory was a mere by-activity, but by the meekness
with which he accepted and the loyalty with which he discharged
its immense responsibilities, he, like Marcus Aurelius, made
of his burden a means to the development of that inner con-
templative life which he supremely prized. He found time
also to write a good many works on theological and liturgical
subjects, and the vastness of his official survey may be
estimated by the fact that 8000 letters, personally dictated
by him, occupying fourteen volumes, are still extant.

The strong individuality and the peculiar temperamental
bias of Emerson revealed themselves in his boyhood by a certain
gracious aloofness towards his schoolfellows. Without stifi-
ness, churlishness, or affectation, he always put and kept a
distance between himself and others. He, like many gifted
souls, was by no means a brilliant scholar, being, as is also
common in such cases, especially weak in mathematics. A
characteristic trait is the fact that he early developed a love
for the works of Montaigne and Pascal,1 and always carried
the Pensees to church. He loved solitary rambles, and at
twenty writes : "I am seeking to put myself on a footing of

1 Both distinctively moral philosophers, be it observed.

NATURAL VOCATION 131

old acquaintance with Nature, as a poet should." l But the
moralist in him was not long in making itself evident : he
preached his first sermon at the age of twenty-three, and the
heads of this discourse are strikingly characteristic, being
that — (1) Men are always praying; (2) All their prayers are
granted ; (3) We must be careful, then, what we ask. In be-
coming a seer and a prophet, Emerson did not, however, cease
to be a poet, and it is obviously only in the formal sense that
his practice of this art can be called a collateral activity.
1 The italics are mine.

VII
NATUKAL VOCATION— Continued

Forms of natural vocation — III. and IV. Examples — Recapitulation.

THIRTEEN of our forty examples belong to the class of great
men whose vocation, at first dubious, ultimately became de-
cisive and single. Of these, five belong to the intellectual
and five to the ethico-religious category. It would seem, then,
that these two sub-divisions, being, as I believe, the most
advanced of the four main categories of human ability, are those
whose members tend to mature somewhat later than members
of the practical or aesthetic groups. It does not, of course,
follow because an individual only settles down by degrees to
the life-task destined for his fulfilment, that no signs of his
future greatness are to be expected in the records of his early
days. In the boyhood, youth, or early manhood of our examples,
we shall often find abundant evidence of exceptional ability,
but clouded by a certain vagueness of intention, unfocussed
upon any definite aim. There is often a clear consciousness of
exceptional power, but not of a decisive motive to its full
exercise. Tentative steps may be taken in this or the other
direction, perhaps in the wrong direction altogether. At
last the spirit hears and obeys a clear call, feels within itself
a response that will not be denied, and steps boldly into the
arena of predestined achievement. It becomes impassioned,
absorbed, and is wrought by the fire of effort into the plastic
unity of purposeful will. But in this chapter, as in the last, we
shall be specially concerned with the earlier, vaguer phase of
unformulated aspiration and tentative activity.

III. The earliest years of the life of William of Orange were
spent at his birthplace, the castle of Dillenburg in Nassau, a

132

NATURAL VOCATION 133

vast pile on a tributary of the Lalin, capable of accommodating
1000 persons. He was the eldest of a large family, heir to
a ruling House of the Empire, and in bis eleventh year (1544)
inherited also, from a cousin, the immense fiefs of the Nassaus
in the Netherlands, the puny state of Orange, and the title of
Sovereign Prince. The boy was then sent to the Imperial
court at Brussels to be trained for his exalted station, and won
the marked favour of the Emperor Charles v. A letter written
at the age of seventeen shows him " already full of public
business, dutiful, affectionate, and devout." From his nine-
teenth to his twenty-sixth year, he, as colonel of ten companies
of infantry, served the Emperor against Henri n. of France.
Of this command, Frederic Harrison writes : " The striking
note is prudence. ... He is at twenty-two already more the
statesman than the soldier." The qualities of a great soldier
were, in fact, denied to him, and throughout his career his real
successes were always achieved indirectly, by organisation, by
intrigue. On the abdication of Charles v. in 1555, William
(aged twenty-two) was made Privy Councillor, and knighted.
He lived (when not on campaign) in royal state in the splendid
Nassau Palace at Brussels. Twenty-four nobles and eighteen
pages formed his suite. His military service cost him 1£ million
florins, over and above his allowance of six thousand florins
per annum. He entertained all comers, himself sharing to the
full in the delights of the chase, falconry, tournaments, dancing,
and masquerades. But all this magnificence, all the adulation
which this exalted position involved, were powerless to affect
the innate sweetness and unselfishness of his disposition.
" Never did harsh or ,arrogant word escape him. ... He was
beloved and in high favour above all men with the people."
It was remarked of him that he had a singular power of bending
to his will the other lords about the court. What was, in
fact, dubious at first with regard to William the Silent, was
not so much his capacity for mere statesmanship, but that,
in face of a terrible conspiracy to cmsh religious freedom, he
would suddenly reveal the power to cast to the winds all con-
siderations of material prosperity, and devote himself heart
and soul to the task of ridding the Netherlands of her Spanish

134 MAKERS OF MAN

oppressors. The particular circumstances which evoked this
determination belong, as environmental influences, to a different
part of our subject, but such a determination could not have
been adhered to with unflinching devotion through a long life-
time of constant peril and opposition, had it not been the true
expression of a genuinely chivalrous and high-souled nature.
A smaller man might have once felt such an impulse : only a
born hero could have identified himself with it in utter defiance
of fate.

The case of Cromwell has affinities with William the Silent's,
because he too, beyond mere practical capacity, showed a
decided ethico-religious bias. He, however, entered the public
arena and took up his true life-work much later, for his political
career only fairly began with his election to the Long Parlia-
ment (1640) in his forty-first year. Cromwell was addicted
to " visions " and religious broodings from his boyhood, but
in the vigour of early manhood indulged more or less freely
in roystering, extravagance, coarseness, and vice. He, however,
married early (yet. 21), and then settled down quietlyat Hunting-
don for eleven years, except that in 1628 he sat for a few months
in Parliament for the borough. Probably in the days of his
early married life he underwent the serious process of "con-
version," for his farming is reputed to have suffered from his
habit of gathering his men twice daily for prayer and exhorta-
tion. His private life was characterised by deep family affec-
tion, " Bible religion," and tenderness towards all sufferers.
His house was the resort of persecuted ministers, who were
sure of a hearty welcome. Two episodes in the life of Cromwell
during its comparatively obscure phase are in the light of
subsequent events decidedly significant. In his thirty-first
year he had to appear before the Privy Council in consequence
of a violent protest against the abolition of popular election
of the mayor and aldermen of the borough. The abuse was
amended, but Cromwell, soon after, sold his estate and removed
to St. Ives, and thence a few years later, on inheriting
the Steward estate, he removed to Ely. In his thirty-second
year Cromwell was again in hot water, being fined for his
refusal to appear and to receive knighthood at the King's

NATURAL VOCATION 135

coronation. Nothing of all this, characteristic as it doubtless
appears, really betokens the advent of a born leader of men,
one destined to prove himself England's greatest and most
typical man of action. In the debates of the Long Parliament,
however, Cromwell took from the first (set. 41) a prominent
part, not, however, as a leader, merely as one good and
zealous member, eager for reform. He spoke for the Abolition
of the Episcopacy, for Annual Parliaments, and for entrusting
Essex with command of the trained bands. He was vehement
for the " Kemonstrance," and told Clarendon that if it had been
rejected he would have sold all next morning and left England
for ever. Early in 1642 (Cromwell's forty-third year), Charles
left Whitehall never to return to it as King. The strife had
begun, and Cromwell boldly committed himself to irrevocable
acts of treason and war. He gave £500 to the Commonwealth,
sent arms to Cambridge, began to raise volunteers, saved £20,000
worth of University plate from being sent to the King, seized the
magazine in the castle. Henceforth for nine years his life is that
of a soldier, and his true vocation is ever increasingly apparent.

Of the various potentialities that we inherit from our parents
and ancestors, there may be some which, appearing early,
soon work themselves out ; others which, appearing either simul-
taneously or later, gradually establish themselves as permanent
and effective. Cervantes appears to be a case in point. He
came of good hidalgo stock, though his father was not wealthy,
and military tastes were probably instinctive in his blood. On
the other hand, there is no doubt that in his boyhood and youth
he had a turn for literature, and, in conformity with the fashion
of his day, wrote verses which won the praise of his master,
Lopez de Hoyos, who foretold his greatness. In his eleventh
year he entered the service of Cardinal Acquaviva, an emissary
from the Pope to Madrid, and a noted virtuoso ; and his literary
proclivities may thus have received a further stimulus. But
in his twenty-third year (1570) the desire of military distinction
asserted itself, and he enlisted in the regiment of Don Miguel
de Moncada at Rome, to which regiment, by the way, only
men of good birth were admitted. In the famous naval battle
of Lepanto (1571), which demolished the naval supremacy

136 MAKERS OF MAN

of Turkey, Cervantes, though ill with fever, took a distinguished
and gallant part, and there he received three wounds, one of
which cost him the use of his left hand. Four years later
he found himself back at Naples, richer only in empty honour
for the six years of military service. " His dreams of military
glory must have been rudely disturbed. . . . The Turk was
beaten, only to renew the fight next year in greater strength.
The victories in Africa had been quickly turned to defeat and
disaster." The disillusionment of his romantic dreams of
chivalry had begun. The galley in which he was returning to
Spain was captured almost within sight of land by Algerian
corsairs, and five years of slavery contributed to his education
in realism. Cervantes had enemies, notably a Dominican and
agent of the Inquisition, Blanco de Paz, who had calumniated
him in Spain during his absence. The charges made by this
man were fully investigated by Father Gil, who brought to
Algiers the ransom money raised by Cervantes' mother and
sister. " The witnesses (fellow-captives) spoke of him in
terms such as might glorify any hero of romance ; of his courage
in danger, his resolution under suffering, his daring and fertility
of resource in action." He had won all hearts. After two
years' further service with his old regiment in Portugal, Cer-
vantes definitely abandoned the army. In his thirty-seventh
year appeared the pastoral Galatea, his first acknowledged
work, written for the lady whom he soon afterwards married.
He moved from Esquivias to Madrid, and turned his whole
attention to dramatic literature, being probably " the first
man of letters who tried to live by his pen." He wrote twenty
or thirty plays, " all acted without receiving tribute of cucumber
or any other missile," then ceded the dramatic throne to the
rising genius, Lope de Vega, who could produce a three-act
play within forty-eight hours. He eked out a scanty and
precarious livelihood by sundry uncongenial employments,1
but literature was, and henceforth remained, the one serious
interest of his life. The first part of Don Quixote appeared in
his fifty-eighth year, evoking a cool welcome from the critics,

1 These might be called collateral activities, but, being purely compulsory,
have, as such, little or no psychological significance

NATURAL VOCATION 137

an uneasy suspicion of heretical tendencies from the clerics,
the malignant envy of Lope de Vega, and the enthusiastic
approval of the general public.

The boyhood of Galileo, while strongly indicative of excep-
tional ability, left the special form later assumed by its manifesta-
tion quite undermined. It is true that among other things the
future astronomer and physicist was fond, like Newton, of
constructing toys and models. But he also played the lute
and other instruments, was very fond of painting and
drawing, and had serious thoughts of becoming an artist. In
later life he was, in fact, an acknowledged connoisseur. From
the picturesqueness of his literary style, his aptitude for ex-
pressing himself in the dramatic form, dialogues and so forth,
and his evident delight in the business of composition for its
own sake, one may safely suspect that literary efforts formed
also a part of his juvenile activities. At the age of nineteen he
entered the University of Pisa with a view to the study of medicine,
where he soon became obnoxious to the professors on account of
his boldness in controverting the Aristotelian philosophy, and
began to dream of himself as founder of a new school, rational
and experimental. In a receptive hour the young under-
graduate noted as isochronous the swinging of a lamp in the
cathedral, and this perception was the germ of his first and one
of his most important discoveries, that of the use of the pendulum
as a measure of time. He also devised instruments to record the
variations of the pulse, an idea which proved some centuries in
advance of his day, such instruments, in a different form, being
even now something of a novelty in clinical research. Obviously,
the true bent of his genius was on the point of declaring itself.
Induced — the fact is worth noting — by his love of drawing and
music, Galileo now began to study geometry and mathematics.
His father became uneasy, for Hippocrates and Galen were
neglected, and Archimedes reigned in their stead. Medicine
had, however, lost a subject, and experimental Physics had
gained one. At the age of twenty-six, Galileo, on the recom-
mendation of Ubaldi, was nominated by Ferdinand de Medici to
the Pisan lectureship in mathemathics, and at once instituted
a course of experiments to test, and, as it proved, in important

138 MAKERS OF MAN

respects to correct, the mechanics of Aristotle. Among these
was the famous investigation of the speed at which bodies
of diverse weights fell from the leaning tower. Even
with the sound of their simultaneous arrival ringing in
their ears, the Aristotelians of course remained unconvinced
of the master's error ! Galileo, however, had inaugurated his
true role, and henceforth Science had no rival in his allegiance.
Newton, who in respect of his early tastes, no less than of his
ultimate achievements, bears a curious resemblance to Galileo,
was " a sober, silent, thinking lad," averse to outdoor games,
and with a preference for the society of girls. He was con-
structive from the first — made a model wind-mill, a water
clock, a mechanical carriage, experimented as to the best form
of kites, and also made tables and cupboards for the dolls of his
little sweetheart, whom, by the way, but for their joint poverty,
he would subsequently have married, visited often in later life,
and generously relieved, so far as his means allowed. He wrote
poems of quite respectable merit (as juvenile poetry goes), and his
bedroom walls were covered with pictures, copied or drawn from
Nature, coloured and framed by himself. Atjthe^age^of; fifteen
he was induced by his mother to learn farming, with a view
to the cultivation of her small property at Woolsthorpe, but
the enterprise proved hopelessly uncongenial. He entered
Trinity at seventeen (1660), innocent of scientific knowledge ;
plunged at once into the study of mathematics — induced, not it is
true by his love of painting, but by the equally irrelevant motive
of a desire to test astrology — obtained his degree at twenty-two,
his fellowship two years later, and by the end of his twenty-fifth
year had established the different refrangibility of light-rays,
partly formulated his theory of gravity, and elaborated the method
of " fluxions." The investigation of prophetic works under-
taken by Newton, mainly after middle life, does not, in my
opinion, constitute a psychological by-activity — since it was,
in intention, at least, scientific. And his official connection
with the Mint (as Warden and Master), involving duties of a
distinctly scientific though comparatively routine character,
was based on purely pecuniary considerations. His allegi-
ance to Science, as he conceived it, never varied from the date

NATURAL VOCATION 139

of his entering Trinity, dubious as the vocation may have
appeared in the days of his versatile boyhood.

With regard to Emmanuel Kant, what was at first doubtful,
was not so much his vocation for a life of study and research,
but the particular field to the intensive cultivation of which
he gradually settled down. He entered Konigsberg University
at sixteen(1740),but did not follow the usual course by attaching
himself to one of the three special faculties. His bent seems
at first rather in the direction of physical than metaphysical
interest, for he told Prof. Schultz that he would study medicine.
During the six years of his university course he read the current
metaphysics of Wolf, but also the works of Newton. " His
reading, generally scrappy, was especially weak in the old
metaphysicians," a curious fact, considering his revolutionary
attitude towards their conclusions. From his twenty-second
to his thirty-first year he was engaged in private tuition in
various families. The fruits of his astronomical reading and
meditation were embodied in A General Natural History and
Theory of the Heavens, printed at the end of this period, which
was, in its way, a truly remarkable anticipation of the evolution-
ary hypothesis. Having qualified by a metaphysical thesis
for the position of Privatdocent, he now began to lecture on
mathematics, physics, logic, philosophy, and physical geography,
the last-named being his most popular course. It was not until
about his forty-first year that he dropped this encyclopaedic
role and began to confine himself to philosophy. During the
five preceding years he seems to have passed through a sort of
mental struggle, born of a growing dissatisfaction with accepted
principles. Hitherto he had been on the whole occupied mostly
with scientific problems, and vaguely resting in the traditional
metaphysic. Now, unsettled by the study of Hume and other
sceptics, he began to feel the need of a system which should
be a " science of the boundaries of the human reason." l The
Critique of Pure Reason, which was to be the outcome of this
crisis in his intellectual career, did not see the light until some
sixteen years later, when its author was fifty-seven. Its definite
conception can hardly have preceded his forty-fifth year, the
1 Professor William Wallace.

140 MAKERS OF MAN

work being, by his own account, the product of some twelve
years' reflection.

The philosophic genius of Hegel resembled Kant's in that it
was the efflorescence of an encyclopaedic interest.1 In the days
when he attended the gymnasium at Stuttgart, Hegel was a
" good boy," thoroughly docile and teachable, but with no
predominant capacity as yet apparent. " He showed from the
first the methodical habits of the race of civil servants from
which he had sprung." At fourteen he began to keep a diary,
whose pages naively reveal a " tinge of boyish pedantry in
regard to the progress of his studies." Later he became deeply
enamoured of Greek Art and Literature, and translated the
Antigone of Sophocles, once into prose and once into verse.
For the latter (poetic) art he had some prediliction, and made
sundry rather inexpert essays therein at different emotional crises
of his career. At sixteen, his thirst for general knowledge led
him to make full extracts from every book which interested
him, almost every branch of science being represented. This
habit he continued through life. Hegel, at eighteen, entered
the semi-monastic theological Seminary of Tubingen, with a
view to qualifying for the Church. But now his wings were
sprouting and he neglected the prescribed lectures for private
study of Rousseau and the classics. Further, he became
an ardent freethinker and Jacobin, and founded, with Schelling's
co-operation, a club of like-minded revolutionists. Among
his fellow-students he won a perhaps rather patronising popu-
larity, being regarded, not as a " smug," but no doubt as a
" queer fish," though a good fellow in his way. From his
twenty-third to his twenty-ninth year, Hegel, as Kant had
done, earned his living by tuition. Th'w was his period of mental
or spiritual fermentation. He becamo somewhat moody and self-
contained, working off his melancholy in sentimental verse. Deep
within him, the extreme individualism of Rousseau andhisschool,
fortified by the logic of the Kantian ethics, was at war with the
Hellenic ideal of organic social and political unity. Freedom

1 But whereas Kant came to philosophy mainly through the inorganic
department of science (astronomy, etc.), Hegel approached it rather from the
historic and social side.

NATURAL VOCATION 141

without atomism was the problem he had to solve, and the
engrossing interest of the quest lured him on and revealed to him
his true task as an apostle of the concrete in philosophy. A
young man who held that " the objectivity of God has gone
hand in hand with the slavery and corruption of man," that the
God of the Jews is " not a better self but an external despot "
whose Law sets them against nature and human life ; who
ranked the Nemesis of the Greeks higher because it saw in
misfortune the embodiment of a man's own evil conscience,
could hardly, without self-stultification, become a clergyman.
In his twenty-ninth year Hegel inherited a small legacy (£300),
and two years later, feeling ready for the fray, he joined Schelling
in the conduct of a Critical Journal, combating the dualism of
Kant and the Fichtean opposition of abstract mind and matter.
To the Fichtean contention that the I is everything, Schelling's
Philosophy of Identity (with which Hegel at this phase was
largely in sympathy) retorted that so, too, everything is the
I. Hegel, however, soon wearied of Schelling's vague theosophy,
feeling the need of a stricter method. He, as Kant had done,
became a Privatdocent, lectured on the futility of emotional
mysticism, and in his Phenomenology of the Spirit, his
first serious essay in speculative literature — he calls it himself
his " Voyage of Discovery " — set forth, what henceforth re-
mained his fundamental conviction, that Truth must be appre-
hended not (as with Spinoza and Schelling) as Substance, but
as Subject. From what he considered the central motive-
power of Christianity — the principle of self-realisation through
self-abnegation — he derived his conception of the fundamental
secret of Spirit, the manifestation of unity through conflict —
and this idea contains the germ of his Logic, the master-work
of his maturer years.1

In dealing with men like Spinoza, Kant, and Hegel, I am
compelled to anticipate somewhat, because, with minds of such a
high order of lucidity and universality, the discovery of their
vocation and the formulation of their purpose are to a great
extent not merely simultaneous, but identical processes. The
history of their lives is in great measure the history of an inner
1 Published in 1816, when Hegel was forty-six years old.

142 MAKERS OF MAN

struggle towards self -comprehension, and, the self being conceived
as a universal, this implies at least an attempt at the com-
prehension of the not-self, of other selves, and even of Reality
in general. Whereas, with men of action, and even with artists,
composers, and some poets, the vocation is discovered empiri-
cally, and the consciousness of a definite aim or ideal comes
later, or may not fully come at all. This will become evident
when, in a later chapter, we enter upon the subject of the dawn
and growth of Purpose.

The facile wisdom which follows the event enables us to find
in the accounts of Darwin's early life abundant evidence of
highly specialised ability. Yet the fact is that it seemed, to
those best qualified to judge, for a long time doubtful, not
only what career was in store for him, but whether, in the
larger sense, he would have any career at all. His father, a
keen observer, and a wonderful judge of character, considered
him a quite ordinary boy, and so did his teachers.1 While he
himself states that he was far from quick in learning, though
by no means idle. " During my whole life," he says, " I have
been singularly incapable of mastering any language." For
mathematics, too, he had little aptitude, and all his efforts
at Cambridge failed to subdue the difficulties of surds and the
binomial theorem. The limitations of great men are always
of peculiar interest, and to those just stated it may be added
that, though he always loved music, his ear was so defective
that he could barely recognise the most familiar tunes. On
the other hand, he had an exceptionally good memory, was
greatly taken by the clear logical reasoning of Euclid and
(later) of Paley, and from the very first his keen powers of
observation and his love of collecting eggs, beetles, and plants
should, one cannot but think, have indicated the true bent
of his mind. That they did not, is, however, a fact beyond
controversy. A delightful and really somewhat remarkable
episode of his very early life (in view of his Origin of Species)
is recorded in his Autobiography. " I told another little
boy that I could produce variously-coloured polyanthems

1 One of these, Dr. Butler, much vexed the soul of Darwin by publicly
rebuking him as a " poco curante ! "

NATURAL VOCATION 143

and primroses by watering them with coloured fluids." At
the age of ten ho was much interested and surprised at seeing
in Wales a large black and scarlet hemipterous insect, many
moths, and a Cicuidela, which are not found in Shropshire.
Later in his boyhood or youth Darwin developed something of
a passion for literature (that is, the reading of it), Shakespeare,
Horace, Thomson, Byron, and Scott being named as favourite
authors. Then followed a mania for shooting. "I do not
believe that any one could have shown more zeal for the most
holy cause than I did for shooting birds." At sixteen he entered
the medical school at Edinburgh, but anatomy inspired him
only with loathing, and he rushed in horror from the theatre
where a child (in pre-anaesthetic days) was undergoing an
operation. Then it was decreed that he should become a
clergyman ; he read, and apparently with acquiescence, Paley's
Evidences and Pearson on the Creeds, and — " wasted "
three years in a sporting set at Cambridge. The anthems
at King's gave him intense pleasure, " so that my backbone
would sometimes shiver " ; and this delight in good music proved,
in contrast with a transient interest in pictures and engravings,
and in spite of the defects of his ear, one of his lasting character-
istics. At Cambridge, Darwin was the weekly guest of Professor
Henslow, the botanist, and here, with his first definite introduc-
tion to the scientific atmosphere and to the circumstances
which determined and revealed his true vocation, we may leave
him for the present.

We have no information regarding the boyhood and early
youth of St. Paul, but from all we know of him it seems likely
that from the first he took life seriously and was inclined to
religious zeal. Brought up in the most rigorous principles of
the Pharisees, he seems to have profited little from the oppor-
tunities of classic and scientific culture which abounded in
Tarsus. He came young to Jerusalem, and entered the school
of Gamaliel, an enlightened liberal, familiar with Greek. Despite
of this, he became the head of the fanatical young Pharisee
party, took, about 37 A.D. (set. 25 to 27), an active part in the
martyrdom of the deacon Stephen, and then obtained from
the high-priest authority to fetch Christiana from Damascus

144 MAKERS OF MAN

for punishment at Jerusalem. Few things, at this moment,
can have seemed less likely than that this anti-Christian zealot
was destined to become the chief agent in establishing the new
religion among the Gentiles. But in his very fervour there
may be surmised evidence of misgivings as to the soundness of
his position, for men often show special rancour against opinions
which in their heart of hearts they suspect or fear to be incon-
trovertible. " Like all strong souls," Kenan remarks, " Saul
was near loving what he hated. He sustained the charm of
those he tortured. What was told of the appearances of Jesus
impressed him much." Exactly what befel him towards the
close of that memorable journey to Damascus, we shall pro-
bably never know. He was by nature something of a visionary,
and violent fevers, accompanied by delirium, are, as Renan
feelingly observes,1 commonly of quite sudden occurrence in
that climate. From the fact that, for three days after his
arrival, Paul took no nourishment, it seems probable that he
was the victim of some such illness, and it also appears that
he had conjunctivitis. Nothing, in those days, was fortuit-
ous ; and a sudden prostration by illness at such a moment
could not but impress the imagination of so intense a tempera-
ment. It seems likely that some lurking doubts as to the
justifiability of his attitude towards the Christians may have
objectified themselves in the form of a vision of Jesus, rebuk-
ing his cruelty and appealing to his better self. Both rebuke
and appeal were whole-heartedly accepted ; he had himself
baptized immediately on recovery, and remained three years
in the city preaching his new-found faith. Though destined
to become a Rabbi, Saul had been taught a handicraft, and
this he perforce practised throughout his missionary life. He
was far too independent to rely upon the alms of his converts,
even had their wealth or number sufficed to justify such reliance.
But mechanical work, economically enforced, is of negligible
significance in such a career.

Augustine seems to have been a boy of exceptional promise,
for his father, a freedman, sent him (set. 17) to be educated

1 Renan's sister Henrietta lost her life, and Renan barely escaped with his,
as the result of just such attacks.

NATURAL VOCATION 145

at Carthage, thereby incurring expenses which he could ill afford.
Augustine had at first been inclined to presume on his ability
by shirking study, and incurred many floggings, as to which
matter he writes : "I began to pray to Thee, my aid and
refuge, . . . with no small earnestness, that I might not be
flogged at school." Here, perhaps, the future devotee might
be discerned, but at the early age of fifteen he fell into evil
ways. " The madness of lust . . . took the rule over me, and
I resigned myself wholly to it." His father took a humorous
view of the profligacy of Augustine, rather priding himself
on it than recognising the danger of such conduct ; but his
mother, " startled with holy fear and trembling," warned him
with great earnestness to flee fornication. At Carthage, how-
ever, Augustine became the chief in the school of rhetoric,
" whereat," he says, " I joyed proudly, and swelled with arrog-
ancy." In his eighteenth or nineteenth year the first distinct
evidence of vocation confronts us in the enthusiasm with which
he made acquaintence with the Hortensius of Cicero. " Every
vain hope at once became worthless to me ; and I began to
yearn with an incredible fervour of heart for the immortality
of wisdom, and began now to arise that I might return to Thee.
. . . This only gave me pause, that the name of Christ was
not in it. For that name had my tender heart, even with my
mother's milk, drunk in and deeply treasured, and whatsoever
was without that name . . . took not entire hold of me."
The return journey of the prodigal had begun, but a long and
weary road, occupying another thirteen years of his life, had
to be traversed ere the goal of inner serenity was reached ;
and as yet the true vocation of Augustine can hardly have
been surmised even by his most intimate friends. He was
now, and remained until the time of his conversion (set. 31),
a professional rhetorician. From his nineteenth to his twenty-
eighth year he taught in Thagaste and Carthage, " misled
and misleading " ; then crossed to Italy, and soon obtained
the post of rhetoric master at Milan, where the influence
of Bishop Ambrose at last enabled him to throw off the
bondage of Manichieism and the " vanity " of Platonic tran-
scendentalism.
10

146 MAKERS OF MAN

Strange, indeed, it is to reflect that a man destined to initiate
one of the great religions of the world, only arrived at the first
clear consciousness of his mission in his fortieth, and died in his
sixty-third year ! Mahomet, as a boy, was observant and
thoughtful beyond his age. He received no formal education,
was not even taught to read or write, but " the yearly influx
of pilgrims from distant parts made Mecca a receptacle for
all kinds of floating knowledge, which he appears to have im-
bibed with eagerness and retained in a tenacious memory. At
the age of twelve he visited Syria with his uncle and guardian,
Abu Taleb. At Bozrah (E. Palestine) they were the guests of
a community of Nestorian monks. With one of these monks
young Mahomet conversed freely on religion, and a deep mutual
impression was made. At the age of twenty-five, Mahomet
married Cadijah, a widow fifteen years his senior. This
marriage made him a very wealthy man, and he lived happily
with her, earned for himself the honourable title of Al Amin
(the Faithful), and was frequently called upon to act as arbiter
in disputes between his townsmen. It is worthy of note that
a cousin of his wife, Waraka, who became an inmate of their
household, was a Jewish convert to Christianity, an astrologer,
something of a philosopher, and the translator of parts of the
Old and New Testaments into Arabic. Such were the tranquil
circumstances of Mahomet's life when its critical fortieth
year drew nigh. In the Caaba at Mecca there were three
hundred and sixty idols, one for each day of the Arab year.
' ' Mahomet grew more and more conscious of the grossness and
absurdity of this idolatry, as his intelligent mind contrasted
it with the spiritual religions which had been the subject of his
inquiries. The idea of religious reform gradually sprang up
in his mind. It had become his fixed idea that the only true
religion had been revealed to Adam at his creation. . . . This
religion, the direct and spiritual worship of one true and only
God, had repeatedly been corrupted and debased by man, and
especially outraged by idolatry. Noah, Abraham, Moses,
Jesus Christ, were prophets . . . sent from time to time to
restore it to its original purity. The world having once more
lapsed, needed the advent of another prophet authorised by a

NATURAL VOCATION 147

mandate from on high." So by degrees " Mahomet absented
himself from society, spending days and nights in prayer and
meditation in a cavern on Mount Hara. He became subject
to dreams, ecstasies, and trances." The long incubation
period of his genius was almost at an end.

Men like Mahomet, although, in the scale of human values,
rightly set far above men of action, properly so called, have
this in common with them, that their life-history is deeply
involved in that of their nation and age. In considering their
conduct, it is almost impossible to distinguish clearly what can
be regarded as the spontaneous outcome of inborn tendency,
what is in greater or less degree determined by external influences
or events. Much the same can be said with regard to our next
subject, St. Francis d'Assisi ; but in estimating the true initia-
tive of such men, it must carefully be observed how much of
what we may at first sight regard as peculiar to themselves,
in the matter of environment and guiding influence, was, after
all, to a large extent shared by many of their contemporaries,
who yet failed to respond or to find therein any clear call to
creative work. The youth of St. Francis appears to have
differed little from that of other young men of wealth and
position, yet there are clear indications that his associates
were even then conscious of the unique charm of his personality.
" He was leader in the mimic tournaments of song and jest
among the young Assisans. . . . He was essential to every
banquet, every merry-making, where his quick repartee, gift
of song and joyousness, radiated good fellowship." I have
already mentioned the curious incident of the eccentric citizen
who spread his mantle for young Francis to tread upon, in
testimony of his faith in the young man's heroic destiny. From
the first, too, he was noted for his generosity, a quality never
found in association with mediocre souls. The health and
morale of St. Francis were greatly impaired by a year's im-
prisonment, consequent upon an Assisau raid against certain
suburban counts, between his twenty-first and twenty-second
year. After a brief indulgence in reckless gaiety, perhaps
even dissipation, he became seriously ill, and this illness of hia
twenty-third year was the true turning-point of his career.

148 MAKERS OF MAN

Ambition awoke within him, taking at first a military form.
He dreamt of shields, arms, and banners marked with a cross,
and half -humorously declared that he was to become a great
prince. He even joined a military expedition under the Assisan
Count, but his weakened frame gave way under the excitement
and fatigue, and he turned back to Spoleto. His father was
angered by his return, but a second vision announced that the
arms and banners were for heavenly, not earthly, warfare.
Like Mahomet, though far earlier in life, he began to shun
society, to spend long hours in a cave, weeping and praying.
He was possessed by a passionate charity, and once meeting a
leper, hardly human in his disfigurement, the newborn impulse
for violation of his natural fastidiousness compelled him to
dismount, to kiss the hideous bloated hand, and to fill it with
money. Henceforth Poverty haunted his dreams, and his
unformulated purpose fiercely struggled towards the birth. The
germ of higher things had been present in his nature from the
first, and its ultimate development can have been merely a
matter of time. The keen zest of sensuous and social delights,
the innocent joy of mere living had been killed out of his delicate
frame by his imprisonment and the long illness that followed.
His brief plunge into less refined gaieties was an attempt, by
deliberate stimulation of the exhausted nerves, to revive the
sensuous ecstasy which was lost to him for ever. Disappointed
and disillusioned, he began to feel vague yearnings for something
to replace these too transient joys. Hence the vision of martial
glory, which was not for him ; hence, too, the growing melan-
choly ; the passion of remorse for wasted youth and vigour ;
the solitary tears ; the strong impulse to charity and self-
abnegation ; the quest of an ideal.

The vocation of Kenan was, from the first, doubtful only
in respect of the revolutionary form it ultimately assumed. He
had little or none of the strong social instinct of St. Francis.
For thirteen years he attended the monastic school of the
priests in his native Treguier, and was then considered " the
good boy of the college." Having done well at home, he was,
at fifteen, summoned by the Abbe Dupanloup to the school
of St. Nicholas du Chardonnet in Paris, one of the most re-

NATURAL VOCATION 149

markable institutions ever seen in France. There he was initiated
into a quasi-scientific Catholicism. His mother's dearest wish
was that her boy should become a priest, and it seemed likely
to be realised, for he was, to all appearances, one of the most
devout of the pupils. " The Breton died in me," he tells us,
however, adding, very significantly : " I learned with stupor
that knowledge was not a privilege of the Church." From the
seminary of St. Nicholas, Renan passed to the more advanced
college of Issy, to study Catholic philosophy. He plunged,
too, with avidity into the metaphysical writings of Reid, Male-
branche, Hegel, Kant, and Herder. " I studied the Germans,
and I thought I entered a temple." Yes — the Temple of the
Absolute, not of the personal triune God of scholastic theology.
The seeds of doubt were already germinating, and his sister
Henriette, older by twelve years, and already a confirmed
sceptic, watched with breathless anxiety the slow, timid growth
of his true self, repeatedly warning him not to commit himself
to the priesthood until he was assured of the soundness of his
faith. From Issy, Renan passed to St. Sulpice, to take up the
study of dogma and moral philosophy, the Bible in Hebrew,
and the mastery of the German language. In his correspond-
ence with Henriette, Renan betrays vacillation and some
tendency to self-sophistication with regard to his changing
views. After all, Malebranche had been a monk. " How
am I to shatter bonds so mighty ? I can only free myself
by piercing my mother's heart." But for Henriette, indeed,
it is possible that he would have given way. But in 1845
(set. 23) he writes to his director lamenting the loss of his
faith, professing love and loyalty to the Church, but inability
to ignore the vulnerable points in her doctrine. He declined
the proffered post of professor of the Archbishop's new Carmelite
College. He plunged, with Berthelot, into the study of Natural
Science, wrote L , Avenir de la Science, declared that for him,
as for his friend, there could be but one religion — the Worship
of Truth. Veritatem dilexi became the guiding principle of
his long and laborious life, and was the epitaph which he justly
desired should be inscribed upoa his tomb.

IV. We have now only to consider our three examples

150 MAKERS OF MAN

of men whose vocation, at first dubious, becomes at last pro-
dominant, but not to the point of excluding collateral activities
of greater or less importance. Of the first of these, Frederick
the Great, something was said in the last chapter. His education
was almost exclusively military, but for the first seven years
of his life he was committed to the care of Madame de Roccule,
who spoke French only, and to this in part may be attribut-
able his lifelong partiality for this language at the expense of
his own, which he always affected to despise. At the age
of twelve, Frederick manoevured a troop of cadets before
George i. at Berlin with surprising skill. Almost from the
first an inborn propensity for literature and music declared
itself. He applied himself closely to the study and practice
of poetry and to playing the flute, though, according to Vol-
taire, if caught reading by his father, his book would be thrown
into the fire ; if indulging in music, his instrument would be
confiscated and broken. For sport he cared nothing, and
when supposed to be engaged in hunting he would be holding
concerts in the forest or in a cave. Finally, the tyranny of
his father became so unbearable that the wretched youth
determined on flight. His plans were divulged ; he was arrested,
and one of his two accomplices, Lieutenant Katte, was beheaded,
Frederick himself being a compulsory witness of the death of
his dearest friend. The king is alleged by Voltaire to have
been with difficulty dissuaded from executing Frederick also.
He was confined for eighteen months in the citadel of Kustrin,
after which time his father visited him, they were formally recon-
ciled, and henceforth he enjoyed more latitude in regard to
his manner of life. Soon after his twenty -first birthday he was
forced by his father to marry Elizabeth Christina, niece to the
Empress of Germany, who, however, seems to have been his
wife only in name. In his twenty-fifth year he began to
correspond with Voltaire, destined later to play an important
part among his most intimate friends — and bitterest enemies.
In his twenty -sixth year Frederick reveals in a letter the first
definite evidence of military zeal or ambition. In reference
to the exploits of Count Munich in the Turco-Russian war,
Frederick writes of that general as the " Alexander of the

NATURAL VOCATION 151

Age," adding, that but for philosophy, he would see with some
uneasiness so many great actions in which he had no share. This
was written during what may have been the happiest part of
Frederick's life, the years between his reconciliation with his
father and his accession to the throne from the twentieth to the
twenty-eighth of his age. In his palace at Rheinsberg there were,
Bielfeld tells us, " royal cheer, wine for the gods, the music of
angels ; delicious pastimes in the gardens, in the woods, upon the
waters ; the cultivation of letters and the polite arts, and refined
conversation." He tells us of drinking bouts, in which some-
times, but not often, both prince and courtiers exceeded the
bounds of moderation ; of evening concerts ; of balls — for
Frederick loved dancing. There was a choice French library,
including, we may be sure, the complete published works of
the admired Voltaire. Count Algarotti, who visited him at
Rheinsberg, predicted in a letter to Lord Hervey that Frederick
would show himself the greatest of sovereigns when he came
to reign. But it was probably rather in the character of Augustus
than of Alexander that he was expected to appear. However,
the eyes of Europe were soon opened. Frederick William
died in his son's arms on 30th May 1740, when the
latter was twenty-eight years of age. An amazing revela-
tion of the true nature of this admirable Crichton, this
anti - Machiavellian Friend of Man and apostle of the
verities, this flute - player and poetical dilettante, was im-
mediately forthcoming. The King was buried on the 26th
June. A few days after his death, Frederick, who, a couple
of years before had become a Freemason, apparently on the
strength of some depreciatory remarks made by his father
about the order, had held a very illustrious lodge, as it were
in celebration of his freedom. On the very day after the
funeral he disbanded the absurd regiment of giants which had
been the old King's immemorial hobby. Next, he instituted
the Order of Merit, open to all, without distinction of birth,
religion, or country. He seized, on some trivial pretext, the
districts of Herstal and Hermal, which for over a century had
been subject to the rule of the Prince-Bishop of Liege. This
proceeding was, by the way, the ground of advice tendered

152 MAKERS OF MAN

by Voltaire, whom he first met at this time, to postpone the
publication of his Anti - Machiavel. In October of the
same year died the Emperor Charles vi. leaving no male heir.
By the terms of the Pragmatic Sanction the succession was
guaranteed by the Powers to his daughter, Maria Theresa.
Frederick at once issued a manifesto declaring it necessary
to enter Silesia (one of her guaranteed territories) " to cover
it from being attacked," protesting meanwhile the utmost
regard for the " Queen of Hungary's " interests. In December
he duly entered the province with an army of 30,000 men.
He levied heavy contributions on the inhabitants, his ministers
at Vienna at the same time demanding the cession of Silesia
to him, offering in return a loan of two million florins and his
influence in behalf of Maria Theresa's husband's election to
the Empire. She naturally refused both demand and offers,
pointing out that his exactions in Silesia more than covered
the amount of the proposed " loan." We need not pursue
further the course of events, the upshot being that after a brief
contest the Austrians were, for a time, worsted, and Silesia
duly annexed.1 As to the motives that prompted this truly
cynical piece of aggression, Voltaire ascribes the following
explanation to Frederick : " Ambition, interest, and a desire
to make the world speak of me, vanquished all, and war was
determined upon." And no doubt this is a perfectly true
account of the matter. It was, in fact, one of the most admirable
qualities of Frederick that, although an adept in the eighteenth
century cult of abstract Virtue — Liberty, Equality, Fraternity,
Rights of Man, and the rest, although sometimes, especially
in his early " philosophic " days — witness his Anti-Machiavel
— he could humbug others, and even himself, on a superb scale
of impudence, he always tended to indiscreet self-knowledge
and self -revelation, had, in short, the instinct of honesty in regard
to the motives of his actions. Sophistry was expected of him,
and he supplied it in copious manifestoes, but concocted it with
his tongue in his cheek. " One may indeed he with the mouth,
but with the accompanying grimace one nevertheless tells the
truth." 2 Nietzsche, who regards Frederick n. as " the first

1 October 1741. - F. Nietzsche.

NATURAL VOCATION 153

of Europeans," considers that the harsh treatment he received
from his father was after all prompted by a profound instinct
that the primary need for Germany was in those days not
culture, but manliness. Germans were looked upon as harm-
less, mild sentimentalists, and as such treated in international
matters with scant respect. For evidence, he adduces the
surprised exclamation of Napoleon on first meeting Goethe —
" Voila un homme ! " As who should say — " I expected to
see a German, but this is a Man." Had Frederick's aesthetic
and literary proclivities been encouraged instead of sternly
repressed, it is quite conceivable that his " desire to make
the world speak of him" would have sought satisfaction'. in
less aggressive mode. >'

Leonardo da Vinci showed quite early a decided artistic
bent.1 He never lacked confidence in his own powers, or
inclination to assert superiority to his rivals. Carlyle's theory
of the unconsciousness of men of genius of their own supremacy
could be refuted by many examples. I believe, on the con-
trary, that even in their childhood such men have a dim
prescience of peculiar destiny, feel themselves impelled to at-
tempt great things. Leonardo relates how once, as he lay in
his cradle, he thought a kite came flying to him and opened
his mouth with his tail, " wherewith he smote me many times
on the lips."

He was probably about ten years old when he became a
pupil of Andrea del Verrochio at Florence, in whose studio he
worked for some fourteen years. In his twenty-seventh year,
or thereabouts, he removed to Milan, drawn probably by
report of the magnificence of Lodovico il Moro. In writing
to the Duke to proffer his services, Leonardo thus fearlessly
asserts his own competence and versatility : j' I believe that I
could equal any other as regards works in architecture, both
public and private. I can likewise conduct water from one
place to another. Furthermore, I can execute works in
sculpture, marble, bronze, or terra-cotta. In painting also I

1 It may, however, be safely assumed that this was only one among many
obvious tendencies. His letter to Lodovico (quoted below) proves that from
the first he had many irons in the fire.

154 MAKERS OF MAN

can do what can be done as well as another, be he who he may." l
At Milan, Leonardo worked intermittently for some sixteen
years on an equestrian statue of Francesco Sforza, commissioned
by the Duke, which, partly through lack of money on the part
of the patron, partly too, I think, on account of a tempera-
mental tendency to lose interest in his work before completion,
was never finished. For the Duke, too, he undertook, and ulti-
mately (not without pressure) completed, the painting of his
magnificent " Last Supper," and for the Brotherhood of the
Conception in San Francesco executed the " Viergeaux Rochers,"
which, owing to a disagreement as to price, he reclaimed. He
also supplied a model for the dome of the Cathedral at Milan,
organised masques and tournaments on various great occasions,
and wrote his Treatise on Painting — " the most important
work on Art that ever came from the hand of an artist." For
Leonardo the supreme excellence in Art is to make the actions
express the psychical state of each character, and in this no
one has ever excelled, few have equalled him. During his
residence at Milan, which lasted from his twenty-ninth to about
his forty-eighth year, Leonardo also wrote a highly important
work on the canalisation of Lombardy, showed an intense
interest in all branches of science, and eagerly frequented
the society of mathematicians, physicists, and philosophers.
There can be little doubt that his allegiance to Art was gradually
waning, and that the quantity — not perhaps the quality — of his
output was affected. Later, in Florence (1501, set. 49), he
was found by a Carmelite priest engaged on the St. Anna
cartoon. This priest reported to Isabella d'Este that Leonardo's
life was " changeful and uncertain," that he was " entirely
wrapped up in geometry," and had " no patience for painting."
It was always difficult to get a promise of work from Leonardo,
and still more difficult to secure its fulfilment. He often
became dissatisfied with his pictures, as first conceived and in
great part executed, and would modify the pose of his subjects
in order to perfect the expression of his idea. " He cannot

1 So, to the Building Committee of the Cathedral of Piacenza he wrote later :
" There is no one of any worth (you may believe me), with the exception of the
Florentine, Leonardo."

LEONARDO DA VINCI.
Engraved for the Encychftrtiia Loniiinensis, 1828.

To face f. 154.

NATURAL VOCATION 155

tear himself away from a picture," writes a contemporary
poet, " and in many years scarce brings one to completion."
Thus the " Leda " was first painted kneeling alone ; then in
the same posture, with the children and a swan ; then half-
rising, finally erect, clasping the swan's neck and looking towards
the children just emerged from their shells. Dr. Gronau says
of Leonardo, that "Nature herself had over-richly endowed him,
as if to present in one model an ideal standard for all time.
In this profusion of talents, this extraordinary versatility, may
be found the real reason why this genius left behind him a
relatively small number of art-creations. Again and again
speculative meditations enticed him from his creative activities.
The number of his works can never have been great." To his
friend, Francesco Melzi, he bequeathed twenty notebooks and
bound manuscript volumes, for it had been his habit to carry
a notebook hanging from his girdle, and for forty years he made
a practice of transcribing his random thoughts. In many
of these he shows an extraordinary power of anticipating the
future discoveries of science (e.g. Galileo's perception of the
isochronism of the pendulum) ; also a clear conviction of the
destined supremacy of the experimental method. " Painter,
sculptor, architect, author, musician, mathematician, botanist,
astronomer, maker of belles-lettres. Some of these activities
he practised ; all were potential in him." So it inevitably
happened that his mind " renounced the practice of painting
through sheer compulsion to study its laws, passing from those
laws to the quest of the laws that govern the world."

Luther, as a boy, was timid and somewhat morbidly con-
scientious. As to this, it should be noted that the schoolmasters
of those days were often brutal, and that Luther speaks of
having been whipped fifteen times in one morning ! From
the first he loved music, the lute being his favourite instrument,
and at Eisenach (aged fifteen) he attracted by his beautiful
singing the favour of Frau Cotta, who made him welcome
at her patrician table. Intellectually, he showed distinct
promise, and in the study of Latin easily outstripped other
boys of his age. At Erfurt University his talent was the wonder
of all. He began with philosophy, being, at this time, destined

156 MAKERS OF MAN

for the law, and his obvious power and delight in disputation
would seem to have justified the paternal choice of this career.
He still devoted a good deal of his leisure to music. Among
the Humanists, with whom, at Erfurt, he first came into touch,
he ranked then as a " philosopher " and a " musician," not as
a " poet," which is as much as to say that his tastes were
(mainly) academic rather than aesthetic. At the age of twenty-
two he graduated in Philosophy, and proceeded to the study of
law. But now the morbid taint of superstitious fear began
to assert itself. His health was poor, and he became subject
to fits of despair, in which the temptation to blaspheme God
often assailed him. He could never wholly forget that an angry
Judge, throned above, threatened his unregenerate soul with
damnation. The crisis occurred in the same year as his gradua-
tion in Philosophy. In June of 1505 (aet. 22), after visiting
his parents at Mansfeld, he was, while nearing Erfurt, surprised
by a terrible storm. A vivid flash seemed to threaten instant
death, and, crazy with fear, he fell on his knees, crying, " Help,
Anna, beloved Saint ! I will be a monk ! " The fatal words,
once uttered, could not be retracted, and, with grave misgivings,
no doubt, of paternal wrath (which were amply justified),
Luther, a fortnight later, entered the Augustinian convent at
Erfurt. His father was half - mad with disappointment on
learning of what he considered the blighting of his son's career,
being, in all probability, himself a Protestant by temperament,
though a Catholic, of course, by profession. Luther, however,
stubbornly adhered to his decision, and in the following year
took the monastic vow. His lifelong study of the Bible was now
strenuously begun, and his voluntary and enforced austerities
further injured his already bad health. Naturally, therefore,
the more he searched his heart, the more grievously did his real
or imagined sins afflict his conscience. It was perhaps only
the ministrations of von Staupitz, his vicar-general, who directed
him to what was destined to become the leading idea of his
doctrine, salvation by faith, rather than justification by personal
rectitude, which at this juncture enabled Luther to escape
religious melancholia or even suicide. After his ordination
his activities found an outward channel in the form of a lecture-

NATURAL VOCATION 157

ship in philosophy at Wittenberg, and he gradually recovered
his mental equilibrium. In 1511 (set. 28) he was four weeks
at Rome, and what he saw there went far to determine the
reforming zeal which in such natures is the inevitable sequel
of loathing and scorn. Throughout his turbulent career he
retained his love of music and song. The instant and hearty
acceptance by the German folk of his great hymns, which
became veritable war-songs of the Reformation, is no doubt
in great measure due to the fact that their author, a musician
by birth and practice, had the rare gift of writing lyrics that
must and will be sung.

A brief recapitulation of the results attained in this and
the preceding chapter may conclude this part of our subject.
We found that the life-history of twins points to the conclusion
that inborn qualities are of much greater import in deciding
the career than educational or environmental conditions.
And this conclusion is decidedly confirmed by the evidence
drawn from consideration of the lives of our typical examples.
The " one-man-one-capacity " theory does not, on the other
hand, by any means cover the facts, since in many cases we
found evidence of marked versatility, and it is even conceivable
that it may now and then happen that the capacity which
ultimately becomes predominant and leads to distinction is
not that which was originally the strongest. This, however,
must be very exceptional, for a strong inborn tendency will in
the long run seek and find an outlet, even in the face of most
unfavourable circumstances. Of our forty examples, we
found that in eleven cases the vocation was distinct and practically
single from the first ; in thirteen cases was decisive from the
first, but permanently associated with collateral activities ;
in thirteen cases dubious at first, ultimately decisive and single ;
in three cases dubious or complex from the first, and throughout
the career.

We also saw some evidence that suggests, to my mind at
least, that whereas great men of action and many artists are
often impelled by instinct to commit themselves to their specific
tasks long before they can have formulated any conscious

158 MAKERS OF MAN

aim or purpose, men of the intellectual and ethico-religious types
commonly pass through an experimental phase, during which
they turn their attention to various activities not permanently
fruitful or attractive in relation to their genius. The finding
of their work and the formulation of a definite purpose are,
with such men, practically simultaneous, and constitute a
free and voluntary act in a higher sense than can be said of
those whose careers are pre-determined by unconscious impulse.
But this generalisation must not be too strictly interpreted,
the rule, if it be a rule, will be subject to many exceptions and
qualifications.

VIII
THE NATUKAL HISTORY OF PURPOSE

Significance of purpose — I. Men of action — Negative and positive phases of
purpose — II. ^Esthetic type.

A MAN who, by good luck or in obedience to unreasoned im-
pulse, has become engaged in congenial activities, may certainly
be so far accounted happy, but in the absence of clear self-
knowledge and a definite purpose based thereon, must remain
in some degree the creature of circumstance, liable to disturb-
ing influences which may easily lead him astray. On the
other hand, the man of purpose, who, having so far gauged
his own specific power and his own deepest longing as to discern
their ideal point of intersection, makes this the permanent
bourne of his endeavours, has a great and obvious advantage.
He has gained sure and lasting foothold above the waves of
transient things ; his life has a firm point d'appui in the depths
of immaterial reality ; he is no mere " part of Nature," but,
in his degree, a law-giver and a source of original power. For
this reason there is nothing of deeper psychological interest or
significance than the moment when a great man, glimpsing his
destined task in all its alluring vastness and severity, first
exclaims : " This I will, and this, at any cost, sftall be ! "

Goethe puts into the mouth of the Uncle, in Meisters
Apprenticeship, some wise words on the subject we are dis-
cussing, which doubtless represent his own view of its para-
mount importance. " Man's highest merit always is, as much
as possible to rule circumstances, and as little as possible to
let himself be ruled by them. ... All things without us,
nay, I may add, all things on us, are mere elements ; but deep
within us lies the creative force, which out of these can produce

>59

160 MAKERS OF MAN

what they were meant to be. ... Believe me, most part of
all the misery and mischief, of all that is denominated evil, in
the world, arises from the fact that men are too remiss to get a
proper knowledge of their aims, and when they do know them,
to work intensely in attaining them. . . . Decision and per-
severance are, in my opinion, the noblest qualities of man." 1

A genuine purpose always justifies itself and its procre-
ative impulse by results, being, in fact, the psychical correlate
of actual growth in power, the sprouting into conscious-
ness of a faculty rooted in subconscious instinct. In the
vacuum-suspended scales where these fine issues are weighed,
a mote may turn the balance ; yet the rise or fall of an Empire
may be an event of comparatively slight import. The moment
in which a Caesar crosses — or does not cross, the Rubicon —
what blood-and-thunder drama can vie with it in tragic intensity
of interest, in pregnant possibilities of glory or shame ?

Obviously, it can seldom happen that we are able to discern
the precise moment when the spirit, hitherto groping more or less
unconsciously, more or less doubtfully and tentatively, towards
its true destiny, is first illumined by a clear perception of its goal.
The crude methods of the average biography afford no data
for such precise and subtle diagnosis. In some of the greatest
lives the central motive seems to remain implicit from first to
last, and only reveals itself in the light of impartial survey of
the whole completed task. In a few it is, however, truly critical
in its first emergence, and some of these cases have not escaped
observation, and should prove instructive. In most, by care-
fully following the clue of external influence and internal develop-
ment, we shall be able to form at least a rough idea of the natural
history of the purpose. The scent may be light and fugitive,
but a keen nose should in great measure suffice to make good its
defects. It is, however, useless to blink the fact that we have
before us a long and arduous chase, and those who feel within
them a lack of the true instinctive zest of venery, are counselled
to await us on the edge of the forest, or, in other words, to turn
to the end of the next four sections, where they will find us
counting our bag.

1 Op. cit., bk. vi. Confessions of a Fair Saint, trans, by T. Carlyle.

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF PURPOSE 161

One further point should, however, be noted at the outset,
as an important corollary of what has already been said. A
purpose is never to be conceived of as if it were something fixed
and immutable, but as a living idea, which either grows and
thrives, or decays. A living and thriving purpose is one whose
roots are ever piercing deeper into the nature of its owner, ever
spreading its branches wider throughout his thoughts, words,
and actions. A man who begins with the mere intention to
paint pictures because he feels the power and need of such
activity, comes by degrees to an understanding of the some-
thing within him that needs to be expressed, the something
specific that he alone can express. His purpose has become a
motif ; his motif may become an ideal. And so with every
other form of so-called creative human faculty — its purposeful
use and control are always a factor making for unity, and
counteracting the influences that disintegrate or corrode person-
ality.

I. Men of Action. — On the death of his father, Caesar, a mere
boy at the time, broke off his engagement with a lady of fortune
who had been paternally chosen for him, and married Cornelia,
daughter of the all-powerful democrat Cinna. This decisive
step seems to reveal at least an intuitive prevision of the trend
of events, and that it was not misinterpreted by the Senatorial
party is proved by the fact that, during the reaction which
followed the fall and death of Cinna, the triumphant Sylla
vainly tried to compel Csesar to divorce Cornelia and take
another wife. It is especially noteworthy of Caesar, as evincing
a proud confidence in his powers and his destiny, that although
he never failed to seize his opportunities and to turn them to
full account, there is an entire absence of haste or avidity,
rather a certain cool and leisurely air about him, which masks
the real promptitude and keen resolve of his nature. He knew
when to lie low and when to emerge, and never appears on the
scene without making his presence and force felt, as by his bold
eulogium of Marius, whose name it was then hardly safe to
mention, spoken at the funeral of Julia, his own aunt, and the
great democrat's widow. Later, as aedile, conscious, no doubt,
of growing power and of the turning tide, he ventures to restore
II

162 MAKERS OF MAN

the trophies, previously removed by Sylla, of the victories gained
by Marius over the German tribes. By such provocative actions
he, as it were, tested the fear and forbearance of the Senatorial
party, at the same time taking care to conciliate the populace
by a lavish expenditure on games and public improvements.
These games, by the way, he threw to the mob, much in the spirit
in which one might throw a bone to a mangy and savage dog.
Like Marcus Aurelius, he busied himself with his papers, hardly
deigning to glance at the orgy of blood which his purse had
provided. In much the same spirit, no doubt, as of one firmly
availing himself of the essential means to his ends, he, despite
his freely-avowed scepticism, sought and won by a vast majority,
election to the splendid religious life-office of Pontifex Maximus.
In these and many other actions, Ceesar shows himself as one,
from the first, moving serenely and irresistibly towards some
distant unrevealed aim. The appearance may be — doubtless
is, in some degree, deceptive, but — how shall we lift the veil ?
Who knows when or how it first dawned upon this man, that
upon him, almost alone, it depended to avert political, social,
and Imperial ruin. Silent, Sphinx-like, he moved through his
arduous and heroic years, leaving his actions to declare what
his lips were doubtless too proud to utter — the passion of
loathing for what was, the passion of desire for what yet should
be. To such men " virtue as attitude " is never congenial :
they would instantly have doubts about themselves if they were
not misunderstood. Yet Mommsen says, and I think says
well, of this " tyrant," that " his aim was the highest which
a man may set before himself — the political, military, intel-
lectual, and moral revival of his own deeply fallen nation,
and that still more deeply fallen Hellenic people which was
so closely allied with his own."

Perhaps it was at first only in obedience to his ambition
that he adopted the popular side. Perhaps even his endeavour
to bring Dolabella to book for corrupt government of his colony,
and his investigation of Sylla' s iniquities, were in part dictated
by the need of courting popularity. Perhaps it was only during
the long years of his Gallic campaigns that, contrasting the
splendid loyalty and efficiency of his beloved legionaries with

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF PURPOSE 163

the effete and factious anarchy of the Senatorial and plebeian
mobs, the full significance of his task at length dawned upon
his mind. As Frederic Harrison has observed in regard to our
own Puritan Revolution, a nation in which the representatives
of force are morally as well as physically supreme, has forfeited
the right to self-government, and must accept military rule.
In Caesar the true will of the army was incarnate : to be lord
of the Roman army was to be lord of the civilised world. In
the hour of his triumph it was the enemies of the State, not his
own personal foes, of whom Csesar purged the Senate, replacing
them by distinguished colonists, even by Gauls. One of his
first acts was, indeed, to declare an amnesty in favour of all
who had fought against him ; many of the most vindictive of
his opponents, as Caius Cassius, Brutus, and Cicero, were ex-
plicitly pardoned, and the statue of Pompey was restored.
These are not the acts of a self-seeking opportunist, but of one
who, in estimating the worth of individuals, has learned to
discount 'the personal equation, judging them solely as factors
making or marring the public weal.

The central purpose of Charlemagne, like that of Caesar,
can only be inferred from his work. Of any critical change in
his character, any well-marked sudden conversion from personal
to ideal ends, there is no trace ; on the contrary, he seems to
have deteriorated and coarsened after middle life, when the
restraining and softening influence of his wife Hildegarde and
his mother were withdrawn.

Pope Zach arias had been glad of the support of Charles's
father, Pepin, against Byzantium, and the Lombards, and it
was in recognition of such services that Pepin and his two sons
were crowned in Italy in 754, when Charles was ten years old.
Thus was founded the Carolingian dynasty, and the policy of
co-operation with the Papacy, which, sixteen years later,
Charles and his short-lived brother inherited with the throne.
The task of Charles was not merely to extend his frontier, which
he did by the conquest of Saxony, Brittany, Bavaria, Beneven-
tum, and Austria-Hungary, but to weld into national and
Imperial unity the conflicting elements of his vast realm. To
do this he must first or last find within himself a principle of

164 MAKERS OF MAN

growth and unity, a secret of self-culture and discipline, ana-
logous to that required for the objective problem of his reign.
Charles, we are told, loved no book better (and he loved many)
than Augustine's Cimtas Dei. There he found the description
of the perfect Emperor, who holds his power as something given
or lent by God. The national church in Francia, though wealthy
and powerful, had for long neglected its spiritual and educa-
tional responsibilities. A revival initiated by Boniface and
Willibrod had received the wise countenance of Charles Martel
and Pepin ; and Charlemagne, on. his accession, revealed his
practical sagacity and the sincerity of his devotion to religion
by the zeal with which he encouraged this good cause. In his
first capitulary, published in 769, the year after his father's
death, he embodied a series of injunctions to ecclesiastics for
the reform of Church policy and administration. Here, at the
outset, the keynote of his whole career is firmly sounded by the
future Emperor (set. 26) — his purpose is born in his soul. Five
years later, when he visited the Holy City, before entering St.
Peter's, where Pope Hadrian awaited him, he knelt and kissed
the threshold. There first, perhaps, the full possibilities of his
destiny were revealed to him ; the Saxon war, which began in
the ensuing year, may well have been initiated in the spirit of
crusade. Also, what he noted, by force of contrast, concerning
the deficiencies of the Frankish Church in matters of liturgy
and ceremonial, resulted in his importation of Italian choristers,
and, indirectly, in the theologico-literary renaissance which was
one of the chief glories of his reign. This first visit of Charles
to the " golden and Imperial Borne " was fitly commemorated
by a medal showing himself and Pope Hadrian clasping hands
over the Bible reposing on an altar. He was a typical Catholic
potentate, and his life a rude symphony expressing his deep
feeling for splendid worship, spacious corporate life.

It must indeed be remembered, as bearing on the natural
history of purpose, that Charles's first overtures to the powerful
national Church were largely motived, in all probability, by the
desire to isolate his refractory younger brother and co-heir,
Carloman. But this qualification hardly applies to his advocacy
of the cause of ecclesiastical and educational reform, and his

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF PURPOSE 165

patronage of the revivalist leader, Abbot Sturm. The great
Church dignitaries, who were to all intents and purposes mighty
feudal lords, in many respects practically above the law, could
hardly have welcomed a movement which proposed to enforce
the responsibilities which had long been conveniently forgotten.
Still, inasmuch as the revivalist movement was favoured by
the Pope, to whom Charles undoubtedly looked as his natural
ally, self-interest may well have been an element in determining
his own favour to the cause. But there is no valid ground for
questioning the substantial sincerity of his zeal.

The life of William of Orange differs from that of Caesar or
of Charlemange, in that his main purpose became explicit at an
early point in his career. He enters upon the stage of inter-
national history as a young man of twenty-two, arm-in-arm with
an Emperor, in October of 1555, when Charles v. abdicated in
favour of his son, Philip n., at Brussels. It was a change of
ill-omen for Protestants everywhere, the close of a period of
genuine statesmanship, the opening of a reign of blind and
ferocious bigotry, but above all a change fraught with disastrous
consequences for ths Lutheran and Calvinist inhabitants of
William's own principality of Nassau, and for those of the
Netherlands in general. On the other hand, it gave William the
opportunity of achieving a greatness which he might otherwise
have missed. Himself a Catholic by training, though born of
Lutheran stock, he seems to have been constitutionally incap-
able of religious intolerance. Pontus Payen asserts that " the
Catholics thought him a Catholic, the Lutherans a Lutheran."
It was axiomatic with William that " the hearts and wills of
men were things not to be forced by any outward power what-
ever." Conduct, not creed, was for him the test of human
value, and in this respect he was, from the first, several hundreds
of years in advance of his time. At the date of Philip's succes-
sion William was serving the Empire against Henry n. of France,
spending the winters in almost regal state in the splendid Nassau
Palace at Brussels. He now became a Knight of the Empire
and one of the King's Councillors. The war continued to
occupy most of his time until 1559, when it was closed by the
treaty of Cateau-Cambresis. He was then sent to Paris as one

166 MAKERS OF MAN

of the hostages for the due observance of the treaty, and there
it was that he learned of the horrors in preparation for the
" heretics," and instantly conceived the purpose which thence-
forth remained the central motive of his career. Henry and
Philip had batched a fine plan by which the terrible Duke of
Alva, one of the first soldiers of the day, was to extirpate the
" accursed vermin " who were so rapidly increasing within the
realms of both. The secret agreement with Alva was supposed
by Henry to be known to William, and taking it for granted
that, as a professed Catholic, he would be in full sympathy with
any iniquity practised in the name of his religion, he spoke
freely and exultingly to him of the good times coming. William
(henceforward to be known, inappropriately enough in most
respects, as " The Silent ") said nothing that could betray
surprise or ignorance, and so learned all the details of the scheme.
Writing long after in The Apology, he thus describes the effect
of Henry's revelation upon his mind : "I confess that I was
deeply moved with pity for all the worthy people who were
thus devoted to slaughter, and for the country to which I owed
so much,1 wherein they designed to introduce an Inquisition
worse and more cruel than that of Spain. ... It was enough
for a man to look askance at an image to be condemned to
the stake. . . . From that hour I resolved with my whole
soul to do my best to drive this Spanish vermin from the land ;
and of this resolve I have never repented, but believe that I,
my comrades, and all who have stood with us, have done a
worthy deed, fit to be held in perpetual honour." William was
now twenty-six, and for the next few years he pursued a resolute
but guarded policy of opposition to the plans of Philip, agitat-
ing for the formation of an efficient council of State, ignoring
the pressure constantly brought to bear upon him to undertake
the dirty work of persecution, restraining the violence of his
brother Louis and the Protestant Leaguers, seeking the media-
tion of the Emperor and the alliance of the French Huguenots,
of England, of the German Lutherans, quelling at imminent
personal risk the wild insurrection of Calvinists at Antwerp,
compelled at last to resign all offices by the Regent's demand
1 The Netherlands, that is.

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF PURPOSE 167

to sign an oath undertaking to act against " all and every " for
Philip without reservation. Then in 1567 came Alva with his
punitive force of 24,000 veterans, and William, knowing his
life and cause at stake, left all and retired to his brother's castle
at Dillenburg, an outlaw. Next year his fortunes were to
touch their lowest point. His son has been carried off to Spain ;
his invasion of Flanders fails miserably ; his rearguard is cap-
tured ; his German and Walloon mercenaries desert him or
threaten to cut his throat ; he is at his wits' end for money ; is
constantly dogged by hired assassins. To crown all, his wife
abandons him in the hour of his sorest need, deaf to his pathetic
appeal for her " sweet consolation."/' In such fires was the true
metal of this great man's purpose forged to enduring temper,
the purpose that, despite all appearances to the contrary, was
yet, almost inexplicably, to prevail. Magical are the effects of
a will that fights on without counting the cost.

The power of circumstance, acting upon predisposition
and inborn capacity, as an evoker and determinant of purpose,
has been clearly shown in the case of William of Orange. In
comparison, the career of Drake appears vague and fortuitous,
for the man was of a coarser and less exalted type. Yet he had
a purpose, passionately felt, if never clearly avowed. And in
its formation the hand of circumstance can be unmistakably
identified. To injure Spain, and, incidentally, to enrich himself,
by congenial employment of his turbulent masterful energies,
were for Francis Drake the things permanently and supremely
worth while. All Spaniards he loathed and contemned for their
own sakes, no doubt, but above all for the sake of the Papacy
which they championed, whose yoke they would fain have
refastened on the neck of the world. Nor was the bitterness
of his hatred without show of justification. His own father
had been a preacher in Tavistock, and had been driven thence
by the persecution of Catholic neighbours. Then had followed
the few but evil years of Mary's reign, when friends, perhaps
kinsmen, of the Drakes had forfeited their lives by opposition
to the Spanish marriage. In the days of his 'prentice voyages
to France and Holland, Francis must have heard much talk
of the horrors of the Inquisition from the lips, perhaps, of actual

168 MAKERS OF MAN

Fleming sufferers. One of his earliest voyages for the firm of
the Hawkins brothers, was, as purser, to the Biscayan province
of Spain. " It seemed as though the finger of Destiny had
beckoned him there to show the work he was born to do. At
St. Sebastian, the chief port of Biscaya, the remnants of a
Plymouth crew were at this moment creeping from the pesti-
lential dungeons of the Inquisition. In six months half of
them had rotted to death." It was memories like these, and
the more personal grudge born of the treachery which, at
La Hacha, deprived him of the fruits of his first voyage to the
West Indies, which made of Drake " a fearful man to the King
of Spain." But in this " master thief of the unknown world "
there was also a spirit of pure knight-errantry, a thirst for
new knowledge and the untrodden path. The greatest
moments of his life were, perhaps, first, that when as a young
man of thirty, from the summit of the Cordilleras, with the
Atlantic at his back, he gazed awe-struck upon the unmeasured
mystery of the Pacific, — " and prayed God's leave to sail therein
one day " : second, the time some six years later, when from
the mid-western coast of North America he steered straight for
the heart of that golden sea. For sixty-eight days they had
no sight of land ; once, grounded hopelessly on a reef, Drake
and his men took Sacrament together. But in the end the high
resolve was accomplished, the circuit of the globe completed,
and the South Sea sailed from side to side.

Pre-eminently a man of purpose was our next subject,
Cardinal Richelieu. Asked on his death-bed whether he
pardoned his enemies, he replied : "Absolutely; and I pray God
to condemn me if I have had any other aim than the welfare
of God and of the State." In a memorial drawn up towards
the close of his long ministry, he thus records the main objects
and achievements of his career : —

" When your Majesty resolved to admit me to his council and
to share in his confidence, I can say with truth that the Hugue-
nots divided the State with the Monarchy, that the nobles
behaved as if they were not subjects, and that the chief
governors of provinces acted as if they had been independent
sovereigns. ... I then undertook to employ all my energy

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF PURPOSE 169

and all the authority that you were pleased to give me, to ruin
the Huguenot faction, to humble the pride of the nobles, to
reduce all your subjects to their duty, and to exalt your name
to its proper position among foreign nations." National unity
based on a despotic monarchy at home ; the ruin of the Haps-
burg and the substitution of the Bourbon influence abroad,
were the two allied objects of Richelieu's political career. How
did he come by this twofold purpose, which, once formulated,
was so rigidly adhered to, so triumphantly carried into effect ?
Richelieu became Bishop of LuQon in his twenty-second,
and Councillor of State to the Queen-Mother (Mary de Medici)
in his thirty-first year. The interval, spent mainly, up till
the death of Henri rv., in his provincial see, afterward varied
by frequent visits to Paris, was the incubation-period of
Richelieu's genius and policy. Of the keenness with which
he followed the course of events there can be no doubt what-
ever, nor of the opportuneness and skill with which, at the
psychological moment, he took a hand in the great game.
The imminence of a death-struggle between the Court and
the nobility must have been obvious to a much less acute
observer. What seems more surprising than Richelieu's
recognition of the main issue, is the fact that from the first
he attached himself openly and fearlessly to what must surely
have appeared the weaker side. But really, he could hardly
have chosen otherwise. On the one hand were the forces
of disruption — the great nobles headed by the Prince de Conde
in league with the Huguenot party. On the other was the
traditional policy of strong central government, feebly up-
held since the assassination of Henri iv. by Mary de Medici
and the boy King, but all the more tempting, perhaps, to a
young and ambitious man conscious of his own powers, justified,
too, by success in the past, and an evident necessity for national
prosperity, rather for national existence, in the future. Con-
sider, too, the temperament of this young aspirant, his clear-
cut, refined, and literary type — the type of the lover of " good
form," of order, distinction — the hater of all that is demagogic,
inchoate, and obscure. Richelieu's episcopal see was not far
from Rochelle, and he could hardly have failed to perceive

170 MAKERS OF MAN

that the true aim of the Huguenots was the replacement of the
Monarchy by a federation of self-governed republics. He, as
a Catholic priest, could not well hesitate between the further-
ance of such a policy and that of a restoration of the prestige
of the widen regime}- " The ruling sentiment of Richelieu's
career," says Professor Lodge, " was his hatred of disunion
and of princely independence." In other words, his purpose,
though of slow growth and lifelong development, was, from
the first, deeply rooted in instinct, and, for that very reason, a
thing of lasting power.

In the growth of any purpose that has an ideal basis, im-
plicit or self-avowed, in the growth of any purpose, therefore,
truly worthy of the name, there will often be found two well-
defined phases. First, a negative or destructive ; second,
a positive or constructive, period ; first, a rebellion against
intolerable conditions, culminating perhaps in their complete
subdual : second, an attempt, more or less logically founded
and wrought out, at the substitution of a new and higher
order of things. In the case of Caesar, the constructive
tendency, though always latent and often emerging to view,
had full scope only for the last year or two of his life. William
of Orange, CaBsar too, for that matter, died prematurely ; but
the former, by his temporary success in federating his seventeen
provinces of the Netherlands on a basis of religious tolerance,
and resistance to the Spaniards, clearly showed the instinct
of constructive statesmanship. Oliver Cromwell, with whom
we are next concerned, is, in this respect, however, a far better
example of the development of purpose.

I have already referred to the affair which, in his thirty-
first year, led to the appearance of Cromwell before the Privy
Council, and to his apology for the violence of his protest against
certain reactionary changes in the civic government of Hunt-
ingdon. Also, I mentioned the significant fact of his refusal
to appear at the coronation of Charles, or to accept knight-
hood. It is obvious, from these facts, as well as from his
custom of keeping open house for recalcitrant clergy, that,

1 On the propensity of priests in general to the government of a single
person, vide Hume's Essay on " The Parties of Great Britain."

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF PURPOSE 171

long before he entered upon his public life, Cromwell was taking
a keen interest in the trend of events, and was whole-heartedly
sympathetic with the Puritan cause. Consequently, when in
his forty-first year he entered the Long Parliament, he was
fully prepared to take an active part. The fact that this was
Cromwell's third election to Parliament, certainly seems to
show at least some vague intention to adopt a political career,
though to a man of his substantial position it might not mean
much. There is no evidence of personal ambition of the de-
finite concentrated kind, such as we find in the case of Riche-
lieu, for example. His own advancement seems, in fact,
rather to have been a means than an end with Cromwell. It
was accepted rather than deliberately sought. The end in
view, at first, was merely to meet and effectually deal with
every emergency as it arose, not looking farther ahead than
was necessary in order to provide for obvious contingencies.
On the outbreak of the first civil war (1642, aet. 43), Cromwell
threw himself impetuously into the work of organising the
defence of his district, and for the ensuing nine years was
almost constantly in the field, first as captain of a troop, then
colonel of a regiment, general of cavalry — at last, leader of
an army. One of the greatest inspirations of Cromwell's life
was that which resulted from his perception of the useless-
ness of " decayed serving men and tapsters, and such kind
of fellows," against the blue-blooded cavaliers, and led to
the remodelling of his regiment and ultimately of the Puritan
army. " I raised such men as had the fear of God before them,
as made some conscience of what they did ; and from that day
forward they were never beaten, and wherever they were en-
gaged against the enemy they beat continually." Truly, as
Frederic Harrison remarks, " the issue of the whole war lay in
that word." Most of these men would be " Independents in
Religion," more or less fanatical, whereas the generals approved
by Parliament were Presbyterian moderates. Cromwell,
hitherto a man of passion rather than of purpose, was now
rapidly gaining self-confidence and the feeling of national
responsibility. He saw that the influence of Parliament was
a dead-weight upon the cause, and by means of the " Self-

172 MAKERS OF MAN

denying Ordinance " enforced the resignation of such luke-
warm commanders as Manchester and Essex, and the dethrone-
ment of the Presbyterian interest. The " New Model " was
passed for the army. Sir Thomas Fairfax was made Com-
mander-in-Chief, and Cromwell, though as a member of Parlia-
ment disqualified by the Ordinance from serving, was, no
doubt by pre-arrangement, invited to retain the second com-
mand. Second in name, that is ; in reality he was now supreme
in the army, which, in its remodelled state, was the incarnate
spirit of the English Revolution. The Parliament had grown
quite out of touch with public opinion, and from this hour its
authority wanes, and that of the army correspondingly increases.
But even yet Cromwell's programme, and even the destructive
phase of his purpose, are incomplete. For a long time, after
Naseby and after the surrender of Charles, he favours a restora-
tion of the monarchy, strives for the King so zealously as to
risk reputation, power, even life itself, by the resentment of
the extremists. But when, on the eve of the second civil war,
he at last discovers that all along the King has been playing
him false, he at once denounces him in Parliament, and
tramples underfoot the very notion of compromise. The
second war was, for Cromwell, Charles's unpardonable sin :
henceforth, for him, Charles is the " Man of Blood," and the
Presbyterian party in Parliament are his accomplices. The
King's cunning played him a very ill turn when it induced
him to try to make a tool of Cromwell.

So much for the negative phase of Cromwell's purpose, an
evasive entity throughout, it must be confessed. The fanat-
ical element in his nature finally blazed out in his Irish ex-
pedition, a piece of bloody opportunism, of which the least said
the soonest mended.

The principle of unity underlying Cromwell's actions hitherto
is undoubtedly to "be found in his religious motive. After
the Scots campaign, the southward flight of Prince Charles,
and Cromwell's culminating triumph at Worcester, a new era
begins. His task now was " to control the Revolution which
he had led to victory." And it was no light one. Two years
before, " by lightning rapidity, by instant decision, by terrible

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF PURPOSE 173

sternness, with complete control of temper," he had, at the
cost of only four executions, suppressed the dangerous risings
of the Levellers. That was his first sharp lesson as to
the necessary limitation of religious individualism, as to its
atomistic, disintegrating trend. A second object-lesson was
afforded by the so-called Little Parliament of 1653, consist-
ing of some one hundred and forty Notables, " persons fearing
God," summoned by Cromwell himself. During its five months'
sitting it raised all sorts of burning questions, alarmed every
interest, aroused every class ; and Cromwell cannot but have
breathed a long sigh of relief when, perceiving its own un-
popularity, it wisely resigned. He never again risked a " Reign
of the Saints." Nor did these experiences betray him into
any reactionary interference with what he considered legitimate
freedom of conscience. " Stoutly he contended with Parlia-
ments and Council for Quakers, Jews, Anabaptists, Socinians,
and even crazy blasphemers." Even more conclusive as to
his growing tolerance is the fact that " he satisfied Mazarin
that he had given to Catholics all the protection that he dared."
The grand success achieved in these master years of the Pro-
tectorate was in fact largely due to a profound modification of
his attitude towards life, motived, no doubt, by the extreme
complexity of his problem and his task. It was not that he
was less religious, but that his religion had been humanised,
that he had learned " relativity." He mellowed with age —
grew more sociable, held weekly concerts, and was open-handed
with his wealth. Summing up, we may say of Cromwell that
his purpose was, from beginning to end, progressive, thoroughly
adaptable, and rooted in a grand and simple sincerity of religious
motive. The purpose was the man. He was one who never
crossed a river until he came to it ; witness his perfect willing-
ness to entertain the question of accepting the crown, but
ultimate refusal of it, because he could feel no " clear call "
to accept it. " He never was greater than in refusing a dignity
which would have taken all meaning out of the Puritan
Revolution."

With regard to our next ana very different subject, Frederick
the Great, and his purpose, the following from Nietzsche's

174 MAKERS OF MAN

Beyond Good and Evil l is worth quoting : " That unscrupulous
enthusiast for big handsome grenadiers, . . . the problematic,
crazy father of Frederick the Great, had on one point the very
knack and lucky grasp of genius : he knew what was then lacking
in Germany. . . . His ill-will to the young Frederick resulted
from the anxiety of a profound instinct. Men were lacking,
and he suspected to his bitterest regret that his own son was
not man enough. There, however, he deceived himself : but
who would not have deceived himself in his place ? He saw his
son lapsed to atheism, to the esprit, to the pleasant frivolity
of clever Frenchmen — he saw in the background the great blood-
sucker, the spider scepticism, he suspected the incurable
wretchedness of a heart no longer hard enough either for evil
or good, and of a broken will that no longer commands, is no
longer able to command. Meanwhile, however, there grew up
in his son that new kind of harder and more dangerous scepticism
— who knows to what extent it was engendered just by his father's
hatred and the icy melancholy of a will condemned to solitude ?
— the sceptism of daring manliness, which is closely related to
the genius for war and conquest, and made its first entrance
into Germany in the person of the great Frederick. This
scepticism despises and nevertheless grasps ; 2 it undermines,
and takespossession ; it does not believe, but it does not thereby
lose itself ; it gives the spirit a dangerous liberty, but it keeps
strict guard over the heart ; it is the German form of scepticism."
Frederick's own cynical avowal of the motives, " ambition,
interest, and a desire to make the world speak of me," which
prompted his unprovoked attack upon the Silesian territory
of the Queen of Hungary, has already been mentioned, and is
a striking confirmation of Nietzsche's diagnosis. As often
happens where the dispositions of the two parents are strongly
antithetical, that part of his nature which Frederick inherited
from his father seems for a long time to have remained latent,
unsuspected even by himself. It, however, was all the time

1 Helen Zimmern's translation.

2 " And so should we do also, having the carefulness of the most zealous
players and yet indifference, as Were it merely about a ball" (Epictetus).
Thus extremes meet /

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF PURPOSE 175

assimilating the results of the strict and thorough military
training which he received, and the highly specialised ability
thus gradually built up could not fail, sooner or later, to demand
an outlet. Meanwhile the sentimental (? maternal) factors
were upon the whole weakening rather than strengthening ;
and their furtive but free indulgence at last culminated in
disgust and satiety. Life might not be worth much, but he
would not waste it in flute-playing and philosophising alone.

The first great shock must have been the sight of the exe-
cution of his dearest friend, Katte, upon whom his brutal father
visited the vengeance which he was with difficulty dissuaded
from wreaking upon young Frederick himself. Frederick, who
was then a youth of eighteen, is said to have fainted at the
time. If the immediate effects of such a blow were great —
what must not have been the ultimate coarsening and hardening
results upon the morale of a highly sensitive and reflective
temperament ? Complete disillusionment (as he understood
it) was no doubt what the father aimed at for the erring son ;
and in the end, after a good many more years, it was attained and
over-attained. It almost seems as though Frederick delayed
coming forward until immediately after his father's death, so
that the latter might not have the satisfaction of perceiving
how well he had succeeded. But there is a touch of savage
resentment (evidencing the bitterness of his many wounds)
in the promptness with which Frederick held a grand masonic
lodge (the old King hated freemasonry), and disbanded the
cherished regiment of giants almost before the royal corpse
was cold. There was, as it were, a farewell demonstration
of the old self ; the new self, long weary, no doubt, of the
elegant frivolities which Bielfeld had found so ecstatic in the
" enchanting palace " of Rheinsberg, the cold, keen, sceptical
Machiavellian, energetic, ambitious, ruthless, deliberately
grasping self, was now to be revealed to an astounded and
scandalised world. In such a mood, the first opening for
self-assertion, for aggression, which chanced to be the death
of the Emperor Charles vi. (leaving no male heir), could not fail
to be adopted. Silesia was not his, but he believed that he
could take it, and that, once taken, the moralists whom he

176 MAKERS OF MAN

despised would, as usual, justify the accomplished fact. What
perhaps he failed fully to realise was, that this single initial
act of aggression would embark him upon a career of lifelong
struggle, from which there could be no possible rest or with-
drawal. But so it, of course, proved : hence, in understanding
the motives which impelled him to this first step, we have
really learned as much as we need to know concerning what
must pass for the " purpose " of Frederick. On its negative
side, at least, for in essence the military career of this man is
nothing else than destructive criticism of the traditional morality
current in his and our day.

: The positive phase, though much less marked, is not, how-
ever, to be overlooked. One of the most remarkable proofs of
his greatness is the energy with which, after twenty-two years
of nearly continuous warfare, Frederick, immediately upon the
conclusion of peace, threw himself heart and soul into the work
of national reconstruction and reorganisation. He was, upon
the whole, true to enlightenment, as he came to understand
it ; and if in his contemptuous disregard of accepted standards
of public and private morality he is the exemplar of eighteenth
century scepticism, he is an eighteenth century positivist
in his rebuilding of Berlin, the doubling of his dominion, the
trebling of his population, the colonisation by 42,000 families
(mostly immigrants) in five or six hundred new villages of
120,000 acres of reclaimed land, the endowment of Agriculture,
the creation of new industries, the impartial tolerance (combined
with contempt) of all religions, the encouragement of Art,
Science, and Letters, the preference of ability to rank, the
scorn of convention and fiunkeydom, the codification of Law,
and the reform of legal procedure. The question whether
these benefits were worth what they cost in blood and anguish,
would no doubt be answered by his many victims with a flat
denial. Still, they, no less than the horrors that cleared the
ground for them, were implicit in the mental attitude in which
he set about his arbitrarily adopted task. They were, no
doubt, in some sense or degree, a part of his programme from
the first.

Although, like Frederick, a man inspired by a craving for

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF PURPOSE 177

personal distinction rather than by any ideal end, Nelson is, in
certain respects, almost the antithesis of the Prussian hero.
In all that concerned his profession, at least, Nelson was pre-
eminently a chivalrous man, whereas Frederick's career might
be interpreted as constituting in essence a challenge and refuta-
tion of the chivalrous ideal. Frederick was, in fact, the initiator
of the most popular cult of our age, the Religion of Getting on at
any price — to other people's interests and one's own honour.
Witness his false accusation of the Grand Duke of Tuscany of
instigating his assassination, agreeing with one of the cynical
suggestions of his own Military Instructions ; l witness, too,
his repudiation of treaty obligations with our government, and
of promises to the Elector of Saxony ; witness, above all, his
outrageous treatment of the Queen at Dresden, culminating in
the stealing of state papers from an ostensibly friendly Power.
To a chivalrous man — to Nelson, for example — though he might
be every whit as keen on personal triumph, any one of these
things would have been, not merely repugnant, but impossible.
He could not have done them, or even have contemplated the
idea of doing them. And when, for want of a better, I use the
word chivalry, I am speaking not, be it observed, of any
ephemeral affectation of romantic origin, but of a fundamental
quality of the best and highest natures. Csesar, for example,
was a most chivalrous man ; he disdained to profit by reading
the captured correspondence of his enemy Pompey at Pharsalia
or of Scipio in Africa, to distinguish between friends and foes
in recommending candidates for promotion, or to safeguard his
own person against obvious danger of assassination. Chivalry
is nothing else than the highest form of generosity, based on
courage — the courage that will risk whatever is most prized,
rather than violate honour or take a mean advantage. It is,
in short, a manifestation of the cult (a cult, rather) of all noble
souls — the Religion of Self-Respect. Frederick had no chivalry
in him ; how could the son of such a father have had any ? —
and but that he was a King, would not have been considered
a gentleman. Nelson had so much that those who utterly fail

1 " It may not be improper to accuse the enemy of the most pernicious
designs." — Op. cit.
12

178 MAKERS OF MAN

to understand him have regarded it as mere pose and affectation,
conceiving it impossible that a man so ambitious could at the
same time be so Quixotic. But ambition and self-respect are
both rooted in the same fundamental quality of pride ; and it
is therefore in no way surprising that where one is present in
excess, the other should be also.

That Nelson was from a very early age determined to make
a name for himself, there can be no doubt whatever. This, in
fact, was throughout life the purpose which he kept steadily
before him, the mainspring of all his thoughts and actions. It
is told of him as a boy that he once robbed his schoolmaster's
garden, not because he wanted the pears, of which, indeed, he
refused to partake, but simply because his companions were
afraid to take them. After the siege of Calvi, where he lost the
sight of his right eye, Nelson wrote : " They have not done me
justice. But never mind, I'll have a Gazette of my own."
And to his wife : " One day or other I will have a long Gazette
to myself." Off Cape St. Vincent he boarded the San Joseph,
exclaiming, " Westminster Abbey or Victory ! " On the eve of
the battle of the Nile he said, " Before this time to-morrow I shall
have gained a peerage or Westminster Abbey." But though
it is abundantly clear that personal distinction for its own sake
was the guerdon for which Nelson, over and over again, staked
health, life, even reputation, with the reckless abandon of a
gambler, it must never be forgotten that honour and duty, as
he simply and loyally understood these, he would never have
staked. On the contrary, there can be no doubt that by his
loyalty to both, by his resolute enforcement of the Navigation
Acts against American traders in the West Indies, and by his
exposure of the wholesale robbery practised there by the con-
tractors who supplied the Navy, he at an early and critical
period in his career made powerful enemies, who, by raising
prejudice against him at the Board of Admiralty, materially
delayed his advance in his profession. In enforcing the Naviga-
tion Acts against American traders — foreigners they had made
themselves, and as foreigners they should be treated — Nelson
had to act in defiance of the military governor, and, eventually,
of his own admiral. " I must either disobey my orders or

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF PURPOSE 179

disobey Acts of Parliament. I determined on the former."
On his seizing the American vessels, proceedings were taken
against him (a mere boy of twenty-eight) for damages of £40,000,
and attempts were made to arrest him. In the end the Treasury
took up his defence, and, his point duly carried, the Commander-
in-Chief was thanked for his activity and zeal in protecting the
commerce of Great Britain ! Nelson's bitter comment was
amply justified. " I either deserved," he said, " to have been
sent out of the Service, or at least to have had some little notice
taken of what I had done." His official reception was, in fact,
so obviously cool, on returning from this three years' valuable
service at the West Indies, that it nearly resulted in his leaving
the Navy. I mention these facts, which ought to be familiar
to all English readers, because of late some sorry attempts
have been made to belittle the patriotism of Nelson as mere
bombast and theatricality. The lustre of patriotism is in these
days, truly, a little tarnished, the virtue itself suspect by not a
few worthy people, but it still has its place in the cosmic scheme.
Too pronouncedly a universalist point of view would be of
doubtful advantage to any great sailor or soldier, and in the
Nelsonic age was, for such men, frankly inconceivable. And to
expect from Nelson the buckram impassivity of Wellington, is
like asking from the lyric genius of a Shelley the epic (or bovine)
imperturbability of a Wordsworth.

Nelson was a born sailor if there ever were one, but the idea
of going to sea seems to have been suggested to him by the
fact that his maternal uncle was in command of the
Raisonnabk. It is interesting to speculate as to whether,
had Nelson chosen some other career, he would have
attained analogous distinction. His father believed that he
was born to excel, and in any active pursuit (for he was
not really intellectual) he would, I believe, have forced himself
to the front. A fighter he must always have been ; he would
have fretted his heart out in the rut of a tame and sedentary
security.

The purpose of Napoleon ? A big book might be written on
the subject without exhausting its infinite possibilities or
straightening out its perplexing ambiguities. The difficulty

i8o MAKERS OF MAN

with Napoleon is, that he was a man of moods and — an Italian.
What he said about himself — and this was his favourite topic
— is only to be trusted when it is confirmed by his actions.
Was he in sober truth a man of purpose at all, or only a sublime
adventurer ? We are told that in his boyhood he was full
of self-love and of unbounded aspirations. Something of a
dreamer, no doubt, like many other boys — but with a difference.
And of what did he dream ? To answer this question we need
first to inquire — what books did he love ? Solid reading in
general, and in particular, Bossuet's Discourses of Universal
History, it appears. " On the fortunate day," says (I think)
Lord Rosebery, " when he happened on the Discourses,
and read of Caesar, Alexander, and the succession of Empires,
the veil of the temple was rent and he beheld the movements
of the gods." Somewhat later, his military education having
well begun, we find him proficient beyond his years in geography
and mathematics, also in his leisure moments imbibing litera-
ture of a decidedly Jacobinical tendency. It was, perhaps,
the influence of Rousseau l which awoke what proved a very
fleeting sympathy with the nationalist movement in Corsica,
and led to the vain efforts of Paoli to enlist him in the cause.
Already, at twenty-three, he is disgusted by the subserviency
of the hapless Louis in assuming the red cap at the behest
of the mob. " Why do they not sweep away four or five
hundred of them with the cannon ? " Napoleon was the
creation of a democratic upheaval, which, in his heart,
though he so far accepted it, he certainly never loved. He
held, rightly no doubt, that the true national will is by
no means identical with the ever-shifting demands of the
unruly populace. The latter, so far as might be possible,
he always disregarded ; the former he, upon the whole (that is
as far as suited his purpose), gauged with triumphant success.
Long afterwards he said that in America he would have been
content with the role of a Washington, for in America the
national will really held sway. In Europe there was no other
way for him than to rule as a crowned Washington in the midst

1 Of whom he said later, " Rousseau was a bad man ; a very bad man ; he
caused the Revolution."

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF PURPOSE 181

of kings conquered or mastered. But we anticipate. Napol-
eon's conscience was often uneasy about the part he played
in the rising of the 13th Vendemiaire, when (aged twenty-six),
as general in command of artillery, he " impressed his seal "
upon Paris in the form of a whiff of grape-shot. Bat, for all
that, the stamp was no doubt authentic, and the experience
probably went far to remove any lingering illusions with regard
to the immediate future of democracy. " Once again, a man
is needed — what if / should — ? " Immediately on this followed
the astounding revelation of Napoleon's Italian campaign,
when the young maestro, finding himself in control of such an
orchestra as he had long yearned to conduct, gave the world
such an overture, such a thunderous taste of his quality, as his
cosmopolitan audience will assuredly never forget. Beaulieu,
Wurmser, Davidowich, Alvinzi, Provera — general after general
was hopelessly out-manoeuvred ; army after army was poured
into Italy from the inexhaustible resources of Austria,
only to be crumpled and broken by the hero of Lodi, of
Roveredo, of Primolano, Arcola, Rivoli, and Mantua.1 This
upstart ignores the time-honoured rules of the game ; fights
when he should be in winter quarters or asleep leagues
away ; never takes off his boots for seven successive days
and nights ; makes tribute even of the sacred works of
art in our galleries, hitherto immune from such outrage !
Were Bonaparte's thoughts now returning to the dreams of
those boyish days when he pored over the pages of the Dis-
courses of Universal History ? Did he see again the move-
ments of the gods, of Caesar,^" Alexander, Scipio, Hannibal —
— and another among "them ? There is reason to suspect it,
and that now at least the immensity of his opportunity was
prompting the formulation of a purpose correspondingly vast.
Long afterwards he told Gourgaud and Montholon that this
time, after his Italian victories, was perhaps the happiest in
his life. " From that time I saw what I might become. I
already saw the world flying beneath me, as if I had been
carried through the air." He could still pose as a liberator,

1 " Suivant moi elle (la campagne d'ltalio cle 1796 et 1797) fait mieux
connaitre qu'aucune autre et son genie militaire et sa caractere " (Stendhal).

182 MAKERS OF MAN

a republican,1 but soon begins to foresee the end of that. A
pear, still unripe, waiting on the bough to be plucked in due
season ; a crown in the gutter, which the People shall place
on his head : in such images his growing purpose embodied
itself to his mind's eye. The Convention farce is not quite
played out ; he is persona ingrata at present with the little
tin gods of the Directory ; to divert himself, meanwhile, he
conceives grandiose visions of Oriental empires, the conquest of
Egypt, of Syria, of Turkey, perhaps one day of India — visions
which did not come to much in the end. Napoleon returned
home — having crossed his moral Rubicon at Jaffa, when he
sanctioned the execution of his four thousand prisoners — to find
the pear ripe, and to pluck it from the bough. Here, on the
eve of his triumph, I will quote from Otto Weininger a sentence
not malapropos : "In Napoleon's life also there was a moment
when a conversion took place ; but this was not a turning
away from earthly life, but the deliberate decision for the
treasure and power and splendour of the earthly life. Napoleon
was great in the colossal intensity with which he flung from
him all the ideal, all relation to the absolute, in the magnitude of
his guilt." This, if true at all, is true in logic — not in psychology :
there is no evidence of any such crisis ; the moment Weininger
postulates is a moment not in time, but in eternity. But, at
Jaffa, Napoleon first learned what hideous necessities may con-
front the man who has given himself to Destiny — I have
therefore called it his moral Rubicon, and shall have to speak
of it again. In diagnosing the purpose of Napoleon, it is only
fair to remember that his career was cut short before he could
bring it to completion. If it be true that idle men invariably
fall into mischief, it is no less true that men of extraordinary
energy can hardly fail to effect something useful. There was
a strong constructive side to the genius of Napoleon, which
necessarily remained dormant during the greater part of his
reign, but would no doubt have produced great results could
he have escaped the Nemesis which dooms the aggressor to
a perpetual crescendo of aggression. In the Code Napoleon,

1 " En 1797 on pouvait 1'aimer avec passion et sans restriction ; il n'avait
point vole la liberte a son pays " (Stendhal).

NAPOLEON.
From the painting by Paul Delarocltt.

To face /. 182.

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF PURPOSE 183

however, he has left an enduring testimony to its existence,
o say nothing of the improvement, rather the transformation,
he effected in Elba during the ten months of his enforced resi-
dence. The crucial question with regard to this man's place in
history seems to me to be that of his relation to the French Re-
volution. Up to the date of the conclusion of his Italian campaign
(set. 28), his actions, at least, are consistent with a loyal accept-
ance of its fundamental aims and principles. But this was
all changed the moment he saw a chance to force himself to
the front, and, once there, all considerations of Republican
consistency were soon cast to the winds. In the counsel dictated
by Napoleon to Montholon, for his son, occurs the following :
" I was obliged to daunt Europe by my arms. ... I saved
the Revolution which was about to perish. I raised it from
its ruins and showed it to the world beaming with glory. I have
implanted new ideas in France and in Europe. They cannot
retrograde." 1

There is much truth in this account of his achieve-
ment ; the point is what he intended. Beethoven was not far
out when, on learning that Napoleon had accepted the title
of Emperor, he tore the title-page of his Eroica Symphony and
trampled it underfoot, exclaiming, " After all, then, he is only
an ordinary man ! " 2 By usurpation, and by his futile attempt
to found a dynasty, Napoleon condemned himself as an ex-
ploiter of the Revolution ; and of this treason many of his own
sayings betray an uneasy consciousness. For all that, Napoleon
certainly loved France, and probably there is justice in the
claim he makes in the following assertion : "All that I wish,
all that I desire, the object of all my labours, is that my name
shall for ever be connected with the name of France." In
other words, fame (as he understood it) was the primary object
of Napoleon's endeavour. But how did he understand it ?
" A great reputation," he said, " is but a great noise : the more
there is of it the farther off it is heard." A grotesquely mater-

1 No thanks to Napoleon if they had not retrograded. As a matter of fact,
they, of course, could and did.

a Ordinary, that ia, in motive and intention ; of his exceptional energy and
ability there could, of course, be no possible doubt.

184 MAKERS OF MAN

ialist conception of what constitutes fame : very nearly the
opposite of the truth. Fame is rather a still small voice, hardly
audible, even to the sharpest ear, during the lifetime of its
subject, growing louder and clearer when the din of notoriety
is hushed by death, enhanced through the ages by the acclaim
of those who understand. " Securus judicat orbis terrarum."

If the fame of Napoleon has much to fear, that of Abraham
Lincoln has everything to hope from the future. In dealing
with the problem of Vocation, I have already given some
particulars of the growth of Lincoln's purpose, in its primary
aspect of mere ambition for political power. I propose now
to supplement this by a brief review of the evidence as to
the transformation of this crude personal aim into the specific
purpose of a death-grapple with slavery. Some idea of the
penury and hardship in which Lincoln's early years were
spent may be gained by a story he tells of an incident of his
nineteenth or twentieth year. He was " bow hand " on a
boat bound for New Orleans, and one day received half a
dollar from each of two strangers he had rowed ashore. His
amazement at the good fortune of having earned a whole
dollar in less than a day knew no bounds. " I was a more
confident and hopeful being from that time," he declared.
He had already, by sheer force of will and hard study, acquired
a wide fund of general knowledge, was a practised speaker
and a keen politician. Two or three years later, in 1831, on a
similar voyage, Lincoln first saw negroes chained and whipped.
The scene made a deep and painful impression on his naturally
tender heart, and henceforth dates a growing conviction that
slavery is in essence wrong. It was, however, as yet merely
a pious opinion, by no means the consciousness of a mission.
In the absence of a strong anti-slavery movement, it is at
least doubtful whether Lincoln would have made any attempt
to promote one, for he was a practical politician, by no means
a pioneer. His aim throughout life was rather the utilisation
of existing opinions than the creation of new ones. In 1834
(aet. 25), and again in 1836, Lincoln was elected to the Legisla-
ture of Illinois. Between these two events occurred in 1835
the death of a girl for whom he had an unrequited love

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF PURPOSE 185

Lincoln was for several weeks nearly insane, and the illness
brought his youth to an abrupt end.1 In the meantime he
had, however, acquired a legal qualification and begun to
practise law ; and in 1837 made his anti-slavery debut by
presenting to the Legislature of Illinois a memorial signed by
himself and one other member, to the effect that they believed
that the institution of slavery was founded on both injustice
and bad policy ; but that the promulgation of Abolitionist
doctrines tended rather to increase than abate its evils. Even
this mild protest involved some risk to his popularity in a
State where the pro-slavery sentiment was so strong as in
Illinois. Lincoln was never in the full sense an Abolitionist,
and " it was a principle with him never to advance beyond
his party." This characteristic is well illustrated by his
conduct in regard to religious belief. At New Salem, in his
early twenties, Lincoln had studied Paine's and Volney's
works, and was for a time a professed sceptic. In 1843, soon
after recovery from a second and prolonged attack of mental
alienation, and his marriage to Mary Todd, Lincoln was an
unsuccessful candidate in the Whig interest for Congress,
having now turned his attention from State politics to those
of the Federal Union. His ambitious marriage and supposed
irreligion were convenient weapons for political detractors,
and were freely used against him. Lincoln took the lesson
(so far as his doctrinal vagaries were concerned) so much to
heart that " the most fervidly passionate expressions of piety
began to abound in his speeches." Leland considers that
this was not due to hypocrisy, or even to a mere time-serving
obsequiousness, but that, as a staunch Republican, Lincoln
" faithfully believed that whatever was absolutely popular
was founded on reason and right." Vox populi, vox Dei,
a sentiment which, it is alleged, really counts for something
in the United States. The change of tone seems to have had
good effect, for in 1846 Lincoln was elected to Congress in
the Whig interest by an immense majority. He denounced
the Mexican War, because the territory was coveted by the

1 In 1840, Lincoln had a second such illness, lasting nearly a year, pro-
voked by another love affair. He married Mary Todd in 1842.

i86 MAKERS OF MAN

South for the extension of slavery (and against any extension
of the evil he could not but protest), but nevertheless voted
for supplies. In 1850 he was invited to stand again, but
refused, and here, in his forty-first year, his hatred of slavery
is visibly hardening into a definite resolve to take up the
cudgels against it. " It is most probable," says Leland with
regard to this temporary withdrawal from the arena, " that he
foresaw the tremendous struggle which was approaching
between North and South, and wished to prepare himself for
some great part in it." Witness his own declaration : " The
time will come when we must all be Democrats or Abolitionists.
When that time comes my mind is made up. The slavery
question can't be compromised."

It is easy to see that if Lincoln, holding definite anti-slavery
convictions, had now again entered Congress, he would either
have had to be false to these or to take up a position in advance
of his own party, thereby incurring the risk of losing his care-
fully built-up popularity and much of his power for good.
Neither alternative could be acceptable to a man of his tempera-
ment : he saw the inevitable drift of events, and decided to
wait until his party came up to where he himself already stood.
Nor did he wait in vain. In 1854 his rival in chief, Douglas,
introduced, and, after a tremendous struggle, carried, the
Kansas-Nebraska Bill, setting aside the Missouri Compromise
of 1820, by which all territory North and South of the Missouri
was to be for ever free. The North was furious, and Lincoln
saw that his hour was come. In October, Douglas defended
the Bill at Springfield (Illinois), and Lincoln, " a new and
greater Lincoln, the like of whom no one in that vast multitude
had ever heard," made a crushing reply. " The Nebraska Bill
was shivered, and like a tree of the forest was torn and rent
asunder by hot bolts of truth." Here, as yet, it was the
extension of slavery rather than its mere existence against which
Lincoln specially warned the nation. " He was willing to let
it alone under the old compromise, though he did not like it."
But in 1858, departing for once from his usual policy, he took a
bold step in advance of his party. He had been chosen as
Republican candidate of Illinois for the Senate, and, on the next

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF PURPOSE 187

day, in the course of a stirring speech, declared himself as
follows : " A house divided against itself cannot stand. I
believe this Government cannot endure permanently half slave
and half free. ... It will become all one thing or all the other."
In the Senatorial election which followed, Lincoln had really
a 4000 majority, but by some legal quibble Judge Douglas ob-
tained the seat. Lincoln was now famous, and began to be
looked upon as a possible candidate for the Presidency. Next
year (1859) he lectured in New York and toured New England,
everywhere producing, by the studied moderation of his tone, a
most favourable effect. " For the first half hour," says a
contemporary journal, " his opponents would agree with every
word he uttered, and from that point he began to lead them off
little by little, until it seemed as if he had got them all into his
fold." The development of Lincoln's purpose need not be
followed beyond the year of his election to the Presidency (1860),
on the platform of a stern refusal to sanction the extension of
slavery. It was regarded and acted upon by the South as a
declaration of civil war. In his farewell speech at Springfield,
Lincoln (now aged fifty-one) showed a solemn sense of the im-
mensity of his burden. " No one who has never been placed
in a like position can understand my feelings at this hour, nor
the oppressive sadness I feel at this parting. ... I go to
assume a task more difficult than that which devolved upon
Washington. Unless the great God who assisted him shall be
with me, I must fail."

//. Msthetic Type. — Under the heading of Natural Voca-
tion I have already shown how, from a very early age, Dante
displayed a strong tendency towards literature and art, and
achieved an honourable recognition among the poets of his day.
It was further shown how in early manhood he turned for a time
to the field of municipal politics, and seemed likely to make
these the central interest of his career. Then came the dis-
illusioning shock of exile ; he had left his dearly loved and hated
Florence for ever, to wander for years from place to place,
embittered if not humbled, nursing the sense of injuries and the
apparently hopeless craving for an adequate revenge. In the
Vita Nuova, written between his twenty-seventh and thirtieth

i88 MAKERS OF MAN

years, but embodying many sonnets and poems of earlier date,
Dante had already declared his intention of glorifying the memory
of Beatrice above that of all other women. Soon after this, by
enrolling himself in the guild of apothecaries, Dante took his
first step in pursuit of political power, and his ideal projects
were for a time in abeyance. In his thirty-third year at latest
occurred his marriage to Gemma of the Donati, which was
no doubt a further distraction. But "in his thirty-fifth year
(1300) he began to devote himself to carrying into effect that
upon which he had been meditating, namely, to rebuke and to
glorify the lives of men according to their different deserts.
And inasmuch as he perceived that the lives of men were of
three kinds — namely, the vicious life, the life abandoning vices
and making for virtue, and the virtuous life — he divided his
work in wondrous wise into three books in one volume, beginning
with the punishment of vice and ending with the reward of
virtue."

Such was, presumably, the plan from its first conception, but
at the time when Dante in 1302 was condemned during this
absence from Florence — which he never again entered — the
seven cantos of the " Inferno " which he had already written, left
behind in the city, were forgotten in the stress of that disastrous
period, and the whole project dismissed from his mind. Five
years later, Boccaccio says, these cantos were accidentally
found among other papers in a chest by a nephew of Dante,
who showed them to a critic, Dino Frescobaldi. This critic,
" marvellously pleased " by the composition, forwarded it to
the Marquis Moroello Malaspina in the Lunigiana, with whom
Dante was then living, begging him " to exert his good offices
to induce Dante to continue and finish his work."

So urged to resume his work, Dante replied that he had
indeed given up all thoughts of it. " But since it has pleased
God that they should not be lost, I shall endeavour, as far as I
am able, to proceed with them according to my first design."
This anecdote is confirmed by the opening phrase of the eighth
canto of the " Inferno," " lo dico seguitando." It is, however,
probable that the preceding cantos, if they had indeed been
written before the beginning of his exile, were in great part

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF PURPOSE 189

re-written when, somewhere about 1307 (aged forty-two), the
central task of his life was resumed by the poet. One can
easily imagine how opportune the suggestion might seem — how
apt its appeal to the developed nature and special circumstances
of the man. Censorious by nature, he saw and welcomed an
opportunity to sit in judgment upon his age ; to speak his whole
mind with regard to its crimes and follies, their authors and
abettors ; to dole out approval and to lavish condemnation.
Not that I mean to imply that Dante's many harsh verdicts
were solely or even predominantly determined by personal
resentments, by mere spite ; any more than I should care to
exonerate him from all suspicion of such motives. He was a
man of many hates and more scorns, of few admirations and
fewer loves. Immensely superior in all essentials to the bulk
of his contemporaries, he was and knew himself to be. The
age that had used him so vilely needed to hear the hard truth
about itself, and its chosen idols. All ages use their great
spirits vilely ; hence all ages need the stern warning of inevitable
defeat which Dante's fierce yet measured retaliation for once in a
way supplies. Much pious horror has been expended on the
detailed barbarity of the punishments described in the " Inferno,"
but those who make these complaints can have little understand-
ing and less imagination. Dante lived in an age when cruelty
was a commonplace of existence, the age which produced the
monstrous Ezzelino, and being, like all great poets, a realist,
he inevitably derived his incident and imagery from the features
of his environment. Those who look below the surface can see
plainly that the tortures of his damned souls are not arbitrary
inventions or vindictive retaliations, but the imaginative pre-
sentation of vice in its essential monstrosity and self -destroying
malignity. They are, as has been well said, " but the sins
themselves, revealed in their essence, recognised by their results :
the poet shows how the souls of his condemned have made
their choice in this life, and how they work out their own
damnation." So it is that Alberigo, the murderous friar, and
Bianca Doria, can be found in the ice-bound pit of Cocytus,
while yet both seem

" In body still alive upon the earth."

I9o MAKERS OF MAN

Literally taken, says Dante, the poem treats of the state of
souls after death — a clear hint that it has a deeper esoteric
meaning. Nay, he explains further to Can Grande, that,
" considered according to its allegorical meaning, the subject is
Man, liable to the reward or punishment of justice, according as
through the freedom of his will he is deserving or undeserving.
The aim of the work is to remove those living in this life from a
state of misery, and to guide them to a state of happiness."
That state of happiness, as described in the " Paradise," is,
taken au pied de la lettre, just as little satisfactory to our modern
ideas as the misery of the " Inferno." Dante's is a very theo-
logical and severely scholastic heaven. Interminable discussions
of the fine points of doctrinal casuistry, varied by intricate
mano3uvres and celestial pyrotechnics, do not make a too-alluring
programme of eternal bliss. What really interests us throughout
is the gradual unfolding of Dante's theory of values, his national
and ecclesiastical ideals, his unsparing polemic against papal
arrogance and corruption. As Mr. Owen has well remarked,
" A reformed Romanism such as he (Dante) would have ap-
proved, would not have varied greatly from some types of
Protestantism," 1 He saw Italy converted by papal intrigue
into the cockpit of irreconcilable factions ; his own ruin had
been one of the direct results of the foreign intervention invited
by the almost insanely ambitious Pope Boniface. The con-
version by unscrupulous priest-craft of a purely spiritual author-
ity to base material ends, was for him, as it was two centuries
later for Luther, the source of nearly all the evils that affected
the body-politic of the Empire. His remedy was the firm
resumption by the Emperor of the secular power pertaining to
his high office, the strict limitation of the Curia to the ecclesias-
tical domain. His grievance against Florence was not merely
personal : he regarded her as the hotbed of pro-papal intrigue,
the prime fomenter of treason against the Lord's Anointed.
Hence the terrible epistle " to the most wicked Florentines
within," in which he denounced her " who transgresses every
law of God and man, and whom the insatiable maw of avarice
urges into every crime." Hence the eager appeal to the

1 Skeptics of the Italian Renaissance, p. 104.

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF PURPOSE 191

Emperor Henry vn., when in 1311 he was besieging Cremona,
to " leave all else and come and crush the viper Florence, the
most dangerous and obstinate rebel against his authority."
The death of Henry in 1313 was fatal to Dante's hopes, personal
and political : he knew now that he would see Florence no more.
Yet, everywhere, can he not gaze upon the sun and the stars ?
can he not under any sky meditate on the most precious truths ?
. . . Bread will not fail him. Brave words, concealing the
rancour of an unhealed wound ! Somewhere about this time,
if tradition be credited, he may have retired, seeking 'peace, to
the Convent in the Apennines, " from which he gazed forth upon
the perishing world of the Middle Ages, which was rinding im-
perishable monument in his work." To the same epoch, Mr.
Gardner thinks, belongs " the moral conversion which, by his
poetical fiction, he represents as taking place in the year of the
jubilee, 1300." By the failure of all his material hopes and
aims his purpose has been purged and strengthened ; his
utterance has acquired the aloofness and universality of one
who speaks, without fear or favour, what heart and genius
reveal. By the enchantment of his art, combining in un-
matched perfection, music, style, symmetry, and a sustained
exaltation of spirit, he has made of a purely topical theme
(one which in less capable hands might well have proved
ephemeral, even revolting) a human document of inexhaustible
significance, a poem of divine beauty, and, without prejudice
to its artistic rank, a passionate rebuke of base aims and in-
citement of high endeavour.

With regard to Leonardo I have not much to add here to
what has been said in a former chapter. The key to the under-
standing of the man and his purpose (if he really had one) is
undoubtedly to be found in his ruling motive — intellectual
curiosity. This was, in the first place, no doubt employed
as a means to the perfection of his art, which he desired to
methodise and intellectualise to a degree which no other
painter ever attempted. Mere decoration he despised — every
detail of his work should be pregnant with dramatic signifi-
cance ; every gesture symbolic of some phase of the human
spirit. Thus in his great picture of the " Last Supper " (com-

I92 MAKERS OF MAN

pleted aet. 46), the problem worked out with consummate
patience and skill is the effect of the utterance, " One of you
shall betray me," on a group of men of various ages and tempera-
ments. The twelve apostles fall into groups of three, an
original and new device. Judas, however, leans sideways out
of the group to which he belongs, his arm resting on the table,
his glance fixed solely on Christ. He is painted as an extra-
ordinary force — the evil principle incarnate. Jesus alone is
isolated, but dramatic unity is preserved by the fact that the
looks and gestures of all centre on him. The other groups are
all naturally and unobtrusively combined. The head of Christ
is emphasised by a background of pale landscape and clear sky,
whose luminosity surrounds it, as it were, with a halo of softly
radiant light.1 This one example of Leonardo's method
suffices to justify his own dictum, that " by far the most im-
portant point in the whole theory of painting is to make the
actions express the psychical state of each character." But so
it was with all his pictures : he approached them in the spirit
of a mathematician who has a problem to solve. Sometimes
he solved it to his own satisfaction ; sometimes, in a sort of
despair, he left the work unfinished and passed on to other
activities. In the end he largely wearied of the too limited
interest of art-work, and plunged deeply into scientific and
philosophical speculations. His random thoughts he jotted
down in his note-books, but, having outgrown what little
ambition he had ever felt, cared not to give them the finality
of systematic expression. Truth to tell, I think he had a
mean opinion of his fellow - men, and therefore, not greatly
valuing their applause, lacked the compelling motive to any
complete and rounded achievement. The very vastness of his
powers and immensity of his interests were in some sense a
hindrance to him, for, as Kochefoucauld keenly observes, " ce
n'est assez d'avoir de grandes qualites ; il en faut avoir 1'econ-
omie." Too proud or too self-centred for such economy, his
genius proved less fertile than that of many lesser men ; and
he gradually deteriorated into a sort of sublime dilettante,

1 For the above criticism I am indebted to the biography of Dr. Georg
Gronau.

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF PURPOSE 193

through lack of that firm self-limitation which only a deliberately
adopted purpose could have enforced.

Yet it must after all be an enhancement of the great name
of Leonardo, that his nature was e«»8entially above ambition ;
his ideals, aesthetic and speculative, too lofty to be exploited
in the interest of material advancement. The glorious genius
of Titian, on the other hand, was, in the hands of that master,
but a means to the securing of wealth, luxury, and prestige ;
and the second-rate motives of his art-life are clearly traceable
in the sequence of his works. He failed to realise or to reverence
the immense responsibility of his unique endowment ; sold the
best part of his birthright for a mess of pottage ; preferred the
compliments of an Emperor or the flagrant wit of an Aretino to
the austere promptings of a divinity, which nevertheless re-
peatedly asserted its power. Supreme as a painter he could not
but be ; as an artist he fell short of his revealed potentialities,
and sometimes failed even grotesquely ; as a personality he
was, upon the whole, mediocre. Not, be it well observed,
through the lack of a " message," a conscious didactic aim, or a
philosophy — with any or all of which we can cheerfully dispense
in an artist. Merely because his purpose was extraneous to
his art, whereas they should have been one and indivisible ;
because his art was in some degree the bond-servant, the tool,
of his ambition. An indefatigable bond -servant, a most
effective tool without doubt ; but — what functions to impose
upon a divinity ! Not that the world has much right to cavil,
which, if Titian had always maintained his art at his highest
level, would no doubt have awarded him more kicks or, at any
rate, fewer halfpence. The keenness of Titian in regard to
pecuniary interest is well shown by his insistence in application
for the reversion of the broker's patent held by Bellini at Venice
under the merchants of the Fontaco de' Tedeschi. When,
in due course, he succeeded to the office, he showed himself
" much more anxious to receive the not inconsiderable emolu-
ments than to finish the pictures, the painting of which was the
one essential duty." When Alfonso's agent offered sixty ducata
for the " St. Sebastian " he had painted specially for the Papal
Legate, Titian was quite ready to accept the higher offer and
13

194 MAKERS OF MAN

go back on his commission. His innate cupidity was further
strengthened by his intimacy with the brilliant but infamous
Aretino, under whose influence Titian became " at once more
humble and more pressing." Nor can it be a mere coincidence
that, side by side with " the growing worldliness and avarice of
the man, we find a steady deterioration of his concept of woman-
hood, and in his religious art an alternation of decorative
superfluity with a sort of superstitious intensity and almost
frenzied fervour. Right up to his ninetieth year, his power as
a wielder of the brush grew steadily in breadth and assurance :
the more striking, therefore, is his always wavering and ever
diminishing grasp of the ideal. It is a far cry from the
Giorgionesque refinement of the " Three Ages " and the " Temp-
tation of Medea " 1 to the quasi-vulgarity of the " Rape of
Europa " ; from the grave majesty of the " Cristo della
Moneta," the divine serenity of the " Assunta," to the tragic
awe, rather the remorseful terror, of the " Trinity " and the
" Pieta."

I have already shown, with reference to Cervantes, how
his early attraction to a military career was rudely rebuffed
by fortune. After six years' distinguished service, he had
nothing to show but a crippled hand and some letters of recom-
mendation from Don Carlos and Don John, which, being found
upon him on his capture by Algerine corsairs, led to his being
regarded as a rare prize and being treated with exceptional
harshness with a view to the extortion of a higher ransom.
His five years' slavery culminating in the attempt of the
Dominican, Blanco de Paz, to ruin his reputation, completed
the process of his disillusionment. " Algiers, which spoilt his
life and ended his dream of romance, roused in him that finer
humanity of which Don Quixote was the outcome." Among
other things, he had learned that Christians had no monopoly
of virtue, and henceforth showed " a degree of tolerance and
charity for Mohammedans which was certainly unusual in
that age, and unique in a Spanish great writer."

Cervantes was thirty-three years of age on his return from
Algiers, but nearly twenty years had yet to pass before he reaped
1 Commonly but erroneously entitled " Sacred and Profane Love."

To/acep. 194.

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF PURPOSE 195

the full harvest of enlightenment and garnered it in the pages
of his masterwork. But in one at least of the twenty or thirty
plays (mostly pot-boilers) which he wrote between the ages of
thirty-eight and forty-one — the sublime tragedy of Numancia
— he plainly revealed the immense power and audacity of his
imagination. " In grandeur of conception, in the sublimity of
its pathos, in intensity of patriotic feeling and concentrated
heroic energy," says Mr. Watts, " it would be difficult to find
a parallel for the Numancia in the whole range of tragedy."
This of a play written in an age when the most banal artificiality
was the prevailing, the almost universal, note of Spanish litera-
ture, is not without significance. But the dregs of his cup of
salutary humiliation were as yet undrunk. From his fifty-
second to his fifty-sixth year he was, by force of strong necessity,
employed in the uncongenial task of collecting dues for a military
order in La Mancha. The Manchegans are among the rudest
and least cultivated races of Spain ; and a collector is hardly
in a position to become popular, even among the most amiable
folk. Cervantes managed to offend the people of Argamasilla,
and Rodrigo de Pacheco, a leading inhabitant, seized him and
confined him " for long days and troubled nights " in a half-
underground cellar of the House of Medrano. Here, at or about
the age of fifty-four, under these tragi-comic circumstances, it
seems that the inspiration came to Cervantes which resulted
in the production of Don Quixote. In the church of Argamasilla
there is a picture of the hidalgo, Rodrigo de Pacheco, praying
with his niece, a picture painted in commemoration of his
recovery from insanity. The features are not unlike those
assigned to Don Quixote. It seems as though Cervantes, in a
mood as near bitterness as was possible to such a nature, in a
despair born of unmerited humiliation and complete disillusion-
ment, had chosen the perpetrator of this outrage as the symbol
of the false idealism which he had so much reason to detest.
If, in the execution of the work, his genius compelled him to do
full justice to the nobler side of the chivalric ideal, that is only
what might have been expected from a writer incapable of real
malice or long-cherished resentment. The first part, written
spontaneously and without any fixed plan, was completed in a

196 MAKERS OF MAN

couple of years, and published in a very imperfectly-corrected
form in his fifty-eighth year (1605). It was the deathblow to
pseudo-romance — from that year no new book of chivalry was
written, nor one old one reprinted. The second part promised
by the author, which, by the way, was forestalled by an obscure
pseudonymous travesty gravely suspected to be the work of
his dramatic rival, Lope de Vega, appeared in 1615. In this
part the Don has grown " into a larger and purer nature, . . .
is less the man out of his wits and more the man of understand-
ing. . . . The parody of the old romance is, to a large extent,
dropped." It is, indeed, as Mr. Watts observes, a marvel " that
this book with its frolic, grace, its abundant wealth of humour
and perpetual flow of life and invention, ... so brimful of love
and hope, should be the work of a man approaching the seventieth
year of a life of trouble, of toil, of privation, and of disappointment
such as few men, and among them no great writer, ever lived."
The purpose of Cervantes has proved somewhat vague
and elusive ; to seek that of Mozart is like seeking for the pot
of gold fabled to be buried at the foot of the rainbow. The
flawless unity of his genius not merely baffles but defies analysis :
Mozart was essentially an improvisator, a musician by instinct.
And it is to be remembered that he died at the close of his
thirty-fifth year. And so the Mozart known to the world is
mainly a Mozart great by endowment rather than by volition,
one who lived in a dreamland of sensuous rapture, insensible to
the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. " The good old
time is past," says Nietzsche, " it sang itself out in Mozart —
how happy are we that his rococo still speaks to us, that his 'good
company,' his tender enthusiasm, his childish delight in the
Chinese and in flourishes, his courtesy of heart, his longing for
the elegant, the amorous, the tripping, the tearful, and his
belief in the South, can still appeal to something left in us.
. . . Mozart the last echo of a great European taste which had
existed for centuries." Yet there was another and greater
Mozart, a Mozart who cried in anguish to God for the peace and
security denied by Fate, in which to do justice to his genius ;
who^awakened at last from his easy optimism to find his wife
a mere valetudinarian wreck, five of his six children dead, his

CKRVANTES.

Engraved by E. Mackenzie after a Spanish print engraved by D. F. Selnta.
JV. B. — The authenticity of all alleged portraits of Cervantes is doubtful.

Tofa<ep. 196.

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF PURPOSE 197

financial condition hopeless, and his very life ebbing away. So
awakened, by a supreme effort of will he turned his back on all
that, dedicating the dregs of his vitality to Art and Art only.
This Mozart of the last phase, who had barely a year to live,
was the purposeful Mozart, the freemason who in Die Zauber-
flote shows a clear prevision of the Drama of Reason versus
Authority — the saint who in the Requiem Mass bade a sublime
heartbroken yet unrebellious farewell to life and its infinite

possibilities. // Mozart had lived /

" To speak it in a word, the cultivation of my individual
self, here as I am, has, from my youth upwards, been constantly,
though dimly, my wish and purpose." This frank declaration
is, I believe, the true key to an understanding of the complex
personality of Goethe. The words " constantly, though dimly,"
are, however, of special significance ; up to three years after
the time of his entering the service of the Duke at Weimar — up
to his thirtieth year — Goethe's various activities and interests
had been largely dictated and controlled by impulse, although
the instinct for self-discipline and unity was no doubt in latent
existence. One of the really important landmarks in the early
life of Goethe was the gift of a puppet-show " setting forth
the story of David and Goliath," which he received from his
grandmother at the age of five. " On the boy," he tells us,
" it made a very strong impression, which echoed into a great
long-enduring influence." The seed had fallen on fertile ground,
and germinated accordingly ; it is by the observation of such
trifling indications that watchful parents can discover the
fundamental proclivities of their children. This dramatic
bias was fortified by the influence of Thorane, a French officer
of aesthetic tastes, who was quartered upon the Goethe family
during the poet's tenth year. Many French plays were being
acted in Frankfurt ; Goethe made the acquaintance of a lad
belonging to the Company ; frequented the green room ; saw
many things there which it would have been better for his
morals if he had not seen, and inevitably tried his hand at
writing a play. Like most " spcilt boys," Goethe soon got into
bad company, and the Gretchen imbroglio, an episode of his
teens, was the natural result of the premature stimulation of

198 MAKERS OF MAN

his senses. At Leipsic University (set. 16 to 19), though he was
nominally studying law, and though he made some desultory
experiments in drama, most of Goethe's time was devoted to
philandering, if not to actual dissipation. A long and severe
illness followed, but in his twenty-first year, having entered
Strasburg University, one of the great intellectual impulses of
his life came to him from the reading of Shakespeare. " The
first page of his I read," he declares, " made me his for life ;
and when I had finished a single play I stood like one born
blind, on whom a miraculous hand bestows sight in a moment.
I saw, I felt in the most vivid manner, that my existence was
infinitely expanded. ... I did not hesitate a moment about
renouncing the classical drama. The unity of place seemed to
me irksome as a prison, the unities of action and of time burden-
some fetters on our imagination." While in this mood of
spiritual emancipation and enlargement, Goethe lighted on the
autobiography of the iron-handed knight who played so great
a part in the Peasants' War of the Sixteenth Century. In Goetz
von Berlichingen, " who had not allowed his spirit to be broken
by the tyrannical forces of his period, but had asserted his
individuality and had been loyal to his loftiest aims," he found
" a medium for the expression of his own aspirations." The
result was a play written off-hand in six weeks in the winter of
1771 (set. 22), which " revolutionised the German drama," and
may plausibly claim to have originated the historical romance of
Scott, its translator. The influence of Shakespeare is clearly
seen in the irregularity, spirit, and variety of the play, but Mr.
Hayward considers that Goethe has assimilated the melo-
dramatic rather than the truly dramatic element of the historical
pieces. There can be no doubt, however, that Goethe's dramatic
bias was quickened, the formulation of definite self-conscious
aims promoted, and his conception of art permanently modified,
by the study of Shakespeare. The incubation, perhaps even
the conception, of at least the first part of Faust, belongs to
the same period ; the actual writing of it began in his twenty-
fourth or twenty-fifth year, while the completion of the entire
poem occupied him at intervals for nearly sixty years more,
until the very eve of his own dissolution. Goethe's tempera-

MOZART.

To/ace /. 198.

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF PURPOSE 199

ment, of course, included — as part of his maternal inheritance — a
large proportion of German sentimentality, counterbalanced,
fortunately, by the solid bourgeois characteristics which in-
creasingly prevailed. Moreover, he lived in a sentimental age,
an age of outworn ideals and somewhat florid romance. The
reading of Hamlet intensified, for Goethe and his friends, the
symptoms of their malady ; to be world-weary and intro-
spective was decidedly a la mode. Goethe trifled with the idea
of suicide, took a dagger to bed with him, and, like the harper
in Wilhelm Meister, " pressed himself back to life by a contiguity
with death." Much of this virus of morbidity, however, he
excreted by writing The Sorrows of W either (1772, aet. 23), a tale
built up round the semi-idiotic suicide of an acquaintance, who
had fancied himself blighted by a hopeless love. After the
completion of this work, the instant and sensational success of
which no doubt greatly strengthened his confidence in his
literary vocation, Goethe " felt, as after a general confession,
once more buoyant and free." Another great factor in his
progress towards a conscious ideal of self-discipline and self-
culture was the reading of Spinoza's Ethics, with which he
became first acquainted about this time. He found in this
book a message of hope, cheerfulness, and courage, without
illusions ; its intellectual content strongly influenced his future
work in poetry, drama, and fiction. " For many years he
returned to it again and again." He was on the right track at
last, yet up to the time of his leaving Frankfurt (set. 26) had not,
Mr. Sime thinks, by any means become reconciled to himself
or the world. The Lili episode had intervened, ending, of course,
in further disillusionment, not to say humiliation. But in his
thirtieth year, when he had been about three years in the service
of the Duke, at Weimar, a profound change, due not only to all
the influences we have traced above, but also, in part, probably,
to the healthy effect of useful prosaic employment, passed over
the character of Goethe. He made a strong effort to acquire
firm control over mind and body, to renounce " time -destroying
sentiment and shadow-passions," and to work steadily for well-
developed aims. The crude romanticism of contemporary
literature became repugnant to him (e.g. he loathed Schiller's

200 MAKERS OF MAN

Robbers 1) ; his manner acquired calmness and reserve, not
without hauteur, perhaps, for after all he was the intimate of a
reigning Duke ! " I will yet be master," he writes (set. 31).
" No one save he who wholly renounces self is worthy to rule or
can rule." Goethe deceives himself here ; he, at any rate, never
renounced self, or seriously desired to do so. His real permanent
aim was the purely self-centred one of a rounded development
of all his powers by their vigorous and constant employment.
This aim we have seen fairly inaugurated, and we need not
delay to watch its long pursuit, or to appraise the degree of its
attainment. But with reference to what might be called Goethe's
conversion, and to all conversions, I will enter this caveat, that
they can seldom be regarded as purely mental and voluntary
processes. The functional change, the shifting of the centre of
vitality, is by no means to be overlooked. " Quand nos vices
nous quittent, nous nous flattons de la creance que c'est nous qui
les quittons." 2 A purpose, once formed, may inhabit a psychic
medium and react thence on the physical organism. But in its
formation the body certainly takes a hand.

The temperament of Beethoven was more purposive, because
more self-conscious, than that of Mozart. He lived much longer,
for one thing, but that is not the sole explanation of the contrast.
He spoke in his childhood of one day becoming a great man.
From the first he had a high sense of his dignity, based without
doubt on a consciousness of exceptional powers. When a
nobleman at Count Browne's interrupted Ries and himself by
talking while they played a duet, " Beethoven stopped playing,
saying in no gentle voice, ' I play no more for such hogs ! '
In the exclusive society of Vienna he was, as a young man,
accepted at his own valuation, although with refreshing
brusquerie he ignored all the nuances of conventional usage.
The calamity of deafness which overwhelmed him at thirty
may explain the fact that, though constantly " in love " with
one fair aristocrat or another, Beethoven did not marry. Or
there may have been some other physical disqualification,

1 Oblivious of the fact that he had made his own dramatic debut by cele-
bration of the career of a robber chief, and on very similar lines.

2 La Rochefoucauld, Reflexions Morales.

OOETHK.
From a block lent by Messrs. W. Rider &> Son Ltd.

To fact}. 200.

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF PURPOSE 201

unknown and unacknowledged, even to himself. On the other
hand, his own justification of his solitary life, which irked
him greatly at times, clearly implies a growing conviction that
celibacy was imposed upon him by duty to his art-vocation.
" For thee, poor Beethoven," he wrote after his rejection by
Therese, " there is no outward happiness : only in the ideal
world wilt thou find friends — everything must emanate from
thy inward self." When one thinks what the loss of his hearing
meant for Beethoven, what it must have been for him, of all
men, to live in perpetual silence, it may sound heartless to say
that he owed much to that loss, and that the world was the
gainer thereby. The storm raised within his proud spirit
by this ruthless blow may be dimly imagined by help of the
following words, written in 1801 (set. 31) : " Your Beethoven
is very unhappy, at strife with Nature and Creator." And
again, " Too often have I cursed Him for exposing His creatures
to be the sport of accident. ... I have again and again cursed
my existence. ... It would not take much to induce me
to put an end to my life. Only my Art restrains me, and it is
impossible to leave the world before I have finished all I feel
capable of doing." These words must, I am convinced, be
accepted literally as a simple statement of fact. But for the
purpose that impelled him, the ideal he aspired to, Beethoven
could not have lived out his life ; and this is perhaps as good
an example as one could find of the intensification of personality
and the positive attitude towards life effected by definite self-
conscious aims. The results of the fiery ordeal through which
Beethoven had passed, and of the dearly-won victory achieved
over his own rebellious instincts, are clearly indicated in the
fifth (C minor) Symphony, published in his thirty-eighth year.
" In this Symphony Beethoven is born, the great free courageous
Beethoven, whose power is light from within. The limitation,
the suffering is overcome." l From the four opening notes,
ominous of impending disaster, a whole theme is built up.
" If one," says Mr. Shedlock, " were forced to name the most
representative work of Beethoven in the plenitude of his power,
it would surely be the ' C Minor.' . . . We cannot help

1 L. Nohl.

202 MAKERS OF MAN

feeling, quite apart from the ' Thus Fate knocks at the Door,'
explanation of the four opening notes . . . that some great
drama is being enacted in tones." The composer informed
Neate that he always worked to a picture or programme in his
mind, and actually contemplated the publication of an edition
of his works in which the poetic basis of each should be set
forth. To give some faint conception of what life was to
Beethoven, of the cruel isolation imposed upon him by Fate,
of the strength implied by his triumph over such conditions,
I will quote a vivid description of him as he appeared in his later
years. It was at an inn in Vienna, where a few congenial
spirits had met, that he unexpectedly entered. " All were full
of the greatest respect when he came in, the man from whose
lion head streamed grey locks like a mane, who, on entering,
cast around a sharp look, but wavered in his movements as if
he walked in a dream. So he went in, sat down to his glass,
smoked out of a big pipe, and closed his eyes. When spoken
or rather shouted to by an acquaintance, he opened his eyelids
like an eagle startled out of sleep, smiled sadly, and handed the
speaker a memorandum-book with a pencil which he drew
from a breast pocket. After the question was answered he sank
again into meditation. But sometimes he drew a thicker book
out of the pocket of his old grey overcoat, and wrote with
half-shut eyes. ' What is he writing ? ' inquired our informant
one evening from his neighbour, Franz Schubert. ' He is
composing ! ' was the answer." 1

With regard to Walter Scott, although he was rather forced
into literature by the sheer strength of his talent, than guided
by any deliberate choice or preference, it seems that his decision
(set. 17) to read for the Bar, instead of adopting his father's
occupation of Writer to the Signet, was due to a feeling that
this would be more compatible with literary pursuits. He
must therefore at this age have had some intention of utilising
his gift " as a staff " at least, if not " as a crutch." Four years
later (aet. 21) Scott was duly called to the Bar, and it was at
about this time that he, in company with Robert Shortreed,
made his first visit to Liddesdale. These " raids " became an

1 L. Nohl.

HKKTHOVEN.

Tofacep. 202.

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF PURPOSE 203

annual institution, continued for seven successive years, in the
course of which Scott explored every rivulet to its source, and
every ruined " peel " from . foundation to battlement. " He
was makin' himsel' all the time," said Mr. Shortreed, " but he
did not ken, maybe, what he was about till years had passed."
In this connection it is instructive to recall Scott's own remark
as to the respective attractions of antiquarian study and of
literature. " People may say this and that of the pleasure of
fame or of profit as a motive of writing. I think the only pleasure
is in the actual exertion and research, and I would no more
write on any other terms than I would hunt merely to dine upon
hare-soup. At the same time, if fame and profit came unasked,
I would no more quarrel with them than with the soup."

In 1798, Scott (set. 27) married a Miss Carpenter, and
in the following year published his translation of Goethe's
romantic drama, Goetz von Berlichingen. Lockhart points out
the derivation of the death scene of " Marmion," and the
episode of the storm in Ivanhoe from Goethe's play, and there
can be little doubt that the productive impulse of Scott was
greatly stimulated by contact with the genius of the German
poet. Three years later appeared two volumes of his Border
Minstrelsy, a collection of ballads both ancient and modern,
of which one critic remarked that it " contained the elements
of a hundred historical romances." Scott had now, therefore,
ample material at his disposal, and at about this time began to
write The Lay of the Last Minstrel, the irregular metre of which
seems to have been suggested by his having heard a year or
two before, a casual recital of Coleridge's Christabel. While
Scott was at work upon The Lay he received a visit from Words-
worth (at Lasswade, Sept. 1803), who records the impression
that Scott, though confident of his ability to earn more by
literature than he would ever wish to possess, was at heart less
interested in his literary labours or reputation than in his bodily
sports, exercises, and social amusements. Fifteen months
later Tlie Lay of the Last Minstrel was published. It scored an
instant and triumphant success. " In the history of British
poetry," says Lockhart, " nothing had ever equalled the demand
for the Lay." Scott cleared £769 by it ; it was obvious, therefore,

204 MAKERS OF MAN

that Providence intended him for the not quite gentlemanly
profession of literature, and with true Caledonian sense and
piety he — accepted his fate ! But his true life-purpose, like
Titian's (but with a difference), really lay outside the sphere of
his Art, which was for him, too, always a means (to pecuniary
and social success), never an end in itself. The fact no doubt
is, as Lockhart shrewdly suggests (apropos of Scott's modest
refusal to be named in comparison with Burns), that the very
facility with which he produced, the sheer immensity of his
talent — in genius he was by no means immense — caused Scott
to undervalue his own productions. What came from his pen
so spontaneously and so inexhaustibly, he could not seriously
regard as of great value. His instinct perhaps warned him
that the day of Homeric naivete (appearances notwithstanding)
had passed, never to return. So he made hay while the sun shone
— first poetical hay, then, when that crop thinned and its market
proved precarious, wain upon wain of wholesome bountiful
prose fodder. The SherifEdom, the clerkship of Session, the
editing of Dryden, the partnership with Ballantyne, the
Quarterly — every probable or improbable source of material
advancement was eagerly seized upon ; and when, in his fortieth
year, the first 100 acres of his Abbotsford estate became his
property (so soon to grow to a thousand), the chimera was born
in his brain which usurped there the place of a purpose worthy
of power so tremendous.

Turner's career has this in common with Walter Scott's,
that his instinctive bias towards the art he practised (which in
his case declared itself definitely at the age of five) was so over-
whelming as to render it independent of any formal determina-
tion. He was a painter by necessity of inborn temperament
and power ; and on this necessity, from first to last, the achieve-
ments of his long and arduous life were based. He accepted
it, certainly, in more wholehearted fashion than Scott ever did ;
loved his work and his pictures more even than the money he
loved so much too dearly — and, so far, may justly be regarded as
a purposeful individual. But a man of purpose in the higher
Goethean sense, that is, a man of clear self-consciousness, of
well-defined aims, he never was nor could have been, since he

SIR WAI.TKR SCOTT.

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF PURPOSE 205

lacked the essential factor, of intellectuality, of the degree such
attainment implies. It is hardly too much to say, that, though
never idle, indeed, always extraordinarily industrious, Turner
drifted through life, and was only saved by the sheer constraint
of the genius that would not let him rest from becoming the
victim of his inordinate sensuality. In other words, though a
very great artist, his personality, though by no means lacking
in fine points,1 must in many respects be pronounced common-
place, and, in some, ignoble.

This reading may seem too severe, and is odious to write,
but I think it is borne out by the facts. If it make Kuskin
turn in his grave, so much the worse for Ruskin, whose hero-
worship was carried to unbounded lengths. " He knows a great
deal more about my pictures than I do. He puts things into
my head, and points out meanings in them which I never
intended." This is Turner's own verdict on his commentator,
and the reader may choose between the belief that no such
meanings are to be found in the pictures, and that, though
there, Turner did not consciously intend them. He was a
man of superb imagination, but it was mainly of the sensuous
order.

Gustave Flaubert was a man of intense and concentrated
purpose — but it is a purpose by no means easy to define, at
any rate in its later stage of full and mature development.
His imaginative bent was decisive from the first, and was
fostered in childhood by the influence of a nurse deeply imbued
with the folklore and tradition of the country-side. Pere
Mignot, too, a friend of the family, liked nothing better than
" to spend long hours in reading Don Quixote to the handsome
dreamy boy." And his parents, if, as appeared later, they
wished to make a lawyer of him, erred fatally in encouraging
his taste for literature and for amateur theatricals. He did,
indeed, go so far as to attempt the study paternally prescribed
for him, but soon gave it up in despair. " I can see nothing
more stupid than jurisprudence, if it is not the study of it,"

1 To save a patron, involved in pecuniary difficulties, from sacrificing some
valuable timber, Turner secretly forwarded a large sum, probably £40,000.
He was repaid through the agent, his name never being disclosed.

206 MAKERS OF MAN

he writes. " I work at it with profound disgust, and that
deprives me of all heart and spirit for everything else." After
all, his father was a wealthy man, not likely to be particularly
harsh to any one, least of all his only son. Gustave drifted
into literature by natural compulsion of inability to take any
real interest in other activities. The form which that literature
assumed, his passionate veracity — realism, if you prefer the
label — was presumably not unrelated to the fact that his
father was an able and enthusiastic surgeon, who no doubt
knew how to inspire kindred spirits with something of his
own devotion to the scientific ideal. To such a man, as Mr.
Tarver justly remarks, a deft operation or a fine dissection
makes a strong aesthetic appeal : they are things of beauty
to his discerning eye. Gustave and his little sister had often
watched through the keyhole this worthy man, immersed in
the work he loved. He inevitably, therefore, imbibed a high
scorn for all squeamishness in his own work : determined
that, the day of honeyed fantasy being over, Art should learn
from Science the secret of unflinching courage and unbending
loyalty to the fact. Flaubert, in his early youth, had been
remarkable, not only for his heroic stature and beauty, but
for superabundant vitality and rollicking spirits. With this,
however, was associated a general hyperaesthesia, which, on
his reaching the age of twenty-one, culminated in a severe
hystero-epileptic attack. To this illness, and to the extremely
drastic treatment which he underwent in consequence, I have
already referred. I mention it now, because, in my opinion,
it has an important bearing on the natural history of his artistic
aims and the determination of his career as a Recluse of Art.
Years afterwards, Flaubert writes thus to George Sand :
" What you say to me of your dear little ones has moved me
to the bottom of my soul ! Why is that not mine ? Yet I
was born with the capacity for all tenderness. But one does
not make one's destiny, one submits to it. I was a coward
in my youth. I was afraid of life. Everything gets its reward."
This " fear of life," to which Flaubert refers more than once,
may have been originated, must at least have been greatly
intensified, by the vital depletion consequent upon his illness

TURNKK.
EHfraW</f>yJ. B. H«Ht/^n, an ^isinal sketch.

To face}. 206.

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF PURPOSE 207

and its treatment. Flaubert saw clearly that to accomplish
anything really great in literature, it was necessary to con-
centrate his energies, and severely to limit himself by the
repudiation of collateral activities. Even marriage would
be a fatal distraction, a " horrible apostasy." Thus he writes
to a woman who made a desperate attempt to annex him :
" When a man wishes, be he small or great, to concern himself
with the works of God, he must begin, if only from considerations
of health, by putting himself in a position in which he cannot
be duped by them." From hie thirtieth to his fifty-eighth
(last) year, he lived quietly and laboriously at Croisset, only
leaving it for occasional visits to Paris, and, in 1860, for
inspecting the site of Carthage. His " practical dogma for
the artist's life " was, that " one must take one's existence
in two parts : live like a bourgeois, and think like a demi-god."

Had Flaubert, in the work which he took so seriously, any
didactic aim ? No more uncompromising champion of the
" Art for Art's sake " view ever lived. He shall speak for
himself. " I read at Jerusalem a Socialist book (Comte's
Essay on Positivism). It was lent to me by a wild Catholic,
who insisted by main force that I should read it in order to see,
etc. etc. I turned over some pages of it : it is consumingly
stupid. . . . There are in it immense mines of comedy, quite
a California of the grotesque. There is, perhaps, something
else as well. That may be. One of the first studies to which
I shall betake myself on my return, will certainly be that of all
these deplorable Utopias, which agitate our Society and
threaten to cover it with ruins. . . . What does the face that
to-morrow will bear matter ; we only see the face of to-day.
It cuts hideous mugs truly, and therefore enters the better into
romanticism."

No doubt Flaubert believed that great Art has (incidentally)
a moral influence and function ; that the heroic attitude of
the artist will be insensibly conveyed to the mind of his worthy
reader. Thus in his Address to the Middle Class, on the refusal
of the Town Council of Rouen to sanction a monument to the
poet Bouilhet, he wrote : l " Germany has been sufficiently
1 After the Franco-Prussian War.

208 MAKERS OF MAN

joked, I presume, on the subject of her theorisers, her dreamers,
her misty poets. You have seen, alas ! where her mists have
brought her. I have an idea that the dreamer Fichte re-organised
the Prussian army after Jena, and that the poet Koerner sent
some Uhlans against us about the year 1813."

In the end, Flaubert's ever-increasing hatred of the sordid
utilitarianism which he, sometimes unjustly, attributed to the
bourgeoisie of his day, altogether conquered his objection to
the didactic in Art. His last, and perhaps greatest work,
Bouvard et Pecuchet,1 is from beginning to end a passionate
protest (by exposure of results) against the meanness, frivolity,
shallowness, futility, and spite of average commonplace men
and women.

1 Flaubert read and annotated some 1500 volumes in preparation for the
writing of the 400 octavo pages of Bouvard et Pecuchet, which he had all but
completed when he died.

GUSTAVE FLAUBERT.

Tof*cej>. 208.

IX
THE NATURAL HISTORY OF PURPOSE— Continued

III. Intellectual type — IV. Ethico-religious type — The higher criticism —
V. Recapitulation.

III. Intellectual Type. — Of the boyhood and early youth of
Bacon we know little, except that he entered Trinity College
in his twelfth year, and acquired there a reputation for pre-
cocious learning and for hostility to the prevailing Aristotelian
philosophy. But at the age of twenty-four he published a
short Latin treatise, whose title, Temporis Partus Maximus,
speaks volumes concerning its author's ambition. His aims
from the first were twofold, practical and theoretic ; the first
perhaps moderate but by no means moderately desired ; the
second, vast, almost illimitable, in scope. Bacon's primary
motive in seeking public office may have been personal ambi-
tion, the craving for wealth and power, but that he also sincerely
desired the advancement of the national welfare is a fact no
competent judge will deny. In politics he began and ended
as a moderate reformer ; in regard to the religious controversy,
he advocated tolerance of both Puritan and Romanist extremes.
He was no democrat. " I do not love the word ' people,' " he
confessed, holding that good was to be done for, not by, them.
It may be counted to his credit, that, by his opposition to her
unconstitutional attempt to force the Commons to confer with
the Lords on Supply (1592), he, at the outset of his political
career (set. 31), incurred the resentment of Elizabeth. And
to this fact the slowness of his advance to high office was no
doubt largely due. Not until Elizabeth had been four years
dead, did he (in 1607, at the age of forty-six) reap the first-
fruits of his fifteen years' urgency in solicitation by obtaining
14

210 MAKERS OF MAN

the posts of Solicitor-General and Clerk to the Star Chamber.
The Advancement of Learning had appeared two years
before he thus at length set his foot on the ladder of power.
His income was now £5000 per annum, equivalent to about
eight times as much in the present day. However much it
might be, it would never suffice him : he shared to the full
the love of pomp and magnificence characteristic of his day,
and to this fact, and his consequent embarrassments, the tragedy
of his fall was in great measure due.

So much for the practical aims of Bacon's life, which are,
after all, of slight interest in comparison with his philosophical
projects. In the De Interpretations Natures Pro - osmium,
written somewhere between his forty-second and forty-fifth
years, Bacon wrote as follows : " If a man should succeed not
in striking out some new invention, . . . but in kindling a
light in nature, ... a light that . . . should presently dis-
close ... all that is most hidden and secret in the world —
that man would be the benefactor indeed of the human race. . . .
For myself, I found that I was fitted for nothing so well as for
the study of truth." Thus clearly, in the noontide of his power,
Bacon epitomised the large constructive aim, of which, in its
negative phase, the germ had appeared in his boyish antipathy
to the barren logic-chopping of the University. In the Ad-
vancement of Learning (published, in its first form, at forty-four),
Bacon is, however, still greatly occupied in controverting the
old unfruitful way of philosophising ; and even in the Novum
Organum, which, after twelve years of annual revision, if not
re-writing, saw the light in his sixtieth year, the old cudgels
have by no means been laid aside. " The Logic of the Novum
Organum," says Prof. Nichol, " differs from the old in seeking
* non argumenta sed artes,' in rejecting the syllogism and avoid-
ing hasty generalisations, and in assuming nothing as true
without experimental verification. . . . He thought to discover
a method (of investigation) so exhaustive as to be as certain
in its results as a demonstration of Euclid, so mechanical
that when once understood all men might employ it, yet so
startling that it was to be as a new sun to the borrowed beams
of the stars." But, after all, it is in his own words that the

SIR K. BACON, VISCOUNT ST. AI.BANS.
Engrave,! l>y S. I rceman.

To face /. 210.

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF PURPOSE 211

central purpose of his life has been most tersely and compre-
hensively stated : " Meditor instaurationem philosophise ejus
modi quse nihil inanis aut abstracti habeat, quseque vitee
humanae conditiones in melius provehat."

In describing the vocation of Galileo, I have already alluded
to his boyish fondness for constructing toys and models. Mis-
trust of scholastic methods was in the air of the latter part of
the sixteenth century, and it is therefore not surprising that,
while studying medicine at Pisa, Galileo, like Bacon (his senior
by only three years), attracted notice by his boldness in contro-
verting the dogmas of Aristotelianism. What is more note-
worthy is, that already, before he was out of his teens, mere
iconoclasm did not suffice Galileo — " he felt himself destined
to found a new school, rational and experimental." Medical
study proved uncongenial ; he gradually became absorbed in
mathematics ; and discovered the isochronism of the pendulum.
For this idea — epoch-making for astronomy — he may have
been indebted to Leonardo, for it seems that Mazenta, the
preserver of that artist's manuscripts, was one of Galileo's
fellow-students at the University, and many of the suggestions
there mooted re-appear in his writings. At what precise period
Galileo became a convert to the Copernican theory is uncertain —
probably soon after he received (aet. 26) the Pisan lectureship
in mathematics ; at any rate, he asserts that he taught the
recognised Ptolemaic system for some time after he had privately
become convinced of its fallacy. If — as is probable — Sagredo,
in his Dialogue on the Ptolemaic and Copernican Systems, re-
presents his own personality, we have an interesting glimpse
of the method by which he was led to investigate the new theory.
He makes Sagredo say he has noticed that whereas converts
to the Copernican view had always been first on the Ptolemaic
side, and were well acquainted with both systems, upholders
of the absolute theory were always quite ignorant of the new
one. Hence Sagredo (i.e. Galileo) became " very curious
to dive into the bottom of this business." In 1592 (set. 28),
Galileo left Pisa and took up the post of professor of mathematics
at Padua. The University was in ill odour with the Jesuits
at Padua, and his association with it may have had much to

212 MAKERS OF MAN

do with the persecution he subsequently underwent. In 1609
(aet. 45), Galileo constructed his first telescope, and as it
was this achievement which, by furnishing the means of his
astronomical discoveries, really formed the basis of his im-
mortality, I will quote the account he gives of his extremely
characteristic method of procedure. Rumour had reached him
of the haphazard construction by a Dutch spectacle-maker
of a tube, by looking through which far objects were apparently
brought close to the eye. He at once set himself to consider
the feasibility of such an instrument. " I argued as follows :
the contrivance consists either of one glass or more — one is
not sufficient, since it must be either convex, concave, or plane ;
the last does not produce any sensible alteration in objects,
the concave diminishes them ; it is true that the convex magni-
fies, but it renders them confused and indistinct : consequently
one glass is insufficient to produce the desired effect. . . .
Bearing in mind that the plane glass causes no change, ... I
therefore applied myself to make experiments on combinations
of the other two kinds, and thus obtained that of which I was
in search." This inductive and experimental procedure is
now so much a matter of course, that the reader will perhaps
hardly realise how revolutionary it was in 1609. Wielded by a
man of such mental resource and fecundity as Galileo, it pro-
duced results which to his contemporaries must have seemed
well-nigh miraculous. The astrologers trembled when celestial
bodies were related to the homely earth by his announcement
of the four moons which revolved about Jupiter. " Oh, my
dear Kepler," he writes, " how I wish that we could have one
hearty laugh together. Here, at Padua, is the principal
professor of philosophy, whom I have repeatedly and urgently
requested to look at the moon and planets through my glass,
which he pertinaciously refuses to do. Why are you not
here ? What shouts of laughter we should have at this glorious
folly ! And to hear the professor of philosophy at Pisa labouring
before the Grand Duke with logical arguments, as with magical
incantations, to charm the new planets out of the sky." But
even Kepler, the would-be " legislator of the skies," has to be
rebuked for presumptuous apriorism, when, by an unsupported

GALILEO.
Front a. picture by Ramsay in Trinity College, Cambridge.

To /ate f. 312.

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF PURPOSE 213

theory, he attempts to " account for " the number of Jovian
satellites, and for those which he expected to meet with else-
where. " How great and common appears to me the error of
those who persist in making their knowledge and apprehension
the measure of the apprehension and knowledge of God. . . .
Nature has other scales of perfection, which we cannot compre-
hend, and rather seem disposed to class among imperfections.
. . . God, with no regard to our imaginary symmetries, . . .
has shaken the stars out from His hand as if by chance." How
well Galileo learnt the true significance of the revolt against
scholasticism and the determination to replace it by tentative
and inductive procedure, which were the negative and positive
aspects of his lifelong purpose, is proved by the following rebuke
of a too credulous pupil : " You almost make me laugh by
saying that these clear observations are sufficient to convince
the most obstinate. . . . Not even the testimony of the stars
would suffice, were they to descend on earth to speak for them-
selves. ... Of advancing in popular opinion or gaining the
assent of the book-philosophers, let us abandon both the hope
and the desire." That, in the face of such obstacles, men can
persist in their self-imposed tasks, and carry them through,
surely suggests, at least, that purpose is not merely formal, no
barren concomitant of predetermined activities, but a thing
of power, deeply-rooted in reality, a dynamic impulse, capable
of reacting, for good or evil, upon life and circumstance.

In point of intellect, William Harvey was by no means the
equal of Galileo. He was no philosopher : a man of acute
penetration rather than of deep and comprehensive mind.
His purpose is, therefore, more tangible, more specific, and,
epoch-making as it nevertheless proved, more limited, than that
of the Italian physicist and astronomer. Harvey graduated
at Cambridge in 1597 (set. 19), having presumably profited
by the noble example, possibly from the personal encourage-
ment and interest, of Johannes Caius, " an enthusiastic student,
and the friend of all the great scholars of the day." He then
travelled through France and Italy, and at the Jurist University
of Padua became a pupil of the surgeon and anatomist, Fabricius,
then engaged in perfecting his knowledge of those valves of the

214 MAKERS OF MAN

human veins which he had, not indeed discovered, but rescued
from oblivion. Misled by the current theories, Fabricius
remained quite at sea as to the function of the valves whose
anatomy he had so well described. The heart was looked upon
as, primarily, the centre of vital heat ; and this heat or " caloric "
was itself an entity. The heart was supposed, by an active
dilatation, to suck blood out of the veins, to impart vital heat
to it, and then to expel it into the veins again. The arteries were
supposed to contain air, rhythmically absorbed and expelled
through pores of the skin, in order to " fan " or cool the blood.
Such movement as the blood underwent was, on this view, not
(as Harvey has taught the world) a circular movement through
the arteries to the extremities and back through the veins, but
a to-and-fro movement in the veins alone. Fabricius accord-
ingly regarded the valves as a mere safeguard against overfilling
of the veins of the extremities, but failed to X see that they
practically inhibited any flow through the veins except towards
the heart. " How Fabricius, a man who did such work," says
Dr. Osier, " could have been so blinded as to overlook the
truth which was tumbling out, so to speak, at his feet, is to us
incomprehensible. But his eyes were sealed " — by that most
impervious of all bandages, a preconceived theory. " Was it
while listening to the ingenious explanation of his master,"
the fake explanation, "that in a period of abstraction . . .
there came to Harvey a heaven-sent moment, a sudden inspira-
tion, a passing doubt nursed for long in silence, which ultimately
grew into the great truth , of 1613 ? " l However this may
be, Harvey, on his return home after five years at Padua
(aet. 24), soon embarked upon a long course of dissections
and vivisections, one result of which was that his lectures
at the Royal College of Physicians, begun in his thirty-
eighth year, revealed an intimate knowledge of the anatomy
of sixty kinds of animals — to say nothing of a perfect
familiarity with that of the human body. As to the motive
that impelled him to such indefatigable research, he shall
speak for himself. " At length, and by using greater and daily

1 The quotation is from Dr. Osier's Harveian Oration of 1906. The (late
given is presumably a misprint. Harvey began to lecture in 1616.

WILLIAM HARVEY. M.D.
Engraved by S. Freeman.

To fait}. atv

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF PURPOSE 215

diligence, having frequent recourse to vivisections, employing
a variety of animals for the purpose, ... I thought . . . that
I had discovered what I so much desired, with the motion and
the use of the heart and arteries." In his Lumleian Lectures,
begun in 1616, Harvey opened that long battle with scientific
error, and tireless championship of his hard- won truth, which
mainly occupied the rest of his eager life. It was twelve years
later that he published his book to the world.

In Descartes we have an interesting example of intellectual
crisis : from the day in his twenty-fourth year when he de-
liberately chose his own path, his whole mental activities were
confined to a predetermined course and method. It was in
1619, when Descartes, who two years before, desirous of travel,
had joined the force of Prince Maurice at Buda, was in winter
quarters at Neuburg. From the age of eighteen he had been
specially drawn to the study of mathematics, wherein he found
the logical symmetry and clearness as yet lacking in the more
concrete departments of science. " I determined one day to
study within myself, and to employ all my mental force in
choosing the paths which I ought to follow. ... I remained
all day alone, shut in a warm room, where I was at perfect
leisure to occupy myself with my own thoughts." The result
of this deliberation was a firm decision to discard all traditional
preconceptions and to build on the sure foundation of incon-
trovertible fact. Also — and here the influence of his Jesuitical
training is clearly seen — he resolved to maintain a distinct
barrier between the departments of science and faith. With
regard to mathematics, he said long afterwards : " I was
astonished that foundations so strong and solid should have
had no loftier superstructure raised on them." The object
he now set before himself was the extension of mathematical
method, its clearness in demonstration, completeness in analysis,
precision in measurement, to the pursuit of knowledge in
general. But how was the complexity of nature to be so
simplified as to admit of this ? A mode of quantitative ex-
pression at once infinitely diversible and continuous was evidently
needed ; and, three years later, during a phase of curious
exaltation, a " marvellous discovery " of the key to this problem

216 MAKERS OF MAN

dawned upon his mind. Matter he regarded as synonymous
with extension — " Give me extension and motion, and I will
construct the world." Mathematics, he thought, could best
be treated symbolically, as in algebra ; and quantities were
most clearly and simply expressed by lines. The need of
complicated figures was largely obviated by algebraical expression
of their purport. By the combination of algebraical and geo-
metrical method (analytical geometry), Descartes therefore
found himself in a position to solve many new and otherwise
insoluble problems, and believed it possible to express all the
relations of motion and extension, that is (for him), all factors
of the phenomenal universe. All natural processes, from the
simplest to the most complex, were to be conceived as mechani-
cally - determined throughout, consequently as measurable,
that is, reducible to the mathematical laws of figure and motion.1
Such was the fundamental conception, to the development of
which Descartes henceforth devoted his life. What, however,
he largely failed to realise, was that the content of Science must
be of empirical origin. Scepticism, for him, had done its
work when it had examined his metaphysical " first principles "
— God, the thinking subject, extension, motion, clear perception
as the criterion of truth, etc., — and failed to refute them.
Starting from these first principles, he believed it possible
to deduce the scheme of the universe a priori, with, perhaps,
occasional recourse to experiment or observation, much as a
schoolboy may turn up the " answers " in his sum-book, by
way of making sure he is on the right track.

If ever there were a born thinker — a thinker by instinct — it
was Spinoza. He lived not merely for, but in and by, philosophy.:
his purpose, his philosophy, and his life, are one and the same
thing. To understand the first, we must consider the influences
which contributed to the determination of the second and the
third. To begin with, Spinoza was a Jew who disliked Judaism,
who, from the first, was out of sympathy with its formalism,
and the hard, limited anthropomorphism which it has bequeathed
to Christendom. There you have the root-motive of his philoso-
phising : to think his way out of prison, and to build a new
1 " All my physics is nothing else than geometry " (Descarti-s).

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF PURPOSE 217

Palace of Thought for his own soul and for the souls of other
free men. He began, of course, as a theologian, studying
the Talmud in his teens under Rabbi Morteira ; also the works
of the Jewish philosophers, who, from the thirteenth to the
fifteenth century, " strove by free critical interpretation of
Scripture to systematise theology on an Aristotelian basis."
" In the tenets and questionings of these men he found,"
says Sir F. Pollock, " much more than his teachers expected
him to find, or were themselves capable of finding." How
should he not, since they offered a way of escape ? Maimonides,
for example, taught that the " will and the wisdom of God are
inseparable ; that He co-exists with creation as its cause in
actu, not precedes it as its cause in potentid ; that perfect
intellect knows not good and evil, only true and false, and that
the conceptions of design and final cause have no application
except as to things created in time." Chasdai Creskas (a
writer expressly quoted in one of Spinoza's letters) taught
" that God is determined to creation by love — at once a necessity
of His nature and an act of will ; that human volitions are
determined by motives as much as anything is determined,"
that free actions are only free in the sense of not being externally
constrained — was, in short, a thoroughgoing determinist.
If he also conceded the necessity of a special revelation of
God's nature, that was an interpolation so obviously at variance
with the tenour of his argument that young Spinoza would not
fail to perceive the incongruity. It is with books as with food,
we assimilate only what agrees with our constitution. It was
possibly by Francis van den Ende, a physician of rationalistic
proclivities, who taught him Latin and (Pollock thinks) the
elements of physical science, that young Spinoza was introduced
to the works of Giordano Bruno and Descartes. The former
he must have found congenial and peculiarly stimulating ; that
he closely studied the works of the latter is proved no less by
internal evidence of its influence, than by the fact that his first
published work — the only one to which he ever set his name —
was an admirable summary of the " Principles of Philosophy,"
which appeared in his thirty-first year. Bruno not only used
the words " mode " and " attribute," which are so prominent

218 MAKERS OF MAN

in Spinoza's technical vocabulary, but maintained that the
First Principle is infinite in all its attributes, and that one of
these is extension. With regard to Descartes, though Sir F.
Pollock may be right in maintaining that Spinoza was never
a Cartesian, there can be no doubt that he learnt much from his
predecessor, and embodied many of his conclusions — scientific,
however, mostly, rather than metaphysical — in his own works.
That Spinoza, a thoroughgoing monist, rejected the Cartesian
severance of spirit and matter, is a point of great psychological
interest. The root-explanation is to be sought in the contrasted
characters of the two men. Descartes was a timid man, with a
perfect horror of embroiling himself with the Church. Although
professing to base his philosophy on the principle of universal
doubt, he explicitly exempted matters of faith, and, practically,
that also of the existence of the Deity — his proof of which
is conceived in the very spirit of scholasticism, and has convinced
only those who have desired conviction. I do not impugn the
sincerity of his intention : he was more sophistical than he
realised, and I do not believe that he was quite easy in his mind
as to the validity of his own theistic argument. There is an
excess of emphasis, a tendency to reiteration, which I find
suspicious. He once let slip in a letter the remark that God
might be identified with the order of Nature. He certainly
quibbled about the movement of the earth and about transub-
stantiation. It was necessary to keep in with the Jesuits. The
role of the Cartesian Deity is to stand with one foot on each
side of the gulf that divides two incommensurables — thinking
substance and extended substance, soul and body. This kind of
unity might be good enough for a philosophical mathematician,
but not for a philosopher sans phrase. Stimulated by the
failure of Descartes, Spinoza, fresh from the reading of Maimon-
ides, fearlessly adopted the only possible solution of the problem.
Thought and extension should not be independent substances,
but parallel attributes of the one infinite substance, the God
who " co-exists with creation, as its cause in actu, not precedes
it as its cause in potential His God was explicitly and un-
compromisingly what Descartes' God was, at most, covertly
and inferentially — one with the order of Nature, albeit experience

RENE1 DESCARTES.
From a block lent by Messrs. W. Rider &> Son, Ltd.

To/ace >. 218.

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF PURPOSE 219

reveals to us only two of the innumerable attributes which
reason postulates for the Absolute.

But in thus outlining the ultimate reaction of Spinoza's
mind to Cartesianism, we are to some extent anticipating the
course of events. Before he could philosophise on his own
account, he had to come to terms with the questions raised by
his theological training. It is true that the leading ideas
of his system are said to have been submitted to de Vries and
other friends, in outline, in his thirty-first year (1663), but the
Ethics was not completed until he was about forty-two, while
the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus was published four years
earlier, and was no doubt the fruit of long research and medi-
tation. It is a powerful plea for liberty of thought and speech,
" in which he plunges into an investigation of the nature of
prophecy, the principle of Scriptural investigation, and the true
provinces of theology and philosophy, anticipating with
wonderful grasp and insight almost every principle and not a
few of the results of the school of historical criticism which
has arisen within the last two or three generations." In it
Spinoza " appeals from the Churches to the State, as representing
the worldly common-sense of the lay mind."

The jealousy with which Spinoza guarded his intellectual
freedom is well shown by his refusal (set. 30) of the flattering
offer of the Chair of Philosophy at Heidelberg. He had no time
for teaching ; moreover, something had been said about not
disturbing the established religion, and he could not tell within
what bounds he ought to confine himself in order to escape
any such charge. When the Ethics was completed, Spinoza
visited Amsterdam with a view to arranging for its publication.
But rumours of its " atheistical " tendency had gone abroad ;
the venture seemed inopportune, and Spinoza, confident of
ultimate recognition, calmly resigned himself to delay. The
Ethics appeared, posthumously, with other works, and
was promptly interdicted by the States of Holland and West
Friesland. I will conclude this brief account of the develop-
ment of Spinozism by summarising Sir F. Pollock's estimate
of the sources of its several elements. Taking his Jewish theo-
logical training and environment (1) as the starting-point, we trace

220 MAKERS OF MAN

the pantheist and mystical element (2) to medieval Jewish philo-
sophers and to Bruno. The Scientific element (3) is largely
derived from Descartes, and the monistic position ( i) by reaction
from the same source. The idea of natural law, particularly
in psychology (5) remains, and is, in Pollock's opinion, "the
most independent work of Spinoza's genius," although we have
seen it clearly suggested in the quotation from Chasdai Creskas.
" His account of the passions, as worked out in the Ethics,
is his masterpiece, still unsurpassed." But it would be an
absurd error to conclude, that, because we can identify some of
the stones which went to the building of his House of Thought,
Spinoza is to be regarded as a mere eclectic, not a man of creative
intellect. The unity that combiner the diverse elements of
Spinozism is not mechanical, but spiritual. His theory of the
Absolute has revolutionised theology, a word which I use
deliberately and in its widest significance.1

It is exceptional, even among philosophers, to find such
unity and consistency of aim as characterise the life of Spinoza.
Among scientific discoveries, like Newton — for only the most
insular of Britons could pretend that Newton was a philosopher
— such unity as we do find will, in most cases, be that of mental
attitude rather than formal achievement. Still it is true that
in the lives of most scientific discoverers there is, not only some
central interest, but some specific aim, culminating in a central
and peculiarly characteristic discovery. From this point of
view, Newton's work in optics and in mathematics, important
as it was in itself, will always be secondary to his formulation
of the theory of gravitation, to which, genetically, it in fact
served as introduction and training. Newton entered Trinity
in 1660 (aet. 17), knowing little of science. In Cambridge,
"the real birthplace of his genius," all his great discoveries
were made, and there the ensuing thirty-five years of his life,
up to the date of his appointment to the Mint, were almost
exclusively spent. Like so many men of genius — Napoleon,
Scott, Goethe, Leibnitz, Bacon, Descartes, for example —
Newton seems to have been instinctively drawn towards

1 That is, as practically equivalent with " ontology," a title perhaps
destined to supersede it.

SPINOZA.
From the statue by Marc AtitocoUky.

To/acef.

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF PURPOSE 221

occultism at various periods of his life. I have mentioned
how, as an undergraduate, he was led to the study of mathe-
matics by the desire to test the claims of astrology. We may
note, in passing, that Newton is said by Dr. Law to have set up
furnaces in his youth and spent several months in quest of the
" philosopher's tincture." Copious extracts from Behmen's
works were found among his papers, and there exist many
sheets of his own extracts from the occult works of Flammel
and Yworth. What concerns us now, however, is his acci-
dental discovery of his very extraordinary gift for mathematics.
As a testimony to his facility in this department, I will cite
the story told of two problems sent in 1697 by Bernouilli to the
chief mathematicians of Europe. Leibnitz is said to have
asked for an extension of the six months allowed for their
solution, to a year. Newton solved both on the day of receipt,
and his anonymous solution was recognised as his by Bernouilli,
"tanquam ex ungue leonem." Newton obtained his B.A.
degree in 1665 (set. 23), and in due course a Junior Fellowship,
the M.A., and a Senior Fellowship, finally, the Lucasian Pro-
fessorship in Mathematics. The year following his graduation
(1666) is a notable one : in it he established the different
refrangibility of light rays, and formulated his Binomial
Theorem and method of Fluxions. In taking up the subject
of optics, he was following the example of many contemporary
investigators : its problems were in the air, so to speak. But,
as bearing on his greatest achievement, the mathematical
discovery concerns us more closely. The problem was to find
a general quantitative method of expressing various curves,
and estimating the areas enclosed by them, and also the con-
tents of spherical bodies. Tentative work had been done on
these lines by Kepler, Cavalieri, and Descartes, while Roberval
and Fermat had made a near approach to success. At the out-
set of his mathematical study Newton had read a book on
The Arithmetic of Infinites, by Dr. Wallis, an Oxford geometrician.
Wallis found that if the equations of a number of curves
were arranged in order of simplicity, beginning with that of
a straight line, the equation of a circle was intermediate
between the first and second terms, that is, between that

222 MAKERS OF MAN

of a straight line and a parabola. He considered that if the
areas of curves were similarly arranged, that of the circle
would be in like manner intermediate between the first and
second terms of such a series. The results obtained by
Wallis were, however, of limited application, and Newton,
pursuing the investigation, obtained a general method of inter-
polating terms in a given series. In applying the same process
to the ordinates of curves, " he discovered the general method
of reducing radical quantities composed of several terms into
infinite series, and was thus led to the discovery of the cele-
brated Binomial Theorem." Henceforth he discarded Wallis's
principle of interpolation, and employed his new method for
the rectification of curves and the determination of surfaces
and solids, and the positions of centres of gravity. Further,
" he discovered the general principle of deducing the areas of
curves from the ordinate by considering the area as a nascent
quantity increasing in proportion to the length of the ordinate
and supposing the abscissa to increase uniformly with the
time. To the velocities with which every line, surface, or
solid is generated, Newton gave the name of ' Fluxions.' . . .
By thus regarding lines as generated by the motion of points,
surfaces by the motion of lines, and solids by the motion of
surfaces, and by considering that the ordinates, abscissae, etc.,
of curves thus formed vary according to a general law depend-
ing on the equation of the curve, he deduces from this equation
the velocities with which these quantities are generated ; and
by the rules of infinite series he obtains the ultimate value
of the quantity required." The treatise in which Newton
described this important discovery was not published until
45 years after it had been made.1 This reticence may be
largely attributed to his hatred of controversy, and the sore-
ness consequent upon the extreme virulence of the criticisms
encountered by his optical discoveries. It may also be partly
due to the fact that his mathematical researches were
undertaken in great measure as a means to astronomical
investigations, and the less valued, therefore, on their own

1 The principle is described in the first edition of the Principia (1687),
but the notation ia withheld.

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF PURPOSE 223

account. For it seems clear that at the very time when he thus
grappled with and conquered the problem of precise measure-
ment of curves, spheres, etc., and the determination of centres
of gravity, his mind was brooding over the vast cosmic enigma
for whose solution just such measurements were required.
There is here every appearance of deliberate purpose, and 1
trust the reader has noted the inevitability of the sequence of
events by which, hitherto, Newton's mind has been lured into
its appropriate path. We are still in the year 1666 — Newton's
twenty-fourth. Owing to an outbreak of plague he removed
for a time from Cambridge to Woolsthorpe, and in a garden there
the tree was long pointed out from which that memorable
apple is supposed to have dropped. Newton, sitting there,
was reflecting on the power which attracts bodies towards the
earth's centre. He considered whether it might extend to the
moon and retain her in her orbit ; then he thought of the planets
as retained by a similar power in their course round the sun,
which course he then erroneously supposed to be circular.
Kepler, in his Harmony of the World (1619), had already
surmised that some power resides in the sun, governing the
motions of the planets in orbits, and " even went so far as to
suggest that this power diminished as the square of the dis-
tance of the body on which it was exerted ; but immediately
rejects this law, and prefers that of the simple distances." 1
Bouillaud, in his Astronomica Philolaica (1645), says, re
attraction as a cause of planetary motions, that " if it existed
it would decrease as the square of the distance." Bouilli
(1666) — the very year we are dealing with — attributed to a
common cause the lunar and terrestrial movements and those
of the Jovian satellites. And in March of this year Dr. R. Hook
had read to the Royal Society an account of his investigations
of the weight of bodies at different distances from the centre
of the earth. Newton, perhaps on the strength of Kepler's
hint, perhaps entirely on his own account, believed that the
force of gravity would prove to vary inversely as the square
of the distance. But on calculation, on the basis of a supposed

1 Kepler speaks of gravity as a mutual corporeal attraction between
similar bodies, and maintains that the tides are due to the moon's attraction.

224 MAKERS OF MAN

circular orbit of the moon, and an erroneous estimate of the
earth's diameter, he could not make the hypothetical force
of gravity correspond with known facts as to the earth's pull
on her satellite. He therefore abandoned the problem and
returned to his optical researches.

Thirteen years later (1679) his rival Hook (still hot on the
trail) supplied one of the missing links by proving that projec-
tiles acting under a force varying inversely as the squai e of the
distance from its source will move in elliptical orbits. Newton
thereupon demonstrated that a planet acting under such a
force will describe an elliptical orbit, in one of whose foci the
attractive force resides. Three years later the final clue was
obtained in the form of a corrected estimate (supplied by Picard)
of the earth's diameter. Newton resumed his long-abandoned
calculation ; and so intense was his excitement on finding that
the expected result was likely to be obtained, that he was com-
pelled to relinquish the task to a friend. " The force of gravity
which regulated the fall of bodies at the earth's surface, when
diminished as the square of the moon's distance from the earth,
was found to be almost exactly equal to the centrifugal force
of the moon as deduced from her observed distance and
velocity."

Another three years brought Newton's long task to a close.
His Principia was completed in 1685, and presented to the
Royal Society in 1686 — twenty years after the conception of
its fundamental proposition, that " every particle of matter
is attracted by, or gravitates to, every other particle, with a
force inversely proportional to the squares of their distances."

One of the supreme tasks of the new science of Critical
Psychology will be the deliberate revaluation of current con-
clusions as to the comparative merits of the world's greatest
men. It is useless to plead that " comparisons are odious,"
because we must have standards of value, and it is from such
sources alone that they can ultimately be derived. Compari-
sons— waiving hypocrisy — are keenly relished by all, except
those whose deficiencies are thereby revealed. This by way
of preface to the remark that it is by no means necessarily the
greatest men who achieve the greatest (even posthumous)

SIR ISAAC NEWTON.

Engraved l>y E. Scrivenfrom the original picture by Vandcrbank in the possession
of t lie Royal Society.

To face}. 224-

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF PURPOSE 225

renown. An ideal purpose may realise itself concentratively,
as with Spinoza, or dispersively, as with our next subject,
Leibnitz. Of two men differing only in this respect, the fame of
the first will necessarily outstrip and surpass that of the second,
although it in no way follows that there will be a corresponding
difference in the worth of their respective achievements.

Spinoza's wise economy of his meagre physical resources
was practically forced upon him by ill-health. His magni-
ficent work was impossible on any other terms. It was for
the sake of the work, not for what it might bring him of wealth
or renown, that he lived so ascetically and so withdrawn from
the world. The motives of Leibnitz were not less pure, but
his method was the very reverse. It seems to have been a
matter of complete indifference to him what particular task
he worked upon : to each and all he brought the same lofty
spirit, the same unwearied zeal. His America was everywhere
where he found work to be done. This generosity was of course
exploited by worldlings, who know too well the art of making
genius their tool. Intellectually, Leibnitz was at least the equal
of Spinoza. Schwegler says that, after Aristotle, he was the
polymath of the greatest genius who ever lived. But for every
man of culture who knows or cares anything about him or his
work, there are fifty who can prattle about the Ethics or the
Tractatus. Yet through all the multifarious interests and
activities of Leibnitz, legal, mathematical, ecclesiastical, political,
and metaphysical, run the two interwoven strands of a single
undeviating purpose. If Spinoza lived in his philosophy, so,
conversely, Leibnitz philosophised in his life. He was not more
a philosopher in composing the Tht'odicfe than in seeking
common ground for Catholic and Protestant, advocating the
use of the vernacular for scientific literature, trying to avert
from Holland the destructive ambition of Louis xiv., projecting
his Calculus Philosophicus, or compiling the Annak of the House
of Brunswick. " His mind was ... a focus in which the
scattered tendencies and aspirations of his age united." The
twofold object which he kept ever before him was " to pene-
trate, on the one side, to the very root and origin of existing
ideas, and, on the other, to apply them to practical ends."
15

226 MAKERS OF MAN

Of the studious habits of his boyhood I have already spoken :
a point of some interest is his early admiration for Lord Bacon,
whose influence may have determined his choice of the Law
as his main subject at Leipsic University ; and is also clearly
seen in his political and religious aims. He was, however, a
discriminating admirer : from first to last he refused to lend
himself to the depreciation of Aristotle and the ancient philo-
sophers in general, which had in his day become the mental
pose of all progressives, a fashion in which Bacon had certainly
showed no lack of zeal. Leibnitz, for all his acuteness, inclined
rather to appreciation than to censure. By the time Leibnitz
reached the age of twenty (viz., in 1666) he had gained the
degrees of Master of Philosophy at Leipsic and Doctor of Law
at Altdorf University, had refused a professorship (shrinking
from the defects and narrowness then characteristic of German
University life), had in a dissertation, De Principio Individui,
already revealed the germ of his Monadology, and in his theses,
Specimen DifficuUatis in Jure and Specimen Certitudinis in
Jure, had indicated the two great objects of the modern science
of Law : " a philosophical inquiry into the principles of Right,
and a systematic arrangement of the matter handed down to
us." He had the old philosophy as well as the new (Bacon,
Descartes, etc.) at his finger-tips ; had a sound legal training,
unbounded aspirations, deep but enlightened faith, and a
determination to extend to the utmost his already consider-
able proficiency in the higher mathematics. In a treatise,
De Arte Combinatorid, he had, in fact, shown the dependence
of scientific progress on mathematical precision of method,
advancing the symbolism of algebra as a type of such precision.

At Niirnberg, where he now spent a year, Leibnitz joined a
branch of the Rosicrucians. As secretary, he had to register
the experiments made by members, and thus added to his equip-
ment the elements of chemical knowledge. But the next
great landmark in his career is his meeting at Frankfurt (1667,
set. 21) with Baron von Boineburg, a diplomatist in the service
of the Catholic Archbishop of Mainz, which led to the crystallisa-
tion of practical aims as essential to the expression of his genius
as the vast theoretical aims already conceived. For Boineburg

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF PURPOSE 227

and Archbishop Schonborn, from the Catholic side, were work-
ing for a religious concordat, a work in which Leibnitz, from
the Protestant side, enthusiastically concurred. Though un-
able to accept the current theology of the Mother Church,
he always maintained that he belonged, spiritually, to the
unseen Catholic community. At Paris, in 1672 (aet. 26),
Leibnitz met Huygens, by whose aid and encouragement he
made great strides towards mastery of the higher mathematics.
He was, in fact, on the eve of an important discovery — that of
the infinitesimal calculus, already attained, but not revealed,
by Newton. Boineburg and (soon after) the Archbishop
died in 1673, and Leibnitz, thus freed, returned to Paris and
occupied himself with the measurement of curves and areas.
By the end of 1675 he had fixed the notation of the integral
and differential calculus, and a year later (aet. 30) had for-
mulated most of its rules. In pursuit of this discovery Leibnitz
worked on different lines from Newton's, looking first, not
for the finite quantity which was the ratio of two infinitely
small ones, but for the finite sum of an infinite series of such
infinitesimals. In working out his integral calculus, as well as
the differential which immediately followed, Leibnitz did not,
like Newton, at first content himself with an approximate
result. " He sought fundamental principles, and did not rest
until he had found a general result and fixed it by a clear trans-
parent notation." Consequently his discovery was eagerly
taken up by James and John Bernouilli and others, and proved
more fruitful than that of his English rival. In 1676 (set. 30),
Leibnitz, after a week spent in London, visited Spinoza at
the Hague, and there saw and perhaps made extracts from the
MS. of the Ethics. This brings us to the last point I shall
now deal with, namely, the influence of Descartes and Spinoza
on his philosophical development. In both he found much to
admire, and much which, ultimately, he rejected. As against
the former, he became convinced that neither extension nor
motion could be regarded as the essence of corporeal things,
any more than thought, strictly so called, of spiritual. He
pointed out that the quality of inertia, inadequately recognised
by Descartes, indicated a substantial nature lacking to mere

228 MAKERS OF MAN

extension, proved that bodies had active essence. He did
not accept even extension with the naivete of Spinoza, but
regarded it (in anticipation of Kant) as an abstraction necessi-
tated by the grossness of our senses. His unit of reality was
the " monad," a mathematical point, having in lieu of
extension an infinite background of ideal potentialities.1 All
monads he endowed with some degree of " perception " ;
all reflected in some degree, however inadequate, the univer-
sality and unity of God. Further, Leibnitz differed from
Spinoza in regard to the rejection of final cause and purpose
from the Absolute. The causal nexus was for him but an
appearance ; external events are not mechanically but ideally
determined, and subserve ideal ends. The quest of these ideal
ends (postulated by his " Law of Sufficient Reason ") was the
real task of philosophy, complementary to the scientific task,
so greatly facilitated by his own achievements, of summarising
mathematically the observed uniformities of the external
world. Here, then, we have the twofold aspect of his intrin-
sically single purpose : the advancement in all possible ways
of the new scientific methods, and the correction of their
tendency towards a falsely-mechanical conception of reality
by reinstatement of the idealism of Plato and Aristotle.

The main purpose of a philosopher is apt to be a fruit of
slow ripening, because an essential part of his equipment is an
omnivorous appetite for knowledge, which has to be satiated
before he can begin his proper task, or even adequately conceive
its nature and scope. He must, in fact, be a scholar before he can
set up as a teacher ; and with every generation the magnitude
of this preliminary task and the danger of its swamping his
individuality increases. Hence the probability, deplored by
Nietzsche, "that the philosopher will grow tired even as a learner,
or will attach himself somewhere and ' specialise ' ; so that he
will no longer attain to his elevation, that is to say, to his super-
spection, his circumspection, and his despection. Or he gets
aloft too late, when the best of his maturity is past, ... so
that his view ... is no longer of much importance." In

1 1 surmise here an unacknowledged debt to the occult philosophy of his
Rosicrucian associates.

LEIBNITZ.
From a Painting.

Tf/attf. 228.

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF PURPOSE 229

describing the vocation of Kant, I have already mentioned the
fact that he began largely as a physicist rather than a meta-
physician, lecturing and writing on mathematics, astronomy,
geography, in addition to logic and philosophy. This encyclo-
paedic role was of long duration ; only after his thirty-eighth
year (1762) he began to devote himself more and more exclusively
to the true task of his life. Between 1760 and 1765 — that is,
almost midway in his career — Kant seems to have passed through
a sort of crisis ; and hereabout I should be inclined to date the
crystallisation of his (at first) mainly negative or critical purpose.
The study of Hume, Locke, and other sceptics had begun to
unsettle his confidence in the soundness of the traditional
metaphysic, what one might call the nee-scholasticism of Wolf
in particular. The effect of Hume's rather crude realism upon
the subtler German intelligence of Kant must have been in part
liberating and in part provocative. Consider the following
passages : (1) " 'Tis not our body we perceive when we regard
our limbs and members, but certain impressions which enter by
the senses ; so that the ascribing a real and corporeal existence
to these impressions, or to their objects, is an act of the mind,
etc." (2) " What we call a mind is nothing but a heap or collec-
tion of different perceptions, united together by certain rela-
tions." That Hume altogether underrated and completely
failed to give any coherent account of the " act of the mind "
referred to in the first passage, is hardly surprising in one who
could speak of that mind as a " heap or collection, etc." To
throw light on this obscurity began to be the absorbing task of
the " great Chinaman of Konigsberg," a task in which he found
full scope for the iconoclastic tendencies of his essentially
nonconforming temperament,1 and, at the same time, congenial
opportunities for the sly interpolation of a saving element of
transcendentalism. Kant knew well that the mind of a man
neither begins as tabula rasa, nor ends as a scrap-heap, and this
much at least he has proved beyond fear of refutation. But in
answering the question whether there is not more in the mind

1 " Every man his own doctor, every man his own lawyer, every man his
own priest — that was the ideal of Kant. . . . Sacerdotalism was abhorrent
to him. During his manhood he never entered a church door."

230 MAKERS OF MAN

than has been given in experience, it certainly makes a difference
whether, with Kant, we confine ourselves to the experience of
the individual, or, in modern fashion, include in our survey
that of the whole race, and what lies behind it. From the latter
point of view it is an arguable position that the vaunted apriority
of space, time, and the categories of the understanding are, after
all, but psychical correlates of some part of the cerebral structure,
fundamental predispositions of that embodied racial and sub-
racial experience which we call the brain.

Kant was fifty-seven years old when, in 1781, he published
his Critique of Pure Reason, the product, he tells us, of twelve
years' reflection, but written in four or five months. He had
thus completed the negative part of his purpose : the assign-
ment of the boundaries of human reason, its limitation to the
knowledge of appearance, plus the indeterminate inference of a
reality of some sort beyond. It was, for a man of his tempera-
ment and history, a foregone conclusion that he would not
permanently rest content with such purely negative conclusions.
After all he was a German, and a man of genius. The ideal
world must somehow be reinstated, for he believed in its existence.
Ideal conceptions were in his opinion generated by the necessity
which compels the reason to complete the unity of a given
synthesis, its inability to rest in finite data. Thus the Soul, the
Universe, and God are the postulated unities of consciousness,
external phenomena, and existence in general, and, as such,
legitimate enough. In his Critique of the Practical Reason,
published seven years after the work just referred to, Kant
develops the ethical consequences of this view. Man as a part
of nature is subject to necessity ; man considered as a spiritual
being is, or should be, free and self-determined. Our desires
must be subject to the " controlling consciousness of member-
ship in an ideal community of rational beings " (W. Wallace).
We must assume our freedom in order to achieve it. " Never
act unless you can also will your principle of action into the
rank of universal law." So acting, for the good of all men, we
may assume the immortality of the soul and the existence of
God as guarantees of progress towards, and ultimate attain-
ment of, the ideal of moral perfection. It is to be noted that the

7

From a block lent by Messrs. W. Rider &• S<m, Ltd.

To/ate >.

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF PURPOSE 231

God of Kant is not anthropomorphic but post-Spinozan, the
central unity of universal law, the Infinite Ideal — the Absolute.
The prevailing note in Kant's temperament might be
described as a well-balanced tendency towards negation. In-
dividualist, republican, celibate, he was in all things moderate,
and in many abstemious. For him the key to mastery in life
and thought is found in a stern self -limitation. It is a formula
that works, but it is not the best formula. Hegel, on the
contrary, stands for self-fulfilment, and despite the superficial
air of pedagogism and formality that we find in him, was really
of a much more impulsive nature. Compare the fulness and
sanity of his career, as citizen, husband, churchman, and pro-
fessor, with the non-committal attitude of Kant. Compare, too,
the extravagance of his early views — his Jacobinism, his out-
spoken repudiation of Judaism, and Christianity — with the
moderate, but comparatively unprogressive, spirit of his pre-
decessor. Hegel's purely negative phase, if acute, was of short
duration ; his was essentially a constructive mind. The true
dawn of his (specific) purpose dates from about the time of his
break with Schelling in 1803 (aet. 33), and the publication, soon
afterwards, of his Phenomenology of Spirit. A deep student of
Spinoza and Kant, he was dissatisfied with the objective bias
of the one and the agnosticism of the other. Spirit must, he
thought, be conceived rather as subject than as substance ;
while the conclusion of Kant, that intelligence is itself unin-
telligible, was one which he could not and would not accept.
For the gulf fixed by Kant between reality and appearance was,
for Hegel, a gulf between the true self and its objective mani-
festations. A further stimulus to the formulation of his purpose
was, no doubt, his growing distaste for the facile intuitionalism
of Schelling. With many of Schelling's results he had found
himself in agreement ; what he felt the lack of was any serious
attempt at a logical deduction of those results. Another
important factor in determining the form of his constructive
aim was the strong admiration he had conceived for the Hellenic
ideal of corporate socio-political unity. He recognised what was
true in Protestant and rationalist individualism — thus he spoke
admiringly of the French as freed and invigorated by " the bath

232 MAKERS OF MAN

of the Revolution " — but this modern ideal of liberty had some-
how to be reconciled to the classic ideal of the State as embodi-
ment and realisation of the collective will of its members. In
the conception of Spirit as universal self-consciousness, realising
itself by a self-negating and self-defining process of individua-
tion, he at last found what he believed to be the true solution of
these various problems. This process is essentially a logical,
not a mechanical one : for Hegel the categories of the under-
standing are " not instruments which the mind uses, but elements
in a whole, or stages in a process, which, in its unity, the mind
is " (Caird). Hegel's conception of Reality as self-conscious-
ness, or Spirit, is a revolutionary one, because it regards every
finite or determinate existence as essentially self-contradictory,
and therefore involves the transcendence of the " either, or "
logic which held, and, to a very great extent, still holds un-
questioned sway. In Hegel the long-simmering revolt of
modernism against the despotism of Aristotle culminated in a
repudiation of its bed-rock foundation — the supreme validity
of the Law of Contradiction. To put it bluntly, Hegel declared
that not only is it untrue that a thing cannot at once both be and
not be, but that every particular thing at once is and is not.
And to this audacious and momentous conclusion he was forced,
not (as cocksure positivists rashly and impudently assume) by
mere phantasy or perverse fatuity, but by rigid adherence to the
stern logic of actuality. Freedom and Law, for example, are
completely antithetical conceptions — mutually exclusive from
the Aristotelian point of view. Yet in the State. " the embodi-
ment of rational freedom," they may co-exist as harmonised
factors of a comprehensive unity. Further, the true path to
the anarchic ideal traverses a phase of constantly-increasing
stringency and particularity of legislation. It is doubtless
the case that Hegel was put on the scent of his dialectic by the
section of Kant's Critique in which he discusses the Antithetic
of Pure Reason. For he says in his Logic, " The true and
positive meaning of the antinomies is this : that every
actual thing involves a co-existence of opposed elements. . . .
To comprehend an object is equivalent to being con-
scious of it as a concrete unity of opposed determina-

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF PURPOSE 233

tions." l Hegel's express purpose (negatively considered)
was, in fact, to get beyond Kant, to break down the barrier
he had set up between reality and appearance, between
thought and its object, between intelligence and the intel-
ligible world, between the spirit and itself. If, reader, you
have by any chance a philosopher among your acquaint-
ance, I advise you to keep a watchful eye upon his
doings between his fortieth and fiftieth years. Then, if ever,
he is likely to be dangerous — then is the climacteric period for
his lust of power, his determination to dictate to the universe.
From his forty-second to forty-sixth year, Hegel was engaged
upon his Logic — his original or " greater " Logic, that is — whose
aim is " the systematic reorganisation of the commonwealth
of thought. ... It attempts the hard task of reconstructing,
step by step, into totality the fragments of the organism of
intelligence." 2 This remains upon the whole the chef (Fceuvre
of his maturity. One point remains to be noted. It was in the
central moral principle of Christianity, the principle of self-
realisation through self-sacrifice, that Hegel had found that
movement through negation to affirmation, through conflict to
unity, which, as the distinctive feature of Spirit, he made the
keystone of his philosophy. To isolate the central doctrine of
a religion is in a sense to transcend that religion as a system of
dogma and symbol, now become superfluous. But rather than
identify himself with the apostles of " raisonnement," the " ring-
leaders of the hosts of shallowness," Hegel, arch-revolutionist as
he knew himself to be, preferred to emphasise the constructive
side of his aim by accepting the superficially ambiguous position
of a champion of orthodoxy — always, however, of orthodoxy
as he conceived and interpreted it. Hence much mis-
understanding ; hence, too, no doubt, the furious invective
and the denunciation of his alleged " charlatanry " by
Schopenhauer. Hegel, for his part, was no kid-glove
pugilist : in controversy, if not bitter, he was at least ruthless,
an intellectual forerunner of the new German school of

1 " There is absolutely nothing whatever in which we cannot and must not
point to contradictions." — Hegel, Logic, 89, " Determinate Being" (Wallace).

2 W. Wallace.

234 MAKERS OF MAN

"blood and iron," already initiated by the example of Frederic
the Great.

But the last thing a philosopher truly dreads is misunder-
standing. The old fox, Hegel, knew well the indispensable
value of the mask : his decorous bourgeois exterior signified
his possession of not a little of what he himself has eulogised
as the cunning of the divine reason.

Although he lacked the universality and profundity of the
born philosopher, Darwin, as a scientific generaliser of a high
order, has decided philosophical affinities. Hence perhaps, in
part, the discursiveness of his mind in youth, and the slow
development of the specific aim, which, once conceived, he pur-
sued with such tenacity. The three years which he spent at
Cambridge — his twentieth to his twenty-second — though
largely devoted to sport and frivolity, were not wholly wasted.
Introduced by his friend Fox to Prof. Henslow, the botanist,
who made it his custom to welcome at his house, every Friday
evening, undergraduates of scientific bent, Darwin not only
became a regular attendant at these soirees, but qualified for
the title of " the man who walks with Henslow." This intimacy
with a seasoned enthusiast at such a critical period of his own
mental development no doubt went far to reveal to Darwin his
kindred potentialities. " My friendship with Prof. Henslow,"
he says himself, " influenced my whole career more than any
other circumstance." It was at Cambridge, too, that Darwin
first read Humboldt's Personal Narrative, and Herschel's
Introduction to the Study of Natural Philosophy, which stirred
up in him " a burning zeal to add even the most humble con-
tribution to the noble structure of natural science." Here,
then, we have the birth of a general, not yet of the specific
purpose. " No one of a dozen books," Darwin states with
emphasis, " influenced me nearly as much as these two." The
practical part of his scientific pursuits, in his undergraduate
years, consisted mainly in the ardent and indiscriminate col-
lection of beetles, which, unfortunately perhaps, he did not
dissect,1 contenting himself with ascertaining the name of

1 la later years he felt himself hampered by the lack of manual
skill. Possibly its possession might have hampered him even more.

HEGEL.
Front a Painting.

To face p. 234.

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF PURPOSE 235

every specimen. After obtaining his " poll " degree, Darwin
remained at Cambridge for another two terms, taking
up there, by Henslow's advice, the study of geology.
And in August of the same year (1831) Darwin (set. 22)
availed himself of the opportunity of accompanying Sedg-
wick in a geological tour of North Wales, from which
he derived much advantage. On the heels of this ex-
perience came the offer from Henslow of his good offices
in securing for Darwin the post of volunteer naturalist
to the Beagle, commissioned, under Captain Fitzroy, to
complete the survey of Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego,
to survey the shores of Chile, Peru, and some islands of
the Pacific, and to carry a chain of chronometrical
measurements round the world. Darwin, eager to accept,
was constrained by his father's opposition to decline the
offer ; but ultimately this difficulty was overcome, and
he sailed on 27th December 1831, and was absent nearly
five years. During the whole of this time he remained
absorbed in the study of the geology of the places visited,
the collection and dissection of animals and marine
specimens, and the keeping of a detailed journal of his
observations. His ambition was at last fairly awakened ; his
enthusiasm for science gradually preponderated over every
other taste ; and, though working mainly for the love of in-
vestigation, he began to cherish dreams of earning the approba-
tion of such men as Lyell and Hooker. " I have never," he
declares, " turned one inch out of my way to gain fame,"
meaning popular approbation. Of this voyage on the Beagle
Darwin says truly that it was by far the most momentous event
in his life, and determined his whole career. By imposing the
obligation of steady work it converted him from a mere dil-
ettante into an expert, at the same time preserving him from
the danger of narrow specialism by the breadth of experience
it conferred. It was probably during this voyage that Darwin's
thoughts began to dwell upon the great problem of evolution.
For he has recorded that when, in July of 1837, less than a year
after his return, he opened his first note-book for facts bearing
on the origin of species, he had long been reflecting on the

236 MAKERS OF MAN

subject.1 Ten or twelve years earlier lie had heard Dr. Grant
at Edinburgh eulogise Lamarck's evolutionary theory, and he
says of this that " the hearing, rather early in life, such views
maintained and praised may have favoured my upholding
them under a different form." Still earlier, he had read with
strong admiration the Zoonomia of his own grandfather. Can
interest in a given subject be inherited ? It is, at any rate,
undeniable that such seemingly trivial influences as the reading
of a book or the memory of a conversation may have a critical
eflect upon life or character. Such germs of thought may lie
dormant for years ; then, under favourable conditions, may
suddenly take on vigorous growth and activity. The reading
of Lyell's Principles of Geology on the Beagle had probably
proved a revelation with regard to the immensity of the effects
produced, in the course of ages, by the accumulation of im-
perceptible changes.2 Certain facts — e.g., the character of the
American fossil Mammifers, and the distribution of the organ-
isms on the Galapagos islands — had struck him at the time of
observation as suggesting the modifiability of species. While
preparing his journal for publication he came across so many
of these facts, that he determined to investigate the subject.
Hence the opening of the notebook referred to above, and the
beginning of the long and toilsome research, which, twenty-two
years later, resulted in the publication of the Origin of Species.
At present (1837, an. set. 28-29), Darwin had arrived merely
at the stage of vague dissatisfaction with the current view that
species were permanent and immutable. His purpose was
becoming specific : he had got far beyond the stage of mere
desire to do something for the cause of Science ; but he barely
saw his way as yet even to the negative side of his aim. " I
worked on true Baconian lines," he says, " and without any
theory collected facts on a wholesale scale, more especially with
respect to domesticated productions." He soon saw that

1 " When I was on board the Beagle, I believed in the permanence of
species, but, as far as I can remember, vague doubts occasionally flitted
across my mind. . . . The subject haunted me" (Darwin).

2 There is an obvious analogy between the anti-catastrophic doctrine
introduced to geology by Lyell and Darwin's faith in the omnipotent role of
imperceptible variations in the biological sphere.

CHARLES DARWIN.

Reproduced by permission ffthe Linntran Society, from a fainting by
the Hon. J. Collier.

To fact p. 336.

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF PURPOSE 237

selection was the key to man's success in modifying species,
but could not see how this principle could apply to Nature.
But in October 1838 (fifteen months after the beginning of this
inquiry), Darwin chanced to read Malthus's work on Popula-
tion. "Being well acquainted with the struggle for existence
which everywhere goes on," he says, " it at once struck me that
under these circumstances favourable variations would tend
to be preserved, unfavourable ones to be destroyed. The
result of this would be the formation of new species. Here,
then, I had at last got a theory to work on." The theory in
question is, of course, that now known as " Natural Selection,"
but it should be noted that the validity of this hypothesis rests
largely on the assumption that the variations in question will
permanently " breed true," that there will be no ultimate
tendency to revert to the original type. As a matter of fact,
this is probably only the case with regard to the comparatively
small proportion of variations which are of a qualitative nature.
The vast majority of variations, including all those produced
by man (upon which Darwin so largely based his theory), are,
according to the view recently advanced by de Vries, merely
quantitative — limited, that is, to the increase or decrease of
elements already available. These " fluctuating " as dis-
tinguished from true " mutational " variations, are always the
result of nourishment (that is, environment), and are exceed-
ingly unstable. It is impossible by the accumulation of such
unstable accidental variations to explain the origin of any new
species. Nevertheless, an important role may be played by
natural selection in determining the survival or extinction of
species produced by the true mutational variations, whose
occurrence we must admit. In 1842, the year in which Darwin,
now married, retired from London to the seclusion of Down,
he at length wrote a short pencil abstract of his theory, the first
fruit of his five years' research.1 The next step in its formula-
tion was the addition of what he called the law of Divergence
of Character, which came to him one day as he walked on the
road near Down. To account for the augmentation of the
minute differences of variation into the clear-cut distinctions
1 Thirty-five pages only. Two years later it was expanded to 230 pages.

238 MAKERS OF MAN

of species, lie argued that the most divergent, the most special-
ised varieties, would be just those upon the average best qualified
" to seize on many and widely diversified places in the polity of
Nature, and so enabled to increase in numbers." The inter-
mediate more conservative forms (so to speak) would tend to
drop out and become extinct, leaving wide gaps between the
surviving highly-differentiated groups. Darwin was now
" corresponding on problems in geology, geography, distri-
bution, and classification ; at the same time collecting facts
on such varied points as the stripes on horses' legs, the floating
of seeds, the breeding of pigeons, the form of bees' cells," and
innumerable others. In 1846 he entered upon a laborious
investigation of the living and extinct species of barnacles,
which occupied much of the ensuing eight years, and, incident-
ally, gave him the biological training and the insight into
classification which he had previously in some degree lacked.
Ultimately, in 1856 (nineteen years from the opening of that
first notebook), on the urgent advice of Lyell, he began to set
forth his theory, but on a scale three or four times as full as that
of the Origin. Two years later, when some ten chapters had
been written, came, like a bolt from the blue, a MS. essay
from Wallace " On the Tendency of Varieties to depart in-
definitely from the Original Type." Darwin, much distressed,
honourably placed himself in the hands of Lyell and Hooker.
Wallace's essay, extracts from Darwin's draft MS. of 1844, and
a letter to Asa Grey (1857), explaining his theory, were jointly
communicated to the Linnaean Society. Intense interest was
excited, and, a month later, Darwin set vigorously to work upon
the Origin, which was completed in thirteen months. One
further point must be noted — the deliberate postponement of
that application of his theory to human origins which no doubt
formed a part of his purpose. In Chapter VI. of the Origin
Darwin clearly implies his belief in human evolution. " I can
hardly doubt that all vertebrate animals have descended by
ordinary generation from an ancient prototype of which we
know nothing, furnished with a floating apparatus and a swim-
bladder." It was not until twelve years later (1871) that, by
the publication of the Descent of Man, the full significance of

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF PURPOSE 239

Darwin's revolutionary conception was finally revealed. For
theologians and their allies (e.g. Prof. Sedgwick, one of his
bitterest opponents) the sting of it lay in that, granted variation
and the hereditary stability of its products, it showed how
structures of exquisitely purposive design, such as the human
eye, might be accounted for on purely mechanical principles.
But Darwin had his own misgivings, which he was too candid
to minimise or conceal. " The sight of a feather in a peacock's
tail," he confessed, " whenever I gaze at it, makes me sick !
Yet, for the life of me, I cannot see any difficulty in Natural
Selection producing the most exquisite structures," he persists,
" if such structures can be arrived at by gradation." Darwin's
faith in the power of the infinitely little, as shown in, e.g., his
work on coral reefs, on earth-worms, and on fertilisation, is one
of the most profound intuitions of his genius. The other main
factors were (1) sympathy, (2) a unique faculty of observation,
and (3) the central thread of his purpose — a growing desire to
understand, that is, to generalise, the results of his observation.
The fact that Darwin, as a man of means, had abundant leisure,
which, by the debility which set in after his return from the
Beagle expedition, he was prevented from squandering in social
diversions — even if he had been so disposed — must also be
accounted in some degree favourable to the formation of
methodical habits of work. Of course, both wealth and sickness
might, in a less aspiring nature, equally have served as excuses
for doing nothing at all !

IV. Ethico-Religious Type. — It is one of the main triumphs
of the higher criticism, and a sufficient guarantee of its funda-
mentally constructive tendency, that, reading between the
lines of the Gospel narratives, it has found indications or at
least suggestions of development in the character, as also in
the point of view, of their central figure. The presence of these
developmental features constitutes a valuable indirect evidence
of the historicity of Jesus, though hardly of the supernatural
claims made by him or on his behalf. And the value of this
evidence is rather increased than otherwise by the fact that its
presence is obviously due more to oversight than intention on
the part of the writers. The intention being to depict one

240 MAKERS OF MAN

superior to all need of moral or intellectual progress, the facts
would seem to have been too strong for the Gospel-makers,
and to have escaped suppression unawares. The growth of
myth is so rapid and inevitable — compare the modern instance
of Bahaism, for example — that there is no need to impute
deliberate falsification to the writers or compilers : it was
probably the controlling influence of the Messianic idea on
minds unable to accept the apparent failure of their hero,
minds forced, therefore, to adopt the (for them) only con-
ceivable alternative of an expectation of supernatural
triumph, which insensibly issued in a distortion of the facts.
But assuming, as I think we safely may, the historicity of
the Jesus of the Gospels, we have still to recognise the
possibility that his literary personality is in some degree
a composite product. Professor W. B. Smith has, for
example, adduced many reasons for suspecting the existence
of a Pre-Christian Jesus Cult, the existence for some in-
definite period among the Jews of the Dispersion, of the
cult of a divine person whose name or title was Jesus.1 The
followers of the New Testament Jesus were, on this hypothesis,
but the originators of a new sect or heresy in an already ancient
worship of a divine person bearing the same name, while the
New Testament documents themselves " bear evidence of being
the writings of a party that attempted to effect a compromise
between the followers of the old Jesus cult and the Christian
schismatics." Hence the repeated occurrence, in the Gospels
and the Acts, of the phrase, ra •rrepl rov 'Irja-ov, " the things
concerning the Jesus," which certainly reads like a stereotyped
formula. In view of such perplexing possibilities, the examina-
tion of the Gospel records for evidence of a process of develop-
ment in the opinions and aims of their hero assumes a new
importance and interest. Only a life-history that has an in-
telligible psychology fulfils, in these days, the first condition
of acceptance. Assuming that the traces of such a psychology
can be found in the Gospels, the forcing of a historic figure into
a pre-existent mythical framework of supernatural function

1 Cf. " Was there a Pre-Christian Jesus Cult ? " by A. Ransom. Literary
Quid'., 1st Feb. 1908.

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF PURPOSE 241

and incident l would explain all the chief difficulties of the
problem.

It seems clear that Jesus was born into an environment
seething with new ideas and revolutionary conceptions. It was
a time of strong nationalist aspirations, signified by such move-
ments as that of the Zelotes and Sicarii who killed violators of
the Law, of the Thaumaturges or wonder-workers, and of the
followers of Judas the Gaulonite or Galilean. This Judas,
whom Jesus may have met, was a fanatical opponent of the
census, the basis of that civil taxation so obnoxious to theocratic
ideas. His Messianic zeal brought him into conflict with the
authorities, and his consequent ruin may, Renan suggests,
have served as a warning to Jesus to steer clear of political
embroilments. Rabbis or teachers appeared on all sides, each
with some distinctive doctrine, more or less Utopian, more or
less communistic, embodied in maxims such as are to be found
in the Talmud. John the Baptist was one such teacher ; Jesus
was another, " one Rabbi more, and around him some young
men, eager to hear him." Jesus may well have found inspira-
tion in the aphorisms of Hillel, uttered fifty years before, and
imbued with a spirit not unlike his own. " By his poverty, so
meekly endured, by the sweetness of his character, by his
opposition to priests and hypocrites, Hillel was the true master
of Jesus, if indeed it may be permitted to speak of a master in
connection with so high an originality as his." There can be
no doubt that Jesus was well versed in that body of arbitrary
theocratic ordinances known as the Law, as well as in the
abundant oral precepts and maxims current in the synagogues
of his day. Among the prophets, Isaiah would seem to have
been a special favourite, while many of his high hopes and
apocalyptic visions are traceable to the influence of the unknown
philosopher, who, somewhere about 168 B.C., in composing the
Book of Daniel, " for the first time dared to see in the march
of the world and the succession of Empires only a purpose

1 An ancient Nassene (Gnostic) psalm of non-Christian and probably ante-
Christian origin, " represents Jesus, the Son, resting in the bosom of the
Father, and begging to be sent to suffering, erring men " (Arthur Ransom,
lot. cit. s\ip.),

16

242 MAKERS OF MAN

subordinate to the destinies of the Jewish people." We may
note in passing the important fact, rightly emphasised by
Estlin Carpenter, that the " Son of Man " in Daniel's vision,
like the Lion, the Bear, the Leopard, which represented the
great Gentile nations, is to be understood not as a mere person,
but as the symbol of a nation — that purified Israel to whom
is to be assigned a perpetual and universal supremacy. If,
which is very doubtful, Jesus, and not some late compilers
(influenced perhaps by Gnostic tendencies), really applied to
himself the title " Son of Man," it must therefore have been in
misconception of the true purport of Daniel's vision. To the
influence of its unknown writer Jesus probably owed the germ
of his highest and most spiritual conception, that of the Kingdom
of Heaven, or everlasting reign of the Saints. The germ, I say,
because upon the whole, in spite of certain lapses into the earlier
and cruder form, the Kingdom, as Jesus conceived, and, with
many beautiful similitudes, foreshadowed it, is not a super-
naturally initiated, apocalyptic revolution, but the slow permea-
tion of society by a new spirit of love towards God and charity
towards one's fellows. " In the later periods of his life," says
Renan, " Jesus believed that this reign would be realised in a
material form by a sudden renovation of the world. But
doubtless this was not his first idea. ' The Kingdom of God
is within you,' said he to those who sought with subtlety for
external signs. The realistic conception of the Divine advent
was but a cloud, a transient error, which his death has made us
forget." One further influence upon the development of Jesus
calls for special mention, the annual visits of his parents to
Jerusalem, in more than the one of which mentioned by Luke
he may well have accompanied them. That he there came into
fuller touch with national hopes and passions than was possible
in the peaceful routine of his village home, and that this may
have awakened the first impulse of his genius, is a warrantable
conclusion. But from the account given of his interview with
the " doctors," I see "no reason to infer that this, or any other
such early experience at Jerusalem, " inspired him while still
young with a lively antipathy for the defects of the official
representatives of Judaism." His precocity seems, on this

HEAD OF CHRIST.
From a painting by Luini in the National Gallery.

To face t. 242.

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF PURPOSE 243

occasion, to have' commanded the respect and even the wonder
of these representatives ; and such boyish triumphs are recalled
with pride rather than with bitterness as a rule. That the
genius of Jesus did not escape the notice of the companions of
his youth and early manhood, is highly probable ; the statement,
in Luke, to the effect that his mother treasured up the sayings
in which early promise was revealed, human and credible in
itself, indicates at least her consciousness that he was destined
for an exceptional career.1 We are told that he was about
thirty years old when he definitely came forward as a teacher,
but it is likely enough that there had been earlier ventures of
a tentative and sporadic nature. The determining impulse
would seem to have been in great measure due to the stir created
by the passionate revival mission of John the Baptist and the
powerful echo awakened in his own breast by the confident
anticipation on the part of John of the imminent dawn of the
Messianic era. From the fact that John substituted a private
baptismal rite for the official ceremony imposed upon converts
to Judaism, requiring the aid of priests, it would seem that he
was a Nonconformist ; and certainly the harshness of his
invective lends colour to this conclusion. The statement that
John from the first regarded Jesus as the " Coming One " is
highly improbable ; is, moreover, incompatible with the fact
that his school continued for some time to exist side by side
with the Christian Churches. Certainly the two young enthusiasts
found much in common, but the attitude of Jesus is rather that
of a pupil and admirer than of a superior. He not only accepted
baptism from John, but began to baptize on his own account.
Every genius must pass through an imitative phase. His
retirement to the desert was also in all probability prompted
by a short-lived emulation of the ascetic tendencies of the
Baptist, although it may well have coincided with a masterful
impulse to the definite formulation of his own purpose. It
may, however, be entirely mythical, being suspiciously reminiscent
of the forty years' wandering of Israel, " Jahveh's first-born son,"

1 Later, wo find her, in league with her other sons, seeking to restrain him,
as one " beside himself." His greatness was not to her taste ! (Mark iii. 21,
31-35).

244 MAKERS OF MAN

in the wilderness, the forty days' fast of Moses, and Elijah's
journey without food to Horeb. In any case there is profound
truth in the ideal sense of the episode. The greater the man,
the greater the possibilities of evil to be conquered and turned
to account. " The founder of a religion has so much in him of
evil, of the perverse, of earthly passion, that he must fight
with the enemy within him for forty days in the wilderness
without food or sleep. . . . Other men of genius are good from
their birth ; the religious founder acquires goodness. The old
existence ceases utterly and is replaced by the new. The greater
the man, the more must perish in him at the regeneration." 1

Enriched by contact with a striking personality and a
fervent spiritual movement, Jesus returned to Galilee, and,
in his own broader and deeper way, took up the task inspired by
John. Of Messianic claims he, as yet, possibly had not dreamed :
he proclaimed the love of a Divine Father and preached the
simple ethics of filial obedience and fraternal charity. In a
sense rightly, Renan regarded this first phase of Christ's mission
as the highest and greatest of all. The negative iconoclastic
side of his purpose is as yet unborn : that was the logical
corollary, the necessary condition, of his acceptance of the
Messianic role. If by this acceptance he purchased immortality,
he at the same time forfeited something of the serene universality
of his uncommitted phase. How came this acceptance about ?

It was the inevitable outcome of his own supernatural
conception of Man's nature and destiny, his own aspiring,
profoundly intuitive temperament, and the peculiar conditions of
his place and time. Of every exceptional personality among the
Jews of his age — of John the Baptist, for example — the question,
" Is this the great Deliverer ? " would infallibly arise. Every
such personality would be forced to ask it of himself ; and
many, beside Jesus, doubtless answered it in the affirmative.
Jesus may have entertained the possibility at the time of his
retreat beyond Jordan, and, accepting the popular view of the
Messianic role, as that of a great warrior, may have rejected
such a role as in absolute discord with his most cherished ideals.
Gradually he came to see that the prophetic anticipations of
1 Otto Weininger.

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF PURPOSE 245

universal conquest were capable of metaphorical interpretation :
this perhaps was the meaning of his exclamation, " I came not
to bring peace, but a sword." The starting-point of his career
as a teacher and reformer was his unique realisation of God
as the Father, the tenderly-loving Father of himself, conse-
quently of all men. This was his one central dogma : for a
dogma, if not a mere metaphor, it certainly is, though it has
become the fashion to deny this. But Jesus had not got very
far in his work of recalling men from formalism to simplicity
of faith and worship, before he attracted by his notoriety the
uneasy attention of the champions of orthodoxy. They put
questions to him, the answer to which involved either the
repudiation of the Mosaic law in its literality, or that of his
own principles of freedom or of love. Was it lawful to heal on
the[Sabbath? to eat without ceremonial washing? to divorce one's
wife as Moses permitted ? I think, with Schmiedel, that " the
need of combating the law of Moses seems to supply the real
starting-point " in the career of Jesus. No mere prophet
could announce the abrogation of this divinely-instituted law.
That the day had come for its abrogation or supersession was
increasingly clear. A superhuman task had been assigned
to him : he must either repudiate it or accept its implications.
" Only God Himself could alter His own law ; and only His
greatest minister, the Messiah, could be destined to announce
the change." No doubt, as Schmiedel suggests, this conviction
was the result of strict self-scrutiny and hard struggle. Mean-
while, by an analogous but cruder process, his immediate
followers had arrived at the same conclusion, in their case,
however, attended by the expectation of a temporal triumph
which Christ saw that it was needful to renounce. He sounded
them on the subject of the popular opinion of his mission, and
of their own ; and when Peter acclaimed him as the Christ,
solemnly accepted the dignity, but warned them " to tell no
man." The determination to go to Jerusalem was a logical
result of Christ's acceptance of the Messianic role. Judaism
must be attacked in its stronghold ; but Jesus had few illusions
as to the result, so far as his own safety was concerned. He
would perish, but his cause would prevail. Unless, indeed,

246 MAKERS OF MAN

God intervened to justify and miraculously to enforce the claims
of His chosen one, for that was a possibility which the evidence
clearly suggests that Christ intermittently entertained up to
the very moment of his death. The desperate nature of the
enterprise to which he was committed by the simultaneous
acceptance of the Messianic role and repudiation of its traditional
programme, could not but react upon the tone, if not the very
essence,of his teaching. His invective became harsher, his attitude
towards the Mosaic law more uncompromising, his personal
claims far more exalted, his preaching more argumentative
and theological, than in the days of his early Galilean work. In
despair of the orthodox Hierosolymites, he begins to appeal
to the despised Samaritans, to social outcasts and reprobates,
even to the Gentiles. To be forced into universalism was a gain ;
but to substitute for the beautiful conception of righteousness
as a leaven, that of its theatrical inauguration by seven legions
of angels, and of himself as avenger and judge, was a fall,
clearly attributable to the anguish and embitterment of those
last days. Yet, upon the whole, the loss of charm and insight is
more than compensated by the gain of power and intensity :
with a clear prevision of the world-wide significance of his
purpose he rose to the height of his unparalleled destiny, in-
vesting the ignominy of a felon's execution with all the glamour
of his transcendent ideal. What, then, was the intrinsic purpose
of Jesus, the truth for which he lived and for which he voluntarily
died ? Renan says that he gave Religion to humanity, as
Socrates gave it Philosophy, and Aristotle, Science. His par-
ticular doctrines are, no more than theirs, necessarily final :
there is, in fact, a striking analogy between the revolt of the
sixteenth century against the Aristotelian scholasticism, and
that of the nineteenth century against the stereotyped formulae
of official Christianity. Jesus " was obliged to use the forms
of thought provided by his age, and they were inadequate
to the loftiness of his ideas." * His refutation of Judaism, of
legality as the basis of religion, though nominally supported
by reference to prophetic authority, was virtually self-derived,
intuitive, from first to last. He exemplified the invincible
1 J. E. Carpenter.

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF PURPOSE 247

power of uncompromising fidelity to the voice of conscience,
of the higher self, of idiosyncrasy, or genius if you will. The
equation of genius and morality is the implicit content, not
certainly, of his teaching, but of his personality considered
as a whole. Only actions at once free and necessary — only
inspired actions reach the plane of true morality.

We have now to consider the purpose of the man to whose
courage and energy it is in great measure due that the revolu-
tionary work of Jesus, instead of remaining the nucleus of
a Judean sect, became the basis of a world-wide religion. The
conversion of Saul of Tarsus took place in or about the year
38 A.D., when he was twenty-six or possibly twenty-eight years
of age. The change of name which seems to have followed
almost immediately is not without psychological interest in
connection with the Pauline doctrine of necrosis or death to
sin. He may thereby have .sought to emphasise the fact that,
by spiritual " resurrection," he had become a new man, and to
express resentment against that Pharisaism, zeal for which had
led him to sin so grievously against the light. When, in 41 A.D.,
after three years in Damascus, Paul was compelled by the
hostility of the Jews to leave that city, he for the first time paid
a short visit to Jerusalem, and there made the acquaintance
of Peter and James, also of Barnabas, a Cypriot convert, whose
influence was to prove decisive in the determination of his
career. That Barnabas was the discoverer of Paul's genius
is evident, for, two years later, when Paul was engaged in local
propaganda in Syria, he sought him and brought him to
Antioch, whither he himself had come as a delegate of the
Apostles. In this wealthy city the new faith was making such
progress as far outstripped its growth in Judea : here the name
of Christian was first applied to its professors, among whom
there was already a growing conviction of the necessity of that
proselytisation of the Gentiles so coldly regarded by the
Ebionite faction at Jerusalem.1 To Antioch, therefore, the
true cradle of Gentile Christendom, Barnabas brought Paul,

1 " Jerusalem remained the city of God's poor, of the Ebioaim, of the
Galilean dreamers dazed by promises of the Kingdom of God " (Renan,
St. Paul)

248 MAKERS OF MAN

feeling, perhaps, that his great gifts were being wasted ; and
much of the latter's glory reverts, in Kenan's opinion, on " the
modest man who preceded him in all things, effaced himself
before him, discovered his worth, brought him to the light,
more than once prevented his failings from spoiling all, and the
narrow ideas of others from drawing him into revolt." Such
a man as Paul could not be long at Antioch without being fired
by the growing enthusiasm of the Antiochan believers for
the conversion of the inhabitants of Asia Minor and even of
the civilised world. The time was believed to be short ; the
imminence of the second coming was so strongly and generally
held, that we find Paul, years later, discouraging marriage on
this very ground. Funds were not lacking ; and now, in Paul,
a human instrument of appropriate power and fervour was also
at hand. " Zechariah's words were coming true : the world
was taking the Jews by the hem of the garment and saying
to them, ' Lead us to Jerusalem.' ... On every side the need
for a monotheistic religion, giving divine precepts as a basis
for morality, was being actively manifested." In association
with many of the Ghettoes of Asia Minor and the Mediterranean
ports, were a number of " persons fearing God," that is, Pagans
wholly or partially converted to Judaism. But what specially
formed the qualification of Paul for appeal to the Gentiles was
the fact that he, a Jew of the Jews, had firmly grasped the fact
that Christianity implied a full emancipation from Judaism.
This was no doubt exceptional : at Jerusalem one did not
cease to observe the petty details of the Law because one had
become a Christian. The fiery independence of Paul ill brooked
any such compromise ; and this in him, in all probability,
was one of the main features in determining the attention of
Barnabas. It so happened, too, that in the course of their
first mission (begun 45 A.D. an. set. 33-35 ?), Paul and Barnabas
were expelled from the synagogue of Antioch in Pisidia. They
withdrew, protesting " that since the Jews refused to hear the
word of God, they would preach it to the Gentiles."

In Galatea they found the Pagans particularly susceptible
to their Christian doctrines, and made many converts among
them, even more than among the Jews. Henceforth, although

ST. PAUL.

To face p. 248.

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF PURPOSE 249

perforce his work in any new centre must almost always have
taken the synagogue as its point of departure, " the idea of a
special vocation from God to proselytise the Gentiles seems to
have grown more and moreconfirmed in Paul'smind." Through-
out life Paul was pursued by the hatred of the Judaising
faction, who organised counter-missions to undermine the
loyalty of his tenderly beloved Galatian and Corinthian
communities ; invented and applied various opprobrious nick-
names ; repaid his efforts on behalf of their poor by humiliating
demands on his return to Jerusalem ; and, in the end, so
blackened his reputation, that during almost the whole of the
second century his fame was completely eclipsed. Still, he
fought on bravely, now bending to the storm, now defiantly
confronting its fury. Like his Master, he could, on occasion,
justify his repudiation of the legal bondage of Mosaic ceremonial
by an innocently sophistical reinterpretation of its record.
Keenly aware of the impracticability of enforcing even a modicum
of Jewish restrictions upon Gentile converts, he never doubted
that his cause would triumph in the end. But Judaism dies
hard : even to-day, to forge themselves new chains from its
rusty fragments taxes the ingenuity of how many servile souls !

There is no difficulty in identifying the central aim of Marcus
Aurelius. Renan has epitomised it in a phrase : " For him
Morality was the last word of existence." That this was
predominantly the result of inborn tendency is obvious, if
only from the very early age and the abandon with which the
future Emperor devoted himself to the rule of the severest
school of philosophy. Still, this purpose has its natural
history : its growth was not independent of circumstances ;
and, fortunately, he has himself indicated with abundant
clearness the chief obligations revealed by retrospective self-
scrutiny. Marcus Aurelius has some good to record of all his
relations : notably of his mother, who died young, he says,
that her purity of soul extended even to refraining from the
thought of evil. But in eulogising his foster-father, the noble
Emperor Antoninus, Aurelius achieves an almost lyric enthusiasm.
Antoninus it was, he exclaims, " who made me comprehend how
it is possible, even while dwelling in a palace, to dispense with

250 MAKERS OF MAN

bodyguards, splendid raiment, torches, and statues ; who taught
me, in short, that a prince may almost contract his life within
the bounds of that of a private citizen without thereby dis-
playing less majesty and vigour. . . . Remember," he adjures
himself, " his constancy in accomplishing the dictates of reason,
his equability under all circumstances, his holiness, the serenity
of his look, his extreme gentleness of spirit, his contempt for
vainglory, his keen penetration ; how he would never drop a
subject till he had thoroughly looked into it and fully under-
stood it ; how he bore unjust reproaches without a word ;
how he did nothing hastily ; how he turned a deaf ear to scandal ;
how he carefully studied character and action ; . . . frugal in
house, bed, board, and service ; industrious, long-suffering,
abstemious. . . . Remember, too, his constant and even affec-
tion, . . . the joy with which he accepted an opinion better
than his own, his piety that had no trace of superstition. Think
of all this, that your last hour may find you with a conscience
clear as his." A point worthy of note in regard to this panegyric
is the quasi-Christian character of the qualities commended.
One might guess that one was reading the eulogium of Pope
Gregory the Great. Hadrian and Antoninus had both forbidden
persecution of the Christians, and it is a thousand pities that,
in this one respect, Marcus Aurelius neglected the enlightened
example of his predecessors. It was an age of intellectual and
moral eclecticism, of cosmopolitan culture, and altruistic aspira-
tion. The fierce Roman spirit was, in this second century A.D.,
considerably mitigated, and Gibbon has well said of the reigns
of Antoninus and Marcus Aurelius, that they " are possibly the
only period of history in which the happiness of a great people
was the sole object of government." Much of the credit for
all this may fairly be attributed to the influence of the repre-
sentatives of the Stoic and other philosophers, whose prestige
among Romans of high position had in great measure superseded
that of religion. " Personages of rank maintained a household
philosopher, who was a sort of chaplain. Before dying, it was
customary to converse with some sage, just as, nowadays, people
summon a priest." It need scarcely be said that philosophers
regarded with aversion the rival claims of Christianity ; and,

MARCUS AURELIUS.

To face f. 350.

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF PURPOSE 251

as bearing on the attitude of Aurelius himself towards its con-
verts, it should be remembered that Fronto, the rhetorician,
his teacher and friend, was deeply prejudiced against the new
creed. The contemporary tutor to whose instruction he perhaps
owed most, however, was Junius Rusticus, who converted him
to the Stoic discipline and introduced him to the glorious
discourses of Epictetus. No reader of the Meditations can fail
to appreciate the debt of the Emperor Philosopher to the Slave
Philosopher. Strange irony of destiny that conferred a twin
immortality upon two men so antithetically circumstanced —
one owning not even his own body, the other lord of the whole
civilised world ! Of these two, the slave's was, indeed, in some
respects the kinglier soul. In the recorded sayings of Epictetus
there was a thrill of conquest, of mastery ; in the meditations of
the pious Emperor we find, on the contrary, something a little
dolorous and strained. Epictetus tells us that Socrates, when
he jested in the court where his life was at issue, showed that
"he knew how to play ball. . . . And so," he continues,
" should we do also, having the carefulness of the most zealous
players and yet indifference, as were it merely about a ball."
This philosophic insouciance, this proficiency in the " gay
science," was denied to the grave Aurelius, who had lacked the
" kiss of a fairy " at birth. His role was indeed the more exact-
ing of the two ; a recluse by nature, he exemplified the Stoic
ideal by loyally fulfilling the obligations of the great part assigned
him in the drama of destiny.

Stoicism, although it favoured personal ascesis, never
countenanced the shirking of the domestic, civic, or national
duties pertaining to one's lot. Its teaching is in many respects
curiously anticipated by the counsel bestowed by the Lord
Krishna in the Bhagavad-Gita on the vacillating warrior Arjuna
— " Without attachment, constantly perform action which is
Duty. ... He who acteth, placing all actions in the Eternal,
abandoning attachment, is unaffected by sin as a lotus leaf by
the waters."

Such was the aim set before himself by Aurelius, and man-
fully pursued in the varied capacities of husband, father, citizen,
Emperor, general, and priest. Yet we have but touched the

252 MAKERS OF MAN

fringe of his purpose if we overlook his positively saint-like
passion for spiritual integrity, for holiness, that is to say, which
such words as the following reveal : " When wilt thou, 0 my
soul, be good and simple, all one, naked, more translucent
than the material body that contains thee ? When wilt thou
taste fully the joy of loving all things ? When wilt thou be
such that thou canst at last dwell in the city of gods and men,
never making them complaint, and never needing their forgive-
ness ? "

Marcus was forty years old when, on the death of Antoninus
(161 A.D.), he came to the purple. Surrounding himself with
philosophers of renown, summoned from every part of the earth,
he proceeded to actualise a policy founded upon respect for his
fellow-men. In his choice of officials he was true to the prin-
ciples of his liberalism, considering only merit, without regard
for birth or even culture. He himself created a large number
of charitable funds for the benefit of the youth of both sexes.
He made no concessions to popular caprice, yet came to be
venerated as the father of his people. Of his military achieve-
ments I have spoken in an earlier chapter, as well as of his
reform of the laws regulating the treatment of slaves. In a
time of military emergency he voluntarily sold by auction an
immense portion of his Imperial treasure and of his own property,
in order that the poor should be spared the burden of excessive
taxation. His formal adherence to the State religion was no
doubt dictated by consideration for the public welfare. Sin-
cerity is writ large over all his works : his few errors are the
result neither of moral weakness nor of malice, but of excessive
scrupulosity. In some few respects he might have been a
better Emperor if he had been a worse man.

No human document ever penned surpasses in dramatic
interest or candour the Confessions of St. Augustine ; very few
have equalled it in these respects. The history of his purpose
is the history of his inner life, beginning with the awakening of
his conscience by the study of Cicero's Hortensius (an. set. 18),
and ending with his conversion to orthodox Catholicism (set. 31).
The protracted and painful struggle was watched with eager
solicitude by his saintly mother, whose influence, although she

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF PURPOSE 253

was far too wise to intervene except when the occasion seemed
favourable, must, in the long run, have counted for much. It
seems that from the first, Augustine must have had some
foreboding that nowhere but within the fold which sheltered her
he would find the ultimate peace he craved — for no sooner had
the thirst for wisdom been aroused by the study of Cicero than
he turned his mind to the Scriptures, that he might " see what
they were." But they seemed to him then undignified in
comparison with Ciceronian dignity. " I disdained to be a
little one." Soon after this, Augustine fell into the heresy of
Manichseism, which offered a solution of the problem of moral
evil less humbling in some ways to man's pride than that of the
Church. Mani's doctrine was, that sin is not voluntary, but
the effect of material bondage. The spirit always wills right-
eousness, but is numbed into unconsciousness by the antagonism
of matter. A Christ is crucified in every soul. Although
Augustine believed himself in the issue to have rejected Mani-
ch seism, it is evident that its dualisitic view is in great measure
embodied in his ultimate theology. The contrast between the
two Adams, " in the one of whom we are guilty and corrupt and
undone, in the other accepted and renewed and exalted,"
became the very keystone of his dogmatic structure. The
difference was that whereas the Manichaeans identified the
true self with the higher or spiritual entity, and limited the
struggle to that between the contrary tendencies of body and
spirit, Augustine, with truer and deeper insight, came to see
that the matter was far more complex : that not every impulse
of spiritual origin can be labelled " good," or every physical
craving labelled " evil." The normal centre of consciousness,
the " will " or " ego," might occupy either extreme, or an
intermediate position. Still, upon the whole, as favouring
asceticism, Augustine certainly remained permanently infected
with the dualistic virus. Soon after coming under the influence
of Mani's doctrine, while engaged in the teaching of rhetoric
at Thagaste, Augustine, still in the early twenties, converted
to his own heretical views a young friend. This young man
fell ill and was baptized, and, when Augustine essayed to jest
with him on the subject, shrank from him as from an enemy,

254 MAKERS OF MAN

and, with a wonderful and sudden freedom, bade him cease.
The fever returning, he soon after died, and Augustine's heart
was " utterly darkened " by the pain of bereavement. Nor
can such an incident have failed to contribute serious ground
for the reconsideration of his own position. Soon after he
removed to Carthage, and there, in his twenty-sixth year,
produced a treatise on The Fair and the Fit. Still preoccupied
with the problem of evil, his interest in which may no doubt
be in some degree attributed to the consciousness of strong
antagonism between the sensuous and the spiritual cravings of
his own nature, Augustine in this work maintained in all
essentials the Manichaean thesis. Evil was a separate entity,
living and active, not derived from God, but contending with
Him. His philosophical development had now reached that
phase at which reality is conceived as substance, not yet as
subject. He conceived God, that is to say, as " a vast and
bright body," and himself as a part thereof. This is a necessary
phase of logical evolution (the phase personified by Spinoza),
but the time came when Augustine could censure himself
severely for ever having passed through it, as well as for the
belief that this unchangeable substance could err upon con-
straint, rather than that his own changeable substance had
gone astray wilfully. In his twenty-eighth year or thereabout,
Augustine was a little disillusioned in regard to Manicheism by
the discovery that Faustus, a bishop of that sect, greatly
esteemed, who happened to visit Carthage, was a mere wind-
bag, " utterly ignorant of liberal sciences." Hence, after nine
years' adherence, his zeal for the writings of Manichaeus was
blunted.

Soon after this, Augustine (set. 28) journeyed to Rome,
and set up there as a teacher of rhetoric. Though still assorting
with the Manichsean " elect," he privately derided their fables.
He was more favourably disposed towards orthodoxy, but felt
difficulties with regard to the Incarnation. " I feared to
believe Our Saviour to have been born in the flesh lest I should
be forced to believe him defiled by the flesh." This was
logical enough, assuming that he still held the view that matter
is the source of all evil. He inclined towards the position of

ST. AUGUST INK.

To face f. 254.

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF PURPOSE 255

the Academics, who were the agnostics of his day. About
this time he successfully competed for the post of rhetoric
reader at Milan, and his transference to that city had important
effects on his development. Bishop Ambrose received him
paternally, and he soon grew to love him and to hang on his
words when preaching, though more charmed by the manner
than convinced by the matter of the sermons. His mistress
had followed him, and he describes himself as " enslaved by
lust." When, later, his mother joined him, he informed her
that he was no longer a Manichsean, but almost despaired oi
attaining the truth. His mother urged him to break with his
mistress and to marry a maiden whom she approved. He
sent his mistress and their son Adeodatus back to Africa, but,
instead of marrying, formed another irregular union. The
problem of evil still perplexed him : he felt the force of Am-
brose's contention that free will was the cause of sin, but
" could not exonerate God from having engrafted into him
this plant of bitterness." New light came to him from the
study of the Platonists : he was particularly impressed by
their partial agreement with the Logos doctrine of the fourth
Gospel. They confirmed the statement that " in the
beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the
Word was God." Also, that " He was in the world, and the
world knew him not." On the other hand, " that ' the Word
was made flesh and dwelt among us,' I read not there. Nor
that ' in due time he died for the ungodly.' For Thou hast
hidden these things from the wise and revealed them to babes,
not to such as are lifted up on the stilts of a more elevated
teaching." From Plotinus, too, Augustine gained some in-
sight into the fallacy of his hard-and-fast opposition of matter
and spirit. " Worldly things are," he says, " since they are
from Thee, but are not because they are not what Thou art.
For that truly is which remains unchangeably." This is,
philosophically, a distinct advance upon the Manichaean
position, that Matter and Spirit, Evil and Good, exist in-
dependently and contend on more or less equal terms. But
all this dialectic subtlety was fast losing its charm for Augustine :
the starved heart of him asserted its claims, and would not be

256 MAKERS OF MAN

silenced. He was fired by the example of Victorinus, a re-
nowned Roman rhetorician, who by public profession of
Christianity had forfeited the right of teaching science or
oratory. With two friends he set himself to the study of St.
Paul's epistles, feeling as though God were searching him
through and through. Then came a day when, Augustine
and Alypius having heard from a visitor the story of his own
conversion, Augustine retired to the garden and strove vainly
to bring his soul to the point of assent. Alypius joined him
under the tree, but could not aid him. It was the throe of
the new birth, but his mind would not obey his will, demanding
no less than the abdication of its lifelong supremacy, the
confession of its inadequacy, and of the need of a helping
hand. Not willing entirely this mental surrender, his will
could not enforce its command. Overcome by sudden weep-
ing, he left Alypius and cast himself down under a certain
fig-tree. Then came a voice as of a boy or girl chanting :
" Take up and read ! " He went to where the volume of St.
Paul was, opened, and read : " Not in rioting and drunkenness,
not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying ;
but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision
for the flesh to fulfil the lusts thereof." ..." Instantly, —
by a light as it were of serenity infused into my heart, all' the
darkness of doubt vanished away." This was in 385 A.D.,
when Augustine was thirty -one years of age. The moment
of complete surrender, of emotional crisis, of mental suicide,
was the moment of victory — henceforth, whatever the flaws
of his theology, which do not concern us now — he never
wavered in his purpose of complete self-dedication to the
cause of the Catholic Church. He resigned his professorship,
underwent public baptism at the hands of Ambrose, and after
Monica's death, and after having devoted three years to study
and prayer in Thagaste, received and accepted the invitation
of the church at Hippo, so closely associated with his fame.

But it would be interesting to know what became of Adeo-
datus and his mother.

There must have been something in the conduct or demeanour
of our next subject, Gregory the Great, which carried immediate

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF PURPOSE 257

conviction to his associates that he was a man marked out by
destiny for great responsibilities. Something hidden from or
misconceived by himself, too, seeing that up to the time (590
A.D.) when, on the death of Pelagius, he, at the age of fifty, was,
almost by violence and sorely against his will, brought back to
Rome and consecrated Pope, his dearest dream had been to
devote himself exclusively to the life of monastic seclusion. But
the instinct of his contemporaries was fully justified by the
event : Gregory rose triumphantly to the height of his unsought
and unwelcome opportunity. In the last fourteen years of his life
he immortalised himself by completely transforming the almost
hopelessly chaotic ecclesiastical and political situation which
had prevailed at the time of his election. The preceding half
century had been, for Italy, a time rendered hideous by almost
incessant warfare, " wars of barbarians, with indiscriminate
slaughter, wanton destruction, unrestrained plunder, and
depopulation. . . . Lands remained untilled, commerce
became impossible, industries died out. . . . The power and
influence of the Church were paralysed." Italy was unequally
divided between the King of the Pagan or Arian Lombards,
actively hostile to the Church, ruling at Pavia, and the Exarch,
who, as the representative of the effete Roman Empire, held
court at Ravenna. "Deserted churches, vacant sees, parishes
without priests, lax and incompetent bishops, simony and
dissensions among the clergy, were but natural consequences
of war, uncertain communications, and absence of supervision."
Apart from the constant bickering of the Lombards and Imperial-
ists, both parties had been taxed to the utmost by the need of
resisting frequent irruptions of Gothic and Frankish barbarians.
Italy was a mere cockpit, a gladiatorial arena. " To this dark-
ness there came a light, to this chaos there came a reconstructing
hand, to this paralysis there came an energising soul, in the
luminous, orderly and vigorous mind of Pope Gregory the
Great." To his friend John, Patriarch of Constantinople,
Gregory wrote soon after his accession : " Worthless and weak,
I have taken charge of an old ship very much battered ; the
waters break in everywhere, the rotten timbers threaten ship-
wreck."./') To Narses : " I feel, good sir, as if I had lost children,
17

258 MAKERS OF MAN

for through, these earthly cares I have lost noble ends. . . .
Call me Mara, for I am filled with bitterness." These words, to
say nothing of the deeds that followed, clearly indicate the
painful birth of a new and more substantial purpose. Gregory
had not indeed found, but accepted, his true vocation. He
could not have been the success he was, had not the self-dis-
ciplined habits of his previous life prepared him for his arduous
task. " He stood now between East and West, bearing with
the pettishness of old age " — the old age of the Empire, " and
restraining the impetuosity and lawlessness of youth," as
represented by the Lombard and Frankish nations. " No
attempt to attain political influence or to gain political assistance
can be detected in his letters " : the Church was for him a moral
power, and he pursued his aims by the methods appropriate to
his conception. " He did not pit race against race, Frank
against Lombard, but made both look up to the Holy See."
To Augustine, whom he had sent upon his memorable mission
to England, and with whose success he was delighted, he sent
instructions that the temples were not to be demolished, only
the idols, but converted, after due consecration, to Christian
use, since the converts would " more readily resort to the places
with which they were familiar." On the days of sacrifice they
might slay animals for their own use, and celebrate the wonted
festivities with Christian rites. To the administration of the
Church Estates in various parts of Italy, Sicily, Corsica, Sardinia,
Dalmatia, Illyricum, Gaul, and Africa, he devoted much atten-
tion, showing a comprehensive knowledge of agricultural and
economic affairs. The revenue derived from these Patrimonies
he regarded as the heritage of the poor, and his local agents were
all clerics, carefully chosen. They were not allowed to vindicate
claims by force or by appeal to law. To one in Sicily he wrote :
" We learn that most unjust exactions continue in some of the
farms of the Church. . . . This we altogether condemn. . . .
We order that whatever has been taken violently from a family
shall be restored." ..." Have no hesitation in advancing
money for the benefit of the peasants." One of his first cares
was the preparation of a Pastoral Charge, to serve as a general
guide for the bishops of the time, providing a norm of episcopal

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF PURPOSE 259

conduct, as the rule of St. Benedict had done for the monks. His
dealings with the Lombard Kingdom of Ravenna — a constant
menace to the peace of Italy— were a triumph in every sense
of the word. " Without men or material, without resources or
allies, he kept them at bay for fifteen years by his letters, his
tact, his vigilance, his personal influence." Working mainly
through Queen Theodolinda, he finally achieved the conversion
of her husband and their subjects to the Church. By similar
methods he conquered for his Church the vast regions beyond
the Alps, bringing the outlying churches of Gaul and Germany
into definite relations with the Holy See. In the East he
vindicated his authority by protesting against the pretension
of the Patriarch of Constantinople to the title of Ecumenical (i.e.
universal) Bishop. Over this matter he was brought into conflict
with the Emperor himself, and the ultimate victory of the Curia
came after Gregory's death. Hisreform of the Ritual, and the deep
interest he took in Church music, are also deserving of mention.

This brief outline of the main objects pursued and methods
employed by Gregory during the last fourteen years of his life,
may give some idea of the true catholicity, the enlightenment of
his aims. His ideal was, in essentials, that which Dante, long
after, sought to revive. The two blots on his reputation are,
that he (perhaps by inadvertence) welcomed the accession of
the infamous Phocas, murderer of his good friend the Emperor
Maurice ; and that he persecuted heretics. In this last respect
the Christian Stoic once more resembles the Pagan, Marcus
Aurelius, whose character and career present, in many ways, a
curious analogy with those of the great Pope.

The chief interest, psychologically speaking, of Gregory's
career, is the light it throws on the importance of opportunity.
The elements of greatness were no doubt latent in him from the
first, but unrecognised and unvalued by their possessor. Great-
ness in the official sense was thrust upon him by his contempor-
aries. It was quite otherwise with Mahomet, a much more
self-centred and ambitious individual. In the section dealing
with Natural Vocation I have told how Mahomet, as he neared
middle age, gradually drew apart from society, spending days
and nights in prayer and meditation on Mount Hara. He was

260 MAKERS OF MAN

awakening to a sense of the grossness of the national idolatry
and the consequent need of religious reform. Some obscure
constitutional change was associated with this introspective
tendency ; he became subject to dreams, ecstasies, and trances.
Possibly,like many other men of genius, he was now an epileptic.
In his fortieth year (609 A.D.), while spending the fast-month of
Ramadhan in the cavern of Mount Hara, on the night of the
Divine Decree (Al Kader), Gabriel appeared to him and showed
a silken cloth inscribed with the text of the Koran.1 The
archangel exclaimed : "0 Mahomet, of a verity thou art the
prophet of God, and I am his angel Gabriel ! " Such is the
accepted version of the definite inception of Mahomet's purpose ;
and that a fasting man deeply preoccupied with religion should
have had or believed himself to have had such an experience,
is in no way incredible. Mahomet returned home and confided
the annunciation to his wife, Cadi] ah, who at once accepted his
prophetic mission. So, too, did Waraka, her cousin, a Christian-
ised Jew and a mystic, translator into Arabic of parts of the Old
and New Testaments, whose influence as a member of their
household may well have contributed much to the awakening
of Mahomet's religious fervour.

" Whenever there is decay of righteousness . . . and exalta-
tion of unrighteousness, then I Myself come forth ;

" For the protection of the good, for the destruction of
evil-doers, for the sake of firmly establishing righteousness,
I am born from age to age." -

This quotation from the Bhagavad Gita gives a good illustra-
tion of Mahomet's conception of the prophetic function. The
metaphysical subtlety by which Shri Krishna is made to identify
himself with his predecessors and successors, was indeed far
beyond the reach of the Arabian's cruder mind. But he believed
that the true religion revealed to Adam at his creation — the
direct and spiritual worship of the one and only God — had been
repeatedly corrupted and degraded by idolatrous man. Prophets
like Noah, Abraham, Moses, Christ, each inspired by a special

1 The fact that Mahomet was unable to read somewhat detracts from the
appropriateness of this detail !

2 The Bhagavad, Gita, or " The Lord's Song." Trans, by A. Besant,

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF PURPOSE 261

revelation from the Most High, were sent from time to time
to restore it to its original purity. Of this line of prophets he
claimed now to be the last, if not the greatest, his task the
purging of his nation from the sin of idolatry, the recall of his
people to the monotheism which he believed them to have had
and to have lost. Of any ambition for personal advancement
there is, at this period of his life, no evidence at all. He began
to hold prayer-meetings, and working more or less quietly
managed in the course of the next three years to make some
forty converts. The secret gradually leaked out, and trouble
began. Not only were the prayer-meetings liable to the inter-
ruptions of the rabble — always instinctively hostile to religious
innovations — but Mahomet's own kindred, the Koreishites, to
whose family pertained the office of guardian of the Kaaba, were
of course too deeply interested in the established idolatry to
regard Mahomet's revolutionary propaganda with tolerance.
In the fourth year of his mission, having had another vision,
bidding him " arise, preach and magnify the Lord," Mahomet
summoned his kinsmen, the Koreishites, and boldly announced
his views. An uproar ensued, and after this and a second
appeal to his tribe, Mahomet was subjected to much ridicule and
abuse, dirt was thrown on him as he prayed in the Kaaba, he was
reviled as a madman, and a poet named Amru derided his pre-
tensions in lampoons and madrigals. Nevertheless, his per-
sistent attacks on idolatry began to have some effect, and the
Koreishites, failing to silence him, decreed the banishment of
all Mahommedans. From the seventh to the tenth year of his
mission, Mahomet's immediate relatives, the Haschemites, were
placed under a ban by their tribe until they should deliver up
the prophet. His uncle, Abu Taleb, however, maintained him
in his stronghold near Mecca, and, at the peril of his life, Mahomet
continued to visit Mecca during the sacred month, and converted
many of the pilgrims. In the tenth year of his mission (619 A.D.)
the ban was removed, and Mahomet returned to Mecca and re-
sumed his propaganda. This year occurred the death of his
first wife, Cadijah. To his cred't be it said that he is reputed to
have been faithful to her to the end. " Wfren I was poor she
enriched me ; when I was pronounced a liar she believed in me ;

262 MAKERS OF MAN

when I was opposed by all the world she remained true to me,"
he justly exclaimed. Now he considered himself released from
any restriction of his marital proclivities ; he claimed and
exercised the right to have as many wives as he chose. To each
of his followers four wives and no more were permitted. Soon
after his wife's death occurred the vision described in the Koran,
in which Mahomet visited Jerusalem and the seventh heaven.
After ten years' effort Mahomet still found himself compelled
to live concealed among his adherents in Mecca, but the time
of his probation was nearing its end. At Jathreb (now Medina),
70 miles north of Mecca, abode many Jews and heretical Chris-
tians, and some of the pilgrims from this place were so impressed
by Mahomet's doctrine, that they believed him to be the prom-
ised Messiah. In the thirteenth year of his mission (622 A.D.)
Mahomet (aet. 53) was invited by his converts at Medina to come
and live among them. To this he agreed on their promising
to obey him in all things, and from their emissaries he chose
twelve apostles, of whom, however, one hears nothing more.
Carlyle calls Mahommedanism, as taught by its founder, " a
confused form of Christianity," and there are abundant evi-
dences of the fact that what he had learned from Waraka, and
possibly from the Nestorian monks in Palestine, had left a
profound impression on his mind. Myself, I should rather call
his religion a defeminised than a confused Christianity. The
genius of Mahomet is exclusively masculine, that of Christ
androgynous. Mahommedanism resists opposition, even modi-
fication, until the breaking-point is reached ; Christianity, by
reason of superior subtlety, adapts itself to all emergencies,
conquering while it seems to yield.

At Medina, Mahomet, living frugally and laboriously, soon
attained to a commanding position, built a mosque, and preached
devotion to God and humanity to man. He made many
converts in the city ; fugitives flocked to him from Mecca,
and proselytes from the desert tribes. His purpose assumed
a new aspect : " he found an army at his disposal, and the
desire to use it naturally followed." Carlyle has little patience
with those who cavil at the prophet for his reliance on the
swoid. " You must first get your sword," he pertinently

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF PURPOSE 263

remarks — " on the whole a thing will propagate itself as it can."
Still there is no denying that the aspirations of Mahomet became
to some extent vitiated by the taint of mere ambition. He
grew less and less tolerant, and, what I consider more blame-
worthy, showed a growing inclination to justify his amorous
and other vagaries by the plea of special revelation. In this
he was false to his own insight : the moral intuitions of a religi-
ous genius are never seriously at fault. Posterity has amply
avenged the lapse from sincerity ; there are numbers of well-
meaning but ignorant folk, who, perplexed by rumours born of
his inconsistency, still regard Mahomet as a mere charlatan. As
Mahomet's power grew, the material element of his purpose
continually expanded, but the spiritual aim which ensouled it
was never absent from his mind. Supreme in Medina (though
the Jews gave him trouble there by ridiculing his prophetic
claims), Mahomet began to turn his thoughts once more to
Mecca, the stronghold of idolatry. He would conquer it, not as
Jesus attempted to conquer Jerusalem, by the unsupported
might of his divine mission, but by sheer force of arms. He
so harried the caravans of the Koreishites, that, six years after
his flight from the Holy City, on his reappearance at the gates
of Mecca with 1400 " pilgrims," his assurances of peaceful
intentions were accepted, a ten years' truce was concluded,
and free access for Moslems to the shrine was conceded. Of
this privilege he and his followers availed themselves in the
next year. His captains were constantly subduing the refractory
tribes of the desert, and, as his realm extended, he turned his
attention to foreign missions. The Emperor Heraclius. and
Khosru ii. of Persia were visited by his ambassadors, inviting
them to accept the faith of Islam. Syria was invaded by a
Moslem force, and though Zeid, its leader, was slain, the
Imperial force had been routed and much booty was brought
back to Medina. Eight years after the Hegira (A.D. 630),
having thousands of Arab warriors at his disposal, Mahomet
felt that his hour of victory was at hand. He accused the
Meccans of having violated the treaty of 628, and although the
bitterest of his foes, Abu Sofiau, came and humbled himself at
Medina, Mahomet, undeterred, set forth for Mecca at the head

264 MAKERS OF MAN

of 10,000 men. Resistance was out of the question ; Mahomet
entered the city in pilgrim garb, reciting prophecies of the event,
made the seven circuits of the shrine, demolished the 360 idols,
and received the spiritual allegiance of the inhabitants. Ma-
homet was now supreme lord of almost the whole of Arabia.
He returned to Medina triumphant, and shortly afterwards
sent Ali to Mecca to announce that after four months' grace all
idolaters would be killed wherever and whenever found. In
the beginning of the next year (631) Medina was thronged with
envoys from distant tribes and from princes who had become
converts to Islam and tributaries of his vast realm. In the
following year, prostrated by the death of his only son, Mahomet
(set. 62), with his nine wives, at the head of an immense throng,
made a final pilgrimage to Mecca. He died next year (632),
never having assumed regal state or departed from the sim-
plicity of his habits, and leaving no wealth behind him. That
power and conquest were for him, even to the last, but means
to his end, must be conceded by any impartial critic. The
man had genuine humility — witness his reply to one who asked
whether he would be exempt from the rule that no man would
enter Paradise on the strength of his own merit. The prophet
placed his hand upon his head and said three times with great
solemnity : " Neither shall I enter Paradise except God cover
me with His mercy.'"' It has been well said of Mahomet that
his great schemes grew out of his fortunes, not his fortunes
out of his schemes. But this applies only to their material
element, not at all to his religious aspiration.

Far simpler than the case of Mahomet is the problem of
elucidating the purpose of St. Francis d'Assisi, a purpose
pure as man's may well be of any earthly alloy or taint of
mere self-seeking. Of the innocent frivolity of his adolescent
years I have already spoken ; even then a heart so tender must
have been chastened sometimes by the influence of his gently
born and saintly mother. She prayed for him without ceasing,
cherishing always the hope that in God's good time he would
prove worthy of her dreams. In his boyhood Francis must
have heard talk of Peter Waldo, the wealthy usurer of Lyons,
who in 1171 distributed his wealth to the poor, lived thence-

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF PURPOSE 265

forth on alms, and sent his followers two by two into thejtowns
and villages. Pier Bernardone must often have met those
"poor men of Lyons" in the course of his mercantile expeditions,
but the worldly wisdom with which, no doubt, he censured
their folly, would not efface the admiration secretly awakened
in the chivalrous heart of his younger son. The seed of Waldo's
example had fallen on fertile soil. I have told how, after the
long illness which in his twenty-third year (1204) followed
his release from prison, Francis drew apart from his gay com-
panions and sought relief from his remorseful anguish in peni-
tence and prayer. Somewhere about this time he gave a banquet
to his comrades, but could not recall his familiar mood of gay
abandon even for that hour. Challenged to tell of what lady's
charms he mused so deeply, he replied, " I think of a spouse
lovelier, richer, purer than you can possibly imagine." The
seed of Waldo's example was germinating : it was to Poverty,
to Renunciation, that his heart was irresistibly being drawn.
His betrothal to the lady of his choice was in this wise : In
the autumn of 1205 he visited Rome, and, having emptied
his purse on the altar of St. Peter's, changed tunics with a
beggar on the church steps, and spent the day begging from
passers-by. Soon after his return to Assisi, kneeling one
day before the painted crucifix of San Damiano, the figure
seemed to quicken, and bade him " Go and restore my falling
Church." His belief in the authenticity of this vision, which
he at first interpreted in its most literal sense, is proved by the
fact that some little while after, collecting stones and mortar,
he witli his own hands repaired the structures of the churches of
San Pietro, San Damiano, and Santa Maria degli Angeli. But
first he had to break definitely with the old life and with all
family ties and responsibilities. His father, incensed at what
he deemed the frenzy of his pampered son, had imprisoned
him in a cellar. Released by his mother, he ignored her prayers
that he would submit himself to the paternal discipline, and
sought refuge with a priest at San Damiano. His father sought
him out and brought him to the bishop. Then Francis, to
symbolise his repudiation of all earthly authority or obligation,
stripped himself naked, and, handing his clothes to Pier Bernar-

266 MAKERS OF MAN

done, exclaimed, " Now I have no father for ever, but our Father
who is in Heaven." In the same spirit, two days before his
death, Francis caused himself to be laid naked on the ground
in token of his fidelity to the Poverty he had espoused twenty
years before.

If at this time Francis believed that a radical change had
been supernaturally effected in the inborn disposition of his
character, he was doubtless deceived. The psychology of
such conversions, however mysterious or sensational they
may appear, is by no means unintelligible. The " will to
power " he had never lacked — it was only that now he had
come to an understanding with himself as to the means by which
it must be realised, had purified it of extraneous and intoler-
ably uncongenial accretions. " I know that I shall become
a great prince," he had, in the hour of his ephemeral military
ambition, half-humourosly declared. A great prince he
still aspired to be, but he had, at least instinctively, arrived
at the perception that his talent was for giviny, not for getting.
For such men to give what they have is less than nothing ;
they must give themselves to the last drop of their blood, the
last breath of their nostrils. What a man gives is the supreme
test of his greatness, and it is because they so ill satisfy this
final requirement that our verdict upon such great getters as
Frederick and Napoleon has ever a carping, a dubious note.
Hampered by conventional " duties " in the satisfaction of an
imperious instinct, Francis thus made his declaration of inde-
pendence, thus cleared the decks for action. Let us relinquish
to Pharisees the cant of " self-abnegation " ; to assert himself
as he was, Francis boldly threw overboard the self that such
people expected him to be. He who shrinks with pious horror
from the suggestion that the career of a saint may be initiated
by an act of self-will, should candidly inquire of himself what
would be his feelings if a son of his own should behave to him
as Francis behaved to Pier Bernardone.

Early in 1209, Francis (an. set. 28), having, as sole wor-
shipper in a church, been struck by the reading of the text,
" As ye go, preach, saying the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand,"
entered the church of San Giorgio barefoot, with a rope-girdled

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF PURPOSE 267

grey tunic, and addressed the congregation. It is thought
that he had, since his conversion, spent a year with a hermit
near Casena, who wore a similar habit and preached the " Gospel
Rule" of Augustine. If so, the influence of this hermit probably
played its part in determining the form of his ultimate purpose.
One by one, disciples joined him, those who had wealth first
disposing of it by distribution to the poor ; and in the autumn
of next year, their number being then twelve in all, they pro-
ceeded to Rome, and by the aid of Bishop Guido of Assisi, and
of Cardinal Colonna, obtained access to the Pope, who after
some demur granted them as " Brothers Minor," a licence to
preach. This official recognition may have been necessary :
without it Francis and his followers would have been regarded
as mere sectaries, unqualified practitioners ; and would have
been liable to persecution on that account. But it was to
prove no unmixed blessing : henceforth the grasp of the Pope
slowly tightened upon the new Order, and in the end the
primitive simplicity, the Christian anarchy, which was the
very essence of its founder's intention, was tampered with to
an extent that filled him with despair. Soon after the return
of the twelve Brothers Minor to Assisi, they received from
Abbot Maccabeo the sanctuary of Santa Maria degli Angeli,
which was to be the permanent headquarters of the Order.
Proselytes poured in ; huts of wood and clay were built for
their accommodation ; and to this rude settlement they
returned twice yearly from their preaching expeditions into
the outlying towns and villages. In 1212, as a consequence
of the conversion to the Rule of Clare, the eldest daughter of
Count Favorino degli Sciffi, followed by that of her two sisters
and of the Countess herself, an affiliated Sisterhood came into
existence, whose members, exempted by the chivalry of St.
Francis from the functions of mendicancy and preaching,
devoted themselves to nursing the sick, feeding the poor,
clothing the naked, preparing herbal medicines, and em-
broidering altar-cloths. In the same year Francis made a
vain attempt to reach Palestine ; and this was the first of a
series of foreign missions which within a few years carried the
flood of enthusiasm through Syria, France, and Spain. The

268 MAKERS OF MAN

frequent absences of the founder led, however, to a delegation
of authority, which in a short time resulted in a sort of con-
spiracy against what many considered the impracticability of
his ideas. The scholars who had joined the Order found it
hard that they were precluded from owning even a Bible or
a psalter. Cardinal Ugolino, the official patron of the Order,
sided with these malcontents, but Francis refused with passion-
ate vehemence to accord them any special privileges or ex-
emptions. " God called me into the way of simplicity and
humility. . . . Do not speak to me of the Rule of St. Benedict,
of St. Augustine, of St. Bernard, nor of any other saint. . . .
God will confound you through your knowledge and your
wisdom." In the end the Church view inevitably prevailed :
the rule of poverty was mitigated ; the brothers were gathered
into communities, into houses ; were granted privileges and
possessions ; had churches of their own ; were under strict
ecclesiastical control ; were employed in quasi-political
functions, as messengers, agents, and what not. "Woe unto
those brethren that set themselves against me in this matter,"
cried Francis, " which I know of a certainty to be of the will
of God, . . . albeit I unwillingly condescend unto their will."
Humble and self -distrustful by nature, weakened by ill-health,
and prostrated in spirit by the sense of his failure, Francis
likened himself to a little black hen whose wings could no
longer shelter her numerous chickens. At the close of the
autumn chapter of 1220, he (set. 39) resigned to Pietro de
Cattani the direction of the Order, kneeling and promising
obedience, while the friars who loved him wept sore. "Were
the brethren willing to walk according to my will, ... I
would that they should have none other minister but me until
my dying day." Six years later, when he lay at Assisi almost
at the point of death, the gaiety which rather scandalised
Brother Elias would sometimes be broken by cries revealing
the rancour of an unhealed wound. " Where are they who
have taken my brothers from me ? Where are they who have
robbed me of my children ? . . . Could I but be present at the
Chapter General, I would let them know my will." His final
blow for the restoration of his ideal in its pristine, but all too

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF PURPOSE 269

other-worldly, simplicity, was the bequeathal, in his Testa-
ment, of Poverty to all faithful friars. It was directed to be
read with the Rule of 1223 at the Chapters General of the
Order, but Elias, the real though untitled successor to his
authority, backed by the Pope himself, promptly absolved all
the brethren from literal obedience.

Miss A. M. Stoddart, in her biography of the Saint, writing
presumably from an extremely Protestant point of view, has
very harsh things to say with regard to the " betrayal " of his
ideals by professed admirers, notably Elias and Cardinal Ugolino.
Elias was a traitor no doubt, but there is much to be said in
defence of the official scruples of the Cardinal, the genuineness
of whose regard for Francis I see no reason to doubt. In my
opinion, it says much for the sincerity of thirteenth century
Catholicism that the sublime indiscretions of this enfant terrible
did not blind his orthodox contemporaries to the value of his
work and the beauty of his example. The general feeling with
regard to him is well summarised in the saying of the writer of
the Fioretti, that " the faithful servant of Christ, St. Francis,
was in certain things well-nigh another Christ, given to the world
for the salvation of mankind." He, in fact, reproduced with
marvellous fidelity not only many of the greatest qualities, but
also, and in exaggerated form, some of the limitations of his
Master. His obscurantism is a case in point : he carried his
hostility to intellectualism to absurd lengths, wishing not merely
to make the heart supreme over the head, but to ignore the
dictates of reason altogether. When in doubt which road to take,
he once made Friar Masseo turn round many times, and when
he stopped with his face turned by chance toward Siena,
declared that to be the God-appointed route. At Ancona he
made a child who was playing near the shore choose eleven
friars to accompany him on his Syrian mission. In all this he
was rigidly conforming with the requirements of the Christian
ethic — his beloved " Gospel Rule " — but he was acting in a quite
irrational manner. The friars whom he sent into Germany and
Hungary, being totally ignorant of the languages in which they
were to preach, not only met with rough usage, but inevitably
failed to accomplish the purpose of their mission. The wholesale

270 MAKERS OF MAN

conversion of industrious citizens into ecstatic mendicants,
however edifying, must have had serious drawbacks from a
utilitarian, not to say a sanitary, point of view. There is no
short cutto Utopia ; a genuine Christian must be born, not made,
and is perhaps not born more than once in a century. Such
exalted ideals are far beyond the attainment of commonplace
humanity ; and it was just his failure to realise this hard fact
that in a measure justified the ecclesiastical attitude with regard
to St. Francis. He was right in adopting for himself the Rule
of Poverty, which expressed so perfectly his need of reliance upon
the love of his fellow-men. He was wrong in supposing that the
indiscriminate imitation of his example by those who had no
such need would prove a panacea for the ills of humanity. But
the work of such heroic souls is not finally to be judged by its
immediate or visible effects : it is not for an age, but for all
time.

The genius of St. Francis may be likened to a clear flame,
as of a torch that consumed itself, leaving no perceptible by-
products of its combustion. That of Luther, on the other hand,
gave a large proportion of heat as well as its modicum of light,
and fumes provocative to the eyes if not to the nose of the
bystander. " I am the rough woodman," he declared, " who
has to make a path " ; and the phrase truly indicates not only
the vigour but the ruthlessness of the man of action. On his
visit to Rome in 1511 (set. 27), some four years after his ordina-
tion, his keen eyes detected much of the cynical irreligion of the
ecclesiastical atmosphere. " Good Christian " was, in priestly
circles, a term of derision, as who should say " Simpleton."
" Bread thou art and bread thou shalt remain ; wine thou art
and wine thou shalt remain," was the facetiously-amended
formula favoured by the knowing ones in the act of celebration.
On resuming work at Wittenberg, Luther, in his lectures on the
Psalms and the Pauline Epistles, true to the teaching of Staupitz,
from which he had derived comfort in the days of his own
perplexity, contravened the current view that forgiveness can
be earned by good deeds or by ceremonial conformity, insisting
on the faith-inspired acceptance of Gods mercy as the sine
qua non of salvation. The labour spent in mastering the

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF PURPOSE 271

subtleties of scholastic theology he accounted vain and sterile ;
and studied above all things to achieve a certain homely direct-
ness of style in his preaching. He was, in fact, already at issue
with the fundamental principles of ecclesiastical officialdom,
although professing, rightly perhaps, that his view was a return
to the orthodox position as represented in the fourteenth century
by Tauler, and in the fourth by St. Augustine. The strength of
his dawning purpose lay in the fact that it was firm-set on the
rock of his own religious experience : on realising the hopelessness
of attaining his ideal of righteousness he had all but succumbed
to a frenzy of superstitious terror, but had been restored to
serenity by the conviction that the one thing required of him —
an attitude of surrender, a humble acceptance of the free gift of
salvation — was perfectly within his power. Here, then, we have
already the germ of the Lutheran doctrine of " Christian
Liberty," and although at this time he himself can hardly have
realised its destructive implications, there were not wanting
observers who surmised that it might carry him far. Pollich,
one of the eldest of the Wittenberg circle of theologians, ventured
the prediction : " This monk will revolutionise the whole system
of scholastic teaching." It must by no means be forgotten
that the economic situation in Germany had created a strong
feeling of impatience with regard to the extortions practised in
the name of the Papal authority. Ecclesiastical fiefs and
benefices were taxed to such a degree that the country was being
impoverished by the constant flow of gold into the bottomless
coffers of Rome ; and the national and provincial authorities were
at their wits' end for money. The Emperor Maurice, himself
a German, was fully alive to the seriousness of the matter, and,
some years later, when the great struggle for decentralisation had
fairly begun, expressed a desire that " the monk " should be
protected, as " he might some day be wanted." This was all the
more significant in that Maurice was by no means at one with
Luther in regard to his doctrinal and ecclesiastical contentions.
We may be sure that the overburdened tax-payers of Saxony
and the other principalities wore not backward in voicing their
grievances : disaffection with regard to the papal pretensions
was in the air, and much of the popular immunity and princely

272 MAKERS OF MAN

protection which Luther enjoyed would remain inexplicable but
for the fact that he was accepted as champion of the nationalist
cause. No doubt this disaffection had its effect upon Luther's
active intelligence ; remembering what he had observed at Home
and elsewhere of the greed and corruption prevalent in priestly
circles, — noting, too, the way in which the loyalty and superstition
of the masses were being shamelessly exploited for ignoble ends,
— he was evidently forced to the conclusion that unquestioning
subservience to all the obligations imposed in the name of
religion could no longer be regarded as essential to salvation. So
it was that he was led to substitute a purely subjective criterion —
to make redemption or reprobation essentially dependent, not
upon life and conduct considered as a whole, but upon the spiritual
attitude of the believer. There was not much that was new in the
positive side of his purpose at this phase of its development :
faith had always been required of her subjects by the Church,
at least in theory. It was what he rejected as immaterial, or at
least inessential, that gave him his hold on those who were
seeking a pretext for breaking with Rome. The building of St.
Peter's was already begun at the time of Luther's visit to Rome
(1511), and Pope Leo x., who had now succeeded, determined on
a special sale of indulgences in order to procure funds for the
completion of the work. Accordingly, in 1517, a profligate
Dominican, John Tetzel, appeared on the scene, and, being
forbidden by the Elector to enter Wittenberg, settled for the
time at Jiiterbok, where, being a " hustler " of undeniable
ability, he was soon driving a roaring trade. Luther saw and
seized his opportunity ; he posted on the door of the castle church
at Wittenberg the celebrated " Ninety-five Theses," contending
that the Pope can only grant indulgence for what he and the
law of the Church have imposed, that true repentance absolves
the sinner without any papal confirmation, yet upon the whole
attacking rather the irresponsible babble of such hucksters as
Tetzel than the traffic in which they were engaged. In fourteen
days the news of this bold act had spread throughout Germany ;
Luther had made' himself ^famous, and the great struggle of the
Reformation was begun. In May of next year, in Solutions,
he took a further'?step, denying the scriptural authority for the

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF PURPOSE 273

sacrament of penance with auricular confession and expiatory
acts, and contending that absolution may be conveyed to a
penitent not merely by an ordained priest but by any brother
Christian. The pamphlet ended with an appeal to the Pope :
" Give me life or death, accept or reject me as you will." That
dignitary, not much concerned, ordered Staupitz, vicar-general
of the Augustinians, to " quiet the man down " ; but later in the
year Luther was formally cited to appear within sixty days
before a tribunal for the trial of heretics at Rome, and the
Elector Frederick was required to surrender this " child of the
devil " to the papal legate. This Frederick would not do, and he
required a pledge of immunity on Luther's behalf before allowing
him to attend the Diet at Augsburg and meet Caietan, the Pope's
Legate. Luther met Caietan, but refused to retract, and,
suspecting treachery, fled back to Wittenberg. His excom-
munication was now inevitable, and in November of the same
year (1518) he published a solemn and formal appeal from the
Pope (whose jurisdiction he thus repudiated) to a General
Council representative of all professed Christians. With a man
of Luther's courage and impetuosity, the development of his
destructive programme, up to, and indeed far beyond, its logical
conclusion, could now be merely a matter of time. It is therefore
unnecessary to trace in detail the dramatic episodes of his
career during the next four or five years — the disputation with
Eck at Leipsic, the alliance with the Humanists, the appeal to
the Nobility, the burning of the Papal decretals, the heroic
ordeal of the Diet of Worms, the secret flight and seclusion in the
Wartburg, where for a time his powerful mind seems to have
suffered partial eclipse. His conception of the papal supremacy,
once its absolute validity had been challenged, rapidly descended
from the phase where he conceded a sort of presidential function,
to that in which he set himself to answer the " Bull of Anti-
Christ." Twenty-five years later, launching his last thunderbolt
— the pamphlet Against the Popedom at Rome, instituted by
the Devil — his opening clause gives the Pontiff the title of " the
most hellish Father." His repudiation of the sacrificial con-
ception of the Mass, and of celibacy, the root-principles of
medieval Catholicism, was no doubt suggested by the rationalistic
18

274 MAKERS OF MAN

tone increasingly prevalent in Wittenberg, and indeed throughout
Germany. Only those exceptional persons who had the gift of
continence should, he rightly held, undertake such obligations.
For himself, he found at length that he had not this gift : as a
free man he could not be bound by vows made in ignorance.
He married, as we all know ; and it was perhaps the most
courageous act of a dauntless career.

Much more difficult is the task of defining the constructive
element of Luther's work, but a constructive element, or perhaps
rather a conservative one, it undoubtedly possessed. His
first idea seems to have been to replace the authority of the
Curia, as a final arbiter in questions of discipline or of doctrine,
by a Council representative of the consensus of Christendom.
Following Huss in this matter, he maintained the existence
of a Universal Church, composed of all sincere believers, even
those who, like the Eastern community, had long been severed
from the Catholic hierarchy. This dream of a representative
Council of Christendom of course proved impracticable ; in
1725 (eet. 41), Luther stigmatised as " a devilish perversion of
the truth " Zwingli's contention that the sacramental bread
should be regarded as a mere symbol of the body of Christ.
Luther adhered to the literal interpretation of the saying, " This
is my body," maintaining on this point a position which I
for one find indistinguishable from that of the orthodox
Catholics. At the Marburg Conference, unity of a sort was
attained on other points with the Swiss reformers, but Luther
steadfastly declined to regard them as " brothers in Christ."
Here, as in many respects, Luther proved false to his own
principle ; he had championed the right of private judgment,
but showed small patience with those whose conclusions did
not coincide with his own. Renouncing the dream of external
unity — for the tendency was everywhere towards disruption —
yet feeling the indispensability of someobjective seat of authority,
he had no choice but to rest his case upon the infallibility of
the inspired Word of God. By his translation of the New and
Old Testaments into the German version, which achieved
an instant and widespread popularity, he proved the genuine-
ness of his conviction that his own interpretation of their

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF PURPOSE 275

purport must ultimately prevail. Thus he supplied the only
possible foundation for the new democratic evangelicalism,
which, in one form or another, has for four centuries held,
and still in a measure holds, the field. And by his own powerful
example, his vindication of the dignity of secular activities,
his preaching, his controversial pamphlets, his appeals to
dignitaries, his pastoral reforms and visitations, his great war-
songs of the Reformation, he welded the inchoate impulses of
religious nationalism into at least provisional unity and form.
It is refreshing to turn from the combative turbulence
of Luther's career to the serene power, the gracious catholicity
of the sage of Concord. Emerson was not driven by super-
stitious terror into the Unitarian ministry, as Luther had been
driven to the adoption of monastic vows. Himself the son of
a minister, he dreamed for a time of becoming a novelist, a
poet, even a painter. The grief of his mother when his brother
William returned from Germany a sceptic, and forsook theology
for law, confirmed his own final choice of the ministry, and
he would never have left it " could he but have had liberty
always to tell the highest thing he knew, and to conform his
practice in all respects with his ideal." Of the formative
influences upon his mental development, one worthy of special
mention is his great admiration of Charming, " whose peculiar
secret was the exaltation of morality into religion by enthusiasm
for the right and good." His early sermons are said to have
been, upon the whole, not remarkable ; in them he adhered
to the conventional Bible phraseology. Nor was he a striking
success in parochial work ; excess of delicacy, mistrust of
ordinary didactic methods no doubt stood in his way. On one
occasion his diffidence was thus grimly rebuked by a parishioner
disappointed in the expectation of spiritual sustenance : " Young
man, if you don't know your business, you had better go home ! "
In or about his twenty-ninth year, difficulties arose between
Emerson and his Boston congregation with regard to the Lord's
Supper, which he would not accept as an obligatory rite. " If
I believed that it was, I should not adopt it. I will love him
as a glorified friend, and not pay him a stiff sign of respect
as men do to those whom they fear." The controversy seems

276 MAKERS OF MAN

to have been conducted on both sides without acrimony, but
it ended in Emerson's resignation of his charge. He continued,
however, for another fifteen years to accept occasional invita-
tions to preach in various churches of the Unitarian persuasion.
In this, I hold that he was justified — in the first place because
Unitarians profess to allow their preachers perfect freedom in
regard to dogma ; and secondly, because, with Emerson, affirma-
tion in such matters always took precedence of negation.
Strictly speaking, he cannot, it is true, in his maturity, be
called a theist ; not, however, because belief in God was for
him a chimerical notion, but because the personal category
seemed to him altogether inadequate, even as a symbol of the
absolute Reality.1 And with regard to Christianity, the same
reluctance to emphasise the negative conclusions of his mind
is evident. In Man Thinking (1837) he says : " The man
has never lived who can feed us for ever." The divinity of
Christ was, for him, not a unique prodigy, but the realisation
of a potentiality common to all mankind. It was a " doctrine
of the Reason," falsified when adopted as a formula of the
prosaic Understanding. For him the guarantee of truth was
always that the soul accepts it gladly, without constraint and
without subservience.

Freed from his ministerial charge, Emerson, now nearing
the close of his twenty-ninth year, resolved on a visit to the old
world. He sailed on Christmas day of 1832 for Malta, crossed
to Sicily, made the acquaintance of Landor in Rome, visited
Paris, and reached London late in July of 1833. Of his memor-
able pilgrimage to Craigenputtock, Thomas Carlyle shall speak
for himself : " We kept him one night and then he left us.
I saw him go up the hill. I didn't go with him to see him
descend. I preferred to watch him mount and vanish like an
angel." On his return he soon found himself in great request
both as lecturer and preacher, his first lectures being mainly
on scientific topics. He lived for a time with his mother near
Boston, but after his marriage, in 1836, moved to Concord. The
transition from theology to philosophy — to seershvp, one ought
rather to say, for he was no dialectician — was now rapidly

1 To a cousin he once wrote, " When I speak of God I prefer to Bay It."

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF PURPOSE 277

proceeding ; and in this the effect of his European tour is evident
enough. " Not only had his views expanded and hia mind
imbibed new ideas, but he had profited by detachment from the
concerns of a limited community and an isolated church. . . .
His thoughts committed to paper on shipboard have a largeness
and liberty not attained by him before. He also began to feel
dimly that he might have a message to deliver to Europe as
well as to America." In the year of his marriage appeared
Nature, the first maturely Emersonian utterance, " the first
in which he came forward speaking as one having authority."
It attracted little attention, yet was " a seed implanted in the
crumbling New England theology, whose unnoticed expansion
had force enough to shatter the whole fabric." Man is revealed,
not as the mere creation of an extra-mundane despot, nor as a
mere part of nature, an effect simply, but as causal, creative,
also, evil being the price paid for his potential infinitude. In
method this work, like all its successors, was not strictly philo-
sophical but poetical, not dialectical but affirmative. Emerson
wrote down his thoughts as they came to him without any
pretence of a formal justification. " I do not know what argu-
ments are," he said, " in reference to any expression of a thought.
I delight in telling what I think. But if you ask me how I dare
say so, or why it is so, I am the most helpless of men." It was
his custom to take solitary morning walks, " hunting thoughts
as a boy hunts butterflies." These thoughts were at once written
down in his " Thought Book," and most of his Essays obviously
consist of detached paragraphs, pieced or strung together
without any apparent logical sequence.1 Nature, however,
seems to have been written consecutively " in the heat and
happiness of a genuine inspiration." He hated writing to
an occasion or on a prescribed subject. " Such writing," he
said, " is at its origin derived and a peril. Out of your own self
should come your theme ; and only thus can your genius be
your friend."

It is essential to the understanding of Emerson's aims
and achievement to bear in mind that his genius was no isolated

1 " Do not put hinges to your work to make it cohere " (R. W. E. to C. J.
Woodbury).

278 MAKERS OF MAN

phenomenon. New ideas were in the air, and exceptional
personalities abounded. One may mention among his con-
temporaries the names of Lincoln, Parker, Lowell, Channing,
Margaret Fuller, Alcott, Hawthorne, Thoreau. The magnetic
personality and the quickly growing repute of Emerson attracted
to his Concord home a host of cranks and enthusiasts — aboli-
tionists, Platonists, vegetarians, Pestalozzians, communists —
whose naive efforts to capture him for their own particular
panaceas were gently but firmly repulsed. Invited by Alcott
to join his luckless community at " Fruitlands," Emerson replied
that he " must submit to the degradation of owning bank-stock
and seeing poor men suffer." In his ministerial days he had,
however, been one of the first to place his pulpit at the disposal
of anti-slavery preachers. And it is recorded that he tried,
presumably without permanent success, to institute common
meals in his household. His advocacy of the cause of negro
emancipation was firm and consistent ; more than once he
publicly championed the cause, and incurred a very hostile
reception.

In default of a better classification, Emerson must, I suppose,
be labelled moralist, for he aims, by awakening and emancipating
the intellect, at the liberation of the will. But he has no system
cut and dried ; he desires no disciples ; mistrusts all negations,
hence deals not in prohibitions. A born individualist, his virile
conscience approves all actions which bear the stamp of genuine
self-expression. His limitless tolerance must have sorely puzzled
his earnest friends, the apostles of the " Newness " ; it was, we
know, a stumbling-block to his lifelong confidant, Carlyle. Of a
Baptist minister, who, after hearing him lecture, prayed that
the audience might be delivered from ever hearing " such tran-
scendental nonsense " again, Emerson, inquiring his name,
remarked, " He seems a very conscientious, plain-spoken man."
Frugal to the verge of asceticism himself, he clearly saw the
futility of exacting any such standard from the gross generality
of mankind. " Nature comes eating and drinking and sinning.
Her darlings, the great, the strong, the beautiful, are not children
of our law, do not come out of the Sunday school, never weigh
their food, nor punctually keep the commandments. If we

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF PURPOSE 279

would be strong with her strength we must not harbour such
disconsolate consciences." In Politics (written an. act. 41) he
expressed surprise that no one had steadily denied the law on the
ground of his own moral nature. But his faith in collective
action, always weak by reason of his predominant individualism,
was restored somewhat by realisation of the impotency of other
than organised attacks upon such institutions as slavery. His
superiority to the plane of the formal moralist is also evident
from his endorsement of war. The Civil War had greatly
impoverished him, by reducing the sale of his works, the demand
for lectures, and the returns from his investments. Yet he
wrote to Carlyle : " I shall always respect war hereafter. The
waste of life, the dreary havoc of comfort and time are overpaid
by the vistas it opens of Eternal Life, Eternal Law, reconstruct-
ing and upholding Society."

Matthew Arnold has dubbed Emerson " the friend and
aider of those who would live in the spirit." Pretty, no doubt ;
but I question whether Emerson would have relished the verdict.
He admired Montaigne as well as Plato. Spirit is a large word-
too often applied to a small and narrow thing. " It is not
enough," Emerson would have said, " to have your head among
the stars. You must keep your feet firmly planted on the
earth."

" I unsettle all things," he declares. " No facts are to me
sacred, none are profane ; I simply experiment." This is the
true Emerson, the Emerson who, as has been well said,1 gives
and maintains to us, by the stimulus of his high intimations,
not himself merely — others can do that much — but . . . our-
selves.

Although Emerson was a man who thought much of the
future, lived largely in and for it, and will doubtless receive
its homage, he was not by temperament and character a dis-
tinctively modern type. His virtue has an antique flavour
about it, reminds one of Plato, of Epictetus, or of Plotinus.
Ernest Renan, on the contrary, was a modern of the moderns :
versatile, familiar, he has not a trace of the Emersonian aloof-
ness, yet combines by a sort of miracle with his thorough -

1 C. J. Woodbury, Talks with Ralph Waldo Emerson.

280 MAKERS OF MAN

going relativity of method an unswerving fidelity to the loftiest
idealism of aim and conviction. When the painful struggle
against his growing scepticism had terminated in definite
withdrawal from the ecclesiastical career, which he had chosen
largely in deference to his mother's desire, he found himself
in a strange and embarrassing position. A theologian with
no theology, a specialist in Semitic religious lore with no formal
religion, a voluntarily unfrocked priest of twenty-three ! To
justify, by the exercise of his unique faculties of historical
analysis and vivid reconstruction of the past, his isolation from
the dogmatic fold, became inevitably the purpose of his career.
This, however, was only the negative and therefore preliminary
portion of his task. Throughout life he kept a vigilant
watch for indications of the future prospects of religion, and
strove without ceasing to purify its permanent essence from
the accretions of myth and fable. In a sense, therefore, he
remained a priest to the end ; rather, perhaps, in ceasing to
be a priest he became a prophet and a pioneer. A very modern
prophet withal, one wholly devoid of spiritual pose or austerity,
human to the core of him, brilliant, playful, ironical. His
didactic aim is masked by the perfection of his artistry : he
was too tactful to allow himself to preach. But it reveals
itself in his evident appreciation of such characters as Marcus
Aurelius, in the purity, one might almost say the sanctity, of
his own life, in his beautiful devotion to his mother and to
Henriette Renan, and in such utterances as the following :
" Duty, with its incalculable philosophical consequences, in
imposing itself upon all, resolves all doubts, harmonises all
oppositions, and serves as basis for the rebuilding of all that
reason destroys or allows to perish. . . . He who shall have
chosen the good will have been the true sage."

Renan early recognised his own limitations : he was only
twenty years old when he wrote to his sister : "I am only fit
for one sort of life — a life of study and reflection, retired and
tranquil." Twenty-six years later, in 1869, he presented him-
self to the electors of Meaux on behalf of peace and political
reconstruction, and again in 1871. But, though described as an
" irresistible orator," he was on both occasions unsuccessful,

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF PURPOSE 281

and this tardy and ephemeral ambition did not recur. In the
first days of his apostasy he for a short time studied natural
science with Berthelot, and the scientific ideal henceforth
permeated, though it hardly dominated, all his literary activities.
He settled in Paris with Henriette, and produced a series of
works of which I must content myself with naming the titles.
His Histoire Generate des Langues Semitiques won him the Volney
prize ; in his Etudes d' Histoire Religieuse he criticises the work
of David Strauss, pointing out the misleading effect of his
Hegelianism, and drawing a clear distinction between the Christ
of the Gospels, largely an ideal conception, and the historic
personality of Jesus ; in Essais de Morale et de Critique he claims
to be the true friend of religion, the rescuer of its imperishable
essence from the ephemeral forms that conceal and mar it ;
his Translation of Job inspired the panegyric on Duty quoted
above ; that of the Song of Solomon, which he believed to be a
drama enacted with music at Hebrew weddings, was the occasion
for the following characteristic utterance : " The faith in the
resurrection and the faith in the Messiah have produced more
great deeds than the exact science of the grammarian. But it
is the glory of the modern spirit to refrain from sacrificing, one
to another, the lawful requirements of human nature." In
1860, Renan (eet. 37) was sent by the Emperor to examine and
report on certain ancient sites in Phoenicia. The expedition
was a memorable one, for him and for posterity. To it he owed
the loss of his best friend and loyal helpmate, Henriette Renan ;
to it the world owes the final conception of his most character-
istic if not greatest work, the Vie de Jesus. In close communion
with the sister who so loyally shared his views and sympathised
with his aspirations, the book was planned and largely written
among the hills and valleys of Palestine. Its undue reliance
upon the Fourth Gospel (the grounds of Renan's confidence in
which seem to me rather vague and fanciful) has no doubt in a
measure detracted from its historical value. Renan has also btvn
severely censured for his apparent — only apparent — reflection
upon the good faith of Jesup in the matter of the miracles.
Belief in miracles was, for him, frankly impossible ; he had, how-
ever, to account for the fact that they were attributed to Jesus,

282 MAKERS OF MAN

and that he seems to have accepted, though with signs of distaste
and reluctance, the claims made on his behalf. Kenan did
not dogmatise on the matter ; he merely intimated his opinion
that it was more likely that some vague rumours had been
exaggerated, even that some collusion had been practised,
than that the prodigies in question had actually occurred. His
particular explanations may or may not be valid ; the principle
upon which they were based is perfectly sound. It is evident
that the motive for writing this book was, in part, the correction
of the a priorism which he had censured in that of David
Strauss.1 The real importance of Kenan's Vie de Jesus lies in
the fact that, with all its inevitable, and for the most part un-
avoidable, faults or deficiencies, it brings home to the popular
imagination with extraordinary power and charm the naturalist
conception which is its basis and motif. It makes the reader
feel the immense superiority of Jesus, the aspiring and con-
quering man (homme incomparable), to Jesus the Demigod.
" No saint in his cell, no Crusader, was ever more fervently
haunted by Christ Jesus than this unfrocked Churchman, this
sceptical archaeologist, busied with the details of a scientific
mission." His conception perhaps erred on the side of
mildness, was a little invertebrate — and here we trace the
restraining influence of the gentle Henriette. Years after that
influence was withdrawn, in the Antichrist, Kenan — a bitterer,
disillusioned Kenan — wrote : " Who knows ? The image
of the Gospel may be false. Jesus may have been the centre
of a group more pedantic, more scholastic, nearer to the Scribes
and Pharisees than the Evangelists would have us believe."

In 1862, Kenan received, on the Emperor's initiative, the
Chair of Semitic Languages at the College de France. Catholic
interest, and perhaps Court influence, had delayed but could
not prevent the appointment. Kenan's liberalism immediately
came under suspicion ; the Catholics were also up in arms.
There was a storm of interruptions from both parties on the
occasion of his inaugural address. He had expressed himself
rather freely on the religious and political problems which

1 " Ever since hia year of spiritual crisis, Renan had pondered in his heart
a Life of Jesus, unlike any yet written " (Madame James Darmesteter).

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF PURPOSE 283

occupied his mind, and both parties found occasion for offence.
He was suspended from his professorate, and in 1864 (after
the appearance of his Vie de Jesus) deprived of it altogether.
In 1870 it was restored. The notoriety which, after this affair
of the professorate, suddenly overwhelmed him, caused him
to be regarded as a champion and martyr of liberalism, political
as well as theological, and was no doubt the main cause of his
keen but short-lived political ambition. The war with Germany
was hateful to him as a lover of German culture ; the com-
munistic debauch of blood and frenzy broke his heart. From
his avenue of Versailles, with Paris flaming on the horizon,
Renan developed his thesis of the function of the elect and
his hypothesis of conditional immortality. The masses do not
count. They are to be harnessed and driven by a syndicate
of Daevas or tyrant-sages, commanding the resources of Science.
But this priestly mood proved transient ; the old faith in
progress revived ; from the study of the vain pride and ex-
clusiveness of Gnosticism he learned anew the fallacies of the
oligarchic theory. In one of his latest works (Philosophic
Dramas) he wrote : " I love Prospero, but I do not love the
men who would replace him on the throne. Caliban, improved
by power, is more to my mind." From first to last Renan
persisted in his claim to be regarded as the consenrator of
Religion. " Notre critique a plus fait pour la conservation de
la religion que toutes les apologies. J'ai tout critique et, quoi
qu'on en disc, j'ai tout rnaintenu." And he was, if not an
optimist, at least an absolute meliorist, a believer in cosmic
progress. " Malgre ses immenses defauts, ce monde reste
apres tout une ceuvre de bonte infinie." Was he then, upon
the whole, a theist ? — a consistent one he certainly was not.
I do not know, and I do not think he knew either. It was
for him a dream, which might (or might not) come true. But
there can be no doubt as to his transcendentalism. " It is in
the ideal world, and there only, that all the beliefs of the natural
religion have their legitimacy. But, I cannot too often repeat
it, it is the idea that exists, and the transient reality which
only appears to be."

V. Recapitulation. — In order to complete our long task,

284 MAKERS OF MAN

we have now to review the subject of Purpose in the light of
the information gleaned from the preceding sections. The
first point to which I would call attention is, that Purpose
presents itself under two main aspects — formal and substantial.
The formal aspect of Purpose is that which concerns its develop-
ment as a factor of the consciousness of its exponent ; the
substantial aspect concerns its practical manifestation in life
and activity. The formal or subjective aspect is logically
prior to the substantial or objective aspect of Purpose ; but,
genetically, the rule is that a man finds himself more or less
fully committed to his task years before he has attained to
that degree of self-consciousness and autonomy which true
Purpose implies. Specially true is this rule with regard to
men of action, the mosb primitive, therefore the most in-
stinctive of our four types. Thus, with men like Caesar, we
find their first steps dictated by a mere personal craving for
power and the spontaneous exercise of an inborn gift for
achieving popularity ; conscious devotion to large impersonal
aims comes much later, if it come at all. More or less analo-
gous are the cases of Charlemagne, Drake (whose purpose
remained rudimentary to the end), Nelson (to some extent,
though the merely instinctive stage was here of brief duration),
and Lincoln. The last-named is as fine an example of the
gradual development from a mere instinctive ambition to
excel to the definite formulation of a general, and finally of
a specific, political aim, as could well be desired. With William
the Silent, on the other hand, although his purpose was based
upon instinctive tolerance or sympathy, its actual initiation
was preceded by its conscious and formal adoption. He
therefore followed the logical, not the empirical, order, and is
an exception to the rule. Much the same can be said of
Richelieu, whose decisive intervention in national affairs
would seem to have been the direct outcome of a carefully
elaborated plan. But Richelieu, great man of action as he
was, is in many ways atypical. Instinct and self-consciousness
(the substantial and the formal factors of his genius) developed
side by side. Among members of the aesthetic group, instinct
predominates in the determination of the life-work of Titian,

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF PURPOSE 285

Mozart, Scott, and Turner. Dante and Goethe, on the other
hand, were in the days of their maturity poets of clearly-
defined and self -limited aim. Leonardo, however, lacking the
compelling motive of a strong desire for fame, largely dis-
sipated his power in the indulgence of his ever-growing in-
tellectual curiosity. Among members of the intellectual
group, the rule would seem to be that with scientific dis-
coverers (Harvey, Newton, Darwin) the substantial aspect
of purpose is, upon the whole, the more conspicuous ; with
philosophers (Descartes, Spinoza, Leibnitz, Kant, Hegel),
although their work has no doubt an instinctive basis, the
formal element soon appears and begins to take the lead. Thus
Descartes, at the age of twenty-four, in one day deliberately
comes to terms with his own genius, assigning to it the task
in which for the rest of his life he remained absorbed. And
lastly, among members of the ethico-religious group, whose
domain is the Will, as that of the philosopher is the Mind of
Man, it is a rule with but few exceptions, that instinct has
to be deliberately conquered and set aside before their proper
work is or can be begun. Thus Christ would seem to have
renounced worldly ambition ; Paul his instinctive prejudice
against the new religion ; Marcus Aurelius and Gregory, their
love of solitary contemplation; Augustine, his pride of intellect
and sensuality ; Mahomet, his allegiance to the vested interests
of his tribe in idolatrous institutions ; St. Francis, his fastidious
taste and the dictates of his filial affection ; Luther, scholastic
pedantry and faith in ceremonial observances ; Emerson, the
orthodoxy of his Unitarianism ; Renan, the strong tendency
of his docile Breton temperament to unquestioning loyalty
in all that concerned the Catholic faith. The path of the
religious or ethical reformer must be entered by the door of
conversion : x in other words, the formal element of Purpose
must, for such men, not merely exist, but reign supreme.

Closely allied to this question of the role of conversion is
that of the positive and negative, the creative and iconoclastic
aspects or phases of Purpose. But before dealing with this I

1 By conversion I mean simply the emergence of a latent interest which
suddenly finds itself in a position to take the upper hand.

286 MAKERS OF MAN

must call attention to the environmental factor — the mimetic
element, which in its early stages is never absent from a given
Purpose, and the part played by opportunity in rousing, evoking,
and modifying its activity. We may be quite sure that the
example of Marius was not lost upon young Csesar, any more
than that of Pepin the Short upon Charlemagne ; for in both
cases the course first adopted points conclusively to this explan-
ation of its origin. Richelieu's anti-Huguenot policy was
avowedly modelled upon that of the Cardinal du Perron ;
Frederick the Great learned much, no doubt, from Voltaire,
but more, if the truth be told, from the father whom he hated
and who hated him ; Goethe was profoundly influenced by the
kindred genius of Shakespeare ; Scott owed a strong impulse
to poetry to his translation of Goethe's Goetz von Berlichingen ;
Flaubert's realism was largely based on sympathy with his
father's enthusiasm for science ; Galileo owed many suggestions
to the study of Leonardo's manuscripts ; Harvey's lifelong
interest in the problem of the circulation was directly inspired
by his intimacy with Fabricius ; Leibnitz was profoundly
influenced by the study of Bacon ; Kant, by the study of Hume ;
Darwin, by the example of Henslow and the generalisation of
Malthus ; Jesus, by the teachings of Hillel, Isaiah, Daniel, and
John the Baptist ; Marcus Aurelius, by his admiration of the
Emperor Antoninus ; Francis, by the evangelical work of Peter
Waldo ; Renan, by the steadfast courage of his sister Henriette.
These random instances may suffice to notify the great part
played by personal influence, the suggestive function of actual
or mental association with the exemplars of kindred aims and
capacities. The power of opportunity is best seen, of course,
in the lives of the great opportunists — men like Richelieu,
Cromwell, Napoleon, Frederick, Lincoln, Luther, who never
act until their moment is ripe, or fail to act then with instant
promptitude and ruthless decision. But, in its degree, this
power is evident in the lives of all our examples. I have already
commented on the extraordinary reluctance of Gregory to
accept the responsibility of his genius for administration, so
clearly divined by his associates. But, after all, it is to be
remembered that mere opportunity never made a man great

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF PURPOSE 287

unless there was greatness in him. We must, in psychology,
he constantly on our guard against a mechanical interpretation
of what occurs in the domain of the human spirit. From the
psychological point of view, which is rapidly superseding the
mechanical and physiological regime of the nineteenth century,
the nai've acceptance of causality itself as vulgarly understood,
is regarded with a certain irony. For the ultimate validity of
what might be called the impact theory of causation is gravely
suspect. It is one thing to explain things, and quite another
to account for them. Metaphysically speaking, — and psycho-
logy must never lose touch with metaphysic, — a man's oppor-
tunities are no doubt of his own making, through and through.
They are parts of " that full concept of the individual in which
are included all its experiences, together with all the attendant
circumstances and the whole sequence of exterior events." l

I have in the preceding four sections had frequent occasion
to point out the importance of distinguishing between the
positive and negative, the creative and iconoclastic aspects of
Purpose. The typical course of events would seem to be, that
a man begins by resenting and combating certain facts or
opinions against which his nature consciously, or at first only
instinctively, rebels. Then, by degrees, he comes to recognise
the necessity of replacing what he seeks to destroy by some
analogous institution or idea, more conformable to his own
views of right or fitness. So, while still combating the old,
he seeks to establish the new, his conception of which, welling
up insensibly from the depths of his being, broadens and
matures with the growth of his experience. For a time the
two purposes, positive and negative, may coexist in approxi-
mately equal power ; his actions will then show a certain
hesitancy and alternation between the two contrary extremes.
But the typical development of Purpose demands a final
harmonisation of these conflicting tendencies, a merging of
their opposed mandates into a rule of balanced activity. In
this matured phase, which I propose to call the synergic, Purpose
is manifested, not by an alternation of positive and negative

1 Liebnitz, Summary of the Discourse on Metaphysics, in Letter to Count
Ernst von Hessen-Rhcinfola. Trans, by Dr. G. R. Montgomery.

288 MAKERS OF MAN

essays, but by actions, each one of which, while maintaining
the critical or destructive element, also advances the positive.
The above I call the typical, as it is also the logical sequence :
needless to say, it varies largely in particular cases. Some-
times, one or another aspect is the more conspicuous in a given
career, to the extent of overshadowing the others altogether.
In highly intuitive natures the positive phase may seem to
precede the negative, or the latter may even appear to be
entirely wanting. Intuitive natures naturally incline to
affirmation : mere criticism does not interest them ; but the
opposition their affirmation arouses forces them, in its defence,
to reveal the destructive implications of their position. Jesus
and Emerson are examples of the postponement of negative
tendencies ; Marcus Aurelius, whose exalted station exempted
him from opposition, seems to have had almost no tendency
to negation. He certainly disliked Christianity, but there was
little vehemence or insistence in his feeling about it. Negativity
seems to predominate upon the whole in Cromwell, Frederick,
Bacon, Descartes, Kant, Luther ; positivity, more or less, in
Charlemagne, Mozart, Scott, Newton, Marcus Aurelius, Gregory,
Francis. Caesar, Lincoln, Leibnitz, and Hegel certainly attained
in varying degree the synergic or mature phase of Purpose.
But enough has now been said to enable the reader to apply
our principle for himself to the remaining examples.

Is it possible to define in terms of a man's age the typical
development of his purpose ? To some extent, yes ; but the
periods assigned, although based on actual examples, must,
of course, be considered approximate only, and will be liable
to many exceptions. Purpose must here be considered in its
broadest aspect, such considerations as that of its positivity
or negativity, its generality or specificity, being ignored. We
fall back on our first classification, recognising three main
phases in the typical development of Purpose — (1) mainly in-
stinctive ; (2) wherein the instinctive element is increasingly
permeated by self-conscious determination, the growth of the
formal factor ; and (3) the period of mature self-determined
purposive activity. These three main phases may be preceded
by a preliminary phase, daring which purpose, if it exist at all}

THE NATURAL HISTORY OF PURPOSE 289

will be of more or less vague and intermittent character. The
typical age-periods of these phases will, I consider, be as follows :
(a) Preliminary, boyhood and youth, up to about the end of the
twentieth year ; (1) Instinctive phase, from the beginning of
the twenty-first to the end of the thirtieth year ; (2) Growth of
the formal factor, end of the thirtieth to end of the forty-fourth
year ; (3) Period of maturity, beginning of the forty-fifth to
end of the sixty-fifth or sixty-eighth year. Of the preliminary
period, evidenced by the boyish precocity of Turner, Mozart,
Newton, it is not necessary to say more at present. Of the other
three, it is to be noted that I assign about ten years to the
instinctive phase, about fourteen years to the formative, and
about twenty-one (to twenty-four) to the maturity of Purpose.

Within the first period (twenty-one to thirty) fall such
developmental landmarks as the publication of his first capitulary
by Charlemagne (aet. 26), the Italian campaigns of Napoleon
(set. 26 to 28), the political debut of Lincoln (set. 28), the com-
position of Dante's Vita Nuova (set. 27 to 30), the writing of
Goetz von Berlichingen by Goethe (aet. 22), and his conception
of Faust (set. 25), Scotc's annual exploratory raids into the
Liddesdale district (aet. 21 to 28), the publication of Bacon's
Temporis Partus Maximus (aet. 24), Harvey's first independent
physiological investigations (aet. 24), Newton's optical dis-
coveries (aet. 24), the invention of the calculus by Leibnitz
(8Dt. 26 to 30), Darwin's voyage on the Beagle (aet. 22 to 27),
the conversion of St. Francis (set. 23), and the ordination of
Luther (aet. 23).

Within the second or formative period (thirty to foity-four),
fall the beginning of Charlemagne's Saxon war (act. 32), the
formal initiation of Richelieu's political career (aet. 31), the
debut of Cromwell (aet. 41), the maturation of Lincoln's anti-
slavery policy (complete an. aet. 41), the initiation of Dante's
Divine Comedy (aet. 35), the ripening of Cervantes' genius
(composition of his greatest play, an. aet. 40), the self-disciplinary
regimen of Goethe (begun aet. ;:0), the completion of Bacon's
Advancement of Learning (published aet. 44), the preliminary
announcement, in lectures, of Harvey's great discovery (aet. 38),
the translation of Descartes' Principles of Philosophy by Spinoza

2QO MAKERS OF MAN

(aet. 31), and the composition of his Ethics (complete an. set. 42),
the formulation of Newton's theory of Gravity (aet. 40 to 43),
the crystalisation of Kant's philosophical purpose (aet. 36 to 41),
the initiation of Darwin's doubts as to the fixity of species
(aet. 29 to 30), the first mission of St. Paul to the Gentiles (aet.
33 or 35), the annunciatory vision of Mahomet (set. 40), and the
publication of Luther's Ninety-five Theses (set. 34).

Within the last or maturity period (45 to 65 or 68) fall such
happenings as the composition of Don Quixote by Cervantes
(first part, aet. 54 to 58 ; second part, set. 68), the completion
of Bacon's Novum Organum (set. 60), the publication of Harvey's
classical treatise on the Circulation (set. 50), the writing of
Kant's Critique of Pure Reason (set. 45 to 57), and of his Critique
of Practical Reason (set. 64), the completion of Hegel's Logic
(set. 46), the publication of Darwin's Origin (aet. 50), the popedom
of St. Gregory the Great (aet. 50 to 64), the withdrawal of
Mahomet to Medina (aet. 53), and his triumphant return to
Mecca (set. 64).

During this last period of its full activity, Purpose may
be compared to a tree, which, having attained its full size and
its definitive form, lives and thrives for a number of years with-
out obvious change. Sooner or later, however, begins a slow
but fatal decrease of vitality ; the sap rises feebly through the
gnarled and corroded trunk ; fewer and fewer green twigs
appear ; the annual crop of leaves grows ever scantier ; here
and there may be seen a shrunk and lifeless bough, which the
next autumn's gales may bring to the ground. So, as age creeps
upon him, a man's purpose wanes and withers : from looking
forward he turns in weariness to the review of bygone achieve-
ments, realising at last, that, for weal or woe, his bolt is sped,
his share contributed to that vague aeonic task, which, having
allured and absorbed the strength of innumerable souls, for ever
mocks the dream of completion.

POWER IN THE CRUCIBLE

Danger and solitude — Solitude as a source of power

IN the section of Francis Galton's Inquiries into Human Faculty,
dealing with Criminals and the Insane, occur the following ob-
servations : " Passengers nearing London by the Great Western
Railway must have frequently remarked the unusual appearance
of the crowd of lunatics when taking their exercise in the large
green enclosure in front of Hanwell Asylum. They almost
without exception walk apart in moody isolation, each in his
own way, buried in his own thoughts. It is a scene like that
fabled in Vathek's Hall of Eblis. I am assured that whenever
two are seen in company, it is either because their attacks of
madness are of an intermittent and epileptic character, and they
are temporarily sane, or otherwise that they are near recovery.
Conversely, the curative influence of social habits is fully
recognised, and they are promoted by festivities in the asylums.
On the other hand, the great teachers of all creeds have made
seclusion a prominent religious exercise. In short, by promoting
celibacy, fasting, and solitude, they have done their best towards
making men mad, and they have always largely succeeded in
inducing morbid mental conditions among their followers.

" Floods of light are thrown upon the various incidents
of devotee life, and also upon the disgusting and not other-
wise intelligible character of the sanctimonious scoundrel,
by the everyday experiences of the madhouse. No professor
of metaphysics, psychology, or religion can claim to know the
elements of what he teaches, unless he is acquainted with the

292 MAKERS OF MAN

ordinary phenomena of idiocy, madness, and epilepsy. He
must study the manifestations of disease and congenital folly,
as well as those of sanity and high intellect."

One might conclude from this passage, considered alone,
that the habit of solitude was uncompromisingly to be con-
demned from the standpoint of science. But in the very next
section, devoted to the consideration of gregarious and slavish
instincts, there are suggestive glimpses of a contrary point of
view. " I propose," writes the learned author, " to discuss
a curious and apparently anomalous group of base moral
instincts and intellectual deficiencies, that are innate rather
than acquired, by tracing their analogies in the world of brutes,
and examining the conditions through which they have been
evolved. They are the slavish aptitudes from which the leaders
of men are exempt, but which are characteristic elements in
the disposition of ordinary persons. The vast majority of
persons of our own race have a natural tendency to shrink
from the responsibility of standing and acting alone ; they
exalt the vox populi, even when they know it to be the utterance
of a mob of nobodies, into the vox Dei, and they are willing
slaves to tradition, authority, and custom. The intellectual
deficiencies corresponding to these moral flaws are shown by
the rareness of free and original thought as compared with the
frequency and readiness with which men accept the opinions
of those in authority as binding on their judgment. I shall
endeavour to prove that the slavish aptitudes in man are a
direct consequence of his gregarious nature, which itself is a
result of the conditions both of his primeval barbarism and of
the forms of his subsequent civilisation. ... I hold that the
blind instincts evolved under these long-continued conditions
have been ingrained into our breed, and that they are a bar to
our enjoying the freedom which the forms of modern civilisa-
tion are otherwise capable of giving us."

It seems, then, that if persons addicted to solitude have
this in common with demented souls, the man who is never
happy except in the society of his fellows, reveals thereby a
subservience to the "blind instinct "£ of jjthej common herd.
It is a choice of evils — the stigma of madness or the reproach

POWER IN THE CRUCIBLE 293

of mediocrity — and we shall have presently to consider to
which of the two extremes the habits of great men, as revealed
in their biographies, preponderatingly incline.

So far as our men of action are concerned, I may say at
once that there is little evidence of any general and marked
tendency among them to withdraw from society. On the
contrary, they are usually at their best when their attention
is most fully occupied by the insistent demands of practical
difficulties amid the hurry-scurry and confusion of critical
events. Dangers which affright, perplexities which paralyse
the faculties of ordinary men, are to their powerful brains but
as a stimulus calling forth latent funds of energy and resource,
of which they themselves might otherwise have remained
unaware. It is precisely in the qualities needed upon such
occasions, in soundness of practical instinct, in self-confidence,
originality of suddenly conceived plan, contempt of mere
precedent, courage and promptitude of action, that they excel
their fellow-men. It is in these moments of superhuman
stress that their great inspirations come to them, not only, be
it observed, the perception of what is needed at the moment,
but, often enough too, that of the general principle determining
their decision, available thenceforth in all crises of similar
kind and scope. Such men court danger, because, their great-
ness being of the reflex type, they are dependent upon it for the
full expansion of their faculties, for growth and the satisfaction
which is invariably associated therewith. In tame and
monotonous conditions their natures would become dwarfed
through lack of the needful stimulus. They mingle with the herd,
not because they share its defects, but in order to reveal their
superiority to its weaknesses and limitations. There they find
their true solitude, the solitude of pre-eminence and power. There,
too, they enjoy the tribute of obedience and the homage of awe.
Once, when Csesar was on the march in Gaul, his army
was surprised by an ambushed force of the hardy and ferocious
Nervii and their German allies. The enemy, 60,000 in all, had
been hiding in a wood on the light bank of the river Sambre.
The river is fordable at this point, and the concealed barbarians,
when Caesar's army, marching on the left bank, came up and

294 MAKERS OF MAN

began to dig trenches with a view to encampment, were out
of the wood, into the water, and upon their prey almost before
their appearance had been realised. The Romans, unhelmeted,
unprepared, fought where they stood as best they might,
repulsing the Germans ; but all was panic and confusion ;
the Nervii had surrounded the baggage, and the camp-followers
had fled. The fate of Caesar and his army was trembling in
the balance ; but he himself had to be reckoned with, and his
fierce promptitude turned the scale. Snatching a shield from
a soldier, he flew bareheaded to the front. " He was known ;
he addressed the centurions by their names. He bade them
open their ranks and give the men room to strike. His presence
and his calmness gave them back their confidence. In the
worst extremities he observes that soldiers will fight well under
their commander's eye. The cohorts formed into order. The
enemy was checked ; . . . the fugitives, ashamed of their
cowardice, rallied, and were eager to atone for it. ... The
Nervii fought with a courage which filled Caesar with admira-
tion. . . . They would not fly ; they dropped where they
stood ; and the battle ended only with their extermination.
Out of 600 Senators, there survived but 3 ; out of 60,000 men
able to bear arms, only 500." It is the prerogative of supreme
genius thus to convert disaster into victory.

Or consider that momentous night in July of 1588. when
Howard and Drake, hanging on the rear of the Great Armada,
had for a week been " plucking its feathers one by one." Now,
after midnight, eight English ships were fired and set adrift
among the great Spanish vessels, whose cables being at once
cut, crashing together in panic and confusion, they fled to
the N.N.E. " Everything hung on whether the attack could
be pushed home before the enemy had re-formed." It was
a question almost of minutes, and in that supreme moment
the Lord Admiral was found wanting. He turned aside to
capture a galleasse already out of action. Then Drake in the
Revenge made straight for the group in which the San
Martin towered, the nucleus of the rallying Armada. He
was followed by almost all the other captains. A terrific
battle ensued, in which there was no thought of prize or quarter,

POWER IN THE CRUCIBLE 295

and immense damage was inflicted on the Spanish vessels.
At its close, though to Drake's eye the enemy's fleet still
seemed " wonderful, great and strong," the crowded galleons had
become mere charnel-houses, the brave survivors were cowed by
the terrible butchery, and Medina himself was in despair. " For
such an hour Drake's whole life had been lived — the life he had
lived for vengeance on the idolaters and England's enemy."

Neither was Richelieu wanting to himself when, in 1636,
having, rashly as it seemed, but with far-seeing aim neverthe-
less, declared war with Spain, the Imperial troops entered
Picardy, and advanced, spreading ruin in their track, to the
banks of the Oise. Amid the panic that everywhere prevailed,
he alone preserved his presence of mind. Deaf to entreaties
and warnings — for everybody was blaming him for betraying
his country into war — he went almost unattended to the Hotel
de Ville and appealed, not in vain, to the patriotism of the
citizens. Money was freely granted ; volunteers were enrolled ;
his old enemies, the Huguenots, mindful of his moderation in
the hour of victory, were no less eager than the Catholics to
prove their loyalty to the national cause. Meanwhile the
invaders had retreated, and the danger, thus boldly confronted,
melted into thin air.

To Cromwell, again, the furnace-blast of danger was an
element congenial and invigorating as the cold air of the
mountain-top. At Edgehill his division stood firm when the
left wing under Essex had been broken and routed by Rupert's
impetuous charge. At Marston Moor he and the 4000 Iron-
sides whom he had made the embodiment of his will, not only
accomplished their own heroic task by sweeping Rupert and
his chivalry from the field like leaves before the blast, but,
returning to find the right wing under Fairfax utterly broken,
and the centre deserted by its leader (Leven) and almost
overwhelmed, swept round the rear of the King's army, attacked
them in the confusion of supposed victory, and at one stroke
conquered the North for his cause. The tale told of Edgehill
and Marston Moor may be retold of Naseby, where, once again,
and in much the same fashion, the cavalry arm, wielded with
such mastery by Cromwell, converted imminent defeat into

296 MAKERS OF MAN

overwhelming victory. Sceptics with regard to the force of
the personal factor in war should study the hard facts afforded
by the records of these three battles. The chef d'oeuvre of
Cromwell's military genius was no doubt the conception and
triumphant organisation of the complex operations at Wor-
cester which closed and crowned his fighting career. There
" my Lord General did," we know, " exceedingly hazard
himself," as, on sufficient occasion, every good general must
and will. Yet more to our present purpose are the skill and
coolness with which in the preceding year he had extricated
himself at Dunbar from an apparently hopeless imbroglio.
Penned up in a promontory, with only his ships as base, by
Lesley's army occupying a commanding position on the heights,
hopelessly outnumbered, his troops ragged and demoralised,
" hope shone in him like a pillar of fire when it had gone out hi
all the others." On the 2nd September 1650, Lesley, imagining
that Cromwell was embarking, purposing to surround and
crash him, began to descend into the plain. " The Lord hath
delivered him into our hands," exclaimed Cromwell. In the
battle of 3rd September, 3000 of the enemy were killed, 10,000
taken, with a loss of only 22 !

Frederick the Great was never so dangerous to his enemies
as in the hour of apparent defeat. His reckless exposure of
his own person in battle was often so extreme that even the
common soldiers exclaimed against it. At the Battle of Prague
in 1757 (Frederick's Annus Mirabilis), his prompt occupation
of a gap left between the wings of the Austrian army presum-
ably gained him, the day. To the relief of Prague Count Daun
brought an army nearly double the strength of his own, which
Frederick in seven successive attacks vainly attempted to
dislodge from the heights at Kolin. Having lost nearly half
his men, Frederick rode all night with fourteen hussars back to
Prague, dismissed the besieging artillery and baggage, and was
in full retreat before the news of their relief by Count Daun
had reached the garrison of the heretofore beleaguered city.
In October of this same year (1757), Frederick's position was so
desperate that he is said to have contemplated suicide. His
capital had been raided and pillaged ; a French army was

POWER IN THE CRUCIBLE 297

plundering his people in Halbenstadt ; Daiin and Charles of
Lorraine were engaged in reconquering Silesia ; French and
Imperial armies were overrunning Saxony. Domestic griefs
and vexations were not wanting also to his burdened spirit.
Yet in the beginning of November, at Rossbach, he out-man-
oeuvred and, in an hour and a half, defeated an Austrian
force more than doubling his own. At Lissa, a month later,
when with only 36,000 men he confronted 60,000 Austrians,
he contrived to deceive them by a feigned attack upon their
right wing. Meanwhile, by concealed movements, he brought
practically his whole force to bear upon their left, thus antici-
pating Napoleon's dictum that the secret of military success
is always to bring a superior force to bear upon the point
attacked. The result of his victories at Rossbach and Lissa
brought Frederick only a temporary relief. Three years later
Berlin was raided by 40,000 Russian and Austrian troops ; and
at about this time he wrote to a friend : " Believe me, nothing
less than a miracle is still necessary to extricate me from the
difficulties I foresee. ... I have the labours of a Hercules to
undergo at an age when my strength fails me and my infirmities
increase ; and, to speak the truth, when hope, the only consola-
tion of the unhappy, begins to desert me." In 1763 the miracle
was an accomplished fact : the treaty of Hapsburg restored to
Frederick all the territories possessed before the war.

With Nelson the craving for danger amounted to an actual
passion ; it was a sheer necessity of his unique temperament.
No one form of danger could satisfy this imperious demand of
nature : he risked his professional career by his stern enforce-
ment of the Navigation Acts in the West Indies ; he was at
an early age upon the point of contracting an imprudent marri-
age in Canada ; over and over again he hazarded his reputation,
far dearer than life to such a man, by his deliberate repudiation
of orders which he did not approve. In most instances this
insubordination was no doubt based on worthy motives, and
has been abundantly justified by his biographers. The classic
example is, of course, his refusal to see the signal for retreat
at Copenhagen. Even more impressive, however, as a mani-
festation of his genius, was the action of Nelson in disregarding

298 MAKERS OF MAN

his admiral's signal off Cape St. Vincent. Twenty-seven
Spanish ships of the line and ten frigates had been sighted,
and Sir J. Jervis had passed through their fleet, cutting off
nine ships, of which only one effected a rej unction with the
majority. He then signalled to his other ships to tack in
succession, so as to join him in an attack on the main body
of the Spanish fleet, whose numerical strength and fighting
weight still exceeded his own. But Nelson, perceiving that the
Spaniards were bearing up before the wind preparatory to going
off and escaping an engagement, instead of tacking, wore his
ship, and so brought her at once into close action with seven
of the Spanish vessels. For the victory which ensued, which
would have been impossible but for Nelson's bold initiative,
Jervis received an earldom, Nelson a rear-admiralty and the
Order of the Bath. Beresford and Wilson's verdict upon the
latter's conduct is as follows : " The moment was critical. . . .
Instant action was demanded. . . . The British rear must
act for itself. It must disregard rules and precedents which
ordained that no captain should quit the line of battle. The
man who made the venture risked fame and life."

On one occasion, however, Nelson disregarded orders for
motives which cannot for a moment be defended. In July of
1799, when ordered by Lord Keith to proceed from Naples to
Minorca with his entire force, he took it upon himself to decide
that Naples (that is, Emma and the " dear Queen ") could
not be deprived of his protection, and sent only a small portion
of his fleet under Admiral Duckworth. A peremptory reitera-
tion of Lord Keith's order was entirely ignored ; Nelson would
not part with a single ship more. For this act of insubordina-
tion, rightly stigmatised by Mahan as " flagrant," Nelson
received the formal censure of the Admiralty.

Of Nelson's zest for mere physical danger it can hardly be
necessary to give examples.1 In his youth he was always an

1 It appears, though, that even in regard to courage there is a possibility
of specialism or idiosyncrasy. Once when being driven through the grounds
at Fonthill in a carriage and four by Beckford, Nelson, though the horses
were well trained and perfectly under command, suddenly exclaimed : " This
is too much for me, you must set me down," and persisted in alighting.

POWER IN THE CRUCIBLE 299

eager volunteer for any specially desperate enterprise. His
exclamation at Copenhagen, " Warm work ! But mark you, I
would not be elsewhere for thousands," came straight from his
heart. For a battle royal he decked himself as a bridegroom
for the wedding festival : his death is in all probability attribut-
able to the fact that, despite the urgent remonstrances of his
officers, he made himself, at Trafalgar, a conspicuous target for
the sharpshooters of the French fleet by appearing in full rig,
his breast ablaze with the stars of his various orders. " In
honour I gained them, and in honour I will die with them."
There can be no doubt that Nelson had indeed a strong pre-
monition of death on the eve of Trafalgar.

Among all the reproaches, just and unjust, that have been
heaped upon the head of Napoleon, there is one taunt that has
perforce been commonly spared. His personal valour was of
that highest order which he himself has defined as " three o'clock
in the morning courage." Even in the days of his Imperial
magnificence, he loved to appear in his military uniform : in
that he felt and looked himself, at his best and greatest. On
the field of battle his mind worked with astonishing rapidity,
with complete detachment from all irrelevant considerations,
with a fatal precision comparable only to the forces that produce
the avalanche or the earthquake. Emerson quotes from
Seruzier the account of an episode which occurred soon after
the battle of Austerlitz. The Russian army was retreating,
painfully but in good order, upon the surface of the frozen lake.
The Emperor Napoleon rode up at full speed toward the artillery.
" You are losing time," he cried ; " fire upon those masses ; they
must be ingulfed ; fire upon the ice ! " Light howitzers were
trained so as to fire into the air ; the almost perpendicular fall
of the heavy projectiles fractured the ice, " and in less than no
time we buried some thousands of Russians and Austrians under
the waters of the lake."

Everybody knows the story of what he himself described as
" the terrible passage of the bridge of Lodi." Having driven
Beaulieu across the River .Adda, Buonaparte found his own
passage obstructed by a battery of thirty cannon sweeping the
bridge from side to side. With his own hands the young general,

300 MAKERS OF MAN

under the full force of the Austrian fire, trained two guns on the
bridge so that the enemy could not reach it. This unconven-
tional act earned him from the delighted soldiers his enduring
soubriquet, " le petit Caporal." Meanwhile, Beaumont had
crossed by a distant ford, and, in the confusion effected by his
flank attack, Buonaparte led the rush which carried the bridge.
But why heap Ossa upon Pelion ? All the world knows that,
to Napoleon, human life, his own and that of his fellows, gentle
and simple, friends and foes, was a mere pawn in the dangerous
game he played for power and glory, recognising one rule, and one
only — the loser pays !

Although the task undertaken by Abraham Lincoln made his
life the storm-centre of a huge, passion- distraught continent,
and led to his death by the pistol of an assassin, he was never,
in my opinion, a man who loved or sought danger for its own
sake. He loved work, so long as it was of congenial kind, and
his aims were exalted ; but his method of overcoming the
obstacles in his path was essentially prudent and conciliatory.
There was, in fact, a plebeian strain in his character, something
deferential if not obsequious ; he could not dispense with popu-
larity, and took infinite pains to accommodate his personal
principles to the expectations of his party. Personally, he no
doubt loathed slavery, considering that if that was not wrong
nothing could be wrong ; but he long postponed any outspoken
denunciation of the system, and was never an Abolitionist in the
strict sense of the word. In 1862, about two years after his first
election to the Presidency, when the Civil War had fairly begun,
Lincoln thus defined his policy : " My paramount object is to
save the Union, and not either to save or destroy slavery. If
I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it ;
if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it ; and if I
could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would
also do that. ... I have here stated my purpose according to my
views of official duty, and I intend no modification of my oft-
expressed personal wish that all men everywhere could be free."
Still it is by no mere accident that a man comes to the front in
such a time and place as that of the American Civil War. The
adventurous instinct cannot be wanting in one who achieves a

NAPOLEON.
Engraved by Bosquet from the fainting by David.

300.

POWER IN THE CRUCIBLE 301

destiny so arduous, and holds power on a tenure so precarious,
— one, moreover, who conducts to a triumphant issue the gigantic
human interest entrusted to his care.

The adventurous instinct in men of the aesthetic type, though
by no means always lacking, takes, as a rule, the less sensational
form of an unworldly contempt for material standards of success
and security, rather than that of a deliberate quest of perilous
emprise. Of this unworldliness Mozart is a typical example ;
he never learned to drive a bargain, and was not by any means
punctilious in discharging such obligations as he might have
incurred. Thus, when in 1777 (set. 20) he was in the throes of his
infatuation for Aloysia Weber, he caused his father serious
inconvenience by his neglect of a commission to supply certain
compositions to a Hollander at the price of 200 gulden. The
penury of his last years was the direct consequence of his too
chivalrous refusal of the King of Prussia's offer of the post of
Kapellmeister at Berlin at a salary equivalent to £450 per
annum. This when he was in dire straits for money, when
the " good Kaiser," whom he refused to " forsake," was, for a
similar post, paying him the starvation wage of about £52 per
annum. Analogous traits of imprudence — rather, shall we say,
of unbending fidelity to a certain Quixotic standard of personal
dignity and independence — could easily be shown in the lives of
Dante, Leonardo, Beethoven, and Flaubert. Titian, Goethe,
Scott, and Turner were, on the other hand, all keenly alive to
the main chance. Of spiritual audacity, Goethe, at least, had an
immense fund, but in social and financial matters he was, upon
the whole, true to his bourgeois origin and upbringing. '•>.' .'-.J

The case of Cervantes deserves especial mention ; in him
the chivalrous instinct of the warrior and the unworldliness of
the born artist were as one. During his five years of Algerian
slavery he established a unique reputation for absolute con-
tempt of such dangers as might well have appalled a hero. And
the unfailing cheerfulness and even joviality with which he sus-
tained the endless privations, disappointments, persecutions,
and contumelies of his ensuing long life of ill-recompensed
drudgery, prove that the grand hidalgo spirit which enabled
him in his youth to confront Hassan's threats of torture or death

302 MAKERS OF MAN

without flinching, remained steadfast and unbroken to the
end.

In the nature of things it is obviously not among men who
devote themselves to intellectual interests that one would look
for exemplars of ^that dare-devil spirit which loves and courts
physical danger. Still they, too, as pioneers of the Reason
World, have their perils to face, of which more may be said in
another section. One has here only to recall how Galileo, by
his native impetuosity, incurred and suffered from that odium
theologicum which his more politic predecessor, Copernicus, had
so deftly conciliated. How Harvey, travelling in the train of
Lord Arundel to Vienna, through a country rendered lawless
and turbulent by the devastation of the Thirty Years' War,
" would still be making observations of strange trees and plants,
earths, etc., and sometimes he was like to be lost. So that my
Lord Ambassador would be really angry with him, for there
was not only a danger of thieves, but also of wild beasts."
Darwin, too, during his remarkable voyage, sometimes took
part in expeditions on horseback into the wilds, or in the explora-
tion of rivers, for weeks at a time ; and we have his own word
for the fact that these were not unattended with danger. Spinoza
not merely braved but almost courted excommunication, and
the social and religious ostracism it involved. He, like Leibnitz,
refused the offer of an official position which threatened his
intellectual autonomy, and, like Kant, endured the rigours of
extreme poverty with a stoical indifference. Kant's courage,
however, in the days of his comparative prosperity and prestige,
once failed him in a matter of another and more crucial signifi-
cance. Censured by the reactionary Court of Berlin for the
heterodox tendencies of his Religion within the Bounds of Mere
Reason, and sharply warned for the future to " be guilty of no
such acts," the old philosopher promptly ate humble-pie,
craftily wording his pledge of compliance in such a way that he
might consider himself bound by it only during the lifetime of
the King. Of Descartes' moral cowardice we have already
said enough ; Newton, too, was a timid soul, who so hated
controversy that he thought seriously at one time of discon-
tinuing the publication of his researches.

MOZART.
From a fainting by TischMn.

To face /. 302.

POWER IN THE CRUCIBLE 303

I have more than once pointed out the analogy existing
between the lives of men of action and those of ethico-religious
pioneers. This is borne out by consideration of the demand
made in both on the virtue of fortitude, but the fortitude of
the ethico-religious pioneer is obviously of a different and
higher kind than that of the mere soldier or statesman. The
latter suns himself in the light and heat of popularity, without
which he can achieve nothing. The former braves popular
opinion from the very outset of his career ; deliberately chooses
a way of life which must bring him into an atmosphere of con-
tempt and hatred ; stakes his all on the truth of his moral or
spiritual insight into the unrecognised need of his age. There
has recently been published the account of an interview with
that enlightened Chinese reformer, Kang Yu Wei, which is
at once a striking confirmation of the above generalisation and
a perfect expression of my own view of the character of Christ,
as revealed in the Gospels. Kang Yu Wei said that " what
appealed to him most in the personality of Jesus was his courage
— the manliness which could so quietly and dauntlessly face the
hatred of so many of his countrymen, the fierce enmity of the
powerful Pharisees, and, above all, the certainty of death and
of the outward failure of his mission ; the courage which under-
took a work so constructive, the valour which could make, and
could ask from others, such large sacrifices." 1 On the adventur-
ous career of St. Paul it cannot be necessary to dwell : the
vicissitudes endured by that indefatigable standard-bearer of
Christendom are familiar to us all. We know how he was
lowered by night in a basket from the walls of Damascus when
the angry Jews had obtained a warrant for his arrest ; how,
at Lystra, after being stoned he was left for dead ; how he was
publicly flogged, imprisoned, and exposed in the stocks to the
insults of the mob at Philippi ; how he was tortured by the
malevolent misrepresentation of those whom he had benefited,
from whom he had every right to expect encouragement and aid ;
how, on the eve of his departure from Corinth, a conspiracy to
seize and kill him necessitated the change of his route to Jeru-

1 " A Chinese Statesman's View of Religion," by Charles Johnston, Hibbert
Journal, vol. vii. No. 1.

304 MAKERS OF MAN

salem ; how, despite of presentiments and warnings, he persisted
in returning to the Holy City ; how, there again, he was rescued
from an infuriate mob by the intervention of the Tribune ; how
he was shipwrecked at Malta ; and, if tradition may be trusted,
martyred under Nero at Rome.

The life of Mahomet, from the time of his conversion (set.
40), was for more than ten years one of almost perpetual danger
and ignominy. Thirteen years' work had produced little ap-
parent effect, when, on the invitation of some of his converts,
he retired from Mecca to Medina. At the mature age of fifty-
three he took the sword in hand, which was but seldom sheathed
until the time of his death ten years later (A.D. 632). Although
in the long series of conflicts which began with the battle of
Beder (623), Mahomet's own part was rather that of an inspirer
and organiser than of an active combatant, he nevertheless did
not shirk the dangers peculiar to his position. At the battle
of Ohod, when the Koreishites outnumbered his followers in
the proportion of three to one, he refused to countenance re-
treat, was twice wounded, and his force was completely routed.

As to St. Francis ,d'Assisi, perhaps no one will venture to
question the fundamental nature of his craving to subject
himself to the most stringent and painful tests, that he might
convince himself and others of the superiority of the spirit
and its needs to those of the flesh, the complete independence
of spiritual serenity of all material boons or enhancements.
If anybody has any doubt on the matter, let him consider the
Saint's definition of "Perfect Joy" as expounded to Brother Leo,
and — compare it with his own. " When we shall be at Santa
Maria Degli Angeli, thus soaked by the rain, and frozen by
the cold, and befouled with mud, and afflicted with hunger,
and shall knock at the door, and the doorkeeper shall come in
anger and shall say, ' Who are ye ? ' and we shall say, ' We are
two of your friars ' ; and he shall say, ' Ye speak not truth ;
rather are ye two lewd fellows ; . . . get you hence ! ' and shall
not open to us, but shall make us stay outside in the rain and
snow, cold and hungry, even unto night ; then' iff. we shall
bear such great wrongs and such cruelty and !' such rebuffs
patiently, without disquieting ourselves and without murmuring

POWER IN THE CRUCIBLE 305

against him ... Oh, Friar Leo, write that here is perfect joy.
. . . And if we shall continue to knock, and he, greatly offended
thereat, . . . shall come forth with a knotty club, and shall
throw us on the ground and roll us in the snow, and shall cudgel
us pitilessly with that club ; if we shall bear all these things
patiently and with cheerfulness, thinking on the sufferings of
Christ, ... Oh, Friar Leo, write that here and in this is perfect
joy."

Luther was near the close of his thirty-third year when by
the posting up of his ninty-five Theses he made himself the
champion of ecclesiastical decentralisation and theological
reform. Henceforward his life became the storm-centre of a
raging controversy, which for centuries after his death still
distracted Christendom with ever-increasing virulence. When,
in the following year, under pledge of immunity from the
Pope's legate, Luther set out for the Diet of Augsburg, his bold
spirit was not free from misgivings. " My thoughts on the
way were, now I must die." Arrived, he writes to Melanchthon :
" The town is full of talk of me, and everybody wants to see the
man who has kindled such a flame. ... I will rather die than
revoke anything that it was right for me to say." Two years
later, when cited by the Emperor to the Diet of Worms, there to
answer for his doctrines and to retract his errors, or be treated as
a heretic, Luther said that he would go to Worms though there
were as many devils there as there were tiles on the house-tops.
But he would not recant. " I will not fear ten thousand Popes,
for He who is with me is greater than he who is in the world."
On his first appearance before the Diet, Luther seems to have
been a trifle cowed by the solemnity of the occasion, and when
shown his books and asked to recant, answered in a low voice
and as if frightened, that since their contents concerned the
highest of all things, he must humbly entreat further time
for consideration. On the next day he showed a bolder front,
and, in the upshot, the utmost concession that could be wrung
from him was that in his polemic against individuals he had
shown undue violence. To his friends he confided that if he
had a thousand heads he would have them all cut off rather than
make one recantation. What can be done with such recal-
20

306 MAKERS OF MAN

citrant stalwarts by the " good and just " representatives of
" Law and Order " ? This was the supreme crisis of Luther's
personal drama : no doubt he was saved from a heretic's death
by the secret removal to the Wartburg, arranged on his behalf
by Frederick the Wise. Up to and beyond the date of the Diet
of Augsburg, Luther is described as being " so wasted by care
that all his bones may be counted." In his later and more
prosperous years at Wittenberg, he became corpulent and
jocose. But the divine fire never again burned so brightly as
in those first years of danger and stress. The plebeian strain
in the man showed itself in a certain arrogance and impatience
of controversy, a tendency to ruthless invective, even brutal
exaggeration of the faults and personal faib'ngs of his adversaries.
Nor can it be forgotten that Luther advised the Elector to
accept the Decree of the Diet of Speier (1529), whereby all
rebaptized persons were to be executed without trial ; and
urged the Landgrave of Hesse to execute the anabaptist
Frederick Erbe. His weakness in sanctioning Philip's bigamous
marriage with Margaret von der Saal was a further proof of
deterioration, the more so in that the dispensation was made
conditional upon a pledge of secrecy from the interested parties.
The debacle of medieval discipline represented by Luther
was by no means an unmixed good.

Let us now consider the recluse habits of those great men,
whose water of life is drawn, not from the village-pump of
public opinion, but from the deep well of solitude, that well
which, Science warns us, is guarded by the hags Misanthropy
and Melancholia. Among these adventurers our men of action
are for the most part conspicuous by their absence. Charle-
magne, we are told, kept writing-tablets under his pillow,
wherein were duly noted happy thoughts, in the shape of
subjects for discussion at the feasts of reason in which he
delighted, or casuistical posers for his favourite butts, the
bishops. Napoleon was, in his boyhood, moody and taciturn ; it
was then, surely, that he was hoardingthe immense fund of spiritual
energy which in due time burst like a fiery levin on the aston-
ished world. The influence of those recluse years could in after
times always be re-awakened by the sound of bells, which had

POWER IN THE CRUCIBLE 307

for his dark soul a strange, compelling charm. At the sound
of church bells his voice would falter as he said, "Ah, this
recalls to my mind the first years I passed at Brienne. ... I
was happy then ! " Lincoln, in the days of his studious youth,
frequented the dangerous well ; and, as we know, escaped
not the blighting touch of one at least of its fearful guardians.
At twenty-six he became insane, or nearly so, and again, for
nearly a year, at thirty-one. All his life he remained prone to
attacks of intense depression ; against the assaults of this
haunting terror his wonderful gift of humour provided a weapon
sorely needed and bravely plied.

Poets, artists, and musicians are, if our examples may be
accounted typical, — and I think no one will deny this, — ad-
dicted to solitude only in so far as their aesthetic bias is qualified
by an intellectual factor. Such men as Titian, Cervantes,
Mozart, Scott, and Turner, although, no doubt, in the actual
production of their work they perforce dwell apart from society,
do not seem to have loved or needed solitude as a spiritual
sanctuary, a source of inspiration and power. Cervantes
would seem indeed to have owed some germinal conception
of his Don Quixote to the enforced seclusion of his immola-
tion in the house of Medrano, but one cannot think of him as
otherwise than a genial and sociable spirit. On the other
hand, he was not strictly intellectual, not a thinker, but an
artist, almost a man of affairs. Mozart could, on emergency,
abstract himself completely from the most perturbing and
harassing surroundings — in his last phase the very hopelessness
of his position would seem to have induced a sort of desperate
concentration of his powers upon the work that yet remained
to be done. But in happier times he could work all day and
night, sipping punch, and listening, between whiles, to the
storiettes extemporised by his voluble Constance.

Scott wooed his Muse on horseback : "I had many a wild
gallop among these braes," he exclaimed, " when I was think-
ing of Marmion." Solitude of a kind, yes — but not the real
thing ; that cannot be taken at a gallop ! Scott loved youth
and sunlight ; enough for him to "lie simmering over things
for an hour or so ;' before he got up. He said himself that

308 MAKERS OF MAN

there was a demon who seated himself " in the feather of his
pen " when he began to write. Inevitably, therefore, he
abhorred writing to a prearranged plan, and could seldom
adhere to one which he might have laid down for himself. The
frequent irruption of his children was no serious distraction
to the flow of his ready invention. No recluse habit, this, of
a verity ; consequently, no profundity, no passionate con-
viction, no defiance of destiny, no gauntlet hurled in the face
of the gods !

Turner, again, that strange mixture of stubborn reticence
and incoherent garrulity, was in the main of a sociable tem-
perament. He loved to attend the official functions of the
Royal Academy, where he made speeches which " no fellow
could understand," loved to welcome his old friends and to
hobnob with casual acquaintances. It is one of the mysteries
of the paradoxical aesthetic temperament, that, as Shakespeare
was a loose liver, a litigious neighbour, and one who deigned
to connive at the schemes of unprincipled land-grabbers, the
refined genius of Turner sought inspiration, not in solitary
thought, but in wine-bibbing and in participation in the sensual
orgies of low night-birds in the taverns of Wapping and
Rotherhithe.

Dante, on the other hand, the philosophic poet and pre-
cursor of the Reformation, was, above all things, and from
first to last, a solitary soul. We know how, in his early man-
hood, absorbed in the delineation of certain angelic features,
he noted not that several friends had entered and stood beside
him overlooking his work. " Another was with me," he said,
when at last he preceived their presence. Once, years later,
in Siena, he remained standing from noon till past vespers in
an apothecary's shop, reading a certain book, unaware of the
bustle and excitement of a great tournament which was pro-
ceeding close at hand. Leonardo, Goethe, Beethoven, and
Flaubert were all, in their several degrees, more or less addicted
to solitude or abstraction, all being, to some extent, men of
thought, not mere artists.

But upon the whole, whereas, to the artist, solitude is at
most a refreshment and solace, to the revolutionary thinker,

POWER IN THE CRUCIBLE 309

or to the ethico-religious innovator, it is a sine qua nan. Ideas
destined to evoke fierce controversy, to set the world by the
ears, to upset comfortable traditions, and consume cherished
illusions, — ideas that bring " not peace but a sword," are, in
the days of their inception and germination, too fragile to
survive the chill breath of indiscriminate association. From
commonplace and sordid minds there emanates a subtle en-
slaving and terrorising aura, provocative of self-mistrust in
the guilty conscience of the would-be reformer. Guilty the
unconventional thinker feels himself to be in the society of
the conventional conforming majority ; hence, perforce, during
his periods of mental gestation, like a woman concealing her
shame, he dwells apart, until the burden of his mind shall
have acquired substance and form, and is ready for its birth
into a hostile and envious world. This is a law from which
there is no escape, except perhaps for the revolutionist whose
dangerous purpose masks itself under the guise of an ironic
loyalty to the conventions which it is self-pledged to destroy.

Evidence of this primary need abounds in the biographies
of the majority of our examples of the intellectual and ethico-
religious types. Of Bacon, Macaulay records how " iu his
magnificent grounds " (at Gorhambury, I presume) " he
erected, at a cost of £10,000, a retreat to which he repaired
when he wished to avoid all visitors and to devote himself
wholly to study. On such occasions a few young men of
distinguished talents were sometimes the companions of his
retirement." The love of solitude is by no means incompatible
with an appreciation of congenial society. At York House
and^Gorhambury, Bacon gathered round him the choicest
spirits of his time — Ben Jonson, Fulke Greville, Sir H. Wotton,
Sir T. Bodley, Launcelot Andrews, Toby Matthews, among
others. For his chosen band of young enthusiasts he no
doubt provided experimental work bearing on the subjects
of his various inquiries.

William Harvey carried his love of solitude to the whimsical
extreme of having caves excavated in his grounds at Combe
for summer meditation. To obviate the distracting effects of
the perception of surrounding objects, he loved to sit in com-

3io MAKERS OF MAN

plete darkness. In his latter years he lived a recluse life,
devoting himself to the completion of his Treatise on Develop-
ment, and finding much joy in the absence of external cares and
responsibilities. " This life of obscurity, this vacation from
public business, has proved a sovereign remedy for me."

Of the strange personality of Descartes, one of the out-
standing traits is his deliberate advocacy and practice of sheer
physical indolence as a favouring condition of intellectual
production. He slept much, and habitually spent the forenoon
in bed. How, at a critical moment in his mental development,
he shut himself up all day in a warm room, and remained there
alone until he had mapped out the scheme of his lifework, has
already been related.

Of Spinoza, it is on record that he once kept the house for
a continuous period of three months. Time was nothing to
him, who lived in and for eternity.

The intense inner life of Newton often rendered him oblivious
of his surroundings. He often forgot his meals, would be quite
unable to say whether he had dined or not, and quite indifferent
He would sit for hours on his bed, forgetting to dress, plunged
in some abstruse mathematical problem.

Kant, methodical in all things, did not forget to provide
for the need of solitary meditation. " Rising, coffee-drinking,
writing, collegiate lectures, dining, walking — each " as Heine
observes, " had its set time. And when Immanuel Kant, in his
grey coat, cane in hand, appeared at the door of his house, and
strolled towards the small linden avenue, which is still called
' the Philosopher's Walk,' the neighbours knew it was exactly
half -past four." On his return, Kant would sit by the stove in
his room, gazing through the window towards Lobenicht church
tower. This was his time for meditation ; and it is told of him,
that when some poplars, growing in a neighbour's garden,
grew so tall as to obstruct his view of the church tower, Kant
found his train of thought so deranged by the new conditions
that he knew no peace until he had persuaded the owner to cut
away the offending summits.

When I speak of solitude, I do not wish to be understood
in a formal sense — as if one could not be alone in the midst

POWER IN THE CRUCIBLE 311

of a crowd. Hegel, during the two years (an. set. 46-48) when
he was engaged on that general outline of his philosophy known
as the Encyclopedia, became " so intensely concentrated on the
effort of applying his principles to nature and history as some-
times to lose all sense of external things. His students thought
him idle, because they used to see him standing for hours at
his window, looking out on the misty hills and woods of Heidel-
berg ; and it is related that on one occasion, as he was walking
to the university, after a heavy rain, he left a shoe in the mud
without being conscious of the loss."

Bacon in his pavilion, Harvey in his cave, Descartes in
bed, Spinoza in his humble apartment, Newton oblivious of the
dinner bell, Kant sitting pensive by the stove, Hegel in the
mud — a quaint company, truly ! So the great game is played,
whose issue is the future of Humanity ; so the immortal thought
struggles painfully to the birth, and Wisdom is justified of
her children. The artist, when he betakes himself to solitude,
becomes a dreamer, passively awaiting inspiration, as Danae
awaited the golden shower which made her the mother of
Perseus. The more virile genius of the philosopher manifests
itself in voluntary co-operation with spontaneous formative
impulse. He does not passively await the advent of the god —
but goes forth to meet, and, if need be, to compel him. And,
lastly, to the religious founder, to him whose province is the
will — first his own will, then that of his fellows — the withdrawal
into the desert is the preliminary to his hardest and most
portentous conflict — the conflict with his own perverse instincts
and his own ambition. " Other men of genius are born good,
the religious founder acquires goodness " — conquers it, rather,
by deliberate, self-conscious, above all solitary, effort. The
idea of his vocation, in the hour of its inception, is too over-
whelming to be shared even with his best-beloved and most
trustworthy confidant. He, himself, cannot at first fully grasp
or even confidently entertain its fatal significance. It upsets
all his own cherished standards, flouts all his dearest hopes,
mocks all his most sacred ideals. In the desert Jesus dies,
self-slain, and the Christ, self-wrought, rises, or will arise ere
long, phoenix-like, from his ashes. Nor are such victories, once

3i2 MAKERS OF MAN

won, secure and inviolate possessions of the spirit. Ever and
anon the old Adam stirs in his grave : life was not extinct,
after all — it has been a case of premature burial. Long nights
must be spent alone on the mountains, wrestling with the
adversary, compelling the weary spirit to persevere in its
thankless task, inciting its rebellious eyes to the tragic forecast
of inevitable doom. Alone at the last in Gethsemane, while
fair-weather friends are sleeping unconcerned, the last battle
is fought and won, the loathing of instinct repressed, the bitter
cup, so often drained in imagination, if not accepted, at least
not put aside. These things, if not true as to the letter — for
who can have overheard that poignant soliloquy in the garden ?
— are psychologically consistent, even typical imaginations,
confirmed therefore by what we know of analogous crises in the
lives of other ethico -religious pioneers.

St. Augustine, before he took up the active duties of the
priesthood, spent three years in study and prayer at Thagaste,
living there on the modest patrimony which he had inherited,
and freely sharing its produce with a few brethren as devout
as himself. Of Gregory the Great it is recorded that " his one
consolation was the society of the monks," with whom, on his
election to the papacy, it had been his first care to replace
the lay attendants of the Lateran ; "his one pleasure was to
escape to a little oratory in the church of his own monastery
in the Coelian, and to spend a few days unknown and unnoticed
in reading and meditation." It was perhaps because Gregory
suffered so keenly from the sacrifice of his own vocation for a
recluse life, that he became the special champion of the monks
as a body, whose worth to the Church he foresaw, whose exemp-
tion from external annoyance he secured, and whose definite
status he provided for by a document issued in 601, which
might be called the Magna Charta of Monasticism. " This,"
he pathetically remarks, "is to be mainly considered, that the
constitution of minds is very different. . . . Hence it is neces-
sary that the quiet mind should not expend itself over the
exercise of immoderate labour, nor the restless worry itself
over the practice of contemplation."

But Gregory was, after all, but little the worse for the

ST. GREGORY THK GREAT.

To /ace f, 312.

POWER IN THE CRUCIBLE 313

denial by destiny of his desire to devote himself to a life of
pure contemplation. He was not a great thinker, or a strikingly
original force in the sphere of abstract religion. He was a
great ecclesiastical statesman, constructive rather than creative.
His work was invaluable to the Church in her medieval capacity
of cosmopolitan humanising and regulative organisation.
He strengthened her, broadened her, recalled her to forgotten
ideals, but he added nothing new to her doctrinal or social
aims.

For an adequate conception of solitude as a source of power,
we must turn to the lives of such originators as Mahomet and
St. Francis d'Assisi. Of the former I have already related
how, at the age of forty, on the eve of the great undertaking
to which he felt himself urged by his detestation of idolatry,
he gradually withdrew himself from society, spending days
and nights in uninterrupted prayer and meditation in a cavern
on Mount Hara. The analogy with the Gospel narrative
of the withdrawal of Christ into the wilderness is here obvious
and striking. But whereas Jesus is tempted by the devil to
make worldly power and prestige the objectives of his genius,
Mahomet, in his ecstatic trance, receives a visitation from the
archangel Gabriel. Are such visitations to be dismissed as
the self-hallucinatory dramatisations of intense and prolonged
meditation ? Are we, on the other hand, justified in enter-
taining the possibility of some objective basis of these mysteri-
ous manifestations ? I, for one, am disinclined to commit
myself to any dogmatic decision. In the period following this
" annunciation," Mahomet, formerly so genial and debonair,
became worn and haggard, and more and more subject to fits
of abstraction. Some ten years later, when, after expulsion
from Tayef, Mahomet had taken refuge in the desert, he, while
reading the Koran l after his evening prayer in a solitary place,
was overheard by a company of passing Genii, who, having
paused awhile to listen, expressed their belief in the doctrine.
Shortly after this occurred the famous night- journey to Jeru-
salem, and thence to the Seventh Heaven.

And St. Francis d'Assisi ; is it possible to overstate the

1 Reciting it, perhaps, for it is doubtful if he knew how to read.

314 MAKERS OF MAN

significance of his many withdrawals into the mysterious depths
of his pure and ardent spirit ? Poverty herself seems to hold
a less vital relation to the needs of its aspiring passion. The
long hours spent in a cave near Assisi at the time of his con-
version, in prayer and weeping, produced a profound change
in his nature and demeanour, just as was the case with Mahomet.
He became possessed by a spirit of passionate charity ; once
on meeting a leper, hardly human in his disfigurement, he kissed
the bloated hand which he afterwards filled with money. The
need of solitary meditation henceforth battled in his mind
with that call to evangelical work which could not long be
resisted. Tradition states that he practised nine times a year
a Lenten fast and meditation. He is reputed to have sub-
sisted for forty days on a single loaf of bread, alone on an island
in Lake Thrasymene. Characteristically, he refused to make
his abstinence complete, lest comparisons might be invited
with the fast of his Lord in the wilderness. The donation to
his Order by Abbot Maccabeo of the caves of the Carceri,
situated among rocks overhanging a lonely gorge, provided
an ideal place of retreat when occasion offered. Another
such was on Monte Alverno, an isolated peak in the Casentino,
given in 1213 by Count Orlando. Thither it was that he re-
paired in 1224 (set. 43) for that supreme vigil, where, after
weeks of unremitting prayer and fasting, he had a vision of
Christ crucified, signifying acceptance of his passion. " When
the vision faded, he found upon hands and feet and side the
marks of the Lord's body. From a wound on his right side
oozed a few drops of blood, and through his hands and feet
were black fleshy growths, resembling nails, piercing from
side to side." l Truly, in the language of the Fioretti, " so
much did the fervour of devotion increase in him, that he
altogether transformed himself into Jesus through love and
pity."

Luther, except perhaps in the days of his early manhood,

1 Renan suggests that the marks of the stigmata were imprinted by Friar
Elias on the dead body of St. Francis, of which he had the disposition during a
whole night. A popular tumult followed the refusal of Elias to allow the
multitude to view the body.

MAHOMET.

To face p. 314.

POWER IN THE CRUCIBLE 315

following his conversion, and except during the period of his
enforced seclusion in the Wartburg, where he was tormented
by diabolical manifestations— strange rumblings in a chest,
falling sounds on the stairs, a black dog in his bed — seems
to have felt no habitual need of solitude. But, at table, he
often became abstracted, plunged in deep and anxious thought,
and would sometimes keep a cloister-like silence throughout
the meal. Once the spell of silence was broken, conversation
flowed freely, even merrily, enough.

Emerson, all his life long, was a lover of solitude, which
he courted mainly in the form of rambles through unfrequented
woodlands. He describes with gusto how, on a cloudy June
day, he would put on his oldest clothes and hat, "slink away to
the whortleberry bushes, and slip with the greatest satisfaction
into a little cow-path," where he could " defy observation."
Thus the seer deliberately " hunted thoughts," as lesser men
hunt game in the forest.

XI

POWER IN THE CRUCIBLE— Continued
II — WOMAN

Classification of sexual types — Ambiguities — Need of detachment — Woman
in relation to man's ideals — Sexual versatility of genius — Examples — The
higher monogamy.

No investigation of the types of human greatness could be in any
way^satisfactory — it is futile to talk of " completeness " in such a
connection — which ignored the great question of their sexual
proclivities. In no other manifestation of temperament or
character are more significant glimpses to be obtained of the
fundamental spiritual attitude towards life and its responsi-
bilities, whose diagnosis is the ultimate desideratum of ethological
scrutiny. A man's conception of womanhood in general, and of
his relation thereto, is one of the main expressions, perhaps the
main expression of his general instinctive bias : it colours for
good or evil his entire emotional and intellectual being, and
largely determines his rank in the scale of spiritual values.
" To be mistaken in the fundamental problem of ' man and
woman,' " exclaims Nietzsche, " to deny here the profoundest
antagonism and the necessity for an eternally hostile tension
. . . that is a typical sign of shallowmindedness ; and a thinker
who has proved himself shallow at this dangerous spot — shallow
in instinct ! — may generally be regarded as suspicious, nay more,
as betrayed, as discovered." It is here, however, a question
of mere opinion, of theories about womanhood, whereas I am
concerned with a still more momentous matter, with conduct in
relation to women. But by way of indicating a point of view

which underlies much that will be said in the ensuing chapter,

316

ST. FRANCIS OK ASSISI.
l-'ront a statue by Manuel Fu.ra.

To/ace /. 316.

POWER IN THE CRUCIBLE

317

I will venture another and a kindred quotation. " Marriage,"
wisely remarks R.L.S., " is like life in this — that it is a field of
battle, and not a bed of roses."

Roughly speaking, men may be divided into three great
classes : —

(1) Monogamists, (2) Polygamists, and (3) Celibates;
and, by way of preliminary to our discussion, I propose, therefore,
to divide the subjects of our present investigation into these
primary groups. But the titles must be understood as applied
in a physiological and psychological, not in the mere legal sense.
And, even so, the classification is, at best, merely provisional.
Ambiguities and perplexities meet us on the threshold: Beethoven,
for example, since he never married (at least in the legal sense),
I have classed among the celibates. But he was always in love ;
he loved many women, and might with great show of propriety
be classed as a (spiritual) polygamist. Such nuances I intend for
the present, of set purpose, to ignore, but they should not be
forgotten. Here, then, is our provisional classification : —

I. Monogamists.

(a) William the Silent
Drake
Cromwell
Lincoln

(a) Caesar

Charlemagne

Napoleon

Nelson

(6) Cervantes
Mozart
Scott

(c) Bacon
Galileo
Harvey
Hegel
Darwin

II. Polygamists.

(b) Dante
Titian (?)
Goethe (?)
Turner

III. Celibates.

(a) Richelieu (b) Leonardo (c) Descartes

Frederick the Great (?) Beethoven (?) Spinoza
Flaubert (?) Newton
Leibnitz
Kant

(d) M. Aurelius
Luther

Kenan
Emerson

(d) Augustine (?)
Mahomet

(d) Jesus
Paul(?)
Gregory
Francis

The following points are to be observed as justifying or qualifying
certain items in the above category. William of Orange was
four times married, and his second wife, Anne of Saxony, was still

3i8 MAKERS OF MAN

living when he married Charlotte of Bourbon. Apart, however,
from the fact that she had long before deserted him and con-
tracted an illicit alliance with John Rubens in Cologne, Anne
was now, and had for some years been, insane. To his brother
John, William wrote justifying his new marriage, not on the
ground of legal technicalities, for which, however, he did not
neglect to provide, but on that of substantial right and wrong.
William of Orange was essentially of the domesticated or constant
type. Goethe, on the other hand, was essentially fickle : I
therefore, since he was no celibate, place him among the poly-
gamists, of which decision he would himself have been the last
to complain. Augustine claims to have been faithful to the bed
of the mistress by whom he was the father of Adeodatus, but the
promptitude with which he supplied her place on her departure
from Italy, and the general indications of sexual irregularities in
the accounts given of his youth, must be taken into consideration.
One might say that he passed through all three stages, beginning
as a polygamist, and ending, of course, as a celibate. The
celibacy of Frederick the Great is to be taken cum grano, no
doubt, but it is undeniable that he was but slightly attracted to,
rather was, upon the whole, distinctly repelled by women. And
it seems clear that his marriage was never consummated, no doubt
for sufficient reasons. The fact that Flaubert corresponded
with a married woman for eight years, and that he had, during his
visits to Paris, frequent opportunities for intimacy, does not, in
my opinion, vitiate the conclusion that the affair was, on his side,
essentially Platonic. Among the many strange contrasts in
Flaubert's character, his intimate friends noted the voluptuous-
ness of his imagination and the purity of his life. From first to
last his pleasures were entirely literary. I include among the
celibates one man, Descartes, who was the father of an illegiti-
mate daughter. With regard to the liaison of which the short-
lived Francine's birth was the result, Descartes preserves an
absolute reticence, and it can safely be regarded as a mere episode
in his career.

Some rather interesting conclusions may be drawn from an
examination of this table of sexual proclivities. Three-fourths
of the whole number of our great men are included in one or

POWER IN THE CRUCIBLE 319

other of the two largest and nearly equal groups, viz. Mono-
gamists (16) and Celibates (14). The remaining one-fourth
belong to the Polygamous category. Among the domesticated
or monogamous group all types are well represented, but with
a slight excess of the intellectual and a deficiency of the aesthetic
temperaments. All types are also to be found among the celi-
bates, but, here, while men of action and men of aesthetic
temperament are in a minority, the'intellectual and the ethico-
religious type are both to the fore. The most striking fact with
regard to the polygamists or free-lovers is the entire absence of
names belonging to the class of scientific discoverers or philo-
sophers, and the equal predominance of men of action and
members of the aesthetic class.

If now we consider in order the sexual proclivities of our
four types^of greatness, we find the following indications :—

(1) Men of Action tend to monogamy or promiscuity in
about equal proportion ; a few may be celibate.

(2) Poets, Artists, and Composers are found in all
groups ; there is a slight preponderance of the tendency to free
love.

(3) Scientific Discoverers or Philosophers, considered to-
gether, are equally disposed towards monogamy and celibacy ;
the tendency to promiscuity is absent among my examples.

(4) The Ethical and Religious Reformers are equally dis-
posed to monogamy and celibacy ; a few are polygamous.

Perhaps we shall not be far from the truth if we regard
monogamy as a common characteristic of men of every type
of ability, celibacy as the speciality of Intellectuals and Re-
formers, and mental or physical promiscuity as that of Men
of Action and Artists.

The first step to be taken in the investigation upon which
we are now embarking, that of masculine genius in its relation
to Woman, is the clearing of our minds of cant, the renunciation
of catchwords and " moral " preconceptions. I refer to such
terms as " inonogamic ideal," " marriage as a sacrament,"
" the sanctity of wedlock," " the insanity of asceticism," and
a host of others. Such question-begging is as much out of
court here as the angry bigotry with which Nietzsche, by his

320 MAKERS OF MAN

mere ipse dixi, strives to reinstate what he is pleased to call
the " Oriental " view of the necessary subjection of woman,
as the sole tenable view of a reasoning being. " Two things
are wanted by the true man," cries his Zarathustra : " danger
and play. Therefore he seeketh woman as the most dangerous
toy." And the sage on his way to visit one of her fair sisters
is adjured by the little old woman to " remember his whip."
All very well : very picturesque, and very German ; but
Science accepts nothing on faith, not even the eternal fitness
of wife-beating, any more than the self-evident supremacy of
the " monogamic ideal."

Let us, on the contrary, " conceive it possible " that our
" good and just " moralists may be mistaken ; that the ultimate
goal of progress may be something far other than they have so
obligingly staked out in advance for our accommodation ; that
there may be not one, but several, " highest " types of morality ;
and that it may be a fatal error to confide that a good time
is coming when men (and women) of the most various and
antithetical temperaments and capacities will obligingly
conform to one single stereotyped regime of " the fair and
the fit." That our standard for the appraisement of the
conflicting ideals must be ultimately an ethical and psycho-
logical, and, above all, a social standard, may readily be admitted.
Mere personal satisfaction does not carry us very far towards
the justification of what appear on other grounds to be sexual
vagaries and aberrations. We rightly demand also to know
where we come in ; how we and our posterity are to be affected
by the concession of what, prima facie, we consider extravagant
demands. But we are not therefore absolved from the obliga-
tion of duly weighing and considering these demands, and,
in the absence of precise and verifiable counter-indications,
conceding their validity. We must, I repeat, " conceive it
possible " that, in our fine zeal for the " Cause of Kighteous-
ness," our hasty repudiation of the unfamiliar, our holy horror
of the crude unsanctioned fact, we — " may be mistaken." Let
us recall the sanity of Luther, who, in renouncing the vows
which constrained him to a continence for which he knew
himself unfitted, abstained from condemning the celibacy of

POWER IN THE CRUCIBLE 321

those who " had the gift." All ethical ideals are ultimately
traceable to the precepts and examples of what the world
has agreed to regard as pre-eminent individuals, in so far, at
least, as they are not mere products of social expediency and
use and wont. In considering the sexual relations of those
of our great men whose lives, in this respect, seem specially
significant, I shall, so far as possible, avoid criticism of their
fundamental marital or unmarital tendency, merely calling
attention to the particulars in which they conformed or failed
to conform to its implicit requirements.

Into the question of the fertility of the marital unions of
great men as compared with those of undistinguished in-
dividuals, I do not propose to enter, as it is a matter of physio-
logical rather than psychological interest. We have, however,
in the course of the present work, incidentally come upon
facts decidedly suggestive of the relative sterility of genius.
And, as bearing on this point, I will call attention to the
interesting fact that William the Silent and Oliver Cromwell,
who, in my opinion, were great rather by a magnification and
intensification of the normal capacities of ordinary law-abiding
citizen?, than in the unique and qualitative way which we
associate with genius properly so called, both showed in their
domestic life an entire absence of the strange or aberrant.
William was married four times, first at the age of eighteen,
and last at that of fifty. Cromwell was married once, at
twenty-one, and for the thirty-eight years of his married life
was all that a loving husband and father could be. Each was
the progenitor of a fairly numerous family of healthy children ;
and this, I consider, strongly confirms my diagnosis of the
quantitative rather than qualitative nature of their distinction.
Contrast the relative barrenness of the unions of Caesar, Lincoln,
Goethe, and Napoleon — all men of temperamental genius.
Scott, again, a man of prodigious talent, but essentially com-
monplace in most respects, was of the domesticated type, and
was the father of two sons and two daughters. The most
romantic feature of Sir Waltei's career was his lifelong devotion
to the memory of his first love, whom he did not marry — a
flame that was never quenched. To the end of his life, he said,
21

322 MAKERS OF MAN

he always dreamed of his lady of the green mantle before any
great misfortune.

But, for our purpose, the point of most importance is the
effect of their married life upon the character and, through that,
the work of great men. It is in this aspect that the married
state (and, in fact, all sexual relations, also) justifies the phrase
of Stevenson, when he calls it a " field of battle, and not a bed
of roses." William of Orange, when, after two years' higgling,
he won the hand of Anne of Saxony, whom, when he proposed
the alliance, he had not as much as beheld, no doubt accounted
himself lucky in securing the alliance of her father, Duke
Maurice, the great Lutheran chief, who had shaken the very
throne of the Emperor Charles v. The woman herself was
evidently, in his view, a negligible factor. Such simplicity met
with its appropriate reward. Anne was proud, sensual, jealous,
and intensely selfish. A Nassau, in her opinion, was more
fit to be her domestic than her husband. The Imperial pomp
of their wedding at Leipsic — five thousand guests were enter-
tained thereat — was no doubt congenial ; but imagine the
bitterness with which this haughty girl realised that she had
married a man essentially indifferent to all that she prized
most, insanely bent on the pursuit of ideals that must ruin his
worldly career and her own position. In his dark hour she
abandoned him ruthlessly, never to return. Fortunate for his
cause and for him, since the love of such women is by far more
dangerous to heroic souls than their scorn or their hatred.
The demoralisation of a demigod becomes intelligible when we
learn that destiny has united him to a worldling and a scold.
Socrates appears to have been proof against at least one term
of the combination (they are seldom unallied, however), which
accounts perhaps for his ability to drink the young bloods of
Athens under the table. I will, however, venture the asser-
tion that in every woman worth her salt there is somewhere
hidden a worldling and a scold. It is a question of degrees :
tenderness may be veiled, but must not be eclipsed. Men are
such inveterate dreamers, such ghost-hunters, that they need to
be anchored to mother Earth and to Nature. The wife who
cannot scold is defenceless ; her intuitions will be ignored and

POWER IN THE CRUCIBLE 323

her tenderness undervalued. Thus Cromwell ignored his meek
wife, so far, that is, as his public work was concerned, turning
for counsel to his mother, a dame of shrewd sense and mettle.
The fact is — and it must not be blinked — that it is not to the
wife of his bosom that a man usually looks for sympathy with,
and encouragement of, his inmost cherished purpose. Enough
if she learn to respect it, or even to tolerate it, as an irremov-
able rival of her own claim on his allegiance. Too often she
succeeds in her querulous insistence upon its abandonment,
her demand that she and her happiness be not sacrificed to
the dreams of an egoist, that he devote himself exclusively
tc the enhancement of his (read her) prestige and prosperity.
The duel of the sexes takes largely the form of a mutual desire
of each for the exploitation of the other. A man is often the
gainer by the leaven of worldliness instilled into his aims by
importunate femininity. But woe to him who yields one jot
in essentials, who surrenders his manhood, becomes the mere
hodman of a servile expediency. His reward will be the in-
evitable contempt of the instrument of his downfall. A woman
expects to find in man something inflexible, something proof
against the assaults of her own lower nature. Ruthless in act
— for she knows nothing of chivalry — in her inmost heart she
does homage to integrity. She will try it to the utmost, will
destroy it if it prove destructible ; then, like a child who has
wantonly eviscerated her doll, will bemoan her loss, and bemock
the cause of her disillusionment. The man is henceforth her
slave, and she will prove a relentless taskmistress. For she
pities only where she loves, and love and contempt cannot
live together.

It is the pathos rather than the dignity of high effort that
appeals to the best in woman. On the heels of a mood of
ruthless recrimination, when every word has been steeped in
gall and venom, there comes a sudden perplexing change. A
glimpse of the weary droop in the shoulders of her departing
victim induces tears of maternal, of divine compunction. The
transition from devil to angel is for woman the work of an
instant. Paradox incarnate : the infliction of unendurable
pain is often her veiled tribute to qualities beyond her compre-

324 MAKERS OF MAN

hension but not beyond her worship, is often the prelude to her
most entrancing mood.

It must not, however, be imagined that I would imply on
the part of women an inability to appreciate, or to sympathise
with, ideal aims. In all relations between men and women,
even those of mother and son, of brother and sister, or of father
and daughter, the subtle pervasive sex-element certainly plays
its part. On the other hand, women, as individuals, differ as
infinitely as men, and in no respect more than in susceptibility
and responsiveness to the appeal of noble emotions and exalted
thoughts. Full comprehension may often be lacking, yet by
intuitive appreciation the void is so adequately filled that the
seeker for sympathy and encouragement has no sense of mis-
understanding or constraint in the communication of his
intent. It is only where, as between husband and wife, the
inevitable conflict of interests, the suspicion of rivalry, the fear
of committing herself to the unconditional approval of aims
prejudicial to her own dignity or comfort, intervene, that woman
shows herself slow to entertain, or at least to embrace, ideas
full of menace to conventional usage. So we often find men
of great and audacious aims turning now to this, now to that
woman, culling from each some needful stimulus of appreciation
and applause. That such appreciation is never wholly feigned
would be too much to say ; it is, however, oftener, in part, not
seldom wholly, sincere. It seems to be admitted by those best
qualified to judge, that Lady Nelson, good woman that she was,
failed utterly to identify herself with the enthusiastic side
of her husband's temperament. She was always warning him
against imprudence, boring him by her importunate anxieties.
In fact she was a wet blanket where the things that lay nearest
to his heart were concerned. This was a fatal error, and it
supplied an opportunity of which her successful rival, Emma
Hamilton, availed herself, so to speak, with both hands.
Where Lady Nelson had been cold and reticent, she was effusive,
nay gushing. She shamelessly pampered and fostered Nelson's
vanity, corrupted his taste by incessant flattery, exploited his
renown, and, so far as in her lay, profaned it by making her hero
ridiculous. " That she ever loved him is doubtful," writes

POWER IN THE CRUCIBLE 325

Mahan : " but there were in her spirit impulses capable of
sympathetic response to his own in his bravest acts, though
not in his noblest motives. It is inconceivable that duty ever
appealed to her as it did to him, nor could a woman of innate
nobility of character have dragged a man of Nelson's masculine
renown about England and the Continent till he was the mock
of all beholders ; but, on the other hand, it never could
have occurred to the energetic, courageous, brilliant Lady
Hamilton, after the lofty deeds and stormy dramatic scenes
of St. Vincent, to beg him, as Lady Nelson did, ' to leave
boarding to captains.' Sympathy, not good taste, would have
withheld her."

I shall have much exceeded my aim, if in what has been
said above I have conveyed the impression that feminine sym-
pathy with masculine ambition or aspiration is in all cases to
be regarded as a mere sex-lure, a masked weapon in the eternal
duel of sex. It is often that exclusively or in great measure,
as in the case of Lady Hamilton is obvious enough — but it is
often, too, something more genuine and valuable. Our Scan-
dinavian ancestors, we are told, never undertook any military
enterprise of moment without the express approval of their
womankind. They knew well the truth — re-stated by that by
no means partial critic, Otto Weininger — that no woman, not
even the stupidest, can be so dull as, on occasion, the cleverest
man can be. The counsel of woman, when she restricts herself
to counsel and does not seek to dictate, is always worth having
and weighing with care. Here I would call special attention
to the important part played in the lives of great men, par-
ticularly men of action, by their mothers or by other women
of more advanced age than the heroes themselves. Caesar,
Charlemagne, William the Silent, Cromwell, Napoleon — all
men of extraordinary independence and force of character —
were all influenced probably more by their mothers (in what
concerned their public life and aims) than by any other woman
with whom they had to do. The case of Augustine also deserves
mention : his great work for the Church is a debt which she
owes mainly to the patience and tact of Monica. If any one
ever influenced Lincoln, which one biographer denies, it was his

326 MAKERS OF MAN

dearly loved stepmother. Mahomet's first wife, Cadijah, was
so much his senior that there must have been an almost maternal
quality in her love for the prophet. It should never be forgotten
that she, from the first, accepted as genuine the divine mission
which others derided and spurned. In this, moreover, she was
acting in direct opposition to her own material and social
interests as a woman of wealth and position. In view of such
facts it is idle to deny that there are women capable of tran-
scending the personal view and venturing their little all in the
cause which they feel to be worthy of such self-sacrifice. It is
perhaps truer to say that they embrace the cause for the sake
of the man they love, and who loves it, than that they love
the cause for its own abstract beauty or greatness, though of
these they may be fully sensible, nevertheless. And I do not
question that the urgent need of capturing or retaining the first
place in the hero's confidence and affection stimulates their
perception of the excellency of the cause which lies nearest to
his heart.

Still, it remains true, upon the whole, that a woman whose
happiness and prosperity are directly dependent upon those of
her husband will, however sympathetic she may have been at
the outset — that is, before she had realised her personal concern
in the matter — be likely to resent his absorption in ends, how-
ever exalted, tending to endanger their common prospects of
material and social success. This is an inevitable outcome of
the economic subjection of her sex, and it ill becomes us men to
complain. The wiser course is that which has been freely
practised by great men in need of that sympathy without which
the tender green shoots of endeavour can hardly survive
germination, much less grow and bear fruit. Sympathy must
be sought where it is to be found, — from the wife, if she be
magnanimous enough to transcend the personal view of the
matter in question ; if not, from whomsoever has it to give.

Many-sided men are often considered fickle because, feel-
ing, justly or^otherwise, that they have much to give, they
demand mucVof the woman to whom they are for the moment
drawn. Stirred now by sense, now^by passion, then by senti-
ment, or, it may be, intellect, each transient mood seeks response,

POWER IN THE CRUCIBLE 327

failing of which in one direction it will be sought in another.
The best a woman has to give can be won perhaps only by him
who gives unreservedly what is best in himself. But suppose
that this best is not at his own disposal — is already irretriev-
ably dedicated to some work whose prior claim he is helpless
to silence or deny ? She may console herself like Frederica,
abandoned by Goethe, with the thought that she has been
loved by a man of genius, as such men understand and are
capable of love. And she may recall the wise maxim of La
Rochefoucauld : " On passe souvent de 1'amour a 1'ambition,
mais on ne revient guere de 1'ambition a 1'amour."

To no man does this maxim apply more obviously than to
Julius Caesar, with whom, while marriage was a means to public
advancement, the various love-affairs which, if contemporary
rumour can be trusted, he permitted himself as occasion offered,
were never allowed to rank higher than as mere diversions.
His heart was at all times governed by his head. Every one
has heard how, after the escapade of Clodius, who, for love
of Caesar's second wife Pompeia, gained access disguised as
a woman to the festival of the Bona Dea in his palace, he
divorced her, not as being guilty but because "Caesar's wife
must be above suspicion." For such a man to have divorced
any woman on moral grounds would have been hypocritical ;
Caesar was never censorious, but he knew that public opinion
is both censorious and hypocritical. Public opinion must
therefore be conciliated, and Pompeia must go. With regard
to the alleged intrigue of Caesar with Cleopatra, the verdict
must, I think, be one of " not proven." Caesar's ward and
successor Augustus executed Caesarion, the supposed son of
Caesar and Cleopatra, as a pretender, which, though not con-
clusive, would have been a bold step to take if the said parent-
age had been widely accepted. Caesar's position in Egypt at
the time when the liaison is asserted to have been begun, was
too precarious to offer any favourable opportunity for phil-
andering, even if we grant the likelihood that such a man would
stultify himself by needless complication of sufficiently grave
responsibilities, would thus vitiate his endeavour to settle the
affairs of Egypt by a dangerous and undignified self-indulgence.

328 MAKERS OF MAN

Towards the end of his life, Caesar adopted in Rome, probably
under the influence of his mother, a regimen of almost ascetic
simplicity, and showed evident concern for the general reform
of morals. The fact that Cleopatra was now in the city lends,
therefore, small support to the belief in the prior existence or
continuance of any such connection. What freedom Caesar, in
common with most men of his day, allowed himself, was, in short,
so far as might be, a thing apart from his national aims and
activities. Men who achieve supreme distinction and full
contemporary recognition, being almost always, too, personalities
essentially magnetic and compelling, exercise a sort of glamorous
fascination upon the senses and minds of susceptible people, and
especially those of women. The same thing, on a lower plane,
takes place in connection with popular actors, who are invari-
ably besieged with amorous lucubrations penned by senti-
mental schoolgirls, and not by schoolgirls only. Glory of any
land or degree, even that of a murderer or a brigand, is a flame
into which numbers of silly moths will flutter in a perfect frenzy
of self-immolation. Who can doubt that Caesar in his day
turned a deaf ear to many unsought protestations and solicita-
tions ? and if, now and then, a more than usually enticing
voice won him to a transient regard of the fair but frail
suppliant, what man among us dares cast the first stone ?
A libertine sleeps (or wakes) in the heart of each one of us ;
and not only those women who openly profess the most
ancient of callings (nor all of them, for that matter) are born
courtesans.

" Verum operi longo fas est obrepere somnum." If even
Homer may nod, shall Hercules be denied a rest by the way-
side ? If so, who will enforce the restriction ?

The first recorded love-affair of Charlemagne was the contrac-
tion of a left-handed union with Himiltrude, by whom he be-
came the father of Pepin the Hunchback. This illegitimate
son was in due course to prove a thorn in the side of his father.
In 800 A.D. he joined in the conspiracy of certain Frankish
magnates against the throne. The plot was discovered in time,
and, though Pepin's life was spared, he was forced to take the
tonsure. Two years after his accession, Charles (set. 27) married

POWER IN THE CRUCIBLE 329

Desiderata, daughter of Didier, King of Lombardy. This
purely political union was, for somewhat unintelligible reasons,
arranged for him by his mother, Queen Bertha. It had proved
highly objectionable to Pope Stephen, who regarded Charles
as a promising ally, and desired above all things the total de-
struction of the Lombard nation. He had accordingly denounced
the proposed union in the most violent fashion. Charles, for
his part, soon wearied of the sickly and barren Desiderata, and,
to the intense vexation of his mother, divorced her in the year
following his marriage, and at once took to wife the lovely
Swabian, Hildegarde, a mere child. We are told that several
of his kinsmen reproached Charles to his face for his brutal
faithlessness. This was nevertheless by far the most successful
of Charlemagne's many unions. There can be no doubt that
he loved Hildegarde sincerely, and that, during the twelve years
of her married life, her influence upon him was in many ways
good. After her death, and that of the Queen Mother soon
after, there is a noticeable deterioration of morale, a growing
tendency to yield to the gross and brutal elements of his powerful
nature. His third (official) wife, Fastrada, the widowed
daughter of an Austrasian Count, was as much detested by his
subjects as Hildegarde had been beloved. Two conspiracies
against the throne and life of Charles seem to be attributable,
in the main, either to the harshness of her own actions or to
severities induced by her influence upon him. " Fastrada
brought to Court the rancorous feuds and savage hatreds of her
homeland ; her husband indulged her thirst for vengeance,
and paid dearly for doing so." She died about ten years after
their marriage, and Charles, now aged fifty-one, soon replaced
her by marrying Liutgard, a gentler and consequently more
popular queen. In addition to these four legal unions and
the irregular connection with Himiltrude, Charles, at various
periods of his career, contracted a good many of what his clerical
admirers call "" marriages of the second rank." Among his
mistresses, Eginhard mentions Gersuinda, Regina, and Adelinda,
by all of whom he had children in his old age. For political
reasons Charlemagne forbade his daughters to marry. In
compensation, perhaps, he connived at their irregularities :

33o MAKERS OF MAN

they shared his palace, and their various lovers were enter-
tained without let or hindrance. The fact must be faced that
Charlemagne was, to all intents, a free lover, and not by any
means in the best sense of the words. Every man has the
defects of his qualities ; and the same superabundant virility
and impetuous, overbearing spirit which enabled him to master
and coerce into at least provisional unity the chaotic turbulence
of his Europe, made Charlemagne in one sense a loose liver,
giving free rein to his lust.

Everybody knows the story of how little Eugene Beau-
harnais came to ^General Bonaparte requesting, on behalf of
his mother, Josephine, the return of the guillotined Viscount's
sword. Bonaparte, to his credit be it said, seldom failed to
avail himself of the chance to do a generous and graceful action,
where due deference was paid to his authority and no detrimental
effects on his own interests were to be feared. The sword
was duly returned, and the viscountess was not slow for her
part in coming to thank the rising man. Bonaparte had already
figured in several little affairs ; he was eighteen when he took
to his apartments a woman whom he met one night at the
entrance of the Palais Royal. Then there had been a brief
liaison with Madame Turreau, wife of an influential member
of the Convention, to whose exertions he probably owed the
momentous command of the 13th Vendemiaire. Finally (so
far as I know), there was the semi-serious betrothal to his
" little wife," Desiree-Eugenie Clara, at Marseilles, a pretty
girl of sixteen. In Paris he found women more alluring — she
had failed to seize the favourable moment; then came the
meeting with Josephine, and Desiree's chance was irretriev-
ably lost. Eager, as always, to atone, he subsequently married
her to Bernadotte, — made her the Queen of Sweden. The fact
remains that his defection had broken her heart.

Now he had received a visit of thanks from " a lady, a great
lady, a ci-devant vicomtesse, the widow of a President of the
Constituent Assembly, a courtier, a general in command of the
army of the Rhine. ;/ All of which, the title and rank, the refine-
ment, the easy and aristocratic grace of his visitor, made a great
impression upon Bonaparte. For the first time, the provincial

POWER IN THE CRUCIBLE 331

of twenty-six, hitherto unnoticed by any woman of this class,
found himself face to face with one of those elegant, seductive,
delicate beings whom he had hitherto admired from afar."
That this charmer's financial position was desperate and her
social standing equivocal, made no sort of difference. These
facts were cleverly concealed. That Josephine was six years
his senior, doubtless gave her an advantage in what was on her
side mainly a mere game of skill, and on his a matter of genuine
passion. " Captivated by the woman, he was dazzled by the
lady, awed by her air of dignity and breeding." They were
married in March of the next year (1796), two days before
Bonaparte left to join the Army of Italy. When, after exhausting
all conceivable excuses, including the encouragement of his eager
surmise that she was pregnant, Josephine at last condescended
to yield to his impassioned appeals by joining him in Milan,
she was accompanied by her lover, M. Charles, who, whenever
the General was absent, was constantly at the Palazzo Serbelloni.
It was in 1798, during the voyage from Toulon to Malta and
thence to Alexandria, that Bonaparte first showed uneasiness
with regard to his wife's reputation. " He wished to make sure ;
he questioned his friends, and they answered him." The bond
which hitherto he himself seems to have regarded as sacred, had
been broken ; the idea of divorce at once dawned upon his
mind ; and he considered himself now free to amuse him-
self as occasion offered. Josephine had only herself to thank
for the ultimate rupture : in the days of his most ardent devotion
she had but lightly esteemed the love of a hero. Worst of all,
when, profiting by the example of her own inconstancy, he too
had become inconstant, Josephine made the fatal error of
" spying upon him, and paying others to spy upon him, abasing
herself by the most unworthy devices, wearying him by stormy
scenes, tears, hysterics, confiding her suspicions to any one who
would listen, and, in default of evidence, inventing misde-
meanours which she declared she had herself witnessed and
was ready to attest on oath." She was jealous, and had not
the sense to hide it. Of her insane extravagance, of her treachery
in intriguing with her husband's bitterest enemies during his
absence in Egypt — since these, too, had been generously

332 MAKERS OF MAN

pardoned, — the least said the soonest mended. Her punish-
ment was long in coming : she fought desperately to defer
the evil day, which probably would never finally have dawned
but for her husband's full realisation of the fact that it was
not his love that she valued, but the splendour of the destiny
she shared.

Then, too, when the " pear " had been plucked, arose the
burning question of issue, the need of a son. Napoleon's mis-
givings with regard to his own reproductive powers (no doubt
carefully fostered by Josephine) may have been partly dis-
pelled by the birth of a child in August 1804 by Madame ,

a young lady of the Consular Court, married to a man thirty
years her senior. Of this child (though it resembled him not
at all), if the First Consul were not the father, it was doubtful
whether he could ever be the father of any. Two years later
these doubts were finally dispelled, when, on 13th December
1806, Eleonore, the divorced wife of a rascally ex-quarter-
master, gave birth to a son of whom the Emperor was the
father. Eleonore's husband having been convicted of forgery,
she had managed to gain access to the household of Princess
Caroline (Murat's wife), and, being a beautiful and graceful
brunette of a decidedly " coming on " disposition, had soon
captured Napoleon's regard, to which she had responded with
alacrity. He never saw her after 1806, but, with his invari-
able generosity, gave her a house in the Rue de la Victoire and
an income of 22,000 livres. The son, Leon, whom Napoleon
had thought seriously of adopting as his heir, had a strange
and adventurous career, and died, more or less crazy, in
1881.

Of the affaires Foures and Grassini, and of the numerous
actresses, readers, and female tuft-hunters who, self-invited,
or with the merest show of hesitation, at one time or another
were ushered up the secret staircase at the Tuileries, or into
the secret suite at the Chateau de Compiegne, I shall, since
this is no chronique scandaleuse, but a sober, psychological
inquiry, content myself with the mere mention. Such dalli-
ance he himself described as " amusements in which my affec-
tions have no part." The majority of these episodes fall

POWER IN THE CRUCIBLE 333

between 1800 and 1810, that is, between his thirty-first and
forty-first years.

There was nothing truly conjugal in the relations of Napoleon
and Josephine. She was, at best, a favoured and very costly
mistress ; if he had ever dreamed that she had sympathy,
inspiration, to offer, he was quickly disillusioned. The woman
whom Napoleon loved best, most disinterestedly, who, more-
over, appealed to the highest as well as the most romantic
side of his nature, was, I think, she whom he wronged most
deeply — I refer, of course, to that fair Polish enthusiast,
Marie Walewska. The fault that she condoned, it is not for
us to judge harshly ; but Masson's account of the ruthless
pressure, the campaign of insincere promises and unscrupulous
machinations by which her patriotism was turned to account
against her chastity and religion, must always be painful
reading to admirers of the Corsican. The son whom she bore
to him in 1810 proved worthy of his exalted parentage. That
she became in some degree reconciled to her strange destiny,
came to feel at least a genuine affection for the man who had
rather conquered than seduced her, is, I consider, fairly evident.
She awaited the summons that never came, in an anteroom
at Fontainebleau, all through that night when the Emperor,
after abdicating, had attempted suicide by poison. She visited
him with her son in Elba, and spent an idyllic day there in
the Hermitage of La Marciana. She hastened to Paris in 1815
to welcome him on his escape from exile, and was " conspicuous
among those women whose devotion survived his happier
fortunes, and who gathered round him at the Elysee and at
Malmaison."

It was shortly before the birth of Marie Walewska's son
that Napoleon at last resolved upon severing the tie with
Josephine and taking a princess to wife. " Anxious to save
himself and Josephine useless emotion, and to secure himself
against further hesitation and weakness, he sent orders from
Schonbrunn to the architect at Fontainebleau, that the com-
munication between the Empress's apartments and his own
should be closed." Finally, " he arranged for a private inter-
view, in which he announced his resolution to the Empress."

334 MAKERS OF MAN

Her debts were paid, her title was secured to her ; a town and
country residence and a hunting-box were placed at her disposal ;
she was granted an income of three million francs. In every
possible way he laboured to prove that in putting her from him
he was coerced by public motives and acting in violation of
his personal feelings. " My destiny," he had told her, " is
superior to my will ; my dearest affections must give way to
the interests of France."

Of Marie Louise, Madame Durand says : " No woman could
have suited Napoleon better. Gentle, peaceable, a stranger to
every kind of intrigue, . . . she soon came to regard Napoleon
with the most tender affection." She was a mere ignorant
child, of whom, by the way, availing himself of the marriage by
proxy, Napoleon had unceremoniously possessed himself before
the final ceremony, on the very night of their arrival at Com-
piegne. Yet she had somehow the knack of making him feel
the social gulf between them. Three months after her marriage,
in a letter to Metternich, she says : " I am not afraid of Napo-
leon, but I begin to think he is afraid of me." There can be no
doubt that he 'loved her. He was now over forty, and was
entering uponja new phase of sexual development. The
conjugal spirit possessed him : "his first care was to prove
himself a devoted husband." He altered all his habits of life,
neglecting even the most urgent military necessities in order to
remain, since she willed it, at her side. When, in March of 1811,
she was confined, the greatest danger at one time threatened
both mother and child. It seemed that Napoleon must choose
between the sacrifice of all his ambitions (by the loss of his
prospective heir) and the death of his bride. Dubois, the
doctor, pale and trembling, came to the Emperor for instruc-
tions. " Napoleon came nobly out of the hard ordeal. ' Do
exactly as you would in the house of a shopkeeper in the Rue
St. Denis. Be careful of both mother and child, but if you
cannot save both, preserve the mother's life.' '

The success of Napoleon in attaining what is vulgarly
considered the ultimate favour of so many women, affords a fine
text for those who would expound cynical doctrines with regard
to feminine virtue. For it seems clear that he was not person-

POWER IN THE CRUCIBLE 335

ally attractive to women, as a rule. It was his wealth, the
splendour of his position, the eclat of his fame, which made him
irresistible. Of these advantages he, without scruple, availed
himself, here as elsewhere, to the utmost, for, though a senti-
mentalist of the school of Rousseau, he was neither chivalrous
nor romantic. Of the fine shades of gallantry, the nuances of
deference, which women love, to which not merely their passions
but their hearts respond, he knew and cared to know nothing.
Love-making as a pursuit, the subtleties which Henri Beyle
proposed to reduce to an exact science (as it were a species of
experimental psychology), had no attraction for his practical
instinct, which desired and achieved — results.

I shall not add much to what has been said by me already
as to the love-affairs of Dante. According to his own account
and that of Boccaccio, his first meeting with Beatrice Portinari
took place at the house of her father, on the occasion of a May
festival, when she was at the beginning of her ninth year, and he
nearing the end of his.1 The second recorded meeting, when, on
his encountering her dressed in pure white, between two older
ladies, Beatrice turned her eyes and smiled upon the poet, is
placed nine years later. " The mystic number " nine was,
however, so firmly associated in Dante's mind with the destiny
of his lady, that we need not insist on the historical accuracy of
these dates. Nor is Boccaccio's highly coloured account of the
lovesick brooding of Dante, his neglect of all other matters from
the date of the greeting to that of Beatrice's death — from his
eighteenth to his twenty-fifth year — to be taken au pied de la
lettre. And Isidore del Lungo warns us against implicit reliance
on the novelist's assertion that Dante's marriage with Gemma
Donati (which almost certainly occurred after the death of
Beatrice) was arranged by his parents with a view to " drawing
him out of his grief." On the contrary, it seems likely that the
period of dissipation, owned to by Dante in his interview with
Forese 2 and elsewhere, intervened between the marriage of

1 Little Beatrice on this occasion " wore a robe of a most noble colour of
crimson, simple and seemly, with a girdle and ornaments suitable to her
tender age."

2 Purgatorio, xxiii.

336 MAKERS OF MAN

Beatrice and his own, or possibly between her death and his
marriage. The alliance with " Gemma, daughter of Manetto
Donati, blood relation to the famous Messer Corso, the great
agitator of the Guelph party, was," in del Lungo's opinion,
" essentially designed to cement an alliance between neighbours,
using that term in the sense of quasi consorti." In short, it was a
mariage de convenance, as nine out of ten marriages of persons
of quality were in the Florence of those days.1 Boccaccio
flatly accuses Gemma, by whom Dante had four children, of a
complete lack of sympathy with Dante's tastes and aspirations.
We know that after 1302, when he left Florence, she remained
there, and that they never met again. Certainly that looks like
estrangement ; but it may simply mean that he thought it
better for her to remain where she had good friends than to
share his homelessness and poverty. Certainly Gemma does
not seem to have taught her children to regard their father as a
tyrant or a deserter, since he was joined at Ravenna by his two
sons, and his daughter, named (significantly enough) Beatrice.
Would a mere shrew have consented that one of her girls should
be named after the avowed object of her husband's first and
tenderest devotion ? She, no doubt, sensibly regarded the
affaire Beatrice as a piece of literary convention, unworthy the
serious jealousy of a Florentine matron.2 And a literary
convention — however seriously taken by Dante himself, how-
ever passionately felt in those poignant years of his boyhood
and adolescence — it, no doubt, in some measure was or became.
What more artificial than the rapture and anguish of the Vita
Nuova ? It is, after all, the realism of the Divine Comedy
that has made it and its author immortal. Because, until a
poet can make reality the vehicle of his transcendent visions,
they will not move the hearts nor grip the imaginations of
grown men.

It was not only in the years of early manhood that what

1 And still are, by all accounts, in that of to-day.

a " There is not a single piece of evidence to prove that such poetical love-
affairs ever unsheathed a sword in vengeance, or brought about civic discords
among this proud and hot-blooded people " ( Women of Florence, by Isidoro
del Lungo, trans, by M. G. Steegman).

POWER IN THE CRUCIBLE 337

he himself stigmatised as his besetting sin of lustfulness led
Dante astray from his own ideal of constancy. An amorous
episode of some kind, which occurred after his exile at Lucca,
is indicated by a passage in the twenty-fourth canto of the
" Paradise." At the very outset of his pilgrimage the way is
barred by a panther, symbolising sexual passion. Significant,
also, is his keen sympathy with the illicit loves of Paolo and
Francesca, concerning which he writes : —

" My sense reviving, that erewhile had drooped
With pity for the kindred shades, whence grief
O'ercame me wholly. ..."

Respect for the fact compels me, therefore, to include this poet
among the polygamists ; it is nevertheless to be remembered
that, from the time of his conversion (somewhere about his
fiftieth year),1 Dante repudiated all that which, in his own
life or the lives of others, was inconsistent with his austere
view of Christian morality. But the condemnation of a ban-
quet at which one has taken one's fill, or for which one has
no taste, is a form of virtue more gratifying to the preacher
than convincing to the (hungry) congregation !

The central fact in the personal career of Titian is his
meeting in his own fiftieth year with that dissolute wit and
bon viveur, Pietro Aretino. Three years later, what was in
all probability a restraining influence was withdrawn by the
death of Titian's wife, Cecilia, whom he outlived by forty-six
years. These two factors, the intimacy with Aretino and the
death of Cecilia, were brought to bear upon Titian's ardent
and sensuous temperament at a period when triumphant success
had placed at his disposal all that the opulence of fifteenth
century Venice had to offer of luxury and the means to self-
indulgence of every kind and degree. Have we here a key
to the discrepancy between the conceptions of Womanhood
(that is, of sexual morality) respectively revealed in the early
and late work of this master ?

1 That is, soon after the disappointment of all his political hopes by the
death of the Emperor Henry vu. (1313). The famous visit to the Convent in
the Apennines may have been in some way connected with a spiritual crisis,
the irrepressible desire for inward peace and harmony.
22

338 MAKERS OF MAN

In relation to this matter, Claude Phillips recognises three
main phases in the art of Titian. In the imaginative paintings
of his youth and early manhood, particularly in those wherein
the influence of Giorgione is evident, as in the so-called " Sacred
and Profane Love," the charm of sex is presented frankly
indeed and with evident delight, yet with purity and restraint.
His nudes of this early period are free from the emphasis by
which a sensualist's brush is betrayed. Something, if not quite
all, of the subtle brooding charm of Giorgione is reflected in
the sentiment ; while, in technique, that artist is out-distanced
from the first. In his " Virgin with Cherries," Titian, while
retaining his pristine freshness and spontaneity, shows himself
emancipated from the mimetic phase ; " for the pensive girl-
Madonna of Giorgione (and the allied wistfulness of his own
Zingarella) we have now the radiant young matron, joyous
yet calm." The noontide of Titian's genius, considered in
this one aspect still, is reached in his " Worship of Venus "
and " Bacchanal," painted soon after his visit to Alfonso I.
in 1516 (set. 39). They show " a forward step, yet not without
some evaporation of the subtle Giorgionesque perfume exhaled
by the flowers of genius of the first period."

Then in his fiftieth year begins his intimacy with Aretino,
who, with himself and the sculptor Jacopo Tutti, formed the
so-called " Triumvirate." Now, " under the influence of
Aretino, Titian's natural eagerness to grasp in every direction
at material advantages is sharpened ; he becomes at once more
humble and more pressing." His art in general, and in parti-
cular his art as revealing a conception of Womanhood, under-
goes an analogous change. " The second period is one of
splendid nudities and great portraits." Titian is now the
friend, rather than the mere protege, of all the art-loving
Grandissimi of North Italy, nay, even of the Emperor himself.
" The ease and splendour of the life at Biri Grande, . . . the
Epicureanism which saturated the atmosphere, . . . operated
to colour the creations which mark this period of Titian's
practice, at which he has reached the apex of pictorial achieve-
ment, but shows himself too serene in sensuousness, too un-
ruffled in the masterly practice of his profession, to give to the

POWER IN THE CRUCIBLE 339

heart the absolute satisfaction that he gives to the eyes." In
his " Magdalen " (Pitti Gallery) " there is latent a jarring
note of unrefinement in the presentment of exuberant youth
and beauty," his " Venus of Urbino " is " an avowed act of
worship by the artist of the naked human body, and, as such,
in ite noble frankness, free from all offence." Then follow
a succession of Venuses and Danaes, goddesses, nymphs, and
heroines, revealing, one and all, " with a grand candour such
as almost purges it of offence . . . woman . . . reduced to
slavery, . . . woman as the plaything of man." Is it an unfair
inference that the private life of Titian must have corresponded
with the conception of the role of Womanhood thus blazoned
on the scroll of his Art ?

The Nemesis that attends the pursuit of pleasure as an end
is, that whereas the keenness of sensation inevitably wanes,
the thirst for it, once fairly entertained, not only becomes
habitual, but is gradully transferred from the physical to Ihe
emotional, and thence to the spiritual plane. Pleasure, truly
so called, is conditioned by appetite, and appetite by function.
Only by the spur of a violent stimulus can pleasure, brief and
unsatisfying at best, be wrong from the tardy response of a
semi-exhausted function. A lustful mind in an impotent
body : in this, the logical outcome of the sensualist's philo-
sophy, we have a spectacle evoking the derisive pity of gods
and men.

Titian's presentment of woman, especially of nude woman, in
his late works, irresistibly suggests to my mind the suspicion that
he did not escape this evil fate. From frankness he descended
to coarseness, from coarseness to positive vulgarity. A cynical
note is also sounded: thus, in his " Danae " (Madrid) " a grasping
hag holds out a cloth to catch her share of the golden rain."
His " Europa," finished for Philip u. (an. eet. 85), is " a strapping
wench who with limbs outstretched complacently allows herself
to be carried off by the bull." Lastly, at the very end of
Titian's career, we are startled " to meet with a work which,
expressed in this masterly latfc technique of his, vies in fresh-
ness of inspiration with the finest of his early poesie. This
is the ' Nymph and Shepherd ' of the Imperial Gallery at

340 MAKERS OF MAN

Vienna .... Richness and brilliancy of colour are subord-
inated ... to a luminous monotone. ... In the solemn
twilight which descends from the heavens, just faintly flushed
with rose, an amorous shepherd, flower-crowned, pipes to a
nude nymph, who, half-won by the appealing strain, turns
her head as she lies luxuriously extended on a wild beast's
hide, covering the grassy knoll. ... It may not be concealed
that a note of ardent sensuousness still makes itself felt."
Comparing this masterpiece with his Giorgionesque idyll of
nearly seventy years back, the " Three Ages " of Bridgewater
House, Claude Phillips continues : " The early poesia gives,
wrapped in clear even daylight, the perfect moment of trusting
satisfied love ; the late one, with less purity, but, strange to
say, with a higher passion, renders, beautified by an evening
light more solemn and suggestive, the divine ardours fanned
by solitude and opportunity."

Thus, after all, in the hour of threatened eclipse,1 genius
re-asserts its prerogative, and transfigures its point of view.

A fact of great psychological significance in regard to the
development of Titian's art, is that, from the same period
midway in his long career of nearly a century, when the sensual
element begins to predominate in his treatment of Woman,
a tragic note appears in his religious paintings, deepening into
a gloom that sometimes almost suggests despair. The last
work of his brush, that sublime " Pieta " upon whose com-
pletion he was engaged when stricken down by the pestilence,
is described by Claude Phillips as " produced with an awe
nearly akin to terror."

We have to now deal briefly with an exceedingly complex,
comprehensive, but somewhat hackneyed subject — the numer-
ous love-affairs of Goethe. And first let us dispose of the
popular fallacy that gauges the strength of a man's passions
by the number of his mistresses (Platonic or otherwise).
Goethe loved many women : ergo, Goethe was a man
of strong passions — that is the tacit but completely false
assumption underlying the majority of dissertations made in

1 Always understood in the limited sense under discussion, for in many
ways Titian's latest art-period was the grandest of all.

GOKTHK.
Engraved by R. Cooper.

To face f. 340.

POWER IN THE CRUCIBLE 341

defence or condemnation of the poet's peccadilloes. The
promiscuity of a Charlemagne is as intelligible as that of a
bull, or any splendid specimen of exuberant virility. It is
not here a question of sentimental affinities, but of a function
too powerful to submit to conventional restraints, an appetite
too robust to be scrupulous or fastidious. Passion, on the
other hand, is appetite permeated by emotion ; eroticism
proper is largely of mental or, at any rate, sentimental origin,
and may or may not be firmly based on organic sexual impulse.
In aesthetic temperaments eroticism often seems to bear an inverse
proportion to procreative power : what is lacking in functional
vigour is compensated for by emotional susceptibility. Beeth-
oven's is probably a case in point ; of Goethe I would not say
as much — he was more passionate, but he, too, was extremely
sentimental. And he lived in a sentimental age, whose influ-
ence upon his innate proclivity for eroticism is by no means
a negligible factor.

Then, too, poets are, as a rule, sexually precocious ; and,
in Goethe's case, this precocity may well have been stimulated
by his introduction in his tenth year — consequently, before the
age of normal puberty — to the unwholesome influence of a
theatrical environment. Not only was he a constant attendant
at the Court Theatre, where, for the benefit of the French
troops occupying the city, a series of plays was being performed,-
but he obtained access to the green-room, and was impressed
by the nonchalance with which the actors and actresses dressed
and undressed before one another and before him and his boy
friend. Such memories, in such a mind, could hardly fail to
bear fruit. Four years later, at a tavern supper party, in low
company, Goethe met Gretchen, a girl some years older than
himself, of whom he says : " Thenceforth the form of this maiden
haunted me, go where I would." He saw her daily for some
weeks, but the liaison, probably innocent enough in a physical
sense, was rudely terminated by the arrest of one of their
associates on a charge of fraud. At Leipsic, a couple of years
later, he fancied himself in love with Aennschen, the daughter
of the house where he and Schlosser lodged together. He,
rather unfairly, sought to monopolise her affection without La

342 MAKERS OF MAN

any way pledging himself, and when after two or three years
she naturally tired of so impossible a situation, he found relief
in dramatising the episode (Die Laune des Verliebten).
When Goethe, aged twenty-one, had been some months at
Stiasburg University, he, with Weyland, rode out to Sesenheim
and made the acquaintance of a Protestant pastor, one of whose
three daughters, Frederica Brion, aged nineteen, slender, fair-
haired, blue-eyed, and romantic, made an instant impression
on his wayward fancy. On a second visit, in Whitsuntide of
the next year, " she appeared more charming than ever, . . .
and when the opportunity offered of heartily kissing one whom
I loved so tenderly, I did not miss it ; still less did I deny
myself a repetition of this pleasure." We read that " Frederica
never doubted that he proposed to make her his wife ; and this
also was assumed by her family." But when Goethe's time
came to leave Strasburg, he returned home unpledged ; and,
in the eight years that elapsed before he saw her again, the
affair died a natural death. Goethe attributes his defection
(without seeking to justify it) to his instinctive repugnance to
the surrender of his personal freedom. " The poet," says
Wilhelm Meister " must live wholly for himself." But genuine
passion accepts even' the most onerous conditions, because
" needs must when the devil drives." Poverty of instinct, the
masquerading of mere sentiment in the robes of true love :
that is the physiological and therefore the true solution of the
problem. Goethe's fine physique has misled his biographers,
who (idolaters, for the most part) have overlooked the fact
that reproductive power bears no essential relation to stature.
Goethe's youth and early manhood were interrupted by several
severe illnesses ; he was probably never so strong as he appeared
to be. When, finally (set. 39), he did enter into permanent
relations with the young woman whom he subsequently married,
his attempt at paternity can only be described as a failure.

In his twenty-third year Goethe was the hero(?) of another
abortive love-affair ; the heroine in this case being the betrothed
of his friend Kestner. Charlotte was no doubt attracted by
the poet, but there is reason to surmise that she was not really
deceived as to the practical import of his attentions. Goethe,

POWER IN THE CRUCIBLE 343

for his part, discreetly fled when he felt that the matter was
growing serious ; and, in The Sorrows of Werther, cleansed his
bosom once more of the " perilous stuff " of lovesick yearnings
for the unattainable.

About three years later Goethe became engaged to Lili,
a sixteen-year-old widow, daughter of a rich Frankfurt banker.
She was a self-possessed young woman, accustomed to move in
somewhat higher society than the poet, at this phase of his
development, was accustomed to frequent. Consequently " he
felt like a fish out of water in the circles to which he was induced
to follow her." Lili was a coquette ; Goethe was jealous ;
the parents barely tolerated the betrothal. Inevitably, where
so fickle a suitor wa sconcerned, " his interest began to flag,
and, vowing eternal fidelity all the while, he seized the occasion
of the Stolbergs' passing through Frankfurt to join them in an
expedition to Switzerland." On his return the old difficulties
recurred ; and Goethe cut the knot by accepting the invitation
of Karl August to settle in his duchy at Weimar.

I shall not weary the reader by retailing the hackneyed
details of Goethe's platonic wooing of Frau von Stein (ter-
minated by his liaison with the woman he subsequently married) ;
of his more serious affair (aet. 57) with Minnie Herzlieb ; or
of the pleasant material he, at the mature age of seventy-three,
afforded to the gossips of Marienbad by his infatuation for
Ulrica von Levezow. Enough, surely, has been said to dispose
of the romantic myth, constructed by imaginative but un-
physiological biographers, in which the great poet figures as a
sort of Don Juan. To say it with due reverence, Goethe was
not (like Byron, for example) a man of passionate and funda-
mentally amorous temperament. He belonged to the perhaps
less dangerous, assuredly less dramatically impressive- species of
— the male flirt. The bourgeois element in his disposition
always asserted itself in time to save him from crossing the
frontier of sentimental comedy and invading the realm of true,
self-oblivious passion — that is to say, of tragedy.

The sympathy of women was essential to him ; their em-
braces he certainly coveted, within measure, but with the
reservation that the price exacted must not include the sacrifice

344 MAKERS OF MAN

of his personal independence. Christiane Vulpius, the inferior
in all respects of Frederica, captured Goethe in the only way
in which such men can be captured. She gave herself freely
and unreservedly ; and trusted to the logic of events to show
that, by accepting her person, he had made himself responsible
for her future. Her confidence (to his honour be it said) was
not misplaced : in defiance of his own principles he at length
made her his wife ; as he had made her his mistress in defiance
of those of his friends.

The sexual career of Mahomet is exceptional in this respect,
that he began as a monogamist and ended as a polygamist
of the most pronounced type. So long as his first wife, Cadijah,
lived, he was not only faithful to her bed, but seems to have
felt no inclination to the indiscriminate alliances in which,
after the withdrawal of her influence, he indulged. This
prolonged continence of a man who subsequently developed
amorous proclivities of so wide a range, is all the more note-
worthy in that Cadijah was his elder by fifteen years. When
he married her he was twenty-five and she forty. When she
'died at sixty, he was therefore forty-five, a somewhat late
age for the initiation of habits of life so directly opposed to
those which had hitherto sufficed him. One can only surmise
that, preoccupied by the incubation of his ideal of religious
reform, he had, during much of his life with Cadijah, no interest
to spare for such dalliance as would have resulted in an increase
of his worldly cares and responsibilities. Once definitely
committed to his mission, his mind would be comparatively
free ; and as, with growing prestige, he rose in his own esteem
he availed himself more and more fully of the licence conceded
by the devotion of his adherents.1 The case of Charlemagne
presents obvious resemblances ; also that of Napoleon, up
to the time of his second marriage. The greatness of Mahomet
has never been justly recognised by English opinion : conse-
quently, while on the subject of his relations to women, I shall
call attention to one highly significant result of his reforming
zeal. In the dark days before his coming it was customary

1 His followers were limited by Mahomet to four wives, but for himself he
claimed exemption from any such restriction.

POWER IN THE CRUCIBLE 345

for Arab parents to bury their superfluous daughters alive.
" The father was generally himself the murderer. ' Perfume
and adorn,' he would say to the mother, ' your daughter, that I
may convey her to her mothers.' This done, he led her to a pit
dug for the purpose, bade her look down into it, and then,
as he stood behind her, pushed her headlong in ; then, filling
up the pit himself, levelled it with the rest of the ground !
It is said that the only occasion on which a certain Ottoman
ever shed a tear was when his little daughter, whom he was
burying alive, wiped the dust of the grave from his beard.
This was one of the many1 ghastly and inhuman practices
which the Prophet denounced absolutely and for ever." 2

Mahomet's ethics were as great an advance upon those
current before his day as his pure monotheism was upon the
inchoate idolatry which had hitherto masqueraded in the
guise of religion. Every approximation to a logically consistent
theory of the universe (and religions are, after all, only popular
philosophies) necessarily implies a higher, because more en-
lightened ethic.

"A love child himself, there is no record that he ever loved
woman." So, in a fine article apropos of the Note Books of
Leonardo, writes Mr. C. Lewis Hind. I myself, by a fairly
close study of the principal literary remains of the artist, have
satisfied myself that if ever there lived a sexless being on this
earth, one devoid not merely of passion, but even of curiosity
about or interest in the wide sphere of sexual relations, that
being was he, Leonardo da Vinci. Certainly there has come
down to us but a mere fraction of the hundred and twenty
volumes of which he claims to have been the author. But
these fragments, comprising the results of his keen observation
and thought de omni re scibili et quibusdam aliis, may, by
reason of the very haphazardness of their selection by Destiny,
be regarded as in all probability representative. In them
you will find abundant evidence of Leonardo's extraordinary
flair for prevision of the results of inductive science upon every
other conceivable subject, but upon this particular subject

1 The Italics are mine.— C. J. W.

a By the Waters of Carthage, by Norma Lorrimer.

346 MAKERS OF MAN

only one meagre paragraph, and that one suggestive rather
of a reminiscence of Plato's philosophy than of personal ex-
perience or direct observation. " The lover is moved by the
thing beloved ; they are united as the sense with the sensible,
and make but one object. Work is the first thing which is born
of the union. If the thing loved is vile, the lover is degraded.
When the thing united is in conformity with its uniter, there
ensues delight, pleasure, and contentment. When the lover
is united to the beloved, he is at rest." x Perhaps I should
add this memorandum : Venerem observam solam hominibus
convenire, title of an anatomical plate published by Uzielli. How
significant a reticence on the part of one whose writings comprise
either in the form of disconnected musings, or of what appear
to be rough sketches for lectures (possibly delivered at the
academy founded by and called after him, at Milan), upon
problems of anatomy, physiology, psychology, theology, the
occult sciences, geology, aesthetics, astronomy, mathematics,
mechanics, architecture, hydro-dynamics, optics, aeronautics,
no one of which he so far failed to solve that his anticipations
have not been confirmed, wholly, or in great measure, by the
conclusions of later investigators !

Yet Leonardo was no weakling, but a superb man, of princely
bearing, immense bodily strength, and remarkable physical
dexterity. His aristocratic soul delighted in fine horses and
handsome men — Salai and Melzi, his pupils, and the devoted
attendants of his last days, are both commended by Vasari for
their beauty. The question naturally arises — was Leonardo
like so many men of genius, a man of homosexual instinct ?
More probably, I think, the dwarfing of life's most costly
function was the price exacted for his unprecendented personal
endowment. For it is not entirely true, as he wrote, that
" God sells us all good things at the price of labour " ; some
have to be paid for? in advance, by limitation.

I have classed Beethoven among the celibates because he
never married, and his life seems to have been, in the physical
sense, chaste, or approximately so. But, emotionally, Beethoven

1 " II codice di L. d. V. nella bibliotheca del principe Trivulce " (Beltrami).
Milan, 1893, F. 6. r. (Textes Ckoiais de L. d, V. p. 67).

POWER IN THE CRUCIBLE 347

was, like Goethe, a polygamist from first to last. Too fastidious
to find satisfaction, like Turner, in gross orgies, he loved many
high-born women, and, while the ardent fire lasted, professed
himself eager to enter the marital state. But, somehow, it
never came off ; and the man who escapes wedlock, not once
but many times, may justly be regarded as a bachelor at heart.
Besides, we have his own testimony to the same purport. For
himself, he said, he was excessively glad that not one of the
girls had become his wife whom he had passionately loved in
former days, and thought at the time it would be the highest
joy on earth to possess. He told Nannie Giannastasio that he
did not like the idea of any indissoluble bond being forced
between people in their personal relation to each other. . . . He
would much rather that a woman gave him her love, and with
her love the highest part of her nature, without being bound to
him. He knew no married couple who did not, on one side or
the other, repent the step he or she took in marrying. Beethoven,
considered as an embodiment of the masculine spirit, was never
more universal in his music than in this unabashed verbal
confession of his loathing of the bond.

In their dread of responsibility, their non-committal attitude
towards life in general, and women in particular, literary men
— I include composers — often reveal surprising affinity with the
type of the mandarin or the college don. Life and the emotional
expression thereof are in great measure antithetical tendencies :
hence these men of sentiment live, as it were, by proxy, and
their love is a Barmecide feast. What, ever and anon, they
needs must have, yet, as they divine only too clearly, no one
woman can permanently give them, is the stimulus of a new
emotion — to be the motif of a symphony or a song. They
cannot give themselves unreservedly ; cannot share the saving
illusion of passion's immortality. Only from the honeyed
blossoms of Love's garden can they distil their nectar : his
fruitage is not for their lips. As husbands and fathers they
would be failures ; for the sake of their task their souls' thirst
must remain unquenched.

Yet there can be no doubt but that Beethoven was funda-
mentally a man of warm affections ; and, from time to time,

348 MAKERS OF MAN

the starved heart of him cried out against the solitude of his
fate. Possibly, but for his deafness, he would have bent his
proud neck to the yoke.1 When he was about forty-five he
became the guardian of his little nephew Karl, whose father,
dying, had entrusted him to his care. The mother was living,
and gave Beethoven an infinity of vexation by trying, by legal
and illegal means, to get the boy back. " She instigated her
nephew to lying, deception, and dissimulation of every kind
towards his uncle." Beethoven, for his part, took the responsi-
bility very seriously. " Do I watch Karl," he wrote in his
Journal, " as if he were my own son ? Every weakness, every
trifle even, tending to this great end " — that is, to make a
musician of him ? " It is a hard matter for me. But He above
is there." All his fond hopes in this quarter, too, were bitterly
disappointed. Karl proved a mauvais sujet, whose rake's
progress culminated in 1826 (Beethoven's fifty-sixth and
penultimate year) by a bungling attempt at suicide. " / have
become worse because my uncle insisted upon making me better"
he told the magistrate. Ultimately Karl married, and became
a tolerable citizen ; but Beethoven died of the shame and
anguish of his disillusionment, which, in 1826, had suddenly
turned him into an old, feeble, and broken-spirited man.

I have reserved for the conclusion of this chapter the remarks
I have to make upon that first and largest group of individuals
who adhered to the monogamic regime. This includes, it
will be remembered, men of each of our four types, men of
thought being most, and men of the aesthetic temperament
least largely represented. The path of wedlock is the path
of conformity, of use and wont, of good citizenship and good
repute. The inducements it offers to men who, not being
natural celibates, desire to devote themselves to large impersonal
ends, are great and obvious. Adding no crushing weight of
responsibility to their cares and labours, it nevertheless con-
tributes a steadying motive to life, checks caprice, kindles

1 In Beethoven's copy of the Odyssey, the following lines are marked : —

For nothing is better or more desirable on earth,
Than when man and wife united in hearty love
Calmly rule their house.

POWER IN THE CRUCIBLE 349

effort, lulls passion, feeds the affections, emancipates the
senses and the mind. Emancipates, I say, because he who
would be all things to all women must realise in the end that
he has undertaken an impossible task. He, on the other
hand, who gives rein to instinct so far only as reason can follow,
will reap the reward of an easy conscience and a settled life.
Byron said with a sneer of Hodgson, that he was " inoculated
with the disease of domestic felicity." Happy is he who can
thus obtain immunity from the ubiquitous microbe of desire.
And in truth it must be owned that the sweetness of the said
felicity is not so unalloyed by bitterness as to prove cloying
or enervating. Marriage is a discipline. " It is so far from
being natural," said the wise lexicographer, "for a man and
woman to live in a state of marriage, that we find all the motives
which they have for remaining in that connection, and the
restraints which civilised society imposes to prevent separ-
ation, are hardly sufficient to keep them together." But this
is obviously a half-truth, based on such unwarrantable assump-
tions as that what is natural for one man or woman is natural
for others ; that our wayward appetites and capricious desires
are natural, our deep affections and our chivalry unnatural
(or peradventure, supernatural) ; that the restraints imposed
by civilised society are the predominant factor in limiting
sexual promiscuity, and are themselves of other than natural
origin ; and so forth. Certainly it has to be admitted that
men whom fortune or their own efforts may have exalted above
the restraints in question, are prone to evade or transgress
them. The same thing has often been observed in regard to
Europeans living among uncivilised people. But there are
many exceptions ; the day of sweeping generalisations in regard
to this most complex problem of sex-relations has passed away,
even though we admit that the day of its final solution has not
yet dawned.

I will conclude this long chapter with a quotation from
George Meredith, which puts, neatly enough, the case for
what one might call " the higher monogamy " — it would be
certainly too dogmatic to call it " the monogamy of the future " :
" Men are planted in the bog of their unclean animal

350 MAKERS OF MAN

condition until they do proper homage to the animal Nature
makes the woman be. ... When the embraced woman
breathes respect into us, she wings a beast. We have from her
the poetry of the tasted life, excelling any garden-gate or
threshold lyrics called forth by purest early bloom. . . . Secret
of all human aspirations, the ripeness of the creeds is there ;
and the passion of the woman desired has no poetry equalling
that of the embraced, respected woman." 1

1 The Amazing Marriage, by G. Meredith.

XII
LIMITATION AND CKIME

Definition of terms — Universality of crime — Examples — " The Guilt
of Innocency."

" All the men who are worth anything must begin by breaking the rules " —
J. C. SNAITH.

" WHO knows what one will find half-way when he sets himself
to do something great ? " To this, the momentous question
self-proposed by the hero of Stendhal's Le Rouge et le Noir,
we instinctively rejoin, " Who indeed ? " But, on consulting
the records of their lives who have dared the experiment in
question, we find evidence which may tempt us to be more
explicit. He will find a temptation adequate to the greatness
of his self-esteem ; will undergo an ordeal that will bring to
light the secret motives of his will. As to Julien's further
inquiry : " Must the man who wants to remove ignorance
and crime from the world be regarded as a monster and an
impostor ? " — that is easier to answer. In the long run a man
will be regarded as precisely what he is or was. And however
far astray the unconsidered verdict of the mass of his contem-
poraries, there will be some souls who discern the truth from
the first.

The Great Man as Criminal being our topic in the present
chapter, it behoves us at the outset to forestall the danger
of any misconception of our terms. Let it be clearly under-
stood that I use the word criminal, not in its legal, but in its
fundamental, ethical sense. A man is, in this sense, a criminal
who incurs the responsibility for an act which reveals indiffer-
ence, or less than a normal concern for obligations considered

351

352 MAKERS OF MAN

binding upon all mankind.1 We are all, of course, criminals
in this ultimate sense : it is merely a question of degree. Life
compels us to act : and action, in the long run, implies crime,
since crime, philosophically regarded, is the necessary corollary
of limitation. To act is to commit oneself ; and self-committal
is identical with self-limitation. It may be objected that what
constitutes criminality is the evil intention of the criminal.
This is only true if that " evil " intention be referred, not
merely to the particular action condemned as a crime, but to the
general attitute of the criminal towards life. Many of the
greatest crimes are committed, not because of any sporadic
impulse towards crime, but because, when the temptation
occurs, the agent finds himself constrained by limitations of
motive which have become habitual, supreme, which he is
therefore powerless to transcend. To refrain from committing
the crime would be to give the lie to the whole of his past life —
its hopes, ambitions, conquests — to stultify himself and all
that he believes himself to stand for before the world. To
accept the crime, or to reject himself — that is, the hateful
and, often, the hated alternative. For the ostensible, flagrant
crime differs only, or mainly, in seeming, from the uncensured
acts which have preceded and led up to it. In carrying it
into effect, Destiny and the agent co-operate in pronouncing
judgment upon the hitherto concealed purport of that agent's
career. " All my life I have known that I might have to do
this. It is too late now to turn back : in this deed, that must
be done, I recognise — myself." :

I repeat — we are all criminals, for we all act, or, at any rate,
resolve. Even the resolve to abstain from action is, as we shall
see later, a kind of action, fraught with its own grave conse-
quences, pregnant with its own Nemesis. Individuality not
merely implies, but is limitation ; and limitation is imperfec-
tion, in other words, crime. " No, sir," exclaimed that arch-
realist, Samuel Johnson, flatly contradicting some facile en-

1 / assume, for the purpose of this inquiry, the validity of these obligations.

2 " The best and worst hours of life are in themselves irresponsible, the
will hurled headlong forward by an impulse that has gathered force before "
(L. Dougall, in What Necessity Knows).

LIMITATION AND CRIME 353

thusiast — " a fallible being will fail somewhere" Equally to
the point is his profound observation that " so many objections
might be urged to everything, that nothing could overcome them
but the necessity of doing something." This being so, it would
be the easiest thing in the world to reveal the stigmata of
criminality in the lives of every one of our forty exemplars.
Easy, and also instructive, but wearisome and — superfluous !
In the case of our artists and men of thought, we should, more-
over, be covering ground already in some degree explored in
the section dealing with the Natural History of Purpose. It
is in what concerns the negative iconoclastic aspect of their
work that the cloven hoof of criminality will, for such men
(not for them alone, either), be most in evidence. But crime,
though in essence universal, is, as commonly understood, a
department of action. In the lives of men of action we shall
find, accordingly, the most glaring examples of criminality, in
commenting upon which I may fairly expect to be spared the
gibes of idolatrous hero-worshippers, and sentimentalists in
general. Some fine specimens of criminality are also to be
collected among the doings of those whom I have described as
men of action in a higher sense — the members of the ethico-
religious group.

There can be no question but that Caesar was one of the most
humane men who ever achieved supreme distinction in the
military sphere. In all that concerned himself, personally,
he showed himself, over and over again, magnanimous and
superior to resentment ; he was most scrupulous in his economy
of the lives of his men ; and, to a defeated foe, his generosity
was unfailing. His conquest of Gaul was no less a triumph of
enlightened policy than of martial genius. But upon Caesar's
fair fame one blot persists : he made himself responsible for
the butchery of 430,000 Germans (the figure is his own), of
whom probably the majority were helpless women and children.
It was not, properly speaking, a battle : the immigrants were
totally unprepared for an attack ; their chiefs were, in fact,
in Caesar's camp, whither they had gone to apologise for an
unprovoked onslaught upon the Roman advance guard. They
had thus, it must be admitted, placed themselves formally in
23

354 MAKERS OF MAN

the wrong ; but they were in the very act of offering reparation,
when, led by Caesar in person, the legionaries flung themselves
upon the confused host, and entered upon their bloody work.
Even Froude admits that upon this occasion the rights of war
were "ruthlessly exceeded." Cato demanded that Caesar
should be given up to the Germans. They " were not indeed
defending their own country," agrees Froude ; " they were the
invaders of another." Yes, but the " invasion " was not
voluntary, but enforced ; they had been driven out by the
stronger Suevi ; and the Belgians, hoping for their aid against
the Romans, had welcomed them across the Rhine. It appears
to me that on this one occasion] Caesar, clearly perceiving that
success by fair means was out of the question, deliberately
chose to succeed by foul means.1 It must, nevertheless, be
remembered that his conquest of Gaul was not really a war of
aggression, but a I defensive, measure. The existence of his
country was at stake. Also, of course, his own future ; but
Caesar, though by no means disinterested, was always ready to
submit that to the hazards of war.

The great crime which history records against Charlemagne
was of an even more repulsive character, because it had not
the excuse of immediate and extreme peril, but was committed
in cold blood with a cynical show of judicial procedure. It
occurred in his fortieth year (782), during the second Saxon
war. In the previous year Charles had issued his harsh Saxon
capitulary, demanding, under severe penalties, the submission
to baptism, conformity with Catholic religion, and the payment
of tribute to the Church. The recalcitrant Saxons not long
afterwards fell, at Suntal, on a body of Frankish horse, and
almost exterminated them. At the close of the year Charles
appeared at Verdun in his blackest mood, resolved upon venge-
ance. Witikind, the leader of the Saxon revolt, was beyond his
reach, and the lesser chiefs with one accord laid the blame on
him for what had occurred. Charles, not to be mollified,
insisted upon the production of victims. Four thousand five

1 Influenced, too, possibly, by the resentment of his men for the unpro-
voked attack of the preceding day. If so, it was, however, a solitary instance
of such weakness on his part.

LIMITATION AND CRIME 355

hundred men were pointed out to him as having voted in the
national councils for rebellion. " They were at once seized,
collected at Verdun, and massacred in cold blood." The
result was as, in the case of so high-spirited a race, might have
been expected. " Fury rather than terror was the predominant
feeling among those who had escaped. For the first time tribal
distinctions were forgotten ; the entire people rose and prepared
to meet the Franks in the open field. The next three years
tested all the strength of Charles." The massacre had been
worse than a crime : it had been a huge blunder, explicable
only as due to the exasperation of an overwrought mind. But
the ultimate source of such moral crudities is the arrogance of
a nature too narrow to understand, much more to tolerate, an
alien point of view, and the actions thence ensuing.

The career of Sir Francis Drake, common as it is to speak
of him as a sort of privileged pirate, is exceptionally free from
the taint of deliberate criminality. The sturdy little man,
for all his Protestant ferocity, had his principles of warfare,
and consistently " played the game." In his twenty-first
year, being temporarily under a cloud with Elizabeth, he joined
Essex in Ireland with his frigate the Falcon, and lent a hand
in the storming of the rebel garrison in the isle of Rathlin.
Hither the Irish and Scots malcontents had sent their women
and children, and the diabolical intention of the attack was to
massacre them all. Drake and his fellow-captains, by landing
two heavy guns, turned, the scale in favour of the assailants,
and must share the responsibility of what followed. " Two
hundred souls were massacred as they left the castle, and then,
day after day, a cruel hunt went on till every cave and hollow
of those storm-beaten cliffs had echoed with the victims'
shrieks, and not a soul — man, woman, or child — could be
found alive in St. Columba's Isle. . . . Drake himself, while
the massacre went on, was busy with the frigates, burning
eleven Scottish galleys." Some squeamish souls may regard
as a crime the stern reprisal meted out to the false friend to
whom he had confided — only to be shamelessly betrayed to
the hostile Burleigh — the | dearest wish of his heart. But,
to my mind, in all the stirring annals of Elizabethan chivalry,

356 MAKERS OF MAN

there is no more heroic page than that which tells of the trial
and condemnation of Thomas Doughty " at that first Lynch-
Court amidst the desolation of Patagonia," and of the execution
of its just decree of death to the traitor. " On an island over-
against the [gallows] of Magellan,1 the block was placed, and
beside it an altar, where, side by side, the two friends knelt to
receive the Sacrament together in token of forgiveness. Hard
by, tables were spread with the best the stores provided, and
there they all caroused together in a farewell banquet to their
comrade. When the feast was ended, with courtly jests
Doughty drew near the block, and the boon companions
gathered round. At the last, as one who had lost in a game of
hazard, he embraced the friend who had won, and Drake took
payment without a flinch. He showed no animus, nor did
sentiment sap his purpose one jot. ... So the sword fell,
and when the provost-marshal held up the dripping head, Drake
cried out, unmoved, ' Lo ! this is the end of traitors ! ' No
crime this, but the just and necessary retribution of an out-
rage on faith and honour.

The principles underlying and determining the public
actions of Richelieu were such as were bound, in the nature of
things, to lead him into situations from which the easiest if
not the only path to safety and triumph involved the responsi-
bility for crime. In the choice of his colleagues, not ability
or even honesty, but unquestioning subserviency to his own
will, was always the factor taken into account. The King
himself, although he had constantly to be studied and con-
ciliated with at least the semblance of deference, was by adroit
management kept in line with the policy marked out by his
minister. He had enough wisdom to perceive the superiority
and indispensability of the masterful churchman whom he had
called to the helm of State. Richelieu was de facto King of
France, and pursued the unbending line of his policy of nationa]
aggrandisement with small regard to the moralities of any but
the Machiavellian code. In 1626, when Richelieu, aged forty-
one, was freshly enjoying the triumph over the Huguenots,

1 At the foot of which were found the buried bones of two of that explorer's
mutinous officers.

LIMITATION AND CRIME 357

which he had secured by the help of England and Holland,
their natural allies, when, too, he had forced Spain to resign
the control of the Valtelline pass, his growing prestige led to a
combination of all the anti-monarchic interests of France in a
desperate effort at his destruction. Gaston, the heir pre-
sumptive, was, as usual, the tool of the conspirators, who,
through the Marshal d'Ornano, demanded the prince's admission
to the Council. There was much reckless talk on the part of
the conspirators : rumour had it that they intended to force
the King into a monastery and set Gaston upon the throne.
Meanwhile Richelieu coolly bided his time ; but his spies were
busily collecting evidence, all of which duly reached the ears
of the King. When the time was ripe for action, Richelieu
struck, and struck hard, but with discrimination. D'Ornano
he seized and imprisoned ; Gaston he at once cowed and con-
ciliated by the granting of the duchies of Chartres and Orleans ;
the leaders — those princes and nobles whom a regard for justice
rather than mere expediency would have brought to a strict
account — were quite leniently dealt with. On the other hand,
a scapegoat was chosen in the person of Henri de Talleyrand,
the young Count of Chalais, who had been betrayed into a
formal complicity by the charms of the duchess of Chevreuse.
This comparatively innocent man was, despite the frenzied sup-
plications of his mother, condemned, beheaded, and quartered.
Six years later this hint of danger to the opponents of Richelieu
was ruthlessly confirmed by the probably illegal execution of
Henri de Montmorenci, the most powerful noble in France. In
this affair, also, Gaston was even more deeply involved, but,
as usual, submitted, and, as usual, too, was pardoned.

Although not in any deep sense a religious, Richelieu seems
to have been a superstitious man ; and by this weakness he
was betrayed into a crime which throws a sinister light upon
his intelligence and character. A certain Grandier, a priest
of Loudun, was charged with causing the diabolical obsession
of some nuns in the Ursuline convent there. The priests called
in to exorcise the demons, reported that in their ravings the
nuns named Grandier as the cause of their visitation. Richelieu
allowed himself to be persuaded to appoint a special com-

358 MAKERS OF MAN

mission, presided over by Laubardemont, a spy and informer
in his own service, to try the case. " The trial itself was,
from a modern point of view, farcical, the bias of the court
was unmistakable, and the evidence was mainly that which
the exorcists professed to have extracted from the so-called
devils. Grandier was sentenced to death, tortured to make
him confess his accomplices, and finally burned under circum-
stances of exceptional and wanton barbarity." Perhaps the
worst feature of this " judicial murder," from the point of view
of Eichelieu's responsibility, is that Laubardemont " is said
to have prejudiced him against the accused by asserting that
Grandier was the author of a scurrilous libel, Le Cordonnier
de Loudun, that had been circulated when Richelieu was
resident in Poitou as Bishop of Lu9on." At any rate, it is
incontestable that " he allowed the machinery of a special
commission, always more likely to look for guilt than innocence,
to be employed in a case were there was no possible justification
for its use," and to be presided over by a man whom, as his
own tool for the dirty work of a spy and informer, he must
have known to be altogether unsuitable.

But, after all, the most serious blot upon the fame of
Richelieu results from a crime, not of commission, but, in the
main, of omission. I refer, of course, to his " almost complete
neglect of the internal well-being of France," and in particular
his failure to reform the crying abuses of her iniquitous and
rotten financial administration. The exemption of the privi-
leged classes from all direct taxation, the unequal incidence
of the indirect taxes, the unspeakable gdbelle on salt, the bare-
faced sale of public offices, the farming of taxes, and the secrecy
of the state accounts, were evils to which we know that he
was, from the first, fully alive. Not only did he practically
nothing to remove them, but, as the development of his twofold
aim — the strengthening of the monarchy, and the exaltation
of the national prestige — gradually increased the pressure upon
public revenue, so he grew more and more unscrupulous in
availing himself of the corrupt methods of " raising the wind,"
which he had found ready to hand. " The opposition of the
Parliaments, of the provincial estates, and of armed rebellion,

LIMITATION AND CRIME 359

as in the case of the famous nus-pieds in Normandy, was ruth-
lessly suppressed." Who shall dare estimate the sum of
misery and futile resentment on which, as on a heap of bones
and corruption, the Moloch-temple of his glory was based ?
And here, once for all, it may be all too clearly discerned, how
our crimes are predetermined by the limitations of our outlook
and aims. Once fairly launched upon his career of ambition,
once the self-pledged champion of monarchic autocracy and
European aggression, Kichelieu found himself committed to
a task radically inconsistent with any whole-hearted advocacy
of economic reform.

I do not rank as a crime Cromwell's responsibility for the
execution of Charles i. That responsibility he himself not
only accepted to the full, but justified and defended to his dying
day. It — the execution — was to him " a sacred duty enjoined
by the inward voice and outward signs of God Himself." The
Commons had, immediately before the trial, declared the
People, under God, the source of all just power, that is, of all
sovereignty. What the People had given, the People could
also take away : the trust so often abused might be cancelled
and annulled. More, the King's treachery and ill-faith
deserved punishment : Cromwell himself had risked much to
befriend him, so long, that is, as he could believe him only
weak ; but when he found that, all the while he had been
moving heaven and earth to save him, Charles had been
persistently intriguing against him, his patience finally and
irrevocably gave way. " I tell you," he said to Algernon
Sydney, " we will cut off his head with the crown upon it."
And history has endorsed the stern decree.

On the other hand, in his relations with Ireland, Cromwell
revealed all the gloomiest, harshest, and most inhuman elements
of his typically Puritan outlook. Into the foul abyss which
Drake had merely skirted — for, after all, it is to Essex himself
that pertains the final guilt of the bloody doings on St. Columba's
Isle — Cromwell plunged headlong without hesitation or scruple.
To Cromwell, and those of his way of thinking, Papacy was an
abomination. It was unthinkable to such men that in one of
the three realms should be suffered the unrestricted practice of

360 MAKERS OF MAN

its abhorred rites. Not only was Ireland a Catholic country ;
except for a few hard-pressed garrisons it was also an independ-
ent and hostile nation. Its reconquest was to all Puritans a
binding duty : Cromwell undertook the task as a sort of Crusade.
At the storming of Drogheda, Cromwell " in the heat of action "
forbade his men to give quarter. Within that and the next
two days, the whole garrison (3000 men) were slaughtered in
cold blood. Such orders would not have been given had Crom-
well been righting men of his own faith. At Wexford the
soldiers took the law into their own hands, and massacred the
garrison force of two thousand, and " not a few citizens " beside.
Seeing that Cromwell spoke of this unauthorised butchery
as an unexpected providence, there can be no doubt that his men
had good reason to count on immunity from his wrath. In all
that he did in Ireland, Cromwell had the public opinion of
England at his back. He had a tremendous reception on his
return to London, the value of which, judging by the grim
comment he made at the time, he seems pretty accurately
to have gauged. As he passed Tyburn in his thronged proces-
sion, 31st May 1650, one said to him, " See what a multitude
of persons come to attend your triumph." He answered with
a smile, and very unconcerned, " More would come to see me
hanged ! "

Concerning Frederick the Great, it would be an arguable
position that he was a man of essentially criminal bent, modified,
of course, by human impulses and gleams of enlightenment.
One of the first acts of his reign was the sending of 2000 soldiers
to levy a contribution on the people of Herstal and Hermal,
" where they lived without control, exercising every kind of
military tyranny." The districts had for over a hundred years
been under the control of the Prince-Bishop of Liege, but now
Frederick had trumped up a claim to them, which the prelate
was forced, by the complaints of the victims of this unprovoked
invasion, to concede. Ex ungue leonem : from this characteristic
inauguration of his reign, the Frederican ethics and the Frederican
method are deducible in extenso. One can imagine the unction
with which Voltaire delivered himself of the dry suggestion,
that this was perhaps not an opportune moment for the publica-

LIMITATION AND CRIME 361

tion of the young King's Anti-Machiavel. Apropos, one may
surmise that, though he undertook to refute them, Frederick
found much to admire and no little to emulate in the precepts
of the Italian philosopher. Their influence is clearly discernible
in the conduct of his policy ; in the contrast between the hypo-
critical casuistry of his public manifestoes and the cynical
frankness of his personal avowal of self-interest as the motive
of his aggressions ; in his confidence that justifications would
be found by the literary folk for all such aggressions, provided
only that they proved successful.

It can hardly be necessary to point out that Frederick's
claim to Silesia was actuated by no other motive than the
impulse to self-aggrandisement. We have his own explicit
statement to the effect that " ambition, interest, and a desire
to make the world speak of me, vanquished all, and war was
determined on." By the Pragmatic Sanction the succession
of Maria Theresa to this and her other dominions had been
guaranteed by the Powers. Frederick had received no provoca-
tion of any kind or degree, when, a few weeks after the death
of the Emperor, he entered Silesia with 30,000 men, ostensibly
" to cover it from being attacked," and proceeded to levy
contributions from the inhabitants. Meanwhile at Vienna
his ministers were advancing his claim to the territory, offering
in return his influence on behalf of her husband's election to
the Empire, and a loan, both of which were naturally refused.
Another good example of Frederican perfidy was his repudiation
in 1744 of his treaty of mutual defence with England, concluded
only two years before. War having broken out between this
country and France, Frederick was invited by our ambassador
to furnish troops, but declined on the plea of doubt whether
the English had not been the aggressors. Such scruples came
with an ill grace from a man of his record. In 1756, purposing
to invade Bohemia, Frederick obtained permission from the
Elector of Saxony to march through that state on condition
of the enforcement of discipline and the observance of due
respect towards the royalties. But no sooner had he reached
Dresden than he demanded the dispersal of the Elector's army,
having previously, at Leipsic, ordered the payment of all taxes

362 MAKERS OF MAN

and customs to himself. Not only did Frederick forcibly take
possession of the secret archives stored in the royal palaces ; he
dismissed all the Saxon ministers, appointed a Prussian governor,
blew up the fortifications of Wirtemberg, and made Torgau the
seat of his usurped government. His own explanation of these
highly arbitrary proceedings was that " he was well informed
that the Court of Saxony intended to let his troops pass safely,
and afterwards to wait events in order to avail themselves of
them, either by joining his enemies, or by making a diversion
in his dominions." The fact remains that he chose to enter
Saxony under a pledge of restraint, which, to all appearances,
he never intended to observe, or, at any rate; never observed.
That Frederick's proceedings in Saxony aroused the resentment
of those best qualified to judge, is proved by the fact that the
forfeiture of all his rights, privileges, and prerogatives was forth-
with decreed by the Aulic Council of the Empire, only one
electorate (Hanover), of the nine, siding with him.

Of the methods employed by Frederick for the extortion of
money from the ruined citizens of Leipsic (1758), and of his
justification of the burning of the suburbs of Dresden, I will
say nothing, since necessity has no laws. The meanest crime
that history records against him is, after all, one which concerns
a single individual, the famous and extraordinary Baron Trenck.
This former friend of the King and lover of his sister had been
confined at Glatz as a traitor, without trial or court-martial.
He escaped, but was captured in the Austrian service in 1754.
A dark cell, measuring ten feet by eight, was constructed under
the personal direction of the King, who also prescribed the kind
of irons to be worn. In this hole, handcuffed to the extremities
of a two-foot bar, with a tomb engraved " Trenck " at his feet,
this unhappy man endured nine years of solitary confinement.
If this is the reward of a King's friendship, what wonder that
Voltaire accepted with misgivings the repeated invitations to
Potsdam ! Frederick's championship of the miller Arnold, and
severe punishment of the Chancellor and eight judges concerned
in the case, was, in substance, hardly less iniquitous and violent,
although here he may be given the credit of having, in the first
place, interfered in what he conceived to be the interest of

LIMITATION AND CRIME 363

justice — absurdly and culpably mistaken though his decision
proved to have been.

Finally, as to the partition of Poland : in political matters,
Emil Reich has well said, all nations are and act as in a state
of nature. Still, there is a certain responsibility attaching
to those who initiate such grave events ; and, whatever may be
said for it on the score of expediency, I agree with the biographer
who asserts that " a more flagrant act of injustice, oppression, and
tyranny has seldom appeared in the history of mankind."

Two grave crimes — one, certainly, by no means well-estab-
lished— are alleged against Nelson, both (assuming for a
moment his guilt in the doubtful case) clearly traceable to the
sinister influence of the Neapolitan Court atmosphere, and of
Lady Hamilton, its presiding genius, upon his temperament
and character. Nelson returned to Italy after his victory of
the Nile in ill-health and low spirits, dissatisfied with his Barony
— for he felt that he deserved an Earldom, at least — prostrated
by a fever which, on the voyage, had nearly ended his life,
suffering from a sense of thoracic constriction so severe that
he had been seriously considering the question of retirement.
The state of affairs in Italy was not likely to soothe or console
him : on the one hand, he was disgusted by the frivolity of the
Court ; on the other, enraged by the audacity of the revolu-
tionists. " I am very unwell," he wrote, " and their miserable
conduct is not likely to cool my irritable temper. It is a country
of fiddlers and poets, whores and scoundrels." In a letter
to Lady Hamilton, after he had removed her and the royalties
to Sicily, he wrote, in the same vein of bitterness and dis-
illusionment, " I am now perfectly the great man — not a
creature near me. From my heart I wish myself the little
man again." The fact is, that Lady Hamilton, ex-courtesan
and would-be politician, was, like all beggars on horseback,
inflamed by an intolerant contempt for those whom she con-
sidered her inferiors. Above all, she was a fanatical Royalist —
death to all Jacobins ! We aristocrats cannot breathe the same
air which they contaminate. Such a woman's influence was
exquisitely adapted to the aggravation of Nelson's peculiar
weakness for mistaking sentiment for principle, narrow pre-

364 MAKERS OF MAN

judice for high-souled chivalry and knightly devotion. So it
came about that when Caracciolo, the Commodore of the
Republican Navy, fell into Nelson's hands (29th June 1799),
he ordered him to be tried forthwith by a court-martial of Nea-
politan officers. Caracciolo was condemned and sentenced at
noon of the same day, and hanged by Nelson's orders at 5.0
p.m., Lady Hamilton being present ! This precipitate execution
was not merely indecent — it was virtually an act of deliberate
and furious retaliation, of which Nelson in his best period would
have been absolutely incapable. But the possibility of such
errors was implicit from the first in the Nelsonic point of view.

A few days before this, some of the Neapolitan revolution-
aries who had been besieged in the castles of Uovo and Nuovo,
had agreed to surrender on receiving from Cardinal RufEo the
promise that their lives and property should be spared. Nelson,
arriving with ships and men, when the capitulation was on the
point of being carried out, had peremptorily refused to endorse
this " infamous " treaty, and would accept nothing less than
unconditional surrender. It is alleged, but Mahan denies the
allegation, that Nelson allowed the garrisons to come out
before they had been informed of his repudiation of the treaty.
Many of the prisoners were, in fact, put to death. I, for one,
accept Nelson's clear statement to Lord Spencer : " The rebels
came out with this knowledge " — that their surrender was to be
unconditional. It is just possible, however, that Nelson did
not assure himself that his revocation was actually communi-
cated to the garrisons ; if so, we may be pretty certain that it
was not. To the same ill-starred period belongs Nelson's
" flagrant " disobedience of Lord Keith's orders to leave Naples
and proceed in full force to Minorca — a matter which has,
however, been sufficiently dealt with in an earlier chapter.

If Napoleon cherished any illusion as to the nature of the
task he had undertaken, and the fearful responsibilities in-
volved in his world-shaking ambition, Destiny was not slow to
remove the bandage from his eyes. In his thirtieth year,
finding himself de trop in Paris, where the prestige of his Italian
victories had made him persona ingrata to the Directory, he
betook himself to the Orient, full of grandiose visions of such

LIMITATION AND CRIME 365

an Empire as should dwarf all that was possible in " the mole-
hill of Europe." In the March of 1799, Jaffa was carried by
assault with horrible carnage, but 4000 of the defenders
offered to surrender on condition that their lives were spared ;
and their offer was accepted by Beauharnais and Croisier,
Bonaparte's aides-de-camp. " I was walking with General
Bonaparte in front of his tent," writes Bourrienne, " when he
saw this multitude of men approaching, and, before he even
saw his aides-de-camp, he turned to me with an expression
of grief, " What do they wish me to do with these men ? Have
I food for them — ships to convey them to Egypt or France ?
Why have they served me thus ? " To Eugene and Croisier
Bonaparte angrily exclaimed : "It was your duty to die rather
than bring these unfortunate creatures to me. What do you
want me to do with them ? ' That day a council of war was
held ; but no decision could be arrived at. When, on the
following day, the reports of generals of division came in,
" they spoke of nothing but the insufficiency of the rations, the
complaints of the soldiers — of their murmurs and discontent
at seeing their bread given to enemies who had been with-
drawn from their vengeance. . . . All these reports were
alarming, and especially that of General Bon, in which case no
reserve was made. He spoke of nothing less than the fear of a
revolt, which would be justified by the serious nature of the
case." Day followed day without any decision being arrived
at ; the murmurs of the semi-mutinous soldiers grew louder
and angrier ; the danger of starvation stared the invaders in
the face. The logic of events proved inexorable : on the sixth
day the order for the shooting of the whole 4000 prisoners —
prisoners to whom the promise of life had been the condition
of surrender — was given and executed. " This atrocious
scene," writes Bourrienne, " when I think of it, still makes
me shudder, as it did on the day I beheld it. ... All the horrors
imagination can conceive, relative to that day of blood, would
fall short of the reality. . . . It was necessary to be on the spot
in order to understand the horrible necessity which existed" But
what necessity, apart from the promptings of one man's over-
whelming ambition, had existed for a French invasion of Syrian

366 MAKERS OF MAN

territory ? Echo answers, What ? Napoleon was a kind-
hearted man, and must have suffered severely in this affair ; but
he had no choice but to go through with it. The " moral "
appears to be : Let no man undertake to conquer the world
unless he have a strong stomach for blood.

During Napoleon's consulate, in the years 1800 and 1801,
two attempts were made upon his life — the first by Caracchi,
the second by explosion of an infernal machine by some
Koyalist conspirators. He attributed both plots to the Jacobins,
whom he always hated and feared, and determined that France
should be " purged of these ruffians." A special commission
of eight judges conferred upon him the power practically to
deal at his own sweet will with political offenders, real or
imaginary. A consular decree shortly afterwards banished
some 130 individuals, including many whose sole crime was
that they were lovers of liberty, who had the imprudence to
see through and disapprove of his ambition. In the same
spirit Napoleon severely restricted the liberty of the press.
" Should I give them (the journals) the rein," he said, " my power
would not continue three months."

These crimes against Liberty, against the very spirit of the
Revolution, which had provided the lever by which he was
overwhelming the established order of the world, are by no
means without significance to the psychologist. But they are
altogether dwarfed by contrast with the judicial murder which
Napoleon perpetrated in the year following his inauguration
as consul for life. The " execution " of the Due d'Enghien
occurred on 21st May 1803, at Vincennes. The alleged justifica-
tion was his complicity in the plot of Georges, Pichegru, Moreau,
and others ; but the trial of these men did not take place until
nearly a month later. D'Enghien was therefore shot long
before the trial of the real culprits had even begun. It is not
seriously believed that he was himself concerned in the plot,
and the fact that he remained quietly at Essenheim after the
arrests had begun, is clear prima facie evidence of his innocence.
His real crime was that of having Bourbon blood in his veins,
and his murder the one and only crime of pure cowardice which
can be laid to Napoleon's account.

LIMITATION AND CRIME 367

The monstrous Berlin Decree of 1806 against British com-
merce, by which Napoleon endeavoured to place this country
" in Coventry," declaring that all British goods would be
confiscated and all British subjects seized and incarcerated,
would have been a crime if it had not been a stupendous blunder.
It naturally cut both ways, and was inevitably ignored and
evaded wherever and whenever possible ; but Napoleon's
obstinate endeavours to enforce it gravely damaged his popu-
larity and prestige in Europe, and no doubt contributed to
his fall. As a means of injuring us it was perfectly ridiculous,
but, as Bourrienne justly remarks, " the hurling of twenty kings
from their thrones would have excited less hatred than this
contempt for the wants of a people."

The cunning with which Napoleon, after the abdication
of Charles iv. of Spain, lured Ferdinand to Bayonne, and there
informed his guest that he must either abdicate or die, is another
pleasing specimen of gutter diplomacy. From a gamin, but
hardly from an Emperor, are such tactics to be expected. This,
however, was an Emperor who also cheated at cards !

Bacon's lapse into venality is attributed by Professor
Nichol to his " almost criminal determination to succeed, and
increasing veneration for those who were ceasing to be even
worthy of respect." One fatal error was his officious interven-
tion against the marriage of Buckingham's brother to Frances,
the daughter of his own fallen enemy, Coke. His protest against
the alliance with a " disgraced house " incensed Buckingham,
whereupon Bacon made bad worse by abjectly counterfeiting
a zealous promotion of the match, which duly came off in 1618
(Bacon, set. 57). Buckingham asserted that he had had to
kneel to the King to prevent him from degrading the Lord
Keeper, who henceforth became his thrall. During the entire
period of his full Chancellorship, Bacon received a flow of letters
from Buckingham virtually demanding undue consideration
for the suitors whom he favoured. The man who wrote that
" judges must be chaste as Caesar's wife, neither to be nor as
much as suspected in the least degree unjust," must surely
have suffered severely from the consciousness of so false and
humiliating a position. The issue is known to all the world ;

368 MAKERS OF MAN

but while it appears to be certain that Bacon received and even
borrowed money from suitors, pendente lite, there is, Nichol
asserts, no evidence that he ever allowed his verdict to be
actually affected by a bribe. " Poverty of moral feeling," to
say the least of it, is also indicated by the active part played by
Bacon in the prosecution of his benefactor, Essex ; by the
malicious exaggeration characterising his declaration concerning
the " Treasons " of Raleigh ; and by the base ingratitude
with which he pressed for a severe sentence against Yelverton,
charged with a mere irregularity, although a couple of years
before, in the matter of the Coke-Villiers marriage, Yelverton
had rendered him considerable assistance. It is, in fact,
strikingly characteristic of Lord Bacon that " he has left no
great defence on record — even his own was a failure." Coldness
of heart seems to have been the price exacted for the depth
and range of his intellect, and rendered him the willing tool of
all who could tempt his insatiable appetite for wealth, power,
and prestige.

To many good folk at the present day, the mutilation of
living animals, even when fully anaesthetised, for the purpose
of scientific research, is a thing utterly vile and reprehensible.
Without endorsing or even discussing this position, I shall,
in the interests of truth, which takes precedence of all theories,
point out that the immortal fame of William Harvey is indis-
putably and confessedly based on the results of the dissection
of innumerable creatures, fully sentient of the tortures inflicted
upon them ; and that nowhere in his surviving works is any
word to be found conveying the least sense of the gravity
of his thus-incurred responsibility or one qualm of com-
punction for the victims of his consuming zeal. To us, to-day,
this callousness, in one, moreover, by universal testimony of
his contemporaries, known as in other respects a generous,
warm-hearted and humane man, presents a psychological
problem of no little interest and perplexity. Much may no
doubt be attributed to the circumstances of his time ; for the
sense of responsibility in such matters as the treatment of
animals is a phenomenon in great measure unprecedented, of
sudden and recent growth. But the fact must be faced that

LIMITATION AND CRIME 369

genius in pursuit of its proper aim has generally proved ruthless,
not merely to its possessor, but to all others whose interests
obstructed its path. But for the benefit of those who have
any lurking doubts as to the facts of this case, let me quote
Harvey's ipsissima verba, or the translation thereof ; l " When
I first gave my mind to vivisections as a means of discovering
the motions and uses of the heart, and sought to discover
these from actual inspection, and not from the writings of
others, I found, etc. etc. ... At length, and by using greater
and daily diligence, having frequent recourse to vivisections,
employing a variety of animals for the purpose,2 ... I thought
. . . that I had discovered what I so much desired, etc. In
the first place, when the chest of a living animal is laid open
and the capsule that immediately surrounds the heart is slit
up or removed, the organ is seen now to move, now to be at
rest, etc. etc."

Remember that the lectures of Harvey reveal intimate
knowledge of the anatomy of more than sixty different animals ;
that when he speaks of dissection, what is now often called
vivisection is commonly implied ; that his practice of such
experiments was a lifelong passion. The sum of agony in-
flicted by this kind, impulsive little gentleman, especially upon
those " colder animals " — toads, frogs, serpents, fishes, crabs,
etc. — in which, as he soon found, the heart's movements could
be best studied, is appalling to contemplate. But it never
seems to have occurred to him, nor, as far as I know, to any of
his most bitter adversaries either, that the flagging hearts
whose movements he observed and described with such admir-
able precision, had any sort of claim upon his own.

In a former work 3 1 have spoken of genius as " the Absolute
of human accomplishment," assigning to it the supreme place
in the category of virtues. In every work or deed charac-
erised by genius, there is at least a hint of finality : we feel
in contemplating such works or deeds a unique satisfaction,

1 By Robert Willis.

2 " Multa frequenter et varia animalia viva introspiciendo." The second
chapter is headed, " Ex vivorum dissectione, qualis fit cordis motus."

8 The Logic of Human Character, p. 215.
24

370 MAKERS OF MAN

breathe for a moment the pure air of Infinity. If this applies,
as it certainly does apply, to the achievements of practical,
aesthetic, and intellectual genius, it applies in a still higher
and fuller degree to those of men whose creative sphere is that
of the innermost, all-comprehensive spirit, the sphere of Religion.
Men who, like Jesus, are destined to inaugurate a new era of
world-wide scope and seonic duration, produce on the minds
of their associates and of posterity an impression of correspond-
ing depth and power. So vast and significant is the ideal
they suggest, which in their lives they imperfectly express and
embody, that, in its light, their personalities become trans-
figured, and assume stupendous, even Divine proportions.
This illusion — for an illusion it certainly is — however salutary
in its first effects, must not blind the truth-seeker (i.e. the
psychologist) to the fact that such men, like all others, have
their faults and limitations. It is high time that we learned,
once for all, to distinguish, for example, between the man
Jesus, a creative genius, but a fallible man for all that, and
the Christ-Ideal, whose formulation and consecration has been
the collective task of Humanity during at least the past two
thousand years, probably much longer than that if the whole
truth were known. " It is hopeless," writes K. C. Anderson,1
to attempt to understand the New Testament or the needs of
our time, so long as we continue to confound Jesus with the
Christ ; — the first, a historic figure of the first century ; the
second, a reflection of this historic figure, in which there is
always of necessity a subjective element."

Of crime in the ordinary sense of the word there is, of
course, no suggestion in the little that is recorded of the life
of Jesus in the Gospels. On the other hand, it appears fairly
certain that he died a criminal's death, and although heartily
agreeing with the universal condemnation of the iniquity
which brought this to pass, we must not overlook the possibility
of some formal justification. The events recorded in connection
with the last days in Jerusalem — in particular the account
given of the purging of the temple — suggest something like a
riot, for which Jesus was no doubt held responsible, and, indeed,
1 Hibbert Journal, July 1906.

LIMITATION AND CRIME 371

in a sense, may have been. If his message to mankind was,
in essence, one of pure goodwill, it certainly involved the prob-
ability of contention. " I came to cast fire upon the earth,"
he said, " and what will I if it be already kindled ? " His re-
pudiation of the Law, of Judiasm, that is, contained the seeds
of inevitable discord. And in this connection it is interesting
to recall the remark of Wenininger : " Judaism was the peculiar
original sin of Christ. . . . Christ was the greatest man because
he conquered the greatest enemy." If Christianity has brought
priceless blessings to mankind, it has also brought unspeakable
woes. If its founder deserves the glory and gratitude of a great
benefactor, can we logically overlook his responsibility for the
appalling superstitions and errors begotten by the limitations
of his point of view and by his dualistic doctrine ? The
Christian ideal of self-sacrificing love, of " a kingdom not of
this world," could only issue, as it did, in a fatal severance of
Life and Religion. Since the realisation of moral aims could
only be wished, not willed, men despaired of the world, and
sought refuge in cloistered asceticism. In Hegel's phrase,
Jesus, by his repudiation of all personal and finite claims, and
withdrawal from secular interests, incurs " the guilt of innocency,
and his elevation above all fate brings with it the most unhappy
of fates."

To a man like Jesus the cold and barren formalism of the
Scribes and Pharisees must have been exasperating in a high
degree, since he saw in it the very antithesis of the spiritual
attitude he sought to make prevail. Yet there is something
to be said for the formalist's point of view. The past is justified
in defending its position against the present, so long as the latter
fails to recognise the last grain of truth enshrined in its forms
and institutions. Can any impartial witness maintain that the
invective of Jesus is always the expression of the purest and
highest enlightenment, always unalloyed by the bitterness of
personal rancour and resentment ? To my thinking — and
perhaps one reader in ten thousand will have the courage to
admit the truth and necessity QL the observation — there can be
only one reply to this question.

For behoof of dunces and heresy-mongers, I will add — since

372 MAKERS OF MAN

the title of this chapter may otherwise afford pretext for malicious
misrepresentations — that I am very far from regarding the
personality of Jesus as an essentially criminal one. I merely
point out the irrationality of the current assumption that any
individual can be wholly exempt from the defects of his qualities.
The more exalted the qualities of a given individual, the more
stringent, though not, perhaps, the more extensive, will be the
limitations implied. The higher we climb, the farther, no
doubt, our vision extends ; but — there is always the impassable
horizon.1

If Marcus Aurelius could have foreseen the embarrassment
of his admirers when confronted by the damning fact of his
at least formal responsbility for the horrors perpetrated at Lyons
and elsewhere against the Christians, is it conceivable that he
would have suffered so foul a blot to mar the purity of his
renown ? Certainly, there was a note of impatience, a hint
of intellectual arrogance, in his attitude towards the new religion,
radically inconsistent even with the highest tenets of the philo-
sophy to which, upon the whole, he so loyally adhered. His
beloved master, Fronto, was, we know, also prejudiced upon
this point ; and it may be suspected that Aurelius, who had
Christians among his servants, for whom, rightly or wrongly,
he conceived small esteem, was unfortunate in his experience
of professors of the new faith. On philosophic grounds he
objected, too, not without plausibility, to their enthusiastic
other-worldliness, their courting of death. A man should be
ready for death, or aught else ; but to seek it eagerly was, in
his opinion, attributable only to " mere perversity " and the
love of " tragic display." Here his insight certainly failed him —
who could, in cold blood, accuse the heroic slave-girl, Blandina,
of theatricality ? What pose could survive the ordeal of the
scourge, the arena, the burning chair ?

But although in his reign the persecution of Christians
reached an unprecedented intensity, the responsibility of the
Emperor is, upon the whole, negative rather than positive. He

1 " What animal, domestic or wild, will call it a matter of no moment that
scarce a word of sympathy with brutes should have survived from the teachings
of Jesus of Nazareth ? " (W. James).

LIMITATION AND CRIME 373

conceived it necessary to uphold the national religion ; he
therefore permitted the punishment of those who repudiated
that religion. But he took no steps to increase the severity of
the anti-Christian laws : Tertullian even claims him as a pro-
tector. " If," says Tertullian, " he did not openly revoke the
edicts against our brethren, he destroyed their effect by the
severe penalties which he established for the accusers." It is
only fair, too, to remember that among those who professed
Christianity in those days were the followers of impostors like
Prodicus and Marcos, who, under the cloak of religion, practised
and taught the most shameless debaucheries. Upon the whole,
though, it was just the mere " goodness," the invertebrate
piety of the Emperor, that betrayed him. He lacked negativity,
and, having in him no strong egoism, hence no passion of revolt
or innovation, was temperamentally incapable of appreciating
the Dionysian spirit. A revolutionist of any kind was to him
a mere criminal, and a fool into the bargain. Shall we call
his, too, in Hegel's term, a somewhat flagrant case of the " guilt
of innocency ? "

I have in a former chapter pointed out the curious analogy
presented by the careers of Marcus Aurelius on the one hand,
and St. Gregory the Great on the other. This analogy extends
also to the matter under consideration ; both were, by tempera-
ment, the mildest and most equable of men ; yet — both were
persecutors. The African Church was, in Gregory's time,
infected by the heresy of Donatism, according to which the
validity of the Sacraments is conditioned by the morality or
immorality of the officiating priest. In urging the Exarch
to suppress this heresy, Gregory used expressions hardly to be
justified even from the point of view of his epoch and office.
He was to " bend their proud necks under the yoke of righteous-
ness " ; and one can well imagine what harsh measures might
result from such counsel. To Pantaleon, the prefect, he also
wrote, sharply reproving his negligence, and the bishops were
commanded to " unite against the ' disease,' so that a future
messenger may rejoice our heait by their (the heretics') punish-
ment." To Dominic of Carthage, Gregory wrote : " We desire
that all heretics should be repressed with vigour and reason by

374 MAKERS OF MAN

the Catholic priests." And the desired effect seems to have
been duly attained ; after 596 there is no further mention of
Donatists in Africa.

An even more serious matter is the question of Gregory's
relations with Phocas, the usurper of the Empire, and murderer
of the Emperor Maurice, the Empress, their six sons and three
daughters, and the Emperor's brother. To this vile wretch
Gregory wrote, congratulating him upon his accession : " We
rejoice that the graciousness of your piety has attained the
Imperial dignity." With evident reference to the late Emperor,
who, with all his faults, had been a good friend to Gregory on
several occasions, and had treated him with respect and even
affection,1 Gregory also wrote as follows : " Sometimes for the
punishment of the sins of many, some one is raised up through
whose oppression the necks of subjects are driven under the
yoke of tribulation ; and this we have experienced in our late
affliction." I gladly admit that there is reason to doubt that
Gregory, at the time of writing, was aware of the full extent of
the criminality of this Phocas ; but I contend that, in that
case, his congratulations were at least premature. He had no
grounds for assuming that Maurice would tamely submit to
deposition ; and should have held his peace until in possession
of all the facts of the case. He seems to have realised his error ;
for it is stated that he never again communicated with Phocas.

In general, the disposition of Mahomet seems to have been,
for an Oriental, surprisingly tolerant of opposition, and free
from revengeful rancour. An exception must, however, be
made in regard to his treatment of the Jews ; who. for their
part, it must be owned, were far from careful in the avoidance
of offence. When Mahomet first migrated to Medina the Jews
for a time seem to have favoured his doctrine ; but this re-
spectful attitude was of very brief duration. On a closer
acquaintance with his teaching, they repudiated it with ridicule
and contempt. Thus he was brought to regard the race as
enemies of his mission ; and the seed of ill-will sown in his
heart soon produced a bitter harvest. On occasion of a riot
following the forcible unveiling of a Moslem girl, Mahomet,

1 And had made him godfather to his son.

LIMITATION AND CRIME 375

now supreme in Medina, seized the opportunity to confiscate
the property of Jewish citizens, seven hundred of whom he
banished to Syria. Further, he revoked the decree making
Jerusalem the Kebla (point of prayer), and substituted Mecca,
the holy city of his own race, with which he had begun to feel the
necessity of uniting the destiny of his mission. So far, his
hostility to the Jews had not betrayed him into actual crime ;
but worse was to follow. About the year 625 (Mahomet's
56th year), the third from the date of his arrival in Medina,
a Jewish tribe, the Beni Koraida, who occupied a stronghold
near the city, befriended an attack upon it commanded by
Abu Sofian. The attack was abandoned by the Meccans ;
and, after their departure, Mahomet besieged the Koraidites,
who were compelled to surrender at discretion. Mahomet
offered these Jewish prisoners the submittal of their fate to the
decision of Saad Ibn Moad, the Awsite chief, a man formerly
well-disposed to them. The offer was naturally accepted with
alacrity ; but, as Mahomet knew, and the Koraidites did not
know, Saad had been severely wounded in the recent battle ;
and his goodwill towards the tribe had given way to a hot
desire for vengeance. In accordance with his brutal decree, the
seven hundred prisoners of war were taken to the market-place,
forced to enter newly dug graves, and butchered. Their
women and children were enslaved. Concerning this episode,
Mahomet's biographer justly remarks that his " referring the
appeal of the Beni Koraida to one whom he knew to be bent
on their destruction, has been stigmatised as cruel mockery ;
and the massacre of those unfortunate men in the market-
place of Medina is pronounced one of the darkest pages in his
history." By far the darkest known to the present writer ;
although, in a sense, the frequent fabrication of " special
revelations " from on high, authorising this or the other caprice
of personal indulgence, must be accounted an even graver blot
upon his name. Much may be forgiven to an enthusiast ; but
here Mahomet lays himself open to the charge of exploiting the
devotion and credulity of his followers, and compromising the
purity of his cause. He was no quack ; but he sometimes con-
descended to the methods of quackery ; and adversaries have

376 MAKERS OF MAN

not been slow in availing themselves of the opportunity thus
provided of impugning his genius and his aim.

With regard to Luther, the last of our great men with
whom I have to deal in the capacity of criminal, I have already
had occasion to mention his endorsement of the persecution
of Anabaptists — that is, of persons who, like himself, recog-
nising the Scriptures, as interpreted by the " Christian con-
science," as the supreme spiritual authority, were perverse
enough to differ from him as to the purport of such inter-
pretation. He advised the adoption by his Elector of a decree
to the effect that all rebaptized persons should be executed
without trial. After this, the less said on the subject of
Luther's religious tolerance, the better : a man more saturated
with the arrogancy of the odium theologicum his own century
could hardly adduce. But what is generally regarded as the
most vulnerable point in his record, is .his attitude towards
the peasants and fanatics in their insurrection of 1525 ; and, in
particular, the violent manifesto, in which he, a " peasant "
writing of peasants, urged his " dear lords " (with a reserva-
tion, certainly in favour of dupes lured into revolt) to " stab,
crush, strangle " all whom they could. That this congenial
counsel was faithfully followed, needs no saying : after the
defeat of Miinzer and his eight thousand at Frankenhausen,
" one stronghold of the rebellion after another was reduced,
and the horrors perpetrated by the peasants were repaid with
fearful vengeance on their heads." Nor was the lesson of
the revolt taken to heart by the conquerors : the burden of
ecclesiastical, feudal, and Imperial oppression was rather in-
creased than diminished after the event. For all this Luther
has been held largely accountable ; but on carefully looking
into the matter I confess that he seems to have acted not ill,
according to his lights. If he censured the peasants for their
violence, he admitted the existence of some, at least, of their
grievances, and did not fail to urge upon the authorities the
responsibility of setting these right. He showed, too, the
full courage of his convictions by visiting some of the most
disturbed districts 'in person, and urging the return of the mal-
contents to more conciliatory methods of seeking redress.

MARTIN LUTHER.
J '<i£fnta>i del. ; If. Meyer, Sculp.

To face /. 376.

LIMITATION AND CRIME 377

It was only when his efforts to allay the growing tempest had
utterly failed ; when bloodshed and anarchy were everywhere
lifting their hideous heads, that he broke forth into harsh
rebuke and threw the full weight of his influence into the scale
of established authority. According to his lights, I repeat,
the man acted not ill. But his lights were so lamentably
deficient. His theological hair-splittings seemed so infinitely
more important than those Twelve Articles in which, with all
moderation, the peasants had set forth their protest against
the intolerable exactions and pretensions of those who had the
ordering of their lives. To all this Luther merely replied that
it was their duty to be submissive, that the Gospel had nothing
to do with their demands.

" The religious world," says Karl Marx, " is only the reflec-
tion of the real world." Every economic change is foreshadowed
and attended by a corresponding change in that " nebulous
mist which envelops and veils the actuality of our social life,"
only to be dispersed when that life " can show the labours of
an association of free men working intelligently, and masters
of their own proper social movements." Luther's complete
failure to grasp the significance of the peasant rising, complete
lack of vital sympathy with its objects, were the inevitable
corollaries of the fact that his Reformation signified the emerg-
ence of the Burgher interest and the Burgher point of view.
The day of the peasant was not ye t.

This brings to a close my examples of the great man as
criminal ; a part of my subject which I have approached with
reluctance, yet which obviously could not be shirked. Let no
one imagine that I have approached it in a censorious or carping
spirit. Who am I — who is any one, to fling stones or mud at
these demigods ? My aim has been to show the close, perhaps
even essential, relation of great qualities and great defects — a
fact often hypocritically or cowardly ignored ; yet which has
to be confronted by every psychologist worthy of the name, to
say nothing of the philosopher. The twentieth century, in
its revival of aristocracy, its wholesome repudiation of the
Jacobinical heresy — its cult of heroes — has no use for pedestals
and the limelight. No actors need apply ! Its heroes will be

378 MAKERS OF MAN

such, and such only, as can brave the light of day, whose beauty
needs no rouge-pot or carefully adjusted vestments ; but can
go forth naked, yet unashamed.

"The dignity of nakedness
Reveals the turpitude of dress."

XIII
INDIVIDUALITY: ITS NATURE AND POWER

Mechanism versus psychism — Back to Leibnitz — Heredity — Eugenics — A
parable — Soul and spirit — Fechner's hypothesis — " Immortality " — The
social factor — Valedictory survey.

HAVING faithfully acquitted ourselves of the task of examining
in detail the main facts of existence, as recorded in the lives
of our representative characters, it only remains to discuss,
in the light of these observations, the general problem of In-
dividuality itself. I shall allow myself here the freedom
of speculation which I consider myself to have fairly earned :
the times are fully ripe for a bolder and more funda-
mental treatment of such root-problems of psychology,
and, indeed, for a re-casting of those purely metaphorical
conceptions of Reality, which, however serviceable in
their day, have, by mere use and wont, acquired a too long
unquestioned spurious authority as absolute, unassailable
dogmas. Our vicious habit of thinking exclusively in terms of
the atomic theory is a conspicuous case in point. This was
all very well so long as the activities of science were in the
main confined to the inorganic sphere ; so long, therefore, as
the ultimate problems were necessarily conceived in terms of the
inorganic. But, as Mr. Fournier d'Albe well says, " the physicist,
working on the very borderland of science, . . . has almost
developed into a mystic. He has shattered the atom, and is
now endeavouring to reduce matter to some unintelligible
turbulance in an inconceivable ether. He is on a fool's errand.
' That way madness lies.' It, is sheer waste of time to look
for an ultimate particle, or for a continuous fluid of certain
density or elasticity. We can never arrive at anything ultimate

379

380 MAKERS OF MAN

by making our unit small. There will always be something
a million times smaller, infinitely smaller. . . . Let us not
bury these problems out of sight in the Infinitesimal.
No material explanation of the universe will ever explain
anything. The elementary particle, the elementary position
or motion, will be the greatest of all puzzles. Real progress
must be sought for in quite another direction. . . . Not micro-
scopy, but psychology, mil solve the ' Riddle ' of the universe" *
My point could not be better put ; the last sentence might
serve as the text of the present chapter, and, indeed, of the
present volume. Psychology is the science of to-day : in
terms of psychology we must formulate the philosophy of
to-morrow.

The conception of Reality as a mechanically-impelled
system of irreducible atoms or material particles, is only one
of the many idola theatri which obstruct the path of clear and
comprehensive thinking. Others may confront us anon,
perhaps ; if so, we shall not fear to relegate them to the
intellectual rubbish-heap where they already belong.

Hitherto we have been mainly concerned with Individuality
in its phenomenal aspect, and as a mere product : the question
of its real or substantial nature has necessarily been postponed.
We have seen how, prior to the manifestation of a given per-
sonality, innumerable psychic tendencies, embodied — though
this factor may be left out of account — in corresponding organic
or inorganic forms, have, through countless ages, converged
and, ultimately, by some inexplicable chemistry or affinity,
blended into one. Then, as it were by some divine chance,
has emerged the world-moulding power of a Caesar or Charle-
magne, the genius of a Titian or Beethoven, the insight of a
Goethe, the profound wisdom of a Hegel, the sublime spirituality
of a Jesus — all rooted in the abysmal penetralia of an immemorial
past, yet all radiating the authentic lustre of a something un-
paralleled ; predestined, yet new. In treating of heredity we
found, over and over again, indications in the characters of
their parents of the proclivities of great men. But we must

1 Two New Worlds, by E. E. Fournier d'Albe, B.Sc., London, 1907, pp.
149-151.

INDIVIDUALITY : NATURE AND POWER 381

beware of the too hasty assumption that because the father of
Mozart was a Court fiddler, a composer of uninspired trifles,
and the author of a successful manual, the mystery of his son's
creative genius is explained. Grant, even, what is far from
certain, that the emotional and mental capacities compressed
in a given personality are, one and all, according to the Mendelian
or some other formula, inherited, through the parental gametes,
from the ancestral stock — the fact that they have thus flowed
down from antiquity and become fused into the indivisible
flame of a unique personality, is not, from the conventional
point of view, one whit less miraculous or inexplicable. When
all is said, the parents of most of our great men have been, if
not commonplace, at best somewhat mediocre folk. Between
them and their illustrious offspring there is ever a great gulf
fixed — the gulf that divides mere social worth from world-
significance, mere versatility or talent from genius or initiative.

" The little more, and how much it is ;
The little less, and what worlds away ! "

In conceiving Individuality, according to the crude showing
of appearances, as a haphazard conglomerate of inherited
qualities, a mere product or sum, we are setting the cart before
the horse. Consequently, we see all our rivers flowing uphill —
a fact the more surprising since their only visible source is in
the subterranean region of the inorganic world. We are here
on the track of another idolon theatri : the pseudo-scientific
superstition that causality is an affair of mere sequence in time,
nay, rather, of mere apparent sequence. What appears last
on the scene cannot, according to this hypothesis, be the cause
of events which have preceded its appearance. But a thing
may conceivably exist before it appears upon the scene : a ship,
for example, does not emerge from nonentity at the moment
when it mounts the horizon. And if, as appears not unlikely,
there is in Individuality a something over and above the multi-
plicity of psychic potentialities traceable to this, that, or the
other ancestor ; a something too fundamental to grasp, too
subtle and elusive to define ; a clinching and unifying some-
thing ; — is it outrageous to surmise that herein may lie the

382 MAKERS OF MAN

true determinant of all those phenomena which have paved
the way for its ultimate manifestation (in so far as they have
done merely this), and also the explanation of that universal
" tendency to individuation " in which Spencer found the
keynote of evolutionary processes ?

The fact is that we want a new atomic theory, rather
perhaps the revival of a too hastily forgotten old one — a psychic
or spiritual, in place of a material, atomism ; a monadology.
" Back to Leibnitz " must be the cry of all who grasp the
futility of nineteenth century attempts at cosmology. That
astute champion of neglected aspects of truth clearly foresaw
and forewarned the savants of his day that their exclusive
devotion to the investigation of " efficient " causes would
inevitably land them in the bog of a purblind materialism.
He yielded to no man in maintenance of the necessity of the
mechanical hypothesis and of mathematical methods as instru-
ments of research. But he pointed out that, in itself, the
mechanical view of nature, however useful and fruitful of
results, was far from being philosophically adequate, was, in
fact, false — a doctrine of mere appearance, not of things as
they are. Hence he wisely urged his contemporaries, while
availing themselves to the full of the practical benefits of the
Cartesian and Newtonian methods, to bear constantly in mind
the merely provisional validity of the conceptions handled, and to
supplement their defects by a philosophical reconstruction of
the products of research. His warning remained unheeded :
intoxicated by the success of those early efforts in the new
field of methodical induction, the contemporaries and successors
of Leibnitz flung to the winds what they now deemed the
barren rubbish of an outworn scholasticism ; and gave them-
selves over body and soul to naive acceptance of a crudely
mechanical empiricism. In the dryasdust " philosophy " of
Spencer we have the monstrous apotheosis of this hypostat-
isation of a single aspect of Reality, also the fulfilment of
the apprehensions of Leibnitz as to its inevitably disastrous
effects.

But the hour of release from the clanking of the Spencerian
machine-universe is at hand ; it may soon become incredible

INDIVIDUALITY : NATURE AND POWER 383

that so hideous a portent could ever have been suffered to
offend our eyes or our ears.

Back to Leibnitz is our way of escape ; for Leibnitz alone
among the pioneers of the scientific renaissance, while eagerly
welcoming and smoothing the path of the new method, con-
sistently upheld the banner of the old truths flaunted and
contemned by his fellows. And what did Leibnitz teach with
reference to our problem of Individuality ? That it was an
ephemeral product of antecedent physical conditions ; a spark
struck off in one instant from the anvil of Circumstance ; ex-
tinguished, in the next, by the rude blast of mortality ?

On the contrary, he taught that no living creature actually
commences in Nature, nor by natural means comes to an end.
" Not only is there no generation, but also there is no entire
destruction or absolute death." That which we call generation
is development, and that which we call death is envelopment
and diminution. The Leibnitzian atoms are entelechies, the
humblest and obscurest of which are inalienably endowed
with ungauged potentialities of expansion and manifestation.
" Every substance has a perfect spontaneity (which becomes
liberty with intelligent substances). Everything which hap-
pens to it is a consequence of its idea or its being, and nothing
determines it except God." Consequently, although things
happen in such a way as to generate the illusion that one sub-
stance affects or is coerced by another, this is not really so.
Self-expression or manifestation is not uniform, but fluctuates
in accordance with the true nature (idea) of the substance or
entelechy concerned. And where the self-manifestation of
one substance diminishes, while that of another correspond-
ingly increases, we say that the first has been affected by the
second ; that the first is passive in relation to the activity of
the second. But the diminution of activity in the one case
and the augmentation in the other are each of spontaneous
and intrinsic origin ; each being a revelation of some attribute
of the substance or individuality concerned. Hence " it
appears more and more clear that although the particular
phenomena of nature can be explained mathematically or
mechanically by those who understand them, yet, nevertheless,

384 MAKERS OF MAN

the general principles of corporeal nature and even of mechanics
are metaphysical rather than geometric." All activity and
all passivity, on the part of a given subject, are self-derived
and self-determined.

All experience, that is to say, is, through and through, of
our own making ; and the causal activity which we attribute
to its factors, conceived as elements and processes of the so-
called external world, is nothing but illusion. The self that
determines our experience must not, of course, be identified
with the self of our every-day consciousness. The former is
the real or noumenal, the latter the empirical, ego. The relation
of the noumenal to the empirical ego is that of a stern task-
master to an often-times reluctant or even rebellious subject.
For the temporal welfare, the happiness, even the bare con-
tinued existence, of its ephemeral shadow, the dominant entel-
echy reveals no sort of concern. Itself serenely exalted above
all terrestrial vicissitudes, it, in accordance perhaps with some
occult logic of predetermined manifestation, evokes within the
sphere of our self-consciousness now the experience of smooth
prosperity, now of anguish or despair. All that for which we
return thanks to Destiny, all that for which we rage against the
gods and curse the brazen skies, is alike of its, that is, funda-
mentally, of our own, contriving.

For the unity of the real unseen order is reflected in the
phenomenal order, so that the several experiences of all con-
scious beings are mutually harmonised and interrelated in a
way that inevitably generates the illusion of external cause and
effect. So it happens that the findings of empirical science,
hypostasing abstract deductions from observed sensory
sequences into the manifestations of imaginary forces (light,
electricity, and so forth), are duly verified ; and that, year by
year, the pseudo-philosophy of mechanical causation binds
heavier and stronger fetters upon the hypnotised spirit of man-
kind.

But descending from this exalted region, and turning from
the general to the particular, let us consider how our theory
bears upon the question of inherited character. It is a crucial
point, since from the point of view of empirical science, Individ-

INDIVIDUALITY : NATURE AND POWER 385

uality is a chance-product, a casual agglomerate of innumerable
convergent factors, traceable ex hypothesi back through the
parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents, thence widening
out by innumerable diminishing rootlets through all civilisation,
through all prehistoric humanity, through all our mammalian
and sub-mammalian ancestry, even into the inorganic sphere.
Can this view, by which, at first sight, every vestige of spon-
taneity, of self-initiative, is, for the individual organism, ab-
solutely debarred and precluded, be in any way reconciled
with our own. If the latter is to stand, it not only can
but must be so reconcilable, since I have no intention,
even had I the wherewithal, of trying to invalidate the
facts of heredity and biological descent. All that I need is
contained in my challenge of the conventional interpretation
of those facts, the too hasty assumption that there can
be no more in them than meets the eye of your cocksure
contemporary physicist. What meets his (mental) eye is an
seonic panorama of convergent processes, verifiably generalis-
able in terms of certain abstract uniformities, beginning in
the inorganic realm, traversing the organic and human
realms, and, at the predestined hours, culminating in a
given conception and birth — in individuation. The qualities
revealed in the career of this individual will be not merely
similar, but the very same qualities as those which, thus
patiently, and, as it were, subterraneously, have threaded their
way through myriads of ages and myriads of organisms, to
meet and blend in, and re-issue from, this point. And, analog-
ously, the effects initiated by this career are hypothetically
traceable throughout futurity to the last day of time, and
throughout space to beyond the Milky Way. It is therefore
no mere figure of speech to say of such, of any individuality,
that, even from the point of view of the contemporary physicist
with his dubious logic of so-called " cause and effect," it is no
ephemeral manifestation of some three-score-and-ten years'
duration, but a genuine sample of Eternity, having neither
ascertainable beginning nor any conceivable end. Thus,
even in its phenomenal aspect, even to superficial observation,
Individuality reveals that eternity of manifestation and uni-
25

386 MAKERS OF MAN

versality of range which, in its real or noumenal essence —
that is, to thought — it has never lacked, nor can ever be denied.
And here, I maintain, here in its unseen source, never in any
confident anticipation of observed uniformities of succession,
we must seek for the inviolable necessity determining all that
has led up to and resulted from the manifestation of the given
individuality. In so far as they have done this and this alone ;
in so far as they have conduced to irrelevant results, other
causes must naturally be assigned. So I suggest that Beethoven
or Napoleon had such or such parents, had such or such lineage,
because the entelechies manifested under these names deter-
mined these conditions in advance. Whereas the empiricist
position is that Beethoven and Napoleon were born, and were
born such as we know them, because their parentage and
lineage were such as they were. However paradoxical my
position may appear to-day, I am confident that the future will
confirm it, proving that nothing truly or even approximately
individual was ever generated in time, or ever, in time, came
to an end.

Of course I am alive to the fact that Individuality as met
with in experience falls far short of the ideal standard. That
only, perhaps, can be described as in the full sense individual
which is also in the full sense universal — which is entirely
self-sufficing, comprehensive, harmonious, and, at the same
time, infinitely varied and complex.1 What, for the sake of
convenience, we call individuals are, strictly, mere personalities,
more or less limited, more or less flawed and self-contradictory,
consequently, more or less transient and unreal. I am not
contending for the personal immortality of every Dick, Tom,
and Harry ; nor, indeed, of even the most exalted souls. I
suggest merely that, underlying every subjectivity, there is
an unknown factor of whose nature that subjectivity is a
genuine, however incomplete, manifestation ; and that this
unknown factor, whether we call it immortal or decline to
commit ourselves to that large word, should be conceived as
exempt from the ordinary limitations of time and of space.

1 Such, at least, is the contention of the Absolutist — e.g. Mr. Bradley. But
does not individuation imply exclusion ?

INDIVIDUALITY : NATURE AND POWER 387

Further, that this unknown factor be regarded as a source of
creative spontaneity, a causal determinant of all phenomena
in any way contributory to the development of that personality
which constitutes the provisional manifestation of its own
essence. Man is from this point of view — not necessarily the
ultimate point of view, but as far in that direction as I am now
concerned to proceed — in a sense, his own creator ; and as much
may even be said for every organism. For every organism is
the product of its own fundamental spontaneity, the self-
display of some reality rooted in the unseen. But the reality
underlying a world-famous personality must be something vastly
more significant than that underlying a commonplace career ;
while, as to the lowlier organisms, their case need not detain
us at present. I will just say, however, that, in the absence
of distinct self -consciousness, true individuation can hardly
be considered to have dawned. With mere organisation we
have, it is true, transcended the dynamic, but have barely entered
the psychic sphere.

The facts that, in their own sphere of supersensuous exist-
ence, the entelechies of all phenomenal beings constitute doubt-
less a system unified by its own laws, and that this unity is
reflected in the phenomenal order, constitute the real explanation
of that unbroken sequence of cause and effect which, read
backwards by Science,1 generates the illusion that the highest
realities are a mere composite product of the lowest. This,
however, cannot be really so : the true order of causality is
the very reverse of the apparent order ; what is highest in the
scale of being takes ontological precedence of all that is below
it, and uses that as a mean towards the revelation of its own
occult, pre-existent potentialities. The so-solid seeming frame-
work of the universe, in comparison with the substantial essence
of Individuality, is but a phantasmal shadow-show, mere
scenery painted on the vaporous background that curtains the
abyss of nonentity.

Returning to the subject of heredity as a factor of our main
problem, I should like to illustrate my point by a reference to

In so far, at least, as Science ends at the point where the process really
begins.

388 MAKERS OF MAN

the fashionable topic of " Eugenics." Not long ago I read an
article by the author of Esoteric Buddhism, in which contempt
and contumely were heaped upon those who, by the scientific
regulation of parentage, hope not only to prevent the birth of
the " unfit," but even to raise the positive standard of human
capacity and intellect. The idea that in procreation and birth
no higher factor is concerned than the congress of two physical
organisms and the physiological processes thereby set afoot,
was eloquently and justly held up to ridicule. Thereby, in
the opinion of its critic, the eugenic movement was necessarily
stultified and condemned. It does not seem to have occurred
to him that, in popularising the ideal of parental responsibility
to the unborn, the promoters of this movement, themselves
in large measure unenlightened, might be the instruments of
powers needing just such services as a mean towards the mani-
festation of their own causality. The spontaneity of the eugenists
themselves would in no way be compromised by the admission
that, in acting as seemed good to themselves, they blindly
subserved higher ends. For it is the paradoxical nature of
Spirit, that its constituent factors, in acting spontaneously for
themselves, invariably act as the needs of the whole demand.
Assume now that entelechies, of a higher ontological grade than
any of which we have recent experience, are preparing to mani-
fest themselves on the terrestrial plane. Would not our present
haphazard method of parentage present an absolute bar to the
manifestation in question ? Would not, therefore, some such
movement as our eugenic enthusiasts are ingeminating be the
indispensable preliminary to this much-to-be-desired consum-
mation ?

:-:;;Viewed from below, that is, from the standpoint of the
phenomenal order, the noumenal essence of a given personality
is a logically evolving potentiality, tending towards, but never
attaining, complete unity of manifestation. But on its own
plane, that is, as viewed by the intellectual insight which
pierces the illusive aspect of things, it is, from the first, fully
actual, moving, self-poised, in a system of like realities. And
as to its nature, this much can be said, that each individual
monad comprises two opposed tendencies, or polarities, a

INDIVIDUALITY : NATURE AND POWER 389

tendency towards unity, or individuation, and a cosmic,
diffusive tendency — a specific universality. Specific, I say,
because absolute universality can be ascribed not to any par-
ticular monad, but only to the " Absolute Individuality."
The ceaseless contention, the strenuously balanced interplay
of these conflicting polarities, are what constitute the being of
every monad. In the phenomenal order they are necessarily
manifested in succession : first individuation, then expansion ;
but, in reality, they are co-ordinate and simultaneous.

Let me illustrate these points by a parable, which the
judicious will have ears to hear, and the foolish are at liberty
to deride. Reclining at ease in the Elysian fields, a Spirit
gazes into the depths of an exquisitely tinted crystalline sphere,
which it idly turns in its hands. This crystalline sphere is
the universe ; for time and space are but our ways of thinking ;
duration and magnitude are merely relative ; and both being
infinitely divisible, all immensities of either kind can be con-
ceived upon an infinitesimal scale. The sphere is of the Spirit's
own making, breathed forth from its own essence, tinted,
accordingly, with the distinctive hue of its own individuality.
If all the spheres exhaled by all the Spirits were seen as one, it
would be as a sphere of diamond whiteness ; for its univer-
sality would then be, not specific, but absolute. This by the
way-
Brooding over its own sphere, the Spirit with which we
are concerned recognises therein a faithful manifestation of
one of its two opposed and balanced tendencies — its universalism,
to wit. Sinking deeper into its act of contemplation, it finds
increasing satisfaction in exploring the inexhaustible wealth
self-revealed to its ken. Nebulae, galaxies, constellations,
solar systems, meteors, comets — all are infallibly fulfilling
their predetermined roles. Suns rise and set, ages come and
go, fiery vapours condense, new orbs are belched forth from
candescent centres, and, taking their places in their allotted
orbits, cool down into planets and become the receptacles of
organic life. And here we may note that, wherever it finds
individual organisms, the brooding Spirit recognises a qualifica-
tion of its otherwise unquestioned sway. For the nucleus of

390 MAKERS OF MAN

every such organism glows with a light wherein the distinctive
hue of our Spirit's individuality is over-tinted by some hue
of like yet alien source. Its own light in its purity, though
diffused throughout, and even constituting the sphere, is, as
yet, nowhere shining in unmixed and concentrated form.
Its tendency to individual unitary self-expression remains
thus unsatisfied ; but for that, too, the hour is at hand. Gradu-
ally, imperceptibly, but with growing intensity, it has felt
itself drawn, as to a predestined centre, to one spot on the tiny
planet where its earthly course is to be run. Thither by in-
numerable pathways, converging along the lines of least resist-
ance, creep the flame-like filaments of its new purpose, securely
threading their way through the intricate labyrinth of heredity,
to emerge, fused and blended, at the moment of its birth among
men. Is it only my fancy that the brightness of that celestial
Spirit is now a little dimmed by the intensity with which it
broods upon its pastime, or its task ? Does it hope then to
glean from this experiment some indespensable new factor of
spirituality for its own behoof ? The paltry and so dearly
purchased joys of the average human existence cannot in
themselves afford any sort of recompense for the even partial
forfeiture of its delights in the Elysian fields.

That such joys are of little account in its estimation seems
evident from the indifference with which it accepts for its ter-
restrial embodiment a life of success or failure, of ease or agony,
of glory or shame. Such trivialities, as all the wise bear
witness, are, from the point of view of the Spirit, of infinitesimal
account. Its gold can be garnered from the most unlikely
sources ; its mysterious ends are subserved by any and every
fate.

The above purports to be a symbolic representation l of
the creative activity of a somewhat exalted entity ; of course
we must be prepared to admit infinite gradations of rank.
Growth, on the spiritual plane, presumably results from the
slow accretion of experiences gleaned in some such way as I
have, greatly daring, ventured to suggest. I frankly confess
that in contemplating the apparent emptiness and futility of

1 Not, of course, a scientific description.

INDIVIDUALITY : NATURE AND POWER 391

the great majority of human lives, doubts have occurred
whether, to such lives, the permanent substratum be not alto-
gether lacking. But it is perhaps more logical to assume that
they are manifestations of comparatively undeveloped or
embryonic souls, than that they are the mere shadows which
they at first sight appear to be. Such embryonic entities will
adumbrate a cosmic scheme far simpler and less complex than
that which I have suggested above. And into a sphere corre-
spondingly meagre and narrow their phenomenal representatives
will be born. No two individuals inhabit precisely the same
universe ; we find without us only what we already possess
within.

I have committed myself to the opinion that all human
experiences, both active and passive, are determined from
within by the occult will of the noumenal ego. This point, so
far as " passive " experiences are concerned, requires further
elucidation. Such a view follows naturally — not, perhaps,
inevitably — from the rejection of external or mechanical
causation, which, as all mathematicians allow, ultimately
involves impossibilities, or at least, inconceivabilities. But
it might still be held that the noumenal ego, in determining
the career of its empirical ego, was constrained by some inner
necessity, not acting freely or consciously ; and this possibility
I fully admit. I certainly incline to the opinion that there
may be truth in the doctrine of Karma, an ancient doctrine
recently revived by theosophists and others. But karmic law
must be conceived as limiting that which is intermediate in
ontological rank between the Spirit and the body — the " soul,"
in fact, not the noumenal ego. The latter would be unduly
degraded by the admission that its activities were determined
by considerations of temporary welfare or misery ; or that it
needed to expiate faults or errors. It is of the soul that Plato
speaks in his allegory at the close of the Republic, wherein
Er describes how lots are cast by those about to enter terrestrial
existence ; and the order of choice of good or evil destinies
thereby determined. Every one will recall the grim humour
of the episode concerning the one who had drawn the first lot,
who immediately " advanced and chose the most absolute

392 MAKERS OF MAN

despotism he could find. But so thoughtless was he, and
greedy, that he had not carefully examined every point before
making his choice ; so that he failed to remark that he was
fated therein, among other calamities, to devour his own
children. ... It was a truly wonderful sight, Er said, to
watch how each soul selected its life — a sight at once melancholy
and ludicrous and strange."

Here we have a picture rather of blind instinct than of
spiritual discrimination ; but the points to note are, first, that
Plato supports my suggestion of the unity of a given career,
as inclusive of all predestined experiences, and, secondly, that
only highly developed souls are in a position to recognise the
fact of their being each one overshadowed by a higher principle
— the true ego — of which, in so far as they fail to assimilate
and identify themselves with its transcendent purpose and
point of view, they remain the mere shadowy and ephemeral
puppets. But as to my main contention, that what we, each
one of us, undergo, is as truly a factor of self-expression as
what we achieve ; that, I think, is largely a matter of everyday
observation. Is it not obvious that the persistency with which
certain men are dogged by ill-luck, or favoured with prosperity,
often reaches a degree which it would be absurd to attribute
to mere coincidence ? The Scandinavians, in praising a hero,
would often say of him that he had a look of good-luck about
him. And in considering the lives of great men, poets, and
others, who has not been struck by the strange dramatic
affinity between the ideal aspirations of the men and the appar-
ently fortuitous facts of their destiny ? The truth is, that
the incidents of our lives, even those vulgarly ranked as merely
external, are as essentially factors of our individuality as our
very bodies — perhaps even more so. In his treatise on Life
after Death, Gustav Theodor Fechner has developed the
hypothesis that it is precisely in the changes produced in our
social and general environment during this life that our post-
humous existence is consciously embodied ; and from this takes
the starting-point of its new and wider activity. Every thought,
word, and action of our present life contributes, according to
this theory, to the formation of the spiritual body which we

INDIVIDUALITY : NATURE AND POWER 393

shall inherit after death. " Whatever in this world has become,
through the existence of a certain human being, different from
what it would have been without him, helps to constitute his
new existence, grown out of the common root of all existence,
and made up, partly of solid institutions and works, partly
of moving and spreading effects, similarly to the way our present
body is made up of solid material, and of changeable material
kept together by the solid. ..." " Goethe, Schiller, Napoleon,
Luther, are still alive among us, self-conscious individuals
thinking and acting with us, in a higher state of development
now, no longer bound up within a narrow body, but pervading
the world which they in their lifetime instructed, edified, de-
lighted, ruled, and producing effects surpassing those of which
we are generally aware."

It is curious to note how neatly this theory of the nature
of man's posthumous existence falls in with my own sug-
gestion as to the true explanation of the facts of heredity, that
is, that whatever events and processes directly contribute to
the constitution of a given personality, are truly to be regarded
as elements of its antenatal existence. It is, to my mind, some-
what strange that Fechner should seemingly have overlooked
the obvious fact that if death is not conceded to be the end,
neither should we expect to find that birth is the beginning of
individuality.

But, as William James has well said, we of the twentieth
century like our metaphysics " thick " a — so far as we have
any tolerance for or understanding of them. We have little
use for the old-fashioned " thin " variety — for tenuous abstrac-
tions. Our metaphysic must, in other words, be brought down
forcibly into the sphere of the concrete ; or our concrete elevated
to the sphere of metaphysic.

Renouncing, therefore, for the moment, our polemical
attitude towards the current view of causality, and assuming,
as we must after all assume, the at least provisional validity
of our faith in the interaction of material and psychic entities,
let us, along the lines of commonsense inference, consider some

1 Not, of course, in the sense of turbidity, but in that of being detailed and
full of reality.

394 MAKERS OF MAN

facts bearing upon the nature and power of Individuality. In
our section on the Natural History of Purpose we saw how the
emergence, gradual or critical, of a central self-conscious aim
was the most important energising and unifying factor of our
great men's careers. How a purpose that was to prove sub-
stantial and effective was never something fortuitous or capri-
cious ; but, whether firmly grasped or instinctively adopted
from the first, or developed through a series of tentative more
or less mimetic essays, always bore a genuine relation to inborn
faculty, its only adequate, lasting foundation. Here, then, we
see at once that Purpose, the root of initiative, is never some-
thing grafted from without, is in no ultimate sense of extraneous
origin, but grows up from its hidden source, in most cases quite
independently, for a time, of the conscious will of its possessor.
From our point of view, which is, that the body is as truly a
part of the mind as the mind is a part of the (seen or unseen)
body, all those organic subconscious processes of growth and
development which pave the way for the formation and emerg-
ence of purpose or initiative, are to be conceived not physio-
logically, but psychically. They are unapprehended phases of
psychic growth and integration, all destined to contribute factors
of more or less relevance and significance to the fully equipped
character and capacity of the individual. And if the so-called
physical processes contribute, who will venture to deny the
occasional but momentous intervention of formative influences
of higher, even of highest, origin. What, for example, I have
called the " noumenal ego " must not be conceived as a being
altogether apart, a mere overshadowing entity. It is rather
the technical designation of our supreme potentiality, of a
something striving to super-actualise itself, through the psycho-
physical organism. Any emergency demanding a sudden
increment of insight or power may, for aught we know, furnish
the conditions favouring its intervention — not perhaps its
direct, but its mediate, intervention.

Equipped, soon or late, with his definite self-conscious aim,
our individual confronts the social environment, which, in one
way or another, he seeks to use, control, or modify. The reward
of success in matters of narrow import and on a small scale

INDIVIDUALITY : NATURE AND POWER 395

will be — well, success itself ; — but that does not concern us now.
We are concerned here and now with individuals who have,
in divers ways and degrees, aimed at and achieved what,
significantly enough, the world terms " immortality." This
means, if it mean anything, that the import and magnitude
of their achievements are, by universal consensus, estimated
as beyond estimation, as of infinite significance. They have
brought something to bear upon their contemporaries which
the whole world could not " down," but has more or less re-
luctantly, more or less tardily and angrily, accepted, once for
all, as a permanently active, a creative element of the racial
experience. That such magnificent victories are not cheaply
bought, rather that they are in most cases wrung from the
grudging hands of the vanquished world only at the price of
extreme toil and suffering, we have seen evidence enough and
to spare. Even these do not suffice : there must, in addition,
have been the aid of that indefinable something, the stroke of
that magic wand, which we call genius. Toil, suffering, genius :
these three are great ; but the greatest of these is genius.

And by genius one means, I suppose, an inborn organically
based temperamental fiair, an intuitive quasi-instinctive ap-
preciation of some hitherto undiscerned or unexploited, but
essentially significant, aspect of life — practical, aesthetic, theo-
retical, or ethico-religious — involving, of course, a further
power of unique, vital, adequate response to the stimulus
constituted thereby. A man of genius is, in fact, one who, in
essentials, declines to be urged a posteriori by the kicks of cir-
cumstance— although these are not likely to be wanting — but
maintains that predominance of inborn faculty which is the
birthright of every freeborn individual. His life thus conveys
the impression of something free, spontaneous : I am tempted
to say that he lives a priori.1 One must not, of course, overlook
the obvious fact that he is the representative of the Zeitgeist ;
that his innovatory ideas are not born in vacuo, but are in
vital relation to those of his predecessors and contemporaries.
Still these ideas are not his own until his will has adopted them ;
and, in quoting the following sentence on the social origin of

1 In the sense that he does what he likes, and likes what he does.

396 MAKERS OF MAN

thought, I must enter a caveat against the mechanical con-
ception of the process as therein defined. " Everyone,"
writes Theodor Hertzka, " stands in a not merely external, but
also an internal, indissoluble relation of contact with those who
are around him ; he imagines that he thinks and feels and acts
as his own individuality prompts, but he thinks, feels, and acts
for the most part in obedience to an external influence from
which he cannot escape — the influence of the spirit of the age
which embraces all heads, all hearts, and all actions." l So
far as this implies that great men are the mere instruments of
an alien influence and power, I entirely dissent ; it is rather the
futile phantasmal majority who are to be so regarded. With
Fechner, I hold rather that " those men who have accom-
plished great things in the world were enabled to do so by their
insight into the spiritual tendency of the period in which they
lived, and they succeeded because they made their free acting
and thinking agree with that tendency? while other men, perhaps
just as great and sincere, failed, because they opposed that
tendency. ... It is not the slave under the taskmaster that
does the better work." 3

But all history teems with evidence of the incalculable
power of initiative, the irresistible impetus of a will illuminated
by genuine insight and weighted by undeviating purpose.
Think how Caesar at Alesia, at Pharsalia, at Munda, wrung
overwhelming victory from the very jaws of disaster ; then
remember how, in Gaul, in Africa, in Spain, his best generals
had only to be left awhile to their own devices, and everything
would begin to go awry with the legions. Of Cromwell, in
relation to the other Puritan captains, precisely the same can
be said. Think of Charlemagne's long, practically single-handed,
ultimately triumphant struggle to reduce to order the chaotic
elements of western Christendom ; of William the Silent's
great part in the extrication of the Netherlands from the grip
of Catholic Spain. Think of the difference made to our national
power and prestige by the courage and toil of Drake ; of the

1 Fredand, by Theodor Hertzka, trans, by A. Ransom, p. 224.

2 Italics mine.

3 On Life after Death, by G. T. Fechner, trans, by H. Wernekke, pp. 56-57.

INDIVIDUALITY : NATURE AND POWER 397

awe inspired in all Spanish breasts by his name, from Lisbon
to Vera Cruz, from the Bay of Biscay to the argosy-haunted
waves of the Caribbean. Think, then, of Richelieu, conceiving
in the obscurity of Lu^on that dream of humbling the anti-
monarchic power of the Huguenots, which, twenty years later,
was triumphantly realised in the surrender of La Rochelle.
Of Richelieu who, from the first, set before himself the object
of achieving that political pre-eminence towards which, through
countless dangers and intrigues, he unfalteringly held upon his
way. Remember Frederick, banned by the Empire, harassed,
jaded, prematurely aged, meditating suicide, confronted by
forces trebling his own ; his capital twice pillaged, his territory
of Halbenstadt plundered by the French ; Silesia and Saxony
all but reconquered ; yet always cool, alert, resourceful, ventur-
ing his all in battle after battle ; the strength of his enemies
constantly increasing, as his own waned ; himself the survivor
of no less than forty of his generals ; always apparently losing
ground, until, as he said, nothing but a miracle could save him ;
yet, nevertheless, always miraculously unconquered ; and in
the end — unconquerable. Remember Nelson, tabooed by
officialdom, frail and semi-consumptive, shelved for five years
(his thirtieth to thirty-fifth), maimed, half-blinded, passed over
for his inferiors ; yet confidently predicting the day when the
ignoring or belittling of his merit would no longer be possible,
when he should not merely be gazetted, but have " a whole
gazette* to himself." Remember how that Convention of
Vendemiare, year four, threatened by Lepelletier's forty thousand
fighting sectioners, desperately bethought itself of " the Citizen
Buonaparte, unemployed artillery officer, who took Toulon."
How, " after a half-hour of grim compressed considering," the
command was accepted by this bronze artillery officer, by
whose memorable whiff of grape-shot " the thing we specific-
ally call the French Revolution was blown into space, and
became a thing that was." And all that in due course followed
this one man's definitive assertion of a positive, masterful
attitude towards the chaotic impulses of his time. Reconstruct
for yourself the superb career of Lincoln : the motherless, mal-
treated, penurious and illiterate boyhood, the dogged?pursuit

398 MAKERS OF MAN

of knowledge dictated by some blind invincible instinct, the
mastery of law, the conquest of popularity, the gradual realisa-
tion of his epochal mission of emancipation, the patient waiting
on events whose issue he alone foresaw, the ultimate dawning
of his noontide of power and fame, the sure guidance of national
destiny through the long agony of civil war. Of Lincoln it
has been well said, and each statement has deep psychological
significance : that he never lacked the aid of true friends in his
many troubles ; that he always rose to the occasion, however
great, however unprecedented its demands ; that, throughout
his life, defeat was always a step to victory.

Turning now to the representatives of Poetry, Art, and
Music, think for a moment of the significance of Dante's divine
achievement, and of that of the individuality underlying it,
surely the supreme example of the poetic type hitherto seen on
the earth. Poor, exiled, burdened with unmerited shame, we
see him pass on his weary way, a lean silent figure, with locked
lips and brooding eyes. Meantime, within his breast, as in
some fiery crucible, the facts of his own life, of his turbulent
crowded age, of all human lives and ages, are being magically
transmuted into the imperishable gold of Art, are finding
deathless utterance in stanza after stanza of that celestial
song. Stripped bare of accidents and prevarications, he shows,
as his purged eyes beheld them, the essentials of human motive
and conduct, the true inwardness of Life. The mighty symbols
in which he wrought may have lost much of the awe and sanction
which they held for him and his contemporaries ; but never,
while man walks the earth, can there dawn the day when the
spell he has laid on our hearts will be utterly loosened, the
laurel stripped from his brow. In a mood, far from rhetorical,
with no consciousness of special pleading, I ask all who in any
degree realise the occult potency of Dante's art and fame,
whether they can seriously entertain the position that such a
spirit as his was in any ultimate sense a merely natural product,
a transient flame, chance-begotten, that was and is not.

The almost perfect unity and simplicity of aim, which,
considered in relation to the vast emotional and intellectual
scope of his mind, renders Dante's individuality so intense and

To face p. 398.

INDIVIDUALITY : NATURE AND POWER 399

powerful, is, of course, wanting in the case of Leonardo. In
him we apprehend a nature far less deep and passionate, yet
in some important respects more original than Dante's. His
intuitive prevision of the destiny and results of positive methods
of research amounted to no less than a specific omniscience.
There is practically no important theoretical generalisation or
utilitarian triumph known to us, which he, living four hundred
years ago, did not promise to posterity. While, in his art, he
so transcended the limitations of his own mental hardness and
positivity, produced on his contemporaries so stunning an effect
of supreme power and significance, that the virtual destruction
of his greatest pictures has not seriously impaired his fame.
Genius will out — and, once out, is not easily forgotten. Its
manifestation is, to a larger extent than we at all realise, in-
dependent of a man's formal and official achievements. That,
as Schopenhauer would say, is no doubt the reason why common-
place persons find it so easy to detect and shun.

Still they defile before us, the spirits of the Lords of Art,
mocking our shallow science by the memories they evoke. "Was
I, too, a shadow ? " demands Titian. " I, whose passionate
absorption in colour, form, life, and the ever fuller, grander
expression of their glory, almost a century's toil could not
satiate, barely availed to chasten in mode, leaving its fiery essence
unsubdued." And Cervantes, weary, disillusioned, relentlessly
dogged by contumely, yet gay to the last ; beginning at fifty-
five the work which was to sweep the pseudo-romance of knight-
errantry into the dust-bin, and to establish its author by the side
of the world humourists, Aristophanes, Rabelais, and Shake-
speare ? The life of Mozart, again, presents to the student of
Individuality a subject of supreme interest, as affording in
almost ideal purity the type of aesthetic genius. Analysis is
baffled by the very simplicity of the problem ; to discriminate
between his faculties or motives is like trying to resolve an
elemental substance. He was not merely a great musician,
the greatest, not merely, as Rossini well said, " the only
musician," he was Music incarnate, the personification of his
art.

Of Goethe's achievement, Von Hermann Grimm says : " He

400 MAKERS OF MAN

has created our literature and our speech. Before him, both
were without value in the world-mart of the nations of Europe."
This is true ; and it is much to say of any man ; yet how far it
is from conveying any adequate sense of the difference made
to the worlds of thought and conduct by the revelation of this
most powerful, complex, and fascinating personality. Goethe
himself was far from content to be classified as a mere poet
and litterateur. He regarded all his actions as of symbolic
import, attaching as much value to his statesmanship, his
mineralogical and botanical speculations — yes, even to his
lightest amours — as to Faust or Wilhelm Meister. He " saw
round " everything that he did ; consequently, nothing that
he did can be dismissed as inessential. He was the first con-
sistent exponent of the anti-Christian ideal of self-realisation,
that is, the first of the Moderns. Yet no man ever showed a
deeper understanding of the Christian ideal of self-abnegation.

Side by side with the majestic Goethe walks Beethoven,
the greatest spirit that ever devoted itself to music ; Beethoven,
who achieved, once and for all, the miraculous feat of translat-
ing pure intellect into terms of the emotions. Or, if you prefer
it that way, who transmuted personal passion into universal
aspiration. For, unlike Goethe, who seldom opened his lips
without saying something memorable, Beethoven's intellectu-
ality was verbally inarticulate ; it had to express itself in music.

To appreciate the real greatness that underlay the genial
facility of Walter Scott's talent, one does not think of him in
the heyday of his prosperity, in the enjoyment of a position
such as no other man had ever won by the pen alone, " his
society courted by station, power, wealth, beauty," his castle
crowded with merry guests, his works — the annual profits of
the novels alone were £10,000 — " the daily food of educated
Europe." his domain ever growing, his imagination teeming
with new plots, incidents, characters. All was roseate then :
Scott himself owned to misgivings that such prosperity could
not last. When his son, Cornet Scott, died, Scott said prophetic-
ally, " I feel as if there would be less sunshine for me from
this day forth." And sunshine, as well as children, he had
always loved. Scott's highest recorded hour was that, I always

INDIVIDUALITY : NATURE AND POWER 401

think, years later, when widowed, harassed, insolvent, conscious
of steadily waning power and popularity, on James Ballantyne's
reminding him that a motto was wanting for a chapter of
Count Robert of Paris, he turned away, and looked out for
a moment at the gloomy weather ; then penned these lines : —

" The storm increases, 'tis no sonny shower
Fostered in the moist breast of March or April,
Or such as parched Summer cools his lips with.
Heaven's windows are flung wide ; the inmost deeps
Call in hoarse greeting one upon another ;
On comes the flood in all its foaming horrors,
And where's the dike shall stop it? "

That, if you please, was the real thing.1

Anon passes Turner ; and to him, too, we bid farewell,
doing homage to as eccentric and paradoxical a temperament
as ever enshrined genius. A dumb poet, a generous miser,
an inspired debauchee, a refined hog, creator of the delicate
modern art of water-colour, space-lover, light-bringer, sym-
bolist ; rivalling Shelley in the exquisite sethereality of his
imagination, Shakespeare in its breadth of construction,
wealth, and fidelity to nature. Last comes Flaubert : the
self-torturer, the Titan, the bourgeois demi-god ; proudly
exalted above ambition ; hater of all formulae and of every
kind of pettiness ; living only for beauty ; and finding it not
less in what meaner souls regard as vile and contemptible,
than in what they have bespattered with meaningless praise.

Taking now a farewell glance at our heroes of Thought,
we shall find here, too, abundant evidence of that spontaneity
of manifestation and continuously expanding influence char-
acteristic of every individuality worthy of the name. It is
no doubt common, for example, to overrate the influence of
Bacon upon scientific method ; to speak as if, before him, the
practice of inductive and experimental research had been
altogether unknown. This is not merely untrue ; it is absurdly
wide of the mark. Yet Bacon, even in his lifetime, was a man

1 One must also remember the fact that Scott has written some of the
supreme lyrics of the English language, e.g., " Pibroch of Donuil Dhu," "Proud
Maisie," " He is gone on the Mountain."
26

402 MAKERS OF MAN

of cosmopolitan repute ; Ms inexhaustible zeal and unceasing
activity in the cause of the " new learning " were a light by
no means hidden. Granted the truth of Harvey's gibe, that
Bacon " wrote philosophy like a Lord Chancellor," thev alue
of those writings and their propagandist effect are not neces-
sarily impaired. The point is, not that this or the other thinker
had casually remarked the need of giving experiment priority
over speculation ; that this or the other observer had empirically
stumbled upon the right road ; but that this man devoted
his life to " dwelling on the necessity of a graduated induction,
through successive steps of generality, at a time when men
had just begun to perceive that they must begin from ex-
perience in some way or other." Mill has pointed out the
paramount importance of "his principle of elimination — that
great logical instrument which he had the immense merit of
first bringing into general use." His very excess of zeal, his
exaggerated view of the role of method, as distinguished from
inborn capacity, 110 doubt served his cause. For he " thought
to discover a method so exhaustive as to be as certain in its
results as a proposition of Euclid, so mechanical, that when
once understood all men might equally employ it, yet so
startling that it was to be as a new sun to the borrowed beams
of the stars." He conceived Nature as finite, and omniscience
as an attainable goal. And there was this much truth in his
forecast, that Science has proved the friend of mediocrity, a
leveller, an intellectual democrat. " I have been accustomed,"
wrote Darwin, " to think second, third, and fourth-rate men
of very high importance, at least in the case of Science." The
destiny that assigned to a great lawyer the task of formul-
ating the code and charter of experimental science, has been
amply justified by posterity's endorsement and continuance
of his work.

No one, I suppose, will question the immense value and
fertility of Galileo's lifework. If ever a single mind produced
an immediate and obvious effect upon the world of thought,
gave a distinct lift to the scientific effort of his age, it was his.
The versatility of his genius was extraordinary : in almost
every page of his writings may be found an allusion to some

INDIVIDUALITY : NATURE AND POWER 403

new and striking experiment, or the germ of some illuminating
hypothesis. But all his varied powers were dominated by
the one central aim : from the first he had felt himself destined
to be the pioneer of a new school, rational and experimental ;
and, from first to last, he remained the inveterate foe of schol-
astic apriorism. All his inventions and discoveries were the
outcome of some need created by the logical development of
this purpose. And against the passion that impelled him in
his quest for truth, alike the stubborn incredulity of official
conservatism and the brutal machinery of ecclesiastical re-
pression proved helpless and futile in the end.

Of William Harvey it may suffice to say, that the whole
magnificent structure of modern biological science is directly
founded on the bedrock of the discovery to whose proving and
overproving he so single-heartedly devoted his life. Physiology,
properly so-called, was born in the unrecorded hour when there
first dawned upon him a clear conception of the circulation of
the blood. Equally fundamental, from the point of view of
empirical science, even though philosophically untenable, is the
central idea or motif of Descartes — that identification of matter
and space by which the complexity of nature was made subject
to the clearness and precision of mathematical treatment.
The very limitations of Descartes' mind were instrumental in
determining the immediate adoption and development of his
ideas. For they were opportune limitations : the world
needed a mechanical philosophy. The man who said, " Give
me extension and motion, and I will construct the world," was
a disciple of Herbert Spencer, born four hundred years before
his time.

Spinoza, a man of infinitely greater depth of intellect than
Descartes, achieved, during his lifetime, at most a succ&s
d'estime. On the other hand, his posthumous influence has
been, and still is, very great. His ideas have filtered down
through the select minds of readers like Goethe and Hegel :
to the general he must always remain caviare. The modern
theory of the Absolute is derived mainly from Spinoza, while
in his Tractatus Theologico - Politicus, " anticipating with
wonderful grasp and insight almost every principle, and not a

404 MAKERS OF MAN

few of the results " of its labours, he has made himself the father
of what is now called the " higher criticism." And when one
considers the vital issues involved in the task of this higher
criticism, one begins to appreciate the true dignity of the
philosopher, the stupendous responsibility he may incur.

It is unnecessary to insist upon the importance of Newton's
great discovery : every one knows that scientific laws, being
merely a set of " brief statements resuming the relationship
between given groups of facts," vary in rank and value according
as they include a greater or less number of facts within their
ken. The highest, or, say, the most fundamental, are those
laws which, like Newton's of gravitation, convey information
relevant to all natural processes whatsoever. " Every particle
of matter is attracted by or gravitates to every other particle
of matter with a force inversely proportional to the squares of
their distances." How simple, and sublime ! As to whether
any such thing as a " particle of matter " exists or is conceivable
— that is another question. But Isaac Newton — " had grasped
the secret of a cosmic circulation, and brooded in silence over
the motion of the spheres for more than twenty years before
publishing the Prindpia.1

The work done by Leibnitz, like that of Spinoza, was con-
ceived on too grand and austere a scale to attain the full com-
prehension of contemporaries. No man ever lived more whole-
heartedly in the service of ideal ends. The success of Descartes,
a comparatively shallow mind, appears almost cheap in com-
parison with this man's unrecognised and unrewarded toil.
He shared the common fate of all our greatest benefactors ;
for although, since it takes two to make a quarrel, he escaped
active persecution, almost all his projects 2 were checkmated
by the cold indifference of those to whom they ought to have
appealed. Certainly his mathematical achievements proved
immediately fruitful ; it was his presentation of the calculus,
not Newton's, which was taken up by the workers of his day.
" To find symbols and formulae for the representation of matters

1 The Growth of Truth, Harveian Oration, 1906, W. Osier.

2 e.g. that of religious union, for which he worked continuously for over
thirty years.

INDIVIDUALITY : NATURE AND POWER 405

of fact is the basis of scientific method, and no one did more in
this direction than Leibnitz." But his vastly more important
philosophical work has not hitherto received a tithe of the
attention it deserves, and must ultimately attain. The time of
his harvesting is drawing near : in the forgotten truths which
he so clearly set forth will be found the only corrective of the
fallacies inseparable from our present abuse of empiricism.

Of Kant's influence upon thought I will say merely this,
that the iconoclastic side of his work, certainly the more power-
ful and congenial, has proved far more effectual, hitherto, than
his maturer efforts at reconstruction. In so far as his doctrine
insists upon the relativity of knowledge, its limitation by the
conditions of sensory experience, it has naturally proved accept-
able to the agnostic spirit of the century that divides us from
his own. But Kant also taught that the mind is not a natural
product but a native faculty of forms, and that unity is not the
last but the first (a priori) stage of knowledge. And he makes
morality rest on the conviction that man is a citizen of an
(unknowable) ideal world, and on conformity with an ideal that
requires eternity for its realisation. It has been found con-
venient by the prophets of neo-Kantian phenomenalism to
ignore this side of the master's teaching. But the end is
not yet.

If there be any truth in Fechner's theory of the role of
man's disembodied spirit, as a conscious permeation and aug-
mentation of the effects initiated in its earthly career, the
spirit of Hegel must be active and content in the Fatherland
of to-day. For it is a Hegelian Germany that confronts and
menaces our own loose-jointed, happy-go-lucky caricature
of an Empire. Hegelian in its earnestness, its bourgeois
domesticity and fecundity, its industrial keenness and com-
mercial thoroughness ; Hegelian in the relentless rigour of its
critical scholarship, the dogged quest of perfection in scientific
method, the resolute adherence to elaborate plans of military
and naval preparation ; Hegelian, above all, in its austere dis-
regard of personal caprice, whers public interests are concerned,
and in the iron strength of the discipline that controls " the
fell incensed points " of such " mighty opposites " as Bis-

406 MAKERS OF MAN

marckian Kaiserism and Marxian Social Democracy. If any-
one considers this an unwarranted estimate of the power of a
thought upon the nationality which both produced and re-
assimilated it, let him consider our last example — that of
Darwin — and hide his diminished head. For the reader may
rest assured that, intellectually speaking, Darwin, the fortunate
and laborious initiator of a new cosmological epoch, was a mere
unenlightened babe in comparison with Hegel.

It remains to cast a farewell glance upon the individuals
of our ethico-religious group. With reference to the founder
of Christianity, the most bigoted adherent of the old theology
ought in fairness to admit that my theory of Individuality
assigns to him a majestic role in the drama of the human spirit,
a decisive influence upon the destiny of mankind. But the
Christ-Ideal, so far as that can be identified with the ideal of
the man Jesus, has hitherto enjoyed an unfair advantage in
the spiritual struggle for existence, backed up as it has been by
the bribes and sanctions of supernatural eschatology. That
advantage it must for the future forego ; henceforth it will
have to take its place in the spiritual arena, to stand or fall by
its merits alone. It is not the truths taught by Jesus, nor the
authentic power of his example, but merely the despotism of
the closed system of Christolatry, that is being specifically
challenged by the whole modern spirit. And, this time at
least, it will be a fight to the finish.

With regard to the character of St. Paul, I incline rather
to the view of Arnold than to that of Renan. Properly under-
stood, his teaching makes for enlightenment not for obscur-
antism, for Catholicism not for Hebraistic Protestantism,
for the spirit not the letter. Renan says of him, somewhat
harshly, that his writings were a danger and a snare, the cause
of the principal defects of Christian theology. " Paul was
the father of the subtle Augustine, the arid Aquinas, the sombre
Calvinist, the intolerant Jansenist, the fierce theology that
damns and predestines to damnation." If so, it is because
the central Pauline doctrine of necrosis, of the necessity of
dying to appetite in order to live by love and reason (or the
Spirit), has been grossly misunderstood. Renan, when he

R. \V. KMKRSON.

To face f. 406.

INDIVIDUALITY : NATURE AND POWER 407

penned his condemnation, must surely have forgotten the
divine hymn to Love, concerning which he had written, " Is
it not much to have indicated this capital distinction of the
eternal religious truths and of those which fail like the dreams
of early life ? " And he had also asked, " Is it not enough for
immortality to have written that word : ' Thel etter killeth,
the spirit maketh alive ' ? "

The pure ethical passion of Marcus Aurelius is a memory
of inestimable value to mankind, to think of which is to recall
Arnold's poem, wherein he makes Nature ask of her nursling
Man —

"That strife divine,
Whence was it, for it is not Mine ? "

A strife differently, but not less intensely depicted in the vivid
pages of Augustine's masterpiece of introspective autobio-
graphy. Here, surely, is a record of agonised self-scrutiny,
which, whatever we may think of the conclusions reached —
whether as those of one victorious or vanquished in the fray —
will never lack the interest of readers intent on exploration of
the hidden depths of their own being.

The sublime patience, monumental industry, suave strength
of Gregory the Great, are an eternal rebuke to those who lightly
or intolerantly blaspheme the majesty of the historic Church ;
and would fain ignore or deny her incalculable services to
mankind.

And what of Mahomet ? Of him I would say that he appears
to me, though by no means the greatest, in some ways the
sanest, most level-headed of all founders of new religions.
For he outlived the fanaticism of youth ; and proved, beyond
cavil, not merely the possibility, but the necessity, of serving
both God and Mammon. He wisely declined martyrdom,
preferring to see that his innovations were established under
his own supervision, rather than to leave them to the tender
mercies of those who came after him. It is time we abandoned
the cant of expecting from supermen a self-immolation which
really plays into the hands of ths Philistines.

Flowerlike in the exquisite pathos of its humility and charm,
sublime in the obstinacy of its unflinching devotion to a tran-

408 MAKERS OF MAN

scendent ideal, the career of St. Francis illumines the opening
years of the thirteenth century with a transfiguring radiance
all its own. Here, if ever, was a life substantially self-deter-
mined, submitted " in scorn of consequence," and without any
but enforced regard for prudential counsels, to the direction
of that innermost whisper which is at once the voice of instinct
and the sole authentic guide to immortal fame.

The same almost maniacal persistence in a self-chosen path,
tending apparently to nothing but disgrace and ruin, is, in a
very different way, manifested in the career of Luther. Genius
is always imprudent, always errs on the side of rashness — and
is always justified by the event. Luther, like Mahomet, has
the merit of having escaped martyrdom ; he lived to see his
cause, if by no means triumphant, securely launched on its
conquering career. Of course, the gods were fighting for him ;
the economic and political circumstances of his age had made
ecclesiastical decentralisation inevitable. But it is character-
istic of great men that the gods always fight on their side ; and
of the gods, that great men are always forthcoming when great
work has to be done.

Emerson's is another striking example of the universality
achieved by unflinching reliance upon that voice of intuition
which is also the voice of instinct. No man ever posed less,
or played less to the gallery ; yet, such was the sureness of his
revelation of the highest and most secret hopes of the human
spirit, such the confidence with which he endorsed them, that,
even in his own lifetime, his work received an impassioned
welcome from readers of every spiritual class and of many
nations. Mechanics, men of science, poets, philosophers have
all sat at his feet, acclaiming him the inspired prophet of a new
authentic evangel. His is probably the most creative mind
that America has yet produced. I do not forget Walt Whitman,
whom it is nowadays the fashion to prefer to Emerson ; but
this is a preference as to the validity of which I have the gravest
doubts. There is too much pose and too much partisanship
in Whitman, who, moreover, owed far more to the older man
than he at all fairly acknowledged. " Dionysian spirits " are
the mode, at present, among the demagogic lions (or should I

ERNEST RENAN.
]<'r(i»t a painting by I.n. Bonnat.

To fact f. 408.

INDIVIDUALITY : NATURE AND POWER 409

say " tarantulro ") 1 of the " New Age Press " ; and I suppose
Whitman was a Dionysian, and Emerson (formally) an Apol-
lonian spirit. Yet Emerson's is the freer spirit : he dwells
on sunlit heights, ice-cold and crystal-clear, and holds in
aristocratic disdain such tricks of bombast and rhetoric as
Whitman's taste could allow to sully his page. It was Emerson,
not Whitman, who earned the acknowledgment of Nietzsche.
On the other hand, I do not forget Emerson's limitations, nor
the fact that, in assuming the role of transcendental free-
thinker, he to some extent retained that of Unitarian minister.
As to which (meaning no offence to Unitarian ministers), one
may remark, that all greatness involves an element of Phili-
stinism, were it only as ballast.

We come now to Renan, who, under the almost silken
suavity of his literary manner, concealed a purpose far more
iconoclastic than that of Emerson. " Veritatem dilexi " was
his chosen motto ; and no truth could be too forbidding to be
welcomed with unperturbed tranquillity by the terrible sincerity
of his intellect. He entertained all possibilities ; regard for
consistency troubled him not a whit. But it would be a com-
plete misinterpretation of his character and aims to conclude
that Renan assailed superstitions and illusions in a merely
destructive spirit. It was the immensity of his faith in the
ideal (as the sole reality) that emboldened him to give free play
to the critical subtlety which astonished the world. Instinctively
optimistic, he loved to put his optimism to the severest possible
tests ; to entertain the most extravagantly pessimistic hypo-
theses. He wished that the new era of religion, of whose dawn
he conceived himself the herald, should from the first be
characterised by a fearless frankness of discussion, an unreserved
fidelity to the ascertained facts of life. His own life was that of
a saint, inspired by the most abstract sense of duty ; and the
day will infallibly come when his claim to have done more for
the cause of religion by his criticism than had been done by
all the apologists, will appear not merely true but self-obvious.

Here, then, I bring my valedictory survey to an end, not, I

1 The New Age has turned over a new leaf since the above was written.

4io MAKERS OF MAN

trust, without having secured at least the sympathy of the reader
with my view of the power and significance of Individuality.
I plead for the supremacy of the teleological as opposed to the
dynamic point of view, in approaching the problem of human
nature, which is also the problem of Spirit. I should like to
have added a chapter on the probable destiny of the four main
types into which I have, roughly and provisionally, divided
my examples. I will just say this, that I have a strong sus-
picion that the great men of the future will commonly lend them-
selves in even less satisfactory measure to any such classifica-
tion, than we have found to be the case with those of past ages.
The new type of greatness adumbrated by such men as Whit-
man, Tolstoy, Wagner, Nietzsche, Weininger, Shaw, is hardly
classifiable as practical, aesthetic, intellectual, or ethico-
religious. It is all these together — and an undefinable some-
thing beyond these. Perhaps what we call " personality " best
suggests my meaning. A man who was merely and simply a
great artist, for example, would hardly, in these days, be regarded
by the judicious as a great man. The mere artist has in him
too much of the defenceless child — is too naive, too ingenuous.
It may be true that, in order to inherit the Kingdom of Heaven,
we must become as little children ; more than that is required
of those who assume to govern the Earth. For the Earth, 'pace
our anarchist friends, needs government still ; and is likely to
need it for some time to come.

AUTHORITIES

Mind and Body "

Physiological Psychology "...
History of Philosophy " .

Appearance and Reality "...
Inquiries into Human Faculty "
Physiognomy and Expression "

Two New Worlds "

On Life after Death "

The Will to Believe " .
Thus Spake Zarathuatra "

Beyond Good and Evil " ...
Plato's Republic "

The Bhagavad Gitd " .

Sex and Character " ....

Pages de Stendhal "
Grammar of Science "

First Principles "

Introduction to the Philosophy of Herbert

Spencer "

Science and a Future Life "

Caesar"

Historians' History of the World."
Encyclopaedia Britannica "

Charlemagne "

William the Silent "

Courtships of Queen Elizabeth "

Drake"

History of the English People "

Richelieu "

Cromwell "

Letters of Cromwell "

4"

A. BAIN.

W. M'DoiTGALL.

SCHWEGLER. Tr. by J. H.

STIRLING.
F. H. BRADLEY.

F. GALTON.

P. MANTEGAZZA.

E. E. FOURNIER D'ALBE.

G. T. FECHNER. Tr. by
H. WERNEKKE.

W.JAMES.

F. NIETZSCHE. Tr. by A.
TILLB.

F. NIETZSCHE. Tr. by H.
ZIMMERN.

Tr. by J. LJ. DAVIES and
D. J. VAUGHAN.

Tr. by A. BESANT.

O. WEININQER. Author-
ised Trans.

MERCUHE DE FRANCE.

K. PEARSON.

H. SPENCER.

W. H. HUDSON.
J. H. HYSLOP.
J. A. FROTTDE.

Various Articles.
H. CARLESS DAVIS.
F. HARRISON.
MARTIN HUME.
JULIAN CORBETT.
J. R. GREEN.
RICHARD LODGE.
F. HARRISON.
T. CARLYLE.

412

MAKERS OF MAN

"The Puritan Revolution "

" Life of Frederic in., King of Prussia "

"Life of Nelson"

"Life of Nelson"

" Life of Nelson "

" Lord Nelson's Letters to Lady Hamilton."

" Life of Napoleon "

" Napoleon. The Last Phase " .

" Napoleon, King of Elba "

" Napoleon and the Fair Sex " .

" Table Talk and Opinions of Napoleon

Bonaparte."

" Napoleon's Russian Campaign "
" The French Revolution " .

" Abraham Lincoln "

" Life of Dante "

"Dante"

" Guelphs and Ghibellines "

" Women of Florence " .

" La Commedia di Dante Alighieri "

" The Vision of Dante " .

" Skeptics of the Italian Renaissance "

" Leonardo da Vinci " .

" Leonardo "

" L4onard de Vinci : Textes Choisis " .
" Life and Works of Titian "
" Life and Times of Titian "

" Cervantes "

"Don Quixote"

"Mozart"

"Mozart"

" Life of J. W. Goethe " .

"Goethe"

" Goethe's Faust "

" Wilhelm Meister "

" Outlines of German Literature "

" Representative Men : Goethe, or the

Writer"

" Beethoven "

" Beethoven : Reminiscences " .

" Life of Scott, with Autobiography " .

" Life of J. M. W. Turner " .

" Gustavo Flaubert, as seen in his Works

and Correspondence " . . .

S. R. GARDINER.
J. TOWERS.
R. SOTJTHEY.
MAHAN.

C. BERESFORD and H. W.
WILSON.

F. DE BOTTRRIENNE.

ROSEBERY.

P. GRUYER. Tr.

F. MASSON. Tr.

L. TOLSTOY. Tr.
T. CARLYLE.
C. G. LELAND, etc.
PAGET TOYNBEE.
E. G. GARDNER.

0. BROWNING.

1. DEL LIJNGO. Tr.
P. TOYNBEE.

H. F. GARY.

J. OWEN.

G. GRONAU.

J. P. RIOHTER.

PELADAN.

CLAUDE PHILLIPS.

CROWE & CAVALCASELLE.

H. E. WATTS.

Tr. by C. JARVIS.

E. J. BREAKSPEARE.

VERNON LUSHINGTON.

J. SIME.

A. HAYWARD.

Tr. by A. SWANWICK.

Tr. by T. CARLYLE.

J. GOSTWICK.

R. W. EMERSON.
J. S. SHEDLOCK.
L.NOHL. Tr. by A. WOOD.
J. G. LOCKHART, etc.
W. THORNBURY.

J. C. TARVER.

AUTHORITIES

413

"Salammbo"

" Madame Bovary " . . .
" L' Education Sentimentale " .

" Francis Bacon, His Life and Philosophy "
" The Tragedy of Sir Francis Bacon "

" Novum Organum "

" Life of Galileo "

" William Harvey "

" Eminent Doctors "

" The Motion of the Heart and Blood " .

" The Growth of Truth " .

"Descartes"

" The ' Method,' ' Meditations,' and Selec-
tions from the ' Principles " of Des-
cartes, with Introductory Essay "

" Spinoza : His Life and Philosophy "

" The Chief Works of B. de Spinoza " .

" The Life of Sir Isaac Newton ".

" Leibniz "

" Leibniz : Discourse on Metaphysics ;
Correspondence with Arnauld, ' Mon-
adology ' "

"Kant"

" Religion and Philosophy in Germany,"
" Heine's Prose Works "

" Kant's Critick of Pure Reason "

"Hegel"

" The Logic of Hegel" .

" Hegel's Philosophy of History "

" Life of Charles Darwin " .

" Origin of Species "

New Testament, Revised Version.

" Life of Jesus "

"EcceHomo"

" Jesus in Modern Criticism "

" The First Three Gospels ".

G. FLAUBBBT. Tr. by J.

C. CHABTBES.
G. FLAUBBBT. Tr. by H.

BLANCH AMP.
G. FLAUBBBT. Tr. by D.

F. HANNIOAN.
J. NICHOL.
H. BAYLEY.
BACON. Tr.
Anon. Lib. of Useful

Knowledge. Cf. also

Brewster's " Life of

Newton."

D'ASCY POWBB.

G. T. BETTANY.

W. HABVEY. Tr. by R.

WILLS.
HABVEIAN Oration, 1906.

W. OSLER.

J. P. MAHAJTY.

J. VEITCH.

F. POLLOCK.

Tr. by R. H. M. ELWES.

D. BBEWSTEB.

J. T. MEBZ.

Tr. by G. R. MONTGOMEBY.
W. WALLAOB.

Ed. by H. ELLIS.
Tr. by H. HAYWOOD.

E. CAIBD.

Tr. by W. WALLACE.
Tr. by J. SIBBEE, etc.

F. DABWIN.

C. DABWIN, etc.

E. RENAN. Tr.
J. SEELEY.
P. W. SCHMIEDEL.
M. A. CANNEY.
J. E. CABFENTEB.

Tr.by

414

MAKERS OF MAN

" Evolution and Theology "

" A Short History of Christianity "

" Jesus of Nazareth "

" Christianity and History "

"St. Paul"

" St. Paul and Protestantism " .

" The Apostles "

" Marcus Aurelius "

" Meditations of Marcus Aurelius "
" Memoir of St. Augustine "
" Confessions of St. Augustine " .
" St. Gregory the Great " .
" The Life of Mahomet " .

"The Koran"

" The Hero as Prophet " .

" Francis of Assisi "

" Leaders of Christian and Anti-Christian
Thought"

" The Little Flowers of St. Francis " .

" Life of Luther "

"Emerson"

" Talks with Emerson "

" The Works of Emerson," etc.

" Life of Ernest Renan "

" Souvenirs d'Enfance et de Jeunesse "

" Ernest Renan "

0. PFLEIDERER. Tr. by

O. CONE.

J. M. ROBERTSON.
E. CLODD.
A. HARNACK. Tr. by T.

B. SAUNDERS, etc.
E. RENAN.
M. ARNOLD.
E. RENAN. Tr. by W. G.

HUTCHISON.
E. RENAN. Tr. by W. G.

HUTCHISON.
Tr. by J. COLLIER.
J. BAILLIE.
Tr.

ABBOT SNOW.
WASHINGTON IRVING.
Tr.

T. CARLYLE.
A. M. STODDART.

E. RENAN. Tr. by W. M.

THOMSON.

Tr. by W. HEYWOOB.
JULIUS KOSTLIN. Tr.
R. GARNETT.
C. J. WOODBURY.

MADAME J. DARMESTETER.
E. RENAN. Tr.
M. G. DUFF.

N.B. — The above list makes no claim to completeness, being mainly
confined to works actually cited in the text.

INDEX

ABBOTSFOBD, Scott's purchase of, 123.

Action, men of, 21, 22, 23 ; energy of,
64, 65 ; physique of, 65-71 ; pur-
pose of, 161-187, 284 ; not usually
fond of solitude, 293, 306, 307 ;
inspired by danger, 293-301 ;
sexual proclivities of, 317, 319 ;
greatness of, exemplified, 396-398.

Aesthetic Type, practical weakness
of, 23 ; Goethe on, 23, 24 ; fastidi-
ousness of, 24 ; typical physique
and physiognomy of, 71-82 ; men
of, not weaklings, 72 ; purpose of,
187-208, 284, 285 ; unworldine.ss
of, 301 ; solitude, and men of,
307, 308 ; sexual proclivities of,
317, 319 ; greatness of, exemplified,
398-401.

Amina, mother of Mahomet, 60.

Aristotle, view of, concerning ego, 13.

Arnold, M., 406.

Art, versu* Science, 26 ; affinity of,
to Science, 111, 112.

Augustine, see Saint Augustine.

Aurelia, mother of Caesar, 49, 325.

Bacon, Lord Francis, insanity of
mother of, 56 ; physiognomy of,
89 ; weak health of, 90 ; natural
vocation of, 105, 106, 125-127 ;
public activities of, 106 ; power of,
as orator, 125 ; philanthropic aims
of, 105 ; question of his collabora-
tion with Shakespeare, 126, 127;
Tempus Partua Jaaximus of, 209 ;
as reformer, 209 ; offends Queen,
209 ; love of display of, 210 ;
philosophical aim of, 210 ; central
purpose of, 211 ; need of seclusion
of, 309 ; cause of venality of, 367 ;
enslaved by Buckingham, 367 :
ingratitude of, 368 ; achievement
of, 401, 402.

Ballantyne, Jas., 76.

Bayley, Harold, cited anent Bacon
and Shakespeare, 126, 127.

i Beatrice Portinaii, 118.

{ Beethoven, Ludwig von, spiritual
exaltation of, 35 ; physique of,
72, 80 ; always in love, 80, 81, 200,
346, 347 ; deafness of, 81 ; natural
vocation of, 105, 112 ; purpose of,
200-202 ; sense of dignity of, 200 ;
effects of deafness of, on his art,
201 ; misery of, 201 ; fifth sym-
phony of, 200, 201 ; isolation of,
201, 347, 348; views of, on
marriage, 347 ; his heart broken
by conduct of nephew, 348 ;
greatness of, 400.

i Bertha, mother of Charlemagne, 50.

1 Biography, scientific function of, 46.
Body, the, as organised experience,

2, 5, 16, 17.
Bradley, F. H., on relation of bodv

and soul, 1<3, 17.

Brain, the, an external organ, 4 ;
development of associational arcs
of, 10 ; of Scott, 76.

Cadijah, first wife of Mahomet, 146 ;
her death, 261 ; mentioned, 344.

Caesar, Caius Julius, ethical bias of, 31 ;
lineage of, 49 ; physique of, 65, 66 ;
natural vocation of, 105, 114-116 ;
literary work of, 114, 115; style
of, 115 ; no time-server, 115 ; pur-
pose of, 161-163 ; his political
marriage, 161 ; reticence of, 162 ;
magnanimity of, 163 ; resourceful-
ness of, 293, 294 ; love-affairs of,
327, 328 ; and Cleopatra, 327, 328 ;
his great crime, 353, 354 ; genius
of, 396.

Carlyle, Thos., theory of, respecting
unconsciousness of genius, 153.

Causation, regarded by Leibnitz as
illusion, 13, 384 ; impact theory of,
287 ; true order of, 387.

Cervantes, Miguel de, his love of
action, 34, 35; physique of, 7_ ;
physiognomy of, 76; oharm of,

416

INDEX

76, 136 ; courage of, 77, 135, 136,
301, 302 ; natural vocation of, 105,
135-137; slavery of, 136, 194;
as dramatist, 136, 195 ; purpose of,
194-196; tolerance of, 194; his
Numancia, 195 ; as collector, 195 ;
conception of Don Quixote, 195 ;
the second part of Don Quixote, \
196 ; greatness of, 399.

Character, acquired, inheritance of, 3. j

Charlemagne, ethical bias, 31, 32 ; j
friends of, 32 ; mother of, 49, 50 ; '
father of, 59 ; physical strength of, j
66 ; natural vocation of, 105, 116 ; j
intellectual pursuits of, 116; pur- j
pose of, 163-165; his co-operation
with the Papacy, 163 ; task of,
163 ; encourages Church reform,
164, 165 ; sexual relations of, 328-
330 ; moral deterioration of, 329 ;
a free-lover, 330 ; his great crime,
354, 355 ; achievement of, 396.

Chivalry, discussed, 177, 178.

Classification of types, limitations of,
39, 45.

Coleridge, S. T., theory of, concerning
genius, 25.

Consciousness, generation of, 6.

Conversion, physiological basis of,
200, 285, 311, 312.

Crime, universality of, 351-353 ;
constraint to, 352 ; implied by
limitation, 352, 353 ; great men in
relation to, 351-378.

Criticism, Higher, the, anticipated by
Spinoza, 219 ; main triumph of,
239, 240.

Cromwell, Oliver, 22 ; disinterested
motives of, 32 ; his mother, 50, 51,
323 ; his father, 51 ; lineage of,
51 ; physique of, 65, 67 ; hypo-
chondriacal tendency of, 67 ; natural
vocation of, 105, 134, 135 ; visions
of, 134 ; his private life, 134 ; pur-
pose of, 170-173 ; refuses knight-
hood, 170 ; political debut of,
171 ; motive of, 171, 172 ; and
the " new model," 171, 172 ; his
relations with Charles I., 172, 359,
with Levellers, 172, 173 ; growing
tolerance of, 173 ; refuses crown,
173 ; military genius of, 295, 296 ;
the Irish crime of, 359, 360 ; his
superiority to military colleagues,
396.

Danger, men of action in relation to,
293-301 ; men of thought in re-

lation to, 302 ; ethico-religious type
and, 303-306.

Dante Alighieri, practical bias of, 33 ;
physique of, 72 ; stature and
physiognomy of, 77, 78 ; lustfulness
of, 78, 79, 336, 337 ; death-mask
of, 79 ; natural vocation of, 105,
118, 119; political ambition of,
106, 118, 119; and Beatrice, 118,
335,336; Priorateof, 119 ; purpose
of, 187-191 ; exile of, 187, 188 ; his
Vita Nuova, 187, 188 ; conception
of his Commedia, 189, 190 ; as
precursor of the Reformation, 190 ;
date of conversion of, 191 ; recluse
habit of, 308 ; sexual history,
335-337 ; marriage of, 336 ; great-
ness and significance of, 398.

D'Arcy Power cited, 27, 90.

Darwin, Charles, his love of music,
27, 142 ; family history of, 68, 59 ;
physique of, 83 ; natural vocation
of, 105, 142, 143 ; physiognomy
and health of, 88, 89 ; his power of
observation, 142, 143 ; limitations
of, 142 ; his love of literature and
shooting, 143 ; as medical student,
143 ; destined for the Church, 143 ;
meets Prof. Henslow, 143, 234 ;
purpose of, 234-239 ; influence of
Humboldt and Herschel upon,
234 ; geological tour of, 235 ;
voyage on the Beagle, determines
his career, 235 ; dawn and growth
of his interest in evolution, 235,
236 ; natural selection, the key
to evolutionary theory of, 236, 237 ;
influence of Malthus upon, 237 ; his
law of divergence, 237, 238 ; his
work on barnacles, 238 ; writes the
Origin, 238 ; misgivings of, con-
cerning own theory, 239 ; courage
of, 302 ; and Hegel, 406.

Danvin, Erasmus, 59.

Descartes, Rene, on pineal gland, 6 ;
a vision of, 27 ; physical weak-
ness of, 83, 90 ; fundamentally
a mathematician, 90 ; mother of,
consumptive, 90 ; natural voca-
tion of, 105, 113, 114; logical
rules of, 114 ; purpose of, 215, 216 ;
the intellectual crisis of, 215 ;
desires to extend mathematical
method to natural science, 215,
216 ; fundamental conception of,
216 ; deductive method of, 216 ; his
timidity, 218 ; compared with
Spinoza, - 218, 219 ; illegitimate

INDEX

417

daughter of, 318 ; achievement of,
403.

Don Quixote, publication of the
first part of, 136 ; the original of,
195 ; the second part of, 196 ;
travesty of second part of, by
Lope de Vega, 196.

Drake, Sir Francis, 32 ; physique of,
65 ; physiognomy of, 69 ; natural
vocation of, 105, 107 ; purpose of,
167, 168 ; his hatred of Spain, 167,
168 ; his knight-errantry, 168 ;
great hour of, 294, 295 ; his com-
plicity in a massacre, 355 ; execu-
tion of Doughty by, 355, 366 ;
awe inspired by, 396, 397.

Ego, dawn of the, 9 ; dynamic
apriorism of, 11 ; leading views of
philosophers concerning, 12-17 ;
three main conceptions of, 17-19.

Ellis, Havelock, view of, con-
cerning stature of men of genius,
77.

Emerson, R. W., versatility of, 44 ;
family history of, 61, 62 ; physique
and physiognomy of, 93 ; personal
magnetism of, 93 ; natural voca-
tion of, 105, 130, 131 ; poetic by-
activity of, 106 ; aloofness of, 130 ;
purpose of, 275-279 ; his choice
of the ministry, 275 ; diffidence of,
275 ; his breach with congregation,
275, 276 ; was he a Theist ? 276 ;
and Carlyle, 276 ; publishes Nature,
277 ; method of, 277 ; contem-
poraries of, 278 ; tolerance of,
278 ; eulogises war, 279 ; the true,
279 ; his love of solitude, 315 ;
greatness of, as compared with
Whitman, 408, 409.

Environment versus genius, 20, 101,
147.

Ethico-religious type, defined, 29, 30 ;
its function, 39, 40 ; supremacy of,
40 ; physical characteristics of, 91-
97 ; life-history of its members
involved in that of their nation and
age, 147 ; purpose of men of, 239-
283, 286 ; fortitude demanded of,
303 ; sense of guilt of members of,
309 ; self -conquest of men of, 311,
312 ; sexual proclivities of, 317,
319 ; power of, exemplified, 406-
409.

Eugenics, problem of, 63 ; possible
occult significance of, 387, 388.

Evolution, starting-point of, 3.
27

Fabricius, relation "of, t o'J H*rr«y 's
discovery, 213, 214.

Families of parents of great men, 46,
47 ; place of great men in, 47 ;
comparison of types in regard to,
48.

Fechner, Theodor, hypothesis of,
concerning posthumous existence,
302, 393 ; on insight of great men,
396 ; mentioned, 405.

Fichte, his theory of the ego, 14.

Flaubert, Gustavo, fidelity of, to
fact, 37, 38 ; his lack of ambition,
38 ; physique of, 72 ; physiognomy
and temperament of, 74, 75 ;
hystero-epilepsy and fear of life of,
75, 206 ; comparative celibacy of,
75, 207, 317, 318 ; natural vocation
of, 105, 112, 113; purpose of,
205-208 ; his disgust with legal
study, 205, 206; influence of his
father upon, 206 ; his contempt
for Utopias, 207 ; his hatred of
the bourgeoisie, 208 ; bis intrigue
with a married woman, 318 ;
greatness of, 401.

Flechsig, Prof., cited, 10.

Francis d'Assisi, see Saint Francis
d'Assisi.

Frederick the Great, 32 ; family
history of, 58 ; physique of, 65 ;
physiognomy of, 67, 68 ; premature
senility of, 68 ; sexual deficiency of,
68, 69; versatility of, 104; his
desire of admiration, 104, 152 ;
natural vocation of, 105, 150-153 ;
his military education, 150 ; his
practice of poetry and music, 150 ;
his flight from his father's tyranny,
150 ; execution of his friend Katte,
150, 175 ; marriage of, 150 ; corre-
sponds with Voltaire, 150; dawn of
his ambition, 150, 151 ; seizes
Herstal and Henna 1, 151 ; invades
Silesia, 152 ; motive of, 152 ; pur-
pose of, 173-176 ; his hatred of
his father, 175 ; positive phase of
his purpose, 176 ; " religion " of,
177 ; military genius of, 296, 297 ;
his relations to women, 317, 318 ;
criminality of, 360-363 ; his viola-
tion of 'pledges, 361, 362 ; his
cruel treatment of Baron Trenck.
362 ; partition of Poland by, 'M>3 :
greatness of, 3!>r>.

Galileo Galilei, dramatic sense of, -7 ;
parents of, 59 ; physique of, 53, 64 ;

418

INDEX

physiognomy and health of, 84 ; ;
natural vocation of, 105, 137, 138 ; !
aesthetic pursuits of, 137 ; discovery '
of pendulum by, 137, 211 ; deserts j
medicine for mathematics, 137 ; i
purpose of, 211-213 ; his indebted- i
ness to Leonardo, 211 ; a convert ]
to Copernican theory, 211 ; in- j
curs enmity of Jesuits, 211, 212 ; j
construction of first telescope by,
212 ; astronomical discoveries of,
212 ; rebukes Kepler's apriorism,
212, 213; impetuosity of, 302;
greatness of, 402, 403.

Galton, Law of, 62 ; his investiga-
tion of life-histories of twins, 101,
102 ; on solitary habit of the insane,
291, 292 ; on gregarious habit of
commonplace individuals, 292.

Genius, versus environment, 20, 100,
101, 147 ; Coleridge on, 25 ; and
insanity, 56, 57, 60, 93 ; and
sterility, 60, 321 ; not a disease, 63 ;
cost of, 93 ; eye of, its emana-
tions, 99 ; face of the man of, 99,
100 ; men of, two main classes, 124,
125 ; Carlyle's theory of, refuted,
153 ; emotional needs and dread
of responsibility of men of, 347 ;
ruthlessness of, 369 ; finality in
works of, 369, 370; cost of its
victories, 395 ; greatness of, 395 ;
defined, 395 ; relation of, to epoch,
395, 396 ; power of men of, 396-
409.

Goethe, J. W., on artists, 23, 24;
susceptibility of, 26 ; complexity
of, 35 ; parents of, 52, 53 ; physique
and physiognomy of, 72, 73, 74 ;
natural vocation of, 105, 119-121 ;
his attempts at drawing, 106, 120 ;
versatility of, 119 ; his resemblance
to Scott, 120 ; official industry of,
121 ; as mineralogist, 121 ; scientific
discovery of premaxilla by, 121 ;
work of, on metamorphosis of
plants, 121 ; his theory of colour,
121 ; Napoleon on, 153 ; on con-
scious aims, 159, 160 ; purpose of,
197-200 ; and the puppet show,
197 ; and Gretchen, 197, 198, 341 ;
influenced by Shakespeare, 198 ;
begins Faust, 198 ; his Sorrows of
Werther, 199; influenced by Spinoza,
199 ; begins to discipline himself,
199 ; real aim of, 200 ; love-affairs j
of, 340-344 ; sentimentality of, i
340, 341 ; sexual precocity of, 341 ; i

and Frederica Brion, 342 ; and
Charlotte, 342, 343 ; and Lili, 343 ;
captured by Christiane, 344 ;
significance of his personality and
work, 399, 400.

Gordianus, 55.

Great Men, insanity among mothers
of, 56, 57 ; constitutional features
of, 62, 63 ; physical characteristics
of the several types of, 97, 98 ;
unique impression made by, 98 ;
cause of impression made by, 99,
100 ; stars of, 109 ; two great
classes of, 124, 125 ; tentative
efforts of, 132 ; limitations of, 142 ;
their relations to women, 316-350;
fickleness of, 326, 327 ; temptations
of, 351 ; in relation to crime, 351-
378 ; power of, exemplified, 396-409.

Greatness, four main types of, 21 ;
test of, 266 ; interdependence of
qualities and defects of, 377 ; new
type of, 410.

Gregory, see Saint Gregory the Great.

Habit, newly established, 2 ; in-
heritance of, 3.

Hseckel, and human evolution, 3 ;
and unconscious memory, 4.

Hanks, Nancy, mother of Lincoln, 57.

Harvey, William, unworldliness of,
39; physique of, 83, 88; limita-
tions of his genius, 87, 213 ;
personal traits of, 88 ; natural
vocation of, 105, 113 ; culture of,
113 ; purpose of, 213-215 ; his
association with Fabricius, 213,
214 ; his dissections and vivi-
sections, 214, 215, 368, 369 ; his
Lumleian lectures, 215; imprudence
of, 302 ; his love of solitude,
309, 310 ; callousness of, towards
animals, 368, 369 ; importance of
his work, 403.

Hedonic selection, law of, 3, 104, 105.

Hegel, G. W. F., on man as part of
nature, 8 ; his theory of the ego,
14 ; as poet, 27, 140 ; family
history of, 59 ; physique of, 83.
85 ; his physiognomy and personal
traits, 85, 86 ; his death accidental,
80 ; natural vocation of, 105, 140,
141 ; compared with Kant, 140,
231; his thirst for general know-
ledge, 140 ; as freethinker and
Jacobin, 140, 231 ; his li voyage of
discovery," 141 ; his relations with
Fichte and Schelling, 141 ; Logic

INDEX

419

of, conceived, 141 ; purpose of,
231-234 ; breaks with Schelling,
231 ; influenced by Hellenic ideal,
231, 232 ; revolutionary purport
of his Logic, 232, 233 ; completion
of his Logic, 233 ; his relation to
Christianity, 233 ; self-concentra-
tion of, 311 ; his power shown in
modern Germany, 405, 406.

Heredity, importance of, 8 ; Pearson
on, 9 ; Gallon's Law of, 9 ;
Mendel's Law of, 10.

llnt/.ka, Theodor, on the social
origin of thought, 396.

Individuality as a centre of force,
11 ; mechanical view of, 11 ;
substantial nature of, 380 ; and
heredity, 380, 381, 384-386 ;
view of Leibnitz concerning, 382-
384 ; permanency, 386, 386 ;
noumenal, 386, 387 ; specific
universality of, 388, 389 ; a parable
of, 389, 390; substratum of,
390, 391 : Plato on choice of
destiny of, 391, 392 ; power of,
393-410.

Infant Prodigies, 103.

Instinct, definition of, 7 ; described,
7, 8; constructive, 112.

Intellectual type, the, compared
with {esthetic, 26, 27, 28, 34;
indifference of, to success, 39 ;
purpose of men of, 209-239, 285 ;
courage of men of, 302 ; sexual
proclivities of, 317, 319.

Inventor, the, not a primary type, 31 .

Jesus, reasons for inclusion of, 40 ;
historicity of, 40, 41, 42, 239 ;
his ignorance of worldly affairs,
42 ; question of the physiognomy
of, 92 ; natural vocation of, 105-
107 ; purpose of, 239-247 ; in-
dications of development of, 239,
240 ; literary personality of, a
composite product, 240, 241 ;
social environment of, 241 ;
influence upon, of Judas the
Goulonite, Hillel, Isaiah, and
the Book of Daniel, 241, 242 ; his
conception of the " Kingdom,"
242 ; influence of John the Baptist
upon, 243 ; his fast in the desert,
243, 244 ; Galilean mission of,
244 ; acceptance of Messianic
role by, 244, 245 ; his conflict
with Judaism, 245, 246 ; his

change of tone, 246 ; purport of
life and work of, 247 ; Kang Vu
Wei on the courage of, 303 ; and
the Christ ideal, 370, 406; ill
effects of the doctrine of, 371 ;
his attitude towards the Scribes
and Pharisees, 371 ; sublime role
of, 406.

Kant, Immanuel, his theory of th<-
ego, 14 ; Scots descent of, 59 ;
physique of, 83 ; a pygmy, 90,
91 ; celibacy of, a sore subject,
91 ; natural vocation of, 105, 139,
140 ; scrappy reading of, 139 ;
encyclopaedic phase of, 139, 229 ;
conception of nis Critique of Pure
Reason, 139, 140 : purpose of,
228-231 ; mental crisis of, 229 ;
influenced by Hume, 229 ; his
Critique of Practical Reason, 230 ;
compared with Hegel, 231 ; his
courage under poverty, 302 ;
courage fails him when censured
by Court, 302 ; his hour for
meditation, 310 ; negative reran*
positive effect of his work, 405.

Lavater on the emanations of the

eye of genius, 99.

| Leibnitz, Gottfried Wilhelm, view of,
concerning ego, 13 ; parents of,
53 ; conciliatory temper of, 53,
128 ; physique of, 83-85 ; physiog-
nomy of, 85 ; natural vocation
of, 105, 128 ; purpose of, 225-228 ;
unity of his aiu» in multiplicity of
interests, 225 ; influenced by
Bacon, 226 ; early works of,
226 ; joins Rosicrucians, 226 ;
meets Huygens, 227 ; discovers
calculus, 227 ; his relations to
Descartes and Spinoza, 228, 229 ;
his view concerning individuality,
382-384 ; importance of his work,
404, 405.

Leland, C. G., 33.

Leonardo da Vinci, versatility of,
34, 104, 155 ; physical traits of,
72, 73 ; unconventionally of, 73 ;
natural vocation of, 105, 153-155 ;
his tnulcncv from art towards
science, 106, 154, 1.'..".. I'.IL.'; his
consciousness of his own }«•.
153, 154; artistic and scientitir
life of, at Milan, 154; complet. s
"Last Supper" for tho Ihikt.
154 ; his Treatise on Painting.

420

INDEX

154 ; his anticipations of science,
155 ; purpose of, 191-193 ; his
intellectual curiosity, 191 ; illustra-
tion of method of, 191, 192 ; his
superiority to ambition, 192, 193 ;
asexuality of, 345, 346 ; greatness
of, 398, 399.

Lincoln, Abraham, 33 ; parents of,
57 ; exceptional strength of, 66 ;
physiognomy of, 66 ; natural
vocation of, 105, 109, 110; self-
reliance of, 110 ; purpose of, 184-
187 ; as bow-hand, 184 ; mental
alienation of, 184, 185, 307 ; his
anti-slavery debut, 185 ; and the
Kansas - Nebraska Bill, 187 ;
elected President, 187 ; his mis-
givings as to his task, 187 ; para-
mount object of, 300 ; greatness
of, 397, 398.

Longevity, types compared as regards,
48, 49 ; supremacy of intellectuals
in respect of, 48, 49.

Luther, Martin, masterful temper
of, 43 ; family history of, 60,
61 ; hallucinations of, 93, 315 ;
t)hysique, health, personality of,
93-95 ; as musician, 106, 155,
157 ; his brutal treatment at
school, 155 ; promise of, 155 ;
superstitious fears of, 156 ; enters
convent, 156 ; influenced by von
Staupitz, 156 ; hymns of, 157 ;
purpose of, 270-275 ; germ of
doctrine of, 271 ; the national and
economic situation and, 271, 272 :
Tetzel and, 272 ; the " Theses "
of, 272 ; development of his
destructive programme, 273 ;
constructive task of, 274 ; courage
of, in marrying, 274 ; courage of,
at Augsburg and Worms, 305, 306 ;
deterioration of, 306 ; abstraction
of, 315 ; condones persecution of
Anabaptists, 376 ; intolerance of,
376 ; his harshness towards
peasants, 376, 377.

McDougall, W., on volition, 11, 12.

Madonna Pica, 55 ; devoutness of,
56.

Mahomet, masterful temper of, 43 ;
family history of, 69 ; physique
and personality of, 93, 94 ; trances
of, 94, 147, 260 ; natural vocation
of, 105, 106-148; illiteracy of,
146 ; learns from pilgrims, 146 ;
bis contact with Chnstianity, 146 ;

first wife of, 146, 326; critical
year of, 146 ; solitary meditations
of, 147, 260, 313 ; purpose of, 259-
264 ; his vision of Gabriel, 260, 313 ;
doctrinal views of, 260, 261 ;
persecution of, 261 ; death of
first wife of, 261 ; celestial vision
of, 262 ; called to Medina, 262 ;
his appeal to force, 262, 263 ;
growing 'power of, 263 ; his
triumphal return to Mecca, 263,
264 ; humility of, 264 ; courage
of, 304 ; his vision of genii, 313 ;
sexual relations of, 317, 344, 355 ;
his fidelity to Cadijah, 344 ; his
hostility to Jews, 374, 375 ; his
responsibility for massacre of the
Koraidites, 375 ; special " re-
velations " of, 375 ; sanity of,
407.
! Mantegazza on physiognomy of

genius, 99, 100.

; Marcus Aurelius, scrupulosity of,
43, 252 ; ill-health of, 91 ; natural
vocation of, 105, 128, 129; his
enforced activitv, 106 ; ; not a
failure, 128, 129*; purpose of, 249-
252 ; influence upon, of his mother,
249, of Antoninus, 249, 250,
of the Stoics, 250, of Pronto and
Junius Rusticus, 251, of Epictetus,
251 ; as persecutor, 372, 373 ;
significance of his career, 407.

Marriage, preconceptions concerning,
319-321 ; its effects upon the
work of great men, 322-326 ; a
field of battle, 317, 322, 323;
advantages of monogamous, 348,
349 ; a natural state ? 349 ;
Meredith on, 349, 350.

Maternal element, predominance of,
51, 52 ; in case of St. Augustine,
53 ; in case of St. Francis, 55 ;
in general, 62, 63.

Mathematics, compared with music,
90; Mozart and, 111.

Maturity, early and late, of several
types, 132.

Memory, theory of unconscious, 3,
4 ; and instinct, 7.

Mendel, law of inheritance of, 10.

Meredith, G., 25 ; on homage to
woman, 349, 350.

Monica, mother of Augustine, 54,
325.

Mothers of great men, insanity
among, 56 ; their share in life
work of sons, 326, 326.

INDEX

421

Mozart, Wolfgang Amadous, 35 ;
parents of, 52 ; tubercular taint
of, 52, 81 ; physique of, 72, 81 ;
physiognomy of, 81, 82 ; melan-
choly of, 82 ; natural vocation of,
105, 111 ; precocity of, 111 ;
fleeting taste of, for mathematics :
purpose of, H)6, 197 ; Nietzsche
on, 196 ; his tragic phase, 196,
197 ; Quixotism of, 301 ; his
power of self-concentration, 307 ;
supremacy of, 399.

Music and mathematics, 90 ; inborn
capacity for, 102, 103.

Napoleon Bonaparte, a typical
man of action, 33 ; parents of,
51, 325 ; physique of. 65 ; physiog-
nomy of, 69, 70 ; immense energy |
of, 69 ; charm and popularity of, ]
70 ; natural vocation of, 105, 108,
109 ; star of, 109 ; on Goethe, 153 ;
purpose of, 179-184 ; favourite
books of boyhood of, 180 ; Italian
campaign of, 181 ; breaking the
rules, 181 ; his Oriental dreams,

182 ; " conversion " of, 182 ;
constructive work of, 182, 183 ;
his relation to the Revolution,

183 ; objective of, 183 ; bravery
of, 299, 300; recluse years of,
306, 307 ; sexual relations of,
330-335 ; and Josephine, 330-
334 ; first love of, 330 ; and
Eleonore. 332 ; generosity of,
332, 334; and Marie Walewska,
333 ; divorce of, 333, 334 ; and
Marie Louise, 334 ; orders execu-
tion of 4000 prisoners, 365 ;
unjust banishments by, 366 ; his
judicial murder of Due d'Enghien,
366 ; Berlin decree of, 367 ; gutter
diplomacy of, 367 ; greatness of,
397.

Nelson, Horatio Lord, unique tem-
perament of, 33; physical weak-
ness of, 65; constitution of, 70;
charm of, 70, 71; natural voca-
tion, of, 105, 107, 108 ; Quixotism
of, 108; purpose of, 176-179;
chivalry of, 177, 178 ; his craving
for distinction, 178 ; enforce-
ment of Navigation Acts pre-
judices his career, 178, 179 ;
patriotism of, 179 ; born to excel,
179 ; his craving for danger, 297-
299 ; insubordination of, 297,
298; marital relations of, 324,

325; and Lady Hamilton, 324,
325, 363, 364; his precipitate
execution of Caracoiolo, 364 ; his
treatment of revolutionists, 364 ;
his triumph over difficulties, 397.
Newton, Sir Isaac, as artist, 27 ;
insanity of, 58, 86, 87 ; physique
of, 83, 86 ; physiognomy and
health of, 86, 87 ; natural vocation
of, 105, 138, 139; constructive
bent of, 138 ; as poet, 138 ; as
farmer, 138 ; tests astrology, 138,
221 ; his investigation of prophetic
works, 138 ; purpose of, 220-224 ;
central interest of, 220 ; as
alchemist, 221 ; mathematical
facility of, 221 ; discovers method
of " fluxions," 221 ; his hatred
of controversy, 222 ; his theory
of gravitation and its precursors,
222, 223 ; absent-mindedness of,
310.

Nietzsche, Friedrich, cited, 152 ;
fi on Frederick the Great's treatment
&by his father, 152, 153, 173, 174;
';>. on Mozart, 196 ; on the perils of
•£. the philosopher, 228 ; on the
\ problem of man and woman, 316,
' 319, 320 ; mentioned, 409, 410.
Nucleus of protozoon, the, a central
organ of psychic unity, 5.

Parents of great men, 46.

Paul, see Saint Paul.

Pepin the Short, 50.

Perception, external reference of, 4.

Philosophy, ita relation to science,
28 ; to art, 59.

Plato, view of, concerning the ego,
12, 13 ; on the soul's choice of
destiny, 391, 392.

Plotinus, view of, concerning the
ego, 13.

Protozoon, psychology of, 3, 4, 5.

Psychic research, 17.

Psychic unity of cells, 5.

Psychology, the, of protozoon, 3 ;
versus physics, Fournier d'Albe on,
379, 390.

Purpose, conscious versus empirical
discovery of, 141, 142, 160;
natural history of, 159-290 ; signi-
ficance of, 159 ; Goethe on, 159,
160 ; dawn of, 160 ; growth of,
161 ; of men of action, 161-187 ;
of aesthetic type, 187-208 ; of
intellectual type, 209-239 ; of
cthico-religious type, 239-283 ;

422

INDEX

recapitulation concerning, 283-
290 ; negative and positive, 170,
287, 288 ; concentrative and dis-
persive, 225 ; formal and sub-
stantial, 284, 285 ; mimetic factor
of, 286 ; opportunity and, 286 ;
typical development of, three
stages in, 288 ; instinctive stage,

289 ; formative stage, 289, 290 ;
mature stage, 290 ; decline of, j

290 ; intrinsicality of, 394.

Reid, Weismann and, 2.

Reincarnation, theory of, 103.

Renan, Ernest, complexity of, 44 ;
beauty of style of, 45 ; parents of,
61 ; on physiognomy of Jesus, 92 ;
suffered from neuralgia, 93 ;
physique and personality of, 93,
95 ; natural vocation of, 105, 148,
149 ; clerical education of, 148,
149 ; introduced to philosophy,
149 ; influence of Henriette Renan
upon, 149 ; vacillation of, 149 ;
" veritafem dilexi" 149 ; purpose
of, 279-283 ; a modern type,
279 ; works of, 281 ; visits Pales-
tine, 281 ; Vie de Jesits of, 281,
282 ; deprived of professorial
chair, 282, 283 ; as conservator of
religion, 283, 409; on St. Paul,
406 ; greatness of, 409.

Richelieu, Cardinal Armand Jean,
22 ; physical disabilities of, 65 ;
tubercular tendency of, 71 ; charm
of, 71 ; natural vocation of, 105,
116-118 ; literary ambition of,
106, 117, 118; purpose of, 168-
170 ; incubation period of his
genius, 169 ; his choice of the
weaker side, 169 ; ruling sentiments
of, 170 ; presence of mind of,
295 ; ruthlessness of, 357 ; his
unjust treatment of Grandier, 357,
358 ; his neglect of internal
abuses, 358, 359 ; achievements of,
396.

Ruskin, J., and Turner's art, 205.

Saint Augustine, 43 ; mother of,
53, 54, 252, 254 ; father of, 53 ;
physiognomy of, 92 ; natural
vocation, 105, 144, 145 ; pro-
fligacy of, 145 ; as rhetorician,
145 ; purpose of, 252-256 ;
influenced by his mother, 252,
253 ; influenced by Marie, 253 ;
The Fair and 'the Fit of, 254; waning

of Manichean influence, 254 ; in-
fluence of Bishop Ambrose and
the Platonists upon, 255 ; emotional
crisis and conversion of, 256 ; his
seclusion at Thagaste, 312 ;
sexual history of, 317, 318.
Saint Francis d'Assisi, his " lyric "
type of sainthood, 43, 44 ; obscur-
antism of, 44, 369 ; parents of,
55, 56, 264 ; fastidiousness of,
56; physique of, 93, 96; health
and personality of, 96 ; natural
vocation of, 105, 147, 148; youthful
popularity of, 129 ; his imprison-
ment and consequent illness, 147 ;
awakening of his ambition, 148 ;
a dream of, 148 ; military expedi-
tion of, 148 ; his withdrawal from
society and conversion, 148, 265 ;
caupe of his disillusionment, 148 ;
purpose of, 264-270 ; influenced
by Waldo, 264, 265 ; betrothed to
poverty, 265 ; breaks with father,
265.266; self will of, 266 ; licensed
by Church to preach, 267 ; growth
of Order of, 267; revolt of
scholars and relaxation of the rule,
268 ; heroic ideal of, 304, 305 ;
his vital need of seclusion, 313,
314 ; fasts and meditations of,
314 ; stigmata of, 314 ; greatness
of, 407, 408.

Saint Gregory the Great, recluse
nature of, 43, 55, 129, 130, 312;
parents of, 55 ; gouty tendency
of, 93, 95 ; physique of, 93, 95 ;
personality, 95 ; natural vocation
of, 105, 129, 130; popularity of,
129 ; his vast correspondence,
130 ; purpose of, 256-259 ; his
reluctance to accept Papacy, 257 ;
his ecclesiastical and political task,
257, 258 ; success achieved by,
259 ; analogy of his career with
that of Marcus Aurelius, 129, 259 ;
as champion of the monks, 312 ;
the achievement of, 313, 407 ;
as persecutor, 373, 374 ; his
dubious relations with Phocas,
374.

Saint Paul, impulsive temper of,
42 ; physique and physiognomy
of, 93, 95 ; temperament and
health of, 96 ; natural vocation of,
105, 143, 144 ; as anti-Christian
zealot, 144, 145 ; his journey to
Damascus and conversion, 145 :
independence of, 145 ; purpose

INDEX

423

of, 247-249 ; his change of name,
247 ; " discovered " by Barnabas,
'247; at Antioch, 247, 248; his
special qualification for proselyt-
ising Gentiles, 248 ; first mission
of, 248, 249 ; hated by JudaistH,
249 ; his courage under advcrnity,
303,304; character of, 406, 407.

Science, veritus art, 26 ; aesthetic
tendencies of men of, 27 ; character
of men of, 28 ; see also Intellectual
Type and Thought.

Schopenhauer, A., his theory of will,

14, 15.

Scott, Sir Walter, practical capacity
of, 35, 36 ; snoobishness of, 35,
36 ; aesthetic opportunism of, 36 ;
not intellectual, 36 ; parents of,
52 ; physique of, 72 ; physiognomy
of, 75 ; lameness of, 76 ; personal
magnetism of, 76 ; natural vocation
of, 105, 106, 122, 123 ; his attempts
at drawing and music, 106, 122 ;
prodigious memory of, 122 ; com-
pared with Goethe, 122 ; as
cavalry officer, 122 ; as sheriff,
122 ; as landowner, 123 ; social
versus aesthetic ambition of, 123,
204 ; purpose of, 202-204 ; annual
raids of, 202, 203 ; his love of
research, 203 ; influenced by
Goethe, 203 ; his Border Min-
strelsy and Lay, 203 ; his under-
valuation of his own gifts, 204 ; his
method of composition, 307, 308 ;
first love of, 321, 322 ; greatness
of, 400, 401 ; as improvisator, 401.

Selection, Law of Hedonic, 3, 104,
105.

Self, transliminal and subliminal, 12.

Sensation, an abstraction, 4.

Socrates, the demon of, 12.

Solitude, insane people's love of,
292, 293 ; men of action and, 293,
306, 307 ; aesthetic type and, 307,
308; intellectuals and, 309-311;
ethico-religious type and, 311-313 ;
as a source of power, 313.

Spencer, Herbert, on individuation,

15, 381-383.

Spinoza, Baruch de, as artist, 27 ;
physique of, 83 ; physiognomy
and health of, 89 ; frugality or,
89 ; natural vocation of, 105, 127,
128 ; optical work of, 106, 128 ;
purpose of, 216-220 ; his dislike
of Judaism, 216 ; influence of
Jewish philosophers on, 217 ; in-

fluence of Deecartep and Bruno on,
217. 218; anticipation of the
higher criticism by his Traetatiu,
-'!', 403, 404; refuses chair of
philosophy, 219 ; summary of
sourcee of the philosophy of, 219,
220 ; not a mere eclectic, 220 ;
courage of, 302 ; as recluse, 310 ;
posthumous influence of, 403, 404.

Stendhal (Henri Beyle) cited, 181,
182, 351 ; mentioned, 335.

Stoics, view of the, concerning ego, 13.

Sylvia, mother of St. Gregory, 55.

Thought, character of men of, 28 ;
men of, a more advanced type than
the artist, 28 ; longevity of men
of, 48, 49 ; physical characteristics
of men of, 83-91 ; slow develop-
ment of men of, 228 ; courage of
men of, 302 ; social origin of,
395, 396 ; power of representatives
of, 401-406.

Titian, worldliness of, 34, 193;
stature and physiognomy of, 72,
73 ; natural vocation of, 105, 1 10,
111; purpose of, 193, 194; his
art the tool of ambition, 193 ;
influence of Aretino upon, 194,
337, 338 ; his conception of woman-
hood, 194, 337-339 ; sexual rela-
tions of, 337-340; first phase of,
338 ; second phase of, 338, 339 ;
third phase of, 339, 340 ; treatment
of the nude by, 338, 339 ; last
works of, 339, 340 ; greatness of,
399.

Tuberculosis, 57, 60 ; Nelson's tend-
ency to, 70 ; Richelieu and. 71 ;
Spinoza's death from, 89 ; St.
Francis dies of, 93, 96.

Turner, William, energy of, 37 ;
parents of, 56 ; ethical purport of
works of, 37 ; physique of, 72 ;
physiognomy of, 79 ; mental in-
coherency or, 79 ; visual defects of,
79, 80 ; natural vocation of, 105.
106, 123, 124 ; attempts at poetry
of, 106, 123, 124 ; purpose of, 204,
205 ; Ruskin's hero-worship of,
205 ; his love of debauchery, 308 ;
greatness of, 401.

Twins, Galton's investigation of the
life-histories of, 101, 102.

Variation, fluctuating and mutational,

distinguished, 237.
Versatility, 103, 104.

424

INDEX

Vocation, natural, 101-158 ; four
main types of, 105 ; decisive and
single, 106-114 ; decisive but with
collateral activities, 114-131 ;
dubious at first, then single, 132-
149 ; dubious at first, ultimately
predominant, 149-157 ; recapitu-
lation of results concerning, 157,
168.

Weininger, Otto, on Napoleon's
" conversion," 182 ; on founders
of religions, 244 ; on Christ's
conquest of Judaism, 371 ; men-
tioned, 410.

Weismann and Reid, views of, 2.

William of Nassau, 61.

William the Silent, ideal aims of, 32 ;

parents of, 51 ; physique of, 65 ;
physiognomy of, 66, 67 ; his charm
of manner, 67, 133 ; natural
vocation of, 105, 132-134 ; not a
great soldier, 133 ; chivalry of,
134 ; purpose of, 165-167 ; motive
of, 166 ; abandoned by wife, 167,
322 ; marriages of, 317, 318, 322 ;
sexual normality of, 321 ; achieve-
ment of, 396.

Woman, theories about, 316 ; rela-
tions of great men to, 316-350 ;
classification of relations to, 317,
319 ; difficulty of problem of man
and, 319, 320 ; her attitude towards
ideal aims of men, 323-326 ;
Meredith on homage to, 349.
350.

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