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[23] This is page twenty-three. + +CONTENTS + +Preface: iii-lx +I: 1-50 (Sweetness and Light) +II: 51-92 (Doing as One Likes) +III: 93-141 (Barbarians, Philistines, Populace) +IV: 142-166 (Hebraism and Hellenism) +V: 166-197 (Porro Unum est Necessarium) +VI: 197-272 (Our Liberal Practitioners) + +*Note: in the first edition, chapters are numbered only, not named. +I have added the third edition's titles for reference. + + + +CULTURE AND ANARCHY (1869, FIRST EDITION) + +PREFACE + +[iii] My foremost design in writing this Preface is to address a word +of exhortation to the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. In +the essay which follows, the reader will often find Bishop Wilson +quoted. To me and to the members of the Society for Promoting +Christian Knowledge his name and writings are still, no doubt, +familiar; but the world is fast going away from old-fashioned people +of his sort, and I learnt with consternation lately from a brilliant +and distinguished votary of the natural sciences, that he had never +so much as heard of Bishop Wilson, and that he imagined me to have +invented him. At a moment when the Courts of Law have just taken off +the embargo from the recreative religion furnished on Sundays by my +gifted acquaintance and others, and when St. Martin's Hall [iv] and +the Alhambra will soon be beginning again to resound with their +pulpit-eloquence, it distresses one to think that the new lights +should not only have, in general, a very low opinion of the preachers +of the old religion, but that they should have it without knowing the +best that these preachers can do. And that they are in this case is +owing in part, certainly, to the negligence of the Christian +Knowledge Society. In old times they used to print and spread abroad +Bishop Wilson's Maxims of Piety and Christianity; the copy of this +work which I use is one of their publications, bearing their imprint, +and bound in the well-known brown calf which they made familiar to +our childhood; but the date of my copy is 1812. I know of no copy +besides, and I believe the work is no longer one of those printed and +circulated by the Society. Hence the error, flattering, I own, to me +personally, yet in itself to be regretted, of the distinguished +physicist already mentioned. + +But Bishop Wilson's Maxims deserve to be circulated as a religious +book, not only by comparison with the cartloads of rubbish circulated +at present under this designation, but for their own sake, and even +by comparison with the other works of the same [v] author. Over the +far better known Sacra Privata they have this advantage, that they +were prepared by him for his own private use, while the Sacra Privata +were prepared by him for the use of the public. The Maxims were +never meant to be printed, and have on that account, like a work of, +doubtless, far deeper emotion and power, the Meditations of Marcus +Aurelius, something peculiarly sincere and first-hand about them. +Some of the best things from the Maxims have passed into the Sacra +Privata; still, in the Maxims, we have them as they first arose; and +whereas, too, in the Sacra Privata the writer speaks very often as +one of the clergy, and as addressing the clergy, in the Maxims he +almost always speaks solely as a man. I am not saying a word against +the Sacra Privata, for which I have the highest respect; only the +Maxims seem to me a better and a more edifying book still. They +should be read, as Joubert says Nicole should be read, with a direct +aim at practice. The reader will leave on one side things which, +from the change of time and from the changed point of view which the +change of time inevitably brings with it, no longer suit him; enough +[vi] will remain to serve as a sample of the very best, perhaps, +which our nation and race can do in the way of religious writing. +Monsieur Michelet makes it a reproach to us that, in all the doubt as +to the real author of the Imitation, no one has ever dreamed of +ascribing that work to an Englishman. It is true, the Imitation +could not well have been written by an Englishman; the religious +delicacy and the profound asceticism of that admirable book are +hardly in our nature. This would be more of a reproach to us if in +poetry, which requires, no less than religion, a true delicacy of +spiritual perception, our race had not done such great things; and if +the Imitation, exquisite as it is, did not, as I have elsewhere +remarked, belong to a class of works in which the perfect balance of +human nature is lost, and which have therefore, as spiritual +productions, in their contents something excessive and morbid, in +their form something not thoroughly sound. On a lower range than the +Imitation, and awakening in our nature chords less poetical and +delicate, the Maxims of Bishop Wilson are, as a religious work, far +more solid. To the most sincere ardour and unction, Bishop Wilson +unites, in these Maxims, that downright honesty [vii] and plain good +sense which our English race has so powerfully applied to the divine +impossibilities of religion; by which it has brought religion so much +into practical life, and has done its allotted part in promoting upon +earth the kingdom of God. But with ardour and unction religion, as +we all know, may still be fanatical; with honesty and good sense, it +may still be prosaic; and the fruit of honesty and good sense united +with ardour and unction is often only a prosaic religion held +fanatically. Bishop Wilson's excellence lies in a balance of the +four qualities, and in a fulness and perfection of them, which makes +this untoward result impossible; his unction is so perfect, and in +such happy alliance with his good sense, that it becomes tenderness +and fervent charity; his good sense is so perfect and in such happy +alliance with his unction, that it becomes moderation and insight. +While, therefore, the type of religion exhibited in his Maxims is +English, it is yet a type of a far higher kind than is in general +reached by Bishop Wilson's countrymen; and yet, being English, it is +possible and attainable for them. And so I conclude as I began, by +saying that a work of this sort is one which the Society for +Promoting Christian [viii] Knowledge should not suffer to remain out +of print or out of currency. + +To pass now to the matters canvassed in the following essay. The +whole scope of the essay is to recommend culture as the great help +out of our present difficulties; culture being a pursuit of our total +perfection by means of getting to know, on all the matters which most +concern us, the best which has been thought and said in the world, +and, through this knowledge, turning a stream of fresh and free +thought upon our stock notions and habits, which we now follow +staunchly but mechanically, vainly imagining that there is a virtue +in following them staunchly which makes up for the mischief of +following them mechanically. This, and this alone, is the scope of +the following essay. I say again here, what I have said in the pages +which follow, that from the faults and weaknesses of bookmen a notion +of something bookish, pedantic, and futile has got itself more or +less connected with the word culture, and that it is a pity we cannot +use a word more perfectly free from all shadow of reproach. And yet, +futile as are many bookmen, and helpless as books and reading often +prove for bringing nearer to perfection those who [ix] use them, one +must, I think, be struck more and more, the longer one lives, to find +how much, in our present society, a man's life of each day depends +for its solidity and value on whether he reads during that day, and, +far more still, on what he reads during it. More and more he who +examines himself will find the difference it makes to him, at the end +of any given day, whether or no he has pursued his avocations +throughout it without reading at all; and whether or no, having read +something, he has read the newspapers only. This, however, is a +matter for each man's private conscience and experience. If a man +without books or reading, or reading nothing but his letters and the +newspapers, gets nevertheless a fresh and free play of the best +thoughts upon his stock notions and habits, he has got culture. He +has got that for which we prize and recommend culture; he has got +that which at the present moment we seek culture that it may give us. +This inward operation is the very life and essence of culture, as we +conceive it. + +Nevertheless, it is not easy so to frame one's discourse concerning +the operation of culture, as to avoid giving frequent occasion to a +misunderstanding whereby the essential inwardness of the [x] +operation is lost sight of. We are supposed, when we criticise by +the help of culture some imperfect doing or other, to have in our eye +some well-known rival plan of doing, which we want to serve and +recommend. Thus, for instance, because I have freely pointed out the +dangers and inconveniences to which our literature is exposed in the +absence of any centre of taste and authority like the French Academy, +it is constantly said that I want to introduce here in England an +institution like the French Academy. I have indeed expressly +declared that I wanted no such thing; but let us notice how it is +just our worship of machinery, and of external doing, which leads to +this charge being brought; and how the inwardness of culture makes us +seize, for watching and cure, the faults to which our want of an +Academy inclines us, and yet prevents us from trusting to an arm of +flesh, as the Puritans say,--from blindly flying to this outward +machinery of an Academy, in order to help ourselves. For the very +same culture and free inward play of thought which shows us how the +Corinthian style, or the whimsies about the One Primeval Language, +are generated and strengthened in the absence of an [xi] Academy, +shows us, too, how little any Academy, such as we should be likely to +get, would cure them. Every one who knows the characteristics of our +national life, and the tendencies so fully discussed in the following +pages, knows exactly what an English Academy would be like. One can +see the happy family in one's mind's eye as distinctly as if it was +already constituted. Lord Stanhope, the Bishop of Oxford, Mr. +Gladstone, the Dean of Westminster, Mr. Froude, Mr. Henry Reeve,-- +everything which is influential, accomplished, and distinguished; and +then, some fine morning, a dissatisfaction of the public mind with +this brilliant and select coterie, a flight of Corinthian leading +articles, and an irruption of Mr. G. A. Sala. Clearly, this is not +what will do us good. The very same faults,--the want of +sensitiveness of intellectual conscience, the disbelief in right +reason, the dislike of authority,--which have hindered our having an +Academy and have worked injuriously in our literature, would also +hinder us from making our Academy, if we established it, one which +would really correct them. And culture, which shows us truly the +faults, shows us this also just as truly. + +[xii] It is by a like sort of misunderstanding, again, that Mr. Oscar +Browning, one of the assistant-masters at Eton, takes up in the +Quarterly Review the cudgels for Eton, as if I had attacked Eton, +because I have said, in a book about foreign schools, that a man may +well prefer to teach his three or four hours a day without keeping a +boarding-house; and that there are great dangers in cramming little +boys of eight or ten and making them compete for an object of great +value to their parents; and, again, that the manufacture and supply +of school-books, in England, much needs regulation by some competent +authority. Mr. Oscar Browning gives us to understand that at Eton he +and others, with perfect satisfaction to themselves and the public, +combine the functions of teaching and of keeping a boarding-house; +that he knows excellent men (and, indeed, well he may, for a brother +of his own, I am told, is one of the best of them,) engaged in +preparing little boys for competitive examinations, and that the +result, as tested at Eton, gives perfect satisfaction. And as to +school-books he adds, finally, that Dr. William Smith, the learned +and distinguished editor of the Quarterly Review, is, as we all know, +[xiii] the compiler of school-books meritorious and many. This is +what Mr. Oscar Browning gives us to understand in the Quarterly +Review, and it is impossible not to read with pleasure what he says. +For what can give a finer example of that frankness and manly self- +confidence which our great public schools, and none of them so much +as Eton, are supposed to inspire, of that buoyant ease in holding up +one's head, speaking out what is in one's mind, and flinging off all +sheepishness and awkwardness, than to see an Eton assistant-master +offering in fact himself as evidence that to combine boarding-house- +keeping with teaching is a good thing, and his brother as evidence +that to train and race little boys for competitive examinations is a +good thing? Nay, and one sees that this frank-hearted Eton self- +confidence is contagious; for has not Mr. Oscar Browning managed to +fire Dr. William Smith (himself, no doubt, the modestest man alive, +and never trained at Eton) with the same spirit, and made him insert +in his own Review a puff, so to speak, of his own school-books, +declaring that they are (as they are) meritorious and many? +Nevertheless, Mr. Oscar Browning is wrong in [xiv] thinking that I +wished to run down Eton; and his repetition on behalf of Eton, with +this idea in his head, of the strains of his heroic ancestor, +Malvina's Oscar, as they are recorded by the family poet, Ossian, is +unnecessary. "The wild boar rushes over their tombs, but he does not +disturb their repose. They still love the sport of their youth, and +mount the wind with joy." All I meant to say was, that there were +unpleasantnesses in uniting the keeping a boarding-house with +teaching, and dangers in cramming and racing little boys for +competitive examinations, and charlatanism and extravagance in the +manufacture and supply of our school-books. But when Mr. Oscar +Browning tells us that all these have been happily got rid of in his +case, and his brother's case, and Dr. William Smith's case, then I +say that this is just what I wish, and I hope other people will +follow their good example. All I seek is that such blemishes should +not through any negligence, self-love, or want of due self- +examination, be suffered to continue. + +Natural, as we have said, the sort of misunderstanding just noticed +is; yet our usefulness depends upon our being able to clear it away, +and to convince [xv] those who mechanically serve some stock notion +or operation, and thereby go astray, that it is not culture's work or +aim to give the victory to some rival fetish, but simply to turn a +free and fresh stream of thought upon the whole matter in question. +In a thing of more immediate interest, just now, than either of the +two we have mentioned, the like misunderstanding prevails; and until +it is dissipated, culture can do no good work in the matter. When we +criticise the present operation of disestablishing the Irish Church, +not by the power of reason and justice, but by the power of the +antipathy of the Protestant Nonconformists, English and Scotch, to +establishments, we are charged with being dreamers of dreams, which +the national will has rudely shattered, for endowing the religious +sects all round; or we are called enemies of the Nonconformists, +blind partisans of the Anglican Establishment. More than a few words +we must give to showing how erroneous are these charges; because if +they were true, we should be actually subverting our own design, and +playing false to that culture which it is our very purpose to +recommend. + +Certainly we are no enemies of the Nonconformists; [xvi] for, on the +contrary, what we aim at is their perfection. Culture, which is the +study of perfection, leads us, as we in the following pages have +shown, to conceive of true human perfection as a harmonious +perfection, developing all sides of our humanity; and as a general +perfection, developing all parts of our society. For if one member +suffer, the other members must suffer with it; and the fewer there +are that follow the true way of salvation the harder that way is to +find. And while the Nonconformists, the successors and +representatives of the Puritans, and like them staunchly walking by +the best light they have, make a large part of what is strongest and +most serious in this nation and therefore attract our respect and +interest, yet all that, in what follows, is said about Hebraism and +Hellenism, has for its main result to show how our Puritans, ancient +and modern, have not enough added to their care for walking staunchly +by the best light they have, a care that that light be not darkness; +how they have developed one side of their humanity at the expense of +all others, and have become incomplete and mutilated men in +consequence. Thus falling short of harmonious [xvii] perfection, +they fail to follow the true way of salvation. Therefore that way is +made the harder for others to find, general perfection is put further +off out of our reach, and the confusion and perplexity in which our +society now labours is increased by the Nonconformists rather than +diminished by them. So while we praise and esteem the zeal of the +Nonconformists in walking staunchly by the best light they have, and +desire to take no whit from it, we seek to add to this what we call +sweetness and light, and develope their full humanity more perfectly; +and to seek this is certainly not to be the enemy of the +Nonconformists. + +But now, with these ideas in our head, we come across the present +operation for disestablishing the Irish Church by the power of the +Nonconformists' antipathy to religious establishments and endowments. +And we see Liberal statesmen, for whose purpose this antipathy +happens to be convenient, flattering it all they can; saying that +though they have no intention of laying hands on an Establishment +which is efficient and popular, like the Anglican Establishment here +in England, yet it is in the abstract a fine and good thing that +religion should [xviii] be left to the voluntary support of its +promoters, and should thus gain in energy and independence; and Mr. +Gladstone has no words strong enough to express his admiration of the +refusal of State-aid by the Irish Roman Catholics, who have never yet +been seriously asked to accept it, but who would a good deal +embarrass him if they demanded it. And we see philosophical +politicians, with a turn for swimming with the stream, like Mr. +Baxter or Mr. Charles Buxton, and philosophical divines with the same +turn, like the Dean of Canterbury, seeking to give a sort of grand +stamp of generality and solemnity to this antipathy of the +Nonconformists, and to dress it out as a law of human progress in the +future. Now, nothing can be pleasanter than swimming with the +stream; and we might gladly, if we could, try in our unsystematic way +to help Mr. Baxter, and Mr. Charles Buxton, and the Dean of +Canterbury, in their labours at once philosophical and popular. But +we have got fixed in our minds that a more full and harmonious +development of their humanity is what the Nonconformists most want, +that narrowness, one-sidedness, and incompleteness is what they most +suffer from; [xix] in a word, that in what we call provinciality they +abound, but in what we may call totality they fall short. + +And they fall short more than the members of Establishments. The +great works by which, not only in literature, art, and science +generally, but in religion itself, the human spirit has manifested +its approaches to totality, and a full, harmonious perfection, and by +which it stimulates and helps forward the world's general perfection, +come, not from Nonconformists, but from men who either belong to +Establishments or have been trained in them. A Nonconformist +minister, the Rev. Edward White, who has lately written a temperate +and well-reasoned pamphlet against Church Establishments, says that +"the unendowed and unestablished communities of England exert full as +much moral and ennobling influence upon the conduct of statesmen as +that Church which is both established and endowed." That depends upon +what one means by moral and ennobling influence. The believer in +machinery may think that to get a Government to abolish Church-rates +or to legalise marriage with a deceased wife's sister is to exert a +moral and ennobling influence [xx] upon Government. But a lover of +perfection, who looks to inward ripeness for the true springs of +conduct, will surely think that as Shakspeare has done more for the +inward ripeness of our statesmen than Dr. Watts, and has, therefore, +done more to moralise and ennoble them, so an Establishment which has +produced Hooker, Barrow, Butler, has done more to moralise and +ennoble English statesmen and their conduct than communities which +have produced the Nonconformist divines. The fruitful men of English +Puritanism and Nonconformity are men who were trained within the pale +of the Establishment,--Milton, Baxter, Wesley. A generation or two +outside the Establishment, and Puritanism produces men of national +mark no more. With the same doctrine and discipline, men of national +mark are produced in Scotland; but in an Establishment. With the +same doctrine and discipline, men of national and even European mark +are produced in Germany, Switzerland, France; but in Establishments. +Only two religious disciplines seem exempted; or comparatively +exempted, from the operation of the law which seems to forbid the +rearing, outside of national establishments, of men of the [xxi] +highest spiritual significance. These two are the Roman Catholic and +the Jewish. And these, both of them, rest on Establishments, which, +though not indeed national, are cosmopolitan; and perhaps here, what +the individual man does not lose by these conditions of his rearing, +the citizen, and the State of which he is a citizen, loses. + +What, now, can be the reason of this undeniable provincialism of the +English Puritans and Protestant Nonconformists, a provincialism which +has two main types,--a bitter type and a smug type,--but which in +both its types is vulgarising, and thwarts the full perfection of our +humanity? Men of genius and character are born and reared in this +medium as in any other. From the faults of the mass such men will +always be comparatively free, and they will always excite our +interest; yet in this medium they seem to have a special difficulty +in breaking through what bounds them, and in developing their +totality. Surely the reason is, that the Nonconformist is not in +contact with the main current of national life, like the member of an +Establishment. In a matter of such deep and vital concern as +religion, this separation from the main current of the national life +has [xxii] peculiar importance. In the following essay we have +discussed at length the tendency in us to Hebraise, as we call it; +that is, to sacrifice all other sides of our being to the religious +side. This tendency has its cause in the divine beauty and grandeur +of religion, and bears affecting testimony to them; but we have seen +that it has dangers for us, we have seen that it leads to a narrow +and twisted growth of our religious side itself, and to a failure in +perfection. But if we tend to Hebraise even in an Establishment, +with the main current of national life flowing round us, and +reminding us in all ways of the variety and fulness of human +existence,--by a Church which is historical as the State itself is +historical, and whose order, ceremonies, and monuments reach, like +those of the State, far beyond any fancies and devisings of ours, and +by institutions such as the Universities, formed to defend and +advance that very culture and many-sided development which it is the +danger of Hebraising to make us neglect,--how much more must we tend +to Hebraise when we lack these preventives. One may say that to be +reared a member of an Establishment is in itself a lesson of +religious moderation, and a help towards [xxiii] culture and +harmonious perfection. Instead of battling for his own private forms +for expressing the inexpressible and defining the undefinable, a man +takes those which have commended themselves most to the religious +life of his nation; and while he may be sure that within those forms +the religious side of his own nature may find its satisfaction, he +has leisure and composure to satisfy other sides of his nature as +well. + +But with the member of a Nonconforming or self-made religious +community how different! The sectary's eigene grosse Erfindungen, as +Goethe calls them,--the precious discoveries of himself and his +friends for expressing the inexpressible and defining the undefinable +in peculiar forms of their own, cannot but, as he has voluntarily +chosen them, and is personally responsible for them, fill his whole +mind. He is zealous to do battle for them and affirm them, for in +affirming them he affirms himself, and that is what we all like. +Other sides of his being are thus neglected, because the religious +side, always tending in every serious man to predominance over our +other spiritual sides, is in him made quite absorbing and tyrannous +by [xxiv] the condition of self-assertion and challenge which he has +chosen for himself. And just what is not essential in religion he +comes to mistake for essential, and a thousand times the more readily +because he has chosen it of himself; and religious activity he +fancies to consist in battling for it. All this leaves him little +leisure or inclination for culture; to which, besides, he has no +great institutions not of his own making, like the Universities +connected with the national Establishment, to invite him; but only +such institutions as, like the order and discipline of his religion, +he may have invented for himself, and invented under the sway of the +narrow and tyrannous notions of religion fostered in him as we have +seen. Thus, while a national Establishment of religion favours +totality, hole-and-corner forms of religion (to use an expressive +popular word) inevitably favour provincialism. + +But the Nonconformists, and many of our Liberal friends along with +them, have a plausible plan for getting rid of this provincialism, +if, as they can hardly quite deny, it exists. "Let us all be in the +same boat," they cry; "open the Universities to everybody, and let +there be no establishment of [xxv] religion at all!" Open the +Universities by all means; but, as to the second point about +establishment, let us sift the proposal a little. It does seem at +first a little like that proposal of the fox, who had lost his own +tail, to put all the other foxes in the same boat by a general +cutting off of tails; and we know that moralists have decided that +the right course here was, not to adopt this plausible suggestion, +and cut off tails all round, but rather that the other foxes should +keep their tails, and that the fox without a tail should get one. +And so we might be inclined to urge that, to cure the evil of the +Nonconformists' provincialism, the right way can hardly be to +provincialise us all round. + +However, perhaps we shall not be provincialised. For the Rev. Edward +White says that probably, "when all good men alike are placed in a +condition of religious equality, and the whole complicated iniquity +of Government Church patronage is swept away, more of moral and +ennobling influence than ever will be brought to bear upon the action +of statesmen." We already have an example of religious equality in +our colonies. "In the colonies," says The Times, "we see religious +communities unfettered by [xxvi] State-control, and the State +relieved from one of the most troublesome and irritating of +responsibilities." But America is the great example alleged by those +who are against establishments for religion. Our topic at this +moment is the influence of religious establishments on culture; and +it is remarkable that Mr. Bright, who has taken lately to +representing himself as, above all, a promoter of reason and of the +simple natural truth of things, and his policy as a fostering of the +growth of intelligence,--just the aims, as is well known, of culture +also,--Mr. Bright, in a speech at Birmingham about education, seized +on the very point which seems to concern our topic, when he said: "I +believe the people of the United States have offered to the world +more valuable information during the last forty years than all Europe +put together." So America, without religious establishments, seems to +get ahead of us all in culture and totality; and these are the cure +for provincialism. + +On the other hand, another friend of reason and the simple natural +truth of things, Monsieur Renan, says of America, in a book he has +recently published, what seems to conflict violently with [xxvii] +what Mr. Bright says. Mr. Bright affirms that, not only have the +United States thus informed Europe, but they have done it without a +great apparatus of higher and scientific instruction, and by dint of +all classes in America being "sufficiently educated to be able to +read, and to comprehend, and to think; and that, I maintain, is the +foundation of all subsequent progress." And then comes Monsieur +Renan, and says: "The sound instruction of the people is an effect of +the high culture of certain classes. The countries which, like the +United States, have created a considerable popular instruction +without any serious higher instruction, will long have to expiate +this fault by their intellectual mediocrity, their vulgarity of +manners, their superficial spirit, their lack of general +intelligence."* Now, which of these two friends of culture are we to +believe? Monsieur Renan seems more to have in his eye what we +ourselves mean by culture; [xxviii] because Mr. Bright always has in +his eye what he calls "a commendable interest" in politics and +political agitations. As he said only the other day at Birmingham: +"At this moment,--in fact, I may say at every moment in the history +of a free country,--there is nothing that is so much worth discussing +as politics." And he keeps repeating, with all the powers of his +noble oratory, the old story, how to the thoughtfulness and +intelligence of the people of great towns we owe all our improvements +in the last thirty years, and how these improvements have hitherto +consisted in Parliamentary reform, and free trade, and abolition of +Church rates, and so on; and how they are now about to consist in +getting rid of minority-members, and in introducing a free breakfast- +table, and in abolishing the Irish Church by the power of the +Nonconformists' antipathy to establishments, and much more of the +same kind. And though our pauperism and ignorance, and all the +questions which are called social, seem now to be forcing themselves +upon his mind, yet he still goes on with his glorifying of the great +towns, and the Liberals, and their operations for the last thirty +years. It never [xxix] seems to occur to him that the present +troubled state of our social life has anything to do with the thirty +years' blind worship of their nostrums by himself and our Liberal +friends, or that it throws any doubts upon the sufficiency of this +worship. But he thinks what is still amiss is due to the stupidity +of the Tories, and will be cured by the thoughtfulness and +intelligence of the great towns, and by the Liberals going on +gloriously with their political operations as before; or that it will +cure itself. So we see what Mr. Bright means by thoughtfulness and +intelligence, and in what manner, according to him, we are to grow in +them. And, no doubt, in America all classes read their newspaper and +take a commendable interest in politics more than here or anywhere +else in Europe. + +But, in the following essay, we have been led to doubt the +sufficiency of all this political operating of ours, pursued +mechanically as we pursue it; and we found that general intelligence, +as Monsieur Renan calls it, or, in our own words, a reference of all +our operating to a firm intelligible law of things, was just what we +were without, and that we were without it because we worshipped our +machinery [xxx] so devoutly. Therefore, we conclude that Monsieur +Renan, more than Mr. Bright, means by reason and intelligence the +same thing as we do; and when he says that America, that chosen home +of newspapers and politics, is without general intelligence, we think +it likely, from the circumstances of the case, that this is so; and +that, in culture and totality, America, instead of surpassing us all, +falls short. + +And,--to keep to our point of the influence of religious +establishments upon culture and a high development of our humanity,-- +we can surely see reasons why, with all her energy and fine gifts, +America does not show more of this development, or more promise of +this. In the following essay it will be seen how our society +distributes itself into Barbarians, Philistines, and Populace; and +America is just ourselves, with the Barbarians quite left out, and +the Populace nearly. This leaves the Philistines for the great bulk +of the nation;--a livelier sort of Philistine than ours, and with the +pressure and false ideal of our Barbarians taken away, but left all +the more to himself and to have his full swing! And as we have found +that the strongest and most vital part of English Philistinism was +the [xxxi] Puritan and Hebraising middle-class, and that its +Hebraising keeps it from culture and totality, so it is notorious +that the people of the United States issues from this class, and +reproduces its tendencies,--its narrow conception of man's spiritual +range and of his one thing needful. From Maine to Florida, and back +again, all America Hebraises. Difficult as it is to speak of a +people merely from what one reads, yet that, I think, one may, +without much fear of contradiction say. I mean, when, in the United +States, any spiritual side in a man is wakened to activity, it is +generally the religious side, and the religious side in a narrow way. +Social reformers go to Moses or St. Paul for their doctrines, and +have no notion there is anywhere else to go to; earnest young men at +schools and universities, instead of conceiving salvation as a +harmonious perfection only to be won by unreservedly cultivating many +sides in us, conceive of it in the old Puritan fashion, and fling +themselves ardently upon it in the old, false ways of this fashion, +which we know so well, and such as Mr. Hammond, the American +revivalist, has lately, at Mr. Spurgeon's Tabernacle, been refreshing +our memory with. Now, if America thus [xxxii] Hebraises more than +either England or Germany, will any one deny that the absence of +religious establishments has much to do with it? We have seen how +establishments tend to give us a sense of a historical life of the +human spirit, outside and beyond our own fancies and feelings; how +they thus tend to suggest new sides and sympathies in us to +cultivate; how, further, by saving us from having to invent and fight +for our own forms of religion, they give us leisure and calm to +steady our view of religion itself,--the most overpowering of +objects, as it is the grandest,--and to enlarge our first crude +notions of the one thing needful. But, in a serious people, where +every one has to choose and strive for his own order and discipline +of religion, the contention about these non-essentials occupies his +mind, his first crude notions about the one thing needful do not get +purged, and they invade the whole spiritual man in him, and then, +making a solitude, they call it heavenly peace. + +I remember a Nonconformist manufacturer, in a town of the Midland +counties, telling me that when he first came there, some years ago, +the place had no Dissenters; but he had opened an Independent +[xxxiii] chapel in it, and now Church and Dissent were pretty equally +divided, with sharp contests between them. I said, that seemed a +pity. "A pity?" cried he; "not at all! Only think of all the zeal +and activity which the collision calls forth!" "Ah, but, my dear +friend," I answered, "only think of all the nonsense which you now +hold quite firmly, which you would never have held if you had not +been contradicting your adversary in it all these years!" The more +serious the people, and the more prominent the religious side in it, +the greater is the danger of this side, if set to choose out forms +for itself and fight for existence, swelling and spreading till it +swallows all other spiritual sides up, intercepts and absorbs all +nutriment which should have gone to them, and leaves Hebraism rampant +in us and Hellenism stamped out. + +Culture, and the harmonious perfection of our whole being, and what +we call totality, then become secondary matters; and the +institutions, which should develope these, take the same narrow and +partial view of humanity and its wants as the free religious +communities take. Just as the free churches of Mr. Beecher or +Brother Noyes, with their provincialism [xxxiv] and want of +centrality, make mere Hebraisers in religion, and not perfect men, so +the university of Mr. Ezra Cornell, a really noble monument of his +munificence, yet seems to rest on a provincial misconception of what +culture truly is, and to be calculated to produce miners, or +engineers, or architects, not sweetness and light. + +And, therefore, when the Rev. Edward White asks the same kind of +question about America that he has asked about England, and wants to +know whether, without religious establishments, as much is not done +in America for the higher national life as is done for that life +here, we answer in the same way as we did before, that as much is not +done. Because to enable and stir up people to read their Bible and +the newspapers, and to get a practical knowledge of their business, +does not serve to the higher spiritual life of a nation so much as +culture, truly conceived, serves; and a true conception of culture +is, as Monsieur Renan's words show, just what America fails in. + +To the many who think that culture, and sweetness, and light, are all +moonshine, this will not appear to matter much; but with us, who +value [xxxv] them, and who think that we have traced much of our +present discomfort to the want of them, it weighs a great deal. So +not only do we say that the Nonconformists have got provincialism and +lost totality by the want of a religious establishment, but we say +that the very example which they bring forward to help their case +makes against them; and that when they triumphantly show us America +without religious establishments, they only show us a whole nation +touched, amidst all its greatness and promise, with that +provincialism which it is our aim to extirpate in the English +Nonconformists. + +But now to evince the disinterestedness which culture, as I have +said, teaches us. We have seen the narrowness generated in +Puritanism by its hole-and-corner organisation, and we propose to +cure it by bringing Puritanism more into contact with the main +current of national life. Here we are fully at one with the Dean of +Westminster; and, indeed, he and we were trained in the same school +to mark the narrowness of Puritanism, and to wish to cure it. But he +and others would give to the present Anglican Establishment a +character the most latitudinarian, as it is called, possible; +availing themselves for this [xxxvi] purpose of the diversity of +tendencies and doctrines which does undoubtedly exist already in the +Anglican formularies; and they would say to the Puritans: "Come all +of you into this liberally conceived Anglican Establishment." But to +say this is hardly, perhaps, to take sufficient account of the course +of history, or of the strength of men's feelings in what concerns +religion, or of the gravity which may have come to attach itself to +points of religious order and discipline merely. When the Rev. +Edward White talks of "sweeping away the whole complicated iniquity +of Government Church patronage," he uses language which has been +forced upon him by his position, but which is, as we have seen, +devoid of any real solidity. But when he talks of the religious +communities "which have for three hundred years contended for the +power of the congregation in the management of their own affairs," +then he talks history; and his language has behind it, in my opinion, +facts which make the latitudinarianism of our Broad Churchmen quite +illusory. Certainly, culture will never make us think it an +essential of religion whether we have in our Church discipline "a +popular authority of elders," as Hooker calls [xxxvii] it, or whether +we have Episcopal jurisdiction. Certainly, Hooker himself did not +think it an essential; for in the dedication of his Ecclesiastical +Polity, speaking of these questions of Church discipline which gave +occasion to his great work, he says they are "in truth, for the +greatest part, such silly things, that very easiness doth make them +hard to be disputed of in serious manner." Hooker's great work +against the impugners of the order and discipline of the Church of +England was written (and this is too indistinctly seized by many who +read it), not because Episcopalianism is essential, but because its +impugners maintained that Presbyterianism is essential, and that +Episcopalianism is sinful. Neither the one nor the other is either +essential or sinful, and much may be said on behalf of both. But +what is important to be remarked is that both were in the Church of +England at the Reformation, and that Presbyterianism was only +extruded gradually. We have mentioned Hooker, and nothing better +illustrates what has just been asserted than the following incident +in Hooker's own career, which every one has read, for it is related +in Isaac Walton's Life of Hooker, but of which, [xxxviii] probably, +the significance has been fully grasped by not one-half of those who +have read it. + +Hooker was through the influence of Archbishop Whitgift appointed, in +1585, Master of the Temple; but a great effort had just been made to +obtain the place for a Mr. Walter Travers, well known in that day, +though now it is Hooker's name which alone preserves his. This +Travers was then afternoon-lecturer at the Temple. The Master whose +death made the vacancy, Alvey, recommended on his deathbed Travers +for his successor, the society was favourable to him, and he had the +support of the Lord Treasurer Burghley. After Hooker's appointment +to the Mastership, Travers remained afternoon-lecturer, and combated +in the afternoons the doctrine which Hooker preached in the mornings. +Now, this Travers, originally a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, +afterwards afternoon-lecturer at the Temple, recommended for the +Mastership by the foregoing Master, whose opinions, it is said, +agreed with his, favoured by the society of the Temple, and supported +by the Prime Minister,--this Travers was not an Episcopally ordained +clergyman at all; he was a Presbyterian, [xxxix] a partisan of the +Geneva church-discipline, as it was then called, and "had taken +orders," says Walton, "by the Presbyters in Antwerp." In another +place Walton speaks of his orders yet more fully:--"He had +disowned," he says, "the English Established Church and Episcopacy, +and went to Geneva, and afterwards to Antwerp, to be ordained +minister, as he was by Villers and Cartwright and others the heads of +a congregation there; and so came back again more confirmed for the +discipline." Villers and Cartwright are in like manner examples of +Presbyterianism within the Church of England, which was common enough +at that time; but perhaps nothing can better give us a lively sense +of its presence there than this history of Travers, which is as if +Mr. Binney were now afternoon-reader at Lincoln's Inn or the Temple, +were to be a candidate, favoured by the benchers and by the Prime +Minister, for the Mastership, and were only kept out of the post by +the accident of the Archbishop of Canterbury's influence with the +Queen carrying a rival candidate. + +Presbyterianism, with its popular principle of the power of the +congregation in the management of [xl] their own affairs, was +extruded from the Church of England, and men like Travers can no +longer appear in her pulpits. Perhaps if a government like that of +Elizabeth, with secular statesmen like the Cecils, and ecclesiastical +statesmen like Whitgift, could have been prolonged, Presbyterianism +might, by a wise mixture of concession and firmness, have been +absorbed in the Establishment. Lord Bolingbroke, on a matter of this +kind a very clear-judging and impartial witness, says, in a work far +too little read, his Remarks on English History:--" The measures +pursued and the temper observed in Queen Elizabeth's time tended to +diminish the religious opposition by a slow, a gentle, and for that +very reason an effectual progression. There was even room to hope +that when the first fire of the Dissenters' zeal was passed, +reasonable terms of union with the Established Church might be +accepted by such of them as were not intoxicated with fanaticism. +These were friends to order, though they disputed about it. If these +friends of Calvin's discipline had been once incorporated with the +Established Church, the remaining sectaries would have been of little +moment, either for numbers or [xli] reputation; and the very means +which were proper to gain these friends, were likewise the most +effectual to hinder the increase of them, and of the other sectaries +in the meantime." The temper and ill judgment of the Stuarts made +shipwreck of all policy of this kind. Yet speaking even of the time +of the Stuarts, but their early time, Clarendon says that if Bishop +Andrewes had succeeded Bancroft at Canterbury, the disaffection of +separatists might have been stayed and healed. This, however, was +not to be; and Presbyterianism, after exercising for some years the +law of the strongest, itself in Charles the Second's reign suffered +under this law, and was finally cast out from the Church of England. + +Now the points of church discipline at issue between Presbyterianism +and Episcopalianism are, as has been said, not essential. They might +probably once have been settled in a sense altogether favourable to +Episcopalianism. Hooker may have been right in thinking that there +were in his time circumstances which made it essential that they +should be settled in this sense, though the points in themselves were +not essential. But by the very fact of the settlement not having +then been effected, of the [xlii] breach having gone on and widened, +of the Nonconformists not having been amicably incorporated with the +Establishment but violently cast out from it, the circumstances are +now altogether altered. Isaac Walton, a fervent Churchman, complains +that "the principles of the Nonconformists grew at last to such a +height and were vented so daringly, that, beside the loss of life and +limbs, the Church and State were both forced to use such other +severities as will not admit of an excuse, if it had not been to +prevent confusion and the perilous consequences of it." But those +very severities have of themselves made union on an Episcopalian +footing impossible. Besides, Presbyterianism, the popular authority +of elders, the power of the congregation in the management of their +own affairs, has that warrant given to it by Scripture and by the +proceedings of the early Christian Churches, it is so consonant with +the spirit of Protestantism which made the Reformation and which has +such strength in this country, it is so predominant in the practice +of other reformed churches, it was so strong in the original reformed +Church of England, that one cannot help doubting whether any +settlement which suppressed it could have been really permanent, +[xliii] and whether it would not have kept appearing again and again, +and causing dissension. + +Well, then, if culture is the disinterested endeavour after man's +perfection, will it not make us wish to cure the provincialism of the +Nonconformists, not by making Churchmen provincial along with them, +but by letting their popular church discipline, formerly found in the +National Church, and still found in the affections and practice of a +good part of the nation, appear in the National Church once more; and +thus to bring Nonconformists into contact again, as their greater +fathers were, with the main stream of national life? Why should not +a Presbyterian or Congregational Church, based on this considerable +and important, though not essential principle, of the congregation's +power in the church management, be established,--with equal rank for +its chiefs with the chiefs of Episcopacy, and with admissibility of +its ministers, under a revised system of patronage and preferment, to +benefices,--side by side with the Episcopal Church, as the Calvinist +and Lutheran Churches are established side by side in France and +Germany? Such a Congregational Church would unite the main bodies of +Protestants who are now separatists; and [xliv] separation would +cease to be the law of their religious order. Then,--through this +concession on a really considerable point of difference,--that +endless splitting into hole-and-corner churches on quite +inconsiderable points of difference, which must prevail so long as +separatism is the first law of a Nonconformist's religious existence, +would be checked. Culture would then find a place among English +followers of the popular authority of elders, as it has long found it +among the followers of Episcopal jurisdiction; and this we should +gain by merely recognising, regularising, and restoring an element +which appeared once in the reformed National Church, and which is +considerable and national enough to have a sound claim to appear +there still. + +So far, then, is culture from making us unjust to the Nonconformists +because it forbids us to worship their fetishes, that it even leads +us to propose to do more for them than they themselves venture to +claim. It leads us, also, to respect what is solid and respectable +in their convictions, while their latitudinarian friends make light +of it. Not that the forms in which the human spirit tries to express +the inexpressible, or the forms by which man tries to [xlv] worship, +have or can have, as has been said, for the follower of perfection, +anything necessary or eternal. If the New Testament and the practice +of the primitive Christians sanctioned the popular form of church +government a thousand times more expressly than they do, if the +Church since Constantine were a thousand times more of a departure +from the scheme of primitive Christianity than it can be shown to be, +that does not at all make, as is supposed by men in bondage to the +letter, the popular form of church government alone and always sacred +and binding, or the work of Constantine a thing to be regretted. +What is alone and always sacred and binding for man is the climbing +towards his total perfection, and the machinery by which he does this +varies in value according as it helps him to do it. The planters of +Christianity had their roots in deep and rich grounds of human life +and achievement, both Jewish and also Greek; and had thus a +comparatively firm and wide basis amidst all the vehement inspiration +of their mighty movement and change. By their strong inspiration +they carried men off the old basis of life and culture, whether +Jewish or Greek, and generations arose [xlvi] who had their roots in +neither world, and were in contact therefore with no full and great +stream of human life. Christianity might have lost herself, if it +had not been for some such change as that of the fourth century, in a +multitude of hole-and-corner churches like the churches of English +Nonconformity after its founders departed; churches without great +men, and without furtherance for the higher life of humanity. At a +critical moment came Constantine, and placed Christianity,--or let us +rather say, placed the human spirit, whose totality was endangered,-- +in contact with the main current of human life. And his work was +justified by its fruits, in men like Augustine and Dante, and indeed +in all the great men of Christianity, Catholics or Protestants, ever +since. And one may go beyond this. Monsieur Albert Reville, whose +religious writings are always interesting, says that the conception +which cultivated and philosophical Jews now entertain of Christianity +and its founder, is probably destined to become the conception which +Christians themselves will entertain. Socinians are fond of saying +the same thing about the Socinian conception of Christianity. Even +if this were true, it would still have been [xlvii] better for a man, +through the last eighteen hundred years, to have been a Christian, +and a member of one of the great Christian communions, than to have +been a Jew or a Socinian; because the being in contact with the main +stream of human life is of more moment for a man's total spiritual +growth, and for his bringing to perfection the gifts committed to +him, which is his business on earth, than any speculative opinion +which he may hold or think he holds. Luther,--whom we have called a +Philistine of genius, and who, because he was a Philistine, had a +coarseness and lack of spiritual delicacy which have harmed his +disciples, but who, because he was a genius, had splendid flashes of +spiritual insight,--Luther says admirably in his Commentary on the +Book of Daniel: "A God is simply that whereon the human heart rests +with trust, faith, hope and love. If the resting is right, then the +God too is right; if the resting is wrong, then the God too is +illusory." In other words, the worth of what a man thinks about God +and the objects of religion depends on what the man is; and what the +man is, depends upon his having more or less reached the measure of a +perfect and total man. + +[xlviii] All this is true; and yet culture, as we have seen, has more +tenderness for scruples of the Nonconformists than have their Broad +Church friends. That is because culture, disinterestedly trying, in +its aim at perfection, to see things as they really are, sees how +worthy and divine a thing is the religious side in man, though it is +not the whole of man. And when Mr. Greg, who differs from us about +edification, (and certainly we do not seem likely to agree with him +as to what edifies), finding himself moved by some extraneous +considerations or other to take a Church's part against its enemies, +calls taking a Church's part returning to base uses, culture teaches +us how out of place is this language, and that to use it shows an +inadequate conception of human nature, and that no Church will thank +a man for taking its part in this fashion, but will leave him with +indifference to the tender mercies of his Benthamite friends. But +avoiding Benthamism, or an inadequate conception of the religious +side in man, culture makes us also avoid Mialism, or an inadequate +conception of man's totality. Therefore to the worth and grandeur of +the religious side in man, culture is rejoiced and willing to pay any +tribute, [xlix] except the tribute of man's totality. True, the +order and liturgy of the Church of England one may be well contented +to live and to die with, and they are such as to inspire an +affectionate and revering attachment. True, the reproaches of +Nonconformists against this order for "retaining badges of +Antichristian recognisance;" and for "corrupting the right form of +Church polity with manifold Popish rites and ceremonies;" true, their +assertion of the essentialness of their own supposed Scriptural +order, and their belief in its eternal fitness, are founded on +illusion. True, the whole attitude of horror and holy superiority +assumed by Puritanism towards the Church of Rome, is wrong and false, +and well merits Sir Henry Wotton's rebuke:--"Take heed of thinking +that the farther you go from the Church of Rome, the nearer you are +to God." True, one of the best wishes one could form for Mr. +Spurgeon or Father Jackson is, that they might be permitted to learn +on this side the grave (for if they do not, a considerable surprise +is certainly reserved for them on the other) that Whitfield and +Wesley were not at all better than St. Francis, and that they +themselves are not at all better than Lacordaire. Yet, [l] in spite +of all this, so noble and divine a thing is religion, so respectable +is that earnestness which desires a prayer-book with one strain of +doctrine, so attaching is the order and discipline by which we are +used to have our religion conveyed, so many claims on our regard has +that popular form of church government for which Nonconformists +contend, so perfectly compatible is it with all progress towards +perfection, that culture would make us shy even to propose to +Nonconformists the acceptance of the Anglican prayer-book and the +episcopal order; and would be forward to wish them a prayer-book of +their own approving, and the church discipline to which they are +attached and accustomed. Only not at the price of Mialism; that is, +of a doctrine which leaves the Nonconformists in holes and corners, +out of contact with the main current of national life. One can lay +one's finger, indeed, on the line by which this doctrine has grown +up, and see how the essential part of Nonconformity is a popular +church-discipline analogous to that of the other reformed churches, +and how its voluntaryism is an accident. It contended for the +establishment of its own church-discipline as the only true [li] one; +and beaten in this contention, and seeing its rival established, it +came down to the more plausible proposal "to place all good men alike +in a condition of religious equality;" and this plan of proceeding, +originally taken as a mere second-best, became, by long sticking to +it and preaching it up, first fair, then righteous, then the only +righteous, then at last necessary to salvation. This is the plan for +remedying the Nonconformists' divorce from contact with the national +life by divorcing churchmen too from contact with it; that is, as we +have familiarly before put it, the tailless foxes are for cutting off +tails all round. But this the other foxes could not wisely grant, +unless it were proved that tails are of no value. And so, too, +unless it is proved that contact with the main current of national +life is of no value (and we have shown that it is of the greatest +value), we cannot safely, even to please the Nonconformists in a +matter where we would please them as much as possible, admit Mialism. + +But now, as we have shown the disinterestedness which culture +enjoins, and its obedience not to likings or dislikings, but to the +aim of perfection, let us show its flexibility,--its independence of +machinery. That [lii] other and greater prophet of intelligence, and +reason, and the simple natural truth of things,--Mr. Bright,--means +by these, as we have seen, a certain set of measures which suit the +special ends of Liberal and Nonconformist partisans. For instance, +reason and justice towards Ireland mean the abolishment of the +iniquitous Protestant ascendency in such a particular way as to suit +the Nonconformists' antipathy to establishments. Reason and justice +pursued in a different way, by distributing among the three main +Churches of Ireland,--the Roman Catholic, the Anglican, and the +Presbyterian,--the church property of Ireland, would immediately +cease, for Mr. Bright and the Nonconformists, to be reason and +justice at all, and would become, as Mr. Spurgeon says, "a setting up +of the Roman image." Thus we see that the sort of intelligence +reached by culture is more disinterested than the sort of +intelligence reached by belonging to the Liberal party in the great +towns, and taking a commendable interest in politics. But still more +striking is the difference between the two views of intelligence, +when we see that culture not only makes a quite disinterested choice +of the machinery [liii] proper to carry us towards sweetness and +light, and to make reason and the will of God prevail, but by even +this machinery does not hold stiffly and blindly, and easily passes +on beyond it to that for the sake of which it chose it. + +For instance: culture leads us to think that the ends of human +perfection might be best served by establishing,--that is, by +bringing into contact with the main current of the national life,--in +Ireland the Roman Catholic and the Presbyterian Churches along with +the Anglican Church; and, in England, a Presbyterian or +Congregational Church of like rank and status with our Episcopalian +one. It leads us to think that we should really, in this way, be +working to make reason and the will of God prevail; because we should +be making Roman Catholics better citizens, and Nonconformists,--nay, +and Churchmen along with them,-- larger-minded and more complete +men. But undoubtedly there are great difficulties in such a plan as +this; and the plan is not one which looks very likely to be adopted. +It is a plan more for a time of creative statesmen, like the time of +Elizabeth, than for a time of instrumental [liv] statesmen like the +present. The Churchman must rise above his ordinary self in order to +favour it; and the Nonconformist has worshipped his fetish of +separatism so long that he is likely to wish still to remain, like +Ephraim, "a wild ass alone by himself." The centre of power being +where it is, our instrumental statesmen have every temptation, as is +shown more at large in the following essay, in the first place, to +"relieve themselves," as The Times says, "of troublesome and +irritating responsibilities;" in the second place, when they must +act, to go along, as they do, with the ordinary self of those on +whose favour they depend, to adopt as their own its desires, and to +serve them with fidelity, and even, if possible, with impulsiveness. +This is the more easy for them, because there are not wanting,--and +there never will be wanting,--thinkers like Mr. Baxter, Mr. Charles +Buxton, and the Dean of Canterbury, to swim with the stream, but to +swim with it philosophically; to call the desires of the ordinary +self of any great section of the community edicts of the national +mind and laws of human progress, and to give them a general, a +philosophic, and an imposing expression. A generous statesman may +[lv] honestly, therefore, soon unlearn any disposition to put his +tongue in his cheek in advocating these desires, and may advocate +them with fervour and impulsiveness. Therefore a plan such as that +which we have indicated does not seem a plan so likely to find favour +as a plan for abolishing the Irish Church by the power of the +Nonconformists' antipathy to establishments. + +But to tell us that our fond dreams are on that account shattered is +inexact, and is the sort of language which ought to be addressed to +the promoters of intelligence through public meetings and a +commendable interest in politics, when they fail in their designs, +and not to us. For we are fond stickers to no machinery, not even +our own; and we have no doubt that perfection can be reached without +it,--with free churches as with established churches, and with +instrumental statesmen as with creative statesmen. But it can never +be reached without seeing things as they really are; and it is to +this, therefore, and to no machinery in the world, that culture +sticks fondly. It insists that men should not mistake, as they are +prone to mistake, their natural taste for the bathos for a relish for +the sublime; and if statesmen, either [lvi] with their tongue in +their cheek or through a generous impulsiveness, tell them their +natural taste for the bathos is a relish for the sublime, there is +the more need for culture to tell them the contrary. It is delusion +on this point which is fatal, and against delusion on this point +culture works. It is not fatal to our Liberal friends to labour for +free trade, extension of the suffrage, and abolition of church-rates, +instead of graver social ends; but it is fatal to them to be told by +their flatterers, and to believe, with our pauperism increasing more +rapidly than our population, that they have performed a great, an +heroic work, by occupying themselves exclusively, for the last thirty +years, with these Liberal nostrums, and that the right and good +course for them now is to go on occupying themselves with the like +for the future. It is not fatal to Americans to have no religious +establishments and no effective centres of high culture; but it is +fatal to them to be told by their flatterers, and to believe, that +they are the most intelligent people in the whole world, when of +intelligence, in the true and fruitful sense of the word, they even +singularly, as we have seen, come short. It is not [lvii] fatal to +the Nonconformists to remain with their separated churches; but it is +fatal to them to be told by their flatterers, and to believe, that +theirs is the one pure and Christ-ordained way of worshipping God, +that provincialism and loss of totality have not come to them from +following it, or that provincialism and loss of totality are not +evils. It is not fatal to the English nation to abolish the Irish +Church by the power of the Nonconformists' antipathy to +establishments; but it is fatal to it to be told by its flatterers, +and to believe, that it is abolishing it through reason and justice, +when it is really abolishing it through this power; or to expect the +fruits of reason and justice from anything but the spirit of reason +and justice themselves. + +Now culture, because of its keen sense of what is really fatal, is +all the more disposed to be pliant and easy about what is not fatal. +And because machinery is the bane of politics, and an inward working, +and not machinery, is what we most want, we keep advising our ardent +young Liberal friends to think less of machinery, to stand more aloof +from the arena of politics at present, and rather to try and promote, +with us, an inward working. They do not listen [lviii] to us, and +they rush into the arena of politics, where their merits, indeed, +seem to be little appreciated as yet; and then they complain of the +reformed constituencies, and call the new Parliament a Philistine +Parliament. As if a nation, nourished and reared in Hebraising, +could give us, just yet, anything better than a Philistine +Parliament!--for would a Barbarian Parliament be even so good, or a +Populace Parliament? For our part, we rejoice to see our dear old +friends, the Hebraising Philistines, gathered in force in the Valley +of Jehoshaphat before their final conversion, which will certainly +come; but for this conversion we must not try to oust them from their +places, and to contend for machinery with them, but we must work on +them inwardly and cure them of Hebraising. + +Yet the days of Israel are innumerable; and in its blame of +Hebraising too, and in its praise of Hellenising, culture must not +fail to keep its flexibility, and to give to its judgments that +passing and provisional character which we have seen it impose on its +preferences and rejections of machinery. Now, and for us, it is a +time to Hellenise, and to praise knowing; for we have Hebraised too +much, [lix] and have over-valued doing. But the habits and +discipline received from Hebraism remain for our race an eternal +possession; and, as humanity is constituted, one must never assign +them the second rank to-day, without being ready to restore them to +the first rank to-morrow. To walk staunchly by the best light one +has, to be strict and sincere with oneself, not to be of the number +of those who say and do not, to be in earnest,--this is the +discipline by which alone man is enabled to rescue his life from +thraldom to the passing moment and to his bodily senses, to ennoble +it, and to make it eternal. And this discipline has been nowhere so +effectively taught as in the school of Hebraism. Sophocles and Plato +knew as well as the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews that +"without holiness no man shall see God," and their notion of what +goes to make up holiness was larger than his. But the intense and +convinced energy with which the Hebrew, both of the Old and of the +New Testament, threw himself upon his ideal, and which inspired the +incomparable definition of the great Christian virtue, Faith,--the +substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen,--this +energy of faith in its ideal has [lx] belonged to Hebraism alone. As +our idea of holiness enlarges, and our scope of perfection widens +beyond the narrow limits to which the over-rigour of Hebraising has +tended to confine it, we shall come again to Hebraism for that devout +energy in embracing our ideal, which alone can give to man the +happiness of doing what he knows. "If ye know these things, happy +are ye if ye do them!"--the last word for infirm humanity will always +be that. For this word, reiterated with a power now sublime, now +affecting, but always admirable, our race will, as long as the world +lasts, return to Hebraism; and the Bible, which preaches this word, +will forever remain, as Goethe called it, not only a national book, +but the Book of the Nations. Again and again, after what seemed +breaches and separations, the prophetic promise to Jerusalem will +still be true:--Lo, thy sons come, whom thou sentest away; they come +gathered from the west unto the east by the word of the Holy One, +rejoicing in the remembrance of God. + +NOTES + +xxvii. *"Les pays qui comme les États-Unis ont créé un enseignement +populaire considérable sans instruction supérieure sérieuse, +expieront longtemps encore leur faute par leur médiocrité +intellectuelle, leur grossièreté de moeurs, leur esprit superficiel, +leur manque d'intelligence générale." + + + +[PREAMBLE] CULTURE AND ANARCHY + +[1] In one of his speeches a year or two ago, that fine speaker and +famous Liberal, Mr. Bright, took occasion to have a fling at the +friends and preachers of culture. "People who talk about what they +call culture!" said he contemptuously; "by which they mean a +smattering of the two dead languages of Greek and Latin." And he +went on to remark, in a strain with which modern speakers and writers +have made us very familiar, how poor a thing this culture is, how +little good it can do to the world, and how absurd it is for its +possessors to set much [2] store by it. And the other day a younger +Liberal than Mr. Bright, one of a school whose mission it is to bring +into order and system that body of truth of which the earlier +Liberals merely touched the outside, a member of the University of +Oxford, and a very clever writer, Mr. Frederic Harrison, developed, +in the systematic and stringent manner of his school, the thesis +which Mr. Bright had propounded in only general terms. "Perhaps the +very silliest cant of the day," said Mr. Frederic Harrison, "is the +cant about culture. Culture is a desirable quality in a critic of +new books, and sits well on a possessor of belles lettres; but as +applied to politics, it means simply a turn for small fault-finding, +love of selfish ease, and indecision in action. The man of culture +is in politics one of the poorest mortals alive. For simple pedantry +and want of good sense no man is his equal. No assumption is too +unreal, no end is too unpractical for him. But the active exercise +of politics requires common sense, sympathy, trust, resolution and +enthusiasm, qualities which your man of culture has carefully rooted +up, lest they damage the delicacy of his critical olfactories. +Perhaps they are the only class [3] of responsible beings in the +community who cannot with safety be entrusted with power." + +Now for my part I do not wish to see men of culture asking to be +entrusted with power; and, indeed, I have freely said, that in my +opinion the speech most proper, at present, for a man of culture to +make to a body of his fellow-countrymen who get him into a committee- +room, is Socrates's: Know thyself! and this is not a speech to be +made by men wanting to be entrusted with power. For this very +indifference to direct political action I have been taken to task by +the Daily Telegraph, coupled, by a strange perversity of fate, with +just that very one of the Hebrew prophets whose style I admire the +least, and called "an elegant Jeremiah." It is because I say (to use +the words which the Daily Telegraph puts in my mouth):--"You mustn't +make a fuss because you have no vote,--that is vulgarity; you mustn't +hold big meetings to agitate for reform bills and to repeal corn +laws,--that is the very height of vulgarity,"--it is for this reason +that I am called, sometimes an elegant Jeremiah, sometimes a spurious +Jeremiah, a Jeremiah about the reality of whose mission the writer in +the Daily [4] Telegraph has his doubts. It is evident, therefore, +that I have so taken my line as not to be exposed to the whole brunt +of Mr. Frederic Harrison's censure. Still, I have often spoken in +praise of culture; I have striven to make all my works and ways serve +the interests of culture; I take culture to be something a great deal +more than what Mr. Frederic Harrison and others call it: "a desirable +quality in a critic of new books." Nay, even though to a certain +extent I am disposed to agree with Mr. Frederic Harrison, that men of +culture are just the class of responsible beings in this community of +ours who cannot properly, at present, be entrusted with power, I am +not sure that I do not think this the fault of our community rather +than of the men of culture. In short, although, like Mr. Bright and +Mr. Frederic Harrison, and the editor of the Daily Telegraph, and a +large body of valued friends of mine, I am a liberal, yet I am a +liberal tempered by experience, reflection, and renouncement, and I +am, above all, a believer in culture. Therefore I propose now to try +and enquire, in the simple unsystematic way which best suits both my +taste and my powers, what culture really is, what good it [5] can do, +what is our own special need of it; and I shall seek to find some +plain grounds on which a faith in culture--both my own faith in it +and the faith of others,--may rest securely. + + + +CHAPTER I + +[5] The disparagers of culture make its motive curiosity; sometimes, +indeed, they make its motive mere exclusiveness and vanity. The +culture which is supposed to plume itself on a smattering of Greek +and Latin is a culture which is begotten by nothing so intellectual +as curiosity; it is valued either out of sheer vanity and ignorance, +or else as an engine of social and class distinction, separating its +holder, like a badge or title, from other people who have not got it. +No serious man would call this culture, or attach any value to it, as +culture, at all. To find the real ground for the very differing +estimate which serious people will set upon culture, we must find +some motive for culture in the terms of which [6] may lie a real +ambiguity; and such a motive the word curiosity gives us. I have +before now pointed out that in English we do not, like the +foreigners, use this word in a good sense as well as in a bad sense; +with us the word is always used in a somewhat disapproving sense; a +liberal and intelligent eagerness about the things of the mind may be +meant by a foreigner when he speaks of curiosity, but with us the +word always conveys a certain notion of frivolous and unedifying +activity. In the Quarterly Review, some little time ago, was an +estimate of the celebrated French critic, Monsieur Sainte-Beuve, and +a very inadequate estimate it, in my judgment, was. And its +inadequacy consisted chiefly in this: that in our English way it left +out of sight the double sense really involved in the word curiosity, +thinking enough was said to stamp Monsieur Sainte-Beuve with blame if +it was said that he was impelled in his operations as a critic by +curiosity, and omitting either to perceive that Monsieur Sainte-Beuve +himself, and many other people with him, would consider that this was +praiseworthy and not blameworthy, or to point out why it ought really +to be accounted worthy of blame [7] and not of praise. For as there +is a curiosity about intellectual matters which is futile, and merely +a disease, so there is certainly a curiosity,--a desire after the +things of the mind simply for their own sakes and for the pleasure of +seeing them as they are,--which is, in an intelligent being, natural +and laudable. Nay, and the very desire to see things as they are +implies a balance and regulation of mind which is not often attained +without fruitful effort, and which is the very opposite of the blind +and diseased impulse of mind which is what we mean to blame when we +blame curiosity. Montesquieu says:--"The first motive which ought to +impel us to study is the desire to augment the excellence of our +nature, and to render an intelligent being yet more intelligent." +This is the true ground to assign for the genuine scientific passion, +however manifested, and for culture, viewed simply as a fruit of this +passion; and it is a worthy ground, even though we let the term +curiosity stand to describe it. + +But there is of culture another view, in which not solely the +scientific passion, the sheer desire to see things as they are, +natural and proper in an intelligent [8] being, appears as the ground +of it. There is a view in which all the love of our neighbour, the +impulses towards action, help, and beneficence, the desire for +stopping human error, clearing human confusion, and diminishing the +sum of human misery, the noble aspiration to leave the world better +and happier than we found it,--motives eminently such as are called +social,--come in as part of the grounds of culture, and the main and +pre-eminent part. Culture is then properly described not as having +its origin in curiosity, but as having its origin in the love of +perfection; it is a study of perfection. It moves by the force, not +merely or primarily of the scientific passion for pure knowledge, but +also of the moral and social passion for doing good. As, in the +first view of it, we took for its worthy motto Montesquieu's words: +"To render an intelligent being yet more intelligent!" so, in the +second view of it, there is no better motto which it can have than +these words of Bishop Wilson: "To make reason and the will of God +prevail!" Only, whereas the passion for doing good is apt to be +overhasty in determining what reason and the will of God say, because +its turn is for acting rather than thinking, and it wants to be [9] +beginning to act; and whereas it is apt to take its own conceptions, +which proceed from its own state of development and share in all the +imperfections and immaturities of this, for a basis of action; what +distinguishes culture is, that it is possessed by the scientific +passion, as well as by the passion of doing good; that it has worthy +notions of reason and the will of God, and does not readily suffer +its own crude conceptions to substitute themselves for them; and +that, knowing that no action or institution can be salutary and +stable which are not based on reason and the will of God, it is not +so bent on acting and instituting, even with the great aim of +diminishing human error and misery ever before its thoughts, but that +it can remember that acting and instituting are of little use, unless +we know how and what we ought to act and to institute. + +This culture is more interesting and more far-reaching than that +other, which is founded solely on the scientific passion for knowing. +But it needs times of faith and ardour, times when the intellectual +horizon is opening and widening all round us, to flourish in. And is +not the close and bounded intellectual horizon within which we have +long lived [10] and moved now lifting up, and are not new lights +finding free passage to shine in upon us? For a long time there was +no passage for them to make their way in upon us, and then it was of +no use to think of adapting the world's action to them. Where was +the hope of making reason and the will of God prevail among people +who had a routine which they had christened reason and the will of +God, in which they were inextricably bound, and beyond which they had +no power of looking? But now the iron force of adhesion to the old +routine,--social, political, religious,--has wonderfully yielded; +the iron force of exclusion of all which is new has wonderfully +yielded; the danger now is, not that people should obstinately refuse +to allow anything but their old routine to pass for reason and the +will of God, but either that they should allow some novelty or other +to pass for these too easily, or else that they should underrate the +importance of them altogether, and think it enough to follow action +for its own sake, without troubling themselves to make reason and the +will of God prevail therein. Now, then, is the moment for culture to +be of service, culture which believes in making reason and the [11] +will of God prevail, believes in perfection, is the study and pursuit +of perfection, and is no longer debarred, by a rigid invincible +exclusion of whatever is new, from getting acceptance for its ideas, +simply because they are new. + +The moment this view of culture is seized, the moment it is regarded +not solely as the endeavour to see things as they are, to draw +towards a knowledge of the universal order which seems to be intended +and aimed at in the world, and which it is a man's happiness to go +along with or his misery to go counter to,--to learn, in short, the +will of God,--the moment, I say, culture is considered not merely as +the endeavour to see and learn this, but as the endeavour, also, to +make it prevail, the moral, social, and beneficent character of +culture becomes manifest. The mere endeavour to see and learn it for +our own personal satisfaction is indeed a commencement for making it +prevail, a preparing the way for this, which always serves this, and +is wrongly, therefore, stamped with blame absolutely in itself, and +not only in its caricature and degeneration. But perhaps it has got +stamped with blame, and disparaged with the dubious title of +curiosity, because [12] in comparison with this wider endeavour of +such great and plain utility it looks selfish, petty, and +unprofitable. + +And religion, the greatest and most important of the efforts by which +the human race has manifested its impulse to perfect itself,-- +religion, that voice of the deepest human experience,--does not only +enjoin and sanction the aim which is the great aim of culture, the +aim of setting ourselves to ascertain what perfection is and to make +it prevail; but also, in determining generally in what human +perfection consists, religion comes to a conclusion identical with +that which culture,--seeking the determination of this question +through all the voices of human experience which have been heard upon +it, art, science, poetry, philosophy, history, as well as religion, +in order to give a greater fulness and certainty to its solution,-- +likewise reaches. Religion says: The kingdom of God is within you; +and culture, in like manner, places human perfection in an internal +condition, in the growth and predominance of our humanity proper, as +distinguished from our animality, in the ever-increasing +efficaciousness and in the general harmonious expansion [13] of those +gifts of thought and feeling which make the peculiar dignity, wealth, +and happiness of human nature. As I have said on a former occasion: +"It is in making endless additions to itself, in the endless +expansion of its powers, in endless growth in wisdom and beauty, that +the spirit of the human race finds its ideal. To reach this ideal, +culture is an indispensable aid, and that is the true value of +culture." Not a having and a resting, but a growing and a becoming, +is the character of perfection as culture conceives it; and here, +too, it coincides with religion. And because men are all members of +one great whole, and the sympathy which is in human nature will not +allow one member to be indifferent to the rest, or to have a perfect +welfare independent of the rest, the expansion of our humanity, to +suit the idea of perfection which culture forms, must be a general +expansion. Perfection, as culture conceives it, is not possible +while the individual remains isolated: the individual is obliged, +under pain of being stunted and enfeebled in his own development if +he disobeys, to carry others along with him in his march towards +perfection, to be continually doing all he can to enlarge [14] and +increase the volume of the human stream sweeping thitherward; and +here, once more, it lays on us the same obligation as religion, which +says, as Bishop Wilson has admirably put it, that "to promote the +kingdom of God is to increase and hasten one's own happiness." +Finally, perfection,--as culture, from a thorough disinterested study +of human nature and human experience, learns to conceive it,--is an +harmonious expansion of all the powers which make the beauty and +worth of human nature, and is not consistent with the over- +development of any one power at the expense of the rest. Here it +goes beyond religion, as religion is generally conceived by us. + +If culture, then, is a study of perfection, and of harmonious +perfection, general perfection, and perfection which consists in +becoming something rather than in having something, in an inward +condition of the mind and spirit, not in an outward set of +circumstances,--it is clear that culture, instead of being the +frivolous and useless thing which Mr. Bright, and Mr. Frederic +Harrison, and many other liberals are apt to call it, has a very +important function to fulfil for mankind. And this function is +particularly [15] important in our modern world, of which the whole +civilisation is, to a much greater degree than the civilisation of +Greece and Rome, mechanical and external, and tends constantly to +become more so. But above all in our own country has culture a +weighty part to perform, because here that mechanical character, +which civilisation tends to take everywhere, is shown in the most +eminent degree. Indeed nearly all the characters of perfection, as +culture teaches us to fix them, meet in this country with some +powerful tendency which thwarts them and sets them at defiance. The +idea of perfection as an inward condition of the mind and spirit is +at variance with the mechanical and material civilisation in esteem +with us, and nowhere, as I have said, so much in esteem as with us. +The idea of perfection as a general expansion of the human family is +at variance with our strong individualism, our hatred of all limits +to the unrestrained swing of the individual's personality, our maxim +of "every man for himself." The idea of perfection as an harmonious +expansion of human nature is at variance with our want of +flexibility, with our inaptitude for seeing more than one side of a +thing, with our intense [16] energetic absorption in the particular +pursuit we happen to be following. So culture has a rough task to +achieve in this country, and its preachers have, and are likely long +to have, a hard time of it, and they will much oftener be regarded, +for a great while to come, as elegant or spurious Jeremiahs, than as +friends and benefactors. That, however, will not prevent their doing +in the end good service if they persevere; and meanwhile, the mode of +action they have to pursue, and the sort of habits they must fight +against, should be made quite clear to every one who may be willing +to look at the matter attentively and dispassionately. + +Faith in machinery is, I said, our besetting danger; often in +machinery most absurdly disproportioned to the end which this +machinery, if it is to do any good at all, is to serve; but always in +machinery, as if it had a value in and for itself. What is freedom +but machinery? what is population but machinery? what is coal but +machinery? what are railroads but machinery? what is wealth but +machinery? what are religious organisations but machinery? Now +almost every voice in England is accustomed to speak of these things +as if they [17] were precious ends in themselves, and therefore had +some of the characters of perfection indisputably joined to them. I +have once before noticed Mr. Roebuck's stock argument for proving the +greatness and happiness of England as she is, and for quite stopping +the mouths of all gainsayers. Mr. Roebuck is never weary of +reiterating this argument of his, so I do not know why I should be +weary of noticing it. "May not every man in England say what he +likes?"--Mr. Roebuck perpetually asks; and that, he thinks, is quite +sufficient, and when every man may say what he likes, our aspirations +ought to be satisfied. But the aspirations of culture, which is the +study of perfection, are not satisfied, unless what men say, when +they may say what they like, is worth saying,--has good in it, and +more good than bad. In the same way The Times, replying to some +foreign strictures on the dress, looks, and behaviour of the English +abroad, urges that the English ideal is that every one should be free +to do and to look just as he likes. But culture indefatigably tries, +not to make what each raw person may like, the rule by which he +fashions himself; but to draw ever nearer to a sense of what is +indeed [18] beautiful, graceful, and becoming, and to get the raw +person to like that. And in the same way with respect to railroads +and coal. Every one must have observed the strange language current +during the late discussions as to the possible failure of our +supplies of coal. Our coal, thousands of people were saying, is the +real basis of our national greatness; if our coal runs short, there +is an end of the greatness of England. But what is greatness?-- +culture makes us ask. Greatness is a spiritual condition worthy to +excite love, interest, and admiration; and the outward proof of +possessing greatness is that we excite love, interest, and +admiration. If England were swallowed up by the sea to-morrow, which +of the two, a hundred years hence, would most excite the love, +interest, and admiration of mankind,--would most, therefore, show the +evidences of having possessed greatness,--the England of the last +twenty years, or the England of Elizabeth, of a time of splendid +spiritual effort, but when our coal, and our industrial operations +depending on coal, were very little developed? Well then, what an +unsound habit of mind it must be which makes us talk of things like +coal or iron as constituting [19] the greatness of England, and how +salutary a friend is culture, bent on seeing things as they are, and +thus dissipating delusions of this kind and fixing standards of +perfection that are real! + +Wealth, again, that end to which our prodigious works for material +advantage are directed,--the commonest of commonplaces tells us how +men are always apt to regard wealth as a precious end in itself; and +certainly they have never been so apt thus to regard it as they are +in England at the present time. Never did people believe anything +more firmly, than nine Englishmen out of ten at the present day +believe that our greatness and welfare are proved by our being so +very rich. Now, the use of culture is that it helps us, by means of +its spiritual standard of perfection, to regard wealth as but +machinery, and not only to say as a matter of words that we regard +wealth as but machinery, but really to perceive and feel that it is +so. If it were not for this purging effect wrought upon our minds by +culture, the whole world, the future as well as the present, would +inevitably belong to the Philistines. The people who believe most +that our greatness and welfare [20] are proved by our being very +rich, and who most give their lives and thoughts to becoming rich, +are just the very people whom we call the Philistines. Culture says: +"Consider these people, then, their way of life, their habits, their +manners, the very tones of their voice; look at them attentively; +observe the literature they read, the things which give them +pleasure, the words which come forth out of their mouths, the +thoughts which make the furniture of their minds; would any amount of +wealth be worth having with the condition that one was to become just +like these people by having it?" And thus culture begets a +dissatisfaction which is of the highest possible value in stemming +the common tide of men's thoughts in a wealthy and industrial +community, and which saves the future, as one may hope, from being +vulgarised, even if it cannot save the present. + +Population, again, and bodily health and vigour, are things which are +nowhere treated in such an unintelligent, misleading, exaggerated way +as in England. Both are really machinery; yet how many people all +around us do we see rest in them and fail to look beyond them! Why, +I have heard [21] people, fresh from reading certain articles of The +Times on the Registrar-General's returns of marriages and births in +this country, who would talk of large families in quite a solemn +strain, as if they had something in itself beautiful, elevating, and +meritorious in them; as if the British Philistine would have only to +present himself before the Great Judge with his twelve children, in +order to be received among the sheep as a matter of right! But +bodily health and vigour, it may be said, are not to be classed with +wealth and population as mere machinery; they have a more real and +essential value. True; but only as they are more intimately +connected with a perfect spiritual condition than wealth or +population are. The moment we disjoin them from the idea of a +perfect spiritual condition, and pursue them, as we do pursue them, +for their own sake and as ends in themselves, our worship of them +becomes as mere worship of machinery, as our worship of wealth or +population, and as unintelligent and vulgarising a worship as that +is. Every one with anything like an adequate idea of human +perfection has distinctly marked this subordination to higher and +spiritual ends of the cultivation of bodily vigour and activity. + +[22] "Bodily exercise profiteth little; but godliness is profitable +unto all things," says the author of the Epistle to Timothy. And the +utilitarian Franklin says just as explicitly:--"Eat and drink such an +exact quantity as suits the constitution of thy body, in reference to +the services of the mind." But the point of view of culture, keeping +the mark of human perfection simply and broadly in view, and not +assigning to this perfection, as religion or utilitarianism assign to +it, a special and limited character,--this point of view, I say, of +culture is best given by these words of Epictetus:--"It is a sign of +aphuia"+ says he,--that is, of a nature not finely tempered,--"to +give yourselves up to things which relate to the body; to make, for +instance, a great fuss about exercise, a great fuss about eating, a +great fuss about drinking, a great fuss about walking, a great fuss +about riding. All these things ought to be done merely by the way: +the formation of the spirit and character must be our real concern." +This is admirable; and, indeed, the Greek words aphuia, euphuia,+ a +finely tempered nature, a coarsely tempered nature, give exactly the +notion of perfection as culture brings us to conceive of it: a +perfection in which the [23] characters of beauty and intelligence +are both present, which unites "the two noblest of things,"--as +Swift, who of one of the two, at any rate, had himself all too +little, most happily calls them in his Battle of the Books,--"the two +noblest of things, sweetness and light." The euphyês+ is the man who +tends towards sweetness and light; the aphyês+ is precisely our +Philistine. The immense spiritual significance of the Greeks is due +to their having been inspired with this central and happy idea of the +essential character of human perfection; and Mr. Bright's +misconception of culture, as a smattering of Greek and Latin, conies +itself, after all, from this wonderful significance of the Greeks +having affected the very machinery of our education, and is in itself +a kind of homage to it. + +It is by thus making sweetness and light to be characters of +perfection, that culture is of like spirit with poetry, follows one +law with poetry. I have called religion a more important +manifestation of human nature than poetry, because it has worked on a +broader scale for perfection, and with greater masses of men. But +the idea of beauty and of a human nature perfect on all its sides, +which is the dominant idea of poetry, is a true and invaluable idea, +though it [24] has not yet had the success that the idea of +conquering the obvious faults of our animality, and of a human nature +perfect on the moral side, which is the dominant idea of religion, +has been enabled to have; and it is destined, adding to itself the +religious idea of a devout energy, to transform and govern the other. +The best art and poetry of the Greeks, in which religion and poetry +are one, in which the idea of beauty and of a human nature perfect on +all sides adds to itself a religious and devout energy, and works in +the strength of that, is on this account of such surpassing interest +and instructiveness for us, though it was,--as, having regard to the +human race in general, and, indeed, having regard to the Greeks +themselves, we must own,--a premature attempt, an attempt which for +success needed the moral and religious fibre in humanity to be more +braced and developed than it had yet been. But Greece did not err in +having the idea of beauty, harmony, and complete human perfection, so +present and paramount; it is impossible to have this idea too present +and paramount; only the moral fibre must be braced too. And we, +because we have braced the moral fibre, are not on that account in +the right way, if at the same [25] time the idea of beauty, harmony, +and complete human perfection, is wanting or misapprehended amongst +us; and evidently it is wanting or misapprehended at present. And +when we rely as we do on our religious organisations, which in +themselves do not and cannot give us this idea, and think we have +done enough if we make them spread and prevail, then, I say, we fall +into our common fault of overvaluing machinery. + +Nothing is more common than for people to confound the inward peace +and satisfaction which follows the subduing of the obvious faults of +our animality with what I may call absolute inward peace and +satisfaction,--the peace and satisfaction which are reached as we +draw near to complete spiritual perfection, and not merely to moral +perfection, or rather to relative moral perfection. No people in the +world have done more and struggled more to attain this relative moral +perfection than our English race has; for no people in the world has +the command to resist the Devil, to overcome the Wicked One, in the +nearest and most obvious sense of those words, had such a pressing +force and reality. And we have had our reward, not only in the great +worldly prosperity which our obedience to this [26] command has +brought us, but also, and far more, in great inward peace and +satisfaction. But to me few things are more pathetic than to see +people, on the strength of the inward peace and satisfaction which +their rudimentary efforts towards perfection have brought them, use, +concerning their incomplete perfection and the religious +organisations within which they have found it, language which +properly applies only to complete perfection, and is a far-off echo +of the human soul's prophecy of it. Religion itself, I need hardly +say, supplies in abundance this grand language, which is really the +severest criticism of such an incomplete perfection as alone we have +yet reached through our religious organisations. + +The impulse of the English race towards moral development and self- +conquest has nowhere so powerfully manifested itself as in +Puritanism; nowhere has Puritanism found so adequate an expression as +in the religious organisation of the Independents. The modern +Independents have a newspaper, the Nonconformist, written with great +sincerity and ability. The motto, the standard, the profession of +faith which this organ of theirs carries aloft, is: "The Dissidence +of Dissent and the [27] Protestantism of the Protestant religion." +There is sweetness and light, and an ideal of complete harmonious +human perfection! One need not go to culture and poetry to find +language to judge it. Religion, with its instinct for perfection, +supplies language to judge it: "Finally, be of one mind, united in +feeling," says St. Peter. There is an ideal which judges the Puritan +ideal,--"The Dissidence of Dissent and the Protestantism of the +Protestant religion!" And religious organisations like this are what +people believe in, rest in, would give their lives for! Such, I say, +is the wonderful virtue of even the beginnings of perfection, of +having conquered even the plain faults of our animality, that the +religious organisation which has helped us to do it can seem to us +something precious, salutary, and to be propagated, even when it +wears such a brand of imperfection on its forehead as this. And men +have got such a habit of giving to the language of religion a special +application, of making it a mere jargon, that for the condemnation +which religion itself passes on the shortcomings of their religious +organisations they have no ear; they are sure to cheat themselves and +to explain this condemnation [28] away. They can only be reached by +the criticism which culture, like poetry, speaking a language not to +be sophisticated, and resolutely testing these organisations by the +ideal of a human perfection complete on all sides, applies to them. + +But men of culture and poetry, it will be said, are again and again +failing, and failing conspicuously, in the necessary first stage to +perfection, in the subduing of the great obvious faults of our +animality, which it is the glory of these religious organisations to +have helped us to subdue. True, they do often so fail: they have +often been without the virtues as well as the faults of the Puritan; +it has been one of their dangers that they so felt the Puritan's +faults that they too much neglected the practice of his virtues. I +will not, however, exculpate them at the Puritan's expense; they have +often failed in morality, and morality is indispensable; they have +been punished for their failure, as the Puritan has been rewarded for +his performance. They have been punished wherein they erred; but +their ideal of beauty and sweetness and light, and a human nature +complete on all its sides, remains the true ideal of perfection +still; just as the Puritan's ideal [29] of perfection remains narrow +and inadequate, although for what he did well he has been richly +rewarded. Notwithstanding the mighty results of the Pilgrim Fathers' +voyage, they and their standard of perfection are rightly judged when +we figure to ourselves Shakspeare or Virgil,--souls in whom sweetness +and light, and all that in human nature is most humane, were +eminent,--accompanying them on their voyage, and think what +intolerable company Shakspeare and Virgil would have found them! In +the same way let us judge the religious organisations which we see +all around us. Do not let us deny the good and the happiness which +they have accomplished; but do not let us fail to see clearly that +their idea of human perfection is narrow and inadequate, and that the +Dissidence of Dissent and the Protestantism of the Protestant +religion will never bring humanity to its true goal. As I said with +regard to wealth,--let us look at the life of those who live in and +for it;--so I say with regard to the religious organisations. Look +at the life imaged in such a newspaper as the Nonconformist;--a life +of jealousy of the Establishment, disputes, tea-meetings, openings of +chapels, sermons; and then think of it [30] as an ideal of a human +life completing itself on all sides, and aspiring with all its organs +after sweetness, light, and perfection! + +Another newspaper, representing, like the Nonconformist, one of the +religious organisations of this country, was a short time ago giving +an account of the crowd at Epsom on the Derby day, and of all the +vice and hideousness which was to be seen in that crowd; and then the +writer turned suddenly round upon Professor Huxley, and asked him how +he proposed to cure all this vice and hideousness without religion. +I confess I felt disposed to ask the asker this question: And how do +you propose to cure it with such a religion as yours? How is the +ideal of a life so unlovely, so unattractive, so narrow, so far +removed from a true and satisfying ideal of human perfection, as is +the life of your religious organisation as you yourself image it, to +conquer and transform all this vice and hideousness? Indeed, the +strongest plea for the study of perfection as pursued by culture, the +clearest proof of the actual inadequacy of the idea of perfection +held by the religious organisations,--expressing, as I have said, the +most wide-spread effort which the human [31] race has yet made after +perfection,--is to be found in the state of our life and society with +these in possession of it, and having been in possession of it I know +not how many hundred years. We are all of us included in some +religious organisation or other; we all call ourselves, in the +sublime and aspiring language of religion which I have before +noticed, children of God. Children of God;--it is an immense +pretension!--and how are we to justify it? By the works which we do, +and the words which we speak. And the work which we collective +children of God do, our grand centre of life, our city which we have +builded for us to dwell in, is London! London, with its unutterable +external hideousness, and with its internal canker of public +egestas, privatim opulentia,+--to use the words which Sallust puts +into Cato's mouth about Rome,--unequalled in the world! The word, +again, which we children of God speak, the voice which most hits our +collective thought, the newspaper with the largest circulation in +England, nay, with the largest circulation in the whole world, is the +Daily Telegraph! I say that when our religious organisations,--which +I admit to express the most considerable effort after perfection [32] +that our race has yet made,--land us in no better result than this, +it is high time to examine carefully their idea of perfection, to see +whether it does not leave out of account sides and forces of human +nature which we might turn to great use; whether it would not be more +operative if it were more complete. And I say that the English +reliance on our religious organisations and on their ideas of human +perfection just as they stand, is like our reliance on freedom, on +muscular Christianity, on population, on coal, on wealth,--mere +belief in machinery, and unfruitful; and that it is wholesomely +counteracted by culture, bent on seeing things as they are, and on +drawing the human race onwards to a more complete perfection. + +Culture, however, shows its single-minded love of perfection, its +desire simply to make reason and the will of God prevail, its freedom +from fanaticism, by its attitude towards all this machinery, even +while it insists that it is machinery. Fanatics, seeing the mischief +men do themselves by their blind belief in some machinery or other,-- +whether it is wealth and industrialism, or whether it is the +cultivation of bodily strength and activity, or whether it is a [33] +political organisation, or whether it is a religious organisation,-- +oppose with might and main the tendency to this or that political and +religious organisation, or to games and athletic exercises, or to +wealth and industrialism, and try violently to stop it. But the +flexibility which sweetness and light give, and which is one of the +rewards of culture pursued in good faith, enables a man to see that a +tendency may be necessary, and even, as a preparation for something +in the future, salutary, and yet that the generations or individuals +who obey this tendency are sacrificed to it, that they fall short of +the hope of perfection by following it; and that its mischiefs are to +be criticised, lest it should take too firm a hold and last after it +has served its purpose. Mr. Gladstone well pointed out, in a speech +at Paris,--and others have pointed out the same thing,--how necessary +is the present great movement towards wealth and industrialism, in +order to lay broad foundations of material well-being for the society +of the future. The worst of these justifications is, that they are +generally addressed to the very people engaged, body and soul, in the +movement in question; at all events, that they are always seized with +[34] the greatest avidity by these people, and taken by them as quite +justifying their life; and that thus they tend to harden them in +their sins. Now, culture admits the necessity of the movement +towards fortune-making and exaggerated industrialism, readily allows +that the future may derive benefit from it; but insists, at the same +time, that the passing generations of industrialists,--forming, for +the most part, the stout main body of Philistinism,--are sacrificed +to it. In the same way, the result of all the games and sports which +occupy the passing generation of boys and young men may be the +establishment of a better and sounder physical type for the future to +work with. Culture does not set itself against the games and sports; +it congratulates the future, and hopes it will make a good use of its +improved physical basis; but it points out that our passing +generation of boys and young men is, meantime, sacrificed. +Puritanism was necessary to develop the moral fibre of the English +race, Nonconformity to break the yoke of ecclesiastical domination +over men's minds and to prepare the way for freedom of thought in the +distant future; still, culture points out that the harmonious +perfection of generations of [35] Puritans and Nonconformists have +been, in consequence, sacrificed. Freedom of speech is necessary for +the society of the future, but the young lions of the Daily Telegraph +in the meanwhile are sacrificed. A voice for every man in his +country's government is necessary for the society of the future, but +meanwhile Mr. Beales and Mr. Bradlaugh are sacrificed. + +Oxford, the Oxford of the past, has many faults; and she has heavily +paid for them in defeat, in isolation, in want of hold upon the +modern world. Yet we in Oxford, brought up amidst the beauty and +sweetness of that beautiful place, have not failed to seize one +truth:--the truth that beauty and sweetness are essential characters +of a complete human perfection. When I insist on this, I am all in +the faith and tradition of Oxford. I say boldly that this our +sentiment for beauty and sweetness, our sentiment against hideousness +and rawness, has been at the bottom of our attachment to so many +beaten causes, of our opposition to so many triumphant movements. +And the sentiment is true, and has never been wholly defeated, and +has shown its power even in its defeat. We have not won our +political battles, we have not carried our [36] main points, we have +not stopped our adversaries' advance, we have not marched +victoriously with the modern world; but we have told silently upon +the mind of the country, we have prepared currents of feeling which +sap our adversaries' position when it seems gained, we have kept up +our own communications with the future. Look at the course of the +great movement which shook Oxford to its centre some thirty years +ago! It was directed, as any one who reads Dr. Newman's Apology may +see, against what in one word maybe called "liberalism." Liberalism +prevailed; it was the appointed force to do the work of the hour; it +was necessary, it was inevitable that it should prevail. The Oxford +movement was broken, it failed; our wrecks are scattered on every +shore:-- + + Quae regio in terris nostri non plena laboris?+ + +But what was it, this liberalism, as Dr. Newman saw it, and as it +really broke the Oxford movement? It was the great middle-class +liberalism, which had for the cardinal points of its belief the +Reform Bill of 1832, and local self-government, in politics; in the +social sphere, free-trade, unrestricted competition, [37] and the +making of large industrial fortunes; in the religious sphere, the +Dissidence of Dissent and the Protestantism of the Protestant +religion. I do not say that other and more intelligent forces than +this were not opposed to the Oxford movement: but this was the force +which really beat it; this was the force which Dr. Newman felt +himself fighting with; this was the force which till only the other +day seemed to be the paramount force in this country, and to be in +possession of the future; this was the force whose achievements fill +Mr. Lowe with such inexpressible admiration, and whose rule he was so +horror-struck to see threatened. And where is this great force of +Philistinism now? It is thrust into the second rank, it is become a +power of yesterday, it has lost the future. A new power has suddenly +appeared, a power which it is impossible yet to judge fully, but +which is certainly a wholly different force from middle-class +liberalism; different in its cardinal points of belief, different in +its tendencies in every sphere. It loves and admires neither the +legislation of middle-class Parliaments, nor the local self- +government of middle-class vestries, nor the unrestricted competition +of middle-class [38] industrialists, nor the dissidence of middle- +class Dissent and the Protestantism of middle-class Protestant +religion. I am not now praising this new force, or saying that its +own ideals are better; all I say is, that they are wholly different. +And who will estimate how much the currents of feeling created by Dr. +Newman's movement, the keen desire for beauty and sweetness which it +nourished, the deep aversion it manifested to the hardness and +vulgarity of middle-class liberalism, the strong light it turned on +the hideous and grotesque illusions of middle-class Protestantism,-- +who will estimate how much all these contributed to swell the tide of +secret dissatisfaction which has mined the ground under the self- +confident liberalism of the last thirty years, and has prepared the +way for its sudden collapse and supersession? It is in this manner +that the sentiment of Oxford for beauty and sweetness conquers, and +in this manner long may it continue to conquer! + +In this manner it works to the same end as culture, and there is +plenty of work for it yet to do. I have said that the new and more +democratic force which is now superseding our old middle-class +liberalism cannot yet be rightly judged. It has its [39] main +tendencies still to form. We hear promises of its giving us +administrative reform, law reform, reform of education, and I know +not what; but those promises come rather from its advocates, wishing +to make a good plea for it and to justify it for superseding middle- +class liberalism, than from clear tendencies which it has itself yet +developed. But meanwhile it has plenty of well-intentioned friends +against whom culture may with advantage continue to uphold steadily +its ideal of human perfection; that this is an inward spiritual +activity, having for its characters increased sweetness, increased +light, increased life, increased sympathy. Mr. Bright, who has a +foot in both worlds, the world of middle-class liberalism and the +world of democracy, but who brings most of his ideas from the world +of middle-class liberalism in which he was bred, always inclines to +inculcate that faith in machinery to which, as we have seen, +Englishmen are so prone, and which has been the bane of middle-class +liberalism. He complains with a sorrowful indignation of people who +"appear to have no proper estimate of the value of the franchise;" he +leads his disciples to believe,--what the Englishman is always too +ready to believe, [40] --that the having a vote, like the having a +large family, or a large business, or large muscles, has in itself +some edifying and perfecting effect upon human nature. Or else he +cries out to the democracy,--"the men," as he calls them, "upon whose +shoulders the greatness of England rests,"--he cries out to them: +"See what you have done! I look over this country and see the cities +you have built, the railroads you have made, the manufactures you +have produced, the cargoes which freight the ships of the greatest +mercantile navy the world has ever seen! I see that you have +converted by your labours what was once a wilderness, these islands, +into a fruitful garden; I know that you have created this wealth, and +are a nation whose name is a word of power throughout all the world." +Why, this is just the very style of laudation with which Mr. Roebuck +or Mr. Lowe debauch the minds of the middle classes, and make such +Philistines of them. It is the same fashion of teaching a man to +value himself not on what he is, not on his progress in sweetness and +light, but on the number of the railroads he has constructed, or the +bigness of the Tabernacle he has built. Only the middle classes are +told they have [41] done it all with their energy, self-reliance, and +capital, and the democracy are told they have done it all with their +hands and sinews. But teaching the democracy to put its trust in +achievements of this kind is merely training them to be Philistines +to take the place of the Philistines whom they are superseding; and +they too, like the middle class, will be encouraged to sit down at +the banquet of the future without having on a wedding garment, and +nothing excellent can then come from them. Those who know their +besetting faults, those who have watched them and listened to them, +or those who will read the instructive account recently given of them +by one of themselves, the Journeyman Engineer, will agree that the +idea which culture sets before us of perfection,--an increased +spiritual activity, having for its characters increased sweetness, +increased light, increased life, increased sympathy,--is an idea +which the new democracy needs far more than the idea of the +blessedness of the franchise, or the wonderfulness of their own +industrial performances. + +Other well-meaning friends of this new power are for leading it, not +in the old ruts of middle-class [42] Philistinism, but in ways which +are naturally alluring to the feet of democracy, though in this +country they are novel and untried ways. I may call them the ways of +Jacobinism. Violent indignation with the past, abstract systems of +renovation applied wholesale, a new doctrine drawn up in black and +white for elaborating down to the very smallest details a rational +society for the future,--these are the ways of Jacobinism. Mr. +Frederic Harrison and other disciples of Comte,--one of them, Mr. +Congreve, is an old acquaintance of mine, and I am glad to have an +opportunity of publicly expressing my respect for his talents and +character,--are among the friends of democracy who are for leading it +in paths of this kind. Mr. Frederic Harrison is very hostile to +culture, and from a natural enough motive; for culture is the eternal +opponent of the two things which are the signal marks of Jacobinism,- +-its fierceness, and its addiction to an abstract system. Culture is +always assigning to system-makers and systems a smaller share in the +bent of human destiny than their friends like. A current in people's +minds sets towards new ideas; people are dissatisfied with their old +narrow stock of Philistine ideas, Anglo-Saxon [43] ideas, or any +other; and some man, some Bentham or Comte, who has the real merit of +having early and strongly felt and helped the new current, but who +brings plenty of narrownesses and mistakes of his own into his +feeling and help of it, is credited with being the author of the +whole current, the fit person to be entrusted with its regulation and +to guide the human race. The excellent German historian of the +mythology of Rome, Preller, relating the introduction at Rome under +the Tarquins of the worship of Apollo, the god of light, healing, and +reconciliation, observes that it was not so much the Tarquins who +brought to Rome the new worship of Apollo, as a current in the mind +of the Roman people which set powerfully at that time towards a new +worship of this kind, and away from the old run of Latin and Sabine +religious ideas. In a similar way, culture directs our attention to +the current in human affairs, and to its continual working, and will +not let us rivet our faith upon any one man and his doings. It makes +us see, not only his good side, but also how much in him was of +necessity limited and transient; nay, it even feels a pleasure, a +sense of an increased freedom and of an ampler future, in so [44] +doing. I remember, when I was under the influence of a mind to which +I feel the greatest obligations, the mind of a man who was the very +incarnation of sanity and clear sense, a man the most considerable, +it seems to me, whom America has yet produced,--Benjamin Franklin,--I +remember the relief with which, after long feeling the sway of +Franklin's imperturbable common-sense, I came upon a project of his +for a new version of the Book of Job, to replace the old version, the +style of which, says Franklin, has become obsolete, and thence less +agreeable. "I give," he continues, "a few verses, which may serve as +a sample of the kind of version I would recommend." We all recollect +the famous verse in our translation: "Then Satan answered the Lord +and said: 'Doth Job fear God for nought?'" Franklin makes this: +"Does Your Majesty imagine that Job's good conduct is the effect of +mere personal attachment and affection?" I well remember how when +first I read that, I drew a deep breath of relief, and said to +myself: "After all, there is a stretch of humanity beyond Franklin's +victorious good sense!" So, after hearing Bentham cried loudly up as +the renovator of modern society, [45] and Bentham's mind and ideas +proposed as the rulers of our future, I open the Deontology. There I +read: "While Xenophon was writing his history and Euclid teaching +geometry, Socrates and Plato were talking nonsense under pretence of +talking wisdom and morality. This morality of theirs consisted in +words; this wisdom of theirs was the denial of matters known to every +man's experience." From the moment of reading that, I am delivered +from the bondage of Bentham! the fanaticism of his adherents can +touch me no longer; I feel the inadequacy of his mind and ideas for +being the rule of human society, for perfection. Culture tends +always thus to deal with the men of a system, of disciples, of a +school; with men like Comte, or the late Mr. Buckle, or Mr. Mill. +However much it may find to admire in these personages, or in some of +them, it nevertheless remembers the text: "Be not ye called Rabbi!" +and it soon passes on from any Rabbi. But Jacobinism loves a Rabbi; +it does not want to pass on from its Rabbi in pursuit of a future and +still unreached perfection; it wants its Rabbi and his ideas to stand +for perfection, that they may with the more authority recast the +world; [46] and for Jacobinism, therefore, culture,--eternally +passing onwards and seeking,--is an impertinence and an offence. But +culture, just because it resists this tendency of Jacobinism to +impose on us a man with limitations and errors of his own along with +the true ideas of which he is the organ, really does the world and +Jacobinism itself a service. + +So, too, Jacobinism, in its fierce hatred of the past and of those +whom it makes liable for the sins of the past, cannot away with +culture,--culture with its inexhaustible indulgence, its +consideration of circumstances, its severe judgment of actions joined +to its merciful judgment of persons. "The man of culture is in +politics," cries Mr. Frederic Harrison, "one of the poorest mortals +alive!" Mr. Frederic Harrison wants to be doing business, and he +complains that the man of culture stops him with a "turn for small +fault-finding, love of selfish ease, and indecision in action." Of +what use is culture, he asks, except for "a critic of new books or a +professor of belles lettres?" Why, it is of use because, in presence +of the fierce exasperation which breathes, or rather, I may say, +hisses, through the whole production in which Mr. Frederic Harrison +[47] asks that question, it reminds us that the perfection of human +nature is sweetness and light. It is of use because, like religion,- +-that other effort after perfection,--it testifies that, where bitter +envying and strife are, there is confusion and every evil work. + +The pursuit of perfection, then, is the pursuit of sweetness and +light. He who works for sweetness works in the end for light also; +he who works for light works in the end for sweetness also. But he +who works for sweetness and light united, works to make reason and +the will of God prevail. He who works for machinery, he who works +for hatred, works only for confusion. Culture looks beyond +machinery, culture hates hatred; culture has but one great passion, +the passion for sweetness and light. Yes, it has one yet greater!-- +the passion for making them prevail. It is not satisfied till we all +come to a perfect man; it knows that the sweetness and light of the +few must be imperfect until the raw and unkindled masses of humanity +are touched with sweetness and light. If I have not shrunk from +saying that we must work for sweetness and light, so neither have I +shrunk from saying that we must have a broad basis, must have +sweetness and light [48] for as many as possible. Again and again I +have insisted how those are the happy moments of humanity, how those +are the marking epochs of a people's life, how those are the +flowering times for literature and art and all the creative power of +genius, when there is a national glow of life and thought, when the +whole of society is in the fullest measure permeated by thought, +sensible to beauty, intelligent and alive. Only it must be real +thought and real beauty; real sweetness and real light. Plenty of +people will try to give the masses, as they call them, an +intellectual food prepared and adapted in the way they think proper +for the actual condition of the masses. The ordinary popular +literature is an example of this way of working on the masses. +Plenty of people will try to indoctrinate the masses with the set of +ideas and judgments constituting the creed of their own profession or +party. Our religious and political organisations give an example of +this way of working on the masses. I condemn neither way; but +culture works differently. It does not try to teach down to the +level of inferior classes; it does not try to win them for this or +that sect of its own, with ready-made judgments and watchwords. [49] +It seeks to do away with classes; to make all live in an atmosphere +of sweetness and light, and use ideas, as it uses them itself, +freely,--to be nourished and not bound by them. + +This is the social idea; and the men of culture are the true apostles +of equality. The great men of culture are those who have had a +passion for diffusing, for making prevail, for carrying from one end +of society to the other, the best knowledge, the best ideas of their +time; who have laboured to divest knowledge of all that was harsh, +uncouth, difficult, abstract, professional, exclusive; to humanise +it, to make it efficient outside the clique of the cultivated and +learned, yet still remaining the best knowledge and thought of the +time, and a true source, therefore, of sweetness and light. Such a +man was Abelard in the Middle Ages, in spite of all his +imperfections; and thence the boundless emotion and enthusiasm which +Abelard excited. Such were Lessing and Herder in Germany, at the end +of the last century; and their services to Germany were in this way +inestimably precious. Generations will pass, and literary monuments +will accumulate, and works far more perfect than the [50] works of +Lessing and Herder will be produced in Germany; and yet the names of +these two men will fill a German with a reverence and enthusiasm such +as the names of the most gifted masters will hardly awaken. Because +they humanised knowledge; because they broadened the basis of life +and intelligence; because they worked powerfully to diffuse sweetness +and light, to make reason and the will of God prevail. With Saint +Augustine they said: "Let us not leave Thee alone to make in the +secret of thy knowledge, as thou didst before the creation of the +firmament, the division of light from darkness; let the children of +thy spirit, placed in their firmament, make their light shine upon +the earth, mark the division of night and day, and announce the +revolution of the times; for the old order is passed, and the new +arises; the night is spent, the day is come forth; and thou shalt +crown the year with thy blessing, when thou shalt send forth +labourers into thy harvest sown by other hands than theirs; when thou +shalt send forth new labourers to new seed-times, whereof the harvest +shall be not yet." + +NOTES + +22. +aphuia. + +22. +aphuia, euphuia. See notes below for these words separately, +page 23. + +23. +euphyês. Liddell and Scott definition: "well-grown, shapely, +goodly: graceful. II. of good natural parts: clever, witty; also 'of +good disposition.'" + +23. +aphyês. Liddell and Scott definition: "without natural talent, +dull." GIF image: + +31. +publicé egestas, privatim opulentia. E-text editor's +translation: public penury and private opulence. + +36. +Quae regio in terris nostri non plena laboris? E-text editor's +translation: Which part of the world is not filled with our sorrows? +P. Vergilius Maro (Virgil), Aeneid, Book 1, Line 459. + + + +CHAPTER II + +[51] I have been trying to show that culture is, or ought to be, the +study and pursuit of perfection; and that of perfection as pursued by +culture, beauty and intelligence, or, in other words, sweetness and +light, are the main characters. But hitherto I have been insisting +chiefly on beauty, or sweetness, as a character of perfection. To +complete rightly my design, it evidently remains to speak also of +intelligence, or light, as a character of perfection. First, +however, I ought perhaps to notice that, both here and on the other +side of the Atlantic, all sorts of objections are raised against the +"religion of culture," as the objectors mockingly call it, which I am +supposed to be promulgating. It is said to be a religion proposing +parmaceti, or some scented salve or other, as a cure for human +miseries; a religion breathing a spirit of cultivated inaction, +making its believer refuse to lend a hand at uprooting the definite +evils on all sides of us, and filling him with antipathy against the +reforms and reformers which try to [52] extirpate them. In general, +it is summed up as being not practical, or,--as some critics more +familiarly put it,--all moonshine. That Alcibiades, the editor of +the Morning Star, taunts me, as its promulgator, with living out of +the world and knowing nothing of life and men. That great austere +toiler, the editor of the Daily Telegraph, upbraids me,--but kindly, +and more in sorrow than in anger,--for trifling with aesthetics and +poetical fancies, while he himself, in that arsenal of his in Fleet +Street, is bearing the burden and heat of the day. An intelligent +American newspaper, the Nation, says that it is very easy to sit in +one's study and find fault with the course of modern society, but the +thing is to propose practical improvements for it. While, finally, +Mr. Frederic Harrison, in a very good-tempered and witty satire, +which makes me quite understand his having apparently achieved such a +conquest of my young Prussian friend, Arminius, at last gets moved to +an almost stern moral impatience, to behold, as he says, "Death, sin, +cruelty stalk among us, filling their maws with innocence and youth," +and me, in the midst of the general tribulation, handing out my +pouncet-box. + +[53] It is impossible that all these remonstrances and reproofs +should not affect me, and I shall try my very best, in completing my +design and in speaking of light as one of the characters of +perfection, and of culture as giving us light, to profit by the +objections I have heard and read, and to drive at practice as much as +I can, by showing the communications and passages into practical life +from the doctrine which I am inculcating. + +It is said that a man with my theories of sweetness and light is full +of antipathy against the rougher or coarser movements going on around +him, that he will not lend a hand to the humble operation of +uprooting evil by their means, and that therefore the believers in +action grow impatient with them. But what if rough and coarse +action, ill-calculated action, action with insufficient light, is, +and has for a long time been, our bane? What if our urgent want now +is, not to act at any price, but rather to lay in a stock of light +for our difficulties? In that case, to refuse to lend a hand to the +rougher and coarser movements going on round us, to make the primary +need, both for oneself and others, to consist in enlightening +ourselves and qualifying ourselves [54] to act less at random, is +surely the best, and in real truth the most practical line, our +endeavours can take. So that if I can show what my opponents call +rough or coarse action, but what I would rather call random and ill- +regulated action,--action with insufficient light, action pursued +because we like to be doing something and doing it as we please, and +do not like the trouble of thinking, and the severe constraint of any +kind of rule,--if I can show this to be, at the present moment, a +practical mischief and danger to us, then I have found a practical +use for light in correcting this state of things, and have only to +exemplify how, in cases which fall under everybody's observation, it +may deal with it. + +When I began to speak of culture, I insisted on our bondage to +machinery, on our proneness to value machinery as an end in itself, +without looking beyond it to the end for which alone, in truth, it is +valuable. Freedom, I said, was one of those things which we thus +worshipped in itself, without enough regarding the ends for which +freedom is to be desired. In our common notions and talk about +freedom, we eminently show our idolatry of machinery. Our prevalent +notion is,--and I quoted a [55] number of instances to prove it,-- +that it is a most happy and important thing for a man merely to be +able to do as he likes. On what he is to do when he is thus free to +do as he likes, we do not lay so much stress. Our familiar praise of +the British Constitution under which we live, is that it is a system +of checks,--a system which stops and paralyses any power in +interfering with the free action of individuals. To this effect Mr. +Bright, who loves to walk in the old ways of the Constitution, said +forcibly in one of his great speeches, what many other people are +every day saying less forcibly, that the central idea of English life +and politics is the assertion of personal liberty. Evidently this is +so; but evidently, also, as feudalism, which with its ideas and +habits of subordination was for many centuries silently behind the +British Constitution, dies out, and we are left with nothing but our +system of checks, and our notion of its being the great right and +happiness of an Englishman to do as far as possible what he likes, we +are in danger of drifting towards anarchy. We have not the notion, +so familiar on the Continent and to antiquity, of the State--the +nation, in its collective [56] and corporate character, entrusted +with stringent powers for the general advantage, and controlling +individual wills in the name of an interest wider than that of +individuals. We say, what is very true, that this notion is often +made instrumental to tyranny; we say that a State is in reality made +up of the individuals who compose it, and that every individual is +the best judge of his own interests. Our leading class is an +aristocracy, and no aristocracy likes the notion of a State-authority +greater than itself, with a stringent administrative machinery +superseding the decorative inutilities of lord-lieutenancy, deputy- +lieutenancy, and the posse comitatûs,+ which are all in its own +hands. Our middle-class, the great representative of trade and +Dissent, with its maxims of every man for himself in business, every +man for himself in religion, dreads a powerful administration which +might somehow interfere with it; and besides, it has its own +decorative inutilities of vestrymanship and guardianship, which are +to this class what lord-lieutenancy and the county magistracy are to +the aristocratic class, and a stringent administration might either +take these functions out of its hands, [57] or prevent its exercising +them in its own comfortable, independent manner, as at present. + +Then as to our working-class. This class, pressed constantly by the +hard daily compulsion of material wants, is naturally the very centre +and stronghold of our national idea, that it is man's ideal right and +felicity to do as he likes. I think I have somewhere related how +Monsieur Michelet said to me of the people of France, that it was "a +nation of barbarians civilised by the conscription." He meant that +through their military service the idea of public duty and of +discipline was brought to the mind of these masses, in other respects +so raw and uncultivated. Our masses are quite as raw and +uncultivated as the French; and, so far from their having the idea of +public duty and of discipline, superior to the individual's self- +will, brought to their mind by a universal obligation of military +service, such as that of the conscription,--so far from their having +this, the very idea of a conscription is so at variance with our +English notion of the prime right and blessedness of doing as one +likes, that I remember the manager of the Clay Cross works in +Derbyshire told me during the Crimean [58] war, when our want of +soldiers was much felt and some people were talking of a +conscription, that sooner than submit to a conscription the +population of that district would flee to the mines, and lead a sort +of Robin Hood life under ground. + +For a long time, as I have said, the strong feudal habits of +subordination and deference continued to tell upon the working-class. +The modern spirit has now almost entirely dissolved those habits, and +the anarchical tendency of our worship of freedom in and for itself, +of our superstitious faith, as I say, in machinery, is becoming very +manifest. More and more, because of this our blind faith in +machinery, because of our want of light to enable us to look beyond +machinery to the end for which machinery is valuable, this and that +man, and this and that body of men, all over the country, are +beginning to assert and put in practice an Englishman's right to do +what he likes; his right to march where he likes, meet where he +likes, enter where he likes, hoot as he likes, threaten as he likes, +smash as he likes. All this, I say, tends to anarchy; and though a +number of excellent people, and particularly my friends of the +liberal or progressive party, as they [59] call themselves, are kind +enough to reassure us by saying that these are trifles, that a few +transient outbreaks of rowdyism signify nothing, that our system of +liberty is one which itself cures all the evils which it works, that +the educated and intelligent classes stand in overwhelming strength +and majestic repose, ready, like our military force in riots, to act +at a moment's notice,--yet one finds that one's liberal friends +generally say this because they have such faith in themselves and +their nostrums, when they shall return, as the public welfare +requires, to place and power. But this faith of theirs one cannot +exactly share, when one has so long had them and their nostrums at +work, and sees that they have not prevented our coming to our present +embarrassed condition; and one finds, also, that the outbreaks of +rowdyism tend to become less and less of trifles, to become more +frequent rather than less frequent; and that meanwhile our educated +and intelligent classes remain in their majestic repose, and somehow +or other, whatever happens, their overwhelming strength, like our +military force in riots, never does act. + +How, indeed, should their overwhelming strength [60] act, when the +man who gives an inflammatory lecture, or breaks down the Park +railings, or invades a Secretary of State's office, is only following +an Englishman's impulse to do as he likes; and our own conscience +tells us that we ourselves have always regarded this impulse as +something primary and sacred? Mr. Murphy lectures at Birmingham, and +showers on the Catholic population of that town "words," says Mr. +Hardy, "only fit to be addressed to thieves or murderers." What +then? Mr. Murphy has his own reasons of several kinds. He suspects +the Roman Catholic Church of designs upon Mrs. Murphy; and he says, +if mayors and magistrates do not care for their wives and daughters, +he does. But, above all, he is doing as he likes, or, in worthier +language, asserting his personal liberty. "I will carry out my +lectures if they walk over my body as a dead corpse; and I say to the +Mayor of Birmingham that he is my servant while I am in Birmingham, +and as my servant he must do his duty and protect me." Touching and +beautiful words, which find a sympathetic chord in every British +bosom! The moment it is plainly put before us that a man is +asserting his personal liberty, we are half disarmed; [61] because we +are believers in freedom, and not in some dream of a right reason to +which the assertion of our freedom is to be subordinated. +Accordingly, the Secretary of State had to say that although the +lecturer's language was "only fit to be addressed to thieves or +murderers," yet, "I do not think he is to be deprived, I do not think +that anything I have said could justify the inference that he is to +be deprived, of the right of protection in a place built by him for +the purpose of these lectures; because the language was not language +which afforded grounds for a criminal prosecution." No, nor to be +silenced by Mayor, or Home Secretary, or any administrative authority +on earth, simply on their notion of what is discreet and reasonable! +This is in perfect consonance with our public opinion, and with our +national love for the assertion of personal liberty. + +In quite another department of affairs, an experienced and +distinguished Chancery Judge relates an incident which is just to the +same effect as this of Mr. Murphy. A testator bequeathed 300£. a +year, to be for ever applied as a pension to some person who had been +unsuccessful in literature, and whose duty [62] should be to support +and diffuse, by his writings, the testator's own views, as enforced +in the testator's publications. This bequest was appealed against in +the Court of Chancery, on the ground of its absurdity; but, being +only absurd, it was upheld, and the so-called charity was +established. Having, I say, at the bottom of our English hearts a +very strong belief in freedom, and a very weak belief in right +reason, we are soon silenced when a man pleads the prime right to do +as he likes, because this is the prime right for ourselves too; and +even if we attempt now and then to mumble something about reason, yet +we have ourselves thought so little about this and so much about +liberty, that we are in conscience forced, when our brother +Philistine with whom we are meddling turns boldly round upon us and +asks: Have you any light?--to shake our heads ruefully, and to let +him go his own way after all. + +There are many things to be said on behalf of this exclusive +attention of ours to liberty, and of the relaxed habits of government +which it has engendered. It is very easy to mistake or to exaggerate +the sort of anarchy from which we are in danger through them. We are +not in danger from [63] Fenianism, fierce and turbulent as it may +show itself; for against this our conscience is free enough to let us +act resolutely and put forth our overwhelming strength the moment +there is any real need for it. In the first place, it never was any +part of our creed that the great right and blessedness of an +Irishman, or, indeed, of anybody on earth except an Englishman, is to +do as he likes; and we can have no scruple at all about abridging, if +necessary, a non-Englishman's assertion of personal liberty. The +British Constitution, its checks, and its prime virtues, are for +Englishmen. We may extend them to others out of love and kindness; +but we find no real divine law written on our hearts constraining us +so to extend them. And then the difference between an Irish Fenian +and an English rough is so immense, and the case, in dealing with the +Fenian, so much more clear! He is so evidently desperate and +dangerous, a man of a conquered race, a Papist, with centuries of +ill-usage to inflame him against us, with an alien religion +established in his country by us at his expense, with no admiration +of our institutions, no love of our virtues, no talents for our +business, no turn for our comfort! Show him our symbolical [64] +Truss Manufactory on the finest site in Europe, and tell him that +British industrialism and individualism can bring a man to that, and +he remains cold! Evidently, if we deal tenderly with a +sentimentalist like this, it is out of pure philanthropy. But with +the Hyde Park rioter how different!+ He is our own flesh and blood; +he is a Protestant; he is framed by nature to do as we do, hate what +we hate, love what we love; he is capable of feeling the symbolical +force of the Truss Manufactory; the question of questions, for him, +is a wages' question. That beautiful sentence Sir Daniel Gooch +quoted to the Swindon workmen, and which I treasure as Mrs. Gooch's +Golden Rule, or the Divine Injunction "Be ye Perfect" done into +British,--the sentence Sir Daniel Gooch's mother repeated to him +every morning when he was a boy going to work: "Ever remember, my +dear Dan, that you should look forward to being some day manager of +that concern!"--this fruitful maxim is perfectly fitted to shine +forth in the heart of the Hyde Park rough also, and to be his +guiding-star through life. He has no visionary schemes of revolution +and transformation, though of course he would like his class to rule, +as the aristocratic [65] class like their class to rule, and the +middle-class theirs. Meanwhile, our social machine is a little out +of order; there are a good many people in our paradisiacal centres of +industrialism and individualism taking the bread out of one another's +mouths; the rioter has not yet quite found his groove and settled +down to his work, and so he is just asserting his personal liberty a +little, going where he likes, assembling where he likes, bawling as +he likes, hustling as he likes. Just as the rest of us,--as the +country squires in the aristocratic class, as the political +dissenters in the middle-class,--he has no idea of a State, of the +nation in its collective and corporate character controlling, as +government, the free swing of this or that one of its members in the +name of the higher reason of all of them, his own as well as that of +others. He sees the rich, the aristocratic class, in occupation of +the executive government, and so if he is stopped from making Hyde +Park a bear-garden or the streets impassable, he says he is being +butchered by the aristocracy. + +His apparition is somewhat embarrassing, because too many cooks spoil +the broth; because, while the aristocratic and middle classes have +long been doing [66] as they like with great vigour, he has been too +undeveloped and submissive hitherto to join in the game; and now, +when he does come, he comes in immense numbers, and is rather raw and +rough. But he does not break many laws, or not many at one time; +and, as our laws were made for very different circumstances from our +present (but always with an eye to Englishmen doing as they like), +and as the clear letter of the law must be against our Englishman who +does as he likes and not only the spirit of the law and public +policy, and as Government must neither have any discretionary power +nor act resolutely on its own interpretation of the law if any one +disputes it, it is evident our laws give our playful giant, in doing +as he likes, considerable advantage. Besides, even if he can be +clearly proved to commit an illegality in doing as he likes, there is +always the resource of not putting the law in force, or of abolishing +it. So he has his way, and if he has his way he is soon satisfied +for the time; however, he falls into the habit of taking it oftener +and oftener, and at last begins to create by his operations a +confusion of which mischievous people can take advantage, and which +at any rate, by troubling the common course [67] of business +throughout the country, tends to cause distress, and so to increase +the sort of anarchy and social disintegration which had previously +commenced. And thus that profound sense of settled order and +security, without which a society like ours cannot live and grow at +all, is beginning to threaten us with taking its departure. + +Now, if culture, which simply means trying to perfect oneself, and +one's mind as part of oneself, brings us light, and if light shows us +that there is nothing so very blessed in merely doing as one likes, +that the worship of the mere freedom to do as one likes is worship of +machinery, that the really blessed thing is to like what right reason +ordains, and to follow her authority, then we have got a practical +benefit out of culture. We have got a much wanted principle, a +principle of authority, to counteract the tendency to anarchy which +seems to be threatening us. + +But how to organise this authority, or to what hands to entrust the +wielding of it? How to get your State, summing up the right reason +of the community, and giving effect to it, as circumstances may +require, with vigour? And here I think I see [68] my enemies waiting +for me with a hungry joy in their eyes. But I shall elude them. + +The State, the power most representing the right reason of the +nation, and most worthy, therefore, of ruling,--of exercising, when +circumstances require it, authority over us all,--is for Mr. Carlyle +the aristocracy. For Mr. Lowe, it is the middle-class with its +incomparable Parliament. For the Reform League, it is the working- +class, with its "brightest powers of sympathy and readiest powers of +action." Now, culture, with its disinterested pursuit of perfection, +culture, simply trying to see things as they are, in order to seize +on the best and to make it prevail, is surely well fitted to help us +to judge rightly, by all the aids of observing, reading, and +thinking, the qualifications and titles to our confidence of these +three candidates for authority, and can thus render us a practical +service of no mean value. + +So when Mr. Carlyle, a man of genius to whom we have all at one time +or other been indebted for refreshment and stimulus, says we should +give rule to the aristocracy, mainly because of its dignity and +politeness, surely culture is useful in reminding us, [69] that in +our idea of perfection the characters of beauty and intelligence are +both of them present, and sweetness and light, the two noblest of +things, are united. Allowing, therefore, with Mr. Carlyle, the +aristocratic class to possess sweetness, culture insists on the +necessity of light also, and shows us that aristocracies, being by +the very nature of things inaccessible to ideas, unapt to see how the +world is going, must be somewhat wanting in light, and must therefore +be, at a moment when light is our great requisite, inadequate to our +needs. Aristocracies, those children of the established fact, are +for epochs of concentration. In epochs of expansion, epochs such as +that in which we now live, epochs when always the warning voice is +again heard: Now is the judgment of this world--in such epochs +aristocracies, with their natural clinging to the established fact, +their want of sense for the flux of things, for the inevitable +transitoriness of all human institutions, are bewildered and +helpless. Their serenity, their high spirit, their power of haughty +resistance,--the great qualities of an aristocracy, and the secret of +its distinguished manners and dignity,--these very qualities, in an +epoch of [70] expansion, turn against their possessors. Again and +again I have said how the refinement of an aristocracy may be +precious and educative to a raw nation as a kind of shadow of true +refinement; how its serenity and dignified freedom from petty cares +may serve as a useful foil to set off the vulgarity and hideousness +of that type of life which a hard middle-class tends to establish, +and to help people to see this vulgarity and hideousness in their +true colours. From such an ignoble spectacle as that of poor Mrs. +Lincoln,--a spectacle to vulgarise a whole nation,--aristocracies +undoubtedly preserve us. But the true grace and serenity is that of +which Greece and Greek art suggest the admirable ideals of +perfection,--a serenity which comes from having made order among +ideas and harmonised them; whereas the serenity of aristocracies, at +least the peculiar serenity of aristocracies of Teutonic origin, +appears to come from their never having had any ideas to trouble +them. And so, in a time of expansion like the present, a time for +ideas, one gets, perhaps, in regarding an aristocracy, even more than +the idea of serenity, the idea of futility and sterility. One has +often wondered whether upon the whole [71] earth there is anything so +unintelligent, so unapt to perceive how the world is really going, as +an ordinary young Englishman of our upper class. Ideas he has not, +and neither has he that seriousness of our middle-class, which is, as +I have often said, the great strength of this class, and may become +its salvation. Why, a man may hear a young Dives of the aristocratic +class, when the whim takes him to sing the praises of wealth and +material comfort, sing them with a cynicism from which the conscience +of the veriest Philistine of our industrial middle-class would recoil +in affright. And when, with the natural sympathy of aristocracies +for firm dealing with the multitude, and his uneasiness at our feeble +dealing with it at home, an unvarnished young Englishman of our +aristocratic class applauds the absolute rulers on the Continent, he +in general manages completely to miss the grounds of reason and +intelligence which alone can give any colour of justification, any +possibility of existence, to those rulers, and applauds them on +grounds which it would make their own hair stand on end to listen to. + +And all this time, we are in an epoch of expansion; [72] and the +essence of an epoch of expansion is a movement of ideas, and the one +salvation of an epoch of expansion is a harmony of ideas. The very +principle of the authority which we are seeking as a defence against +anarchy is right reason, ideas, light. The more, therefore, an +aristocracy calls to its aid its innate forces,--its impenetrability, +its high spirit, its power of haughty resistance,--to deal with an +epoch of expansion, the graver is the danger, the greater the +certainty of explosion, the surer the aristocracy's defeat; for it is +trying to do violence to nature instead of working along with it. +The best powers shown by the best men of an aristocracy at such an +epoch are, it will be observed, non-aristocratical powers, powers of +industry, powers of intelligence; and these powers, thus exhibited, +tend really not to strengthen the aristocracy, but to take their +owners out of it, to expose them to the dissolving agencies of +thought and change, to make them men of the modern spirit and of the +future. If, as sometimes happens, they add to their non- +aristocratical qualities of labour and thought, a strong dose of +aristocratical qualities also,--of pride, defiance, turn for +resistance--this truly aristocratical [73] side of them, so far from +adding any strength to them really neutralises their force and makes +them impracticable and ineffective. + +Knowing myself to be indeed sadly to seek, as one of my many critics +says, in "a philosophy with coherent, interdependent, subordinate and +derivative principles," I continually have recourse to a plain man's +expedient of trying to make what few simple notions I have, clearer, +and more intelligible to myself, by means of example and +illustration. And having been brought up at Oxford in the bad old +times, when we were stuffed with Greek and Aristotle, and thought +nothing of preparing ourselves,--as after Mr. Lowe's great speech at +Edinburgh we shall do,--to fight the battle of life with the German +waiters, my head is still full of a lumber of phrases we learnt at +Oxford from Aristotle, about virtue being in a mean, and about excess +and defect, and so on. Once when I had had the advantage of +listening to the Reform debates in the House of Commons, having heard +a number of interesting speakers, and among them Lord Elcho and Sir +Thomas Bateson, I remember it struck me, applying Aristotle's +machinery of the [74] mean to my ideas about our aristocracy, that +Lord Elcho was exactly the perfection, or happy mean, or virtue, of +aristocracy, and Sir Thomas Bateson the excess; and I fancied that by +observing these two we might see both the inadequacy of aristocracy +to supply the principle of authority needful for our present wants, +and the danger of its trying to supply it when it was not really +competent for the business. On the one hand, in Lord Elcho, showing +plenty of high spirit, but remarkable, far above and beyond his gift +of high spirit, for the fine tempering of his high spirit, for ease, +serenity, politeness,--the great virtues, as Mr. Carlyle says, of +aristocracy,--in this beautiful and virtuous mean, there seemed +evidently some insufficiency of light; while, on the other hand, Sir +Thomas Bateson, in whom the high spirit of aristocracy, its +impenetrability, defiant courage, and pride of resistance, were +developed even in excess, was manifestly capable, if he had his way +given him, of causing us great danger, and, indeed, of throwing the +whole commonwealth into confusion. Then I reverted to that old +fundamental notion of mine about the grand merit of our race being +really our honesty; and the [75] very helplessness of our +aristocratic or governing class in dealing with our perturbed social +state gave me a sort of pride and satisfaction, because I saw they +were, as a whole, too honest to try and manage a business for which +they did not feel themselves capable. + +Surely, now, it is no inconsiderable boon culture confers upon us, if +in embarrassed times like the present it enables us to look at the +ins and the outs of things in this way, without hatred and without +partiality, and with a disposition to see the good in everybody all +round. And I try to follow just the same course with our middle- +class as with our aristocracy. Mr. Lowe talks to us of this strong +middle part of the nation, of the unrivalled deeds of our liberal +middle-class Parliament, of the noble, the heroic work it has +performed in the last thirty years; and I begin to ask myself if we +shall not, then, find in our middle-class the principle of authority +we want, and if we had not better take administration as well as +legislation away from the weak extreme which now administers for us, +and commit both to the strong middle part. I observe, too, that the +heroes of middle-class liberalism, such as we have [76] hitherto +known it, speak with a kind of prophetic anticipation of the great +destiny which awaits them, and as if the future was clearly theirs. +The advanced party, the progressive party, the party in alliance with +the future, are the names they like to give themselves. "The +principles which will obtain recognition in the future," says Mr. +Miall, a personage of deserved eminence among the political +Dissenters, as they are called, who have been the backbone of middle- +class liberalism--"the principles which will obtain recognition in +the future are the principles for which I have long and zealously +laboured. I qualified myself for joining in the work of harvest by +doing to the best of my ability the duties of seed-time." These +duties, if one is to gather them from the works of the great liberal +party in the last thirty years, are, as I have elsewhere summed them +up, the advocacy of free-trade, of parliamentary reform, of abolition +of church-rates, of voluntaryism in religion and education, of non- +interference of the State between employers and employed, and of +marriage with one's deceased wife's sister. + +Now I know, when I object that all this is machinery, the great +liberal middle-class has by this [77] time grown cunning enough to +answer, that it always meant more by these things than meets the eye; +that it has had that within which passes show, and that we are soon +going to see, in a Free Church and all manner of good things, what it +was. But I have learned from Bishop Wilson (if Mr. Frederic Harrison +will forgive my again quoting that poor old hierophant of a decayed +superstition): "If we would really know our heart let us impartially +view our actions;" and I cannot help thinking that if our liberals +had had so much sweetness and light in their inner minds as they +allege, more of it must have come out in their sayings and doings. +An American friend of the English liberals says, indeed, that their +Dissidence of Dissent has been a mere instrument of the political +Dissenters for making reason and the will of God prevail (and no +doubt he would say the same of marriage with one's deceased wife's +sister); and that the abolition of a State Church is merely the +Dissenter's means to this end, just as culture is mine. Another +American defender of theirs says just the same of their industrialism +and free-trade; indeed, this gentleman, taking the bull by the horns, +proposes that we should for the [78] future call industrialism +culture, and the industrialists the men of culture, and then of +course there can be no longer any misapprehension about their true +character; and besides the pleasure of being wealthy and comfortable, +they will have authentic recognition as vessels of sweetness and +light. All this is undoubtedly specious; but I must remark that the +culture of which I talked was an endeavour to come at reason and the +will of God by means of reading, observing, and thinking; and that +whoever calls anything else culture, may, indeed, call it so if he +likes, but then he talks of something quite different from what I +talked of. And, again, as culture's way of working for reason and +the will of God is by directly trying to know more about them, while +the Dissidence of Dissent is evidently in itself no effort of this +kind, nor is its Free Church, in fact, a church with worthier +conceptions of God and the ordering of the world than the State +Church professes, but with mainly the same conceptions of these as +the State Church has, only that every man is to comport himself as he +likes in professing them,--this being so, I cannot at once accept the +Nonconformity any more than the industrialism and the other great +[79] works of our liberal middle-class as proof positive that this +class is in possession of light, and that here is the true seat of +authority for which we are in search; but I must try a little +further, and seek for other indications which may enable me to make +up my mind. + +Why should we not do with the middle-class as we have done with the +aristocratic class,--find in it some representative men who may stand +for the virtuous mean of this class, for the perfection of its +present qualities and mode of being, and also for the excess of them. +Such men must clearly not be men of genius like Mr. Bright; for, as I +have formerly said, so far as a man has genius he tends to take +himself out of the category of class altogether, and to become simply +a man. Mr. Bright's brother, Mr. Jacob Bright, would, perhaps, be +more to the purpose; he seems to sum up very well in himself, without +disturbing influences, the general liberal force of the middle-class, +the force by which it has done its great works of free-trade, +parliamentary reform, voluntaryism, and so on, and the spirit in +which it has done them. Now it is clear, from what has been already +said, that there has been at least [80] an apparent want of light in +the force and spirit through which these great works have been done, +and that the works have worn in consequence too much a look of +machinery. But this will be clearer still if we take, as the happy +mean of the middle-class, not Mr. Jacob Bright, but his colleague in +the representation of Manchester, Mr. Bazley. Mr. Bazley sums up for +us, in general, the middle-class, its spirit and its works, at least +as well as Mr. Jacob Bright; and he has given us, moreover, a famous +sentence, which bears directly on the resolution of our present +question,--whether there is light enough in our middle-class to make +it the proper seat of the authority we wish to establish. When there +was a talk some little while ago about the state of middle-class +education, Mr. Bazley, as the representative of that class, spoke +some memorable words:--"There had been a cry that middle-class +education ought to receive more attention. He confessed himself very +much surprised by the clamour that was raised. He did not think that +class need excite the sympathy either of the legislature or the +public." Now this satisfaction of Mr. Bazley with the mental state +of the middle-class [81] was truly representative, and enhances his +claim (if that were necessary) to stand as the beautiful and virtuous +mean of that class. But it is obviously at variance with our +definition of culture, or the pursuit of light and perfection, which +made light and perfection consist, not in resting and being, but in +growing and becoming, in a perpetual advance in beauty and wisdom. +So the middle-class is by its essence, as one may say, by its +incomparable self-satisfaction decisively expressed through its +beautiful and virtuous mean, self-excluded from wielding an authority +of which light is to be the very soul. + +Clear as this is, it will be made clearer still if we take some +representative man as the excess of the middle-class, and remember +that the middle-class, in general, is to be conceived as a body +swaying between the qualities of its mean and of its excess, and on +the whole, of course, as human nature is constituted, inclining +rather towards the excess than the mean. Of its excess no better +representative can possibly be imagined than the Rev. W. Cattle, a +Dissenting minister from Walsall, who came before the public in +connection with the proceedings at [82] Birmingham of Mr. Murphy, +already mentioned. Speaking in the midst of an irritated population +of Catholics, the Rev. W. Cattle exclaimed:--"I say, then, away with +the mass! It is from the bottomless pit; and in the bottomless pit +shall all liars have their part, in the lake that burneth with fire +and brimstone." And again: "When all the praties were black in +Ireland, why didn't the priests say the hocus-pocus over them, and +make them all good again?" He shared, too, Mr. Murphy's fears of +some invasion of his domestic happiness: "What I wish to say to you +as Protestant husbands is, Take care of your wives!" And, finally, +in the true vein of an Englishman doing as he likes, a vein of which +I have at some length pointed out the present dangers, he recommended +for imitation the example of some churchwardens at Dublin, among +whom, said he, "there was a Luther and also a Melancthon," who had +made very short work with some ritualist or other, handed him down +from his pulpit, and kicked him out of church. Now it is manifest, +as I said in the case of Sir Thomas Bateson, that if we let this +excess of the sturdy English middle-class, this conscientious +Protestant Dissenter, so strong, so self- [83] reliant, so fully +persuaded in his own mind, have his way, he would be capable, with +his want of light--or, to use the language of the religious world, +with his zeal without knowledge--of stirring up strife which neither +he nor any one else could easily compose. + +And then comes in, as it did also with the aristocracy, the honesty +of our race, and by the voice of another middle-class man, Alderman +Wilson, Alderman of the City of London and Colonel of the City of +London Militia, proclaims that it has twinges of conscience, and that +it will not attempt to cope with our social disorders, and to deal +with a business which it feels to be too high for it. Every one +remembers how this virtuous Alderman-Colonel, or Colonel-Alderman, +led his militia through the London streets; how the bystanders +gathered to see him pass; how the London roughs, asserting an +Englishman's best and most blissful right of doing what he likes, +robbed and beat the bystanders; and how the blameless warrior- +magistrate refused to let his troops interfere. "The crowd," he +touchingly said afterwards, "was mostly composed of fine healthy +strong men, bent on mischief; if he had [84] allowed his soldiers to +interfere they might have been overpowered, their rifles taken from +them and used against them by the mob; a riot, in fact, might have +ensued, and been attended with bloodshed, compared with which the +assaults and loss of property that actually occurred would have been +as nothing." Honest and affecting testimony of the English middle- +class to its own inadequacy for the authoritative part one's +admiration would sometimes incline one to assign to it! "Who are +we," they say by the voice of their Alderman-Colonel, "that we should +not be overpowered if we attempt to cope with social anarchy, our +rifles taken from us and used against us by the mob, and we, perhaps, +robbed and beaten ourselves? Or what light have we, beyond a free- +born Englishman's impulse to do as he likes, which could justify us +in preventing, at the cost of bloodshed, other free-born Englishmen +from doing as they like, and robbing and beating us as much as they +please?" + +This distrust of themselves as an adequate centre of authority does +not mark the working-class, as was shown by their readiness the other +day in Hyde Park to take upon themselves all the functions of [85] +government. But this comes from the working-class being, as I have +often said, still an embryo, of which no one can yet quite foresee +the final development; and from its not having the same experience +and self-knowledge as the aristocratic and middle classes. Honesty +it no doubt has, just like the other classes of Englishmen, but +honesty in an inchoate and untrained state; and meanwhile its powers +of action, which are, as Mr. Frederic Harrison says, exceedingly +ready, easily run away with it. That it cannot at present have a +sufficiency of light which comes by culture,--that is, by reading, +observing, and thinking,--is clear from the very nature of its +condition; and, indeed, we saw that Mr. Frederic Harrison, in seeking +to make a free stage for its bright powers of sympathy and ready +powers of action, had to begin by throwing overboard culture, and +flouting it as only fit for a professor of belles lettres. Still, to +make it perfectly manifest that no more in the working-class than in +the aristocratic and middle classes can one find an adequate centre +of authority,--that is, as culture teaches us to conceive our +required authority, of light,--let us again follow, with this class, +the method we have [86] followed with the aristocratic and middle +classes, and try to bring before our minds representative men, who +may figure to us its virtue and its excess. We must not take, of +course, Colonel Dickson or Mr. Beales; because Colonel Dickson, by +his martial profession and dashing exterior, seems to belong +properly, like Julius Caesar and Mirabeau and other great popular +leaders, to the aristocratic class, and to be carried into the +popular ranks only by his ambition or his genius; while Mr. Beales +belongs to our solid middle-class, and, perhaps, if he had not been a +great popular leader, would have been a Philistine. But Mr. Odger, +whose speeches we have all read, and of whom his friends relate, +besides, much that is favourable, may very well stand for the +beautiful and virtuous mean of our present working-class; and I think +everybody will admit that in Mr. Odger, as in Lord Elcho, there is +manifestly, with all his good points, some insufficiency of light. +The excess of the working-class, in its present state of development, +is perhaps best shown in Mr. Bradlaugh, the iconoclast, who seems to +be almost for baptizing us all in blood and fire into his new social +dispensation, and to whose [87] reflections, now that I have once +been set going on Bishop Wilson's track, I cannot forbear commending +this maxim of the good old man: "Intemperance in talk makes a +dreadful havoc in the heart." Mr. Bradlaugh, like Sir Thomas Bateson +and the Rev. W. Cattle, is evidently capable, if he had his head +given him, of running us all into great dangers and confusion. I +conclude, therefore,--what, indeed, few of those who do me the honour +to read this disquisition are likely to dispute,--that we can as +little find in the working-class as in the aristocratic or in the +middle class our much-wanted source of authority, as culture suggests +it to us. + +Well, then, what if we tried to rise above the idea of class to the +idea of the whole community, the State, and to find our centre of +light and authority there? Every one of us has the idea of country, +as a sentiment; hardly any one of us has the idea of the State, as a +working power. And why? Because we habitually live in our ordinary +selves, which do not carry us beyond the ideas and wishes of the +class to which we happen to belong. And we are all afraid of giving +to the State too much power, because we only conceive of the State +[88] as something equivalent to the class in occupation of the +executive government, and are afraid of that class abusing power to +its own purposes. If we strengthen the State with the aristocratic +class in occupation of the executive government, we imagine we are +delivering ourselves up captive to the ideas and wishes of Sir Thomas +Bateson; if with the middle-class in occupation of the executive +government, to those of the Rev. W. Cattle; if with the working- +class, to those of Mr. Bradlaugh. And with much justice; owing to +the exaggerated notion which we English, as I have said, entertain of +the right and blessedness of the mere doing as one likes, of the +affirming oneself, and oneself just as it is. People of the +aristocratic class want to affirm their ordinary selves, their +likings and dislikings; people of the middle-class the same, people +of the working-class the same. By our everyday selves, however, we +are separate, personal, at war; we are only safe from one another's +tyranny when no one has any power; and this safety, in its turn, +cannot save us from anarchy. And when, therefore, anarchy presents +itself as a danger to us, we know not where to turn. + +[89] But by our best self we are united, impersonal, at harmony. We +are in no peril from giving authority to this, because it is the +truest friend we all of us can have; and when anarchy is a danger to +us, to this authority we may turn with sure trust. Well, and this is +the very self which culture, or the study of perfection, seeks to +develop in us; at the expense of our old untransformed self, taking +pleasure only in doing what it likes or is used to do, and exposing +us to the risk of clashing with every one else who is doing the same! +So that our poor culture, which is flouted as so unpractical, leads +us to the very ideas capable of meeting the great want of our present +embarrassed times! We want an authority, and we find nothing but +jealous classes, checks, and a dead-lock; culture suggests the idea +of the State. We find no basis for a firm State-power in our +ordinary selves; culture suggests one to us in our best self. + +It cannot but acutely try a tender conscience to be accused, in a +practical country like ours, of keeping aloof from the work and hope +of a multitude of earnest-hearted men, and of merely toying with +poetry and aesthetics. So it is with no little [90] sense of relief +that I find myself thus in the position of one who makes a +contribution in aid of the practical necessities of our times. The +great thing, it will be observed, is to find our best self, and to +seek to affirm nothing but that; not,--as we English with our over- +value for merely being free and busy have been so accustomed to do,-- +resting satisfied with a self which comes uppermost long before our +best self, and affirming that with blind energy. In short,--to go +back yet once more to Bishop Wilson,--of these two excellent rules of +Bishop Wilson's for a man's guidance: "Firstly, never go against the +best light you have; secondly, take care that your light be not +darkness," we English have followed with praiseworthy zeal the first +rule, but we have not given so much heed to the second. We have gone +manfully, the Rev. W. Cattle and the rest of us, according to the +best light we have; but we have not taken enough care that this +should be really the best light possible for us, that it should not +be darkness. And, our honesty being very great, conscience has +whispered to us that the light we were following, our ordinary self, +was, indeed, perhaps, only an inferior self, only darkness; and [91] +that it would not do to impose this seriously on all the world. + +But our best self inspires faith, and is capable of affording a +serious principle of authority. For example. We are on our way to +what the late Duke of Wellington, with his strong sagacity, foresaw +and admirably described as "a revolution by due course of law." This +is undoubtedly,--if we are still to live and grow, and this famous +nation is not to stagnate and dwindle away on the one hand, or, on +the other, to perish miserably in mere anarchy and confusion,--what +we are on the way to. Great changes there must be, for a revolution +cannot accomplish itself without great changes; yet order there must +be, for without order a revolution cannot accomplish itself by due +course of law. So whatever brings risk of tumult and disorder, +multitudinous processions in the streets of our crowded towns, +multitudinous meetings in their public places and parks,-- +demonstrations perfectly unnecessary in the present course of our +affairs,--our best self, or right reason, plainly enjoins us to set +our faces against. It enjoins us to encourage and uphold the +occupants of the executive power, whoever they [92] may be, in firmly +prohibiting them. But it does this clearly and resolutely, and is +thus a real principle of authority, because it does it with a free +conscience; because in thus provisionally strengthening the executive +power, it knows that it is not doing this merely to enable Sir Thomas +Bateson to affirm himself as against Mr. Bradlaugh, or the Rev. W. +Cattle to affirm himself as against both. It knows that it is +stablishing the State, or organ of our collective best self, of our +national right reason; and it has the testimony of conscience that it +is stablishing the State on behalf of whatever great changes are +needed, just as much as on behalf of order; stablishing it to deal +just as stringently, when the time comes, with Sir Thomas Bateson's +Protestant ascendency, or with the Rev. W. Cattle's sorry education +of his children, as it deals with Mr. Bradlaugh's street-processions. + +NOTES + +56. +posse comitatûs. Arnold's phrase refers to the medieval +institution of the "power of the county." It originally consisted of +a county's able-bodied males over fifteen, and the local authorities +might call upon it to preserve order. Later, the posse became an +instrument of the church parish. + +64. +London's Hyde Park riots occurred in 1866. Reform Leaguers bent +on assembling to promote universal suffrage broke through the iron +rails encompassing the Park. + + + +CHAPTER III + +[93] From a man without a philosophy no one can expect philosophical +completeness. Therefore I may observe without shame, that in trying +to get a distinct notion of our aristocratic, our middle, and our +working class, with a view of testing the claims of each of these +classes to become a centre of authority, I have omitted, I find, to +complete the old-fashioned analysis which I had the fancy of +applying, and have not shown in these classes, as well as the +virtuous mean and the excess, the defect also. I do not know that +the omission very much matters; still as clearness is the one merit +which a plain, unsystematic writer, without a philosophy, can hope to +have, and as our notion of the three great English classes may +perhaps be made clearer if we see their distinctive qualities in the +defect, as well as in the excess and in the mean, let us try, before +proceeding further, to remedy this omission. + +It is manifest, if the perfect and virtuous mean of that fine spirit +which is the distinctive quality [94] of aristocracies, is to be +found in Lord Elcho's chivalrous style, and its excess in Sir Thomas +Bateson's turn for resistance, that its defect must lie in a spirit +not bold and high enough, and in an excessive and pusillanimous +unaptness for resistance. If, again, the perfect and virtuous mean +of that force by which our middle-class has done its great works, and +of that self-reliance with which it contemplates itself and them, is +to be seen in the performances and speeches of Mr. Bazley, and the +excess of that force and that self-reliance in the performances and +speeches of the Rev. W. Cattle, then it is manifest that their defect +must lie in a helpless inaptitude for the great works of the middle- +class, and in a poor and despicable lack of its self-satisfaction. +To be chosen to exemplify the happy mean of a good quality, or set of +good qualities, is evidently a praise to a man; nay, to be chosen to +exemplify even their excess, is a kind of praise. Therefore I could +have no hesitation in taking Lord Elcho and Mr. Bazley, the Rev. W. +Cattle and Sir Thomas Bateson, to exemplify, respectively, the mean +and the excess of aristocratic and middle-class qualities. But +perhaps there might [95] be a want of urbanity in singling out this +or that personage as the representative of defect. Therefore I shall +leave the defect of aristocracy unillustrated by any representative +man. But with oneself one may always, without impropriety, deal +quite freely; and, indeed, this sort of plain-dealing with oneself +has in it, as all the moralists tell us, something very wholesome. +So I will venture to humbly offer myself as an illustration of defect +in those forces and qualities which make our middle-class what it is. +The too well-founded reproaches of my opponents declare how little I +have lent a hand to the great works of the middle-class; for it is +evidently these works, and my slackness at them, which are meant, +when I am said to "refuse to lend a hand to the humble operation of +uprooting certain definite evils" (such as church-rates and others), +and that therefore "the believers in action grow impatient" with me. +The line, again, of a still unsatisfied seeker which I have followed, +the idea of self-transformation, of growing towards some measure of +sweetness and light not yet reached, is evidently at clean variance +with the perfect self-satisfaction current in my class, the middle- +class, [96] and may serve to indicate in me, therefore, the extreme +defect of this feeling. But these confessions, though salutary, are +bitter and unpleasant. + +To pass, then, to the working-class. The defect of this class would +be the falling short in what Mr. Frederic Harrison calls those +"bright powers of sympathy and ready powers of action," of which we +saw in Mr. Odger the virtuous mean, and in Mr. Bradlaugh the excess. +The working-class is so fast growing and rising at the present time, +that instances of this defect cannot well be now very common. +Perhaps Canning's "Needy Knife-grinder" (who is dead, and therefore +cannot be pained at my taking him for an illustration) may serve to +give us the notion of defect in the essential quality of a working- +class; or I might even cite (since, though he is alive in the flesh, +he is dead to all heed of criticism) my poor old poaching friend, +Zephaniah Diggs, who, between his hare-snaring and his gin-drinking, +has got his powers of sympathy quite dulled and his powers of action +in any great movement of his class hopelessly impaired. But examples +of this defect belong, as I have said, to a bygone age rather than to +the present. + +[97] The same desire for clearness, which has led me thus to extend a +little my first analysis of the three great classes of English +society, prompts me also to make my nomenclature for them a little +fuller, with a view to making it thereby more clear and manageable. +It is awkward and tiresome to be always saying the aristocratic +class, the middle-class, the working-class. For the middle-class, +for that great body which, as we know, "has done all the great things +that have been done in all departments," and which is to be conceived +as chiefly moving between its two cardinal points of Mr. Bazley and +the Rev. W. Cattle, but inclining, in the mass, rather towards the +latter than the former--for this class we have a designation which +now has become pretty well known, and which we may as well still keep +for them, the designation of Philistines. What this term means I +have so often explained that I need not repeat it here. For the +aristocratic class, conceived mainly as a body moving between the two +cardinal points of Lord Elcho and Sir Thomas Bateson, but as a whole +nearer to the latter than the former, we have as yet got no special +designation. Almost [98] all my attention has naturally been +concentrated on my own class, the middle-class, with which I am in +closest sympathy, and which has been, besides, the great power of our +day, and has had its praises sung by all speakers and newspapers. +Still the aristocratic class is so important in itself, and the +weighty functions which Mr. Carlyle proposes at the present critical +time to commit to it must add so much to its importance, that it +seems neglectful, and a strong instance of that want of coherent +philosophic method for which Mr. Frederic Harrison blames me, to +leave the aristocratic class so much without notice and denomination. +It may be thought that the characteristic which I have occasionally +mentioned as proper to aristocracies,--their natural inaccessibility, +as children of the established fact, to ideas,--points to our +extending to this class also the designation of Philistines; the +Philistine being, as is well known, the enemy of the children of +light, or servants of the idea. Nevertheless, there seems to be an +inconvenience in thus giving one and the same designation to two very +different classes; and besides, if we look into the thing closely, we +shall find that the term Philistine conveys a sense which [99] makes +it more peculiarly appropriate to our middle class than to our +aristocratic. For Philistine gives the notion of something +particularly stiff-necked and perverse in the resistance to light and +its children, and therein it specially suits our middle-class, who +not only do not pursue sweetness and light, but who prefer to them +that sort of machinery of business, chapels, tea meetings, and +addresses from Mr. Murphy and the Rev. W. Cattle, which makes up the +dismal and illiberal life on which I have so often touched. But the +aristocratic class has actually, as we have seen, in its well-known +politeness, a kind of image or shadow of sweetness; and as for light, +if it does not pursue light, it is not that it perversely cherishes +some dismal and illiberal existence in preference to light, but it is +seduced from following light by those mighty and eternal seducers of +our race which weave for this class their most irresistible charms,-- +by worldly splendour, security, power and pleasure. These seducers +are exterior goods, but they are goods; and he who is hindered by +them from caring for light and ideas, is not so much doing what is +perverse as what is natural. + +Keeping this in view, I have in my own mind [100] often indulged +myself with the fancy of putting side by side with the idea of our +aristocratic class, the idea of the Barbarians. The Barbarians, to +whom we all owe so much, and who reinvigorated and renewed our worn- +out Europe, had, as is well-known, eminent merits; and in this +country, where we are for the most part sprung from the Barbarians, +we have never had the prejudice against them which prevails among the +races of Latin origin. The Barbarians brought with them that staunch +individualism, as the modern phrase is, and that passion for doing as +one likes, for the assertion of personal liberty, which appears to +Mr. Bright the central idea of English life, and of which we have, at +any rate, a very rich supply. The stronghold and natural seat of +this passion was in the nobles of whom our aristocratic class are the +inheritors; and this class, accordingly, have signally manifested it, +and have done much by their example to recommend it to the body of +the nation, who already, indeed, had it in their blood. The +Barbarians, again, had the passion for field-sports; and they have +handed it on to our aristocratic class, who of this passion too, as +of the passion for asserting one's personal liberty, are the [101] +great natural stronghold. The care of the Barbarians for the body, +and for all manly exercises; the vigour, good looks, and fine +complexion which they acquired and perpetuated in their families by +these means,--all this may be observed still in our aristocratic +class. The chivalry of the Barbarians, with its characteristics of +high spirit, choice manners, and distinguished bearing,--what is this +but the beautiful commencement of the politeness of our aristocratic +class? In some Barbarian noble, no doubt, one would have admired, if +one could have been then alive to see it, the rudiments of Lord +Elcho. Only, all this culture (to call it by that name) of the +Barbarians was an exterior culture mainly: it consisted principally +in outward gifts and graces, in looks, manners, accomplishments, +prowess; the chief inward gifts which had part in it were the most +exterior, so to speak, of inward gifts, those which come nearest to +outward ones: they were courage, a high spirit, self-confidence. Far +within, and unawakened, lay a whole range of powers of thought and +feeling, to which these interesting productions of nature had, from +the circumstances of their life, no access. Making allowances for +the [102] difference of the times, surely we can observe precisely +the same thing now in our aristocratic class. In general its culture +is exterior chiefly; all the exterior graces and accomplishments, and +the more external of the inward virtues, seem to be principally its +portion. It now, of course, cannot but be often in contact with +those studies by which, from the world of thought and feeling, true +culture teaches us to fetch sweetness and light; but its hold upon +these very studies appears remarkably external, and unable to exert +any deep power upon its spirit. Therefore the one insufficiency +which we noted in the perfect mean of this class, Lord Elcho, was an +insufficiency of light. And owing to the same causes, does not a +subtle criticism lead us to make, even on the good looks and +politeness of our aristocratic class, the one qualifying remark, that +in these charming gifts there should perhaps be, for ideal +perfection, a shade more soul? + +I often, therefore, when I want to distinguish clearly the +aristocratic class from the Philistines proper, or middle-class, name +the former, in my own mind, the Barbarians: and when I go through the +country, and see this and that beautiful and [103] imposing seat of +theirs crowning the landscape, "There," I say to myself, "is a great +fortified post of the Barbarians." + +It is obvious that that part of the working-class which, working +diligently by the light of Mrs. Gooch's Golden Rule, looks forward to +the happy day when it will sit on thrones with Mr. Bazley and other +middle-class potentates, to survey, as Mr. Bright beautifully says, +"the cities it has built, the railroads it has made, the manufactures +it has produced, the cargoes which freight the ships of the greatest +mercantile navy the world has ever seen,"--it is obvious, I say, that +this part of the working-class is, or is in a fair way to be, one in +spirit with the industrial middle-class. It is notorious that our +middle-class liberals have long looked forward to this consummation, +when the working-class shall join forces with them, aid them heartily +to carry forward their great works, go in a body to their tea- +meetings, and, in short, enable them to bring about their millennium. +That part of the working-class, therefore, which does really seem to +lend itself to these great aims, may, with propriety, be numbered by +us among the Philistines. That part of it, again, which [104] so +much occupies the attention of philanthropists at present,--the part +which gives all its energies to organising itself, through trades' +unions and other means, so as to constitute, first, a great working- +class power, independent of the middle and aristocratic classes, and +then, by dint of numbers, give the law to them, and itself reign +absolutely,--this lively and interesting part must also, according to +our definition, go with the Philistines; because it is its class and +its class-instinct which it seeks to affirm, its ordinary self not +its best self; and it is a machinery, an industrial machinery, and +power and pre-eminence and other external goods which fill its +thoughts, and not an inward perfection. It is wholly occupied, +according to Plato's subtle expression, with the things of itself and +not its real self, with the things of the State and not the real +State. But that vast portion, lastly, of the working-class which, +raw and half-developed, has long lain half-hidden amidst its poverty +and squalor, and is now issuing from its hiding-place to assert an +Englishman's heaven-born privilege of doing as he likes, and is +beginning to perplex us by marching where it likes, meeting where it +likes, bawling what it likes, [105] breaking what it likes,--to this +vast residuum we may with great propriety give the name of Populace. + +Thus we have got three distinct terms, Barbarians, Philistines, +Populace, to denote roughly the three great classes into which our +society is divided; and though this humble attempt at a scientific +nomenclature falls, no doubt, very far short in precision of what +might be required from a writer equipped with a complete and coherent +philosophy, yet, from a notoriously unsystematic and unpretending +writer, it will, I trust, be accepted as sufficient. + +But in using this new, and, I hope, convenient division of English +society, two things are to be borne in mind. The first is, that +since, under all our class divisions, there is a common basis of +human nature, therefore, in every one of us, whether we be properly +Barbarians, Philistines, or Populace, there exists, sometimes only in +germ and potentially, sometimes more or less developed, the same +tendencies and passions which have made our fellow-citizens of other +classes what they are. This consideration is very important, because +it has great influence in begetting that spirit of indulgence which +[106] is a necessary part of sweetness, and which, indeed, when our +culture is complete, is, as I have said, inexhaustible. Thus, an +English Barbarian who examines himself, will, in general, find +himself to be not so entirely a Barbarian but that he has in him, +also, something of the Philistine, and even something of the Populace +as well. And the same with Englishmen of the two other classes. +This is an experience which we may all verify every day. For +instance, I myself (I again take myself as a sort of corpus vile to +serve for illustration in a matter where serving for illustration may +not by every one be thought agreeable), I myself am properly a +Philistine,--Mr. Swinburne would add, the son of a Philistine,--and +though, through circumstances which will perhaps one day be known, if +ever the affecting history of my conversion comes to be written, I +have, for the most part, broken with the ideas and the tea-meetings +of my own class, yet I have not, on that account, been brought much +the nearer to the ideas and works of the Barbarians or of the +Populace. Nevertheless, I never take a gun or a fishing-rod in my +hands without feeling that I have in the ground of my nature the +self-same seeds which, fostered by [107] circumstances, do so much to +make the Barbarian; and that, with the Barbarian's advantages, I +might have rivalled him. Place me in one of his great fortified +posts, with these seeds of a love for field-sports sown in my nature, +With all the means of developing them, with all pleasures at my +command, with most whom I met deferring to me, every one I met +smiling on me, and with every appearance of permanence and security +before me and behind me,--then I too might have grown, I feel, into a +very passable child of the established fact, of commendable spirit +and politeness, and, at the same time, a little inaccessible to ideas +and light; not, of course, with either the eminent fine spirit of +Lord Elcho, or the eminent power of resistance of Sir Thomas Bateson, +but, according to the measure of the common run of mankind, something +between the two. And as to the Populace, who, whether he be +Barbarian or Philistine, can look at them without sympathy, when he +remembers how often,--every time that we snatch up a vehement opinion +in ignorance and passion, every time that we long to crush an +adversary by sheer violence, every time that we are envious, every +time that we are brutal, [108] every time that we adore mere power or +success, every time that we add our voice to swell a blind clamour +against some unpopular personage, every time that we trample savagely +on the fallen,--he has found in his own bosom the eternal spirit of +the Populace, and that there needs only a little help from +circumstances to make it triumph in him untameably? + +The second thing to be borne in mind I have indicated several times +already. It is this. All of us, so far as we are Barbarians, +Philistines, or Populace, imagine happiness to consist in doing what +one's ordinary self likes. What one's ordinary self likes differs +according to the class to which one belongs, and has its severer and +its lighter side; always, however, remaining machinery, and nothing +more. The graver self of the Barbarian likes honours and +consideration; his more relaxed self, field-sports and pleasure. The +graver self of one kind of Philistine likes business and money- +making; his more relaxed self, comfort and tea-meetings. Of another +kind of Philistine, the graver self likes trades' unions; the relaxed +self, deputations, or hearing Mr. Odger speak. The sterner self of +the [109] Populace likes bawling, hustling, and smashing; the lighter +self, beer. But in each class there are born a certain number of +natures with a curiosity about their best self, with a bent for +seeing things as they are, for disentangling themselves from +machinery, for simply concerning themselves with reason and the will +of God, and doing their best to make these prevail;--for the pursuit, +in a word, of perfection. To certain manifestations of this love for +perfection mankind have accustomed themselves to give the name of +genius; implying, by this name, something original and heaven- +bestowed in the passion. But the passion is to be found far beyond +those manifestations of it to which the world usually gives the name +of genius, and in which there is, for the most part, a talent of some +kind or other, a special and striking faculty of execution, informed +by the heaven-bestowed ardour, or genius. It is to be found in many +manifestations besides these, and may best be called, as we have +called it, the love and pursuit of perfection; culture being the true +nurse of the pursuing love, and sweetness and light the true +character of the pursued perfection. Natures with this bent emerge +in all classes,--among the Barbarians, among the Philistines, [110] +among the Populace. And this bent always tends, as I have said, to +take them out of their class, and to make their distinguishing +characteristic not their Barbarianism or their Philistinism, but +their humanity. They have, in general, a rough time of it in their +lives; but they are sown more abundantly than one might think, they +appear where and when one least expects it, they set up a fire which +enfilades, so to speak, the class with which they are ranked; and, in +general, by the extrication of their best self as the self to +develope, and by the simplicity of the ends fixed by them as +paramount, they hinder the unchecked predominance of that class-life +which is the affirmation of our ordinary self, and seasonably +disconcert mankind in their worship of machinery. + +Therefore, when we speak of ourselves as divided into Barbarians, +Philistines, and Populace, we must be understood always to imply that +within each of these classes there are a certain number of aliens, if +we may so call them,--persons who are mainly led, not by their class +spirit, but by a general humane spirit, by the love of human +perfection; and that this number is capable of being diminished or +augmented. I mean, the number of those who will succeed in [111] +developing this happy instinct will be greater or smaller, in +proportion both to the force of the original instinct within them, +and to the hindrance or encouragement which it meets with from +without. In almost all who have it, it is mixed with some infusion +of the spirit of an ordinary self, some quantity of class-instinct, +and even, as has been shown, of more than one class-instinct at the +same time; so that, in general, the extrication of the best self, the +predominance of the humane instinct, will very much depend upon its +meeting, or not, with what is fitted to help and elicit it. At a +moment, therefore, when it is agreed that we want a source of +authority, and when it seems probable that the right source is our +best self, it becomes of vast importance to see whether or not the +things around us are, in general, such as to help and elicit our best +self, and if they are not, to see why they are not, and the most +promising way of mending them. + +Now, it is clear that the very absence of any powerful authority +amongst us, and the prevalent doctrine of the duty and happiness of +doing as one likes, and asserting our personal liberty, must tend to +prevent the erection of any very strict standard of [112] excellence, +the belief in any very paramount authority of right reason, the +recognition of our best self as anything very recondite and hard to +come at. It may be, as I have said, a proof of our honesty that we +do not attempt to give to our ordinary self, as we have it in action, +predominant authority, and to impose its rule upon other people; but +it is evident, also, that it is not easy, with our style of +proceeding, to get beyond the notion of an ordinary self at all, or +to get the paramount authority of a commanding best self, or right +reason, recognised. The learned Martinus Scriblerus well says:--"The +taste of the bathos is implanted by nature itself in the soul of man; +till, perverted by custom or example, he is taught, or rather +compelled, to relish the sublime." But with us everything seems +directed to prevent any such perversion of us by custom or example as +might compel us to relish the sublime; by all means we are encouraged +to keep our natural taste for the bathos unimpaired. I have formerly +pointed out how in literature the absence of any authoritative +centre, like an Academy, tends to do this; each section of the public +has its own literary organ, and the mass of the public is without any +suspicion that [113] the value of these organs is relative to their +being nearer a certain ideal centre of correct information, taste, +and intelligence, or farther away from it. I have said that within +certain limits, which any one who is likely to read this will have no +difficulty in drawing for himself, my old adversary, the Saturday +Review, may, on matters of literature and taste, be fairly enough +regarded, relatively to a great number of newspapers which treat +these matters, as a kind of organ of reason. But I remember once +conversing with a company of Nonconformist admirers of some lecturer +who had let off a great fire-work, which the Saturday Review said was +all noise and false lights, and feeling my way as tenderly as I could +about the effect of this unfavourable judgment upon those with whom I +was conversing. "Oh," said one who was their spokesman, with the +most tranquil air of conviction, "it is true the Saturday Review +abuses the lecture, but the British Banner" (I am not quite sure it +was the British Banner, but it was some newspaper of that stamp) +"says that the Saturday Review is quite wrong." The speaker had +evidently no notion that there was a scale of value for judgments on +these topics, and that the judgments of the [114] Saturday Review +ranked high on this scale, and those of the British Banner low; the +taste of the bathos implanted by nature in the literary judgments of +man had never, in my friend's case, encountered any let or hindrance. + +Just the same in religion as in literature. We have most of us +little idea of a high standard to choose our guides by, of a great +and profound spirit, which is an authority, while inferior spirits +are none; it is enough to give importance to things that this or that +person says them decisively, and has a large following of some strong +kind when he says them. This habit of ours is very well shown in +that able and interesting work of Mr. Hepworth Dixon's, which we were +all reading lately, The Mormons, by One of Themselves. Here, again, +I am not quite sure that my memory serves me as to the exact title, +but I mean the well-known book in which Mr. Hepworth Dixon described +the Mormons, and other similar religious bodies in America, with so +much detail and such warm sympathy. In this work it seems enough for +Mr. Dixon that this or that doctrine has its Rabbi, who talks big to +him, has a staunch body of disciples, and, above all, has plenty +[115] of rifles. That there are any further stricter tests to be +applied to a doctrine, before it is pronounced important, never seems +to occur to him. "It is easy to say," he writes of the Mormons, +"that these saints are dupes and fanatics, to laugh at Joe Smith and +his church, but what then? The great facts remain. Young and his +people are at Utah; a church of 200,000 souls; an army of 20,000 +rifles." But if the followers of a doctrine are really dupes, or +worse, and its promulgators are really fanatics, or worse, it gives +the doctrine no seriousness or authority the more that there should +be found 200,000 souls,--200,000 of the innumerable multitude with a +natural taste for the bathos,--to hold it, and 20,000 rifles to +defend it. And again, of another religious organisation in America: +"A fair and open field is not to be refused when hosts so mighty +throw down wager of battle on behalf of what they hold to be true, +however strange their faith may seem." A fair and open field is not +to be refused to any speaker; but this solemn way of heralding him is +quite out of place unless he has, for the best reason and spirit of +man, some significance. "Well, but," says Mr. Hepworth Dixon, [116] +"a theory which has been accepted by men like Judge Edmonds, Dr. +Hare, Elder Frederick, and Professor Bush!" And again: "Such are, in +brief, the bases of what Newman Weeks, Sarah Horton, Deborah Butler, +and the associated brethren, proclaimed in Rolt's Hall as the new +covenant!" If he was summing up an account of the teaching of Plato +or St. Paul, Mr. Hepworth Dixon could not be more earnestly +reverential. But the question is, have personages like Judge +Edmonds, and Newman Weeks, and Elderess Polly, and Elderess +Antoinette, and the rest of Mr. Hepworth Dixon's heroes and heroines, +anything of the weight and significance for the best reason and +spirit of man that Plato and St. Paul have? Evidently they, at +present, have not; and a very small taste of them and their doctrines +ought to have convinced Mr. Hepworth Dixon that they never could +have. "But," says he, "the magnetic power which Shakerism is +exercising on American thought would of itself compel us,"--and so +on. Now as far as real thought is concerned,--thought which affects +the best reason and spirit of man, the scientific thought of the +world, the only thought which deserves [117] speaking of in this +solemn way,--America has up to the present time been hardly more than +a province of England, and even now would not herself claim to be +more than abreast of England; and of this only real human thought, +English thought itself is not just now, as we must all admit, one of +the most significant factors. Neither, then, can American thought +be; and the magnetic power which Shakerism exercises on American +thought is about as important, for the best reason and spirit of man, +as the magnetic power which Mr. Murphy exercises on Birmingham +Protestantism. And as we shall never get rid of our natural taste +for the bathos in religion,--never get access to a best self and +right reason which may stand as a serious authority,--by treating Mr. +Murphy as his own disciples treat him, seriously, and as if he was as +much an authority as any one else: so we shall never get rid of it +while our able and popular writers treat their Joe Smiths and Deborah +Butlers, with their so many thousand souls and so many thousand +rifles, in the like exaggerated and misleading manner, and so do +their best to confirm us in a bad mental habit to which we are +already too prone. + +[118] If our habits make it hard for us to come at the idea of a high +best self, of a paramount authority, in literature or religion, how +much more do they make this hard in the sphere of politics! In other +countries, the governors, not depending so immediately on the favour +of the governed, have everything to urge them, if they know anything +of right reason (and it is at least supposed that governors should +know more of this than the mass of the governed), to set it +authoritatively before the community. But our whole scheme of +government being representative, every one of our governors has all +possible temptation, instead of setting up before the governed who +elect him, and on whose favour he depends, a high standard of right +reason, to accommodate himself as much as possible to their natural +taste for the bathos; and even if he tries to go counter to it, to +proceed in this with so much flattering and coaxing, that they shall +not suspect their ignorance and prejudices to be anything very unlike +right reason, or their natural taste for the bathos to differ much +from a relish for the sublime. Every one is thus in every possible +way encouraged to trust in his own heart; but "he that trusteth in +his [119] own heart," says the Wise Man, "is a fool;"+ and at any +rate this, which Bishop Wilson says, is undeniably true: "The number +of those who need to be awakened is far greater than that of those +who need comfort." But in our political system everybody is +comforted. Our guides and governors who have to be elected by the +influence of the Barbarians, and who depend on their favour, sing the +praises of the Barbarians, and say all the smooth things that can be +said of them. With Mr. Tennyson, they celebrate "the great broad- +shouldered genial Englishman," with his "sense of duty," his +"reverence for the laws," and his "patient force," who saves us from +the "revolts, republics, revolutions, most no graver than a +schoolboy's barring out," which upset other and less broad-shouldered +nations. Our guides who are chosen by the Philistines and who have +to look to their favour, tell the Philistines how "all the world +knows that the great middle-class of this country supplies the mind, +the will, and the power requisite for all the great and good things +that have to be done," and congratulate them on their "earnest good +sense, which penetrates through sophisms, ignores commonplaces, and +gives to conventional illusions their [120] true value." Our guides +who look to the favour of the Populace, tell them that "theirs are +the brightest powers of sympathy, and the readiest powers of action." +Harsh things are said too, no doubt, against all the great classes of +the community; but these things so evidently come from a hostile +class, and are so manifestly dictated by the passions and +prepossessions of a hostile class, and not by right reason, that they +make no serious impression on those at whom they are launched, but +slide easily off their minds. For instance, when the Reform League +orators inveigh against our cruel and bloated aristocracy, these +invectives so evidently show the passions and point of view of the +Populace, that they do not sink into the minds of those at whom they +are addressed, or awaken any thought or self-examination in them. +Again, when Sir Thomas Bateson describes the Philistines and the +Populace as influenced with a kind of hideous mania for emasculating +the aristocracy, that reproach so clearly comes from the wrath and +excited imagination of the Barbarians, that it does not much set the +Philistines and the Populace thinking. Or when Mr. Lowe calls the +Populace drunken and venal, he [121] so evidently calls them this in +an agony of apprehension for his Philistine or middle-class +Parliament, which has done so many great and heroic works, and is now +threatened with mixture and debasement, that the Populace do not lay +his words seriously to heart. So the voice which makes a permanent +impression on each of our classes is the voice of its friends, and +this is from the nature of things, as I have said, a comforting +voice. The Barbarians remain in the belief that the great broad- +shouldered genial Englishman may be well satisfied with himself; the +Philistines remain in the belief that the great middle-class of this +country, with its earnest common-sense penetrating through sophisms +and ignoring commonplaces, may be well satisfied with itself: the +Populace, that the working-man with his bright powers of sympathy and +ready powers of action, may be well satisfied with himself. What +hope, at this rate, of extinguishing the taste of the bathos +implanted by nature itself in the soul of man, or of inculcating the +belief that excellence dwells among high and steep rocks, and can +only be reached by those who sweat blood to reach her? But it will +be said, perhaps, that candidates for [122] political influence and +leadership, who thus caress the self-love of those whose suffrages +they desire, know quite well that they are not saying the sheer truth +as reason sees it, but that they are using a sort of conventional +language, or what we call clap-trap, which is essential to the +working of representative institutions. And therefore, I suppose, we +ought rather to say with Figaro: Qui est-ce qu'on trompe ici?+ Now, +I admit that often, but not always, when our governors say smooth +things to the self-love of the class whose political support they +want, they know very well that they are overstepping, by a long +stride, the bounds of truth and soberness; and while they talk, they +in a manner, no doubt, put their tongue in their cheek. Not always; +because, when a Barbarian appeals to his own class to make him their +representative and give him political power, he, when he pleases +their self-love by extolling broad-shouldered genial Englishmen with +their sense of duty, reverence for the laws, and patient force, +pleases his own self-love and extols himself, and is, therefore, +himself ensnared by his own smooth words. And so, too, when a +Philistine wants to represent his brother Philistines, and [123] +extols the earnest good sense which characterises Manchester, and +supplies the mind, the will, and the power, as the Daily News +eloquently says, requisite for all the great and good things that +have to be done, he intoxicates and deludes himself as well as his +brother Philistines who hear him. But it is true that a Barbarian +often wants the political support of the Philistines; and he +unquestionably, when he flatters the self-love of Philistinism, and +extols, in the approved fashion, its energy, enterprise, and self- +reliance, knows that he is talking clap-trap, and, so to say, puts +his tongue in his cheek. On all matters where Nonconformity and its +catchwords are concerned, this insincerity of Barbarians needing +Nonconformist support, and, therefore, flattering the self-love of +Nonconformity and repeating its catchwords without the least real +belief in them, is very noticeable. When the Nonconformists, in a +transport of blind zeal, threw out Sir James Graham's useful +Education Clauses in 1843, one-half of their parliamentary +representatives, no doubt, who cried aloud against "trampling on the +religious liberty of the Dissenters by taking the money of Dissenters +to teach the tenets of the [124] Church of England," put their tongue +in their cheek while they so cried out. And perhaps there is even a +sort of motion of Mr. Frederic Harrison's tongue towards his cheek +when he talks of the "shriek of superstition," and tells the working- +class that theirs are the brightest powers of sympathy and the +readiest powers of action. But the point on which I would insist is, +that this involuntary tribute to truth and soberness on the part of +certain of our governors and guides never reaches at all the mass of +us governed, to serve as a lesson to us, to abate our self-love, and +to awaken in us a suspicion that our favourite prejudices may be, to +a higher reason, all nonsense. Whatever by-play goes on among the +more intelligent of our leaders, we do not see it; and we are left to +believe that, not only in our own eyes, but in the eyes of our +representative and ruling men, there is nothing more admirable than +our ordinary self, whatever our ordinary self happens to be,-- +Barbarian, Philistine, or Populace. + +Thus everything in our political life tends to hide from us that +there is anything wiser than our ordinary selves, and to prevent our +getting the notion of a paramount right reason. Royalty itself, +[125] in its idea the expression of the collective nation, and a sort +of constituted witness to its best mind, we try to turn into a kind +of grand advertising van, to give publicity and credit to the +inventions, sound or unsound, of the ordinary self of individuals. I +remember, when I was in North Germany, having this very strongly +brought to my mind in the matter of schools and their institution. +In Prussia, the best schools are Crown patronage schools, as they are +called; schools which have been established and endowed (and new ones +are to this day being established and endowed) by the Sovereign +himself out of his own revenues, to be under the direct control and +management of him or of those representing him, and to serve as types +of what schools should be. The Sovereign, as his position raises him +above many prejudices and littlenesses, and as he can always have at +his disposal the best advice, has evident advantages over private +founders in well planning and directing a school; while at the same +time his great means and his great influence secure, to a well- +planned school of his, credit and authority. This is what, in North +Germany, the governors do, in the matter of education, for the [126] +governed; and one may say that they thus give the governed a lesson, +and draw out in them the idea of a right reason higher than the +suggestions of an ordinary man's ordinary self. But in England how +different is the part which in this matter our governors are +accustomed to play! The Licensed Victuallers or the Commercial +Travellers propose to make a school for their children; and I +suppose, in the matter of schools, one may call the Licensed +Victuallers or the Commercial Travellers ordinary men, with their +natural taste for the bathos still strong; and a Sovereign with the +advice of men like Wilhelm von Humboldt or Schleiermacher may, in +this matter, be a better judge, and nearer to right reason. And it +will be allowed, probably, that right reason would suggest that, to +have a sheer school of Licensed Victuallers' children, or a sheer +school of Commercial Travellers' children, and to bring them all up, +not only at home but at school too, in a kind of odour of licensed +victualism or of bagmanism, is not a wise training to give to these +children. And in Germany, I have said, the action of the national +guides or governors is to suggest and provide a better. But, in +England, the action of the national [127] guides or governors is, for +a Royal Prince or a great Minister to go down to the opening of the +Licensed Victuallers' or of the Commercial Travellers' school, to +take the chair, to extol the energy and self-reliance of the Licensed +Victuallers or the Commercial Travellers, to be all of their way of +thinking, to predict full success to their schools, and never so much +as to hint to them that they are doing a very foolish thing, and that +the right way to go to work with their children's education is quite +different. And it is the same in almost every department of affairs. +While, on the Continent, the idea prevails that it is the business of +the heads and representatives of the nation, by virtue of their +superior means, power, and information, to set an example and to +provide suggestions of right reason, among us the idea is that the +business of the heads and representatives of the nation is to do +nothing of the kind, but to applaud the natural taste for the bathos +showing itself vigorously in any part of the community, and to +encourage its works. + +Now I do not say that the political system of foreign countries has +not inconveniences which may outweigh the inconveniences of our own +political [128] system; nor am I the least proposing to get rid of +our own political system and to adopt theirs. But a sound centre of +authority being what, in this disquisition, we have been led to seek, +and right reason, or our best self, appearing alone to offer such a +sound centre of authority, it is necessary to take note of the chief +impediments which hinder, in this country, the extrication or +recognition of this right reason as a paramount authority, with a +view to afterwards trying in what way they can best be removed. + +This being borne in mind, I proceed to remark how not only do we get +no suggestions of right reason, and no rebukes of our ordinary self, +from our governors, but a kind of philosophical theory is widely +spread among us to the effect that there is no such thing at all as a +best self and a right reason having claim to paramount authority, or, +at any rate, no such thing ascertainable and capable of being made +use of; and that there is nothing but an infinite number of ideas and +works of our ordinary selves, and suggestions of our natural taste +for the bathos, pretty equal in value, which are doomed either to an +irreconcileable conflict, or else to a [129] perpetual give and take; +and that wisdom consists in choosing the give and take rather than +the conflict, and in sticking to our choice with patience and good +humour. And, on the other hand, we have another philosophical theory +rife among us, to the effect that without the labour of perverting +ourselves by custom or example to relish right reason, but by +continuing all of us to follow freely our natural taste for the +bathos, we shall, by the mercy of Providence, and by a kind of +natural tendency of things, come in due time to relish and follow +right reason. The great promoters of these philosophical theories +are our newspapers, which, no less than our parliamentary +representatives, may be said to act the part of guides and governors +to us; and these favourite doctrines of theirs I call,--or should +call, if the doctrines were not preached by authorities I so much +respect,--the first, a peculiarly British form of Atheism, the +second, a peculiarly British form of Quietism. The first-named +melancholy doctrine is preached in The Times with great clearness and +force of style; indeed, it is well known, from the example of the +poet Lucretius and others, what great masters of style the atheistic +[130] doctrine has always counted among its promulgators. "It is of +no use," says The Times, "for us to attempt to force upon our +neighbours our several likings and dislikings. We must take things +as they are. Everybody has his own little vision of religious or +civil perfection. Under the evident impossibility of satisfying +everybody, we agree to take our stand on equal laws and on a system +as open and liberal as is possible. The result is that everybody has +more liberty of action and of speaking here than anywhere else in the +Old World." We come again here upon Mr. Roebuck's celebrated +definition of happiness, on which I have so often commented: "I look +around me and ask what is the state of England? Is not every man +able to say what he likes? I ask you whether the world over, or in +past history, there is anything like it? Nothing. I pray that our +unrivalled happiness may last." This is the old story of our system +of checks and every Englishman doing as he likes, which we have +already seen to have been convenient enough so long as there were +only the Barbarians and the Philistines to do what they liked, but to +be getting inconvenient, and productive of anarchy, [131] now that +the Populace wants to do what it likes too. But for all that, I will +not at once dismiss this famous doctrine, but will first quote +another passage from The Times, applying the doctrine to a matter of +which we have just been speaking,--education. "The difficulty here" +(in providing a national system of education), says The Times, "does +not reside in any removeable arrangements. It is inherent and native +in the actual and inveterate state of things in this country. All +these powers and personages, all these conflicting influences and +varieties of character, exist, and have long existed among us; they +are fighting it out, and will long continue to fight it out, without +coming to that happy consummation when some one element of the +British character is to destroy or to absorb all the rest." There it +is; the various promptings of the natural taste for the bathos in +this man and that amongst us are fighting it out; and the day will +never come (and, indeed, why should we wish it to come?) when one +man's particular sort of taste for the bathos shall tyrannise over +another man's; nor when right reason (if that may be called an +element of the British character) shall absorb and [132] rule them +all. "The whole system of this country, like the constitution we +boast to inherit, and are glad to uphold, is made up of established +facts, prescriptive authorities, existing usages, powers that be, +persons in possession, and communities or classes that have won +dominion for themselves, and will hold it against all comers." Every +force in the world, evidently, except the one reconciling force, +right reason! Sir Thomas Bateson here, the Rev. W. Cattle on this +side, Mr. Bradlaugh on that!--pull devil, pull baker! Really, +presented with the mastery of style of our leading journal, the sad +picture, as one gazes upon it, assumes the iron and inexorable +solemnity of tragic Destiny. + +After this, the milder doctrine of our other philosophical teacher, +the Daily News, has, at first, something very attractive and +assuaging. The Daily News begins, indeed, in appearance, to weave +the iron web of necessity round us like The Times. "The alternative +is between a man's doing what he likes and his doing what some one +else, probably not one whit wiser than himself, likes." This points +to the tacit compact, mentioned [133] in my last paper, between the +Barbarians and the Philistines, and into which it is hoped that the +Populace will one day enter; the compact, so creditable to English +honesty, that no class, if it exercise power, having only the ideas +and aims of its ordinary self to give effect to, shall treat its +ordinary self too seriously, or attempt to impose it on others; but +shall let these others,--the Rev. W. Cattle, for instance, in his +Papist-baiting, and Mr. Bradlaugh in his Hyde Park anarchy- +mongering,--have their fling. But then the Daily News suddenly +lights up the gloom of necessitarianism with bright beams of hope. +"No doubt," it says, "the common reason of society ought to check the +aberrations of individual eccentricity." This common reason of +society looks very like our best self or right reason, to which we +want to give authority, by making the action of the State, or nation +in its collective character, the expression of it. But of this +project of ours, the Daily News, with its subtle dialectics, makes +havoc. "Make the State the organ of the common reason?"--it says. +"You may make it the organ of something or other, but how can you be +certain that [134] reason will be the quality which will be embodied +in it?" You cannot be certain of it, undoubtedly, if you never try +to bring the thing about; but the question is, the action of the +State being the action of the collective nation, and the action of +the collective nation carrying naturally great publicity, weight, and +force of example with it, whether we should not try to put into the +action of the State as much as possible of right reason, or our best +self, which may, in this manner, come back to us with new force and +authority, may have visibility, form, and influence, and help to +confirm us, in the many moments when we are tempted to be our +ordinary selves merely, in resisting our natural taste of the bathos +rather than in giving way to it? + +But no! says our teacher: "it is better there should be an infinite +variety of experiments in human action, because, as the explorers +multiply, the true track is more likely to be discovered. The common +reason of society can check the aberrations of individual +eccentricity only by acting on the individual reason; and it will do +so in the main sufficiently, if left to this natural operation." +This is what I call the specially British form of [135] Quietism, or +a devout, but excessive, reliance on an over-ruling Providence. +Providence, as the moralists are careful to tell us, generally works +in human affairs by human means; so when we want to make right reason +act on individual reason, our best self on our ordinary self, we seek +to give it more power of doing so by giving it public recognition and +authority, and embodying it, so far as we can, in the State. It +seems too much to ask of Providence, that while we, on our part, +leave our congenital taste for the bathos to its natural operation +and its infinite variety of experiments, Providence should +mysteriously guide it into the true track, and compel it to relish +the sublime. At any rate, great men and great institutions have +hitherto seemed necessary for producing any considerable effect of +this kind. No doubt we have an infinite variety of experiments, and +an ever-multiplying multitude of explorers; even in this short paper +I have enumerated many: the British Banner, Judge Edmonds, Newman +Weeks, Deborah Butler, Elderess Polly, Brother Noyes, the Rev. W. +Cattle, the Licensed Victuallers, the Commercial Travellers, and I +know not how [136] many more; and the numbers of this noble army are +swelling every day. But what a depth of Quietism, or rather, what an +over-bold call on the direct interposition of Providence, to believe +that these interesting explorers will discover the true track, or at +any rate, "will do so in the main sufficiently" (whatever that may +mean) if left to their natural operation; that is, by going on as +they are! Philosophers say, indeed, that we learn virtue by +performing acts of virtue; but to say that we shall learn virtue by +performing any acts to which our natural taste for the bathos carries +us, that the Rev. W. Cattle comes at his best self by Papist-baiting, +or Newman Weeks and Deborah Butler at right reason by following their +noses, this certainly does appear over-sanguine. + +It is true, what we want is to make right reason act on individual +reason, the reason of individuals; all our search for authority has +that for its end and aim. The Daily News says, I observe, that all +my argument for authority "has a non-intellectual root;" and from +what I know of my own mind and its inertness, I think this so +probable, that I should be inclined easily to admit it, if it were +not that, in [137] the first place, nothing of this kind, perhaps, +should be admitted without examination; and, in the second, a way of +accounting for this charge being made, in this particular instance, +without full grounds, appears to present itself. What seems to me to +account here, perhaps, for the charge, is the want of flexibility of +our race, on which I have so often remarked. I mean, it being +admitted that the conformity of the individual reason of the Rev. W. +Cattle or Mr. Bradlaugh with right reason is our true object, and not +the mere restraining them, by the strong arm of the State, from +Papist-baiting or railing-breaking,--admitting this, we have so +little flexibility that we cannot readily perceive that the State's +restraining them from these indulgences may yet fix clearly in their +minds that, to the collective nation, these indulgences appear +irrational and unallowable, may make them pause and reflect, and may +contribute to bringing, with time, their individual reason into +harmony with right reason. But in no country, owing to the want of +intellectual flexibility above mentioned, is the leaning which is our +natural one, and, therefore, needs no recommending to us, so +sedulously recommended, and the leaning which is [138] not our +natural one, and, therefore, does not-need dispraising to us, so +sedulously dispraised, as in ours. To rely on the individual being, +with us, the natural leaning, we will hear of nothing but the good of +relying on the individual; to act through the collective nation on +the individual being not our natural leaning, we will hear nothing in +recommendation of it. But the wise know that we often need to hear +most of that to which we are least inclined, and even to learn to +employ, in certain circumstances, that which is capable, if employed +amiss, of being a danger to us. + +Elsewhere this is certainly better understood than here. In a recent +number of the Westminster Review, an able writer, but with precisely +our national want of flexibility of which I have been speaking, has +unearthed, I see, for our present needs, an English translation, +published some years ago, of Wilhelm von Humboldt's book, The Sphere +and Duties of Government. Humboldt's object in this book is to show +that the operation of government ought to be severely limited to what +directly and immediately relates to the security of person and +property. Wilhelm von Humboldt, one of the [139] most beautiful and +perfect souls that have ever existed, used to say that one's business +in life was, first, to perfect oneself by all the means in one's +power, and, secondly, to try and create in the world around one an +aristocracy, the most numerous that one possibly could, of talents +and characters. He saw, of course, that, in the end, everything +comes to this,--that the individual must act for himself, and must be +perfect in himself; and he lived in a country, Germany, where people +were disposed to act too little for themselves, and to rely too much +on the Government. But even thus, such was his flexibility, so +little was he in bondage to a mere abstract maxim, that he saw very +well that for his purpose itself, of enabling the individual to stand +perfect on his own foundations and to do without the State, the +action of the State would for long, long years be necessary; and soon +after he wrote his book on The Sphere and Duties of Government, +Wilhelm von Humboldt became Minister of Education in Prussia, and +from his ministry all the great reforms which give the control of +Prussian education to the State,--the transference of the management +of public schools from their old boards of trustees to the [140] +State, the obligatory State-examination for schools, the obligatory +State-examination for schoolmasters, and the foundation of the great +State University of Berlin,--take their origin. This his English +reviewer says not a word of. But, writing for a people whose dangers +lie, as we have seen, on the side of their unchecked and unguided +individual action, whose dangers none of them lie on the side of an +over-reliance on the State, he quotes just so much of Wilhelm von +Humboldt's example as can flatter them in their propensities, and do +them no good; and just what might make them think, and be of use to +them, he leaves on one side. This precisely recalls the manner, it +will be observed, in which we have seen that our royal and noble +personages proceed with the Licensed Victuallers. + +In France the action of the State on individuals is yet more +preponderant than in Germany; and the need which friends of human +perfection feel to enable the individual to stand perfect on his own +foundations is all the stronger. But what says one of the staunchest +of these friends, Monsieur Renan, on State action, and even State +action in that very sphere where in France it is most excessive, the +sphere [141] of education? Here are his words:--"A liberal believes +in liberty, and liberty signifies the non-intervention of the State. +But such an ideal is still a long way off from us, and the very means +to remove it to an indefinite distance would be precisely the State's +withdrawing its action too soon." And this, he adds, is even truer +of education than of any other department of public affairs. + +We see, then, how indispensable to that human perfection which we +seek is, in the opinion of good judges, some public recognition and +establishment of our best self, or right reason. We see how our +habits and practice oppose themselves to such a recognition, and the +many inconveniences which we therefore suffer. But now let us try to +go a little deeper, and to find, beneath our actual habits and +practice, the very ground and cause out of which they spring. + +NOTES + +119. +Proverbs 28:26. "He that trusteth in his own heart is a fool: +but whoso walketh wisely, he shall be delivered." The King James +Bible. + +122. +"Qui est-ce qu'on trompe ici?" E-text editor's translation: +"Who is the one getting fooled here?" + + + +CHAPTER IV + +[142] This fundamental ground is our preference of doing to thinking. +Now this preference is a main element in our nature, and as we study +it we find ourselves opening up a number of large questions on every +side. + +Let me go back for a moment to what I have already quoted from Bishop +Wilson:--"First, never go against the best light you have; secondly, +take care that your light be not darkness." I said we show, as a +nation, laudable energy and persistence in walking according to the +best light we have, but are not quite careful enough, perhaps, to see +that our light be not darkness. This is only another version of the +old story that energy is our strong point and favourable +characteristic, rather than intelligence. But we may give to this +idea a more general form still, in which it will have a yet larger +range of application. We may regard this energy driving at practice, +this paramount sense of the obligation of duty, self-control, and +work, this earnestness in going manfully with the best light we [143] +have, as one force. And we may regard the intelligence driving at +those ideas which are, after all, the basis of right practice, the +ardent sense for all the new and changing combinations of them which +man's development brings with it, the indomitable impulse to know and +adjust them perfectly, as another force. And these two forces we may +regard as in some sense rivals,--rivals not by the necessity of their +own nature, but as exhibited in man and his history,--and rivals +dividing the empire of the world between them. And to give these +forces names from the two races of men who have supplied the most +signal and splendid manifestations of them, we may call them +respectively the forces of Hebraism and Hellenism. Hebraism and +Hellenism,--between these two points of influence moves our world. +At one time it feels more powerfully the attraction of one of them, +at another time of the other; and it ought to be, though it never is, +evenly and happily balanced between them. + +The final aim of both Hellenism and Hebraism, as of all great +spiritual disciplines, is no doubt the same: man's perfection or +salvation. The very language which they both of them use in +schooling [144] us to reach this aim is often identical. Even when +their language indicates by variation,--sometimes a broad variation, +often a but slight and subtle variation,--the different courses of +thought which are uppermost in each discipline, even then the unity +of the final end and aim is still apparent. To employ the actual +words of that discipline with which we ourselves are all of us most +familiar, and the words of which, therefore, come most home to us, +that final end and aim is "that we might be partakers of the divine +nature." These are the words of a Hebrew apostle, but of Hellenism +and Hebraism alike this is, I say, the aim. When the two are +confronted, as they very often are confronted, it is nearly always +with what I may call a rhetorical purpose; the speaker's whole design +is to exalt and enthrone one of the two, and he uses the other only +as a foil and to enable him the better to give effect to his purpose. +Obviously, with us, it is usually Hellenism which is thus reduced to +minister to the triumph of Hebraism. There is a sermon on Greece and +the Greek spirit by a man never to be mentioned without interest and +respect, Frederick Robertson, in which this rhetorical use of Greece +and the Greek [145] spirit, and the inadequate exhibition of them +necessarily consequent upon this, is almost ludicrous, and would be +censurable if it were not to be explained by the exigences of a +sermon. On the other hand, Heinrich Heine, and other writers of his +sort, give us the spectacle of the tables completely turned, and of +Hebraism brought in just as a foil and contrast to Hellenism, and to +make the superiority of Hellenism more manifest. In both these cases +there is injustice and misrepresentation. The aim and end of both +Hebraism and Hellenism is, as I have said, one and the same, and this +aim and end is august and admirable. + +Still, they pursue this aim by very different courses. The uppermost +idea with Hellenism is to see things as they really are; the +uppermost idea with Hebraism is conduct and obedience. Nothing can +do away with this ineffaceable difference; the Greek quarrel with the +body and its desires is, that they hinder right thinking, the Hebrew +quarrel with them is, that they hinder right acting. "He that +keepeth the law, happy is he;" "There is nothing sweeter than to take +heed unto the commandments of the Lord;"+--that is the Hebrew [146] +notion of felicity; and, pursued with passion and tenacity, this +notion would not let the Hebrew rest till, as is well known, he had, +at last, got out of the law a network of prescriptions to enwrap his +whole life, to govern every moment of it, every impulse, every +action. The Greek notion of felicity, on the other hand, is +perfectly conveyed in these words of a great French moralist: "C'est +le bonheur des hommes"--when? when they abhor that which is evil?-- +no; when they exercise themselves in the law of the Lord day and +night?--no; when they die daily?--no; when they walk about the New +Jerusalem with palms in their hands?--no; but when they think aright, +when their thought hits,--"quand ils pensent juste." At the bottom +of both the Greek and the Hebrew notion is the desire, native in man, +for reason and the will of God, the feeling after the universal +order,--in a word, the love of God. But, while Hebraism seizes upon +certain plain, capital intimations of the universal order, and rivets +itself, one may say, with unequalled grandeur of earnestness and +intensity on the study and observance of them, the bent of Hellenism +is to follow, with flexible activity, the whole play of the universal +order, to be [147] apprehensive of missing any part of it, of +sacrificing one part to another, to slip away from resting in this or +that intimation of it, however capital. An unclouded clearness of +mind, an unimpeded play of thought, is what this bent drives at. The +governing idea of Hellenism is spontaneity of consciousness; that of +Hebraism, strictness of conscience. + +Christianity changed nothing in this essential bent of Hebraism to +set doing above knowing. Self-conquest, self-devotion, the following +not our own individual will, but the will of God, obedience, is the +fundamental idea of this form, also, of the discipline to which we +have attached the general name of Hebraism. Only, as the old law and +the network of prescriptions with which it enveloped human life were +evidently a motive power not driving and searching enough to produce +the result aimed at,--patient continuance in well doing, self- +conquest,--Christianity substituted for them boundless devotion to +that inspiring and affecting pattern of self-conquest offered by +Christ; and by the new motive power, of which the essence was this, +though the love and admiration of Christian churches have for +centuries been employed in varying, amplifying, [148] and adorning +the plain description of it, Christianity, as St. Paul truly says, +"establishes the law,"+ and in the strength of the ampler power which +she has thus supplied to fulfil it, has accomplished the miracles, +which we all see, of her history. + +So long as we do not forget that both Hellenism and Hebraism are +profound and admirable manifestations of man's life, tendencies, and +powers, and that both of them aim at a like final result, we can +hardly insist too strongly on the divergence of line and of operation +with which they proceed. It is a divergence so great that it most +truly, as the prophet Zechariah says, "has raised up thy sons, O +Zion, against thy sons, O Greece!"+ The difference whether it is by +doing or by knowing that we set most store, and the practical +consequences which follow from this difference, leave their mark on +all the history of our race and of its development. Language may be +abundantly quoted from both Hellenism and Hebraism to make it seem +that one follows the same current as the other towards the same goal. +They are, truly, borne towards the same goal; but the currents which +bear them are infinitely different. It is true, Solomon will praise +[149] knowing: "Understanding is a well-spring of life unto him that +hath it."+ And in the New Testament, again, Christ is a "light,"+ and +"truth makes us free."+ It is true, Aristotle will undervalue +knowing: "In what concerns virtue," says he, "three things are +necessary,--knowledge, deliberate will, and perseverance; but, +whereas the two last are all important, the first is a matter of +little importance." It is true that with the same impatience with +which St. James enjoins a man to be not a forgetful hearer, but a +doer of the work,+ Epictetus exhorts us to do what we have +demonstrated to ourselves we ought to do; or he taunts us with +futility, for being armed at all points to prove that lying is wrong, +yet all the time continuing to lie. It is true, Plato, in words +which are almost the words of the New Testament or the Imitation, +calls life a learning to die. But underneath the superficial +agreement the fundamental divergence still subsists. The +understanding of Solomon is "the walking in the way of the +commandments;" this is "the way of peace,"+ and it is of this that +blessedness comes. In the New Testament, the truth which gives us +the peace of God and makes us free, is the love of Christ +constraining [150] us to crucify, as he did, and with a like purpose +of moral regeneration, the flesh with its affections and lusts, and +thus establishing, as we have seen, the law. To St. Paul it appears +possible to "hold the truth in unrighteousness,"+ which is just what +Socrates judged impossible. The moral virtues, on the other hand, +are with Aristotle but the porch and access to the intellectual, and +with these last is blessedness. That partaking of the divine life, +which both Hellenism and Hebraism, as we have said, fix as their +crowning aim, Plato expressly denies to the man of practical virtue +merely, of self-conquest with any other motive than that of perfect +intellectual vision; he reserves it for the lover of pure knowledge, +of seeing things as they really are,--the philomathês.+ + +Both Hellenism and Hebraism arise out of the wants of human nature, +and address themselves to satisfying those wants. But their methods +are so different, they lay stress on such different points, and call +into being by their respective disciplines such different activities, +that the face which human nature presents when it passes from the +hands of one of them to those of the other, is no longer the [151] +same. To get rid of one's ignorance, to see things as they are, and +by seeing them as they are to see them in their beauty, is the simple +and attractive ideal which Hellenism holds out before human nature; +and from the simplicity and charm of this ideal, Hellenism, and human +life in the hands of Hellenism, is invested with a kind of aërial +ease, clearness, and radiancy; they are full of what we call +sweetness and light. Difficulties are kept out of view, and the +beauty and rationalness of the ideal have all our thoughts. "The +best man is he who most tries to perfect himself, and the happiest +man is he who most feels that he is perfecting himself,"--this +account of the matter by Socrates, the true Socrates of the +Memorabilia, has something so simple, spontaneous, and +unsophisticated about it, that it seems to fill us with clearness and +hope when we hear it. But there is a saying which I have heard +attributed to Mr. Carlyle about Socrates,--a very happy saying, +whether it is really Mr. Carlyle's or not,--which excellently marks +the essential point in which Hebraism differs from Hellenism. +"Socrates," this saying goes, "is terribly at ease in Zion" +Hebraism,--and here is the source of its [152] wonderful strength,-- +has always been severely preoccupied with an awful sense of the +impossibility of being at ease in Zion; of the difficulties which +oppose themselves to man's pursuit or attainment of that perfection +of which Socrates talks so hopefully, and, as from this point of view +one might almost say, so glibly. It is all very well to talk of +getting rid of one's ignorance, of seeing things in their reality, +seeing them in their beauty; but how is this to be done when there is +something which thwarts and spoils all our efforts? This something +is sin; and the space which sin fills in Hebraism, as compared with +Hellenism, is indeed prodigious. This obstacle to perfection fills +the whole scene, and perfection appears remote and rising away from +earth, in the background. Under the name of sin, the difficulties of +knowing oneself and conquering oneself which impede man's passage to +perfection, become, for Hebraism, a positive, active entity hostile +to man, a mysterious power which I heard Dr. Pusey the other day, in +one of his impressive sermons, compare to a hideous hunchback seated +on our shoulders, and which it is the main business of our lives to +hate and oppose. The discipline of the [153] Old Testament may be +summed up as a discipline teaching us to abhor and flee from sin; the +discipline of the New Testament, as a discipline teaching us to die +to it. As Hellenism speaks of thinking clearly, seeing things in +their essence and beauty, as a grand and precious feat for man to +achieve, so Hebraism speaks of becoming conscious of sin, of +awakening to a sense of sin, as a feat of this kind. It is obvious +to what wide divergence these differing tendencies, actively +followed, must lead. As one passes and repasses from Hellenism to +Hebraism, from Plato to St. Paul, one feels inclined to rub one's +eyes and ask oneself whether man is indeed a gentle and simple being, +showing the traces of a noble and divine nature; or an unhappy +chained captive, labouring with groanings that cannot be uttered to +free himself from the body of this death. + +Apparently it was the Hellenic conception of human nature which was +unsound, for the world could not live by it. Absolutely to call it +unsound, however, is to fall into the common error of its Hebraising +enemies; but it was unsound at that particular moment of man's +development, it was premature. The indispensable basis of conduct +and [154] self-control, the platform upon which alone the perfection +aimed at by Greece can come into bloom, was not to be reached by our +race so easily; centuries of probation and discipline were needed to +bring us to it. Therefore the bright promise of Hellenism faded, and +Hebraism ruled the world. Then was seen that astonishing spectacle, +so well marked by the often quoted words of the prophet Zechariah, +when men of all languages of the nations took hold of the skirt of +him that was a Jew, saying:--"We will go with you, for we have heard +that God is with you."+ And the Hebraism which thus received and +ruled a world all gone out of the way and altogether become +unprofitable, was, and could not but be, the later, the more +spiritual, the more attractive development of Hebraism. It was +Christianity; that is to say, Hebraism aiming at self-conquest and +rescue from the thrall of vile affections, not by obedience to the +letter of a law, but by conformity to the image of a self-sacrificing +example. To a world stricken with moral enervation Christianity +offered its spectacle of an inspired self-sacrifice; to men who +refused themselves nothing, it showed one who refused [155] himself +everything;--"my Saviour banished joy" says George Herbert. When the +alma Venus, the life-giving and joy-giving power of nature, so fondly +cherished by the Pagan world, could not save her followers from self- +dissatisfaction and ennui, the severe words of the apostle came +bracingly and refreshingly: "Let no man deceive you with vain words, +for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children +of disobedience."+ Throughout age after age, and generation after +generation, our race, or all that part of our race which was most +living and progressive, was baptized into a death;+ and endeavoured, +by suffering in the flesh, to cease from sin. Of this endeavour, the +animating labours and afflictions of early Christianity, the touching +asceticism of mediaeval Christianity, are the great historical +manifestations. Literary monuments of it, each, in its own way, +incomparable, remain in the Epistles of St. Paul, in St. Augustine's +Confessions, and in the two original and simplest books of the +Imitation.* + +Of two disciplines laying their main stress, the [156] one, on clear +intelligence, the other, on firm obedience; the one, on +comprehensively knowing the grounds of one's duty, the other, on +diligently practising it; the one on taking all possible care (to use +Bishop Wilson's words again) that the light we have be not darkness, +the other, that according to the best light we have we diligently +walk,--the priority naturally belongs to that discipline which braces +man's moral powers, and founds for him an indispensable basis of +character. And, therefore, it is justly said of the Jewish people, +who were charged with setting powerfully forth that side of the +divine order to which the words conscience and self-conquest point, +that they were "entrusted with the oracles of God;"+ as it is justly +said of Christianity, which followed Judaism and which set forth this +side with a much deeper effectiveness and a much wider influence, +that the wisdom of the old Pagan world was foolishness compared to +it. No words of devotion and admiration can be too strong to render +thanks to these beneficent forces which have so borne forward +humanity in its appointed work of coming to the knowledge and +possession of itself; above all, in those great [157] moments when +their action was the wholesomest and the most necessary. + +But the evolution of these forces, separately and in themselves, is +not the whole evolution of humanity,--their single history is not the +whole history of man; whereas their admirers are always apt to make +it stand for the whole history. Hebraism and Hellenism are, neither +of them, the law of human development, as their admirers are prone to +make them; they are, each of them, contributions to human +development,--august contributions, invaluable contributions; and +each showing itself to us more august, more invaluable, more +preponderant over the other, according to the moment in which we take +them, and the relation in which we stand to them. The nations of our +modern world, children of that immense and salutary movement which +broke up the Pagan world, inevitably stand to Hellenism in a relation +which dwarfs it, and to Hebraism in a relation which magnifies it. +They are inevitably prone to take Hebraism as the law of human +development, and not as simply a contribution to it, however +precious. And yet the lesson must perforce be [158] learned, that +the human spirit is wider than the most priceless of the forces which +bear it onward, and that to the whole development of man Hebraism +itself is, like Hellenism, but a contribution. + +Perhaps we may help ourselves to see this clearer by an illustration +drawn from the treatment of a single great idea which has profoundly +engaged the human spirit, and has given it eminent opportunities for +showing its nobleness and energy. It surely must be perceived that +the idea of the immortality of the soul, as this idea rises in its +generality before the human spirit, is something grander, truer, and +more satisfying, than it is in the particular forms by which St. +Paul, in the famous fifteenth chapter of the Epistle to the +Corinthians,+ and Plato, in the Phaedo, endeavour to develope and +establish it. Surely we cannot but feel, that the argumentation with +which the Hebrew apostle goes about to expound this great idea is, +after all, confused and inconclusive; and that the reasoning, drawn +from analogies of likeness and equality, which is employed upon it by +the Greek philosopher, is over-subtle and sterile? Above and beyond +the inadequate solutions which Hebraism and Hellenism here attempt, +extends the immense [159] and august problem itself, and the human +spirit which gave birth to it. And this single illustration may +suggest to us how the same thing happens in other cases also. + +But meanwhile, by alternations of Hebraism and Hellenism, of man's +intellectual and moral impulses, of the effort to see things as they +really are, and the effort to win peace by self-conquest, the human +spirit proceeds, and each of these two forces has its appointed hours +of culmination and seasons of rule. As the great movement of +Christianity was a triumph of Hebraism and man's moral impulses, so +the great movement which goes by the name of the Renascence* was an +uprising and re-instatement of man's intellectual impulses and of +Hellenism. We in England, the devoted children of Protestantism, +chiefly know the Renascence by its subordinate and secondary side of +the Reformation. The Reformation has been often called a Hebraising +revival, a return to the ardour and sincereness of primitive [160] +Christianity. No one, however, can study the development of +Protestantism and of Protestant churches without feeling that into +the Reformation too,--Hebraising child of the Renascence and +offspring of its fervour, rather than its intelligence, as it +undoubtedly was,--the subtle Hellenic leaven of the Renascence found +its way, and that the exact respective parts in the Reformation, of +Hebraism and of Hellenism, are not easy to separate. But what we may +with truth say is, that all which Protestantism was to itself clearly +conscious of, all which it succeeded in clearly setting forth in +words, had the characters of Hebraism rather than of Hellenism. The +Reformation was strong, in that it was an earnest return to the Bible +and to doing from the heart the will of God as there written; it was +weak, in that it never consciously grasped or applied the central +idea of the Renascence,--the Hellenic idea of pursuing, in all lines +of activity, the law and science, to use Plato's words, of things as +they really are. Whatever direct superiority, therefore, +Protestantism had over Catholicism was a moral superiority, a +superiority arising out of its greater sincerity and earnestness,--at +the moment of its apparition at any [161] rate,--in dealing with the +heart and conscience; its pretensions to an intellectual superiority +are in general quite illusory. For Hellenism, for the thinking side +in man as distinguished from the acting side, the attitude of mind of +Protestantism towards the Bible in no respect differs from the +attitude of mind of Catholicism towards the Church. The mental habit +of him who imagines that Balaam's ass spoke, in no respect differs +from the mental habit of him who imagines that a Madonna of wood or +stone winked; and the one, who says that God's Church makes him +believe what he believes, and the other, who says that God's Word +makes him believe what he believes, are for the philosopher perfectly +alike in not really and truly knowing, when they say God's Church and +God's Word, what it is they say, or whereof they affirm. + +In the sixteenth century, therefore, Hellenism re-entered the world, +and again stood in presence of Hebraism,--a Hebraism renewed and +purged. Now, it has not been enough observed, how, in the +seventeenth century, a fate befell Hellenism in some respects +analogous to that which befell it at the commencement of our era. +The Renascence, that [162] great re-awakening of Hellenism, that +irresistible return of humanity to nature and to seeing things as +they are, which in art, in literature, and in physics, produced such +splendid fruits, had, like the anterior Hellenism of the Pagan world, +a side of moral weakness, and of relaxation or insensibility of the +moral fibre, which in Italy showed itself with the most startling +plainness, but which in France, England, and other countries was very +apparent too. Again this loss of spiritual balance, this exclusive +preponderance given to man's perceiving and knowing side, this +unnatural defect of his feeling and acting side, provoked a reaction. +Let us trace that reaction where it most nearly concerns us. + +Science has now made visible to everybody the great and pregnant +elements of difference which lie in race, and in how signal a manner +they make the genius and history of an Indo-European people vary from +those of a Semitic people. Hellenism is of Indo-European growth, +Hebraism is of Semitic growth; and we English, a nation of Indo- +European stock, seem to belong naturally to the movement of +Hellenism. But nothing more strongly marks the essential unity of +man than the affinities we can [163] perceive, in this point or that, +between members of one family of peoples and members of another; and +no affinity of this kind is more strongly marked than that likeness +in the strength and prominence of the moral fibre, which, +notwithstanding immense elements of difference, knits in some special +sort the genius and history of us English, and of our American +descendants across the Atlantic, to the genius and history of the +Hebrew people. Puritanism, which has been so great a power in the +English nation, and in the strongest part of the English nation, was +originally the reaction, in the seventeenth century, of the +conscience and moral sense of our race, against the moral +indifference and lax rule of conduct which in the sixteenth century +came in with the Renascence. It was a reaction of Hebraism against +Hellenism; and it powerfully manifested itself, as was natural, in a +people with much of what we call a Hebraising turn, with a signal +affinity for the bent which was the master-bent of Hebrew life. +Eminently Indo-European by its humour, by the power it shows, through +this gift, of imaginatively acknowledging the multiform aspects of +the problem of life, and of thus getting itself unfixed from its own +over- [164] certainty, of smiling at its own over-tenacity, our race +has yet (and a great part of its strength lies here), in matters of +practical life and moral conduct, a strong share of the assuredness, +the tenacity, the intensity of the Hebrews. This turn manifested +itself in Puritanism, and has had a great part in shaping our history +for the last two hundred years. Undoubtedly it checked and changed +amongst us that movement of the Renascence which we see producing in +the reign of Elizabeth such wonderful fruits; undoubtedly it stopped +the prominent rule and direct development of that order of ideas +which we call by the name of Hellenism, and gave the first rank to a +different order of ideas. Apparently, too, as we said of the former +defeat of Hellenism, if Hellenism was defeated, this shows that +Hellenism was imperfect, and that its ascendency at that moment would +not have been for the world's good. + +Yet there is a very important difference between the defeat inflicted +on Hellenism by Christianity eighteen hundred years ago, and the +check given to the Renascence by Puritanism. The greatness of the +difference is well measured by the difference in force, beauty, +significance and usefulness, between [165] primitive Christianity and +Protestantism. Eighteen hundred years ago it was altogether the hour +of Hebraism; primitive Christianity was legitimately and truly the +ascendent force in the world at that time, and the way of mankind's +progress lay through its full development. Another hour in man's +development began in the fifteenth century, and the main road of his +progress then lay for a time through Hellenism. Puritanism was no +longer the central current of the world's progress, it was a side +stream crossing the central current and checking it. The cross and +the check may have been necessary and salutary, but that does not do +away with the essential difference between the main stream of man's +advance and a cross or side stream. For more than two hundred years +the main stream of man's advance has moved towards knowing himself +and the world, seeing things as they are, spontaneity of +consciousness; the main impulse of a great part, and that the +strongest part, of our nation, has been towards strictness of +conscience. They have made the secondary the principal at the wrong +moment, and the principal they have at the wrong moment treated as +secondary. This contravention of the [166] natural order has +produced, as such contravention always must produce, a certain +confusion and false movement, of which we are now beginning to feel, +in almost every direction, the inconvenience. In all directions our +habitual courses of action seem to be losing efficaciousness, credit, +and control, both with others and even with ourselves; everywhere we +see the beginnings of confusion, and we want a clue to some sound +order and authority. This we can only get by going back upon the +actual instincts and forces which rule our life, seeing them as they +really are, connecting them with other instincts and forces, and +enlarging our whole view and rule of life. + +NOTES + +145. +Proverbs 29:18 is the source of the first passage. I have not +found the exact language of the second quotation, but the thought +resembles that of Psalms 19:9-10: "The fear of the Lord is clean, +enduring for ever: the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous +altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much +fine gold: sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb." King James +Bible. + +148. +Romans 3:31. "Do we then make void the law through faith? / +God forbid: yea, we establish the law." King James Bible. + +148. +Zechariah 9:12-13. "Turn you to the strong hold, ye prisoners +of hope: even to day do I declare that I will render double unto +thee; / When I have bent Judah for me, filled the bow with Ephraim, +and raised up thy sons, O Zion, against thy sons, O Greece, and made +thee as the sword of a mighty man." King James Bible. + +149. +Proverbs 16:22. "Understanding is a wellspring of life unto +him that hath it: but the instruction of fools is folly." King James +Bible. + +149. +John 8:12. "Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am +the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in +darkness, but shall have the light of life." And again: John 9:4-5. +"I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the +night cometh, when no man can work. / As long as I am in the world, I +am the light of the world." King James Bible. + +149. +John 8:31-32. "Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on +him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; / +And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." +King James Bible. + +149. +James 1:25. "But whoso looketh into the perfect law of +liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but +a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed." King +James Bible. + +149. +Proverbs 2:20-21 may be the passage Arnold has in mind, +although the language differs: "That thou mayest walk in the way of +good men, and keep the paths of the righteous. / For the upright +shall dwell in the land, and the perfect shall remain in it." One of +the central devices in Proverbs is the metaphor of the "path"--of +uprightness, folly, etc. King James Bible. + +150. +Romans 1:18. "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven +against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the +truth in unrighteousness." King James Bible. + +150. +Philomathês, "fond of knowledge, loving knowledge." (Liddell +and Scott.) GIF image: + +154. +Zechariah 8:23. "Thus saith the Lord of hosts; In those days +it shall come to pass, that ten men shall take hold out of all +languages of the nations, even shall take hold of the skirt of him +that is a Jew, saying, We will go with you: for we have heard that +God is with you." King James Bible. + +155. +Ephesians 5:6. "Let no man deceive you with vain words: for +because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of +disobedience." King James Bible. + +155. +Romans 6:3. "Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized +into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?" King James Bible. + +155. *The two first books. +Arnold refers to the Imitatio Christi, +attributed to fourteenth-century priest Thomas à Kempis. The Benham +translation and a modern English translation are currently available +from the College of St. Benedict at Saint John's University Internet +Theology Resources site. See also the Benham text link. + +156. +Romans 3:1-2. "What advantage then hath the Jew? or what +profit is there of circumcision? / Much every way: chiefly, because +that unto them were committed the oracles of God." King James Bible. + +158. +See 1 Corinthians 15. Saint Paul wrestles in this chapter to +explain the Resurrection's promise. For example, refer to 15:50-53: +"Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the +kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption. / +Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall +all be changed, / In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the +last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised +incorruptible, and we shall be changed. / For this corruptible must +put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality." + +159. *I have ventured to give to the foreign word Renaissance, +destined to become of more common use amongst us as the movement +which it denotes comes, as it will come, increasingly to interest us, +an English form. + + + +CHAPTER V + +[166] The matter here opened is so large, and the trains of thought +to which it gives rise are so manifold, that we must be careful to +limit ourselves scrupulously to what has a direct bearing upon our +actual discussion. We have found that at the [167] bottom of our +present unsettled state, so full of the seeds of trouble, lies the +notion of its being the prime right and happiness, for each of us, to +affirm himself, and his ordinary self; to be doing, and to be doing +freely and as he likes. We have found at the bottom of it the +disbelief in right reason as a lawful authority. It was easy to show +from our practice and current history that this is so; but it was +impossible to show why it is so without taking a somewhat wider sweep +and going into things a little more deeply. Why, in fact, should +good, well-meaning, energetic, sensible people, like the bulk of our +countrymen, come to have such light belief in right reason, and such +an exaggerated value for their own independent doing, however crude? +The answer is: because of an exclusive and excessive development in +them, without due allowance for time, place, and circumstance, of +that side of human nature, and that group of human forces, to which +we have given the general name of Hebraism. Because they have +thought their real and only important homage was owed to a power +concerned with their obedience rather than with their intelligence, a +power interested in the moral side of their nature almost +exclusively. Thus they have [168] been led to regard in themselves, +as the one thing needful, strictness of conscience, the staunch +adherence to some fixed law of doing we have got already, instead of +spontaneity of consciousness, which tends continually to enlarge our +whole law of doing. They have fancied themselves to have in their +religion a sufficient basis for the whole of their life fixed and +certain for ever, a full law of conduct and a full law of thought, so +far as thought is needed, as well; whereas what they really have is a +law of conduct, a law of unexampled power for enabling them to war +against the law of sin in their members and not to serve it in the +lusts thereof. The book which contains this invaluable law they call +the Word of God, and attribute to it, as I have said, and as, indeed, +is perfectly well known, a reach and sufficiency co-extensive with +all the wants of human nature. This might, no doubt, be so, if +humanity were not the composite thing it is, if it had only, or in +quite overpowering eminence, a moral side, and the group of instincts +and powers which we call moral. But it has besides, and in notable +eminence, an intellectual side, and the group of instincts and powers +which we call intellectual. No doubt, mankind makes in general its +progress in a [169] fashion which gives at one time full swing to one +of these groups of instincts, at another time to the other; and man's +faculties are so intertwined, that when his moral side, and the +current of force which we call Hebraism, is uppermost, this side will +manage somehow to provide, or appear to provide, satisfaction for his +intellectual needs; and when his intellectual side, and the current of +force which we call Hellenism, is uppermost, this, again, will provide, +or appear to provide, satisfaction for men's moral needs. But sooner or +later it becomes manifest that when the two sides of humanity proceed +in this fashion of alternate preponderance, and not of mutual +understanding and balance, the side which is uppermost does not +really provide in a satisfactory manner for the needs of the side +which is undermost, and a state of confusion is, sooner or later, the +result. The Hellenic half of our nature, bearing rule, makes a sort +of provision for the Hebrew half, but it turns out to be an +inadequate provision; and again the Hebrew half of our nature bearing +rule makes a sort of provision for the Hellenic half, but this, too, +turns out to be an inadequate provision. The true and smooth order +of humanity's development [170] is not reached in either way. And +therefore, while we willingly admit with the Christian apostle that +the world by wisdom,--that is, by the isolated preponderance of its +intellectual impulses,--knew not God, or the true order of things, it +is yet necessary, also, to set up a sort of converse to this +proposition, and to say likewise (what is equally true) that the +world by Puritanism knew not God. And it is on this converse of the +apostle's proposition that it is particularly needful to insist in +our own country just at present. + +Here, indeed, is the answer to many criticisms which have been +addressed to all that we have said in praise of sweetness and light. +Sweetness and light evidently have to do with the bent or side in +humanity which we call Hellenic. Greek intelligence has obviously +for its essence the instinct for what Plato calls the true, firm, +intelligible law of things; the love of light, of seeing things as +they are. Even in the natural sciences, where the Greeks had not +time and means adequately to apply this instinct, and where we have +gone a great deal further than they did, it is this instinct which is +the root of the whole matter and the ground of all [171] our success; +and this instinct the world has mainly learnt of the Greeks, inasmuch +as they are humanity's most signal manifestation of it. Greek art, +again, Greek beauty, have their root in the same impulse to see +things as they really are, inasmuch as Greek art and beauty rest on +fidelity to nature,--the best nature,--and on a delicate +discrimination of what this best nature is. To say we work for +sweetness and light, then, is only another way of saying that we work +for Hellenism. But, oh! cry many people, sweetness and light are not +enough; you must put strength or energy along with them, and make a +kind of trinity of strength, sweetness and light, and then, perhaps, +you may do some good. That is to say, we are to join Hebraism, +strictness of the moral conscience, and manful walking by the best +light we have, together with Hellenism, inculcate both, and rehearse +the praises of both. + +Or, rather, we may praise both in conjunction, but we must be careful +to praise Hebraism most. "Culture," says an acute, though somewhat +rigid critic, Mr. Sidgwick, "diffuses sweetness and light. I do not +undervalue these blessings, but religion gives fire and strength, and +the world wants fire [172] and strength even more than sweetness and +light." By religion, let me explain, Mr. Sidgwick here means +particularly that Puritanism on the insufficiency of which I have +been commenting and to which he says I am unfair. Now, no doubt, it +is possible to be a fanatical partisan of light and the instincts +which push us to it, a fanatical enemy of strictness of moral +conscience and the instincts which push us to it. A fanaticism of +this sort deforms and vulgarises the well-known work, in some +respects so remarkable, of the late Mr. Buckle. Such a fanaticism +carries its own mark with it, in lacking sweetness; and its own +penalty, in that, lacking sweetness, it comes in the end to lack +light too. And the Greeks,--the great exponents of humanity's bent +for sweetness and light united, of its perception that the truth of +things must be at the same time beauty,--singularly escaped the +fanaticism which we moderns, whether we Hellenise or whether we +Hebraise, are so apt to show, and arrived,--though failing, as has +been said, to give adequate practical satisfaction to the claims of +man's moral side,--at the idea of a comprehensive adjustment of the +claims of both the sides in man, the moral as well [173] as the +intellectual, of a full estimate of both, and of a reconciliation of +both; an idea which is philosophically of the greatest value, and the +best of lessons for us moderns. So we ought to have no difficulty in +conceding to Mr. Sidgwick that manful walking by the best light one +has,--fire and strength as he calls it,--has its high value as well +as culture, the endeavour to see things in their truth and beauty, +the pursuit of sweetness and light. But whether at this or that +time, and to this or that set of persons, one ought to insist most on +the praises of fire and strength, or on the praises of sweetness and +light, must depend, one would think, on the circumstances and needs +of that particular time and those particular persons. And all that +we have been saying, and indeed any glance at the world around us, +shows that with us, with the most respectable and strongest part of +us, the ruling force is now, and long has been, a Puritan force, the +care for fire and strength, strictness of conscience, Hebraism, +rather than the care for sweetness and light, spontaneity of +consciousness, Hellenism. + +Well, then, what is the good of our now rehearsing [174] the praises +of fire and strength to ourselves, who dwell too exclusively on them +already? When Mr. Sidgwick says so broadly, that the world wants +fire and strength even more than sweetness and light, is he not +carried away by a turn for powerful generalisation? does he not +forget that the world is not all of one piece, and every piece with +the same needs at the same time? It may be true that the Roman world +at the beginning of our era, or Leo the Tenth's Court at the time of +the Reformation, or French society in the eighteenth century, needed +fire and strength even more than sweetness and light. But can it be +said that the Barbarians who overran the empire, needed fire and +strength even more than sweetness and light; or that the Puritans +needed them more; or that Mr. Murphy, the Birmingham lecturer, and +the Rev. W. Cattle and his friends, need them more? + +The Puritan's great danger is that he imagines himself in possession +of a rule telling him the unum necessarium, or one thing needful,+ +and that he then remains satisfied with a very crude conception of +what this rule really is and what it tells him, thinks [175] he has +now knowledge and henceforth needs only to act, and, in this +dangerous state of assurance and self-satisfaction, proceeds to give +full swing to a number of the instincts of his ordinary self. Some +of the instincts of his ordinary self he has, by the help of his rule +of life, conquered; but others which he has not conquered by this +help he is so far from perceiving to need subjugation, and to be +instincts of an inferior self, that he even fancies it to be his +right and duty, in virtue of having conquered a limited part of +himself, to give unchecked swing to the remainder. He is, I say, a +victim of Hebraism, of the tendency to cultivate strictness of +conscience rather than spontaneity of consciousness. And what he +wants is a larger conception of human nature, showing him the number +of other points at which his nature must come to its best, besides +the points which he himself knows and thinks of. There is no unum +necessarium, or one thing needful, which can free human nature from +the obligation of trying to come to its best at all these points. +The real unum necessarium for us is to come to our best at all +points. Instead of our "one thing needful," justifying in us +vulgarity, hideousness, ignorance, violence,--our [176] vulgarity, +hideousness, ignorance, violence, are really so many touchstones +which try our one thing needful, and which prove that in the state, +at any rate, in which we ourselves have it, it is not all we want. +And as the force which encourages us to stand staunch and fast by the +rule and ground we have is Hebraism, so the force which encourages us +to go back upon this rule, and to try the very ground on which we +appear to stand, is Hellenism,--a turn for giving our consciousness +free play and enlarging its range. And what I say is, not that +Hellenism is always for everybody more wanted than Hebraism, but that +for the Rev. W. Cattle at this particular moment, and for the great +majority of us his fellow-countrymen, it is more wanted. + +Nothing is more striking than to observe in how many ways a limited +conception of human nature, the notion of a one thing needful, a one +side in us to be made uppermost, the disregard of a full and +harmonious development of ourselves, tells injuriously on our +thinking and acting. In the first place, our hold upon the rule or +standard to which we look for our one thing needful, tends to become +less and less near and vital, our conception of it more and more +[177] mechanical, and unlike the thing itself as it was conceived in +the mind where it originated. The dealings of Puritanism with the +writings of St. Paul afford a noteworthy illustration of this. +Nowhere so much as in the writings of St. Paul, and in that great +apostle's greatest work, the Epistle to the Romans, has Puritanism +found what seemed to furnish it with the one thing needful, and to +give it canons of truth absolute and final. Now all writings, as has +been already said, even the most precious writings and the most +fruitful, must inevitably, from the very nature of things, be but +contributions to human thought and human development, which extend +wider than they do. Indeed, St. Paul, in the very Epistle of which +we are speaking, shows, when he asks, "Who hath known the mind of the +Lord?"+--who hath known, that is, the true and divine order of things +in its entirety,--that he himself acknowledges this fully. And we +have already pointed out in another Epistle of St. Paul a great and +vital idea of the human spirit,--the idea of the immortality of the +soul,--transcending and overlapping, so to speak, the expositor's +power to give it adequate definition and expression. But quite +distinct from the question [178] whether St. Paul's expression, or +any man's expression, can be a perfect and final expression of truth, +comes the question whether we rightly seize and understand his +expression as it exists. Now, perfectly to seize another man's +meaning, as it stood in his own mind, is not easy; especially when +the man is separated from us by such differences of race, training, +time, and circumstances as St. Paul. But there are degrees of +nearness in getting at a man's meaning; and though we cannot arrive +quite at what St. Paul had in his mind, yet we may come near it. And +who, that comes thus near it, must not feel how terms which St. Paul +employs in trying to follow, with his analysis of such profound power +and originality, some of the most delicate, intricate, obscure, and +contradictory workings and states of the human spirit, are detached +and employed by Puritanism, not in the connected and fluid way in +which St. Paul employs them, and for which alone words are really +meant, but in an isolated, fixed, mechanical way, as if they were +talismans; and how all trace and sense of St. Paul's true movement of +ideas, and sustained masterly analysis, is thus lost? Who, I say, +that has watched Puritanism,--the force which [179] so strongly +Hebraises, which so takes St. Paul's writings as something absolute +and final, containing the one thing needful,--handle such terms as +grace, faith, election, righteousness, but must feel, not only that +these terms have for the mind of Puritanism a sense false and +misleading, but also that this sense is the most monstrous and +grotesque caricature of the sense of St. Paul, and that his true +meaning is by these worshippers of his words altogether lost? + +Or to take another eminent example, in which not Puritanism only, +but, one may say, the whole religious world, by their mechanical use +of St. Paul's writings, can be shown to miss or change his real +meaning. The whole religious world, one may say, use now the word +resurrection,--a word which is so often in their thoughts and on +their lips, and which they find so often in St. Paul's writings,--in +one sense only. They use it to mean a rising again after the +physical death of the body. Now it is quite true that St. Paul +speaks of resurrection in this sense, that he tries to describe and +explain it, and that he condemns those who doubt and deny it. But it +is true, also, that in nine cases out of ten where St. Paul thinks +and speaks of resurrection, he [180] thinks and speaks of it in a +sense different from this; in the sense of a rising to a new life +before the physical death of the body, and not after it. The idea on +which we have already touched, the profound idea of being baptized +into the death of the great exemplar of self-devotion and self- +annulment, of repeating in our own person, by virtue of +identification with our exemplar, his course of self-devotion and +self-annulment, and of thus coming, within the limits of our present +life, to a new life, in which, as in the death going before it, we +are identified with our exemplar,--this is the fruitful and original +conception of being risen with Christ which possesses the mind of St. +Paul, and this is the central point round which, with such +incomparable emotion and eloquence, all his teaching moves. For him, +the life after our physical death is really in the main but a +consequence and continuation of the inexhaustible energy of the new +life thus originated on this side the grave. This grand Pauline idea +of Christian resurrection is worthily rehearsed in one of the noblest +collects of the Prayer-Book, and is destined, no doubt, to fill a +more and more important place in the Christianity of the future; but +almost as [181] signal as is the essentialness of this characteristic +idea in St. Paul's teaching, is the completeness with which the +worshippers of St. Paul's words, as an absolute final expression of +saving truth, have lost it, and have substituted for the apostle's +living and near conception of a resurrection now, their mechanical +and remote conception of a resurrection hereafter! + +In short, so fatal is the notion of possessing, even in the most +precious words or standards, the one thing needful, of having in +them, once for all, a full and sufficient measure of light to guide +us, and of there being no duty left for us except to make our +practice square exactly with them,--so fatal, I say, is this notion +to the right knowledge and comprehension of the very words or +standards we thus adopt, and to such strange distortions and +perversions of them does it inevitably lead, that whenever we hear +that commonplace which Hebraism, if we venture to inquire what a man +knows, is so apt to bring out against us in disparagement of what we +call culture, and in praise of a man's sticking to the one thing +needful,--he knows, says Hebraism, his Bible!--whenever we hear this +said, we may, without [182] any elaborate defence of culture, content +ourselves with answering simply: "No man, who knows nothing else, +knows even his Bible." + +Now the force which we have so much neglected, Hellenism, may be +liable to fail in moral force and earnestness, but by the law of its +nature,--the very same law which makes it sometimes deficient in +intensity when intensity is required,--it opposes itself to the +notion of cutting our being in two, of attributing to one part the +dignity of dealing with the one thing needful, and leaving the other +part to take its chance, which is the bane of Hebraism. Essential in +Hellenism is the impulse to the development of the whole man, to +connecting and harmonising all parts of him, perfecting all, leaving +none to take their chance; because the characteristic bent of +Hellenism, as has been said, is to find the intelligible law of +things, and there is no intelligible law of things, things cannot +really appear intelligible, unless they are also beautiful. The body +is not intelligible, is not seen in its true nature and as it really +is, unless it is seen as beautiful; behaviour is not intelligible, +does not account for itself to the mind and show the reason for its +existing, unless it is beautiful. The [183] same with discourse, the +same with song, the same with worship, the same with all the modes in +which man proves his activity and expresses himself. To think that +when one shows what is mean, or vulgar, or hideous, one can be +permitted to plead that one has that within which passes show; to +suppose that the possession of what benefits and satisfies one part +of our being can make allowable either discourse like Mr. Murphy's +and the Rev. W. Cattle's, or poetry like the hymns we all hear, or +places of worship like the chapels we all see,--this it is abhorrent +to the nature of Hellenism to concede. And to be, like our honoured +and justly honoured Faraday, a great natural philosopher with one +side of his being and a Sandemanian with the other, would to +Archimedes have been impossible. It is evident to what a many-sided +perfecting of man's powers and activities this demand of Hellenism +for satisfaction to be given to the mind by everything which we do, +is calculated to impel our race. It has its dangers, as has been +fully granted; the notion of this sort of equipollency in man's modes +of activity may lead to moral relaxation, what we do not make our one +thing needful we may come to treat not [184] enough as if it were +needful, though it is indeed very needful and at the same time very +hard. Still, what side in us has not its dangers, and which of our +impulses can be a talisman to give us perfection outright, and not +merely a help to bring us towards it? Has not Hebraism, as we have +shown, its dangers as well as Hellenism; and have we used so +excessively the tendencies in ourselves to which Hellenism makes +appeal, that we are now suffering from it? Are we not, on the +contrary, now suffering because we have not enough used these +tendencies as a help towards perfection? + +For we see whither it has brought us, the long exclusive predominance +of Hebraism,--the insisting on perfection in one part of our nature +and not in all; the singling out the moral side, the side of +obedience and action, for such intent regard; making strictness of +the moral conscience so far the principal thing, and putting off for +hereafter and for another world the care for being complete at all +points, the full and harmonious development of our humanity. Instead +of watching and following on its ways the desire which, as Plato +says, "for ever through all the universe tends towards that which +[185] is lovely," we think that the world has settled its accounts +with this desire, knows what this desire wants of it, and that all +the impulses of our ordinary self which do not conflict with the +terms of this settlement, in our narrow view of it, we may follow +unrestrainedly, under the sanction of some such text as "Not slothful +in business," or, "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with all +thy might," or something else of the same kind. And to any of these +impulses we soon come to give that same character of a mechanical, +absolute law, which we give to our religion; we regard it, as we do +our religion, as an object for strictness of conscience, not for +spontaneity of consciousness; for unremitting adherence on its own +account, not for going back upon, viewing in its connection with +other things, and adjusting to a number of changing circumstances; we +treat it, in short, just as we treat our religion,--as machinery. It +is in this way that the Barbarians treat their bodily exercises, the +Philistines their business, Mr. Spurgeon his voluntaryism, Mr. Bright +the assertion of personal liberty, Mr. Beales the right of meeting in +Hyde Park. In all those cases what is needed is a freer play of +consciousness [186] upon the object of pursuit; and in all of them +Hebraism, the valuing staunchness and earnestness more than this free +play, the entire subordination of thinking to doing, has led to a +mistaken and misleading treatment of things. + +The newspapers a short time ago contained an account of the suicide +of a Mr. Smith, secretary to some insurance company, who, it was +said, "laboured under the apprehension that he would come to poverty, +and that he was eternally lost." And when I read these words, it +occurred to me that the poor man who came to such a mournful end was, +in truth, a kind of type, by the selection of his two grand objects +of concern, by their isolation from everything else, and their +juxtaposition to one another, of all the strongest, most respectable, +and most representative part of our nation. "He laboured under the +apprehension that he would come to poverty, and that he was eternally +lost." The whole middle-class have a conception of things,--a +conception which makes us call them Philistines,--just like that of +this poor man; though we are seldom, of course, shocked by seeing it +take the distressing, violently morbid, and fatal turn, which [187] +it took with him. But how generally, with how many of us, are the +main concerns of life limited to these two,--the concern for making +money, and the concern for saving our souls! And how entirely does +the narrow and mechanical conception of our secular business proceed +from a narrow and mechanical conception of our religious business! +What havoc do the united conceptions make of our lives! It is +because the second-named of these two master-concerns presents to us +the one thing needful in so fixed, narrow, and mechanical a way, that +so ignoble a fellow master-concern to it as the first-named becomes +possible; and, having been once admitted, takes the same rigid and +absolute character as the other. Poor Mr. Smith had sincerely the +nobler master-concern as well as the meaner,--the concern for saving +his soul (according to the narrow and mechanical conception which +Puritanism has of what the salvation of the soul is), and the concern +for making money. But let us remark how many people there are, +especially outside the limits of the serious and conscientious +middle-class to which Mr. Smith belonged, who take up with a meaner +master-concern,--whether it be pleasure, or field-sports, or [188] +bodily exercises, or business, or popular agitation,--who take up +with one of these exclusively, and neglect Mr. Smith's nobler master- +concern, because of the mechanical form which Hebraism has given to +this nobler master-concern, making it stand, as we have said, as +something talismanic, isolated, and all-sufficient, justifying our +giving our ordinary selves free play in amusement, or business, or +popular agitation, if we have made our accounts square with this +master-concern; and, if we have not, rendering other things +indifferent, and our ordinary self all we have to follow, and to +follow with all the energy that is in us, till we do. Whereas the +idea of perfection at all points, the encouraging in ourselves +spontaneity of consciousness, the letting a free play of thought live +and flow around all our activity, the indisposition to allow one side +of our activity to stand as so all-important and all-sufficing that +it makes other sides indifferent,--this bent of mind in us may not +only check us in following unreservedly a mean master-concern of any +kind, but may even, also, bring new life and movement into that side +of us with which alone Hebraism concerns itself, and awaken a +healthier [189] and less mechanical activity there. Hellenism may +thus actually serve to further the designs of Hebraism. + +Undoubtedly it thus served in the first days of Christianity. +Christianity, as has been said, occupied itself, like Hebraism, with +the moral side of man exclusively, with his moral affections and +moral conduct; and so far it was but a continuation of Hebraism. But +it transformed and renewed Hebraism by going back upon a fixed rule, +which had become mechanical, and had thus lost its vital motive- +power; by letting the thought play freely around this old rule, and +perceive its inadequacy; by developing a new motive-power, which +men's moral consciousness could take living hold of, and could move +in sympathy with. What was this but an importation of Hellenism, as +we have defined it, into Hebraism? And as St. Paul used the +contradiction between the Jew's profession and practice, his +shortcomings on that very side of moral affection and moral conduct +which the Jew and St. Paul, both of them, regarded as all in all-- +("Thou that sayest a man should not steal, dost thou steal? thou that +sayest a man should not [190] commit adultery, dost thou commit +adultery?")+--for a proof of the inadequacy of the old rule of life, +in the Jew's mechanical conception of it, and tried to rescue him by +making his consciousness play freely around this rule,--that is, by +a, so far, Hellenic treatment of it,--even so, when we hear so much +said of the growth of commercial immorality in our serious middle- +class, of the melting away of habits of strict probity before the +temptation to get quickly rich and to cut a figure in the world; when +we see, at any rate, so much confusion of thought and of practice in +this great representative class of our nation, may we not be disposed +to say that this confusion shows that his new motive-power of grace +and imputed righteousness has become to the Puritan as mechanical, +and with as ineffective a hold upon his practice, as the old motive- +power of the law was to the Jew? and that the remedy is the same as +that which St. Paul employed,--an importation of what we have called +Hellenism into his Hebraism, a making his consciousness flow freely +round his petrified rule of life and renew it? Only with this +difference: that whereas St. Paul imported Hellenism within the +limits of our moral part only, [191] this part being still treated by +him as all in all; and whereas he exhausted, one may say, and used to +the very uttermost, the possibilities of fruitfully importing it on +that side exclusively; we ought to try and import it,--guiding +ourselves by the ideal of a human nature harmoniously perfect at all +points,--into all the lines of our activity, and only by so doing can +we rightly quicken, refresh, and renew those very instincts, now so +much baffled, to which Hebraism makes appeal. + +But if we will not be warned by the confusion visible enough at +present in our thinking and acting, that we are in a false line in +having developed our Hebrew side so exclusively, and our Hellenic +side so feebly and at random, in loving fixed rules of action so much +more than the intelligible law of things, let us listen to a +remarkable testimony which the opinion of the world around us offers. +All the world now sets great and increasing value on three objects +which have long been very dear to us, and pursues them in its own +way, or tries to pursue them. These three objects are industrial +enterprise, bodily exercises, and freedom. Certainly we have, before +and beyond our neighbours, given ourselves [192] to these three +things with ardent passion and with high success. And this our +neighbours cannot but acknowledge; and they must needs, when they +themselves turn to these things, have an eye to our example, and take +something of our practice. Now, generally, when people are +interested in an object of pursuit, they cannot help feeling an +enthusiasm for those who have already laboured successfully at it, +and for their success; not only do they study them, they also love +and admire them. In this way a man who is interested in the art of +war not only acquaints himself with the performance of great +generals, but he has an admiration and enthusiasm for them. So, too, +one who wants to be a painter or a poet cannot help loving and +admiring the great painters or poets who have gone before him and +shown him the way. But it is strange with how little of love, +admiration, or enthusiasm, the world regards us and our freedom, our +bodily exercises, and our industrial prowess, much as these things +themselves are beginning to interest it. And is not the reason +because we follow each of these things in a mechanical manner, as an +end in and for itself, and not in reference to a general end of human +[193] perfection? and this makes our pursuit of them uninteresting to +humanity, and not what the world truly wants? It seems to them mere +machinery that we can, knowingly, teach them to worship,--a mere +fetish. British freedom, British industry, British muscularity, we +work for each of these three things blindly, with no notion of giving +each its due proportion and prominence, because we have no ideal of +harmonious human perfection before our minds, to set our work in +motion, and to guide it. So the rest of the world, desiring +industry, or freedom, or bodily strength, yet desiring these not, as +we do, absolutely, but as means to something else, imitate, indeed, +of our practice what seems useful for them, but us, whose practice +they imitate, they seem to entertain neither love nor admiration for. +Let us observe, on the other hand, the love and enthusiasm excited by +others who have laboured for these very things. Perhaps of what we +call industrial enterprise it is not easy to find examples in former +times; but let us consider how Greek freedom and Greek gymnastics +have attracted the love and praise of mankind, who give so little +love and praise to ours. And what can be the reason [194] of this +difference? Surely because the Greeks pursued freedom and pursued +gymnastics not mechanically, but with constant reference to some +ideal of complete human perfection and happiness. And therefore, in +spite of faults and failures, they interest and delight by their +pursuit of them all the rest of mankind, who instinctively feel that +only as things are pursued with reference to this ideal are they +valuable. + +Here again, therefore, as in the confusion into which the thought and +action of even the steadiest class amongst us is beginning to fall, +we seem to have an admonition that we have fostered our Hebraising +instincts, our preference of earnestness of doing to delicacy and +flexibility of thinking, too exclusively, and have been landed by +them in a mechanical and unfruitful routine. And again we seem +taught that the development of our Hellenising instincts, seeking +skilfully the intelligible law of things, and making a stream of +fresh thought play freely about our stock notions and habits, is what +is most wanted by us at present. + +Well, then, from all sides, the more we go into the matter, the +currents seem to converge, and together [195] to bear us along +towards culture. If we look at the world outside us we find a +disquieting absence of sure authority; we discover that only in right +reason can we get a source of sure authority, and culture brings us +towards right reason. If we look at our own inner world, we find all +manner of confusion arising out of the habits of unintelligent +routine and one-sided growth, to which a too exclusive worship of +fire, strength, earnestness, and action has brought us. What we want +is a fuller harmonious development of our humanity, a free play of +thought upon our routine notions, spontaneity of consciousness, +sweetness and light; and these are just what culture generates and +fosters. Proceeding from this idea of the harmonious perfection of +our humanity, and seeking to help itself up towards this perfection +by knowing and spreading the best which has been reached in the +world--an object not to be gained without books and reading--culture +has got its name touched, in the fancies of men, with a sort of air +of bookishness and pedantry, cast upon it from the follies of the +many bookmen who forget the end in the means, and use their books +with no real aim at perfection. We will not stickle for a name, +[196] and the name of culture one might easily give up, if only those +who decry the frivolous and pedantic sort of culture, but wish at +bottom for the same things as we do, would be careful on their part, +not, in disparaging and discrediting the false culture, to +unwittingly disparage and discredit, among a people with little +natural reverence for it, the true also. But what we are concerned +for is the thing, not the name; and the thing, call it by what name +we will, is simply the enabling ourselves, whether by reading, +observing, or thinking, to come as near as we can to the firm +intelligible law of things, and thus to get a basis for a less +confused action and a more complete perfection than we have at +present. + +And now, therefore, when we are accused of preaching up a spirit of +cultivated inaction, of provoking the earnest lovers of action, of +refusing to lend a hand at uprooting certain definite evils, of +despairing to find any lasting truth to minister to the diseased +spirit of our time, we shall not be so much confounded and +embarrassed what to answer for ourselves. We shall say boldly that +we do not at all despair of finding some lasting truth to minister to +the diseased spirit of our time; but that we have [197] discovered +the best way of finding this to be, not so much by lending a hand to +our friends and countrymen in their actual operations for the removal +of certain definite evils, but rather in getting our friends and +countrymen to seek culture, to let their consciousness play freely +round their present operations and the stock notions on which they +are founded, show what these are like, and how related to the +intelligible law of things, and auxiliary to true human perfection. + +NOTES + +174. +unum necessarium or one thing needful. Arnold refers here, and +in his subsequent chapter title, Porro Unum est Necessarium, to Luke +10:42. Here is the context, 10:38-42. "[Jesus] . . . entered into a +certain village: and a certain woman named Martha received him into +her house. / And she had a sister called Mary . . . . / But Martha +was cumbered about much serving, and came to him, and said, Lord, +dost thou not care that my sister hath left me to serve alone? bid +her therefore that she help me. / And Jesus answered and said unto +her, Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things: +/ But one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, +which shall not be taken away from her." King James Bible. + +177. +Romans 11:34. "For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who +hath been his counsellor?" King James Bible. + +189-90. +Romans 2:21-22. "Thou therefore which teachest another, +teachest thou not thyself? thou that preachest a man should not +steal, dost thou steal? / Thou that sayest a man should not commit +adultery, dost thou commit adultery? thou that abhorrest idols, dost +thou commit sacrilege?" King James Bible. + + + +CHAPTER VI + +[197] But an unpretending writer, without a philosophy based on +inter-dependent, subordinate, and coherent principles, must not +presume to indulge himself too much in generalities, but he must keep +close to the level ground of common fact, the only safe ground for +understandings without a scientific equipment. Therefore I am bound +to take, before concluding, some of the practical operations in which +my friends and countrymen are at this moment engaged, and [198] to +make these, if I can, show the truth of what I have advanced. +Probably I could hardly give a greater proof of my confessed +inexpertness in reasoning and arguing, than by taking, for my first +example of an operation of this kind, the proceedings for the +disestablishment of the Irish Church, which we are now witnessing. +It seems so clear that this is surely one of those operations for the +uprooting of a certain definite evil in which one's Liberal friends +engage, and have a right to complain and to get impatient and to +reproach one with delicate Conservative scepticism and cultivated +inaction if one does not lend a hand to help them. This does, +indeed, seem evident; and yet this operation comes so prominently +before us just at this moment,--it so challenges everybody's regard,- +-that one seems cowardly in blinking it. So let us venture to try +and see whether this conspicuous operation is one of those round +which we need to let our consciousness play freely and reveal what +manner of spirit we are of in doing it; or whether it is one which by +no means admits the application of this doctrine of ours, and one to +which we ought to lend a hand immediately. + +[199] Now it seems plain that the present Church establishment in +Ireland is contrary to reason and justice, in so far as the Church of +a very small minority of the people there takes for itself all the +Church property of the Irish people. And one would think, that +property assigned for the purpose of providing for a people's +religious worship when that worship was one, the State should, when +that worship is split into several forms, apportion between those +several forms, with due regard to circumstances, taking account only +of great differences, which are likely to be lasting, and of +considerable communions, which are likely to represent profound and +widespread religious characteristics; and overlooking petty +differences, which have no serious reason for lasting, and +inconsiderable communions, which can hardly be taken to express any +broad and necessary religious lineaments of our common nature. This +is just in accordance with that maxim about the State which we have +more than once used: The State is of the religion of all its +citizens, without the fanaticism of any of them. Those who deny +this, either think so poorly of the State that they do not like to +see religion condescend to touch the State, or they think [200] so +poorly of religion that they do not like to see the State condescend +to touch religion; but no good statesman will easily think thus +unworthily either of the State or of religion, and our statesmen of +both parties were inclined, one may say, to follow the natural line +of the State's duty, and to make in Ireland some fair apportionment +of Church property between large and radically divided religious +communions in that country. But then it was discovered that in Great +Britain the national mind, as it is called, is grown averse to +endowments for religion and will make no new ones; and though this in +itself looks general and solemn enough, yet there were found +political philosophers, like Mr. Baxter and Mr. Charles Buxton, to +give it a look of more generality and more solemnity still, and to +elevate, by their dexterous command of powerful and beautiful +language, this supposed edict of the British national mind into a +sort of formula for expressing a great law of religious transition +and progress for all the world. But we, who, having no coherent +philosophy, must not let ourselves philosophise, only see that the +English and Scotch Nonconformists have a great horror of +establishments and endowments for [201] religion, which, they assert, +were forbidden by Christ when he said: "My kingdom is not of this +world;"+ and that the Nonconformists will be delighted to aid +statesmen in disestablishing any church, but will suffer none to be +established or endowed if they can help it. Then we see that the +Nonconformists make the strength of the Liberal majority in the House +of Commons, and that, therefore, the leading Liberal statesmen, to +get the support of the Nonconformists, forsake the notion of fairly +apportioning Church property in Ireland among the chief religious +communions, declare that the national mind has decided against new +endowments, and propose simply to disestablish and disendow the +present establishment in Ireland without establishing or endowing any +other. The actual power, in short, by virtue of which the Liberal +party in the House of Commons is now trying to disestablish the Irish +Church, is not the power of reason and justice, it is the power of +the Nonconformists' antipathy to Church establishments. Clearly it +is this; because Liberal statesmen, relying on the power of reason +and justice to help them, proposed something quite different from +what they now propose; and they proposed [202] what they now propose, +and talked of the decision of the national mind, because they had to +rely on the English and Scotch Nonconformists. And clearly the +Nonconformists are actuated by antipathy to establishments, not by +antipathy to the injustice and irrationality of the present +appropriation of Church property in Ireland; because Mr. Spurgeon, in +his eloquent and memorable letter, expressly avowed that he would +sooner leave things as they are in Ireland, that is, he would sooner +let the injustice and irrationality of the present appropriation +continue, than do anything to set up the Roman image, that is, than +give the Catholics their fair and reasonable share of Church +property. Most indisputably, therefore, we may affirm that the real +moving power by which the Liberal party are now operating the +overthrow of the Irish establishment is the antipathy of the +Nonconformists to Church establishments, and not the sense of reason +or justice, except so far as reason and justice may be contained in +this antipathy. And thus the matter stands at present. + +Now surely we must all see many inconveniences in performing the +operation of uprooting this evil, [203] the Irish Church +establishment, in this particular way. As was said about industry +and freedom and gymnastics, we shall never awaken love and gratitude +by this mode of operation; for it is pursued, not in view of reason +and justice and human perfection and all that enkindles the +enthusiasm of men, but it is pursued in view of a certain stock +notion, or fetish, of the Nonconformists, which proscribes Church +establishments. And yet, evidently, one of the main benefits to be +got by operating on the Irish Church is to win the affections of the +Irish people. Besides this, an operation performed in virtue of a +mechanical rule, or fetish, like the supposed decision of the English +national mind against new endowments, does not easily inspire respect +in its adversaries, and make their opposition feeble and hardly to be +persisted in, as an operation evidently done in virtue of reason and +justice might. For reason and justice have in them something +persuasive and irresistible; but a fetish or mechanical maxim, like +this of the Nonconformists, has in it nothing at all to conciliate +either the affections or the understanding; nay, it provokes the +counter-employment of other fetishes or mechanical maxims [204] on +the opposite side, by which the confusion and hostility already +prevalent are heightened. Only in this way can be explained the +apparition of such fetishes as are beginning to be set up on the +Conservative side against the fetish of the Nonconformists:--The +Constitution in danger! The bulwarks of British freedom menaced! +The lamp of the Reformation put out! No Popery!--and so on. To +elevate these against an operation relying on reason and justice to +back it is not so easy, or so tempting to human infirmity, as to +elevate them against an operation relying on the Nonconformists' +antipathy to Church establishments to back it; for after all, No +Popery! is a rallying cry which touches the human spirit quite as +vitally as No Church establishments!--that is to say, neither the one +nor the other, in themselves, touch the human spirit vitally at all. + +Ought the believers in action, then, to be so impatient with us, if +we say, that even for the sake of this operation of theirs itself and +its satisfactory accomplishment, it is more important to make our +consciousness play freely round the stock notion or habit on which +their operation relies for aid, than to [205] lend a hand to it +straight away? Clearly they ought not; because nothing is so +effectual for operating as reason and justice, and a free play of +thought will either disengage the reason and justice lying hid in the +Nonconformist fetish, and make them effectual, or else it will help +to get this fetish out of the way, and to let statesmen go freely +where reason and justice take them. + +So, suppose we take this absolute rule, this mechanical maxim of Mr. +Spurgeon and the Nonconformists, that Church establishments are bad +things because Christ said: "My kingdom is not of this world." +Suppose we try and make our consciousness bathe and float this piece +of petrifaction,--for such it now is,--and bring it within the stream +of the vital movement of our thought, and into relation with the +whole intelligible law of things. An enemy and a disputant might +probably say that much machinery which Nonconformists themselves +employ, the Liberation Society which exists already, and the +Nonconformist Union which Mr. Spurgeon desires to see existing, come +within the scope of Christ's words as well as Church establishments. +This, however, is merely a negative and [206] contentious way of +dealing with the Nonconformist maxim; whereas what we desire is to +bring this maxim within the positive and vital movement of our +thought. We say, therefore, that Christ's words mean that his +religion is a force of inward persuasion acting on the soul, and not +a force of outward constraint acting on the body; and if the +Nonconformist maxim against Church establishments and Church +endowments has warrant given to it from what Christ thus meant, then +their maxim is good, even though their own practice in the matter of +the Liberation Society may be at variance with it. + +And here we cannot but remember what we have formerly said about +religion, Miss Cobbe, and the British College of Health in the New +Road. In religion there are two parts, the part of thought and +speculation, and the part of worship and devotion. Christ certainly +meant his religion, as a force of inward persuasion acting on the +soul, to employ both parts as perfectly as possible. Now thought and +speculation is eminently an individual matter, and worship and +devotion is eminently a collective matter. It does not help me to +think a thing more clearly that thousands of other people are +thinking [207] the same; but it does help me to worship with more +emotion that thousands of other people are worshipping with me. The +consecration of common consent, antiquity, public establishment, +long-used rites, national edifices, is everything for religious +worship. "Just what makes worship impressive," says Joubert, "is its +publicity, its external manifestation, its sound, its splendour, its +observance universally and visibly holding its way through all the +details both of our outward and of our inward life." Worship, +therefore, should have in it as little as possible of what divides +us, and should be as much as possible a common and public act; as +Joubert says again: "The best prayers are those which have nothing +distinct about them, and which are thus of the nature of simple +adoration." For, "The same devotion," as he says in another place, +"unites men far more than the same thought and knowledge." Thought +and knowledge, as we have said before, is eminently something +individual, and of our own; the more we possess it as strictly of our +own, the more power it has on us. Man worships best, therefore, with +the community; he philosophises best alone. So it seems that whoever +[208] would truly give effect to Christ's declaration that his +religion is a force of inward persuasion acting on the soul, would +leave our thought on the intellectual aspects of Christianity as +individual as possible, but would make Christian worship as +collective as possible. Worship, then, appears to be eminently a +matter for public and national establishment; for even Mr. Bright, +who, when he stands in Mr. Spurgeon's great Tabernacle is so ravished +with admiration, will hardly say that the great Tabernacle and its +worship are in themselves, as a temple and service of religion, so +impressive and affecting as the public and national Westminster +Abbey, or Notre Dame, with their worship. And when, very soon after +the great Tabernacle, one comes plump down to the mass of private and +individual establishments of religious worship, establishments +falling, like the British College of Health in the New Road, +conspicuously short of what a public and national establishment might +be, then one cannot but feel that Christ's command to make his +religion a force of persuasion to the soul, is, so far as one main +source of persuasion is concerned, altogether set at nought. + +[209] But perhaps the Nonconformists worship so unimpressively +because they philosophise so keenly; and one part of religion, the +part of public national worship, they have subordinated to the other +part, the part of individual thought and knowledge? This, however, +their organisation in congregations forbids us to admit. They are +members of congregations, not isolated thinkers; and a true play of +individual thought is at least as much impeded by membership of a +small congregation as by membership of a great Church; thinking by +batches of fifties is to the full as fatal to free thought as +thinking by batches of thousands. Accordingly, we have had occasion +already to notice that Nonconformity does not at all differ from the +Established Church by having worthier or more philosophical ideas +about God and the ordering of the world than the Established Church +has; it has very much the same ideas about these as the Established +Church has, but it differs from the Established Church in that its +worship is a much less collective and national affair. So Mr. +Spurgeon and the Nonconformists seem to have misapprehended the true +meaning of Christ's words, My kingdom is not of this world; [210] +because, by these words, Christ meant that his religion was to work +on the soul; and of the two parts of the soul on which religion +works,--the thinking and speculative part, and the feeling and +imaginative part,--Nonconformity satisfies the first no better than +the Established Churches, which Christ by these words is supposed to +have condemned, satisfy it; and the second part it satisfies much +worse than the Established Churches. And thus the balance of +advantage seems to rest with the Established Churches; and they seem +to have apprehended and applied Christ's words, if not with perfect +adequacy, at least less inadequately than the Nonconformists. + +Might it not, then, be urged with great force that the way to do +good, in presence of this operation for uprooting the Church +establishment in Ireland by the power of the Nonconformists' +antipathy to publicly establishing or endowing religious worship, is +not by lending a hand straight away to the operation, and +Hebraising,--that is, in this case, taking an uncritical +interpretation of certain Bible words as our absolute rule of +conduct,--with the Nonconformists. If may be very well for born +[211] Hebraisers, like Mr. Spurgeon, to Hebraise; but for Liberal +statesmen to Hebraise is surely unsafe, and to see poor old Liberal +hacks Hebraising, whose real self belongs to a kind of negative +Hellenism,--a state of moral indifferency without intellectual +ardour,--is even painful. And when, by our Hebraising, we neither do +what the better mind of statesmen prompted them to do, nor win the +affections of the people we want to conciliate, nor yet reduce the +opposition of our adversaries but rather heighten it, surely it may +be not unreasonable to Hellenise a little, to let our thought and +consciousness play freely about our proposed operation and its +motives, dissolve these motives if they are unsound, which certainly +they have some appearance, at any rate, of being, and create in their +stead, if they are, a set of sounder and more persuasive motives +conducting to a more solid operation. May not the man who promotes +this be giving the best help towards finding some lasting truth to +minister to the diseased spirit of his time, and does he really +deserve that the believers in action should grow impatient with him? + +But now to take another operation which does [212] not at this moment +so excite people's feelings as the disestablishment of the Irish +Church, but which, I suppose, would also be called exactly one of +those operations of simple, practical, common-sense reform, aiming at +the removal of some particular abuse, and rigidly restricted to that +object, to which a Liberal ought to lend a hand, and deserves that +other Liberals should grow impatient with him if he does not. This +operation I had the great advantage of with my own ears hearing +discussed in the House of Commons, and recommended by a powerful +speech from that famous speaker, Mr. Bright; so that the effeminate +horror which, it is alleged, I have of practical reforms of this +kind, was put to a searching test; and if it survived, it must have, +one would think, some reason or other to support it, and can hardly +quite merit the stigma of its present name. The operation I mean was +that which the Real Estate Intestacy Bill aimed at accomplishing, and +the discussion on this bill I heard in the House of Commons. The +bill proposed, as every one knows, to prevent the land of a man who +dies intestate from going, as it goes now, to his eldest son, and was +thought, by its friends and by its enemies, to be a [213] step +towards abating the now almost exclusive possession of the land of +this country by the people whom we call the Barbarians. Mr. Bright, +and other speakers on his side, seemed to hold that there is a kind +of natural law or fitness of things which assigns to all a man's +children a right to equal shares in the enjoyment of his property +after his death; and that if, without depriving a man of an +Englishman's prime privilege of doing what he likes by making what +will he chooses, you provide that when he makes none his land shall +be divided among his family, then you give the sanction of the law to +the natural fitness of things, and inflict a sort of check on the +present violation of this by the Barbarians. It occurred to me, when +I saw Mr. Bright and his friends proceeding in this way, to ask +myself a question. If the almost exclusive possession of the land of +this country by the Barbarians is a bad thing, is this practical +operation of the Liberals, and the stock notion, on which it seems to +rest, about the right of children to share equally in the enjoyment +of their father's property after his death, the best and most +effective means of dealing with it? Or is it best [214] dealt with +by letting one's thought and consciousness play freely and naturally +upon the Barbarians, this Liberal operation, and the stock notion at +the bottom of it, and trying to get as near as we can to the +intelligible law of things as to each of them? + +Now does any one, if he simply and naturally reads his consciousness, +discover that he has any rights at all? For my part, the deeper I go +in my own consciousness, and the more simply I abandon myself to it, +the more it seems to tell me that I have no rights at all, only +duties; and that men get this notion of rights from a process of +abstract reasoning, inferring that the obligations they are conscious +of towards others, others must be conscious of towards them, and not +from any direct witness of consciousness at all. But it is obvious +that the notion of a right, arrived at in this way, is likely to +stand as a formal and petrified thing, deceiving and misleading us; +and that the notions got directly from our consciousness ought to be +brought to bear upon it, and to control it. So it is unsafe and +misleading to say that our children have rights against us; what is +true and safe to say is, that we have duties towards our [215] +children. But who will find among these natural duties, set forth to +us by our consciousness, the obligation to leave to all our children +an equal share in the enjoyment of our property? or, though +consciousness tells us we ought to provide for our children's +welfare, whose consciousness tells him that the enjoyment of property +is in itself welfare? Whether our children's welfare is best served +by their all sharing equally in our property depends on circumstances +and on the state of the community in which we live. With this equal +sharing, society could not, for example, have organised itself afresh +out of the chaos left by the fall of the Roman Empire, and to have an +organised society to live in is more for a child's welfare than to +have an equal share of his father's property. So we see how little +convincing force the stock notion on which the Real Estate Intestacy +Bill was based,--the notion that in the nature and fitness of things +all a man's children have a right to an equal share in the enjoyment +of what he leaves,--really has; and how powerless, therefore, it must +of necessity be to persuade and win any one who has habits and +interests which disincline him to [216] it. On the other hand, the +practical operation proposed relies entirely, if it is to be +effectual in altering the present practice of the Barbarians, on the +power of truth and persuasiveness in the notion which it seeks to +consecrate; for it leaves to the Barbarians full liberty to continue +their present practice, to which all their habits and interests +incline them, unless the promulgation of a notion, which we have seen +to have no vital efficacy and hold upon our consciousness, shall +hinder them. + +Are we really to adorn an operation of this kind, merely because it +proposes to do something, with all the favourable epithets of simple, +practical, common-sense, definite; to enlist on its side all the zeal +of the believers in action, and to call indifference to it a really +effeminate horror of useful reforms? It seems to me quite easy to +show that a free disinterested play of thought on the Barbarians and +their land-holding is a thousand times more really practical, a +thousand times more likely to lead to some effective result, than an +operation such as that of which we have been now speaking. For if, +casting aside the impediments of stock notions and mechanical action, +we try to find the intelligible law [217] of things respecting a +great land-owning class such as we have in this country, does not our +consciousness readily tell us that whether the perpetuation of such a +class is for its own real welfare and for the real welfare of the +community, depends on the actual circumstances of this class and of +the community? Does it not readily tell us that wealth, power, and +consideration are, and above all when inherited and not earned, in +themselves trying and dangerous things? as Bishop Wilson excellently +says: "Riches are almost always abused without a very extraordinary +grace." But this extraordinary grace was in great measure supplied +by the circumstances of the feudal epoch, out of which our land- +holding class, with its rules of inheritance, sprang. The labour and +contentions of a rude, nascent, and struggling society supplied it; +these perpetually were trying, chastising, and forming the class +whose predominance was then needed by society to give it points of +cohesion, and was not so harmful to themselves because they were thus +sharply tried and exercised. But in a luxurious, settled, and easy +society, where wealth offers the means of enjoyment a thousand times +more, and the temptation to abuse [218] them is thus made a thousand +times greater, the exercising discipline is at the same time taken +away, and the feudal class is left exposed to the full operation of +the natural law well put by the French moralist: Pouvoir sans savoir +est fort dangereux. And, for my part, when I regard the young people +of this class, it is above all by the trial and shipwreck made of +their own welfare by the circumstances in which they live that I am +struck; how far better it would have been for nine out of every ten +among them, if they had had their own way to make in the world, and +not been tried by a condition for which they had not the +extraordinary grace requisite! + +This, I say, seems to be what a man's consciousness, simply +consulted, would tell him about the actual welfare of our Barbarians +themselves. Then, as to their actual effect upon the welfare of the +community, how can this be salutary, if a class which, by the very +possession of wealth, power and consideration, becomes a kind of +ideal or standard for the rest of the community, is tried by ease and +pleasure more than it can well bear, and almost irresistibly carried +away from excellence and strenuous virtue? This must certainly be +what [219] Solomon meant when he said: "As he who putteth a stone in +a sling, so is he that giveth honour to a fool."+ For any one can +perceive how this honouring of a false ideal, not of intelligence and +strenuous virtue, but of wealth and station, pleasure and ease, is as +a stone from a sling to kill in our great middle-class, in us who are +called Philistines, the desire before spoken of, which by nature for +ever carries all men towards that which is lovely; and to leave +instead of it only a blind deteriorating pursuit, for ourselves also, +of the false ideal. And in those among us Philistines whom this +desire does not wholly abandon, yet, having no excellent ideal set +forth to nourish and to steady it, it meets with that natural bent +for the bathos which together with this desire itself is implanted at +birth in the breast of man, and is by that force twisted awry, and +borne at random hither and thither, and at last flung upon those +grotesque and hideous forms of popular religion which the more +respectable part among us Philistines mistake for the true goal of +man's desire after all that is lovely. And for the Populace this +false idea is a stone which kills the desire before it can even +arise; so impossible and unattainable for [220] them do the +conditions of that which is lovely appear according to this ideal to +be made, so necessary to the reaching of them by the few seems the +falling short of them by the many. So that, perhaps, of the actual +vulgarity of our Philistines and brutality of our Populace, the +Barbarians and their feudal habits of succession, enduring out of +their due time and place, are involuntarily the cause in a great +degree; and they hurt the welfare of the rest of the community at the +same time that, as we have seen, they hurt their own. + +But must not, now, the working in our minds of considerations like +these, to which culture, that is, the disinterested and active use of +reading, reflection, and observation, carries us, be really much more +effectual to the dissolution of feudal habits and rules of succession +in land than an operation like the Real Estate Intestacy Bill, and a +stock notion like that of the natural right of all a man's children +to an equal share in the enjoyment of his property; since we have +seen that this mechanical maxim is unsound, and that, if it is +unsound, the operation relying upon it cannot possibly be effective? +If truth and reason have, as we believe, any natural irresistible +effect on [221] the mind of man, it must. These considerations, when +culture has called them forth and given them free course in our +minds, will live and work. They will work gradually, no doubt, and +will not bring us ourselves to the front to sit in high place and put +them into effect; but so they will be all the more beneficial. +Everything teaches us how gradually nature would have all profound +changes brought about; and we can even see, too, where the absolute +abrupt stoppage of feudal habits has worked harm. And appealing to +the sense of truth and reason, these considerations will, without +doubt, touch and move all those of even the Barbarians themselves, +who are (as are some of us Philistines also, and some of the +Populace) beyond their fellows quick of feeling for truth and reason. +For indeed this is just one of the advantages of sweetness and light +over fire and strength, that sweetness and light make a feudal class +quietly and gradually drop its feudal habits because it sees them at +variance with truth and reason, while fire and strength tear them +passionately off it because it applauded Mr. Lowe when he called, or +was supposed to call, the working-class drunken and venal. + +[222] But when once we have begun to recount the practical operations +by which our Liberal friends work for the removal of definite evils, +and in which if we do not join them they are apt to grow impatient +with us, how can we pass over that very interesting operation of this +kind,--the attempt to enable a man to marry his deceased wife's +sister? This operation, too, like that for abating the feudal +customs of succession in land, I have had the advantage of myself +seeing and hearing my Liberal friends labour at. I was lucky enough +to be present when Mr. Chambers, I think, brought forward in the +House of Commons his bill for enabling a man to marry his deceased +wife's sister, and I heard the speech which Mr. Chambers then made in +support of his bill. His first point was that God's law,--the name +he always gave to the Book of Leviticus,--did not really forbid a man +to marry his deceased wife's sister. God's law not forbidding it, +the Liberal maxim that a man's prime right and happiness is to do as +he likes ought at once to come into force, and to annul any such +check upon the assertion of personal liberty as the prohibition to +marry one's deceased wife's sister. A distinguished Liberal +supporter of Mr. Chambers, in [223] the debate which followed the +introduction of the bill, produced a formula of much beauty and +neatness for conveying in brief the Liberal notions on this head: +"Liberty," said he, "is the law of human life." And, therefore, the +moment it is ascertained that God's law, the Book of Leviticus, does +not stop the way, man's law, the law of liberty, asserts its right, +and makes us free to marry our deceased wife's sister. + +And this exactly falls in with what Mr. Hepworth Dixon, who may +almost be called the Colenso of love and marriage,--such a revolution +does he make in our ideas on these matters, just as Dr. Colenso does +in our ideas on religion,--tells us of the notions and proceedings of +our kinsmen in America. With that affinity of genius to the Hebrew +genius which we have already noticed, and with the strong belief of +our race that liberty is the law of human life, so far as a fixed, +perfect, and paramount rule of conscience, the Bible, does not +expressly control it, our American kinsmen go again, Mr. Hepworth +Dixon tells us, to their Bible, the Mormons to the patriarchs and the +Old Testament, Brother Noyes to St. Paul and the New, and having +never before read anything else but [224] their Bible, they now read +their Bible over again, and make all manner of great discoveries +there. All these discoveries are favourable to liberty, and in this +way is satisfied that double craving so characteristic of the +Philistine, and so eminently exemplified in that crowned Philistine, +Henry the Eighth,--the craving for forbidden fruit and the craving +for legality. Mr. Hepworth Dixon's eloquent writings give currency, +over here, to these important discoveries; so that now, as regards +love and marriage, we seem to be entering, with all our sails spread, +upon what Mr. Hepworth Dixon, its apostle and evangelist, calls a +Gothic Revival, but what one of the many newspapers that so greatly +admire Mr. Hepworth Dixon's lithe and sinewy style and form their own +style upon it, calls, by a yet bolder and more striking figure, "a +great sexual insurrection of our Anglo-Teutonic race." For this end +we have to avert our eyes from everything Hellenic and fanciful, and +to keep them steadily fixed upon the two cardinal points of the Bible +and liberty. And one of those practical operations in which the +Liberal party engage, and in which we are summoned to join them, +directs itself entirely, as we have seen, to these cardinal points, +[225] and may almost be regarded, perhaps, as a kind of first +instalment or public and parliamentary pledge of the great sexual +insurrection of our Anglo-Teutonic race. + +But here, as elsewhere, what we seek is the Philistine's perfection, +the development of his best self, not mere liberty for his ordinary +self. And we no more allow absolute validity to his stock maxim, +Liberty is the law of human life, than we allow it to the opposite +maxim, which is just as true, Renouncement is the law of human life. +For we know that the only perfect freedom is, as our religion says, a +service; not a service to any stock maxim, but an elevation of our +best self, and a harmonising in subordination to this, and to the +idea of a perfected humanity, all the multitudinous, turbulent, and +blind impulses of our ordinary selves. Now, the Philistine's great +defect being a defect in delicacy of perception, to cultivate in him +this delicacy, to render it independent of external and mechanical +rule, and a law to itself, is what seems to make most for his +perfection, his true humanity. And his true humanity, and therefore +his happiness, appears to lie much more, so far as the relations of +love and [226] marriage are concerned, in becoming alive to the finer +shades of feeling which arise within these relations, in being able +to enter with tact and sympathy into the subtle instinctive +propensions and repugnances of the person with whose life his own +life is bound up, to make them his own, to direct and govern, in +harmony with them, the arbitrary range of his personal action, and +thus to enlarge his spiritual and intellectual life and liberty, than +in remaining insensible to these finer shades of feeling, this +delicate sympathy, in giving unchecked range, so far as he can, to +his mere personal action, in allowing no limits or government to this +except such as a mechanical external law imposes, and in thus really +narrowing, for the satisfaction of his ordinary self, his spiritual +and intellectual life and liberty. + +Still more must this be so when his fixed eternal rule, his God's +law, is supplied to him from a source which is less fit, perhaps, to +supply final and absolute instructions on this particular topic of +love and marriage than on any other relation of human life. Bishop +Wilson, who is full of examples of that fruitful Hellenising within +the limits of Hebraism itself, of that renewing of the [227] stiff +and stark notions of Hebraism by turning upon them a stream of fresh +thought and consciousness, which we have already noticed in St. +Paul,--Bishop Wilson gives an admirable lesson to rigid Hebraisers, +like Mr. Chambers, asking themselves: Does God's law (that is, the +Book of Leviticus) forbid us to marry our wife's sister?--Does God's +law (that is, again, the Book of Leviticus) allow us to marry our +wife's sister?--when he says: "Christian duties are founded on +reason, not on the sovereign authority of God commanding what he +pleases; God cannot command us what is not fit to be believed or +done, all his commands being founded in the necessities of our +nature." And, immense as is our debt to the Hebrew race and its +genius, incomparable as is its authority on certain profoundly +important sides of our human nature, worthy as it is to be described +as having uttered, for those sides, the voice of the deepest +necessities of our nature, the statutes of the divine and eternal +order of things, the law of God,--who, that is not manacled and +hoodwinked by his Hebraism, can believe that, as to love and +marriage, our reason and the necessities of our humanity have their +true, [228] sufficient, and divine law expressed for them by the +voice of any Oriental and polygamous nation like the Hebrews? Who, I +say, will believe, when he really considers the matter, that where +the feminine nature, the feminine ideal, and our relations to them, +are brought into question, the delicate and apprehensive genius of +the Indo-European race, the race which invented the Muses, and +chivalry, and the Madonna, is to find its last word on this question +in the institutions of a Semitic people, whose wisest king had seven +hundred wives and three hundred concubines? + +If here again, therefore, we seem to minister better to the diseased +spirit of our time by leading it to think about the operation our +Liberal friends have in hand, than by lending a hand to this +operation ourselves, let us see, before we dismiss from our view the +practical operations of our Liberal friends, whether the same thing +does not hold good as to their celebrated industrial and economical +labours also. Their great work of this kind is, of course, their +free-trade policy. This policy, as having enabled the poor man to +eat untaxed bread, and as having wonderfully augmented trade, we +[229] are accustomed to speak of with a kind of solemnity; it is +chiefly on their having been our leaders in this policy that Mr. +Bright founds for himself and his friends the claim, so often +asserted by him, to be considered guides of the blind, teachers of +the ignorant, benefactors slowly and laboriously developing in the +Conservative party and in the country that which Mr. Bright is fond +of calling the growth of intelligence,--the object, as is well known, +of all the friends of culture also, and the great end and aim of the +culture that we preach. Now, having first saluted free-trade and its +doctors with all respect, let us see whether even here, too, our +Liberal friends do not pursue their operations in a mechanical way, +without reference to any firm intelligible law of things, to human +life as a whole, and human happiness; and whether it is not more for +our good, at this particular moment at any rate, if, instead of +worshipping free-trade with them Hebraistically, as a kind of fetish, +and helping them to pursue it as an end in and for itself, we turn +the free stream of our thought upon their treatment of it, and see +how this is related to the intelligible law of human life, and to +national well- [230] being and happiness. In short, suppose we +Hellenise a little with free-trade, as we Hellenised with the Real +Estate Intestacy Bill, and with the disestablishment of the Irish +Church by the power of the Nonconformists' antipathy to religious +establishments and endowments, and see whether what our reprovers +beautifully call ministering to the diseased spirit of our time is +best done by the Hellenising method of proceeding, or by the other. + +But first let us understand how the policy of free-trade really +shapes itself for our Liberal friends, and how they practically +employ it as an instrument of national happiness and salvation. For +as we said that it seemed clearly right to prevent the Church +property of Ireland from being all taken for the benefit of the +Church of a small minority, so it seems clearly right that the poor +man should eat untaxed bread, and, generally, that restrictions and +regulations which, for the supposed benefit of some particular person +or class of persons, make the price of things artificially high here, +or artificially low there, and interfere with the natural flow of +trade and commerce, should be done away with. But in the policy of +our Liberal friends free-trade [231] means more than this, and is +specially valued as a stimulant to the production of wealth, as they +call it, and to the increase of the trade, business, and population +of the country. We have already seen how these things,--trade, +business, and population,--are mechanically pursued by us as ends +precious in themselves, and are worshipped as what we call fetishes; +and Mr. Bright, I have already said, when he wishes to give the +working-class a true sense of what makes glory and greatness, tells +it to look at the cities it has built, the railroads it has made, the +manufactures it has produced. So to this idea of glory and greatness +the free-trade which our Liberal friends extol so solemnly and +devoutly has served,--to the increase of trade, business, and +population; and for this it is prized. Therefore, the untaxing of +the poor man's bread has, with this view of national happiness, been +used, not so much to make the existing poor man's bread cheaper or +more abundant, but rather to create more poor men to eat it; so that +we cannot precisely say that we have fewer poor men than we had +before free-trade, but we can say with truth that we have many more +centres of industry, as they are called, and much [232] more +business, population, and manufactures. And if we are sometimes a +little troubled by our multitude of poor men, yet we know the +increase of manufactures and population to be such a salutary thing +in itself, and our free-trade policy begets such an admirable +movement, creating fresh centres of industry and fresh poor men here, +while we were thinking about our poor men there, that we are quite +dazzled and borne away, and more and more industrial movement is +called for, and our social progress seems to become one triumphant +and enjoyable course of what is sometimes called, vulgarly, +outrunning the constable. + +If, however, taking some other criterion of man's well-being than the +cities he has built and the manufactures he has produced, we persist +in thinking that our social progress would be happier if there were +not so many of us so very poor, and in busying ourselves with notions +of in some way or other adjusting the poor man and business one to +the other, and not multiplying the one and the other mechanically and +blindly, then our Liberal friends, the appointed doctors of free- +trade, take us up very sharply. "Art is long," says The Times, "and +life [233] is short; for the most part we settle things first and +understand them afterwards. Let us have as few theories as possible; +what is wanted is not the light of speculation. If nothing worked +well of which the theory was not perfectly understood, we should be +in sad confusion. The relations of labour and capital, we are told, +are not understood, yet trade and commerce, on the whole, work +satisfactorily." I quote from The Times of only the other day. But +thoughts like these, as I have often pointed out, are thoroughly +British thoughts, and we have been familiar with them for years. + +Or, if we want more of a philosophy of the matter than this, our +free-trade friends have two axioms for us, axioms laid down by their +justly esteemed doctors, which they think ought to satisfy us +entirely. One is, that, other things being equal, the more +population increases, the more does production increase to keep pace +with it; because men by their numbers and contact call forth all +manner of activities and resources in one another and in nature, +which, when men are few and sparse, are never developed. The other +is, that, although population always tends to equal the means of +[234] subsistence, yet people's notions of what subsistence is +enlarge as civilisation advances, and take in a number of things +beyond the bare necessaries of life; and thus, therefore, is supplied +whatever check on population is needed. But the error of our friends +is just, perhaps, that they apply axioms of this sort as if they were +self-acting laws which will put themselves into operation without +trouble or planning on our part, if we will only pursue free-trade, +business, and population zealously and staunchly. Whereas the real +truth is, that, however the case might be under other circumstances, +yet in fact, as we now manage the matter, the enlarged conception of +what is included in subsistence does not operate to prevent the +bringing into the world of numbers of people who but just attain to +the barest necessaries of life or who even fail to attain to them; +while, again, though production may increase as population increases, +yet it seems that the production may be of such a kind, and so +related, or rather non-related, to population, that the population +may be little the better for it. For instance, with the increase of +population since Queen Elizabeth's time the production of silk- +stockings has wonderfully increased, and silk- [235] stockings have +become much cheaper and procurable in much greater abundance by many +more people, and tend perhaps, as population and manufactures +increase, to get cheaper and cheaper, and at last to become, +according to Bastiat's favourite image, a common free property of the +human race, like light and air. But bread and bacon have not become +much cheaper with the increase of population since Queen Elizabeth's +time, nor procurable in much greater abundance by many more people; +neither do they seem at all to promise to become, like light and air, +a common free property of the human race. And if bread and bacon +have not kept pace with our population, and we have many more people +in want of them now than in Queen Elizabeth's time, it seems vain to +tell us that silk-stockings have kept pace with our population, or +even more than kept pace with it, and that we are to get our comfort +out of that. In short, it turns out that our pursuit of free-trade, +as of so many other things, has been too mechanical. We fix upon +some object, which in this case is the production of wealth, and the +increase of manufactures, population, and commerce through free- +[236] trade, as a kind of one thing needful, or end in itself, and +then we pursue it staunchly and mechanically, and say that it is our +duty to pursue it staunchly and mechanically, not to see how it is +related to the whole intelligible law of things and to full human +perfection, or to treat it as the piece of machinery, of varying +value as its relations to the intelligible law of things vary, which +it really is. + +So it is of no use to say to The Times, and to our Liberal friends +rejoicing in the possession of their talisman of free-trade, that +about one in nineteen of our population is a pauper, and that, this +being so, trade and commerce can hardly be said to prove by their +satisfactory working that it matters nothing whether the relations +between labour and capital are understood or not; nay, that we can +hardly be said not to be in sad confusion. For here comes in our +faith in the staunch mechanical pursuit of a fixed object, and covers +itself with that imposing and colossal necessitarianism of The Times +which we have before noticed. And this necessitarianism, taking for +granted that an increase in trade and population is a good in itself, +one of the chiefest of goods, tells us that disturbances of [237] +human happiness caused by ebbs and flows in the tide of trade and +business, which, on the whole, steadily mounts, are inevitable and +not to be quarrelled with. This firm philosophy I seek to call to +mind when I am in the East of London, whither my avocations often +lead me; and, indeed, to fortify myself against the depressing sights +which on these occasions assail us, I have transcribed from The Times +one strain of this kind, full of the finest economical doctrine, and +always carry it about with me. The passage is this:-- + +"The East End is the most commercial, the most industrial, the most +fluctuating region of the metropolis. It is always the first to +suffer; for it is the creature of prosperity, and falls to the ground +the instant there is no wind to bear it up. The whole of that region +is covered with huge docks, shipyards, manufactories, and a +wilderness of small houses, all full of life and happiness in brisk +times, but in dull times withered and lifeless, like the deserts we +read of in the East. Now their brief spring is over. There is no +one to blame for this; it is the result of Nature's simplest laws!" +We must all agree that it is impossible that [238] anything can be +firmer than this, or show a surer faith in the working of free-trade, +as our Liberal friends understand and employ it. + +But, if we still at all doubt whether the indefinite multiplication +of manufactories and small houses can be such an absolute good in +itself as to counterbalance the indefinite multiplication of poor +people, we shall learn that this multiplication of poor people, too, +is an absolute good in itself, and the result of divine and beautiful +laws. This is indeed a favourite thesis with our Philistine friends, +and I have already noticed the pride and gratitude with which they +receive certain articles in The Times, dilating in thankful and +solemn language on the majestic growth of our population. But I +prefer to quote now, on this topic, the words of an ingenious young +Scotch writer, Mr. Robert Buchanan, because he invests with so much +imagination and poetry this current idea of the blessed and even +divine character which the multiplying of population is supposed in +itself to have. "We move to multiplicity," says Mr. Robert Buchanan. +"If there is one quality which seems God's, and his exclusively, it +seems that divine philoprogenitiveness, [239] that passionate love of +distribution and expansion into living forms. Every animal added +seems a new ecstasy to the Maker; every life added, a new embodiment +of his love. He would swarm the earth with beings. There are never +enough. Life, life, life,--faces gleaming, hearts beating, must fill +every cranny. Not a corner is suffered to remain empty. The whole +earth breeds, and God glories." + +It is a little unjust, perhaps, to attribute to the Divinity +exclusively this philoprogenitiveness, which the British Philistine, +and the poorer class of Irish, may certainly claim to share with him; +yet how inspiriting is here the whole strain of thought! and these +beautiful words, too, I carry about with me in the East of London, +and often read them there. They are quite in agreement with the +popular language one is accustomed to hear about children and large +families, which describes children as sent. And a line of poetry +which Mr. Robert Buchanan throws in presently after the poetical +prose I have quoted:-- + + 'Tis the old story of the fig-leaf time-- + +this fine line, too, naturally connects itself, when one is in the +East of London, with the idea of God's [240] desire to swarm the +earth with beings; because the swarming of the earth with beings does +indeed, in the East of London, so seem to revive + + . . . the old story of the fig-leaf time-- + +such a number of the people one meets there having hardly a rag to +cover them; and the more the swarming goes on, the more it promises +to revive this old story. And when the story is perfectly revived, +the swarming quite completed, and every cranny choke-full, then, too, +no doubt, the faces in the East of London will be gleaming faces, +which Mr. Robert Buchanan says it is God's desire they should be, and +which every one must perceive they are not at present, but, on the +contrary, very miserable. + +But to prevent all this philosophy and poetry from quite running away +with us, and making us think with The Times, and our practical +Liberal free-traders, and the British Philistines generally, that the +increase of small houses and manufactories, or the increase of +population, are absolute goods in themselves, to be mechanically +pursued, and to be worshipped like fetishes,--to prevent this, we +have got that notion of ours immoveably fixed, of which I [241] have +long ago spoken, the notion that culture, or the study of perfection, +leads us to conceive of no perfection as being real which is not a +general perfection, embracing all our fellow-men with whom we have +to do. Such is the sympathy which binds humanity together, that we +are indeed, as our religion says, members of one body, and if one +member suffer, all the members suffer with it; individual perfection +is impossible so long as the rest of mankind are not perfected along +with us. "The multitude of the wise is the welfare of the world," +says the wise man. And to this effect that excellent and often +quoted guide of ours, Bishop Wilson, has some striking words:--"It is +not," says he, "so much our neighbour's interest as our own that we +love him." And again he says: "Our salvation does in some measure +depend upon that of others." And the author of the Imitation puts +the same thing admirably when he says:--"Obscurior etiam via ad +coelum videbatur quando tam pauci regnum coelorum quaerere +curabant,"+--the fewer there are who follow the way to perfection, +the harder that way is to find. So all our fellow-men, in the East +of London and elsewhere, we must take along with us in the progress +towards perfection, [242] if we ourselves really, as we profess, want +to be perfect; and we must not let the worship of any fetish, any +machinery, such as manufactures or population,--which are not, like +perfection, absolute goods in themselves, though we think them so,-- +create for us such a multitude of miserable, sunken, and ignorant +human beings, that to carry them all along with us is impossible, and +perforce they must for the most part be left by us in their +degradation and wretchedness. But evidently the conception of free- +trade, on which our Liberal friends vaunt themselves, and in which +they think they have found the secret of national prosperity,-- +evidently, I say, the mere unfettered pursuit of the production of +wealth, and the mere mechanical multiplying, for this end, of +manufactures and population, threatens to create for us, if it has +not created already, those vast, miserable, unmanageable masses of +sunken people,--one pauper, at the present moment, for every nineteen +of us,--to the existence of which we are, as we have seen, absolutely +forbidden to reconcile ourselves, in spite of all that the philosophy +of The Times and the poetry of Mr. Robert Buchanan may say to +persuade us. + +[243] And though Hebraism, following its best and highest instinct,-- +identical, as we have seen, with that of Hellenism in its final aim, +the aim of perfection,--teaches us this very clearly; and though from +Hebraising counsellors,--the Bible, Bishop Wilson, the author of the +Imitation,--I have preferred (as well I may, for from this rock of +Hebraism we are all hewn!) to draw the texts which we use to bring +home to our minds this teaching; yet Hebraism seems powerless, almost +as powerless as our free-trading Liberal friends, to deal +efficaciously with our ever-accumulating masses of pauperism, and to +prevent their accumulating still more. Hebraism builds churches, +indeed, for these masses, and sends missionaries among them; above +all, it sets itself against the social necessitarianism of The Times, +and refuses to accept their degradation as inevitable; but with +regard to their ever-increasing accumulation, it seems to be led to +the very same conclusions, though from a point of view of its own, as +our free-trading Liberal friends. Hebraism, with that mechanical and +misleading use of the letter of Scripture on which we have already +commented, is governed by such texts as: Be fruitful and multiply,+ +the edict of [244] God's law, as Mr. Chambers would say; or by the +declaration of what he would call God's words in the Psalms, that the +man who has a great number of children is thereby made happy. And in +conjunction with such texts as these it is apt to place another text: +The poor shall never cease out of the land.+ Thus Hebraism is +conducted to nearly the same notion as the popular mind and as Mr. +Robert Buchanan, that children are sent, and that the divine nature +takes a delight in swarming the East End of London with paupers. +Only, when they are perishing in their helplessness and wretchedness, +it asserts the Christian duty of succouring them, instead of saying, +like The Times: "Now their brief spring is over; there is nobody to +blame for this; it is the result of Nature's simplest laws!" But, +like The Times, Hebraism despairs of any help from knowledge and says +that "what is wanted is not the light of speculation." I remember, +only the other day, a good man, looking with me upon a multitude of +children who were gathered before us in one of the most miserable +regions of London,--children eaten up with disease, half-sized, half- +fed, half-clothed, neglected by their parents, without health, +without [245] home, without hope,--said to me: "The one thing really +needful is to teach these little ones to succour one another, if only +with a cup of cold water; but now, from one end of the country to the +other, one hears nothing but the cry for knowledge, knowledge, +knowledge!" And yet surely, so long as these children are there in +these festering masses, without health, without home, without hope, +and so long as their multitude is perpetually swelling, charged with +misery they must still be for themselves, charged with misery they +must still be for us, whether they help one another with a cup of +cold water or no; and the knowledge how to prevent their accumulating +is necessary, even to give their moral life and growth a fair chance! + +May we not, therefore, say, that neither the true Hebraism of this +good man, willing to spend and be spent for these sunken multitudes, +nor what I may call the spurious Hebraism of our free-trading Liberal +friends,--mechanically worshipping their fetish of the production of +wealth and of the increase of manufactures and population, and +looking neither to the right nor left so long as this increase goes +on,--avail us much here; and that here, again, what we [246] want is +Hellenism, the letting our consciousness play freely and simply upon +the facts before us, and listening to what it tells us of the +intelligible law of things as concerns them? And surely what it +tells us is, that a man's children are not really sent, any more than +the pictures upon his wall, or the horses in his stable, are sent; +and that to bring people into the world, when one cannot afford to +keep them and oneself decently and not too precariously, or to bring +more of them into the world than one can afford to keep thus, is, +whatever The Times and Mr. Robert Buchanan may say, by no means an +accomplishment of the divine will or a fulfilment of Nature's +simplest laws, but is just as wrong, just as contrary to reason and +the will of God, as for a man to have horses, or carriages, or +pictures, when he cannot afford them, or to have more of them than he +can afford; and that, in the one case as in the other, the larger the +scale on which the violation of reason's laws is practised, and the +longer it is persisted in, the greater must be the confusion and +final trouble. Surely no laudations of free-trade, no meetings of +bishops and clergy in the East End of London, no reading of papers +and reports, can tell [247] us anything about our social condition +which it more concerns us to know than that! and not only to know, +but habitually to have the knowledge present, and to act upon it as +one acts upon the knowledge that water wets and fire burns! And not +only the sunken populace of our great cities are concerned to know +it, and the pauper twentieth of our population; we Philistines of the +middle-class, too, are concerned to know it, and all who have to set +themselves to make progress in perfection. + +But we all know it already! some one will say; it is the simplest law +of prudence. But how little reality must there be in our knowledge +of it; how little can we be putting it in practice; how little is it +likely to penetrate among the poor and struggling masses of our +population, and to better our condition, so long as an unintelligent +Hebraism of one sort keeps repeating as an absolute eternal word of +God the psalm-verse which says that the man who has a great many +children is happy; or an unintelligent Hebraism of another sort keeps +assigning as an absolute proof of national prosperity the multiplying +of manufactures and population! Surely, the one set of Hebraisers +have [248] to learn that their psalm-verse was composed at the +resettlement of Jerusalem after the Captivity, when the Jews of +Jerusalem were a handful, an undermanned garrison, and every child +was a blessing; and that the word of God, or the voice of the divine +order of things, declares the possession of a great many children to +be a blessing only when it really is so! And the other set of +Hebraisers, have they not to learn that if they call their private +acquaintances imprudent and unlucky, when, with no means of support +for them or with precarious means, they have a large family of +children, then they ought not to call the State well managed and +prosperous merely because its manufactures and its citizens multiply, +if the manufactures, which bring new citizens into existence just as +much as if they had actually begotten them, bring more of them into +existence than they can maintain, or are too precarious to go on +maintaining those whom for a while they maintained? Hellenism, +surely, or the habit of fixing our mind upon the intelligible law of +things, is most salutary if it makes us see that the only absolute +good, the only absolute and eternal object prescribed to us by God's +law, or the divine order of [249] things, is the progress towards +perfection,--our own progress towards it and the progress of +humanity. And therefore, for every individual man, and for every +society of men, the possession and multiplication of children, like +the possession and multiplication of horses and pictures, is to be +accounted good or bad, not in itself, but with reference to this +object and the progress towards it. And as no man is to be excused +in having horses or pictures, if his having them hinders his own or +others' progress towards perfection and makes them lead a servile and +ignoble life, so is no man to be excused for having children if his +having them makes him or others lead this. Plain thoughts of this +kind are surely the spontaneous product of our consciousness, when it +is allowed to play freely and disinterestedly upon the actual facts +of our social condition, and upon our stock notions and stock habits +in respect to it. Firmly grasped and simply uttered, they are more +likely, one cannot but think, to better that condition, and to +diminish our formidable rate of one pauper to every nineteen of us, +than is the Hebraising and mechanical pursuit of free-trade by our +Liberal friends. + +So that, here as elsewhere, the practical operations [250] of our +Liberal friends, by which they set so much store, and in which they +invite us to join them and to show what Mr. Bright calls a +commendable interest, do not seem to us so practical for real good as +they think; and our Liberal friends seem to us themselves to need to +Hellenise, as we say, a little,--that is, to examine into the nature +of real good, and to listen to what their consciousness tells them +about it,--rather than to pursue with such heat and confidence their +present practical operations. And it is clear that they have no just +cause, so far as regards several operations of theirs which we have +canvassed, to reproach us with delicate Conservative scepticism; for +often by Hellenising we seem to subvert stock Conservative notions +and usages more effectually than they subvert them by Hebraising. +But, in truth, the free spontaneous play of consciousness with which +culture tries to float our stock habits of thinking and acting, is by +its very nature, as has been said, disinterested. Sometimes the +result of floating them may be agreeable to this party, sometimes to +that; now it may be unwelcome to our so-called Liberals, now to our +so-called Conservatives; but what culture seeks is, above all, to +float them, to [251] prevent their being stiff and stark pieces of +petrifaction any longer. It is mere Hebraising, if we stop short, +and refuse to let our consciousness play freely, whenever we or our +friends do not happen to like what it discovers to us. This is to +make the Liberal party, or the Conservative party, our one thing +needful, instead of human perfection; and we have seen what mischief +arises from making an even greater thing than the Liberal or the +Conservative party,--the predominance of the moral side in man,--our +one thing needful. But wherever the free play of our consciousness +leads us, we shall follow; believing that in this way we shall tend +to make good at all points what is wanting to us, and so shall be +brought nearer to our complete human perfection. + +Thus we may often, perhaps, praise much that a so-called Liberal +thinks himself forbidden to praise, and yet blame much that a so- +called Conservative thinks himself forbidden to blame, because these +are both of them partisans, and no partisan can afford to be thus +disinterested. But we who are not partisans can afford it; and so, +after we have seen what Nonconformists lose by being locked up in +their New Road forms of religious institution, [252] we can let +ourselves see, on the other hand, how their ministers, in a time of +movement of ideas like our present time, are apt to be more exempt +than the ministers of a great Church establishment from that self- +confidence, and sense of superiority to such a movement, which are +natural to a powerful hierarchy; and which in Archdeacon Denison, for +instance, seem almost carried to such a pitch that they may become, +one cannot but fear, his spiritual ruin. But seeing this does not +dispose us, therefore, to lock up all the nation in forms of worship +of the New Road type; but it points us to the quite new ideal, of +combining grand and national forms of worship with an openness and +movement of mind not yet found in any hierarchy. So, again, if we +see what is called ritualism making conquests in our Puritan middle- +class, we may rejoice that portions of this class should have become +alive to the aesthetical weakness of their position, even although +they have not yet become alive to the intellectual weakness of it. +In Puritanism, on the other hand, we can respect that idea of dealing +sincerely with oneself, which is at once the great force of +Puritanism,--Puritanism's great superiority over all products, like +ritualism, of our Catholicising [253] tendencies,--and also an idea +rich in the latent seeds of intellectual promise. But we do this, +without on that account hiding from ourselves that Puritanism has by +Hebraising misapplied that idea, has as yet developed none or hardly +one of those seeds, and that its triumph at its present stage of +development would be baneful. + +Everything, in short, confirms us in the doctrine, so unpalatable to +the believers in action, that our main business at the present moment +is not so much to work away at certain crude reforms of which we have +already the scheme in our own mind, as to create, through the help of +that culture which at the very outset we began by praising and +recommending, a frame of mind out of which really fruitful reforms +may with time grow. At any rate, we ourselves must put up with our +friends' impatience, and with their reproaches against cultivated +inaction, and must still decline to lend a hand to their practical +operations, until we, for our own part at least, have grown a little +clearer about the nature of real good, and have arrived nearer to a +condition of mind out of which really fruitful and solid operations +may spring. + +In the meanwhile, since our Liberal friends keep [254] loudly and +resolutely assuring us that their actual operations at present are +fruitful and solid, let us in each case keep testing these operations +in the simple way we have indicated, by letting the natural stream of +our consciousness flow over them freely; and if they stand this test +successfully, then let us give them our commendable interest, but not +else. For example. Our Liberal friends assure us, at the very top +of their voices, that their present actual operation for the +disestablishment of the Irish Church is fruitful and solid. But what +if, on testing it, the truth appears to be, that the statesmen and +reasonable people of both parties wished for much the same thing,-- +the fair apportionment of the church property of Ireland among the +principal religious bodies there; but that, behind the statesmen and +reasonable people, there was, on one side, a mass of Tory prejudice, +and, on the other, a mass of Nonconformist prejudice, to which such +an arrangement was unpalatable? Well, the natural way, one thinks, +would have been for the statesmen and reasonable people of both sides +to have united, and to have allayed and dissipated, so far as they +could, the resistance of their respective extremes, and where [255] +they could not, to have confronted it in concert. But we see that, +instead of this, Liberal statesmen waited to trip up their rivals, if +they proposed the arrangement which both knew to be reasonable, by +means of the prejudice of their own Nonconformist extreme; and then, +themselves proposing an arrangement to flatter this prejudice, made +the other arrangement, which they themselves knew to be reasonable, +out of the question; and drove their rivals in their turn to blow up +with all their might, in the hope of baffling them, a great fire, +among their own Tory extreme, of fierce prejudice and religious +bigotry,--a fire which, once kindled, may always very easily spread +further? If, I say, on testing the present operation of our Liberal +friends for the disestablishment of the Irish Church, the truth about +it appears to be very much this, then, I think,--even with a +triumphant Liberal majority, and with our Liberal friends making +impassioned appeals to us to take a commendable interest in their +operation and them, and to rally round what Sir Henry Hoare (who may +be described, perhaps, as a Barbarian converted to Philistinism, as +I, on the other hand, seem to be a Philistine converted to culture) +finely calls the conscientiousness of a [256] Gladstone and the +intellect of a Bright,--it is rather our duty to abstain, and, +instead of lending a hand to the operation of our Liberal friends, to +do what we can to abate and dissolve the mass of prejudice, Tory or +Nonconformist, which makes so doubtfully begotten and equivocal an +operation as the present, producible and possible. + +And so we bring to an end what we had to say in praise of culture, +and in evidence of its special utility for the circumstances in which +we find ourselves, and the confusion which environs us. Through +culture seems to lie our way, not only to perfection, but even to +safety. Resolutely refusing to lend a hand to the imperfect +operations of our Liberal friends, disregarding their impatience, +taunts, and reproaches, firmly bent on trying to find in the +intelligible law of things a firmer and sounder basis for future +practice than any which we have at present, and believing this search +and discovery to be, for our generation and circumstances, of yet +more vital and pressing importance than practice itself, we +nevertheless may do [257] more, perhaps, we poor disparaged followers +of culture, to make the actual present, and the frame of society in +which we live, solid and seaworthy, than all which our bustling +politicians can do. For we have seen how much of our disorders and +perplexities is due to the disbelief, among the classes and +combinations of men, Barbarian or Philistine, which have hitherto +governed our society, in right reason, in a paramount best self; to +the inevitable decay and break-up of the organisations by which, +asserting and expressing in these organisations their ordinary self +only, they have so long ruled us; and to their irresolution, when the +society, which their conscience tells them they have made and still +manage not with right reason but with their ordinary self, is rudely +shaken, in offering resistance to its subverters. But for us,--who +believe in right reason, in the duty and possibility of extricating +and elevating our best self, in the progress of humanity towards +perfection,--for us the framework of society, that theatre on which +this august drama has to unroll itself, is sacred; and whoever +administers it, and however we may seek to remove them from the +tenure of administration, yet, while they administer, [258] we +steadily and with undivided heart support them in repressing anarchy +and disorder; because without order there can be no society, and +without society there can be no human perfection. + +With me, indeed, this rule of conduct is hereditary. I remember my +father, in one of his unpublished letters written more than forty +years ago, when the political and social state of the country was +gloomy and troubled, and there were riots in many places, goes on, +after strongly insisting on the badness and foolishness of the +government, and on the harm and dangerousness of our feudal and +aristocratical constitution of society, and ends thus: "As for +rioting, the old Roman way of dealing with that is always the right +one; flog the rank and file, and fling the ringleaders from the +Tarpeian Rock!" And this opinion we can never forsake, however our +Liberal friends may think a little rioting, and what they call +popular demonstrations, useful sometimes to their own interests and +to the interests of the valuable practical operations they have in +hand, and however they may preach the right of an Englishman to be +left to do as far as possible what he likes, and the duty of his +government to indulge him and connive as much as [259] possible and +abstain from all harshness of repression. And even when they +artfully show us operations which are undoubtedly precious, such as +the abolition of the slave-trade, and ask us if, for their sake, +foolish and obstinate governments may not wholesomely be frightened +by a little disturbance, the good design in view and the difficulty +of overcoming opposition to it being considered,--still we say no, +and that monster processions in the streets and forcible irruptions +into the parks, even in professed support of this good design, ought +to be unflinchingly forbidden and repressed; and that far more is +lost than is gained by permitting them. Because a State in which law +is authoritative and sovereign, a firm and settled course of public +order, is requisite if man is to bring to maturity anything precious +and lasting now, or to found anything precious and lasting for the +future. + +Thus, in our eyes, the very framework and exterior order of the +State, whoever may administer the State, is sacred; and culture is +the most resolute enemy of anarchy, because of the great hopes and +designs for the State which culture teaches us to nourish. But as, +believing in right reason, and having faith in the progress of +humanity [260] towards perfection, and ever labouring for this end, +we grow to have clearer sight of the ideas of right reason, and of +the elements and helps of perfection, and come gradually to fill the +framework of the State with them, to fashion its internal composition +and all its laws and institutions conformably to them, and to make +the State more and more the expression, as we say, of our best self, +which is not manifold, and vulgar, and unstable, and contentious, and +ever-varying, but one, and noble, and secure, and peaceful, and the +same for all mankind,--with what aversion shall we not then regard +anarchy, with what firmness shall we not check it, when there is so +much that is so precious which it will endanger! So that, for the +sake of the present, but far more for the sake of the future, the +lovers of culture are unswervingly and with a good conscience the +opposers of anarchy. And not as the Barbarians and Philistines, +whose honesty and whose sense of humour make them shrink, as we have +seen, from treating the State as too serious a thing, and from giving +it too much power;--for indeed the only State they know of, and think +they administer, is the expression of their ordinary self; and though +the headstrong and violent [261] extreme among them might gladly arm +this with full authority, yet their virtuous mean is, as we have +said, pricked in conscience at doing this, and so our Barbarian +Secretaries of State let the Park railings be broken down, and our +Philistine Alderman-Colonels let the London roughs rob and beat the +bystanders. But we, beholding in the State no expression of our +ordinary self, but even already, as it were, the appointed frame and +prepared vessel of our best self, and, for the future, our best +self's powerful, beneficent, and sacred expression and organ,--we are +willing and resolved, even now, to strengthen against anarchy the +trembling hands of our Barbarian Home Secretaries, and the feeble +knees of our Philistine Alderman-Colonels; and to tell them, that it +is not really in behalf of their own ordinary self that they are +called to protect the Park railings, and to suppress the London +roughs, but in behalf of the best self both of themselves and of all +of us in the future. + +Nevertheless, though for resisting anarchy the lovers of culture may +prize and employ fire and strength, yet they must, at the same time, +bear constantly in mind that it is not at this moment true, what the +majority of people tell us, that the world [262] wants fire and +strength more than sweetness and light, and that things are for the +most part to be settled first and understood afterwards. We have +seen how much of our present perplexities and confusion this untrue +notion of the majority of people amongst us has caused, and tends to +perpetuate. Therefore the true business of the friends of culture +now is, to dissipate this false notion, to spread the belief in right +reason and in a firm intelligible law of things, and to get men to +allow their thought and consciousness to play on their stock notions +and habits disinterestedly and freely; to get men to try, in +preference to staunchly acting with imperfect knowledge, to obtain +some sounder basis of knowledge on which to act. This is what the +friends and lovers of culture have to do, however the believers in +action may grow impatient with us for saying so, and may insist on +our lending a hand to their practical operations, and showing a +commendable interest in them. + +To this insistence we must indeed turn a deaf ear. But neither, on +the other hand, must the friends of culture expect to take the +believers in action by storm, or to be visibly and speedily +important, and to rule and cut a figure in the world. Aristotle +says, [263] that those for whom ideas and the pursuit of the +intelligible law of things can have much attraction, are principally +the young, filled with generous spirit and with a passion for +perfection; but the mass of mankind, he says, follow seeming goods +for real, bestowing hardly a thought upon true sweetness and light;-- +"and to their lives," he adds mournfully, "who can give another and a +better rhythm?" But, although those chiefly attracted by sweetness +and light will probably always be the young and enthusiastic, and +culture must not hope to take the mass of mankind by storm, yet we +will not therefore, for our own day and for our own people, admit and +rest in the desponding sentence of Aristotle. For is not this the +right crown of the long discipline of Hebraism, and the due fruit of +mankind's centuries of painful schooling in self-conquest, and the +just reward, above all, of the strenuous energy of our own nation and +kindred in dealing honestly with itself and walking steadfastly +according to the best light it knows,--that, when in the fulness of +time it has reason and beauty offered to it, and the law of things as +they really are, it should at last walk by this true light with the +same staunchness [264] and zeal with which it formerly walked by its +imperfect light; and thus man's two great natural forces, Hebraism +and Hellenism, should no longer be dissociated and rival, but should +be a joint force of right thinking and strong doing to carry him on +towards perfection? This is what the lovers of culture may perhaps +dare to augur for such a nation as ours. Therefore, however great +the changes to be accomplished, and however dense the array of +Barbarians, Philistines, and Populace, we will neither despair on the +one hand, nor, on the other, threaten violent revolution and change. +But we will look forward cheerfully and hopefully to "a revolution," +as the Duke of Wellington said, "by due course of law;" though not +exactly such laws as our Liberal friends are now, with their actual +lights, fond of offering us. + +But if despondency and violence are both of them forbidden to the +believer in culture, yet neither, on the other hand, is public life +and direct political action much permitted to him. For it is his +business, as we have seen, to get the present believers in action, +and lovers of political talking and doing, to make a return upon +their own minds, scrutinise their stock notions and habits much more, +value their present [265] talking and doing much less; in order that, +by learning to think more clearly, they may come at last to act less +confusedly. But how shall we persuade our Barbarian to hold lightly +to his feudal usages; how shall we persuade our Nonconformist that +his time spent in agitating for the abolition of church-rates would +have been better spent in getting worthier ideas than churchmen have +of God and the ordering of the world, or his time spent in battling +for voluntaryism in education better spent in learning to value and +found a public and national culture; how shall we persuade, finally, +our Alderman-Colonel not to be content with sitting in the hall of +judgment or marching at the head of his men of war, without some +knowledge how to perform judgment and how to direct men of war,--how, +I say, shall we persuade all these of this, if our Alderman-Colonel +sees that we want to get his leading-staff and his scales of justice +for our own hands; or the Nonconformist, that we want for ourselves +his platform; or the Barbarian, that we want for ourselves his pre- +eminency and function? Certainly they will be less slow to believe, +as we want them to believe, that the intelligible law of things has +in itself something desirable and [266] precious, and that all place, +function, and bustle are hollow goods without it, if they see that we +can content ourselves with it, and find in it our satisfaction, +without making it an instrument to give us for ourselves place, +function, and bustle. + +And although Mr. Sidgwick says that social usefulness really means +"losing oneself in a mass of disagreeable, hard, mechanical details," +and though all the believers in action are fond of asserting the same +thing, yet, as to lose ourselves is not what we want, but to find the +intelligible law of things, this assertion too we shall not blindly +accept, but shall sift and try it a little first. And if we see that +because the believers in action, forgetting Goethe's maxim, "to act +is easy, to think is hard," imagine there is some wonderful virtue in +losing oneself in a mass of mechanical details, therefore they excuse +themselves from much thought about the clear ideas which ought to +govern these details, then we shall give our chief care and pains to +seeking out those ideas and to setting them forth; being persuaded, +that, if we have the ideas firm and clear, the mechanical details for +their execution will come a great deal more simply and easily than we +now [267] suppose. And even in education, where our Liberal friends +are now, with much zeal, bringing out their train of practical +operations and inviting all men to lend them a hand; and where, since +education is the road to culture, we might gladly lend them a hand +with their practical operations if we could lend them one anywhere; +yet, if we see that any German or Swiss or French law for education +rests on very clear ideas about the citizen's claim, in this matter, +upon the State, and the State's duty towards the citizen, but has its +mechanical details comparatively few and simple, while an English law +for the same concern is ruled by no clear idea about the citizen's +claim and the State's duty, but has, in compensation, a mass of +minute mechanical details about the number of members on a school- +committee, and how many shall be a quorum, and how they shall be +summoned, and how often they shall meet,--then we must conclude that +our nation stands in more need of clear ideas on the main matter than +of laboured details about the accessories of the matter, and that we +do more service by trying to help it to the ideas, than by lending it +a hand with the details. So while Mr. Samuel Morley and his friends +talk [268] of changing their policy on education, not for the sake of +modelling it on more sound ideas, but "for fear the management of +education should be taken out of their hands," we shall not much care +for taking the management out of their hands and getting it into +ours; but rather we shall try and make them perceive, that to model +education on sound ideas is of more importance than to have the +management of it in one's own hands ever so fully. + +At this exciting juncture, then, while so many of the lovers of new +ideas, somewhat weary, as we too are, of the stock performances of +our Liberal friends upon the political stage, are disposed to rush +valiantly upon this public stage themselves, we cannot at all think +that for a wise lover of new ideas this stage is the right one. +Plenty of people there will be without us,--country gentlemen in +search of a club, demagogues in search of a tub, lawyers in search of +a place, industrialists in search of gentility,--who will come from +the east and from the west, and will sit down at that Thyesteän +banquet of clap-trap, which English public life for these many years +past has been. Because, so long as those old organisations, of which +we have seen [269] the insufficiency,--those expressions of our +ordinary self, Barbarian or Philistine,--have force anywhere, they +will have force in Parliament. There, the man whom the Barbarians +send, cannot but be impelled to please the Barbarians' ordinary self, +and their natural taste for the bathos; and the man whom the +Philistines send, cannot but be impelled to please those of the +Philistines. Parliamentary Conservatism will and must long mean +this, that the Barbarians should keep their heritage; and +Parliamentary Liberalism, that the Barbarians should pass away, as +they will pass away, and that into their heritage the Philistines +should enter. This seems, indeed, to be the true and authentic +promise of which our Liberal friends and Mr. Bright believe +themselves the heirs, and the goal of that great man's labours. +Presently, perhaps, Mr. Odger and Mr. Bradlaugh will be there with +their mission to oust both Barbarians and Philistines, and to get the +heritage for the Populace. We, on the other hand, are for giving the +heritage neither to the Barbarians nor to the Philistines, nor yet to +the Populace; but we are for the transformation of each and all of +these according to the law of perfection. + +[270] Through the length and breadth of our nation a sense,--vague +and obscure as yet,--of weariness with the old organisations, of +desire for this transformation, works and grows. In the House of +Commons the old organisations must inevitably be most enduring and +strongest, the transformation must inevitably be longest in showing +itself; and it may truly be averred, therefore, that at the present +juncture the centre of movement is not in the House of Commons. It +is in the fermenting mind of the nation; and his is for the next +twenty years the real influence who can address himself to this. + +Pericles was perhaps the most perfect public speaker who ever lived, +for he was the man who most perfectly combined thought and wisdom +with feeling and eloquence. Yet Plato brings in Alcibiades +declaring, that men went away from the oratory of Pericles, saying it +was very fine, it was very good, and afterwards thinking no more +about it; but they went away from hearing Socrates talk, he says, +with the point of what he had said sticking fast in their minds, and +they could not get rid of it. Socrates is poisoned and dead; but in +his own breast does not every man carry about with him a possible +Socrates, [271] in that power of a disinterested play of +consciousness upon his stock notions and habits, of which this wise +and admirable man gave all through his lifetime the great example, +and which was the secret of his incomparable influence? And he who +leads men to call forth and exercise in themselves this power, and +who busily calls it forth and exercises it in himself, is at the +present moment, perhaps, as Socrates was in his time, more in concert +with the vital working of men's minds, and more effectually +significant, than any House of Commons' orator, or practical operator +in politics. + +Every one is now boasting of what he has done to educate men's minds +and to give things the course they are taking. Mr. Disraeli +educates, Mr. Bright educates, Mr. Beales educates. We, indeed, +pretend to educate no one, for we are still engaged in trying to +clear and educate ourselves. But we are sure that the endeavour to +reach, through culture, the firm intelligible law of things, we are +sure that the detaching ourselves from our stock notions and habits, +that a more free play of consciousness, an increased desire for +sweetness and light, and all the bent which we call [272] +Hellenising, is the master-impulse now of the life of our nation and +of humanity,--somewhat obscurely perhaps for this moment, but +decisively for the immediate future; and that those who work for this +are the sovereign educators. Docile echoes of the eternal voice, +pliant organs of the infinite will, they are going along with the +essential movement of the world; and this is their strength, and +their happy and divine fortune. For if the believers in action, who +are so impatient with us and call us effeminate, had had the same +fortune, they would, no doubt, have surpassed us in this sphere of +vital influence by all the superiority of their genius and energy +over ours. But now we go the way the world is going, while they +abolish the Irish Church by the power of the Nonconformists' +antipathy to establishments, or they enable a man to marry his +deceased wife's sister. + +THE END. + +NOTES + +201. +John 18:36. "Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world: +if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that +I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from +hence." King James Bible. + +219. +Proverbs 26:8. "As he that bindeth a stone in a sling, so is +he that giveth honour to a fool." King James Bible. + +241. +Arnold refers to fourteenth-century priest Thomas à Kempis. +The Benham translation and a modern English translation of the +Imitatio are currently available from the College of St. Benedict at +Saint John's University Internet Theology Resources site. See also +the Benham text link. + +243. +Genesis 1:21-22. "And God created great whales, and every +living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth +abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: +and God saw that +it was good. / And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and +multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in +the earth." King James Bible. + +244. +Deuteronomy 15:11. "For the poor shall never cease out of the +land: therefore I command thee, saying, Thou shalt open thine hand +wide unto thy brother, to thy poor, and to thy needy, in thy land." + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg Etext of Culture and Anarchy, by Matthew Arnold + diff --git a/4212-8.zip b/4212-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..8a9787c --- /dev/null +++ b/4212-8.zip diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. 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