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diff --git a/old/heret10.txt b/old/heret10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e96acdc --- /dev/null +++ b/old/heret10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5984 @@ +**The Project Gutenberg Etext of Heretics, by G. K. Chesterton** +#4 in our serices by G. K. Chesterton + + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the copyright laws for your country before posting these files! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations* + +Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and +further information is included below. We need your donations. + + +Heretics + +by G. K. 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If you + don't derive profits, no royalty is due. Royalties are + payable to "Project Gutenberg Association / Illinois + Benedictine College" within the 60 days following each + date you prepare (or were legally required to prepare) + your annual (or equivalent periodic) tax return. + +WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO? +The Project gratefully accepts contributions in money, time, +scanning machines, OCR software, public domain etexts, royalty +free copyright licenses, and every other sort of contribution +you can think of. Money should be paid to "Project Gutenberg +Association / Illinois Benedictine College". + +*END*THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + + +HERETICS +by +Gilbert K. Chesterton + + + +"To My Father" + + + + +The Author + +Gilbert Keith Chesterton was born in London, England on the 29th +of May, 1874. Though he considered himself a mere "rollicking journalist," +he was actually a prolific and gifted writer in virtually every area +of literature. A man of strong opinions and enormously talented +at defending them, his exuberant personality nevertheless allowed +him to maintain warm friendships with people--such as George Bernard +Shaw and H. G. Wells--with whom he vehemently disagreed. + +Chesterton had no difficulty standing up for what he believed. +He was one of the few journalists to oppose the Boer War. +His 1922 "Eugenics and Other Evils" attacked what was at that time +the most progressive of all ideas, the idea that the human +race could and should breed a superior version of itself. +In the Nazi experience, history demonstrated the wisdom of his +once "reactionary" views. + +His poetry runs the gamut from the comic 1908 "On Running After +One's Hat" to dark and serious ballads. During the dark days of 1940, +when Britain stood virtually alone against the armed might of +Nazi Germany, these lines from his 1911 Ballad of the White Horse +were often quoted: + +I tell you naught for your comfort, +Yea, naught for your desire, +Save that the sky grows darker yet +And the sea rises higher. + +Though not written for a scholarly audience, his biographies of +authors and historical figures like Charles Dickens and St. Francis +of Assisi often contain brilliant insights into their subjects. +His Father Brown mystery stories, written between 1911 and 1936, +are still being read and adapted for television. + +His politics fitted with his deep distrust of concentrated wealth +and power of any sort. Along with his friend Hilaire Belloc and in +books like the 1910 "What's Wrong with the World" he advocated a view +called "Distributionism" that was best summed up by his expression +that every man ought to be allowed to own "three acres and a cow." +Though not know as a political thinker, his political influence +has circled the world. Some see in him the father of the "small +is beautiful" movement and a newspaper article by him is credited +with provoking Gandhi to seek a "genuine" nationalism for India +rather than one that imitated the British. + +Heretics belongs to yet another area of literature at which +Chesterton excelled. A fun-loving and gregarious man, he was nevertheless +troubled in his adolescence by thoughts of suicide. In Christianity +he found the answers to the dilemmas and paradoxes he saw in life. +Other books in that same series include his 1908 Orthodoxy (written in +response to attacks on this book) and his 1925 The Everlasting Man. +Orthodoxy is also available as electronic text. + +Chesterton died on the 14th of June, 1936 in Beaconsfield, +Buckinghamshire, England. During his life he published 69 books +and at least another ten based on his writings have been published +after his death. Many of those books are still in print. +Ignatius Press is systematically publishing his collected writings. + +Table of Contents + + 1. Introductory Remarks on the Importance of Othodoxy + 2. On the Negative Spirit + 3. On Mr. Rudyard Kipling and Making the World Small + 4. Mr. Bernard Shaw + 5. Mr. H. G. Wells and the Giants + 6. Christmas and the Esthetes + 7. Omar and the Sacred Vine + 8. The Mildness of the Yellow Press + 9. The Moods of Mr. George Moore + 10. On Sandals and Simplicity + 11. Science and the Savages + 12. Paganism and Mr. Lowes Dickinson + 13. Celts and Celtophiles + 14. On Certain Modern Writers and the Institution of the Family + 15. On Smart Novelists and the Smart Set + 16. On Mr. McCabe and a Divine Frivolity + 17. On the Wit of Whistler + 18. The Fallacy of the Young Nation + 19. Slum Novelists and the Slums + 20. Concluding Remarks on the Importance of Orthodoxy + + + +I. Introductory Remarks on the Importance of Orthodoxy + + +Nothing more strangely indicates an enormous and silent evil +of modern society than the extraordinary use which is made +nowadays of the word "orthodox." In former days the heretic +was proud of not being a heretic. It was the kingdoms of +the world and the police and the judges who were heretics. +He was orthodox. He had no pride in having rebelled against them; +they had rebelled against him. The armies with their cruel security, +the kings with their cold faces, the decorous processes of State, +the reasonable processes of law--all these like sheep had gone astray. +The man was proud of being orthodox, was proud of being right. +If he stood alone in a howling wilderness he was more than a man; +he was a church. He was the centre of the universe; it was +round him that the stars swung. All the tortures torn out of +forgotten hells could not make him admit that he was heretical. +But a few modern phrases have made him boast of it. He says, +with a conscious laugh, "I suppose I am very heretical," and looks +round for applause. The word "heresy" not only means no longer +being wrong; it practically means being clear-headed and courageous. +The word "orthodoxy" not only no longer means being right; +it practically means being wrong. All this can mean one thing, +and one thing only. It means that people care less for whether +they are philosophically right. For obviously a man ought +to confess himself crazy before he confesses himself heretical. +The Bohemian, with a red tie, ought to pique himself on his orthodoxy. +The dynamiter, laying a bomb, ought to feel that, whatever else he is, +at least he is orthodox. + +It is foolish, generally speaking, for a philosopher to set fire +to another philosopher in Smithfield Market because they do not agree +in their theory of the universe. That was done very frequently +in the last decadence of the Middle Ages, and it failed altogether +in its object. But there is one thing that is infinitely more +absurd and unpractical than burning a man for his philosophy. +This is the habit of saying that his philosophy does not matter, +and this is done universally in the twentieth century, +in the decadence of the great revolutionary period. +General theories are everywhere contemned; the doctrine of the Rights +of Man is dismissed with the doctrine of the Fall of Man. +Atheism itself is too theological for us to-day. Revolution itself +is too much of a system; liberty itself is too much of a restraint. +We will have no generalizations. Mr. Bernard Shaw has put the view +in a perfect epigram: "The golden rule is that there is no golden rule." +We are more and more to discuss details in art, politics, literature. +A man's opinion on tramcars matters; his opinion on Botticelli matters; +his opinion on all things does not matter. He may turn over and +explore a million objects, but he must not find that strange object, +the universe; for if he does he will have a religion, and be lost. +Everything matters--except everything. + +Examples are scarcely needed of this total levity on the subject +of cosmic philosophy. Examples are scarcely needed to show that, +whatever else we think of as affecting practical affairs, we do +not think it matters whether a man is a pessimist or an optimist, +a Cartesian or a Hegelian, a materialist or a spiritualist. +Let me, however, take a random instance. At any innocent tea-table +we may easily hear a man say, "Life is not worth living." +We regard it as we regard the statement that it is a fine day; +nobody thinks that it can possibly have any serious effect on the man +or on the world. And yet if that utterance were really believed, +the world would stand on its head. Murderers would be given +medals for saving men from life; firemen would be denounced +for keeping men from death; poisons would be used as medicines; +doctors would be called in when people were well; the Royal +Humane Society would be rooted out like a horde of assassins. +Yet we never speculate as to whether the conversational pessimist +will strengthen or disorganize society; for we are convinced +that theories do not matter. + +This was certainly not the idea of those who introduced our freedom. +When the old Liberals removed the gags from all the heresies, their idea +was that religious and philosophical discoveries might thus be made. +Their view was that cosmic truth was so important that every one +ought to bear independent testimony. The modern idea is that cosmic +truth is so unimportant that it cannot matter what any one says. +The former freed inquiry as men loose a noble hound; the latter frees +inquiry as men fling back into the sea a fish unfit for eating. +Never has there been so little discussion about the nature of men +as now, when, for the first time, any one can discuss it. The old +restriction meant that only the orthodox were allowed to discuss religion. +Modern liberty means that nobody is allowed to discuss it. +Good taste, the last and vilest of human superstitions, +has succeeded in silencing us where all the rest have failed. +Sixty years ago it was bad taste to be an avowed atheist. +Then came the Bradlaughites, the last religious men, the last men +who cared about God; but they could not alter it. It is still bad +taste to be an avowed atheist. But their agony has achieved just this-- +that now it is equally bad taste to be an avowed Christian. +Emancipation has only locked the saint in the same tower of silence +as the heresiarch. Then we talk about Lord Anglesey and the weather, +and call it the complete liberty of all the creeds. + +But there are some people, nevertheless--and I am one of them-- +who think that the most practical and important thing about a man +is still his view of the universe. We think that for a landlady +considering a lodger, it is important to know his income, but still +more important to know his philosophy. We think that for a general +about to fight an enemy, it is important to know the enemy's numbers, +but still more important to know the enemy's philosophy. +We think the question is not whether the theory of the cosmos +affects matters, but whether in the long run, anything else affects them. +In the fifteenth century men cross-examined and tormented a man +because he preached some immoral attitude; in the nineteenth century we +feted and flattered Oscar Wilde because he preached such an attitude, +and then broke his heart in penal servitude because he carried it out. +It may be a question which of the two methods was the more cruel; +there can be no kind of question which was the more ludicrous. +The age of the Inquisition has not at least the disgrace of having +produced a society which made an idol of the very same man for preaching +the very same things which it made him a convict for practising. + +Now, in our time, philosophy or religion, our theory, that is, +about ultimate things, has been driven out, more or less simultaneously, +from two fields which it used to occupy. General ideals used +to dominate literature. They have been driven out by the cry +of "art for art's sake." General ideals used to dominate politics. +They have been driven out by the cry of "efficiency," which +may roughly be translated as "politics for politics' sake." +Persistently for the last twenty years the ideals of order or liberty +have dwindled in our books; the ambitions of wit and eloquence +have dwindled in our parliaments. Literature has purposely become +less political; politics have purposely become less literary. +General theories of the relation of things have thus been extruded +from both; and we are in a position to ask, "What have we gained +or lost by this extrusion? Is literature better, is politics better, +for having discarded the moralist and the philosopher?" + +When everything about a people is for the time growing weak +and ineffective, it begins to talk about efficiency. So it is that when a +man's body is a wreck he begins, for the first time, to talk about health. +Vigorous organisms talk not about their processes, but about their aims. +There cannot be any better proof of the physical efficiency of a man +than that he talks cheerfully of a journey to the end of the world. +And there cannot be any better proof of the practical efficiency +of a nation than that it talks constantly of a journey to the end +of the world, a journey to the Judgment Day and the New Jerusalem. +There can be no stronger sign of a coarse material health +than the tendency to run after high and wild ideals; it is +in the first exuberance of infancy that we cry for the moon. +None of the strong men in the strong ages would have understood +what you meant by working for efficiency. Hildebrand would have said +that he was working not for efficiency, but for the Catholic Church. +Danton would have said that he was working not for efficiency, +but for liberty, equality, and fraternity. Even if the ideal +of such men were simply the ideal of kicking a man downstairs, +they thought of the end like men, not of the process like paralytics. +They did not say, "Efficiently elevating my right leg, using, +you will notice, the muscles of the thigh and calf, which are +in excellent order, I--" Their feeling was quite different. +They were so filled with the beautiful vision of the man lying +flat at the foot of the staircase that in that ecstasy the rest +followed in a flash. In practice, the habit of generalizing +and idealizing did not by any means mean worldly weakness. +The time of big theories was the time of big results. In the era of +sentiment and fine words, at the end of the eighteenth century, men were +really robust and effective. The sentimentalists conquered Napoleon. +The cynics could not catch De Wet. A hundred years ago our affairs +for good or evil were wielded triumphantly by rhetoricians. +Now our affairs are hopelessly muddled by strong, silent men. +And just as this repudiation of big words and big visions has +brought forth a race of small men in politics, so it has brought +forth a race of small men in the arts. Our modern politicians claim +the colossal license of Caesar and the Superman, claim that they are +too practical to be pure and too patriotic to be moral; but the upshot +of it all is that a mediocrity is Chancellor of the Exchequer. +Our new artistic philosophers call for the same moral license, +for a freedom to wreck heaven and earth with their energy; +but the upshot of it all is that a mediocrity is Poet Laureate. +I do not say that there are no stronger men than these; but will +any one say that there are any men stronger than those men of old +who were dominated by their philosophy and steeped in their religion? +Whether bondage be better than freedom may be discussed. +But that their bondage came to more than our freedom it will be +difficult for any one to deny. + +The theory of the unmorality of art has established itself firmly +in the strictly artistic classes. They are free to produce +anything they like. They are free to write a "Paradise Lost" +in which Satan shall conquer God. They are free to write a +"Divine Comedy" in which heaven shall be under the floor of hell. +And what have they done? Have they produced in their universality +anything grander or more beautiful than the things uttered by +the fierce Ghibbeline Catholic, by the rigid Puritan schoolmaster? +We know that they have produced only a few roundels. +Milton does not merely beat them at his piety, he beats them +at their own irreverence. In all their little books of verse you +will not find a finer defiance of God than Satan's. Nor will you +find the grandeur of paganism felt as that fiery Christian felt it +who described Faranata lifting his head as in disdain of hell. +And the reason is very obvious. Blasphemy is an artistic effect, +because blasphemy depends upon a philosophical conviction. +Blasphemy depends upon belief and is fading with it. +If any one doubts this, let him sit down seriously and try to think +blasphemous thoughts about Thor. I think his family will find him +at the end of the day in a state of some exhaustion. + +Neither in the world of politics nor that of literature, then, +has the rejection of general theories proved a success. +It may be that there have been many moonstruck and misleading ideals +that have from time to time perplexed mankind. But assuredly +there has been no ideal in practice so moonstruck and misleading +as the ideal of practicality. Nothing has lost so many opportunities +as the opportunism of Lord Rosebery. He is, indeed, a standing +symbol of this epoch--the man who is theoretically a practical man, +and practically more unpractical than any theorist. Nothing in this +universe is so unwise as that kind of worship of worldly wisdom. +A man who is perpetually thinking of whether this race or that race +is strong, of whether this cause or that cause is promising, is the man +who will never believe in anything long enough to make it succeed. +The opportunist politician is like a man who should abandon billiards +because he was beaten at billiards, and abandon golf because he was +beaten at golf. There is nothing which is so weak for working +purposes as this enormous importance attached to immediate victory. +There is nothing that fails like success. + +And having discovered that opportunism does fail, I have been induced +to look at it more largely, and in consequence to see that it must fail. +I perceive that it is far more practical to begin at the beginning +and discuss theories. I see that the men who killed each other +about the orthodoxy of the Homoousion were far more sensible +than the people who are quarrelling about the Education Act. +For the Christian dogmatists were trying to establish a reign of holiness, +and trying to get defined, first of all, what was really holy. +But our modern educationists are trying to bring about a religious +liberty without attempting to settle what is religion or what +is liberty. If the old priests forced a statement on mankind, +at least they previously took some trouble to make it lucid. +It has been left for the modern mobs of Anglicans and Nonconformists +to persecute for a doctrine without even stating it. + +For these reasons, and for many more, I for one have come +to believe in going back to fundamentals. Such is the general +idea of this book. I wish to deal with my most distinguished +contemporaries, not personally or in a merely literary manner, +but in relation to the real body of doctrine which they teach. +I am not concerned with Mr. Rudyard Kipling as a vivid artist +or a vigorous personality; I am concerned with him as a Heretic-- +that is to say, a man whose view of things has the hardihood +to differ from mine. I am not concerned with Mr. Bernard Shaw +as one of the most brilliant and one of the most honest men alive; +I am concerned with him as a Heretic--that is to say, a man whose +philosophy is quite solid, quite coherent, and quite wrong. +I revert to the doctrinal methods of the thirteenth century, +inspired by the general hope of getting something done. + +Suppose that a great commotion arises in the street about something, +let us say a lamp-post, which many influential persons desire to +pull down. A grey-clad monk, who is the spirit of the Middle Ages, +is approached upon the matter, and begins to say, in the arid manner +of the Schoolmen, "Let us first of all consider, my brethren, +the value of Light. If Light be in itself good--" At this point +he is somewhat excusably knocked down. All the people make a rush +for the lamp-post, the lamp-post is down in ten minutes, and they go +about congratulating each other on their unmediaeval practicality. +But as things go on they do not work out so easily. Some people +have pulled the lamp-post down because they wanted the electric light; +some because they wanted old iron; some because they wanted darkness, +because their deeds were evil. Some thought it not enough of a +lamp-post, some too much; some acted because they wanted to smash +municipal machinery; some because they wanted to smash something. +And there is war in the night, no man knowing whom he strikes. +So, gradually and inevitably, to-day, to-morrow, or the next day, +there comes back the conviction that the monk was right after all, +and that all depends on what is the philosophy of Light. +Only what we might have discussed under the gas-lamp, we now must +discuss in the dark. + + + +III. On Mr. Rudyard Kipling and Making the World Small + + +There is no such thing on earth as an uninteresting subject; +the only thing that can exist is an uninterested person. +Nothing is more keenly required than a defence of bores. +When Byron divided humanity into the bores and bored, he omitted +to notice that the higher qualities exist entirely in the bores, +the lower qualities in the bored, among whom he counted himself. +The bore, by his starry enthusiasm, his solemn happiness, may, +in some sense, have proved himself poetical. The bored has certainly +proved himself prosaic. + +We might, no doubt, find it a nuisance to count all the blades of grass +or all the leaves of the trees; but this would not be because of our +boldness or gaiety, but because of our lack of boldness and gaiety. +The bore would go onward, bold and gay, and find the blades of +grass as splendid as the swords of an army. The bore is stronger +and more joyous than we are; he is a demigod--nay, he is a god. +For it is the gods who do not tire of the iteration of things; +to them the nightfall is always new, and the last rose as red +as the first. + +The sense that everything is poetical is a thing solid and absolute; +it is not a mere matter of phraseology or persuasion. It is not +merely true, it is ascertainable. Men may be challenged to deny it; +men may be challenged to mention anything that is not a matter of poetry. +I remember a long time ago a sensible sub-editor coming up to me +with a book in his hand, called "Mr. Smith," or "The Smith Family," +or some such thing. He said, "Well, you won't get any of your damned +mysticism out of this," or words to that effect. I am happy to say +that I undeceived him; but the victory was too obvious and easy. +In most cases the name is unpoetical, although the fact is poetical. +In the case of Smith, the name is so poetical that it must +be an arduous and heroic matter for the man to live up to it. +The name of Smith is the name of the one trade that even kings respected, +it could claim half the glory of that arma virumque which all +epics acclaimed. The spirit of the smithy is so close to the spirit +of song that it has mixed in a million poems, and every blacksmith +is a harmonious blacksmith. + +Even the village children feel that in some dim way the smith +is poetic, as the grocer and the cobbler are not poetic, +when they feast on the dancing sparks and deafening blows in +the cavern of that creative violence. The brute repose of Nature, +the passionate cunning of man, the strongest of earthly metals, +the wierdest of earthly elements, the unconquerable iron subdued +by its only conqueror, the wheel and the ploughshare, the sword and +the steam-hammer, the arraying of armies and the whole legend of arms, +all these things are written, briefly indeed, but quite legibly, +on the visiting-card of Mr. Smith. Yet our novelists call their +hero "Aylmer Valence," which means nothing, or "Vernon Raymond," +which means nothing, when it is in their power to give him +this sacred name of Smith--this name made of iron and flame. +It would be very natural if a certain hauteur, a certain carriage +of the head, a certain curl of the lip, distinguished every +one whose name is Smith. Perhaps it does; I trust so. +Whoever else are parvenus, the Smiths are not parvenus. +From the darkest dawn of history this clan has gone forth to battle; +its trophies are on every hand; its name is everywhere; +it is older than the nations, and its sign is the Hammer of Thor. +But as I also remarked, it is not quite the usual case. +It is common enough that common things should be poetical; +it is not so common that common names should be poetical. +In most cases it is the name that is the obstacle. +A great many people talk as if this claim of ours, that all things +are poetical, were a mere literary ingenuity, a play on words. +Precisely the contrary is true. It is the idea that some things are +not poetical which is literary, which is a mere product of words. +The word "signal-box" is unpoetical. But the thing signal-box is +not unpoetical; it is a place where men, in an agony of vigilance, +light blood-red and sea-green fires to keep other men from death. +That is the plain, genuine description of what it is; the prose only +comes in with what it is called. The word "pillar-box" is unpoetical. +But the thing pillar-box is not unpoetical; it is the place +to which friends and lovers commit their messages, conscious that +when they have done so they are sacred, and not to be touched, +not only by others, but even (religious touch!) by themselves. +That red turret is one of the last of the temples. Posting a letter and +getting married are among the few things left that are entirely romantic; +for to be entirely romantic a thing must be irrevocable. +We think a pillar-box prosaic, because there is no rhyme to it. +We think a pillar-box unpoetical, because we have never seen it +in a poem. But the bold fact is entirely on the side of poetry. +A signal-box is only called a signal-box; it is a house of life and death. +A pillar-box is only called a pillar-box; it is a sanctuary of +human words. If you think the name of "Smith" prosaic, it is not +because you are practical and sensible; it is because you are too much +affected with literary refinements. The name shouts poetry at you. +If you think of it otherwise, it is because you are steeped and +sodden with verbal reminiscences, because you remember everything +in Punch or Comic Cuts about Mr. Smith being drunk or Mr. Smith +being henpecked. All these things were given to you poetical. +It is only by a long and elaborate process of literary effort +that you have made them prosaic. + +Now, the first and fairest thing to say about Rudyard Kipling +is that he has borne a brilliant part in thus recovering the lost +provinces of poetry. He has not been frightened by that brutal +materialistic air which clings only to words; he has pierced through +to the romantic, imaginative matter of the things themselves. +He has perceived the significance and philosophy of steam and of slang. +Steam may be, if you like, a dirty by-product of science. +Slang may be, if you like, a dirty by-product of language. +But at least he has been among the few who saw the divine parentage of +these things, and knew that where there is smoke there is fire--that is, +that wherever there is the foulest of things, there also is the purest. +Above all, he has had something to say, a definite view of things to utter, +and that always means that a man is fearless and faces everything. +For the moment we have a view of the universe, we possess it. + +Now, the message of Rudyard Kipling, that upon which he has +really concentrated, is the only thing worth worrying about +in him or in any other man. He has often written bad poetry, +like Wordsworth. He has often said silly things, like Plato. +He has often given way to mere political hysteria, like Gladstone. +But no one can reasonably doubt that he means steadily and sincerely +to say something, and the only serious question is, What is that +which he has tried to say? Perhaps the best way of stating this +fairly will be to begin with that element which has been most insisted +by himself and by his opponents--I mean his interest in militarism. +But when we are seeking for the real merits of a man it is unwise +to go to his enemies, and much more foolish to go to himself. + +Now, Mr. Kipling is certainly wrong in his worship of militarism, +but his opponents are, generally speaking, quite as wrong as he. +The evil of militarism is not that it shows certain men to be fierce +and haughty and excessively warlike. The evil of militarism is that it +shows most men to be tame and timid and excessively peaceable. +The professional soldier gains more and more power as the general +courage of a community declines. Thus the Pretorian guard became +more and more important in Rome as Rome became more and more +luxurious and feeble. The military man gains the civil power +in proportion as the civilian loses the military virtues. +And as it was in ancient Rome so it is in contemporary Europe. +There never was a time when nations were more militarist. +There never was a time when men were less brave. All ages and all epics +have sung of arms and the man; but we have effected simultaneously +the deterioration of the man and the fantastic perfection of the arms. +Militarism demonstrated the decadence of Rome, and it demonstrates +the decadence of Prussia. + +And unconsciously Mr. Kipling has proved this, and proved it admirably. +For in so far as his work is earnestly understood the military trade +does not by any means emerge as the most important or attractive. +He has not written so well about soldiers as he has about +railway men or bridge builders, or even journalists. +The fact is that what attracts Mr. Kipling to militarism +is not the idea of courage, but the idea of discipline. +There was far more courage to the square mile in the Middle Ages, +when no king had a standing army, but every man had a bow or sword. +But the fascination of the standing army upon Mr. Kipling is +not courage, which scarcely interests him, but discipline, which is, +when all is said and done, his primary theme. The modern army +is not a miracle of courage; it has not enough opportunities, +owing to the cowardice of everybody else. But it is really +a miracle of organization, and that is the truly Kiplingite ideal. +Kipling's subject is not that valour which properly belongs to war, +but that interdependence and efficiency which belongs quite +as much to engineers, or sailors, or mules, or railway engines. +And thus it is that when he writes of engineers, or sailors, +or mules, or steam-engines, he writes at his best. The real poetry, +the "true romance" which Mr. Kipling has taught, is the romance +of the division of labour and the discipline of all the trades. +He sings the arts of peace much more accurately than the arts of war. +And his main contention is vital and valuable. Every thing is military +in the sense that everything depends upon obedience. There is no +perfectly epicurean corner; there is no perfectly irresponsible place. +Everywhere men have made the way for us with sweat and submission. +We may fling ourselves into a hammock in a fit of divine carelessness. +But we are glad that the net-maker did not make the hammock in a fit of +divine carelessness. We may jump upon a child's rocking-horse for a joke. +But we are glad that the carpenter did not leave the legs of it +unglued for a joke. So far from having merely preached that a soldier +cleaning his side-arm is to be adored because he is military, +Kipling at his best and clearest has preached that the baker baking +loaves and the tailor cutting coats is as military as anybody. + +Being devoted to this multitudinous vision of duty, Mr. Kipling +is naturally a cosmopolitan. He happens to find his examples +in the British Empire, but almost any other empire would +do as well, or, indeed, any other highly civilized country. +That which he admires in the British army he would find even more +apparent in the German army; that which he desires in the British +police he would find flourishing, in the French police. +The ideal of discipline is not the whole of life, but it is spread +over the whole of the world. And the worship of it tends to confirm +in Mr. Kipling a certain note of worldly wisdom, of the experience +of the wanderer, which is one of the genuine charms of his best work. + +The great gap in his mind is what may be roughly called the lack +of patriotism--that is to say, he lacks altogether the faculty of attaching +himself to any cause or community finally and tragically; for all +finality must be tragic. He admires England, but he does not love her; +for we admire things with reasons, but love them without reasons. +He admires England because she is strong, not because she is English. +There is no harshness in saying this, for, to do him justice, he avows +it with his usual picturesque candour. In a very interesting poem, +he says that-- + + "If England was what England seems" + +--that is, weak and inefficient; if England were not what (as he believes) +she is--that is, powerful and practical-- + + "How quick we'd chuck 'er! But she ain't!" + +He admits, that is, that his devotion is the result of a criticism, +and this is quite enough to put it in another category altogether from +the patriotism of the Boers, whom he hounded down in South Africa. +In speaking of the really patriotic peoples, such as the Irish, he has +some difficulty in keeping a shrill irritation out of his language. +The frame of mind which he really describes with beauty and +nobility is the frame of mind of the cosmopolitan man who has seen +men and cities. + + "For to admire and for to see, + For to be'old this world so wide." + +He is a perfect master of that light melancholy with which a man +looks back on having been the citizen of many communities, +of that light melancholy with which a man looks back on having been +the lover of many women. He is the philanderer of the nations. +But a man may have learnt much about women in flirtations, +and still be ignorant of first love; a man may have known as many +lands as Ulysses, and still be ignorant of patriotism. + +Mr. Rudyard Kipling has asked in a celebrated epigram what they can +know of England who know England only. It is a far deeper and sharper +question to ask, "What can they know of England who know only the world?" +for the world does not include England any more than it includes +the Church. The moment we care for anything deeply, the world-- +that is, all the other miscellaneous interests--becomes our enemy. +Christians showed it when they talked of keeping one's self +"unspotted from the world;" but lovers talk of it just as much +when they talk of the "world well lost." Astronomically speaking, +I understand that England is situated on the world; similarly, I suppose +that the Church was a part of the world, and even the lovers +inhabitants of that orb. But they all felt a certain truth-- +the truth that the moment you love anything the world becomes your foe. +Thus Mr. Kipling does certainly know the world; he is a man of the world, +with all the narrowness that belongs to those imprisoned in that planet. +He knows England as an intelligent English gentleman knows Venice. +He has been to England a great many times; he has stopped there +for long visits. But he does not belong to it, or to any place; +and the proof of it is this, that he thinks of England as a place. +The moment we are rooted in a place, the place vanishes. +We live like a tree with the whole strength of the universe. + +The globe-trotter lives in a smaller world than the peasant. +He is always breathing, an air of locality. London is a place, to be +compared to Chicago; Chicago is a place, to be compared to Timbuctoo. +But Timbuctoo is not a place, since there, at least, live men +who regard it as the universe, and breathe, not an air of locality, +but the winds of the world. The man in the saloon steamer has +seen all the races of men, and he is thinking of the things that +divide men--diet, dress, decorum, rings in the nose as in Africa, +or in the ears as in Europe, blue paint among the ancients, or red +paint among the modern Britons. The man in the cabbage field has +seen nothing at all; but he is thinking of the things that unite men-- +hunger and babies, and the beauty of women, and the promise or menace +of the sky. Mr. Kipling, with all his merits, is the globe-trotter; +he has not the patience to become part of anything. +So great and genuine a man is not to be accused of a merely +cynical cosmopolitanism; still, his cosmopolitanism is his weakness. +That weakness is splendidly expressed in one of his finest poems, +"The Sestina of the Tramp Royal," in which a man declares that he can +endure anything in the way of hunger or horror, but not permanent +presence in one place. In this there is certainly danger. +The more dead and dry and dusty a thing is the more it travels about; +dust is like this and the thistle-down and the High Commissioner +in South Africa. Fertile things are somewhat heavier, like the heavy +fruit trees on the pregnant mud of the Nile. In the heated idleness +of youth we were all rather inclined to quarrel with the implication +of that proverb which says that a rolling stone gathers no moss. We were +inclined to ask, "Who wants to gather moss, except silly old ladies?" +But for all that we begin to perceive that the proverb is right. +The rolling stone rolls echoing from rock to rock; but the rolling +stone is dead. The moss is silent because the moss is alive. + +The truth is that exploration and enlargement make the world smaller. +The telegraph and the steamboat make the world smaller. +The telescope makes the world smaller; it is only the microscope +that makes it larger. Before long the world will be cloven +with a war between the telescopists and the microscopists. +The first study large things and live in a small world; the second +study small things and live in a large world. It is inspiriting +without doubt to whizz in a motor-car round the earth, to feel Arabia +as a whirl of sand or China as a flash of rice-fields. But Arabia +is not a whirl of sand and China is not a flash of rice-fields. They +are ancient civilizations with strange virtues buried like treasures. +If we wish to understand them it must not be as tourists or inquirers, +it must be with the loyalty of children and the great patience of poets. +To conquer these places is to lose them. The man standing +in his own kitchen-garden, with fairyland opening at the gate, +is the man with large ideas. His mind creates distance; the motor-car +stupidly destroys it. Moderns think of the earth as a globe, +as something one can easily get round, the spirit of a schoolmistress. +This is shown in the odd mistake perpetually made about Cecil Rhodes. +His enemies say that he may have had large ideas, but he was a bad man. +His friends say that he may have been a bad man, but he certainly +had large ideas. The truth is that he was not a man essentially bad, +he was a man of much geniality and many good intentions, but a man +with singularly small views. There is nothing large about painting +the map red; it is an innocent game for children. It is just as easy +to think in continents as to think in cobble-stones. The difficulty +comes in when we seek to know the substance of either of them. +Rhodes' prophecies about the Boer resistance are an admirable +comment on how the "large ideas" prosper when it is not a question +of thinking in continents but of understanding a few two-legged men. +And under all this vast illusion of the cosmopolitan planet, +with its empires and its Reuter's agency, the real life of man +goes on concerned with this tree or that temple, with this harvest +or that drinking-song, totally uncomprehended, totally untouched. +And it watches from its splendid parochialism, possibly with a smile +of amusement, motor-car civilization going its triumphant way, +outstripping time, consuming space, seeing all and seeing nothing, +roaring on at last to the capture of the solar system, only to find +the sun cockney and the stars suburban. + + + +IV. Mr. Bernard Shaw + + +In the glad old days, before the rise of modern morbidities, +when genial old Ibsen filled the world with wholesome joy, and the +kindly tales of the forgotten Emile Zola kept our firesides merry +and pure, it used to be thought a disadvantage to be misunderstood. +It may be doubted whether it is always or even generally a disadvantage. +The man who is misunderstood has always this advantage over his enemies, +that they do not know his weak point or his plan of campaign. +They go out against a bird with nets and against a fish with arrows. +There are several modern examples of this situation. Mr. Chamberlain, +for instance, is a very good one. He constantly eludes or vanquishes +his opponents because his real powers and deficiencies are quite +different to those with which he is credited, both by friends and foes. +His friends depict him as a strenuous man of action; his opponents +depict him as a coarse man of business; when, as a fact, he is neither +one nor the other, but an admirable romantic orator and romantic actor. +He has one power which is the soul of melodrama--the power of pretending, +even when backed by a huge majority, that he has his back to the wall. +For all mobs are so far chivalrous that their heroes must make +some show of misfortune--that sort of hypocrisy is the homage +that strength pays to weakness. He talks foolishly and yet +very finely about his own city that has never deserted him. +He wears a flaming and fantastic flower, like a decadent minor poet. +As for his bluffness and toughness and appeals to common sense, +all that is, of course, simply the first trick of rhetoric. +He fronts his audiences with the venerable affectation of Mark Antony-- + + "I am no orator, as Brutus is; + But as you know me all, a plain blunt man." + +It is the whole difference between the aim of the orator and +the aim of any other artist, such as the poet or the sculptor. +The aim of the sculptor is to convince us that he is a sculptor; +the aim of the orator, is to convince us that he is not an orator. +Once let Mr. Chamberlain be mistaken for a practical man, and his +game is won. He has only to compose a theme on empire, and people +will say that these plain men say great things on great occasions. +He has only to drift in the large loose notions common to all +artists of the second rank, and people will say that business +men have the biggest ideals after all. All his schemes have +ended in smoke; he has touched nothing that he did not confuse. +About his figure there is a Celtic pathos; like the Gaels in Matthew +Arnold's quotation, "he went forth to battle, but he always fell." +He is a mountain of proposals, a mountain of failures; but still +a mountain. And a mountain is always romantic. + +There is another man in the modern world who might be called +the antithesis of Mr. Chamberlain in every point, who is also +a standing monument of the advantage of being misunderstood. +Mr. Bernard Shaw is always represented by those who disagree +with him, and, I fear, also (if such exist) by those who agree with him, +as a capering humorist, a dazzling acrobat, a quick-change artist. +It is said that he cannot be taken seriously, that he will defend anything +or attack anything, that he will do anything to startle and amuse. +All this is not only untrue, but it is, glaringly, the opposite of +the truth; it is as wild as to say that Dickens had not the boisterous +masculinity of Jane Austen. The whole force and triumph of Mr. Bernard +Shaw lie in the fact that he is a thoroughly consistent man. +So far from his power consisting in jumping through hoops or standing on +his head, his power consists in holding his own fortress night and day. +He puts the Shaw test rapidly and rigorously to everything +that happens in heaven or earth. His standard never varies. +The thing which weak-minded revolutionists and weak-minded Conservatives +really hate (and fear) in him, is exactly this, that his scales, +such as they are, are held even, and that his law, such as it is, +is justly enforced. You may attack his principles, as I do; but I +do not know of any instance in which you can attack their application. +If he dislikes lawlessness, he dislikes the lawlessness of Socialists +as much as that of Individualists. If he dislikes the fever of patriotism, +he dislikes it in Boers and Irishmen as well as in Englishmen. +If he dislikes the vows and bonds of marriage, he dislikes still +more the fiercer bonds and wilder vows that are made by lawless love. +If he laughs at the authority of priests, he laughs louder at the pomposity +of men of science. If he condemns the irresponsibility of faith, +he condemns with a sane consistency the equal irresponsibility of art. +He has pleased all the bohemians by saying that women are equal to men; +but he has infuriated them by suggesting that men are equal to women. +He is almost mechanically just; he has something of the terrible +quality of a machine. The man who is really wild and whirling, +the man who is really fantastic and incalculable, is not Mr. Shaw, +but the average Cabinet Minister. It is Sir Michael Hicks-Beach who +jumps through hoops. It is Sir Henry Fowler who stands on his head. +The solid and respectable statesman of that type does really +leap from position to position; he is really ready to defend +anything or nothing; he is really not to be taken seriously. +I know perfectly well what Mr. Bernard Shaw will be saying +thirty years hence; he will be saying what he has always said. +If thirty years hence I meet Mr. Shaw, a reverent being +with a silver beard sweeping the earth, and say to him, +"One can never, of course, make a verbal attack upon a lady," +the patriarch will lift his aged hand and fell me to the earth. +We know, I say, what Mr. Shaw will be, saying thirty years hence. +But is there any one so darkly read in stars and oracles that he will +dare to predict what Mr. Asquith will be saying thirty years hence? + +The truth is, that it is quite an error to suppose that absence +of definite convictions gives the mind freedom and agility. +A man who believes something is ready and witty, because he has +all his weapons about him. he can apply his test in an instant. +The man engaged in conflict with a man like Mr. Bernard Shaw may +fancy he has ten faces; similarly a man engaged against a brilliant +duellist may fancy that the sword of his foe has turned to ten swords +in his hand. But this is not really because the man is playing +with ten swords, it is because he is aiming very straight with one. +Moreover, a man with a definite belief always appears bizarre, +because he does not change with the world; he has climbed into +a fixed star, and the earth whizzes below him like a zoetrope. +Millions of mild black-coated men call themselves sane and sensible +merely because they always catch the fashionable insanity, +because they are hurried into madness after madness by the maelstrom +of the world. + +People accuse Mr. Shaw and many much sillier persons of "proving that black +is white." But they never ask whether the current colour-language is +always correct. Ordinary sensible phraseology sometimes calls black white, +it certainly calls yellow white and green white and reddish-brown white. +We call wine "white wine" which is as yellow as a Blue-coat boy's legs. +We call grapes "white grapes" which are manifestly pale green. +We give to the European, whose complexion is a sort of pink drab, +the horrible title of a "white man"--a picture more blood-curdling +than any spectre in Poe. + +Now, it is undoubtedly true that if a man asked a waiter in a restaurant +for a bottle of yellow wine and some greenish-yellow grapes, the waiter +would think him mad. It is undoubtedly true that if a Government official, +reporting on the Europeans in Burmah, said, "There are only two +thousand pinkish men here" he would be accused of cracking jokes, +and kicked out of his post. But it is equally obvious that both +men would have come to grief through telling the strict truth. +That too truthful man in the restaurant; that too truthful man +in Burmah, is Mr. Bernard Shaw. He appears eccentric and grotesque +because he will not accept the general belief that white is yellow. +He has based all his brilliancy and solidity upon the hackneyed, +but yet forgotten, fact that truth is stranger than fiction. +Truth, of course, must of necessity be stranger than fiction, +for we have made fiction to suit ourselves. + +So much then a reasonable appreciation will find in Mr. Shaw +to be bracing and excellent. He claims to see things as they are; +and some things, at any rate, he does see as they are, +which the whole of our civilization does not see at all. +But in Mr. Shaw's realism there is something lacking, and that thing +which is lacking is serious. + +Mr. Shaw's old and recognized philosophy was that powerfully +presented in "The Quintessence of Ibsenism." It was, in brief, +that conservative ideals were bad, not because They were conservative, +but because they were ideals. Every ideal prevented men from judging +justly the particular case; every moral generalization oppressed +the individual; the golden rule was there was no golden rule. +And the objection to this is simply that it pretends to free men, +but really restrains them from doing the only thing that men want to do. +What is the good of telling a community that it has every liberty +except the liberty to make laws? The liberty to make laws is what +constitutes a free people. And what is the good of telling a man +(or a philosopher) that he has every liberty except the liberty to +make generalizations. Making generalizations is what makes him a man. +In short, when Mr. Shaw forbids men to have strict moral ideals, +he is acting like one who should forbid them to have children. +The saying that "the golden rule is that there is no golden rule," +can, indeed, be simply answered by being turned round. +That there is no golden rule is itself a golden rule, or rather +it is much worse than a golden rule. It is an iron rule; +a fetter on the first movement of a man. + +But the sensation connected with Mr. Shaw in recent years has +been his sudden development of the religion of the Superman. +He who had to all appearance mocked at the faiths in the forgotten +past discovered a new god in the unimaginable future. He who had laid +all the blame on ideals set up the most impossible of all ideals, +the ideal of a new creature. But the truth, nevertheless, is that any +one who knows Mr. Shaw's mind adequately, and admires it properly, +must have guessed all this long ago. + +For the truth is that Mr. Shaw has never seen things as they really are. +If he had he would have fallen on his knees before them. +He has always had a secret ideal that has withered all the things +of this world. He has all the time been silently comparing humanity +with something that was not human, with a monster from Mars, +with the Wise Man of the Stoics, with the Economic Man of the Fabians, +with Julius Caesar, with Siegfried, with the Superman. Now, to have +this inner and merciless standard may be a very good thing, +or a very bad one, it may be excellent or unfortunate, but it +is not seeing things as they are. it is not seeing things as they +are to think first of a Briareus with a hundred hands, and then call +every man a cripple for only having two. It is not seeing things +as they are to start with a vision of Argus with his hundred eyes, +and then jeer at every man with two eyes as if he had only one. +And it is not seeing things as they are to imagine a demigod +of infinite mental clarity, who may or may not appear in the latter +days of the earth, and then to see all men as idiots. And this +is what Mr. Shaw has always in some degree done. When we really see +men as they are, we do not criticise, but worship; and very rightly. +For a monster with mysterious eyes and miraculous thumbs, +with strange dreams in his skull, and a queer tenderness for this +place or that baby, is truly a wonderful and unnerving matter. +It is only the quite arbitrary and priggish habit of comparison with +something else which makes it possible to be at our ease in front of him. +A sentiment of superiority keeps us cool and practical; the mere facts +would make, our knees knock under as with religious fear. It is the fact +that every instant of conscious life is an unimaginable prodigy. +It is the fact that every face in the street has the incredible +unexpectedness of a fairy-tale. The thing which prevents a man +from realizing this is not any clear-sightedness or experience, +it is simply a habit of pedantic and fastidious comparisons +between one thing and another. Mr. Shaw, on the practical side +perhaps the most humane man alive, is in this sense inhumane. +He has even been infected to some extent with the primary +intellectual weakness of his new master, Nietzsche, the strange +notion that the greater and stronger a man was the more he would +despise other things. The greater and stronger a man is the more +he would be inclined to prostrate himself before a periwinkle. +That Mr. Shaw keeps a lifted head and a contemptuous face before +the colossal panorama of empires and civilizations, this does +not in itself convince one that he sees things as they are. +I should be most effectively convinced that he did if I found +him staring with religious astonishment at his own feet. +"What are those two beautiful and industrious beings," I can imagine him +murmuring to himself, "whom I see everywhere, serving me I know not why? +What fairy godmother bade them come trotting out of elfland when I +was born? What god of the borderland, what barbaric god of legs, +must I propitiate with fire and wine, lest they run away with me?" + +The truth is, that all genuine appreciation rests on a certain +mystery of humility and almost of darkness. The man who said, +"Blessed is he that expecteth nothing, for he shall not be disappointed," +put the eulogy quite inadequately and even falsely. The truth "Blessed +is he that expecteth nothing, for he shall be gloriously surprised." +The man who expects nothing sees redder roses than common men can see, +and greener grass, and a more startling sun. Blessed is he that +expecteth nothing, for he shall possess the cities and the mountains; +blessed is the meek, for he shall inherit the earth. Until we +realize that things might not be we cannot realize that things are. +Until we see the background of darkness we cannot admire the light +as a single and created thing. As soon as we have seen that darkness, +all light is lightening, sudden, blinding, and divine. +Until we picture nonentity we underrate the victory of God, +and can realize none of the trophies of His ancient war. +It is one of the million wild jests of truth that we know nothing +until we know nothing, + +Now this is, I say deliberately, the only defect in the greatness +of Mr. Shaw, the only answer to his claim to be a great man, +that he is not easily pleased. He is an almost solitary exception to +the general and essential maxim, that little things please great minds. +And from this absence of that most uproarious of all things, humility, +comes incidentally the peculiar insistence on the Superman. +After belabouring a great many people for a great many years for +being unprogressive, Mr. Shaw has discovered, with characteristic sense, +that it is very doubtful whether any existing human being with two +legs can be progressive at all. Having come to doubt whether +humanity can be combined with progress, most people, easily pleased, +would have elected to abandon progress and remain with humanity. +Mr. Shaw, not being easily pleased, decides to throw over humanity +with all its limitations and go in for progress for its own sake. +If man, as we know him, is incapable of the philosophy of progress, +Mr. Shaw asks, not for a new kind of philosophy, but for a new kind +of man. It is rather as if a nurse had tried a rather bitter +food for some years on a baby, and on discovering that it was +not suitable, should not throw away the food and ask for a new food, +but throw the baby out of window, and ask for a new baby. +Mr. Shaw cannot understand that the thing which is valuable +and lovable in our eyes is man--the old beer-drinking, +creed-making, fighting, failing, sensual, respectable man. +And the things that have been founded on this creature immortally remain; +the things that have been founded on the fancy of the Superman have +died with the dying civilizations which alone have given them birth. +When Christ at a symbolic moment was establishing His great society, +He chose for its comer-stone neither the brilliant Paul nor +the mystic John, but a shuffler, a snob a coward--in a word, a man. +And upon this rock He has built His Church, and the gates of Hell +have not prevailed against it. All the empires and the kingdoms +have failed, because of this inherent and continual weakness, +that they were founded by strong men and upon strong men. +But this one thing, the historic Christian Church, was founded +on a weak man, and for that reason it is indestructible. +For no chain is stronger than its weakest link. + + + +V. Mr. H. G. Wells and the Giants + + +We ought to see far enough into a hypocrite to see even his sincerity. +We ought to be interested in that darkest and most real part +of a man in which dwell not the vices that he does not display, +but the virtues that he cannot. And the more we approach the problems +of human history with this keen and piercing charity, the smaller +and smaller space we shall allow to pure hypocrisy of any kind. +The hypocrites shall not deceive us into thinking them saints; +but neither shall they deceive us into thinking them hypocrites. +And an increasing number of cases will crowd into our field of inquiry, +cases in which there is really no question of hypocrisy at all, +cases in which people were so ingenuous that they seemed absurd, +and so absurd that they seemed disingenuous. + +There is one striking instance of an unfair charge of hypocrisy. +It is always urged against the religious in the past, as a point of +inconsistency and duplicity, that they combined a profession of almost +crawling humility with a keen struggle for earthly success and considerable +triumph in attaining it. It is felt as a piece of humbug, that a man +should be very punctilious in calling himself a miserable sinner, +and also very punctilious in calling himself King of France. +But the truth is that there is no more conscious inconsistency between +the humility of a Christian and the rapacity of a Christian than there +is between the humility of a lover and the rapacity of a lover. +The truth is that there are no things for which men will make such +herculean efforts as the things of which they know they are unworthy. +There never was a man in love who did not declare that, if he strained +every nerve to breaking, he was going to have his desire. +And there never was a man in love who did not declare also that he ought +not to have it. The whole secret of the practical success of Christendom +lies in the Christian humility, however imperfectly fulfilled. +For with the removal of all question of merit or payment, the soul +is suddenly released for incredible voyages. If we ask a sane man +how much he merits, his mind shrinks instinctively and instantaneously. +It is doubtful whether he merits six feet of earth. +But if you ask him what he can conquer--he can conquer the stars. +Thus comes the thing called Romance, a purely Christian product. +A man cannot deserve adventures; he cannot earn dragons and hippogriffs. +The mediaeval Europe which asserted humility gained Romance; +the civilization which gained Romance has gained the habitable globe. +How different the Pagan and Stoical feeling was from this has +been admirably expressed in a famous quotation. Addison makes +the great Stoic say-- + + "'Tis not in mortals to command success; + But we'll do more, Sempronius, we'll deserve it." + +But the spirit of Romance and Christendom, the spirit which is in +every lover, the spirit which has bestridden the earth with European +adventure, is quite opposite. 'Tis not in mortals to deserve success. +But we'll do more, Sempronius; we'll obtain it. + +And this gay humility, this holding of ourselves lightly and yet ready +for an infinity of unmerited triumphs, this secret is so simple that every +one has supposed that it must be something quite sinister and mysterious. +Humility is so practical a virtue that men think it must be a vice. +Humility is so successful that it is mistaken for pride. +It is mistaken for it all the more easily because it generally goes +with a certain simple love of splendour which amounts to vanity. +Humility will always, by preference, go clad in scarlet and gold; +pride is that which refuses to let gold and scarlet impress it or please +it too much. In a word, the failure of this virtue actually lies +in its success; it is too successful as an investment to be believed +in as a virtue. Humility is not merely too good for this world; +it is too practical for this world; I had almost said it is too +worldly for this world. + +The instance most quoted in our day is the thing called the humility +of the man of science; and certainly it is a good instance as well +as a modern one. Men find it extremely difficult to believe +that a man who is obviously uprooting mountains and dividing seas, +tearing down temples and stretching out hands to the stars, +is really a quiet old gentleman who only asks to be allowed to +indulge his harmless old hobby and follow his harmless old nose. +When a man splits a grain of sand and the universe is turned upside down +in consequence, it is difficult to realize that to the man who did it, +the splitting of the grain is the great affair, and the capsizing +of the cosmos quite a small one. It is hard to enter into the feelings +of a man who regards a new heaven and a new earth in the light of a +by-product. But undoubtedly it was to this almost eerie innocence +of the intellect that the great men of the great scientific period, +which now appears to be closing, owed their enormous power and triumph. +If they had brought the heavens down like a house of cards +their plea was not even that they had done it on principle; +their quite unanswerable plea was that they had done it by accident. +Whenever there was in them the least touch of pride in what +they had done, there was a good ground for attacking them; +but so long as they were wholly humble, they were wholly victorious. +There were possible answers to Huxley; there was no answer possible +to Darwin. He was convincing because of his unconsciousness; +one might almost say because of his dulness. This childlike +and prosaic mind is beginning to wane in the world of science. +Men of science are beginning to see themselves, as the fine phrase is, +in the part; they are beginning to be proud of their humility. +They are beginning to be aesthetic, like the rest of the world, +beginning to spell truth with a capital T, beginning to talk +of the creeds they imagine themselves to have destroyed, +of the discoveries that their forbears made. Like the modern English, +they are beginning to be soft about their own hardness. +They are becoming conscious of their own strength--that is, +they are growing weaker. But one purely modern man has emerged +in the strictly modern decades who does carry into our world the clear +personal simplicity of the old world of science. One man of genius +we have who is an artist, but who was a man of science, and who seems +to be marked above all things with this great scientific humility. +I mean Mr. H. G. Wells. And in his case, as in the others above +spoken of, there must be a great preliminary difficulty in convincing +the ordinary person that such a virtue is predicable of such a man. +Mr. Wells began his literary work with violent visions--visions of +the last pangs of this planet; can it be that a man who begins +with violent visions is humble? He went on to wilder and wilder +stories about carving beasts into men and shooting angels like birds. +Is the man who shoots angels and carves beasts into men humble? +Since then he has done something bolder than either of these blasphemies; +he has prophesied the political future of all men; prophesied it +with aggressive authority and a ringing decision of detail. +Is the prophet of the future of all men humble ? It will indeed +be difficult, in the present condition of current thought about +such things as pride and humility, to answer the query of how a man +can be humble who does such big things and such bold things. +For the only answer is the answer which I gave at the beginning +of this essay. It is the humble man who does the big things. +It is the humble man who does the bold things. It is the humble +man who has the sensational sights vouchsafed to him, and this +for three obvious reasons: first, that he strains his eyes more +than any other men to see them; second, that he is more overwhelmed +and uplifted with them when they come; third, that he records +them more exactly and sincerely and with less adulteration +from his more commonplace and more conceited everyday self. +Adventures are to those to whom they are most unexpected--that is, +most romantic. Adventures are to the shy: in this sense adventures +are to the unadventurous. + +Now, this arresting, mental humility in Mr. H. G. Wells may be, +like a great many other things that are vital and vivid, difficult to +illustrate by examples, but if I were asked for an example of it, +I should have no difficulty about which example to begin with. +The most interesting thing about Mr. H. G. Wells is that he is +the only one of his many brilliant contemporaries who has not +stopped growing. One can lie awake at night and hear him grow. +Of this growth the most evident manifestation is indeed a gradual +change of opinions; but it is no mere change of opinions. +It is not a perpetual leaping from one position to another like +that of Mr. George Moore. It is a quite continuous advance along +a quite solid road in a quite definable direction. But the chief +proof that it is not a piece of fickleness and vanity is the fact +that it has been upon the whole in advance from more startling +opinions to more humdrum opinions. It has been even in some sense +an advance from unconventional opinions to conventional opinions. +This fact fixes Mr. Wells's honesty and proves him to be no poseur. +Mr. Wells once held that the upper classes and the lower classes +would be so much differentiated in the future that one class would +eat the other. Certainly no paradoxical charlatan who had once +found arguments for so startling a view would ever have deserted it +except for something yet more startling. Mr. Wells has deserted it +in favour of the blameless belief that both classes will be ultimately +subordinated or assimilated to a sort of scientific middle class, +a class of engineers. He has abandoned the sensational theory with +the same honourable gravity and simplicity with which he adopted it. +Then he thought it was true; now he thinks it is not true. +He has come to the most dreadful conclusion a literary man can +come to, the conclusion that the ordinary view is the right one. +It is only the last and wildest kind of courage that can stand +on a tower before ten thousand people and tell them that twice +two is four. + +Mr. H. G. Wells exists at present in a gay and exhilarating progress +of conservativism. He is finding out more and more that conventions, +though silent, are alive. As good an example as any of this +humility and sanity of his may be found in his change of view +on the subject of science and marriage. He once held, I believe, +the opinion which some singular sociologists still hold, +that human creatures could successfully be paired and bred after +the manner of dogs or horses. He no longer holds that view. +Not only does he no longer hold that view, but he has written about it +in "Mankind in the Making" with such smashing sense and humour, that I +find it difficult to believe that anybody else can hold it either. +It is true that his chief objection to the proposal is that it is +physically impossible, which seems to me a very slight objection, +and almost negligible compared with the others. The one objection +to scientific marriage which is worthy of final attention is simply +that such a thing could only be imposed on unthinkable slaves +and cowards. I do not know whether the scientific marriage-mongers +are right (as they say) or wrong (as Mr. Wells says) in saying +that medical supervision would produce strong and healthy men. +I am only certain that if it did, the first act of the strong +and healthy men would be to smash the medical supervision. + +The mistake of all that medical talk lies in the very fact that it +connects the idea of health with the idea of care. What has health +to do with care? Health has to do with carelessness. In special +and abnormal cases it is necessary to have care. When we are peculiarly +unhealthy it may be necessary to be careful in order to be healthy. +But even then we are only trying to be healthy in order to be careless. +If we are doctors we are speaking to exceptionally sick men, +and they ought to be told to be careful. But when we are sociologists +we are addressing the normal man, we are addressing humanity. +And humanity ought to be told to be recklessness itself. +For all the fundamental functions of a healthy man ought emphatically +to be performed with pleasure and for pleasure; they emphatically +ought not to be performed with precaution or for precaution. +A man ought to eat because he has a good appetite to satisfy, +and emphatically not because he has a body to sustain. A man ought +to take exercise not because he is too fat, but because he loves foils +or horses or high mountains, and loves them for their own sake. +And a man ought to marry because he has fallen in love, +and emphatically not because the world requires to be populated. +The food will really renovate his tissues as long as he is not thinking +about his tissues. The exercise will really get him into training +so long as he is thinking about something else. And the marriage will +really stand some chance of producing a generous-blooded generation +if it had its origin in its own natural and generous excitement. +It is the first law of health that our necessities should not be +accepted as necessities; they should be accepted as luxuries. +Let us, then, be careful about the small things, such as a scratch +or a slight illness, or anything that can be managed with care. +But in the name of all sanity, let us be careless about the +important things, such as marriage, or the fountain of our very +life will fail. + +Mr. Wells, however, is not quite clear enough of the narrower +scientific outlook to see that there are some things which actually +ought not to be scientific. He is still slightly affected with +the great scientific fallacy; I mean the habit of beginning not +with the human soul, which is the first thing a man learns about, +but with some such thing as protoplasm, which is about the last. +The one defect in his splendid mental equipment is that he does +not sufficiently allow for the stuff or material of men. +In his new Utopia he says, for instance, that a chief point of +the Utopia will be a disbelief in original sin. If he had begun +with the human soul--that is, if he had begun on himself--he would +have found original sin almost the first thing to be believed in. +He would have found, to put the matter shortly, that a permanent +possibility of selfishness arises from the mere fact of having a self, +and not from any accidents of education or ill-treatment. And +the weakness of all Utopias is this, that they take the greatest +difficulty of man and assume it to be overcome, and then give +an elaborate account of the overcoming of the smaller ones. +They first assume that no man will want more than his share, +and then are very ingenious in explaining whether his share +will be delivered by motor-car or balloon. And an even stronger +example of Mr. Wells's indifference to the human psychology can +be found in his cosmopolitanism, the abolition in his Utopia of all +patriotic boundaries. He says in his innocent way that Utopia +must be a world-state, or else people might make war on it. +It does not seem to occur to him that, for a good many of us, if it were +a world-state we should still make war on it to the end of the world. +For if we admit that there must be varieties in art or opinion what +sense is there in thinking there will not be varieties in government? +The fact is very simple. Unless you are going deliberately to prevent +a thing being good, you cannot prevent it being worth fighting for. +It is impossible to prevent a possible conflict of civilizations, +because it is impossible to prevent a possible conflict between ideals. +If there were no longer our modern strife between nations, there would +only be a strife between Utopias. For the highest thing does not tend +to union only; the highest thing, tends also to differentiation. +You can often get men to fight for the union; but you can +never prevent them from fighting also for the differentiation. +This variety in the highest thing is the meaning of the fierce patriotism, +the fierce nationalism of the great European civilization. +It is also, incidentally, the meaning of the doctrine of the Trinity. + +But I think the main mistake of Mr. Wells's philosophy is a somewhat +deeper one, one that he expresses in a very entertaining manner +in the introductory part of the new Utopia. His philosophy in some +sense amounts to a denial of the possibility of philosophy itself. +At least, he maintains that there are no secure and reliable +ideas upon which we can rest with a final mental satisfaction. +It will be both clearer, however, and more amusing to quote +Mr. Wells himself. + +He says, "Nothing endures, nothing is precise and certain +(except the mind of a pedant). . . . Being indeed!--there is no being, +but a universal becoming of individualities, and Plato turned his back +on truth when he turned towards his museum of specific ideals." +Mr. Wells says, again, "There is no abiding thing in what we know. +We change from weaker to stronger lights, and each more powerful +light pierces our hitherto opaque foundations and reveals +fresh and different opacities below." Now, when Mr. Wells +says things like this, I speak with all respect when I say +that he does not observe an evident mental distinction. +It cannot be true that there is nothing abiding in what we know. +For if that were so we should not know it all and should not call +it knowledge. Our mental state may be very different from that +of somebody else some thousands of years back; but it cannot be +entirely different, or else we should not be conscious of a difference. +Mr. Wells must surely realize the first and simplest of the paradoxes +that sit by the springs of truth. He must surely see that the fact +of two things being different implies that they are similar. +The hare and the tortoise may differ in the quality of swiftness, +but they must agree in the quality of motion. The swiftest hare +cannot be swifter than an isosceles triangle or the idea of pinkness. +When we say the hare moves faster, we say that the tortoise moves. +And when we say of a thing that it moves, we say, without need +of other words, that there are things that do not move. +And even in the act of saying that things change, we say that there +is something unchangeable. + +But certainly the best example of Mr. Wells's fallacy can be +found in the example which he himself chooses. It is quite true +that we see a dim light which, compared with a darker thing, +is light, but which, compared with a stronger light, is darkness. +But the quality of light remains the same thing, or else we +should not call it a stronger light or recognize it as such. +If the character of light were not fixed in the mind, we should be +quite as likely to call a denser shadow a stronger light, or vice +versa If the character of light became even for an instant unfixed, +if it became even by a hair's-breadth doubtful, if, for example, +there crept into our idea of light some vague idea of blueness, +then in that flash we have become doubtful whether the new light +has more light or less. In brief, the progress may be as varying +as a cloud, but the direction must be as rigid as a French road. +North and South are relative in the sense that I am North of Bournemouth +and South of Spitzbergen. But if there be any doubt of the position +of the North Pole, there is in equal degree a doubt of whether I +am South of Spitzbergen at all. The absolute idea of light may be +practically unattainable. We may not be able to procure pure light. +We may not be able to get to the North Pole. But because the North +Pole is unattainable, it does not follow that it is indefinable. +And it is only because the North Pole is not indefinable that we +can make a satisfactory map of Brighton and Worthing. + +In other words, Plato turned his face to truth but his back on +Mr. H. G. Wells, when he turned to his museum of specified ideals. +It is precisely here that Plato shows his sense. It is not true +that everything changes; the things that change are all the manifest +and material things. There is something that does not change; +and that is precisely the abstract quality, the invisible idea. +Mr. Wells says truly enough, that a thing which we have seen in one +connection as dark we may see in another connection as light. +But the thing common to both incidents is the mere idea of light-- +which we have not seen at all. Mr. Wells might grow taller and taller +for unending aeons till his head was higher than the loneliest star. +I can imagine his writing a good novel about it. In that case +he would see the trees first as tall things and then as short things; +he would see the clouds first as high and then as low. +But there would remain with him through the ages in that starry +loneliness the idea of tallness; he would have in the awful spaces +for companion and comfort the definite conception that he was growing +taller and not (for instance) growing fatter. + +And now it comes to my mind that Mr. H. G. Wells actually has written +a very delightful romance about men growing as tall as trees; +and that here, again, he seems to me to have been a victim of this +vague relativism. "The Food of the Gods" is, like Mr. Bernard +Shaw's play, in essence a study of the Superman idea. And it lies, +I think, even through the veil of a half-pantomimic allegory, +open to the same intellectual attack. We cannot be expected to have +any regard for a great creature if he does not in any manner conform +to our standards. For unless he passes our standard of greatness +we cannot even call him great. Nietszche summed up all that is +interesting in the Superman idea when he said, "Man is a thing +which has to be surpassed." But the very word "surpass" implies +the existence of a standard common to us and the thing surpassing us. +If the Superman is more manly than men are, of course they will +ultimately deify him, even if they happen to kill him first. +But if he is simply more supermanly, they may be quite indifferent +to him as they would be to another seemingly aimless monstrosity. +He must submit to our test even in order to overawe us. +Mere force or size even is a standard; but that alone will never +make men think a man their superior. Giants, as in the wise old +fairy-tales, are vermin. Supermen, if not good men, are vermin. + +"The Food of the Gods" is the tale of "Jack the Giant-Killer" +told from the point of view of the giant. This has not, I think, +been done before in literature; but I have little doubt that the +psychological substance of it existed in fact. I have little doubt +that the giant whom Jack killed did regard himself as the Superman. +It is likely enough that he considered Jack a narrow and parochial person +who wished to frustrate a great forward movement of the life-force. +If (as not unfrequently was the case) he happened to have two heads, +he would point out the elementary maxim which declares them +to be better than one. He would enlarge on the subtle modernity +of such an equipment, enabling a giant to look at a subject +from two points of view, or to correct himself with promptitude. +But Jack was the champion of the enduring human standards, +of the principle of one man one head and one man one conscience, +of the single head and the single heart and the single eye. +Jack was quite unimpressed by the question of whether the giant was +a particularly gigantic giant. All he wished to know was whether +he was a good giant--that is, a giant who was any good to us. +What were the giant's religious views; what his views on politics +and the duties of the citizen? Was he fond of children-- +or fond of them only in a dark and sinister sense ? To use a fine +phrase for emotional sanity, was his heart in the right place? +Jack had sometimes to cut him up with a sword in order to find out. +The old and correct story of Jack the Giant-Killer is simply the whole +story of man; if it were understood we should need no Bibles or histories. +But the modern world in particular does not seem to understand it at all. +The modern world, like Mr. Wells is on the side of the giants; +the safest place, and therefore the meanest and the most prosaic. +The modern world, when it praises its little Caesars, +talks of being strong and brave: but it does not seem to see +the eternal paradox involved in the conjunction of these ideas. +The strong cannot be brave. Only the weak can be brave; +and yet again, in practice, only those who can be brave can be trusted, +in time of doubt, to be strong. The only way in which a giant could +really keep himself in training against the inevitable Jack would +be by continually fighting other giants ten times as big as himself. +That is by ceasing to be a giant and becoming a Jack. +Thus that sympathy with the small or the defeated as such, +with which we Liberals and Nationalists have been often reproached, +is not a useless sentimentalism at all, as Mr. Wells and his +friends fancy. It is the first law of practical courage. +To be in the weakest camp is to be in the strongest school. +Nor can I imagine anything that would do humanity more good than +the advent of a race of Supermen, for them to fight like dragons. +If the Superman is better than we, of course we need not fight him; +but in that case, why not call him the Saint? But if he is +merely stronger (whether physically, mentally, or morally stronger, +I do not care a farthing), then he ought to have to reckon with us +at least for all the strength we have. It we are weaker than he, +that is no reason why we should be weaker than ourselves. +If we are not tall enough to touch the giant's knees, that is +no reason why we should become shorter by falling on our own. +But that is at bottom the meaning of all modern hero-worship +and celebration of the Strong Man, the Caesar the Superman. +That he may be something more than man, we must be something less. + +Doubtless there is an older and better hero-worship than this. +But the old hero was a being who, like Achilles, was more human +than humanity itself. Nietzsche's Superman is cold and friendless. +Achilles is so foolishly fond of his friend that he slaughters +armies in the agony of his bereavement. Mr. Shaw's sad Caesar says +in his desolate pride, "He who has never hoped can never despair." +The Man-God of old answers from his awful hill, "Was ever sorrow +like unto my sorrow?" A great man is not a man so strong that he feels +less than other men; he is a man so strong that he feels more. +And when Nietszche says, "A new commandment I give to you, `be hard,'" +he is really saying, "A new commandment I give to you, `be dead.'" +Sensibility is the definition of life. + +I recur for a last word to Jack the Giant-Killer. I have dwelt +on this matter of Mr. Wells and the giants, not because it is +specially prominent in his mind; I know that the Superman does +not bulk so large in his cosmos as in that of Mr. Bernard Shaw. +I have dwelt on it for the opposite reason; because this heresy +of immoral hero-worship has taken, I think, a slighter hold of him, +and may perhaps still be prevented from perverting one of +the best thinkers of the day. In the course of "The New Utopia" +Mr. Wells makes more than one admiring allusion to Mr. W. E. Henley. +That clever and unhappy man lived in admiration of a vague violence, +and was always going back to rude old tales and rude old ballads, +to strong and primitive literatures, to find the praise of strength +and the justification of tyranny. But he could not find it. +It is not there. The primitive literature is shown in the tale of Jack +the Giant-Killer. The strong old literature is all in praise of the weak. +The rude old tales are as tender to minorities as any modern +political idealist. The rude old ballads are as sentimentally +concerned for the under-dog as the Aborigines Protection Society. +When men were tough and raw, when they lived amid hard knocks and +hard laws, when they knew what fighting really was, they had only +two kinds of songs. The first was a rejoicing that the weak had +conquered the strong, the second a lamentation that the strong had, +for once in a way, conquered the weak. For this defiance of +the statu quo, this constant effort to alter the existing balance, +this premature challenge to the powerful, is the whole nature and +inmost secret of the psychological adventure which is called man. +It is his strength to disdain strength. The forlorn hope +is not only a real hope, it is the only real hope of mankind. +In the coarsest ballads of the greenwood men are admired most when +they defy, not only the king, but what is more to the point, the hero. +The moment Robin Hood becomes a sort of Superman, that moment +the chivalrous chronicler shows us Robin thrashed by a poor tinker +whom he thought to thrust aside. And the chivalrous chronicler +makes Robin Hood receive the thrashing in a glow of admiration. +This magnanimity is not a product of modern humanitarianism; +it is not a product of anything to do with peace. +This magnanimity is merely one of the lost arts of war. +The Henleyites call for a sturdy and fighting England, and they go +back to the fierce old stories of the sturdy and fighting English. +And the thing that they find written across that fierce old +literature everywhere, is "the policy of Majuba." + + + +VI. Christmas and the Aesthetes + + +The world is round, so round that the schools of optimism and pessimism +have been arguing from the beginning whether it is the right way up. +The difficulty does not arise so much from the mere fact that good and +evil are mingled in roughly equal proportions; it arises chiefly from +the fact that men always differ about what parts are good and what evil. +Hence the difficulty which besets "undenominational religions." +They profess to include what is beautiful in all creeds, but they +appear to many to have collected all that is dull in them. +All the colours mixed together in purity ought to make a perfect white. +Mixed together on any human paint-box, they make a thing like mud, and a +thing very like many new religions. Such a blend is often something much +worse than any one creed taken separately, even the creed of the Thugs. +The error arises from the difficulty of detecting what is really +the good part and what is really the bad part of any given religion. +And this pathos falls rather heavily on those persons who have +the misfortune to think of some religion or other, that the parts +commonly counted good are bad, and the parts commonly counted +bad are good. + +It is tragic to admire and honestly admire a human group, but to admire +it in a photographic negative. It is difficult to congratulate all +their whites on being black and all their blacks on their whiteness. +This will often happen to us in connection with human religions. +Take two institutions which bear witness to the religious energy +of the nineteenth century. Take the Salvation Army and the philosophy +of Auguste Comte. + +The usual verdict of educated people on the Salvation Army is +expressed in some such words as these: "I have no doubt they do +a great deal of good, but they do it in a vulgar and profane style; +their aims are excellent, but their methods are wrong." +To me, unfortunately, the precise reverse of this appears to be +the truth. I do not know whether the aims of the Salvation Army +are excellent, but I am quite sure their methods are admirable. +Their methods are the methods of all intense and hearty religions; +they are popular like all religion, military like all religion, +public and sensational like all religion. They are not reverent any more +than Roman Catholics are reverent, for reverence in the sad and delicate +meaning of the term reverence is a thing only possible to infidels. +That beautiful twilight you will find in Euripides, in Renan, +in Matthew Arnold; but in men who believe you will not find it-- +you will find only laughter and war. A man cannot pay that kind +of reverence to truth solid as marble; they can only be reverent +towards a beautiful lie. And the Salvation Army, though their voice +has broken out in a mean environment and an ugly shape, are really +the old voice of glad and angry faith, hot as the riots of Dionysus, +wild as the gargoyles of Catholicism, not to be mistaken for a philosophy. +Professor Huxley, in one of his clever phrases, called the Salvation +Army "corybantic Christianity." Huxley was the last and noblest +of those Stoics who have never understood the Cross. If he had +understood Christianity he would have known that there never has been, +and never can be, any Christianity that is not corybantic. + +And there is this difference between the matter of aims and +the matter of methods, that to judge of the aims of a thing like +the Salvation Army is very difficult, to judge of their ritual +and atmosphere very easy. No one, perhaps, but a sociologist +can see whether General Booth's housing scheme is right. +But any healthy person can see that banging brass cymbals together +must be right. A page of statistics, a plan of model dwellings, +anything which is rational, is always difficult for the lay mind. +But the thing which is irrational any one can understand. +That is why religion came so early into the world and spread so far, +while science came so late into the world and has not spread at all. +History unanimously attests the fact that it is only mysticism +which stands the smallest chance of being understanded of the people. +Common sense has to be kept as an esoteric secret in the dark temple +of culture. And so while the philanthropy of the Salvationists and its +genuineness may be a reasonable matter for the discussion of the doctors, +there can be no doubt about the genuineness of their brass bands, +for a brass band is purely spiritual, and seeks only to quicken +the internal life. The object of philanthropy is to do good; +the object of religion is to be good, if only for a moment, +amid a crash of brass. + +And the same antithesis exists about another modern religion--I mean +the religion of Comte, generally known as Positivism, or the worship +of humanity. Such men as Mr. Frederic Harrison, that brilliant +and chivalrous philosopher, who still, by his mere personality, +speaks for the creed, would tell us that he offers us the philosophy +of Comte, but not all Comte's fantastic proposals for pontiffs +and ceremonials, the new calendar, the new holidays and saints' days. +He does not mean that we should dress ourselves up as priests +of humanity or let off fireworks because it is Milton's birthday. +To the solid English Comtist all this appears, he confesses, to be +a little absurd. To me it appears the only sensible part of Comtism. +As a philosophy it is unsatisfactory. It is evidently impossible to +worship humanity, just as it is impossible to worship the Savile Club; +both are excellent institutions to which we may happen to belong. +But we perceive clearly that the Savile Club did not make the stars +and does not fill the universe. And it is surely unreasonable to attack +the doctrine of the Trinity as a piece of bewildering mysticism, +and then to ask men to worship a being who is ninety million persons +in one God, neither confounding the persons nor dividing the substance. + +But if the wisdom of Comte was insufficient, the folly of Comte +was wisdom. In an age of dusty modernity, when beauty was thought +of as something barbaric and ugliness as something sensible, +he alone saw that men must always have the sacredness of mummery. +He saw that while the brutes have all the useful things, the things +that are truly human are the useless ones. He saw the falsehood +of that almost universal notion of to-day, the notion that rites +and forms are something artificial, additional, and corrupt. +Ritual is really much older than thought; it is much simpler and much +wilder than thought. A feeling touching the nature of things does +not only make men feel that there are certain proper things to say; +it makes them feel that there are certain proper things to do. +The more agreeable of these consist of dancing, building temples, +and shouting very loud; the less agreeable, of wearing +green carnations and burning other philosophers alive. +But everywhere the religious dance came before the religious hymn, +and man was a ritualist before he could speak. If Comtism had spread +the world would have been converted, not by the Comtist philosophy, +but by the Comtist calendar. By discouraging what they conceive +to be the weakness of their master, the English Positivists +have broken the strength of their religion. A man who has faith +must be prepared not only to be a martyr, but to be a fool. +It is absurd to say that a man is ready to toil and die for his convictions +when he is not even ready to wear a wreath round his head for them. +I myself, to take a corpus vile, am very certain that I would not +read the works of Comte through for any consideration whatever. +But I can easily imagine myself with the greatest enthusiasm lighting +a bonfire on Darwin Day. + +That splendid effort failed, and nothing in the style of it has succeeded. +There has been no rationalist festival, no rationalist ecstasy. +Men are still in black for the death of God. When Christianity was heavily +bombarded in the last century upon no point was it more persistently and +brilliantly attacked than upon that of its alleged enmity to human joy. +Shelley and Swinburne and all their armies have passed again and again +over the ground, but they have not altered it. They have not set up +a single new trophy or ensign for the world's merriment to rally to. +They have not given a name or a new occasion of gaiety. +Mr. Swinburne does not hang up his stocking on the eve of the birthday +of Victor Hugo. Mr. William Archer does not sing carols descriptive +of the infancy of Ibsen outside people's doors in the snow. +In the round of our rational and mournful year one festival remains +out of all those ancient gaieties that once covered the whole earth. +Christmas remains to remind us of those ages, whether Pagan or Christian, +when the many acted poetry instead of the few writing it. +In all the winter in our woods there is no tree in glow but the holly. + +The strange truth about the matter is told in the very word "holiday." +A bank holiday means presumably a day which bankers regard as holy. +A half-holiday means, I suppose, a day on which a schoolboy is only +partially holy. It is hard to see at first sight why so human a thing +as leisure and larkiness should always have a religious origin. +Rationally there appears no reason why we should not sing and give +each other presents in honour of anything--the birth of Michael +Angelo or the opening of Euston Station. But it does not work. +As a fact, men only become greedily and gloriously material about +something spiritualistic. Take away the Nicene Creed and similar things, +and you do some strange wrong to the sellers of sausages. +Take away the strange beauty of the saints, and what has +remained to us is the far stranger ugliness of Wandsworth. +Take away the supernatural, and what remains is the unnatural. + +And now I have to touch upon a very sad matter. There are in the modern +world an admirable class of persons who really make protest on behalf +of that antiqua pulchritudo of which Augustine spoke, who do long +for the old feasts and formalities of the childhood of the world. +William Morris and his followers showed how much brighter were +the dark ages than the age of Manchester. Mr. W. B. Yeats frames +his steps in prehistoric dances, but no man knows and joins his voice +to forgotten choruses that no one but he can hear. Mr. George Moore +collects every fragment of Irish paganism that the forgetfulness +of the Catholic Church has left or possibly her wisdom preserved. +There are innumerable persons with eye-glasses and green garments +who pray for the return of the maypole or the Olympian games. +But there is about these people a haunting and alarming something +which suggests that it is just possible that they do not keep Christmas. +It is painful to regard human nature in such a light, +but it seems somehow possible that Mr. George Moore does +not wave his spoon and shout when the pudding is set alight. +It is even possible that Mr. W. B. Yeats never pulls crackers. +If so, where is the sense of all their dreams of festive traditions? +Here is a solid and ancient festive tradition still plying +a roaring trade in the streets, and they think it vulgar. +if this is so, let them be very certain of this, that they are +the kind of people who in the time of the maypole would have thought +the maypole vulgar; who in the time of the Canterbury pilgrimage +would have thought the Canterbury pilgrimage vulgar; who in the time +of the Olympian games would have thought the Olympian games vulgar. +Nor can there be any reasonable doubt that they were vulgar. +Let no man deceive himself; if by vulgarity we mean coarseness of speech, +rowdiness of behaviour, gossip, horseplay, and some heavy drinking, +vulgarity there always was wherever there was joy, wherever there was +faith in the gods. Wherever you have belief you will have hilarity, +wherever you have hilarity you will have some dangers. And as creed +and mythology produce this gross and vigorous life, so in its turn +this gross and vigorous life will always produce creed and mythology. +If we ever get the English back on to the English land they will become +again a religious people, if all goes well, a superstitious people. +The absence from modern life of both the higher and lower forms of faith +is largely due to a divorce from nature and the trees and clouds. +If we have no more turnip ghosts it is chiefly from the lack of turnips. + + + +VII. Omar and the Sacred Vine + + +A new morality has burst upon us with some violence in connection +with the problem of strong drink; and enthusiasts in the matter +range from the man who is violently thrown out at 12.30, to the lady +who smashes American bars with an axe. In these discussions it +is almost always felt that one very wise and moderate position is +to say that wine or such stuff should only be drunk as a medicine. +With this I should venture to disagree with a peculiar ferocity. +The one genuinely dangerous and immoral way of drinking wine is to drink +it as a medicine. And for this reason, If a man drinks wine in order +to obtain pleasure, he is trying to obtain something exceptional, +something he does not expect every hour of the day, something which, +unless he is a little insane, he will not try to get every hour +of the day. But if a man drinks wine in order to obtain health, +he is trying to get something natural; something, that is, +that he ought not to be without; something that he may find it +difficult to reconcile himself to being without. The man may not +be seduced who has seen the ecstasy of being ecstatic; it is more +dazzling to catch a glimpse of the ecstasy of being ordinary. +If there were a magic ointment, and we took it to a strong man, +and said, "This will enable you to jump off the Monument," +doubtless he would jump off the Monument, but he would not jump +off the Monument all day long to the delight of the City. +But if we took it to a blind man, saying, "This will enable you to see," +he would be under a heavier temptation. It would be hard for him +not to rub it on his eyes whenever he heard the hoof of a noble +horse or the birds singing at daybreak. It is easy to deny one's +self festivity; it is difficult to deny one's self normality. +Hence comes the fact which every doctor knows, that it is often +perilous to give alcohol to the sick even when they need it. +I need hardly say that I do not mean that I think the giving +of alcohol to the sick for stimulus is necessarily unjustifiable. +But I do mean that giving it to the healthy for fun is the proper +use of it, and a great deal more consistent with health. + +The sound rule in the matter would appear to be like many other +sound rules--a paradox. Drink because you are happy, but never because +you are miserable. Never drink when you are wretched without it, +or you will be like the grey-faced gin-drinker in the slum; +but drink when you would be happy without it, and you will be like +the laughing peasant of Italy. Never drink because you need it, +for this is rational drinking, and the way to death and hell. +But drink because you do not need it, for this is irrational drinking, +and the ancient health of the world. + +For more than thirty years the shadow and glory of a great +Eastern figure has lain upon our English literature. +Fitzgerald's translation of Omar Khayyam concentrated into an +immortal poignancy all the dark and drifting hedonism of our time. +Of the literary splendour of that work it would be merely banal to speak; +in few other of the books of men has there been anything so combining +the gay pugnacity of an epigram with the vague sadness of a song. +But of its philosophical, ethical, and religious influence which has +been almost as great as its brilliancy, I should like to say a word, +and that word, I confess, one of uncompromising hostility. +There are a great many things which might be said against +the spirit of the Rubaiyat, and against its prodigious influence. +But one matter of indictment towers ominously above the rest-- +a genuine disgrace to it, a genuine calamity to us. This is the terrible +blow that this great poem has struck against sociability and the joy +of life. Some one called Omar "the sad, glad old Persian." +Sad he is; glad he is not, in any sense of the word whatever. +He has been a worse foe to gladness than the Puritans. + +A pensive and graceful Oriental lies under the rose-tree +with his wine-pot and his scroll of poems. It may seem strange +that any one's thoughts should, at the moment of regarding him, +fly back to the dark bedside where the doctor doles out brandy. +It may seem stranger still that they should go back +to the grey wastrel shaking with gin in Houndsditch. +But a great philosophical unity links the three in an evil bond. +Omar Khayyam's wine-bibbing is bad, not because it is wine-bibbing. +It is bad, and very bad, because it is medical wine-bibbing. It +is the drinking of a man who drinks because he is not happy. +His is the wine that shuts out the universe, not the wine that reveals it. +It is not poetical drinking, which is joyous and instinctive; +it is rational drinking, which is as prosaic as an investment, +as unsavoury as a dose of camomile. Whole heavens above it, +from the point of view of sentiment, though not of style, +rises the splendour of some old English drinking-song-- + + "Then pass the bowl, my comrades all, + And let the zider vlow." + +For this song was caught up by happy men to express the worth +of truly worthy things, of brotherhood and garrulity, and the brief +and kindly leisure of the poor. Of course, the great part of +the more stolid reproaches directed against the Omarite morality +are as false and babyish as such reproaches usually are. One critic, +whose work I have read, had the incredible foolishness to call Omar +an atheist and a materialist. It is almost impossible for an Oriental +to be either; the East understands metaphysics too well for that. +Of course, the real objection which a philosophical Christian +would bring against the religion of Omar, is not that he gives +no place to God, it is that he gives too much place to God. +His is that terrible theism which can imagine nothing else but deity, +and which denies altogether the outlines of human personality +and human will. + + "The ball no question makes of Ayes or Noes, + But Here or There as strikes the Player goes; + And He that tossed you down into the field, + He knows about it all--he knows--he knows." + +A Christian thinker such as Augustine or Dante would object to this +because it ignores free-will, which is the valour and dignity of the soul. +The quarrel of the highest Christianity with this scepticism is +not in the least that the scepticism denies the existence of God; +it is that it denies the existence of man. + +In this cult of the pessimistic pleasure-seeker the Rubaiyat +stands first in our time; but it does not stand alone. +Many of the most brilliant intellects of our time have urged +us to the same self-conscious snatching at a rare delight. +Walter Pater said that we were all under sentence of death, +and the only course was to enjoy exquisite moments simply +for those moments' sake. The same lesson was taught by the +very powerful and very desolate philosophy of Oscar Wilde. +It is the carpe diem religion; but the carpe diem religion is +not the religion of happy people, but of very unhappy people. +Great joy does, not gather the rosebuds while it may; +its eyes are fixed on the immortal rose which Dante saw. +Great joy has in it the sense of immortality; the very splendour +of youth is the sense that it has all space to stretch its legs in. +In all great comic literature, in "Tristram Shandy" +or "Pickwick", there is this sense of space and incorruptibility; +we feel the characters are deathless people in an endless tale. + +It is true enough, of course, that a pungent happiness comes chiefly +in certain passing moments; but it is not true that we should think +of them as passing, or enjoy them simply "for those moments' sake." +To do this is to rationalize the happiness, and therefore to destroy it. +Happiness is a mystery like religion, and should never be rationalized. +Suppose a man experiences a really splendid moment of pleasure. +I do not mean something connected with a bit of enamel, I mean +something with a violent happiness in it--an almost painful happiness. +A man may have, for instance, a moment of ecstasy in first love, +or a moment of victory in battle. The lover enjoys the moment, +but precisely not for the moment's sake. He enjoys it for the +woman's sake, or his own sake. The warrior enjoys the moment, but not +for the sake of the moment; he enjoys it for the sake of the flag. +The cause which the flag stands for may be foolish and fleeting; +the love may be calf-love, and last a week. But the patriot thinks +of the flag as eternal; the lover thinks of his love as something +that cannot end. These moments are filled with eternity; +these moments are joyful because they do not seem momentary. +Once look at them as moments after Pater's manner, and they become +as cold as Pater and his style. Man cannot love mortal things. +He can only love immortal things for an instant. + +Pater's mistake is revealed in his most famous phrase. +He asks us to burn with a hard, gem-like flame. Flames are never +hard and never gem-like--they cannot be handled or arranged. +So human emotions are never hard and never gem-like; they are +always dangerous, like flames, to touch or even to examine. +There is only one way in which our passions can become hard +and gem-like, and that is by becoming as cold as gems. +No blow then has ever been struck at the natural loves and laughter +of men so sterilizing as this carpe diem of the aesthetes. +For any kind of pleasure a totally different spirit is required; +a certain shyness, a certain indeterminate hope, a certain +boyish expectation. Purity and simplicity are essential to passions-- +yes even to evil passions. Even vice demands a sort of virginity. + +Omar's (or Fitzgerald's) effect upon the other world we may let go, +his hand upon this world has been heavy and paralyzing. +The Puritans, as I have said, are far jollier than he. +The new ascetics who follow Thoreau or Tolstoy are much livelier company; +for, though the surrender of strong drink and such luxuries may +strike us as an idle negation, it may leave a man with innumerable +natural pleasures, and, above all, with man's natural power of happiness. +Thoreau could enjoy the sunrise without a cup of coffee. If Tolstoy +cannot admire marriage, at least he is healthy enough to admire mud. +Nature can be enjoyed without even the most natural luxuries. +A good bush needs no wine. But neither nature nor wine nor anything +else can be enjoyed if we have the wrong attitude towards happiness, +and Omar (or Fitzgerald) did have the wrong attitude towards happiness. +He and those he has influenced do not see that if we are to be truly gay, +we must believe that there is some eternal gaiety in the nature of things. +We cannot enjoy thoroughly even a pas-de-quatre at a subscription dance +unless we believe that the stars are dancing to the same tune. No one can +be really hilarious but the serious man. "Wine," says the Scripture, +"maketh glad the heart of man," but only of the man who has a heart. +The thing called high spirits is possible only to the spiritual. +Ultimately a man cannot rejoice in anything except the nature of things. +Ultimately a man can enjoy nothing except religion. Once in the world's +history men did believe that the stars were dancing to the tune +of their temples, and they danced as men have never danced since. +With this old pagan eudaemonism the sage of the Rubaiyat has +quite as little to do as he has with any Christian variety. +He is no more a Bacchanal than he is a saint. Dionysus and his church +was grounded on a serious joie-de-vivre like that of Walt Whitman. +Dionysus made wine, not a medicine, but a sacrament. +Jesus Christ also made wine, not a medicine, but a sacrament. +But Omar makes it, not a sacrament, but a medicine. He feasts +because life is not joyful; he revels because he is not glad. +"Drink," he says, "for you know not whence you come nor why. +Drink, for you know not when you go nor where. Drink, because the +stars are cruel and the world as idle as a humming-top. Drink, +because there is nothing worth trusting, nothing worth fighting for. +Drink, because all things are lapsed in a base equality and an +evil peace." So he stands offering us the cup in his hand. +And at the high altar of Christianity stands another figure, in whose +hand also is the cup of the vine. "Drink" he says "for the whole +world is as red as this wine, with the crimson of the love and wrath +of God. Drink, for the trumpets are blowing for battle and this +is the stirrup-cup. Drink, for this my blood of the new testament +that is shed for you. Drink, for I know of whence you come and why. +Drink, for I know of when you go and where." + + + +VIll. The Mildness of the Yellow Press + + +There is a great deal of protest made from one quarter or another +nowadays against the influence of that new journalism which is +associated with the names of Sir Alfred Harmsworth and Mr. Pearson. +But almost everybody who attacks it attacks on the ground that it +is very sensational, very violent and vulgar and startling. +I am speaking in no affected contrariety, but in the simplicity +of a genuine personal impression, when I say that this journalism +offends as being not sensational or violent enough. The real vice +is not that it is startling, but that it is quite insupportably tame. +The whole object is to keep carefully along a certain level of the +expected and the commonplace; it may be low, but it must take care +also to be flat. Never by any chance in it is there any of that real +plebeian pungency which can be heard from the ordinary cabman in +the ordinary street. We have heard of a certain standard of decorum +which demands that things should be funny without being vulgar, +but the standard of this decorum demands that if things are vulgar +they shall be vulgar without being funny. This journalism does +not merely fail to exaggerate life--it positively underrates it; +and it has to do so because it is intended for the faint and languid +recreation of men whom the fierceness of modern life has fatigued. +This press is not the yellow press at all; it is the drab press. +Sir Alfred Harmsworth must not address to the tired clerk +any observation more witty than the tired clerk might be able +to address to Sir Alfred Harmsworth. It must not expose anybody +(anybody who is powerful, that is), it must not offend anybody, +it must not even please anybody, too much. A general vague idea +that in spite of all this, our yellow press is sensational, +arises from such external accidents as large type or lurid headlines. +It is quite true that these editors print everything they possibly +can in large capital letters. But they do this, not because it +is startling, but because it is soothing. To people wholly weary +or partly drunk in a dimly lighted train, it is a simplification and +a comfort to have things presented in this vast and obvious manner. +The editors use this gigantic alphabet in dealing with their readers, +for exactly the same reason that parents and governesses use +a similar gigantic alphabet in teaching children to spell. +The nursery authorities do not use an A as big as a horseshoe +in order to make the child jump; on the contrary, they use it to put +the child at his ease, to make things smoother and more evident. +Of the same character is the dim and quiet dame school which +Sir Alfred Harmsworth and Mr. Pearson keep. All their sentiments +are spelling-book sentiments--that is to say, they are sentiments +with which the pupil is already respectfully familiar. +All their wildest posters are leaves torn from a copy-book. + +Of real sensational journalism, as it exists in France, +in Ireland, and in America, we have no trace in this country. +When a journalist in Ireland wishes to create a thrill, +he creates a thrill worth talking about. He denounces a leading +Irish member for corruption, or he charges the whole police system +with a wicked and definite conspiracy. When a French journalist +desires a frisson there is a frisson; he discovers, let us say, +that the President of the Republic has murdered three wives. +Our yellow journalists invent quite as unscrupulously as this; +their moral condition is, as regards careful veracity, about the same. +But it is their mental calibre which happens to be such +that they can only invent calm and even reassuring things. +The fictitious version of the massacre of the envoys of Pekin +was mendacious, but it was not interesting, except to those who +had private reasons for terror or sorrow. It was not connected +with any bold and suggestive view of the Chinese situation. +It revealed only a vague idea that nothing could be impressive +except a great deal of blood. Real sensationalism, of which I +happen to be very fond, may be either moral or immoral. +But even when it is most immoral, it requires moral courage. +For it is one of the most dangerous things on earth genuinely +to surprise anybody. If you make any sentient creature jump, +you render it by no means improbable that it will jump on you. +But the leaders of this movement have no moral courage or immoral courage; +their whole method consists in saying, with large and elaborate emphasis, +the things which everybody else says casually, and without remembering +what they have said. When they brace themselves up to attack anything, +they never reach the point of attacking anything which is large +and real, and would resound with the shock. They do not attack +the army as men do in France, or the judges as men do in Ireland, +or the democracy itself as men did in England a hundred years ago. +They attack something like the War Office--something, that is, +which everybody attacks and nobody bothers to defend, +something which is an old joke in fourth-rate comic papers. +just as a man shows he has a weak voice by straining it +to shout, so they show the hopelessly unsensational nature +of their minds when they really try to be sensational. +With the whole world full of big and dubious institutions, +with the whole wickedness of civilization staring them in the face, +their idea of being bold and bright is to attack the War Office. +They might as well start a campaign against the weather, or form +a secret society in order to make jokes about mothers-in-law. Nor is it +only from the point of view of particular amateurs of the sensational +such as myself, that it is permissible to say, in the words of +Cowper's Alexander Selkirk, that "their tameness is shocking to me." +The whole modern world is pining for a genuinely sensational journalism. +This has been discovered by that very able and honest journalist, +Mr. Blatchford, who started his campaign against Christianity, +warned on all sides, I believe, that it would ruin his paper, but who +continued from an honourable sense of intellectual responsibility. +He discovered, however, that while he had undoubtedly shocked +his readers, he had also greatly advanced his newspaper. +It was bought--first, by all the people who agreed with him and wanted +to read it; and secondly, by all the people who disagreed with him, +and wanted to write him letters. Those letters were voluminous (I helped, +I am glad to say, to swell their volume), and they were generally +inserted with a generous fulness. Thus was accidentally discovered +(like the steam-engine) the great journalistic maxim--that if an +editor can only make people angry enough, they will write half +his newspaper for him for nothing. + +Some hold that such papers as these are scarcely the proper +objects of so serious a consideration; but that can scarcely +be maintained from a political or ethical point of view. +In this problem of the mildness and tameness of the Harmsworth mind +there is mirrored the outlines of a much larger problem which is +akin to it. + +The Harmsworthian journalist begins with a worship of success +and violence, and ends in sheer timidity and mediocrity. +But he is not alone in this, nor does he come by this fate merely +because he happens personally to be stupid. Every man, however brave, +who begins by worshipping violence, must end in mere timidity. +Every man, however wise, who begins by worshipping success, must end +in mere mediocrity. This strange and paradoxical fate is involved, +not in the individual, but in the philosophy, in the point of view. +It is not the folly of the man which brings about this +necessary fall; it is his wisdom. The worship of success is +the only one out of all possible worships of which this is true, +that its followers are foredoomed to become slaves and cowards. +A man may be a hero for the sake of Mrs. Gallup's ciphers or for +the sake of human sacrifice, but not for the sake of success. +For obviously a man may choose to fail because he loves +Mrs. Gallup or human sacrifice; but he cannot choose to fail +because he loves success. When the test of triumph is men's test +of everything, they never endure long enough to triumph at all. +As long as matters are really hopeful, hope is a mere flattery +or platitude; it is only when everything is hopeless that hope +begins to be a strength at all. Like all the Christian virtues, +it is as unreasonable as it is indispensable. + +It was through this fatal paradox in the nature of things that all these +modern adventurers come at last to a sort of tedium and acquiescence. +They desired strength; and to them to desire strength was to +admire strength; to admire strength was simply to admire the statu quo. +They thought that he who wished to be strong ought to respect the strong. +They did not realize the obvious verity that he who wishes to be +strong must despise the strong. They sought to be everything, +to have the whole force of the cosmos behind them, to have an energy +that would drive the stars. But they did not realize the two +great facts--first, that in the attempt to be everything the first +and most difficult step is to be something; second, that the moment +a man is something, he is essentially defying everything. +The lower animals, say the men of science, fought their way up +with a blind selfishness. If this be so, the only real moral of it +is that our unselfishness, if it is to triumph, must be equally blind. +The mammoth did not put his head on one side and wonder whether +mammoths were a little out of date. Mammoths were at least +as much up to date as that individual mammoth could make them. +The great elk did not say, "Cloven hoofs are very much worn now." +He polished his own weapons for his own use. But in the reasoning +animal there has arisen a more horrible danger, that he may fail +through perceiving his own failure. When modern sociologists talk +of the necessity of accommodating one's self to the trend of the time, +they forget that the trend of the time at its best consists entirely +of people who will not accommodate themselves to anything. +At its worst it consists of many millions of frightened creatures +all accommodating themselves to a trend that is not there. +And that is becoming more and more the situation of modern England. +Every man speaks of public opinion, and means by public opinion, +public opinion minus his opinion. Every man makes his +contribution negative under the erroneous impression that +the next man's contribution is positive. Every man surrenders +his fancy to a general tone which is itself a surrender. +And over all the heartless and fatuous unity spreads this new +and wearisome and platitudinous press, incapable of invention, +incapable of audacity, capable only of a servility all the more +contemptible because it is not even a servility to the strong. +But all who begin with force and conquest will end in this. + +The chief characteristic of the "New journalism" is simply that it +is bad journalism. It is beyond all comparison the most shapeless, +careless, and colourless work done in our day. + +I read yesterday a sentence which should be written in letters of gold +and adamant; it is the very motto of the new philosophy of Empire. +I found it (as the reader has already eagerly guessed) in Pearson's +Magazine, while I was communing (soul to soul) with Mr. C. Arthur Pearson, +whose first and suppressed name I am afraid is Chilperic. +It occurred in an article on the American Presidential Election. +This is the sentence, and every one should read it carefully, +and roll it on the tongue, till all the honey be tasted. + +"A little sound common sense often goes further with an audience +of American working-men than much high-flown argument. A speaker who, +as he brought forward his points, hammered nails into a board, +won hundreds of votes for his side at the last Presidential Election." + +I do not wish to soil this perfect thing with comment; +the words of Mercury are harsh after the songs of Apollo. +But just think for a moment of the mind, the strange inscrutable mind, +of the man who wrote that, of the editor who approved it, +of the people who are probably impressed by it, of the incredible +American working-man, of whom, for all I know, it may be true. +Think what their notion of "common sense" must be! It is delightful +to realize that you and I are now able to win thousands of votes +should we ever be engaged in a Presidential Election, by doing something +of this kind. For I suppose the nails and the board are not essential +to the exhibition of "common sense;" there may be variations. +We may read-- + +"A little common sense impresses American working-men more than +high-flown argument. A speaker who, as he made his points, +pulled buttons off his waistcoat, won thousands of votes for his side." +Or, "Sound common sense tells better in America than high-flown argument. +Thus Senator Budge, who threw his false teeth in the air every time +he made an epigram, won the solid approval of American working-men." +Or again, "The sound common sense of a gentleman from Earlswood, +who stuck straws in his hair during the progress of his speech, +assured the victory of Mr. Roosevelt." + +There are many other elements in this article on which I should +love to linger. But the matter which I wish to point out is that +in that sentence is perfectly revealed the whole truth of what +our Chamberlainites, hustlers, bustlers, Empire-builders, and strong, +silent men, really mean by "commonsense." They mean knocking, +with deafening noise and dramatic effect, meaningless bits +of iron into a useless bit of wood. A man goes on to an American +platform and behaves like a mountebank fool with a board and +a hammer; well, I do not blame him; I might even admire him. +He may be a dashing and quite decent strategist. He may be a fine +romantic actor, like Burke flinging the dagger on the floor. +He may even (for all I know) be a sublime mystic, profoundly impressed +with the ancient meaning of the divine trade of the Carpenter, +and offering to the people a parable in the form of a ceremony. +All I wish to indicate is the abyss of mental confusion in +which such wild ritualism can be called "sound common sense." +And it is in that abyss of mental confusion, and in that alone, +that the new Imperialism lives and moves and has its being. +The whole glory and greatness of Mr. Chamberlain consists in this: +that if a man hits the right nail on the head nobody cares where he hits +it to or what it does. They care about the noise of the hammer, not about +the silent drip of the nail. Before and throughout the African war, +Mr. Chamberlain was always knocking in nails, with ringing decisiveness. +But when we ask, "But what have these nails held together? +Where is your carpentry? Where are your contented Outlanders? +Where is your free South Africa? Where is your British prestige? +What have your nails done?" then what answer is there? +We must go back (with an affectionate sigh) to our Pearson +for the answer to the question of what the nails have done: +"The speaker who hammered nails into a board won thousands of votes." + +Now the whole of this passage is admirably characteristic of the new +journalism which Mr. Pearson represents, the new journalism which has +just purchased the Standard. To take one instance out of hundreds, +the incomparable man with the board and nails is described in the Pearson's +article as calling out (as he smote the symbolic nail), "Lie number one. +Nailed to the Mast! Nailed to the Mast!" In the whole office there +was apparently no compositor or office-boy to point out that we +speak of lies being nailed to the counter, and not to the mast. +Nobody in the office knew that Pearson's Magazine was falling +into a stale Irish bull, which must be as old as St. Patrick. +This is the real and essential tragedy of the sale of the Standard. +It is not merely that journalism is victorious over literature. +It is that bad journalism is victorious over good journalism. + +It is not that one article which we consider costly and beautiful is being +ousted by another kind of article which we consider common or unclean. +It is that of the same article a worse quality is preferred to a better. +If you like popular journalism (as I do), you will know that Pearson's +Magazine is poor and weak popular journalism. You will know it +as certainly as you know bad butter. You will know as certainly +that it is poor popular journalism as you know that the Strand, +in the great days of Sherlock Holmes, was good popular journalism. +Mr. Pearson has been a monument of this enormous banality. +About everything he says and does there is something infinitely +weak-minded. He clamours for home trades and employs foreign +ones to print his paper. When this glaring fact is pointed out, +he does not say that the thing was an oversight, like a sane man. +He cuts it off with scissors, like a child of three. His very cunning +is infantile. And like a child of three, he does not cut it quite off. +In all human records I doubt if there is such an example of a profound +simplicity in deception. This is the sort of intelligence which now +sits in the seat of the sane and honourable old Tory journalism. +If it were really the triumph of the tropical exuberance of the +Yankee press, it would be vulgar, but still tropical. But it is not. +We are delivered over to the bramble, and from the meanest of +the shrubs comes the fire upon the cedars of Lebanon. + +The only question now is how much longer the fiction will endure +that journalists of this order represent public opinion. +It may be doubted whether any honest and serious Tariff Reformer +would for a moment maintain that there was any majority +for Tariff Reform in the country comparable to the ludicrous +preponderance which money has given it among the great dailies. +The only inference is that for purposes of real public opinion +the press is now a mere plutocratic oligarchy. Doubtless the +public buys the wares of these men, for one reason or another. +But there is no more reason to suppose that the public admires +their politics than that the public admires the delicate philosophy +of Mr. Crosse or the darker and sterner creed of Mr. Blackwell. +If these men are merely tradesmen, there is nothing to say except +that there are plenty like them in the Battersea Park Road, +and many much better. But if they make any sort of attempt +to be politicians, we can only point out to them that they are not +as yet even good journalists. + + + +IX. The Moods of Mr. George Moore + + +Mr. George Moore began his literary career by writing his +personal confessions; nor is there any harm in this if he had +not continued them for the remainder of his life. He is a man +of genuinely forcible mind and of great command over a kind +of rhetorical and fugitive conviction which excites and pleases. +He is in a perpetual state of temporary honesty. He has admired +all the most admirable modern eccentrics until they could stand +it no longer. Everything he writes, it is to be fully admitted, +has a genuine mental power. His account of his reason for +leaving the Roman Catholic Church is possibly the most admirable +tribute to that communion which has been written of late years. +For the fact of the matter is, that the weakness which has rendered +barren the many brilliancies of Mr. Moore is actually that weakness +which the Roman Catholic Church is at its best in combating. +Mr. Moore hates Catholicism because it breaks up the house +of looking-glasses in which he lives. Mr. Moore does not dislike +so much being asked to believe in the spiritual existence +of miracles or sacraments, but he does fundamentally dislike +being asked to believe in the actual existence of other people. +Like his master Pater and all the aesthetes, his real quarrel with +life is that it is not a dream that can be moulded by the dreamer. +It is not the dogma of the reality of the other world that troubles him, +but the dogma of the reality of this world. + +The truth is that the tradition of Christianity (which is still the only +coherent ethic of Europe) rests on two or three paradoxes or mysteries +which can easily be impugned in argument and as easily justified in life. +One of them, for instance, is the paradox of hope or faith-- +that the more hopeless is the situation the more hopeful must be the man. +Stevenson understood this, and consequently Mr. Moore cannot +understand Stevenson. Another is the paradox of charity or chivalry +that the weaker a thing is the more it should be respected, +that the more indefensible a thing is the more it should appeal +to us for a certain kind of defence. Thackeray understood this, +and therefore Mr. Moore does not understand Thackeray. Now, one of +these very practical and working mysteries in the Christian tradition, +and one which the Roman Catholic Church, as I say, has done her best +work in singling out, is the conception of the sinfulness of pride. +Pride is a weakness in the character; it dries up laughter, +it dries up wonder, it dries up chivalry and energy. +The Christian tradition understands this; therefore Mr. Moore does +not understand the Christian tradition. + +For the truth is much stranger even than it appears in the formal +doctrine of the sin of pride. It is not only true that +humility is a much wiser and more vigorous thing than pride. +It is also true that vanity is a much wiser and more vigorous thing +than pride. Vanity is social--it is almost a kind of comradeship; +pride is solitary and uncivilized. Vanity is active; +it desires the applause of infinite multitudes; pride is passive, +desiring only the applause of one person, which it already has. +Vanity is humorous, and can enjoy the joke even of itself; +pride is dull, and cannot even smile. And the whole of this +difference is the difference between Stevenson and Mr. George Moore, +who, as he informs us, has "brushed Stevenson aside." I do not know +where he has been brushed to, but wherever it is I fancy he is having +a good time, because he had the wisdom to be vain, and not proud. +Stevenson had a windy vanity; Mr. Moore has a dusty egoism. +Hence Stevenson could amuse himself as well as us with his vanity; +while the richest effects of Mr. Moore's absurdity are hidden +from his eyes. + +If we compare this solemn folly with the happy folly with which +Stevenson belauds his own books and berates his own critics, +we shall not find it difficult to guess why it is that Stevenson +at least found a final philosophy of some sort to live by, +while Mr. Moore is always walking the world looking for a new one. +Stevenson had found that the secret of life lies in laughter and humility. +Self is the gorgon. Vanity sees it in the mirror of other men and lives. +Pride studies it for itself and is turned to stone. + +It is necessary to dwell on this defect in Mr. Moore, because it +is really the weakness of work which is not without its strength. +Mr. Moore's egoism is not merely a moral weakness, it is +a very constant and influential aesthetic weakness as well. +We should really be much more interested in Mr. Moore if he were +not quite so interested in himself. We feel as if we were being +shown through a gallery of really fine pictures, into each of which, +by some useless and discordant convention, the artist had represented +the same figure in the same attitude. "The Grand Canal with a distant +view of Mr. Moore," "Effect of Mr. Moore through a Scotch Mist," +"Mr. Moore by Firelight," "Ruins of Mr. Moore by Moonlight," +and so on, seems to be the endless series. He would no doubt +reply that in such a book as this he intended to reveal himself. +But the answer is that in such a book as this he does not succeed. +One of the thousand objections to the sin of pride lies +precisely in this, that self-consciousness of necessity destroys +self-revelation. A man who thinks a great deal about himself +will try to be many-sided, attempt a theatrical excellence at +all points, will try to be an encyclopaedia of culture, and his +own real personality will be lost in that false universalism. +Thinking about himself will lead to trying to be the universe; +trying to be the universe will lead to ceasing to be anything. +If, on the other hand, a man is sensible enough to think only about +the universe; he will think about it in his own individual way. +He will keep virgin the secret of God; he will see the grass as no +other man can see it, and look at a sun that no man has ever known. +This fact is very practically brought out in Mr. Moore's "Confessions." +In reading them we do not feel the presence of a clean-cut +personality like that of Thackeray and Matthew Arnold. +We only read a number of quite clever and largely conflicting opinions +which might be uttered by any clever person, but which we are called +upon to admire specifically, because they are uttered by Mr. Moore. +He is the only thread that connects Catholicism and Protestantism, +realism and mysticism--he or rather his name. He is profoundly +absorbed even in views he no longer holds, and he expects us to be. +And he intrudes the capital "I" even where it need not be intruded-- +even where it weakens the force of a plain statement. +Where another man would say, "It is a fine day," Mr. Moore says, +"Seen through my temperament, the day appeared fine." +Where another man would say "Milton has obviously a fine style," +Mr. Moore would say, "As a stylist Milton had always impressed me." +The Nemesis of this self-centred spirit is that of being +totally ineffectual. Mr. Moore has started many interesting crusades, +but he has abandoned them before his disciples could begin. +Even when he is on the side of the truth he is as fickle as the children +of falsehood. Even when he has found reality he cannot find rest. +One Irish quality he has which no Irishman was ever without--pugnacity; +and that is certainly a great virtue, especially in the present age. +But he has not the tenacity of conviction which goes with the fighting +spirit in a man like Bernard Shaw. His weakness of introspection +and selfishness in all their glory cannot prevent him fighting; +but they will always prevent him winning. + + + +X. On Sandals and Simplicity + + +The great misfortune of the modern English is not at all +that they are more boastful than other people (they are not); +it is that they are boastful about those particular things which +nobody can boast of without losing them. A Frenchman can be proud +of being bold and logical, and still remain bold and logical. +A German can be proud of being reflective and orderly, and still +remain reflective and orderly. But an Englishman cannot be proud +of being simple and direct, and still remain simple and direct. +In the matter of these strange virtues, to know them is to kill them. +A man may be conscious of being heroic or conscious of being divine, +but he cannot (in spite of all the Anglo-Saxon poets) be conscious +of being unconscious. + +Now, I do not think that it can be honestly denied that some portion +of this impossibility attaches to a class very different in their +own opinion, at least, to the school of Anglo-Saxonism. I mean +that school of the simple life, commonly associated with Tolstoy. +If a perpetual talk about one's own robustness leads to being +less robust, it is even more true that a perpetual talking +about one's own simplicity leads to being less simple. +One great complaint, I think, must stand against the modern upholders +of the simple life--the simple life in all its varied forms, +from vegetarianism to the honourable consistency of the Doukhobors. +This complaint against them stands, that they would make us simple +in the unimportant things, but complex in the important things. +They would make us simple in the things that do not matter-- +that is, in diet, in costume, in etiquette, in economic system. +But they would make us complex in the things that do matter--in philosophy, +in loyalty, in spiritual acceptance, and spiritual rejection. +It does not so very much matter whether a man eats a grilled tomato +or a plain tomato; it does very much matter whether he eats a plain +tomato with a grilled mind. The only kind of simplicity worth preserving +is the simplicity of the heart, the simplicity which accepts and enjoys. +There may be a reasonable doubt as to what system preserves this; +there can surely be no doubt that a system of simplicity destroys it. +There is more simplicity in the man who eats caviar on +impulse than in the man who eats grape-nuts on principle. +The chief error of these people is to be found in the very phrase +to which they are most attached--"plain living and high thinking." +These people do not stand in need of, will not be improved by, +plain living and high thinking. They stand in need of the contrary. +They would be improved by high living and plain thinking. +A little high living (I say, having a full sense of responsibility, +a little high living) would teach them the force and meaning +of the human festivities, of the banquet that has gone on from +the beginning of the world. It would teach them the historic fact +that the artificial is, if anything, older than the natural. +It would teach them that the loving-cup is as old as any hunger. +It would teach them that ritualism is older than any religion. +And a little plain thinking would teach them how harsh and fanciful +are the mass of their own ethics, how very civilized and very +complicated must be the brain of the Tolstoyan who really believes +it to be evil to love one's country and wicked to strike a blow. + +A man approaches, wearing sandals and simple raiment, a raw +tomato held firmly in his right hand, and says, "The affections +of family and country alike are hindrances to the fuller development +of human love;" but the plain thinker will only answer him, +with a wonder not untinged with admiration, "What a great deal +of trouble you must have taken in order to feel like that." +High living will reject the tomato. Plain thinking will equally +decisively reject the idea of the invariable sinfulness of war. +High living will convince us that nothing is more materialistic +than to despise a pleasure as purely material. And plain thinking +will convince us that nothing is more materialistic than to reserve +our horror chiefly for material wounds. + +The only simplicity that matters is the simplicity of the heart. +If that be gone, it can be brought back by no turnips or cellular clothing; +but only by tears and terror and the fires that are not quenched. +If that remain, it matters very little if a few Early Victorian +armchairs remain along with it. Let us put a complex entree into +a simple old gentleman; let us not put a simple entree into a complex +old gentleman. So long as human society will leave my spiritual +inside alone, I will allow it, with a comparative submission, to work +its wild will with my physical interior. I will submit to cigars. +I will meekly embrace a bottle of Burgundy. I will humble myself +to a hansom cab. If only by this means I may preserve to myself +the virginity of the spirit, which enjoys with astonishment and fear. +I do not say that these are the only methods of preserving it. +I incline to the belief that there are others. But I will have +nothing to do with simplicity which lacks the fear, the astonishment, +and the joy alike. I will have nothing to do with the devilish +vision of a child who is too simple to like toys. + +The child is, indeed, in these, and many other matters, the best guide. +And in nothing is the child so righteously childlike, in nothing +does he exhibit more accurately the sounder order of simplicity, +than in the fact that he sees everything with a simple pleasure, +even the complex things. The false type of naturalness harps +always on the distinction between the natural and the artificial. +The higher kind of naturalness ignores that distinction. +To the child the tree and the lamp-post are as natural and as +artificial as each other; or rather, neither of them are natural +but both supernatural. For both are splendid and unexplained. +The flower with which God crowns the one, and the flame with which +Sam the lamplighter crowns the other, are equally of the gold +of fairy-tales. In the middle of the wildest fields the most rustic +child is, ten to one, playing at steam-engines. And the only spiritual +or philosophical objection to steam-engines is not that men pay +for them or work at them, or make them very ugly, or even that men +are killed by them; but merely that men do not play at them. +The evil is that the childish poetry of clockwork does not remain. +The wrong is not that engines are too much admired, but that they +are not admired enough. The sin is not that engines are mechanical, +but that men are mechanical. + +In this matter, then, as in all the other matters treated in this book, +our main conclusion is that it is a fundamental point of view, +a philosophy or religion which is needed, and not any change in habit +or social routine. The things we need most for immediate practical +purposes are all abstractions. We need a right view of the human lot, +a right view of the human society; and if we were living eagerly +and angrily in the enthusiasm of those things, we should, +ipso facto, be living simply in the genuine and spiritual sense. +Desire and danger make every one simple. And to those who talk to us +with interfering eloquence about Jaeger and the pores of the skin, +and about Plasmon and the coats of the stomach, at them shall only +be hurled the words that are hurled at fops and gluttons, "Take no +thought what ye shall eat or what ye shall drink, or wherewithal ye +shall be clothed. For after all these things do the Gentiles seek. +But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, +and all these things shall be added unto you." Those amazing +words are not only extraordinarily good, practical politics; +they are also superlatively good hygiene. The one supreme way +of making all those processes go right, the processes of health, +and strength, and grace, and beauty, the one and only way of making +certain of their accuracy, is to think about something else. +If a man is bent on climbing into the seventh heaven, he may be +quite easy about the pores of his skin. If he harnesses his waggon +to a star, the process will have a most satisfactory effect upon +the coats of his stomach. For the thing called "taking thought," +the thing for which the best modern word is "rationalizing," +is in its nature, inapplicable to all plain and urgent things. +Men take thought and ponder rationalistically, touching remote things-- +things that only theoretically matter, such as the transit of Venus. +But only at their peril can men rationalize about so practical +a matter as health. + + + +XI Science and the Savages + + +A permanent disadvantage of the study of folk-lore and kindred +subjects is that the man of science can hardly be in the nature +of things very frequently a man of the world. He is a student +of nature; he is scarcely ever a student of human nature. +And even where this difficulty is overcome, and he is in some sense +a student of human nature, this is only a very faint beginning +of the painful progress towards being human. For the study +of primitive race and religion stands apart in one important +respect from all, or nearly all, the ordinary scientific studies. +A man can understand astronomy only by being an astronomer; he can +understand entomology only by being an entomologist (or, perhaps, +an insect); but he can understand a great deal of anthropology +merely by being a man. He is himself the animal which he studies. +Hence arises the fact which strikes the eye everywhere in the records +of ethnology and folk-lore--the fact that the same frigid and detached +spirit which leads to success in the study of astronomy or botany +leads to disaster in the study of mythology or human origins. +It is necessary to cease to be a man in order to do justice +to a microbe; it is not necessary to cease to be a man in order +to do justice to men. That same suppression of sympathies, +that same waving away of intuitions or guess-work which make a man +preternaturally clever in dealing with the stomach of a spider, +will make him preternaturally stupid in dealing with the heart of man. +He is making himself inhuman in order to understand humanity. +An ignorance of the other world is boasted by many men of science; +but in this matter their defect arises, not from ignorance of +the other world, but from ignorance of this world. For the secrets +about which anthropologists concern themselves can be best learnt, +not from books or voyages, but from the ordinary commerce of man with man. +The secret of why some savage tribe worships monkeys or the moon +is not to be found even by travelling among those savages and taking +down their answers in a note-book, although the cleverest man +may pursue this course. The answer to the riddle is in England; +it is in London; nay, it is in his own heart. When a man has +discovered why men in Bond Street wear black hats he will at the same +moment have discovered why men in Timbuctoo wear red feathers. +The mystery in the heart of some savage war-dance should not be +studied in books of scientific travel; it should be studied at a +subscription ball. If a man desires to find out the origins of religions, +let him not go to the Sandwich Islands; let him go to church. +If a man wishes to know the origin of human society, to know +what society, philosophically speaking, really is, let him not go +into the British Museum; let him go into society. + +This total misunderstanding of the real nature of ceremonial gives +rise to the most awkward and dehumanized versions of the conduct +of men in rude lands or ages. The man of science, not realizing +that ceremonial is essentially a thing which is done without +a reason, has to find a reason for every sort of ceremonial, and, +as might be supposed, the reason is generally a very absurd one-- +absurd because it originates not in the simple mind of the barbarian, +but in the sophisticated mind of the professor. The teamed man +will say, for instance, "The natives of Mumbojumbo Land believe +that the dead man can eat and will require food upon his journey +to the other world. This is attested by the fact that they place +food in the grave, and that any family not complying with this +rite is the object of the anger of the priests and the tribe." +To any one acquainted with humanity this way of talking is topsy-turvy. +It is like saying, "The English in the twentieth century believed +that a dead man could smell. This is attested by the fact that they +always covered his grave with lilies, violets, or other flowers. +Some priestly and tribal terrors were evidently attached to the neglect +of this action, as we have records of several old ladies who were +very much disturbed in mind because their wreaths had not arrived +in time for the funeral." It may be of course that savages put +food with a dead man because they think that a dead man can eat, +or weapons with a dead man because they think that a dead man can fight. +But personally I do not believe that they think anything of the kind. +I believe they put food or weapons on the dead for the same +reason that we put flowers, because it is an exceedingly natural +and obvious thing to do. We do not understand, it is true, +the emotion which makes us think it obvious and natural; but that +is because, like all the important emotions of human existence +it is essentially irrational. We do not understand the savage +for the same reason that the savage does not understand himself. +And the savage does not understand himself for the same reason +that we do not understand ourselves either. + +The obvious truth is that the moment any matter has passed +through the human mind it is finally and for ever spoilt for all +purposes of science. It has become a thing incurably mysterious +and infinite; this mortal has put on immortality. Even what we +call our material desires are spiritual, because they are human. +Science can analyse a pork-chop, and say how much of it is +phosphorus and how much is protein; but science cannot analyse +any man's wish for a pork-chop, and say how much of it is hunger, +how much custom, how much nervous fancy, how much a haunting love +of the beautiful. The man's desire for the pork-chop remains +literally as mystical and ethereal as his desire for heaven. +All attempts, therefore, at a science of any human things, +at a science of history, a science of folk-lore, a science +of sociology, are by their nature not merely hopeless, but crazy. +You can no more be certain in economic history that a man's desire +for money was merely a desire for money than you can be certain in +hagiology that a saint's desire for God was merely a desire for God. +And this kind of vagueness in the primary phenomena of the study +is an absolutely final blow to anything in the nature of a science. +Men can construct a science with very few instruments, +or with very plain instruments; but no one on earth could +construct a science with unreliable instruments. A man might +work out the whole of mathematics with a handful of pebbles, +but not with a handful of clay which was always falling apart +into new fragments, and falling together into new combinations. +A man might measure heaven and earth with a reed, but not with +a growing reed. + +As one of the enormous follies of folk-lore, let us take the case of +the transmigration of stories, and the alleged unity of their source. +Story after story the scientific mythologists have cut out of its place +in history, and pinned side by side with similar stories in their +museum of fables. The process is industrious, it is fascinating, +and the whole of it rests on one of the plainest fallacies in the world. +That a story has been told all over the place at some time or other, +not only does not prove that it never really happened; it does not even +faintly indicate or make slightly more probable that it never happened. +That a large number of fishermen have falsely asserted that they have +caught a pike two feet long, does not in the least affect the question +of whether any one ever really did so. That numberless journalists +announce a Franco-German war merely for money is no evidence one way +or the other upon the dark question of whether such a war ever occurred. +Doubtless in a few hundred years the innumerable Franco-German +wars that did not happen will have cleared the scientific +mind of any belief in the legendary war of '70 which did. +But that will be because if folk-lore students remain at all, +their nature win be unchanged; and their services to folk-lore +will be still as they are at present, greater than they know. +For in truth these men do something far more godlike than studying legends; +they create them. + +There are two kinds of stories which the scientists say cannot be true, +because everybody tells them. The first class consists of the stories +which are told everywhere, because they are somewhat odd or clever; +there is nothing in the world to prevent their having happened to somebody +as an adventure any more than there is anything to prevent their +having occurred, as they certainly did occur, to somebody as an idea. +But they are not likely to have happened to many people. +The second class of their "myths" consist of the stories that are +told everywhere for the simple reason that they happen everywhere. +Of the first class, for instance, we might take such an example +as the story of William Tell, now generally ranked among legends upon +the sole ground that it is found in the tales of other peoples. +Now, it is obvious that this was told everywhere because whether +true or fictitious it is what is called "a good story;" +it is odd, exciting, and it has a climax. But to suggest that +some such eccentric incident can never have happened in the whole +history of archery, or that it did not happen to any particular +person of whom it is told, is stark impudence. The idea of shooting +at a mark attached to some valuable or beloved person is an idea +doubtless that might easily have occurred to any inventive poet. +But it is also an idea that might easily occur to any boastful archer. +It might be one of the fantastic caprices of some story-teller. It +might equally well be one of the fantastic caprices of some tyrant. +It might occur first in real life and afterwards occur in legends. +Or it might just as well occur first in legends and afterwards occur +in real life. If no apple has ever been shot off a boy's head +from the beginning of the world, it may be done tomorrow morning, +and by somebody who has never heard of William Tell. + +This type of tale, indeed, may be pretty fairly paralleled with +the ordinary anecdote terminating in a repartee or an Irish bull. +Such a retort as the famous "je ne vois pas la necessite" we have +all seen attributed to Talleyrand, to Voltaire, to Henri Quatre, +to an anonymous judge, and so on. But this variety does not in any +way make it more likely that the thing was never said at all. +It is highly likely that it was really said by somebody unknown. +It is highly likely that it was really said by Talleyrand. +In any case, it is not any more difficult to believe that the mot might +have occurred to a man in conversation than to a man writing memoirs. +It might have occurred to any of the men I have mentioned. +But there is this point of distinction about it, that it +is not likely to have occurred to all of them. And this is +where the first class of so-called myth differs from the second +to which I have previously referred. For there is a second class +of incident found to be common to the stories of five or six heroes, +say to Sigurd, to Hercules, to Rustem, to the Cid, and so on. +And the peculiarity of this myth is that not only is it highly +reasonable to imagine that it really happened to one hero, but it is +highly reasonable to imagine that it really happened to all of them. +Such a story, for instance, is that of a great man having his +strength swayed or thwarted by the mysterious weakness of a woman. +The anecdotal story, the story of William Tell, is as I +have said, popular, because it is peculiar. But this kind of story, +the story of Samson and Delilah of Arthur and Guinevere, is obviously +popular because it is not peculiar. It is popular as good, +quiet fiction is popular, because it tells the truth about people. +If the ruin of Samson by a woman, and the ruin of Hercules by a woman, +have a common legendary origin, it is gratifying to know that we can +also explain, as a fable, the ruin of Nelson by a woman and the ruin +of Parnell by a woman. And, indeed, I have no doubt whatever that, +some centuries hence, the students of folk-lore will refuse altogether +to believe that Elizabeth Barrett eloped with Robert Browning, +and will prove their point up to the hilt by the, unquestionable fact +that the whole fiction of the period was full of such elopements +from end to end. + +Possibly the most pathetic of all the delusions of the modern +students of primitive belief is the notion they have about the thing +they call anthropomorphism. They believe that primitive men +attributed phenomena to a god in human form in order to explain them, +because his mind in its sullen limitation could not reach any +further than his own clownish existence. The thunder was called +the voice of a man, the lightning the eyes of a man, because by this +explanation they were made more reasonable and comfortable. +The final cure for all this kind of philosophy is to walk down +a lane at night. Any one who does so will discover very quickly +that men pictured something semi-human at the back of all things, +not because such a thought was natural, but because it was supernatural; +not because it made things more comprehensible, but because it +made them a hundred times more incomprehensible and mysterious. +For a man walking down a lane at night can see the conspicuous fact +that as long as nature keeps to her own course, she has no power +with us at all. As long as a tree is a tree, it is a top-heavy +monster with a hundred arms, a thousand tongues, and only one leg. +But so long as a tree is a tree, it does not frighten us at all. +It begins to be something alien, to be something strange, only when it +looks like ourselves. When a tree really looks like a man our knees +knock under us. And when the whole universe looks like a man we +fall on our faces. + + + +XII Paganism and Mr. Lowes Dickinson + + +Of the New Paganism (or neo-Paganism), as it was preached +flamboyantly by Mr. Swinburne or delicately by Walter Pater, +there is no necessity to take any very grave account, +except as a thing which left behind it incomparable exercises +in the English language. The New Paganism is no longer new, +and it never at any time bore the smallest resemblance to Paganism. +The ideas about the ancient civilization which it has left +loose in the public mind are certainly extraordinary enough. +The term "pagan" is continually used in fiction and light literature +as meaning a man without any religion, whereas a pagan was generally +a man with about half a dozen. The pagans, according to this notion, +were continually crowning themselves with flowers and dancing +about in an irresponsible state, whereas, if there were two things +that the best pagan civilization did honestly believe in, they were +a rather too rigid dignity and a much too rigid responsibility. +Pagans are depicted as above all things inebriate and lawless, +whereas they were above all things reasonable and respectable. +They are praised as disobedient when they had only one great virtue-- +civic obedience. They are envied and admired as shamelessly happy +when they had only one great sin--despair. + +Mr. Lowes Dickinson, the most pregnant and provocative of recent +writers on this and similar subjects, is far too solid a man to +have fallen into this old error of the mere anarchy of Paganism. +In order to make hay of that Hellenic enthusiasm which has +as its ideal mere appetite and egotism, it is not necessary +to know much philosophy, but merely to know a little Greek. +Mr. Lowes Dickinson knows a great deal of philosophy, +and also a great deal of Greek, and his error, if error he has, +is not that of the crude hedonist. But the contrast which he offers +between Christianity and Paganism in the matter of moral ideals-- +a contrast which he states very ably in a paper called "How long +halt ye?" which appeared in the Independent Review--does, I think, +contain an error of a deeper kind. According to him, the ideal +of Paganism was not, indeed, a mere frenzy of lust and liberty +and caprice, but was an ideal of full and satisfied humanity. +According to him, the ideal of Christianity was the ideal of asceticism. +When I say that I think this idea wholly wrong as a matter of +philosophy and history, I am not talking for the moment about any +ideal Christianity of my own, or even of any primitive Christianity +undefiled by after events. I am not, like so many modern Christian +idealists, basing my case upon certain things which Christ said. +Neither am I, like so many other Christian idealists, +basing my case upon certain things that Christ forgot to say. +I take historic Christianity with all its sins upon its head; +I take it, as I would take Jacobinism, or Mormonism, or any other +mixed or unpleasing human product, and I say that the meaning of its +action was not to be found in asceticism. I say that its point +of departure from Paganism was not asceticism. I say that its +point of difference with the modern world was not asceticism. +I say that St. Simeon Stylites had not his main inspiration in asceticism. +I say that the main Christian impulse cannot be described as asceticism, +even in the ascetics. + +Let me set about making the matter clear. There is one broad fact +about the relations of Christianity and Paganism which is so simple +that many will smile at it, but which is so important that all +moderns forget it. The primary fact about Christianity and Paganism +is that one came after the other. Mr. Lowes Dickinson speaks +of them as if they were parallel ideals--even speaks as if Paganism +were the newer of the two, and the more fitted for a new age. +He suggests that the Pagan ideal will be the ultimate good of man; +but if that is so, we must at least ask with more curiosity +than he allows for, why it was that man actually found his +ultimate good on earth under the stars, and threw it away again. +It is this extraordinary enigma to which I propose to attempt an answer. + +There is only one thing in the modern world that has been face +to face with Paganism; there is only one thing in the modern +world which in that sense knows anything about Paganism: +and that is Christianity. That fact is really the weak point in +the whole of that hedonistic neo-Paganism of which I have spoken. +All that genuinely remains of the ancient hymns or the ancient dances +of Europe, all that has honestly come to us from the festivals of Phoebus +or Pan, is to be found in the festivals of the Christian Church. +If any one wants to hold the end of a chain which really goes back +to the heathen mysteries, he had better take hold of a festoon +of flowers at Easter or a string of sausages at Christmas. +Everything else in the modern world is of Christian origin, +even everything that seems most anti-Christian. The French Revolution +is of Christian origin. The newspaper is of Christian origin. +The anarchists are of Christian origin. Physical science is of +Christian origin. The attack on Christianity is of Christian origin. +There is one thing, and one thing only, in existence at the present +day which can in any sense accurately be said to be of pagan origin, +and that is Christianity. + +The real difference between Paganism and Christianity is perfectly +summed up in the difference between the pagan, or natural, virtues, +and those three virtues of Christianity which the Church of Rome +calls virtues of grace. The pagan, or rational, virtues are such +things as justice and temperance, and Christianity has adopted them. +The three mystical virtues which Christianity has not adopted, +but invented, are faith, hope, and charity. Now much easy +and foolish Christian rhetoric could easily be poured out upon +those three words, but I desire to confine myself to the two +facts which are evident about them. The first evident fact +(in marked contrast to the delusion of the dancing pagan)--the first +evident fact, I say, is that the pagan virtues, such as justice +and temperance, are the sad virtues, and that the mystical virtues +of faith, hope, and charity are the gay and exuberant virtues. +And the second evident fact, which is even more evident, +is the fact that the pagan virtues are the reasonable virtues, +and that the Christian virtues of faith, hope, and charity are +in their essence as unreasonable as they can be. + +As the word "unreasonable" is open to misunderstanding, the matter +may be more accurately put by saying that each one of these Christian +or mystical virtues involves a paradox in its own nature, and that this +is not true of any of the typically pagan or rationalist virtues. +Justice consists in finding out a certain thing due to a certain man +and giving it to him. Temperance consists in finding out the proper +limit of a particular indulgence and adhering to that. But charity +means pardoning what is unpardonable, or it is no virtue at all. +Hope means hoping when things are hopeless, or it is no virtue at all. +And faith means believing the incredible, or it is no virtue at all. + +It is somewhat amusing, indeed, to notice the difference between +the fate of these three paradoxes in the fashion of the modern mind. +Charity is a fashionable virtue in our time; it is lit up by the +gigantic firelight of Dickens. Hope is a fashionable virtue to-day; +our attention has been arrested for it by the sudden and silver +trumpet of Stevenson. But faith is unfashionable, and it is customary +on every side to cast against it the fact that it is a paradox. +Everybody mockingly repeats the famous childish definition that faith +is "the power of believing that which we know to be untrue." +Yet it is not one atom more paradoxical than hope or charity. +Charity is the power of defending that which we know to be indefensible. +Hope is the power of being cheerful in circumstances which we know +to be desperate. It is true that there is a state of hope which belongs +to bright prospects and the morning; but that is not the virtue of hope. +The virtue of hope exists only in earthquake and, eclipse. +It is true that there is a thing crudely called charity, which means +charity to the deserving poor; but charity to the deserving is not +charity at all, but justice. It is the undeserving who require it, +and the ideal either does not exist at all, or exists wholly for them. +For practical purposes it is at the hopeless moment that we require +the hopeful man, and the virtue either does not exist at all, +or begins to exist at that moment. Exactly at the instant +when hope ceases to be reasonable it begins to be useful. +Now the old pagan world went perfectly straightforward until it +discovered that going straightforward is an enormous mistake. +It was nobly and beautifully reasonable, and discovered in its +death-pang this lasting and valuable truth, a heritage for the ages, +that reasonableness will not do. The pagan age was truly an Eden +or golden age, in this essential sense, that it is not to be recovered. +And it is not to be recovered in this sense again that, +while we are certainly jollier than the pagans, and much +more right than the pagans, there is not one of us who can, +by the utmost stretch of energy, be so sensible as the pagans. +That naked innocence of the intellect cannot be recovered +by any man after Christianity; and for this excellent reason, +that every man after Christianity knows it to be misleading. +Let me take an example, the first that occurs to the mind, of this +impossible plainness in the pagan point of view. The greatest +tribute to Christianity in the modern world is Tennyson's "Ulysses." +The poet reads into the story of Ulysses the conception of an incurable +desire to wander. But the real Ulysses does not desire to wander at all. +He desires to get home. He displays his heroic and unconquerable +qualities in resisting the misfortunes which baulk him; but that is all. +There is no love of adventure for its own sake; that is a +Christian product. There is no love of Penelope for her own sake; +that is a Christian product. Everything in that old world would +appear to have been clean and obvious. A good man was a good man; +a bad man was a bad man. For this reason they had no charity; +for charity is a reverent agnosticism towards the complexity of the soul. +For this reason they had no such thing as the art of fiction, the novel; +for the novel is a creation of the mystical idea of charity. +For them a pleasant landscape was pleasant, and an unpleasant +landscape unpleasant. Hence they had no idea of romance; for romance +consists in thinking a thing more delightful because it is dangerous; +it is a Christian idea. In a word, we cannot reconstruct +or even imagine the beautiful and astonishing pagan world. +It was a world in which common sense was really common. + +My general meaning touching the three virtues of which I +have spoken will now, I hope, be sufficiently clear. +They are all three paradoxical, they are all three practical, +and they are all three paradoxical because they are practical. +it is the stress of ultimate need, and a terrible knowledge of things +as they are, which led men to set up these riddles, and to die for them. +Whatever may be the meaning of the contradiction, it is the fact +that the only kind of hope that is of any use in a battle +is a hope that denies arithmetic. Whatever may be the meaning +of the contradiction, it is the fact that the only kind of charity +which any weak spirit wants, or which any generous spirit feels, +is the charity which forgives the sins that are like scarlet. +Whatever may be the meaning of faith, it must always mean a certainty +about something we cannot prove. Thus, for instance, we believe +by faith in the existence of other people. + +But there is another Christian virtue, a virtue far more obviously +and historically connected with Christianity, which will illustrate +even better the connection between paradox and practical necessity. +This virtue cannot be questioned in its capacity as a historical symbol; +certainly Mr. Lowes Dickinson will not question it. +It has been the boast of hundreds of the champions of Christianity. +It has been the taunt of hundreds of the opponents of Christianity. +It is, in essence, the basis of Mr. Lowes Dickinson's whole distinction +between Christianity and Paganism. I mean, of course, the virtue +of humility. I admit, of course, most readily, that a great deal +of false Eastern humility (that is, of strictly ascetic humility) +mixed itself with the main stream of European Christianity. +We must not forget that when we speak of Christianity we are speaking +of a whole continent for about a thousand years. But of this virtue +even more than of the other three, I would maintain the general +proposition adopted above. Civilization discovered Christian humility +for the same urgent reason that it discovered faith and charity-- +that is, because Christian civilization had to discover it or die. + +The great psychological discovery of Paganism, which turned it +into Christianity, can be expressed with some accuracy in one phrase. +The pagan set out, with admirable sense, to enjoy himself. +By the end of his civilization he had discovered that a man +cannot enjoy himself and continue to enjoy anything else. +Mr. Lowes Dickinson has pointed out in words too excellent to need +any further elucidation, the absurd shallowness of those who imagine +that the pagan enjoyed himself only in a materialistic sense. +Of course, he enjoyed himself, not only intellectually even, +he enjoyed himself morally, he enjoyed himself spiritually. +But it was himself that he was enjoying; on the face of it, +a very natural thing to do. Now, the psychological discovery +is merely this, that whereas it had been supposed that the fullest +possible enjoyment is to be found by extending our ego to infinity, +the truth is that the fullest possible enjoyment is to be found +by reducing our ego to zero. + +Humility is the thing which is for ever renewing the earth and the stars. +It is humility, and not duty, which preserves the stars from wrong, +from the unpardonable wrong of casual resignation; it is through +humility that the most ancient heavens for us are fresh and strong. +The curse that came before history has laid on us all a tendency +to be weary of wonders. If we saw the sun for the first time +it would be the most fearful and beautiful of meteors. +Now that we see it for the hundredth time we call it, in the hideous +and blasphemous phrase of Wordsworth, "the light of common day." +We are inclined to increase our claims. We are inclined to +demand six suns, to demand a blue sun, to demand a green sun. +Humility is perpetually putting us back in the primal darkness. +There all light is lightning, startling and instantaneous. +Until we understand that original dark, in which we have neither +sight nor expectation, we can give no hearty and childlike +praise to the splendid sensationalism of things. The terms +"pessimism" and "optimism," like most modern terms, are unmeaning. +But if they can be used in any vague sense as meaning something, +we may say that in this great fact pessimism is the very basis +of optimism. The man who destroys himself creates the universe. +To the humble man, and to the humble man alone, the sun is really a sun; +to the humble man, and to the humble man alone, the sea is really a sea. +When he looks at all the faces in the street, he does not only +realize that men are alive, he realizes with a dramatic pleasure +that they are not dead. + +I have not spoken of another aspect of the discovery of humility +as a psychological necessity, because it is more commonly insisted on, +and is in itself more obvious. But it is equally clear that humility +is a permanent necessity as a condition of effort and self-examination. +It is one of the deadly fallacies of Jingo politics that a nation +is stronger for despising other nations. As a matter of fact, +the strongest nations are those, like Prussia or Japan, which began +from very mean beginnings, but have not been too proud to sit at +the feet of the foreigner and learn everything from him. Almost every +obvious and direct victory has been the victory of the plagiarist. +This is, indeed, only a very paltry by-product of humility, +but it is a product of humility, and, therefore, it is successful. +Prussia had no Christian humility in its internal arrangements; +hence its internal arrangements were miserable. But it had enough +Christian humility slavishly to copy France (even down to Frederick +the Great's poetry), and that which it had the humility to copy it +had ultimately the honour to conquer. The case of the Japanese +is even more obvious; their only Christian and their only beautiful +quality is that they have humbled themselves to be exalted. +All this aspect of humility, however, as connected with the matter +of effort and striving for a standard set above us, I dismiss as having +been sufficiently pointed out by almost all idealistic writers. + +It may be worth while, however, to point out the interesting disparity +in the matter of humility between the modern notion of the strong +man and the actual records of strong men. Carlyle objected +to the statement that no man could be a hero to his valet. +Every sympathy can be extended towards him in the matter if he merely +or mainly meant that the phrase was a disparagement of hero-worship. +Hero-worship is certainly a generous and human impulse; the hero may +be faulty, but the worship can hardly be. It may be that no man would +be a hero to his valet. But any man would be a valet to his hero. +But in truth both the proverb itself and Carlyle's stricture +upon it ignore the most essential matter at issue. The ultimate +psychological truth is not that no man is a hero to his valet. +The ultimate psychological truth, the foundation of Christianity, +is that no man is a hero to himself. Cromwell, according to Carlyle, +was a strong man. According to Cromwell, he was a weak one. + +The weak point in the whole of Carlyle's case for +aristocracy lies, indeed, in his most celebrated phrase. +Carlyle said that men were mostly fools. Christianity, with a +surer and more reverent realism, says that they are all fools. +This doctrine is sometimes called the doctrine of original sin. +It may also be described as the doctrine of the equality of men. +But the essential point of it is merely this, that whatever primary +and far-reaching moral dangers affect any man, affect all men. +All men can be criminals, if tempted; all men can be heroes, if inspired. +And this doctrine does away altogether with Carlyle's pathetic belief +(or any one else's pathetic belief) in "the wise few." +There are no wise few. Every aristocracy that has ever existed +has behaved, in all essential points, exactly like a small mob. +Every oligarchy is merely a knot of men in the street--that is to say, +it is very jolly, but not infallible. And no oligarchies in the world's +history have ever come off so badly in practical affairs as the very +proud oligarchies--the oligarchy of Poland, the oligarchy of Venice. +And the armies that have most swiftly and suddenly broken their +enemies in pieces have been the religious armies--the Moslem Armies, +for instance, or the Puritan Armies. And a religious army may, +by its nature, be defined as an army in which every man is taught +not to exalt but to abase himself. Many modern Englishmen talk of +themselves as the sturdy descendants of their sturdy Puritan fathers. +As a fact, they would run away from a cow. If you asked one +of their Puritan fathers, if you asked Bunyan, for instance, +whether he was sturdy, he would have answered, with tears, that he was +as weak as water. And because of this he would have borne tortures. +And this virtue of humility, while being practical enough to +win battles, will always be paradoxical enough to puzzle pedants. +It is at one with the virtue of charity in this respect. +Every generous person will admit that the one kind of sin which charity +should cover is the sin which is inexcusable. And every generous +person will equally agree that the one kind of pride which is wholly +damnable is the pride of the man who has something to be proud of. +The pride which, proportionally speaking, does not hurt the character, +is the pride in things which reflect no credit on the person at all. +Thus it does a man no harm to be proud of his country, +and comparatively little harm to be proud of his remote ancestors. +It does him more harm to be proud of having made money, +because in that he has a little more reason for pride. +It does him more harm still to be proud of what is nobler +than money--intellect. And it does him most harm of all to value +himself for the most valuable thing on earth--goodness. The man +who is proud of what is really creditable to him is the Pharisee, +the man whom Christ Himself could not forbear to strike. + +My objection to Mr. Lowes Dickinson and the reassertors of the pagan +ideal is, then, this. I accuse them of ignoring definite human +discoveries in the moral world, discoveries as definite, though not +as material, as the discovery of the circulation of the blood. +We cannot go back to an ideal of reason and sanity. +For mankind has discovered that reason does not lead to sanity. +We cannot go back to an ideal of pride and enjoyment. For mankind +has discovered that pride does not lead to enjoyment. I do not know +by what extraordinary mental accident modern writers so constantly +connect the idea of progress with the idea of independent thinking. +Progress is obviously the antithesis of independent thinking. +For under independent or individualistic thinking, every man starts +at the beginning, and goes, in all probability, just as far as his +father before him. But if there really be anything of the nature +of progress, it must mean, above all things, the careful study +and assumption of the whole of the past. I accuse Mr. Lowes +Dickinson and his school of reaction in the only real sense. +If he likes, let him ignore these great historic mysteries-- +the mystery of charity, the mystery of chivalry, the mystery of faith. +If he likes, let him ignore the plough or the printing-press. +But if we do revive and pursue the pagan ideal of a simple and +rational self-completion we shall end--where Paganism ended. +I do not mean that we shall end in destruction. I mean that we +shall end in Christianity. + + + +XIII. Celts and Celtophiles + + +Science in the modern world has many uses; its chief use, however, +is to provide long words to cover the errors of the rich. +The word "kleptomania" is a vulgar example of what I mean. +It is on a par with that strange theory, always advanced when a wealthy +or prominent person is in the dock, that exposure is more of a punishment +for the rich than for the poor. Of course, the very reverse is the truth. +Exposure is more of a punishment for the poor than for the rich. +The richer a man is the easier it is for him to be a tramp. +The richer a man is the easier it is for him to be popular and generally +respected in the Cannibal Islands. But the poorer a man is the more +likely it is that he will have to use his past life whenever he wants +to get a bed for the night. Honour is a luxury for aristocrats, +but it is a necessity for hall-porters. This is a secondary matter, +but it is an example of the general proposition I offer-- +the proposition that an enormous amount of modern ingenuity is expended +on finding defences for the indefensible conduct of the powerful. +As I have said above, these defences generally exhibit themselves +most emphatically in the form of appeals to physical science. +And of all the forms in which science, or pseudo-science, has come +to the rescue of the rich and stupid, there is none so singular +as the singular invention of the theory of races. + +When a wealthy nation like the English discovers the perfectly patent +fact that it is making a ludicrous mess of the government of a poorer +nation like the Irish, it pauses for a moment in consternation, +and then begins to talk about Celts and Teutons. As far as I can +understand the theory, the Irish are Celts and the English are Teutons. +Of course, the Irish are not Celts any more than the English are Teutons. +I have not followed the ethnological discussion with much energy, +but the last scientific conclusion which I read inclined on the whole +to the summary that the English were mainly Celtic and the Irish +mainly Teutonic. But no man alive, with even the glimmering of a real +scientific sense, would ever dream of applying the terms "Celtic" +or "Teutonic" to either of them in any positive or useful sense. + +That sort of thing must be left to people who talk about +the Anglo-Saxon race, and extend the expression to America. +How much of the blood of the Angles and Saxons (whoever they were) +there remains in our mixed British, Roman, German, Dane, Norman, +and Picard stock is a matter only interesting to wild antiquaries. +And how much of that diluted blood can possibly remain in that +roaring whirlpool of America into which a cataract of Swedes, +Jews, Germans, Irishmen, and Italians is perpetually pouring, +is a matter only interesting to lunatics. It would have been wiser +for the English governing class to have called upon some other god. +All other gods, however weak and warring, at least boast of +being constant. But science boasts of being in a flux for ever; +boasts of being unstable as water. + +And England and the English governing class never did call on this +absurd deity of race until it seemed, for an instant, that they had +no other god to call on. All the most genuine Englishmen in history +would have yawned or laughed in your face if you had begun to talk +about Anglo-Saxons. If you had attempted to substitute the ideal +of race for the ideal of nationality, I really do not like to think +what they would have said. I certainly should not like to have +been the officer of Nelson who suddenly discovered his French +blood on the eve of Trafalgar. I should not like to have been +the Norfolk or Suffolk gentleman who had to expound to Admiral +Blake by what demonstrable ties of genealogy he was irrevocably +bound to the Dutch. The truth of the whole matter is very simple. +Nationality exists, and has nothing in the world to do with race. +Nationality is a thing like a church or a secret society; it is +a product of the human soul and will; it is a spiritual product. +And there are men in the modern world who would think anything and do +anything rather than admit that anything could be a spiritual product. + +A nation, however, as it confronts the modern world, is a purely +spiritual product. Sometimes it has been born in independence, +like Scotland. Sometimes it has been born in dependence, +in subjugation, like Ireland. Sometimes it is a large thing +cohering out of many smaller things, like Italy. Sometimes it +is a small thing breaking away from larger things, like Poland. +But in each and every case its quality is purely spiritual, or, +if you will, purely psychological. It is a moment when five men +become a sixth man. Every one knows it who has ever founded +a club. It is a moment when five places become one place. +Every one must know it who has ever had to repel an invasion. +Mr. Timothy Healy, the most serious intellect in the present +House of Commons, summed up nationality to perfection when +he simply called it something for which people will die, +As he excellently said in reply to Lord Hugh Cecil, "No one, +not even the noble lord, would die for the meridian of Greenwich." +And that is the great tribute to its purely psychological character. +It is idle to ask why Greenwich should not cohere in this spiritual +manner while Athens or Sparta did. It is like asking why a man +falls in love with one woman and not with another. + +Now, of this great spiritual coherence, independent of external +circumstances, or of race, or of any obvious physical thing, Ireland is +the most remarkable example. Rome conquered nations, but Ireland +has conquered races. The Norman has gone there and become Irish, +the Scotchman has gone there and become Irish, the Spaniard has gone +there and become Irish, even the bitter soldier of Cromwell has gone +there and become Irish. Ireland, which did not exist even politically, +has been stronger than all the races that existed scientifically. +The purest Germanic blood, the purest Norman blood, the purest +blood of the passionate Scotch patriot, has not been so attractive +as a nation without a flag. Ireland, unrecognized and oppressed, +has easily absorbed races, as such trifles are easily absorbed. +She has easily disposed of physical science, as such superstitions +are easily disposed of. Nationality in its weakness has been +stronger than ethnology in its strength. Five triumphant races +have been absorbed, have been defeated by a defeated nationality. + +This being the true and strange glory of Ireland, it is impossible +to hear without impatience of the attempt so constantly made +among her modern sympathizers to talk about Celts and Celticism. +Who were the Celts? I defy anybody to say. Who are the Irish? +I defy any one to be indifferent, or to pretend not to know. +Mr. W. B. Yeats, the great Irish genius who has appeared in our time, +shows his own admirable penetration in discarding altogether the argument +from a Celtic race. But he does not wholly escape, and his followers +hardly ever escape, the general objection to the Celtic argument. +The tendency of that argument is to represent the Irish or the Celts +as a strange and separate race, as a tribe of eccentrics in +the modern world immersed in dim legends and fruitless dreams. +Its tendency is to exhibit the Irish as odd, because they see +the fairies. Its trend is to make the Irish seem weird and wild +because they sing old songs and join in strange dances. +But this is quite an error; indeed, it is the opposite of the truth. +It is the English who are odd because they do not see the fairies. +It is the inhabitants of Kensington who are weird and wild +because they do not sing old songs and join in strange dances. +In all this the Irish are not in the least strange and separate, +are not in the least Celtic, as the word is commonly and popularly used. +In all this the Irish are simply an ordinary sensible nation, +living the life of any other ordinary and sensible nation +which has not been either sodden with smoke or oppressed by +money-lenders, or otherwise corrupted with wealth and science. +There is nothing Celtic about having legends. It is merely human. +The Germans, who are (I suppose) Teutonic, have hundreds of legends, +wherever it happens that the Germans are human. There is nothing +Celtic about loving poetry; the English loved poetry more, perhaps, +than any other people before they came under the shadow of the +chimney-pot and the shadow of the chimney-pot hat. It is not Ireland +which is mad and mystic; it is Manchester which is mad and mystic, +which is incredible, which is a wild exception among human things. +Ireland has no need to play the silly game of the science of races; +Ireland has no need to pretend to be a tribe of visionaries apart. +In the matter of visions, Ireland is more than a nation, it is +a model nation. + + + +XIV On Certain Modern Writers and the Institution of the Family + + +The family may fairly be considered, one would think, an ultimate +human institution. Every one would admit that it has been +the main cell and central unit of almost all societies hitherto, +except, indeed, such societies as that of Lacedaemon, which went +in for "efficiency," and has, therefore, perished, and left not +a trace behind. Christianity, even enormous as was its revolution, +did not alter this ancient and savage sanctity; it merely reversed it. +It did not deny the trinity of father, mother, and child. +It merely read it backwards, making it run child, mother, father. +This it called, not the family, but the Holy Family, +for many things are made holy by being turned upside down. +But some sages of our own decadence have made a serious attack +on the family. They have impugned it, as I think wrongly; +and its defenders have defended it, and defended it wrongly. +The common defence of the family is that, amid the stress +and fickleness of life, it is peaceful, pleasant, and at one. +But there is another defence of the family which is possible, +and to me evident; this defence is that the family is not peaceful +and not pleasant and not at one. + +It is not fashionable to say much nowadays of the advantages of +the small community. We are told that we must go in for large empires +and large ideas. There is one advantage, however, in the small state, +the city, or the village, which only the wilfully blind can overlook. +The man who lives in a small community lives in a much larger world. +He knows much more of the fierce varieties and uncompromising divergences +of men. The reason is obvious. In a large community we can choose +our companions. In a small community our companions are chosen for us. +Thus in all extensive and highly civilized societies groups come +into existence founded upon what is called sympathy, and shut +out the real world more sharply than the gates of a monastery. +There is nothing really narrow about the clan; the thing which is +really narrow is the clique. The men of the clan live together +because they all wear the same tartan or are all descended +from the same sacred cow; but in their souls, by the divine luck +of things, there will always be more colours than in any tartan. +But the men of the clique live together because they have the same +kind of soul, and their narrowness is a narrowness of spiritual +coherence and contentment, like that which exists in hell. +A big society exists in order to form cliques. A big society +is a society for the promotion of narrowness. It is a machinery +for the purpose of guarding the solitary and sensitive individual +from all experience of the bitter and bracing human compromises. +It is, in the most literal sense of the words, a society for +the prevention of Christian knowledge. + +We can see this change, for instance, in the modern transformation +of the thing called a club. When London was smaller, and the parts +of London more self-contained and parochial, the club was what it +still is in villages, the opposite of what it is now in great cities. +Then the club was valued as a place where a man could be sociable. +Now the club is valued as a place where a man can be unsociable. +The more the enlargement and elaboration of our civilization goes +on the more the club ceases to be a place where a man can have +a noisy argument, and becomes more and more a place where a man +can have what is somewhat fantastically called a quiet chop. +Its aim is to make a man comfortable, and to make a man comfortable +is to make him the opposite of sociable. Sociability, like all +good things, is full of discomforts, dangers, and renunciations. +The club tends to produce the most degraded of all combinations-- +the luxurious anchorite, the man who combines the self-indulgence +of Lucullus with the insane loneliness of St. Simeon Stylites. + +If we were to-morrow morning snowed up in the street in which we live, +we should step suddenly into a much larger and much wilder world +than we have ever known. And it is the whole effort of the typically +modern person to escape from the street in which he lives. +First he invents modern hygiene and goes to Margate. +Then he invents modern culture and goes to Florence. +Then he invents modern imperialism and goes to Timbuctoo. He goes +to the fantastic borders of the earth. He pretends to shoot tigers. +He almost rides on a camel. And in all this he is still essentially +fleeing from the street in which he was born; and of this flight +he is always ready with his own explanation. He says he is fleeing +from his street because it is dull; he is lying. He is really +fleeing from his street because it is a great deal too exciting. +It is exciting because it is exacting; it is exacting because it is alive. +He can visit Venice because to him the Venetians are only Venetians; +the people in his own street are men. He can stare at the Chinese +because for him the Chinese are a passive thing to be stared at; +if he stares at the old lady in the next garden, she becomes active. +He is forced to flee, in short, from the too stimulating society +of his equals--of free men, perverse, personal, deliberately different +from himself. The street in Brixton is too glowing and overpowering. +He has to soothe and quiet himself among tigers and vultures, +camels and crocodiles. These creatures are indeed very different +from himself. But they do not put their shape or colour or +custom into a decisive intellectual competition with his own. +They do not seek to destroy his principles and assert their own; +the stranger monsters of the suburban street do seek to do this. +The camel does not contort his features into a fine sneer +because Mr. Robinson has not got a hump; the cultured gentleman +at No. 5 does exhibit a sneer because Robinson has not got a dado. +The vulture will not roar with laughter because a man does not fly; +but the major at No. 9 will roar with laughter because a man does +not smoke. The complaint we commonly have to make of our neighbours +is that they will not, as we express it, mind their own business. +We do not really mean that they will not mind their own business. +If our neighbours did not mind their own business they would be asked +abruptly for their rent, and would rapidly cease to be our neighbours. +What we really mean when we say that they cannot mind their own +business is something much deeper. We do not dislike them +because they have so little force and fire that they cannot +be interested in themselves. We dislike them because they have +so much force and fire that they can be interested in us as well. +What we dread about our neighbours, in short, is not the narrowness +of their horizon, but their superb tendency to broaden it. And all +aversions to ordinary humanity have this general character. They are +not aversions to its feebleness (as is pretended), but to its energy. +The misanthropes pretend that they despise humanity for its weakness. +As a matter of fact, they hate it for its strength. + +Of course, this shrinking from the brutal vivacity and brutal +variety of common men is a perfectly reasonable and excusable +thing as long as it does not pretend to any point of superiority. +It is when it calls itself aristocracy or aestheticism or a superiority +to the bourgeoisie that its inherent weakness has in justice +to be pointed out. Fastidiousness is the most pardonable of vices; +but it is the most unpardonable of virtues. Nietzsche, who represents +most prominently this pretentious claim of the fastidious, +has a description somewhere--a very powerful description in the +purely literary sense--of the disgust and disdain which consume +him at the sight of the common people with their common faces, +their common voices, and their common minds. As I have said, +this attitude is almost beautiful if we may regard it as pathetic. +Nietzsche's aristocracy has about it all the sacredness that belongs +to the weak. When he makes us feel that he cannot endure the +innumerable faces, the incessant voices, the overpowering omnipresence +which belongs to the mob, he will have the sympathy of anybody +who has ever been sick on a steamer or tired in a crowded omnibus. +Every man has hated mankind when he was less than a man. +Every man has had humanity in his eyes like a blinding fog, +humanity in his nostrils like a suffocating smell. But when Nietzsche +has the incredible lack of humour and lack of imagination to ask us +to believe that his aristocracy is an aristocracy of strong muscles or +an aristocracy of strong wills, it is necessary to point out the truth. +It is an aristocracy of weak nerves. + +We make our friends; we make our enemies; but God makes our +next-door neighbour. Hence he comes to us clad in all the careless +terrors of nature; he is as strange as the stars, as reckless and +indifferent as the rain. He is Man, the most terrible of the beasts. +That is why the old religions and the old scriptural language showed +so sharp a wisdom when they spoke, not of one's duty towards humanity, +but one's duty towards one's neighbour. The duty towards humanity may +often take the form of some choice which is personal or even pleasurable. +That duty may be a hobby; it may even be a dissipation. +We may work in the East End because we are peculiarly fitted to work +in the East End, or because we think we are; we may fight for the cause +of international peace because we are very fond of fighting. +The most monstrous martyrdom, the most repulsive experience, may be +the result of choice or a kind of taste. We may be so made as to be +particularly fond of lunatics or specially interested in leprosy. +We may love negroes because they are black or German Socialists because +they are pedantic. But we have to love our neighbour because he is there-- +a much more alarming reason for a much more serious operation. +He is the sample of humanity which is actually given us. +Precisely because he may be anybody he is everybody. +He is a symbol because he is an accident. + +Doubtless men flee from small environments into lands that are +very deadly. But this is natural enough; for they are not fleeing +from death. They are fleeing from life. And this principle +applies to ring within ring of the social system of humanity. +It is perfectly reasonable that men should seek for some particular +variety of the human type, so long as they are seeking for that +variety of the human type, and not for mere human variety. +It is quite proper that a British diplomatist should seek the society +of Japanese generals, if what he wants is Japanese generals. +But if what he wants is people different from himself, he had much +better stop at home and discuss religion with the housemaid. +It is quite reasonable that the village genius should come up to conquer +London if what he wants is to conquer London. But if he wants to conquer +something fundamentally and symbolically hostile and also very strong, +he had much better remain where he is and have a row with the rector. +The man in the suburban street is quite right if he goes to +Ramsgate for the sake of Ramsgate--a difficult thing to imagine. +But if, as he expresses it, he goes to Ramsgate "for a change," +then he would have a much more romantic and even melodramatic +change if he jumped over the wall into his neighbours garden. +The consequences would be bracing in a sense far beyond the possibilities +of Ramsgate hygiene. + +Now, exactly as this principle applies to the empire, to the nation +within the empire, to the city within the nation, to the street +within the city, so it applies to the home within the street. +The institution of the family is to be commended for precisely +the same reasons that the institution of the nation, or the +institution of the city, are in this matter to be commended. +It is a good thing for a man to live in a family for the same reason +that it is a good thing for a man to be besieged in a city. +It is a good thing for a man to live in a family in the same sense that it +is a beautiful and delightful thing for a man to be snowed up in a street. +They all force him to realize that life is not a thing from outside, +but a thing from inside. Above all, they all insist upon the fact +that life, if it be a truly stimulating and fascinating life, +is a thing which, of its nature, exists in spite of ourselves. +The modern writers who have suggested, in a more or less open manner, +that the family is a bad institution, have generally confined +themselves to suggesting, with much sharpness, bitterness, or pathos, +that perhaps the family is not always very congenial. +Of course the family is a good institution because it is uncongenial. +It is wholesome precisely because it contains so many +divergencies and varieties. It is, as the sentimentalists say, +like a little kingdom, and, like most other little kingdoms, +is generally in a state of something resembling anarchy. +It is exactly because our brother George is not interested in our +religious difficulties, but is interested in the Trocadero Restaurant, +that the family has some of the bracing qualities of the commonwealth. +It is precisely because our uncle Henry does not approve of the theatrical +ambitions of our sister Sarah that the family is like humanity. +The men and women who, for good reasons and bad, revolt against the family, +are, for good reasons and bad, simply revolting against mankind. +Aunt Elizabeth is unreasonable, like mankind. Papa is excitable, +like mankind Our youngest brother is mischievous, like mankind. +Grandpapa is stupid, like the world; he is old, like the world. + +Those who wish, rightly or wrongly, to step out of all this, +do definitely wish to step into a narrower world. They are +dismayed and terrified by the largeness and variety of the family. +Sarah wishes to find a world wholly consisting of private theatricals; +George wishes to think the Trocadero a cosmos. I do not say, +for a moment, that the flight to this narrower life may not be +the right thing for the individual, any more than I say the same +thing about flight into a monastery. But I do say that anything +is bad and artificial which tends to make these people succumb +to the strange delusion that they are stepping into a world +which is actually larger and more varied than their own. +The best way that a man could test his readiness to encounter the common +variety of mankind would be to climb down a chimney into any house +at random, and get on as well as possible with the people inside. +And that is essentially what each one of us did on the day that +he was born. + +This is, indeed, the sublime and special romance of the family. It is +romantic because it is a toss-up. It is romantic because it is everything +that its enemies call it. It is romantic because it is arbitrary. +It is romantic because it is there. So long as you have groups of men +chosen rationally, you have some special or sectarian atmosphere. +It is when you have groups of men chosen irrationally that you have men. +The element of adventure begins to exist; for an adventure is, +by its nature, a thing that comes to us. It is a thing that chooses us, +not a thing that we choose. Falling in love has been often +regarded as the supreme adventure, the supreme romantic accident. +In so much as there is in it something outside ourselves, +something of a sort of merry fatalism, this is very true. +Love does take us and transfigure and torture us. It does break our +hearts with an unbearable beauty, like the unbearable beauty of music. +But in so far as we have certainly something to do with the matter; +in so far as we are in some sense prepared to fall in love and in some +sense jump into it; in so far as we do to some extent choose and to some +extent even judge--in all this falling in love is not truly romantic, +is not truly adventurous at all. In this degree the supreme adventure +is not falling in love. The supreme adventure is being born. +There we do walk suddenly into a splendid and startling trap. +There we do see something of which we have not dreamed before. +Our father and mother do lie in wait for us and leap out on us, +like brigands from a bush. Our uncle is a surprise. Our aunt is, +in the beautiful common expression, a bolt from the blue. +When we step into the family, by the act of being born, we do +step into a world which is incalculable, into a world which has +its own strange laws, into a world which could do without us, +into a world that we have not made. In other words, when we step +into the family we step into a fairy-tale. + +This colour as of a fantastic narrative ought to cling +to the family and to our relations with it throughout life. +Romance is the deepest thing in life; romance is deeper even +than reality. For even if reality could be proved to be misleading, +it still could not be proved to be unimportant or unimpressive. +Even if the facts are false, they are still very strange. +And this strangeness of life, this unexpected and even perverse +element of things as they fall out, remains incurably interesting. +The circumstances we can regulate may become tame or pessimistic; +but the "circumstances over which we have no control" remain god-like +to those who, like Mr. Micawber, can call on them and renew +their strength. People wonder why the novel is the most popular +form of literature; people wonder why it is read more than books +of science or books of metaphysics. The reason is very simple; +it is merely that the novel is more true than they are. +Life may sometimes legitimately appear as a book of science. +Life may sometimes appear, and with a much greater legitimacy, +as a book of metaphysics. But life is always a novel. Our existence +may cease to be a song; it may cease even to be a beautiful lament. +Our existence may not be an intelligible justice, or even a +recognizable wrong. But our existence is still a story. In the fiery +alphabet of every sunset is written, "to be continued in our next." +If we have sufficient intellect, we can finish a philosophical +and exact deduction, and be certain that we are finishing it right. +With the adequate brain-power we could finish any scientific +discovery, and be certain that we were finishing it right. +But not with the most gigantic intellect could we finish the simplest +or silliest story, and be certain that we were finishing it right. +That is because a story has behind it, not merely intellect which +is partly mechanical, but will, which is in its essence divine. +The narrative writer can send his hero to the gallows if he likes +in the last chapter but one. He can do it by the same divine +caprice whereby he, the author, can go to the gallows himself, +and to hell afterwards if he chooses. And the same civilization, +the chivalric European civilization which asserted freewill in the +thirteenth century, produced the thing called "fiction" in the eighteenth. +When Thomas Aquinas asserted the spiritual liberty of man, +he created all the bad novels in the circulating libraries. + +But in order that life should be a story or romance to us, +it is necessary that a great part of it, at any rate, should be +settled for us without our permission. If we wish life to be +a system, this may be a nuisance; but if we wish it to be a drama, +it is an essential. It may often happen, no doubt, that a drama +may be written by somebody else which we like very little. +But we should like it still less if the author came before the curtain +every hour or so, and forced on us the whole trouble of inventing +the next act. A man has control over many things in his life; +he has control over enough things to be the hero of a novel. +But if he had control over everything, there would be so much +hero that there would be no novel. And the reason why the lives +of the rich are at bottom so tame and uneventful is simply that they +can choose the events. They are dull because they are omnipotent. +They fail to feel adventures because they can make the adventures. +The thing which keeps life romantic and full of fiery possibilities +is the existence of these great plain limitations which force all of us +to meet the things we do not like or do not expect. It is vain for +the supercilious moderns to talk of being in uncongenial surroundings. +To be in a romance is to be in uncongenial surroundings. +To be born into this earth is to be born into uncongenial surroundings, +hence to be born into a romance. Of all these great limitations +and frameworks which fashion and create the poetry and variety +of life, the family is the most definite and important. +Hence it is misunderstood by the moderns, who imagine that romance would +exist most perfectly in a complete state of what they call liberty. +They think that if a man makes a gesture it would be a startling +and romantic matter that the sun should fall from the sky. +But the startling and romantic thing about the sun is that it does +not fall from the sky. They are seeking under every shape and form +a world where there are no limitations--that is, a world where there +are no outlines; that is, a world where there are no shapes. +There is nothing baser than that infinity. They say they wish to be, +as strong as the universe, but they really wish the whole universe +as weak as themselves. + + + +XV On Smart Novelists and the Smart Set + + +In one sense, at any rate, it is more valuable to read bad literature +than good literature. Good literature may tell us the mind +of one man; but bad literature may tell us the mind of many men. +A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel +tells us the truth about its author. It does much more than that, +it tells us the truth about its readers; and, oddly enough, +it tells us this all the more the more cynical and immoral +be the motive of its manufacture. The more dishonest a book +is as a book the more honest it is as a public document. +A sincere novel exhibits the simplicity of one particular man; +an insincere novel exhibits the simplicity of mankind. +The pedantic decisions and definable readjustments of man +may be found in scrolls and statute books and scriptures; +but men's basic assumptions and everlasting energies are to be +found in penny dreadfuls and halfpenny novelettes. Thus a man, +like many men of real culture in our day, might learn from good +literature nothing except the power to appreciate good literature. +But from bad literature he might learn to govern empires and look +over the map of mankind. + +There is one rather interesting example of this state of things +in which the weaker literature is really the stronger and the stronger +the weaker. It is the case of what may be called, for the sake +of an approximate description, the literature of aristocracy; +or, if you prefer the description, the literature of snobbishness. +Now if any one wishes to find a really effective and comprehensible +and permanent case for aristocracy well and sincerely stated, +let him read, not the modern philosophical conservatives, +not even Nietzsche, let him read the Bow Bells Novelettes. +Of the case of Nietzsche I am confessedly more doubtful. +Nietzsche and the Bow Bells Novelettes have both obviously +the same fundamental character; they both worship the tall man +with curling moustaches and herculean bodily power, and they both +worship him in a manner which is somewhat feminine and hysterical. +Even here, however, the Novelette easily maintains its +philosophical superiority, because it does attribute to the strong +man those virtues which do commonly belong to him, such virtues +as laziness and kindliness and a rather reckless benevolence, +and a great dislike of hurting the weak. Nietzsche, on the other hand, +attributes to the strong man that scorn against weakness which +only exists among invalids. It is not, however, of the secondary +merits of the great German philosopher, but of the primary merits +of the Bow Bells Novelettes, that it is my present affair to speak. +The picture of aristocracy in the popular sentimental novelette seems +to me very satisfactory as a permanent political and philosophical guide. +It may be inaccurate about details such as the title by which a baronet +is addressed or the width of a mountain chasm which a baronet can +conveniently leap, but it is not a bad description of the general +idea and intention of aristocracy as they exist in human affairs. +The essential dream of aristocracy is magnificence and valour; +and if the Family Herald Supplement sometimes distorts or exaggerates +these things, at least, it does not fall short in them. +It never errs by making the mountain chasm too narrow or the title +of the baronet insufficiently impressive. But above this +sane reliable old literature of snobbishness there has arisen +in our time another kind of literature of snobbishness which, +with its much higher pretensions, seems to me worthy of very much +less respect. Incidentally (if that matters), it is much +better literature. But it is immeasurably worse philosophy, +immeasurably worse ethics and politics, immeasurably worse vital +rendering of aristocracy and humanity as they really are. +From such books as those of which I wish now to speak we can +discover what a clever man can do with the idea of aristocracy. +But from the Family Herald Supplement literature we can learn +what the idea of aristocracy can do with a man who is not clever. +And when we know that we know English history. + +This new aristocratic fiction must have caught the attention of +everybody who has read the best fiction for the last fifteen years. +It is that genuine or alleged literature of the Smart Set which +represents that set as distinguished, not only by smart dresses, +but by smart sayings. To the bad baronet, to the good baronet, +to the romantic and misunderstood baronet who is supposed to be a +bad baronet, but is a good baronet, this school has added a conception +undreamed of in the former years--the conception of an amusing baronet. +The aristocrat is not merely to be taller than mortal men +and stronger and handsomer, he is also to be more witty. +He is the long man with the short epigram. Many eminent, +and deservedly eminent, modern novelists must accept some +responsibility for having supported this worst form of snobbishness-- +an intellectual snobbishness. The talented author of "Dodo" is +responsible for having in some sense created the fashion as a fashion. +Mr. Hichens, in the "Green Carnation," reaffirmed the strange idea +that young noblemen talk well; though his case had some vague +biographical foundation, and in consequence an excuse. Mrs. Craigie +is considerably guilty in the matter, although, or rather because, +she has combined the aristocratic note with a note of some moral +and even religious sincerity. When you are saving a man's soul, +even in a novel, it is indecent to mention that he is a gentleman. +Nor can blame in this matter be altogether removed from a man of much +greater ability, and a man who has proved his possession of the highest +of human instinct, the romantic instinct--I mean Mr. Anthony Hope. +In a galloping, impossible melodrama like "The Prisoner of Zenda," +the blood of kings fanned an excellent fantastic thread or theme. +But the blood of kings is not a thing that can be taken seriously. +And when, for example, Mr. Hope devotes so much serious and sympathetic +study to the man called Tristram of Blent, a man who throughout burning +boyhood thought of nothing but a silly old estate, we feel even in +Mr. Hope the hint of this excessive concern about the oligarchic idea. +It is hard for any ordinary person to feel so much interest in a +young man whose whole aim is to own the house of Blent at the time +when every other young man is owning the stars. + +Mr. Hope, however, is a very mild case, and in him there is not +only an element of romance, but also a fine element of irony +which warns us against taking all this elegance too seriously. +Above all, he shows his sense in not making his noblemen so incredibly +equipped with impromptu repartee. This habit of insisting on +the wit of the wealthier classes is the last and most servile +of all the servilities. It is, as I have said, immeasurably more +contemptible than the snobbishness of the novelette which describes +the nobleman as smiling like an Apollo or riding a mad elephant. +These may be exaggerations of beauty and courage, but beauty and courage +are the unconscious ideals of aristocrats, even of stupid aristocrats. + +The nobleman of the novelette may not be sketched with any very close +or conscientious attention to the daily habits of noblemen. But he is +something more important than a reality; he is a practical ideal. +The gentleman of fiction may not copy the gentleman of real life; +but the gentleman of real life is copying the gentleman of fiction. +He may not be particularly good-looking, but he would rather be +good-looking than anything else; he may not have ridden on a mad elephant, +but he rides a pony as far as possible with an air as if he had. +And, upon the whole, the upper class not only especially desire +these qualities of beauty and courage, but in some degree, +at any rate, especially possess them. Thus there is nothing really +mean or sycophantic about the popular literature which makes all its +marquises seven feet high. It is snobbish, but it is not servile. +Its exaggeration is based on an exuberant and honest admiration; +its honest admiration is based upon something which is in some degree, +at any rate, really there. The English lower classes do not +fear the English upper classes in the least; nobody could. +They simply and freely and sentimentally worship them. +The strength of the aristocracy is not in the aristocracy at all; +it is in the slums. It is not in the House of Lords; it is not +in the Civil Service; it is not in the Government offices; it is not +even in the huge and disproportionate monopoly of the English land. +It is in a certain spirit. It is in the fact that when a navvy +wishes to praise a man, it comes readily to his tongue to say +that he has behaved like a gentleman. From a democratic point +of view he might as well say that he had behaved like a viscount. +The oligarchic character of the modern English commonwealth does not rest, +like many oligarchies, on the cruelty of the rich to the poor. +It does not even rest on the kindness of the rich to the poor. +It rests on the perennial and unfailing kindness of the poor +to the rich. + +The snobbishness of bad literature, then, is not servile; but the +snobbishness of good literature is servile. The old-fashioned halfpenny +romance where the duchesses sparkled with diamonds was not servile; +but the new romance where they sparkle with epigrams is servile. +For in thus attributing a special and startling degree of intellect +and conversational or controversial power to the upper classes, +we are attributing something which is not especially their virtue +or even especially their aim. We are, in the words of Disraeli +(who, being a genius and not a gentleman, has perhaps primarily +to answer for the introduction of this method of flattering +the gentry), we are performing the essential function of flattery +which is flattering the people for the qualities they have not got. +Praise may be gigantic and insane without having any quality +of flattery so long as it is praise of something that is noticeably +in existence. A man may say that a giraffe's head strikes +the stars, or that a whale fills the German Ocean, and still +be only in a rather excited state about a favourite animal. +But when he begins to congratulate the giraffe on his feathers, +and the whale on the elegance of his legs, we find ourselves +confronted with that social element which we call flattery. +The middle and lower orders of London can sincerely, though not +perhaps safely, admire the health and grace of the English aristocracy. +And this for the very simple reason that the aristocrats are, +upon the whole, more healthy and graceful than the poor. +But they cannot honestly admire the wit of the aristocrats. +And this for the simple reason that the aristocrats are not more witty +than the poor, but a very great deal less so. A man does not hear, +as in the smart novels, these gems of verbal felicity dropped between +diplomatists at dinner. Where he really does hear them is between +two omnibus conductors in a block in Holborn. The witty peer whose +impromptus fill the books of Mrs. Craigie or Miss Fowler, would, +as a matter of fact, be torn to shreds in the art of conversation +by the first boot-black he had the misfortune to fall foul of. +The poor are merely sentimental, and very excusably sentimental, +if they praise the gentleman for having a ready hand and ready money. +But they are strictly slaves and sycophants if they praise him +for having a ready tongue. For that they have far more themselves. + +The element of oligarchical sentiment in these novels, +however, has, I think, another and subtler aspect, an aspect +more difficult to understand and more worth understanding. +The modern gentleman, particularly the modern English gentleman, +has become so central and important in these books, and through +them in the whole of our current literature and our current mode +of thought, that certain qualities of his, whether original or recent, +essential or accidental, have altered the quality of our English comedy. +In particular, that stoical ideal, absurdly supposed to be +the English ideal, has stiffened and chilled us. It is not +the English ideal; but it is to some extent the aristocratic ideal; +or it may be only the ideal of aristocracy in its autumn or decay. +The gentleman is a Stoic because he is a sort of savage, +because he is filled with a great elemental fear that some stranger +will speak to him. That is why a third-class carriage is a community, +while a first-class carriage is a place of wild hermits. +But this matter, which is difficult, I may be permitted to approach +in a more circuitous way. + +The haunting element of ineffectualness which runs through so much +of the witty and epigrammatic fiction fashionable during the last +eight or ten years, which runs through such works of a real though +varying ingenuity as "Dodo," or "Concerning Isabel Carnaby," +or even "Some Emotions and a Moral," may be expressed in various ways, +but to most of us I think it will ultimately amount to the same thing. +This new frivolity is inadequate because there is in it no strong sense +of an unuttered joy. The men and women who exchange the repartees +may not only be hating each other, but hating even themselves. +Any one of them might be bankrupt that day, or sentenced to be shot +the next. They are joking, not because they are merry, but because +they are not; out of the emptiness of the heart the mouth speaketh. +Even when they talk pure nonsense it is a careful nonsense--a nonsense +of which they are economical, or, to use the perfect expression +of Mr. W. S. Gilbert in "Patience," it is such "precious nonsense." +Even when they become light-headed they do not become light-hearted. +All those who have read anything of the rationalism of the moderns know +that their Reason is a sad thing. But even their unreason is sad. + +The causes of this incapacity are also not very difficult to indicate. +The chief of all, of course, is that miserable fear of being sentimental, +which is the meanest of all the modern terrors--meaner even than +the terror which produces hygiene. Everywhere the robust and +uproarious humour has come from the men who were capable not merely +of sentimentalism, but a very silly sentimentalism. There has been +no humour so robust or uproarious as that of the sentimentalist +Steele or the sentimentalist Sterne or the sentimentalist Dickens. +These creatures who wept like women were the creatures who laughed +like men. It is true that the humour of Micawber is good literature +and that the pathos of little Nell is bad. But the kind of man +who had the courage to write so badly in the one case is the kind +of man who would have the courage to write so well in the other. +The same unconsciousness, the same violent innocence, the same +gigantesque scale of action which brought the Napoleon of Comedy +his Jena brought him also his Moscow. And herein is especially +shown the frigid and feeble limitations of our modern wits. +They make violent efforts, they make heroic and almost pathetic efforts, +but they cannot really write badly. There are moments when we +almost think that they are achieving the effect, but our hope +shrivels to nothing the moment we compare their little failures +with the enormous imbecilities of Byron or Shakespeare. + +For a hearty laugh it is necessary to have touched the heart. +I do not know why touching the heart should always be connected only +with the idea of touching it to compassion or a sense of distress. +The heart can be touched to joy and triumph; the heart can be +touched to amusement. But all our comedians are tragic comedians. +These later fashionable writers are so pessimistic in bone +and marrow that they never seem able to imagine the heart having +any concern with mirth. When they speak of the heart, they always +mean the pangs and disappointments of the emotional life. +When they say that a man's heart is in the right place, +they mean, apparently, that it is in his boots. Our ethical societies +understand fellowship, but they do not understand good fellowship. +Similarly, our wits understand talk, but not what Dr. Johnson called +a good talk. In order to have, like Dr. Johnson, a good talk, +it is emphatically necessary to be, like Dr. Johnson, a good man-- +to have friendship and honour and an abysmal tenderness. +Above all, it is necessary to be openly and indecently humane, +to confess with fulness all the primary pities and fears of Adam. +Johnson was a clear-headed humorous man, and therefore he did not +mind talking seriously about religion. Johnson was a brave man, +one of the bravest that ever walked, and therefore he did not mind +avowing to any one his consuming fear of death. + +The idea that there is something English in the repression of one's +feelings is one of those ideas which no Englishman ever heard of until +England began to be governed exclusively by Scotchmen, Americans, +and Jews. At the best, the idea is a generalization from the Duke +of Wellington--who was an Irishman. At the worst, it is a part +of that silly Teutonism which knows as little about England as it +does about anthropology, but which is always talking about Vikings. +As a matter of fact, the Vikings did not repress their feelings in +the least. They cried like babies and kissed each other like girls; +in short, they acted in that respect like Achilles and all strong +heroes the children of the gods. And though the English nationality +has probably not much more to do with the Vikings than the French +nationality or the Irish nationality, the English have certainly +been the children of the Vikings in the matter of tears and kisses. +It is not merely true that all the most typically English men +of letters, like Shakespeare and Dickens, Richardson and Thackeray, +were sentimentalists. It is also true that all the most typically English +men of action were sentimentalists, if possible, more sentimental. +In the great Elizabethan age, when the English nation was finally +hammered out, in the great eighteenth century when the British +Empire was being built up everywhere, where in all these times, +where was this symbolic stoical Englishman who dresses in drab +and black and represses his feelings? Were all the Elizabethan +palladins and pirates like that? Were any of them like that? +Was Grenville concealing his emotions when he broke wine-glasses +to pieces with his teeth and bit them till the blood poured down? +Was Essex restraining his excitement when he threw his hat into the sea? +Did Raleigh think it sensible to answer the Spanish guns only, +as Stevenson says, with a flourish of insulting trumpets? +Did Sydney ever miss an opportunity of making a theatrical remark in +the whole course of his life and death? Were even the Puritans Stoics? +The English Puritans repressed a good deal, but even they were +too English to repress their feelings. It was by a great miracle +of genius assuredly that Carlyle contrived to admire simultaneously +two things so irreconcilably opposed as silence and Oliver Cromwell. +Cromwell was the very reverse of a strong, silent man. +Cromwell was always talking, when he was not crying. Nobody, I suppose, +will accuse the author of "Grace Abounding" of being ashamed +of his feelings. Milton, indeed, it might be possible to represent +as a Stoic; in some sense he was a Stoic, just as he was a prig +and a polygamist and several other unpleasant and heathen things. +But when we have passed that great and desolate name, which may +really be counted an exception, we find the tradition of English +emotionalism immediately resumed and unbrokenly continuous. +Whatever may have been the moral beauty of the passions +of Etheridge and Dorset, Sedley and Buckingham, they cannot +be accused of the fault of fastidiously concealing them. +Charles the Second was very popular with the English because, +like all the jolly English kings, he displayed his passions. +William the Dutchman was very unpopular with the English because, +not being an Englishman, he did hide his emotions. He was, in fact, +precisely the ideal Englishman of our modern theory; and precisely +for that reason all the real Englishmen loathed him like leprosy. +With the rise of the great England of the eighteenth century, +we find this open and emotional tone still maintained in letters +and politics, in arts and in arms. Perhaps the only quality +which was possessed in common by the great Fielding, and the +great Richardson was that neither of them hid their feelings. +Swift, indeed, was hard and logical, because Swift was Irish. +And when we pass to the soldiers and the rulers, the patriots and +the empire-builders of the eighteenth century, we find, as I have said, +that they were, If possible, more romantic than the romancers, +more poetical than the poets. Chatham, who showed the world +all his strength, showed the House of Commons all his weakness. +Wolfe walked. about the room with a drawn sword calling himself +Caesar and Hannibal, and went to death with poetry in his mouth. +Clive was a man of the same type as Cromwell or Bunyan, or, for the +matter of that, Johnson--that is, he was a strong, sensible man +with a kind of running spring of hysteria and melancholy in him. +Like Johnson, he was all the more healthy because he was morbid. +The tales of all the admirals and adventurers of that England are +full of braggadocio, of sentimentality, of splendid affectation. +But it is scarcely necessary to multiply examples of the essentially +romantic Englishman when one example towers above them all. +Mr. Rudyard Kipling has said complacently of the English, +"We do not fall on the neck and kiss when we come together." +It is true that this ancient and universal custom has vanished with +the modern weakening of England. Sydney would have thought nothing +of kissing Spenser. But I willingly concede that Mr. Broderick +would not be likely to kiss Mr. Arnold-Foster, if that be any proof +of the increased manliness and military greatness of England. +But the Englishman who does not show his feelings has not altogether +given up the power of seeing something English in the great sea-hero +of the Napoleonic war. You cannot break the legend of Nelson. +And across the sunset of that glory is written in flaming letters +for ever the great English sentiment, "Kiss me, Hardy." + +This ideal of self-repression, then, is, whatever else it is, not English. +It is, perhaps, somewhat Oriental, it is slightly Prussian, but in +the main it does not come, I think, from any racial or national source. +It is, as I have said, in some sense aristocratic; it comes +not from a people, but from a class. Even aristocracy, I think, +was not quite so stoical in the days when it was really strong. +But whether this unemotional ideal be the genuine tradition of +the gentleman, or only one of the inventions of the modern gentleman +(who may be called the decayed gentleman), it certainly has something +to do with the unemotional quality in these society novels. +From representing aristocrats as people who suppressed their feelings, +it has been an easy step to representing aristocrats as people who had no +feelings to suppress. Thus the modern oligarchist has made a virtue for +the oligarchy of the hardness as well as the brightness of the diamond. +Like a sonneteer addressing his lady in the seventeenth century, +he seems to use the word "cold" almost as a eulogium, and the word +"heartless" as a kind of compliment. Of course, in people so incurably +kind-hearted and babyish as are the English gentry, it would be +impossible to create anything that can be called positive cruelty; +so in these books they exhibit a sort of negative cruelty. +They cannot be cruel in acts, but they can be so in words. +All this means one thing, and one thing only. It means that the living +and invigorating ideal of England must be looked for in the masses; +it must be looked for where Dickens found it--Dickens among whose glories +it was to be a humorist, to be a sentimentalist, to be an optimist, +to be a poor man, to be an Englishman, but the greatest of whose glories +was that he saw all mankind in its amazing and tropical luxuriance, +and did not even notice the aristocracy; Dickens, the greatest +of whose glories was that he could not describe a gentleman. + + + +XVI On Mr. McCabe and a Divine Frivolity + + +A critic once remonstrated with me saying, with an air of +indignant reasonableness, "If you must make jokes, at least you need +not make them on such serious subjects." I replied with a natural +simplicity and wonder, "About what other subjects can one make +jokes except serious subjects?" It is quite useless to talk +about profane jesting. All jesting is in its nature profane, +in the sense that it must be the sudden realization that something +which thinks itself solemn is not so very solemn after all. +If a joke is not a joke about religion or morals, it is a joke about +police-magistrates or scientific professors or undergraduates dressed +up as Queen Victoria. And people joke about the police-magistrate +more than they joke about the Pope, not because the police-magistrate +is a more frivolous subject, but, on the contrary, because the +police-magistrate is a more serious subject than the Pope. +The Bishop of Rome has no jurisdiction in this realm of England; +whereas the police-magistrate may bring his solemnity to bear quite +suddenly upon us. Men make jokes about old scientific professors, +even more than they make them about bishops--not because science +is lighter than religion, but because science is always by its +nature more solemn and austere than religion. It is not I; +it is not even a particular class of journalists or jesters +who make jokes about the matters which are of most awful import; +it is the whole human race. If there is one thing more than another +which any one will admit who has the smallest knowledge of the world, +it is that men are always speaking gravely and earnestly and with +the utmost possible care about the things that are not important, +but always talking frivolously about the things that are. +Men talk for hours with the faces of a college of cardinals about +things like golf, or tobacco, or waistcoats, or party politics. +But all the most grave and dreadful things in the world are the oldest +jokes in the world--being married; being hanged. + +One gentleman, however, Mr. McCabe, has in this matter made +to me something that almost amounts to a personal appeal; +and as he happens to be a man for whose sincerity and intellectual +virtue I have a high respect, I do not feel inclined to let it +pass without some attempt to satisfy my critic in the matter. +Mr. McCabe devotes a considerable part of the last essay in +the collection called "Christianity and Rationalism on Trial" +to an objection, not to my thesis, but to my method, and a very +friendly and dignified appeal to me to alter it. I am much inclined +to defend myself in this matter out of mere respect for Mr. McCabe, +and still more so out of mere respect for the truth which is, I think, +in danger by his error, not only in this question, but in others. +In order that there may be no injustice done in the matter, +I will quote Mr. McCabe himself. "But before I follow Mr. Chesterton +in some detail I would make a general observation on his method. +He is as serious as I am in his ultimate purpose, and I respect +him for that. He knows, as I do, that humanity stands at a solemn +parting of the ways. Towards some unknown goal it presses through +the ages, impelled by an overmastering desire of happiness. +To-day it hesitates, lightheartedly enough, but every serious +thinker knows how momentous the decision may be. It is, apparently, +deserting the path of religion and entering upon the path of secularism. +Will it lose itself in quagmires of sensuality down this new path, +and pant and toil through years of civic and industrial anarchy, +only to learn it had lost the road, and must return to religion? +Or will it find that at last it is leaving the mists and the quagmires +behind it; that it is ascending the slope of the hill so long dimly +discerned ahead, and making straight for the long-sought Utopia? +This is the drama of our time, and every man and every woman +should understand it. + +"Mr. Chesterton understands it. Further, he gives us +credit for understanding it. He has nothing of that paltry +meanness or strange density of so many of his colleagues, +who put us down as aimless iconoclasts or moral anarchists. +He admits that we are waging a thankless war for what we +take to be Truth and Progress. He is doing the same. +But why, in the name of all that is reasonable, should we, +when we are agreed on the momentousness of the issue either way, +forthwith desert serious methods of conducting the controversy? +Why, when the vital need of our time is to induce men +and women to collect their thoughts occasionally, and be men +and women--nay, to remember that they are really gods that hold +the destinies of humanity on their knees--why should we think +that this kaleidoscopic play of phrases is inopportune? +The ballets of the Alhambra, and the fireworks of the Crystal Palace, +and Mr. Chesterton's Daily News articles, have their place in life. +But how a serious social student can think of curing the +thoughtlessness of our generation by strained paradoxes; of giving +people a sane grasp of social problems by literary sleight-of-hand; +of settling important questions by a reckless shower of +rocket-metaphors and inaccurate `facts,' and the substitution +of imagination for judgment, I cannot see." + +I quote this passage with a particular pleasure, because Mr. McCabe +certainly cannot put too strongly the degree to which I give him +and his school credit for their complete sincerity and responsibility +of philosophical attitude. I am quite certain that they mean every +word they say. I also mean every word I say. But why is it that +Mr. McCabe has some sort of mysterious hesitation about admitting +that I mean every word I say; why is it that he is not quite as certain +of my mental responsibility as I am of his mental responsibility? +If we attempt to answer the question directly and well, we shall, +I think, have come to the root of the matter by the shortest cut. + +Mr. McCabe thinks that I am not serious but only funny, +because Mr. McCabe thinks that funny is the opposite of serious. +Funny is the opposite of not funny, and of nothing else. +The question of whether a man expresses himself in a grotesque +or laughable phraseology, or in a stately and restrained phraseology, +is not a question of motive or of moral state, it is a question +of instinctive language and self-expression. Whether a man chooses +to tell the truth in long sentences or short jokes is a problem +analogous to whether he chooses to tell the truth in French or German. +Whether a man preaches his gospel grotesquely or gravely is merely +like the question of whether he preaches it in prose or verse. +The question of whether Swift was funny in his irony is quite another sort +of question to the question of whether Swift was serious in his pessimism. +Surely even Mr. McCabe would not maintain that the more funny +"Gulliver" is in its method the less it can be sincere in its object. +The truth is, as I have said, that in this sense the two qualities +of fun and seriousness have nothing whatever to do with each other, +they are no more comparable than black and triangular. +Mr. Bernard Shaw is funny and sincere. Mr. George Robey is +funny and not sincere. Mr. McCabe is sincere and not funny. +The average Cabinet Minister is not sincere and not funny. + +In short, Mr. McCabe is under the influence of a primary fallacy +which I have found very common m men of the clerical type. +Numbers of clergymen have from time to time reproached me for +making jokes about religion; and they have almost always invoked +the authority of that very sensible commandment which says, +"Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain." +Of course, I pointed out that I was not in any conceivable sense +taking the name in vain. To take a thing and make a joke out of it +is not to take it in vain. It is, on the contrary, to take it +and use it for an uncommonly good object. To use a thing in vain +means to use it without use. But a joke may be exceedingly useful; +it may contain the whole earthly sense, not to mention the whole +heavenly sense, of a situation. And those who find in the Bible +the commandment can find in the Bible any number of the jokes. +In the same book in which God's name is fenced from being taken in vain, +God himself overwhelms Job with a torrent of terrible levities. +The same book which says that God's name must not be taken vainly, +talks easily and carelessly about God laughing and God winking. +Evidently it is not here that we have to look for genuine +examples of what is meant by a vain use of the name. And it is +not very difficult to see where we have really to look for it. +The people (as I tactfully pointed out to them) who really take +the name of the Lord in vain are the clergymen themselves. The thing +which is fundamentally and really frivolous is not a careless joke. +The thing which is fundamentally and really frivolous is a +careless solemnity. If Mr. McCabe really wishes to know what sort +of guarantee of reality and solidity is afforded by the mere act +of what is called talking seriously, let him spend a happy Sunday +in going the round of the pulpits. Or, better still, let him drop +in at the House of Commons or the House of Lords. Even Mr. McCabe +would admit that these men are solemn--more solemn than I am. +And even Mr. McCabe, I think, would admit that these men are frivolous-- +more frivolous than I am. Why should Mr. McCabe be so eloquent +about the danger arising from fantastic and paradoxical writers? +Why should he be so ardent in desiring grave and verbose writers? +There are not so very many fantastic and paradoxical writers. +But there are a gigantic number of grave and verbose writers; +and it is by the efforts of the grave and verbose writers +that everything that Mr. McCabe detests (and everything that +I detest, for that matter) is kept in existence and energy. +How can it have come about that a man as intelligent as Mr. McCabe +can think that paradox and jesting stop the way? It is solemnity +that is stopping the way in every department of modern effort. +It is his own favourite "serious methods;" it is his own favourite +"momentousness;" it is his own favourite "judgment" which stops +the way everywhere. Every man who has ever headed a deputation +to a minister knows this. Every man who has ever written a letter +to the Times knows it. Every rich man who wishes to stop the mouths +of the poor talks about "momentousness." Every Cabinet minister +who has not got an answer suddenly develops a "judgment." +Every sweater who uses vile methods recommends "serious methods." +I said a moment ago that sincerity had nothing to do with solemnity, +but I confess that I am not so certain that I was right. +In the modern world, at any rate, I am not so sure that I was right. +In the modern world solemnity is the direct enemy of sincerity. +In the modern world sincerity is almost always on one side, and solemnity +almost always on the other. The only answer possible to the fierce +and glad attack of sincerity is the miserable answer of solemnity. +Let Mr. McCabe, or any one else who is much concerned that we should be +grave in order to be sincere, simply imagine the scene in some government +office in which Mr. Bernard Shaw should head a Socialist deputation +to Mr. Austen Chamberlain. On which side would be the solemnity? +And on which the sincerity? + +I am, indeed, delighted to discover that Mr. McCabe reckons +Mr. Shaw along with me in his system of condemnation of frivolity. +He said once, I believe, that he always wanted Mr. Shaw to label +his paragraphs serious or comic. I do not know which paragraphs +of Mr. Shaw are paragraphs to be labelled serious; but surely +there can be no doubt that this paragraph of Mr. McCabe's is +one to be labelled comic. He also says, in the article I am +now discussing, that Mr. Shaw has the reputation of deliberately +saying everything which his hearers do not expect him to say. +I need not labour the inconclusiveness and weakness of this, because it +has already been dealt with in my remarks on Mr. Bernard Shaw. +Suffice it to say here that the only serious reason which I can imagine +inducing any one person to listen to any other is, that the first person +looks to the second person with an ardent faith and a fixed attention, +expecting him to say what he does not expect him to say. +It may be a paradox, but that is because paradoxes are true. +It may not be rational, but that is because rationalism is wrong. +But clearly it is quite true that whenever we go to hear a prophet or +teacher we may or may not expect wit, we may or may not expect eloquence, +but we do expect what we do not expect. We may not expect the true, +we may not even expect the wise, but we do expect the unexpected. +If we do not expect the unexpected, why do we go there at all? +If we expect the expected, why do we not sit at home and expect +it by ourselves? If Mr. McCabe means merely this about Mr. Shaw, +that he always has some unexpected application of his doctrine +to give to those who listen to him, what he says is quite true, +and to say it is only to say that Mr. Shaw is an original man. +But if he means that Mr. Shaw has ever professed or preached any +doctrine but one, and that his own, then what he says is not true. +It is not my business to defend Mr. Shaw; as has been seen already, +I disagree with him altogether. But I do not mind, on his behalf +offering in this matter a flat defiance to all his ordinary opponents, +such as Mr. McCabe. I defy Mr. McCabe, or anybody else, to mention +one single instance in which Mr. Shaw has, for the sake of wit +or novelty, taken up any position which was not directly deducible +from the body of his doctrine as elsewhere expressed. I have been, +I am happy to say, a tolerably close student of Mr. Shaw's utterances, +and I request Mr. McCabe, if he will not believe that I mean +anything else, to believe that I mean this challenge. + +All this, however, is a parenthesis. The thing with which I am here +immediately concerned is Mr. McCabe's appeal to me not to be so frivolous. +Let me return to the actual text of that appeal. There are, +of course, a great many things that I might say about it in detail. +But I may start with saying that Mr. McCabe is in error in supposing +that the danger which I anticipate from the disappearance +of religion is the increase of sensuality. On the contrary, +I should be inclined to anticipate a decrease in sensuality, +because I anticipate a decrease in life. I do not think that under +modern Western materialism we should have anarchy. I doubt whether we +should have enough individual valour and spirit even to have liberty. +It is quite an old-fashioned fallacy to suppose that our objection +to scepticism is that it removes the discipline from life. +Our objection to scepticism is that it removes the motive power. +Materialism is not a thing which destroys mere restraint. +Materialism itself is the great restraint. The McCabe school +advocates a political liberty, but it denies spiritual liberty. +That is, it abolishes the laws which could be broken, and substitutes +laws that cannot. And that is the real slavery. + +The truth is that the scientific civilization in which Mr. McCabe +believes has one rather particular defect; it is perpetually tending +to destroy that democracy or power of the ordinary man in which +Mr. McCabe also believes. Science means specialism, and specialism +means oligarchy. If you once establish the habit of trusting +particular men to produce particular results in physics or astronomy, +you leave the door open for the equally natural demand that you +should trust particular men to do particular things in government +and the coercing of men. If, you feel it to be reasonable that +one beetle should be the only study of one man, and that one man +the only student of that one beetle, it is surely a very harmless +consequence to go on to say that politics should be the only study +of one man, and that one man the only student of politics. +As I have pointed out elsewhere in this book, the expert is more +aristocratic than the aristocrat, because the aristocrat is only +the man who lives well, while the expert is the man who knows better. +But if we look at the progress of our scientific civilization we see +a gradual increase everywhere of the specialist over the popular function. +Once men sang together round a table in chorus; now one man +sings alone, for the absurd reason that he can sing better. +If scientific civilization goes on (which is most improbable) +only one man will laugh, because he can laugh better than the rest. + +I do not know that I can express this more shortly than by taking +as a text the single sentence of Mr. McCabe, which runs as follows: +"The ballets of the Alhambra and the fireworks of the Crystal Palace +and Mr. Chesterton's Daily News articles have their places in life." +I wish that my articles had as noble a place as either of the other +two things mentioned. But let us ask ourselves (in a spirit of love, +as Mr. Chadband would say), what are the ballets of the Alhambra? +The ballets of the Alhambra are institutions in which a particular +selected row of persons in pink go through an operation known +as dancing. Now, in all commonwealths dominated by a religion-- +in the Christian commonwealths of the Middle Ages and in many +rude societies--this habit of dancing was a common habit with everybody, +and was not necessarily confined to a professional class. +A person could dance without being a dancer; a person could dance +without being a specialist; a person could dance without being pink. +And, in proportion as Mr. McCabe's scientific civilization advances-- +that is, in proportion as religious civilization (or real civilization) +decays--the more and more "well trained," the more and more pink, +become the people who do dance, and the more and more numerous become +the people who don't. Mr. McCabe may recognize an example of what I +mean in the gradual discrediting in society of the ancient European +waltz or dance with partners, and the substitution of that horrible +and degrading oriental interlude which is known as skirt-dancing. +That is the whole essence of decadence, the effacement of five +people who do a thing for fun by one person who does it for money. +Now it follows, therefore, that when Mr. McCabe says that the ballets +of the Alhambra and my articles "have their place in life," +it ought to be pointed out to him that he is doing his best +to create a world in which dancing, properly speaking, will have +no place in life at all. He is, indeed, trying to create a world +in which there will be no life for dancing to have a place in. +The very fact that Mr. McCabe thinks of dancing as a thing +belonging to some hired women at the Alhambra is an illustration +of the same principle by which he is able to think of religion +as a thing belonging to some hired men in white neckties. +Both these things are things which should not be done for us, +but by us. If Mr. McCabe were really religious he would be happy. +If he were really happy he would dance. + +Briefly, we may put the matter in this way. The main point of modern +life is not that the Alhambra ballet has its place in life. +The main point, the main enormous tragedy of modern life, +is that Mr. McCabe has not his place in the Alhambra ballet. +The joy of changing and graceful posture, the joy of suiting the swing +of music to the swing of limbs, the joy of whirling drapery, +the joy of standing on one leg,--all these should belong by rights +to Mr. McCabe and to me; in short, to the ordinary healthy citizen. +Probably we should not consent to go through these evolutions. +But that is because we are miserable moderns and rationalists. +We do not merely love ourselves more than we love duty; we actually +love ourselves more than we love joy. + +When, therefore, Mr. McCabe says that he gives the Alhambra dances +(and my articles) their place in life, I think we are justified +in pointing out that by the very nature of the case of his philosophy +and of his favourite civilization he gives them a very inadequate place. +For (if I may pursue the too flattering parallel) Mr. McCabe thinks +of the Alhambra and of my articles as two very odd and absurd things, +which some special people do (probably for money) in order to amuse him. +But if he had ever felt himself the ancient, sublime, elemental, +human instinct to dance, he would have discovered that dancing +is not a frivolous thing at all, but a very serious thing. +He would have discovered that it is the one grave and chaste +and decent method of expressing a certain class of emotions. +And similarly, if he had ever had, as Mr. Shaw and I have had, +the impulse to what he calls paradox, he would have discovered that +paradox again is not a frivolous thing, but a very serious thing. +He would have found that paradox simply means a certain defiant +joy which belongs to belief. I should regard any civilization +which was without a universal habit of uproarious dancing as being, +from the full human point of view, a defective civilization. +And I should regard any mind which had not got the habit +in one form or another of uproarious thinking as being, +from the full human point of view, a defective mind. +It is vain for Mr. McCabe to say that a ballet is a part of him. +He should be part of a ballet, or else he is only part of a man. +It is in vain for him to say that he is "not quarrelling +with the importation of humour into the controversy." +He ought himself to be importing humour into every controversy; +for unless a man is in part a humorist, he is only in part a man. +To sum up the whole matter very simply, if Mr. McCabe asks me why I +import frivolity into a discussion of the nature of man, I answer, +because frivolity is a part of the nature of man. If he asks me why +I introduce what he calls paradoxes into a philosophical problem, +I answer, because all philosophical problems tend to become paradoxical. +If he objects to my treating of life riotously, I reply that life +is a riot. And I say that the Universe as I see it, at any rate, +is very much more like the fireworks at the Crystal Palace than it +is like his own philosophy. About the whole cosmos there is a tense +and secret festivity--like preparations for Guy Fawkes' day. +Eternity is the eve of something. I never look up at the stars +without feeling that they are the fires of a schoolboy's rocket, +fixed in their everlasting fall. + + + +XVII On the Wit of Whistler + + +That capable and ingenious writer, Mr. Arthur Symons, +has included in a book of essays recently published, I believe, +an apologia for "London Nights," in which he says that morality +should be wholly subordinated to art in criticism, and he uses +the somewhat singular argument that art or the worship of beauty +is the same in all ages, while morality differs in every period +and in every respect. He appears to defy his critics or his +readers to mention any permanent feature or quality in ethics. +This is surely a very curious example of that extravagant bias +against morality which makes so many ultra-modern aesthetes as morbid +and fanatical as any Eastern hermit. Unquestionably it is a very +common phrase of modern intellectualism to say that the morality +of one age can be entirely different to the morality of another. +And like a great many other phrases of modern intellectualism, +it means literally nothing at all. If the two moralities +are entirely different, why do you call them both moralities? +It is as if a man said, "Camels in various places are totally diverse; +some have six legs, some have none, some have scales, some have feathers, +some have horns, some have wings, some are green, some are triangular. +There is no point which they have in common." The ordinary man +of sense would reply, "Then what makes you call them all camels? +What do you mean by a camel? How do you know a camel when you see one?" +Of course, there is a permanent substance of morality, as much +as there is a permanent substance of art; to say that is only to say +that morality is morality, and that art is art. An ideal art +critic would, no doubt, see the enduring beauty under every school; +equally an ideal moralist would see the enduring ethic under every code. +But practically some of the best Englishmen that ever lived could see +nothing but filth and idolatry in the starry piety of the Brahmin. +And it is equally true that practically the greatest group of artists +that the world has ever seen, the giants of the Renaissance, +could see nothing but barbarism in the ethereal energy of Gothic. + +This bias against morality among the modern aesthetes is nothing +very much paraded. And yet it is not really a bias against morality; +it is a bias against other people's morality. It is generally +founded on a very definite moral preference for a certain sort +of life, pagan, plausible, humane. The modern aesthete, wishing us +to believe that he values beauty more than conduct, reads Mallarme, +and drinks absinthe in a tavern. But this is not only his favourite +kind of beauty; it is also his favourite kind of conduct. +If he really wished us to believe that he cared for beauty only, +he ought to go to nothing but Wesleyan school treats, and paint +the sunlight in the hair of the Wesleyan babies. He ought to read +nothing but very eloquent theological sermons by old-fashioned +Presbyterian divines. Here the lack of all possible moral sympathy +would prove that his interest was purely verbal or pictorial, as it is; +in all the books he reads and writes he clings to the skirts +of his own morality and his own immorality. The champion of l'art +pour l'art is always denouncing Ruskin for his moralizing. +If he were really a champion of l'art pour l'art, he would be always +insisting on Ruskin for his style. + +The doctrine of the distinction between art and morality owes +a great part of its success to art and morality being hopelessly +mixed up in the persons and performances of its greatest exponents. +Of this lucky contradiction the very incarnation was Whistler. +No man ever preached the impersonality of art so well; +no man ever preached the impersonality of art so personally. +For him pictures had nothing to do with the problems of character; +but for all his fiercest admirers his character was, +as a matter of fact far more interesting than his pictures. +He gloried in standing as an artist apart from right and wrong. +But he succeeded by talking from morning till night about his +rights and about his wrongs. His talents were many, his virtues, +it must be confessed, not many, beyond that kindness to tried friends, +on which many of his biographers insist, but which surely is a +quality of all sane men, of pirates and pickpockets; beyond this, +his outstanding virtues limit themselves chiefly to two admirable ones-- +courage and an abstract love of good work. Yet I fancy he won +at last more by those two virtues than by all his talents. +A man must be something of a moralist if he is to preach, even if he is +to preach unmorality. Professor Walter Raleigh, in his "In Memoriam: +James McNeill Whistler," insists, truly enough, on the strong +streak of an eccentric honesty in matters strictly pictorial, +which ran through his complex and slightly confused character. +"He would destroy any of his works rather than leave a careless +or inexpressive touch within the limits of the frame. +He would begin again a hundred times over rather than attempt +by patching to make his work seem better than it was." + +No one will blame Professor Raleigh, who had to read a sort of funeral +oration over Whistler at the opening of the Memorial Exhibition, +if, finding himself in that position, he confined himself mostly +to the merits and the stronger qualities of his subject. +We should naturally go to some other type of composition +for a proper consideration of the weaknesses of Whistler. +But these must never be omitted from our view of him. +Indeed, the truth is that it was not so much a question of the weaknesses +of Whistler as of the intrinsic and primary weakness of Whistler. +He was one of those people who live up to their emotional incomes, +who are always taut and tingling with vanity. Hence he had +no strength to spare; hence he had no kindness, no geniality; +for geniality is almost definable as strength to spare. +He had no god-like carelessness; he never forgot himself; +his whole life was, to use his own expression, an arrangement. +He went in for "the art of living"--a miserable trick. +In a word, he was a great artist; but emphatically not a great man. +In this connection I must differ strongly with Professor Raleigh upon +what is, from a superficial literary point of view, one of his most +effective points. He compares Whistler's laughter to the laughter +of another man who was a great man as well as a great artist. +"His attitude to the public was exactly the attitude taken up by +Robert Browning, who suffered as long a period of neglect and mistake, +in those lines of `The Ring and the Book'-- + + "`Well, British Public, ye who like me not, + (God love you!) and will have your proper laugh + At the dark question; laugh it! I'd laugh first.' + +"Mr. Whistler," adds Professor Raleigh, "always laughed first." +The truth is, I believe, that Whistler never laughed at all. +There was no laughter in his nature; because there was no thoughtlessness +and self-abandonment, no humility. I cannot understand anybody +reading "The Gentle Art of Making Enemies" and thinking that there +is any laughter in the wit. His wit is a torture to him. +He twists himself into arabesques of verbal felicity; he is full +of a fierce carefulness; he is inspired with the complete seriousness +of sincere malice. He hurts himself to hurt his opponent. +Browning did laugh, because Browning did not care; Browning did +not care, because Browning was a great man. And when Browning +said in brackets to the simple, sensible people who did not like +his books, "God love you!" he was not sneering in the least. +He was laughing--that is to say, he meant exactly what he said. + +There are three distinct classes of great satirists who are also great men-- +that is to say, three classes of men who can laugh at something without +losing their souls. The satirist of the first type is the man who, +first of all enjoys himself, and then enjoys his enemies. +In this sense he loves his enemy, and by a kind of exaggeration of +Christianity he loves his enemy the more the more he becomes an enemy. +He has a sort of overwhelming and aggressive happiness in his +assertion of anger; his curse is as human as a benediction. +Of this type of satire the great example is Rabelais. This is +the first typical example of satire, the satire which is voluble, +which is violent, which is indecent, but which is not malicious. +The satire of Whistler was not this. He was never in any of his +controversies simply happy; the proof of it is that he never talked +absolute nonsense. There is a second type of mind which produces satire +with the quality of greatness. That is embodied in the satirist whose +passions are released and let go by some intolerable sense of wrong. +He is maddened by the sense of men being maddened; his tongue +becomes an unruly member, and testifies against all mankind. +Such a man was Swift, in whom the saeva indignatio was a bitterness +to others, because it was a bitterness to himself. Such a satirist +Whistler was not. He did not laugh because he was happy, like Rabelais. +But neither did he laugh because he was unhappy, like Swift. + +The third type of great satire is that in which he satirist is enabled +to rise superior to his victim in the only serious sense which +superiority can bear, in that of pitying the sinner and respecting +the man even while he satirises both. Such an achievement can be +found in a thing like Pope's "Atticus" a poem in which the satirist +feels that he is satirising the weaknesses which belong specially +to literary genius. Consequently he takes a pleasure in pointing +out his enemy's strength before he points out his weakness. +That is, perhaps, the highest and most honourable form of satire. +That is not the satire of Whistler. He is not full of a great sorrow +for the wrong done to human nature; for him the wrong is altogether +done to himself. + +He was not a great personality, because he thought so much +about himself. And the case is stronger even than that. +He was sometimes not even a great artist, because he thought +so much about art. Any man with a vital knowledge of the human +psychology ought to have the most profound suspicion of anybody +who claims to be an artist, and talks a great deal about art. +Art is a right and human thing, like walking or saying one's prayers; +but the moment it begins to be talked about very solemnly, a man +may be fairly certain that the thing has come into a congestion +and a kind of difficulty. + +The artistic temperament is a disease that afflicts amateurs. +It is a disease which arises from men not having sufficient power of +expression to utter and get rid of the element of art in their being. +It is healthful to every sane man to utter the art within him; +it is essential to every sane man to get rid of the art within him +at all costs. Artists of a large and wholesome vitality get rid +of their art easily, as they breathe easily, or perspire easily. +But in artists of less force, the thing becomes a pressure, +and produces a definite pain, which is called the artistic temperament. +Thus, very great artists are able to be ordinary men-- +men like Shakespeare or Browning. There are many real tragedies +of the artistic temperament, tragedies of vanity or violence or fear. +But the great tragedy of the artistic temperament is that it cannot +produce any art. + +Whistler could produce art; and in so far he was a great man. +But he could not forget art; and in so far he was only a man with +the artistic temperament. There can be no stronger manifestation +of the man who is a really great artist than the fact that he can +dismiss the subject of art; that he can, upon due occasion, +wish art at the bottom of the sea. Similarly, we should always +be much more inclined to trust a solicitor who did not talk about +conveyancing over the nuts and wine. What we really desire of any +man conducting any business is that the full force of an ordinary +man should be put into that particular study. We do not desire +that the full force of that study should be put into an ordinary man. +We do not in the least wish that our particular law-suit should +pour its energy into our barrister's games with his children, +or rides on his bicycle, or meditations on the morning star. +But we do, as a matter of fact, desire that his games with his children, +and his rides on his bicycle, and his meditations on the morning star +should pour something of their energy into our law-suit. We do desire +that if he has gained any especial lung development from the bicycle, +or any bright and pleasing metaphors from the morning star, that the should +be placed at our disposal in that particular forensic controversy. +In a word, we are very glad that he is an ordinary man, since that +may help him to be an exceptional lawyer. + +Whistler never ceased to be an artist. As Mr. Max Beerbohm pointed +out in one of his extraordinarily sensible and sincere critiques, +Whistler really regarded Whistler as his greatest work of art. +The white lock, the single eyeglass, the remarkable hat-- +these were much dearer to him than any nocturnes or arrangements +that he ever threw off. He could throw off the nocturnes; +for some mysterious reason he could not throw off the hat. +He never threw off from himself that disproportionate accumulation +of aestheticism which is the burden of the amateur. + +It need hardly be said that this is the real explanation of the thing +which has puzzled so many dilettante critics, the problem of the extreme +ordinariness of the behaviour of so many great geniuses in history. +Their behaviour was so ordinary that it was not recorded; +hence it was so ordinary that it seemed mysterious. Hence people say +that Bacon wrote Shakespeare. The modern artistic temperament cannot +understand how a man who could write such lyrics as Shakespeare wrote, +could be as keen as Shakespeare was on business transactions in a +little town in Warwickshire. The explanation is simple enough; +it is that Shakespeare had a real lyrical impulse, wrote a real lyric, +and so got rid of the impulse and went about his business. +Being an artist did not prevent him from being an ordinary man, +any more than being a sleeper at night or being a diner at dinner +prevented him from being an ordinary man. + +All very great teachers and leaders have had this habit +of assuming their point of view to be one which was human +and casual, one which would readily appeal to every passing man. +If a man is genuinely superior to his fellows the first thing +that he believes in is the equality of man. We can see this, +for instance, in that strange and innocent rationality with which +Christ addressed any motley crowd that happened to stand about Him. +"What man of you having a hundred sheep, and losing one, would not leave +the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which was lost?" +Or, again, "What man of you if his son ask for bread will he give +him a stone, or if he ask for a fish will he give him a serpent?" +This plainness, this almost prosaic camaraderie, is the note of all +very great minds. + +To very great minds the things on which men agree are so immeasurably +more important than the things on which they differ, that the latter, +for all practical purposes, disappear. They have too much in them +of an ancient laughter even to endure to discuss the difference +between the hats of two men who were both born of a woman, +or between the subtly varied cultures of two men who have both to die. +The first-rate great man is equal with other men, like Shakespeare. +The second-rate great man is on his knees to other men, like Whitman. +The third-rate great man is superior to other men, like Whistler. + + + +XVIII The Fallacy of the Young Nation + + +To say that a man is an idealist is merely to say that he is +a man; but, nevertheless, it might be possible to effect some +valid distinction between one kind of idealist and another. +One possible distinction, for instance, could be effected by saying that +humanity is divided into conscious idealists and unconscious idealists. +In a similar way, humanity is divided into conscious ritualists and. +unconscious ritualists. The curious thing is, in that example as +in others, that it is the conscious ritualism which is comparatively +simple, the unconscious ritual which is really heavy and complicated. +The ritual which is comparatively rude and straightforward is +the ritual which people call "ritualistic." It consists of plain +things like bread and wine and fire, and men falling on their faces. +But the ritual which is really complex, and many coloured, and elaborate, +and needlessly formal, is the ritual which people enact without +knowing it. It consists not of plain things like wine and fire, +but of really peculiar, and local, and exceptional, and ingenious things-- +things like door-mats, and door-knockers, and electric bells, +and silk hats, and white ties, and shiny cards, and confetti. +The truth is that the modern man scarcely ever gets back to very old +and simple things except when he is performing some religious mummery. +The modern man can hardly get away from ritual except by entering +a ritualistic church. In the case of these old and mystical +formalities we can at least say that the ritual is not mere ritual; +that the symbols employed are in most cases symbols which belong to a +primary human poetry. The most ferocious opponent of the Christian +ceremonials must admit that if Catholicism had not instituted +the bread and wine, somebody else would most probably have done so. +Any one with a poetical instinct will admit that to the ordinary +human instinct bread symbolizes something which cannot very easily +be symbolized otherwise; that wine, to the ordinary human instinct, +symbolizes something which cannot very easily be symbolized otherwise. +But white ties in the evening are ritual, and nothing else but ritual. +No one would pretend that white ties in the evening are primary +and poetical. Nobody would maintain that the ordinary human instinct +would in any age or country tend to symbolize the idea of evening +by a white necktie. Rather, the ordinary human instinct would, +I imagine, tend to symbolize evening by cravats with some of the colours +of the sunset, not white neckties, but tawny or crimson neckties-- +neckties of purple or olive, or some darkened gold. Mr. J. A. Kensit, +for example, is under the impression that he is not a ritualist. +But the daily life of Mr. J. A. Kensit, like that of any ordinary +modern man, is, as a matter of fact, one continual and compressed +catalogue of mystical mummery and flummery. To take one instance +out of an inevitable hundred: I imagine that Mr. Kensit takes +off his hat to a lady; and what can be more solemn and absurd, +considered in the abstract, than, symbolizing the existence of the other +sex by taking off a portion of your clothing and waving it in the air? +This, I repeat, is not a natural and primitive symbol, like fire or food. +A man might just as well have to take off his waistcoat to a lady; +and if a man, by the social ritual of his civilization, had to take off +his waistcoat to a lady, every chivalrous and sensible man would take +off his waistcoat to a lady. In short, Mr. Kensit, and those who agree +with him, may think, and quite sincerely think, that men give too +much incense and ceremonial to their adoration of the other world. +But nobody thinks that he can give too much incense and ceremonial +to the adoration of this world. All men, then, are ritualists, but are +either conscious or unconscious ritualists. The conscious ritualists +are generally satisfied with a few very simple and elementary signs; +the unconscious ritualists are not satisfied with anything short +of the whole of human life, being almost insanely ritualistic. +The first is called a ritualist because he invents and remembers +one rite; the other is called an anti-ritualist because he obeys +and forgets a thousand. And a somewhat similar distinction +to this which I have drawn with some unavoidable length, +between the conscious ritualist and the unconscious ritualist, +exists between the conscious idealist and the unconscious idealist. +It is idle to inveigh against cynics and materialists--there are +no cynics, there are no materialists. Every man is idealistic; +only it so often happens that he has the wrong ideal. +Every man is incurably sentimental; but, unfortunately, it is so often +a false sentiment. When we talk, for instance, of some unscrupulous +commercial figure, and say that he would do anything for money, +we use quite an inaccurate expression, and we slander him very much. +He would not do anything for money. He would do some things for money; +he would sell his soul for money, for instance; and, as Mirabeau +humorously said, he would be quite wise "to take money for muck." +He would oppress humanity for money; but then it happens that humanity +and the soul are not things that he believes in; they are not his ideals. +But he has his own dim and delicate ideals; and he would not violate +these for money. He would not drink out of the soup-tureen, for money. +He would not wear his coat-tails in front, for money. He would +not spread a report that he had softening of the brain, for money. +In the actual practice of life we find, in the matter of ideals, +exactly what we have already found in the matter of ritual. +We find that while there is a perfectly genuine danger of fanaticism +from the men who have unworldly ideals, the permanent and urgent +danger of fanaticism is from the men who have worldly ideals. + +People who say that an ideal is a dangerous thing, that it +deludes and intoxicates, are perfectly right. But the ideal +which intoxicates most is the least idealistic kind of ideal. +The ideal which intoxicates least is the very ideal ideal; that sobers +us suddenly, as all heights and precipices and great distances do. +Granted that it is a great evil to mistake a cloud for a cape; +still, the cloud, which can be most easily mistaken for a cape, +is the cloud that is nearest the earth. Similarly, we may grant +that it may be dangerous to mistake an ideal for something practical. +But we shall still point out that, in this respect, the most +dangerous ideal of all is the ideal which looks a little practical. +It is difficult to attain a high ideal; consequently, it is almost +impossible to persuade ourselves that we have attained it. +But it is easy to attain a low ideal; consequently, it is easier +still to persuade ourselves that we have attained it when we +have done nothing of the kind. To take a random example. +It might be called a high ambition to wish to be an archangel; +the man who entertained such an ideal would very possibly +exhibit asceticism, or even frenzy, but not, I think, delusion. +He would not think he was an archangel, and go about flapping +his hands under the impression that they were wings. +But suppose that a sane man had a low ideal; suppose he wished +to be a gentleman. Any one who knows the world knows that in nine +weeks he would have persuaded himself that he was a gentleman; +and this being manifestly not the case, the result will be very +real and practical dislocations and calamities in social life. +It is not the wild ideals which wreck the practical world; +it is the tame ideals. + +The matter may, perhaps, be illustrated by a parallel from our +modern politics. When men tell us that the old Liberal politicians +of the type of Gladstone cared only for ideals, of course, +they are talking nonsense--they cared for a great many other things, +including votes. And when men tell us that modern politicians +of the type of Mr. Chamberlain or, in another way, Lord Rosebery, +care only for votes or for material interest, then again they are +talking nonsense--these men care for ideals like all other men. +But the real distinction which may be drawn is this, that to +the older politician the ideal was an ideal, and nothing else. +To the new politician his dream is not only a good dream, it is a reality. +The old politician would have said, "It would be a good thing +if there were a Republican Federation dominating the world." +But the modern politician does not say, "It would be a good thing +if there were a British Imperialism dominating the world." +He says, "It is a good thing that there is a British Imperialism +dominating the world;" whereas clearly there is nothing of the kind. +The old Liberal would say "There ought to be a good Irish government +in Ireland." But the ordinary modern Unionist does not say, +"There ought to be a good English government in Ireland." He says, +"There is a good English government in Ireland;" which is absurd. +In short, the modern politicians seem to think that a man becomes +practical merely by making assertions entirely about practical things. +Apparently, a delusion does not matter as long as it is a +materialistic delusion. Instinctively most of us feel that, +as a practical matter, even the contrary is true. I certainly +would much rather share my apartments with a gentleman who thought +he was God than with a gentleman who thought he was a grasshopper. +To be continually haunted by practical images and practical problems, +to be constantly thinking of things as actual, as urgent, as in process +of completion--these things do not prove a man to be practical; +these things, indeed, are among the most ordinary signs of a lunatic. +That our modern statesmen are materialistic is nothing against +their being also morbid. Seeing angels in a vision may make a man +a supernaturalist to excess. But merely seeing snakes in delirium +tremens does not make him a naturalist. + +And when we come actually to examine the main stock notions of our +modern practical politicians, we find that those main stock notions are +mainly delusions. A great many instances might be given of the fact. +We might take, for example, the case of that strange class of notions +which underlie the word "union," and all the eulogies heaped upon it. +Of course, union is no more a good thing in itself than separation +is a good thing in itself. To have a party in favour of union +and a party in favour of separation is as absurd as to have a party +in favour of going upstairs and a party in favour of going downstairs. +The question is not whether we go up or down stairs, but where we +are going to, and what we are going, for? Union is strength; +union is also weakness. It is a good thing to harness two horses +to a cart; but it is not a good thing to try and turn two hansom cabs +into one four-wheeler. Turning ten nations into one empire may happen +to be as feasible as turning ten shillings into one half-sovereign. +Also it may happen to be as preposterous as turning ten terriers +into one mastiff . The question in all cases is not a question of +union or absence of union, but of identity or absence of identity. +Owing to certain historical and moral causes, two nations may be +so united as upon the whole to help each other. Thus England +and Scotland pass their time in paying each other compliments; +but their energies and atmospheres run distinct and parallel, +and consequently do not clash. Scotland continues to be educated +and Calvinistic; England continues to be uneducated and happy. +But owing to certain other Moral and certain other political causes, +two nations may be so united as only to hamper each other; +their lines do clash and do not run parallel. Thus, for instance, +England and Ireland are so united that the Irish can +sometimes rule England, but can never rule Ireland. +The educational systems, including the last Education Act, are here, +as in the case of Scotland, a very good test of the matter. +The overwhelming majority of Irishmen believe in a strict Catholicism; +the overwhelming majority of Englishmen believe in a vague Protestantism. +The Irish party in the Parliament of Union is just large enough to prevent +the English education being indefinitely Protestant, and just small +enough to prevent the Irish education being definitely Catholic. +Here we have a state of things which no man in his senses would +ever dream of wishing to continue if he had not been bewitched +by the sentimentalism of the mere word "union." + +This example of union, however, is not the example which I propose +to take of the ingrained futility and deception underlying +all the assumptions of the modern practical politician. +I wish to speak especially of another and much more general delusion. +It pervades the minds and speeches of all the practical men of all parties; +and it is a childish blunder built upon a single false metaphor. +I refer to the universal modern talk about young nations and new nations; +about America being young, about New Zealand being new. The whole thing +is a trick of words. America is not young, New Zealand is not new. +It is a very discussable question whether they are not both much +older than England or Ireland. + +Of course we may use the metaphor of youth about America or +the colonies, if we use it strictly as implying only a recent origin. +But if we use it (as we do use it) as implying vigour, or vivacity, +or crudity, or inexperience, or hope, or a long life before them +or any of the romantic attributes of youth, then it is surely +as clear as daylight that we are duped by a stale figure of speech. +We can easily see the matter clearly by applying it to any other +institution parallel to the institution of an independent nationality. +If a club called "The Milk and Soda League" (let us say) +was set up yesterday, as I have no doubt it was, then, of course, +"The Milk and Soda League" is a young club in the sense that it +was set up yesterday, but in no other sense. It may consist +entirely of moribund old gentlemen. It may be moribund itself. +We may call it a young club, in the light of the fact that it was +founded yesterday. We may also call it a very old club in the light +of the fact that it will most probably go bankrupt to-morrow. +All this appears very obvious when we put it in this form. +Any one who adopted the young-community delusion with regard +to a bank or a butcher's shop would be sent to an asylum. +But the whole modern political notion that America and the colonies +must be very vigorous because they are very new, rests upon no +better foundation. That America was founded long after England +does not make it even in the faintest degree more probable +that America will not perish a long time before England. +That England existed before her colonies does not make it any the less +likely that she will exist after her colonies. And when we look at +the actual history of the world, we find that great European nations +almost invariably have survived the vitality of their colonies. +When we look at the actual history of the world, we find, that if +there is a thing that is born old and dies young, it is a colony. +The Greek colonies went to pieces long before the Greek civilization. +The Spanish colonies have gone to pieces long before the nation of Spain-- +nor does there seem to be any reason to doubt the possibility or even +the probability of the conclusion that the colonial civilization, +which owes its origin to England, will be much briefer and much less +vigorous than the civilization of England itself. The English nation +will still be going the way of all European nations when the Anglo-Saxon +race has gone the way of all fads. Now, of course, the interesting +question is, have we, in the case of America and the colonies, +any real evidence of a moral and intellectual youth as opposed +to the indisputable triviality of a merely chronological youth? +Consciously or unconsciously, we know that we have no such evidence, +and consciously or unconsciously, therefore, we proceed to make it up. +Of this pure and placid invention, a good example, for instance, +can be found in a recent poem of Mr. Rudyard Kipling's. Speaking of +the English people and the South African War Mr. Kipling says that +"we fawned on the younger nations for the men that could shoot and ride." +Some people considered this sentence insulting. All that I am +concerned with at present is the evident fact that it is not true. +The colonies provided very useful volunteer troops, but they did not +provide the best troops, nor achieve the most successful exploits. +The best work in the war on the English side was done, +as might have been expected, by the best English regiments. +The men who could shoot and ride were not the enthusiastic corn +merchants from Melbourne, any more than they were the enthusiastic +clerks from Cheapside. The men who could shoot and ride were +the men who had been taught to shoot and ride in the discipline +of the standing army of a great European power. Of course, +the colonials are as brave and athletic as any other average white men. +Of course, they acquitted themselves with reasonable credit. +All I have here to indicate is that, for the purposes of this theory +of the new nation, it is necessary to maintain that the colonial +forces were more useful or more heroic than the gunners at Colenso +or the Fighting Fifth. And of this contention there is not, +and never has been, one stick or straw of evidence. + +A similar attempt is made, and with even less success, to represent the +literature of the colonies as something fresh and vigorous and important. +The imperialist magazines are constantly springing upon us some +genius from Queensland or Canada, through whom we are expected +to smell the odours of the bush or the prairie. As a matter of fact, +any one who is even slightly interested in literature as such (and I, +for one, confess that I am only slightly interested in literature +as such), will freely admit that the stories of these geniuses smell +of nothing but printer's ink, and that not of first-rate quality. +By a great effort of Imperial imagination the generous +English people reads into these works a force and a novelty. +But the force and the novelty are not in the new writers; +the force and the novelty are in the ancient heart of the English. +Anybody who studies them impartially will know that the first-rate +writers of the colonies are not even particularly novel in their +note and atmosphere, are not only not producing a new kind +of good literature, but are not even in any particular sense +producing a new kind of bad literature. The first-rate writers +of the new countries are really almost exactly like the second-rate +writers of the old countries. Of course they do feel the mystery +of the wilderness, the mystery of the bush, for all simple and honest +men feel this in Melbourne, or Margate, or South St. Pancras. +But when they write most sincerely and most successfully, it is not +with a background of the mystery of the bush, but with a background, +expressed or assumed, of our own romantic cockney civilization. +What really moves their souls with a kindly terror is not the mystery +of the wilderness, but the Mystery of a Hansom Cab. + +Of course there are some exceptions to this generalization. +The one really arresting exception is Olive Schreiner, and she +is quite as certainly an exception that proves the rule. +Olive Schreiner is a fierce, brilliant, and realistic novelist; +but she is all this precisely because she is not English at all. +Her tribal kinship is with the country of Teniers and Maarten Maartens-- +that is, with a country of realists. Her literary kinship is with +the pessimistic fiction of the continent; with the novelists whose +very pity is cruel. Olive Schreiner is the one English colonial who is +not conventional, for the simple reason that South Africa is the one +English colony which is not English, and probably never will be. +And, of course, there are individual exceptions in a minor way. +I remember in particular some Australian tales by Mr. McIlwain +which were really able and effective, and which, for that reason, +I suppose, are not presented to the public with blasts of a trumpet. +But my general contention if put before any one with a love +of letters, will not be disputed if it is understood. It is not +the truth that the colonial civilization as a whole is giving us, +or shows any signs of giving us, a literature which will startle +and renovate our own. It may be a very good thing for us to have +an affectionate illusion in the matter; that is quite another affair. +The colonies may have given England a new emotion; I only say +that they have not given the world a new book. + +Touching these English colonies, I do not wish to be misunderstood. +I do not say of them or of America that they have not a future, +or that they will not be great nations. I merely deny the whole +established modern expression about them. I deny that they are "destined" +to a future. I deny that they are "destined" to be great nations. +I deny (of course) that any human thing is destined to be anything. +All the absurd physical metaphors, such as youth and age, +living and dying, are, when applied to nations, but pseudo-scientific +attempts to conceal from men the awful liberty of their lonely souls. + +In the case of America, indeed, a warning to this effect is instant +and essential. America, of course, like every other human thing, +can in spiritual sense live or die as much as it chooses. +But at the present moment the matter which America has very seriously +to consider is not how near it is to its birth and beginning, +but how near it may be to its end. It is only a verbal question +whether the American civilization is young; it may become +a very practical and urgent question whether it is dying. +When once we have cast aside, as we inevitably have after a +moment's thought, the fanciful physical metaphor involved in the word +"youth," what serious evidence have we that America is a fresh +force and not a stale one? It has a great many people, like China; +it has a great deal of money, like defeated Carthage or dying Venice. +It is full of bustle and excitability, like Athens after its ruin, +and all the Greek cities in their decline. It is fond of new things; +but the old are always fond of new things. Young men read chronicles, +but old men read newspapers. It admires strength and good looks; +it admires a big and barbaric beauty in its women, for instance; +but so did Rome when the Goth was at the gates. All these are +things quite compatible with fundamental tedium and decay. +There are three main shapes or symbols in which a nation can show +itself essentially glad and great--by the heroic in government, +by the heroic in arms, and by the heroic in art. Beyond government, +which is, as it were, the very shape and body of a nation, +the most significant thing about any citizen is his artistic +attitude towards a holiday and his moral attitude towards a fight-- +that is, his way of accepting life and his way of accepting death. + +Subjected to these eternal tests, America does not appear by any means +as particularly fresh or untouched. She appears with all the weakness +and weariness of modern England or of any other Western power. +In her politics she has broken up exactly as England has broken up, +into a bewildering opportunism and insincerity. In the matter of war +and the national attitude towards war, her resemblance to England +is even more manifest and melancholy. It may be said with rough +accuracy that there are three stages in the life of a strong people. +First, it is a small power, and fights small powers. Then it is +a great power, and fights great powers. Then it is a great power, +and fights small powers, but pretends that they are great powers, +in order to rekindle the ashes of its ancient emotion and vanity. +After that, the next step is to become a small power itself. +England exhibited this symptom of decadence very badly in the war with +the Transvaal; but America exhibited it worse in the war with Spain. +There was exhibited more sharply and absurdly than anywhere +else the ironic contrast between the very careless choice +of a strong line and the very careful choice of a weak enemy. +America added to all her other late Roman or Byzantine elements +the element of the Caracallan triumph, the triumph over nobody. + +But when we come to the last test of nationality, the test of art +and letters, the case is almost terrible. The English colonies +have produced no great artists; and that fact may prove that they +are still full of silent possibilities and reserve force. +But America has produced great artists. And that fact most certainly +proves that she is full of a fine futility and the end of all things. +Whatever the American men of genius are, they are not young gods +making a young world. Is the art of Whistler a brave, barbaric art, +happy and headlong? Does Mr. Henry James infect us with the spirit +of a schoolboy? No; the colonies have not spoken, and they are safe. +Their silence may be the silence of the unborn. But out of America +has come a sweet and startling cry, as unmistakable as the cry +of a dying man. + + + +XIX Slum Novelists and the Slums + + +Odd ideas are entertained in our time about the real nature of the doctrine +of human fraternity. The real doctrine is something which we do not, +with all our modern humanitarianism, very clearly understand, +much less very closely practise. There is nothing, for instance, +particularly undemocratic about kicking your butler downstairs. +It may be wrong, but it is not unfraternal. In a certain sense, +the blow or kick may be considered as a confession of equality: +you are meeting your butler body to body; you are almost according +him the privilege of the duel. There is nothing, undemocratic, +though there may be something unreasonable, in expecting a great deal +from the butler, and being filled with a kind of frenzy of surprise +when he falls short of the divine stature. The thing which is +really undemocratic and unfraternal is not to expect the butler +to be more or less divine. The thing which is really undemocratic +and unfraternal is to say, as so many modern humanitarians say, +"Of course one must make allowances for those on a lower plane." +All things considered indeed, it may be said, without undue exaggeration, +that the really undemocratic and unfraternal thing is the common +practice of not kicking the butler downstairs. + +It is only because such a vast section of the modern world is +out of sympathy with the serious democratic sentiment that this +statement will seem to many to be lacking in seriousness. +Democracy is not philanthropy; it is not even altruism or social reform. +Democracy is not founded on pity for the common man; democracy is +founded on reverence for the common man, or, if you will, even on +fear of him. It does not champion man because man is so miserable, +but because man is so sublime. It does not object so much +to the ordinary man being a slave as to his not being a king, +for its dream is always the dream of the first Roman republic, +a nation of kings. + +Next to a genuine republic, the most democratic thing +in the world is a hereditary despotism. I mean a despotism +in which there is absolutely no trace whatever of any +nonsense about intellect or special fitness for the post. +Rational despotism--that is, selective despotism--is always +a curse to mankind, because with that you have the ordinary +man misunderstood and misgoverned by some prig who has no +brotherly respect for him at all. But irrational despotism +is always democratic, because it is the ordinary man enthroned. +The worst form of slavery is that which is called Caesarism, +or the choice of some bold or brilliant man as despot because +he is suitable. For that means that men choose a representative, +not because he represents them, but because he does not. +Men trust an ordinary man like George III or William IV. +because they are themselves ordinary men and understand him. +Men trust an ordinary man because they trust themselves. +But men trust a great man because they do not trust themselves. +And hence the worship of great men always appears in times +of weakness and cowardice; we never hear of great men until +the time when all other men are small. + +Hereditary despotism is, then, in essence and sentiment +democratic because it chooses from mankind at random. +If it does not declare that every man may rule, it declares +the next most democratic thing; it declares that any man may rule. +Hereditary aristocracy is a far worse and more dangerous thing, +because the numbers and multiplicity of an aristocracy make it +sometimes possible for it to figure as an aristocracy of intellect. +Some of its members will presumably have brains, and thus they, +at any rate, will be an intellectual aristocracy within the social one. +They will rule the aristocracy by virtue of their intellect, +and they will rule the country by virtue of their aristocracy. +Thus a double falsity will be set up, and millions of the images +of God, who, fortunately for their wives and families, are neither +gentlemen nor clever men, will be represented by a man like Mr. Balfour +or Mr. Wyndham, because he is too gentlemanly to be called +merely clever, and just too clever to be called merely a gentleman. +But even an hereditary aristocracy may exhibit, by a sort of accident, +from time to time some of the basically democratic quality which +belongs to a hereditary despotism. It is amusing to think how much +conservative ingenuity has been wasted in the defence of the House +of Lords by men who were desperately endeavouring to prove that +the House of Lords consisted of clever men. There is one really +good defence of the House of Lords, though admirers of the peerage +are strangely coy about using it; and that is, that the House +of Lords, in its full and proper strength, consists of stupid men. +It really would be a plausible defence of that otherwise indefensible +body to point out that the clever men in the Commons, who owed +their power to cleverness, ought in the last resort to be checked +by the average man in the Lords, who owed their power to accident. +Of course, there would be many answers to such a contention, +as, for instance, that the House of Lords is largely no longer +a House of Lords, but a House of tradesmen and financiers, +or that the bulk of the commonplace nobility do not vote, and so +leave the chamber to the prigs and the specialists and the mad old +gentlemen with hobbies. But on some occasions the House of Lords, +even under all these disadvantages, is in some sense representative. +When all the peers flocked together to vote against Mr. Gladstone's +second Home Rule Bill, for instance, those who said that the +peers represented the English people, were perfectly right. +All those dear old men who happened to be born peers were at that moment, +and upon that question, the precise counterpart of all the dear old +men who happened to be born paupers or middle-class gentlemen. +That mob of peers did really represent the English people--that is +to say, it was honest, ignorant, vaguely excited, almost unanimous, +and obviously wrong. Of course, rational democracy is better as an +expression of the public will than the haphazard hereditary method. +While we are about having any kind of democracy, let it be +rational democracy. But if we are to have any kind of oligarchy, +let it be irrational oligarchy. Then at least we shall be ruled by men. + +But the thing which is really required for the proper working of democracy +is not merely the democratic system, or even the democratic philosophy, +but the democratic emotion. The democratic emotion, like most elementary +and indispensable things, is a thing difficult to describe at any time. +But it is peculiarly difficult to describe it in our enlightened age, +for the simple reason that it is peculiarly difficult to find it. +It is a certain instinctive attitude which feels the things +in which all men agree to be unspeakably important, +and all the things in which they differ (such as mere brains) +to be almost unspeakably unimportant. The nearest approach to it +in our ordinary life would be the promptitude with which we should +consider mere humanity in any circumstance of shock or death. +We should say, after a somewhat disturbing discovery, "There is a dead +man under the sofa." We should not be likely to say, "There is +a dead man of considerable personal refinement under the sofa." +We should say, "A woman has fallen into the water." We should not say, +"A highly educated woman has fallen into the water." Nobody would say, +"There are the remains of a clear thinker in your back garden." +Nobody would say, "Unless you hurry up and stop him, a man +with a very fine ear for music will have jumped off that cliff." +But this emotion, which all of us have in connection with such +things as birth and death, is to some people native and constant +at all ordinary times and in all ordinary places. It was native +to St. Francis of Assisi. It was native to Walt Whitman. +In this strange and splendid degree it cannot be expected, +perhaps, to pervade a whole commonwealth or a whole civilization; +but one commonwealth may have it much more than another commonwealth, +one civilization much more than another civilization. +No community, perhaps, ever had it so much as the early Franciscans. +No community, perhaps, ever had it so little as ours. + +Everything in our age has, when carefully examined, this fundamentally +undemocratic quality. In religion and morals we should admit, +in the abstract, that the sins of the educated classes were as great as, +or perhaps greater than, the sins of the poor and ignorant. +But in practice the great difference between the mediaeval +ethics and ours is that ours concentrate attention on the sins +which are the sins of the ignorant, and practically deny that +the sins which are the sins of the educated are sins at all. +We are always talking about the sin of intemperate drinking, +because it is quite obvious that the poor have it more than the rich. +But we are always denying that there is any such thing as the sin of pride, +because it would be quite obvious that the rich have it more than the poor. +We are always ready to make a saint or prophet of the educated man +who goes into cottages to give a little kindly advice to the uneducated. +But the medieval idea of a saint or prophet was something quite different. +The mediaeval saint or prophet was an uneducated man who walked +into grand houses to give a little kindly advice to the educated. +The old tyrants had enough insolence to despoil the poor, +but they had not enough insolence to preach to them. +It was the gentleman who oppressed the slums; but it was the slums +that admonished the gentleman. And just as we are undemocratic +in faith and morals, so we are, by the very nature of our attitude +in such matters, undemocratic in the tone of our practical politics. +It is a sufficient proof that we are not an essentially democratic +state that we are always wondering what we shall do with the poor. +If we were democrats, we should be wondering what the poor will do with us. +With us the governing class is always saying to itself, "What laws shall +we make?" In a purely democratic state it would be always saying, +"What laws can we obey?" A purely democratic state perhaps there +has never been. But even the feudal ages were in practice thus +far democratic, that every feudal potentate knew that any laws +which he made would in all probability return upon himself. +His feathers might be cut off for breaking a sumptuary law. +His head might be cut off for high treason. But the modern laws are almost +always laws made to affect the governed class, but not the governing. +We have public-house licensing laws, but not sumptuary laws. +That is to say, we have laws against the festivity and hospitality of +the poor, but no laws against the festivity and hospitality of the rich. +We have laws against blasphemy--that is, against a kind of coarse +and offensive speaking in which nobody but a rough and obscure man +would be likely to indulge. But we have no laws against heresy-- +that is, against the intellectual poisoning of the whole people, +in which only a prosperous and prominent man would be likely to +be successful. The evil of aristocracy is not that it necessarily +leads to the infliction of bad things or the suffering of sad ones; +the evil of aristocracy is that it places everything in the hands +of a class of people who can always inflict what they can never suffer. +Whether what they inflict is, in their intention, good or bad, +they become equally frivolous. The case against the governing class +of modern England is not in the least that it is selfish; if you like, +you may call the English oligarchs too fantastically unselfish. +The case against them simply is that when they legislate for all men, +they always omit themselves. + +We are undemocratic, then, in our religion, as is proved by our +efforts to "raise" the poor. We are undemocratic in our government, +as is proved by our innocent attempt to govern them well. +But above all we are undemocratic in our literature, as is +proved by the torrent of novels about the poor and serious +studies of the poor which pour from our publishers every month. +And the more "modern" the book is the more certain it is to be +devoid of democratic sentiment. + +A poor man is a man who has not got much money. This may seem +a simple and unnecessary description, but in the face of a great +mass of modern fact and fiction, it seems very necessary indeed; +most of our realists and sociologists talk about a poor man as if +he were an octopus or an alligator. There is no more need to study +the psychology of poverty than to study the psychology of bad temper, +or the psychology of vanity, or the psychology of animal spirits. +A man ought to know something of the emotions of an insulted man, +not by being insulted, but simply by being a man. And he ought to know +something of the emotions of a poor man, not by being poor, but simply +by being a man. Therefore, in any writer who is describing poverty, +my first objection to him will be that he has studied his subject. +A democrat would have imagined it. + +A great many hard things have been said about religious slumming +and political or social slumming, but surely the most despicable +of all is artistic slumming. The religious teacher is at least +supposed to be interested in the costermonger because he is a man; +the politician is in some dim and perverted sense interested in +the costermonger because he is a citizen; it is only the wretched +writer who is interested in the costermonger merely because he is +a costermonger. Nevertheless, so long as he is merely seeking impressions, +or in other words copy, his trade, though dull, is honest. +But when he endeavours to represent that he is describing +the spiritual core of a costermonger, his dim vices and his +delicate virtues, then we must object that his claim is preposterous; +we must remind him that he is a journalist and nothing else. +He has far less psychological authority even than the foolish missionary. +For he is in the literal and derivative sense a journalist, +while the missionary is an eternalist. The missionary at least +pretends to have a version of the man's lot for all time; +the journalist only pretends to have a version of it from day to day. +The missionary comes to tell the poor man that he is in the same +condition with all men. The journalist comes to tell other people +how different the poor man is from everybody else. + +If the modern novels about the slums, such as novels of Mr. Arthur +Morrison, or the exceedingly able novels of Mr. Somerset Maugham, +are intended to be sensational, I can only say that that is a noble +and reasonable object, and that they attain it. A sensation, +a shock to the imagination, like the contact with cold water, +is always a good and exhilarating thing; and, undoubtedly, men will +always seek this sensation (among other forms) in the form of the study +of the strange antics of remote or alien peoples. In the twelfth century +men obtained this sensation by reading about dog-headed men in Africa. +In the twentieth century they obtained it by reading about pig-headed +Boers in Africa. The men of the twentieth century were certainly, +it must be admitted, somewhat the more credulous of the two. +For it is not recorded of the men in the twelfth century that they +organized a sanguinary crusade solely for the purpose of altering +the singular formation of the heads of the Africans. But it may be, +and it may even legitimately be, that since all these monsters have faded +from the popular mythology, it is necessary to have in our fiction +the image of the horrible and hairy East-ender, merely to keep alive +in us a fearful and childlike wonder at external peculiarities. +But the Middle Ages (with a great deal more common sense than it +would now be fashionable to admit) regarded natural history at bottom +rather as a kind of joke; they regarded the soul as very important. +Hence, while they had a natural history of dog-headed men, +they did not profess to have a psychology of dog-headed men. +They did not profess to mirror the mind of a dog-headed man, to share +his tenderest secrets, or mount with his most celestial musings. +They did not write novels about the semi-canine creature, +attributing to him all the oldest morbidities and all the newest fads. +It is permissible to present men as monsters if we wish to make +the reader jump; and to make anybody jump is always a Christian act. +But it is not permissible to present men as regarding themselves +as monsters, or as making themselves jump. To summarize, +our slum fiction is quite defensible as aesthetic fiction; +it is not defensible as spiritual fact. + +One enormous obstacle stands in the way of its actuality. +The men who write it, and the men who read it, are men of the middle +classes or the upper classes; at least, of those who are loosely termed +the educated classes. Hence, the fact that it is the life as the refined +man sees it proves that it cannot be the life as the unrefined man +lives it. Rich men write stories about poor men, and describe +them as speaking with a coarse, or heavy, or husky enunciation. +But if poor men wrote novels about you or me they would describe us +as speaking with some absurd shrill and affected voice, such as we +only hear from a duchess in a three-act farce. The slum novelist gains +his whole effect by the fact that some detail is strange to the reader; +but that detail by the nature of the case cannot be strange in itself. +It cannot be strange to the soul which he is professing to study. +The slum novelist gains his effects by describing the same grey mist +as draping the dingy factory and the dingy tavern. But to the man +he is supposed to be studying there must be exactly the same difference +between the factory and the tavern that there is to a middle-class +man between a late night at the office and a supper at Pagani's. The +slum novelist is content with pointing out that to the eye of his +particular class a pickaxe looks dirty and a pewter pot looks dirty. +But the man he is supposed to be studying sees the difference between +them exactly as a clerk sees the difference between a ledger and an +edition de luxe. The chiaroscuro of the life is inevitably lost; +for to us the high lights and the shadows are a light grey. +But the high lights and the shadows are not a light grey in that life +any more than in any other. The kind of man who could really +express the pleasures of the poor would be also the kind of man +who could share them. In short, these books are not a record +of the psychology of poverty. They are a record of the psychology +of wealth and culture when brought in contact with poverty. +They are not a description of the state of the slums. They are only +a very dark and dreadful description of the state of the slummers. +One might give innumerable examples of the essentially +unsympathetic and unpopular quality of these realistic writers. +But perhaps the simplest and most obvious example with which we +could conclude is the mere fact that these writers are realistic. +The poor have many other vices, but, at least, they are never realistic. +The poor are melodramatic and romantic in grain; the poor all believe +in high moral platitudes and copy-book maxims; probably this is +the ultimate meaning of the great saying, "Blessed are the poor." +Blessed are the poor, for they are always making life, or trying +to make life like an Adelphi play. Some innocent educationalists +and philanthropists (for even philanthropists can be innocent) +have expressed a grave astonishment that the masses prefer shilling +shockers to scientific treatises and melodramas to problem plays. +The reason is very simple. The realistic story is certainly +more artistic than the melodramatic story. If what you desire is +deft handling, delicate proportions, a unit of artistic atmosphere, +the realistic story has a full advantage over the melodrama. +In everything that is light and bright and ornamental the realistic +story has a full advantage over the melodrama. But, at least, +the melodrama has one indisputable advantage over the realistic story. +The melodrama is much more like life. It is much more like man, +and especially the poor man. It is very banal and very inartistic when a +poor woman at the Adelphi says, "Do you think I will sell my own child?" +But poor women in the Battersea High Road do say, "Do you think I +will sell my own child?" They say it on every available occasion; +you can hear a sort of murmur or babble of it all the way down +the street. It is very stale and weak dramatic art (if that is all) +when the workman confronts his master and says, "I'm a man." +But a workman does say "I'm a man" two or three times every day. +In fact, it is tedious, possibly, to hear poor men being +melodramatic behind the footlights; but that is because one can +always hear them being melodramatic in the street outside. +In short, melodrama, if it is dull, is dull because it is too accurate. +Somewhat the same problem exists in the case of stories about schoolboys. +Mr. Kipling's "Stalky and Co." is much more amusing (if you are +talking about amusement) than the late Dean Farrar's "Eric; or, +Little by Little." But "Eric" is immeasurably more like real +school-life. For real school-life, real boyhood, is full of the things +of which Eric is full--priggishness, a crude piety, a silly sin, +a weak but continual attempt at the heroic, in a word, melodrama. +And if we wish to lay a firm basis for any efforts to help the poor, +we must not become realistic and see them from the outside. +We must become melodramatic, and see them from the inside. +The novelist must not take out his notebook and say, "I am +an expert." No; he must imitate the workman in the Adelphi play. +He must slap himself on the chest and say, "I am a man." + + + +XX. Concluding Remarks on the Importance of Orthodoxy + + +Whether the human mind can advance or not, is a question too +little discussed, for nothing can be more dangerous than to found +our social philosophy on any theory which is debatable but has +not been debated. But if we assume, for the sake of argument, +that there has been in the past, or will be in the future, +such a thing as a growth or improvement of the human mind itself, +there still remains a very sharp objection to be raised against +the modern version of that improvement. The vice of the modern +notion of mental progress is that it is always something concerned +with the breaking of bonds, the effacing of boundaries, the casting +away of dogmas. But if there be such a thing as mental growth, +it must mean the growth into more and more definite convictions, +into more and more dogmas. The human brain is a machine for coming +to conclusions; if it cannot come to conclusions it is rusty. +When we hear of a man too clever to believe, we are hearing of +something having almost the character of a contradiction in terms. +It is like hearing of a nail that was too good to hold down +a carpet; or a bolt that was too strong to keep a door shut. +Man can hardly be defined, after the fashion of Carlyle, as an animal +who makes tools; ants and beavers and many other animals make tools, +in the sense that they make an apparatus. Man can be defined +as an animal that makes dogmas. As he piles doctrine on doctrine +and conclusion on conclusion in the formation of some tremendous +scheme of philosophy and religion, he is, in the only legitimate sense +of which the expression is capable, becoming more and more human. +When he drops one doctrine after another in a refined scepticism, +when he declines to tie himself to a system, when he says that he has +outgrown definitions, when he says that he disbelieves in finality, +when, in his own imagination, he sits as God, holding no form +of creed but contemplating all, then he is by that very process +sinking slowly backwards into the vagueness of the vagrant animals +and the unconsciousness of the grass. Trees have no dogmas. +Turnips are singularly broad-minded. + +If then, I repeat, there is to be mental advance, it must be mental +advance in the construction of a definite philosophy of life. And that +philosophy of life must be right and the other philosophies wrong. +Now of all, or nearly all, the able modern writers whom I have +briefly studied in this book, this is especially and pleasingly true, +that they do each of them have a constructive and affirmative view, +and that they do take it seriously and ask us to take it seriously. +There is nothing merely sceptically progressive about Mr. Rudyard Kipling. +There is nothing in the least broad minded about Mr. Bernard Shaw. +The paganism of Mr. Lowes Dickinson is more grave than any Christianity. +Even the opportunism of Mr. H. G. Wells is more dogmatic than +the idealism of anybody else. Somebody complained, I think, +to Matthew Arnold that he was getting as dogmatic as Carlyle. +He replied, "That may be true; but you overlook an obvious difference. +I am dogmatic and right, and Carlyle is dogmatic and wrong." +The strong humour of the remark ought not to disguise from us its +everlasting seriousness and common sense; no man ought to write at all, +or even to speak at all, unless he thinks that he is in truth and the other +man in error. In similar style, I hold that I am dogmatic and right, +while Mr. Shaw is dogmatic and wrong. But my main point, at present, +is to notice that the chief among these writers I have discussed +do most sanely and courageously offer themselves as dogmatists, +as founders of a system. It may be true that the thing in Mr. Shaw +most interesting to me, is the fact that Mr. Shaw is wrong. +But it is equally true that the thing in Mr. Shaw most interesting +to himself, is the fact that Mr. Shaw is right. Mr. Shaw may have +none with him but himself; but it is not for himself he cares. +It is for the vast and universal church, of which he is the only member. + +The two typical men of genius whom I have mentioned here, and with whose +names I have begun this book, are very symbolic, if only because they +have shown that the fiercest dogmatists can make the best artists. +In the fin de siecle atmosphere every one was crying out that +literature should be free from all causes and all ethical creeds. +Art was to produce only exquisite workmanship, and it was especially the +note of those days to demand brilliant plays and brilliant short stories. +And when they got them, they got them from a couple of moralists. +The best short stories were written by a man trying to preach Imperialism. +The best plays were written by a man trying to preach Socialism. +All the art of all the artists looked tiny and tedious beside +the art which was a byproduct of propaganda. + +The reason, indeed, is very simple. A man cannot be wise enough to be +a great artist without being wise enough to wish to be a philosopher. +A man cannot have the energy to produce good art without having +the energy to wish to pass beyond it. A small artist is content +with art; a great artist is content with nothing except everything. +So we find that when real forces, good or bad, like Kipling and +G. B. S., enter our arena, they bring with them not only startling +and arresting art, but very startling and arresting dogmas. And they +care even more, and desire us to care even more, about their startling +and arresting dogmas than about their startling and arresting art. +Mr. Shaw is a good dramatist, but what he desires more than +anything else to be is a good politician. Mr. Rudyard Kipling +is by divine caprice and natural genius an unconventional poet; +but what he desires more than anything else to be is a conventional poet. +He desires to be the poet of his people, bone of their bone, and flesh +of their flesh, understanding their origins, celebrating their destiny. +He desires to be Poet Laureate, a most sensible and honourable and +public-spirited desire. Having been given by the gods originality-- +that is, disagreement with others--he desires divinely to agree with them. +But the most striking instance of all, more striking, I think, +even than either of these, is the instance of Mr. H. G. Wells. +He began in a sort of insane infancy of pure art. He began by making +a new heaven and a new earth, with the same irresponsible instinct +by which men buy a new necktie or button-hole. He began by trifling +with the stars and systems in order to make ephemeral anecdotes; +he killed the universe for a joke. He has since become more and +more serious, and has become, as men inevitably do when they become +more and more serious, more and more parochial. He was frivolous about +the twilight of the gods; but he is serious about the London omnibus. +He was careless in "The Time Machine," for that dealt only with +the destiny of all things; but be is careful, and even cautious, +in "Mankind in the Making," for that deals with the day after +to-morrow. He began with the end of the world, and that was easy. +Now he has gone on to the beginning of the world, and that is difficult. +But the main result of all this is the same as in the other cases. +The men who have really been the bold artists, the realistic artists, +the uncompromising artists, are the men who have turned out, after all, +to be writing "with a purpose." Suppose that any cool and cynical +art-critic, any art-critic fully impressed with the conviction +that artists were greatest when they were most purely artistic, +suppose that a man who professed ably a humane aestheticism, +as did Mr. Max Beerbohm, or a cruel aestheticism, as did +Mr. W. E. Henley, had cast his eye over the whole fictional +literature which was recent in the year 1895, and had been asked +to select the three most vigorous and promising and original artists +and artistic works, he would, I think, most certainly have said +that for a fine artistic audacity, for a real artistic delicacy, +or for a whiff of true novelty in art, the things that stood first +were "Soldiers Three," by a Mr. Rudyard Kipling; "Arms and the Man," +by a Mr. Bernard Shaw; and "The Time Machine," by a man called Wells. +And all these men have shown themselves ingrainedly didactic. +You may express the matter if you will by saying that if we want +doctrines we go to the great artists. But it is clear from +the psychology of the matter that this is not the true statement; +the true statement is that when we want any art tolerably brisk +and bold we have to go to the doctrinaires. + +In concluding this book, therefore, I would ask, first and foremost, +that men such as these of whom I have spoken should not be insulted +by being taken for artists. No man has any right whatever merely +to enjoy the work of Mr. Bernard Shaw; he might as well enjoy +the invasion of his country by the French. Mr. Shaw writes either +to convince or to enrage us. No man has any business to be a +Kiplingite without being a politician, and an Imperialist politician. +If a man is first with us, it should be because of what is first with him. +If a man convinces us at all, it should be by his convictions. +If we hate a poem of Kipling's from political passion, we are hating it +for the same reason that the poet loved it; if we dislike him because of +his opinions, we are disliking him for the best of all possible reasons. +If a man comes into Hyde Park to preach it is permissible to hoot him; +but it is discourteous to applaud him as a performing bear. +And an artist is only a performing bear compared with the meanest +man who fancies he has anything to say. + +There is, indeed, one class of modern writers and thinkers who cannot +altogether be overlooked in this question, though there is no space +here for a lengthy account of them, which, indeed, to confess +the truth, would consist chiefly of abuse. I mean those who get +over all these abysses and reconcile all these wars by talking about +"aspects of truth," by saying that the art of Kipling represents +one aspect of the truth, and the art of William Watson another; +the art of Mr. Bernard Shaw one aspect of the truth, and the art +of Mr. Cunningham Grahame another; the art of Mr. H. G. Wells +one aspect, and the art of Mr. Coventry Patmore (say) another. +I will only say here that this seems to me an evasion which has +not even bad the sense to disguise itself ingeniously in words. +If we talk of a certain thing being an aspect of truth, +it is evident that we claim to know what is truth; just as, if we +talk of the hind leg of a dog, we claim to know what is a dog. +Unfortunately, the philosopher who talks about aspects of truth +generally also asks, "What is truth?" Frequently even he denies +the existence of truth, or says it is inconceivable by the +human intelligence. How, then, can he recognize its aspects? +I should not like to be an artist who brought an architectural sketch +to a builder, saying, "This is the south aspect of Sea-View Cottage. +Sea-View Cottage, of course, does not exist." I should not even +like very much to have to explain, under such circumstances, +that Sea-View Cottage might exist, but was unthinkable by the human mind. +Nor should I like any better to be the bungling and absurd metaphysician +who professed to be able to see everywhere the aspects of a truth +that is not there. Of course, it is perfectly obvious that there +are truths in Kipling, that there are truths in Shaw or Wells. +But the degree to which we can perceive them depends strictly upon +how far we have a definite conception inside us of what is truth. +It is ludicrous to suppose that the more sceptical we are the more we +see good in everything. It is clear that the more we are certain +what good is, the more we shall see good in everything. + +I plead, then, that we should agree or disagree with these men. I plead +that we should agree with them at least in having an abstract belief. +But I know that there are current in the modern world many vague +objections to having an abstract belief, and I feel that we shall +not get any further until we have dealt with some of them. +The first objection is easily stated. + +A common hesitation in our day touching the use of extreme convictions +is a sort of notion that extreme convictions specially upon cosmic matters, +have been responsible in the past for the thing which is called bigotry. +But a very small amount of direct experience will dissipate this view. +In real life the people who are most bigoted are the people +who have no convictions at all. The economists of the Manchester +school who disagree with Socialism take Socialism seriously. +It is the young man in Bond Street, who does not know what socialism +means much less whether he agrees with it, who is quite certain +that these socialist fellows are making a fuss about nothing. +The man who understands the Calvinist philosophy enough to agree with it +must understand the Catholic philosophy in order to disagree with it. +It is the vague modern who is not at all certain what is right +who is most certain that Dante was wrong. The serious opponent +of the Latin Church in history, even in the act of showing that it +produced great infamies, must know that it produced great saints. +It is the hard-headed stockbroker, who knows no history and +believes no religion, who is, nevertheless, perfectly convinced +that all these priests are knaves. The Salvationist at the Marble +Arch may be bigoted, but he is not too bigoted to yearn from +a common human kinship after the dandy on church parade. +But the dandy on church parade is so bigoted that he does not +in the least yearn after the Salvationist at the Marble Arch. +Bigotry may be roughly defined as the anger of men who have +no opinions. It is the resistance offered to definite ideas +by that vague bulk of people whose ideas are indefinite to excess. +Bigotry may be called the appalling frenzy of the indifferent. +This frenzy of the indifferent is in truth a terrible thing; +it has made all monstrous and widely pervading persecutions. +In this degree it was not the people who cared who ever persecuted; +the people who cared were not sufficiently numerous. It was the people +who did not care who filled the world with fire and oppression. +It was the hands of the indifferent that lit the faggots; +it was the hands of the indifferent that turned the rack. There have +come some persecutions out of the pain of a passionate certainty; +but these produced, not bigotry, but fanaticism--a very different +and a somewhat admirable thing. Bigotry in the main has always +been the pervading omnipotence of those who do not care crushing +out those who care in darkness and blood. + +There are people, however, who dig somewhat deeper than this +into the possible evils of dogma. It is felt by many that strong +philosophical conviction, while it does not (as they perceive) +produce that sluggish and fundamentally frivolous condition which we +call bigotry, does produce a certain concentration, exaggeration, +and moral impatience, which we may agree to call fanaticism. +They say, in brief, that ideas are dangerous things. +In politics, for example, it is commonly urged against a man like +Mr. Balfour, or against a man like Mr. John Morley, that a wealth +of ideas is dangerous. The true doctrine on this point, again, +is surely not very difficult to state. Ideas are dangerous, +but the man to whom they are least dangerous is the man of ideas. +He is acquainted with ideas, and moves among them like a lion-tamer. +Ideas are dangerous, but the man to whom they are most dangerous +is the man of no ideas. The man of no ideas will find the first +idea fly to his head like wine to the head of a teetotaller. +It is a common error, I think, among the Radical idealists of my own +party and period to suggest that financiers and business men are a +danger to the empire because they are so sordid or so materialistic. +The truth is that financiers and business men are a danger to +the empire because they can be sentimental about any sentiment, +and idealistic about any ideal, any ideal that they find lying about. +just as a boy who has not known much of women is apt too easily +to take a woman for the woman, so these practical men, unaccustomed +to causes, are always inclined to think that if a thing is proved +to be an ideal it is proved to be the ideal. Many, for example, +avowedly followed Cecil Rhodes because he had a vision. +They might as well have followed him because he had a nose; +a man without some kind of dream of perfection is quite as much +of a monstrosity as a noseless man. People say of such a figure, +in almost feverish whispers, "He knows his own mind," which is exactly +like saying in equally feverish whispers, "He blows his own nose." +Human nature simply cannot subsist without a hope and aim +of some kind; as the sanity of the Old Testament truly said, +where there is no vision the people perisheth. But it is precisely +because an ideal is necessary to man that the man without ideals +is in permanent danger of fanaticism. There is nothing which is +so likely to leave a man open to the sudden and irresistible inroad +of an unbalanced vision as the cultivation of business habits. +All of us know angular business men who think that the earth is flat, +or that Mr. Kruger was at the head of a great military despotism, +or that men are graminivorous, or that Bacon wrote Shakespeare. +Religious and philosophical beliefs are, indeed, as dangerous +as fire, and nothing can take from them that beauty of danger. +But there is only one way of really guarding ourselves against +the excessive danger of them, and that is to be steeped in philosophy +and soaked in religion. + +Briefly, then, we dismiss the two opposite dangers of bigotry +and fanaticism, bigotry which is a too great vagueness and fanaticism +which is a too great concentration. We say that the cure for the +bigot is belief; we say that the cure for the idealist is ideas. +To know the best theories of existence and to choose the best +from them (that is, to the best of our own strong conviction) +appears to us the proper way to be neither bigot nor fanatic, +but something more firm than a bigot and more terrible than a fanatic, +a man with a definite opinion. But that definite opinion must +in this view begin with the basic matters of human thought, +and these must not be dismissed as irrelevant, as religion, +for instance, is too often in our days dismissed as irrelevant. +Even if we think religion insoluble, we cannot think it irrelevant. +Even if we ourselves have no view of the ultimate verities, +we must feel that wherever such a view exists in a man it must +be more important than anything else in him. The instant that +the thing ceases to be the unknowable, it becomes the indispensable. +There can be no doubt, I think, that the idea does exist in our +time that there is something narrow or irrelevant or even mean +about attacking a man's religion, or arguing from it in matters +of politics or ethics. There can be quite as little doubt that such +an accusation of narrowness is itself almost grotesquely narrow. +To take an example from comparatively current events: we all know +that it was not uncommon for a man to be considered a scarecrow +of bigotry and obscurantism because he distrusted the Japanese, +or lamented the rise of the Japanese, on the ground that the Japanese +were Pagans. Nobody would think that there was anything antiquated +or fanatical about distrusting a people because of some difference +between them and us in practice or political machinery. +Nobody would think it bigoted to say of a people, "I distrust their +influence because they are Protectionists." No one would think it +narrow to say, "I lament their rise because they are Socialists, +or Manchester Individualists, or strong believers in militarism +and conscription." A difference of opinion about the nature +of Parliaments matters very much; but a difference of opinion about +the nature of sin does not matter at all. A difference of opinion +about the object of taxation matters very much; but a difference +of opinion about the object of human existence does not matter at all. +We have a right to distrust a man who is in a different kind +of municipality; but we have no right to mistrust a man who is in +a different kind of cosmos. This sort of enlightenment is surely +about the most unenlightened that it is possible to imagine. +To recur to the phrase which I employed earlier, this is tantamount +to saying that everything is important with the exception of everything. +Religion is exactly the thing which cannot be left out-- +because it includes everything. The most absent-minded person +cannot well pack his Gladstone-bag and leave out the bag. +We have a general view of existence, whether we like it or not; +it alters or, to speak more accurately, it creates and involves +everything we say or do, whether we like it or not. If we regard +the Cosmos as a dream, we regard the Fiscal Question as a dream. +If we regard the Cosmos as a joke, we regard St. Paul's Cathedral as +a joke. If everything is bad, then we must believe (if it be possible) +that beer is bad; if everything be good, we are forced to the rather +fantastic conclusion that scientific philanthropy is good. Every man +in the street must hold a metaphysical system, and hold it firmly. +The possibility is that he may have held it so firmly and so long +as to have forgotten all about its existence. + +This latter situation is certainly possible; in fact, it is the situation +of the whole modern world. The modern world is filled with men who hold +dogmas so strongly that they do not even know that they are dogmas. +It may be said even that the modern world, as a corporate body, +holds certain dogmas so strongly that it does not know that they +are dogmas. It may be thought "dogmatic," for instance, in some +circles accounted progressive, to assume the perfection or improvement +of man in another world. But it is not thought "dogmatic" to assume +the perfection or improvement of man in this world; though that idea +of progress is quite as unproved as the idea of immortality, +and from a rationalistic point of view quite as improbable. +Progress happens to be one of our dogmas, and a dogma means +a thing which is not thought dogmatic. Or, again, we see nothing +"dogmatic" in the inspiring, but certainly most startling, +theory of physical science, that we should collect facts for the sake +of facts, even though they seem as useless as sticks and straws. +This is a great and suggestive idea, and its utility may, +if you will, be proving itself, but its utility is, in the abstract, +quite as disputable as the utility of that calling on oracles +or consulting shrines which is also said to prove itself. +Thus, because we are not in a civilization which believes strongly +in oracles or sacred places, we see the full frenzy of those who +killed themselves to find the sepulchre of Christ. But being in a +civilization which does believe in this dogma of fact for facts' sake, +we do not see the full frenzy of those who kill themselves to find +the North Pole. I am not speaking of a tenable ultimate utility +which is true both of the Crusades and the polar explorations. +I mean merely that we do see the superficial and aesthetic singularity, +the startling quality, about the idea of men crossing a +continent with armies to conquer the place where a man died. +But we do not see the aesthetic singularity and startling quality +of men dying in agonies to find a place where no man can live-- +a place only interesting because it is supposed to be the meeting-place +of some lines that do not exist. + +Let us, then, go upon a long journey and enter on a dreadful search. +Let us, at least, dig and seek till we have discovered our own opinions. +The dogmas we really hold are far more fantastic, and, perhaps, far more +beautiful than we think. In the course of these essays I fear that I +have spoken from time to time of rationalists and rationalism, +and that in a disparaging sense. Being full of that kindliness +which should come at the end of everything, even of a book, +I apologize to the rationalists even for calling them rationalists. +There are no rationalists. We all believe fairy-tales, and live in them. +Some, with a sumptuous literary turn, believe in the existence of the lady +clothed with the sun. Some, with a more rustic, elvish instinct, +like Mr. McCabe, believe merely in the impossible sun itself. +Some hold the undemonstrable dogma of the existence of God; +some the equally undemonstrable dogma of the existence of the +man next door. + +Truths turn into dogmas the instant that they are disputed. +Thus every man who utters a doubt defines a religion. And the scepticism +of our time does not really destroy the beliefs, rather it creates them; +gives them their limits and their plain and defiant shape. +We who are Liberals once held Liberalism lightly as a truism. +Now it has been disputed, and we hold it fiercely as a faith. +We who believe in patriotism once thought patriotism to be reasonable, +and thought little more about it. Now we know it to be unreasonable, +and know it to be right. We who are Christians never knew the great +philosophic common sense which inheres in that mystery until +the anti-Christian writers pointed it out to us. The great march +of mental destruction will go on. Everything will be denied. +Everything will become a creed. It is a reasonable position +to deny the stones in the street; it will be a religious dogma +to assert them. It is a rational thesis that we are all in a dream; +it will be a mystical sanity to say that we are all awake. +Fires will be kindled to testify that two and two make four. +Swords will be drawn to prove that leaves are green in summer. +We shall be left defending, not only the incredible virtues +and sanities of human life, but something more incredible still, +this huge impossible universe which stares us in the face. +We shall fight for visible prodigies as if they were invisible. We shall +look on the impossible grass and the skies with a strange courage. +We shall be of those who have seen and yet have believed. + + + + + +End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of Heretics, by G. K. Chesterton + |