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diff --git a/old/53261-h/53261-h.htm b/old/53261-h/53261-h.htm deleted file mode 100644 index 2b93eee..0000000 --- a/old/53261-h/53261-h.htm +++ /dev/null @@ -1,5406 +0,0 @@ -<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" - "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> -<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> - <head> - <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> - <meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> - <title> - The Project Gutenberg eBook of We Moderns: Enigmas and Guesses, by Edwin Muir. - </title> - <style type="text/css"> - -body { - margin-left: 10%; - margin-right: 10%; -} - - h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { - text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ - clear: both; -} - -p { - margin-top: .51em; - text-align: justify; - margin-bottom: .49em; -} - -.p2 {margin-top: 2em;} -.p4 {margin-top: 4em;} -.p6 {margin-top: 6em;} - -hr { - width: 33%; - margin-top: 2em; - margin-bottom: 2em; - margin-left: auto; - margin-right: auto; - clear: both; -} - -hr.tb {width: 45%;} -hr.chap {width: 65%} -hr.full {width: 95%;} - -hr.r5 {width: 5%; margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 1em;} -hr.r65 {width: 65%; margin-top: 3em; margin-bottom: 3em;} - -table { - margin-left: auto; - margin-right: auto; -} - - .tdl {text-align: left;} - .tdr {text-align: right;} - .tdc {text-align: center;} - - -a:link {color: #000099; text-decoration: none; } - -v:link {color: #000099; text-decoration: none; } - -.center {text-align: center;} - -.right {text-align: right;} - - -.caption {font-weight: bold;} - -/* Images */ -.figcenter { - margin: auto; - text-align: center; -} - -.figleft { - float: left; - clear: left; - margin-left: 0; - margin-bottom: 1em; - margin-top: 1em; - margin-right: 1em; - padding: 0; - text-align: center; -} - -.figright { - float: right; - clear: right; - margin-left: 1em; - margin-bottom: - 1em; - margin-top: 1em; - margin-right: 0; - padding: 0; - text-align: center; -} - -/* Footnotes */ -.footnotes {border: dashed 1px;} - -.footnote {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} - -.footnote .label {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;} - -.fnanchor { - vertical-align: super; - font-size: .8em; - text-decoration: - none; -} - - </style> - </head> -<body> - - -<pre> - -The Project Gutenberg EBook of We Moderns, by Edwin Muir and H. L. Mencken - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: We Moderns - Enigmas and Guesses - -Author: Edwin Muir - H. L. Mencken - -Release Date: October 11, 2016 [EBook #53261] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WE MODERNS *** - - - - -Produced by Marc D'Hooghe at Free Literature (online soon -in an extended version, also linking to free sources for -education worldwide ... MOOC's, educational materials,...) -Images generously made available by the Internet Achive. - - - - - - -</pre> - - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"> -<img src="images/cover.jpg" width="500" alt="" /> -</div> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"> -<img src="images/title.jpg" width="500" alt="" /> -<h1 class="p2">WE MODERNS:</h1> - -<h3>ENIGMAS AND GUESSES</h3> - -<h3>By</h3> - -<h2>EDWIN MUIR</h2> - -<h5>THE FREE LANCE BOOKS</h5> - -<h4>Edited with Introduction by H. L. Mencken</h4> - -<h5>NEW YORK ALFRED. A. KNOPF</h5> - -<h5>MCMXX</h5> - - -<hr class="full" /> -<h4>CONTENTS</h4> - -</div> -<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="" style="font-size: 0.8em;"> -<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right"></td><td align="left">INTRODUCTION</td></tr> -<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">I.—</td><td align="left"><a href="#I">THE OLD AGE</a>,</td></tr> -<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">II.—</td><td align="left"><a href="#II">ORIGINAL SIN</a>,</td></tr> -<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">III.—</td><td align="left"><a href="#III">WHAT IS MODERN?</a></td></tr> -<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">IV.—</td><td align="left"><a href="#IV">ART AND LITERATURE</a>,</td></tr> -<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">V.—</td><td align="left"><a href="#V">CREATIVE LOVE</a>,</td></tr> -<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">VI.—</td><td align="left"><a href="#VI">THE TRAGIC VIEW</a>.</td></tr> -</table> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<h4><a name="INTRODUCTION" id="INTRODUCTION">INTRODUCTION</a></h4> - - -<p>That a young Scotsman, reacting from the vast emotional assault of -the late ferocious war, should have withdrawn himself into an ivory -tower in Glasgow town, and there sat himself down in heroic calm -to wrestle with the vexatious and no doubt intrinsically insoluble -problems of being and becoming—this was surely nothing to cause, -whispers among connoisseurs of philosophical passion, for that grim, -persistent, cold-blooded concern with the fundamental mysteries of the -world has been the habit of the Scots ever since they emerged from -massacre and blue paint. From blue paint, indeed, the transition was -almost instantaneous to blue souls, and the conscience of Britain, -such as it is, has dwelt north of the Cheviot Hills ever since. -Find a Scot, and you are at once beset by a metaphysician, or, at -all events, by a theologian. But for a young man of those damp, -desolate parts, throwing himself into the racial trance, to emerge -with a set of ideas reaching back, through Nietzsche and even worse -heretics, to the spacious, innocent, somewhat gaudy days of the Greek -illumination—for such a fellow, so bred and circumscribed, to come -out of his tower with a concept of life as a grand and glittering -adventure, a tremendous spectacle, an overpowering ecstasy, almost -an orgy—such a phenomenon was, and is, quite sufficient to lift the -judicious eyebrow. Yet here is this Mr. Edwin Muir of Caledonia bearing -just that outlandish contraband, offering just that strange flouting -of all things traditionally Scotch. What he preaches in the ensuing -aphorisms is the emancipation of the modern spirit from its rotting -heritage of ingenuous fears and exploded certainties. What he denounces -most bitterly is the abandonment of a world that is beautifully -surprising and charming to the rule of sordid, timid and unimaginative -men—the regimentation of ideas in a system that is half a denial of -the obvious and half a conglomeration of outworn metaphors, all taken -too literally. And what he pleads for most eloquently, with his cold, -reserved northern eloquence, is the whole-hearted acceptance of "life -as a sacrament,... life as joy triumphing over fate,... life made -innocent,... life washed free from how much filth of remorse, guilt, -contempt, 'sin'."...</p> - -<p>It goes without saying that the red hand of Nietzsche is in all -this. The Naumburg Antichrist, damned for five years running by -the indignation of all right-thinking men, has made steady and -enormous progress under cover. There has never been a time, indeed, -when his notions enjoyed a wider dispersion or were poll-parrotted -unwittingly by greater numbers of the righteous. Excessive draughts -of the democratic cure-all, swallowed label, cork, testimonials and -all, have brought Christendom to bed with <i>Katzenjammer—</i>and there -stands the seductive antidote in its leering blue bottles. Where would -philosophical opponents of Bolshevism be without Nietzsche? Who would -devise arguments for them, eloquence for them, phrases for them? On all -sides one hears echoes of him—often transformed from his harsh bass -to a piping falsetto, but nevertheless recognizable enough. Any port -in a storm! If God is asleep, then turn to the Devil! The show offers -the best laughing that heathen have enjoyed, perhaps, since the Hundred -Years' War. And there is an extra snicker in the fact that Scotland, -once again, seems to resume the old trade of intellectual smuggling. -If one Scot is to the front with so forthright a piece as "We Moderns," -then surely there must be a thousand other Scots hard at it in a -<i>pianissimo</i> manner. Thus, I suppose, the crime of Carlyle is repeated -on a wholesale scale, and once again the poor Sassenach is inoculated -with pathogenic Prussian organisms. On this side of the ocean the -business is less efficiently organized; we have no race of illicit -metaphysicians on our border. But the goods come in all the same. I -have heard more prattling of stale Nietzscheism of late, from men -bearing the flag in one hand and the cross in the other, than I ever -heard in the old days from parlour anarchists and unfrocked priests. -Nietzsche, belatedly discovered by a world beset by terrors too great -for it and mysteries too profound, becomes almost respectable, nay, -almost Episcopalian!</p> - -<p>What ails it, at bottom, is the delusion that all the mysteries, given -doctors enough, theories enough, pills enough, may be solved—that it -is all a matter of finding a panacea, unearthing a prophet, passing -a bill. If it turns to Nietzsche, however gingerly and suspiciously, -it will turn only to fresh disappointment and dismay, for Nietzsche -is no quack with another sure cure, but simply an iconoclast who shows -that all the sure cures of the past and present have failed, and -<i>must</i> fail—and particularly the sure cure of the mob, the scheme -of determining the diagnosis by taking a vote, the notion that the -medicine which most pleases the grossest palates is the medicine to get -the patient upon his legs. Nietzsche is no reformer; he is an assassin -of reformers; if he preaches anything at all, it is that reform is -useless, illusory—above all, unnecessary. The patient is really not -dying at all. Let him get up and dance! Let him pick up his bed and -employ it upon the skulls of his physicians! Life is not a disease to -be treated with boluses and philtres, not an affliction to be shirked -and sentimentalized, but an adventure to be savoured and enjoyed—life, -here and now, is the highest imaginable experience. What the world -needs is not a cure for it, but room for it, freedom for it, innocent -zest for it. So accepted and regarded, half of its terrors vanish at -once, and even its unescapable catastrophes take on a certain high -stateliness, a fine æsthetic dignity. This is the tragic view that Mr. -Muir cries up—life as joy triumphing over fate. "For the character of -tragedy is not negative and condemnatory, but deeply affirmative and -joyous." The ideal man is not the time-serving slave of Christendom, -in endless terror of God, forever flattering and bribing God, but the -Nietzschean <i>Ja-sager,</i> the yes-sayer, facing destiny courageously and -a bit proudly, living to the full the life that lies within his grasp -in the present, accepting its terms as he finds them, undaunted by the -impenetrable shadows that loom ahead.</p> - -<p>What Mr. Muir, following Nietzsche, is most dissatisfied with in the -modern spirt is its intolerable legalism—its fatuous frenzy to work -everything out to nine places of constabulary decimals, to establish -windy theories and principles, to break the soul of man to a rule. -In part, of course, that effort is of respectable enough origin. It -springs from intelligent self-assertion, healthy curiosity, the sense -of competence; it is a by-product of the unexampled conquests of nature -that have gone on in the modern age. But in other parts it is no more -than a by-product of the democratic spirit, the rise of the inferior, -the emancipation of the essentially in competent. Science is no -longer self-sufficient, isolated from moral ideas, an end in itself; -it tends to become a mere agent of mob tyranny; it takes on gratuitous -and incomprehensible duties and responsibilities; like the theology -that it has supplanted, it has friendlier and friendlier dealings with -the secular arm. And art, too, begins to be poisoned by this moral -obsession of the awakened proletariat. It ceases to be an expression -of well-being, of healthy functioning, of unpolluted joy in life, and -becomes a thing of obscure and snuffling purposes, a servant of some -low enterprise of the cocksure. The mob is surely no scientist and no -artist; it is, in fact, eternally the anti-scientist, the anti-artist; -science and art offer it unscalable heights and are hence its enemies. -But in a world dominated by mob yearnings and mob passions, even -science and art must take on some colour from below. The enemies, if -they cannot be met and overthrown on a fair field, can at least be -degraded. And when the mob degrades, it always degrades to moral tunes. -Morality is its one avenue to superiority—false but none the less -soothing. It can always be good. It can always dignify its stupidity, -its sordidness and its cowardice with terms borrowed from ethical -revelation. The good man is a numskull, but nevertheless he is good.</p> - -<p>Mr. Muir has at the modern spirit on many other counts, but nearly -all of them may be converted with more or less plausibility into an -objection to its ethical obsession, its idiotic craze to legislate -and admonish. When he says, for example, that realism in the novel -and the drama is hollow, he leaves his case but half stated; there -is undoubtedly a void where imagination, feeling and a true sense -of the tragic ought to be, but it is filled with the common garbage -of mob thinking, to wit, with the common garbage of moral purpose. -All of the chief realists, from Zola to Barbusse, are pre-eminently -moralists disguised as scientists; what one derives from them, reading -them sympathetically, is not illumination but merely indignation. They -are always violently against something—and that something is usually -the fact that the world is not as secure and placid a place as a -Methodist Sunday-school. Their affectation of moral agnosticism need -deceive no one. They are secretly appalled (and delighted) by their -own "scientific" pornographies, just as their brethren of the vice -crusades are appalled and delighted. Realism, of course, can never be -absolute. It must always stress something and leave out something. What -it commonly stresses is the colossal failure of society to fit into -an orderly scheme of causes and effects, virtues and rewards, crimes -and punishments. What it leaves out is the glow of romance that hangs -about that failure—the poignant drama of blind chance, the fascination -of the unknowable. The realists are bad artists because they are -anæsthetic to beauty. And a good many scientists are bad scientists -for precisely the same reason. In their hands the gorgeous struggle of -man against the mysteries and foul ambuscades of nature is converted -into a banal cause before a police court, with the complainant put -on the stand to prove that his own hands are clean. One cannot read -some of the modern medical literature, particularly on the side of -public hygiene, without giving one's sympathy to the tubercle bacilli -and the spirochætæ. Science of that sort ceases to be a fit concern -for men of dignity, superior men, gentlemen; it becomes a concern for -evangelists, uplifters, bounders. Its aim is no longer to penetrate -the impenetrable, to push forward the bounds of human knowledge, to -overreach the sinister trickeries of God; its aim is simply to lengthen -the lives of human ciphers and to reinforce their delusion that they -confer a favour upon the universe by living at all. Worse, it converts -the salvation of such vacuums into a moral obligation, and sets up -the absurd doctrine that human progress is furthered by diminishing -the death-rate in the Balkans, by rescuing Georgia crackers from the -hookworm and by reducing the whole American people, the civilized -minority with the barbarian mass, to a race of teetotalling ascetics, -full of pious indignations and Freudian suppressions.</p> - -<p>The western world reeks with this new sentimentality. It came on in -Europe with the fall of feudalism and the rise of the lower orders. -Even war, the last surviving enterprise of natural man, has been -transformed from a healthy play of innocent instincts into a combat -of moral ideas, nine-tenths of them obviously unsound. It no longer -offers a career to a Gustavus Adolphus, a Prince Eugene or a Napoleon -I. It loses even the spirit of gallant adventure that dignified the -theological balderdash of the Crusades—in which, as every one knows, -the balderdash was quickly absorbed altogether by the adventure. It -becomes the business of specialists in moral indignation. The modern -general must not only know the elements of military science; he -must also show some of the gifts of a chautauqua orator, including -particularly the gift of right-thinking; it would do him more harm -to speak of his opponent with professional politeness, as one lawyer -might speak of another, than it would do him to lose an important -battle. Worse, war gets out of the hands of soldiers altogether. It -becomes an undertaking of boob-bumpers, spy-hunters, emotion-pumpers, -propaganda-mongers—all sorts of disgusting cads. Its great prizes -tend to go, not to the men fighting in the field, but to the man -manufacturing shells, alarms, and moral indignation. At the time of -the last great series of wars it was said that every musketeer of -France carried a marshal's baton in his haversack. The haversack of the -musketeer now contains only official literature, informing him of the -causes of the war as most lately determined, the names of its appointed -moral heroes, and the penalties for discussing its aims, for swapping -tobacco with the boys on the other side, and for inviting a pretty -peasant-girl into his shell-hole. The baton is being fought for by a -press-agent, a labour leader and a Y.M.C.A. secretary.</p> - -<p>It is against such degradations that Mr. Muir raises his voice, and -in particular against such degradations in the field of the fine -arts. The superficial, I daresay, will mistake him (once they get -over the sheer immorality of his relation to Nietzsche) as simply one -more pleader for <i>l'art pour l'art—</i>one more prophet of a superior -and disembodied æstheticism. Well, turn to his singularly acute and -accurate estimate of Walter Pater: there is the answer to that error. -He has, in fact, no leanings whatsoever in any such direction. The -thing he argues for, despite all his fury against the debasement of -art to mob uses, is not an art that shall be transcendental, but an -art that shall relate itself to life primarily and unashamedly, an art -that shall accept and celebrate life. He preaches, of course, out of -season. There has never been a time in the history of the world when -the natural delight of man in himself was held in greater suspicion. -Christianity, after two thousand years, seems triumphant at last. -From the ashes of its barbaric theology there arises the phoenix of -its maudlin sentimentality; the worship of inferiority becomes its -dominating cult. In all directions that worship goes on. It gives a new -colour to politics, and not only to politics, but also to the sciences -and the arts. Perhaps we are at the mere beginning of the process. The -doctrine that all men are equal in the sight of God is now defended -and propagated by machine guns; it becomes a felony to deny it; one is -already taxed in America to make good the lofty aspirations of Poles, -Jugo-Slavs and Armenians. In England there are signs of a further step. -An Ehrlich or a Koch, miraculously at work there, might be jailed for -slitting the throat of a white rat: all the lower animals, too, it -appears, are God's creatures. So viewed, a guinea-pig becomes the peer -of a Beethoven, as a farm-hand is already the peer of a Bach. It is too -late to turn back; let us hope that the logic of it is quickly worked -out to its unescapable conclusion. Once the <i>pediculus vestimenti</i> and -the streptococcus are protected, there will be a chance again, it may -be, for the law of natural selection to achieve its benign purgation.</p> - -<p>Meanwhile, Mr. Muir cannot expect his ideas to get much attention. -A gaudy parade is passing and the populace is busy cheering. -Nevertheless, they were ideas worth playing with, and they are now -worth printing and pondering. It seems to me that, in more than one -way, they help to illuminate the central æsthetic question—the problem -as to the nature and function of artistic representation. They start -from Nietzschean beginnings, but they get further than Nietzsche ever -got. His whole æsthetic was hampered by the backwardness of psychology -in his time. He made many a brilliant guess, but more than once he was -hauled up rather sharply by his ignorance of the machinery of thought. -Mr. Muir not only has Nietzsche behind him; he also has Freud, as he -shows, for example, in §145. Beyond him there is still a lot of room. -He will not stop the parade—but he will help the next man.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Edwin Muir was born in the Orkney Islands in 1887. His father was a -small crofter there. When he was fourteen years old the family moved -to Glasgow. Within four years his father, his mother and two older -brothers died, and he was forced to fend for himself. He became a -clerk in a Glasgow office and remained there until very recently, when -he moved to London. Like all other young men with the itch to write, he -tried poetry before prose, and his first verses were printed in <i>The -New Age.</i> But his discovery of Nietzsche, at the age of twenty-two, -exerted such a powerful influence upon him that he soon turned to -prose, and five or six years later his first philosophical speculations -were printed, again in <i>The New Age.</i> They attracted attention and were -republished in book-form, in 1918, as "We Moderns." At the last minute -the author succumbed to modesty and put the <i>nom de plume</i> of Edward -Moore upon his book. But now, in this American edition (for which he -has made certain revisions), he returns to his own name.</p> - -<p style="margin-left: 65%; font-size: 0.8em;">H. L. MENCKEN.</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<h4><a name="I" id="I">I</a></h4> - - -<h4>THE OLD AGE</h4> - - -<p class="p2">1</p> - -<p><i>The Advanced</i></p> - -<p>Among the advanced one observes a strange contradiction: the existence -in one and the same person of confidence and enthusiasm about certain -aspects of life along with diffidence and pessimism about life -itself. The advanced have made up their minds about all the problems -of existence but not about the problem of existence. In dealing with -these problems they find their greatest happiness; they are there -sure-footed, convinced and convincing. But brought face to face with -that other problem, how helpless, vacillating and spiritless are they! -What! are propaganda, reform, and even revolution, perchance, with many -of them simply their escape from their problem?</p> - - -<p class="p2">2</p> - -<p><i>The Intellectual Coquettes</i></p> - -<p>An intellectual coquetry is one of the worst vices of this age. From -what does it arise? From fear of a decision? Or from love of freedom? -It cannot be from the latter, for to abstain from a choice is not -freedom but irresponsibility. To be free, is, on the contrary, itself -a choice, a decision involving, in its acceptance, responsibility. And -it is responsibility that the intellectual coquettes fear: rather than -admit that one burden they will bear all the others of scepticism, -pessimism and impotence. To accept a new gospel, to live it out in all -its ramifications, is too troublesome, too dangerous. The average man -in them pleads, "Be prudent! Where may not this resolution lead you? -Through what perils? Into what hells?" And so they remain in their -prison house of doubt, neither Pagans nor Christians, neither Theists -nor Atheists, ignorant of the fact that they are slaves and that a -decision would set them free.</p> - -<p>But in the end the soul has its revenge, for their coquetry destroys -not only the power but the will to choose. To flirt with dangerous -ideas in a graceful manner: that becomes their destiny. For the -intellectual coquette, like other coquettes, dislikes above everything -passion—passion with its seriousness, sincerity and—demand for a -decision.</p> - - -<p class="p2">3</p> - -<p><i>Modern Realism</i></p> - -<p>How crude and shallow is the whole theory of modern realism: a -theory of art by the average man for the average man! It makes art -intelligible by simplifying or popularizing it; in short, as Nietzsche -would say, by vulgarizing it. The average man perceives, for instance, -that there is in great drama an element of representation. Come, he -says, let us make the representation as "thorough" as possible! Let -every detail of the original be reproduced! Let us have life as it -is lived! And when he has accomplished this, when representation has -become reproduction, he is very well pleased and thinks how far he has -advanced beyond the poor Greeks. But it is hardly so! For the Greeks -did not aim at the reproduction but at the interpretation of life, -for which they would accept no symbol less noble than those <i>ideal</i> -figures which move in the world of classical tragedy. To the Greeks, -indeed, the world of art was precisely this world: not a paltry, -sober and conscientious dexterity in the "catching" of the aspects -of existence (nothing so easy!), but a symbolizing of the deepest -questions and enigmas of life—a thing infinitely more noble, profound -and subtle than realistic art. The Greeks would have demanded of -realism, Why do you exist? What noble end is served by the reproduction -of ordinary existence? Are you not simply superfluous—and vilely -smelling at that? And realism could have given no reply, for the truth -is that realism <i>is</i> superfluous. It is without a <i>raison d'être.</i></p> - -<p>The average man, however, takes a second glance at classical tragedy -and reaches a second discovery. There is something enigmatical, -he finds, behind the Greek clearness of representation, something -unexplained; in short, a problem. This problem, however, is not -sufficiently clear. Let us state our problems clearly, he cries! Let -us have problems which can be recognized at a glance by every one! Let -us write a play about "the marriage question," or bad-housing, or the -Labour Party! But, again, the theory of the Greeks, at least before -Euripides, was altogether different. The "problem" in their tragedies -was precisely not a problem which could be stated in a syllogism or -solved in a treatise: it was the eternal problem, and it was not stated -to be "solved."</p> - -<p>Thus the Moderns, in their attempt to simplify art, to understand it -or misunderstand it—what does it matter which word is used?—have -succeeded in destroying it. The realistic and the "problem" drama alike -are for the inartistic. The first is drama without a <i>raison d'être,</i> -the second is a <i>raison d'être</i> without drama.</p> - - -<p class="p2">4</p> - -<p><i>The Modern Tragic</i></p> - -<p>In realistic novels and dramas a new type of the tragic has been -evolved. It may be called tragedy without a meaning. In classical -and Shakespearean tragedy, the inevitable calamities incident to -human existence were given significance and nobility by the poets. -That interpretive power of drama was, indeed, the essential thing to -the great artists, to whom representation was only a means. But the -realists with their shallow rationalizing of art have changed all -that. They have cut out the essential part of drama so as to make the -other part more "complete": in short, their tragedy is now simply -"tragedy" in the newspaper sense. And it is obvious that this kind -of "art" is much easier to produce than tragedy in the grand style: -one has not even to read a meaning into it. This absence of meaning, -however, is itself, in the long run, made to appear the last word of an -unfathomably ironical wisdom. And in this light, how much modern wisdom -is understood! The superficiality which can see only the surface here -parades as the profundity which has dived into every abyss and found it -empty. No! it is not tragedy but the modern tragedian who is without a -<i>raison d'être!</i></p> - - -<p class="p2">5</p> - -<p><i>Realism as a Symptom of Poverty</i></p> - -<p>In an age in which the power of creation is weak, men will choose the -easiest forms: those in which sustained elevation is not demanded and -creation itself is eked out in various ways. The world of our day has -therefore as its characteristic production the realistic novel, which -in form is more loose, in content and execution more unequal, and -in imaginative power less rich and inventive than poetic drama, or -<i>any</i> of the higher forms of literature. If we deduct from the modern -"literary artist," the diarist, the sociologist, the reporter, and the -collector of documents, there is not much left. For creation there is -very little room in his works; perhaps it is as well!</p> - - -<p class="p2">6</p> - -<p><i>Compliments and Art</i></p> - -<p>The convention of gallantry observed by the sexes is the foundation -of all refined understanding between them. For in the mutual game of -compliment it is the spiritual attitude and not the spoken word that -matters. There is truth in this attitude, however unreal the words -may seem: a thousand times more truth than in the modern egalitarian, -go-as-you-please camaraderie of the sexes. Here there is truth -neither in the spirit nor in the letter. To be candid, about this new -convention there is something faintly fatuous: the people who act thus -are not subtle! Yet they are hardly to be blamed; it is the age that is -at fault. There is no time for reflection upon men, women and manners, -and consequently no refinement of understanding, no form in the true -sense. We work so hard and have so little leisure that when we meet -we are tired and wish to "stretch our legs," as Nietzsche said. It is -far from our thoughts that a convention between men and women might be -<i>necessary</i>; we are not disposed to inquire why this convention arose; -it presents itself to us as something naively false; and we have time -only to be unconventional.</p> - -<p>The ceremonious in manners arose from the recognition that -between the sexes there must be distance—respect as well as -intimacy—understanding. The old gallantry enabled men and women to -be intimate and distant at the same time: it was the perfection of -the art of manners. Indeed, we can hardly have sufficient respect for -this triumphant circumvention of a natural difficulty, whereby it was -made a source of actual pleasure. But now distance and understanding -have alike disappeared. The moderns, so obtuse have they become, -see here no difficulty at all, consequently no need for manners: -brotherhood—comradeship—laziness has superseded that. Nothing is any -longer <i>understood;</i> but a convention means essentially that something -is understood. Indeed, it is already a gaucherie to explain the -meaning of a good convention. But what can one do? Against obtuseness -the only weapon is obtuseness.</p> - -<p>In literature this decline into bad taste and denseness is most -clearly to be seen. So incapable have readers become, so resourceless -writers, that whatever is said now must be said right out; sex must -be called sex; and no one has sufficient subtlety to suggest or to -follow a suggestion. Hence, Realism. An artist has to write exactly -what he means: the word must be word and nothing more. But this -is to misunderstand art. For the words of the true artist undergo -a transubstantiation and become flesh and blood, even spirit. His -words are deeds—to say nothing of what he writes <i>between</i> his -lines! Realism in art and "comradeship" between the sexes are two -misunderstandings, or, rather, two aspects of a misunderstanding. And -that misunderstanding is perhaps attributable to a lack of leisure? And -that to modern hurry? And that to the industrial system?</p> - - -<p class="p2">7</p> - -<p><i>A Modern Problem</i></p> - -<p>It has been observed again and again that as societies—forms of -production, of government, and so on—become more complex, the mastery -of the individual over his destiny grows weaker. In other words, the -more man subjugates "nature," the more of a slave he becomes. The -industrial system, for instance, which is the greatest modern example -of man's subjugation of nature, is at the same time the greatest -modern example of man's enslavement. What are we to think, then? Is -the problem a moral one, and shall we say that a conquest of nature -which is not preceded by a conquest of human nature is bound to be -bad? In a society which has not surpassed the phase of slavery does -every addition to man's power over nature simply intensify the slavery? -Or is the problem intellectual? And when the intellect concentrates -upon one branch of knowledge to the neglect of the other, is the -outcome bound to be the enslavement of the others? For instance the -nineteenth century devoted far more of its brains to industry than -to politics—its politics, indeed, was merely the reflection of its -industry—with the result that industry has now enslaved us all. Yes, -it has enslaved us all—not merely the wage-earners, not merely the -salariat! In the old days the workman, indeed, was a slave, but now the -employer is a slave as well.</p> - -<p>In this age, therefore, in which man appears as the helpless appendage -of a machine too mighty for him, it is natural that theories of -Determinism should flourish. It is natural, also, that the will should -become weak and discouraged, and, consequently, that the power of -creation should languish. And so the world of art has withered and -turned barren. The artist needs above all things a sense of power; it -is out of the abundance of this sense that he creates. But confronted -with modern society, that vast machine, and surrounded by its hopeless -mechanics and slaves, he feels the sense dying within him; nor does the -evil cease there, for along with the sense of power, power itself dies.</p> - -<p>Well, does not the moral become clearer and clearer? If art and -literature are to flourish again, artists, writers, nay, the whole -community must regain the sense of power. Therefore, economic -emancipation first!</p> - - -<p class="p2">8</p> - -<p><i>Leisure and Good Things</i></p> - -<p>The very greatest danger confronts a people who renounce leisure: that -people will become shallow—just consider England! For of all things -noble it is hard to see the immediate utility: patience and reverence -are needed before one can see in them a meaning at all. Art, literature -and philosophy are not obvious goods: at the first glance they appear -even repellent: alas, then, for them in an age of first glances! In -such an age, it is true, they will not altogether disappear. Something -worse will happen. They will be degraded, made obvious, misunderstood; -in one word, popularized—the fate of our time. Society should be -organized so as to give to its members the maximum of leisure; thus -would the dissemination of art and philosophy be made at least -possible. But society should at the same time provide for a privileged -class of artists and philosophers, with <i>absolute</i> leisure, who would -work only when the inner compulsion made them. The second condition is -at least as important as the first.</p> - - -<p class="p2">9</p> - -<p><i>Wanted: A History of Hurry</i></p> - -<p>Is there a critic who wishes to be at once edifying and entertaining? -Let him write a history of hurry in its relation to literature and -art. Has literature decayed as hurry has intensified? Have standards -of balance, repose and leisured grace gradually shrunk since, say, the -Industrial Revolution? Has the curtailment of the realm of literature, -its reduction from the Romantic school to the Victorian circle and -from that to the Decadent clique, been due to the everstrengthening -encroachment of hurry? And has hurry now become finally triumphant so -that our critics and even our artists and savants are nothing more than -journalists? For certainly they seem to be so.</p> - -<p>These are questions to be investigated by our historian.</p> - - -<p class="p2">10</p> - -<p><i>The Sex Novel</i></p> - -<p>How did the vogue of the sex novel arise? Perhaps from the great -attention which was in the last century given to the sciences of -biology and physiology; and perhaps, more especially from the -popularization of these sciences. Love was, under the spell of science, -translated by the novelists into sex. Not the psychology, but the -physiology of love was found interesting: with the result that for the -production of a modern novel one qualification alone is now necessary: -a "knowledge of the simple facts of physiology," as the primer-writers -say. Well, what is the remedy for this? Not a denial of physiology: -those who have learned it cannot now erase it from their memory and -become voluntarily ignorant. No; let, rather, the opposite course be -taken! Let us popularize psychology as well!</p> - - -<p class="p2">11</p> - -<p><i>These Advanced People</i></p> - -<p>A. Free Love is all right in theory, but all wrong in practice. B. On -the contrary! I think it is all right in practice, but all wrong in -theory.</p> - - -<p class="p2">12</p> - -<p><i>Sex in Literature</i></p> - -<p>In English literature, until very modern times, sex was treated only -within the limits of a very well-understood convention. From this -convention the physiological was strictly excluded. Yet, of our -classical writers, even in the most artificial periods, it cannot -be said that they did not understand sex. No matter how "unreal" -they might be in writing about Love, the physiological contingencies -of Love were unmistakably implied in their works, but only, it is -true, implied. The moderns, however, saw in this treatment of Love -nothing but a convention, a "lie"; and they became impatient of the -artificiality, as if art could be anything but artificial! To what -was the change of attitude due? Not to a failure in the artistic -convention: that was perfectly sound. No, it was the reader who had -failed: a generation of readers had arisen who had not learnt the art -of reading, who did not understand reading as a cultured amateur of -the eighteenth century, for instance, understood it. Literature was to -this reader a document, not an art. He had no eye for what is written -between the lines—for symbolism, idealization, "literature." And it -was to satisfy him that the realistic school arose: it arose, indeed, -out of himself. In the realist the modern reader has become writer: the -man who could not learn the art of reading has here essayed the more -difficult art of writing—documentary art!</p> - - -<p class="p2">13</p> - -<p><i>History of a Realist</i></p> - -<p>Who will write a series of biographies of modern writers, illustrating -this thesis: that they are nothing more than modern readers wielding a -hasty pen? Such a set of memoirs would almost compensate us for having -read the works of these writers. How interesting, for instance, it -would be to know how many years—surely it would be years?—they spent -in trying to understand literature before they dedicated themselves to -its service. How interesting, again, to discover how many hours each -day X, the celebrated novelist, devotes to contemplation, how many to -writing for the newspapers, and how many to his present masterpiece. -What! one hour's thought has actually preceded five hours' dictation! -This revelation is, after all, not so startling. On second thought, -these memoirs seem superfluous; we can read everything we wish to know -of the moderns in their works.</p> - -<p>Yet, for our better amusement, will not some one write his one and -only novel, giving the true history of the novelist? A novel against -novels! But for that we need a second Cervantes, yet how unlike -the first! For on this occasion it is not Don Quixote that must be -satirized, but Sancho Panza.</p> - - -<p class="p2">14</p> - -<p><i>Novelists by Habit</i></p> - -<p>All of us who read are novelists more or less nowadays: that is to say, -we collect "impressions," "analyse" ourselves, make a pother about -sex, and think that people, once they are divorced, live happily ever -after. The habit of reading novels has turned us into this! When one of -us becomes articulate, however—in the form of a novel—he only makes -explicit his kinship with the rest; he proclaims to all the world that -he is a mediocrity.</p> - - -<p class="p2">15</p> - -<p><i>The Only Course</i></p> - -<p>All the figures in this novel are paltry; we despise them, and, if we -were in danger of meeting them in real life, would take steps to avoid -them; yet such is the author's adroitness that we are led on helplessly -through the narrative, through unspeakable sordidness of circumstance -and soul, hating ourselves and him, and feeling nothing better than -slaves. To rouse our anxiety lest Herbert lose five pounds, or Mabel -find it impossible to get a new dress, this is art, this is modern art! -But to feel <i>anxiety</i> about such things is ignoble; and to live in a -sordid atmosphere, even if it be of a book, is the part of a slave. -And yet we cannot but admire. For in this novel what subtlety in the -treatment there must be overlying the fundamental vulgarity of the -theme! How is Art, which should make Man free, here transformed into a -potent means for enslaving him! It is impossible to yield oneself to -the sway of a modern realist without a loss in one's self-respect. To -what is due this conspicuous absence of nobility in modern writers? But -is the question, indeed, worth the asking? For to the artist and to him -who would retain freedom of soul, there is only one course with the -paltry in literature—to avoid it.</p> - - -<p class="p2">16</p> - -<p><i>The Average Man</i></p> - -<p>It is surely one of G. K. Chesterton's paradoxes that he praises the -average man. For he is not himself an average man, but a man of -genius; he does not write of the average man, but of grotesques; he is -not read by the average man, but by intellectuals and the nonconformist -middle-class. The true prophets of the average man are the popular -realistic novelists. For they write of him and for him—yes, even when -they write "for themselves," when they are "serious artists." Who, -then, but them should extol him? It is their <i>métier</i>.</p> - - -<p class="p2">17</p> - -<p><i>The "New" Writers</i></p> - -<p>The fault of the most modern writers—and especially of the -novelists—is not that they are too modern, but that they are too -traditional. It is true, they are not traditional in the historical -manner of G. K. Chesterton, who wishes to destroy one tradition—the -modern tradition—in order to get back to another—the mediæval. To -Mr. Chesterton tradition is a matter of selection; the dead tradition -seems to him nobler than the living; and, deliberately, therefore, he -would return to it. The new writers, however, follow a tradition also, -though a much narrower one; they, too, believe in the past, but only, -alas, in the immediate past; they are slaves to the generation which -preceded theirs. In short, that which is disgusting in them is their -inability to rise high enough to <i>see</i> their little decade or two, and -to challenge it, if they cannot from the standpoint of a nobler future, -then, at least, from that of the noblest past. But how weak must a -generation be which is not strong enough to challenge and supersede -Arnold Bennett, for instance.</p> - - -<p class="p2">18</p> - -<p><i>The Modern Reader</i></p> - - -<p>What is it that the modern reader demands from those who write for -him? To be challenged, and again to be challenged, and evermore to be -challenged—but on no account to be asked to accept a challenge, on no -account to be expected to take sides! A seat at the tournament is all -that he asks, where he may watch the most sincere and intrepid spirits -of his time waging their desperate battle and spilling their life blood -upon the sand. How he loves them when, with high gesture, they fling -down their gauntlets and utter their blasphemies! His heart then exults -within him; but, why? Simply because he is a connoisseur; simply -because he <i>collects</i> gauntlets!</p> - - -<p class="p2">19</p> - -<p><i>The Public</i></p> - -<p>Of the modern writers who are in earnest, Mr. Chesterton has had the -most ironical fate: he has been read by the people who will never agree -with him. To the average man for whom he writes he is an intellectual -made doubly inaccessible by his orthodoxy and his paradoxy. It is the -advanced, his <i>bête noire,</i> who read him, admire him, and—disagree -with him.</p> - - -<p class="p2">20</p> - -<p><i>Reader and Writer</i></p> - -<p>The modern reader loves to be challenged. The modern writer, if he is -in earnest, however, is bound to challenge him. This is his greatest -burden; that he <i>must</i> fall a victim of the advanced idlers. But one -day he thinks he see a way of escape. He has noticed that the reader -desires not only to be challenged, but to be able to understand the -challenge at a glance. And here he sees his advantage. I shall write, -he says, to himself, in a manner beautiful, exact, and yet not easily -understood; so I shall throw off the intellectual coquettes and secure -my audience of artists, for my style is beautiful; an audience of -critics, for my style is exact; an audience of patient, resolute, -conscientious intellects, for my style is difficult. This, perhaps, was -the conscious practice of Nietzsche. But he did not foresee that, for -the benefit of the intellectual coquettes, who must have hold of new -thoughts by one end or another, a host of popularizers would be born; -he did not reckon with the Nietzscheans!</p> - - -<p class="p2">21</p> - -<p><i>Popularity</i></p> - -<p>How amazingly popular he is. Even the man in the street reads him. Yes; -but it is because he has first read the man in the street.</p> - - -<p class="p2">22</p> - -<p><i>Middle Age's Betrayals</i></p> - -<p>It is not easy to tell by a glance what is the character of a young -man; his soul has not yet etched itself clearly enough upon his -body. But one may read a middle-aged man's soul with perfect ease; -and not only his soul but his history. For when a man has passed -five-and-forty, he looks—not what he is, perhaps—but certainly what -he has been. If he has been invariably respectable, he is now the very -picture of respectability. If he has been a man about town or a secret -toper, the fact is blazoned so clearly on his face that even a child -can read it. If he has studied, his very walk, to use a phrase of -Nietzsche's, is learned. As for the poet, we know how terribly poetical -he looks in middle age—poor devil! Well, to every one of you, I say, -Beware!</p> - - -<p class="p2">23</p> - -<p><i>The Novelists and the Artist</i></p> - -<p>Is it the modern novelists who are to be blamed for the degraded -image of the artist which lives in the minds of the cultured -populace? Turgenieff in "On the Eve," and Henry James in "Roderick -Hudson" display the artist simply as a picturesque waster, an oh so -charming, impulsive, childlike, naïve waster. But, in doing so, they -surely confused the artist with the man of artistic temperament. -Of the artistic temperament, however, the great artists had very -often little or nothing—far less, certainly, than either Shubin or -Roderick. The great examples of last century, the Goethes, Ibsens, -and Nietzsches, knew that there were qualities more essential to them -than temperament; discipline, for instance, perseverance, truth to -themselves, self-control. How is it possible, indeed, without these -virtues—virtues of the most difficult and heroic kind—for the -artist to bring his gifts to maturity, to become great? His discipline -to beauty must be as severe as the discipline of the saint to holiness. -And, then, how has his sensuousness been misconstrued and vulgarized; -and treated precisely, indeed, as if it were the licentiousness of a -present-day Tom Jones! That artists can be thought about in such a way -proves only one thing, namely, in what poor esteem they are now held. -We need a new ideal of the artist; or, failing that, an old one, that -of Plato, perhaps, or of Leonardo, or of Nietzsche.</p> - - -<p class="p2">24</p> - -<p><i>Decadence and Health</i></p> - -<p>It is in the decadent periods that the most triumphantly healthy -men—one or two—appear. The corrupt Italy of the Renaissance gave -birth to Leonardo; the Europe of Gautier, Baudelaire and Wilde -produced Nietzsche. In decadent eras both disease and health become -more self-conscious; they are cultivated, enhanced and refined. It -has been said that the best way to remain healthy is not to think -of health. But lack of self-consciousness speaks here. Perhaps the -Middle Ages were as diseased as our own—only they did not know it! Is -decadence nothing more than the symptom of a self-conscious age? And -is "objectivity" the antidote? Well, we might believe this if we could -renounce our faith that mankind will yet become healthy—if we could -become optimists in the present-day sense!</p> - - -<p class="p2">25</p> - -<p><i>Art in Modern Society</i></p> - -<p>An object of beauty has in modern surroundings a dangerous seduction -which it did not possess in less hideous eras. In this is there to be -found a contributory explanation of Decadence—the decadent being one -who feels the power of beauty intensely, and the repulsion from his -environment as intensely, and who plunges into the enjoyment of beauty -madly, with abandonment? In a society, however, which was not hideous -as ours is, and in which beauty was distributed widely over all the -aspects and forms of existence, the intoxication of beauty would not -be felt with the same terrible intensity; a beautiful object would be -enjoyed simply as one among many lovely things. In short, it would be -enjoyed in the manner of health, not in that of sickness. It is the -<i>contrast</i> that is dangerous; the aridity of modern life arouses a -terrible thirst, which is suddenly presented with the spectacle of a -beauty unaccountable and awful; and this produces a dislocation and -convulsion of the very soul. So that the present-day artist, if he -would retain his health—if he would remain an artist—must curb his -very love of the beautiful, and treat beauty, when he meets it, as he -always does, in the gutter, a little cynically. Otherwise he will lose -his wits, and Art will become his Circe. Therefore, mockery and hard -laughter—alas, that it <i>must</i> be so!</p> - - -<p class="p2">26</p> - -<p><i>Art in Industry</i></p> - -<p>In those wildernesses of dirt, ugliness and obscenity, our industrial -towns, there are usually art galleries, where the daintiest and most -beautiful things, the flowers of Greek statuary, for instance, bloom -among the grime like a band of gods imprisoned in a slum. The spectacle -of art in such surroundings sometimes strikes us as being at once -ludicrous and pathetic, like something delicate and lovely sprawling in -the gutter, or an angel with a dirty face.</p> - - -<p class="p2">27</p> - -<p><i>Conventions</i></p> - -<p>The revolt against conventions in art, thought, life and manners may -be due to at least more than one cause. It is usually ascribed to -"vitality" which "breaks through" forms, because it desires to be -"free." But common sense tells us that more than two or three of our -friends abjure convention for an altogether different reason—to be -candid, on account of a <i>lack</i> of vitality resulting in laziness and -the inability to endure restraint of any kind. And, for the others, -we shall judge their "vitality" to be justified when they build new -conventions worthy of observance, instead of running their heads -finally into illimitable space. Or does their strength not go just so -far? There is something suspicious about this vitality which cannot -create: it resembles impotence so much! Heaven preserve the moderns -from their "vitality"!</p> - - -<p class="p2">28</p> - -<p><i>"Vitality"</i></p> - -<p>When moderns talk of the "vitality" of their most lauded writer, -what they mean is finally the size of his muscles, physical energy, -or, at the most, strong emotions; not vigour of mind. Well, let us -on no account make the opposite mistake and revile the large muscle -and energetic feelings: they are admirable things. Let us point out, -however, that vitality of emotion undisciplined by vitality of thought -leads nowhere, is often disruptive and cannot build. But to build is -our highest duty and our peculiar form of freedom—we who have realized -that there is no freedom without power. As for the old freedom—it is -only the slaves who are not already tired of it.</p> - - -<p class="p2">29</p> - -<p><i>Decadence</i></p> - -<p>The decisive thing, determining whether an artist shall be major or -minor, is very often not artistic at all, but moral. Yes, though it -shock our modern ears, let this be proclaimed! The more "temperament" -an artist has, the more character he requires to govern it, to make -it fruitful for him, if he would not have it get beyond control, -and wreck both him and itself. And, consequently, the great artists -show, as a rule, less "temperament" than the minor; they appear more -self-contained and less "artistic." Indeed, they smile with the hint of -irony at the merely "artistic."</p> - -<p>It is, perhaps, when the traditions of artistic morality and discipline -have broken down, when the "temperament" has, therefore, become -unfettered and lawless, that decadence in art is born. The sincerity of -the artist, his chief virtue, is gone—the sincerity which commands him -to create only under the pressure of an artistic necessity, which tells -him, in other words, to produce nothing which is not genuine. Without -sincerity, severity and patience, nothing great in art can be created. -And it is precisely in these virtues that the decadent is lacking. A -love of beauty is his only credential as an artist, but, undisciplined, -it degenerates very soon into a love of mere effect. An effect of -beauty at all costs, whether it be the true beauty or not! That becomes -his object. Without a root in any soil, he aspires to the condition of -the water lily, and, in due time, becomes a full-blown æsthete. Is it -because he is incapable of becoming anything else? Has he in despair -grown "artistic" simply because he is not an artist? Is Decadence the -most subtle disguise of impotence? And are decadents those who, if they -had submitted to an artistic discipline of sincerity, would never have -written at all? Of some of them this is true, but of others it is not; -and in that lies the tragedy of Decadence. Wilde himself was, perhaps, -a decadent by misadventure; for on occasion he could rise above -decadence into sincerity. "The Ballad of Reading Gaol" proves that. He -was the victim of a bad æsthetic morality, to which, it is true, he -had a predisposition. And if this is true of him, it is true, also, -of his followers. A baleful artistic ethic still rules, demoralizing -the young artist at the moment when he should be disciplining himself; -and turning, perhaps, some one with the potentiality of greatness into -a minor artist. By neglecting the harder virtues, the decadents have -made minor art inevitable and great art almost impossible.</p> - -<p>The old tradition of artistic discipline must be regained, then, or a -new and even more severe tradition inaugurated. A text-book of morality -for artists is now overdue. When it has been written, and the new -discipline has been hailed and submitted to by the artists, who can say -if greatness may not again be possible?</p> - - -<p class="p2">30</p> - -<p><i>Decadence Again</i></p> - -<p>How is the dissolution of the tradition of artistic discipline to -be explained? To what cause is it to be traced? Perhaps to the more -general dissolution of tradition which has taken place in modern -times. When theological dogmas and moral values are thrown into the -melting-pot, and the discipline of centuries is dissolved into anarchy, -it is natural that artistic traditions should perish along with them. -Decadence follows free-thought: it appears at the time when the old -values lie deliquescent and the new values have not yet risen, the -dry land has not yet appeared. But this does not happen always: the -old traditions of morality, theology, politics and industry are -overthrown, the beginnings of a new tradition appear tentatively, -everything fixed has vanished, the wildest hopes and the most chilling -despair are the common possession of one and the same generation—but, -throughout, the artistic tradition is held securely and confidently, -it remains the one thing fixed in a world of dissolution. Then an art -arises greater even than that of the eras of tradition. The pathos of -the dying and the inexpressible hope of the newly born find expression -side by side; all chains are broken, and the world appears suddenly to -be immeasurable. Is this what happened at the Renaissance?</p> - - -<p class="p2">31</p> - -<p><i>Wilde</i></p> - -<p>The refined degeneracy of Oscar Wilde might be explained on the -assumption that he was at once over—and under—civilized: he had -acquired all the exquisite and superfluous without the necessary -virtues. These "exquisite" virtues are unfortunately dangerous to all -but those who have become masters of the essential ones; they are -qualities of the body more than of the mind; they are developments -and embellishments of the shell of man. In acquiring them, Wilde -ministered to his body merely, and, as a consequence, it became more -and more powerful and subtle—far more powerful and subtle than his -mind. Eventually this body—senses, passions and appetite—actually -became the intellectual principle in him, of which his mind was merely -a drugged and stupefied slave!</p> - - -<p class="p2">32</p> - -<p><i>Wilde and the Sensualists</i></p> - -<p>The so-called Paganism of our time, the movement towards sensualism -of the followers of Wilde, is not an attempt, however absurd, to -supersede Christianity; nor is it even in essence anti-Christian. At -the most it is a reaction—not a step beyond current religion into a -new world of the spirit, but a changing from one foot to the other, a -reliance on the senses for a little, so that the over-laboured soul -may rest. And there is still much of Christianity in this modern -Paganism. Its devotees are too deeply corrupted to be capable either of -pure sensuousness or of pure spirituality. They speak of Christ like -voluptuaries, and of Eros like penitents. But it is impossible now to -become a Pagan: one must remember Ibsen's Julian and take warning. Two -thousand years of "bad conscience," of Christian self-probing, with its -deepening of the soul, cannot be disavowed, forgotten, unlived. For -Paganism a simpler spirit, mind and sensuousness are required than we -can reproduce. We cannot feel, we cannot think, above all, we cannot -feel without thinking of our feelings, as the Pagans did. Our modern -desire to take out our soul and look at it separates us from the naïve -classic sensuousness.</p> - -<p>What, then, does modern sensualism mean? What satisfaction does it -bring to those, by no means few in number, its "followers"? A respite, -an escapade, a holiday from Christianity, from the inevitable. For -Christianity is assumed by them to be the inevitable, and it fills -them with the loathing which is evoked by the enforced contemplation -of things tyrannical and permanent. To escape from it they plunge -madly into sensuality as into a sea of redemption. But the disgust -which drives them there will eventually drive them forth again—into -asceticism and the denial of the senses. Christianity will then -appear stronger than ever, having been purged of its "uncleanness." -Yes, the sensualists of our time are the best unconscious friends -of Christianity, its "saviours," who have taken its sins upon their -shoulders.</p> - -<p>There still remain the few who do not assume Christianity to be -inevitable, who desire, no matter how hopeless the fight may seem, to -surmount it, and who see that men have played too long the game of -reaction. "To cure the senses by the soul and the soul by the senses" -seems to them a creed for invalids. And, therefore, that against -which, above all, they guard, is a mere relapse into sensualism. Not -by fleeing from Christianity do they hope to reach their goal; but -by understanding it, perhaps by "seeing through" it, certainly by -benefiting in so far as they can by it, and, finally, emancipating -themselves from it. They know that the soil no longer exists out -of which grew the flower of Paganism, and that they must pass -through Christianity if they would reach a new sensuality and a new -spirituality. But their motto is, Spirituality first, and, after that, -only as much sensuality as our spirituality can govern! They hold that -as men become more spiritual they may safely become more sensual; but -that, to the man without spirit, sensuality and asceticism are alike -an indulgence and a curse. That the spirit should rule—such is their -desire; but it must rule as a constitutional governor, not as an -arbitrary tyrant. For the senses, too, as Heine said, have their rights.</p> - - -<p class="p2">33</p> - -<p><i>Arnold Going Down the Hill</i></p> - -<p>One section of the realist school—that represented by Bennett and -John Galsworthy—may be described as a reaction from asceticism. -Men had become tired of experiencing Life only in its selected and -costly "sensations," and sought an escape from "sensations," sought -the ordinary. But another section of the school—George Moore, for -example—was merely a bad translation of æstheticism. Equally tired of -the exquisite, already having sampled all that luxury in "sensation" -could provide, the artists now sought <i>new "sensations"</i>—and nothing -else—in the squalid. It was the <i>rôle</i> of the æsthetes to go downhill -gracefully, but when they turned realists they ceased even to do that. -They went downhill <i>sans</i> art. Yet, in doing so, did they not rob -æstheticism of its seductiveness? And should we not, therefore, feel -grateful to them? Alas, no; for to the taste of this age, grace and -art have little fascination: it is the heavy, unlovely and sordid that -seduces. To disfigure æstheticism was to popularize it. And now the -very man in the street is—artistically speaking—corrupted: a calamity -second in importance only to the corruption of the artists and thinkers.</p> - - -<p class="p2">34</p> - -<p><i>Pater and the Æsthetes</i></p> - -<p>How much of Walter Pater's exclusiveness and reclusiveness was a -revulsion from the ugliness of his time—an ugliness which he was -not strong enough to contemplate, far less to fight—it is hard to -say. Perhaps his phase of the Decadence may be defined as largely a -reaction against industrialism, just as that of Wilde may be defined -as largely a reaction against Christianity: but, in the former case as -in the latter, that against which the reaction was made was assumed -to be permanent. Indeed, by escaping from industrialism instead of -fighting it, Pater and his followers made its persistence only a -little more secure. It is true, there are excuses enough to palliate -their weakness: the delicateness of their own nerves and senses, -making them peculiarly liable to suffering, the ugliness and apparent -invulnerability of industrialism, the beauty and repose of the world of -art wherein they might take refuge and be happy. Art as forgetfulness, -art as Lethe, the seduction of that cry was strong! But to yield to it -was none the less unforgivable: it was an act traitorous not only to -society but to art itself. For what was the confession underlying it? -That the society of today and of tomorrow is, and <i>must be,</i> barren; -that no great art can hereafter be produced; that there is nothing left -but to enjoy what has been accomplished! Against that presumption, not -the Philistines but the great artists will cry as the last word of -Nihilism.</p> - -<p>Pater's creed marks, therefore, a degradation of the conception of art. -Art as something exclusive, fragile and a little odd, the occupation -of a few æsthetic eccentrics—this is the most pitiable caricature! To -make themselves understood by one another, this little clique invented -a jargon of their own; in this jargon Pater's books are written, and -not only his, but those of his followers to this day. It is a style -lacking, above all, in good taste; it very easily drops into absurdity; -indeed, it is always on the verge of absurdity. It has no masculinity, -no hardness; and it is meant to be read by people a little insincerely -"æsthetic," who are conscious that they are open to ridicule, and who -are accordingly indulgent to the ridiculous; the Fabians of art. To -admire Pater's style, it is necessary first to put oneself into the -proper attitude.</p> - - -<p class="p2">35</p> - -<p><i>Creator and Æsthete</i></p> - -<p>The true creators and the mere æsthetes agree in this, that they are -not realists. Neither of them copies existence in its external details: -wherein do they differ? In that the creators write of certain realities -behind life, and the æsthetes—of the words standing for these -realities.</p> - - -<p class="p2">36</p> - -<p><i>Hypocrisy of Words</i></p> - -<p>The æsthetes, and Pater and Wilde in particular, made a cult of the -use of decorative words. They demanded, not that a word should be -<i>true,</i> nor even that it should be true and pretty at the same time, -but simply that it should be pretty. It cannot be denied that writers -here and there before them had been guilty of using a fine word where -a common one was most honest; but this had been generally regarded as -a forgiveable, "artistic" weakness. Wilde and his followers, however, -chose "exquisite" words systematically, in conformity to an artistic -dogma, and held that literature consisted in doing nothing else. And -that was dangerous; for truth was thereby banished from the realm of -diction and a hypocrisy of words arose. In short, language no longer -grasped at realities, and literature ceased to express any thing at -all, except a writer's taste in words.</p> - - -<p class="p2">37</p> - -<p><i>The Average Man</i></p> - -<p>In this welter of dissolving values, the intellectuals of our time find -themselves struggling, and liable at any moment to be engulfed. A few -of them, however, have snatched at something which, in the prevailing -deliquescence, appears to be solid—the average man. Encamped upon him, -they have won back sanity and happiness. But their act is nevertheless -simply a reaction; here the real problem has not yet been faced! What -is it that makes the average man more sane and happy than the modern -man? The possession of dogmas, says G. K. Chesterton; let us therefore -have dogmas! But, alas, for them he goes back and not forward. And not -only back, but back to the very dogmas against which modern thought, -and Decadence with it, are a reaction, nay, the <i>inevitable</i> reaction. -What! has Mr. Chesterton, then, postponed the solution of the problem? -And on the heels of his remedy does there tread the old disease over -again? Perhaps it is so. The acceptance of the old dogmas will be -followed by a new reaction from them, a new disintegration of values -therefore, and a new Decadence. The hands of the clock can be put back, -it is true; but they will eventually reach the time when the hour shall -strike <i>again</i> for the solution of the modern problem.</p> - -<p>And that is the criticism which modern men must pass upon Mr. -Chesterton; that he interposed in the course of their malady to bring -relief with a remedy which was not a remedy. The modern problem should -have been worked out to a new solution, to its own solution. Instead -of going back to the old dogmas, we should have strained on towards the -new. And if, in this generation, the new dogmas are still out of sight, -if we have meantime to live our lives without peace or stability, does -it matter so very much? To do so is, perhaps, our allotted task. And as -sacrifices to the future we justify our very fruitlessness, our very -modernity!</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<h4><a name="II" id="II">II</a></h4> - - -<h4>ORIGINAL SIN</h4> - - -<p class="p2">38</p> - -<p><i>Original Sin</i></p> - -<p>Original Sin and the Future are essentially irreconcilable conceptions. -The believer in the future looks upon humanity as plastic: the good -and the bad in man are not fixed quantities, always, in every age, -past and future, to be found in the same proportions: an "elevation of -the type man" is, therefore, possible. But the believer in Original -Sin regards mankind as that in which—the less said about the good, -the better—there is, at any rate, a fixed substratum of the bad. -And <i>that</i> can never be lessened, never weakened, never conquered. -Therefore, man has to fight constantly to escape the menace of an -ever-present defeat. A battle in which victory is impossible; a contest -in which man has to climb continually in order not to fall lower; -existence as the tread mill: that is what is meant by Original Sin.</p> - -<p>And as such it is the great enemy of the Future, the believers in which -hold that there is not this metaphysical drag. But it is more. At -all things aspiring it sets the tongue in the cheek, gladly provides -a caricature for them, and becomes their Sancho Panza. To the great -man it says, through the mouths of its chosen apostles, the average -men, "What matter how high you climb! This load which you carry even -as we will bring you back to us at last. And the higher you climb the -greater will be your fall. Humanity cannot rise above its own level." -And therefore, humility, equality, radicalism, comradeship in sin—the -ideas of Christianity!</p> - - -<p class="p2">39</p> - -<p><i>Again</i></p> - -<p>Distrust of the future springs from the same root as distrust of great -men. It derives from the belief in the average man, which derives from -the belief in Original Sin. The egalitarian sentiment strives always -to become unconditional. It claims not only that all men are equal, -but that the men who live now are no more than the equals of those who -lived one, or five, thousand years ago, and no less than the equals -of those who will live in another one, or five, thousand years. And -it desires that this should be so: its jealousy embraces not only the -living, but the dead and the unborn.</p> - - -<p class="p2">40</p> - -<p><i>Again</i></p> - -<p>Society is a conspiracy, said Emerson, against the great man. And to -blast him utterly in the centre of his being, it invented Original Sin. -Is Original Sin, then, a theological dogma or a political device?</p> - - -<p class="p2">41</p> - -<p><i>Equality</i></p> - -<p>Is equality, in truth, a generous dogma? Does it express, as every one -assumes, the solidarity of men in their higher attributes? It is time -to question this, and to ask if inequality be not the more noble and -generous belief. For, surely, it is in their nobler qualities that men -are most unequal. It was not in his genius that Shakespeare was only -the equal, for instance, of his commentators; it was in the groundwork -of his nature, in those feelings and desires without which he would not -have been a man at all, in the things which made him human, but which -did not make him Shakespeare: in a word, in that which is for us of no -significance. Equality in the common part of man's nature, equality -in sin, equality before God—it is the same thing—that is the only -equality which can be admitted. And if its admission is insisted upon -by apologists for Christianity, that is because to the common part of -man's nature they give so much importance, because they are believers -in Original Sin. In their equality there is accordingly more malice -than generosity. The belief that no one is other than themselves, the -will that no one shall be other than themselves—there is nothing -generous in that belief and that will. For man, according to them, is -guilty from the womb. And what, then, is equality but the infinitely -consoling consciousness of tainted creatures that every one on this -earth is tainted?</p> - -<p>The believer in Original Sin will, of course, deny this, and say that -in his philosophy men are equals also in their higher <i>rôle</i> as "sons -of God." But is this so? Is salvation, like sin, common to all men? -Is it not, on the contrary, something <i>conferred</i> as the reward of -a belief and a choice—a belief and a choice which an Atheist, for -instance, simply cannot embrace? So that here, touching the highest -part of men, their soul, there is introduced, by Christianity itself, a -distinction, an inequality—the distinction, the inequality between the -"saved" and the "lost." Men are equal inasmuch as they are all damned, -but they are not equal inasmuch as they are not all redeemed.</p> - -<p>Gazing at man, however, no longer through the eyes of the serpent, -shall we not be bound to find, if we look <i>high</i> enough, distinction, -superiority, inferiority, valuation? The dogma of equality is itself -a device to evade valuation. For valuation is difficult, and demands -generosity for its exercise. To recognize that one is greater than -you, and cheerfully to acknowledge it; to see that another is less -than you, and to treat the inferiority as a trifling thing, that is -difficult, that requires generosity. But one who believes in inequality -will always be looking for greatness in others; his eye, habituated -to the contemplation of lofty things, will become subtle in the -detection of concealed nobility; while to the ignoble he will give only -a glance—and is it not good, where one may not help, to pass on the -other side? The egalitarians will cry that it is ungenerous to believe -that some men are vile; but it is a strange generosity which would -persuade us with them that all men are vile. Let us be frank. To those -who believe in the future, inequality is a holy thing; their pledge -that greatness shall not disappear from the earth; the rainbow assuring -them that Man shall not go down beneath the vast tide of mankind. All -great men are to them at once forerunners and sacrifices; the imperfect -forms which the Future has shattered in trying to incarnate itself; the -sublime ruins of <i>future</i> greatness.</p> - - -<p class="p2">42</p> - -<p><i>If Men Were Equal</i></p> - -<p>If men had been equal at the beginning, they would never have risen -above the savage. For in absolute equality even the concept of -greatness could not have come into being. Inequality is the source of -all advancement.</p> - - -<p class="p2">43</p> - -<p><i>The Fall of Man</i></p> - -<p>In very early times men must have had a deep sense of the tragicality -of existence: life was then so full of pain; death, as a rule, so -sudden and unforeseen, and the world generally so beset with terrors. -The few who were fortunate enough to escape violent death had yet to -toil incessantly to retain a footing on this unkind star. Life would, -accordingly, appear to them in the most sombre tones and colours. And -it was to explain this human misfortune, and not sin at all, that the -whole fable of Adam and Eve and the Fall was invented. The doctrine -of Original Sin was simply an interpretation which was afterwards -read into the story, an interpretation, perhaps, as arbitrary as the -orthodox interpretation of the Song of Songs.</p> - -<p>How would the fable arise? Well, a primitive poet one day in a fit -of melancholy made the whole thing up. Out of his misery his desires -created for him an imaginary state, its opposite, the Garden of Eden. -But this state being created, the problem arose, How did Man fall from -it? And the Tree was brought in. But to the naïve, untheological poet, -this tree had nothing to do with metaphysics or with sin, the child of -metaphysics. It was simply a magical tree, and if Man ate of the fruit -of it, something terrible would happen to him. The Fall of Man was a -<i>mystery</i> to the poet, which he did not rationalize or theologize. -Well, Man succumbed to curiosity, and pain and misfortune befell the -human race. But we must not assume in the modern manner that with the -eating of the fruit early man associated any idea of guilt. Rather the -contrary; he regarded the act simply as unfortunate, just as at the -present day we regard as unfortunate the foolish princess in some fairy -tale. So the Fall was not to him a crime, branding all mankind with a -metaphysical stigma.</p> - -<p>That conception came much later, when the conscience had become deeper, -more subtle and more neurotic; when individualism had been introduced -into morality. And at that time, too, the ideal of the Redeemer became -vitiated. Early man, if he did envisage a Redeemer, envisaged him as -one who would set him back in the Garden of Eden again, in the literal, -terrestrial Garden of Eden, be it understood: theology had not yet -been etherealized. And this Redeemer would redeem <i>all</i> men: the -distinction of the individual came afterwards. It was not until later, -too, that this ideal was "interpreted," and, as a concession to the -conscience, salvation was made a conditional thing: the reward of those -who were successful in a competition in credulity, in which the first -prize went to the most simple, most stupid. The "guilt" now implicated -in the Fall was not purged away from all men by the Redeemer, but -only from such as would "accept" it. And, lastly, with the passing of -Jesus, the redemption was still further de-actualized. It was found -that acceptance of the Redeemer did <i>not</i> reinstate Man in an earthly -Garden: paradise was, therefore, drawn on the invisible wires of -theology into the inaccessible heavens. Salvation lay at the other side -of the grave, and there it was safe from assault.</p> - -<p>Nevertheless, what our primitive poet meant by the Fall and the -Redemption was probably something entirely different. The Fall to him -was the fall into misfortune, not into sin: the Redemption to him was -the redemption from misfortune, not from sin. And his Redeemer would -be, therefore—whom? Perhaps it is impossible for us to imagine the -nature of such a being.</p> - -<p>This is not an interpretation, but an attempted explanation of the -story of the Fall.</p> - - -<p class="p2">44</p> - -<p><i>Interpretations</i></p> - -<p>How inexhaustible is myth! In the story of the Fall is a meaning for -every age and every creed. The interpretation called Original Sin is -only one of a thousand, and not the greatest of them. Let us dip our -bucket into the well.</p> - -<p>The tree of the knowledge of good and evil—that was the tree of -morality! And morality was then the original sin? And through <i>it</i> Man -lost his innocence? The antithesis of morality and innocence is as old -as the world. And if we are to capture innocence again, if the world is -to become æsthetically acceptable to us, we must dispense more and more -with morality and limit its domain. This, one desperate glance into the -depths of the myth tells us. Instinct is upheld in it against isolated -reason and exterior law. Detached, "abstract" Reason brought sin into -the world, but Instinct, which is fundamentally Love, Creation, Will to -Power, is forever innocent, beyond good and evil. It was when Reason, -no longer the sagacity of Instinct, no longer the eyes of Love, became -its opponent and oppressor, that morality arose and Man fell.</p> - -<p>Or to take another guess, granted we read Original Sin in the Fall, -must we not read there, also, the way to get rid of it? If by Original -Sin Man fell, then by renouncing it let him arise again. But how -renounce it? What! Cannot Man renounce a metaphor?</p> - -<p>Yet how powerful is metaphor! Man is ruled by metaphor. The gods -were nothing but that, some sublime, some terrible, some lovely, all -metaphors, Jehovah, Moloch, Apollo, Eros. Life is now stained through -and through with metaphor. And there are further transfigurations still -possible! Yet we would not destroy the beauty already starring Life's -skies, the lovely hues lent by Aphrodite, and Artemis, and Dionysos, or -the sublime colours of Jehovah and Thor. But the heavy disfiguring blot -tarnishing all, Love, Innocence, Ecstasy, Wrath, that we would rather -altogether extirpate and annul. Original Sin we would cut off as a -disfigurement and disease of Life.</p> - -<p>Or, again, may not the myth be an attempt to glorify Man and to clothe -him with a sad splendour. And not Original Sin, but Original Innocence -is the true reading of the fable? Its <i>raison d'être</i> is the Garden of -Eden, not the Fall? To glorify Humanity at its source it set there a -Superman. The fall from innocence—that was the fall from the Superman -into Man. And how, then, is Man to be redeemed? By the return of the -Superman! Let that be our reading of the myth!</p> - - -<p class="p2">45</p> - -<p><i>The Use of Myth</i></p> - -<p>In the early world myth was used to dignify Man by idealizing his -origin. Henceforward it must be used to dignify him by idealizing his -goal. <i>That</i> is the task of the poets and artists.</p> - - -<p class="p2">46</p> - -<p><i>Before the Fall</i></p> - -<p>Innocence is the morality of the instincts. Original Sin—that was war -upon the instincts, morality become abstract, separate, self-centred, -accusing and tyrannical. This self-consciousness of morality, this -disruption in the nature of Man, was the Fall.</p> - - -<p class="p2">47</p> - -<p><i>Beyond Original Sin</i></p> - -<p>How far is Man still from his goal? How sexual, foul in word and -thought, naively hedonistic! How little of spirit is in him! How -clumsily his mind struggles in the darkness! How far he is still from -his goal!—This is a cry which the believer in Original Sin cannot -understand, because he accepts all this imperfection as inevitable, as -the baleful heritage of Man, from which he cannot escape.</p> - -<p>The feeling of pure joy in life, the feeling that Life is a -sacrament—that also is forever denied to the believer in Original Sin. -For Life is not a sacrament to him, but a sin of which joy itself is -only an aggravation.</p> - - -<p class="p2">48</p> - -<p><i>The Eternal Bluestocking</i></p> - -<p>The bluestocking is as old as mankind. Her original was Eve, the first -dabbler in moral philosophy.</p> - - -<p class="p2">49</p> - -<p><i>The Sin of Intellectualism</i></p> - -<p>The first sin, the original sin was that of the intellectuals. The -knowledge of Good and Evil was not an instantaneous "illumination"; it -was the result of long experiment and analysis: the apple took perhaps -hundreds of years to eat! Before that, in the happy day of innocence, -Good and Evil were not, for instinct and morality were one and not -twain. As time passed, however, the physically lazy, who had been -from the beginning, became weaker and wiser. Enforced contemplation, -the contemplation of those who were not strong enough to hunt or to -labour, made them more subtle than their simple brethren; they formed -themselves into a priesthood, and created a theology. In these priests -instinct was not strong: they were invalids with powerful reason. -But they had the lust for power; they wished to conquer by means of -their reason; therefore, they said to themselves, belittle instinct, -tyrannize over instinct, discover an absolute "good" and an absolute -"evil," become moral. Morality, which had in the days of innocence been -unconscious, the harmony of the instincts, was now given a separate -existence. The cry was morality against the instincts. Thus triumphed -the priests, the intellectuals, by means of their reason. Original Sin -was their sin—the result of the analysis by which they had separated -morality and the instincts. If we are to speak of Original Sin at all, -let it be in this manner.</p> - - -<p class="p2">50</p> - -<p><i>Once More</i></p> - -<p>The belief in Original Sin—that was itself Man's original sin.</p> - - -<p class="p2">51</p> - -<p><i>Apropos Gautier</i></p> - -<p>He had just read "Mlle. de Maupin," "What seduction there is still for -Man in the senses!" he exclaimed. "How much more of an animal than a -spirit he must be to be charmed and enslaved by this book!" Yet, what -ground had he to conclude that because the sensual intoxicates Man, -therefore Man is more sensual than spiritual? For we are most fatally -attracted by what is most alien to us.</p> - - -<p class="p2">52</p> - -<p><i>Psychology of the Humble</i></p> - -<p>There is something very naïve in those who speak of humility as a -certain good and of pride as a proven evil. In the first place these -are not opposites at all; there are a hundred kinds of both, and -humility is sometimes simply a refined form of pride. Humility may be -prudence, or good taste, or timidity, or a concealment, or a sermon, or -a snub. How much of it, for instance, is simple prudence? Is not this, -indeed, its chief <i>utility,</i> that it saves men from the dangers which -accompany pride? On the day on which some one discovered that "Pride -goeth before a fall," humility became no mean virtue. For if one become -the servant and proclaim himself the least of all, how can he still -fall? Yet if he does it is a fall into greater humility, and his virtue -only shows the brighter. This is the sagacity of the humble, that they -turn even ignominy to their glorification.</p> - -<p>Humility is most commonly used with a different meaning, however. There -are people who wish to be anonymous and uniform, and people who desire -to be personal and distinct. Or, more exactly, it is their instincts -that seek these ends. The first are humble in the fundamental sense -that they are instinctively so; the latter are proud in the same sense. -Humility, then, is the desire to be as others are and to escape notice; -and this desire can only be realized in conformity. It is true, people -become conceited after a while about their very conformity, and would -be wounded in their vanity if they failed to comply with fashion; but -vanity and humility are not incompatible.</p> - -<p>Pride, however, is something much more subtle. The naïve, unconditional -contemners of pride, who plead with men to cast it out, have certainly -no idea what would happen if they were obeyed. For pride is the -condition of all fruitful action. This thought must be consciously or -subconsciously present in the doer, What I do is of value! I am capable -of doing a thing which is worth doing! The Christian, it is true, still -acts, though he is convinced that all action is sinful and of little -worth. But it is only his mind that is convinced: his instincts are by -no means persuaded of the truth of this! For though in the conscious -there may be self-doubt, in the unconscious there <i>must</i> be pride, -or actions would not be performed at all. Moreover, in all those -qualities which are personal and not common—in personality—pride is -an essential ingredient. The pronoun "I" is itself an affirmation of -pride. The feeling, This is myself, this quality is <i>my</i> quality, by -possessing it I am different from you, these things constitute <i>my</i> -personality and <i>are</i> me: what a naïve assumption of the valuableness -of these qualities do we have there, how much pride is there in that -unconscious confession! And without this instinctive pride, these -qualities, personality could never have been possible. In the heart of -all distinct, valuable and heroic things, pride lies coiled. Yes, even -in the heart of humility, of the most refined, spiritual humility. For -such humility is <i>not</i> a conformity; it separates and individualizes -its possessor as effectually as pride could; it takes its own path and -not that of the crowd; and so its source must be in an inward sense of -worth, of independence: it is a form of pride. But pride is so closely -woven into life that to wound it is to wound life; to abolish it, if -that were possible, would be to abolish life. Well do its subtler -defamers know that! And when they shoot their arrows at pride, it is -Life they hope to hit.</p> - - -<p class="p2">53</p> - -<p class="p2"><i>Les Humbles</i></p> - -<p class="p2">Humility is the chief virtue, said a humble man. Then are you the -vainest man, said his friend, for you are renowned for your humility. -Good taste demands from writers who praise humility a little -aggressiveness and dogmatism, lest they be taken for humble, and, -therefore, proud. On the other hand, if humility is the chief virtue, -it is immoral not to practise it. And, therefore, one should praise -humility, and practise it? Or praise it and not practise it? Or not -praise it and practise it? There is contradiction in every course. That -is the worst of believing in paradoxical virtues!</p> - - -<p class="p2">54</p> - -<p><i>Against the Ostentatiously Humble</i></p> - -<p>He who is truly humble conceals even his humility.</p> - - -<p class="p2">55</p> - -<p><i>The Pessimists</i></p> - -<p>In pessimistic valuations of Life, the alternative contemplated is -generally not between Life and Death, but between different types of -Life. The real goal of Schopenhauerism is not the extinction of life, -for death is a perfectly normal aspect of existence, and Life would -not be denied even if death became universal. In order to deny Life -and to triumph over it, the pessimist must continue at least to exist, -in a sort of death in life: he must be dead, but he must also know it. -That is the goal of Schopenhauerism; perhaps not so difficult, perhaps -frequently attained! "They have not enough life even to die," said -Nietzsche.</p> - - -<p class="p2">56</p> - -<p><i>Sickness and Health</i></p> - -<p>Some men have such unconquerable faith in Life that they defy their -very maladies, creating out of them forms of ecstasy: that is their way -of triumphing over them. Perhaps some poetry, certainly not a little -religion has sprung from this. In religions defaming the senses and -enjoining asceticism, or, in other words, a lowering of vitality, the -chronic sufferers <i>affirm</i> Life in their own way; for sickness <i>is</i> -their life: their praise of sickness is their praise of Life. And if -they sometimes morbidly invite death, that is because death is nothing -but another form of experience, of Life. To the sick, if they are to -retain self-respect and pride, these doctrines are perhaps the best -possible; it is only to the healthy that they are noxious. For the -healthy who are converted by them, become sick through them, yet not -so sick as to find comfort in them. The aspiration after an ascetic -life contends in these men with their old health, their desire to live -fully, and causes untold perplexities and conflicts; leaving them at -last with nothing but a despairing desire for release. Thus, a religion -of consolation becomes for the strong a Will to Death—the very -opposite of that which it was to those who created it.</p> - - -<p class="p2">57</p> - -<p><i>The Pride of the Sterile</i></p> - -<p>Ecclesiastical, ceremonious humility is the pride of those who cannot -create or initiate, either because they are sterile, or because the -obstacles in their way are too great. Their pride is centred, not on -what they can do, but on what they can endure. The anchorite goes -into the wilderness, perhaps rather to get his background than to -escape attention, and there imposes upon himself the most difficult -and loathsome tasks, enduring not only outward penances, fasting -and goading of the flesh, but such inward convulsions, portents and -horrors, as the soul of man has by no other means experienced. Here, in -endurance, is his power, and here, therefore, is his pride: the poor -Atlas, who does not remove, but supports mountains, and these of his -own making!</p> - -<p>Men who have the power to create but are at the same time extremely -timid belong to this class. Rather than venture outside themselves -they will do violence to their own nature. The forces which in -creation would have been liberated are pent within them and cause -untold restlessness, uneasiness and pain. Religions which stigmatize -"self-expression," separating the individual into an "outward" and an -"inward" and raising a barrier between the two, encourage the growth -of this type of man. These religions themselves have their roots in a -timidity, a fear of pain. For self-expression is by no means painless; -it is, on the contrary, a great cause of suffering. Essentially its -outcome is strife, the clash of egos: Tragedy is the great recognition -in Art of this truth. Christianity saw the suffering which conflict -brought with it, said it was altogether evil, and sought to abolish -it. But a law of Life cannot be abolished: strife, driven from the -world of outward event, retreated into the very core of man, and -there became baleful, indeed, disintegrating, and subversive. The -early Christians did not see that men would suffer more from that -inward psychic conflict than from the other. It was the Greeks who -elevated conflict to an honourable position in their outward actions; -with them, as Nietzsche said, there was no distinction between the -"outward" and "inward"; they lived completely and died once. But the -Christians, to use the words of St. Paul, "died daily." How true was -that of those proudly humble anchorites! What a light it throws upon -their sternly endured convulsions of the soul! In the end, Death -itself came no doubt to many of them as a relief from this terribly -protracted "dying." Perhaps one thing, however, made their lives -bearable and even enjoyable—the power of the soul to plumb its own -sufferings and capacity for endurance. Psychology arose first among the -ecclesiastically humble men.</p> - -<p>Well, let us count up our gains and losses. Spiritual humility, -wherever it has spread, has certainly weakened the expression of -Life: for it has weakened man by introducing within him a disrupting -conflict. But it has also made Life subtler and deeper; it has enlarged -the inward world of man, even if it has straitened the world outside. -So that when we return—as we must—to the Pagan ideal of "expression," -our works shall be richer than those of the Pagans, for man has now -<i>more</i> to express.</p> - - -<p class="p2">58</p> - -<p><i>When Pride is Necessary</i></p> - -<p>Perhaps in all great undertakings into which uncertainty enters -pride is necessary. In the Elizabethan age, our most productive and -adventurous age, pride was at its zenith. Was that pride the necessary -condition of that productiveness? Would the poets, the thinkers and the -discoverers have attempted what they did attempt, had they been humble -men? What is needed is more enquiry: a new psychology, and, above all, -a new history of pride.</p> - - -<p class="p2">59</p> - -<p><i>Humility and the Artists</i></p> - -<p>There is one man, at any rate, who has always owed more to pride than -to humility—the artist. Whether it be in himself, where it is almost -the condition of productiveness, or in others, where it is the cause -of all actions and movements æsthetically agreeable, Pride is his -great benefactor. All artists are proud, but not all have the good -conscience of their pride. In their thoughts they permit themselves to -be persuaded too much by the theologians; they have not enough "free -spirit" to say, "Pride is my atmosphere, in which I create. I do not -choose to refuse my atmosphere."</p> - -<p>But if pride were banished even from the remainder of Life, how poor -would the artists be left! For every gesture that is beautiful, all -free, spirited, swift movement and all noble repose have in them pride. -Humility uglifies, except, indeed, the humility which is a form of -pride; that has a sublimity of its own. Even the Christian Church—the -Church of the humble—had to make its ceremonies magnificent to make -itself æsthetically presentable; without its magnificence it would -have been an impossible institution. Humility, to be supportable, must -have in it an admixture of pride. That gives it <i>standing.</i> It was His -subtle pride that communicated to the humility of Jesus its gracious -"charm."</p> - -<p>Poetic tragedy and pride are profoundly associated. No event is tragic -which has not arisen out of pride, and has not been borne proudly: -the Greeks knew that. But, as well, is not pride at times laughable -and absurd? Well, what does that prove, except that comedy as well as -tragedy has been occasioned by it? Humility is not even laughable!</p> - - -<p class="p2">60</p> - -<p><i>Love and Pride</i></p> - -<p>Pride is so indissolubly bound up with everything great—Joy, Beauty, -Courage, Creation—that surely it must have had some celestial origin. -Who created it? Was it Love, who wished to shape a weapon for itself, -the better to fashion things? Pride has so much to do with creation -that sometimes it imagines it is a creator. But that it is not. Only -Love can create. Pride was fashioned out of a rib taken from the side -of Love.</p> - - -<p class="p2">61</p> - -<p><i>Pride and the Fall</i></p> - -<p>It was not humility that was the parent of the fable of the Fall. Or is -it humility to boast of one's high ancestry, and if the ancestry does -not exist, to invent it? The naïve poet who created that old allegory -did not foresee the number of interpretations which would be read into -it. He did not foresee that it would be used to humiliate Man instead -of to exalt him; he did not at all foresee Original Sin. As less than -justice, then, has been meted to him, let us now accord him more than -justice. Let us say that he was a divine philosopher who perceived that -in unconditional morality lay the grand misfortune of mankind. Man is -innocent; thus, he said, it is an absolute ethic that defiles him—the -knowledge of Good and Evil. Sweep that away, and he is innocent and -back in the Garden of Eden again. Let us say this of the first poet, -for certainly he did not mean it! Perhaps he knew nothing at all about -morality! All that he wished for was to provide a dignified family tree -for his generation.</p> - - -<p class="p2">62</p> - -<p><i>The Good Conscience</i></p> - -<p>What a revolution for mankind it would be to get back "the good -conscience"? Life made innocent, washed free from how much filth of -remorse, guilt, contempt, "sin"—that vision arouses a longing more -intense than that of the religious for any heaven. And it seems at -least equally possible of realization! Bad conscience arises when -religion and the instincts are in opposition; the more comprehensive -and deep this conflict, the more guilty the conscience. But there -have been religions not antagonistic to the instincts, which, instead -of condemning them, have thought so well of them as to become their -rule, their discipline. The religion of the Greeks was an example of -this; and in Greece, accordingly, there was no "bad conscience" in our -sense. Well, how is it possible, if it <i>is</i> possible, to regain "the -good conscience"? Not by any miracle! Not by an instantaneous "change -of heart," for even the heart changes slowly. But suppose that a new -instinctive religion and morality were to be set up, and painfully -complied with, until they became a second nature as ours have become, -should we not then gradually lose our bad conscience, born as it is out -of the antagonism between instinct and morality? Nay, if we were to -persevere still further until instinct and religion and morality became -intermingled and indistinguishable, might we not enter the Garden of -Eden again, might not innocence itself become ours? But to attain that -end, an unremitting discipline, extending over hundreds of years, -might be necessary; and who, in the absence of gods, is to impose that -discipline?</p> - - -<p class="p2">63</p> - -<p><i>The Other Side</i></p> - -<p>The life-defaming creeds are not to be condemned unconditionally: even -they are not evil. "Guilt," asceticism, contempt for the world—these -are the physiologically bad things which have sharpened, deepened and -made subtle the soul of man. The Greeks were simple compared with -modern man; a thousand times more healthy, it is true—perhaps because -they were incapable of contracting our maladies. Well, let us judge -Christianity, which in Europe was mainly responsible for this deepening -of Man, by an artistic criterion: let us judge it by the effects it -achieved, not by what it said.</p> - - -<p class="p2">64</p> - -<p><i>Effects of Christianity</i></p> - -<p>If there are gods who take an interest in Man, and experiment upon -him, what better means could they have devised for getting out of -him certain "effects," not Christian at all, than Christianity? Far -more significant for mankind than the virtues of Christianity, are -its contradictions, excesses and "states of mind." The "way of life," -Christian morality, is of little account compared with the permanent -physiological and psychological transformations effected upon Man by -the discipline of centuries of religion. Not that Man has been forced -into the mould of Christian morality, but that in the process he has -undergone the most unique convulsions, adaptations and permutations, -that an entire new world of conflict, pain, fear, horror, exaltation, -faith and scepticism has been born within him, that Life, driven -within itself, has deepened, enriched and invested him—<i>that</i> is -from the standpoint of human culture the most important thing, beside -which what is usually understood by the Christianizing of Europe is -relatively insignificant. Not Christian morality, but the effects of -Christian morality it is that now concern us. And these effects are -not themselves Christian; rather the contrary. Christianity has made -Man more complex, contradictory, sceptical, tragic and sublime; it has -given him more capacity for good and for evil, and has added to these -two qualities subtlety and spirituality.</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<h4><a name="III" id="III">III</a></h4> - - -<h4>WHAT IS MODERN?</h4> - - -<p class="p2">65</p> - -<p><i>Whither?</i></p> - -<p>The fever of modern thought which burns in our veins, and from which -we refuse to escape by reactionary backdoors—Christianity and the -like—is not without its distinction: it is an "honourable sickness," -to use the phrase of Nietzsche. I speak of those who sincerely strive -to seek an issue from this fever; to pass through it into a new health. -Of the others to whom fever is the condition of existence, who make a -profession of their maladies, the valetudinarians of the spirit, the -dabblers in quack soul-remedies for their own sake, it is impossible -to speak without disdain. Our duty is to exterminate them, by ridicule -or any other means found effectual. But we are ourselves already too -grievously harassed; we are caught in the whirlwind of modern thought, -which contains as much dust as wind. We see outside our field of -conflict a region of Christian calm, but never, never, never can we -return there, for our instincts as well as our intellect are averse -to it. The problem must have a different solution. And what, indeed, -is the problem? To some of us it is still that of emancipation—that -which confronted Goethe, Ibsen, Nietzsche, and the other great spirits -of last century. It is an error to think that these men have yet been -refuted or even understood; they have simply been buried beneath the -corpses of later writers. And it is the worst intellectual weakness, -and, therefore, crime, of our age that ideas are no longer disproved, -but simply superseded by newer ideas. The latest is the true, and Time -refutes everything! That is our modern superstition. We have still, -then, to go back—or, rather, forward—to Goethe, Ibsen and Nietzsche. -Our problem is still that of clearing a domain of freedom around us, -of enlarging our field of choice, and so making destiny itself more -spacious; and, then, having delivered ourselves from prejudice and -superstition—and how many other things!—of setting an aim before us -for the unflinching pursuit of which we make ourselves responsible.</p> - -<p>Greater freedom, and therefore greater responsibility, above all -greater aims, an enlargement of life, not a whittling of it down to -Christian standards—that is our problem still!</p> - - -<p class="p2">66</p> - -<p><i>The "Restoration" of Christianity</i></p> - -<p>Will Christianity ever be established again? It is doubtful. At the -most, it may be "restored"—in the manner of the architectural -"restorations," against which Ruskin declaimed. The difficulty of -re-establishing it must needs be greater than that of establishing -it. For it has now been battered by science (people no longer believe -in miracles) and by history (people have read what the Church has -done—or has not done). Christianity has become a Church, and the -Church, an object of criticism. As the body which housed the spirit -of Christianity, men have studied it with secular eyes, and have -found little to reverence, much to censure; and in the disrepute into -which the body has fallen, the spirit, also, has shared. And now the -atmosphere cannot be created in which Christianity may grow young again -and recapture its faith. The necessary credulity, or, at any rate, -the proper kind of credulity, is no longer ours. For Christianity -grew, like the mushrooms, <i>in the night.</i> Had there been newspapers in -Judea, there had been no Christianity. And this age of ours, in which -the clank of the printing press drowns all other sounds, is fatal to -any noble mystery, to any noble birth or rebirth. <i>That</i> night, at all -events, we can never pass through again, and, therefore, Christianity -will probably never renew itself.</p> - - -<p class="p2">67</p> - -<p><i>A Drug for Diseased Souls</i></p> - -<p>The utmost that can be expected is a "restoration," and in that -direction we have gone already a long way. For Christianity is not now, -as it was at the beginning, a spring of inspiration, a thing spiritual, -spontaneous, Dionysian. It is mainly a remedy, or, more often, a -drug for diseased souls; and, therefore, to be husbanded strictly by -the modern medicine men, to be dispensed carefully, and, yes, to be -advertised as well! Its birth was out of an exuberance of spiritual -life; its "restoration" will be out of a hopeless debility and fatigue. -And, therefore——</p> - - -<p class="p2">68</p> - -<p><i>The Dogmatists</i></p> - -<p>All religions may be regarded from two sides; from that of their -creators, and from that of their followers. Among the creators are to -be numbered not only the founders of religion, but the saints, the -inspired prophets and every one who has in some degree the genius for -religion. They are not distinguished by much reverence for dogma, but -by the "religious feeling"; and when this emotion carries them away in -its flood they often treat dogma in a way to make the orthodox gape -with horror. But, in truth, they do not themselves take much account of -dogma; every dogma is a crutch, and they do not feel the need of one. -But the people who are not sustained by this inward spring of emotion, -who can never know what religion really is, these need a crutch; it is -for them that dogma was designed. And, of course, the real religious -men see their advantage also in the adherence of the dogmatists, the -many; for the more widely a religion is spread, the more secure it -becomes, and the greater chance it has of enduring. Dogma, then, is -religion for the irreligious. To the saint religion is a thing inward -and creative; to the dogmatist it is a thing outward, accomplished -and fixed, to which he may cling. The former is the missionary of -religion, the latter, its conserver. The one is religious because he -has religion, the other, because he needs it.</p> - - -<p class="p2">69</p> - -<p><i>The Religious Impulse</i></p> - -<p>The time comes in the history of a faith when the "religious feeling" -dies, and nothing is left but dogma. The dogmatists then become the -missionaries of religion. The fount is dried up; there is no longer -an inward force seeking for expression; there is only the fear of the -dogmatist lest his staff, his guide, his horizon should be taken from -him. Religion is then supported most frenziedly by the irreligious; -weakness then speaks with a more poignant eloquence than strength -itself. And that is what is happening with Christianity. Its "religious -feeling" is dead: there has been no great religious figure in Europe -in our time. And the Church is now being defended on grounds neither -religious nor theological, but secular and even utilitarian. The real -religious impulse is now to be found in the movement outside, and, -<i>therefore,</i> against Christianity. But, alas, as Nietzsche feared, -there may not after all be "sufficient religion in the world to destroy -religion."</p> - - -<p class="p2">70</p> - -<p><i>The Decay of Prophecy</i></p> - -<p>The past should be studied only in order to divine the future. The new -soothsayers should seek for omens, not, as their ancient brethren did, -in the stars and the entrails of animals, but in the book of history, -past and becoming. "The new soothsayers," for soothsaying has not died; -it has become popular—and degenerate. Every one may now foretell the -future, but no one may believe what is foretold. And that is because -the soothsayers do not themselves believe their auguries; when they -happen to speak the truth, no one is more surprised than they. But -in the antique world the augurs had, at any rate, responsibility; to -foretell the future was not to them an amusement but a vocation.</p> - -<p>To what is due the decay of the art of soothsaying? Partly, no doubt, -to the dissemination of popular knowledge, by which people have become -less credulous; partly to the "scientific temper" of those who, had -they lived in the old world, would have been the soothsayers; partly to -other causes known to every one. But, allowing for these, may there not -be <i>something</i> due to the fact that people are no longer interested, -as they used to be, in the future? They know the past, ah, perhaps too -well: they have looked into it so long that at length they feel that -the future holds nothing which it has not held, that Fate has now no -fresh metamorphosis or apotheosis, and that Time must henceforth be -content to plagiarize itself. And so the future has lost the seduction -which it once held for the noblest spirits. It is true, men still amuse -themselves by guessing which of Time's well-thumbed and greasy cards -will turn up at the next deal, or by playing at patience with the -immemorial possibilities. But that is not soothsaying, nor is it even -playing with the future: it is playing with the past. And the great -modern discovery is not the discovery of the future, but the discovery -of the past.</p> - -<p>And as with soothsaying, so with prophecy. If we could but look for a -moment into the soul of an old prophet and see his deepest thoughts and -visions, what a conception of the future would be ours! But that is -impossible. We cannot now understand the faith of the men who, unmoved, -prophesied the advent of supernatural beings, the Christ or another; -to whom the future was a new world more strange than America was to -Columbus. That attitude of mind has been killed; and now comes one who -says the belief in the future is a weakness. Would he, perchance, have -said that to John the Baptist, the great modern of his time? Had he -lived in that pre-Christian world, would he have believed in the God -in whom he now believes? The orthodox Christian here finds himself in -a laughable dilemma. Admitting nothing wonderful in the future, he is -yet constrained to believe in a past wonderful beyond the dreams of -poets or of madmen—a past in which supernatural beings, miracles and -portents were almost the rule. And so the future is to him not even -so wonderful as the past. It is an expurgated edition of the past—an -edition with the incidents and marvels left out, a novel without a hero -or a plot.</p> - -<p>So, for good or for evil, we no longer believe in the future as we did: -it is steadily becoming less marvellous, and, therefore, less seductive -for us. But, without the bait of the strange and the new to lure it -on, must not humanity halt on its way? <i>Can</i> man act at all without -believing in the future in some fashion? Must not things be <i>foreseen</i> -before they can be accomplished? Is not soothsaying implicit in every -deliberate act? Are not all sincere ideals involuntary auguries? Is it -not the future rather than the prophecy which "comes true"? Did not -the old prophecies "come true" <i>because</i> they were prophesied? Did not -Christ arise <i>because</i> He was foretold? And are not the believers in -the future, then, the creators of the future, and the true priests of -progress? When we can envisage a future noble enough, it will not then -be weakness to believe in it.</p> - - -<p class="p2">71</p> - -<p><i>The Great Immoralists</i></p> - -<p>The morality of Nietzsche is more strict and exacting than that of -Christianity. When the Christians argue against it, therefore, they -are arguing in favour of a morality more comfortable, pleasing and -indulgent to the natural man; consequently, even on religious grounds, -of a morality more immoral. What! is Nietzsche, then, the great -moralist, and are the Christians the great immoralists?</p> - -<p>This notion may appear to us absurd, or merely ingenious, but will it -appear so to future generations? Will timidity, conformity, mediocrity, -judicious blindness, unwillingness to offend, be synonymous, to them -also, with morality? Or will they look back upon Christianity as a -creed too indulgent and not noble enough? As a sort of Epicureanism, -for instance?</p> - - -<p class="p2">72</p> - -<p><i>The First and the Last</i></p> - -<p>We all know what the weak have suffered from the strong; but who shall -compute what the strong have suffered from the weak?" The last shall -be first"; but when they become first they become also the worst -tyrants—impalpable, anonymous and petty.</p> - - -<p class="p2">73</p> - -<p><i>Humility in Pride</i></p> - -<p>The pride of some gifted men is not pride in their person, but in -something within them, of which they regard themselves the guardians -and servants. If there is dignity in their demeanour it is a -reflected, impersonal dignity. Just so a peasant might feel ennobled -who guarded a king in danger and exile.</p> - - -<p class="p2">74</p> - -<p><i>The Modern Devil</i></p> - -<p>The devil is not wicked but corrupt, in modern phraseology, decadent. -The qualities of the mediæval devil, rage, cruelty, hatred, pride, -avarice, are in their measure necessary to Life, necessary to virtue -itself. But corruption is wholly bad; it contaminates even those who -fight it. Hell relaxes: Mr. Shaw's conception is profoundly true.</p> - -<p>But if the devil is corruption, cannot the devil be abolished? It is -true, Man cannot extirpate cruelty, hatred and pride without destroying -Life; but Life is made more powerful by the destruction of the corrupt. -God created Man; but it was Man that created the devil.</p> - - -<p class="p2">75</p> - -<p><i>Master and Servant</i></p> - -<p>To summon out of the void a task, and then incontinently to make of -himself its slave: that is the happiness of many a man. A great means -of happiness!</p> - - -<p class="p2">76</p> - -<p><i>Criterions</i></p> - -<p>It is not expedient to choose on <i>every</i> occasion the higher rather -than the lower, for one may not be able to endure too much living on -the heights. If will and capacity were always equal! Then, it is true, -there would not be any difficulty; but Life is Life, after all—that -is, our will <i>is</i> greater than our capacity. On the other hand, it is -not well to develop equally all our faculties—the formula of the -Humanist—for among them there is a hierarchy, and some are more worthy -of development than others. What course is left? To act always in the -interest of what is highest in us, and when we partake of a lower -pleasure to regard it as a form of sleep, of necessary forgetting? For -even the mind must slumber occasionally if it is to remain healthy.</p> - - -<p class="p2">77</p> - -<p><i>Intellectual Prudence</i></p> - -<p>Among athletes there is a thing known as over-training: if it is -persisted in it wrecks the body. A similar phenomenon is to be found -among thinkers: thought too severe and protracted may ruin the mind. -Was this the explanation of Nietzsche's downfall? Certainly, his -intellectual health was that of the athlete who remains vigorous by -virtue of a never-sleeping discipline, who maintains his balance by -a continuous effort. This is perhaps the highest, the most exquisite -form of health, but it is at the same time the most dangerous—a -little more, a little less, and the engine of thought is destroyed. It -is important that the thinker should discover exactly how far he may -discipline himself, and how far permit indulgence. What in the ordinary -man—conscious of no <i>secondary raison d'être</i>—is performed without -fuss by the instincts, must by him be <i>thought out</i>—a task of great -peril.</p> - - -<p class="p2">78</p> - -<p><i>A Dilemma</i></p> - -<p>To be a man is easy: to be a purpose is more difficult; but, on the -whole—easy. In the first instance, one has but to exist; in the -second, to act. But to unite man and purpose in the same person—to -be a type—is both difficult and precarious. For that a balance is -imperative: "being" and "doing" must be prevented from injuring each -other: action must become rhythm, and rest, a form of energy. To be in -doing, to do in being—that is the task of the future man. The danger -of our being mere man is that mankind may remain forever stationary, -without a goal. The danger of our being mere purpose is that our -humanity may altogether drop out and nothing but the purpose be left. -And would not that defeat the purpose?</p> - - -<p class="p2">79</p> - -<p><i>Dangers of Genius</i></p> - -<p>Why is it that so many men of genius have been destroyed by falling -into chasms of desire which are safely trodden by common men? Is it -because there is within the exceptional man greater compass, and, -therefore, greater danger? The genius has left the animal further -behind than the ordinary man; indeed, in the genius of the nobler sort -there is an almost passionate avoidance and disavowal of the animal. In -this disavowal lie at once his safety and his danger: by means of it -he climbs to perilous heights, and is also secure upon them. But let -him abrogate even once this denial of kinship, and he is in the utmost -danger. He now finds himself stationed on the edge of a precipice up to -which he seems to have climbed in a dream, a dreadful dizziness assails -him, along with a mad desire to fling himself into the depths. It was -perhaps a leap of this kind that Marlowe made, and Shelley. Meantime, -the ordinary man lives in safety at the foot of the precipice: he -is never so far above the animal as to be injured by a fall into -animalism. Only to the noble does spiritual <i>danger</i> come.</p> - - -<p class="p2">80</p> - -<p><i>A Strange Failure</i></p> - -<p>He failed; for the task was too <i>small</i> for him—a common tale among -men of genius. You have been unsuccessful in trivial things? There is -always a remedy left: to essay the great. How often has Man become -impotent simply because there was no task heroic enough to demand -greatness of him!</p> - - -<p class="p2">81</p> - -<p><i>Dangers of the Spiritual</i></p> - -<p>If you are <i>swept off your feet</i> by a strongly sensuous book, it is -probably a sign that you have become too highly spiritualized. For -a sensualist would simply have enjoyed it, while feeling, perhaps, a -little bored and dissatisfied. It was only a religious anchorite who -could have lost his <i>soul</i> to Anatole France's Thaïs. For the salvation -of Man it is more than ever imperative that a reconciliation should be -effected between the spirit and the senses. Until it is, the highest -men—the most spiritual—will be in the very greatest peril, and will -almost inevitably be wrecked or frustrated. It is for the good of the -<i>soul</i> that this reconciliation must now be sought.</p> - - -<p class="p2">82</p> - -<p><i>Again</i></p> - -<p>From the diabolization of the senses innumerable evils have flowed; -physical and mental disease, disgust with the world, cruelty towards -everything natural. But, worst of all, it has made sensuality a greater -<i>danger</i> than it was ever before. In the anchorite, seeking to live -entirely in the spirit, and ignoring or chastising the body, sensuality -was driven into the very soul, and there was magnified a hundredfold. -To the thinker avoiding the senses as much as possible—for he had -been taught to distrust them—sensuality, in the moments when he was -brought face to face with it, had acquired a unique seductiveness, and -had become a problem and a danger. If he yielded, it was perilous in a -degree unknown to the average sensual man; if he resisted, a good half -of his spiritual energy was wasted in keeping the senses at bay. In -either case, the thinker suffered. So that now it is the spirit that -has become the champion of the senses, but for the good of the spirit.</p> - - -<p class="p2">83</p> - -<p><i>God and Animal</i></p> - -<p>Until the marriage of the soul and the senses has been accomplished, -Man cannot manifest himself in any <i>new</i> type. What has been the -history of humanity during the last two thousand years? The history -of humanity, that is, as distinct from the history of communities? A -record of antithetic tyrannies, the spiritual alternating with the -sensual; an uncertain tussle between God and animal, now one uppermost, -now the other; not a tragedy—for in Tragedy there is significance—but -a gloomy farce. And this farce must continue so long as the spirit -contems sense as evil in itself—for neither of them can be abolished! -Whether we like it or not, the senses, so long as they are oppressed -and defamed, will continue to break out in terrible insurrections of -sensuality and excess, until, tired and satiated, they return again -under the tyranny of the spirit—at the appointed time, however, to -revolt once more. From this double <i>cul de sac</i> Man can be freed only -by a reconciliation between the two. When this happens, however, it -will be the beginning of a higher era in the history of humanity; Man -will then become spiritual in a new sense. Spirit will then affirm -Life, instead of, as now, slandering it; existence will become joyful -and tragic; for to live in accordance with Life itself—voluntarily -to approve struggle, suffering and change—is the most difficult -and heroic of lives. The softening of the rigour of existence, its -reduction and weakening by asceticism, humility, "sin," is the <i>easier</i> -path; <i>narrow</i> is the way that leads to Nihilism! The error of Heine -was that he prophesied a <i>happier</i> future from the reconciliation of -the body and the soul: his belief in the efficacy of happiness was -excessive. But this reconciliation is, nevertheless, of importance for -<i>nothing else</i> than its <i>spiritual</i> significance: by means of it Man -is freed from his labyrinth, and can at last <i>move forward</i>—he becomes -more tragic.</p> - - -<p class="p2">84</p> - -<p><i>Ultimate Pessimism</i></p> - -<p>To the most modern man must have come at some time the thought, What if -this thing spirit be <i>essentially</i> the enemy of the senses? What if, -like the vampire, it <i>can</i> live only by drinking blood? What if the -conflict between spirit and "life" is and must forever be an implacable -and destructive one? He is then for a moment a Christian, but with an -added bitterness which few Christians have known. For if his thought be -true, then the weakening and final nullification of Life must be our -object.</p> - -<p>To prove that the spirit and the senses are not eternally -irreconcilable enemies is still a task. Those who believe they are, do -so as an act of faith: their opponents are in the same case. We should -never cease to read spirit into Life-affirming things, such as pride, -heroism and love, and to magnify and exalt these aspects of the spirit.</p> - - -<p class="p2">85</p> - -<p><i>Leisure and Productiveness</i></p> - -<p>Granted that the society which produces the highest goods in the -greatest profusion is the best—let us not argue from this that -society should be organized with the direct aim of producing goods. For -what if goods be to society what happiness is said to be to men—things -to be attained only by striving for something else? In all good -things—whether it be in art, literature or philosophy—there is much -of the free, the perverse, the unique, the incalculable. In short, good -things can only be produced by great men—and these are exceptions. The -best we can do, then, is to inaugurate a society in which great men -will find it possible to live, will be even encouraged to live. Can -a society in which rights are affixed to functions serve for that? A -function, in practice, in a democratic state—that will mean something -which can be seen to be useful for today, but not for tomorrow, far -less for any distant future. The more subtle, spiritual, posthumous the -activity of a man the less it will be seen to be a function. Art and -philosophy arise when leisure and not work is the ruling convention. -It is true that artists and philosophers work, and at a higher tension -than other men; but it is in leisure that they must <i>conceive</i> their -works: what obvious function do they then fulfil? Even the most -harassed of geniuses, even Burns would never have become immortal -had he not had the leisure to ponder, dream and love. Idleness is as -necessary for the production of a work of art as labour. And with some -men perhaps whole years of idleness are needed. Artists must always be -privileged creatures. It is privileges, and not rights, that they want.</p> - - -<p class="p2">86</p> - -<p><i>What is Freedom?</i></p> - -<p>The athlete, by the disciplining of his body, creates for himself a new -world of actions; he can now do things which before were prohibited to -him; in consequence, he has enlarged the sphere of his freedom. The -thinker and the artist by discipline of a different kind are rewarded -in the same way. They are now more free, because they have now more -capacity.</p> - -<p>There are people, however, who think one can be free whether one -has the capacity for freedom or not—a characteristically modern -fallacy. But a man the muscles of whose body and mind are weak cannot -do <i>anything;</i> how can he be free? The concept of Freedom cannot be -separated from that of Power.</p> - - -<p class="p2">87</p> - -<p><i>Freedom, in the Dance</i></p> - -<p>Even the most unbridled dance is a form of constraint. The completest -freedom of movement is the reward of the severest discipline.</p> - - -<p class="p2">88</p> - -<p><i>A Moral for Moderns</i></p> - -<p>A spring gushed forth here on the airy height; but the soil was not -hard enough to retain it; and the water sapped away among the soft -moss. One day a man came and laid down a hard channel for the spring. -Imprisoned on both sides, it now imperiously sought an outlet and—a -miracle!—leapt glittering into the sunshine. The history of Freedom.</p> - - -<p class="p2">89</p> - -<p><i>The Renaissance: A Thesis</i></p> - -<p>How unsatisfactory are those explanations of the Renaissance which -give as its cause the breaking up of the restrictive intellectual -canons of the Middle Ages—as if a mere negation could explain such a -unique creative era! What has here to be discovered is how freedom and -the <i>capacity</i> for freedom should have appeared at the same moment. -Perhaps the Middle Ages have now been sufficiently reviled by the -admirers of the Renaissance; perhaps that event owed more than we are -willing to acknowledge to the centuries of mediæval repression and -discipline. During these centuries the human spirit had been confined -in the granite channel cut for it by mediæval Christianity, a channel -of which even the mouth was stopped. In the fifteenth century the -stream swept away every obstacle and leapt forth, a brilliant cascade, -scattering almost pagan warmth and light. The fall of Constantinople -and the other circumstances usually given as the explanation of this -outburst were only its occasion; the cause lay much deeper, in the -long storing up, conserving and strengthening of human powers. The -freedom of which the Renaissance was an expression was more, then, -than the simple removal of restriction. It was a freedom not political -or moral, but vital; a positive enhancement if the natural power of -man, who could now do things which hitherto he could not do—an event -in the history, not merely of society, but of Man. Accordingly, the -"freedom of the individual," so dear to some moderns, does not teach us -much here. It was not because freedom was given to them that men now -created: the freedom was claimed because they now possessed more power, -could do more, and had, therefore, the <i>right</i> to a larger sphere of -freedom. The more naturally free—that is, individually powerful—a -people become, the more they will demand and obtain of "individual -freedom"; but it is perhaps inexpedient to offer to a people -individually weak any more freedom than they can use. They are still -at the disciplinary stage; they are preparing for their renaissance; -and to the student of human culture the periods of preparation, of -unproductiveness, are more worthy of consideration than the productive -periods. For in the future we must prepare for our eras of fruition, -and not leave them, as in the past, to pure chance.</p> - -<p>At the Renaissance, however, it was not even individual freedom in -the modern democratic sense that was claimed and allowed; it was at -the most the freedom of certain individuals, the naturally free, the -powerful. Not until a later time was this claim to be universalized by -the unconditional theorists, the generalizers <i>sans</i> distinction, the -egalitarians. The French Revolution was the Renaissance rationalized -and popularized.</p> - - -<p class="p2">90</p> - -<p><i>The Unproductive Periods</i></p> - -<p>Without the Middle Ages the Renaissance would have been impossible; -the one, therefore, was as necessary as the other; and our reprobation -of the former for its comparative sterility is entirely without -justification. If we happen to be living in an unproductive age, it -is our misfortune, then; but we are not entitled, in contemplating -this age, to the luxury of condemnation, reproof or scorn. What we -<i>may</i> demand of any period now is that it should be a period either -of preparation or of fruition. So the present era <i>is,</i> after all, -deserving of condemnation, but only because it is not an era of -preparation—not for any other reason.</p> - - -<p class="p2">91</p> - -<p><i>Duties of the Unproductive</i></p> - -<p>The history of culture is the history of long ages of unproductiveness -broken by short eras of production; but unproductiveness is the -rule. The men born in barren periods have not, then, the right to -bewail their lot: <i>we</i> have not that right. But what is of the first -importance, for the sake of culture, is to find out what are the duties -proper to men in a sterile age. Certainly their duty it is not to -produce whether they are productive or not; that can only result in -abortions and painful caricatures: does not contemporary literature -demonstrate it? The work that is born out of the poverty of the artist -is, as Nietzsche pointed out, decadent work, and debases the spectator, -lowers his vitality.</p> - -<p>What, then, are the tasks of a writer in an unproductive age? To -live sparely and conserve strength? To make discipline more rigid? -To preserve and fortify the tradition of culture? To render more -accessible the sources from which creative literature draws its -life, so that the <i>next</i> generation may be better placed? To observe -vigilantly the signs of today—and not only of today? It may be so; -but, also, when necessary, to throw these prudent and preservative -tasks to the winds and spend his last ounce of strength in battling -with the demons who make a productive era forever impossible. Yes, this -last duty is for us today—the most important. And, we may depend, it -is the creators—those who produce what they should not—who will fight -most bitterly on the opposite side.</p> - - -<p class="p2">92</p> - -<p><i>"Emancipation"</i></p> - -<p>The rallying cry of the great writers of the last century was -"emancipation." Goethe, Heine and Ibsen alike professed as their -task the emancipation of man; Nietzsche, their successor, elevated -the freed man, the Superman, into an ideal, in the pursuit of which -it was necessary meantime that men should discipline themselves. The -later moderns, our own contemporaries, have belittled this freedom, -seeing in it nothing but a negation, the freedom <i>from</i> some one -thing or another. But Ibsen and Heine, these men of true genius, who -believed most sincerely that they were "brave soldiers in the war of -the liberation of humanity" did not perhaps waste their powers in -battling for a thing so trivial! It is barely possible that they meant -by emancipation something much more profound; something spiritual -and positive; indeed, nothing less than an enhancement of the powers -of man! Certainly both poets looked forward to new "developments" of -man: Heine with his "happier and more perfect generations, begot in -free and voluntary embraces, blossoming forth in a religion of joy"; -Ibsen with his perplexed figures painfully "working their way out to -Freedom." It was the task of us in this generation, who should have -been the heirs of this tradition, but are not, to supply the commentary -to this noble vision, to carry forward this religion of hope further -and further. But the <i>cult</i> of modernity has itself prevented this; -the latest theory has always seized us and exacted our belief for its -hour; the present has invariably triumphed; and we have discarded the -great work of last century before we have understood it. Heine has been -seized mainly by the decadents; his healthy and noble sensuousness, -his desire to restore the harmony between the senses and the soul, -<i>as a means</i> towards the emancipation of man, and as nothing else, -has been perverted by them into worship of the senses for their own -sake—a thing which to Heine would have seemed despicable. Ibsen has -fallen among the realists and propagandists; all the spiritual value -of his work has for this age been lost—and what a loss!—his battle -to deliver man from his weakness and inward slavery has been reduced -—it is no exaggeration—to a battle to deliver the women of the middle -classes from their husbands. The old story of emanation has been again -repeated, with the distinction that here there is no trace left of -the original source except negative ones! Well, we have to turn back -again, our task, second to none in grandeur, before which we may well -feel abashed, is still the same as that of Goethe, Ibsen and Nietzsche, -the task of emancipation. To restore dignity to literature, indeed, it -would be necessary to create such a task if it did not already exist.</p> - - -<p class="p2">93</p> - -<p><i>Genealogy of the Moderns</i></p> - -<p>This is what has happened. The conventional moderns of our time are -the descendants <i>not</i> of Heine and Ibsen, but of the race against -which the poets fought. They live unthinkingly in the present, just -as their spiritual ancestors lived unthinkingly in the past. But -slavery to the past has long ago fallen into the second place among -dangers to humanity: it is slavery to the present that is now by far -the greatest peril. Not because they broke the tyranny of the past, but -because they had an ideal in the future are the great fighters of last -century significant. To think of them as iconoclasts is to mistake for -their aim the form of their activity: the past lay between them and -their object: on that account alone did they destroy it. But the great -obstacle now is the domination of the present; and were the demi-gods -of last century alive today, they would be fighting precisely against -<i>you,</i> my dear moderns, who live so complacently in your provincial -present, making of it almost a cult. To be a modern in the true sense, -however, is to be a fore-runner; there is in this age, an age of -preparation, no other test of the modern. To believe that there are -still potentialities in man; to have faith that the "elevation of the -type Man" is possible, yes, that the time is ripe to prepare for it; -and to write and live in and by that thought: this is to be modern.</p> - - -<p class="p2">94</p> - -<p><i>Domination of the Present</i></p> - -<p>To be modern in the accepted, intellectually fashionable sense: what is -that? To propagate always the newest theory, whatever it be; to be the -least possible distance behind the times, behind the latest second of -the times, whether they be good or bad; and, of course, to assume one -is "in the circle" and to adopt the tone of the circle: in short, to -make ideas a matter of fashion, to choose views as a well-to-do woman -chooses dresses—to be intellectually without foundation, principles or -taste. How did this convention arise? Perhaps out of lack of leisure: -superficiality is bound to engulf a generation who abandon leisure. -But to be enslaved to the present in this way is the most <i>dangerous</i> -form of superficiality: it is to be ignorant of the very thing that -makes Man significant, and with idiotic cheerfulness and unconcern to -render his existence meaningless and trivial. In two ways' can Man -become sublime; by regarding himself as the heir of a great tradition: -by making of himself a fore-runner. Both ways are open to the true -modern, and both must be followed by him. For the past and the future -are greater than the present: the sense of continuity is necessary for -human dignity.</p> - -<p>The men of this age, however, are isolated—to use an electrical -metaphor—from the current of Humanity: they have become almost -entirely individuals, temporal units, "men"; what has been the outcome? -Inevitably the loss of the concept Man, for Man is a concept which can -be understood only through the contemplation on a grand scale of the -history of mankind. Man ceases to be dramatic when there are no longer -spectators for the drama of Humanity. The present generation have, -therefore, no sentiment of the human sublime; they see that part of the -grand tragedy which happens to pass before them, but without caring -about what went before or what will come after, without a clue, however -poor, to the mystery of existence. They know men only, the men of their -time. They are provincial—that is, lacking the sentiment of Man.</p> - -<p>How much decadence may not be traced to this! In Art, the conventions -of Realism and of Æstheticism have arisen. The first is just the -portrayal of present-day men <i>as</i> present-day men; nothing more, -therefore, than "contemporary art"; an appendage of the present, a -triviality. The second has as its creed enjoyment of the moment; and if -it contemplates the past at all, it is with the eyes of the voluptuous -antiquary—but a collector is not an heir. Art has in our time, both -in theory and in practice, become deliberately more fleeting. In -morality, there is Humanitarianism, or, in other words, the conviction -that the suffering of today is the most important thing, coupled with -the belief that there is nothing at present existing which can justify -and redeem this suffering: therefore, unconditional pity, alleviation, -"the greatest happiness of the greatest number." Modern pessimism, -which springs from the same source, is the obverse of this belief. -It, also, regards only the present, and says, perhaps with truth, -that <i>it,</i> at any rate, is not noble enough to deserve and demand the -suffering necessary for its existence—consequently, <i>all life</i> is -an error! All these theories, however, are breaks with the spiritual -tradition of emancipation; they are founded on the magnification of -the temporary—of that which only in a present continually carried -forward seems to be important. This judgment of Life with the eyes -of the present, this narrowest and most false of interpretations: -how has it confused and finally stultified the finest talents of our -time! The modern man is joyless; his joylessness has arisen out of his -modernity; and now to find forgetfulness of it he plunges more madly -than before—into modernity! For his own sake, as much as for that of -Humanity, it is our duty to free him from his wheel. One can live with -dignity only if one have a sense of the tragedy of Man. It is the first -task of the true modern to destroy the domination of the present.</p> - - -<p class="p2">95</p> - -<p><i>Encyclopædists</i></p> - -<p>Strange that the great dramatic poets of modern times have had a -weakness for turning their tragedies into encyclopædias! Consider -"Faust" and "Brand," for instance. Is it that the sentiment of the -eternal was already beginning to weaken in Goethe and Ibsen? Were they -overburdened by their own age? Their world was too much with them; -and so they did not reach the highest peaks of tragedy: they were not -universal.</p> - - -<p class="p2">96</p> - -<p><i>What is Modern</i></p> - -<p>It is time we erected a standard whereby to test what is modern. To -be an adherent of all the latest movements—that is at most to be -anarchistic, eclectic, inconsistent—call it what you will. Futurism, -Realism, Feminism, Traditionalism may be all of them opposed or -irrelevant to modernity. It is not sufficient that movements should be -new—if they are ever new; the question is, To what end are they? If -they are movements in the direction of emancipation, "the elevation -of the type Man," then they are modern; if they are not, then they -are movements to be opposed or ignored by moderns. If modernism be a -vital thing it must needs have roots in the past and be an essential -expression of humanity, to be traced, therefore, in the history of -humanity: in short, it can only be a tradition. The true modern is a -continuator of tradition as much as the Christian or the conservative: -the tine fight between progress and stagnation is always a fight -between antagonistic <i>traditions.</i> To battle against tradition <i>as -such</i> is, therefore, not the task of the modern; but rather to enter -the conflict—an eternal one—for his tradition against its opposite: -Nietzsche found for this antithesis the symbolism of Dionysus and -Apollo. Does such a tradition of modernity exist? Is there a "modern -spirit" not dependent upon time and place, and in all ages modern? -If there is—and there is—the possession of it in some measure will -alone entitle us to the name of moderns, give us dignity and make the -history of Man once more dramatic and tragical. It is a pity that some -historian has not yet traced, in its expression in events, the history -of this conflict—a task requiring the deepest subtlety and insight. -Meantime, for this tradition may be claimed with confidence such events -as Greek Tragedy, most of the Renaissance, and the emancipators of -last century. These are triumphant expressions of "the modern spirit," -but that spirit is chiefly to be recognized as a principle not always -triumphant or easy of perception, constantly struggling, assuming many -disguises and tirelessly creative. It is not, indeed, only a tradition -of persons, of dogmas, or of sentiments: it is a principle of Life -itself. This conception, it is true, is grand, and even terrifying—a -disadvantage in this age. But is there any other which grants -modernity more than the status of an accident of time and fashion?</p> - - -<p class="p2">97</p> - -<p><i>How We Shall Be Known</i></p> - -<p>In an age it is not always what is most characteristic that survives: -posterity will probably know us not by our true qualities, but by the -exceptions to them. The present-day writers in English who will endure -after their age has passed are probably Joseph Conrad, W. H. Hudson, -and Hillaire Belloc for a few of his essays and lyrics—none of them -representative, none of them modern. They might have been born in any -era: they are in the oldest tradition. The most striking characteristic -of our time, however, is its lack of a tradition. The sentiment of -transiency is our most deeply rooted sentiment: it is the very spirit -of the age. But by its essential nature it cannot hope to endure, to be -known by future generations; for we shall not produce immortal works -until we become interested in some idea long enough to be inspired by -it, and to write monumentally and surely of it. We hold our ideas by -the day; but for a masterpiece to be born, an idea must have taken -root and defied time. Permanence of form, moreover, would seriously -embarrass a modern writer, who wishes to change with the hour, and does -not want his crotchets of yesterday to live to be refutations of his -fads of today. Thus we are too fleeting to make even our transitoriness -eternal. The very sentiment of immortality has perished amongst us, and -we actually prefer that our work should die—witness the Futurists! The -most self-conscious heirs of modernity, these propounded the theory -that <i>it is better</i> that works of art should not endure: well, in that -case, their own creations have been true works of art! Nevertheless, -all they did in this theory was to erect into a system the shallowness, -provinciality and frivolousness of the present—and thereby to proclaim -themselves the enemies of the future.</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<h4><a name="IV" id="IV">IV</a></h4> - - -<h4>ART AND LITERATURE</h4> - - - -<p class="p2">98</p> - -<p><i>Psychology of Style</i></p> - -<p>There are writers with a style—it may be either good or bad—and -writers with no style at all, who just write badly. What quality or -combination of qualities is it which makes a writer a stylist?</p> - -<p>Style probably arises out of a duality; the association in a writer -of the scribe and the spectator. The first having set down his -thought, the second goes aside, contemplates it, as things should be -contemplated, <i>from a distance,</i> and and asks, "How does this strike -me? How does it look, sound, move?" And he suggests here a toning -down of colour, there an acceleration of speed, somewhere else, it -may be, an added lucidity, for clearness is an æsthetic as well as an -intellectual virtue.</p> - -<p>The writer without style, however, just writes on without second -thought; the spectator is altogether lacking in him; he cannot -contemplate his work from a distance, nor, indeed, at all. This -explains the unconsciousness and innocence in bad writing—not in -bad style, which is neither unconscious nor innocent! The stylist, -on the other hand, is always the actor to his own spectator; he must -get his effect; even Truth he uses as a means to his effect. If a -truth is too repulsive, he throws this or that cloak over it; if it -is uninteresting, he envelops it in mysticism (mysticism is simply -an artist's trick); in a word, he æstheticizes, that is, falsifies -everything, to please the second person in his duality, the spectator. -Even if he gets his effects by moderation of statements, he is to -be distrusted, for it is the moderation and not Truth that is aimed -at. And, then, his temptation to employ metaphors, to work up an -interesting madness, to rhapsodize—these most potent means to great -effects, these falsifications! Well, are we to assent, then, to the -old philosophic prejudice against style and refuse to believe any -philosopher who does not write badly?</p> - - -<p class="p2">99</p> - -<p><i>Modern Writing</i></p> - -<p>The greatest fault of modern style is that it is a smirking style. It -fawns upon the reader, it insinuates, it has the manner of an amiable -dog. If it does something smart, it stops immediately, wags its tail, -and waits confidently for your approval. You will guess now why those -little regiments of dots are scattered so liberally over the pages of -the best-known English novelist. It is H.G. Wells's style wagging its -tail.</p> - - -<p class="p2">100</p> - -<p><i>The Precise</i></p> - -<p>There have been writers—there <i>are</i> writers—whose only title to fame -is an interesting defect. They are unable to write soundly, and this -inability, being abnormal, is more interesting than sound writing, -which is only normal. For to limp or to hop on one leg is never -pedestrian—what do I say?—is <i>not even</i> pedestrian.</p> - - -<p class="p2">101</p> - -<p><i>Paradox</i></p> - -<p>What is paradox? The "bull" raised to a form of literary art?</p> - - -<p class="p2">102</p> - -<p><i>The Platitude</i></p> - -<p>There should be no platitudes in the works of a sincere author. A -platitude is an idea not understood by its writer—in one word, a -shibboleth.</p> - - -<p class="p2">103</p> - -<p><i>Praise?</i></p> - -<p>It is usual to extol the industry of those realists who put -<i>everything</i> into their books, but they should rather be censured -for their want of taste. The truth is that they lack the selective -faculty—lack, that is, art. Afraid to omit anything from -their reproductions of existence—lest they omit what is most -significant—they include <i>all</i>: the easiest course. The easiest -course, that is—for the writers.</p> - - -<p class="p2">104</p> - -<p><i>Hostility of Thinkers</i></p> - -<p>When a thinker has a world of thought of his own, he generally becomes -cold towards other thinkers, and to none more than to him whose star is -nearest his own. It is necessary, therefore, that he should read, above -all, the philosopher whose thought most closely resembles his, for to -him he is most likely to be unjust. We are the most hostile to those -who say what we say, but say it in a way we do not like.</p> - - -<p class="p2">105</p> - -<p><i>The Twice Subtle</i></p> - -<p>The thinker who has been twice subtle arrives at simplicity. And in -doing so he has, at the same time, discovered a new truth. But this -other thinker has possessed simplicity from the beginning. Has he also -possessed this truth? At any rate, he does not know it.</p> - - -<p class="p2">106</p> - -<p><i>Mastery of One's Thoughts</i></p> - -<p>One should know how to keep one's thoughts at a distance. The French -can do this, and, therefore, write at once wittily and profoundly of -serious things. But the Germans live, perhaps, too near their thoughts, -and are possessed by them: hence, their obscurity and heaviness. -Wit—lightness of hand—shows that one is master of one's thought, and -is not mastered by it. Nevertheless, the thoughts of the Germans may -be the mightier. In this matter the complete thinker should be able to -become French or German as occasion demands.</p> - - -<p class="p2">107</p> - -<p><i>Psychologists</i></p> - -<p>The keenest psychologists are those who are burdened with no social -mission and get along with a minimum of theory. Joseph Conrad, for -instance, is infinitely more subtle in his analysis of the human mind -and heart than is H. G. Wells or John Galsworthy. He has the happy -unconcern and detachment of a connoisseur in humanity, of one who -experiences the same fine interest in an unusual human situation as the -dilettante finds in some recondite trifle. Henry James carried this -attitude to a high degree of refinement. He walked among men and women -as a botanist might walk among a collection of "specimens," dismissing -the ordinary with the assured glance of an expert, and lingering -only before the distinctive and the significant. Should we who nurse -a mission deplore the spirit in which these disinterested observers -enter into their task? By no means. But for them, certain domains of -human nature would never have been discovered, and we should have been -correspondingly the losers. For we revolutionists must know the human -kind before we can alter them. The non-missionary is as necessary as -the missionary, and to none more than to the missionary.</p> - - -<p class="p2">108</p> - -<p><i>Realism</i></p> - -<p>Novels which take for their subject-matter mere ordinary, pedestrian -existence—and of this kind are three-fourths of present-day novels --are invariably dull in one of two ways. In the first instance, they -are written by pettifogging talents to whom only the ordinary is of -interest, by people, that is to say, who are incapable of writing a -book that is not dull. In the other, they are written by men generally -of considerable, sometimes of brilliant, ability, who, misled by a -theory, concern themselves laboriously with a domain of life which -they dislike and which even bores them. But if the writer is bored, how -much more so must be the reader! In short, the realist theory produces -bad books because it forces the writer to select subjects the only -emotion towards which it is possible to feel is boredom. And great art -may arise out of hate, grief, even despair, but never out of boredom.</p> - - -<p class="p2">109</p> - -<p><i>Fate and Mr. Wells</i></p> - -<p>Fate has dealt ironically with H. G. Wells. It has turned his volumes -of fiction into prophecies, and his volumes of prophecies into fiction.</p> - - -<p class="p2">110</p> - -<p>Mr. G. K. Chesterton</p> - -<p>A man's philosophy may be uninteresting, although he writes about it in -an interesting manner. Just as the many write dully about interesting -things, so a few write interestingly about dull things. And Mr. -Chesterton is one of these. Equality is a dull creed, Christianity -is a dry bone, tradition is wisdom for ants and the Chinese. But Mr. -Chesterton is a very interesting man. How is it possible for an -interesting man to have an uninteresting philosophy? Is this simply the -last paradox of a master of paradox?</p> - -<p>Mr. Chesterton's most charming quality is a, capacity for being -surprised. He writes paradoxically, because to him everything is a -paradox—the most simple thing, the most uninteresting thing. And -that is his weakness, as well as his strength. He has found the common -things so wonderful that he has not searched for the uncommon things. -The average man is to him such a miracle, that he will not admit the -genius is a far greater miracle. The theories he finds established, -Christianity, equality, democracy, traditionalism, interest him so much -that he has not gone beyond them to inquire into other theories perhaps -more interesting. And this, because he lacks intellectual curiosity, -along with that which frequently accompanies it, subtlety of mind. -For the intellectually curious man is precisely the man who is <i>not</i> -interested in things, or, at any rate, is interested in them only for a -little, and then passes on or burrows deeper to find something further. -One dogma after another he studies and deserts, this faith—- less -searcher, this philanderer, this philosopher; and that which leads him -on is the hope that at last he will find something to interest him -for an eternity. Perhaps it is this dissatisfaction of the mind which -has always driven men to seek knowledge; perhaps, if all mankind had -been like Mr. Chesterton, we should not have had even Christianity, -equality, democracy and the other theories which he holds and adorns.</p> - -<p>For Mr. Chesterton's impressions are all first impressions. Like -his own deity, he sees everything for the first time always. And he -lacks, therefore, the power, called vision, of seeing <i>into</i> things: -the outside of things is already sufficiently interesting to him. He -possesses imagination, however, and kindly and grotesque fancies which -he hangs on the ear of the most common clodhopper of a reality. In -fantasy he reaches greatness. But his philosophy is not interesting. It -is himself that is interesting.</p> - - -<p class="p2">111</p> - -<p><i>Nietzsche</i></p> - -<p>Nietzsche loved Man, but not men: in that love were comprehended his -nobility and his cruelty. He demanded that men should become Man -before they asked to be loved.</p> - - -<p class="p2">112</p> - -<p><i>Strindberg</i></p> - -<p>This writer, despite his genius, earnestness and courage, arouses -in us a feeling of profound disappointment. Nor is the cause very -far to seek. For along with earnestness and courage in a writer we -instinctively look for nobility and joy: if the latter qualities are -absent we feel that the <i>raison d'être</i> of the former is gone, and that -earnestness and courage divorced from nobility and joy are aimless, -wasted, almost inconceivable. And in Strindberg they are so divorced. A -disappointed courage; an ignoble earnestness! These are his pre-eminent -qualities. And with them he essayed tragedy—the form of art in which -nobility and joy are most required! As a consequence, the problems -which he treats are not only treated inadequately; the inadequacy, when -we stop to reflect upon it, absolutely amazes us. His crises are simply -rows. His women, when they are angry, are intellectual fishwives; -and—more disgusting still—so are his men. All his characters, -indeed, intellectual and talented as they are, move on an amazingly low -spiritual plane. The worst in their nature comes to light at the touch -of tragedy, and an air of sordidness surrounds all. Posterity will not -tolerate this "low" tragedy, this tragedy without a <i>raison d'être,</i> -this drama of the dregs.</p> - - -<p class="p2">113</p> - -<p><i>Dostoieffsky</i></p> - -<p>Dostoieffsky depicted the subconscious as conscious; that was how he -achieved his complex and great effects. For the subconscious is the -sphere of all that is most primeval, mysterious and sublime in man; -the very bed out of which springs the flower of tragedy. But did -Dostoieffsky do well to lay bare that world previously so reverently -hidden, and to bring the reader behind the scenes of tragedy? The -artist will deny it—the artist who always demands as an ingredient -in his highest effects mystery. For how can mystery be retained when -the very realm of mystery, the subconscious, is surveyed and mapped? -In Dostoieffsky's imperishable works the spirit of full tragedy is -perhaps never evoked. What he provides in them, however, is such a -criticism of tragedy as is nowhere else to be found. His genius was for -criticism; the artist in him created these great figures in order that -afterwards the psychologist might dissect them. And so well are they -dissected, even down to the subconsciousness, that, to use a phrase of -the critics, we know them better than the people we meet. Well, that is -precisely what we object to—as lovers of art!</p> - - -<p class="p2">114</p> - -<p><i>Again</i></p> - -<p>Not only is Dostoieffsky himself a great psychologist; all his chief -characters are great psychologists as well. Raskolnikoff, for instance, -Porphyrius Petrovitch, Svidragaïloff, Prince Muishkin, walk through -his pages as highly self-conscious figures, and as people who have one -and all looked deeply into the shadowy world of human motives, and -have generalized. The crises in Dostoieffsky's books are, therefore, -of a peculiarly complex kind. It is not only the human passions and -desires that meet one another in a conflict more or less spontaneous; -the whole wealth of psychological observation and generalization of -the conflicting character is thrown into their armoury, and with that, -too, they do battle. The resulting effect is more large, rich and -subtle than anything else in modern fiction, but also, if the truth -must be told, more impure, in the artistic sense, more sophisticated. -Sometimes, so inextricably are passion and "psychology" mingled, that -the crises are more like the duels of psychologists than the conflicts -of human souls. In the end, one turns with relief to the pure tragedy -of the classical writers, the tragedy which is not brought about by -people who act like amateur psychologists.</p> - - -<p class="p2">115</p> - -<p><i>Tolerance of Artists</i></p> - -<p>No matter what their conscious theories may be, all artists are -unconsciously aristocratic, and even intolerant in their attitude -to other men. They are more blind than most people to the <i>raison -d'être</i> of the politician, the business man and the philosopher—these -unaccountable beings who will not acknowledge the primacy of Creation -and Beauty. But at last they magnanimously conclude that these exist to -form their audience, <i>not</i> the subject-matter of their art—that is -the modern fallacy!</p> - - -<p class="p2">116</p> - -<p><i>Climate</i></p> - -<p>There are natures exquisitely sensitive to their human environment. -This man depresses them, they feel the vitality ebbing out of them -in his presence; that other brings exhilaration, at the touch of his -mind their powers increase and become creative. It is a question of -atmosphere. The first has a wintry, grey soul; the latter carries a -sun—<i>their</i> sun—in his bosom. And these artists require sunlight and -soft air, before the flowers and fruit can hang from their boughs. -Every artist of this type should go to Italy or France and live there; -or, failing that, create for himself an Italy or France of friends. -Others require the tempest with its lowering skies. But that is easier -to seek; they can generally find it within themselves.</p> - - -<p class="p2">117</p> - -<p><i>Sensibility</i></p> - -<p>It may be wisdom for the man of action to smother his griefs, and -follow resolutely his course. But with the artist it is different. He -should not close his heart against sorrow, for sorrow is of use to him; -his task is to transfigure it; thus he makes himself richer. Every -conquest of suffering which is attained by isolating the pang makes the -artist poorer; the part of him so isolated dies: he loses bit by bit -his sensitiveness, and how much does his sensitiveness mean to him! The -artist is more defenceless than other men, and he must be so. For his -sensitiveness should be such that the faintest rose-leaf of emotion -or thought cannot touch his heart without evoking in him infinite -delight or pain; and, at the same time, he should be able to respond to -the great tempests and terrible moods of life. Great strength, great -love, great productiveness, these are required if he is to endure -his sensitiveness; alas, for him, if he have them not! Then he must -suffer and suffer, until he has cut off one by one the sources of his -suffering, until he has mutilated and lamed what is most godlike in -him, and has made himself ordinary at last—or a Schopenhauerian.</p> - - -<p class="p2">118</p> - -<p><i>The Artist's Enemy</i></p> - -<p>I waited once beside a lake, created surely to mirror Innocence, so -pure it was. The passage of a butterfly over it or the breath of a -rose-leaf's fall was enough to stir its surface, infinitely delicate -and sensitive. Yet tempests did not affright it, for it laughed and -danced beneath the whip of the fiercest storm. And it could bury, as -in a bottomless tomb, the stones thrown at it by the most spiteful -hands; to these, indeed, it responded with a Puck-like radiating -smile that spread until it broke in soft laughter upon its marge. So -strong and delicate it lay, and yet, it seemed, so defenceless. Yet -what could harm it? Storm, shower, sunshine, and darkness alike but -ministered to it, and even the missiles of its enemies were lost in its -boundless security. It seemed invulnerable. I returned years later, -and looked once, looked and fled. For the lake had grown old, blind -and torpid, so that even the light lay dead in it. Then I noticed that -on every side, almost invisible, there were innumerable black streams -oozing—infection! The tragedy of the artist.</p> - - -<p class="p2">119</p> - -<p><i>Uniformity</i></p> - -<p>In the mien of children there is sometimes to be noted a natural -nobility and pride; they walk with the unconscious grace of -conquerors. But this grace and freedom soon disappear, and when the -child has become man there is nothing left of them: his bearing is -as undistinguished as his neighbour's. Nowhere, now, is nobility -of presence and movement to be found, except among children, the -chieftains of half-barbarous peoples, and some animals. The farther -man departs from the animal the less dignified he becomes, and the -more his appearance conforms to a common level: indeed, civilization -seems, on one side, to be a labourious attempt to arrive at the -undistinguished and indistinguishable. Is Man, then, the mediocre -animal par excellence? Only, perhaps, under an egalitarian régime. -Wherever a hierarchy exists in Europe there is more of nobility of -demeanour than elsewhere. Equality and humility are the great fosterers -of the mediocre: and not only, alas! of the mediocre in demeanour. Who -can tell how many proud, graceful and gallant thoughts and emotions -have been killed by shame—the shame which the egalitarians and the -humble have heaped upon them? And how much Art, therefore, has lost? -Certainly, in the minds of children there are many brave, generous and -noble thoughts which are never permitted to come to maturity. Ye must -become as little children——.</p> - - -<p class="p2">120</p> - -<p><i>Immortality of the Artist</i></p> - -<p>An artist one day forgot Death, so entirely had he become Life's, rapt -in a world of living contemplation; and, established there, he created -a form. That hour was immortal, and, therefore, the form was immortal. -This is the "timelessness" of true art-work; they are fashioned "in -eternity," as Blake said, and so speak to the eternal in Man.</p> - - -<p class="p2">121</p> - -<p><i>The Descent of the Artist</i></p> - -<p>At the beginning of his journey he climbed daringly, leaping from rock -to rock, exuberant, tireless, until he reached what he thought was -his highest peak. Then began his descent, and, lo, immediately great -weariness fell upon him. A friend of his wondered, Is he going downhill -because he is tired? Or is he tired because he is going downhill?</p> - - -<p class="p2">122</p> - -<p><i>Apropos the Cynic</i></p> - -<p>He wrote with an assumption of extreme heartlessness, and the public -said, "How tender his heart must be when he hides it under <i>such</i> a -disguise!" But what he was hiding all the time was his lack of heart.</p> - - -<p class="p2">123</p> - -<p><i>Artist and Philosopher</i></p> - -<p>In all ages the philosophers have <i>pardoned</i> the artists their lack of -depth, on account of their divine love of the beautiful. In our time, -however, this only reason for pardoning them has disappeared, and they -are now entirely deserving of condemnation. For the realists abjure -equally thought—interpretation, and beauty—selection. To be an eye, -with a fountain pen attached to it; that is their aim, successfully -attained, alas! A single eye and not a single thought: the definition -of the realist.</p> - - -<p class="p2">124</p> - -<p><i>An Evil</i></p> - -<p>Art is at the present day far too easy for comprehension, far too -obvious. Our immediate task should be to make it <i>difficult,</i> and the -concern of a dedicated few. Thus only shall we win back reverence for -it. When it is reverenced, however, it will then be time to extend its -sway; but not until then. Art must be approached with reverence, or -not at all. A democratic familiarity with it—such as exists among the -middle classes, <i>not</i> among the working classes, in whom reverence is -not yet dead—is an abomination.</p> - - -<p class="p2">125</p> - -<p><i>Modern Art Themes</i></p> - -<p>How sordid are the themes which modern art has chosen for itself! -The loss of money or of position, poverty, social entanglements—the -little accidents which a thinker laughs at! Are modern artists as -bourgeois as this? A coterie of shop-keepers? Tragic art has no -concern with the accidental: that is the sphere of comedy. Tragedy -should move inevitably once it has begun to revolve; it is beyond -fashion, universal, essential; Fate, not Circumstance, is its theme. -The presence of the accidental in a tragedy is sufficient to condemn -it. For it is the inevitable, the "Fate" in Tragedy, that makes of it -a heroic and <i>joyful</i> thing. It cannot be improvised like Comedy. It -demands in its creator a sense of the eternal, just as Comedy, on the -other hand, demands an exquisite appreciation of temporal fashion. -Tragedy is the greater art; Comedy, perhaps, the more difficult. -Our modern tragedies, however, are mainly about accidents, and very -mean accidents; they are improvised misfortunes and their effect is -depressing.</p> - - -<p class="p2">126</p> - -<p><i>The Illusionists</i></p> - -<p>How shallow are most artists! How childish! How subject to illusion! -This novelist at the end of his novels leaves his characters in a -Utopia, from which all sorrow and trial have been banished, a condition -absolutely unreal, contemptible and absurd. And all his readers admire -without thinking, and call the author profound! He is not profound, -but shallow and commonplace. Except for his gift of mimicry, which he -calls Art, he is just an average man. And, moreover, he is tired: the -"happy ending" is his exhaustion speaking through his art, his will -to stagnation and surrender. Works of art should only end tragically, -or enigmatically, as in "A Doll's House," or at the gateway of a new -ideal, as in "An Enemy of the People."</p> - - -<p class="p2">127</p> - -<p><i>Majorities and Art</i></p> - -<p>When it is said that in modern society poetic tragedy is out of season -and cannot <i>succeed,</i> an assumption is made which on literary grounds -can never be admitted. It is that majorities count in literature as in -politics; that "Brand" was a failure and "A Doll's House" a success. -But from another point of view, "Brand" was the success, "A Doll's -House" the failure. And the whole "problem" drama a failure with it, -and all the realistic schools, as well—a failure! This is <i>certainly</i> -how the future historian of literature will regard it. Our era with its -depressing "masterpieces" will be called the barren era, because the -grand <i>exception,</i> great art, has not bloomed in it, because even our -critics have judged contemporary art by a criterion of success instead -of the eternal spiritual criterion: their championship of "problem" art -proves it! In the meantime, then, realism is considered "the thing," -and people speak pityingly of poetic tragedy. Only those forms of art -which can "survive" in the struggle for existence are counted good—so -deeply, so unwisely have we drunk at the Darwinian spring!</p> - - -<p class="p2">128</p> - -<p><i>The Decay of Man</i></p> - -<p>The aim of Art was once to enrich existence by the creation of gods -and demi-gods; it is now to duplicate existence by the portrayal of -men. Art has become imitation, Realism has triumphed. And how much has -materialism had to do with this! In an age lacking a vivid ideal of -Man, men become interesting. The eyes of the artist, no longer having -an ideal to feed upon, are turned towards the actual, and imitation -succeeds creation. Every one busies himself in the study of men, and -Art becomes half a science, the artists actually collecting their data, -as if they were professors of psychology! Theories glorifying men are -born, and the cult of the average man arises, which is nothing but -the exaltation of men at the expense of Man. In due time all ideals -perish, only an inspiration towards averageness remains, and equality -is everywhere enthroned. Art has no longer a heaven to fly to, there -to create loftier heavens. In despair, she descends to earth and the -ordinary, and for her salvation <i>must</i> find the ordinary interesting, -must <i>make</i> the ordinary interesting. Realism arises when ideals of Man -decay: it is the egalitarianism of Art.</p> - - -<p class="p2">129</p> - -<p><i>A New Valuation</i></p> - -<p>But why do ideals of Man decay—why <i>did</i> the ideal of Man decay? -Because there were no longer examples to inspire the artists in -the creation of their grand, superhuman figures. Suspicion, envy, -equality—call it what you will—had become strong: the great man could -no longer fight it and remain great. By the radicals the genius was -regarded as an insult to the remainder of mankind. And how ordinary -he was, this genius, compared with the grand figures of the time of -the Renaissance; that time when men were weighed and valued, when -elevation and inequality were acknowledged and acted upon, and Man -became greater in stature, with Art his Will to Greatness! Well, -we must weigh men again; we must deny equality; we must affirm -aristocracy—in everything but commerce and production, where democracy -is really a return to the aristocratic tradition. And, you artists, you -must turn from men to Man, from Realism to Myth. And if you can find -in your age no example to inspire you to the creation of a great ideal -of Man, then become your own examples! Man must be born again, if you -would enter into your heaven.</p> - - -<p class="p2">130</p> - -<p><i>The Man and the Hour</i></p> - -<p>A. Let people say about aristocracy what they will, it remains -true that Man generally is equal to the event. Events are the true -stepping-stones on which Man rises to higher things. B. Ah! you are -not speaking of Man, but of men, of the many. The great man, however, -does not require an event to call his greatness forth. He is his own -event—and also that of others!</p> - - -<p class="p2">131</p> - -<p><i>The Lover to the Artists</i></p> - -<p>Love idealizes the object. If you would create an ideal Art, must you -not, then, learn to love? And that you are Realists—does it not prove -that you have not Love?</p> - - -<p class="p2">132</p> - -<p><i>Origin of the Tragic</i></p> - -<p>Here is yet another guess at the origin of the tragic:</p> - -<p>A man is told of some calamity, altogether unexpected, the engulfing -of a vessel by the sea, an avalanche which wipes out a town, or a fire -in which a family of little ones perish, leaving the father and mother -unharmed and disconsolate; and at once the very grandest feelings -awaken within him, he finds himself enlarged spiritually, and life -itself is enriched for him—the people in the vessel and in the town, -the children and the parents of the children, are raised to a little -more than human elevation by the favouritism of calamity. Next day he -hears that the news was false, and immediately, along with the feeling -of relief, he experiences an unmistakable disappointment and loss; -for all those grand emotions and the contemplation of life in that -greater aspect are snatched from him! Perhaps in primitive times, when -the means of disseminating news were more untrustworthy than they are -today, disappointments of this kind would occur very often; and one day -some rude poet, having noted the elevation which calamity brings, would -in luxurious imagination <i>invent</i> a calamity, in order to experience -<i>at will</i> this enlargement of the soul. But a tale of calamity, being -invented, would inevitably please the poet's hearers, both for the -feelings it aroused and the grand image of Man it represented. So much -for the origin and persistence—not the meaning—of the tragic.</p> - - -<p class="p2">133</p> - -<p><i>Tragedy and Comedy</i></p> - -<p>Tragedy is the aristocratic form of art. In it the stature of Man is -made larger. The great tragic figures are superhuman, unapproachable: -we do not sorrow with them, but for them, with an impersonal pity and -admiration. And that is because Man, and not men, is represented by -them: idealization and myth are, therefore, proper to their delineation.</p> - -<p>But Comedy is democratic. Its subject is men, the human-all-too-human, -the unrepresentative: it belittles men in a jolly egalitarianism. This -static fraternity, this acceptance of men as they are, is resented by -the aristocratic natures, who would make Man nobler; but to the average -men it is flattering, for it proclaims that the great are absurd even -as they, it unites men in a brotherhood of absurdity. Thus, all comedy -is an involuntary satire, all tragedy an involuntary idealization of -men.</p> - -<p>Tragedy is the supreme affirmation of Life, for it affirms Life even -in its most painful aspects, struggle, suffering, death; so that we -say, "Yes, this, too, is beautiful!" <i>That</i> was the <i>raison d'être</i> of -classical tragedy—and not Nihilism!</p> - -<p>Well, in which of these forms, Tragedy or Comedy, may our hopes and -visions of the Future best be expressed? Surely in that which idealizes -Man and says Yea to suffering, Tragedy, the dynamic form of Art.</p> - - -<p class="p2">134</p> - -<p><i>Super-Art</i></p> - -<p>In the works of some artists everything is on a slightly superhuman -scale. The figures they create fill us with astonishment; we cannot -understand how such unparalleled creatures came into being. When we -contemplate them, in the works of Michelangelo or of Nietzsche, there -arise unvoluntarily in our souls sublime dreams of what Man may yet -attain. Our thoughts travel into the immeasurable, the undiscovered, -and the future becomes almost an intoxication to us.</p> - -<p>In Nietzsche, especially, this attempt to make Art perform the -impossible—this <i>successful</i> attempt to make Art perform the -impossible—is to be noted in every book, almost in every word. For -he strains language to the utmost it can endure; his words seem to be -striving to escape from the bonds of language, seeking to transcend -language. "It is my ambition," he says in "The Twilight of the -Idols," "to say in ten sentences what every one else says in a whole -book—what every one else does <i>not</i> say in a whole book." In the same -way, when in his first book he wrote about Tragedy, he raised it to -an elevation greater than it had ever known before, except, perhaps, -in the works of Æschylus; when, in his essay upon "Schopenhauer as -Educator," he adumbrated his conception of the philosopher, philosophy -seemed to become a task for the understandings of gods; and when, -having criticized the prevailing morality, he set up another, it -seemed to his generation an impossible code for human beings, a code -cruel, over-noble. Finally, when he wrote of Man, it was to create -the Superman. He touched nothing which he did not ennoble. And, -consequently, in Art his chosen form was Myth; he held it beneath the -nobility of great art to create anything less than demi-gods; religion -and art were in him a unity.</p> - -<p>In super-art, in these works of Leonardo and Michelangelo, of Æschylus -and Nietzsche, Man is incited again and again to surpass himself, to -become more than "human."</p> - - -<p class="p2">135</p> - -<p><i>Love Poetry</i></p> - -<p>Love poetry, so long as it glorifies Love, is supremely worthy of -our reverence. Everything that idealizes and transfigures Love, -making it more desirable and full even of transcendental meaning, is -of unquestionable advantage to mankind; on the other hand, a crudely -physiological statement, even though this may be <i>formally</i> true, -serves neither Love nor Life. It is assuredly not the function of art -to treat Love in this way. On the contrary, amatory poetry by its -idealization allures to Love; this is true even of such of it as is -tragic: we are prepared by it to experience gladly even the suffering -of Love. The only poetry that is noxious is that which bewails -the "vanity" of Love, and that in which a deliberate sterility is -adumbrated. These are decadent.</p> - - -<p class="p2">136</p> - -<p><i>Literature and Literature</i></p> - -<p>Literature that is judged by literary standards merely is not of the -highest rank. For the greatest works are themselves the standards by -which literature is judged. How, then, are they to be valued? By a -standard outside of literature, by their consonance with that which is -the <i>raison d'être</i> of literature? In them a far greater problem than -any literary problem faces us, the problem, Why does literature exist? -What is the meaning of literature?</p> - -<p>Through whole generations men forget this problem, and literature -becomes to them a specialized form of activity to be pursued for its -own sake, a part of Man's soul, thrown off and become static and -separate, with a sterile life of its own. The more shallow theory and -practice of literature then come into being; Realism and Art for Art's -sake flourish. But the eternal question always returns again, Why does -literature exist? What is its meaning? And, then, the possibility of -another blossoming of literature is not far away.</p> - - -<p class="p2">137</p> - -<p><i>The Old Poet</i></p> - -<p>An old poet who had lived in the good days when poets were <i>makers</i>—of -moralities and gods, among other things—lately re-visited the earth, -and after a study of the very excellent exercises in literature to be -found in our libraries, delivered himself thus:—</p> - -<p>"How has our power decayed! Into litterateurs have we declined who were -creators. Perish all literature that is only literature! Poets live -to create gods; to glorify gods should all their arts of adornment -and idealization be used. But I see here adornment without the object -worthy of adornment; beautification for the sake of beautification; Art -for Art's sake. These artists are only half artists. They have surely -made Art into a game."</p> - -<p>The critics did not understand him, and, <i>therefore,</i> disagreed. The -artists thought he was mad, besides knowing nothing of æsthetics. The -moral fanatics acclaimed him vociferously, mistaking him for a popular -preacher. Only a philosophico-artistic dilettante listened attentively, -and said, a little patronizingly, "He is wrong, but he is more right -than wrong."</p> - - -<p class="p2">138</p> - -<p><i>The Old Gods</i></p> - -<p>Perhaps there is too much made of anthropomorphism. Man's first gods -were not "human" gods; they were stars, animals, plants and the like. -It was not until he became an artist that he made gods after his own -form: anthropomorphism is just an artistic convention! For gods are in -their <i>content</i> superhuman. There has never been a man like Jehovah -or Zeus or Odin. The essential thing in them is that they embody an -ideal, a fiction, adumbrating something <i>more</i> than Man. Religion is -poetry in the grand style, and, as poetry, must have its conventions.</p> - - -<p class="p2">139</p> - -<p><i>The Old Poets</i></p> - -<p>In primitive times the poet was far more both of an inventor and a liar -than he is at present. For many centuries the lies of the poets have -been innocent lies, a convention merely, and to be recognized as such -before "æsthetic" enjoyment can begin. But the lies the old poets told -were believed literally—as they were meant to be! Yes, the poet at -the beginning was just a liar, a great liar. How else, if he had not -deceived Man, could he have peopled the heavens with Man's deities? And -as the father of whole families of gods, he has done more to decide the -fate of Humanity than all the philosophers, heroes and martyrs. These -are only his servants, who explain war or die for his fictions. And not -merely error, as Nietzsche held, but lying has from the earliest times -been the most potent factor of progress. But not all lying; only the -lies told out of great love have been creative and life-giving. Art, -imagination, prophecy, hallucination, ecstasy, vision—all these were -united in the first poets, the true creators.</p> - - -<p class="p2">140</p> - -<p><i>The Creator Redivivus</i></p> - -<p>The only modern who has dared to be a poet through and through, -that is, a liar in the noble and tragic sense, is the author of the -Superman. In Nietzsche, again, after centuries of divine toying, the -poet has appeared in his great <i>rôle</i> of a creator of gods, a figure -beside whom the "poet" seems like nothing more than the page boy of the -Muse.</p> - - -<p class="p2">141</p> - -<p><i>Literature as Praise</i></p> - -<p>A. Would you erase from the book of literature all that is not -idealization and myth, you neo-moderns? Would you deprive us of all the -charming, serious, whimsical, and divinely frivolous works which are -human-all-too-human? B. If we could—a thousand times no! We would only -destroy what defames Life. All that praises Life, all that enchants to -Life, we would cherish as things holy. Idealization, it is true, is -the highest form of praise, because it arises out of Love; but there -are other forms. Modern Realism, however, is a calumny against Life. -<i>Écrasez l'infâme!</i></p> - - - -<p class="p2">142</p> - -<p><i>The Poet Speaks</i></p> - -<p>How unhappy must all those poor mortals be who are not poets! They -feel and cannot express. They are dumb when their soul would utter its -divinest thoughts. Cloddish and fragmentary, they are scarcely human, -these poor mortals! For one must be a poet to be altogether human. Yes! -in the ideal society of the future every one will be a poet, even the -average man!</p> - - -<p class="p2">143</p> - -<p><i>Myth</i></p> - -<p>The worst evil of our time is this, that there is nothing greater than -the current average existence to which man can look; Religion has dried -up, Art has decayed from an idealization of life into a reflection of -it. In short, Art has become a passive thing, where once it was the -"great stimulus to Life." The idealization and enchantment which the -moderns have so carefully eliminated from it was precisely its <i>raison -d'être.</i> And modern Art, which sets out to copy life, has forgotten Art -altogether, its origin, its meaning and its end.</p> - -<p>Against this aimless Realism, we must oppose idealization, and -especially that which is its highest expression, Myth. And let no one -say that it is impossible at this stage in Man's history to resuscitate -Myth. The past has certainly lost its mystery for us, and it was in -the past, at the source of Humanity, that the old poets set their -sublime fictions. But the future is still ours, and there, at Man's -goal, our myths must be planted. And thither, indeed, has set the -great literature of the last hundred years. Faust, Mephistopheles, -Brand, Peer Gynt, Zarathustra—there were no greater figures in the -literature of the last century—were all myths, and all forecasts of -the future. The soil out of which literature grows, then, has not yet -been exhausted! If we but break away from Realism, if we make Art -symbolic, if we bring about a marriage between Art and Religion, Art -will rise again. That this is possible, we who have faith in the Future -<i>must</i> believe.</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<h4><a name="V" id="V">V</a></h4> - - -<h4>CREATIVE LOVE</h4> - - -<p class="p2">144</p> - -<p><i>Creative Love</i></p> - -<p>To us who nourish hopes for the future of Man, the important -distinction to be drawn in Love is not that between the sacred and the -profane. We ask, rather, Is our Love creative or barren? That Love -should bring happiness, or union, or fulfilment, seems to us not such -a very great matter! The will to create something, out of oneself, not -oneself, whether it be in bodies, or in Art or Philosophy—that is the -thing for ever worthy of our reverence.</p> - -<p>There is another Love; that whose end is enjoyment. It is the enemy -of creative Love. It is the Love which, in various forms, is known -as Liberalism, or Humanitarianism, or the greatest happiness of the -greatest number. Sympathy is its central dogma; and it is never tired -of exalting itself at the expense of the other Love, which it calls -cruel, senseless and unholy. But the same blasphemy is here repeated -that Socrates once was guilty of and afterwards so divinely atoned. -For it is not creative Love, but sympathetic Love, that is unholy. -This would spare the beloved the pangs of love, even if, in doing so, -it had to sacrifice the fruits of love. It springs from disbelief in -existence. Life is suffering, it cries, suffering must be alleviated, -and, therefore, Life must be abated, weakened and lamed! And this love -is barren. But creative Love does not bring enjoyment, but rapture -and pain. It is the will to suffer gladly; it finds relief from the -pains of existence, not in alleviation, but in creation. This Love -is, indeed, a Siren—we would not mitigate the awfulness of that -symbol—luring Man to peril, perhaps to shipwreck. Yet, by the holiest -law of his being, he listens, he follows. And, if his ears have been -sealed by reason he <i>unseals</i> them again, he listens with his very -soul, yielding to that which is for him certainly danger, perhaps -Death, knowing that, even in Death, he will be affirming Life in the -highest. This Love, the earnest of future greatness, this terrible, -unconditional and innocent thing, we <i>cannot but</i> reverence.</p> - - -<p class="p2">145</p> - -<p><i>Where Man is Innocent</i></p> - -<p>There is one region in Man where innocence and a good conscience -still reign—in the unconscious. Love and the joy in Love are of the -unconscious. The rapture which Love brings is neither, as Schopenhauer -said, merely a device to ensure the propagation of mankind, nor the -race rejoicing in and through the individual to its own perpetuation; -but the joy of unconscious Man, still innocent as before the Fall, with -a good conscience enjoying the anticipatory rapture of new life. The -instincts believe in Life entirely without questioning; doubt and guilt -are simply not present in their world: it is reflection that makes -sinners of us all.</p> - -<p>The thoughts that come to us in the season of Love—we do not need to -search in metaphysical heavens for their source. They arise from the -very well spring, the very central ego of Man, out of the unconscious, -the innocent, the real. Poetry, in that which is incomprehensible and -mystical in it, arises from this also. So there is hope still for Man, -all ye who believe not in primal depravity! The real man is <i>even -now</i> innocent: Original Sin is only mind deep, conscience deep. The -instincts still behave as if Life-defaming doctrines <i>were not</i>: they -have not yet begun to mourn at the Spring and exult at the Autumn. -And in the ecstasies of creative Love, whether it be of persons or of -things, they continue to celebrate, without misgiving, their jubilee.</p> - - -<p class="p2">146</p> - -<p><i>A Criterion</i></p> - -<p>To find out whether a thing is decadent or no, let us henceforth -put this question, Does it spring from creative Love? Is the Will -to suffering incarnate in it, or the will to alleviate suffering? -How much must by this standard be condemned! Humanitarianism and its -child, Reform, or the desire to alleviate others' pain; Æstheticism -and its step-brother, Realism, or the wish to alleviate one's own: -these spring from the same source—a dearth of Love. For creative Love -would enjoin, not sympathy with suffering, but the will to transcend -suffering; not reform, whose aim is happiness, but revolution, whose -aim is growth; not Art for Art's sake, an escape from Life into a -stationary æsthetic world, but the creation, out of Life, of ever new -Art; not Realism or the need to find men interesting; but idealization, -or the desire to <i>make</i> men interesting. John Galsworthy and Oscar -Wilde alike are decadent for this reason, that they lack Love. The -real difference between them is that the one is a Collectivist, and -sympathizes with the people, and the other is an Individualist, and -sympathizes with himself. But both degrade Love to the level of -Hedonism; both rebel against the cruelty of Love, desiring a Love which -will not hurt, and, therefore, <i>must</i> be barren.</p> - -<p>But wherever peoples, faiths or arts decay, the decay of Love—this -strong, energetic Love—has come first. The current frivolousness about -intellectual matters, the philandering of the literary coquettes, -springs simply from a lack of Love. For the great problems demand -passion for their comprehension, and our intellectuals dislike -passion. In politics and in religion it is the same: creative Love has -everywhere disappeared to be replaced by barren Sympathy. But is it -possible by preaching to increase Love? Can it be willed into power? -Well, praise may call it forth.</p> - - -<p class="p2">147</p> - -<p><i>Love at the Renaissance</i></p> - -<p>How may a great creative age like the Renaissance be interpreted on the -hypothesis of Love? Shall it yet be found that the mainspring of the -Renaissance was a newly discovered love of Life and, therefore, of Man?</p> - -<p>In the Middle Ages that part of Life, then called God, had become -isolated and abstract, and was worshipped to the detriment of all other -Life; while Man was neglected where he was not belittled. Thus, a -strong current of Man's love was diverted away from Man altogether, and -the earth became dark and sterile. How was the earth to recapture its -love again, and drink back into itself its rapture and creativeness? By -a marriage in which God and the Universe were made one flesh; by the -incorporation of God into Life, and, therefore, into Man. Hence arose -the Pantheism of the Renaissance. To love Life with a good conscience, -to love Life unconditionally, it was necessary to call Life God. Out of -this Love sprang not only the art but the science of the Renaissance. -For Man once more became interested in himself, and, from himself, in -Life; ultimately discoveries were made and more than one New World was -brought to light.</p> - -<p>Perhaps it is the defect of all theistic, objective theologies that -they become, sooner or later, barren. Only by being translated into the -subjective do they regain their creative power: Pantheism is the remedy -for Theism. Yet to Theism we owe this, that it lent intensity and -elevation to Love. The Love of the Pantheists of the Renaissance was -not ordinary human Love; it united in a unique emotion the love that -had formerly been given to Man along with that which had formerly been -given to God. It loved Man as God should be loved—a dangerous thing. -But out of this love of God in Man it created, nevertheless, something -great, somewhat less than the one, somewhat more than the other—the -demi-god. The Renaissance was the age of the demi-gods.</p> - - -<p class="p2">148</p> - -<p><i>Sympathy</i></p> - -<p>Sympathy is Love bereft of his bow and arrows—but still blind.</p> - - -<p class="p2">149</p> - -<p>A Self-Evident Proposition</p> - -<p>This is certain, that God is Love. How, else, could He have created the -Universe?</p> - - -<p class="p2">150</p> - -<p><i>"God is Love"</i></p> - -<p>When Jesus said, "God is Love," He denned a religion of Becoming. Was -it not necessarily so? For Love is not something which may <i>choose</i> to -create; it <i>must</i> create, it is fundamentally the will and the power -to create. And Eternal Love, or God, is, therefore, eternal creation, -eternal change, eternal Becoming. Consequently, there is no ultimate -goal, no Perfection, except that which is realized at every moment in -the self-expression of Love. A vision? A nightmare? Well, it depends -whether one is in favour of Life, or of Death; whether one lives, or is -lived. And, therefore, whether religion is subjective, or objective? -Whether God is within us, or outside us? For so long as God is within -us, we must create. That should be our Becoming!</p> - - -<p class="p2">151</p> - -<p><i>Love and Mr. Galsworthy</i></p> - -<p>The art of Mr. Galsworthy is such an ambiguous thing—half impersonal -portrayal, half personal plea, the <i>Art pour l'Art</i> of a social -reformer—and the subjects he chooses are so controversial—the -abuses of society—that it is hard to place him as an artist. When -"The Dark Flower" appeared, however, we thought we had him. Here was -a great subject to his hand, an artist's question at last, Love. -Alas! even in writing about it, he could not altogether exclude the -reformer. Well, that itself, perhaps, told us something! However -that may be, we do get here Mr. Galsworthy's conception of Love. It -is an inadequate conception, a realist's conception: Love, with the -meaning left out. The ardours, the longing, the disappointment and -anguish—all the <i>symptoms</i>—of Love are given; but not a hint that -Love has any significance beyond the emotions it brings: that which -redeems Love, creation, is ignored altogether! Mr. Galsworthy has -seen that Love is cruel, but he has not seen beyond the cruelty: it -is the ultimate thing to him. Well, that is perhaps the most that -could be expected of a humanitarian trying to comprehend Love! In this -book are all the symptoms of Humanitarianism—pity for every one, -reform of institutions, suffering always considered the sufficient -reason for abolishing or palliating things: a creed thrice inadequate, -thrice shallow, thrice blind. Love would find relief from suffering in -creation. But one feels that Mr. Galsworthy would abolish Life if he -could. Humanitarianism unconsciously seeks the annihilation of Life, -for in Life suffering is integral.</p> - - -<p class="p2">152</p> - -<p><i>Mr. Thomas Hardy</i></p> - -<p>In Mr. Hardy's conception of Love, unlike Mr. Galsworthy's, the -contingency of creation is never absent; but to him creation is not -a justification of the pangs of Love. It is an intensification of -them; it is Love's last and worst indignity. But even when Love does -not bestow this ultimate insult of creation, it cannot resist the -satisfaction of torturing its victims; it is wanton and irrelevant -in its distribution of pain. Mr. Hardy's books are filled with the -torments of Love. Was it not fitting that he should aim his main -indictment of Life against it, seeing that it is the trick whereby -the blunder of Life is perpetuated? And so Mr. Hardy is certainly a -decadent; but he is a great decadent—one of those who by the power of -their denial of Life seem to make Life more profound and tragic, and -inspire the healthy artists to an even greater love and reverence for -it.</p> - -<p>He is great, however, not by his theories, but by his art. The contrast -between the sordidness of his thought and the splendidness of his art -fills us sometimes with amazement. He sets out in his books to prove -that Life is a mean blunder; and, in spite of himself, the tragedy of -this blunder becomes in his hands splendid and impressive, so that -Life is enriched even while it is defamed. Art, which is <i>necessarily</i> -idealization and glorification, triumphs in him over even his most -deeply founded conscious ideas. In all his greater books, it refutes -his pessimism and turns his curses into involuntary blessings. So -divine is Art!</p> - - -<p class="p2">153</p> - -<p><i>Mr. George Moore</i></p> - -<p>In writing about Love, Mr. Moore falls into the same realistic error -as Mr. Galsworthy: he writes about its manifestations without knowledge -of that which gives them meaning and connection. Love to him is just -certain sensations—and not only Love, but everything else. Art is -a sensation; religion, a sensation; the soul, a sensation. Take out -of his books sensation, and there will be little of account left. He -knows the religious feeling, but not religion: he always confounds -spirituality with refined sensualism. So he knows the sensation of -Love, but not Love.</p> - -<p>But Mr. Moore is learned in the senses: he knows them in everything -but their purity. Yes, even sensuality is in his books corrupted. How -true this is we realize when in "Evelyn Innes" he compares one of his -characters to a faun. We are almost distressed at this, for we feel -that the word is not only coarsened, but used with a wrong meaning -altogether: we feel that Mr. Moore is incapable of understanding what a -faun is! These sophisticated, scented and somewhat damaged voluptuaries -of his, in whose conversation there is always an atmosphere of -expensive feminine lingerie, and who "know" women so intimately; how -perverted must be the taste which can compare them with the hardy, -nimble, unconscious creatures of ancient Greece! But Mr. Moore is much -nearer in temper to Oscar Wilde than to the realists. He is an æsthete -essentially, and a realist only in the second place, and only because -he is an æsthete. The province of selected exquisite beauty had been -exhausted by Wilde and his school; so Mr. Moore turned to the squalid, -the commonplace and the diseased in Life, there to find his "æsthetic -emotion." This explains the curious effect at once of colour and of -drabness in his books. He is a perverted Wilde; doubly a decadent.</p> - - -<p class="p2">154</p> - -<p><i>Mr. Bernard Shaw</i></p> - -<p>Both the strength and the weakness of Mr. Shaw spring from a -defect—his lack of Love. Freedom from illusion is his strength. He -possesses common sense minus common sentiment; that, and probably -nothing more; and that gives to his thought an appearance of subtlety, -though it is not really subtle. Thus, his common sense tells him that -Love is essentially creation. He sees through the illusions which Love -spins round its purpose, because he does not see these illusions at -all. Love, indeed, is known to him in all but its illusions; but who -knows Love that knows not Love's illusions? Still, it is to his honour -that he has conceived Love as creation. His weakness consists in that -his attitude to Love is purely intellectual. He lacks Love more than -any other man of his time. In grappling with the great problems of -existence, it is not Love but the very absence of Love that has been -his most useful weapon; and so he has seen much, but grasped nothing, -created nothing. And because he has never loved, he can never be called -an artist. For how can one who has not loved idealize? And how can one -who has not idealized be an artist? In Mr. Shaw, Nature has gone out of -her way to create the very antithesis of the artist.</p> - -<p>What Nietzsche said about Socrates is true of Mr. Shaw even in a -higher degree; that his reason is stronger than his instincts, and -has usurped the place of his instincts. Without Love, he yet affirms -creation. What can be his reason for doing so? Why should he wish -Life to persist if he does not love Life? Is it in order that people -might still converse wittily, and the epigram might not die? Or so -that exceptional men might experience forever the joy of intellectual -conflict, the satisfaction found in the ruthless exposure of fallacy -and weakness, and the proud feeling of mental power? We know that Mr. -Shaw regards the brain as an end—the purpose of Life being to perfect -a finer and finer brain—and we know, too, that to Mr. Shaw the highest -joy the brain can experience is not that of knowing, but of fighting. -Knowledge to him is a weapon with which to wage war. Does he desire -Life to continue so that controversy might continue? Well, let us look, -then, for some other reason for his praise of Love. He himself lacks -Love:—Can it be that he praises it for the same reason for which -the Christian praises what he is not but would fain be? And his love -of Love is then something pathetic, founded on "unselfishness"? And -himself, a Romantic?</p> - - -<p class="p2">155</p> - -<p><i>Mr. H. G. Wells</i></p> - -<p>How much has Mr. Wells's scientific training had to do with his -conception of Love? As a student of biology, it was natural he should -see Love as sex. In all his theories, indeed, there is more of the -scientist than of the artist. Scientific certainly, is his simple -acceptance of sex as a fact, and his unhesitating association of it -with generation, and of both with Love. The innocence of the scientist -and not of the artist is his, an innocence Darwinian, not Goethean. And -so, although his purpose is fine—to restore in his books an innocent -conception of sexual Love—in doing so, his biology always runs away -with his art. For he would render sex significant by reading it into -all creation, as the meaning of creation; thus making the instrument -more than the agent, the very meaning of the agent! But this robs both -creation and sex of their significance. The way to restore an innocent -conception of sexual Love is by reading creation into it, by seeing it -as part of the universal Becoming, by carrying it away on the great -purifying stream of Becoming. In spite of his genius, and still more -of his cleverness, Mr. Wells here began at the wrong end. But it is -doubtful whether any one in this generation has sufficient artistic -power and elevation to express in art this conception of Love. Within -the limits of Realism, especially of "physiological Realism," it -certainly cannot be expressed. Nothing less than the symbolic may serve -for it.</p> - - -<p class="p2">156</p> - -<p><i>The Idealism of Love</i></p> - -<p>The writer who discovered that love idealizes the object might have -pushed his discovery a little further; for it is no less true that love -idealizes the subject. None knows better than the poets how to take -advantage of this self-idealization: one has only to read their love -poems to find out how much more is said about the poet's beautiful -feelings than about the object which presumably evoked them. Heine, -particularly, was a shameless offender in this way. A woman was to -him simply an excuse for seeing himself in imagination in a romantic -attitude. But even with the others who appear less obtrusive and more -disinterested the implication is the same. How elevated and even divine -we must be, they seem to say, when we can feel in this manner; and how -happy, when we are privileged to love an object of such loveliness! -Yes! love has such power that it idealizes everything—even the -subject!</p> - - -<p class="p2">157</p> - -<p><i>Love and Becoming</i></p> - -<p>The great Heraclitus propounded the doctrine of Becoming. Everything -changes, is built up and dissolved; "stability" is only a little -sluggishness in the flux of things. Zeus, the great child, the divine -artist, constructs and destroys at his pleasure and for his amusement: -all the worlds are his playthings. This conception of the Universe is -innocent and beautiful, an artist's conception; but it is at the same -time terrifying. And that because all meaning is left out of it; for -all things without meaning, no matter how beautiful they may be, are in -the end terrifying.</p> - -<p>Nietzsche, the modern counterpart of Heraclitus, re-affirmed this -doctrine; but he coupled with it the idea of creative Love: that is his -chief distinction. Certainly, those who do not comprehend Nietzsche's -Love do not comprehend Nietzsche. It is the key to his religion of -Becoming. Becoming without Love is meaningless; Love without Becoming -is meaningless. But, united, each gives its meaning to the other, each -redeems the other. But have things a meaning in themselves? Is it not -Man that forever interprets and interprets? Very well. But is not a -thing incomplete without its interpretation? Is not its interpretation -a part of it?</p> - - -<p class="p2">158</p> - -<p><i>Static Values</i></p> - -<p>Stagnant waters become noisome after a while. And stagnant values? -Certainly within these eternal pools not a few repulsive things have -been born: in Perfection, Sin; in Justice, Guilt. It was when human -judgments were apotheosized and became Eternal Justice that guilt was -insinuated into the core of Life. A falsehood, a presumption! What man -found necessary at one moment in his history for his preservation, -that, forsooth, was a law governing the spheres, the everlasting edict -of God Himself. And when Life did not operate in conformity with this -law, it was Life that must needs be guilty—a very ingenious method -of world-vilification! It was human vanity that created the eternal -verities. And how much have we suffered from them! For the deification -of Things meant the diabolization of Man, nay, of Life itself. The -metaphysician who created Heaven created Hell at the self-same -moment; but, ever since, it has been Hell that has given birth to the -metaphysicians. Being <i>condemns</i> Becoming, and pollutes all Life with -sin. So in the pools of Being we can no longer cleanse ourselves, and -our preference for a doctrine of Becoming may be at bottom a hygienic -preference.</p> - - -<p class="p2">159</p> - -<p><i>The God of Becoming</i></p> - -<p>Love is the God of Becoming. All the other gods are static gods, -changeless for yesterday, today and tomorrow. But Love belongs -altogether to the future. It is the deity of those who would create a -future.</p> - - -<p class="p2">160</p> - -<p><i>Utopias</i></p> - -<p>It is sympathy that has built the Utopias. On every one of them is -written, "Conflict and suffering are bad." Utopia is nothing but -a place where men are happy, like how many heavens, an ideal of -exhaustion. The thing that is omitted from it is always Love, for -Love would shatter all Utopias and leave them behind. In Nowhere Man -no longer creates, but enjoys. But creation and pain go hand in hand; -for what is creation? The dissolution of the outworn, the birth of the -new; a continuous fury in which the throes of death and of life are -mingled. And Love calls Man to that fate.</p> - -<p>What we need is an ideal of energy. But that must needs be an ideal -of Man, not of Society; for Man is the dynamic, Society the static. -Utopia is a goal, but the Superman is a goal beyond a goal; for, once -attained, he is naught but the arrow to shoot into <i>his</i> future. To -attain the Superman is to surpass the Superman. Only ideals of this -kind are unassailable by Love.</p> - - -<p class="p2">161</p> - -<p><i>"Primacy of Things"</i></p> - -<p>If we aim at a state of society in which static values, as far as we -can know them, are conformed with, we aim at a state in which the -creative impulse will not only be needless, but harmful. For does not -belief in absolute values necessarily imply belief in a Utopia? And -therefore in something antagonistic to Love? The metaphor of static -Perfection, lovely as it is, has perhaps ruled us too long, and it is -time we superseded it by another. Or is it still, as it has always -been, a crime to substitute one metaphor for another? Even if it is -Love that drives us on?</p> - -<p>Progress conceived as a discovery of the unknown instead of as -a pursuit of Perfection—might not that take us a long way? Did -Nietzsche, perhaps, create his Superman, and give him his hardness and -lightness for no other purpose than to carry out that task? Perfection -is something that we have yet to discover! In this conception of -progress all Utopias are transcended, all goals renounced, yet a set -of values, a morality, is retained. The morality might be judged by -the criterion, Does it aid us in our quest? A future of discovery, of -creation and change, not of enjoyment: what a task for energetic Love -does that open out! The Superman is a goal, but what is the Superman's -goal? The Superman is something that must be surpassed!</p> - - -<p class="p2">162</p> - -<p><i>Perfection</i></p> - -<p>When men write largely of Perfection, as if it were a concept every -one could understand, we are entitled to ask what exactly they mean. -Do they mean a sort of synthesis or hotchpotch of the virtues in which -they believe? Does X believe in a Christian and Y in a Nietzschean -perfection? As a rule, conceptions of Perfection are offshoots of -the morality prevalent at any given time. And, for action, people's -conception of Perfection is much more important than Perfection itself. -Therefore, let us ceaselessly repeat, Perfection is something still to -be discovered! As for the current conception, is conflict an ingredient -in it, or rest? Is it an ideal of Life, or a thing impossible, -self-contradictory, static, an eternal stick with which to chastise -existence? The first question to be asked.</p> - - -<p class="p2">163</p> - -<p><i>Goals</i></p> - -<p>When people speak of the unthinkableness of eternal Becoming which has -no goal in Being, what they express is their longing for rest. It is -unendurable, they feel, that Life, creation, change, should travel on -their way forever: at the very thought their minds become tired, and -Being is conjured up. Hitherto, our goals have not been resting stages, -but eternal termini. But a true goal should not be a cul-de-sac, but -the peak from which to descry our next goal. And so on eternally? Well, -why not? Finality was born when the mind became weary at the thought -of eternal ascent and found refuge in that of eternal rest. We have not -fully learned yet how to live: struggle is still with us an argument -against Life. What we need is perhaps a few re-incarnations! When we -have learned to live, however, we shall welcome struggle as a necessary -part of Life, and Becoming will be as desirable to us as Being now. And -not till then shall we be <i>fit</i> for immortality.</p> - - -<p class="p2">164</p> - -<p><i>Love and Sympathy</i></p> - -<p>Love and Hatred are not the true opposites, but Love and Sympathy. Love -is creation, that is to say, strife: a battle between the inanimate -not yet dead, and the living still unborn. And it is also, therefore, -the hatred of the one for the other. True, this hatred may not be of -individuals but of things; but does that make it any more harmless? It -is naïve democratic prejudice to think that hatred of things is less -<i>wicked</i> than hatred of individuals; the very opposite is the case! -The former is a thousand times more dangerous and destructive than the -latter, which, indeed, is little more than an idiosyncrasy. Hatred is -contained in and is an aspect of Love; it is Love seen as destruction. -Well, only Love has a right to Hatred, for only Love can create.</p> - -<p>Sympathy, however, would maintain in existence what should be dead, and -would bid what should be living remain forever unborn. For in death and -in birth alike there is pain. Sympathy—that is, Sympathy with the -<i>necessary</i> suffering of existence—is a far greater danger than Hatred.</p> - - -<p class="p2">165</p> - -<p><i>The Humanitarians</i></p> - -<p>Hatred only to things, not to men; Love only to men, not to things: the -formula of the half-and-half.</p> - - -<p class="p2">166</p> - -<p class="p2">Love and the Virtues</p> - -<p>Love is the mother of all the harder virtues, and that because she -requires them. For how without them could she suffer to create, and -endure the pain of Becoming? Everything dynamic must become virtuous. -The soft, hedonistic, and degenerate in morality, however, arise from -Sympathy. Sympathy needs the comfortable virtues; it seeks the static, -for movement is pain, and pain, of the devil—if Sympathy will admit a -devil! Its virtues are all in bad training.</p> - - -<p class="p2">167</p> - -<p><i>The Other Side</i></p> - -<p>He ceaselessly groaned that he was weary of life and wished to be rid -of it; but all the time it was life that wished to be rid of him.</p> - - -<p class="p2">168</p> - -<p><i>Love and Danger</i></p> - -<p>The fear that danger might perish—the immortal fear of Nietzsche—need -cause us no anxiety, could we but believe that creative Love will -continue to exist. For Love is the great source of danger, and of the -heroic in action and thought. If military wars were to disappear from -the earth, danger need not be diminished; it might become emancipated -and voluntary: it might be raised from a common necessity to an -individual task. Perhaps in the distant future nations will become more -pacific, men more war-like; peace will be maintained among nations -<i>in order</i> that individuals may have a free arena in which to carry -on their great contests—"without powder," as Nietzsche said. The -battles, born of Love, of the Brands and Zarathustras, not those of -the Napoleons: that is what creative Love would envisage! But this -prophecy has not sufficient foundation as yet, alas, to be called even -a conjecture!</p> - - -<p class="p2">169</p> - -<p><i>Fellowship and Love</i></p> - -<p>Fellowship is of two kinds: that which is inspired by Sympathy, -and that which is an expression of Love. Men unite for the mere -satisfaction which union brings, or for that which is found in the -struggle for more remote things—an aspiration or a vision. This latter -thing, impractical and paradoxical, which lends Man what nobility -he has—it was Love that gave it to him. Fellowship is the sublime -attempt to complete the figure of Man. My friend is he who possesses -the qualities which I lack and most need: in that sense, he creates me. -Fellowship should enrich <i>all</i> who partake of it, make their highest -qualities productive, and throw bridges over the chasms of their -defects. But the association of men for mere enjoyment is not worthy -the name of Friendship. Sympathy is its parent.</p> - - -<p class="p2">170</p> - -<p><i>The Paradox</i></p> - -<p>It is possible to live nobly without Happiness, but not without Love. -Love, however, confers the highest happiness. Is it because Love -is indifferent to Happiness that Happiness flutters around it, and -caresses it with its wings?</p> - - -<p class="p2">171</p> - -<p><i>Moral Indignation</i></p> - -<p>We should altogether eschew moral censoriousness in our contemplation -of Life, for it is merely destructive. To destroy that which we cannot -re-create in a better form is a crime. Only Love should condemn, for -only Love can create. To bring the good into existence, or prepare the -way of those who can create the good—that should be our only form -of condemnation. In what consists the passion of the moral fanatic? -In respect for the law, that it should not be violated. So he would -extirpate whatever does not conform, even though thus he should destroy -all life, and have no power to create it anew. No wonder he is gloomy: -the vulture is not a bird of cheerful mien.</p> - - -<p class="p2">172</p> - -<p><i>Morality and Love</i></p> - -<p>Into what a dilemma falls the poor lover of life who goes to make -the choice of morality! He sees that both great types of morality, -the humanitarian and the military, the Hedonistic and the Spartan, -lead in the end to Nihilism, the one by liquefying, the other by -hardening. The former becomes too sensitive to endure Life; the -latter, too insensible to feel it. Yet they were to serve Life; but -they soon forgot the purpose for which they were formed; they exalted -themselves as something higher than Life; they become "absolute," and -a stumbling-block to existence. And this was because they were not -founded in the beginning upon the very principle of Life, which is -Love, but upon accidentals. The conflict between Morality and Love -has accordingly been a conflict between the forces of Death and of -Life: for "works" without Love are dead. Morality should be but the -discipline which Love imposes upon itself in order to create. It -should crown all the virtues which oppose a gallant and affirmative -countenance to suffering and change, such as heroism, fortitude, -joy, temperance. This morality is the antithesis of the humanitarian -morality sprung from Sympathy.</p> - - -<p class="p2">173</p> - -<p><i>Paradise Regained</i></p> - -<p>If Life is but an expression of creative Love, then a morality founded -upon Love must be the only true morality. And, moreover, in it ethics -and the instincts are reconciled; innocence is grasped.</p> - - -<p class="p2">174</p> - -<p><i>Love and Knowledge</i></p> - -<p>If in all Life there is change, creation, Becoming, and if in our -lives we know these things only in the interpretation of them which we -call Love, must not Love be a necessary part of our knowledge of Life? -Observation, investigation and the weighing of results may tell us much -<i>about</i> Life, and show it to us in many aspects, but it does not give -us immediate knowledge. Is it possible to know Life? If Life be the -expression of Love——! Upon that "if" depends everything. For if it is -justified, then we have within us the clue to the riddle of existence. -Perhaps here we discern the faint struggling for birth of that -undiscovered faculty of the mind of which men speak. The comprehension -of Life through Love! The profoundest of intuitions? The maddest of -dreams?</p> - - -<p class="p2">175</p> - -<p><i>Proverb and Commentary</i></p> - -<p>Love is blind, but it is with excess of light.</p> - - -<p class="p2">176</p> - -<p><i>Bad Thoughts</i></p> - -<p>She was as perfect as a drop of dew or a beam of light; a pure thought -of God, delicate, spontaneous and finished. There was nothing misshapen -in body or soul; Love did well to create such a being. But the others, -the crooked, blind and defiled! Are these the bad thoughts of God? From -whence do they come? Whither do they go? Conceived in darkness, born -for destruction?</p> - - -<p class="p2">177</p> - -<p><i>Love and Sympathy</i></p> - -<p>We must not think of Love as a mere concept. For it is something -more real than Life itself: the very Life of Life, the very soul of -Becoming. It is a force both spiritual and physical, but transcending -the distinction of spiritual and physical. We must not conceive Love -as a thing akin to Sympathy. It is not humanitarian or even human; it -is a force as unsullied by humanity as the mountain winds or the tides -of the ocean. Nevertheless, it is within Man, just as it is within -the stars and seas; a great creative, destructive, transforming and -purifying force; beyond Good and Evil as the dew and the lightning are. -This is the power that is known by Man in his moments of love. He is -then free to create and enjoy, as if he were re-born, with a will new, -joyful and innocent. But seldom does he attain this knowledge: his -moments of exultation are brief. Yet Love has not on that account lost -any of its potence. Man may decay and become corrupt; but Love remains -unalterable, forever pure, incapable of corruption.</p> - - -<p class="p2">178</p> - -<p><i>Multum in Parvo</i></p> - -<p>You are but a drop in the ocean of Life. True: but it is in the ocean -<i>of Life!</i></p> - - -<p class="p2">179</p> - -<p><i>Love and the Senses</i></p> - -<p>When one loves, the distinction between soul and body is passed. In -Love alone is the dream of Goethe, Heine, and the moderns realized: -here the reconciliation of the spirit and the senses is celebrated in -perfect innocence. For Love irradiates and makes fragrant the body in -which it dwells, and raises it aloft to sit by its brother the soul.</p> - - -<p class="p2">180</p> - -<p><i>Love and Innocence</i></p> - -<p>Life takes us back to its bosom when we love. The heavens, the -earth and the race of men no longer appear things external and -hostile, against which we must arm ourselves. We return from exile -in personality; our thought sweeps to the farthest horizons, and -plunges into the deepest gulfs of existence, at home in all places. -The "external" is no longer external: we contemplate it from the -inside, we gaze through its eyes. For the very principle of Life, of -which all living things are the expression, has been apprehended by -us. Our personality has been emancipated. This feeling of universal -comprehension is called Innocence.</p> - - -<p class="p2">181</p> - -<p><i>Love and the Fall</i></p> - -<p>Has the fable of the Fall still another interpretation for us? Was -the Fall of Man the fall from Love? When the feeling of universal -comprehension was lost, personality in the individualistic sense -arose. And Sin was the child of this Individualism. To the first man -bereft of Love, the earth assumed a terrible mien; nature glared at -him with a million baleful eyes: he became an outcast in his home. -No longer knowing the earth or other men, he experienced terror, -hatred and despair. To protect himself against existence, he created -Love's substitute, morality. And with morality arose sin, and perished -innocence.</p> - - -<p class="p2">182</p> - -<p class="p2"><i>Love and its Object</i></p> - -<p>Nietzsche's psychology was wrong when he spoke of Love as a narrowly -egoistic thing isolating two people and making them indifferent to -every one else. There is too much of the philosopher and too little of -the psychologist in this observation. For mankind cannot be loved, Life -cannot be loved, until One has been loved. Only lovers can generate -such wealth of life that it overflows, enriching their friends, their -enemies, all the world. To love one is to love all.</p> - - -<p class="p2">183</p> - -<p><i>Freedom in Love</i></p> - -<p>In true love there is a feeling of entire freedom. Is it because the -lovers have by a divine chance found their true path, have become a -pulse in the very heart of Life? If Love is the principle of Life, then -in Love alone is perfect freedom. Ethics and instinct become one. This -is the road that leads beyond good and evil: Man must learn to love.</p> - - -<p class="p2">184</p> - -<p><i>Love and the Sensualists</i></p> - -<p>On those who affirm Life as innocent and holy, there is an obligation -laid. Their lives must be innocent: Life must be to them a sustained -act of worship. How many of them have been lacking just here! Heine -failed, in spite of his real nobility. Goethe, however, attained unity -and sincerity; and Nietzsche was a figure of beautiful integrity and -innocence. They were neither of them mere "writers." Nor must we be: -there is upon us the compulsion to prove that a life of innocence is -possible. And as a first step, we must separate ourselves from those -who, before they have sought innocence, praise the senses. For they -confuse and defile everything.</p> - - -<p class="p2">185</p> - -<p><i>Free Will</i></p> - -<p>Only those who have knowledge of Becoming can know what the freedom of -the will is. Freedom—that is to will Becoming with all its suffering, -voluntarily to go on the way which Fate and the highest Life direct -us. Slavery—that is to deny Becoming, to cling to the static, and to -be dragged along the stream of change. To be dragged, not to remain -stationary; for men by taking thought cannot gain immunity from change. -Their will and their desires avail them nothing. For the stream of -Becoming is unchangeable in its power. It is Man that changes. When he -affirms Becoming, he is enlarged; when he denies it, he is straitened.</p> - - -<p class="p2">186</p> - -<p><i>Tragedy, Life and Love</i></p> - -<p>In the highest Life two qualities are always to be found together, -exuberance and suffering. Life is founded on this paradox, which is -fundamental; for in the emotion of Love we are most conscious of -it. Love is the most joyful and most suffering thing: its plenitude -of joy is so great that it can endure gladly the worst griefs. And -tragedy is the truest expression in art of Life and of Love; for its -characteristic, too, is a Joy triumphing over Fate.</p> - - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<h4><a name="VI" id="VI">VI</a></h4> - - -<h4>THE TRAGIC VIEW</h4> - - - -<p class="p2">187</p> - -<p><i>Life as Expression</i></p> - -<p>Schopenhauer interpreted life as the expression of a Will to Live. -Nietzsche showed with profound truth that beneath this will there was -something more fundamental, the Will to Power. Have we here got to the -foundation, or shall we find that underlying the Will to Power there is -something more fundamental still? <i>Why</i> do all living things strive for -power? Is it, indeed, power that they desire in their striving, power -for the sake of power? That which everything by a law of its being -searches for is <i>expression:</i> the Will to Power is merely an outcome of -that search. For seeing that the sun of created Life is split up into -individuals, related and yet diverse, the expression of one unit is -bound to collide with that of another, and the outcome is a conflict. -Life, therefore, is essentially something that injures itself, and -injures itself the more the more powerful it is; in a word, Life is -essentially tragic. Most people, however, live in illusion, knowing -nothing of this. The philosophers, and, before them, the priests, were -those who perceived that Life was of this nature; but, alas, from the -truth they drew the immediate and not the more profound conclusion. -They sought, unconscious Hedonists, a palliative for Life, and -contemned expression, which they saw was the cause of suffering. These -were the creators of that morality which has prevailed to our own day; -a morality antagonistic to Life, anti-tragic, negative. All the systems -which have been created in this way are colossal panaceas and remedies: -they are not fundamental.</p> - -<p class="p2">There were others, however, who saw as the priests did that Life was -tragic, but who at the same time affirmed it. These were the tragic -poets. They were more deeply versed in Life than the priests: tragic -art is more profound than morality. For morality is based on the belief -that man desires above everything else Happiness. But Tragedy has -perceived that this is not so. Man will express himself, it proclaims, -whatever the outcome, whether it be joy or suffering.</p> - -<p class="p2">Since then morality has sunk deep into Life, and there is now almost a -second instinct in man striving against expression. Consequently there -are many existences passed without expression; sometimes even in a -resolute struggle against it, as in the case of innumerable religious -men and ascetics. To some men it seems that their spirit has been lying -frozen and dead within them, until one day an influence touches them, -and they feel an imperious desire to express themselves, to create. -This influence is nothing else than Love, which is the desire for -expression itself. When its rule is recognized and obeyed Life reaches -its highest degree of joy and of pain, and becomes creative. This is -the state which is glorified by the tragic poets. To those who affirm, -it is the highest condition of Life.</p> - - -<p class="p2">188</p> - -<p><i>"Self-Expression"</i></p> - -<p>Self-expression is something infinitely more subtle than the moderns -conceive. This man studied to express himself: he investigated his -ego, and thereby cut himself off from Life more completely than -any anchorite, for the anchorite had at least heaven in addition to -himself. This neo-anchorite, however, turned his eyes deliberately -inward and strove to find expression for what he discovered there, but -for nothing more. Thus he became his own prison. Eventually he turned -out an æsthete.</p> - -<p>This other man found that his thoughts and desires flew away from him -as irrevocably as a flock of wild birds and became lost or strangers. -He seemed constrained to express everything <i>not</i> himself, everything -foreign, remote and as exalted; but in the end he discovered that it -was himself he had expressed. "Thy true being," said Nietzsche, "lies -not deeply hidden in thee, but an infinite height above thee, or at -least above that which thou dost commonly take to be thyself."</p> - - -<p class="p2">189</p> - -<p><i>Life as a Value</i></p> - -<p>Those who say that the belief in Life as a value is not a belief which -will arouse the heroic passions and make men die for it, use a form -of reasoning, at any rate, which is erroneous. They first confuse the -ideal of more complete existence with the more complete existence -of an individual, and then demonstrate that this individual will not -lay down his life for the sake of <i>his</i> more complete existence! But -Life as an ideal is just as impersonal as any other ideal, whether it -be Justice or Perfection or Renunciation. True, it has not yet become -static, but on that account its attraction is only the stronger; it -arouses our very love. And men will die for what they love: they will -die for Life.</p> - - -<p class="p2">190</p> - -<p><i>Hebbel's Theory of Tragedy</i></p> - -<p>Hebbel's theory of Tragedy is noble and profound. Not in the -misdirection of wills does he find the source of the tragic, but in the -core of the will itself, in the inexorable expression and collision -of wills. This conception raises Tragedy from a mere consequence and -punishment of sin to an expression of Life itself, to the most profound -and essential expression of Life. And this is just and worthy of -Tragedy. For the character of Tragedy is not negative and condemnatory, -but deeply affirmative and joyous. How shallow then must be the -theories which would deny Tragedy to the good, to those whose wills -are highly directed! Tragedy is not a punishment. The more noble man -becomes the more tragic he will also become.</p> - - -<p class="p2">191</p> - -<p><i>Tragic Philosophy</i></p> - -<p>The belief, against which Nietzsche declaimed, that Reason brings -Happiness has become to the modern man second nature, so that now the -notions of Reason and Happiness are indissolubly connected in his mind. -Any argument for a tragic view of Life must therefore appear, first of -all, unreasonable; for Happiness as an end is the only reason that will -be acknowledged. It remains for us to show that Happiness is itself -unreasonable, an impossibility, a chimera. There is no Happiness as -an end. Reason does not bring Happiness, nor does virtue, nor does -asceticism, nor does comfort. Happiness is an accident. And not even a -modern can make accidents happen!</p> - -<p>To this modern world, with its belief in Happiness, Nietzsche was bound -to appear unreasonable, for he brought with him not only a tragic -conception of Life, but a tragic philosophy. A tragic philosophy—the -marriage of Knowledge and Tragedy: nothing could have seemed more -irrational to modern Europe than that!</p> - - -<p class="p2">192</p> - -<p><i>Tragedy and Arguments</i></p> - -<p>Those who desire to restore a tragic conception of Life should not -use these arguments: that Happiness is a condition which, if it were -possible of realization, would become intolerable, producing its -opposite, unhappiness; or that only when the individual renounces -Happiness does Happiness become his. These are the statements of a -Hedonism once removed. The argument for the tragic view should be -founded on considerations altogether irrelevant to Happiness. It should -not care enough about Happiness even to disdain it.</p> - - -<p class="p2">193</p> - -<p><i>Morality and Happiness</i></p> - -<p>Philosophers have from the beginning acknowledged that Happiness is -not won by seeking for it, but by striving for other things. This, -however, has not prevented them from proclaiming Happiness as the goal -of Man and as the deliberate object of ethics. Contradiction upon -contradiction! If the individual cannot by taking thought capture -Happiness, is it conceivable that a community can, or the human race, -in toto? To throw a net round this mirage compounded of desire and -fancy—surely Reason was itself the most unreasonable thing to attempt -that. And, after all, does Man desire Happiness? Tragedy denies it.</p> - - -<p class="p2">194</p> - -<p><i>End or Effect</i></p> - -<p>One may possess all the virtues save Love, and remain unhappy. -Love, however, brings Happiness with it as the sun brings light. Is -Happiness, then, the end of morality? Or an effect of Love?</p> - -<p class="p2">195</p> - -<p><i>Superiority</i></p> - -<p>In order to despise enjoyment, one need only be supremely happy or -supremely wretched.</p> - - -<p class="p2">196</p> - -<p><i>Beauty and Tragedy</i></p> - -<p>In every beautiful face there is nobility, strength and a touch of -sadness—the seal of tragedy is upon it. To make Life beautiful, then, -would be to make it tragic? Nay, rather let us say that to make Life -tragic is to make it beautiful. Supreme beauty is but the expression -in which are comprised in a miracle of unity the sorrow and the joy of -Tragedy. For in the most radiant manifestation of Beauty there is a -brooding solemnity; in the most sorrowful there is triumph.</p> - - -<p class="p2">197</p> - -<p><i>Experimenting in Life</i></p> - -<p>The aim of the æsthetes was without enduring Tragedy to enjoy Beauty. -To that end they devised their creed of experimentation in Life: they -wished to know all the joys of the soul and of the senses without -inconvenience to themselves. Perceiving that Love and Beauty bring -suffering in their train, they decided to <i>take the initiative</i> against -them, in other words, to "experience" them. All they experienced, -however, was—their experiences. That, indeed, was all they desired: -their "experimenting in Life" was escaping from Life. Without the -courage to accept Life with the Dionysians or to renounce it with the -ascetics, they hit upon the plan of stealing a march upon it. Well, it -was certainly not upon Life that they stole a march!</p> - - -<p class="p2">198</p> - -<p><i>Christian and Dionysian</i></p> - -<p>The Christian and the Dionysian are both of them step-children and -solutions of Pessimism. A gloomy and realistic view of the world -was necessary before either of them could be born. In Christianity -Pessimism was translated into symbols. "Original Sin" and -"transgression against God"—these were the theological counterparts -of the pessimist's "suffering," "the tyranny of the Will." How did -Christianity find relief from this fundamental pessimism? By a pathetic -illusion in which mankind were transformed into erring children, who, -however, were forgiven by an indulgent Father. Here suffering was -still an argument against Life, and a palliative was sought and found. -The Dionysian, however, affirmed Life in the very tragicality of its -aspect, and, by so doing, achieved a victory over it. In short, to the -Dionysian Life is a tragedy; to the Christian it is a pathetic tale -with a happy ending.</p> - - -<p class="p2">199</p> - -<p><i>History of the Dionysian</i></p> - -<p>In the beginning he possessed innocence: the world appeared to him -as beautiful, Man as good, and the future as immeasurable. The great -illusion of Rousseau was his—a "natural man" himself, believing in the -"natural man," a romanticist, a credulous, not too sincere, "beautiful" -soul—a youth with the qualities of youth. But a day came when -unwillingly and painfully his soul forced his eyes open and compelled -them to look, and he saw without illusion; the cruelty beneath smiling -Appearance, the red claw, and conscienceless, inappeasable appetite. -Looking at Man he found him a powerless little creature, condemned -to a few years in this world, cut off by Death, and even during his -life circumscribed by invincible limitation. Nevertheless, this man -disdained to hide his head in the sands of illusion; and immediately he -became altogether more worthy of respect, more real, almost sublime. A -noble resignation to Life now characterized him; the classical writers, -especially the Greeks with their naturalistic pessimism, seemed to him -the highest thing; and he accepted the theory of Original Sin. All -honour to him when he reached, after a painful journey, this spare but -real conclusion! All honour to this pessimist who would not deceive -himself!</p> - -<p>One day, however, the thought came to him, "Even if pain and necessity -be the truths of Life! There is something within me which can turn -these, also, to account! I can transfigure them. Pain, Struggle, -Change—these will no longer enslave me; for these shall be my slaves!" -At that moment he became a Dionysian: he had turned the corner of -pessimism, and had gained freedom. Original Sin was no longer true for -him; for a new truth had dawned in whose light the old was quenched.</p> - -<p>From an illusive freedom in the beginning, through bondage to -necessity, to a new freedom—the history of the Dionysian. The -pessimist is more profound than the "natural man," but the Dionysian is -the most profound of all. He burrows deeper than pessimism itself; he -grows, the most happy of men, out of the very soil of pessimism.</p> - - -<p class="p2">200</p> - -<p><i>Tragic Affirmation</i></p> - -<p>To feel happy at this moment—is not that to approve of your whole -life, of its suffering, conflict, ennui and scepticism no less than -its victories and festivals? This moment is what it is by virtue of -these experiences; justify it and you justify them. The physical -agony which left its mark upon you; the anguish of bereavement and of -disillusionment; the cynicism with which you consoled yourself; the -years when you lived altogether bereft of hope; your most profound -and most petty thoughts and actions; your meanest, bitterest and -noblest experiences: all these are unconsciously affirmed in your -affirmation of this moment. Let them be affirmed consciously! Or is -your soul afraid to go as far as your will? Looking back now with new -eyes over your life, you find that precisely what you cannot do is to -repent—least of all of your sins and griefs! For to repent is to will -Life to be other than Life, and essentially not to affirm.</p> - -<p>He who contemplates his life thus, perhaps understands for the first -time what is the meaning of Tragedy.</p> - - -<p class="p2">201</p> - -<p><i>Mastery and Tragedy</i></p> - -<p>The desire of Man to subjugate Nature and Fate and obtain mastery -over his resources—perhaps it is as well that this is meantime -unattainable! For Man's spirit is not yet noble enough for him to use -his power aright: he would use it, if he could grasp it now, as a means -to Happiness! Our first duty is to fight the idea of Happiness, to -make Man tragic. Once Man wills Tragedy, however, the more mastery he -acquires the better.</p> - - -<p class="p2">202</p> - -<p><i>The Hidden Faculty</i></p> - -<p>When we speak hopefully of the discovery of still undiscovered -faculties in Man, to what do we look forward? In plain terms, how do we -expect this faculty to be of use to us? In bringing about Happiness? -It is almost a tragedy—it is a tragedy without the nobility—that -in our time the most beautiful, heroic and powerful things have to -bow their heads and become slaves to this weak and pathetic tyrant, -Happiness. Should we then oppose the addition of one more divine power -to the imprisoned? Well, a hope consoles us. For the discovery of a new -faculty in Man will not make him more happy, but simply more powerful; -his self-expression in action will be the more complete; the essential -conflict of Life will be magnified; Life will become more tragic. So -think well, you votaries of Happiness, before you bring to life another -power of the tragic creature, Man. Far better for your ends if you -could but succeed in killing some of those he already possesses. But -have you not sometimes tried to do that?</p> - - -<p class="p2">203</p> - -<p><i>The Other Side</i></p> - -<p>And yet Man cannot create without Happiness. The soul that lives -in shadow becomes unhealthy and sterile: sunshine is after all the -great health-bringing and fructifying thing. Happiness does make a -man nobler; more ready to generosity and heroism; more careless of -enjoyment. Happiness! But what is Happiness? The Happiness that is -essential to the best life is a state of the soul: this is doubtless -that which Goethe and Heine praised. But the other, the Happiness -of the utilitarian, is an effect of calculated action, the reward -of a sort of ethical thrift. The first, however, is independent of -calculation, and even a little scornful of it; for in its confidence -and plenitude it dares to put out on the gloomiest seas. It is not -unrelated to Love, this effect of an affirmative attitude to Life. When -people praise Happiness, how one desires to believe it is this that -they praise.</p> - - -<p class="p2">204</p> - -<p><i>The Two Species</i></p> - -<p>The few have a conception of Life different from that of the many. To -the latter still pertain such notions as "do as you would be done by," -and so forth. They understand a morality but not the end of morality. -The few, however, who understand both the morality and the reason for -it, who have a conception of Life more difficult and unyielding, seem -to the many cold and a little inhuman. The lives of the latter, on the -other hand, appear to the few as a naively happy, narrow and absurd -form of existence.</p> - - -<p class="p2">205</p> - -<p><i>Nietzsche</i></p> - -<p>What was Nietzsche, that subtlest of modern riddles? First, a great -tragic poet: it was by a divine accident that he was at the same -time a profound thinker and the deepest psychologist. But his tragic -affirmative was the core of his work, of which thought and analysis -were but outgrowths. Without it, his subtlety might have made him -another Pascal. The Will to Power, which makes suffering integral in -Life; the Order of Rank whereby the bulk of mankind are doomed to -slavery; the Superman himself, that most sublime child of Tragedy; and -the last affirmation, the Eternal Recurrence: these are the conceptions -of a tragic poet. It is, indeed, by virtue of his tragic view of Life -that Nietzsche is for us a force of such value. For only by means of it -could modern existence, sunk in scepticism, pessimism and the greatest -happiness of the greatest number, be re-created.</p> - -<p>For the last two centuries Europe has been under the domination of -the concept of Happiness as progress. Altruism, the ideology of the -greatest happiness of the greatest number, altruism as a means of -universalizing Happiness, was preached in the eighteenth century; until -after a while it was seen by such clear-sighted observers as Voltaire -that men did not obey this imperative of altruism; therefore they were -condemned: the moral indignation of the eighteenth century, the century -of censoriousness par excellence, was the result. First, an impossible -morality was demanded, and for the attainment of an unattainable ideal; -then Man was condemned because he failed to comply with it, because he -was Man. Thus in the end the ideal of the greatest happiness worked -out in pessimism: Life became hideous and, worst of all, immoral, to -the utilitarian, when it was seen that altruism and happiness are -alike impossible. Schopenhauer is here the heir of Voltaire: the moral -condemnation of the one has become in the other a condemnation of Life -itself, more profound, more poetical, more logical. Altruism has in -Schopenhauer deepened into Pity; for Pity is altruism bereft of the -illusion of Happiness.</p> - -<p>How was Man to avoid now the almost inevitable bourne of Nihilism? By -renouncing altogether Happiness as a value; by restoring a conception -of Life in which Happiness was neither a positive nor a negative -standard, but something irrelevant, an accident: in short, by setting -up a tragic conception of Life. This was the task of Nietzsche: in how -far he succeeded how can we yet say?</p> - - -<p class="p2">206</p> - -<p><i>Again</i></p> - -<p>Nietzsche loved not goodness but greatness: the True, the <i>Great</i> and -the Beautiful. Was not this the necessary corollary of his æsthetic -evaluation of Life?</p> - - -<p class="p2">207</p> - -<p><i>Sacrifices</i></p> - -<p>"The first of the first fruits of thy land thou shalt bring into the -house of the Lord thy God."</p> - -<p>Thus spoke the oldest reverence. We should not scoff at this feeling -but rather try to understand it; for it is only too rare in our time. -What was its meaning to the rulers of Israel? Gratitude, a beautiful, -affirmative thing. To enrich Life with our highest gifts, which we -freely offer in thanksgiving for what Life has given us,—that should -be our form of sacrifice. And we should perform it gladly, with -festive, overflowing heart, not with sullen and conscientious face, as -if Life were a usurer.</p> - - -<p class="p2">208</p> - -<p><i>Our Poverty</i></p> - -<p>The spiritual poverty of modern life is appalling; and all the more -because men are unconscious of it. Prayer was in former times the -channel whereby a profound current of spiritual life flowed into the -lives of men and enriched them. This source of wealth has now almost -ceased, and Man has become less spiritual, more impoverished. We must -seek a new form of prayer. Better not live at all than live without -reverence and gratitude! Let our sacramental attitude to Life be our -form of prayer. Let us no longer desire to live when that has perished.</p> - - -<p class="p2">209</p> - -<p><i>Finis</i></p> - -<p>"To abjure half measures and to live resolutely in the Whole, the Full, -the Beautiful."—<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">GOETHE.</span></p> - -<p>"To try to see in all things necessity as beauty."—<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">NIETZSCHE.</span></p> - -<h4>THE END</h4> - - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's We Moderns, by Edwin Muir and H. L. 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