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diff --git a/774-0.txt b/774-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f5df29c --- /dev/null +++ b/774-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5461 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Essays and Lectures, by Oscar Wilde, Edited +by Robert Ross + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere 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 + + + + + +Title: Essays and Lectures + + +Author: Oscar Wilde + +Editor: Robert Ross + +Release Date: March 12, 2013 [eBook #774] +[This file was first posted on January 5, 1997] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ESSAYS AND LECTURES*** + + +Transcribed from the 1913 Methuen and Co edition by David Price, email +ccx074@pglaf.org + + + + + + ESSAYS AND LECTURES + + + BY + OSCAR WILDE + + * * * * * + + METHUEN & CO. LTD. + 36 ESSEX STREET W.C. + LONDON + + _Fourth Edition_ + + * * * * * + +_First Published in Book Form_ (_Limited Edition on _1908_ +Handmade Paper and Japanese Vellum_) +_Second Edition_ (_F’cap._ 8_vo_) _1909_ +_Third Edition_ ( ,, ,, ) _1911_ +_Fourth Edition_ ( ,, ,, ) _1913_ + + DEDICATED + TO + WALTER LEDGER + BY + THE AUTHOR’S LITERARY EXECUTOR + + + + +CONTENTS + + PAGE +THE RISE OF HISTORICAL CRITICISM 1 +THE ENGLISH RENAISSANCE OF ART 109 +HOUSE DECORATION 157 +ART AND THE HANDICRAFTMAN 173 +LECTURE TO ART STUDENTS 197 +LONDON MODELS 213 +POEMS IN PROSE 227 + + + +PREFACE + + +WITH the exception of the _Poems in Prose_ this volume does not contain +anything which the author ever contemplated reprinting. _The Rise of +Historical Criticism_ is interesting to admirers of his work, however, +because it shows the development of his style and the wide intellectual +range distinguishing the least _borné_ of all the late Victorian writers, +with the possible exception of Ruskin. It belongs to Wilde’s Oxford days +when he was the unsuccessful competitor for the Chancellor’s English +Essay Prize. Perhaps Magdalen, which has never forgiven herself for +nurturing the author of _Ravenna_, may be felicitated on having escaped +the further intolerable honour that she might have suffered by seeing +crowned again with paltry academic parsley the most highly gifted of all +her children in the last century. + +Of the lectures, I have only included those which exist, so far as I +know, in manuscript; the reports of others in contemporary newspapers +being untrustworthy. They were usually delivered from notes and were +repeated at various towns in England and America. Here will be found the +origin of Whistler’s charges of plagiarism against the author. How far +they are justified the reader can decide for himself, Wilde always +admitted that, relying on an old and intimate friendship, he asked the +artist’s assistance on one occasion for a lecture he had failed to +prepare in time. This I presume to be the Address delivered to the Art +Students of the Royal Academy in 1883, as Whistler certainly reproduced +some of it as his own in the ‘Ten o’clock’ lecture delivered +subsequently, in 1885. To what extent an idea may be regarded as a +perpetual gift, or whether it is ethically possible to retrieve an idea +like an engagement ring, it is not for me to discuss. I would only point +out once more that all the works by which Wilde is known throughout +Europe were written after the two friends had quarrelled. That Wilde +derived a great deal from the older man goes without saying, just as he +derived so much in a greater degree from Pater, Ruskin, Arnold and +Burne-Jones. Yet the tedious attempt to recognise in every jest of his +some original by Whistler induces the criticism that it seems a pity the +great painter did not get them off on the public before he was +forestalled. Reluctance from an appeal to publicity was never a weakness +in either of the men. Some of Wilde’s more frequently quoted sayings +were made at the Old Bailey (though their provenance is often forgotten) +or on his death-bed. + +As a matter of fact the genius of the two men was entirely different. +Wilde was a humourist and a humanist before everything; and his wittiest +jests have neither the relentlessness nor the keenness characterising +those of the clever American artist. Again, Whistler could no more have +obtained the Berkeley Gold Medal for Greek, nor have written _The +Importance of Being Earnest_, and _The Soul of Man_, than Wilde, even if +equipped as a painter, could have evinced that superb restraint +characterising the portraits of ‘Miss Alexander,’ ‘Carlyle,’ and other +masterpieces. Wilde, though it is not generally known, was something of +a draughtsman in his youth. + +_Poems in Prose_ were to have been continued. They are the kind of +stories which Wilde would tell at a dinner-table, being invented on the +spur of the moment, or inspired by the chance observation of some one who +managed to get the traditional word in edgeways; or they were developed +from some phrase in a book Wilde might have read during the day. To +those who remember hearing them from his lips there must always be a +feeling of disappointment on reading them. He overloaded their ornament +when he came to transcribe them, and some of his friends did not hesitate +to make that criticism to him personally. Though he affected annoyance, +I do not think it prevented him from writing the others, which +unfortunately exist only in the memories of friends. Miss Aimée Lowther, +however, has cleverly noted down some of them in a privately printed +volume. + + ROBERT ROSS + + + + +THE RISE OF HISTORICAL CRITICISM + + +This Essay was written for the Chancellor’s English Essay Prize at Oxford +in 1879, the subject being ‘Historical Criticism among the Ancients.’ +The prize was not awarded. To Professor J. W. Mackail thanks are due for +revising the proofs. + + + +I + + +HISTORICAL criticism nowhere occurs as an isolated fact in the +civilisation or literature of any people. It is part of that complex +working towards freedom which may be described as the revolt against +authority. It is merely one facet of that speculative spirit of an +innovation, which in the sphere of action produces democracy and +revolution, and in that of thought is the parent of philosophy and +physical science; and its importance as a factor of progress is based not +so much on the results it attains, as on the tone of thought which it +represents, and the method by which it works. + +Being thus the resultant of forces essentially revolutionary, it is not +to be found in the ancient world among the material despotisms of Asia or +the stationary civilisation of Egypt. The clay cylinders of Assyria and +Babylon, the hieroglyphics of the pyramids, form not history but the +material for history. + +The Chinese annals, ascending as they do to the barbarous forest life of +the nation, are marked with a soberness of judgment, a freedom from +invention, which is almost unparalleled in the writings of any people; +but the protective spirit which is the characteristic of that people +proved as fatal to their literature as to their commerce. Free criticism +is as unknown as free trade. While as regards the Hindus, their acute, +analytical and logical mind is directed rather to grammar, criticism and +philosophy than to history or chronology. Indeed, in history their +imagination seems to have run wild, legend and fact are so indissolubly +mingled together that any attempt to separate them seems vain. If we +except the identification of the Greek Sandracottus with the Indian +Chandragupta, we have really no clue by which we can test the truth of +their writings or examine their method of investigation. + +It is among the Hellenic branch of the Indo-Germanic race that history +proper is to be found, as well as the spirit of historical criticism; +among that wonderful offshoot of the primitive Aryans, whom we call by +the name of Greeks and to whom, as has been well said, we owe all that +moves in the world except the blind forces of nature. + +For, from the day when they left the chill table-lands of Tibet and +journeyed, a nomad people, to Ægean shores, the characteristic of their +nature has been the search for light, and the spirit of historical +criticism is part of that wonderful Aufklärung or illumination of the +intellect which seems to have burst on the Greek race like a great flood +of light about the sixth century B.C. + +_L’esprit d’un siècle ne naît pas et ne meurt pas à jour fixe_, and the +first critic is perhaps as difficult to discover as the first man. It is +from democracy that the spirit of criticism borrows its intolerance of +dogmatic authority, from physical science the alluring analogies of law +and order, from philosophy the conception of an essential unity +underlying the complex manifestations of phenomena. It appears first +rather as a changed attitude of mind than as a principle of research, and +its earliest influences are to be found in the sacred writings. + +For men begin to doubt in questions of religion first, and then in +matters of more secular interest; and as regards the nature of the spirit +of historical criticism itself in its ultimate development, it is not +confined merely to the empirical method of ascertaining whether an event +happened or not, but is concerned also with the investigation into the +causes of events, the general relations which phenomena of life hold to +one another, and in its ultimate development passes into the wider +question of the philosophy of history. + +Now, while the workings of historical criticism in these two spheres of +sacred and uninspired history are essentially manifestations of the same +spirit, yet their methods are so different, the canons of evidence so +entirely separate, and the motives in each case so unconnected, that it +will be necessary for a clear estimation of the progress of Greek +thought, that we should consider these two questions entirely apart from +one another. I shall then in both cases take the succession of writers +in their chronological order as representing the rational order—not that +the succession of time is always the succession of ideas, or that +dialectics moves ever in the straight line in which Hegel conceives its +advance. In Greek thought, as elsewhere, there are periods of stagnation +and apparent retrogression, yet their intellectual development, not +merely in the question of historical criticism, but in their art, their +poetry and their philosophy, seems so essentially normal, so free from +all disturbing external influences, so peculiarly rational, that in +following in the footsteps of time we shall really be progressing in the +order sanctioned by reason. + + + +II + + +AT an early period in their intellectual development the Greeks reached +that critical point in the history of every civilised nation, when +speculative invades the domain of revealed truth, when the spiritual +ideas of the people can no longer be satisfied by the lower, material +conceptions of their inspired writers, and when men find it impossible to +pour the new wine of free thought into the old bottles of a narrow and a +trammelling creed. + +From their Aryan ancestors they had received the fatal legacy of a +mythology stained with immoral and monstrous stories which strove to hide +the rational order of nature in a chaos of miracles, and to mar by +imputed wickedness the perfection of God’s nature—a very shirt of Nessos +in which the Heracles of rationalism barely escaped annihilation. Now +while undoubtedly the speculations of Thales, and the alluring analogies +of law and order afforded by physical science, were most important forces +in encouraging the rise of the spirit of scepticism, yet it was on its +ethical side that the Greek mythology was chiefly open to attack. + +It is difficult to shake the popular belief in miracles, but no man will +admit sin and immorality as attributes of the Ideal he worships; so the +first symptoms of a new order of thought are shown in the passionate +outcries of Xenophanes and Heraclitos against the evil things said by +Homer of the sons of God; and in the story told of Pythagoras, how that +he saw tortured in Hell the ‘two founders of Greek theology,’ we can +recognise the rise of the Aufklärung as clearly as we see the Reformation +foreshadowed in the _Inferno_ of Dante. + +Any honest belief, then, in the plain truth of these stories soon +succumbed before the destructive effects of the _a priori_ ethical +criticism of this school; but the orthodox party, as is its custom, found +immediately a convenient shelter under the ægis of the doctrine of +metaphors and concealed meanings. + +To this allegorical school the tale of the fight around the walls of Troy +was a mystery, behind which, as behind a veil, were hidden certain moral +and physical truths. The contest between Athena and Ares was that +eternal contest between rational thought and the brute force of +ignorance; the arrows which rattled in the quiver of the ‘Far Darter’ +were no longer the instruments of vengeance shot from the golden bow of +the child of God, but the common rays of the sun, which was itself +nothing but a mere inert mass of burning metal. + +Modern investigation, with the ruthlessness of Philistine analysis, has +ultimately brought Helen of Troy down to a symbol of the dawn. There +were Philistines among the Greeks also who saw in the _ἄναξ ἀδρῶν_ a mere +metaphor for atmospheric power. + +Now while this tendency to look for metaphors and hidden meanings must be +ranked as one of the germs of historical criticism, yet it was +essentially unscientific. Its inherent weakness is clearly pointed out +by Plato, who showed that while this theory will no doubt explain many of +the current legends, yet, if it is to be appealed to at all, it must be +as a universal principle; a position he is by no means prepared to admit. + +Like many other great principles it suffered from its disciples, and +furnished its own refutation when the web of Penelope was analysed into a +metaphor of the rules of formal logic, the warp representing the +premises, and the woof the conclusion. + +Rejecting, then, the allegorical interpretation of the sacred writings as +an essentially dangerous method, proving either too much or too little, +Plato himself returns to the earlier mode of attack, and re-writes +history with a didactic purpose, laying down certain ethical canons of +historical criticism. God is good; God is just; God is true; God is +without the common passions of men. These are the tests to which we are +to bring the stories of the Greek religion. + +‘God predestines no men to ruin, nor sends destruction on innocent +cities; He never walks the earth in strange disguise, nor has to mourn +for the death of any well-beloved son. Away with the tears for Sarpedon, +the lying dream sent to Agamemnon, and the story of the broken covenant!’ +(Plato, _Republic_, Book ii. 380; iii. 388, 391.) + +Similar ethical canons are applied to the accounts of the heroes of the +days of old, and by the same _a priori_ principles Achilles is rescued +from the charges of avarice and insolence in a passage which may be +recited as the earliest instance of that ‘whitewashing of great men,’ as +it has been called, which is so popular in our own day, when Catiline and +Clodius are represented as honest and far-seeing politicians, when _eine +edle und gute Natur_ is claimed for Tiberius, and Nero is rescued from +his heritage of infamy as an accomplished _dilettante_ whose moral +aberrations are more than excused by his exquisite artistic sense and +charming tenor voice. + +But besides the allegorising principle of interpretation, and the ethical +reconstruction of history, there was a third theory, which may be called +the semi-historical, and which goes by the name of Euhemeros, though he +was by no means the first to propound it. + +Appealing to a fictitious monument which he declared that he had +discovered in the island of Panchaia, and which purported to be a column +erected by Zeus, and detailing the incidents of his reign on earth, this +shallow thinker attempted to show that the gods and heroes of ancient +Greece were ‘mere ordinary mortals, whose achievements had been a good +deal exaggerated and misrepresented,’ and that the proper canon of +historical criticism as regards the treatment of myths was to rationalise +the incredible, and to present the plausible residuum as actual truth. + +To him and his school, the centaurs, for instance, those mythical sons of +the storm, strange links between the lives of men and animals, were +merely some youths from the village of Nephele in Thessaly, distinguished +for their sporting tastes; the ‘living harvest of panoplied knights,’ +which sprang so mystically from the dragon’s teeth, a body of mercenary +troops supported by the profits on a successful speculation in ivory; and +Actæon, an ordinary master of hounds, who, living before the days of +subscription, was eaten out of house and home by the expenses of his +kennel. + +Now, that under the glamour of myth and legend some substratum of +historical fact may lie, is a proposition rendered extremely probable by +the modern investigations into the workings of the mythopœic spirit in +post-Christian times. Charlemagne and Roland, St. Francis and William +Tell, are none the less real personages because their histories are +filled with much that is fictitious and incredible, but in all cases what +is essentially necessary is some external corroboration, such as is +afforded by the mention of Roland and Roncesvalles in the chronicles of +England, or (in the sphere of Greek legend) by the excavations of +Hissarlik. But to rob a mythical narrative of its kernel of supernatural +elements, and to present the dry husk thus obtained as historical fact, +is, as has been well said, to mistake entirely the true method of +investigation and to identify plausibility with truth. + +And as regards the critical point urged by Palaiphatos, Strabo, and +Polybius, that pure invention on Homer’s part is inconceivable, we may +without scruple allow it, for myths, like constitutions, grow gradually, +and are not formed in a day. But between a poet’s deliberate creation +and historical accuracy there is a wide field of the mythopœic faculty. + +This Euhemeristic theory was welcomed as an essentially philosophical and +critical method by the unscientific Romans, to whom it was introduced by +the poet Ennius, that pioneer of cosmopolitan Hellenicism, and it +continued to characterise the tone of ancient thought on the question of +the treatment of mythology till the rise of Christianity, when it was +turned by such writers as Augustine and Minucius Felix into a formidable +weapon of attack on Paganism. It was then abandoned by all those who +still bent the knee to Athena or to Zeus, and a general return, aided by +the philosophic mystics of Alexandria, to the allegorising principle of +interpretation took place, as the only means of saving the deities of +Olympus from the Titan assaults of the new Galilean God. In what vain +defence, the statue of Mary set in the heart of the Pantheon can best +tell us. + +Religions, however, may be absorbed, but they never are disproved, and +the stories of the Greek mythology, spiritualised by the purifying +influence of Christianity, reappear in many of the southern parts of +Europe in our own day. The old fable that the Greek gods took service +with the new religion under assumed names has more truth in it than the +many care to discover. + +Having now traced the progress of historical criticism in the special +treatment of myth and legend, I shall proceed to investigate the form in +which the same spirit manifested itself as regards what one may term +secular history and secular historians. The field traversed will be +found to be in some respects the same, but the mental attitude, the +spirit, the motive of investigation are all changed. + +There were heroes before the son of Atreus and historians before +Herodotus, yet the latter is rightly hailed as the father of history, for +in him we discover not merely the empirical connection of cause and +effect, but that constant reference to Laws, which is the characteristic +of the historian proper. + +For all history must be essentially universal; not in the sense of +comprising all the synchronous events of the past time, but through the +universality of the principles employed. And the great conceptions which +unify the work of Herodotus are such as even modern thought has not yet +rejected. The immediate government of the world by God, the nemesis and +punishment which sin and pride invariably bring with them, the revealing +of God’s purpose to His people by signs and omens, by miracles and by +prophecy; these are to Herodotus the laws which govern the phenomena of +history. He is essentially the type of supernatural historian; his eyes +are ever strained to discern the Spirit of God moving over the face of +the waters of life; he is more concerned with final than with efficient +causes. + +Yet we can discern in him the rise of that _historic sense_ which is the +rational antecedent of the science of historical criticism, the _φυσικὸν +κριτήριον_, to use the words of a Greek writer, as opposed to that which +comes either _τέχνη_ or _διδαχῇ_. + +He has passed through the valley of faith and has caught a glimpse of the +sunlit heights of Reason; but like all those who, while accepting the +supernatural, yet attempt to apply the canons of rationalism, he is +essentially inconsistent. For the better apprehension of the character +of this historic sense in Herodotus it will be necessary to examine at +some length the various forms of criticism in which it manifests itself. + +Such fabulous stories as that of the Phoenix, of the goat-footed men, of +the headless beings with eyes in their breasts, of the men who slept six +months in the year (_τοῦτο οὐκ ἐνδέχομαι ηὴν ἀρχήν_), of the wer-wolf of +the Neuri, and the like, are entirely rejected by him as being opposed to +the ordinary experience of life, and to those natural laws whose +universal influence the early Greek physical philosophers had already +made known to the world of thought. Other legends, such as the suckling +of Cyrus by a bitch, or the feather-rain of northern Europe, are +rationalised and explained into a woman’s name and a fall of snow. The +supernatural origin of the Scythian nation, from the union of Hercules +and the monstrous Echidna, is set aside by him for the more probable +account that they were a nomad tribe driven by the Massagetæ from Asia; +and he appeals to the local names of their country as proof of the fact +that the Kimmerians were the original possessors. + +But in the case of Herodotus it will be more instructive to pass on from +points like these to those questions of general probability, the true +apprehension of which depends rather on a certain quality of mind than on +any possibility of formulated rules, questions which form no unimportant +part of scientific history; for it must be remembered always that the +canons of historical criticism are essentially different from those of +judicial evidence, for they cannot, like the latter, be made plain to +every ordinary mind, but appeal to a certain historical faculty founded +on the experience of life. Besides, the rules for the reception of +evidence in courts of law are purely stationary, while the science of +historical probability is essentially progressive, and changes with the +advancing spirit of each age. + +Now, of all the speculative canons of historical criticism, none is more +important than that which rests on psychological probability. + +Arguing from his knowledge of human nature, Herodotus rejects the +presence of Helen within the walls of Troy. Had she been there, he says, +Priam and his kinsmen would never have been so mad (_φρενοβλαβεῖς_) as +not to give her up, when they and their children and their city were in +such peril (ii. 118); and as regards the authority of Homer, some +incidental passages in his poem show that he knew of Helen’s sojourn in +Egypt during the siege, but selected the other story as being a more +suitable motive for an epic. Similarly he does not believe that the +Alcmæonidæ family, a family who had always been the haters of tyranny +(_μισοτύραννοι_), and to whom, even more than to Harmodios and +Aristogeiton, Athens owed its liberty, would ever have been so +treacherous as to hold up a shield after the battle of Marathon as a +signal for the Persian host to fall on the city. A shield, he +acknowledges, was held up, but it could not possibly have been done by +such friends of liberty as the house of Alcmæon; nor will he believe that +a great king like Rhampsinitus would have sent his daughter _κατίσαι ἐπ’ +οἰκήματος_. + +Elsewhere he argues from more general considerations of probability; a +Greek courtesan like Rhodopis would hardly have been rich enough to build +a pyramid, and, besides, on chronological grounds the story is impossible +(ii. 134). + +In another passage (ii. 63), after giving an account of the forcible +entry of the priests of Ares into the chapel of the god’s mother, which +seems to have been a sort of religious faction fight where sticks were +freely used (_μάχη ξύλοισι καρτερή_), ‘I feel sure,’ he says, ‘that many +of them died from getting their heads broken, notwithstanding the +assertions of the Egyptian priests to the contrary.’ There is also +something charmingly naïve in the account he gives of the celebrated +Greek swimmer who dived a distance of eighty stadia to give his +countrymen warning of the Persian advance. ‘If, however,’ he says, ‘I +may offer an opinion on the subject, I would say that he came in a boat.’ + +There is, of course, something a little trivial in some of the instances +I have quoted; but in a writer like Herodotus, who stands on the +borderland between faith and rationalism, one likes to note even the most +minute instances of the rise of the critical and sceptical spirit of +inquiry. + +How really strange, at base, it was with him may, I think, be shown by a +reference to those passages where he applies rationalistic tests to +matters connected with religion. He nowhere, indeed, grapples with the +moral and scientific difficulties of the Greek Bible; and where he +rejects as incredible the marvellous achievements of Hercules in Egypt, +he does so on the express grounds that he had not yet been received among +the gods, and so was still subject to the ordinary conditions of mortal +life (_ἔτι ἄνθρωπον ἐόντα_). + +Even within these limits, however, his religious conscience seems to have +been troubled at such daring rationalism, and the passage (ii. 45) +concludes with a pious hope that God will pardon him for having gone so +far, the great rationalistic passage being, of course, that in which he +rejects the mythical account of the foundation of Dodona. ‘How can a +dove speak with a human voice?’ he asks, and rationalises the bird into a +foreign princess. + +Similarly he seems more inclined to believe that the great storm at the +beginning of the Persian War ceased from ordinary atmospheric causes, and +not in consequence of the incantations of the _Magians_. He calls +Melampos, whom the majority of the Greeks looked on as an inspired +prophet, ‘a clever man who had acquired for himself the art of prophecy’; +and as regards the miracle told of the Æginetan statues of the primeval +deities of Damia and Auxesia, that they fell on their knees when the +sacrilegious Athenians strove to carry them off, ‘any one may believe +it,’ he says, ‘who likes, but as for myself, I place no credence in the +tale.’ + +So much then for the rationalistic spirit of historical criticism, as far +as it appears explicitly in the works of this great and philosophic +writer; but for an adequate appreciation of his position we must also +note how conscious he was of the value of documentary evidence, of the +use of inscriptions, of the importance of the poets as throwing light on +manners and customs as well as on historical incidents. No writer of any +age has more vividly recognised the fact that history is a matter of +evidence, and that it is as necessary for the historian to state his +authority as it is to produce one’s witnesses in a court of law. + +While, however, we can discern in Herodotus the rise of an historic +sense, we must not blind ourselves to the large amount of instances where +he receives supernatural influences as part of the ordinary forces of +life. Compared to Thucydides, who succeeded him in the development of +history, he appears almost like a mediæval writer matched with a modern +rationalist. For, contemporary though they were, between these two +authors there is an infinite chasm of thought. + +The essential difference of their methods may be best illustrated from +those passages where they treat of the same subject. The execution of +the Spartan heralds, Nicolaos and Aneristos, during the Peloponnesian War +is regarded by Herodotus as one of the most supernatural instances of the +workings of nemesis and the wrath of an outraged hero; while the +lengthened siege and ultimate fall of Troy was brought about by the +avenging hand of God desiring to manifest unto men the mighty penalties +which always follow upon mighty sins. But Thucydides either sees not, or +desires not to see, in either of these events the finger of Providence, +or the punishment of wicked doers. The death of the heralds is merely an +Athenian retaliation for similar outrages committed by the opposite side; +the long agony of the ten years’ siege is due merely to the want of a +good commissariat in the Greek army; while the fall of the city is the +result of a united military attack consequent on a good supply of +provisions. + +Now, it is to be observed that in this latter passage, as well as +elsewhere, Thucydides is in no sense of the word a sceptic as regards his +attitude towards the truth of these ancient legends. + +Agamemnon and Atreus, Theseus and Eurystheus, even Minos, about whom +Herodotus has some doubts, are to him as real personages as Alcibiades or +Gylippus. The points in his historical criticism of the past are, first, +his rejection of all extra-natural interference, and, secondly, the +attributing to these ancient heroes the motives and modes of thought of +his own day. The present was to him the key to the explanation of the +past, as it was to the prediction of the future. + +Now, as regards his attitude towards the supernatural he is at one with +modern science. We too know that, just as the primeval coal-beds reveal +to us the traces of rain-drops and other atmospheric phenomena similar to +those of our own day, so, in estimating the history of the past, the +introduction of no force must be allowed whose workings we cannot observe +among the phenomena around us. To lay down canons of ultra-historical +credibility for the explanation of events which happen to have preceded +us by a few thousand years, is as thoroughly unscientific as it is to +intermingle preternatural in geological theories. + +Whatever the canons of art may be, no difficulty in history is so great +as to warrant the introduction of a spirit of spirit _θεὸς ἀπὸ μηχανῆς_, +in the sense of a violation of the laws of nature. + +Upon the other point, however, Thucydides falls into an anachronism. To +refuse to allow the workings of chivalrous and self-denying motives among +the knights of the Trojan crusade, because he saw none in the +faction-loving Athenian of his own day, is to show an entire ignorance of +the various characteristics of human nature developing under different +circumstances, and to deny to a primitive chieftain like Agamemnon that +authority founded on opinion, to which we give the name of divine right, +is to fall into an historical error quite as gross as attributing to +Atreus the courting of the populace (_τεθεραπευκότα τὸν δῆμον_) with a +view to the Mycenean throne. + +The general method of historical criticism pursued by Thucydides having +been thus indicated, it remains to proceed more into detail as regards +those particular points where he claims for himself a more rational +method of estimating evidence than either the public or his predecessors +possessed. + +‘So little pains,’ he remarks, ‘do the vulgar take in the investigation +of truth, satisfied with their preconceived opinions,’ that the majority +of the Greeks believe in a Pitanate cohort of the Spartan army and in a +double vote being the prerogative of the Spartan kings, neither of which +opinions has any foundation in fact. But the chief point on which he +lays stress as evincing the ‘uncritical way with which men receive +legends, even the legends of their own country,’ is the entire +baselessness of the common Athenian tradition in which Harmodios and +Aristogeiton were represented as the patriotic liberators of Athens from +the Peisistratid tyranny. So far, he points out, from the love of +freedom being their motive, both of them were influenced by merely +personal considerations, Aristogeiton being jealous of Hipparchos’ +attention to Harmodios, then a beautiful boy in the flower of Greek +loveliness, while the latter’s indignation was aroused by an insult +offered to his sister by the prince. + +Their motives, then, were personal revenge, while the result of their +conspiracy served only to rivet more tightly the chains of servitude +which bound Athens to the Peisistratid house, for Hipparchos, whom they +killed, was only the tyrant’s younger brother, and not the tyrant +himself. + +To prove his theory that Hippias was the elder, he appeals to the +evidence afforded by a public inscription in which his name occurs +immediately after that of his father, a point which he thinks shows that +he was the eldest, and so the heir. This view he further corroborates by +another inscription, on the altar of Apollo, which mentions the children +of Hippias and not those of his brothers; ‘for it was natural for the +eldest to be married first’; and besides this, on the score of general +probability he points out that, had Hippias been the younger, he would +not have so easily obtained the tyranny on the death of Hipparchos. + +Now, what is important in Thucydides, as evinced in the treatment of +legend generally, is not the results he arrived at, but the method by +which he works. The first great rationalistic historian, he may be said +to have paved the way for all those who followed after him, though it +must always be remembered that, while the total absence in his pages of +all the mystical paraphernalia of the supernatural theory of life is an +advance in the progress of rationalism, and an era in scientific history, +whose importance could never be over-estimated, yet we find along with it +a total absence of any mention of those various social and economical +forces which form such important factors in the evolution of the world, +and to which Herodotus rightly gave great prominence in his immortal +work. The history of Thucydides is essentially one-sided and incomplete. +The intricate details of sieges and battles, subjects with which the +historian proper has really nothing to do except so far as they may throw +light on the spirit of the age, we would readily exchange for some notice +of the condition of private society in Athens, or the influence and +position of women. + +There is an advance in the method of historical criticism; there is an +advance in the conception and motive of history itself; for in Thucydides +we may discern that natural reaction against the intrusion of didactic +and theological considerations into the sphere of the pure intellect, the +spirit of which may be found in the Euripidean treatment of tragedy and +the later schools of art, as well as in the Platonic conception of +science. + +History, no doubt, has splendid lessons for our instruction, just as all +good art comes to us as the herald of the noblest truth. But, to set +before either the painter or the historian the inculcation of moral +lessons as an aim to be consciously pursued, is to miss entirely the true +motive and characteristic both of art and history, which is in the one +case the creation of beauty, in the other the discovery of the laws of +the evolution of progress: _Il ne faut demander de l’Art que l’Art_, _du +passé que le passé_. + +Herodotus wrote to illustrate the wonderful ways of Providence and the +nemesis that falls on sin, and his work is a good example of the truth +that nothing can dispense with criticism so much as a moral aim. +Thucydides has no creed to preach, no doctrine to prove. He analyses the +results which follow inevitably from certain antecedents, in order that +on a recurrence of the same crisis men may know how to act. + +His object was to discover the laws of the past so as to serve as a light +to illumine the future. We must not confuse the recognition of the +utility of history with any ideas of a didactic aim. Two points more in +Thucydides remain for our consideration: his treatment of the rise of +Greek civilisation, and of the primitive condition of Hellas, as well as +the question how far can he be said really to have recognised the +existence of laws regulating the complex phenomena of life. + + + +III + + +THE investigation into the two great problems of the origin of society +and the philosophy of history occupies such an important position in the +evolution of Greek thought that, to obtain any clear view of the workings +of the critical spirit, it will be necessary to trace at some length +their rise and scientific development as evinced not merely in the works +of historians proper, but also in the philosophical treatises of Plato +and Aristotle. The important position which these two great thinkers +occupy in the progress of historical criticism can hardly be +over-estimated. I do not mean merely as regards their treatment of the +Greek Bible, and Plato’s endeavours to purge sacred history of its +immorality by the application of ethical canons at the time when +Aristotle was beginning to undermine the basis of miracles by his +scientific conception of law, but with reference to these two wider +questions of the rise of civil institutions and the philosophy of +history. + +And first, as regards the current theories of the primitive condition of +society, there was a wide divergence of opinion in Hellenic society, just +as there is now. For while the majority of the orthodox public, of whom +Hesiod may be taken as the representative, looked back, as a great many +of our own day still do, to a fabulous age of innocent happiness, a +_bell’ età dell’ auro_, where sin and death were unknown and men and +women were like Gods, the foremost men of intellect such as Aristotle and +Plato, Æschylus and many of the other poets {29} saw in primitive man ‘a +few small sparks of humanity preserved on the tops of mountains after +some deluge,’ ‘without an idea of cities, governments or legislation,’ +‘living the lives of wild beasts in sunless caves,’ ‘their only law being +the survival of the fittest.’ + +And this, too, was the opinion of Thucydides, whose _Archæologia_ as it +is contains a most valuable disquisition on the early condition of +Hellas, which it will be necessary to examine at some length. + +Now, as regards the means employed generally by Thucydides for the +elucidation of ancient history, I have already pointed out how that, +while acknowledging that ‘it is the tendency of every poet to exaggerate, +as it is of every chronicler to seek to be attractive at the expense of +truth,’ he yet assumes in the thoroughly euhemeristic way, that under the +veil of myth and legend there does yet exist a rational basis of fact +discoverable by the method of rejecting all supernatural interference as +well as any extraordinary motives influencing the actors. It is in +complete accordance with this spirit that he appeals, for instance, to +the Homeric epithet of _ἀφνειός_, as applied to Corinth, as a proof of +the early commercial prosperity of that city; to the fact of the generic +name _Hellenes_ not occurring in the _Iliad_ as a corroboration of his +theory of the essentially disunited character of the primitive Greek +tribes; and he argues from the line ‘O’er many islands and all Argos +ruled,’ as applied to Agamemnon, that his forces must have been partially +naval, ‘for Agamemnon’s was a continental power, and he could not have +been master of any but the adjacent islands, and these would not be many +but through the possession of a fleet.’ + +Anticipating in some measure the comparative method of research, he +argues from the fact of the more barbarous Greek tribes, such as the +Ætolians and Acarnanians, still carrying arms in his own day, that this +custom was the case originally over the whole country. ‘The fact,’ he +says, ‘that the people in these parts of Hellas are still living in the +old way points to a time when the same mode of life was equally common to +all.’ Similarly, in another passage, he shows how a corroboration of his +theory of the respectable character of piracy in ancient days is afforded +by ‘the honour with which some of the inhabitants of the continent still +regard a successful marauder,’ as well as by the fact that the question, +‘Are you a pirate?’ is a common feature of primitive society as shown in +the poets; and finally, after observing how the old Greek custom of +wearing belts in gymnastic contests still survived among the more +uncivilised Asiatic tribes, he observes that there are many other points +in which a likeness may be shown between the life of the primitive +Hellenes and that of the barbarians to-day.’ + +As regards the evidence afforded by ancient remains, while adducing as a +proof of the insecure character of early Greek society the fact of their +cities {31} being always built at some distance from the sea, yet he is +careful to warn us, and the caution ought to be borne in mind by all +archæologists, that we have no right to conclude from the scanty remains +of any city that its legendary greatness in primitive times was a mere +exaggeration. ‘We are not justified,’ he says, ‘in rejecting the +tradition of the magnitude of the Trojan armament, because Mycenæ and the +other towns of that age seem to us small and insignificant. For, if +Lacedæmon was to become desolate, any antiquarian judging merely from its +ruins would be inclined to regard the tale of the Spartan hegemony as an +idle myth; for the city is a mere collection of villages after the old +fashion of Hellas, and has none of those splendid public buildings and +temples which characterise Athens, and whose remains, in the case of the +latter city, would be so marvellous as to lead the superficial observer +into an exaggerated estimate of the Athenian power.’ Nothing can be more +scientific than the archæological canons laid down, whose truth is +strikingly illustrated to any one who has compared the waste fields of +the Eurotas plain with the lordly monuments of the Athenian acropolis. +{32} + +On the other hand, Thucydides is quite conscious of the value of the +positive evidence afforded by archæological remains. He appeals, for +instance, to the character of the armour found in the Delian tombs and +the peculiar mode of sepulture, as corroboration of his theory of the +predominance of the Carian element among the primitive islanders, and to +the concentration of all the temples either in the Acropolis, or in its +immediate vicinity, to the name of _ἄστυ_ by which it was still known, +and to the extraordinary sanctity of the spring of water there, as proof +that the primitive city was originally confined to the citadel, and the +district immediately beneath it (ii. 16). And lastly, in the very +opening of his history, anticipating one of the most scientific of modern +methods, he points out how in early states of civilisation immense +fertility of the soil tends to favour the personal aggrandisement of +individuals, and so to stop the normal progress of the country through +‘the rise of factions, that endless source of ruin’; and also by the +allurements it offers to a foreign invader, to necessitate a continual +change of population, one immigration following on another. He +exemplifies his theory by pointing to the endless political revolutions +that characterised Arcadia, Thessaly and Boeotia, the three richest spots +in Greece, as well as by the negative instance of the undisturbed state +in primitive time of Attica, which was always remarkable for the dryness +and poverty of its soil. + +Now, while undoubtedly in these passages we may recognise the first +anticipation of many of the most modern principles of research, we must +remember how essentially limited is the range of the _archæologia_, and +how no theory at all is offered on the wider questions of the general +conditions of the rise and progress of humanity, a problem which is first +scientifically discussed in the _Republic_ of Plato. + +And at the outset it must be premised that, while the study of primitive +man is an essentially inductive science, resting rather on the +accumulation of evidence than on speculation, among the Greeks it was +prosecuted rather on deductive principles. Thucydides did, indeed, avail +himself of the opportunities afforded by the unequal development of +civilisation in his own day in Greece, and in the places I have pointed +out seems to have anticipated the comparative method. But we do not find +later writers availing themselves of the wonderfully accurate and +picturesque accounts given by Herodotus of the customs of savage tribes. +To take one instance, which bears a good deal on modern questions, we +find in the works of this great traveller the gradual and progressive +steps in the development of the family life clearly manifested in the +mere gregarious herding together of the Agathyrsi, their primitive +kinsmanship through women in common, and the rise of a feeling of +paternity from a state of polyandry. This tribe stood at that time on +that borderland between umbilical relationship and the family which has +been such a difficult point for modern anthropologists to find. + +The ancient authors, however, are unanimous in insisting that the family +is the ultimate unit of society, though, as I have said, an inductive +study of primitive races, or even the accounts given of them by +Herodotus, would have shown them that the _νεοττιὰ ἴδια_ of a personal +household, to use Plato’s expression, is really a most complex notion +appearing always in a late stage of civilisation, along with recognition +of private property and the rights of individualism. + +Philology also, which in the hands of modern investigators has proved +such a splendid instrument of research, was in ancient days studied on +principles too unscientific to be of much use. Herodotus points out that +the word _Eridanos_ is essentially Greek in character, that consequently +the river supposed to run round the world is probably a mere Greek +invention. His remarks, however, on language generally, as in the case +of _Piromis_ and the ending of the Persian names, show on what unsound +basis his knowledge of language rested. + +In the _Bacchæ_ of Euripides there is an extremely interesting passage in +which the immoral stories of the Greek mythology are accounted for on the +principle of that misunderstanding of words and metaphors to which modern +science has given the name of a disease of language. In answer to the +impious rationalism of Pentheus—a sort of modern Philistine—Teiresias, +who may be termed the Max Müller of the Theban cycle, points out that the +story of Dionysus being inclosed in Zeus’ thigh really arose from the +linguistic confusion between _μηρός_ and _ὅμηρος_. + +On the whole, however—for I have quoted these two instances only to show +the unscientific character of early philology—we may say that this +important instrument in recreating the history of the past was not really +used by the ancients as a means of historical criticism. Nor did the +ancients employ that other method, used to such advantage in our own day, +by which in the symbolism and formulas of an advanced civilisation we can +detect the unconscious survival of ancient customs: for, whereas in the +sham capture of the bride at a marriage feast, which was common in Wales +till a recent time, we can discern the lingering reminiscence of the +barbarous habit of exogamy, the ancient writers saw only the deliberate +commemoration of an historical event. + +Aristotle does not tell us by what method he discovered that the Greeks +used to buy their wives in primitive times, but, judging by his general +principles, it was probably through some legend or myth on the subject +which lasted to his own day, and not, as we would do, by arguing back +from the marriage presents given to the bride and her relatives. {37} + +The origin of the common proverb ‘worth so many beeves,’ in which we +discern the unconscious survival of a purely pastoral state of society +before the use of metals was known, is ascribed by Plutarch to the fact +of Theseus having coined money bearing a bull’s head. Similarly, the +Amathusian festival, in which a young man imitated the labours of a woman +in travail, is regarded by him as a rite instituted in Ariadne’s honour, +and the Carian adoration of asparagus as a simple commemoration of the +adventure of the nymph Perigune. In the first of these _we_ discern the +beginning of agnation and kinsmanship through the father, which still +lingers in the ‘couvee’ of New Zealand tribes: while the second is a +relic of the totem and fetish worship of plants. + +Now, in entire opposition to this modern inductive principle of research +stands the philosophic Plato, whose account of primitive man is entirely +speculative and deductive. + +The origin of society he ascribes to necessity, the mother of all +inventions, and imagines that individual man began deliberately to herd +together on account of the advantages of the principle of division of +labour and the rendering of mutual need. + +It must, however, be borne in mind that Plato’s object in this whole +passage in the _Republic_ was, perhaps, not so much to analyse the +conditions of early society as to illustrate the importance of the +division of labour, the shibboleth of his political economy, by showing +what a powerful factor it must have been in the most primitive as well as +in the most complex states of society; just as in the _Laws_ he almost +rewrites entirely the history of the Peloponnesus in order to prove the +necessity of a balance of power. He surely, I mean, must have recognised +himself how essentially incomplete his theory was in taking no account of +the origin of family life, the position and influence of women, and other +social questions, as well as in disregarding those deeper motives of +religion, which are such important factors in early civilisation, and +whose influence Aristotle seems to have clearly apprehended, when he says +that the aim of primitive society was not merely life but the higher +life, and that in the origin of society utility is not the sole motive, +but that there is something spiritual in it if, at least, ‘spiritual’ +will bring out the meaning of that complex expression _τὸ καλόν_. +Otherwise, the whole account in the _Republic_ of primitive man will +always remain as a warning against the intrusion of _a priori_ +speculations in the domain appropriate to induction. + +Now, Aristotle’s theory of the origin of society, like his philosophy of +ethics, rests ultimately on the principle of final causes, not in the +theological meaning of an aim or tendency imposed from without, but in +the scientific sense of function corresponding to organ. ‘Nature maketh +no thing in vain’ is the text of Aristotle in this as in other inquiries. +Man being the only animal possessed of the power of rational speech is, +he asserts, by nature intended to be social, more so than the bee or any +other gregarious animal. + +He is _φύσει πολιτικός_, and the national tendency towards higher forms +of perfection brings the ‘armed savage who used to sell his wife’ to the +free independence of a free state, and to the _ἰσότης τοῦ ἄρχειν καὶ τοῦ +ἄρχεσθαι_, which was the test of true citizenship. The stages passed +through by humanity start with the family first as the ultimate unit. + +The conglomeration of families forms a village ruled by that patriarchal +sway which is the oldest form of government in the world, as is shown by +the fact that all men count it to be the constitution of heaven, and the +villages are merged into the state, and here the progression stops. + +For Aristotle, like all Greek thinkers, found his ideal within the walls +of the _πόλις_, yet perhaps in his remark that a united Greece would rule +the world we may discern some anticipation of that ‘federal union of free +states into one consolidated empire’ which, more than the _πόλις_, is to +our eyes the ultimately perfect polity. + +How far Aristotle was justified in regarding the family as the ultimate +unit, with the materials afforded to him by Greek literature, I have +already noticed. Besides, Aristotle, I may remark, had he reflected on +the meaning of that Athenian law which, while prohibiting marriage with a +uterine sister, permitted it with a sister-german, or on the common +tradition in Athens that before the time of Cecrops children bore their +mothers’ names, or on some of the Spartan regulations, could hardly have +failed to see the universality of kinsmanship through women in early +days, and the late appearance of monandry. Yet, while he missed this +point, in common, it must be acknowledged, with many modern writers, such +as Sir Henry Maine, it is essentially as an explorer of inductive +instances that we recognise his improvement on Plato. The treatise _περὶ +πολιτείων_, did it remain to us in its entirety, would have been one of +the most valuable landmarks in the progress of historical criticism, and +the first scientific treatise on the science of comparative politics. + +A few fragments still remain to us, in one of which we find Aristotle +appealing to the authority of an ancient inscription on the ‘Disk of +Iphitus,’ one of the most celebrated Greek antiquities, to corroborate +his theory of the Lycurgean revival of the Olympian festival; while his +enormous research is evinced in the elaborate explanation he gives of the +historical origin of proverbs such as _οὐδεῖς μέγας κακὸς ἰχθῦς_, of +religious songs like the _ἰῶμεν ἐς Ἀθήνας_ of the Botticean virgins, or +the praises of love and war. + +And, finally, it is to be observed how much wider than Plato’s his theory +of the origin of society is. They both rest on a psychological basis, +but Aristotle’s recognition of the capacity for progress and the tendency +towards a higher life shows how much deeper his knowledge of human nature +was. + +In imitation of these two philosophers, Polybius gives an account of the +origin of society in the opening to his philosophy of history. Somewhat +in the spirit of Plato, he imagines that after one of the cyclic deluges +which sweep off mankind at stated periods and annihilate all pre-existing +civilisation, the few surviving members of humanity coalesce for mutual +protection, and, as in the case with ordinary animals, the one most +remarkable for physical strength is elected king. In a short time, owing +to the workings of sympathy and the desire of approbation, the moral +qualities begin to make their appearance, and intellectual instead of +bodily excellence becomes the qualification for sovereignty. + +Other points, as the rise of law and the like, are dwelt on in a somewhat +modern spirit, and although Polybius seems not to have employed the +inductive method of research in this question, or rather, I should say, +of the hierarchical order of the rational progress of ideas in life, he +is not far removed from what the laborious investigations of modern +travellers have given us. + +And, indeed, as regards the working of the speculative faculty in the +creation of history, it is in all respects marvellous how that the most +truthful accounts of the passage from barbarism to civilisation in +ancient literature come from the works of poets. The elaborate +researches of Mr. Tylor and Sir John Lubbock have done little more than +verify the theories put forward in the _Prometheus Bound_ and the _De +Natura Rerum_; yet neither Æschylus nor Lucretias followed in the modern +path, but rather attained to truth by a certain almost mystic power of +creative imagination, such as we now seek to banish from science as a +dangerous power, though to it science seems to owe many of its most +splendid generalities. {43} + +Leaving then the question of the origin of society as treated by the +ancients, I shall now turn to the other and the more important question +of how far they may he said to have attained to what we call the +philosophy of history. + +Now at the outset we must note that, while the conceptions of law and +order have been universally received as the governing principles of the +phenomena of nature in the sphere of physical science, yet their +intrusion into the domain of history and the life of man has always been +met with a strong opposition, on the ground of the incalculable nature of +two great forces acting on human action, a certain causeless spontaneity +which men call free will, and the extra-natural interference which they +attribute as a constant attribute to God. + +Now, that there is a science of the apparently variable phenomena of +history is a conception which _we_ have perhaps only recently begun to +appreciate; yet, like all other great thoughts, it seems to have come to +the Greek mind spontaneously, through a certain splendour of imagination, +in the morning tide of their civilisation, before inductive research had +armed them with the instruments of verification. For I think it is +possible to discern in some of the mystic speculations of the early Greek +thinkers that desire to discover what is that ‘invariable existence of +which there are variable states,’ and to incorporate it in some one +formula of law which may serve to explain the different manifestations of +all organic bodies, _man included_, which is the germ of the philosophy +of history; the germ indeed of an idea of which it is not too much to say +that on it any kind of historical criticism, worthy of the name, must +ultimately rest. + +For the very first requisite for any scientific conception of history is +the doctrine of uniform sequence: in other words, that certain events +having happened, certain other events corresponding to them will happen +also; that the past is the key of the future. + +Now at the birth of this great conception science, it is true, presided, +yet religion it was which at the outset clothed it in its own garb, and +familiarised men with it by appealing to their hearts first and then to +their intellects; knowing that at the beginning of things it is through +the moral nature, and not through the intellectual, that great truths are +spread. + +So in Herodotus, who may be taken as a representative of the orthodox +tone of thought, the idea of the uniform sequence of cause and effect +appears under the theological aspect of Nemesis and Providence, which is +really the scientific conception of law, only it is viewed from an +_ethical_ standpoint. + +Now in Thucydides the philosophy of history rests on the probability, +which the uniformity of human nature affords us, that the future will in +the course of human things resemble the past, if not reproduce it. He +appears to contemplate a recurrence of the phenomena of history as +equally certain with a return of the epidemic of the Great Plague. + +Notwithstanding what German critics have written on the subject, we must +beware of regarding this conception as a mere reproduction of that cyclic +theory of events which sees in the world nothing but the regular rotation +of Strophe and Antistrophe, in the eternal choir of life and death. + +For, in his remarks on the excesses of the Corcyrean Revolution, +Thucydides distinctly rests his idea of the recurrence of history on the +psychological grounds of the general sameness of mankind. + +‘The sufferings,’ he says, ‘which revolution entailed upon the cities +were many and terrible, such as have occurred and always will occurs as +long as human nature remains the same, though in a severer or milder +form, and varying in their symptoms according to the variety of the +particular cases. + +‘In peace and prosperity states and individuals have better sentiments, +because they are not confronted with imperious necessities; but war takes +away the easy supply of men’s wants, and so proves a hard taskmaster, +which brings most men’s characters to a level with their fortunes.’ + + + +IV + + +IT is evident that here Thucydides is ready to admit the variety of +manifestations which external causes bring about in their workings on the +uniform character of the nature of man. Yet, after all is said, these +are perhaps but very general statements: the ordinary effects of peace +and war are dwelt on, but there is no real analysis of the immediate +causes and general laws of the phenomena of life, nor does Thucydides +seem to recognise the truth that if humanity proceeds in circles, the +circles are always widening. + +Perhaps we may say that with him the philosophy of history is partly in +the metaphysical stage, and see, in the progress of this idea from +Herodotus to Polybius, the exemplification of the Comtian Law of the +three stages of thought, the theological, the metaphysical, and the +scientific: for truly out of the vagueness of theological mysticism this +conception which we call the Philosophy of History was raised to a +scientific principle, according to which the past was explained and the +future predicted by reference to general laws. + +Now, just as the earliest account of the nature of the progress of +humanity is to be found in Plato, so in him we find the first explicit +attempt to found a universal philosophy of history upon wide rational +grounds. Having created an ideally perfect state, the philosopher +proceeds to give an elaborate theory of the complex causes which produce +revolutions, of the moral effects of various forms of government and +education, of the rise of the criminal classes and their connection with +pauperism, and, in a word, to create history by the deductive method and +to proceed from _a priori_ psychological principles to discover the +governing laws of the apparent chaos of political life. + +There have been many attempts since Plato to deduce from a single +philosophical principle all the phenomena which experience subsequently +verifies for us. Fichte thought he could predict the world-plan from the +idea of universal time. Hegel dreamed he had found the key to the +mysteries of life in the development of freedom, and Krause in the +categories of being. But the one scientific basis on which the true +philosophy of history must rest is the complete knowledge of the laws of +human nature in all its wants, its aspirations, its powers and its +tendencies: and this great truth, which Thucydides may be said in some +measure to have apprehended, was given to us first by Plato. + +Now, it cannot be accurately said of this philosopher that either his +philosophy or his history is entirely and simply _a priori_. _On est de +son siècle même quand on y proteste_, and so we find in him continual +references to the Spartan mode of life, the Pythagorean system, the +general characteristics of Greek tyrannies and Greek democracies. For +while, in his account of the method of forming an ideal state, he says +that the political artist is indeed to fix his gaze on the sun of +abstract truth in the heavens of the pure reason, but is sometimes to +turn to the realisation of the ideals on earth: yet, after all, the +general character of the Platonic method, which is what we are specially +concerned with, is essentially deductive and _a priori_. And he himself, +in the building up of his Nephelococcygia, certainly starts with a +_καθαρὸς πίναξ_, making a clean sweep of all history and all experience; +and it was essentially as an _a priori_ theorist that he is criticised by +Aristotle, as we shall see later. + +To proceed to closer details regarding the actual scheme of the laws of +political revolutions as drawn out by Plato, we must first note that the +primary cause of the decay of the ideal state is the general principle, +common to the vegetable and animal worlds as well as to the world of +history, that all created things are fated to decay—a principle which, +though expressed in the terms of a mere metaphysical abstraction, is yet +perhaps in its essence scientific. For we too must hold that a +continuous redistribution of matter and motion is the inevitable result +of the nominal persistence of Force, and that perfect equilibrium is as +impossible in politics as it certainly is in physics. + +The secondary causes which mar the perfection of the Platonic ‘city of +the sun’ are to be found in the intellectual decay of the race consequent +on injudicious marriages and in the Philistine elevation of physical +achievements over mental culture; while the hierarchical succession of +Timocracy and Oligarchy, Democracy and Tyranny, is dwelt on at great +length and its causes analysed in a very dramatic and psychological +manner, if not in that sanctioned by the actual order of history. + +And indeed it is apparent at first sight that the Platonic succession of +states represents rather the succession of ideas in the philosophic mind +than any historical succession of time. + +Aristotle meets the whole simply by an appeal to facts. If the theory of +the periodic decay of all created things, he urges, be scientific, it +must be universal, and so true of all the other states as well as of the +ideal. Besides, a state usually changes into its contrary and not to the +form next to it; so the ideal state would not change into Timocracy; +while Oligarchy, more often than Tyranny, succeeds Democracy. Plato, +besides, says nothing of what a Tyranny would change to. According to +the cycle theory it ought to pass into the ideal state again, but as a +fact one Tyranny is changed into another as at Sicyon, or into a +Democracy as at Syracuse, or into an Aristocracy as at Carthage. The +example of Sicily, too, shows that an Oligarchy is often followed by a +Tyranny, as at Leontini and Gela. Besides, it is absurd to represent +greed as the chief motive of decay, or to talk of avarice as the root of +Oligarchy, when in nearly all true oligarchies money-making is forbidden +by law. And finally the Platonic theory neglects the different kinds of +democracies and of tyrannies. + +Now nothing can be more important than this passage in Aristotle’s +_Politics_ (_v._ 12.), which may he said to mark an era in the evolution +of historical criticism. For there is nothing on which Aristotle insists +so strongly as that the generalisations from facts ought to be added to +the data of the _a priori_ method—a principle which we know to be true +not merely of deductive speculative politics but of physics also: for are +not the residual phenomena of chemists a valuable source of improvement +in theory? + +His own method is essentially historical though by no means empirical. +On the contrary, this far-seeing thinker, rightly styled _il maestro di +color che sanno_, may be said to have apprehended clearly that the true +method is neither exclusively empirical nor exclusively speculative, but +rather a union of both in the process called Analysis or the +Interpretation of Facts, which has been defined as the application to +facts of such general conceptions as may fix the important +characteristics of the phenomena, and present them permanently in their +true relations. He too was the first to point out, what even in our own +day is incompletely appreciated, that nature, including the development +of man, is not full of incoherent episodes like a bad tragedy, that +inconsistency and anomaly are as impossible in the moral as they are in +the physical world, and that where the superficial observer thinks he +sees a revolution the philosophical critic discerns merely the gradual +and rational evolution of the inevitable results of certain antecedents. + +And while admitting the necessity of a psychological basis for the +philosophy of history, he added to it the important truth that man, to be +apprehended in his proper position in the universe as well as in his +natural powers, must be studied from below in the hierarchical +progression of higher function from the lower forms of life. The +important maxim, that to obtain a clear conception of anything we must +‘study it in its growth from the very beginning,’ is formally set down in +the opening of the _Politics_, where, indeed, we shall find the other +characteristic features of the modern Evolutionary theory, such as the +‘Differentiation of Function’ and the ‘Survival of the Fittest’ +explicitly set forth. + +What a valuable step this was in the improvement of the method of +historical criticism it is needless to point out. By it, one may say, +the true thread was given to guide one’s steps through the bewildering +labyrinth of facts. For history (to use terms with which Aristotle has +made us familiar) may be looked at from two essentially different +standpoints; either as a work of art whose _τέλος_ or final cause is +external to it and imposed on it from without; or as an organism +containing the law of its own development in itself, and working out its +perfection merely by the fact of being what it is. Now, if we adopt the +former, which we may style the theological view, we shall be in continual +danger of tripping into the pitfall of some _a priori_ conclusion—that +bourne from which, it has been truly said, no traveller ever returns. + +The latter is the only scientific theory and was apprehended in its +fulness by Aristotle, whose application of the inductive method to +history, and whose employment of the evolutionary theory of humanity, +show that he was conscious that the philosophy of history is nothing +separate from the facts of history but is contained in them, and that the +rational law of the complex phenomena of life, like the ideal in the +world of thought, is to be reached through the facts, not superimposed on +them—_κατὰ πολλῶν_ not _παρὰ πολλά_. + +And finally, in estimating the enormous debt which the science of +historical criticism owes to Aristotle, we must not pass over his +attitude towards those two great difficulties in the formation of a +philosophy of history on which I have touched above. I mean the +assertion of extra-natural interference with the normal development of +the world and of the incalculable influence exercised by the power of +free will. + +Now, as regards the former, he may be said to have neglected it entirely. +The special acts of providence proceeding from God’s immediate government +of the world, which Herodotus saw as mighty landmarks in history, would +have been to him essentially disturbing elements in that universal reign +of law, the extent of whose limitless empire he of all the great thinkers +of antiquity was the first explicitly to recognise. + +Standing aloof from the popular religion as well as from the deeper +conceptions of Herodotus and the Tragic School, he no longer thought of +God as of one with fair limbs and treacherous face haunting wood and +glade, nor would he see in him a jealous judge continually interfering in +the world’s history to bring the wicked to punishment and the proud to a +fall. God to him was the incarnation of the pure Intellect, a being +whose activity was the contemplation of his own perfection, one whom +Philosophy might imitate but whom prayers could never move, to the +sublime indifference of whose passionless wisdom what were the sons of +men, their desires or their sins? While, as regards the other difficulty +and the formation of a philosophy of history, the conflict of free will +with general laws appears first in Greek thought in the usual theological +form in which all great ideas seem to be cradled at their birth. + +It was such legends as those of Œdipus and Adrastus, exemplifying the +struggles of individual humanity against the overpowering force of +circumstances and necessity, which gave to the early Greeks those same +lessons which we of modern days draw, in somewhat less artistic fashion, +from the study of statistics and the laws of physiology. + +In Aristotle, of course, there is no trace of supernatural influence. +The Furies, which drive their victim into sin first and then punishment, +are no longer ‘viper-tressed goddesses with eyes and mouth aflame,’ but +those evil thoughts which harbour within the impure soul. In this, as in +all other points, to arrive at Aristotle is to reach the pure atmosphere +of scientific and modern thought. + +But while he rejected pure necessitarianism in its crude form as +essentially a _reductio ad absurdum_ of life, he was fully conscious of +the fact that the will is not a mysterious and ultimate unit of force +beyond which we cannot go and whose special characteristic is +inconsistency, but a certain creative attitude of the mind which is, from +the first, continually influenced by habits, education and circumstance; +so absolutely modifiable, in a word, that the good and the bad man alike +seem to lose the power of free will; for the one is morally unable to +sin, the other physically incapacitated for reformation. + +And of the influence of climate and temperature in forming the nature of +man (a conception perhaps pressed too far in modern days when the ‘race +theory’ is supposed to be a sufficient explanation of the Hindoo, and the +latitude and longitude of a country the best guide to its morals {57}) +Aristotle is completely unaware. I do not allude to such smaller points +as the oligarchical tendencies of a horse-breeding country and the +democratic influence of the proximity of the sea (important though they +are for the consideration of Greek history), but rather to those wider +views in the seventh book of his _Politics_, where he attributes the +happy union in the Greek character of intellectual attainments with the +spirit of progress to the temperate climate they enjoyed, and points out +how the extreme cold of the north dulls the mental faculties of its +inhabitants and renders them incapable of social organisation or extended +empire; while to the enervating heat of eastern countries was due that +want of spirit and bravery which then, as now, was the characteristic of +the population in that quarter of the globe. + +Thucydides has shown the causal connection between political revolutions +and the fertility of the soil, but goes a step farther and points out the +psychological influences on a people’s character exercised by the various +extremes of climate—in both cases the first appearance of a most valuable +form of historical criticism. + +To the development of Dialectic, as to God, intervals of time are of no +account. From Plato and Aristotle we pass direct to Polybius. + +The progress of thought from the philosopher of the Academe to the +Arcadian historian may be best illustrated by a comparison of the method +by which each of the three writers, whom I have selected as the highest +expression of the rationalism of his respective age, attained to his +ideal state: for the latter conception may be in a measure regarded as +representing the most spiritual principle which they could discern in +history. + +Now, Plato created his on _a priori_ principles; Aristotle formed his by +an analysis of existing constitutions; Polybius found his realised for +him in the actual world of fact. Aristotle criticised the deductive +speculations of Plato by means of inductive negative instances, but +Polybius will not take the ‘Cloud City’ of the _Republic_ into account at +all. He compares it to an athlete who has never run on ‘Constitution +Hill,’ to a statue so beautiful that it is entirely removed from the +ordinary conditions of humanity, and consequently from the canons of +criticism. + +The Roman state had attained in his eyes, by means of the mutual +counteraction of three opposing forces, {59} that stable equilibrium in +politics which was the ideal of all the theoretical writers of antiquity. +And in connection with this point it will be convenient to notice here +how much truth there is contained in the accusation often brought against +the ancients that they knew nothing of the idea of Progress, for the +meaning of many of their speculations will be hidden from us if we do not +try and comprehend first what their aim was, and secondly why it was so. + +Now, like all wide generalities, this statement is at least inaccurate. +The prayer of Plato’s ideal City—_ἐξ ἀγαθῶν ἀμείνους_, _καὶ ἐξ ὠφελιμῶν +ὠφελιμωτέρους ἀεὶ τοὺς ἐκγόνους γίγνεσθαι_, might be written as a text +over the door of the last Temple to Humanity raised by the disciples of +Fourier and Saint-Simon, but it is certainly true that their ideal +principle was order and permanence, not indefinite progress. For, +setting aside the artistic prejudices which would have led the Greeks to +reject this idea of unlimited improvement, we may note that the modern +conception of progress rests partly on the new enthusiasm and worship of +humanity, partly on the splendid hopes of material improvements in +civilisation which applied science has held out to us, two influences +from which ancient Greek thought seems to have been strangely free. For +the Greeks marred the perfect humanism of the great men whom they +worshipped, by imputing to them divinity and its supernatural powers; +while their science was eminently speculative and often almost mystic in +its character, aiming at culture and not utility, at higher spirituality +and more intense reverence for law, rather than at the increased +facilities of locomotion and the cheap production of common things about +which our modern scientific school ceases not to boast. And lastly, and +perhaps chiefly, we must remember that the ‘plague spot of all Greek +states,’ as one of their own writers has called it, was the terrible +insecurity to life and property which resulted from the factions and +revolutions which ceased not to trouble Greece at all times, raising a +spirit of fanaticism such as religion raised in the middle ages of +Europe. + +These considerations, then, will enable us to understand first how it was +that, radical and unscrupulous reformers as the Greek political theorists +were, yet, their end once attained, no modern conservatives raised such +outcry against the slightest innovation. Even acknowledged improvements +in such things as the games of children or the modes of music were +regarded by them with feelings of extreme apprehension as the herald of +the _drapeau rouge_ of reform. And secondly, it will show us how it was +that Polybius found his ideal in the commonwealth of Rome, and Aristotle, +like Mr. Bright, in the middle classes. Polybius, however, is not +content merely with pointing out his ideal state, but enters at +considerable length into the question of those general laws whose +consideration forms the chief essential of the philosophy of history. + +He starts by accepting the general principle that all things are fated to +decay (which I noticed in the case of Plato), and that ‘as iron produces +rust and as wood breeds the animals that destroy it, so every state has +in it the seeds of its own corruption.’ He is not, however, content to +rest there, but proceeds to deal with the more immediate causes of +revolutions, which he says are twofold in nature, either external or +internal. Now, the former, depending as they do on the synchronous +conjunction of other events outside the sphere of scientific estimation, +are from their very character incalculable; but the latter, though +assuming many forms, always result from the over-great preponderance of +any single element to the detriment of the others, the rational law lying +at the base of all varieties of political changes being that stability +can result only from the statical equilibrium produced by the +counteraction of opposing parts, since the more simple a constitution is +the more it is insecure. Plato had pointed out before how the extreme +liberty of a democracy always resulted in despotism, but Polybius +analyses the law and shows the scientific principles on which it rests. + +The doctrine of the instability of pure constitutions forms an important +era in the philosophy of history. Its special applicability to the +politics of our own day has been illustrated in the rise of the great +Napoleon, when the French state had lost those divisions of caste and +prejudice, of landed aristocracy and moneyed interest, institutions in +which the vulgar see only barriers to Liberty but which are indeed the +only possible defences against the coming of that periodic Sirius of +politics, the _τύραννος ἐκ προστατικῆς ῥίζης_. + +There is a principle which Tocqueville never wearies of explaining, and +which has been subsumed by Mr. Herbert Spencer under that general law +common to all organic bodies which we call the Instability of the +Homogeneous. The various manifestations of this law, as shown in the +normal, regular revolutions and evolutions of the different forms of +government, {63a} are expounded with great clearness by Polybius, who +claimed for his theory, in the Thucydidean spirit, that it is a _κτῆμα ἐς +ἀεί_, not a mere _ἀγώνισμα ἐς τὸ παραχρῆμα_, and that a knowledge of it +will enable the impartial observer {63b} to discover at any time what +period of its constitutional evolution any particular state has already +reached and into what form it will be next differentiated, though +possibly the exact time of the changes may be more or less uncertain. +{63c} + +Now in this necessarily incomplete account of the laws of political +revolutions as expounded by Polybius enough perhaps has been said to show +what is his true position in the rational development of the ‘Idea’ which +I have called the Philosophy of History, because it is the unifying of +history. Seen darkly as it is through the glass of religion in the pages +of Herodotus, more metaphysical than scientific with Thucydides, Plato +strove to seize it by the eagle-flight of speculation, to reach it with +the eager grasp of a soul impatient of those slower and surer inductive +methods which Aristotle, in his trenchant criticism of his greater +master, showed were more brilliant than any vague theory, if the test of +brilliancy is truth. + +What then is the position of Polybius? Does any new method remain for +him? Polybius was one of those many men who are born too late to be +original. To Thucydides belongs the honour of being the first in the +history of Greek thought to discern the supreme calm of law and order +underlying the fitful storms of life, and Plato and Aristotle each +represents a great new principle. To Polybius belongs the office—how +noble an office he made it his writings show—of making more explicit the +ideas which were implicit in his predecessors, of showing that they were +of wider applicability and perhaps of deeper meaning than they had seemed +before, of examining with more minuteness the laws which they had +discovered, and finally of pointing out more clearly than any one had +done the range of science and the means it offered for analysing the +present and predicting what was to come. His office thus was to gather +up what they had left, to give their principles new life by a wider +application. + +Polybius ends this great diapason of Greek thought. When the Philosophy +of history appears next, as in Plutarch’s tract on ‘Why God’s anger is +delayed,’ the pendulum of thought had swung back to where it began. His +theory was introduced to the Romans under the cultured style of Cicero, +and was welcomed by them as the philosophical panegyric of their state. +The last notice of it in Latin literature is in the pages of Tacitus, who +alludes to the stable polity formed out of these elements as a +constitution easier to commend than to produce and in no case lasting. +Yet Polybius had seen the future with no uncertain eye, and had +prophesied the rise of the Empire from the unbalanced power of the +ochlocracy fifty years and more before there was joy in the Julian +household over the birth of that boy who, born to power as the champion +of the people, died wearing the purple of a king. + +No attitude of historical criticism is more important than the means by +which the ancients attained to the philosophy of history. The principle +of heredity can be exemplified in literature as well as in organic life: +Aristotle, Plato and Polybius are the lineal ancestors of Fichte and +Hegel, of Vico and Cousin, of Montesquieu and Tocqueville. + +As my aim is not to give an account of historians but to point out those +great thinkers whose methods have furthered the advance of this spirit of +historical criticism, I shall pass over those annalists and chroniclers +who intervened between Thucydides and Polybius. Yet perhaps it may serve +to throw new light on the real nature of this spirit and its intimate +connection with all other forms of advanced thought if I give some +estimate of the character and rise of those many influences prejudicial +to the scientific study of history which cause such a wide gap between +these two historians. + +Foremost among these is the growing influence of rhetoric and the +Isocratean school, which seems to have regarded history as an arena for +the display either of pathos or paradoxes, not a scientific investigation +into laws. + +The new age is the age of style. The same spirit of exclusive attention +to form which made Euripides often, like Swinburne, prefer music to +meaning and melody to morality, which gave to the later Greek statues +that refined effeminacy, that overstrained gracefulness of attitude, was +felt in the sphere of history. The rules laid down for historical +composition are those relating to the æsthetic value of digressions, the +legality of employing more than one metaphor in the same sentence, and +the like; and historians are ranked not by their power of estimating +evidence but by the goodness of the Greek they write. + +I must note also the important influence on literature exercised by +Alexander the Great; for while his travels encouraged the more accurate +research of geography, the very splendour of his achievements seems to +have brought history again into the sphere of romance. The appearance of +all great men in the world is followed invariably by the rise of that +mythopœic spirit and that tendency to look for the marvellous, which is +so fatal to true historical criticism. An Alexander, a Napoleon, a +Francis of Assisi and a Mahomet are thought to be outside the limiting +conditions of rational law, just as comets were supposed to be not very +long ago. While the founding of that city of Alexandria, in which +Western and Eastern thought met with such strange result to both, +diverted the critical tendencies of the Greek spirit into questions of +grammar, philology and the like, the narrow, artificial atmosphere of +that University town (as we may call it) was fatal to the development of +that independent and speculative spirit of research which strikes out new +methods of inquiry, of which historical criticism is one. + +The Alexandrines combined a great love of learning with an ignorance of +the true principles of research, an enthusiastic spirit for accumulating +materials with a wonderful incapacity to use them. Not among the hot +sands of Egypt, or the Sophists of Athens, but from the very heart of +Greece rises the man of genius on whose influence in the evolution of the +philosophy of history I have a short time ago dwelt. Born in the serene +and pure air of the clear uplands of Arcadia, Polybius may be said to +reproduce in his work the character of the place which gave him birth. +For, of all the historians—I do not say of antiquity but of all time—none +is more rationalistic than he, none more free from any belief in the +‘visions and omens, the monstrous legends, the grovelling superstitions +and unmanly craving for the supernatural’ (_δεισιδαιμονίας ἀγεννοῦς καὶ +τερατείας γυναικώδους_ {68}) which he himself is compelled to notice as +the characteristics of some of the historians who preceded him. +Fortunate in the land which bore him, he was no less blessed in the +wondrous time of his birth. For, representing in himself the spiritual +supremacy of the Greek intellect and allied in bonds of chivalrous +friendship to the world-conqueror of his day, he seems led as it were by +the hand of Fate ‘to comprehend,’ as has been said, ‘more clearly than +the Romans themselves the historical position of Rome,’ and to discern +with greater insight than all other men could those two great resultants +of ancient civilisation, the material empire of the city of the seven +hills, and the intellectual sovereignty of Hellas. + +Before his own day, he says, {69a} the events of the world were +unconnected and separate and the histories confined to particular +countries. Now, for the first time the universal empire of the Romans +rendered a universal history possible. {69b} This, then, is the august +motive of his work: to trace the gradual rise of this Italian city from +the day when the first legion crossed the narrow strait of Messina and +landed on the fertile fields of Sicily to the time when Corinth in the +East and Carthage in the West fell before the resistless wave of empire +and the eagles of Rome passed on the wings of universal victory from +Calpe and the Pillars of Hercules to Syria and the Nile. At the same +time he recognised that the scheme of Rome’s empire was worked out under +the ægis of God’s will. {69c} For, as one of the Middle Age scribes most +truly says, the _τύχη_ of Polybius is that power which we Christians call +God; the second aim, as one may call it, of his history is to point out +the rational and human and natural causes which brought this result, +distinguishing, as we should say, between God’s mediate and immediate +government of the world. + +With any direct intervention of God in the normal development of Man, he +will have nothing to do: still less with any idea of chance as a factor +in the phenomena of life. Chance and miracles, he says, are mere +expressions for our ignorance of rational causes. The spirit of +rationalism which we recognised in Herodotus as a vague uncertain +attitude and which appears in Thucydides as a consistent attitude of mind +never argued about or even explained, is by Polybius analysed and +formulated as the great instrument of historical research. + +Herodotus, while believing on principle in the supernatural, yet was +sceptical at times. Thucydides simply ignored the supernatural. He did +not discuss it, but he annihilated it by explaining history without it. +Polybius enters at length into the whole question and explains its origin +and the method of treating it. Herodotus would have believed in Scipio’s +dream. Thucydides would have ignored it entirely. Polybius explains it. +He is the culmination of the rational progression of Dialectic. +‘Nothing,’ he says, ‘shows a foolish mind more than the attempt to +account for any phenomena on the principle of chance or supernatural +intervention. History is a search for rational causes, and there is +nothing in the world—even those phenomena which seem to us the most +remote from law and improbable—which is not the logical and inevitable +result of certain rational antecedents.’ + +Some things, of course, are to be rejected _a priori_ without entering +into the subject: ‘As regards such miracles,’ he says, {71} ‘as that on a +certain statue of Artemis rain or snow never falls though the statue +stands in the open air, or that those who enter God’s shrine in Arcadia +lose their natural shadows, I cannot really be expected to argue upon the +subject. For these things are not only utterly improbable but absolutely +impossible.’ + +‘For us to argue reasonably on an acknowledged absurdity is as vain a +task as trying to catch water in a sieve; it is really to admit the +possibility of the supernatural, which is the very point at issue.’ + +What Polybius felt was that to admit the possibility of a miracle is to +annihilate the possibility of history: for just as scientific and +chemical experiments would be either impossible or useless if exposed to +the chance of continued interference on the part of some foreign body, so +the laws and principles which govern history, the causes of phenomena, +the evolution of progress, the whole science, in a word, of man’s +dealings with his own race and with nature, will remain a sealed book to +him who admits the possibility of extra-natural interference. + +The stories of miracles, then, are to be rejected on _a priori_ rational +grounds, but in the case of events which we know to have happened the +scientific historian will not rest till he has discovered their natural +causes which, for instance, in the case of the wonderful rise of the +Roman Empire—the most marvellous thing, Polybius says, which God ever +brought about {72a}—are to be found in the excellence of their +constitution (_τῇ ἰδιότητι τῆς πολιτείας_), the wisdom of their advisers, +their splendid military arrangements, and their superstition (_τῇ +δεισιδαιμονίᾳ_). For while Polybius regarded the revealed religion as, +of course, objective reality of truth, {72b} he laid great stress on its +moral subjective influence, going, in one passage on the subject, even so +far as almost to excuse the introduction of the supernatural in very +small quantities into history on account of the extremely good effect it +would have on pious people. + +But perhaps there is no passage in the whole of ancient and modern +history which breathes such a manly and splendid spirit of rationalism as +one preserved to us in the Vatican—strange resting-place for it!—in which +he treats of the terrible decay of population which had fallen on his +native land in his own day, and which by the general orthodox public was +regarded as a special judgment of God sending childlessness on women as a +punishment for the sins of the people. For it was a disaster quite +without parallel in the history of the land, and entirely unforeseen by +any of its political-economy writers who, on the contrary, were always +anticipating that danger would arise from an excess of population +overrunning its means of subsistence, and becoming unmanageable through +its size. Polybius, however, will have nothing to do with either priest +or worker of miracles in this matter. He will not even seek that ‘sacred +Heart of Greece,’ Delphi, Apollo’s shrine, whose inspiration even +Thucydides admitted and before whose wisdom Socrates bowed. How foolish, +he says, were the man who on this matter would pray to God. We must +search for the rational causes, and the causes are seen to be clear, and +the method of prevention also. He then proceeds to notice how all this +arose from the general reluctance to marriage and to bearing the expense +of educating a large family which resulted from the carelessness and +avarice of the men of his day, and he explains on entirely rational +principles the whole of this apparently supernatural judgment. + +Now, it is to be borne in mind that while his rejection of miracles as +violation of inviolable laws is entirely _a priori_—for discussion of +such a matter is, of course, impossible for a rational thinker—yet his +rejection of supernatural intervention rests entirely on the scientific +grounds of the necessity of looking for natural causes. And he is quite +logical in maintaining his position on these principles. For, where it +is either difficult or impossible to assign any rational cause for +phenomena, or to discover their laws, he acquiesces reluctantly in the +alternative of admitting some extra-natural interference which his +essentially scientific method of treating the matter has logically forced +on him, approving, for instance, of prayers for rain, on the express +ground that the laws of meteorology had not yet been ascertained. He +would, of course, have been the first to welcome our modern discoveries +in the matter. The passage in question is in every way one of the most +interesting in his whole work, not, of course, as signifying any +inclination on his part to acquiesce in the supernatural, but because it +shows how essentially logical and rational his method of argument was, +and how candid and fair his mind. + +Having now examined Polybius’s attitude towards the supernatural and the +general ideas which guided his research, I will proceed to examine the +method he pursued in his scientific investigation of the complex +phenomena of life. For, as I have said before in the course of this +essay, what is important in all great writers is not so much the results +they arrive at as the methods they pursue. The increased knowledge of +facts may alter any conclusion in history as in physical science, and the +canons of speculative historical credibility must be acknowledged to +appeal rather to that subjective attitude of mind which we call the +historic sense than to any formulated objective rules. But a scientific +method is a gain for all time, and the true if not the only progress of +historical criticism consists in the improvement of the instruments of +research. + +Now first, as regards his conception of history, I have already pointed +out that it was to him essentially a search for causes, a problem to be +solved, not a picture to be painted, a scientific investigation into laws +and tendencies, not a mere romantic account of startling incident and +wondrous adventure. Thucydides, in the opening of his great work, had +sounded the first note of the scientific conception of history. ‘The +absence of romance in my pages,’ he says, ‘will, I fear, detract somewhat +from its value, but I have written my work not to be the exploit of a +passing hour but as the possession of all time.’ {76} Polybius follows +with words almost entirely similar. If, he says, we banish from history +the consideration of causes, methods and motives (_τὸ διὰ τί_, _καὶ πως_, +_καὶ τίνος χάριν_), and refuse to consider how far the result of anything +is its rational consequent, what is left is a mere _ἀγώνισμα_, not a +_μάθημα_, an oratorical essay which may give pleasure for the moment, but +which is entirely without any scientific value for the explanation of the +future. Elsewhere he says that ‘history robbed of the exposition of its +causes and laws is a profitless thing, though it may allure a fool.’ And +all through his history the same point is put forward and exemplified in +every fashion. + +So far for the conception of history. Now for the groundwork. As +regards the character of the phenomena to be selected by the scientific +investigator, Aristotle had laid down the general formula that nature +should be studied in her normal manifestations. Polybius, true to his +character of applying explicitly the principles implicit in the work of +others, follows out the doctrine of Aristotle, and lays particular stress +on the rational and undisturbed character of the development of the Roman +constitution as affording special facilities for the discovery of the +laws of its progress. Political revolutions result from causes either +external or internal. The former are mere disturbing forces which lie +outside the sphere of scientific calculation. It is the latter which are +important for the establishing of principles and the elucidation of the +sequences of rational evolution. + +He thus may be said to have anticipated one of the most important truths +of the modern methods of investigation: I mean that principle which lays +down that just as the study of physiology should precede the study of +pathology, just as the laws of disease are best discovered by the +phenomena presented in health, so the method of arriving at all great +social and political truths is by the investigation of those cases where +development has been normal, rational and undisturbed. + +The critical canon that the more a people has been interfered with, the +more difficult it becomes to generalise the laws of its progress and to +analyse the separate forces of its civilisation, is one the validity of +which is now generally recognised by those who pretend to a scientific +treatment of all history: and while we have seen that Aristotle +anticipated it in a general formula, to Polybius belongs the honour of +being the first to apply it explicitly in the sphere of history. + +I have shown how to this great scientific historian the motive of his +work was essentially the search for causes; and true to his analytical +spirit he is careful to examine what a cause really is and in what part +of the antecedents of any consequent it is to be looked for. To give an +illustration: As regards the origin of the war with Perseus, some +assigned as causes the expulsion of Abrupolis by Perseus, the expedition +of the latter to Delphi, the plot against Eumenes and the seizure of the +ambassadors in Bœotia; of these incidents the two former, Polybius points +out, were merely the pretexts, the two latter merely the occasions of the +war. The war was really a legacy left to Perseus by his father, who was +determined to fight it out with Rome. {78} + +Here as elsewhere he is not originating any new idea. Thucydides had +pointed out the difference between the real and the alleged cause, and +the Aristotelian dictum about revolutions, _οὐ περὶ μικρῶν ἀλλ’ ἐκ +μικρῶν_, draws the distinction between cause and occasion with the +brilliancy of an epigram. But the explicit and rational investigation of +the difference between _αἰτία_, _ἀρχὴ_, and _πρόφασις_ was reserved for +Polybius. No canon of historical criticism can be said to be of more +real value than that involved in this distinction, and the overlooking of +it has filled our histories with the contemptible accounts of the +intrigues of courtiers and of kings and the petty plottings of backstairs +influence—particulars interesting, no doubt, to those who would ascribe +the Reformation to Anne Boleyn’s pretty face, the Persian war to the +influence of a doctor or a curtain-lecture from Atossa, or the French +Revolution to Madame de Maintenon, but without any value for those who +aim at any scientific treatment of history. + +But the question of method, to which I am compelled always to return, is +not yet exhausted. There is another aspect in which it may be regarded, +and I shall now proceed to treat of it. + +One of the greatest difficulties with which the modern historian has to +contend is the enormous complexity of the facts which come under his +notice: D’Alembert’s suggestion that at the end of every century a +selection of facts should be made and the rest burned (if it was really +intended seriously) could not, of course, be entertained for a moment. A +problem loses all its value when it becomes simplified, and the world +would be all the poorer if the Sibyl of History burned her volumes. +Besides, as Gibbon pointed out, ‘a Montesquieu will detect in the most +insignificant fact relations which the vulgar overlook.’ + +Nor can the scientific investigator of history isolate the particular +elements, which he desires to examine, from disturbing and extraneous +causes, as the experimental chemist can do (though sometimes, as in the +case of lunatic asylums and prisons, he is enabled to observe phenomena +in a certain degree of isolation). So he is compelled either to use the +deductive mode of arguing from general laws or to employ the method of +abstraction, which gives a fictitious isolation to phenomena never so +isolated in actual existence. And this is exactly what Polybius has done +as well as Thucydides. For, as has been well remarked, there is in the +works of these two writers a certain plastic unity of type and motive; +whatever they write is penetrated through and through with a specific +quality, a singleness and concentration of purpose, which we may contrast +with the more comprehensive width as manifested not merely in the modern +mind, but also in Herodotus. Thucydides, regarding society as influenced +entirely by political motives, took no account of forces of a different +nature, and consequently his results, like those of most modern political +economists, have to be modified largely {81} before they come to +correspond with what we know was the actual state of fact. Similarly, +Polybius will deal only with those forces which tended to bring the +civilised world under the dominion of Rome (ix. 1), and in the +Thucydidean spirit points out the want of picturesqueness and romance in +his pages which is the result of the abstract method (_τὸ μονοειδὲς τῆς +συντάξεως_) being careful also to tell us that his rejection of all other +forces is essentially deliberate and the result of a preconceived theory +and by no means due to carelessness of any kind. + +Now, of the general value of the abstract method and the legality of its +employment in the sphere of history, this is perhaps not the suitable +occasion for any discussion. It is, however, in all ways worthy of note +that Polybius is not merely conscious of, but dwells with particular +weight on, the fact which is usually urged as the strongest objection to +the employment of the abstract method—I mean the conception of a society +as a sort of human organism whose parts are indissolubly connected with +one another and all affected when one member is in any way agitated. +This conception of the organic nature of society appears first in Plato +and Aristotle, who apply it to cities. Polybius, as his wont is, expands +it to be a general characteristic of all history. It is an idea of the +very highest importance, especially to a man like Polybius whose thoughts +are continually turned towards the essential unity of history and the +impossibility of isolation. + +Farther, as regards the particular method of investigating that group of +phenomena obtained for him by the abstract method, he will adopt, he +tells us, neither the purely deductive nor the purely inductive mode but +the union of both. In other words, he formally adopts that method of +analysis upon the importance of which I have dwelt before. + +And lastly, while, without doubt, enormous simplicity in the elements +under consideration is the result of the employment of the abstract +method, even within the limit thus obtained a certain selection must be +made, and a selection involves a theory. For the facts of life cannot be +tabulated with as great an ease as the colours of birds and insects can +be tabulated. Now, Polybius points out that those phenomena particularly +are to be dwelt on which may serve as a _παράδειγμα_ or sample, and show +the character of the tendencies of the age as clearly as ‘a single drop +from a full cask will be enough to disclose the nature of the whole +contents.’ This recognition of the importance of single facts, not in +themselves but because of the spirit they represent, is extremely +scientific; for we know that from the single bone, or tooth even, the +anatomist can recreate entirely the skeleton of the primeval horse, and +the botanist tell the character of the flora and fauna of a district from +a single specimen. + +Regarding truth as ‘the most divine thing in Nature,’ the very ‘eye and +light of history without which it moves a blind thing,’ Polybius spared +no pains in the acquisition of historical materials or in the study of +the sciences of politics and war, which he considered were so essential +to the training of the scientific historian, and the labour he took is +mirrored in the many ways in which he criticises other authorities. + +There is something, as a rule, slightly contemptible about ancient +criticism. The modern idea of the critic as the interpreter, the +expounder of the beauty and excellence of the work he selects, seems +quite unknown. Nothing can be more captious or unfair, for instance, +than the method by which Aristotle criticised the ideal state of Plato in +his ethical works, and the passages quoted by Polybius from Timæus show +that the latter historian fully deserved the punning name given to him. +But in Polybius there is, I think, little of that bitterness and +pettiness of spirit which characterises most other writers, and an +incidental story he tells of his relations with one of the historians +whom he criticised shows that he was a man of great courtesy and +refinement of taste—as, indeed, befitted one who had lived always in the +society of those who were of great and noble birth. + +Now, as regards the character of the canons by which he criticises the +works of other authors, in the majority of cases he employs simply his +own geographical and military knowledge, showing, for instance, the +impossibility in the accounts given of Nabis’s march from Sparta simply +by his acquaintance with the spots in question; or the inconsistency of +those of the battle of Issus; or of the accounts given by Ephorus of the +battles of Leuctra and Mantinea. In the latter case he says, if any one +will take the trouble to measure out the ground of the site of the battle +and then test the manœuvres given, he will find how inaccurate the +accounts are. + +In other cases he appeals to public documents, the importance of which he +was always foremost in recognising; showing, for instance, by a document +in the public archives of Rhodes how inaccurate were the accounts given +of the battle of Lade by Zeno and Antisthenes. Or he appeals to +psychological probability, rejecting, for instance, the scandalous +stories told of Philip of Macedon, simply from the king’s general +greatness of character, and arguing that a boy so well educated and so +respectably connected as Demochares (xii. 14) could never have been +guilty of that of which evil rumour accused him. + +But the chief object of his literary censure is Timæus, who had been +unsparing of his strictures on others. The general point which he makes +against him, impugning his accuracy as a historian, is that he derived +his knowledge of history not from the dangerous perils of a life of +action but in the secure indolence of a narrow scholastic life. There +is, indeed, no point on which he is so vehement as this. ‘A history,’ he +says, ‘written in a library gives as lifeless and as inaccurate a picture +of history as a painting which is copied not from a living animal but +from a stuffed one.’ + +There is more difference, he says in another place, between the history +of an eye-witness and that of one whose knowledge comes from books, than +there is between the scenes of real life and the fictitious landscapes of +theatrical scenery. Besides this, he enters into somewhat elaborate +detailed criticism of passages where he thought Timæus was following a +wrong method and perverting truth, passages which it will be worth while +to examine in detail. + +Timæus, from the fact of there being a Roman custom to shoot a war-horse +on a stated day, argued back to the Trojan origin of that people. +Polybius, on the other hand, points out that the inference is quite +unwarrantable, because horse-sacrifices are ordinary institutions common +to all barbarous tribes. Timæus here, as was common with Greek writers, +is arguing back from some custom of the present to an historical event in +the past. Polybius really is employing the comparative method, showing +how the custom was an ordinary step in the civilisation of every early +people. + +In another place, {86} he shows how illogical is the scepticism of Timæus +as regards the existence of the Bull of Phalaris simply by appealing to +the statue of the Bull, which was still to be seen in Carthage; pointing +out how impossible it was, on any other theory except that it belonged to +Phalaris, to account for the presence in Carthage of a bull of this +peculiar character with a door between his shoulders. But one of the +great points which he uses against this Sicilian historian is in +reference to the question of the origin of the Locrian colony. In +accordance with the received tradition on the subject, Aristotle had +represented the Locrian colony as founded by some Parthenidæ or slaves’ +children, as they were called, a statement which seems to have roused the +indignation of Timæus, who went to a good deal of trouble to confute this +theory. He does so on the following grounds:— + +First of all, he points out that in the ancient days the Greeks had no +slaves at all, so the mention of them in the matter is an anachronism; +and next he declares that he was shown in the Greek city of Locris +certain ancient inscriptions in which their relation to the Italian city +was expressed in terms of the position between parent and child, which +showed also that mutual rights of citizenship were accorded to each city. +Besides this, he appeals to various questions of improbability as regards +their international relationship, on which Polybius takes diametrically +opposite grounds which hardly call for discussion. And in favour of his +own view he urges two points more: first, that the Lacedæmonians being +allowed furlough for the purpose of seeing their wives at home, it was +unlikely that the Locrians should not have had the same privilege; and +next, that the Italian Locrians knew nothing of the Aristotelian version +and had, on the contrary, very severe laws against adulterers, runaway +slaves and the like. Now, most of these questions rest on mere +probability, which is always such a subjective canon that an appeal to it +is rarely conclusive. I would note, however, as regards the inscriptions +which, if genuine, would of course have settled the matter, that Polybius +looks on them as a mere invention on the part of Timæus, who, he remarks, +gives no details about them, though, as a rule, he is over-anxious to +give chapter and verse for everything. A somewhat more interesting point +is that where he attacks Timæus for the introduction of fictitious +speeches into his narrative; for on this point Polybius seems to be far +in advance of the opinions held by literary men on the subject not merely +in his own day, but for centuries after. + +Herodotus had introduced speeches avowedly dramatic and fictitious. +Thucydides states clearly that, where he was unable to find out what +people really said, he put down what they ought to have said. Sallust +alludes, it is true, to the fact of the speech he puts into the mouth of +the tribune Memmius being essentially genuine, but the speeches given in +the senate on the occasion of the Catilinarian conspiracy are very +different from the same orations as they appear in Cicero. Livy makes +his ancient Romans wrangle and chop logic with all the subtlety of a +Hortensius or a Scævola. And even in later days, when shorthand +reporters attended the debates of the senate and a _Daily News_ was +published in Rome, we find that one of the most celebrated speeches in +Tacitus (that in which the Emperor Claudius gives the Gauls their +freedom) is shown, by an inscription discovered recently at Lugdunum, to +be entirely fabulous. + +Upon the other hand, it must be borne in mind that these speeches were +not intended to deceive; they were regarded merely as a certain dramatic +element which it was allowable to introduce into history for the purpose +of giving more life and reality to the narration, and were to be +criticised, not as we should, by arguing how in an age before shorthand +was known such a report was possible or how, in the failure of written +documents, tradition could bring down such an accurate verbal account, +but by the higher test of their psychological probability as regards the +persons in whose mouths they are placed. An ancient historian in answer +to modern criticism would say, probably, that these fictitious speeches +were in reality more truthful than the actual ones, just as Aristotle +claimed for poetry a higher degree of truth in comparison to history. +The whole point is interesting as showing how far in advance of his age +Polybius may be said to have been. + +The last scientific historian, it is possible to gather from his writings +what he considered were the characteristics of the ideal writer of +history; and no small light will be thrown on the progress of historical +criticism if we strive to collect and analyse what in Polybius are more +or less scattered expressions. The ideal historian must be contemporary +with the events he describes, or removed from them by one generation +only. Where it is possible, he is to be an eye-witness of what he writes +of; where that is out of his power he is to test all traditions and +stories carefully and not to be ready to accept what is plausible in +place of what is true. He is to be no bookworm living aloof from the +experiences of the world in the artificial isolation of a university +town, but a politician, a soldier, and a traveller, a man not merely of +thought but of action, one who can do great things as well as write of +them, who in the sphere of history could be what Byron and Æschylus were +in the sphere of poetry, at once _le chantre et le héros_. + +He is to keep before his eyes the fact that chance is merely a synonym +for our ignorance; that the reign of law pervades the domain of history +as much as it does that of political science. He is to accustom himself +to look on all occasions for rational and natural causes. And while he +is to recognise the practical utility of the supernatural, in an +educational point of view, he is not himself to indulge in such +intellectual beating of the air as to admit the possibility of the +violation of inviolable laws, or to argue in a sphere wherein argument is +_a priori_ annihilated. He is to be free from all bias towards friend +and country; he is to be courteous and gentle in criticism; he is not to +regard history as a mere opportunity for splendid and tragic writing; nor +is he to falsify truth for the sake of a paradox or an epigram. + +While acknowledging the importance of particular facts as samples of +higher truths, he is to take a broad and general view of humanity. He is +to deal with the whole race and with the world, not with particular +tribes or separate countries. He is to bear in mind that the world is +really an organism wherein no one part can be moved without the others +being affected also. He is to distinguish between cause and occasion, +between the influence of general laws and particular fancies, and he is +to remember that the greatest lessons of the world are contained in +history and that it is the historian’s duty to manifest them so as to +save nations from following those unwise policies which always lead to +dishonour and ruin, and to teach individuals to apprehend by the +intellectual culture of history those truths which else they would have +to learn in the bitter school of experience. + +Now, as regards his theory of the necessity of the historian’s being +contemporary with the events he describes, so far as the historian is a +mere narrator the remark is undoubtedly true. But to appreciate the +harmony and rational position of the facts of a great epoch, to discover +its laws, the causes which produced it and the effects which it +generates, the scene must be viewed from a certain height and distance to +be completely apprehended. A thoroughly contemporary historian such as +Lord Clarendon or Thucydides is in reality part of the history he +criticises; and, in the case of such contemporary historians as Fabius +and Philistus, Polybius in compelled to acknowledge that they are misled +by patriotic and other considerations. Against Polybius himself no such +accusation can be made. He indeed of all men is able, as from some lofty +tower, to discern the whole tendency of the ancient world, the triumph of +Roman institutions and of Greek thought which is the last message of the +old world and, in a more spiritual sense, has become the Gospel of the +new. + +One thing indeed he did not see, or if he saw it, he thought but little +of it—how from the East there was spreading over the world, as a wave +spreads, a spiritual inroad of new religions from the time when the +Pessinuntine mother of the gods, a shapeless mass of stone, was brought +to the eternal city by her holiest citizen, to the day when the ship +_Castor and Pollux_ stood in at Puteoli, and St. Paul turned his face +towards martyrdom and victory at Rome. Polybius was able to predict, +from his knowledge of the causes of revolutions and the tendencies of the +various forms of governments, the uprising of that democratic tone of +thought which, as soon as a seed is sown in the murder of the Gracchi and +the exile of Marius, culminated as all democratic movements do culminate, +in the supreme authority of one man, the lordship of the world under the +world’s rightful lord, Caius Julius Cæsar. This, indeed, he saw in no +uncertain way. But the turning of all men’s hearts to the East, the +first glimmering of that splendid dawn which broke over the hills of +Galilee and flooded the earth like wine, was hidden from his eyes. + +There are many points in the description of the ideal historian which one +may compare to the picture which Plato has given us of the ideal +philosopher. They are both ‘spectators of all time and all existence.’ +Nothing is contemptible in their eyes, for all things have a meaning, and +they both walk in august reasonableness before all men, conscious of the +workings of God yet free from all terror of mendicant priest or vagrant +miracle-worker. But the parallel ends here. For the one stands aloof +from the world-storm of sleet and hail, his eyes fixed on distant and +sunlit heights, loving knowledge for the sake of knowledge and wisdom for +the joy of wisdom, while the other is an eager actor in the world ever +seeking to apply his knowledge to useful things. Both equally desire +truth, but the one because of its utility, the other for its beauty. The +historian regards it as the rational principle of all true history, and +no more. To the other it comes as an all-pervading and mystic +enthusiasm, ‘like the desire of strong wine, the craving of ambition, the +passionate love of what is beautiful.’ + +Still, though we miss in the historian those higher and more spiritual +qualities which the philosopher of the Academe alone of all men +possessed, we must not blind ourselves to the merits of that great +rationalist who seems to have anticipated the very latest words of modern +science. Nor yet is he to be regarded merely in the narrow light in +which he is estimated by most modern critics, as the explicit champion of +rationalism and nothing more. For he is connected with another idea, the +course of which is as the course of that great river of his native +Arcadia which, springing from some arid and sun-bleached rock, gathers +strength and beauty as it flows till it reaches the asphodel meadows of +Olympia and the light and laughter of Ionian waters. + +For in him we can discern the first notes of that great cult of the +seven-hilled city which made Virgil write his epic and Livy his history, +which found in Dante its highest exponent, which dreamed of an Empire +where the Emperor would care for the bodies and the Pope for the souls of +men, and so has passed into the conception of God’s spiritual empire and +the universal brotherhood of man and widened into the huge ocean of +universal thought as the Peneus loses itself in the sea. + +Polybius is the last scientific historian of Greece. The writer who +seems fittingly to complete the progress of thought is a writer of +biographies only. I will not here touch on Plutarch’s employment of the +inductive method as shown in his constant use of inscription and statue, +of public document and building and the like, because it involves no new +method. It is his attitude towards miracles of which I desire to treat. + +Plutarch is philosophic enough to see that in the sense of a violation of +the laws of nature a miracle is impossible. It is absurd, he says, to +imagine that the statue of a saint can speak, and that an inanimate +object not possessing the vocal organs should be able to utter an +articulate sound. Upon the other hand, he protests against science +imagining that, by explaining the natural causes of things, it has +explained away their transcendental meaning. ‘When the tears on the +cheek of some holy statue have been analysed into the moisture which +certain temperatures produce on wood and marble, it yet by no means +follows that they were not a sign of grief and mourning set there by God +Himself.’ When Lampon saw in the prodigy of the one-horned ram the omen +of the supreme rule of Pericles, and when Anaxagoras showed that the +abnormal development was the rational resultant of the peculiar formation +of the skull, the dreamer and the man of science were both right; it was +the business of the latter to consider how the prodigy came about, of the +former to show why it was so formed and what it so portended. The +progression of thought is exemplified in all particulars. Herodotus had +a glimmering sense of the impossibility of a violation of nature. +Thucydides ignored the supernatural. Polybius rationalised it. Plutarch +raises it to its mystical heights again, though he bases it on law. In a +word, Plutarch felt that while science brings the supernatural down to +the natural, yet ultimately all that is natural is really supernatural. +To him, as to many of our own day, religion was that transcendental +attitude of the mind which, contemplating a world resting on inviolable +law, is yet comforted and seeks to worship God not in the violation but +in the fulfilment of nature. + +It may seem paradoxical to quote in connection with the priest of +Chæronea such a pure rationalist as Mr. Herbert Spencer; yet when we read +as the last message of modern science that ‘when the equation of life has +been reduced to its lowest terms the symbols are symbols still,’ mere +signs, that is, of that unknown reality which underlies all matter and +all spirit, we may feel how over the wide strait of centuries thought +calls to thought and how Plutarch has a higher position than is usually +claimed for him in the progress of the Greek intellect. + +And, indeed, it seems that not merely the importance of Plutarch himself +but also that of the land of his birth in the evolution of Greek +civilisation has been passed over by modern critics. To us, indeed, the +bare rock to which the Parthenon serves as a crown, and which lies +between Colonus and Attica’s violet hills, will always be the holiest +spot in the land of Greece: and Delphi will come next, and then the +meadows of Eurotas where that noble people lived who represented in +Hellenic thought the reaction of the law of duty against the law of +beauty, the opposition of conduct to culture. Yet, as one stands on the +_σχιστὴ ὁδός_ of Cithæron and looks out on the great double plain of +Boeotia, the enormous importance of the division of Hellas comes to one’s +mind with great force. To the north are Orchomenus and the Minyan +treasure-house, seat of those merchant princes of Phoenicia who brought +to Greece the knowledge of letters and the art of working in gold. +Thebes is at our feet with the gloom of the terrible legends of Greek +tragedy still lingering about it, the birthplace of Pindar, the nurse of +Epaminondas and the Sacred Band. + +And from out of the plain where ‘Mars loved to dance,’ rises the Muses’ +haunt, Helicon, by whose silver streams Corinna and Hesiod sang; while +far away under the white ægis of those snow-capped mountains lies +Chæronea and the Lion plain where with vain chivalry the Greeks strove to +check Macedon first and afterwards Rome; Chæronea, where in the Martinmas +summer of Greek civilisation Plutarch rose from the drear waste of a +dying religion as the aftermath rises when the mowers think they have +left the field bare. + +Greek philosophy began and ended in scepticism: the first and the last +word of Greek history was Faith. + +Splendid thus in its death, like winter sunsets, the Greek religion +passed away into the horror of night. For the Cimmerian darkness was at +hand, and when the schools of Athens were closed and the statue of Athena +broken, the Greek spirit passed from the gods and the history of its own +land to the subtleties of defining the doctrine of the Trinity and the +mystical attempts to bring Plato into harmony with Christ and to +reconcile Gethsemane and the Sermon on the Mount with the Athenian prison +and the discussion in the woods of Colonus. The Greek spirit slept for +wellnigh a thousand years. When it woke again, like Antæus it had +gathered strength from the earth where it lay; like Apollo it had lost +none of its divinity through its long servitude. + +In the history of Roman thought we nowhere find any of those +characteristics of the Greek Illumination which I have pointed out are +the necessary concomitants of the rise of historical criticism. The +conservative respect for tradition which made the Roman people delight in +the ritual and formulas of law, and is as apparent in their politics as +in their religion, was fatal to any rise of that spirit of revolt against +authority the importance of which, as a factor in intellectual progress, +we have already seen. + +The whitened tables of the Pontifices preserved carefully the records of +the eclipses and other atmospherical phenomena, and what we call the art +of verifying dates was known to them at an early time; but there was no +spontaneous rise of physical science to suggest by its analogies of law +and order a new method of research, nor any natural springing up of the +questioning spirit of philosophy with its unification of all phenomena +and all knowledge. At the very time when the whole tide of Eastern +superstition was sweeping into the heart of the Capital the Senate +banished the Greek philosophers from Rome. And of the three systems +which did at length take some root in the city, those of Zeno and +Epicurus were used merely as the rule for the ordering of life, while the +dogmatic scepticism of Carneades, by its very principles, annihilated the +possibility of argument and encouraged a perfect indifference to +research. + +Nor were the Romans ever fortunate enough like the Greeks to have to face +the incubus of any dogmatic system of legends and myths, the immoralities +and absurdities of which might excite a revolutionary outbreak of +sceptical criticism. For the Roman religion became as it were +crystallised and isolated from progress at an early period of its +evolution. Their gods remained mere abstractions of commonplace virtues +or uninteresting personifications of the useful things of life. The old +primitive creed was indeed always upheld as a state institution on +account of the enormous facilities it offered for cheating in politics, +but as a spiritual system of belief it was unanimously rejected at a very +early period both by the common people and the educated classes, for the +sensible reason that it was so extremely dull. The former took refuge in +the mystic sensualities of the worship of Isis, the latter in the Stoical +rules of life. The Romans classified their gods carefully in their order +of precedence, analysed their genealogies in the laborious spirit of +modern heraldry, fenced them round with a ritual as intricate as their +law, but never quite cared enough about them to believe in them. So it +was of no account with them when the philosophers announced that Minerva +was merely memory. She had never been much else. Nor did they protest +when Lucretius dared to say of Ceres and of Liber that they were only the +corn of the field and the fruit of the vine. For they had never mourned +for the daughter of Demeter in the asphodel meadows of Sicily, nor +traversed the glades of Cithæron with fawn-skin and with spear. + +This brief sketch of the condition of Roman thought will serve to prepare +us for the almost total want of scientific historical criticism which we +shall discern in their literature, and has, besides, afforded fresh +corroboration of the conditions essential to the rise of this spirit, and +of the modes of thought which it reflects and in which it is always to be +found. Roman historical composition had its origin in the pontifical +college of ecclesiastical lawyers, and preserved to its close the +uncritical spirit which characterised its fountain-head. It possessed +from the outset a most voluminous collection of the materials of history, +which, however, produced merely antiquarians, not historians. It is so +hard to use facts, so easy to accumulate them. + +Wearied of the dull monotony of the pontifical annals, which dwelt on +little else but the rise and fall in provisions and the eclipses of the +sun, Cato wrote out a history with his own hand for the instruction of +his child, to which he gave the name of Origines, and before his time +some aristocratic families had written histories in Greek much in the +same spirit in which the Germans of the eighteenth century used French as +the literary language. But the first regular Roman historian is Sallust. +Between the extravagant eulogies passed on this author by the French +(such as De Closset), and Dr. Mommsen’s view of him as merely a political +pamphleteer, it is perhaps difficult to reach the _via media_ of +unbiassed appreciation. He has, at any rate, the credit of being a +purely rationalistic historian, perhaps the only one in Roman literature. +Cicero had a good many qualifications for a scientific historian, and (as +he usually did) thought very highly of his own powers. On passages of +ancient legend, however, he is rather unsatisfactory, for while he is too +sensible to believe them he is too patriotic to reject them. And this is +really the attitude of Livy, who claims for early Roman legend a certain +uncritical homage from the rest of the subject world. His view in his +history is that it is not worth while to examine the truth of these +stories. + +In his hands the history of Rome unrolls before our eyes like some +gorgeous tapestry, where victory succeeds victory, where triumph treads +on the heels of triumph, and the line of heroes seems never to end. It +is not till we pass behind the canvas and see the slight means by which +the effect is produced that we apprehend the fact that like most +picturesque writers Livy is an indifferent critic. As regards his +attitude towards the credibility of early Roman history he is quite as +conscious as we are of its mythical and unsound nature. He will not, for +instance, decide whether the Horatii were Albans or Romans; who was the +first dictator; how many tribunes there were, and the like. His method, +as a rule, is merely to mention all the accounts and sometimes to decide +in favour of the most probable, but usually not to decide at all. No +canons of historical criticism will ever discover whether the Roman women +interviewed the mother of Coriolanus of their own accord or at the +suggestion of the senate; whether Remus was killed for jumping over his +brother’s wall or because they quarrelled about birds; whether the +ambassadors found Cincinnatus ploughing or only mending a hedge. Livy +suspends his judgment over these important facts and history when +questioned on their truth is dumb. If he does select between two +historians he chooses the one who is nearer to the facts he describes. +But he is no critic, only a conscientious writer. It is mere vain waste +to dwell on his critical powers, for they do not exist. + + * * * * * + +In the case of Tacitus imagination has taken the place of history. The +past lives again in his pages, but through no laborious criticism; rather +through a dramatic and psychological faculty which he specially +possessed. + +In the philosophy of history he has no belief. He can never make up his +mind what to believe as regards God’s government of the world. There is +no method in him and none elsewhere in Roman literature. + +Nations may not have missions but they certainly have functions. And the +function of ancient Italy was not merely to give us what is statical in +our institutions and rational in our law, but to blend into one elemental +creed the spiritual aspirations of Aryan and of Semite. Italy was not a +pioneer in intellectual progress, nor a motive power in the evolution of +thought. The owl of the goddess of Wisdom traversed over the whole land +and found nowhere a resting-place. The dove, which is the bird of +Christ, flew straight to the city of Rome and the new reign began. It +was the fashion of early Italian painters to represent in mediæval +costume the soldiers who watched over the tomb of Christ, and this, which +was the result of the frank anachronism of all true art, may serve to us +as an allegory. For it was in vain that the Middle Ages strove to guard +the buried spirit of progress. When the dawn of the Greek spirit arose, +the sepulchre was empty, the grave-clothes laid aside. Humanity had +risen from the dead. + +The study of Greek, it has been well said, implies the birth of +criticism, comparison and research. At the opening of that education of +modern by ancient thought which we call the Renaissance, it was the words +of Aristotle which sent Columbus sailing to the New World, while a +fragment of Pythagorean astronomy set Copernicus thinking on that train +of reasoning which has revolutionised the whole position of our planet in +the universe. Then it was seen that the only meaning of progress is a +return to Greek modes of thought. The monkish hymns which obscured the +pages of Greek manuscripts were blotted out, the splendours of a new +method were unfolded to the world, and out of the melancholy sea of +mediævalism rose the free spirit of man in all that splendour of glad +adolescence, when the bodily powers seem quickened by a new vitality, +when the eye sees more clearly than its wont and the mind apprehends what +was beforetime hidden from it. To herald the opening of the sixteenth +century, from the little Venetian printing press came forth all the great +authors of antiquity, each bearing on the title-page the words _Ἅλδος ὁ +Μανούτιος Ῥωμαῖος καὶ Φιλέλλην_; words which may serve to remind us with +what wondrous prescience Polybius saw the world’s fate when he foretold +the material sovereignty of Roman institutions and exemplified in himself +the intellectual empire of Greece. + +The course of the study of the spirit of historical criticism has not +been a profitless investigation into modes and forms of thought now +antiquated and of no account. The only spirit which is entirely removed +from us is the mediæval; the Greek spirit is essentially modern. The +introduction of the comparative method of research which has forced +history to disclose its secrets belongs in a measure to us. Ours, too, +is a more scientific knowledge of philology and the method of survival. +Nor did the ancients know anything of the doctrine of averages or of +crucial instances, both of which methods have proved of such importance +in modern criticism, the one adding a most important proof of the +statical elements of history, and exemplifying the influences of all +physical surroundings on the life of man; the other, as in the single +instance of the Moulin Quignon skull, serving to create a whole new +science of prehistoric archæology and to bring us back to a time when man +was coeval with the stone age, the mammoth and the woolly rhinoceros. +But, except these, we have added no new canon or method to the science of +historical criticism. Across the drear waste of a thousand years the +Greek and the modern spirit join hands. + +In the torch race which the Greek boys ran from the Cerameician field of +death to the home of the goddess of Wisdom, not merely he who first +reached the goal but he also who first started with the torch aflame +received a prize. In the Lampadephoria of civilisation and free thought +let us not forget to render due meed of honour to those who first lit +that sacred flame, the increasing splendour of which lights our footsteps +to the far-off divine event of the attainment of perfect truth. + + + + +THE ENGLISH RENAISSANCE OF ART + + +‘The English Renaissance of Art’ was delivered as a lecture for the first +time in the Chickering Hall, New York, on January 9, 1882. A portion of +it was reported in the _New York Tribune_ on the following day and in +other American papers subsequently. Since then this portion has been +reprinted, more or less accurately, from time to time, in unauthorised +editions. + +There are in existence no less than four copies of the lecture, the +earliest of which is entirely in the author’s handwriting. The others +are type-written and contain many corrections and additions made by the +author in manuscript. These have all been collated and the text here +given contains, as nearly as possible, the lecture in the original form +as delivered by the author during his tour in the United States. + +AMONG the many debts which we owe to the supreme æsthetic faculty of +Goethe is that he was the first to teach us to define beauty in terms the +most concrete possible, to realise it, I mean, always in its special +manifestations. So, in the lecture which I have the honour to deliver +before you, I will not try to give you any abstract definition of +beauty—any such universal formula for it as was sought for by the +philosophy of the eighteenth century—still less to communicate to you +that which in its essence is incommunicable, the virtue by which a +particular picture or poem affects us with a unique and special joy; but +rather to point out to you the general ideas which characterise the great +English Renaissance of Art in this century, to discover their source, as +far as that is possible, and to estimate their future as far as that is +possible. + +I call it our English Renaissance because it is indeed a sort of new +birth of the spirit of man, like the great Italian Renaissance of the +fifteenth century, in its desire for a more gracious and comely way of +life, its passion for physical beauty, its exclusive attention to form, +its seeking for new subjects for poetry, new forms of art, new +intellectual and imaginative enjoyments: and I call it our romantic +movement because it is our most recent expression of beauty. + +It has been described as a mere revival of Greek modes of thought, and +again as a mere revival of mediæval feeling. Rather I would say that to +these forms of the human spirit it has added whatever of artistic value +the intricacy and complexity and experience of modern life can give: +taking from the one its clearness of vision and its sustained calm, from +the other its variety of expression and the mystery of its vision. For +what, as Goethe said, is the study of the ancients but a return to the +real world (for that is what they did); and what, said Mazzini, is +mediævalism but individuality? + +It is really from the union of Hellenism, in its breadth, its sanity of +purpose, its calm possession of beauty, with the adventive, the +intensified individualism, the passionate colour of the romantic spirit, +that springs the art of the nineteenth century in England, as from the +marriage of Faust and Helen of Troy sprang the beautiful boy Euphorion. + +Such expressions as ‘classical’ and ‘romantic’ are, it is true, often apt +to become the mere catchwords of schools. We must always remember that +art has only one sentence to utter: there is for her only one high law, +the law of form or harmony—yet between the classical and romantic spirit +we may say that there lies this difference at least, that the one deals +with the type and the other with the exception. In the work produced +under the modern romantic spirit it is no longer the permanent, the +essential truths of life that are treated of; it is the momentary +situation of the one, the momentary aspect of the other that art seeks to +render. In sculpture, which is the type of one spirit, the subject +predominates over the situation; in painting, which is the type of the +other, the situation predominates over the subject. + +There are two spirits, then: the Hellenic spirit and the spirit of +romance may be taken as forming the essential elements of our conscious +intellectual tradition, of our permanent standard of taste. As regards +their origin, in art as in politics there is but one origin for all +revolutions, a desire on the part of man for a nobler form of life, for a +freer method and opportunity of expression. Yet, I think that in +estimating the sensuous and intellectual spirit which presides over our +English Renaissance, any attempt to isolate it in any way from in the +progress and movement and social life of the age that has produced it +would be to rob it of its true vitality, possibly to mistake its true +meaning. And in disengaging from the pursuits and passions of this +crowded modern world those passions and pursuits which have to do with +art and the love of art, we must take into account many great events of +history which seem to be the most opposed to any such artistic feeling. + +Alien then from any wild, political passion, or from the harsh voice of a +rude people in revolt, as our English Renaissance must seem, in its +passionate cult of pure beauty, its flawless devotion to form, its +exclusive and sensitive nature, it is to the French Revolution that we +must look for the most primary factor of its production, the first +condition of its birth: that great Revolution of which we are all the +children though the voices of some of us be often loud against it; that +Revolution to which at a time when even such spirits as Coleridge and +Wordsworth lost heart in England, noble messages of love blown across +seas came from your young Republic. + +It is true that our modern sense of the continuity of history has shown +us that neither in politics nor in nature are there revolutions ever but +evolutions only, and that the prelude to that wild storm which swept over +France in 1789 and made every king in Europe tremble for his throne, was +first sounded in literature years before the Bastille fell and the Palace +was taken. The way for those red scenes by Seine and Loire was paved by +that critical spirit of Germany and England which accustomed men to bring +all things to the test of reason or utility or both, while the discontent +of the people in the streets of Paris was the echo that followed the life +of Emile and of Werther. For Rousseau, by silent lake and mountain, had +called humanity back to the golden age that still lies before us and +preached a return to nature, in passionate eloquence whose music still +lingers about our keen northern air. And Goethe and Scott had brought +romance back again from the prison she had lain in for so many +centuries—and what is romance but humanity? + +Yet in the womb of the Revolution itself, and in the storm and terror of +that wild time, tendencies were hidden away that the artistic Renaissance +bent to her own service when the time came—a scientific tendency first, +which has borne in our own day a brood of somewhat noisy Titans, yet in +the sphere of poetry has not been unproductive of good. I do not mean +merely in its adding to enthusiasm that intellectual basis which in its +strength, or that more obvious influence about which Wordsworth was +thinking when he said very nobly that poetry was merely the impassioned +expression in the face of science, and that when science would put on a +form of flesh and blood the poet would lend his divine spirit to aid the +transfiguration. Nor do I dwell much on the great cosmical emotion and +deep pantheism of science to which Shelley has given its first and +Swinburne its latest glory of song, but rather on its influence on the +artistic spirit in preserving that close observation and the sense of +limitation as well as of clearness of vision which are the +characteristics of the real artist. + +The great and golden rule of art as well as of life, wrote William Blake, +is that the more distinct, sharp and defined the boundary line, the more +perfect is the work of art; and the less keen and sharp the greater is +the evidence of weak imitation, plagiarism and bungling. ‘Great +inventors in all ages knew this—Michael Angelo and Albert Durer are known +by this and by this alone’; and another time he wrote, with all the +simple directness of nineteenth-century prose, ‘to generalise is to be an +idiot.’ + +And this love of definite conception, this clearness of vision, this +artistic sense of limit, is the characteristic of all great work and +poetry; of the vision of Homer as of the vision of Dante, of Keats and +William Morris as of Chaucer and Theocritus. It lies at the base of all +noble, realistic and romantic work as opposed to the colourless and empty +abstractions of our own eighteenth-century poets and of the classical +dramatists of France, or of the vague spiritualities of the German +sentimental school: opposed, too, to that spirit of transcendentalism +which also was root and flower itself of the great Revolution, underlying +the impassioned contemplation of Wordsworth and giving wings and fire to +the eagle-like flight of Shelley, and which in the sphere of philosophy, +though displaced by the materialism and positiveness of our day, +bequeathed two great schools of thought, the school of Newman to Oxford, +the school of Emerson to America. Yet is this spirit of +transcendentalism alien to the spirit of art. For the artist can accept +no sphere of life in exchange for life itself. For him there is no +escape from the bondage of the earth: there is not even the desire of +escape. + +He is indeed the only true realist: symbolism, which is the essence of +the transcendental spirit, is alien to him. The metaphysical mind of +Asia will create for itself the monstrous, many-breasted idol of Ephesus, +but to the Greek, pure artist, that work is most instinct with spiritual +life which conforms most clearly to the perfect facts of physical life. + +‘The storm of revolution,’ as Andre Chenier said, ‘blows out the torch of +poetry.’ It is not for some little time that the real influence of such +a wild cataclysm of things is felt: at first the desire for equality +seems to have produced personalities of more giant and Titan stature than +the world had ever known before. Men heard the lyre of Byron and the +legions of Napoleon; it was a period of measureless passions and of +measureless despair; ambition, discontent, were the chords of life and +art; the age was an age of revolt: a phase through which the human spirit +must pass, but one in which it cannot rest. For the aim of culture is +not rebellion but peace, the valley perilous where ignorant armies clash +by night being no dwelling-place meet for her to whom the gods have +assigned the fresh uplands and sunny heights and clear, untroubled air. + +And soon that desire for perfection, which lay at the base of the +Revolution, found in a young English poet its most complete and flawless +realisation. + +Phidias and the achievements of Greek art are foreshadowed in Homer: +Dante prefigures for us the passion and colour and intensity of Italian +painting: the modern love of landscape dates from Rousseau, and it is in +Keats that one discerns the beginning of the artistic renaissance of +England. + +Byron was a rebel and Shelley a dreamer; but in the calmness and +clearness of his vision, his perfect self-control, his unerring sense of +beauty and his recognition of a separate realm for the imagination, Keats +was the pure and serene artist, the forerunner of the pre-Raphaelite +school, and so of the great romantic movement of which I am to speak. + +Blake had indeed, before him, claimed for art a lofty, spiritual mission, +and had striven to raise design to the ideal level of poetry and music, +but the remoteness of his vision both in painting and poetry and the +incompleteness of his technical powers had been adverse to any real +influence. It is in Keats that the artistic spirit of this century first +found its absolute incarnation. + +And these pre-Raphaelites, what were they? If you ask nine-tenths of the +British public what is the meaning of the word æsthetics, they will tell +you it is the French for affectation or the German for a dado; and if you +inquire about the pre-Raphaelites you will hear something about an +eccentric lot of young men to whom a sort of divine crookedness and holy +awkwardness in drawing were the chief objects of art. To know nothing +about their great men is one of the necessary elements of English +education. + +As regards the pre-Raphaelites the story is simple enough. In the year +1847 a number of young men in London, poets and painters, passionate +admirers of Keats all of them, formed the habit of meeting together for +discussions on art, the result of such discussions being that the English +Philistine public was roused suddenly from its ordinary apathy by hearing +that there was in its midst a body of young men who had determined to +revolutionise English painting and poetry. They called themselves the +pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. + +In England, then as now, it was enough for a man to try and produce any +serious beautiful work to lose all his rights as a citizen; and besides +this, the pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood—among whom the names of Dante +Rossetti, Holman Hunt and Millais will be familiar to you—had on their +side three things that the English public never forgives: youth, power +and enthusiasm. + +Satire, always as sterile as it in shameful and as impotent as it is +insolent, paid them that usual homage which mediocrity pays to +genius—doing, here as always, infinite harm to the public, blinding them +to what is beautiful, teaching them that irreverence which is the source +of all vileness and narrowness of life, but harming the artist not at +all, rather confirming him in the perfect rightness of his work and +ambition. For to disagree with three-fourths of the British public on +all points is one of the first elements of sanity, one of the deepest +consolations in all moments of spiritual doubt. + +As regards the ideas these young men brought to the regeneration of +English art, we may see at the base of their artistic creations a desire +for a deeper spiritual value to be given to art as well as a more +decorative value. + +Pre-Raphaelites they called themselves; not that they imitated the early +Italian masters at all, but that in their work, as opposed to the facile +abstractions of Raphael, they found a stronger realism of imagination, a +more careful realism of technique, a vision at once more fervent and more +vivid, an individuality more intimate and more intense. + +For it is not enough that a work of art should conform to the æsthetic +demands of its age: there must be also about it, if it is to affect us +with any permanent delight, the impress of a distinct individuality, an +individuality remote from that of ordinary men, and coming near to us +only by virtue of a certain newness and wonder in the work, and through +channels whose very strangeness makes us more ready to give them welcome. + +_La personnalité_, said one of the greatest of modern French critics, +_voilà ce qui nous sauvera_. + +But above all things was it a return to Nature—that formula which seems +to suit so many and such diverse movements: they would draw and paint +nothing but what they saw, they would try and imagine things as they +really happened. Later there came to the old house by Blackfriars +Bridge, where this young brotherhood used to meet and work, two young men +from Oxford, Edward Burne-Jones and William Morris—the latter +substituting for the simpler realism of the early days a more exquisite +spirit of choice, a more faultless devotion to beauty, a more intense +seeking for perfection: a master of all exquisite design and of all +spiritual vision. It is of the school of Florence rather than of that of +Venice that he is kinsman, feeling that the close imitation of Nature is +a disturbing element in imaginative art. The visible aspect of modern +life disturbs him not; rather is it for him to render eternal all that is +beautiful in Greek, Italian, and Celtic legend. To Morris we owe poetry +whose perfect precision and clearness of word and vision has not been +excelled in the literature of our country, and by the revival of the +decorative arts he has given to our individualised romantic movement the +social idea and the social factor also. + +But the revolution accomplished by this clique of young men, with +Ruskin’s faultless and fervent eloquence to help them, was not one of +ideas merely but of execution, not one of conceptions but of creations. + +For the great eras in the history of the development of all the arts have +been eras not of increased feeling or enthusiasm in feeling for art, but +of new technical improvements primarily and specially. The discovery of +marble quarries in the purple ravines of Pentelicus and on the little +low-lying hills of the island of Paros gave to the Greeks the opportunity +for that intensified vitality of action, that more sensuous and simple +humanism, to which the Egyptian sculptor working laboriously in the hard +porphyry and rose-coloured granite of the desert could not attain. The +splendour of the Venetian school began with the introduction of the new +oil medium for painting. The progress in modern music has been due to +the invention of new instruments entirely, and in no way to an increased +consciousness on the part of the musician of any wider social aim. The +critic may try and trace the deferred resolutions of Beethoven {124} to +some sense of the incompleteness of the modern intellectual spirit, but +the artist would have answered, as one of them did afterwards, ‘Let them +pick out the fifths and leave us at peace.’ + +And so it is in poetry also: all this love of curious French metres like +the Ballade, the Villanelle, the Rondel; all this increased value laid on +elaborate alliterations, and on curious words and refrains, such as you +will find in Dante Rossetti and Swinburne, is merely the attempt to +perfect flute and viol and trumpet through which the spirit of the age +and the lips of the poet may blow the music of their many messages. + +And so it has been with this romantic movement of ours: it is a reaction +against the empty conventional workmanship, the lax execution of previous +poetry and painting, showing itself in the work of such men as Rossetti +and Burne-Jones by a far greater splendour of colour, a far more +intricate wonder of design than English imaginative art has shown before. +In Rossetti’s poetry and the poetry of Morris, Swinburne and Tennyson a +perfect precision and choice of language, a style flawless and fearless, +a seeking for all sweet and precious melodies and a sustaining +consciousness of the musical value of each word are opposed to that value +which is merely intellectual. In this respect they are one with the +romantic movement of France of which not the least characteristic note +was struck by Théophile Gautier’s advice to the young poet to read his +dictionary every day, as being the only book worth a poet’s reading. + +While, then, the material of workmanship is being thus elaborated and +discovered to have in itself incommunicable and eternal qualities of its +own, qualities entirely satisfying to the poetic sense and not needing +for their æsthetic effect any lofty intellectual vision, any deep +criticism of life or even any passionate human emotion at all, the spirit +and the method of the poet’s working—what people call his +inspiration—have not escaped the controlling influence of the artistic +spirit. Not that the imagination has lost its wings, but we have +accustomed ourselves to count their innumerable pulsations, to estimate +their limitless strength, to govern their ungovernable freedom. + +To the Greeks this problem of the conditions of poetic production, and +the places occupied by either spontaneity or self-consciousness in any +artistic work, had a peculiar fascination. We find it in the mysticism +of Plato and in the rationalism of Aristotle. We find it later in the +Italian Renaissance agitating the minds of such men as Leonardo da Vinci. +Schiller tried to adjust the balance between form and feeling, and Goethe +to estimate the position of self-consciousness in art. Wordsworth’s +definition of poetry as ‘emotion remembered in tranquillity’ may be taken +as an analysis of one of the stages through which all imaginative work +has to pass; and in Keats’s longing to be ‘able to compose without this +fever’ (I quote from one of his letters), his desire to substitute for +poetic ardour ‘a more thoughtful and quiet power,’ we may discern the +most important moment in the evolution of that artistic life. The +question made an early and strange appearance in your literature too; and +I need not remind you how deeply the young poets of the French romantic +movement were excited and stirred by Edgar Allan Poe’s analysis of the +workings of his own imagination in the creating of that supreme +imaginative work which we know by the name of _The Raven_. + +In the last century, when the intellectual and didactic element had +intruded to such an extent into the kingdom which belongs to poetry, it +was against the claims of the understanding that an artist like Goethe +had to protest. ‘The more incomprehensible to the understanding a poem +is the better for it,’ he said once, asserting the complete supremacy of +the imagination in poetry as of reason in prose. But in this century it +is rather against the claims of the emotional faculties, the claims of +mere sentiment and feeling, that the artist must react. The simple +utterance of joy is not poetry any more than a mere personal cry of pain, +and the real experiences of the artist are always those which do not find +their direct expression but are gathered up and absorbed into some +artistic form which seems, from such real experiences, to be the farthest +removed and the most alien. + +‘The heart contains passion but the imagination alone contains poetry,’ +says Charles Baudelaire. This too was the lesson that Théophile Gautier, +most subtle of all modern critics, most fascinating of all modern poets, +was never tired of teaching—‘Everybody is affected by a sunrise or a +sunset.’ The absolute distinction of the artist is not his capacity to +feel nature so much as his power of rendering it. The entire +subordination of all intellectual and emotional faculties to the vital +and informing poetic principle is the surest sign of the strength of our +Renaissance. + +We have seen the artistic spirit working, first in the delightful and +technical sphere of language, the sphere of expression as opposed to +subject, then controlling the imagination of the poet in dealing with his +subject. And now I would point out to you its operation in the choice of +subject. The recognition of a separate realm for the artist, a +consciousness of the absolute difference between the world of art and the +world of real fact, between classic grace and absolute reality, forms not +merely the essential element of any æsthetic charm but is the +characteristic of all great imaginative work and of all great eras of +artistic creation—of the age of Phidias as of the age of Michael Angelo, +of the age of Sophocles as of the age of Goethe. + +Art never harms itself by keeping aloof from the social problems of the +day: rather, by so doing, it more completely realises for us that which +we desire. For to most of us the real life is the life we do not lead, +and thus, remaining more true to the essence of its own perfection, more +jealous of its own unattainable beauty, is less likely to forget form in +feeling or to accept the passion of creation as any substitute for the +beauty of the created thing. + +The artist is indeed the child of his own age, but the present will not +be to him a whit more real than the past; for, like the philosopher of +the Platonic vision, the poet is the spectator of all time and of all +existence. For him no form is obsolete, no subject out of date; rather, +whatever of life and passion the world has known, in desert of Judæa or +in Arcadian valley, by the rivers of Troy or the rivers of Damascus, in +the crowded and hideous streets of a modern city or by the pleasant ways +of Camelot—all lies before him like an open scroll, all is still instinct +with beautiful life. He will take of it what is salutary for his own +spirit, no more; choosing some facts and rejecting others with the calm +artistic control of one who is in possession of the secret of beauty. + +There is indeed a poetical attitude to be adopted towards all things, but +all things are not fit subjects for poetry. Into the secure and sacred +house of Beauty the true artist will admit nothing that is harsh or +disturbing, nothing that gives pain, nothing that is debatable, nothing +about which men argue. He can steep himself, if he wishes, in the +discussion of all the social problems of his day, poor-laws and local +taxation, free trade and bimetallic currency, and the like; but when he +writes on these subjects it will be, as Milton nobly expressed it, with +his left hand, in prose and not in verse, in a pamphlet and not in a +lyric. This exquisite spirit of artistic choice was not in Byron: +Wordsworth had it not. In the work of both these men there is much that +we have to reject, much that does not give us that sense of calm and +perfect repose which should be the effect of all fine, imaginative work. +But in Keats it seemed to have been incarnate, and in his lovely _Ode on +a Grecian Urn_ it found its most secure and faultless expression; in the +pageant of the _Earthly Paradise_ and the knights and ladies of +Burne-Jones it is the one dominant note. + +It is to no avail that the Muse of Poetry be called, even by such a +clarion note as Whitman’s, to migrate from Greece and Ionia and to +placard REMOVED and TO LET on the rocks of the snowy Parnassus. +Calliope’s call is not yet closed, nor are the epics of Asia ended; the +Sphinx is not yet silent, nor the fountain of Castaly dry. For art is +very life itself and knows nothing of death; she is absolute truth and +takes no care of fact; she sees (as I remember Mr. Swinburne insisting on +at dinner) that Achilles is even now more actual and real than +Wellington, not merely more noble and interesting as a type and figure +but more positive and real. + +Literature must rest always on a principle, and temporal considerations +are no principle at all. For to the poet all times and places are one; +the stuff he deals with is eternal and eternally the same: no theme is +inept, no past or present preferable. The steam whistle will not +affright him nor the flutes of Arcadia weary him: for him there is but +one time, the artistic moment; but one law, the law of form; but one +land, the land of Beauty—a land removed indeed from the real world and +yet more sensuous because more enduring; calm, yet with that calm which +dwells in the faces of the Greek statues, the calm which comes not from +the rejection but from the absorption of passion, the calm which despair +and sorrow cannot disturb but intensify only. And so it comes that he +who seems to stand most remote from his age is he who mirrors it best, +because he has stripped life of what is accidental and transitory, +stripped it of that ‘mist of familiarity which makes life obscure to us.’ + +Those strange, wild-eyed sibyls fixed eternally in the whirlwind of +ecstasy, those mighty-limbed and Titan prophets, labouring with the +secret of the earth and the burden of mystery, that guard and glorify the +chapel of Pope Sixtus at Rome—do they not tell us more of the real spirit +of the Italian Renaissance, of the dream of Savonarola and of the sin of +Borgia, than all the brawling boors and cooking women of Dutch art can +teach us of the real spirit of the history of Holland? + +And so in our own day, also, the two most vital tendencies of the +nineteenth century—the democratic and pantheistic tendency and the +tendency to value life for the sake of art—found their most complete and +perfect utterance in the poetry of Shelley and Keats who, to the blind +eyes of their own time, seemed to be as wanderers in the wilderness, +preachers of vague or unreal things. And I remember once, in talking to +Mr. Burne-Jones about modern science, his saying to me, ‘the more +materialistic science becomes, the more angels shall I paint: their wings +are my protest in favour of the immortality of the soul.’ + +But these are the intellectual speculations that underlie art. Where in +the arts themselves are we to find that breadth of human sympathy which +is the condition of all noble work; where in the arts are we to look for +what Mazzini would call the social ideas as opposed to the merely +personal ideas? By virtue of what claim do I demand for the artist the +love and loyalty of the men and women of the world? I think I can answer +that. + +Whatever spiritual message an artist brings to his aid is a matter for +his own soul. He may bring judgment like Michael Angelo or peace like +Angelico; he may come with mourning like the great Athenian or with mirth +like the singer of Sicily; nor is it for us to do aught but accept his +teaching, knowing that we cannot smite the bitter lips of Leopardi into +laughter or burden with our discontent Goethe’s serene calm. But for +warrant of its truth such message must have the flame of eloquence in the +lips that speak it, splendour and glory in the vision that is its +witness, being justified by one thing only—the flawless beauty and +perfect form of its expression: this indeed being the social idea, being +the meaning of joy in art. + +Not laughter where none should laugh, nor the calling of peace where +there is no peace; not in painting the subject ever, but the pictorial +charm only, the wonder of its colour, the satisfying beauty of its +design. + +You have most of you seen, probably, that great masterpiece of Rubens +which hangs in the gallery of Brussels, that swift and wonderful pageant +of horse and rider arrested in its most exquisite and fiery moment when +the winds are caught in crimson banner and the air lit by the gleam of +armour and the flash of plume. Well, that is joy in art, though that +golden hillside be trodden by the wounded feet of Christ and it is for +the death of the Son of Man that that gorgeous cavalcade is passing. + +But this restless modern intellectual spirit of ours is not receptive +enough of the sensuous element of art; and so the real influence of the +arts is hidden from many of us: only a few, escaping from the tyranny of +the soul, have learned the secret of those high hours when thought is +not. + +And this indeed is the reason of the influence which Eastern art is +having on us in Europe, and of the fascination of all Japanese work. +While the Western world has been laying on art the intolerable burden of +its own intellectual doubts and the spiritual tragedy of its own sorrows, +the East has always kept true to art’s primary and pictorial conditions. + +In judging of a beautiful statue the æsthetic faculty is absolutely and +completely gratified by the splendid curves of those marble lips that are +dumb to our complaint, the noble modelling of those limbs that are +powerless to help us. In its primary aspect a painting has no more +spiritual message or meaning than an exquisite fragment of Venetian glass +or a blue tile from the wall of Damascus: it is a beautifully coloured +surface, nothing more. The channels by which all noble imaginative work +in painting should touch, and do touch the soul, are not those of the +truths of life, nor metaphysical truths. But that pictorial charm which +does not depend on any literary reminiscence for its effect on the one +hand, nor is yet a mere result of communicable technical skill on the +other, comes of a certain inventive and creative handling of colour. +Nearly always in Dutch painting and often in the works of Giorgione or +Titian, it is entirely independent of anything definitely poetical in the +subject, a kind of form and choice in workmanship which is itself +entirely satisfying, and is (as the Greeks would say) an end in itself. + +And so in poetry too, the real poetical quality, the joy of poetry, comes +never from the subject but from an inventive handling of rhythmical +language, from what Keats called the ‘sensuous life of verse.’ The +element of song in the singing accompanied by the profound joy of motion, +is so sweet that, while the incomplete lives of ordinary men bring no +healing power with them, the thorn-crown of the poet will blossom into +roses for our pleasure; for our delight his despair will gild its own +thorns, and his pain, like Adonis, be beautiful in its agony; and when +the poet’s heart breaks it will break in music. + +And health in art—what is that? It has nothing to do with a sane +criticism of life. There is more health in Baudelaire than there is in +[Kingsley]. Health is the artist’s recognition of the limitations of the +form in which he works. It is the honour and the homage which he gives +to the material he uses—whether it be language with its glories, or +marble or pigment with their glories—knowing that the true brotherhood of +the arts consists not in their borrowing one another’s method, but in +their producing, each of them by its own individual means, each of them +by keeping its objective limits, the same unique artistic delight. The +delight is like that given to us by music—for music is the art in which +form and matter are always one, the art whose subject cannot be separated +from the method of its expression, the art which most completely realises +the artistic ideal, and is the condition to which all the other arts are +constantly aspiring. + +And criticism—what place is that to have in our culture? Well, I think +that the first duty of an art critic is to hold his tongue at all times, +and upon all subjects: _C’est un grand avantage de n’avoir rien fait_, +_mais il ne faut pas en abuser_. + +It is only through the mystery of creation that one can gain any +knowledge of the quality of created things. You have listened to +_Patience_ for a hundred nights and you have heard me for one only. It +will make, no doubt, that satire more piquant by knowing something about +the subject of it, but you must not judge of æstheticism by the satire of +Mr. Gilbert. As little should you judge of the strength and splendour of +sun or sea by the dust that dances in the beam, or the bubble that breaks +on the wave, as take your critic for any sane test of art. For the +artists, like the Greek gods, are revealed only to one another, as +Emerson says somewhere; their real value and place time only can show. +In this respect also omnipotence is with the ages. The true critic +addresses not the artist ever but the public only. His work lies with +them. Art can never have any other claim but her own perfection: it is +for the critic to create for art the social aim, too, by teaching the +people the spirit in which they are to approach all artistic work, the +love they are to give it, the lesson they are to draw from it. + +All these appeals to art to set herself more in harmony with modern +progress and civilisation, and to make herself the mouthpiece for the +voice of humanity, these appeals to art ‘to have a mission,’ are appeals +which should be made to the public. The art which has fulfilled the +conditions of beauty has fulfilled all conditions: it is for the critic +to teach the people how to find in the calm of such art the highest +expression of their own most stormy passions. ‘I have no reverence,’ +said Keats, ‘for the public, nor for anything in existence but the +Eternal Being, the memory of great men and the principle of Beauty.’ + +Such then is the principle which I believe to be guiding and underlying +our English Renaissance, a Renaissance many-sided and wonderful, +productive of strong ambitions and lofty personalities, yet for all its +splendid achievements in poetry and in the decorative arts and in +painting, for all the increased comeliness and grace of dress, and the +furniture of houses and the like, not complete. For there can be no +great sculpture without a beautiful national life, and the commercial +spirit of England has killed that; no great drama without a noble +national life, and the commercial spirit of England has killed that too. + +It is not that the flawless serenity of marble cannot bear the burden of +the modern intellectual spirit, or become instinct with the fire of +romantic passion—the tomb of Duke Lorenzo and the chapel of the Medici +show us that—but it is that, as Théophile Gautier used to say, the +visible world is dead, _le monde visible a disparu_. + +Nor is it again that the novel has killed the play, as some critics would +persuade us—the romantic movement of France shows us that. The work of +Balzac and of Hugo grew up side by side together; nay, more, were +complementary to each other, though neither of them saw it. While all +other forms of poetry may flourish in an ignoble age, the splendid +individualism of the lyrist, fed by its own passion, and lit by its own +power, may pass as a pillar of fire as well across the desert as across +places that are pleasant. It is none the less glorious though no man +follow it—nay, by the greater sublimity of its loneliness it may be +quickened into loftier utterance and intensified into clearer song. From +the mean squalor of the sordid life that limits him, the dreamer or the +idyllist may soar on poesy’s viewless wings, may traverse with fawn-skin +and spear the moonlit heights of Cithæron though Faun and Bassarid dance +there no more. Like Keats he may wander through the old-world forests of +Latmos, or stand like Morris on the galley’s deck with the Viking when +king and galley have long since passed away. But the drama is the +meeting-place of art and life; it deals, as Mazzini said, not merely with +man, but with social man, with man in his relation to God and to +Humanity. It is the product of a period of great national united energy; +it is impossible without a noble public, and belongs to such ages as the +age of Elizabeth in London and of Pericles at Athens; it is part of such +lofty moral and spiritual ardour as came to Greek after the defeat of the +Persian fleet, and to Englishman after the wreck of the Armada of Spain. + +Shelley felt how incomplete our movement was in this respect, and has +shown in one great tragedy by what terror and pity he would have purified +our age; but in spite of _The Cenci_ the drama is one of the artistic +forms through which the genius of the England of this century seeks in +vain to find outlet and expression. He has had no worthy imitators. + +It is rather, perhaps, to you that we should turn to complete and perfect +this great movement of ours, for there is something Hellenic in your air +and world, something that has a quicker breath of the joy and power of +Elizabeth’s England about it than our ancient civilisation can give us. +For you, at least, are young; ‘no hungry generations tread you down,’ and +the past does not weary you with the intolerable burden of its memories +nor mock you with the ruins of a beauty, the secret of whose creation you +have lost. That very absence of tradition, which Mr. Ruskin thought +would rob your rivers of their laughter and your flowers of their light, +may be rather the source of your freedom and your strength. + +To speak in literature with the perfect rectitude and insouciance of the +movements of animals, and the unimpeachableness of the sentiment of trees +in the woods and grass by the roadside, has been defined by one of your +poets as a flawless triumph of art. It is a triumph which you above all +nations may be destined to achieve. For the voices that have their +dwelling in sea and mountain are not the chosen music of Liberty only; +other messages are there in the wonder of wind-swept height and the +majesty of silent deep—messages that, if you will but listen to them, may +yield you the splendour of some new imagination, the marvel of some new +beauty. + +‘I foresee,’ said Goethe, ‘the dawn of a new literature which all people +may claim as their own, for all have contributed to its foundation.’ If, +then, this is so, and if the materials for a civilisation as great as +that of Europe lie all around you, what profit, you will ask me, will all +this study of our poets and painters be to you? I might answer that the +intellect can be engaged without direct didactic object on an artistic +and historical problem; that the demand of the intellect is merely to +feel itself alive; that nothing which has ever interested men or women +can cease to be a fit subject for culture. + +I might remind you of what all Europe owes to the sorrow of a single +Florentine in exile at Verona, or to the love of Petrarch by that little +well in Southern France; nay, more, how even in this dull, materialistic +age the simple expression of an old man’s simple life, passed away from +the clamour of great cities amid the lakes and misty hills of Cumberland, +has opened out for England treasures of new joy compared with which the +treasures of her luxury are as barren as the sea which she has made her +highway, and as bitter as the fire which she would make her slave. + +But I think it will bring you something besides this, something that is +the knowledge of real strength in art: not that you should imitate the +works of these men; but their artistic spirit, their artistic attitude, I +think you should absorb that. + +For in nations, as in individuals, if the passion for creation be not +accompanied by the critical, the æsthetic faculty also, it will be sure +to waste its strength aimlessly, failing perhaps in the artistic spirit +of choice, or in the mistaking of feeling for form, or in the following +of false ideals. + +For the various spiritual forms of the imagination have a natural +affinity with certain sensuous forms of art—and to discern the qualities +of each art, to intensify as well its limitations as its powers of +expression, is one of the aims that culture sets before us. It is not an +increased moral sense, an increased moral supervision that your +literature needs. Indeed, one should never talk of a moral or an immoral +poem—poems are either well written or badly written, that is all. And, +indeed, any element of morals or implied reference to a standard of good +or evil in art is often a sign of a certain incompleteness of vision, +often a note of discord in the harmony of an imaginative creation; for +all good work aims at a purely artistic effect. ‘We must be careful,’ +said Goethe, ‘not to be always looking for culture merely in what is +obviously moral. Everything that is great promotes civilisation as soon +as we are aware of it.’ + +But, as in your cities so in your literature, it is a permanent canon and +standard of taste, an increased sensibility to beauty (if I may say so) +that is lacking. All noble work is not national merely, but universal. +The political independence of a nation must not be confused with any +intellectual isolation. The spiritual freedom, indeed, your own generous +lives and liberal air will give you. From us you will learn the +classical restraint of form. + +For all great art is delicate art, roughness having very little to do +with strength, and harshness very little to do with power. ‘The artist,’ +as Mr. Swinburne says, ‘must be perfectly articulate.’ + +This limitation is for the artist perfect freedom: it is at once the +origin and the sign of his strength. So that all the supreme masters of +style—Dante, Sophocles, Shakespeare—are the supreme masters of spiritual +and intellectual vision also. + +Love art for its own sake, and then all things that you need will be +added to you. + +This devotion to beauty and to the creation of beautiful things is the +test of all great civilised nations. Philosophy may teach us to bear +with equanimity the misfortunes of our neighbours, and science resolve +the moral sense into a secretion of sugar, but art is what makes the life +of each citizen a sacrament and not a speculation, art is what makes the +life of the whole race immortal. + +For beauty is the only thing that time cannot harm. Philosophies fall +away like sand, and creeds follow one another like the withered leaves of +autumn; but what is beautiful is a joy for all seasons and a possession +for all eternity. + +Wars and the clash of armies and the meeting of men in battle by trampled +field or leaguered city, and the rising of nations there must always be. +But I think that art, by creating a common intellectual atmosphere +between all countries, might—if it could not overshadow the world with +the silver wings of peace—at least make men such brothers that they would +not go out to slay one another for the whim or folly of some king or +minister, as they do in Europe. Fraternity would come no more with the +hands of Cain, nor Liberty betray freedom with the kiss of Anarchy; for +national hatreds are always strongest where culture is lowest. + +‘How could I?’ said Goethe, when reproached for not writing like Korner +against the French. ‘How could I, to whom barbarism and culture alone +are of importance, hate a nation which is among the most cultivated of +the earth, a nation to which I owe a great part of my own cultivation?’ + +Mighty empires, too, there must always be as long as personal ambition +and the spirit of the age are one, but art at least is the only empire +which a nation’s enemies cannot take from her by conquest, but which is +taken by submission only. The sovereignty of Greece and Rome is not yet +passed away, though the gods of the one be dead and the eagles of the +other tired. + +And we in our Renaissance are seeking to create a sovereignty that will +still be England’s when her yellow leopards have grown weary of wars and +the rose of her shield is crimsoned no more with the blood of battle; and +you, too, absorbing into the generous heart of a great people this +pervading artistic spirit, will create for yourselves such riches as you +have never yet created, though your land be a network of railways and +your cities the harbours for the galleys of the world. + +I know, indeed, that the divine natural prescience of beauty which is the +inalienable inheritance of Greek and Italian is not our inheritance. For +such an informing and presiding spirit of art to shield us from all harsh +and alien influences, we of the Northern races must turn rather to that +strained self-consciousness of our age which, as it is the key-note of +all our romantic art, must be the source of all or nearly all our +culture. I mean that intellectual curiosity of the nineteenth century +which is always looking for the secret of the life that still lingers +round old and bygone forms of culture. It takes from each what is +serviceable for the modern spirit—from Athens its wonder without its +worship, from Venice its splendour without its sin. The same spirit is +always analysing its own strength and its own weakness, counting what it +owes to East and to West, to the olive-trees of Colonus and to the +palm-trees of Lebanon, to Gethsemane and to the garden of Proserpine. + +And yet the truths of art cannot be taught: they are revealed only, +revealed to natures which have made themselves receptive of all beautiful +impressions by the study and worship of all beautiful things. And hence +the enormous importance given to the decorative arts in our English +Renaissance; hence all that marvel of design that comes from the hand of +Edward Burne-Jones, all that weaving of tapestry and staining of glass, +that beautiful working in clay and metal and wood which we owe to William +Morris, the greatest handicraftsman we have had in England since the +fourteenth century. + +So, in years to come there will be nothing in any man’s house which has +not given delight to its maker and does not give delight to its user. +The children, like the children of Plato’s perfect city, will grow up ‘in +a simple atmosphere of all fair things’—I quote from the passage in the +_Republic_—‘a simple atmosphere of all fair things, where beauty, which +is the spirit of art, will come on eye and ear like a fresh breath of +wind that brings health from a clear upland, and insensibly and gradually +draw the child’s soul into harmony with all knowledge and all wisdom, so +that he will love what is beautiful and good, and hate what is evil and +ugly (for they always go together) long before he knows the reason why; +and then when reason comes will kiss her on the cheek as a friend.’ + +That is what Plato thought decorative art could do for a nation, feeling +that the secret not of philosophy merely but of all gracious existence +might be externally hidden from any one whose youth had been passed in +uncomely and vulgar surroundings, and that the beauty of form and colour +even, as he says, in the meanest vessels of the house, will find its way +into the inmost places of the soul and lead the boy naturally to look for +that divine harmony of spiritual life of which art was to him the +material symbol and warrant. + +Prelude indeed to all knowledge and all wisdom will this love of +beautiful things be for us; yet there are times when wisdom becomes a +burden and knowledge is one with sorrow: for as every body has its shadow +so every soul has its scepticism. In such dread moments of discord and +despair where should we, of this torn and troubled age, turn our steps if +not to that secure house of beauty where there is always a little +forgetfulness, always a great joy; to that _città divina_, as the old +Italian heresy called it, the divine city where one can stand, though +only for a brief moment, apart from the division and terror of the world +and the choice of the world too? + +This is that _consolation des arts_ which is the key-note of Gautier’s +poetry, the secret of modern life foreshadowed—as indeed what in our +century is not?—by Goethe. You remember what he said to the German +people: ‘Only have the courage,’ he said, ‘to give yourselves up to your +impressions, allow yourselves to be delighted, moved, elevated, nay +instructed, inspired for something great.’ The courage to give +yourselves up to your impressions: yes, that is the secret of the +artistic life—for while art has been defined as an escape from the +tyranny of the senses, it is an escape rather from the tyranny of the +soul. But only to those who worship her above all things does she ever +reveal her true treasure: else will she be as powerless to aid you as the +mutilated Venus of the Louvre was before the romantic but sceptical +nature of Heine. + +And indeed I think it would be impossible to overrate the gain that might +follow if we had about us only what gave pleasure to the maker of it and +gives pleasure to its user, that being the simplest of all rules about +decoration. One thing, at least, I think it would do for us: there is no +surer test of a great country than how near it stands to its own poets; +but between the singers of our day and the workers to whom they would +sing there seems to be an ever-widening and dividing chasm, a chasm which +slander and mockery cannot traverse, but which is spanned by the luminous +wings of love. + +And of such love I think that the abiding presence in our houses of noble +imaginative work would be the surest seed and preparation. I do not mean +merely as regards that direct literary expression of art by which, from +the little red-and-black cruse of oil or wine, a Greek boy could learn of +the lionlike splendour of Achilles, of the strength of Hector and the +beauty of Paris and the wonder of Helen, long before he stood and +listened in crowded market-place or in theatre of marble; or by which an +Italian child of the fifteenth century could know of the chastity of +Lucrece and the death of Camilla from carven doorway and from painted +chest. For the good we get from art is not what we learn from it; it is +what we become through it. Its real influence will be in giving the mind +that enthusiasm which is the secret of Hellenism, accustoming it to +demand from art all that art can do in rearranging the facts of common +life for us—whether it be by giving the most spiritual interpretation of +one’s own moments of highest passion or the most sensuous expression of +those thoughts that are the farthest removed from sense; in accustoming +it to love the things of the imagination for their own sake, and to +desire beauty and grace in all things. For he who does not love art in +all things does not love it at all, and he who does not need art in all +things does not need it at all. + +I will not dwell here on what I am sure has delighted you all in our +great Gothic cathedrals. I mean how the artist of that time, +handicraftsman himself in stone or glass, found the best motives for his +art, always ready for his hand and always beautiful, in the daily work of +the artificers he saw around him—as in those lovely windows of +Chartres—where the dyer dips in the vat and the potter sits at the wheel, +and the weaver stands at the loom: real manufacturers these, workers with +the hand, and entirely delightful to look at, not like the smug and vapid +shopman of our time, who knows nothing of the web or vase he sells, +except that he is charging you double its value and thinking you a fool +for buying it. Nor can I but just note, in passing, the immense +influence the decorative work of Greece and Italy had on its artists, the +one teaching the sculptor that restraining influence of design which is +the glory of the Parthenon, the other keeping painting always true to its +primary, pictorial condition of noble colour which is the secret of the +school of Venice; for I wish rather, in this lecture at least, to dwell +on the effect that decorative art has on human life—on its social not its +purely artistic effect. + +There are two kinds of men in the world, two great creeds, two different +forms of natures: men to whom the end of life is action, and men to whom +the end of life is thought. As regards the latter, who seek for +experience itself and not for the fruits of experience, who must burn +always with one of the passions of this fiery-coloured world, who find +life interesting not for its secret but for its situations, for its +pulsations and not for its purpose; the passion for beauty engendered by +the decorative arts will be to them more satisfying than any political or +religious enthusiasm, any enthusiasm for humanity, any ecstasy or sorrow +for love. For art comes to one professing primarily to give nothing but +the highest quality to one’s moments, and for those moments’ sake. So +far for those to whom the end of life is thought. As regards the others, +who hold that life is inseparable from labour, to them should this +movement be specially dear: for, if our days are barren without industry, +industry without art is barbarism. + +Hewers of wood and drawers of water there must be always indeed among us. +Our modern machinery has not much lightened the labour of man after all: +but at least let the pitcher that stands by the well be beautiful and +surely the labour of the day will be lightened: let the wood be made +receptive of some lovely form, some gracious design, and there will come +no longer discontent but joy to the toiler. For what is decoration but +the worker’s expression of joy in his work? And not joy merely—that is a +great thing yet not enough—but that opportunity of expressing his own +individuality which, as it is the essence of all life, is the source of +all art. ‘I have tried,’ I remember William Morris saying to me once, ‘I +have tried to make each of my workers an artist, and when I say an artist +I mean a man.’ For the worker then, handicraftsman of whatever kind he +is, art is no longer to be a purple robe woven by a slave and thrown over +the whitened body of a leprous king to hide and to adorn the sin of his +luxury, but rather the beautiful and noble expression of a life that has +in it something beautiful and noble. + +And so you must seek out your workman and give him, as far as possible, +the right surroundings, for remember that the real test and virtue of a +workman is not his earnestness nor his industry even, but his power of +design merely; and that ‘design is not the offspring of idle fancy: it is +the studied result of accumulative observation and delightful habit.’ +All the teaching in the world is of no avail if you do not surround your +workman with happy influences and with beautiful things. It is +impossible for him to have right ideas about colour unless he sees the +lovely colours of Nature unspoiled; impossible for him to supply +beautiful incident and action unless he sees beautiful incident and +action in the world about him. + +For to cultivate sympathy you must be among living things and thinking +about them, and to cultivate admiration you must be among beautiful +things and looking at them. ‘The steel of Toledo and the silk of Genoa +did but give strength to oppression and lustre to pride,’ as Mr. Ruskin +says; let it be for you to create an art that is made by the hands of the +people for the joy of the people, to please the hearts of the people, +too; an art that will be your expression of your delight in life. There +is nothing ‘in common life too mean, in common things too trivial to be +ennobled by your touch’; nothing in life that art cannot sanctify. + +You have heard, I think, a few of you, of two flowers connected with the +æsthetic movement in England, and said (I assure you, erroneously) to be +the food of some æsthetic young men. Well, let me tell you that the +reason we love the lily and the sunflower, in spite of what Mr. Gilbert +may tell you, is not for any vegetable fashion at all. It is because +these two lovely flowers are in England the two most perfect models of +design, the most naturally adapted for decorative art—the gaudy leonine +beauty of the one and the precious loveliness of the other giving to the +artist the most entire and perfect joy. And so with you: let there be no +flower in your meadows that does not wreathe its tendrils around your +pillows, no little leaf in your Titan forests that does not lend its form +to design, no curving spray of wild rose or brier that does not live for +ever in carven arch or window or marble, no bird in your air that is not +giving the iridescent wonder of its colour, the exquisite curves of its +wings in flight, to make more precious the preciousness of simple +adornment. + +We spend our days, each one of us, in looking for the secret of life. +Well, the secret of life is in art. + + + + +HOUSE DECORATION + + +A lecture delivered in America during Wilde’s tour in 1882. It was +announced as a lecture on ‘The Practical Application of the Principles of +Æsthetic Theory to Exterior and Interior House Decoration, With +Observations upon Dress and Personal Ornaments.’ The earliest date on +which it is known to have been given is May 11, 1882. + +IN my last lecture I gave you something of the history of Art in England. +I sought to trace the influence of the French Revolution upon its +development. I said something of the song of Keats and the school of the +pre-Raphaelites. But I do not want to shelter the movement, which I have +called the English Renaissance, under any palladium however noble, or any +name however revered. The roots of it have, indeed, to be sought for in +things that have long passed away, and not, as some suppose, in the fancy +of a few young men—although I am not altogether sure that there is +anything much better than the fancy of a few young men. + +When I appeared before you on a previous occasion, I had seen nothing of +American art save the Doric columns and Corinthian chimney-pots visible +on your Broadway and Fifth Avenue. Since then, I have been through your +country to some fifty or sixty different cities, I think. I find that +what your people need is not so much high imaginative art but that which +hallows the vessels of everyday use. I suppose that the poet will sing +and the artist will paint regardless whether the world praises or blames. +He has his own world and is independent of his fellow-men. But the +handicraftsman is dependent on your pleasure and opinion. He needs your +encouragement and he must have beautiful surroundings. Your people love +art but do not sufficiently honour the handicraftsman. Of course, those +millionaires who can pillage Europe for their pleasure need have no care +to encourage such; but I speak for those whose desire for beautiful +things is larger than their means. I find that one great trouble all +over is that your workmen are not given to noble designs. You cannot be +indifferent to this, because Art is not something which you can take or +leave. It is a necessity of human life. + +And what is the meaning of this beautiful decoration which we call art? +In the first place, it means value to the workman and it means the +pleasure which he must necessarily take in making a beautiful thing. The +mark of all good art is not that the thing done is done exactly or +finely, for machinery may do as much, but that it is worked out with the +head and the workman’s heart. I cannot impress the point too frequently +that beautiful and rational designs are necessary in all work. I did not +imagine, until I went into some of your simpler cities, that there was so +much bad work done. I found, where I went, bad wall-papers horribly +designed, and coloured carpets, and that old offender the horse-hair +sofa, whose stolid look of indifference is always so depressing. I found +meaningless chandeliers and machine-made furniture, generally of +rosewood, which creaked dismally under the weight of the ubiquitous +interviewer. I came across the small iron stove which they always +persist in decorating with machine-made ornaments, and which is as great +a bore as a wet day or any other particularly dreadful institution. When +unusual extravagance was indulged in, it was garnished with two funeral +urns. + +It must always be remembered that what is well and carefully made by an +honest workman, after a rational design, increases in beauty and value as +the years go on. The old furniture brought over by the Pilgrims, two +hundred years ago, which I saw in New England, is just as good and as +beautiful to-day as it was when it first came here. Now, what you must +do is to bring artists and handicraftsmen together. Handicraftsmen +cannot live, certainly cannot thrive, without such companionship. +Separate these two and you rob art of all spiritual motive. + +Having done this, you must place your workman in the midst of beautiful +surroundings. The artist is not dependent on the visible and the +tangible. He has his visions and his dreams to feed on. But the workman +must see lovely forms as he goes to his work in the morning and returns +at eventide. And, in connection with this, I want to assure you that +noble and beautiful designs are never the result of idle fancy or +purposeless day-dreaming. They come only as the accumulation of habits +of long and delightful observation. And yet such things may not be +taught. Right ideas concerning them can certainly be obtained only by +those who have been accustomed to rooms that are beautiful and colours +that are satisfying. + +Perhaps one of the most difficult things for us to do is to choose a +notable and joyous dress for men. There would be more joy in life if we +were to accustom ourselves to use all the beautiful colours we can in +fashioning our own clothes. The dress of the future, I think, will use +drapery to a great extent and will abound with joyous colour. At present +we have lost all nobility of dress and, in doing so, have almost +annihilated the modern sculptor. And, in looking around at the figures +which adorn our parks, one could almost wish that we had completely +killed the noble art. To see the frock-coat of the drawing-room done in +bronze, or the double waistcoat perpetuated in marble, adds a new horror +to death. But indeed, in looking through the history of costume, seeking +an answer to the questions we have propounded, there is little that is +either beautiful or appropriate. One of the earliest forms is the Greek +drapery which is exquisite for young girls. And then, I think we may be +pardoned a little enthusiasm over the dress of the time of Charles I., so +beautiful indeed, that in spite of its invention being with the Cavaliers +it was copied by the Puritans. And the dress for the children of that +time must not be passed over. It was a very golden age of the little +ones. I do not think that they have ever looked so lovely as they do in +the pictures of that time. The dress of the last century in England is +also peculiarly gracious and graceful. There is nothing bizarre or +strange about it, but it is full of harmony and beauty. In these days, +when we have suffered dreadfully from the incursions of the modern +milliner, we hear ladies boast that they do not wear a dress more than +once. In the old days, when the dresses were decorated with beautiful +designs and worked with exquisite embroidery, ladies rather took a pride +in bringing out the garment and wearing it many times and handing it down +to their daughters—a process that would, I think, be quite appreciated by +a modern husband when called upon to settle his wife’s bills. + +And how shall men dress? Men say that they do not particularly care how +they dress, and that it is little matter. I am bound to reply that I do +not think that you do. In all my journeys through the country, the only +well-dressed men that I saw—and in saying this I earnestly deprecate the +polished indignation of your Fifth Avenue dandies—were the Western +miners. Their wide-brimmed hats, which shaded their faces from the sun +and protected them from the rain, and the cloak, which is by far the most +beautiful piece of drapery ever invented, may well be dwelt on with +admiration. Their high boots, too, were sensible and practical. They +wore only what was comfortable, and therefore beautiful. As I looked at +them I could not help thinking with regret of the time when these +picturesque miners would have made their fortunes and would go East to +assume again all the abominations of modern fashionable attire. Indeed, +so concerned was I that I made some of them promise that when they again +appeared in the more crowded scenes of Eastern civilisation they would +still continue to wear their lovely costume. But I do not believe they +will. + +Now, what America wants to-day is a school of rational art. Bad art is a +great deal worse than no art at all. You must show your workmen +specimens of good work so that they come to know what is simple and true +and beautiful. To that end I would have you have a museum attached to +these schools—not one of those dreadful modern institutions where there +is a stuffed and very dusty giraffe, and a case or two of fossils, but a +place where there are gathered examples of art decoration from various +periods and countries. Such a place is the South Kensington Museum in +London, whereon we build greater hopes for the future than on any other +one thing. There I go every Saturday night, when the museum is open +later than usual, to see the handicraftsman, the wood-worker, the +glass-blower and the worker in metals. And it is here that the man of +refinement and culture comes face to face with the workman who ministers +to his joy. He comes to know more of the nobility of the workman, and +the workman, feeling the appreciation, comes to know more of the nobility +of his work. + +You have too many white walls. More colour is wanted. You should have +such men as Whistler among you to teach you the beauty and joy of colour. +Take Mr. Whistler’s ‘Symphony in White,’ which you no doubt have imagined +to be something quite bizarre. It is nothing of the sort. Think of a +cool grey sky flecked here and there with white clouds, a grey ocean and +three wonderfully beautiful figures robed in white, leaning over the +water and dropping white flowers from their fingers. Here is no +extensive intellectual scheme to trouble you, and no metaphysics of which +we have had quite enough in art. But if the simple and unaided colour +strike the right key-note, the whole conception is made clear. I regard +Mr. Whistler’s famous Peacock Room as the finest thing in colour and art +decoration which the world has known since Correggio painted that +wonderful room in Italy where the little children are dancing on the +walls. Mr. Whistler finished another room just before I came away—a +breakfast room in blue and yellow. The ceiling was a light blue, the +cabinet-work and the furniture were of a yellow wood, the curtains at the +windows were white and worked in yellow, and when the table was set for +breakfast with dainty blue china nothing can be conceived at once so +simple and so joyous. + +The fault which I have observed in most of your rooms is that there is +apparent no definite scheme of colour. Everything is not attuned to a +key-note as it should be. The apartments are crowded with pretty things +which have no relation to one another. Again, your artists must decorate +what is more simply useful. In your art schools I found no attempt to +decorate such things as the vessels for water. I know of nothing uglier +than the ordinary jug or pitcher. A museum could be filled with the +different kinds of water vessels which are used in hot countries. Yet we +continue to submit to the depressing jug with the handle all on one side. +I do not see the wisdom of decorating dinner-plates with sunsets and +soup-plates with moonlight scenes. I do not think it adds anything to +the pleasure of the canvas-back duck to take it out of such glories. +Besides, we do not want a soup-plate whose bottom seems to vanish in the +distance. One feels neither safe nor comfortable under such conditions. +In fact, I did not find in the art schools of the country that the +difference was explained between decorative and imaginative art. + +The conditions of art should be simple. A great deal more depends upon +the heart than upon the head. Appreciation of art is not secured by any +elaborate scheme of learning. Art requires a good healthy atmosphere. +The motives for art are still around about us as they were round about +the ancients. And the subjects are also easily found by the earnest +sculptor and the painter. Nothing is more picturesque and graceful than +a man at work. The artist who goes to the children’s playground, watches +them at their sport and sees the boy stoop to tie his shoe, will find the +same themes that engaged the attention of the ancient Greeks, and such +observation and the illustrations which follow will do much to correct +that foolish impression that mental and physical beauty are always +divorced. + +To you, more than perhaps to any other country, has Nature been generous +in furnishing material for art workers to work in. You have marble +quarries where the stone is more beautiful in colour than any the Greeks +ever had for their beautiful work, and yet day after day I am confronted +with the great building of some stupid man who has used the beautiful +material as if it were not precious almost beyond speech. Marble should +not be used save by noble workmen. There is nothing which gave me a +greater sense of barrenness in travelling through the country than the +entire absence of wood carving on your houses. Wood carving is the +simplest of the decorative arts. In Switzerland the little barefooted +boy beautifies the porch of his father’s house with examples of skill in +this direction. Why should not American boys do a great deal more and +better than Swiss boys? + +There is nothing to my mind more coarse in conception and more vulgar in +execution than modern jewellery. This is something that can easily be +corrected. Something better should be made out of the beautiful gold +which is stored up in your mountain hollows and strewn along your river +beds. When I was at Leadville and reflected that all the shining silver +that I saw coming from the mines would be made into ugly dollars, it made +me sad. It should be made into something more permanent. The golden +gates at Florence are as beautiful to-day as when Michael Angelo saw +them. + +We should see more of the workman than we do. We should not be content +to have the salesman stand between us—the salesman who knows nothing of +what he is selling save that he is charging a great deal too much for it. +And watching the workman will teach that most important lesson—the +nobility of all rational workmanship. + +I said in my last lecture that art would create a new brotherhood among +men by furnishing a universal language. I said that under its beneficent +influences war might pass away. Thinking this, what place can I ascribe +to art in our education? If children grow up among all fair and lovely +things, they will grow to love beauty and detest ugliness before they +know the reason why. If you go into a house where everything is coarse, +you find things chipped and broken and unsightly. Nobody exercises any +care. If everything is dainty and delicate, gentleness and refinement of +manner are unconsciously acquired. When I was in San Francisco I used to +visit the Chinese Quarter frequently. There I used to watch a great +hulking Chinese workman at his task of digging, and used to see him every +day drink his tea from a little cup as delicate in texture as the petal +of a flower, whereas in all the grand hotels of the land, where thousands +of dollars have been lavished on great gilt mirrors and gaudy columns, I +have been given my coffee or my chocolate in cups an inch and a quarter +thick. I think I have deserved something nicer. + +The art systems of the past have been devised by philosophers who looked +upon human beings as obstructions. They have tried to educate boys’ +minds before they had any. How much better it would be in these early +years to teach children to use their hands in the rational service of +mankind. I would have a workshop attached to every school, and one hour +a day given up to the teaching of simple decorative arts. It would be a +golden hour to the children. And you would soon raise up a race of +handicraftsmen who would transform the face of your country. I have seen +only one such school in the United States, and this was in Philadelphia +and was founded by my friend Mr. Leyland. I stopped there yesterday and +have brought some of the work here this afternoon to show you. Here are +two disks of beaten brass: the designs on them are beautiful, the +workmanship is simple, and the entire result is satisfactory. The work +was done by a little boy twelve years old. This is a wooden bowl +decorated by a little girl of thirteen. The design is lovely and the +colouring delicate and pretty. Here you see a piece of beautiful wood +carving accomplished by a little boy of nine. In such work as this, +children learn sincerity in art. They learn to abhor the liar in art—the +man who paints wood to look like iron, or iron to look like stone. It is +a practical school of morals. No better way is there to learn to love +Nature than to understand Art. It dignifies every flower of the field. +And, the boy who sees the thing of beauty which a bird on the wing +becomes when transferred to wood or canvas will probably not throw the +customary stone. What we want is something spiritual added to life. +Nothing is so ignoble that Art cannot sanctify it. + + + + +ART AND THE HANDICRAFTSMAN + + +The fragments of which this lecture is composed are taken entirely from +the original manuscripts which have but recently been discovered. It is +not certain that they all belong to the same lecture, nor that all were +written at the same period. Some portions were written in Philadelphia +in 1882. + +PEOPLE often talk as if there was an opposition between what is beautiful +and what is useful. There is no opposition to beauty except ugliness: +all things are either beautiful or ugly, and utility will be always on +the side of the beautiful thing, because beautiful decoration is always +on the side of the beautiful thing, because beautiful decoration is +always an expression of the use you put a thing to and the value placed +on it. No workman will beautifully decorate bad work, nor can you +possibly get good handicraftsmen or workmen without having beautiful +designs. You should be quite sure of that. If you have poor and +worthless designs in any craft or trade you will get poor and worthless +workmen only, but the minute you have noble and beautiful designs, then +you get men of power and intellect and feeling to work for you. By +having good designs you have workmen who work not merely with their hands +but with their hearts and heads too; otherwise you will get merely the +fool or the loafer to work for you. + +That the beauty of life is a thing of no moment, I suppose few people +would venture to assert. And yet most civilised people act as if it were +of none, and in so doing are wronging both themselves and those that are +to come after them. For that beauty which is meant by art is no mere +accident of human life which people can take or leave, but a positive +necessity of life if we are to live as nature meant us to, that is to say +unless we are content to be less than men. + +Do not think that the commercial spirit which is the basis of your life +and cities here is opposed to art. Who built the beautiful cities of the +world but commercial men and commercial men only? Genoa built by its +traders, Florence by its bankers, and Venice, most lovely of all, by its +noble and honest merchants. + +I do not wish you, remember, ‘to build a new Pisa,’ nor to bring ‘the +life or the decorations of the thirteenth century back again.’ ‘The +circumstances with which you must surround your workmen are those’ of +modern American life, ‘because the designs you have now to ask for from +your workmen are such as will make modern’ American ‘life beautiful.’ +The art we want is the art based on all the inventions of modern +civilisation, and to suit all the needs of nineteenth-century life. + +Do you think, for instance, that we object to machinery? I tell you we +reverence it; we reverence it when it does its proper work, when it +relieves man from ignoble and soulless labour, not when it seeks to do +that which is valuable only when wrought by the hands and hearts of men. +Let us have no machine-made ornament at all; it is all bad and worthless +and ugly. And let us not mistake the means of civilisation for the end +of civilisation; steam-engine, telephone and the like, are all wonderful, +but remember that their value depends entirely on the noble uses we make +of them, on the noble spirit in which we employ them, not on the things +themselves. + +It is, no doubt, a great advantage to talk to a man at the Antipodes +through a telephone; its advantage depends entirely on the value of what +the two men have to say to one another. If one merely shrieks slander +through a tube and the other whispers folly into a wire, do not think +that anybody is very much benefited by the invention. + +The train that whirls an ordinary Englishman through Italy at the rate of +forty miles an hour and finally sends him home without any memory of that +lovely country but that he was cheated by a courier at Rome, or that he +got a bad dinner at Verona, does not do him or civilisation much good. +But that swift legion of fiery-footed engines that bore to the burning +ruins of Chicago the loving help and generous treasure of the world was +as noble and as beautiful as any golden troop of angels that ever fed the +hungry and clothed the naked in the antique times. As beautiful, yes; +all machinery may be beautiful when it is undecorated even. Do not seek +to decorate it. We cannot but think all good machinery is graceful, +also, the line of strength and the line of beauty being one. + +Give then, as I said, to your workmen of to-day the bright and noble +surroundings that you can yourself create. Stately and simple +architecture for your cities, bright and simple dress for your men and +women; those are the conditions of a real artistic movement. For the +artist is not concerned primarily with any theory of life but with life +itself, with the joy and loveliness that should come daily on eye and ear +for a beautiful external world. + +But the simplicity must not be barrenness nor the bright colour gaudy. +For all beautiful colours are graduated colours, the colours that seem +about to pass into one another’s realm—colour without tone being like +music without harmony, mere discord. Barren architecture, the vulgar and +glaring advertisements that desecrate not merely your cities but every +rock and river that I have seen yet in America—all this is not enough. A +school of design we must have too in each city. It should be a stately +and noble building, full of the best examples of the best art of the +world. Furthermore, do not put your designers in a barren whitewashed +room and bid them work in that depressing and colourless atmosphere as I +have seen many of the American schools of design, but give them beautiful +surroundings. Because you want to produce a permanent canon and standard +of taste in your workman, he must have always by him and before him +specimens of the best decorative art of the world, so that you can say to +him: ‘This is good work. Greek or Italian or Japanese wrought it so many +years ago, but it is eternally young because eternally beautiful.’ Work +in this spirit and you will be sure to be right. Do not copy it, but +work with the same love, the same reverence, the same freedom of +imagination. You must teach him colour and design, how all beautiful +colours are graduated colours and glaring colours the essence of +vulgarity. Show him the quality of any beautiful work of nature like the +rose, or any beautiful work of art like an Eastern carpet—being merely +the exquisite gradation of colour, one tone answering another like the +answering chords of a symphony. Teach him how the true designer is not +he who makes the design and then colours it, but he who designs in +colour, creates in colour, thinks in colour too. Show him how the most +gorgeous stained-glass windows of Europe are filled with white glass, and +the most gorgeous Eastern tapestry with toned colours—the primary colours +in both places being set in the white glass, and the tone colours like +brilliant jewels set in dusky gold. And then as regards design, show him +how the real designer will take first any given limited space, little +disk of silver, it may be, like a Greek coin, or wide expanse of fretted +ceiling or lordly wall as Tintoret chose at Venice (it does not matter +which), and to this limited space—the first condition of decoration being +the limitation of the size of the material used—he will give the effect +of its being filled with beautiful decoration, filled with it as a golden +cup will be filled with wine, so complete that you should not be able to +take away anything from it or add anything to it. For from a good piece +of design you can take away nothing, nor can you add anything to it, each +little bit of design being as absolutely necessary and as vitally +important to the whole effect as a note or chord of music is for a sonata +of Beethoven. + +But I said the effect of its being so filled, because this, again, is of +the essence of good design. With a simple spray of leaves and a bird in +flight a Japanese artist will give you the impression that he has +completely covered with lovely design the reed fan or lacquer cabinet at +which he is working, merely because he knows the exact spot in which to +place them. All good design depends on the texture of the utensil used +and the use you wish to put it to. One of the first things I saw in an +American school of design was a young lady painting a romantic moonlight +landscape on a large round dish, and another young lady covering a set of +dinner plates with a series of sunsets of the most remarkable colours. +Let your ladies paint moonlight landscapes and sunsets, but do not let +them paint them on dinner plates or dishes. Let them take canvas or +paper for such work, but not clay or china. They are merely painting the +wrong subjects on the wrong material, that is all. They have not been +taught that every material and texture has certain qualities of its own. +The design suitable for one is quite wrong for the other, just as the +design which you should work on a flat table-cover ought to be quite +different from the design you would work on a curtain, for the one will +always be straight, the other broken into folds; and the use too one puts +the object to should guide one in the choice of design. One does not +want to eat one’s terrapins off a romantic moonlight nor one’s clams off +a harrowing sunset. Glory of sun and moon, let them be wrought for us by +our landscape artist and be on the walls of the rooms we sit in to remind +us of the undying beauty of the sunsets that fade and die, but do not let +us eat our soup off them and send them down to the kitchen twice a day to +be washed and scrubbed by the handmaid. + +All these things are simple enough, yet nearly always forgotten. Your +school of design here will teach your girls and your boys, your +handicraftsmen of the future (for all your schools of art should be local +schools, the schools of particular cities). We talk of the Italian +school of painting, but there is no Italian school; there were the +schools of each city. Every town in Italy, from Venice itself, queen of +the sea, to the little hill fortress of Perugia, each had its own school +of art, each different and all beautiful. + +So do not mind what art Philadelphia or New York is having, but make by +the hands of your own citizens beautiful art for the joy of your own +citizens, for you have here the primary elements of a great artistic +movement. + +For, believe me, the conditions of art are much simpler than people +imagine. For the noblest art one requires a clear healthy atmosphere, +not polluted as the air of our English cities is by the smoke and grime +and horridness which comes from open furnace and from factory chimney. +You must have strong, sane, healthy physique among your men and women. +Sickly or idle or melancholy people do not do much in art. And lastly, +you require a sense of individualism about each man and woman, for this +is the essence of art—a desire on the part of man to express himself in +the noblest way possible. And this is the reason that the grandest art +of the world always came from a republic: Athens, Venice, and +Florence—there were no kings there and so their art was as noble and +simple as sincere. But if you want to know what kind of art the folly of +kings will impose on a country look at the decorative art of France under +the _grand monarque_, under Louis the Fourteenth; the gaudy gilt +furniture writhing under a sense of its own horror and ugliness, with a +nymph smirking at every angle and a dragon mouthing on every claw. +Unreal and monstrous art this, and fit only for such periwigged +pomposities as the nobility of France at that time, but not at all fit +for you or me. We do not want the rich to possess more beautiful things +but the poor to create more beautiful things; for ever man is poor who +cannot create. Nor shall the art which you and I need be merely a purple +robe woven by a slave and thrown over the whitened body of some leprous +king to adorn or to conceal the sin of his luxury, but rather shall it be +the noble and beautiful expression of a people’s noble and beautiful +life. Art shall be again the most glorious of all the chords through +which the spirit of a great nation finds its noblest utterance. + +All around you, I said, lie the conditions for a great artistic movement +for every great art. Let us think of one of them; a sculptor, for +instance. + +If a modern sculptor were to come and say, ‘Very well, but where can one +find subjects for sculpture out of men who wear frock-coats and +chimney-pot hats?’ I would tell him to go to the docks of a great city +and watch the men loading or unloading the stately ships, working at +wheel or windlass, hauling at rope or gangway. I have never watched a +man do anything useful who has not been graceful at some moment of his +labour: it is only the loafer and the idle saunterer who is as useless +and uninteresting to the artist as he is to himself. I would ask the +sculptor to go with me to any of your schools or universities, to the +running ground and gymnasium, to watch the young men start for a race, +hurling quoit or club, kneeling to tie their shoes before leaping, +stepping from the boat or bending to the oar, and to carve them; and when +he was weary of cities I would ask him to come to your fields and meadows +to watch the reaper with his sickle and the cattle-driver with lifted +lasso. For if a man cannot find the noblest motives for his art in such +simple daily things as a woman drawing water from the well or a man +leaning with his scythe, he will not find them anywhere at all. Gods and +goddesses the Greek carved because he loved them; saint and king the Goth +because he believed in them. But you, you do not care much for Greek +gods and goddesses, and you are perfectly and entirely right; and you do +not think much of kings either, and you are quite right. But what you do +love are your own men and women, your own flowers and fields, your own +hills and mountains, and these are what your art should represent to you. + +Ours has been the first movement which has brought the handicraftsman and +the artist together, for remember that by separating the one from the +other you do ruin to both; you rob the one of all spiritual motive and +all imaginative joy, you isolate the other from all real technical +perfection. The two greatest schools of art in the world, the sculptor +at Athens and the school of painting at Venice, had their origin entirely +in a long succession of simple and earnest handicraftsmen. It was the +Greek potter who taught the sculptor that restraining influence of design +which was the glory of the Parthenon; it was the Italian decorator of +chests and household goods who kept Venetian painting always true to its +primary pictorial condition of noble colour. For we should remember that +all the arts are fine arts and all the arts decorative arts. The +greatest triumph of Italian painting was the decoration of a pope’s +chapel in Rome and the wall of a room in Venice. Michael Angelo wrought +the one, and Tintoret, the dyer’s son, the other. And the little ‘Dutch +landscape, which you put over your sideboard to-day, and between the +windows to-morrow, is’ no less a glorious ‘piece of work than the extents +of field and forest with which Benozzo has made green and beautiful the +once melancholy arcade of the Campo Santo at Pisa,’ as Ruskin says. + +Do not imitate the works of a nation, Greek or Japanese, Italian or +English; but their artistic spirit of design and their artistic attitude +to-day, their own world, you should absorb but imitate never, copy never. +Unless you can make as beautiful a design in painted china or embroidered +screen or beaten brass out of your American turkey as the Japanese does +out of his grey silver-winged stork, you will never do anything. Let the +Greek carve his lions and the Goth his dragons: buffalo and wild deer are +the animals for you. + +Golden rod and aster and rose and all the flowers that cover your valleys +in the spring and your hills in the autumn: let them be the flowers for +your art. Not merely has Nature given you the noblest motives for a new +school of decoration, but to you above all other countries has she given +the utensils to work in. + +You have quarries of marble richer than Pentelicus, more varied than +Paros, but do not build a great white square house of marble and think +that it is beautiful, or that you are using marble nobly. If you build +in marble you must either carve it into joyous decoration, like the lives +of dancing children that adorn the marble castles of the Loire, or fill +it with beautiful sculpture, frieze and pediment, as the Greeks did, or +inlay it with other coloured marbles as they did in Venice. Otherwise +you had better build in simple red brick as your Puritan fathers, with no +pretence and with some beauty. Do not treat your marble as if it was +ordinary stone and build a house of mere blocks of it. For it is indeed +a precious stone, this marble of yours, and only workmen of nobility of +invention and delicacy of hand should be allowed to touch it at all, +carving it into noble statues or into beautiful decoration, or inlaying +it with other coloured marbles: for ‘the true colours of architecture are +those of natural stone, and I would fain see them taken advantage of to +the full. Every variety is here, from pale yellow to purple passing +through orange, red, and brown, entirely at your command; nearly every +kind of green and grey also is attainable, and with these and with pure +white what harmony might you not achieve. Of stained and variegated +stone the quantity is unlimited, the kinds innumerable. Were brighter +colours required, let glass, and gold protected by glass, be used in +mosaic, a kind of work as durable as the solid stone and incapable of +losing its lustre by time. And let the painter’s work be reserved for +the shadowed loggia and inner chamber. + +‘This is the true and faithful way of building. Where this cannot be, +the device of external colouring may indeed be employed without +dishonour—but it must be with the warning reflection that a time will +come when such aids will pass away and when the building will be judged +in its lifelessness, dying the death of the dolphin. Better the less +bright, more enduring fabric. The transparent alabasters of San Miniato +and the mosaics of Saint Mark’s are more warmly filled and more brightly +touched by every return of morning and evening, while the hues of the +Gothic cathedrals have died like the iris out of the cloud, and the +temples, whose azure and purple once flamed above the Grecian promontory, +stand in their faded whiteness like snows which the sunset has left +cold.’—Ruskin, _Seven Lamps of Architecture_, II. + +I do not know anything so perfectly commonplace in design as most modern +jewellery. How easy for you to change that and to produce goldsmiths’ +work that would be a joy to all of us. The gold is ready for you in +unexhausted treasure, stored up in the mountain hollow or strewn on the +river sand, and was not given to you merely for barren speculation. +There should be some better record of it left in your history than the +merchant’s panic and the ruined home. We do not remember often enough +how constantly the history of a great nation will live in and by its art. +Only a few thin wreaths of beaten gold remain to tell us of the stately +empire of Etruria; and, while from the streets of Florence the noble +knight and haughty duke have long since passed away, the gates which the +simple goldsmith Ghiberti made for their pleasure still guard their +lovely house of baptism, worthy still of the praise of Michael Angelo who +called them worthy to be the Gates of Paradise. + +Have then your school of design, search out your workmen and, when you +find one who has delicacy of hand and that wonder of invention necessary +for goldsmiths’ work, do not leave him to toil in obscurity and dishonour +and have a great glaring shop and two great glaring shop-boys in it (not +to take your orders: they never do that; but to force you to buy +something you do not want at all). When you want a thing wrought in +gold, goblet or shield for the feast, necklace or wreath for the women, +tell him what you like most in decoration, flower or wreath, bird in +flight or hound in the chase, image of the woman you love or the friend +you honour. Watch him as he beats out the gold into those thin plates +delicate as the petals of a yellow rose, or draws it into the long wires +like tangled sunbeams at dawn. Whoever that workman be, help him, +cherish him, and you will have such lovely work from his hand as will be +a joy to you for all time. + +This is the spirit of our movement in England, and this is the spirit in +which we would wish you to work, making eternal by your art all that is +noble in your men and women, stately in your lakes and mountains, +beautiful in your own flowers and natural life. We want to see that you +have nothing in your houses that has not been a joy to the man who made +it, and is not a joy to those that use it. We want to see you create an +art made by the hands of the people to please the hearts of the people +too. Do you like this spirit or not? Do you think it simple and strong, +noble in its aim, and beautiful in its result? I know you do. + +Folly and slander have their own way for a little time, but for a little +time only. You now know what we mean: you will be able to estimate what +is said of us—its value and its motive. + +There should be a law that no ordinary newspaper should be allowed to +write about art. The harm they do by their foolish and random writing it +would be impossible to overestimate—not to the artist but to the public, +blinding them to all, but harming the artist not at all. Without them we +would judge a man simply by his work; but at present the newspapers are +trying hard to induce the public to judge a sculptor, for instance, never +by his statues but by the way he treats his wife; a painter by the amount +of his income and a poet by the colour of his neck-tie. I said there +should be a law, but there is really no necessity for a new law: nothing +could be easier than to bring the ordinary critic under the head of the +criminal classes. But let us leave such an inartistic subject and return +to beautiful and comely things, remembering that the art which would +represent the spirit of modern newspapers would be exactly the art which +you and I want to avoid—grotesque art, malice mocking you from every +gateway, slander sneering at you from every corner. + +Perhaps you may be surprised at my talking of labour and the workman. +You have heard of me, I fear, through the medium of your somewhat +imaginative newspapers as, if not a ‘Japanese young man,’ at least a +young man to whom the rush and clamour and reality of the modern world +were distasteful, and whose greatest difficulty in life was the +difficulty of living up to the level of his blue china—a paradox from +which England has not yet recovered. + +Well, let me tell you how it first came to me at all to create an +artistic movement in England, a movement to show the rich what beautiful +things they might enjoy and the poor what beautiful things they might +create. + +One summer afternoon in Oxford—‘that sweet city with her dreaming +spires,’ lovely as Venice in its splendour, noble in its learning as +Rome, down the long High Street that winds from tower to tower, past +silent cloister and stately gateway, till it reaches that long, grey +seven-arched bridge which Saint Mary used to guard (used to, I say, +because they are now pulling it down to build a tramway and a light +cast-iron bridge in its place, desecrating the loveliest city in +England)—well, we were coming down the street—a troop of young men, some +of them like myself only nineteen, going to river or tennis-court or +cricket-field—when Ruskin going up to lecture in cap and gown met us. He +seemed troubled and prayed us to go back with him to his lecture, which a +few of us did, and there he spoke to us not on art this time but on life, +saying that it seemed to him to be wrong that all the best physique and +strength of the young men in England should be spent aimlessly on cricket +ground or river, without any result at all except that if one rowed well +one got a pewter-pot, and if one made a good score, a cane-handled bat. +He thought, he said, that we should be working at something that would do +good to other people, at something by which we might show that in all +labour there was something noble. Well, we were a good deal moved, and +said we would do anything he wished. So he went out round Oxford and +found two villages, Upper and Lower Hinksey, and between them there lay a +great swamp, so that the villagers could not pass from one to the other +without many miles of a round. And when we came back in winter he asked +us to help him to make a road across this morass for these village people +to use. So out we went, day after day, and learned how to lay levels and +to break stones, and to wheel barrows along a plank—a very difficult +thing to do. And Ruskin worked with us in the mist and rain and mud of +an Oxford winter, and our friends and our enemies came out and mocked us +from the bank. We did not mind it much then, and we did not mind it +afterwards at all, but worked away for two months at our road. And what +became of the road? Well, like a bad lecture it ended abruptly—in the +middle of the swamp. Ruskin going away to Venice, when we came back for +the next term there was no leader, and the ‘diggers,’ as they called us, +fell asunder. And I felt that if there was enough spirit amongst the +young men to go out to such work as road-making for the sake of a noble +ideal of life, I could from them create an artistic movement that might +change, as it has changed, the face of England. So I sought them +out—leader they would call me—but there was no leader: we were all +searchers only and we were bound to each other by noble friendship and by +noble art. There was none of us idle: poets most of us, so ambitious +were we: painters some of us, or workers in metal or modellers, +determined that we would try and create for ourselves beautiful work: for +the handicraftsman beautiful work, for those who love us poems and +pictures, for those who love us not epigrams and paradoxes and scorn. + +Well, we have done something in England and we will do something more. +Now, I do not want you, believe me, to ask your brilliant young men, your +beautiful young girls, to go out and make a road on a swamp for any +village in America, but I think you might each of you have some art to +practise. + + * * * * * + +We must have, as Emerson said, a mechanical craft for our culture, a +basis for our higher accomplishments in the work of our hands—the +uselessness of most people’s hands seems to me one of the most +unpractical things. ‘No separation from labour can be without some loss +of power or truth to the seer,’ says Emerson again. The heroism which +would make on us the impression of Epaminondas must be that of a domestic +conqueror. The hero of the future is he who shall bravely and gracefully +subdue this Gorgon of fashion and of convention. + +When you have chosen your own part, abide by it, and do not weakly try +and reconcile yourself with the world. The heroic cannot be the common +nor the common the heroic. Congratulate yourself if you have done +something strange and extravagant and broken the monotony of a decorous +age. + +And lastly, let us remember that art is the one thing which Death cannot +harm. The little house at Concord may be desolate, but the wisdom of New +England’s Plato is not silenced nor the brilliancy of that Attic genius +dimmed: the lips of Longfellow are still musical for us though his dust +be turning into the flowers which he loved: and as it is with the greater +artists, poet and philosopher and song-bird, so let it be with you. + + + + +LECTURE TO ART STUDENTS + + +Delivered to the Art students of the Royal Academy at their Club in +Golden Square, Westminster, on June 30, 1883. The text is taken from the +original manuscript. + +IN the lecture which it is my privilege to deliver before you to-night I +do not desire to give you any abstract definition of beauty at all. For +we who are working in art cannot accept any theory of beauty in exchange +for beauty itself, and, so far from desiring to isolate it in a formula +appealing to the intellect, we, on the contrary, seek to materialise it +in a form that gives joy to the soul through the senses. We want to +create it, not to define it. The definition should follow the work: the +work should not adapt itself to the definition. + +Nothing, indeed, is more dangerous to the young artist than any +conception of ideal beauty: he is constantly led by it either into weak +prettiness or lifeless abstraction: whereas to touch the ideal at all you +must not strip it of vitality. You must find it in life and re-create it +in art. + +While, then, on the one hand I do not desire to give you any philosophy +of beauty—for, what I want to-night is to investigate how we can create +art, not how we can talk of it—on the other hand, I do not wish to deal +with anything like a history of English art. + +To begin with, such an expression as English art is a meaningless +expression. One might just as well talk of English mathematics. Art is +the science of beauty, and Mathematics the science of truth: there is no +national school of either. Indeed, a national school is a provincial +school, merely. Nor is there any such thing as a school of art even. +There are merely artists, that is all. + +And as regards histories of art, they are quite valueless to you unless +you are seeking the ostentatious oblivion of an art professorship. It is +of no use to you to know the date of Perugino or the birthplace of +Salvator Rosa: all that you should learn about art is to know a good +picture when you see it, and a bad picture when you see it. As regards +the date of the artist, all good work looks perfectly modern: a piece of +Greek sculpture, a portrait of Velasquez—they are always modern, always +of our time. And as regards the nationality of the artist, art is not +national but universal. As regards archæology, then, avoid it +altogether: archæology is merely the science of making excuses for bad +art; it is the rock on which many a young artist founders and shipwrecks; +it is the abyss from which no artist, old or young, ever returns. Or, if +he does return, he is so covered with the dust of ages and the mildew of +time, that he is quite unrecognisable as an artist, and has to conceal +himself for the rest of his days under the cap of a professor, or as a +mere illustrator of ancient history. How worthless archæology is in art +you can estimate by the fact of its being so popular. Popularity is the +crown of laurel which the world puts on bad art. Whatever is popular is +wrong. + +As I am not going to talk to you, then, about the philosophy of the +beautiful, or the history of art, you will ask me what I am going to talk +about. The subject of my lecture to-night is what makes an artist and +what does the artist make; what are the relations of the artist to his +surroundings, what is the education the artist should get, and what is +the quality of a good work of art. + +Now, as regards the relations of the artist to his surroundings, by which +I mean the age and country in which he is born. All good art, as I said +before, has nothing to do with any particular century; but this +universality is the quality of the work of art; the conditions that +produce that quality are different. And what, I think, you should do is +to realise completely your age in order completely to abstract yourself +from it; remembering that if you are an artist at all, you will be not +the mouthpiece of a century, but the master of eternity, that all art +rests on a principle, and that mere temporal considerations are no +principle at all; and that those who advise you to make your art +representative of the nineteenth century are advising you to produce an +art which your children, when you have them, will think old-fashioned. +But you will tell me this is an inartistic age, and we are an inartistic +people, and the artist suffers much in this nineteenth century of ours. + +Of course he does. I, of all men, am not going to deny that. But +remember that there never has been an artistic age, or an artistic +people, since the beginning of the world. The artist has always been, +and will always be, an exquisite exception. There is no golden age of +art; only artists who have produced what is more golden than gold. + +_What_, you will say to me, the Greeks? were not they an artistic people? + +Well, the Greeks certainly not, but, perhaps, you mean the Athenians, the +citizens of one out of a thousand cities. + +Do you think that they were an artistic people? Take them even at the +time of their highest artistic development, the latter part of the fifth +century before Christ, when they had the greatest poets and the greatest +artists of the antique world, when the Parthenon rose in loveliness at +the bidding of a Phidias, and the philosopher spake of wisdom in the +shadow of the painted portico, and tragedy swept in the perfection of +pageant and pathos across the marble of the stage. Were they an artistic +people then? Not a bit of it. What is an artistic people but a people +who love their artists and understand their art? The Athenians could do +neither. + +How did they treat Phidias? To Phidias we owe the great era, not merely +in Greek, but in all art—I mean of the introduction of the use of the +living model. + +And what would you say if all the English bishops, backed by the English +people, came down from Exeter Hall to the Royal Academy one day and took +off Sir Frederick Leighton in a prison van to Newgate on the charge of +having allowed you to make use of the living model in your designs for +sacred pictures? + +Would you not cry out against the barbarism and the Puritanism of such an +idea? Would you not explain to them that the worst way to honour God is +to dishonour man who is made in His image, and is the work of His hands; +and, that if one wants to paint Christ one must take the most Christlike +person one can find, and if one wants to paint the Madonna, the purest +girl one knows? + +Would you not rush off and burn down Newgate, if necessary, and say that +such a thing was without parallel in history? + +Without parallel? Well, that is exactly what the Athenians did. + +In the room of the Parthenon marbles, in the British Museum, you will see +a marble shield on the wall. On it there are two figures; one of a man +whose face is half hidden, the other of a man with the godlike lineaments +of Pericles. For having done this, for having introduced into a bas +relief, taken from Greek sacred history, the image of the great statesman +who was ruling Athens at the time, Phidias was flung into prison and +there, in the common gaol of Athens, died, the supreme artist of the old +world. + +And do you think that this was an exceptional case? The sign of a +Philistine age is the cry of immorality against art, and this cry was +raised by the Athenian people against every great poet and thinker of +their day—Æschylus, Euripides, Socrates. It was the same with Florence +in the thirteenth century. Good handicrafts are due to guilds, not to +the people. The moment the guilds lost their power and the people rushed +in, beauty and honesty of work died. + +And so, never talk of an artistic people; there never has been such a +thing. + +But, perhaps, you will tell me that the external beauty of the world has +almost entirely passed away from us, that the artist dwells no longer in +the midst of the lovely surroundings which, in ages past, were the +natural inheritance of every one, and that art is very difficult in this +unlovely town of ours, where, as you go to your work in the morning, or +return from it at eventide, you have to pass through street after street +of the most foolish and stupid architecture that the world has ever seen; +architecture, where every lovely Greek form is desecrated and defiled, +and every lovely Gothic form defiled and desecrated, reducing +three-fourths of the London houses to being, merely, like square boxes of +the vilest proportions, as gaunt as they are grimy, and as poor as they +are pretentious—the hall door always of the wrong colour, and the windows +of the wrong size, and where, even when wearied of the houses you turn to +contemplate the street itself, you have nothing to look at but +chimney-pot hats, men with sandwich boards, vermilion letter-boxes, and +do that even at the risk of being run over by an emerald-green omnibus. + +Is not art difficult, you will say to me, in such surroundings as these? +Of course it is difficult, but then art was never easy; you yourselves +would not wish it to be easy; and, besides, nothing is worth doing except +what the world says is impossible. + +Still, you do not care to be answered merely by a paradox. What are the +relations of the artist to the external world, and what is the result of +the loss of beautiful surroundings to you, is one of the most important +questions of modern art; and there is no point on which Mr. Ruskin so +insists as that the decadence of art has come from the decadence of +beautiful things; and that when the artist cannot feed his eye on beauty, +beauty goes from his work. + +I remember in one of his lectures, after describing the sordid aspect of +a great English city, he draws for us a picture of what were the artistic +surroundings long ago. + +Think, he says, in words of perfect and picturesque imagery, whose beauty +I can but feebly echo, think of what was the scene which presented +itself, in his afternoon walk, to a designer of the Gothic school of +Pisa—Nino Pisano or any of his men: {206} + + On each side of a bright river he saw rise a line of brighter + palaces, arched and pillared, and inlaid with deep red porphyry, and + with serpentine; along the quays before their gates were riding + troops of knights, noble in face and form, dazzling in crest and + shield; horse and man one labyrinth of quaint colour and gleaming + light—the purple, and silver, and scarlet fringes flowing over the + strong limbs and clashing mall, like sea-waves over rocks at sunset. + Opening on each side from the river were gardens, courts, and + cloisters; long successions of white pillars among wreaths of vine; + leaping of fountains through buds of pomegranate and orange: and + still along the garden-paths, and under and through the crimson of + the pomegranate shadows, moving slowly, groups of the fairest women + that Italy ever saw—fairest, because purest and thoughtfullest; + trained in all high knowledge, as in all courteous art—in dance, in + song, in sweet wit, in lofty learning, in loftier courage, in + loftiest love—able alike to cheer, to enchant, or save, the souls of + men. Above all this scenery of perfect human life, rose dome and + bell-tower, burning with white alabaster and gold: beyond dome and + bell-tower the slopes of mighty hills hoary with olive; far in the + north, above a purple sea of peaks of solemn Apennine, the clear, + sharp-cloven Carrara mountains sent up their steadfast flames of + marble summit into amber sky; the great sea itself, scorching with + expanse of light, stretching from their feet to the Gorgonian isles; + and over all these, ever present, near or far—seen through the leaves + of vine, or imaged with all its march of clouds in the Arno’s stream, + or set with its depth of blue close against the golden hair and + burning cheek of lady and knight,—that untroubled and sacred sky, + which was to all men, in those days of innocent faith, indeed the + unquestioned abode of spirits, as the earth was of men; and which + opened straight through its gates of cloud and veils of dew into the + awfulness of the eternal world;—a heaven in which every cloud that + passed was literally the chariot of an angel, and every ray of its + Evening and Morning streamed from the throne of God. + + What think you of that for a school of design? + +And then look at the depressing, monotonous appearance of any modern +city, the sombre dress of men and women, the meaningless and barren +architecture, the colourless and dreadful surroundings. Without a +beautiful national life, not sculpture merely, but all the arts will die. + +Well, as regards the religious feeling of the close of the passage, I do +not think I need speak about that. Religion springs from religious +feeling, art from artistic feeling: you never get one from the other; +unless you have the right root you will not get the right flower; and, if +a man sees in a cloud the chariot of an angel, he will probably paint it +very unlike a cloud. + +But, as regards the general idea of the early part of that lovely bit of +prose, is it really true that beautiful surroundings are necessary for +the artist? I think not; I am sure not. Indeed, to me the most +inartistic thing in this age of ours is not the indifference of the +public to beautiful things, but the indifference of the artist to the +things that are called ugly. For, to the real artist, nothing is +beautiful or ugly in itself at all. With the facts of the object he has +nothing to do, but with its appearance only, and appearance is a matter +of light and shade, of masses, of position, and of value. + +Appearance is, in fact, a matter of effect merely, and it is with the +effects of nature that you have to deal, not with the real condition of +the object. What you, as painters, have to paint is not things as they +are but things as they seem to be, not things as they are but things as +they are not. + +No object is so ugly that, under certain conditions of light and shade, +or proximity to other things, it will not look beautiful; no object is so +beautiful that, under certain conditions, it will not look ugly. I +believe that in every twenty-four hours what is beautiful looks ugly, and +what is ugly looks beautiful, once. + +And, the commonplace character of so much of our English painting seems +to me due to the fact that so many of our young artists look merely at +what we may call ‘ready-made beauty,’ whereas you exist as artists not to +copy beauty but to create it in your art, to wait and watch for it in +nature. + +What would you say of a dramatist who would take nobody but virtuous +people as characters in his play? Would you not say he was missing half +of life? Well, of the young artist who paints nothing but beautiful +things, I say he misses one half of the world. + +Do not wait for life to be picturesque, but try and see life under +picturesque conditions. These conditions you can create for yourself in +your studio, for they are merely conditions of light. In nature, you +must wait for them, watch for them, choose them; and, if you wait and +watch, come they will. + +In Gower Street at night you may see a letter-box that is picturesque: on +the Thames Embankment you may see picturesque policemen. Even Venice is +not always beautiful, nor France. + +To paint what you see is a good rule in art, but to see what is worth +painting is better. See life under pictorial conditions. It is better +to live in a city of changeable weather than in a city of lovely +surroundings. + +Now, having seen what makes the artist, and what the artist makes, who is +the artist? There is a man living amongst us who unites in himself all +the qualities of the noblest art, whose work is a joy for all time, who +is, himself, a master of all time. That man is Mr. Whistler. + + * * * * * + +But, you will say, modern dress, that is bad. If you cannot paint black +cloth you could not have painted silken doublet. Ugly dress is better +for art—facts of vision, not of the object. + +What is a picture? Primarily, a picture is a beautifully coloured +surface, merely, with no more spiritual message or meaning for you than +an exquisite fragment of Venetian glass or a blue tile from the wall of +Damascus. It is, primarily, a purely decorative thing, a delight to look +at. + +All archæological pictures that make you say ‘How curious!’ all +sentimental pictures that make you say, ‘How sad!’ all historical +pictures that make you say ‘How interesting!’ all pictures that do not +immediately give you such artistic joy as to make you say ‘How +beautiful!’ are bad pictures. + + * * * * * + +We never know what an artist is going to do. Of course not. The artist +is not a specialist. All such divisions as animal painters, landscape +painters, painters of Scotch cattle in an English mist, painters of +English cattle in a Scotch mist, racehorse painters, bull-terrier +painters, all are shallow. If a man is an artist he can paint +everything. + +The object of art is to stir the most divine and remote of the chords +which make music in our soul; and colour is indeed, of itself a mystical +presence on things, and tone a kind of sentinel. + +Am I pleading, then, for mere technique? No. As long as there are any +signs of technique at all, the picture is unfinished. What is finish? A +picture is finished when all traces of work, and of the means employed to +bring about the result, have disappeared. + +In the case of handicraftsmen—the weaver, the potter, the smith—on their +work are the traces of their hand. But it is not so with the painter; it +is not so with the artist. + +Art should have no sentiment about it but its beauty, no technique except +what you cannot observe. One should be able to say of a picture not that +it is ‘well painted,’ but that it is ‘not painted.’ + +What is the difference between absolutely decorative art and a painting? +Decorative art emphasises its material: imaginative art annihilates it. +Tapestry shows its threads as part of its beauty: a picture annihilates +its canvas: it shows nothing of it. Porcelain emphasises its glaze: +water-colours reject the paper. + +A picture has no meaning but its beauty, no message but its joy. That is +the first truth about art that you must never lose sight of. A picture +is a purely decorative thing. + + + + +LONDON MODELS + + +_English Illustrated Magazine_, January 1889. + +PROFESSIONAL models are a purely modern invention. To the Greeks, for +instance, they were quite unknown. Mr. Mahaffy, it is true, tells us +that Pericles used to present peacocks to the great ladies of Athenian +society in order to induce them to sit to his friend Phidias, and we know +that Polygnotus introduced into his picture of the Trojan women the face +of Elpinice, the celebrated sister of the great Conservative leader of +the day, but these _grandes dames_ clearly do not come under our +category. As for the old masters, they undoubtedly made constant studies +from their pupils and apprentices, and even their religious pictures are +full of the portraits of their friends and relations, but they do not +seem to have had the inestimable advantage of the existence of a class of +people whose sole profession is to pose. In fact the model, in our sense +of the word, is the direct creation of Academic Schools. + +Every country now has its own models, except America. In New York, and +even in Boston, a good model is so great a rarity that most of the +artists are reduced to painting Niagara and millionaires. In Europe, +however, it is different. Here we have plenty of models, and of every +nationality. The Italian models are the best. The natural grace of +their attitudes, as well as the wonderful picturesqueness of their +colouring, makes them facile—often too facile—subjects for the painter’s +brush. The French models, though not so beautiful as the Italian, +possess a quickness of intellectual sympathy, a capacity, in fact, of +understanding the artist, which is quite remarkable. They have also a +great command over the varieties of facial expression, are peculiarly +dramatic, and can chatter the _argot_ of the _atelier_ as cleverly as the +critic of the _Gil Blas_. The English models form a class entirely by +themselves. They are not so picturesque as the Italian, nor so clever as +the French, and they have absolutely no tradition, so to speak, of their +order. Now and then some old veteran knocks at the studio door, and +proposes to sit as Ajax defying the lightning, or as King Lear upon the +blasted heath. One of them some time ago called on a popular painter +who, happening at the moment to require his services, engaged him, and +told him to begin by kneeling down in the attitude of prayer. ‘Shall I +be Biblical or Shakespearean, sir?’ asked the veteran. +‘Well—Shakespearean,’ answered the artist, wondering by what subtle +_nuance_ of expression the model would convey the difference. ‘All +right, sir,’ said the professor of posing, and he solemnly knelt down and +began to wink with his left eye! This class, however, is dying out. As +a rule the model, nowadays, is a pretty girl, from about twelve to +twenty-five years of age, who knows nothing about art, cares less, and is +merely anxious to earn seven or eight shillings a day without much +trouble. English models rarely look at a picture, and never venture on +any æsthetic theories. In fact, they realise very completely Mr. +Whistler’s idea of the function of an art critic, for they pass no +criticisms at all. They accept all schools of art with the grand +catholicity of the auctioneer, and sit to a fantastic young impressionist +as readily as to a learned and laborious academician. They are neither +for the Whistlerites nor against them; the quarrel between the school of +facts and the school of effects touches them not; idealistic and +naturalistic are words that convey no meaning to their ears; they merely +desire that the studio shall be warm, and the lunch hot, for all charming +artists give their models lunch. + +As to what they are asked to do they are equally indifferent. On Monday +they will don the rags of a beggar-girl for Mr. Pumper, whose pathetic +pictures of modern life draw such tears from the public, and on Tuesday +they will pose in a peplum for Mr. Phoebus, who thinks that all really +artistic subjects are necessarily B.C. They career gaily through all +centuries and through all costumes, and, like actors, are interesting +only when they are not themselves. They are extremely good-natured, and +very accommodating. ‘What do you sit for?’ said a young artist to a +model who had sent him in her card (all models, by the way, have cards +and a small black bag). ‘Oh, for anything you like, sir,’ said the girl, +‘landscape if necessary!’ + +Intellectually, it must be acknowledged, they are Philistines, but +physically they are perfect—at least some are. Though none of them can +talk Greek, many can look Greek, which to a nineteenth-century painter is +naturally of great importance. If they are allowed, they chatter a great +deal, but they never say anything. Their observations are the only +_banalités_ heard in Bohemia. However, though they cannot appreciate the +artist as artist, they are quite ready to appreciate the artist as a man. +They are very sensitive to kindness, respect and generosity. A beautiful +model who had sat for two years to one of our most distinguished English +painters, got engaged to a street vendor of penny ices. + +On her marriage the painter sent her a pretty wedding present, and +received in return a nice letter of thanks with the following remarkable +postscript: ‘Never eat the green ices!’ + +When they are tired a wise artist gives them a rest. Then they sit in a +chair and read penny dreadfuls, till they are roused from the tragedy of +literature to take their place again in the tragedy of art. A few of +them smoke cigarettes. This, however, is regarded by the other models as +showing a want of seriousness, and is not generally approved of. They +are engaged by the day and by the half-day. The tariff is a shilling an +hour, to which great artists usually add an omnibus fare. The two best +things about them are their extraordinary prettiness, and their extreme +respectability. As a class they are very well behaved, particularly +those who sit for the figure, a fact which is curious or natural +according to the view one takes of human nature. They usually marry +well, and sometimes they marry the artist. For an artist to marry his +model is as fatal as for a _gourmet_ to marry his cook: the one gets no +sittings, and the other gets no dinners. + +On the whole the English female models are very naïve, very natural, and +very good-humoured. The virtues which the artist values most in them are +prettiness and punctuality. Every sensible model consequently keeps a +diary of her engagements, and dresses neatly. The bad season is, of +course, the summer, when the artists are out of town. However, of late +years some artists have engaged their models to follow them, and the wife +of one of our most charming painters has often had three or four models +under her charge in the country, so that the work of her husband and his +friends should not be interrupted. In France the models migrate _en +masse_ to the little seaport villages or forest hamlets where the +painters congregate. The English models, however, wait patiently in +London, as a rule, till the artists come back. Nearly all of them live +with their parents, and help to support the house. They have every +qualification for being immortalised in art except that of beautiful +hands. The hands of the English model are nearly always coarse and red. + +As for the male models, there is the veteran whom we have mentioned +above. He has all the traditions of the grand style, and is rapidly +disappearing with the school he represents. An old man who talks about +Fuseli is, of course, unendurable, and, besides, patriarchs have ceased +to be fashionable subjects. Then there is the true Academy model. He is +usually a man of thirty, rarely good-looking, but a perfect miracle of +muscles. In fact he is the apotheosis of anatomy, and is so conscious of +his own splendour that he tells you of his tibia and his thorax, as if no +one else had anything of the kind. Then come the Oriental models. The +supply of these is limited, but there are always about a dozen in London. +They are very much sought after as they can remain immobile for hours, +and generally possess lovely costumes. However, they have a very poor +opinion of English art, which they regard as something between a vulgar +personality and a commonplace photograph. Next we have the Italian youth +who has come over specially to be a model, or takes to it when his organ +is out of repair. He is often quite charming with his large melancholy +eyes, his crisp hair, and his slim brown figure. It is true he eats +garlic, but then he can stand like a faun and couch like a leopard, so he +is forgiven. He is always full of pretty compliments, and has been known +to have kind words of encouragement for even our greatest artists. As +for the English lad of the same age, he never sits at all. Apparently he +does not regard the career of a model as a serious profession. In any +case he is rarely, if ever, to be got hold of. English boys, too, are +difficult to find. Sometimes an ex-model who has a son will curl his +hair, and wash his face, and bring him the round of the studios, all soap +and shininess. The young school don’t like him, but the older school do, +and when he appears on the walls of the Royal Academy he is called _The +Infant Samuel_. Occasionally also an artist catches a couple of _gamins_ +in the gutter and asks them to come to his studio. The first time they +always appear, but after that they don’t keep their appointments. They +dislike sitting still, and have a strong and perhaps natural objection to +looking pathetic. Besides, they are always under the impression that the +artist is laughing at them. It is a sad fact, but there is no doubt that +the poor are completely unconscious of their own picturesqueness. Those +of them who can be induced to sit do so with the idea that the artist is +merely a benevolent philanthropist who has chosen an eccentric method of +distributing alms to the undeserving. Perhaps the School Board will +teach the London _gamin_ his own artistic value, and then they will be +better models than they are now. One remarkable privilege belongs to the +Academy model, that of extorting a sovereign from any newly elected +Associate or R.A. They wait at Burlington House till the announcement is +made, and then race to the hapless artist’s house. The one who arrives +first receives the money. They have of late been much troubled at the +long distances they have had to run, and they look with disfavour on the +election of artists who live at Hampstead or at Bedford Park, for it is +considered a point of honour not to employ the underground railway, +omnibuses, or any artificial means of locomotion. The race is to the +swift. + +Besides the professional posers of the studio there are posers of the +Row, the posers at afternoon teas, the posers in politics and the circus +posers. All four classes are delightful, but only the last class is ever +really decorative. Acrobats and gymnasts can give the young painter +infinite suggestions, for they bring into their art an element of +swiftness of motion and of constant change that the studio model +necessarily lacks. What is interesting in these ‘slaves of the ring’ is +that with them Beauty is an unconscious result not a conscious aim, the +result in fact of the mathematical calculation of curves and distances, +of absolute precision of eye, of the scientific knowledge of the +equilibrium of forces, and of perfect physical training. A good acrobat +is always graceful, though grace is never his object; he is graceful +because he does what he has to do in the best way in which it can be +done—graceful because he is natural. If an ancient Greek were to come to +life now, which considering the probable severity of his criticisms would +be rather trying to our conceit, he would be found far oftener at the +circus than at the theatre. A good circus is an oasis of Hellenism in a +world that reads too much to be wise, and thinks too much to be +beautiful. If it were not for the running-ground at Eton, the +towing-path at Oxford, the Thames swimming-baths, and the yearly +circuses, humanity would forget the plastic perfection of its own form, +and degenerate into a race of short-sighted professors and spectacled +_précieuses_. Not that the circus proprietors are, as a rule, conscious +of their high mission. Do they not bore us with the _haute école_, and +weary us with Shakespearean clowns? Still, at least, they give us +acrobats, and the acrobat is an artist. The mere fact that he never +speaks to the audience shows how well he appreciates the great truth that +the aim of art is not to reveal personality but to please. The clown may +be blatant, but the acrobat is always beautiful. He is an interesting +combination of the spirit of Greek sculpture with the spangles of the +modern costumier. He has even had his niche in the novels of our age, +and if _Manette Salomon_ be the unmasking of the model, _Les Frères +Zemganno_ is the apotheosis of the acrobat. + +As regards the influence of the ordinary model on our English school of +painting, it cannot be said that it is altogether good. It is, of +course, an advantage for the young artist sitting in his studio to be +able to isolate ‘a little corner of life,’ as the French say, from +disturbing surroundings, and to study it under certain effects of light +and shade. But this very isolation leads often to mere mannerism in the +painter, and robs him of that broad acceptance of the general facts of +life which is the very essence of art. Model-painting, in a word, while +it may be the condition of art, is not by any means its aim. + +It is simply practice, not perfection. Its use trains the eye and the +hand of the painter, its abuse produces in his work an effect of mere +posing and prettiness. It is the secret of much of the artificiality of +modern art, this constant posing of pretty people, and when art becomes +artificial it becomes monotonous. Outside the little world of the +studio, with its draperies and its _bric-à-brac_, lies the world of life +with its infinite, its Shakespearean variety. We must, however, +distinguish between the two kinds of models, those who sit for the figure +and those who sit for the costume. The study of the first is always +excellent, but the costume-model is becoming rather wearisome in modern +pictures. It is really of very little use to dress up a London girl in +Greek draperies and to paint her as a goddess. The robe may be the robe +of Athens, but the face is usually the face of Brompton. Now and then, +it is true, one comes across a model whose face is an exquisite +anachronism, and who looks lovely and natural in the dress of any century +but her own. This, however, is rather rare. As a rule models are +absolutely _de notre siècle_, and should be painted as such. +Unfortunately they are not, and, as a consequence, we are shown every +year a series of scenes from fancy dress balls which are called +historical pictures, but are little more than mediocre representations of +modern people masquerading. In France they are wiser. The French +painter uses the model simply for study; for the finished picture he goes +direct to life. + +However, we must not blame the sitters for the shortcomings of the +artists. The English models are a well-behaved and hard-working class, +and if they are more interested in artists than in art, a large section +of the public is in the same condition, and most of our modern +exhibitions seem to justify its choice. + + + + +POEMS IN PROSE + + +_Fortnight Review_, July 1894. + + + +THE ARTIST + + +ONE evening there came into his soul the desire to fashion an image of +_The Pleasure that abideth for a Moment_. And he went forth into the +world to look for bronze. For he could think only in bronze. + +But all the bronze of the whole world had disappeared, nor anywhere in +the whole world was there any bronze to be found, save only the bronze of +the image of _The Sorrow that endureth for Ever_. + +Now this image he had himself, and with his own hands, fashioned, and had +set it on the tomb of the one thing he had loved in life. On the tomb of +the dead thing he had most loved had he set this image of his own +fashioning, that it might serve as a sign of the love of man that dieth +not, and a symbol of the sorrow of man that endureth for ever. And in +the whole world there was no other bronze save the bronze of this image. + +And he took the image he had fashioned, and set it in a great furnace, +and gave it to the fire. + +And out of the bronze of the image of _The Sorrow that endureth for Ever_ +he fashioned an image of _The Pleasure that abideth for a Moment_. + + + +THE DOER OF GOOD + + +It was night-time and He was alone. + +And He saw afar-off the walls of a round city and went towards the city. + +And when He came near He heard within the city the tread of the feet of +joy, and the laughter of the mouth of gladness and the loud noise of many +lutes. And He knocked at the gate and certain of the gate-keepers opened +to Him. + +And He beheld a house that was of marble and had fair pillars of marble +before it. The pillars were hung with garlands, and within and without +there were torches of cedar. And He entered the house. + +And when He had passed through the hall of chalcedony and the hall of +jasper, and reached the long hall of feasting, He saw lying on a couch of +sea-purple one whose hair was crowned with red roses and whose lips were +red with wine. + +And He went behind him and touched him on the shoulder and said to him, +‘Why do you live like this?’ + +And the young man turned round and recognised Him, and made answer and +said, ‘But I was a leper once, and you healed me. How else should I +live?’ + +And He passed out of the house and went again into the street. + +And after a little while He saw one whose face and raiment were painted +and whose feet were shod with pearls. And behind her came, slowly as a +hunter, a young man who wore a cloak of two colours. Now the face of the +woman was as the fair face of an idol, and the eyes of the young man were +bright with lust. + +And He followed swiftly and touched the hand of the young man and said to +him, ‘Why do you look at this woman and in such wise?’ + +And the young man turned round and recognised Him and said, ‘But I was +blind once, and you gave me sight. At what else should I look?’ + +And He ran forward and touched the painted raiment of the woman and said +to her, ‘Is there no other way in which to walk save the way of sin?’ + +And the woman turned round and recognised Him, and laughed and said, ‘But +you forgave me my sins, and the way is a pleasant way.’ + +And He passed out of the city. + +And when He had passed out of the city He saw seated by the roadside a +young man who was weeping. + +And He went towards him and touched the long locks of his hair and said +to him, ‘Why are you weeping?’ + +And the young man looked up and recognised Him and made answer, ‘But I +was dead once, and you raised me from the dead. What else should I do +but weep?’ + + + +THE DISCIPLE + + +When Narcissus died the pool of his pleasure changed from a cup of sweet +waters into a cup of salt tears, and the Oreads came weeping through the +woodland that they might sing to the pool and give it comfort. + +And when they saw that the pool had changed from a cup of sweet waters +into a cup of salt tears, they loosened the green tresses of their hair +and cried to the pool and said, ‘We do not wonder that you should mourn +in this manner for Narcissus, so beautiful was he.’ + +‘But was Narcissus beautiful?’ said the pool. + +‘Who should know that better than you?’ answered the Oreads. ‘Us did he +ever pass by, but you he sought for, and would lie on your banks and look +down at you, and in the mirror of your waters he would mirror his own +beauty.’ + +And the pool answered, ‘But I loved Narcissus because, as he lay on my +banks and looked down at me, in the mirror of his eyes I saw ever my own +beauty mirrored.’ + + + +THE MASTER + + +Now when the darkness came over the earth Joseph of Arimathea, having +lighted a torch of pinewood, passed down from the hill into the valley. +For he had business in his own home. + +And kneeling on the flint stones of the Valley of Desolation he saw a +young man who was naked and weeping. His hair was the colour of honey, +and his body was as a white flower, but he had wounded his body with +thorns and on his hair had he set ashes as a crown. + +And he who had great possessions said to the young man who was naked and +weeping, ‘I do not wonder that your sorrow is so great, for surely He was +a just man.’ + +And the young man answered, ‘It is not for Him that I am weeping, but for +myself. I too have changed water into wine, and I have healed the leper +and given sight to the blind. I have walked upon the waters, and from +the dwellers in the tombs I have cast out devils. I have fed the hungry +in the desert where there was no food, and I have raised the dead from +their narrow houses, and at my bidding, and before a great multitude, of +people, a barren fig-tree withered away. All things that this man has +done I have done also. And yet they have not crucified me.’ + + + +THE HOUSE OF JUDGMENT + + +And there was silence in the House of Judgment, and the Man came naked +before God. + +And God opened the Book of the Life of the Man. + +And God said to the Man, ‘Thy life hath been evil, and thou hast shown +cruelty to those who were in need of succour, and to those who lacked +help thou hast been bitter and hard of heart. The poor called to thee +and thou didst not hearken, and thine ears were closed to the cry of My +afflicted. The inheritance of the fatherless thou didst take unto +thyself, and thou didst send the foxes into the vineyard of thy +neighbour’s field. Thou didst take the bread of the children and give it +to the dogs to eat, and My lepers who lived in the marshes, and were at +peace and praised Me, thou didst drive forth on to the highways, and on +Mine earth out of which I made thee thou didst spill innocent blood.’ + +And the Man made answer and said, ‘Even so did I.’ + +And again God opened the Book of the Life of the Man. + +And God said to the Man, ‘Thy life hath been evil, and the Beauty I have +shown thou hast sought for, and the Good I have hidden thou didst pass +by. The walls of thy chamber were painted with images, and from the bed +of thine abominations thou didst rise up to the sound of flutes. Thou +didst build seven altars to the sins I have suffered, and didst eat of +the thing that may not be eaten, and the purple of thy raiment was +broidered with the three signs of shame. Thine idols were neither of +gold nor of silver that endure, but of flesh that dieth. Thou didst +stain their hair with perfumes and put pomegranates in their hands. Thou +didst stain their feet with saffron and spread carpets before them. With +antimony thou didst stain their eyelids and their bodies thou didst smear +with myrrh. Thou didst bow thyself to the ground before them, and the +thrones of thine idols were set in the sun. Thou didst show to the sun +thy shame and to the moon thy madness.’ + +And the Man made answer and said, ‘Even so did I.’ + +And a third time God opened the Book of the Life of the Man. + +And God said to the Man, ‘Evil hath been thy life, and with evil didst +thou requite good, and with wrongdoing kindness. The hands that fed thee +thou didst wound, and the breasts that gave thee suck thou didst despise. +He who came to thee with water went away thirsting, and the outlawed men +who hid thee in their tents at night thou didst betray before dawn. +Thine enemy who spared thee thou didst snare in an ambush, and the friend +who walked with thee thou didst sell for a price, and to those who +brought thee Love thou didst ever give Lust in thy turn.’ + +And the Man made answer and said, ‘Even so did I.’ + +And God closed the Book of the Life of the Man, and said, ‘Surely I will +send thee into Hell. Even into Hell will I send thee.’ + +And the Man cried out, ‘Thou canst not.’ + +And God said to the Man, ‘Wherefore can I not send thee to Hell, and for +what reason?’ + +‘Because in Hell have I always lived,’ answered the Man. + +And there was silence in the House of Judgment. + +And after a space God spake, and said to the Man, ‘Seeing that I may not +send thee into Hell, surely I will send thee unto Heaven. Even unto +Heaven will I send thee.’ + +And the Man cried out, ‘Thou canst not.’ + +And God said to the Man, ‘Wherefore can I not send thee unto Heaven, and +for what reason?’ + +‘Because never, and in no place, have I been able to imagine it,’ +answered the Man. + +And there was silence in the House of Judgment. + + + +THE TEACHER OF WISDOM + + +From his childhood he had been as one filled with the perfect knowledge +of God, and even while he was yet but a lad many of the saints, as well +as certain holy women who dwelt in the free city of his birth, had been +stirred to much wonder by the grave wisdom of his answers. + +And when his parents had given him the robe and the ring of manhood he +kissed them, and left them and went out into the world, that he might +speak to the world about God. For there were at that time many in the +world who either knew not God at all, or had but an incomplete knowledge +of Him, or worshipped the false gods who dwell in groves and have no care +of their worshippers. + +And he set his face to the sun and journeyed, walking without sandals, as +he had seen the saints walk, and carrying at his girdle a leathern wallet +and a little water-bottle of burnt clay. + +And as he walked along the highway he was full of the joy that comes from +the perfect knowledge of God, and he sang praises unto God without +ceasing; and after a time he reached a strange land in which there were +many cities. + +And he passed through eleven cities. And some of these cities were in +valleys, and others were by the banks of great rivers, and others were +set on hills. And in each city he found a disciple who loved him and +followed him, and a great multitude also of people followed him from each +city, and the knowledge of God spread in the whole land, and many of the +rulers were converted, and the priests of the temples in which there were +idols found that half of their gain was gone, and when they beat upon +their drums at noon none, or but a few, came with peacocks and with +offerings of flesh as had been the custom of the land before his coming. + +Yet the more the people followed him, and the greater the number of his +disciples, the greater became his sorrow. And he knew not why his sorrow +was so great. For he spake ever about God, and out of the fulness of +that perfect knowledge of God which God had Himself given to him. + +And one evening he passed out of the eleventh city, which was a city of +Armenia, and his disciples and a great crowd of people followed after +him; and he went up on to a mountain and sat down on a rock that was on +the mountain, and his disciples stood round him, and the multitude knelt +in the valley. + +And he bowed his head on his hands and wept, and said to his Soul, ‘Why +is it that I am full of sorrow and fear, and that each of my disciples is +an enemy that walks in the noonday?’ And his Soul answered him and said, +‘God filled thee with the perfect knowledge of Himself, and thou hast +given this knowledge away to others. The pearl of great price thou hast +divided, and the vesture without seam thou hast parted asunder. He who +giveth away wisdom robbeth himself. He is as one who giveth his treasure +to a robber. Is not God wiser than thou art? Who art thou to give away +the secret that God hath told thee? I was rich once, and thou hast made +me poor. Once I saw God, and now thou hast hidden Him from me.’ + +And he wept again, for he knew that his Soul spake truth to him, and that +he had given to others the perfect knowledge of God, and that he was as +one clinging to the skirts of God, and that his faith was leaving him by +reason of the number of those who believed in him. + +And he said to himself, ‘I will talk no more about God. He who giveth +away wisdom robbeth himself.’ + +And after the space of some hours his disciples came near him and bowed +themselves to the ground and said, ‘Master, talk to us about God, for +thou hast the perfect knowledge of God, and no man save thee hath this +knowledge.’ + +And he answered them and said, ‘I will talk to you about all other things +that are in heaven and on earth, but about God I will not talk to you. +Neither now, nor at any time, will I talk to you about God.’ + +And they were wroth with him and said to him, ‘Thou hast led us into the +desert that we might hearken to thee. Wilt thou send us away hungry, and +the great multitude that thou hast made to follow thee?’ + +And he answered them and said, ‘I will not talk to you about God.’ + +And the multitude murmured against him and said to him, ‘Thou hast led us +into the desert, and hast given us no food to eat. Talk to us about God +and it will suffice us.’ + +But he answered them not a word. For he knew that if he spake to them +about God he would give away his treasure. + +And his disciples went away sadly, and the multitude of people returned +to their own homes. And many died on the way. + +And when he was alone he rose up and set his face to the moon, and +journeyed for seven moons, speaking to no man nor making any answer. And +when the seventh moon had waned he reached that desert which is the +desert of the Great River. And having found a cavern in which a Centaur +had once dwelt, he took it for his place of dwelling, and made himself a +mat of reeds on which to lie, and became a hermit. And every hour the +Hermit praised God that He had suffered him to keep some knowledge of Him +and of His wonderful greatness. + +Now, one evening, as the Hermit was seated before the cavern in which he +had made his place of dwelling, he beheld a young man of evil and +beautiful face who passed by in mean apparel and with empty hands. Every +evening with empty hands the young man passed by, and every morning he +returned with his hands full of purple and pearls. For he was a Robber +and robbed the caravans of the merchants. + +And the Hermit looked at him and pitied him. But he spake not a word. +For he knew that he who speaks a word loses his faith. + +And one morning, as the young man returned with his hands full of purple +and pearls, he stopped and frowned and stamped his foot upon the sand, +and said to the Hermit: ‘Why do you look at me ever in this manner as I +pass by? What is it that I see in your eyes? For no man has looked at +me before in this manner. And the thing is a thorn and a trouble to me.’ + +And the Hermit answered him and said, ‘What you see in my eyes is pity. +Pity is what looks out at you from my eyes.’ + +And the young man laughed with scorn, and cried to the Hermit in a bitter +voice, and said to him, ‘I have purple and pearls in my hands, and you +have but a mat of reeds on which to lie. What pity should you have for +me? And for what reason have you this pity?’ + +‘I have pity for you,’ said the Hermit, ‘because you have no knowledge of +God.’ + +‘Is this knowledge of God a precious thing?’ asked the young man, and he +came close to the mouth of the cavern. + +‘It is more precious than all the purple and the pearls of the world,’ +answered the Hermit. + +‘And have you got it?’ said the young Robber, and he came closer still. + +‘Once, indeed,’ answered the Hermit, ‘I possessed the perfect knowledge +of God. But in my foolishness I parted with it, and divided it amongst +others. Yet even now is such knowledge as remains to me more precious +than purple or pearls.’ + +And when the young Robber heard this he threw away the purple and the +pearls that he was bearing in his hands, and drawing a sharp sword of +curved steel he said to the Hermit, ‘Give me, forthwith this knowledge of +God that you possess, or I will surely slay you. Wherefore should I not +slay him who has a treasure greater than my treasure?’ + +And the Hermit spread out his arms and said, ‘Were it not better for me +to go unto the uttermost courts of God and praise Him, than to live in +the world and have no knowledge of Him? Slay me if that be your desire. +But I will not give away my knowledge of God.’ + +And the young Robber knelt down and besought him, but the Hermit would +not talk to him about God, nor give him his Treasure, and the young +Robber rose up and said to the Hermit, ‘Be it as you will. As for +myself, I will go to the City of the Seven Sins, that is but three days’ +journey from this place, and for my purple they will give me pleasure, +and for my pearls they will sell me joy.’ And he took up the purple and +the pearls and went swiftly away. + +And the Hermit cried out and followed him and besought him. For the +space of three days he followed the young Robber on the road and +entreated him to return, nor to enter into the City of the Seven Sins. + +And ever and anon the young Robber looked back at the Hermit and called +to him, and said, ‘Will you give me this knowledge of God which is more +precious than purple and pearls? If you will give me that, I will not +enter the city.’ + +And ever did the Hermit answer, ‘All things that I have I will give thee, +save that one thing only. For that thing it is not lawful for me to give +away.’ + +And in the twilight of the third day they came nigh to the great scarlet +gates of the City of the Seven Sins. And from the city there came the +sound of much laughter. + +And the young Robber laughed in answer, and sought to knock at the gate. +And as he did so the Hermit ran forward and caught him by the skirts of +his raiment, and said to him: ‘Stretch forth your hands, and set your +arms around my neck, and put your ear close to my lips, and I will give +you what remains to me of the knowledge of God.’ And the young Robber +stopped. + +And when the Hermit had given away his knowledge of God, he fell upon the +ground and wept, and a great darkness hid from him the city and the young +Robber, so that he saw them no more. + +And as he lay there weeping he was ware of One who was standing beside +him; and He who was standing beside him had feet of brass and hair like +fine wool. And He raised the Hermit up, and said to him: ‘Before this +time thou hadst the perfect knowledge of God. Now thou shalt have the +perfect love of God. Wherefore art thou weeping?’ And he kissed him. + + + + +FOOTNOTES + + +{29} Plato’s _Laws_; Æschylus’ _Prometheus Bound_. + +{31} Somewhat in the same spirit Plato, in his _Laws_, appeals to the +local position of Ilion among the rivers of the plain, as a proof that it +was not built till long after the Deluge. + +{32} Plutarch remarks that the _only_ evidence Greece possesses of the +truth that the legendary power of Athens is no ‘romance or idle story,’ +is the public and sacred buildings. This is an instance of the +exaggerated importance given to ruins against which Thucydides is warning +us. + +{37} The fictitious sale in the Roman marriage _per coemptionem_ was +originally, of course, a real sale. + +{43} Notably, of course, in the case of heat and its laws. + +{57} Cousin errs a good deal in this respect. To say, as he did, ‘Give +me the latitude and the longitude of a country, its rivers and its +mountains, and I will deduce the race,’ is surely a glaring exaggeration. + +{59} The monarchical, aristocratical, and democratic elements of the +Roman constitution are referred to. + +{63a} Polybius, vi. 9. _αὔτη πολιτειῶν ἀνακύκλωσις_, _αὔτς φύσεως +οἰκονομία_. + +{63b} _χωρὶς ὀργῆς ἢ φθόνου ποιούμεηος τὴν ἀπόφασιν_. + +{63c} The various stages are _σύστασις_, _αὔξησις_, _ἀκμή_, _μεταβολὴ +ἐις τοὔμπαλιν_. + +{68} Polybius, xii. 24. + +{69a} Polybius, i. 4, viii. 4, specially; and really _passim_. + +{69b} He makes one exception. + +{69c} Polybius, viii. 4. + +{71} Polybius, xvi. 12. + +{72a} Polybius, viii. 4: _τὸ παραδοξάτον καθ’ ἡμᾶς ἔργον ἡ τύχη +συνετέλεσε_; _τοῦτο δ’ ἔστι τὸ πάντα τὰ γνωριζόμενα μέρη τῆς οἰκουμένης +ὑπὸ μίαν ἀρχὴν καὶ δυναστείαν ἀγαγεῖν_, _ὂ πρότερον οὐχ εὑρίσκεται +γεγονός_. + +{72b} Polybius resembled Gibbon in many respects. Like him he held that +all religions were to the philosopher equally false, to the vulgar +equally true, to the statesman equally useful. + +{76} Cf. Polybius, xii. 25, _ἐπεὶ ψιλῶς λεγόμενον αὐτὄ γεγονὸς ψυχαγωγεῖ +μέν_, _ὠφελεῖ δ’ οὐδέν_· _προστεθείσης δὲ τῆς αἰτίας ἔγκαρπος ἡ τῆς +ἱστορίας γίγνεται χρῆσις_. + +{78} Polybius, xxii. 8. + +{81} I mean particularly as regards his sweeping denunciation of the +complete moral decadence of Greek society during the Peloponnesain War, +which, from what remains to us of Athenian literature, we know must have +been completely exaggerated. Or, rather, he is looking at men merely in +their political dealings: and in politics the man who is personally +honourable and refined will not scruple to do anything for his party. + +{86} Polybius, xii. 25. + +{124} As an instance of the inaccuracy of published reports of this +lecture, it may be mentioned that all unauthorised versions give this +passage as _The artist may trace the depressed revolution of Bunthorne +simply to the lack of technical means_! + +{206} _The Two Paths_, Lect. iii. p. 123 (1859 ed.). + + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ESSAYS AND LECTURES*** + + +******* This file should be named 774-0.txt or 774-0.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/7/7/774 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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