{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_17201/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_17201","id":"gutenberg_17201","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/17201","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Ethics","Life"],"text":"Produced by David Garcia, Stacy Brown Thellend and the\nOnline Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nIS LIFE WORTH LIVING?\n\n\nBY\n\nWILLIAM HURRELL MALLOCK\n\nAUTHOR OF 'THE NEW REPUBLIC' ETC.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n     'Man walketh in a vain shadow, and disquieteth himself in vain.'\n\n     'How dieth the wise man? As the fool.... That which befalleth the\n     sons of men befalleth the beasts, even one thing befalleth them; as\n     the one dieth so dieth the other, yea they have all one breath; so\n     that man hath no preeminence above a beast; for all is vanity.'\n\n     '[Greek: talaiporos ego anthropos, tis me rudetai ek tou somatos\n     tou thanatou toutou];'\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nNEW YORK\nG.P. PUTNAM'S SONS\n182 Fifth Avenue\n1879\n\n\n\n\nI INSCRIBE THIS BOOK\n\nTO\n\nJOHN RUSKIN\n\n\n\n\n     _TO JOHN RUSKIN._\n\n\n     My dear Mr. Ruskin,--You have given me very great pleasure\n     by allowing me to inscribe this book to you, and for two reasons;\n     for I have two kinds of acknowledgment that I wish to make to\n     you--first, that of an intellectual debtor to a public teacher;\n     secondly, that of a private friend to the kindest of private\n     friends. The tribute I have to offer you is, it is true, a small\n     one; and it is possibly more blessed for me to give than it is for\n     you to receive it. In so far, at least, as I represent any\n     influence of yours, you may very possibly not think me a\n     satisfactory representative. But there is one fact--and I will lay\n     all the stress I can on it--which makes me less diffident than I\n     might be, in offering this book either to you or to the world\n     generally.\n\n     The import of the book is independent of the book itself, and of\n     the author of it; nor do the arguments it contains stand or fall\n     with my success in stating them; and these last at least I may\n     associate with your name. They are not mine. I have not discovered\n     or invented them. They are so obvious that any one who chooses may\n     see them; and I have been only moved to meddle with them, because,\n     from being so obvious, it seems that no one will so much as deign\n     to look at them, or at any rate to put them together with any care\n     or completeness. They might be before everybody's eyes; but instead\n     they are under everybody's feet. My occupation has been merely to\n     kneel in the mud, and to pick up the truths that are being trampled\n     into it, by a headstrong and uneducated generation.\n\n     With what success I have done this, it is not for me to judge. But\n     though I cannot be confident of the value of what I have done, I am\n     confident enough of the value of what I have tried to do. From a\n     literary point of view many faults may be found with me. There may\n     be faults yet deeper, to which possibly I shall have to plead\n     guilty. I may--I cannot tell--have unduly emphasized some points,\n     and not put enough emphasis on others. I may be convicted--nothing\n     is more likely--of many verbal inconsistencies. But let the\n     arguments I have done my best to embody be taken as a whole, and\n     they have a vitality that does not depend upon me; nor can they be\n     proved false, because my ignorance or weakness may here or there\n     have associated them with, or illustrated them by, a falsehood. I\n     am not myself conscious of any such falsehoods in my book; but if\n     such are pointed out to me, I shall do my best to correct them. If\n     what I have done prove not worth correction, others coming after me\n     will be preferred before me, and are sure before long to address\n     themselves successfully to the same task in which I perhaps have\n     failed. What indeed can we each of us look for but a large measure\n     of failure, especially when we are moving not with the tide but\n     against it--when the things we wrestle with are principalities and\n     powers, and spiritual stupidity in high places--and when we are\n     ourselves partly weakened by the very influences against which we\n     are struggling?\n\n     But this is not all. There is in the way another difficulty.\n     Writing as the well-wishers of truth and goodness, we find, as the\n     world now stands, that our chief foes are they of our own\n     household. The insolence, the ignorance, and the stupidity of the\n     age has embodied itself, and found its mouthpiece, in men who are\n     personally the negations of all that they represent theoretically.\n     We have men who in private are full of the most gracious modesty,\n     representing in their philosophies the most ludicrous arrogance; we\n     have men who practise every virtue themselves, proclaiming the\n     principles of every vice to others; we have men who have mastered\n     many kinds of knowledge, acting on the world only as embodiments of\n     the completest and most pernicious ignorance. I have had occasion\n     to deal continually with certain of these by name. With the\n     exception of one--who has died prematurely, whilst this book was in\n     the press--those I have named oftenest are still living. Many of\n     them probably are known to you personally, though none of them are\n     so known to me; and you will appreciate the sort of difficulty I\n     have felt, better than I can express it. I can only hope that as\n     the falsehood of their arguments cannot blind any of us to their\n     personal merits, so no intellectual demerits in my case will be\n     prejudicial to the truth of my arguments.\n\n     To me the strange thing is that such arguments should have to be\n     used all; and perhaps a thing stranger still that it should fall to\n     me to use them--to me, an outsider in philosophy, in literature,\n     and in theology. But the justification of my speaking is that there\n     is any opening for me to speak; and others must be blamed, not I,\n     if\n\n                 the lyre so long divine\n         Degenerates into hands like mine.\n\n     At any rate, however all this may be, what I here inscribe to you,\n     my friend and teacher, I am confident is not unworthy of you. It is\n     not what I have done; it is what I have tried to do. As such I beg\n     you to accept it, and to believe me still, though now so seldom\n     near you,\n\n     Your admiring and affectionate friend,\n\n                                                  W.H. MALLOCK.\n\n     P.S.--Much of the substance of the following book you have seen\n     already, in two Essays of mine that were published in the\n     'Contemporary Review,' and in five Essays that were published in\n     the 'Nineteenth Century.' It had at one time been my intention, by\n     the kindness of the respective Editors, to have reprinted these\n     Essays in their original form. But there was so much to add, to\n     omit, to rearrange, and to join together, that I have found it\n     necessary to rewrite nearly the whole; and thus you will find the\n     present volume virtually new.\n\n     Torquay, _May, 1879_.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\nTHE NEW IMPORT OF THE QUESTION.\n                                                                     PAGE\n\nThe question may seem vague and useless; but if we consider its\nreal meaning we shall see that it is not so                             1\n\nIn the present day it has acquired a new importance                     2\n\nIts exact meaning. It does not question the fact of human happiness     3\n\nBut the nature of happiness, and the permanence of its basis            4\n\nFor what we call the higher happiness is essentially a complex\nthing                                                                   5\n\nWe cannot be sure that all its elements are permanent                   7\n\nWithout certain of its elements it has been declared by the wisest\nmen to be valueless                                                     8\n\nAnd it is precisely the elements in question that modern thought\nis eliminating                                                         11\n\nIt is contended that they have often been eliminated before; and\nthat yet the worth of life has not suffered                            13\n\nBut this contention is entirely false. They were never before\neliminated as modern thought is eliminating them now                   17\n\nThe present age can find no genuine parallels in the past              19\n\nIts position is made peculiar by three facts                           19\n\nFirstly, by the existence of Christianity                              19\n\nSecondly, the insignificance to which science has reduced the\nearth                                                                  23\n\nThirdly, the intense self-consciousness that has been developed\nin the modern world                                                    25\n\nIt is often said that a parallel to our present case is to be found\nin Buddhism                                                            27\n\nBut this is absolutely false. Buddhist positivism is the exact\nreverse of Western positivism                                          29\n\nIn short, the life-problem of our day is distinctly a new and an as\nyet unanswered one                                                     31\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\nMORALITY AND THE PRIZE OF LIFE.\n\n\nThe worth the positive school claim for life, is essentially a moral\nworth                                                                  33\n\nAs its most celebrated exponents explicitly tell us                    34\n\nThis means that life contains some special prize, to which morality\nis the only road                                                       34\n\nAnd the value of life depends on the value of this prize               35\n\nJ.S. Mill, G. Eliot, and Professor Huxley admit that this is a\ncorrect way of stating the case                                        36\n\nBut all this language as it stands at present is too vague to be of\nany use to us                                                          38\n\nThe prize in question is to be won in this life, if anywhere; and\nmust therefore be more or less describable                             39\n\nWhat then is it?                                                       40\n\nUnless it is describable it cannot be a moral end at all               41\n\nAs a consideration of the _raison d'etre_ of all moral systems will\nshow us                                                                42\n\nThe value of the prize must be verifiable by positive methods          43\n\nAnd be verifiably greater, beyond all comparison, than that of\nall other prizes                                                       44\n\nHas such a prize any real existence? This is our question              44\n\nIt has never yet been answered properly                                45\n\nAnd though two sets of answers have been given it, neither of\nthem are satisfactory                                                  45\n\nI shall deal with these two questions in order                         47\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\nSOCIOLOGY AS THE FOUNDATION OF MORALITY.\n\n\nThe positive theory is that the health of the social organism is\nthe real foundation of morals                                          49\n\nBut social health is nothing but the personal health of all the\nmembers of the society                                                 51\n\nIt is not happiness itself, but the negative conditions that make\nhappiness for all                                                      51\n\nStill less is social health any _high_ kind of happiness               54\n\nIt can only be maintained to be so, by supposing                       55\n\nEither, that all kinds of happiness are equally _high_ that do not\ninterfere with others                                                  55\n\nOr, that it is only a _high_ kind of happiness that can be shared\nby all                                                                 56\n\nBoth of which suppositions are false                                   57\n\nThe conditions of social health are a moral end only when we\neach feel a personal delight in maintaining them                       58\n\nIn this case they will supply us with a _small portion_ of the\nmoral aid needed                                                       59\n\nBut this case is not a possible one                                    60\n\nThere is indeed the natural impulse of sympathy that might tend\nto make it so                                                          61\n\nBut this is counterbalanced by the corresponding impulse of\nselfishness                                                            63\n\nAnd this impulse of sympathy itself is of very limited power           63\n\nExcept under very rare conditions                                      63\n\nThe conditions of general happiness are far too vague to do more\nthan very slightly excite it                                           64\n\nOr give it power enough to neutralise any personal temptation          66\n\nAt all events they would excite no enthusiasm                          67\n\nFor this purpose there must be some prize before us, of recognised\npositive value, more or less definite                                  67\n\nAnd before all things, to be enjoyed by us individually                67\n\nUnless this prize be of great value to begin with, its value will\nnot become great because great numbers obtain it                       71\n\nNor until we know what it is, do we gain anything by the hope\nthat men may more completely make it their own in the future           72\n\nThe modern positive school requires a great general enthusiasm\nfor the general good                                                   73\n\nThey therefore presuppose an extreme value for the individual\ngood                                                                   74\n\nOur first enquiry must be therefore what the higher individual\ngood is                                                                76\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\nGOODNESS AS ITS OWN REWARD.\n\n\nWhat has been said in the last chapter is really admitted by the\npositive school themselves                                             77\n\nAs we can learn explicitly from George Eliot                           78\n\nIn _Daniel Deronda_                                                    78\n\nThat the fundamental moral question is, '_In what way shall the\nindividual make life pleasant?_'                                       79\n\nAnd the right way, for the positivists, as for the Christians, is\nan inward way                                                          80\n\nThe moral end is a certain inward state of the heart, and the\npositivists say it is a sufficient attraction in itself, without\nany aid from religion                                                  81\n\nAnd they support this view by numerous examples                        82\n\nBut all such examples are useless                                      83\n\nBecause though we may get rid of religion in its pure form             83\n\nThere is much that we have not got rid of, embodied still in the\nmoral end                                                              84\n\nTo test the intrinsic value of the end, we must sublimate this\nreligion out of it                                                     86\n\nFor this purpose we will consider, first, the three general\ncharacteristics of the moral end, viz.                                 88\n\nIts inwardness                                                         88\n\nIts importance                                                         89\n\nAnd its absolute character                                             91\n\nNow all these three characteristics can be explained by religion       93\n\nAnd cannot be explained without it                                     96\n\nThe positive moral end must therefore be completely divested of\nthem                                                                  100\n\nThe next question is, will it be equally attractive then?             100\n\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\nLOVE AS A TEST OF GOODNESS.\n\n\nThe positivists represent love as a thing whose value is\nself-dependent                                                        101\n\nAnd which gives to life a positive and incalculable worth             103\n\nBut this is supposed to be true of one form of love only              104\n\nAnd the very opposite is supposed to hold good of all other forms     105\n\nThe right form depends on the conformity of each of the lovers\nto a certain inward standard                                          105\n\nAs we can see exemplified in the case of Othello and Desdemona,\netc.                                                                  107\n\nThe kind and not the degree of the love is what gives love its\nspecial value                                                         108\n\nAnd the selection of this kind can be neither made nor justified\non positive principles                                                109\n\nAs the following quotations from Theophile Gautier will show us       110\n\nWhich are supposed by many to embody the true view of love            110\n\nAccording to this view, purity is simply a disease both in man\nand woman, or at any rate no merit                                    116\n\nIf love is to be a moral end, this view must be absolutely\ncondemned                                                             117\n\nBut positivism cannot condemn it, or support the opposite view        117\n\nAs we shall see by recurring to Professor Huxley's argument           118\n\nWhich will show us that all moral language as applied to love is\neither distinctly religious or else altogether ludicrous              122\n\nFor it is clearly only on moral grounds that we can give that\nblame to vice, which is the measure of the praise we give to\nvirtue                                                                123\n\nThe misery of the former depends on religious anticipations           124\n\nAnd so does also the blessedness of the latter                        125\n\nAs we can see in numerous literary expressions of it                  126\n\nPositivism, by destroying these anticipations, changes the whole\ncharacter of the love in question                                     128\n\nAnd prevents love from supplying us with any moral standard           131\n\nThe loss sustained by love will indicate the general loss\nsustained by life                                                     131\n\n\nCHAPTER VI.\n\nLIFE AS ITS OWN REWARD.\n\n\nWe must now examine what will be the practical result on life\nin general of the loss just indicated                                 132\n\nTo do this, we will take life as reflected in the mirror of the\ngreat dramatic art of the world                                       134\n\nAnd this will show us how the moral judgment is the chief faculty\nto which all that is great or intense in this art appeals             136\n\nWe shall see this, for instance, in _Macbeth_                         137\n\nIn _Hamlet_                                                           137\n\nIn _Antigone_                                                         137\n\nIn _Measure for Measure_, and in _Faust_                              138\n\nAnd also in degraded art just as well as in sublime art               139\n\nIn profligate and cynical art, such as Congreve's                     140\n\nAnd in concupiscent art                                               141\n\nSuch as _Mademoiselle de Maupin_                                      141\n\nOr such works as that of Meursius, or the worst scenes in\nPetronius                                                             142\n\nThe supernatural moral judgment is the chief thing everywhere         143\n\nTake away this judgment, and art loses all its strange interest       144\n\nAnd so will it be with life                                           145\n\nThe moral landscape will be ruined                                    145\n\nEven the mere sensuous joy of living in health will grow duller       146\n\nNor will culture be of the least avail without the supernatural\nmoral element                                                         148\n\nNor will the devotion to truth for its own sake, which is the last\nrefuge of the positivists when in despair                             149\n\nFor this last has no meaning whatever, except as a form of\nconcrete theism                                                       152\n\nThe reverence for Nature is but another form of the devotion to\ntruth, and its only possible meaning is equally theistic              157\n\nThus all the higher resources of positivism fail together             161\n\nAnd the highest positive value of life would be something less\nthan its present value                                                161\n\n\nCHAPTER VII.\n\nTHE SUPERSTITION OF POSITIVISM.\n\n\nFrom what we have just seen, the visionary character of the\npositivist conception of progress becomes evident                     163\n\nIts object is far more plainly an illusion than the Christian\nheaven                                                                164\n\n_All_ the objections urged against the latter apply with far more\nforce to the former                                                   165\n\nAs a matter of fact, there is no possible object sufficient to\nstart the enthusiasm required by the positivists                      167\n\nTo make the required enthusiasm possible human nature would\nhave to be completely changed                                         168\n\nTwo existing qualities, for instance, would have to be magnified\nto an impossible extent--imagination                                  169\n\nAnd unselfishness                                                     170\n\nIf we state the positive system in terms of common life, its\nvisionary character becomes evident                                   172\n\nThe examples which have suggested its possibility are quite\nmisleading                                                            173\n\nThe positive system is really far more based on superstition than\nany religion                                                          175\n\nIts appearance can only be accounted for by the characters and\ncircumstances of its originators                                      175\n\nAnd a consideration of these will help us more than anything to\nestimate it rightly                                                   178\n\nAnd will let us see that its only practical tendency is to deaden\nall our present interests, not to create any new ones                 179\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII.\n\nTHE PRACTICAL PROSPECT.\n\n\nIt is not contended that the prospect just described will, as a\nfact, ever be realised                                                183\n\nBut only that it will be realised _if_ certain other prospects are\nrealised                                                              185\n\nWhich prospects may or may not be visionary                           186\n\nBut the progress towards which is already begun                       187\n\nAnd also the other results, that have been described already          187\n\nPositive principles have already produced a moral deterioration,\neven in places where we should least imagine it                       187\n\nAs we shall see if we pierce beneath the surface                      189\n\nIn the curious condition of men who have lost faith, but have\nretained the love of virtue                                           189\n\nThe struggle was hard, when they had all the helps of religion        190\n\nIt is harder now                                                      190\n\nConscience still survives, but it has lost its restraining power      191\n\nTemptation almost inevitably dethrones it                             192\n\nAnd its full prestige can never be recovered                          193\n\nIt can do nothing but deplore; it cannot remedy                       194\n\nIn such cases the mind's decadence has begun; and its symptoms\nare                                                                   194\n\nSelf-reproach                                                         195\n\nLife-weariness                                                        195\n\nAnd indifference                                                      195\n\nThe class of men to whom this applies is increasing, and they are\nthe true representatives of the work of positive thought              196\n\nIt is hard to realise this ominous fact                               197\n\nBut by looking steadily and dispassionately at the characteristics\nof the present epoch we may learn to do so                            198\n\nWe shall see that the opinions now forming will have a weight\nand power that no opinions ever had before                            199\n\nAnd their tendency, as yet latent, towards pessimism is therefore\nmost momentous                                                        200\n\nIf it is to be cured, it must be faced                                200\n\nIt takes the form of a suppressed longing for the religious faith\nthat is lost                                                          200\n\nAnd this longing is wide-spread, though only expressed indirectly     201\n\nIt is felt even by men of science                                     202\n\nBut the longing seems fruitless                                       203\n\nThis dejection is in fact shared by the believers                     203\n\nAnd is even authoritatively recognised by Catholicism                 204\n\nThe great question for the world now, and the one on which its\nwhole future depends, is, will the lost faith ever be recovered?      205\n\nThe answer to this will probably have to be decisive, one way or\nthe other                                                             206\n\n\nCHAPTER IX.\n\nTHE LOGIC OF SCIENTIFIC NEGATION.\n\n\nWhat gives the denials of positivism their general weight, is the\nimpression that they represent reason                                 208\n\nThey are supported by three kinds of arguments: physical, moral,\nand historical                                                        209\n\nThe two first bear upon all religion; the latter only on special\nrevelations                                                           210\n\nNatural religion is the belief in God, immortality, and the\npossibility of miracles generally                                     210\n\nPhysical science prefers to destroy natural religion by its\nconnection of mind with matter                                        210\n\n1st. Making conscious life a function of the brain. 2nd. Evolving\nthe living organisms from lifeless matter. 3rd. Making this\nmaterial evolution automatic                                          210\n\nThus all external proofs of God are destroyed                         212\n\nAnd also of the soul's immortality                                    213\n\nExternal proof is declared to be the test of reality                  213\n\nAnd therefore all religion is set down as a dream                     215\n\nBut we believe that proof _is_ the test of reality, not because\nit is proved to be so, but because of the authority of those who\ntell us so                                                            215\n\nBut it will be found that these men do not understand their own\nprinciple                                                             216\n\nAnd, that in what they consider their most important conclusions\nthey emphatically disregard it                                        217\n\nOne or other, therefore, of their opinions is worthless--their\ndenial of religion or their affirmation of morality                   219\n\nBut we shall see this more clearly in considering the question of\nconsciousness and will                                                220\n\nWe shall see that, as far as science can inform us, man is nothing\nbut an automaton                                                      220\n\nBut the positive school are afraid to admit this                      221\n\nAnd not daring to meet the question, they make a desperate effort\nto confuse it                                                         222\n\nTwo problems are involved in the matter: 1st. How is brain\naction connected with consciousness                                   223\n\n2nd. Is the consciousness that is connected with it something\nseparable from, and independent of it                                 223\n\nThe first of these problems has no bearing at all on any moral\nor religious question. It is insoluble. It leaves us not in\ndoubt but in ignorance                                                224\n\nThe doubt, and the religious question is connected solely with\nthe second problem                                                    228\n\nTo which there are two alternative solutions                          228\n\nAnd modern science is so confused that it will accept neither         228\n\nAs Dr. Tyndall's treatment of the subject very forcibly shows us      230\n\nAnd Dr. Tyndall in this way is a perfect representative of the\nwhole modern positive school                                          231\n\nLet us compare the molecules of the brain to the six moving\nbilliard-balls                                                        231\n\nThe question is, are these movements due to the stroke of one\ncue or of two                                                         233\n\nThe positive school profess to answer this question both ways         234\n\nBut this profession is nonsense                                       236\n\nWhat they really mean is, 1st. That the connection of consciousness\nwith matter is a mystery; as to _that_ they _can_ give no\nanswer. 2nd. That as to whether consciousness is wholly a\nmaterial thing or no, they _will_ give no answer                      237\n\nBut why are they in this state of suspense?                           238\n\nThough their system does not in the least require the hypothesis\nof an immaterial element in consciousness                             239\n\nThey see that the moral value of life does                            239\n\nThe same reasons that will warrant their saying it _may_ exist,\nwill constrain them to say it _must_                                  240\n\nPhysical science, with its proofs, can say nothing in the matter,\neither as to will, immortality, or God                                242\n\nBut, on the other hand, it will force us, if we believe in will, to\nadmit the reality of miracles                                         243\n\nSo far as science goes, morality and religion are both on the same\nfooting                                                               243\n\n\nCHAPTER X.\n\nMORALITY AND NATURAL THEISM.\n\n\nSupposing science not to be inconsistent with theism, may not\ntheism be inconsistent with morality?                                 247\n\nIt seems to be so; but it is no more so than is morality with\nitself. Two difficulties common to both:--1st. The existence of\nevil; 2nd. Man's free will and God's free will                        248\n\nJames Mill's statement of the case represents the popular\nanti-religious arguments                                              249\n\nBut his way of putting the case is full of distortion and\nexaggeration                                                          250\n\nThough certain of the difficulties he pointed out were real           251\n\nAnd those we cannot explain away; but if we are to believe in\nour moral being at all, we must one and all accept                    252\n\nWe can escape from them by none of the rationalistic substitutes\nfor religion                                                          252\n\nA similar difficulty is the freedom of the will                       257\n\nThis belief is an intellectual impossibility                          258\n\nBut at the same time a moral necessity                                260\n\nIt is typical of all the difficulties attendant on an assent\nto our own moral nature                                               260\n\nThe vaguer difficulties that appeal to the _moral imagination_ we\nmust meet in the same way                                             261\n\n\nCHAPTER XI.\n\nTHE HUMAN RACE AND REVELATION.\n\n\nShould the intellect of the world return to theism, will it ever\nagain acknowledge a special revelation?                               264\n\nWe can see that this is an urgent question                            265\n\nBy many general considerations                                        265\n\nEspecially the career of Protestantism                                267\n\nWhich is visibly evaporating into a mere natural theism               268\n\nAnd, as such, is losing all restraining power in the world            271\n\nWhere then shall we look for a revelation? Not in any of the\nEastern creeds                                                        275\n\nThe claims of the Roman Church are the only ones worth considering    276\n\nHer position is absolutely distinct from that of Protestantism,\nand she is not involved in its fall                                   277\n\nIn theory she is all that the enlightened world could require         279\n\nThe only question is, is she so in practice? This brings us to\ndifficulties                                                          282\n\n1st. The partial success of her revelation; and her supposed\ncondemnation of the virtues of unbelievers. But her partial\nsuccess is simply the old mystery of evil                             282\n\nAnd through her infinite charity, she does nothing to increase\nthat difficulty                                                       283\n\nThe value of orthodoxy is analogous to the value of true physical\nscience                                                               285\n\nAll should try to learn the truth who can; but we do not condemn\nothers who cannot                                                     286\n\nEven amongst Catholics generally no recondite theological knowledge\nis required                                                           287\n\nThe facts of the Catholic _religion_ are simple. Theology is the\ncomplex scientific explanation of them                                288\n\nCatholicism is misunderstood because the outside world confuses\nwith its religion--1st. The complex explanations of it                289\n\n2nd. Matters of discipline, and practical rules                       290\n\n3rd. The pious opinions, or the scientific errors of private\npersons, or particular epochs                                         291\n\nNone of which really are any integral part of the Church              293\n\nNeither are the peculiar exaggerations of moral feeling that have\nbeen prevalent at different times                                     293\n\nThe Church theoretically is a living, growing, self-adapting\norganism                                                              295\n\nShe is, in fact, the growing, moral sense of mankind organised\nand developed under a supernatural tutelage                           295\n\n\nCHAPTER XII.\n\nUNIVERSAL HISTORY AND THE CLAIMS OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH.\n\n\nWe must now consider the Church in relation to history and external\nhistorical criticism                                                  297\n\n1st. The history of Christianity; 2nd. The history of other\nreligions                                                             298\n\nCriticism has robbed the Bible of nearly all the supposed internal\nevidences of its supernatural character                               298\n\nIt has traced the chief Christian dogmas to non-Christian sources     300\n\nIt has shown that the histories of other religions are strangely\nanalogous to the history of Christianity                              300\n\nAnd to Protestantism these discoveries are fatal                      302\n\nBut they are not fatal to Catholicism, whose attitude to history\nis made utterly different by the doctrine of the perpetual\ninfallibility of the Church                                           305\n\nThe Catholic Church teaches us to believe the Bible for her sake,\nnot her for the Bible's                                               305\n\nAnd even though her dogmas may have existed in some form\nelsewhere, they become new _revelations_ to us, by her\nsupernatural selection of them                                        306\n\nThe Church is a living organism, for ever selecting and\nassimilating fresh nutriment                                          307\n\nEven from amongst the wisdom of her bitterest enemies                 309\n\nAll false revelations, in so far as they have professed to be\ninfallible, are, from the Catholic standpoint, abortive\nCatholicisms                                                          311\n\nCatholicism has succeeded in the same attempt in which they\nhave failed                                                           313\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII.\n\nBELIEF AND WILL.\n\n\nThe aim of this book                                                  315\n\nHas been to clear the great question as to man's nature, and the\nproper way of regarding him, from the confusion at present\nsurrounding it                                                        317\n\nAnd to show that the answer will finally rest, not on outer\nevidence, but on himself, and on his own _will_, if he have\na will                                                                319\n\n\n\n\nNOTE.\n\n\nIn this book the words '_positive_,' '_positivist_,' and '_positivism_'\nare of constant occurrence as applied to modern thought and thinkers. To\navoid any chance of confusion or misconception, it will be well to say\nthat these words as used by me have no special reference to the system\nof Comte or his disciples, but are applied to the common views and\nposition of the whole scientific school, one of the most eminent members\nof which--I mean Professor Huxley--has been the most trenchant and\ncontemptuous critic that 'positivism' in its narrower sense has met\nwith. Over 'positivism' in this sense Professor Huxley and Mr. Frederic\nHarrison have had some public battles. Positivism in the sense in which\nit is used by me, applies to the principles as to which the above\nwriters explicitly agree, not to those as to which they differ.\n\n                                                  W.H.M.\n\n\n\n\nIs Life Worth Living?\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\nTHE NEW IMPORT OF THE QUESTION.\n\n    _A change was coming over the world, the meaning and direction of\n    which even still is hidden from us, a change from era to\n    era._--Froude's _History of England_, ch. i.\n\n\nWhat I am about to deal with in this book is a question which may well\nstrike many, at first sight, as a question that has no serious meaning,\nor none at any rate for the sane and healthy mind. I am about to attempt\ninquiring, not sentimentally, but with all calmness and sobriety, into\nthe true value of this human life of ours, as tried by those tests of\nreality which the modern world is accepting, and to ask dispassionately\nif it be really worth the living. The inquiry certainly has often been\nmade before; but it has never been made properly; it has never been made\nin the true scientific spirit. It has always been vitiated either by\ndiffidence or by personal feeling; and the positive school, though they\nrejoice to question everything else, have, at least in this country,\nleft the worth of life alone. They may now and then, perhaps, have\naffected to examine it; but their examination has been merely formal,\nlike that of a customs-house officer, who passes a portmanteau, which he\nhas only opened. They have been as tender with it as Don Quixote was\nwith his mended helmet, when he would not put his card-paper vizor to\nthe test of the steel sword. I propose to supply this deficiency in\ntheir investigations. I propose to apply exact thought to the only great\nsubject to which it has not been applied already.\n\nTo numbers, as I have just said, this will of course seem useless. They\nwill think that the question never really was an open one; or that, if\nit ever were so, the common sense of mankind has long ago finally\nsettled it. To ask it again, they will think idle, or worse than idle.\nIt will express to them, if it expresses anything, no perplexity of the\nintellect, but merely some vague disease of the feelings. They will say\nthat it is but the old ejaculation of satiety or despair, as old as\nhuman nature itself; it is a kind of maundering common to all moral\ndyspepsia; they have often heard it before, and they wish they may never\nhear it again.\n\nBut let them be a little less impatient. Let them look at the question\ncloser, and more calmly; and it will not be long before its import\nbegins to change for them. They will see that though it may have often\nbeen asked idly, it is yet capable of a meaning that is very far from\nidle; and that however old they may think it, yet as asked by our\ngeneration it is really completely new--that it bears a meaning which is\nindeed not far from any one of them, but which is practical and\npressing--I might almost say portentous--and which is something\nliterally unexampled in the past history of mankind.\n\nI am aware that this position is not only not at first sight obvious,\nbut that, even when better understood, it will probably be called false.\nMy first care, therefore, will be to explain it at length, and clearly.\nFor this purpose we must consider two points in order; first, what is\nthe exact doubt we intend to express by our question; and next, why in\nour day this doubt should have such a special and fresh significance.\n\nLet us then make it quite plain, at starting, that when we ask 'Is life\nworth living?' we are not asking whether its balance of pains is\nnecessarily and always in excess of its balance of pleasures. We are not\nasking whether any one has been, or whether any one is happy. To the\nunjaundiced eye nothing is more clear than that happiness of various\nkinds has been, and is, continually attained by men. And ingenious\npessimists do but waste their labour when they try to convince a happy\nman that he really must be miserable. What I am going to discuss is not\nthe superfluous truism that life has been found worth living by many;\nbut the profoundly different proposition that it ought to be found worth\nliving by all. For this is what life is pronounced to be, when those\nclaims are made for it that at present universally are made; when, as a\ngeneral truth, it is said to be worth living; or when any of those\naugust epithets are applied to it that are at present applied so\nconstantly. At present, as we all know, it is called sacred, solemn,\nearnest, significant, and so forth. To withhold such epithets is\nconsidered a kind of blasphemy. And the meaning of all such language is\nthis: it means that life has some deep inherent worth of its own, beyond\nwhat it can acquire or lose by the caprice of circumstance--a worth,\nwhich though it may be most fully revealed to a man, through certain\nforms of success, is yet not destroyed or made a minus quantity by\nfailure. Certain forms of love, for instance, are held in a special way\nto reveal this worth to us; but the worth that a successful love is thus\nsupposed to reveal is a worth that a hopeless love is supposed not to\ndestroy. The worth is a part of life's essence, not a mere chance\naccident, as health or riches are; and we are supposed to lose it by no\nacts but our own.\n\nNow it is evident that such a worth as this, is, in one sense, no mere\nfancy. Numbers actually have found it; and numbers actually still\ncontinue to find it. The question is not whether the worth exists, but\non what is the worth based. How far is the treasure incorruptible; and\nhow far will our increasing knowledge act as moth and rust to it? There\nare some things whose value is completely established by the mere fact\nthat men do value them. They appeal to single tastes, they defy further\nanalysis, and they thus form, as it were, the _bases_ of all pleasures\nand happiness. But these are few in number; they are hardly ever met\nwith in a perfectly pure state; and their effect, when they are so met,\nis either momentary, or far from vivid. As a rule they are found in\ncombinations of great complexity, fused into an infinity of new\nsubstances by the action of beliefs and associations; and these two\nagents are often of more importance in the result than are the things\nthey act upon. Take for instance a boy at Eton or Oxford, who affects a\ntaste in wine. Give him a bottle of gooseberry champagne; tell him it is\nof the finest brand, and that it cost two hundred shillings a dozen. He\nwill sniff, and wink at it in ecstasy; he will sip it slowly with an air\nof knowing reverence; and his enjoyment of it probably will be far\nkeener, than it would be, were the wine really all he fancies it, and he\nhad lived years enough to have come to discern its qualities. Here the\npart played by belief and associations is of course evident. The boy's\nenjoyment is real, and it rests to a certain extent on a foundation of\nsolid fact; the taste of the gooseberry champagne is an actual pleasure\nto his palate. Anything nauseous, black dose for instance, could never\nraise him to the state of delight in question. But this simple pleasure\nof sense is but a small part of the pleasure he actually experiences.\nThat pleasure, as a whole, is a highly complex thing, and rests mainly\non a basis that, by a little knowledge, could be annihilated in a\nmoment. Tell the boy what the champagne really is, he has been praising;\nand the state of his mind and face will undergo a curious\ntransformation. Our sense of the worth of life is similar in its\ncomplexity to the boy's sense of the worth of his wine. Beliefs and\nassociations play exactly the same part in it. The beliefs in this last\ncase may of course be truer. The question that I have to ask is, are\nthey? In some individual cases certainly, they have not been. Miss\nHarriet Martineau, for instance, judging life from her own experience of\nit, was quite persuaded that it was a most solemn and satisfactory\nthing, and she has told the world as much, in no hesitating manner. But\na part at least of the solemn satisfaction she felt in it was due to a\ngrotesque over-estimate of her own social and intellectual importance.\nHere, then, was a worth in life, real enough to the person who found it,\nbut which a little knowledge of the world would have at once taken away\nfrom her. Does the general reverence with which life is at present\nregarded rest in any degree upon any similar misconception? And if so,\nto what extent does it? Will it fall to pieces before the breath of a\nlarger knowledge? or has it that firm foundation in fact that will\nenable it to survive in spite of all enlightenment, and perhaps even to\nincrease in consequence of it?\n\nSuch is the outline of the question I propose to deal with. I will now\nshow why it is so pressing, and why, in the present crisis of thought,\nit is so needful that it should be dealt with. The first impression it\nproduces, as I have said, is that it is superfluous. Our belief in life\nseems to rest on too wide an experience for us to entertain any genuine\ndoubt of the truth of it. But this first impression does not go for\nmuch. It is a mere superficial thing, and will wear off immediately. We\nhave but to remember that a belief that was supposed to rest on an\nequally wide basis--the belief in God, and in a supernatural order--has\nin these days, not been questioned only, but has been to a great degree,\nsuccessfully annihilated. The only philosophy that belongs to the\npresent age, the only philosophy that is a really new agent in progress,\nhas declared this belief to be a dissolving dream of the past. And this\nbelief, as we shall see presently, is, amongst civilized men at least,\nfar older than the belief in life; it has been far more widely spread,\nand experience has been held to confirm it with an equal certainty. If\nthis then is inevitably disintegrated by the action of a widening\nknowledge, it cannot be taken for granted that the belief in life will\nnot fare likewise. It may do so; but until we have examined it more\nclosely we cannot be certain that it will. Common consent and\nexperience, until they are analysed, are fallacious tests for the\nseekers after positive truth. The emotions may forbid us to ask our\nquestion; but in modern philosophy the emotions play no part as organs\nof discovery. They are facts in themselves, and as such are of course of\nvalue; but they point to no facts beyond themselves. That men loved God\nand felt his presence close to them proves nothing, to the positive\nthinker, as to God's existence. Nor will the mere emotion of reverence\ntowards life necessarily go any farther towards proving that it deserves\nreverence. It is distinctly asserted by the modern school that the right\nstate in which to approach everything is a state of enlightened\nscepticism. We are to consider everything doubtful, until it is proved\ncertain, or unless, from its very nature, it is not possible to doubt\nit.\n\nNor is this all; for, apart from these modern canons, the question of\nlife's worth has, as a matter of fact, been always recognised as in a\ncertain sense an open one. The greatest intellects of the world, in all\nages, have been at times inclined to doubt it. And these times have not\nseemed to them times of blindness; but on the contrary, of specially\nclear insight. Scales, as it were, have fallen from their eyes for a\nmoment or two, and the beauty and worth of existence has appeared to\nthem as but a deceiving show. An entire book of the Hebrew Scriptures is\ndevoted to a deliberate exposition of this philosophy. In '_the most\nhigh and palmy state_' of Athens it was expressed fitfully also as the\ndeepest wisdom of her most triumphant dramatist.[1] And in Shakspeare it\nappears so constantly, that it must evidently have had for him some\ndirectly personal meaning.\n\nThis view, however, even by most of those who have held it, has been\nfelt to be really only a half-view in the guise of a whole one. To\nShakspeare, for instance, it was full of a profound terror. It crushed,\nand appalled, and touched him; and there was not only implied in it that\nfor us life does mean little, but that by some possibility it might have\nmeant much. Or else, if the pessimism has been more complete than this,\nit has probably been adopted as a kind of solemn affectation, or has\nelse been lamented as a form of diseased melancholy. It is a view that\nhealthy intellects have hitherto declined to entertain. Its advocates\nhave been met with neglect, contempt, or castigation, not with\narguments. They have been pitied as insane, avoided as cynical, or\npassed over as frivolous. And yet, but for one reason, to that whole\nEuropean world whose progress we are now inheriting, this view would\nhave seemed not only not untenable, but even obvious. The emptiness of\nthe things of this life, the incompleteness of even its highest\npleasures, and their utter powerlessness to make us really happy, has\nbeen, at least for fifteen hundred years, a commonplace, both with\nsaints and sages. The conception that anything in this life could of\nitself be of any great moment to us, was considered as much a puerility\nunworthy of a man of the world, as a disloyalty to God. Experience of\nlife, and meditation on life, seemed to teach nothing but the same\nlesson, seemed to preach a sermon _de contemptu mundi_. The view the\neager monk began with, the sated monarch ended with. But matters did not\nend here. There was something more to come, by which this view was\naltogether transmuted, and which made the wilderness and the waste place\nat once blossom as the rose. Judged of by itself, this life would indeed\nbe vanity; but it was not to be judged of by itself. All its ways seemed\nto break short aimlessly into precipices, or to be lost hopelessly in\ndeserts. They led to no visible end. True; but they led to ends that\nwere invisible--to spiritual and eternal destinies, to triumphs beyond\nall hope, and portentous failures beyond all fear. This all men might\nsee, if they would only choose to see. The most trivial of our daily\nactions became thus invested with an immeasurable meaning. Life was thus\nevidently not vanity, not an idiot's tale, not unprofitable; those who\naffected to think it was, were naturally disregarded as either insane or\ninsincere: and we may thus admit that hitherto, for the progressive\nnations of the world, the worth of life has been capable of\ndemonstration, and safe beyond the reach of any rational questioning.\n\nBut now, under the influence of positive thought, all this is changing.\nLife, as we have all of us inherited it, is coloured with the intense\ncolours of Christianity; let us ourselves be personally Christians or\nnot, we are instinct with feelings with regard to it that were\napplicable to it in its Christian state: and these feelings it is that\nwe are still resolved to retain. As the most popular English exponent of\nthe new school says: '_All positive methods of treating man, of a\ncomprehensive kind, adopt to the full all that has ever been said about\nthe dignity of man's moral and spiritual life._' But here comes the\ndifficulty. This adoption we speak of must be justified upon quite new\nreasons. Indeed it is practically the boast of its advocates that it\nmust be. An extreme value, as we see, they are resolved to give to\nlife; they will not tolerate those who deny its existence. But they are\nobliged to find it in the very place where hitherto it has been thought\nto be conspicuous by its absence. It is to be found in no better or\nwider future, where injustice shall be turned to justice, trouble into\nrest, and blindness into clear sight; for no such future awaits us. It\nis to be found in life itself, in this earthly life, this life between\nthe cradle and the grave; and though imagination and sympathy may\nenlarge and extend this for the individual, yet the limits of its\nextension are very soon arrived at. It is limited by the time the human\nrace can exist, by the space in the universe that the human race\noccupies, and the capacities of enjoyment that the human race possesses.\nHere, then, is a distinct and intelligible task that the positive\nthinkers have set themselves. They have taken everything away from life\nthat to wise men hitherto has seemed to redeem it from vanity. They have\nto prove to us that they have not left it vain. They have to prove those\nthings to be solid that have hitherto been thought hollow; those things\nto be serious that have hitherto been thought contemptible. They must\nprove to us that we shall be contented with what has never yet contented\nus, and that the widest minds will thrive within limits that have\nhitherto been thought too narrow for the narrowest.\n\nNow, of course, so far as we can tell without examining the matter,\nthey may be able to accomplish this revolution. There is nothing on the\nface of it that is impossible. It may be that our eyes are only blinded\nto the beauty of the earth by having gazed so long and so vainly into an\nempty heaven, and that when we have learnt to use them a little more to\nthe purpose, we shall see close at hand in this life what we had been\nlooking for, all this while, in another. But still, even if this\nrevolution be possible, the fact remains that it is a revolution, and it\ncannot be accomplished without some effort. Our positive thinkers have a\ncase to be proved. They must not beg the very point that is most open to\ncontradiction, and which, when once duly apprehended, will be most sure\nto provoke it. If this life be not incapable of satisfying us, let them\nshow us conclusively that it is not. But they can hardly expect that,\nwithout any such showing at all, the world will deliberately repel as a\nblasphemy what it has hitherto accepted as a commonplace.\n\nThis objection is itself so obvious that it has not escaped notice. But\nthe very fact of its obviousness has tended to hide the true force of\nit, and coming so readily to the surface, it has been set down as\nsuperficial. It is, however, very constantly recognised, and is being\nmet on all sides with a very elaborate answer. It is this answer that I\nshall now proceed to consider. It is a very important one, and it\ndeserves our most close attention, as it contains the chief present\nargument for the positive faith in life. I shall show how this argument\nis vitiated by a fundamental fallacy.\n\nIt is admitted that to a hasty glance there may certainly seem some\ndanger of our faith in life's value collapsing, together with our belief\nin God. It is admitted that this is not in the least irrational. But it\nis contended that a scientific study of the past will show us that these\nfears are groundless, and will reassure us as to the future. We are\nreferred to a new branch of knowledge, the philosophy of history, and we\nare assured that by this all our doubts will be set at rest. This\nphilosophy of history resembles, on an extended scale, the practical\nwisdom learnt by the man of the world. As long as a man is inexperienced\nand new to life, each calamity as it comes to him seems something unique\nand overwhelming, but as he lives on, suffers more of them, and yet\nfinds that he is not overwhelmed, he learns to reduce them to their\nright dimensions, and is able, with sufficient self-possession, to let\neach of them teach some useful lesson to him.\n\nThus we, it is said, if we were not better instructed, might naturally\ntake the present decline of faith to be an unprecedented calamity that\nwas ushering in an eve of darkness and utter ruin. But the philosophy\nof history puts the whole matter in a different light. It teaches us\nthat the condition of the world in our day, though not normal, is yet by\nno means peculiar. It points to numerous parallels in former ages, and\ntreats the rise and fall of creeds as regular phenomena in human\nhistory, whose causes and recurrence we can distinctly trace. Other\nnations and races have had creeds, and have lost them; they have\nthought, as some of us think, that the loss would ruin them: and yet\nthey have not been ruined. Creeds, it is contended, were imaginative,\nprovisional, and mistaken expressions of the underlying and\nindestructible sense of the nobility of human life. They were artistic,\nnot scientific. A statue of Apollo, for instance, or a picture of the\nMadonna, were really representations of what men aimed at producing on\nearth, not of what actually had any existence in heaven. And if we look\nback at the greatest civilisations of antiquity, we shall find, it is\nsaid, that what gave them vigour and intensity were purely human\ninterests: and though religion may certainly have had some reflex action\non life, this action was either merely political or was else injurious.\n\nIt is thus that intense Greek life is presented to us, the influence of\nwhich is still felt in the world. Its main stimulus we are told was\nfrankly human. It would have lost none of its keenness if its theology\nhad been taken from it. And there, it is said, we see the positive\nworth of life; we see already realised what we are now growing to\nrealise once more. Christianity, with its supernatural aims and objects,\nis spoken of as an '_episode of disease and delirium_;' it is a\nconfusing dream, from which we are at last awaking; and the feelings of\nthe modern school are expressed in the following sentence of a\ndistinguished modern writer:[2] '_Just as the traveller_,' he says,\n'_who has been worn to the bone by years of weary striving among men of\nanother skin, suddenly gazes with doubting eyes upon the white face of a\nbrother, so if we travel backwards in thought over the darker ages of\nthe history of Europe we at length reach back with such bounding heart\nto men who had like hopes with ourselves, and shake hands across that\nvast with ... our own spiritual ancestors._'\n\nNor are the Greeks the only nation whose history is supposed to be thus\nso reassuring to us. The early Jews are pointed to, in the same way, as\nhaving felt pre-eminently the dignity of this life, and having yet been\nabsolutely without any belief in another. But the example, which for us\nis perhaps the most forcible of all, is to be found in the history of\nRome, during her years of widest activity. We are told to look at such\nmen as Cicero or as Caesar--above all to such men as Caesar--and to\nremember what a reality life was to them. Caesar certainly had little\nreligion enough; and what he may have had, played no part in making his\nlife earnest. He took the world as he found it, as all healthy men have\ntaken it; and, as it is said, all healthy men will still continue to\ntake it. Nor was such a life as Caesar's peculiar to himself. It\nrepresents that purely human life that flourished generally in such\nvigour amongst the Romans. And the consideration of it is said to be all\nthe more instructive, because it flourished in the face of just the same\nconditions that we think so disheartening now. There was in those times,\nas there is in ours, a wide disintegration of the old faiths; and to\nmany, then as now, this fact seemed at once sad and terrifying. As we\nread Juvenal, Petronius, Lucian, or Apuleius, we are astounded at the\nlikeness of those times to these. Even in minute details, they\ncorrespond with a marvellous exactness. And hence there seems a strange\nforce in the statement that history repeats itself, and that the wisdom\nlearnt from the past can be applied to the present and the future.\n\nBut all this, though it is doubtless true, is in reality only half the\ntruth; and as used in the arguments of the day, it amounts practically\nto a profound falsehood. History in a certain sense, of course, does\nrepeat itself; and the thing that has been is in a certain sense the\nthing that shall be. But there is a deeper and a wider sense in which,\nthis is not so. Let us take the life of an individual man, for instance.\nA man of fifty will retain very likely many of the tastes and tricks\nthat were his, when a boy of ten: and people who have known him long\nwill often exclaim that he is just the same as he always was. But in\nspite of this, they will know that he is very different. His hopes will\nhave dwindled down; the glow, the colour, and the bright haze will have\ngone from them; things that once amused him will amuse him no more:\nthings he once thought important, he will consider weary trifles; and if\nhe thinks anything serious at all, they will not be things he thought\nserious when a boy. The same thing is true of the year, and its changing\nseasons. The history of a single year may be, in one sense, said to\nrepeat itself every day. There is the same recurrence of light and\ndarkness, of sunrise and of sunset: and a man who had lived only for a\nmonth or two, might fancy that this recurrence was complete. But let him\nlive a little longer, and he will come to see that this is not so.\nSlowly through the summer he will begin to discern a change; until at\nlast he can contrast the days and nights of winter with the days and\nnights of summer, and see how flowers that once opened fresh every\nmorning, now never open or close at all. Then he will see that the two\nseasons, though in many points so like each other, are yet, in a far\ndeeper way, different.\n\nAnd so it is with the world's history. Isolate certain phenomena, and\nthey do, without doubt, repeat themselves; but it is only when isolated\nthat they can be said to do so. In many points the European thought and\ncivilisation of to-day may seem to be a repetition of what has been\nbefore; we may fancy that we recognise our brothers in the past, and\nthat we can, as the writer above quoted says, shake hands with them\nacross the intervening years. But this is really only a deceiving fancy,\nwhen applied to such deep and universal questions as those we have now\nto deal with--to religion, to positive thought, and to the worth of\nlife. The positivists and the unbelievers of the modern world, are not\nthe same as those of the ancient world. Even when their language is\nidentical, there is an immeasurable gulf between them. In our denials\nand assertions there are certain new factors, which at once make all\nsuch comparisons worthless. The importance of these will by-and-by\nappear more clearly, but I shall give a brief account of them now.\n\nThe first of these factors is the existence of Christianity, and that\nvast and undoubted change in the world of which it has been at once the\ncause and the index. It has done a work, and that work still remains:\nand we all feel the effects of it, whether we will or no. Described in\nthe most general way, that work has been this. The supernatural, in the\nancient world, was something vague and indefinite: and the classical\ntheologies at any rate, though they were to some extent formal\nembodiments of it, could embody really but a very small part. Zeus and\nthe Olympian hierarchies were dimly perceived to be encircled by some\nvaster mystery; which to the popular mind was altogether formless, and\nwhich even such men as Plato could only describe inadequately. The\nsupernatural was like a dim and diffused light, brighter in some places,\nand darker in others, but focalised and concentrated nowhere.\nChristianity has focalised it, united into one the scattered points of\nbrightness, and collected other rays that were before altogether\nimperceptible. That vague '_idea of the good_,' of which Plato said most\nmen dimly augured the existence, but could not express their augury, has\nbeen given a definite shape to by Christianity in the form of its Deity.\nThat Deity, from an external point of view, may be said to have acquired\nHis sovereignty as did the Roman Caesar. He absorbed into His own person\nthe offices of all the gods that were before him, as the Roman Caesar\nabsorbed all the offices of the state; and in His case also, as has been\nsaid of the Roman Caesar, the whole was immeasurably greater than the\nmere sum of the parts. Scientifically and philosophically He became the\nfirst cause of the world; He became the father of the human soul, and\nits judge; and what is more, its rest and its delight, and its desire.\nUnder the light of this conception, man appeared an ampler being. His\nthoughts were for ever being gazed on by the great controller of all\nthings; he was made in the likeness of the Lord of lords; he was of kin\nto the power before which all the visible world trembled; and every\ndetail in the life of a human soul became vaster, beyond all comparison,\nthan the depths of space and time. But not only did the sense of man's\ndignity thus develop, and become definite. The accompanying sense of his\ndegradation became intenser and more definite also. The gloom of a sense\nof sin is to be found in AEschylus, but this gloom was vague and\nformless. Christianity gave to it both depth and form; only the despair\nthat might have been produced in this way was now softened by hope.\nChristianity has, in fact, declared clearly a supernatural of which men\nbefore were more or less ignorantly conscious. The declaration may or\nmay not have been a complete one, but at any rate it is the completest\nthat the world has yet known. And the practical result is this: when we,\nin these days, deny the supernatural, we are denying it in a way in\nwhich it was never denied before. Our denial is beyond all comparison\nmore complete. The supernatural, for the ancient world, was like a\nperfume scenting life, out of a hundred different vessels, of which only\ntwo or three were visible to the same men or nations. They therefore\nmight get rid of these, and yet the larger part of the scent would still\nremain to them. But for us, it is as though all the perfume had been\ncollected into a single vessel; and if we get rid of this, we shall get\nrid of the scent altogether. Our air will be altogether odourless.\n\nThe materialism of Lucretius is a good instance of this. In many ways\nhis denials bear a strong resemblance to ours. But the resemblance\nceases a little below the surface. He denied the theology of his time as\nstrongly as our positive thinkers deny the theology of ours. But the\ntheology he denied was incomplete and puerile. He was not denying any\n'All-embracer and All-sustainer,' for he knew of none such. And his\ndenial of the gods he did deny left him room for the affirmation of\nothers, whose existence, if considered accurately, was equally\ninconsistent with his own scientific premisses. Again, in his denial of\nany immortality for man, what he denied is not the future that we are\ndenying. The only future he knew of was one a belief in which had no\ninfluence on us, except for sadness. It was a protraction only of what\nis worst in life; it was in no way a completion of what is best in it.\nBut with us the case is altogether different. Formerly the supernatural\ncould not be denied completely, because it was not known completely. Not\nto affirm is a very different thing from to deny. And many beliefs which\nthe positivists of the modern world are denying, the positivists of the\nancient world more or less consciously lived by.\n\nNext, there is this point to remember. Whilst during the Christian\ncenturies, the devotion to a supernatural and extramundane aim has been\nengendering, as a recent writer has observed with indignation, a\ndegrading '_pessimism as to the essential dignity of man_,'[3] the world\nwhich we have been to a certain extent disregarding has been changing\nits character for us. In a number of ways, whilst we have not been\nperceiving it, its objective grandeur has been dwindling; and the\nimagination, when again called to the feat, cannot reinvest it with its\nold gorgeous colouring. Once the world, with the human race, who were\nthe masters of it, was a thing of vast magnitude--the centre of the\nwhole creation. The mind had no larger conceptions that were vivid\nenough to dwarf it. But now all this has changed. In the words of a\nwell-known modern English historian, _'The floor of heaven, inlaid with\nstars, has sunk back into an infinite abyss of immeasurable space; and\nthe firm earth itself, unfixed from its foundations, is seen to be but\na small atom in the awful easiness of the universe.'_[4] The whole\nposition, indeed, is reversed. The skies once seemed to pay the earth\nhomage, and to serve it with light and shelter. Now they do nothing, so\nfar as the imagination is concerned, but spurn and dwarf it. And when we\ncome to the details of the earth's surface itself, the case is just the\nsame. It, in its extent, has grown little and paltry to us. The wonder\nand the mystery has gone from it. A Cockney excursionist goes round it\nin a holiday trip; there are no\n\n    _Golden cities, ten months journey deep,\n    In far Tartarian wilds_;[5]\n\nnor do the confines of civilisation, melt as they once did, into any\nunknown and unexplored wonderlands. And thus a large mass of sentiment\nthat was once powerful in the world is now rapidly dwindling, and, so\nfar as we can see, there is nothing that can ever exactly replace it.\nPatriotism, for instance, can never again be the religion it was to\nAthens, or the pride it was to Rome. Men are not awed and moved as once\nthey were by local and material splendours. The pride of life, it is\ntrue, is still eagerly coveted; but by those at least who are most\nfamiliar with it, it is courted and sought for with a certain contempt\nand cynicism. It is treated like a courtesan, rather than like a\ngoddess. Whilst as to the higher enthusiasm that was once excited by\nexternal things, the world in its present state could no more work\nitself up to this than a girl, after three seasons, could again go for\ndissipation to her dolls. She might look back to the time of dolls with\nregret. She might see that the interest they excited in her was,\nperhaps, far more pleasing than any she had found in love. But the dolls\nwould never rival her lovers, none the less. And with man, and his aims\nand objects, the case is just the same. And we must remember that to\nrealise keenly the potency of a past ideal, is no indication that\npractically it will ever again be powerful.\n\nBriefly, then, the positive school of to-day we see thus far to be in\nthis position. It has to make demands upon human life that were never\nmade before; and human life is, in many ways, less able than it ever was\nto answer to them.\n\nBut this is not all. There is a third matter yet left to consider--a\nthird factor in the case, peculiar to the present crisis. That is the\nintense self-consciousness that is now developed in the world, and which\nis something altogether new to it. During the last few generations man\nhas been curiously changing. Much of his old spontaneity of action has\ngone from him. He has become a creature looking before and after; and\nhis native hue of resolution has been sickled over by thought. We admit\nnothing now without question; we have learnt to take to pieces all\nmotives to actions. We not only know more than we have done before, but\nwe are perpetually chewing the cud of our knowledge. Thus positive\nthought reduces all religions to ideals created by man; and as such, not\nonly admits that they have had vast influence, but teaches us also that\nwe in the future must construct new ideals for ourselves. Only there\nwill be this difference. We shall now know that they are ideals, we\nshall no longer mistake them for objective facts. But our positive\nthinkers forget this. They forget that the ideals that were once active\nin the world were active amongst people who thought that they were more\nthan ideals, and who very certainly did mistake them for facts; and they\nforget how different their position will be, as soon as their true\nnature is recognised. There is no example, so far as I know, to be found\nin all history, of men having been stimulated or affected in any\nimportant way--none, at any rate, of their having been restrained or\ncurbed--by a mere ideal that was known to have no reality to correspond\nto it. A child is frightened when its nurse tells it that a black man\nwill come down the chimney and take it away. The black man, it is true,\nis only an ideal; and yet the child is affected. But it would cease to\nbe affected the instant it knew this.\n\nAs we go on with our enquiry these considerations will become plainer to\nus. But enough has even now been said to show how distinct the present\nposition is from any that have gone before it, and how little the\nexperience of the past is really fitted to reassure us. Greek and Roman\nthought was positive, in our sense of the word, only in a very small\ndegree. The thought of the other ancient empires was not positive at\nall. The oldest civilisation of which any record is left to us--the\ncivilisation of Egypt--was based on a theism which, of all other\ntheisms, most nearly approaches ours. And the doctrine of a future life\nwas first learnt by the Jews from their masters during the Captivity. We\nsearch utterly in vain through history for any parallel to our own\nnegations.\n\nI have spoken hitherto of those peoples only whose history more or less\ndirectly has affected ours. But there is a vast portion of the human\nrace with which, roughly speaking, our progress has had no connection;\nand the religions of these races, which are now for the first time\nbeginning to be accurately studied, are constantly being appealed to in\nsupport of the positive doctrines. Thus it is urged by Mr. Leslie\nStephen that _'the briefest outline of the religious history of mankind\nshows that creeds which can count more adherents than Christianity, and\nhave flourished through a longer period, have omitted all that makes the\nChristian doctrine of a future state 'valuable in the eyes of the\nsupporters_;' and Dr. Tyndall points with the same delighted confidence\nto the gospel of Buddhism, as one of '_pure human ethics, divorced not\nonly from Brahma and the Brahminic Trinity, but even from the existence\nof God_.'[6] Many other such appeals are made to what are somewhat\nvaguely called '_the multitudinous creeds of the East_;' but it is to\nBuddhism, in its various forms, that they would all seem to apply. Let\nus now consider the real result of them. Our positivists have appealed\nto Buddhism, and to Buddhism they shall certainly go. It is one of the\nvastest and most significant of all human facts. But its significance is\nsomewhat different from what it is popularly supposed to be.\n\nThat the Buddhist religion has had a wide hold on the world is true.\nIndeed, forty per cent. of the whole human race at this moment profess\nit. Except the Judaic, it is the oldest of existing creeds; and beyond\nall comparison it numbers most adherents. And it is quite true also that\nit does not, in its pure state, base its teaching on the belief in any\npersonal God, or offer as an end of action any happiness in any\nimmortal life. But it does not for this reason bear any real resemblance\nto our modern Western positivism, nor give it any reason to be sanguine.\nOn the contrary, it is most absolutely opposed to it; and its success is\ndue to doctrines which Western positivism most emphatically repudiates.\nIn the first place, so far from being based on exact thought, Buddhism\ntakes for its very foundation four great mysteries, that are explicitly\nbeyond the reach either of proof or reason; and of these the foremost\nand most intelligible is the transmigration and renewal of the existence\nof the individual. It is by this mystical doctrine, and by this alone,\nthat Buddhism gains a hold on the common heart of man. This is the great\nfulcrum of its lever. Then further--and this is more important\nstill--whereas the doctrine of Western positivism is that human life is\ngood, or may be made good; and that in the possibility of the enjoyment\nof it consists the great stimulus to action; the doctrine of Buddhism is\nthat human life is evil, and that man's right aim is not to gratify, but\nto extinguish, his desire for it. Love, for instance, as I have said\nbefore, is by most Western positivists held to be a high blessing.\nBuddhism tells us we should avoid it '_as though it were a pit of\nburning coals_.' The most influential positive writer in England[7] has\nsaid: '_I desire no future that will break the ties of the past_.'\nBuddhism says that we should desire no present that will create any ties\nfor the future. The beginning of the Buddhist teaching is the intense\nmisery of life; the reward of Buddhist holiness is to, at last, live no\nlonger. If we die in our sins, we shall be obliged to live again on the\nearth; and it will not be, perhaps, till after many lives that the\nnecessity for fresh births will be exhausted. But when we have attained\nperfection, the evil spell is broken; and '_then the wise man_,' it is\nsaid, '_is extinguished as this lamp_.' The highest life was one of\nseclusion and asceticism. The founder of Buddhism was met, during his\nfirst preaching, with the objection that his system, if carried out\nfully, would be the ruin and the extermination of humanity. And he did\nnot deny the charge; but said that what his questioners called ruin, was\nin reality the highest good.\n\nIt is then hard to conceive an appeal more singularly infelicitous than\nthat which our modern positivists make to Buddhism. It is the appeal of\noptimists to inveterate pessimists, and of exact thinkers to inveterate\nmystics. If the consideration of it tells us anything of importance, it\ntells us this--that by far the largest mass of mankind that has ever\nbeen united by a single creed has explicitly denied every chief point\nthat our Western teachers assert. So far then from helping to close the\nquestion we are to deal with--the question as to the positive worth of\nlife, the testimony of Buddhism, if it be of any weight at all, can only\ngo to convince us that the question is at once new and open--new,\nbecause it has never yet been asked so fully; and open, because in so\nfar as it has been asked, nearly half mankind has repudiated the answer\nthat we are so desirous of giving it. Mr. Leslie Stephen calls Buddhism\n'a stupendous fact,' and I quite agree with him that it is so; but taken\nin connection with the present philosophy of Europe, it is hardly a fact\nto strengthen our confidence in the essential dignity of man, or the\nworth of man's life.\n\nIn short, the more we consider the matter, and the more various the\npoints from which we do so, the more plain will it become to us that the\nproblem the present age is confronted by is an altogether unanswered\none; and that the closest seeming parallels to be found amongst other\ntimes and races, have far less really of parallelism in them than of\ncontrast. The path of thought, as it were, has taken a sudden turn round\na mountain; and our bewildered eyes are staring on an undreamed-of\nprospect. The leaders of progress thus far have greeted the sight with\nacclamation, and have confidently declared that we are looking on the\npromised land. But to the more thoughtful, and to the less impulsive, it\nis plain that a mist hangs over it, and that we have no right to be\nsure whether it is the promised land or no. They see grave reasons for\nmaking a closer scrutiny, and for asking if, when the mist lifts, what\nwe see will be not splendour, but desolation.\n\nSuch, in brief outline, is the question we are to deal with. We will now\ngo on to approach it in a more detailed way.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[1] Vide Sophocles, _OEdipus Coloneus_.\n\n[2] Professor Clifford, whose study of history leads him to regard\nCatholicism as nothing more than an 'episode' in the history of Western\nprogress.\n\n[3] Mr. Frederic Harrison.\n\n[4] Mr. Froude, _History of England_, chap. i.\n\n[5] Wordsworth.\n\n[6] Quoted by Dr. Tyndall from Professor Blackie.\n\n[7] George Eliot.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\nTHE PRIZE OF LIFE.\n\n    '_The kingdom of heaven is like unto a treasure hid in a field._'\n\n\nHaving thus seen broadly what is meant by that claim for life that we\nare about to analyse, we must now examine it more minutely, as made by\nthe positive school themselves.\n\nThis will at once make evident one important point. The worth in\nquestion is closely bound up with what we call _morality_. In this\nrespect our deniers of the supernatural claim to be on as firm a footing\nas the believers in it. They will not admit that the earnestness of life\nis lessened for them; or that they have opened any door either to levity\nor to licentiousness. It is true indeed that it is allowed occasionally\nthat the loss of a faith in God, and of the life in a future, may, under\ncertain circumstances, be a real loss to us. Others again contend that\nthis loss is a gain. Such views as these, however, are not much to the\npurpose. For those even, according to whom life has lost most in this\nway, do not consider the loss a very important, still less a fatal one.\nThe _good_ is still to be an aim for us, and our devotion to it will be\nmore valuable because it will be quite disinterested. Thus Dr. Tyndall\ninforms us that though he has now rejected the religion of his earlier\nyears, yet granting him proper health of body, there is '_no spiritual\nexperience_,' such as he then knew, '_no resolve of duty, no word of\nmercy, no act of self-renouncement, no solemnity of thought, no joy in\nthe life and aspects of nature, that would not still be_' his. The same\nis the implicit teaching of all George Eliot's novels; whilst Professor\nHuxley tells us that come what may to our '_intellectual beliefs and\neven education_,' '_the beauty of holiness and the ugliness of sin_'\nwill remain for those that have eyes to see them, '_no mere metaphors,\nbut real and intense feelings_.' These are but a few examples, but the\nview of life they illustrate is so well known that these few will\nsuffice. The point on which the modern positivist school is most\nvehement, is that it does not destroy, but that on the contrary it\nintensifies, the distinction between right and wrong.\n\nAnd now let us consider what, according to all positive theories, this\nsupremacy of morality means. It means that there is a certain course of\nactive life, and a certain course only, by which life can be made by\neveryone a beautiful and a noble thing: and life is called earnest,\nbecause such a prize is within our reach, and solemn because there is a\nrisk that we may fail to reach it. Were this not so, right and wrong\ncould have no general and objective meaning. They would be purely\npersonal matters--mere misleading names, in fact, for the private likes\nand the dislikes of each of us; and to talk of right, and good, and\nmorality, as things that we ought all to conform to, and to live by,\nwould be simply to talk nonsense. What the very existence of a moral\nsystem implies is, that whatever may be our personal inclinations\nnaturally, there is some common pattern to which they should be all\nadjusted; the reason being that we shall so all become partakers in some\ncommon happiness, which is greater beyond comparison than every other\nkind.\n\nHere we are presented with two obvious tasks: the first, to enquire what\nthis happiness is, what are the qualities and attractions generally\nascribed to it; the second, to analyse it, as it is thus held up to us,\nand to see if its professed ingredients are sufficient to make up the\nresult.\n\nTo proceed then, all moral systems must, as we have just seen, postulate\nsome end of action, an end to which morality is the only road. Further,\nthis end is the one thing in life that is really worth attaining; and\nsince we have to do with no life other than this one, it must be found\namongst the days and years of which this short life is the aggregate. On\nthe adequacy of this universal end depends the whole question of the\npositive worth of life, and the essential dignity of man.\n\nThat this is at least one way of stating the case has been often\nacknowledged by the positive moralists themselves. The following\npassage, for instance, is from the autobiography of J.S. Mill. '_From\nthe winter of 1821_,' he writes, '_when I first read Bentham.... I had\nwhat might truly be called an object in life, to be a reformer of the\nworld.... I endeavoured to pick up as many flowers as I could by the\nway; but as a serious and permanent personal satisfaction to rest upon,\nmy whole reliance was placed on this.... But the time came when I\nawakened from this as from a dream.... It occurred to me to put the\nquestion directly to myself: \"Suppose that all your objects in life\nrealised; that all the changes in institutions and opinions which you\nwere looking forward to, could be completely effected in this very\ninstant, would this be a very great joy and happiness to you?\" And an\nirrepressible self-consciousness distinctly answered \"No!\" At this my\nheart sank within me: the whole foundation on which my life was\nconstructed fell down.... The end had ceased to charm, and how could\nthere ever again be any interest in the means? I seemed to have nothing\nleft to live for.... The lines in Coleridge's \"Dejection\" exactly\ndescribe my case_:--\n\n    \"_O grief without a pang, void, dark and drear,\n      A dreary, stifled, unimpassioned grief,\n      Which finds no natural outlet nor relief\n    In word, or sigh, or tear.\n\n         *       *       *       *       *\n\n    Work without hope draws nectar in a sieve,\n    And life without an object cannot live._\"'\n\nAnd the foregoing confession is made more significant by the author's\nsubsequent comment on it. '_Though my dejection,' he says, 'honestly\nlooked at, could not be called other than egotistical, produced by the\nruin, as I thought, of my fabric of happiness, yet the destiny of\nmankind was ever in my thoughts, and could not be separated from my own.\nI felt that the flaw in my life must be a flaw in life itself; and that\nthe question was whether, if the reformers of society and government\ncould succeed in their objects, and every person in the community were\nfree, and in a state of physical comfort, the pleasures of life being no\nlonger kept up by struggle and privation, would cease to be pleasures.\nAnd I felt that unless I could see some better hope than this for human\nhappiness in general, my dejection must continue.'_ It is true that in\nMill's case the dejection did not continue; and that in certain ways at\nwhich it is not yet time to touch, he succeeded, to his own\nsatisfaction, in finding the end he was thus asking for. I only quote\nhim to show how necessary he considered such an end to be. He\nacknowledged the fact, not only theoretically, or with his lips, but by\nmonths of misery, by intermittent thoughts of suicide, and by years of\nrecurring melancholy. Some ultimate end of action, some kind of\nsatisfying happiness--this, and this alone, he felt, could give any\nmeaning to work, or make possible any kind of virtue. And a yet later\nauthority has told us precisely the same thing. He has told us that the\none great question that education is of value for answering, is this\nvery question that was so earnestly asked by Mill. '_The ultimate end of\neducation_,' says Professor Huxley, '_is to promote morality and\nrefinement, by teaching men to discipline themselves, and by leading\nthem to see that the highest, as it is the only content, is to be\nattained not by grovelling in the rank and steaming valleys of sense,\nbut by continually striving towards those high peaks, where, resting in\neternal calm, reason discerns the undefined but bright ideal of the\nhighest good--\"a cloud by day, a pillar of fire by night_.\"' And these\nwords are an excellent specimen of the general moral exhortations of the\nnew school.\n\nNow all this is very well as far as it goes; and were there not one\nthing lacking, it would be just the answer that we are at present so\nanxious to elicit. But the one thing lacking, is enough to make it\nvalueless. It may mean a great deal; but there is no possibility of\nsaying exactly what it means. Before we can begin to strive towards the\n'highest good,' we must know something of what this 'highest good' is.\nWe must make this 'higher ideal' stand and unfold itself. If it cannot\nbe made to do this, if it vanishes into mist as we near it, and takes a\ndifferent shape to each of us as we recede from it; still more, if only\nsome can see it, and to others it is quite invisible--then we must\nsimply set it down as an illusion, and waste no more time in pursuit of\nit. But that it is not an illusion is the great positivist claim for it.\nHeaven and the love of God, we are told, were illusions. This 'highest\ngood' we are offered, stands out in clear contradistinction to these. It\nis an actual attainable thing, a thing for flesh and blood creatures; it\nis to be won and enjoyed by them in their common daily life. It is, as\nits prophets distinctly and unanimously tell us, some form of happiness\nthat results in this life to us, from certain conduct; it is a thing\nessentially for the present; and '_it is obviously_,' says Professor\nHuxley, '_in no way affected by abbreviation or prolongation of our\nconscious life_.'\n\nThis being the case, it is clearly not unreasonable to demand some\nexplicit account of it; or if no sound account of it be extant, to\nenquire diligently what sort of account of it is possible. And let it be\nremembered that to make this demand is in no way to violate the great\nrule of Aristotle, and to demand a greater accuracy than the nature of\nthe subject will admit of. The 'highest good,' it is quite possible, may\nbe a vague thing; not capable, like a figure in Euclid, of being defined\nexactly. But many vague things can be described exactly enough for all\npractical purposes. They can be described so that we at once know what\nis meant, and so that we can at once find and recognise them. Feelings,\ncharacters, and personal appearance are things of this sort; so too is\nthe taste of food, the style of furniture, or the general tone and\ntenour of our life, under various circumstances. And the 'good' we are\nnow considering can surely be not less describable than these. When\ntherefore our exact thinkers speak to us about the highest happiness, we\nwant to know what meaning they attach to the words. Has Professor\nHuxley, for instance, ever enjoyed it himself, or does he ever hope to\ndo so? If so, when, where, and how? What must be done to get it, and\nwhat must be left undone? And when it is got, what will it be like? Is\nit something brief, rapturous, and intermittent, as the language often\nused about it might seem to suggest to one? Is it known only in brief\nmoments of Neoplatonic ecstasy, to which all the acts of life should be\nstepping stones? It certainly cannot be that. Our exact thinkers are\nessentially no mystics, and the highest happiness must be something far\nmore solid than transcendental ecstasies. Surely, therefore, if it\nexists at all we must be able somewhere to lay our hands upon it. It is\na pillar of fire by night; surely then it will be visible. It is to be\nlifted up, and is to draw all men unto it. It is nothing if not this:\nand we shall see more clearly if we consider the matter further.\n\nThis chief good, or this highest happiness, being the end of moral\naction, one point about it is at once evident. Its value is of course\nrecognised by those who practise morality, or who enunciate moral\nsystems. Virtuous men are virtuous because the end gained by virtue is\nan end that they desire to gain. But this is not enough; it is not\nenough that to men who are already seeking the good the good should\nappear in all its full attractiveness. It must be capable of being made\nattractive for those who do not know it, and who have never sought it,\nbut who have, on the contrary, always turned away from everything that\nis supposed to lead to it. It must be able, in other words, not only to\nsatisfy the virtuous of the wisdom of their virtue, it must be able to\nconvince the vicious of the folly of their vice. Vice is only bad in the\neye of the positive moralist because of the precious _something_ that we\nare at the present moment losing by it. He can only convince us of our\nerror by giving us some picture of our loss. And he must be able to do\nthis, if his system is worth anything; and in promulgating his system he\nprofesses that he can do it. The physician's work is to heal the sick;\nhis skill must not end in explaining his own health. It is clear that if\na morality is incapable of being preached, it is useless to say that it\nis worthy of being practised. The statement will be meaningless, except\nto those for whom it is superfluous. It is therefore essential to the\nmoral end that in some way or other it be generally presentable, so that\nits excellence shall appeal to some common sense in man. And again, be\nit observed, that we are demanding no mathematical accuracy. We demand\nonly that the presentation shall be accurate enough to let us recognise\nits corresponding fact in life.\n\nNow what is a code of morals, and why has the world any need of one? A\ncode of morals is a number of restraining orders; it rigorously bids us\nwalk in certain paths. But why? What is the use of bidding us? Because\nthere are a number of other paths that we are naturally inclined to walk\nin. The right path is right because it leads to the highest kind of\nhappiness; the wrong paths are wrong because they lead to lower kinds of\nhappiness. But when men choose vice instead of virtue, what is\nhappening? They are considering the lower or the lesser happiness better\nthan the greater or the higher. It is this mistake that is the essence\nand cause of immorality; it is this mistake that mankind is ever\ninclined to make, and it is only because of this inclination that any\nmoral system is of any general value.\n\nWere we all naturally inclined to morality, the analysis of it, it is\ntrue, might have great speculative interest; but a moral system would\nnot be needed as it is for a great practical purpose. The law, as we all\nknow, has arisen because of transgressions, and the moralist has to\nmeddle with human nature mainly because it is inconstant and corrupted.\nIt is a wild horse that has not so much to be broken, once for all, as\nto be driven and reined in perpetually. And the art of the moralist is,\nby opening the mind's eye to the true end of life, to make us sharply\nconscious of what we lose by losing it. And the men to whom we shall\nchiefly want to present this end are not men, let us remember, who\ndesire to see it, or who will seek for it of their own accord, but men\nwho are turned away from it, and on whose sight it must be thrust. It is\nnot the righteous but the sinners that have to be called to repentance.\nAnd not this only: not only must the end in question be thus\npresentable, but when presented it must be able to stand the inveterate\ncriticism of those who fear being allured by it, who are content as they\nare, and have no wish to be made discontented. These men will submit it\nto every test by which they may hope to prove that its attractions are\ndelusive. They will test it with reason, as we test a metal by an acid.\nThey will ask what it is based upon, and of what it is compounded. They\nwill submit it to an analysis as merciless as that by which their\nadvisers have dissolved theism.\n\nHere then is a fact that all positive morality presupposes. It\npresupposes that life by its very nature contains the possibility in it\nof some one kind of happiness, which is open to all men, and which is\nbetter than all others. It is sufficiently presentable even to those who\nhave not experienced it; and its excellence is not vaguely apparent\nonly, but can be exactly proved from obvious and acknowledged facts.\nFurther, this happiness must be removed from its alternatives by some\nvery great interval. The proudest, the serenest, the most successful\nlife of vice, must be miserable when compared with the most painful life\nof virtue, and miserable in a very high degree; for morality is\nmomentous exactly in proportion to the interval between the things to be\ngained and escaped by it. And unless this interval be a very profound\none, the language at present current as to the importance of virtue, the\ndignity of life, and the earnestness of the moral struggle, will be\naltogether overstrained and ludicrous.\n\nNow is such a happiness a reality or is it a myth? That is the great\nquestion. Can human life, cut off utterly from every hope beyond\nitself--can human life supply it? If it cannot, then evidently there\ncan be no morality without religion. But perhaps it can. Perhaps life\nhas greater capacities than we have hitherto given it credit for.\nPerhaps this happiness may be really close at hand for each of us, and\nwe have only overlooked it hitherto because it was too directly before\nour eyes. At all events, wherever it is let it be pointed out to us. It\nis useless, as we have seen, if not generally presentable. To those who\nmost need it, it is useless until presented. Indeed, until it is\npresented we are but acting on the maxim of its advocates by refusing to\nbelieve in its existence. '_No simplicity of mind_,' says Professor\nClifford, '_no obscurity of station, can escape the universal duty of\nquestioning all that we believe_.'\n\nThe question, then, that we want answered has by this time, I think,\nbeen stated with sufficient clearness, and its importance and its\nlegitimacy been placed beyond a doubt. I shall now go on to explain in\ndetail how completely unsatisfactory are the answers that are at present\ngiven it; how it is evaded by some and begged by others; and how those\nthat are most plausible are really made worthless, by a subtle but\nprofound defect.\n\nThese answers divide themselves into two classes, which, though\ninvariably confused by those that give them, are in reality quite\ndistinct and separable. Professor Huxley, one of the most vigorous of\nour positive thinkers, shall help us to understand these. He is going to\ntell us, let us remember, about the '_highest good_'--the happiness, in\nother words, that we have just been discussing--the secret of our life's\nworth, and the test of all our conduct. This happiness he divides into\ntwo kinds.[8] He says that there are two things that we may mean when we\nspeak about it. We may mean the happiness of a society of men, or we may\nmean the happiness of the members of that society. And when we speak of\nmorality, we may mean two things also; and these two things must be kept\ndistinct. We may mean what Professor Huxley calls '_social morality_,'\nand of this the test and object is the happiness of societies; or we may\nmean what he calls '_personal morality_,' and of this the test and\nobject is the happiness of individuals. And the answers which our\npositive moralists make to us divide themselves into two classes,\naccording to the sort of happiness they refer to.\n\nIt is before all things important that this division be understood, and\nbe kept quite clear in our minds, if we would see honestly what our\npositive modern systems amount to. For what makes them at present so\nvery hard to deal with, is the fact that their exponents are perpetually\nperplexing themselves between these two classes of answers, first\ngiving one, and then the other, and imagining that, by a kind of\nconfusion of substance, they can both afford solutions of the same\nquestions. Thus they continually speak of life as though its crowning\nachievement were some kind of personal happiness; and then being asked\nto explain the nature and basis of this, they at once shift their\nground, and talk to us of the laws and conditions of social happiness.\nProfessor Huxley will again supply us with a very excellent example. He\nstarts with the thesis that _both_ sorts of morality are strong enough\nto hold their own, without supernatural aid; and when we look to see on\nwhat ground he holds they are, we find it to consist in the following\nexplanation that _one_ is. '_Given_,' he says, '_a society of human\nbeings under certain circumstances, and the question whether a\nparticular action on the part of one of its members will tend to\nincrease the general happiness or not, is a question of natural\nknowledge, and as such is a perfectly legitimate subject of scientific\ninquiry.... If it can be shown by observation or experiment, that theft,\nmurder, and adultery do not tend to diminish the happiness of society,\nthen, in the absence of any but natural knowledge, they are not social\nimmoralities._'\n\nNow, in the above passage we have at least one thing. We have a short\nepitome of one of those classes of answers that our positive moralists\nare offering us. It is with this class that I shall deal in the\nfollowing chapter; and point out as briefly as may be its complete\nirrelevance. After that, I shall go on to the other.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[8] Vide _Nineteenth Century_, No. 3, pp. 536, 537.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\nSOCIOLOGY AS THE FOUNDATION OF MORALITY.\n\n\nSociety, says Professor Clifford, is the highest of all organisms;[9]\nand its organic nature, he tells us, is one of those great facts which\nour own generation has been the first to state rationally. It is our\nunderstanding of this that enables us to supply morals with a positive\nbasis. It is, he proceeds, because society is organic, '_that actions\nwhich, as individual, are insignificant, are massed together into ...\nimportant movements. Co-operation or_ band-work _is the life of it_.'\nAnd '_it is the practice of band-work_,' he adds, that, unknown till\nlately though its nature was to us, has so moulded man as '_to create in\nhim two specially human faculties, the conscience and the intellect_;'\nof which the former, we are told, gives us the desire for the good, and\nthe latter instructs us how to attain this desire by action. So too\nProfessor Huxley, once more to recur to him, says that that state of man\nwould be '_a true_ civitas Dei, _in which each man's moral faculty shall\nbe such as leads him to control all those desires which run counter to\nthe good of mankind_.' And J.S. Mill, whose doubts as to the value of\nlife we have already dwelt upon, professed to have at last satisfied\nhimself by a precisely similar answer. He had never '_wavered in the\nconviction_,' he tells us, even all through his perplexity, that, if\nlife had any value at all, '_happiness_' was its one '_end_,' and the\n'_test of its rule of conduct_;' but he now thought that this end was to\nbe attained by not making it the direct end, but '_by fixing the mind on\nsome object other than one's own happiness; on the happiness of\nothers--on the improvement of mankind_.' The same thing is being told us\non all sides, and in countless ways. The common name for this theory is\nUtilitarianism; and its great boast, and its special professed strength,\nis that it gives morals a positive basis in the acknowledged science of\nsociology. Whether sociology can really supply such a basis is what we\nnow have to enquire. There are many practical rules for which it no\ndoubt can do so; but will these rules correspond with what we mean by\nmorals?\n\nNow the province of the sociologist, within certain limits, is clear\nenough. His study is to the social body what the study of the physician\nis to the individual body. It is the study of human action as\nproductive, or non-productive, of some certain general good. But here\ncomes the point at issue--What is this general good, and what is\nincluded by it? The positive school contend that it is general\nhappiness; and there, they say, is the answer to the great\nquestion--What is the test of conduct, and the true end of life? But\nthough, as we shall see in another moment, there is some plausibility in\nthis, there is really nothing in it of the special answer we want. Our\nquestion is, What is the true happiness? And what is the answer thus\nfar?--That the true happiness is general happiness; that it is the\nhappiness of men in societies; that it is happiness equally distributed.\nBut this avails us nothing. The coveted _happiness_ is still a locked\ncasket. We know nothing as yet of its contents. A happy society neither\ndoes nor can mean anything but a number of happy individuals, so\norganised that their individual happiness is secured to them. But what\ndo the individuals want? Before we can try to secure it for them, we\nmust know that. Granted that we know what will make the individuals\nhappy, then we shall know what will make society happy. And then social\nmorality will be, as Professor Huxley says, a perfectly legitimate\nsubject of scientific enquiry--then, but not till then. But this is what\nthe positive school are perpetually losing sight of; and the reason of\nthe confusion is not far to seek.\n\nWithin certain limits, it is quite true, the general good is a\nsufficiently obvious matter, and beyond the reach of any rational\ndispute. There are, therefore, certain rules with regard to conduct\nthat we can arrive at and justify by strictly scientific methods. We can\ndemonstrate that there are certain actions which we must never tolerate,\nand which we must join together, as best we may, to suppress. Actions,\nfor instance, that would tend to generate pestilence, or to destroy our\ngood faith in our fellows, or to render our lives and property insecure,\nare actions the badness of which can be scientifically verified.\n\nBut the _general good_ by which these actions are tested is something\nquite distinct from happiness, though it undoubtedly has a close\nconnection with it. It is no kind of happiness, high or low, in\nparticular; it is simply those negative conditions required equally by\nevery kind. If we are to be happy in any way, no matter what, we must of\ncourse have our lives, and, next to our lives, our health and our\npossessions secured to us. But to secure us these does not secure us\nhappiness. It simply leaves us free to secure it, if we can, for\nourselves. Once let us have some common agreement as to what this\nhappiness is, we may then be able to formulate other rules for attaining\nit. But in the absence of any such agreement, the only possible aim of\nsocial morality, the only possible meaning of the _general good_, is not\nany kind or any kinds of happiness, but the security of those conditions\nwithout which all happiness would be impossible.\n\nSuppose the human race were a set of canaries in a cage, and that we\nwere in grave doubt as to what seed to give them--hemp-seed, rape-seed,\nor canary-seed, or all three mixed in certain proportions. That would\nexactly represent the state of our case thus far. There is the question\nthat we want the positive school to answer. It is surely evident that,\nin this perplexity, it is beside the point to tell us that the birds\nmust not peck each other's eyes out, and that they must all have access\nto the trough that we are ignorant how to fill.\n\nThe fault then, so continually committed by the positive school, is\nthis. They confuse the negative conditions of happiness with the\npositive materials of it. Professor Huxley, in a passage I have already\nquoted, is caught, so to speak, in the very act of committing it.\n'_Theft, murder, and adultery_,' all these three, it will be remembered,\nhe classes together, and seems to think that they stand upon the same\nfooting. But from what has just been pointed out, it is plain that they\ndo not do so. We condemn theft and murder for one reason. We condemn\nadultery for quite another. We condemn the former because they are\nincompatible with any form of happiness. We condemn the latter because\nit is the supposed destruction of one particular form; or the\nsubstitution, rather, of a form supposed to be less complete, for\nanother form supposed to be more complete. If the '_highest good_,' if\nthe best kind of happiness, be the end we are in search of, the truths\nof sociology will help us but a very short way towards it. By the\npractice of '_band-work_' alone we shall never learn to construct a\n'_true_ Civitas Dei.' Band-work with the same perfection may be\npractised for opposite ends. Send an army in a just war or an unjust\none, in either case it will need the same discipline. There must be\norder amongst thieves, as well as amongst honest men. There can be an\norderly brothel as well as an orderly nunnery, and all order rests on\nco-operation. We presume co-operation. We require an end for which to\nco-operate.\n\nI have already compared the science of sociology to that of medicine;\nand the comparison will again be a very instructive one. The aim of both\nsciences is to produce health; and the relation of health to happiness\nis in both cases the same. It is an important condition of the full\nenjoyment of anything: but it will by no means of itself give or guide\nus to the best thing. A man may be in excellent health, and yet, if he\nbe prudent, be leading a degrading life. So, too, may a society. The\nCities of the Plain may, for all we know to the contrary, have been in\nexcellent social health; indeed, there is every reason to believe they\nwere. They were, apparently, to a high degree strong and prosperous;\nand the sort of happiness that their citizens set most store by was only\ntoo generally attainable. There were not ten men to be found in them by\nwhom the _highest good_ had not been realised.\n\nThere are, however, two suppositions, on which the general good, or the\nhealth of the social organism, can be given a more definite meaning, and\nmade in some sense an adequate test of conduct. And one or other of\nthese suppositions is apparently always lurking in the positivist mind.\nBut though, when unexpressed, and only barely assented to, they may seem\nto be true, their entire falsehood will appear the moment they are\ndistinctly stated.\n\nOne of these suppositions is, that for human happiness health is alone\nrequisite--health in the social organism including sufficient wealth and\nfreedom; and that man's life, whenever it is not interfered with, will\nbe moral, dignified, and delightful naturally, no matter how he lives\nit. But this supposition, from a moralist, is of course nonsense. For,\nwere it true, as we have just seen, Sodom might have been as moral as\nthe tents of Abraham; and in a perfect state there would be a fitting\nplace for both. The social organism indeed, in its highest state of\nperfection, would manifest the richest variety in the development of\nsuch various parts. It might consist of a number of motley communes[10]\nof monogamists and of free-lovers, of ascetics and sybarites, of saints\nand [Greek: paiderastai]--each of them being stones in this true\n_Civitas Dei_, this holy city of God. Of course it may be contended that\nthis state of things would be desirable; that, however, is quite a\ndifferent question. But whatever else it was, it would certainly not be\nmoral, in any sense in which the word has yet been used.\n\nThe second supposition I spoke of, though less openly absurd than this\none, is really quite as false. It consists of a vague idea that, for\nsome reason or other, happiness can never be distributed in an equal\nmeasure to all, unless it be not only equal in degree but also the same\nin kind; and that the one kind that can be thus distributed is a kind\nthat is in harmony with our conceptions of moral excellence. Now this is\nindeed so far true, that there are doubtless certain kinds of happiness\nwhich, if enjoyed at all, can be enjoyed by the few alone; and that the\nconditions under which alone the few can enjoy them disturb the\nconditions of all happiness for the many. The general good, therefore,\ngives us at once a test by which such kinds of happiness can be\ncondemned. But to eliminate these will by no means leave us a residue of\nvirtue; for these so far from being co-extensive with moral evil, do in\nreality lie only on the borders of it; and the condemnation attached to\nthem is a legal rather than a moral one. It is based, that is, not so\nmuch on the kind of happiness itself as on the circumstances under which\nwe are at present obliged to seek it. Thus the practice of seduction may\nbe said to be condemned sufficiently by the misery brought by it to its\nvictims, and its victims' families. But suppose the victims are willing,\nand the families complacent, this ground of condemnation goes; though in\nthe eye of the moralist, matters in this last will be far worse than in\nthe former. It is therefore quite a mistake to say that the kind of\nhappiness which it is the end of life to realise is defined or narrowed\ndown appreciably by the fact that it is a general end. Vice can be\nenjoyed in common, just as well as virtue; nor if wisely regulated will\nit exhaust the tastes that it appeals to. Regulated with equal skill,\nand with equal far-sightedness, it will take its place side by side with\nvirtue; nor will sociology or social morality give us any reason for\npreferring the one to the other.\n\nWe may observe accordingly, that if happiness of some certain kind be\nthe moral test, what Professor Huxley calls '_social morality_'--the\nrule that is, for producing the negative conditions of happiness, it is\nnot in itself morality at all. It may indeed become so, when the\nconsciousness that we are conforming to it becomes one of the factors of\nour own personal happiness. It then suffers a kind of apotheosis. It is\ntaken up into ourselves, and becomes part and parcel of our own personal\nmorality. But it then becomes quite a different matter, as we shall see\nvery shortly; and even then it supplies us with but a very small part of\nthe answer.\n\nThus far what has been made plain is this. General, or social happiness,\nunless explained farther, is simply for moral purposes an unmeaning\nphrase. It evades the whole question we are asking; for happiness is no\nmore differentiated by saying that it is general, than food is by saying\nthat everyone at a table is eating it; or than a language is by saying\nthat every one in a room is talking it. The social happiness of all of\nus means nothing but the personal happiness of each of us; and if social\nhappiness have any single meaning--in other words, if it be a test of\nmorals--it must postulate a personal happiness of some hitherto\nunexplained kind. Else sociology will be subsidiary to nothing but\nindividual license; general law will be but the protection of individual\nlawlessness; and the completest social morality but the condition of\nthe completest personal un-morality. The social organism we may compare\nto a yew-tree. Science will explain to us how it has grown up from the\nground, and how all its twigs must have fitting room to expand in. It\nwill not show us how to clip the yew-tree into a peacock. Morality, it\nis true, must rest ultimately on the proved facts of sociology; and this\nis not only true but evident. But it rests upon them as a statue rests\nupon its pedestal, and the same pedestal will support an Athene or a\nPriapus.\n\nThe matter, however, is not yet altogether disposed of. The type of\npersonal happiness that social morality postulates, as a whole, we have\nstill to seek for. But a part of it, as I just pointed out, will, beyond\ndoubt, be a _willing_ obedience by each to the rules that make it in its\nentirety within the reach of all. About this obedience, however, there\nis a certain thing to remember: it must be willing, not enforced. The\nlaws will of course do all they can to enforce it; but not only can they\nnever do this completely, but even if they could, they would not produce\nmorality. Conduct which, if willing, we should call highly moral, we\nshall, if enforced only, call nothing more than legal. We do not call a\nwild bear tame because it is so well caged that there is no fear of its\nattacking us; nor do we call a man good because, though his desires are\nevil, we have made him afraid to gratify them. Further, it is not\nenough that the obedience in question be willing in the sense that it\ndoes not give us pain. If it is to be a moral quality, it must also give\nus positive pleasure. Indeed, it must not so much be obedience to the\nlaw as an impassioned co-operation with it.\n\nNow this, if producible, even though no further moral aim was connected\nwith it, would undoubtedly be of itself a moral element. Suppose two\npigs, for instance, had only a single wallowing-place, and each would\nlike naturally to wallow in it for ever. If each pig in turn were to\nrejoice to make room for his brother, and were consciously to regulate\nhis delight in becoming filthy himself by an equal delight in seeing his\nbrother becoming filthy also, we should doubtless here be in the\npresence of a certain moral element. And though this, in a human\nsociety, might not carry us so far as we require to be carried, it\nwould, without doubt, if producible, carry us a certain way. The\nquestion is, Is this moral element, this impassioned and unselfish\nco-operation with the social law, producible, in the absence of any\nfarther end to which the social law is to be subordinate? The positive\nschool apparently think it is; and this opinion has a seeming foundation\nin fact. We will therefore carefully examine what this foundation is,\nand see how far it is really able to support the weight that is laid\nupon it.\n\nThat fact, in itself a quite undoubted one, is the possession by man of\na certain special and important feeling, which, viewed from its passive\nside, we call sympathy, and from its active side, benevolence. It exists\nin various degrees in different people, but to some degree or other it\nprobably exists in all. Most people, for instance, if they hear an\namusing story, at once itch to tell it to an appreciative friend; for\nthey find that the amusement, if shared, is doubled. Two epicures\ntogether, for the same reason, will enjoy a dinner better than if they\neach dined singly. In such cases the enjoyment of another plays the part\nof a reflector, which throws one's own enjoyment back on one. Nor is\nthis all. It is not only true that we often desire others to be pleased\nwith us; we often desire others to be pleased instead of us. For\ninstance, if there be but one easy chair in a room, one man will often\ngive it up to another, and prefer himself to stand, or perhaps sit on\nthe table. To contemplate discomfort is often more annoying than to\nsuffer it.\n\nThis is the fact in human nature on which the positive school rely for\ntheir practical motive power. It is this sympathy and benevolence that\nis the secret of the social union; and it is by these that the rules of\nsocial morality are to be absorbed and attracted into ourselves, and\nmade the directors of all our other impulses.\n\nThe feelings, however, that are thus relied on will be found, on\nconsideration, to be altogether inadequate. They are undoubted facts, it\nis true, and are ours by the very constitution of our nature; but they\ndo not possess the importance that is assigned to them, and their limits\nare soon reached. They are unequal in their distribution; they are\npartial and capricious in their action; and they are disturbed and\ncounterbalanced by the opposite impulse of selfishness, which is just as\nmuch a part of our nature, and which is just as generally distributed.\nIt must be a very one-sided view of the case that will lead us to deny\nthis; and by such eclectic methods of observation we can support any\ntheory we please. Thus there are many stories of unselfish heroism\ndisplayed by rough men on occasions such as shipwrecks, and displayed\nquite spontaneously. And did we confine our attention to this single set\nof examples, we might naturally conclude that we had here the real\nnature of man bursting forth in all its intense entirety--a constant but\nsuppressed force, which we shall learn by-and-by to utilise generally.\nBut if we extend our observations a little farther, we shall find\nanother set of examples, in which selfishness is just as predominant as\nunselfishness was in the first set. The sailor, for instance, who might\nstruggle to save a woman on a sinking ship, will trample her to death to\nescape from a burning theatre. And if we will but honestly estimate the\ncomposite nature of man, we shall find that the sailor, in this latter\ncase, embodies a tendency far commoner, and far more to be counted on,\nthan he does in the former. No fair student of life or history will, I\nthink, be able to deny this. The lives of the world's greatest men, be\nthey Goethes or Napoleons, will be the first to show us that it is so.\nWhilst the world's best men, who have been most successful in conquering\ntheir selfish nature, will be the first to bear witness to the\npersistent strength of it.\n\nBut even giving these unpromising facts the least weight possible, the\ncase will practically be not much mended. The unselfish impulses, let\nthem be diffused never so widely, will be found, as a general rule, to\nbe very limited in power; and to be intense only for short periods, and\nunder exceptional circumstances. They are intense only--in the absence\nof any further motive--when the thing to be won for another becomes\ninvested for the moment with an abnormal value, and the thing to be lost\nby oneself becomes abnormally depreciated; when all intermediate\npossibilities are suddenly swept away from us, and the only surviving\nalternatives are shame and heroism. But this never happens, except in\nthe case of great catastrophes, of such, for instance, as a shipwreck;\nand thus the only conditions under which an impassioned unselfishness\ncan be counted on, are amongst the first conditions that we trust to\nprogress to eliminate. The common state of life, then, when the feelings\nare in this normal state of tension, is all that in this connection we\ncan really be concerned in dealing with. And there, unselfishness,\nthough as sure a fact as selfishness, is, spontaneously and apart from a\nfurther motive, essentially unequal to the work it is asked to do. Thus,\nthough as I observed just now, a man may often prefer to sit on a table\nand give up the arm-chair to a friend, there are other times when he\nwill be very loth to do so. He will do so when the pleasure of looking\nat comfort is greater than the pleasure of feeling it. And in certain\nstates of mind and body this is very often the case. But let him be\nsleepy and really in need of rest, the selfish impulse will at once\neclipse the unselfish, and, unless under the action of some alien\nmotive, he will keep the arm-chair for himself. So, too, in the case of\nthe two epicures, if there be sufficient of the best dainties for both,\neach will feel that it is so much the better. But whenever the dainties\nin question cannot be divided, it will be the tendency of each to take\nthem furtively for himself.\n\nAnd when we come to the conditions of happiness the matter will be just\nthe same. If without incommoding ourselves we can, as Professor Huxley\nsays, repress '_all those desires which run counter to the good of\nmankind_,' we shall no doubt all willingly do so; only in that case\nlittle more need be said. The '_Civitas Dei_' we are promised may be\nleft to take care of itself, and it will doubtless very soon begin '_to\nrise like an exhalation_.' But if this self-repression be a matter of\ngreat difficulty, and one requiring a constant struggle on our part, it\nwill be needful for us to intensely realise, when we abstain from any\naction, that the happiness it would take from others will be far greater\nthan the happiness it would give to ourselves. Suppose, for instance, a\nman were in love with his friend's wife, and had engaged on a certain\nnight to take her to the theatre. He would instantly give the engagement\nup could he know that the people in the gallery would be burnt to death\nif he did not. He would certainly not give it up because by the sight of\nhis proceedings the moral tone of the stalls might be infinitesimally\nlowered; still less would he do so because another wife's husband might\nbe made infinitely jealous. Whenever we give up any source of personal\nhappiness for the sake of the happiness of the community at large, the\ntwo kinds of happiness have to be weighed together in a balance. But the\nlatter, except in very few cases, is at a great disadvantage: only a\npart of it, so to speak, can be got into the scale. What adds to my\nsense of pleasure in the proportion of a million pounds may be only\ntaxing society in the proportion of half a farthing a head.\nUnselfishness with regard to society is thus essentially a different\nthing from unselfishness with regard to an individual. In the latter\ncase the things to be weighed together are commensurate: not so is the\nformer. In the latter case, as we have seen, an impassioned\nself-devotion may be at times produced by the sudden presentation to a\nman of two extreme alternatives; but in the former case such\nalternatives are not presentable. I may know that a certain line of\nconduct will on the one hand give me great pleasure, and that on the\nother hand, if it were practised by everyone, it would produce much\ngeneral mischief; but I shall know that my practising it, will, as a\nfact, be hardly felt at all by the community, or at all events only in a\nvery small degree. And therefore my choice is not that of the sailor's\nin the shipwreck. It does not lie between saving my life at the expense\nof a woman's, or saving a woman's life at the expense of mine. It lies\nrather, as it were, between letting her lose her ear-ring and breaking\nmy own arm.\n\nIt will appear, therefore, that the general conditions of an entirely\nundefined happiness form an ideal utterly unfitted to counterbalance\nindividual temptation or, to give even willingness, let alone ardour, to\nthe self-denials that are required of us. In the first place the\nconditions are so vague that even in the extremest cases the individual\nwill find it difficult to realise that he is appreciably disturbing\nthem. And in the second place, until he knows that the happiness in\nquestion is something of extreme value he will be unable to feel much\nardour in helping to make it possible. If we knew that the social\norganism in its state of completest health had no higher pleasure than\nsleep and eating, the cause of its completest health would hardly excite\nenthusiasm. And even if we did not rebel against any sacrifices for so\npoor a result as this, we should at the best be resigned rather than\nblest in making them. The nearest approach to a moral end that the\nscience of sociology will of itself supply to us is an end that, in all\nprobability, men will not follow at all, or that will produce in them,\nif they do, no happier state than a passionless and passive\nacquiescence. If we want anything more than this we must deal with\nhappiness itself, not with the negative conditions of it. We must\ndiscern the highest good that is within the reach of each of us, and\nthis may perhaps supply us with a motive for endeavouring to secure the\nsame blessing for all. But the matter depends entirely on what this\nhighest good is--on the end to which, given the social health, the\nsocial health will be directed.\n\nThe real answer to this question can be given, as I have said before, in\nterms of the individual only. Social happiness is a mere set of ciphers\ntill the unit of personal happiness is placed before it. A man's\nhappiness may of course depend on other beings, but still it is none the\nless contained in himself. If our greatest delight were to see each\nother dance the _can-can_, then it might be morality for us all to\ndance. None the less would this be a happy world, not because we were\nall dancing, but because we each enjoyed the sight of such a spectacle.\nMany young officers take intense pride in their regiments, and the\ncharacter of such regiments may in a certain sense be called a corporate\nthing. But it depends entirely on the personal character of their\nmembers, and all that the phrase really indicates is that a set of men\ntake pleasure in similar things. Thus it is the boast of one young\nofficer that the members of his regiment all spend too much, of another\nthat they all drink too much, of another that they are distinguished for\ntheir high rank, and of another that they are distinguished for the\nlowness of their sensuality. What differentiates one regiment from\nanother is first and before all things some personal source of happiness\ncommon to all its members.\n\nAnd as it is with the character of a regiment, so too is it with the\ncharacter of life in general. When we say that Humanity may become a\nglorious thing as a whole, we must mean that each man may attain some\npositive glory as an individual. What shall I get? and I? and I? and I?\nWhat do you offer me? and me? and me? This is the first question that\nthe common sense of mankind asks. '_You must promise something to each\nof us_,' it says, '_or very certainly you will be able to promise\nnothing to all of us_.' There is no real escape in saying that we must\nall work for one another, and that our happiness is to be found in that.\nThe question merely confronts us with two other facets of itself. What\nsort of happiness shall I secure for others? and what sort of happiness\nwill others secure for me? What will it be like? Will it be worth\nhaving? In the positivist Utopia, we are told, each man's happiness is\nbound up in the happiness of all the rest, and is thus infinitely\nintensified. All mankind are made a mighty whole, by the fusing power of\nbenevolence. Benevolence, however, means simply the wishing that our\nneighbours were happy, the helping to make them so, and lastly the being\nglad that they are so. But happiness must plainly be something besides\nbenevolence; else, if I know that a man's highest happiness is in\nknowing that others are happy, all I shall try to procure for others is\nthe knowledge that I am happy; and thus the Utopian happiness would be\nexpressed completely in the somewhat homely formula, '_I am so glad that\nyou are glad that I am glad_.' But this is, of course, not enough. All\nthis gladness must be about something besides itself. Our good wishes\nfor our neighbours must have some farther content than that they shall\nwish us well in return. What I wish them and what they wish me must be\nsomething that both they and I, each of us, take delight in for\nourselves. It will certainly be no delight to men to procure for others\nwhat they will take no delight in themselves, if procured by others for\nthem. '_For a joyful life, that is to say a pleasant life_,' as Sir\nThomas More pithily puts it, '_is either evil; and if so, then thou\nshouldest not only help no man thereto, but rather as much as in thee\nlieth withdraw all men from it as noisome and hurtful; or else if thou\nnot only mayest, but also of duty art bound to procure it for others,\nwhy not chiefly for thyself, to whom thou art bound to show as much\nfavour and gentleness as to others?_' The fundamental question is, then,\nwhat life should a man try to procure for himself? How shall he make it\nmost joyful? and how joyful will it be when he has done his utmost for\nit? It is in terms of the individual, and of the individual only, that\nthe value of life can at first be intelligibly stated. If the coin be\nnot itself genuine, we shall never be able to make it so by merely\nshuffling it about from hand to hand, nor even by indefinitely\nmultiplying it. A million sham bank notes will not make us any richer\nthan a single one. Granting that the riches are really genuine, then the\nknowledge of their diffusion may magnify for each of us our own pleasure\nin possessing them. But it will only do this if the share that is\npossessed by each be itself something very great to begin with. Certain\nintense kinds of happiness may perhaps be raised to ecstasy by the\nthought that another shares them. But if the feeling in question be\nnothing more than cheerfulness, a man will not be made ecstatic by the\nknowledge that any number of other people are cheerful as well as he.\nWhen the happiness of two or more people rises to a certain temperature,\nthen it is true a certain fusion may take place, and there may perhaps\nbe a certain joint result, arising from the sum of the parts. But below\nthis melting point no fusion or union takes place at all, nor will any\nnumber of lesser happinesses melt and be massed together into one great\none. Two great wits may increase each other's brilliancy, but two\nhalf-wits will not make a single whole one. A bad picture will not\nbecome good by being magnified, nor will a merely readable novel become\nmore than readable by the publication of a million copies of it. Suppose\nit were a matter of life and death to ten men to walk to York from\nLondon in a day. Were this feat a possible one, they might no doubt each\ndo their best to help the others to accomplish it. But if it were beyond\nthe power of each singly, they would not accomplish it as a body, by the\nwhole ten leaving Charing Cross together, and each of them walking one\ntenth of the way. The distance they could all walk would be no greater\nthan the distance they could each walk. In the same way the value of\nhuman life, as a whole, depends on the capacities of the individual\nhuman being, as an enjoying animal. If these capacities be great, we\nshall be eager in our desire to gratify them--certainly for ourselves,\nand perhaps also for others; and this second desire may perhaps be great\nenough to modify and to guide the first. But unless these capacities\n_be_ great, and the means of gratifying them definite, our impulses on\nour own behalf will become weak and sluggish, whilst those on behalf of\nothers will become less able to control them.\n\nIt will be apparent farther from this, that just as happiness, unless\nsome distinct positive quality, gains nothing as an end of action,\neither in value or distinctness, by a mere diffusion in the present--by\nan extension, as it were, laterally--so will it gain nothing further by\ngiving it another dimension, and by prospectively increasing it in the\nfuture. We must know what it is first, before we know whether it is\ncapable of increase. Apart from this knowledge, the conception of\nprogress and the hope of some brighter destiny can add nothing to that\nrequired _something_, which, so far as sociology can define it for us,\nwe have seen to be so utterly inadequate. Social conditions, it is true,\nwe may expect will go on improving; we may hope that the social\nmachinery will come gradually to run more smoothly. But unless we know\nsomething positive to the contrary, the outcome of all this progress may\nbe nothing but a more undisturbed ennui or a more soulless sensuality.\nThe rose-leaves may be laid more smoothly, and yet the man that lies on\nthem may be wearier or more degraded.\n\n    _To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow\n    Creeps in this petty pace from day to day;\n    And all our yesterdays have lighted fools\n    The way to dusty death._\n\nThis, for all that sociology can inform us to the contrary, may be the\nlesson really taught us by the positive philosophy of progress.\n\nBut what the positivists themselves learn from it, is something very\ndifferent. The following verses are George Eliot's:\n\n    _Oh may I join the choir invisible\n    Of those immortal dead who live again\n    In lives made better by their presence. So\n    To live is heaven....\n    To make undying music in the world,\n    Breathing us beauteous order that controls\n    With growing sway the growing life of man.\n    So we inherit that sweet purity\n    For which we struggled, groaned, and agonised\n    With widening retrospect, that bred despair....\n    That better self shall live till human time\n    Shall fold its eyelids, and the human sky\n    Be gathered like a scroll within the tomb\n    Unread for ever. This is life to come,\n    Which martyred men have made more glorious\n    For us who strive to follow. May I reach\n    That purest heaven, and be to other souls\n    That cup of strength in some great agony,\n    Enkindle generous ardour, feed pure love,\n    Beget the smiles that have no cruelty,\n    Be the sweet presence of a good diffused,\n    And in diffusion ever more intense;\n    So shall I join that choir invisible\n    Whose music is the gladness of the world._\n\nHere is the positive religion of benevolence and progress, as preached\nto the modern world in the name of exact thought, presented to us in an\nimpassioned epitome. Here is hope, ardour, sympathy, and resolution,\nenough and to spare. The first question is,--How are these kindled, and\nwhat are they all about? They must, as we have seen, be about something\nthat the science of sociology will not discover for us. Nor can they\nlast, if, like an empty stomach, they prey only upon themselves. They\nmust have some solid content, and the great thing needful is to discern\nthis. It is quite true that to suffer, or even to die, will often seem\n_dulce et decorum_ to a man; but it will only seem so when the end he\ndies or suffers for is, in his estimation, a worthy one. A Christian\nmight be gladly crucified if by so doing he could turn men from vice to\nvirtue; but a connoisseur in wine would not be crucified that his best\nfriend might prefer dry champagne to sweet. All the agony and the\nstruggles, then, that the positivist saint suffers with such enthusiasm,\ndepend alike for their value and their possibility on the object that is\nsupposed to cause them. And in the verses just quoted this object is\nindeed named several times; but it is named only incidentally and in\nvague terms, as if its nature and its value were self-evident, and could\nbe left to take care of themselves; and the great thing to be dwelt upon\nwere the means and not the end: whereas the former are really only the\ncreatures of the latter, and can have no more honour than the latter is\nable to bestow upon them.\n\nNow the only positive ends named in these verses are '_the better\nself_,' '_sweet purity_,' and '_smiles that have no cruelty_.' The\nconditions of these are _beauteous order_,' and the result of them is\nthe '_gladness of the world_.' The rest of the language used adds\nnothing to our positive knowledge, but merely makes us feel the want of\nit. The purest heaven, we are told, that the men of any generation can\nlook forward to, will be the increased gladness that their right conduct\nwill secure for a coming generation: and that gladness, when it comes,\nwill be, as it were, the seraphic song of the blessed and holy dead.\nThus every present, for the positivist, is the future life of the past;\nearth is heaven perpetually realising itself; it is, as it were, an\neternal choir-practice, in which the performers, though a little out of\ntune at present, are becoming momently more and more perfect. If this be\nso, there is a heaven of some sort about us at this moment. There is a\nmusical gladness every day in our ears, our actual delight in which it\nmight have been a heaven to our great-grandfathers to have anticipated\nin the last century.\n\nNow it is plain that this alleged music is not everywhere. Where, then,\nis it? And will it, when we have found it, be found to merit all the\npraise that is bestowed upon it? Sociology, as we have seen, may show us\nhow to secure to each performer his voice or his instrument; but it will\nnot show us how to make either the voice or the instrument a good one;\nnor will it decide whether the orchestra shall perform Beethoven or\nOffenbach, or whether the chorus shall sing a penitential psalm or a\ndrinking song. When we have discovered what the world's highest gladness\ncan consist of, we will again come to the question of how far such\ngladness can be a general end of action.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[9] Vide _Nineteenth Century_, October, 1877.\n\n[10] '_As Mr. Spencer points out, society does not resemble those\norganisms which are so highly centralised that the unity of the whole is\nthe important thing, and every part must die if separated from the rest;\nbut rather those that will bear separation and reunion; because,\nalthough there is a certain union and organisation of the parts in\nregard to one another, yet the far more important fact is the life of\nthe parts separately. The true health of society depends upon the\ncommunes, the villages and townships, infinitely more than on the form\nand pageantry of an imperial government. If in them there is band-work,\nunion for a common effort, converse in the working out of a common\nthought, there the Republic is._'--Professor Clifford, _Nineteenth\nCentury_, October, 1877.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\nGOODNESS AS ITS OWN REWARD.\n\n    '_Who chooses me must give, and hazard all he hath._' Inscription on\n    the Leaden Casket. _Merchant of Venice._\n\n\nWhat I have been urging in the last chapter is really nothing more than\nthe positivists admit themselves. It will be found, if we study their\nutterances as a whole, that they by no means believe practically in\ntheir own professions, or consider that the end of action can be either\ndefined and verified by sociology, or made attractive by sympathy. On\nthe contrary, they confess plainly how inadequate these are by\nthemselves, by continually supplementing them with additions from quite\nanother quarter. But their fault is that this confession is, apparently,\nonly half conscious with them; and they are for ever reproducing\narguments as sufficient which they have already in other moments\nimplicitly condemned as meaningless. My aim has been, therefore, to put\nthese arguments out of court altogether, and safely shut the doors on\nthem. Hitherto they have played just the part of an idle populace, often\nturned out of doors, but as often breaking in again, and confusing with\ntheir noisy cheers a judgment that has not yet been given. Let us have\ndone, then, with the conditions of happiness till we know what happiness\nis. Let us have done with enthusiasm till we know if there is anything\nto be enthusiastic about.\n\nI have quoted George Eliot's cheers already, as expressing what this\nenthusiasm is. I will now quote her again, as showing how fully she\nrecognises that its value depends upon its object, and that its only\npossible object must be of a definite, and in the first place, of a\npersonal nature. In her novel of _Daniel Deronda_, the large part of the\ninterest hangs on which way the heroine's character will develop itself;\nand this interest, in the opinion of the authoress, is of a very intense\nkind. Why should it be? she asks explicitly. And she gives her answer in\nthe following very remarkable and very instructive passage:\n\n'_Could there be a slenderer, more insignificant thread,_' she says,\n'_in human history, than this consciousness of a girl, busy with her\nsmall inferences of the way in which she could make her life pleasant?\nin a time too, when ideas were with fresh vigour making armies of\nthemselves, and the universal kinship was declaring itself fiercely:\nwhen women on the other side of the world would not mourn for the\nhusbands and sons who died bravely in a common cause; and men, stinted\nof bread, on one side of the world, heard of that willing loss and were\npatient; a time when the soul of man was waking the pulses which had for\ncenturies been beating in him unheard, until their full sense made a new\nlife of terror or of joy._\n\n'_What in the midst of that mighty drama are girls and their blind\nvisions? They are the Yea or Nay of that good for which men are enduring\nand fighting. In these delicate vessels is borne onward through the ages\nthe treasure of human affections._'\n\nNow here we come to solid ground at last. Here is an emphatic and frank\nadmission of all that I was urging in the last chapter; and the required\nend of action and test of conduct is brought to a focus and localized.\nIt is not described, it is true; but a narrow circle is drawn round it,\nand our future search for it becomes a matter of comparative ease. We\nare in a position now to decide whether it exists, or does not exist. It\nconsists primarily and before all things in the choice by the individual\nof one out of many modes of happiness--the election of a certain\n'_way_,' in George Eliot's words, '_in which he will make his life\npleasant_.' There are many sets of pleasure open to him; but there is\none set, it is said, more excellent, beyond comparison, than the others;\nand to choose these, and these alone, is what will give us part in the\nholy value of life. The choice and the refusal of them is the Yea and\nthe Nay of all that makes life worth living; and is the source, to the\npositivists, of the solemnity, the terrors, and sweetness of the whole\nethical vocabulary. '_What then are the alternative pleasures that life\noffers_ me? _In how many ways am_ I _capable of feeling_ my _existence a\nblessing? and in what way shall_ I _feel the blessing of it most\nkeenly_?' This is the great life-question; it may be asked indifferently\nby any individual; and in the positivist answer to it, which will be the\nsame for all, and of universal application, must lie the foundation of\nthe positive moral system.\n\nAnd that system, as I have said before, professes to be essentially a\n_moral_ one, in the old religious sense of the word. It retains the old\nethical vocabulary; and lays the same intense stress on the old ethical\ndistinctions. Nor is this a mere profession only. We shall see that the\nsystem logically requires it. One of its chief virtues--indeed the only\nvirtue in it we have defined hitherto--is, as has been seen, an habitual\nself-denial. But a denial of what? Of something, plainly, that if denied\nto ourselves, can be conveyed as a negative or positive good to others.\nBut the good things that are thus transferable cannot plainly be the\n'_highest good_,' or morality would consist largely of a surrender of\nits own end. This end must evidently be something inward and\ninalienable, just as the religious end was. It is a certain inward state\nof the heart, and of the heart's affections. For this inward state to\nbe fully produced, and maintained generally, a certain sufficiency of\nmaterial well-being may be requisite; but without this inward state such\nsufficiency will be morally valueless. Day by day we must of course have\nour daily bread. But the positivists must maintain, just as the\nChristians did, that man does not live by bread alone; and that his life\ndoes not consist in the abundance of the things that he possesses. And\nthus when they are brought face to face with the matter, we find them\nall, with one consent, condemning as false the same allurements that\nwere condemned by Christianity; and pointing, as it did, to some other\ntreasure that will not wax old--some water, the man who drinks of which\nwill never thirst more.\n\nNow what is this treasure--this inward state of the heart? What is its\nanalysis, and why is it so precious? As yet we are quite in the dark as\nto this. No positive moralist has as yet shown us, in any satisfactory\nway, either of these things. This statement, I know, will be\ncontradicted by many; and, until it is explained further, it is only\nnatural that it should be. It will be said that a positive human\nhappiness of just the kind needed has been put before the world again\nand again; and not only put before it, but earnestly followed and\nreverently enjoyed by many. Have not truth, benevolence, purity, and,\nabove all, pure affection, been, to many, positive ends of action for\ntheir own sakes, without any thought, as Dr. Tyndall says, '_of any\nreward or punishment looming in the future_'? Is not virtue followed in\nthe noblest way, when its followers, if asked what reward they look for,\ncan say to it, as Thomas Aquinas said to Christ, '_Nil nisi te,\nDomine_'? And has not it so been followed? and is not the positivist\nposition, to a large extent at any rate, proved?\n\nIs it not true, as has been said by a recent writer, that[11] '_lives\nnourished, and invigorated by_ [a purely human] _ideal have been, and\nstill may be, seen amongst us, and the appearance of but a single\nexample proves the adequacy of the belief_?'\n\nI reply that the fact is entirely true, and the inference entirely\nfalse. And this brings me at once to a point I have before alluded\nto--to the most subtle source of the entire positivist error--the source\nsecret and unsuspected, of so much rash confidence.\n\nThe positive school can, and do, as we have seen, point to certain\nthings in life which have every appearance, at first sight, of adequate\nmoral ends. Their adequacy seems to be verified by every right feeling,\nand also by practical experiment. But there is one great fact that is\nforgotten. The positive school, when they deal with life, profess to\nexhibit its resources to us wholly free from the false aids of\nreligion. They profess (if I may coin a word) to have _de-religionized_\nit before they deal with it. But about this matter they betray a most\nstrange ignorance. They think the task is far simpler than it is. They\nseem to look on religion as existing nowhere except in its pure form, in\nthe form of distinct devotional feeling, or in the conscious assents of\nfaith; and, these once got rid of, they fancy that life is\nde-religionized. But the process thus far is really only begun; indeed,\nas far as immediate results go, it is hardly even begun; for it is\nreally but a very small proportion of religion that exists pure. The\ngreater part of it has entered into combination with the acts and\nfeelings of life, thus forming as it were, a kind of amalgam with them,\ngiving them new properties, a new colour, a new consistence. To\n_de-religionize_ life, then, it is not enough to condemn creeds and to\nabolish prayers. We must further sublimate the beliefs and feelings,\nwhich prayers and creeds hold pure, out of the lay life around us. Under\nthis process, even if imperfectly performed, it will soon become clear\nthat religion in greater or less proportions is lurking everywhere. We\nshall see it yielded up even by things in which we should least look for\nit--by wit, by humour, by secular ambition, by most forms of vice, and\nby our daily light amusements. Much more shall we see it yielded up by\nheroism, by purity, by affection, and by love of truth--by all those\nthings that the positivists most specially praise.\n\nThe positivists think, it would seem, that they had but to kill God, and\nthat his inheritance shall be ours. They strike out accordingly the\ntheistic beliefs in question, and then turn instantly to life: they sort\nits resources, count its treasures, and then say, '_Aim at this, and\nthis, and this. See how beautiful is holiness; see how rapturous is\npleasure. Surely these are worth seeking for their own sakes, without\nany \"reward or punishment looming in the future.\"_' They find, in fact,\nthe interests and the sentiments of the world's present life--all the\nglow and all the gloom of it--lying before them like the colours on a\npainter's palette, and think they have nothing to do but set to work and\nuse them. But let them wait a moment; they are in far too great a hurry.\nThe palette and its colours are not nearly ready for them.\n\nOne of the colours of life--religion, that is--a colour which, by their\nown admission, has been hitherto an important one, they have swept clean\naway. They have swept it clean away, and let them remember why they have\ndone so. It may be a pleasing colour, or it may not: that is a matter of\ntaste. But the reason why it is to be got rid of is that it is not a\nfast colour. It is found to fade instantly in the spreading sunlight of\nknowledge. It is rapidly getting dim and dull and dead. When once it is\ngone, we shall never be able to restore it, and our future pictures of\nlife must be tinted without its aid. They therefore profess loudly that\nthey will employ it no longer.\n\nBut there is this point, this all-important point, that quite escapes\nthem. They sweep the colour, in its pure state, clean off the palette;\nand then profess to show us by experiment that they can get on perfectly\nwell without it. But they never seem to suspect that it may be mixed up\nwith the colours they retain, and be the secret of their depth and\nlustre. Let them see whether religion be not lurking there, as a subtle\ncolouring principle in all their pigments, even a grain of it producing\neffects that else were quite impossible. Let them only begin this\nanalysis, and it will very soon be clear to them that to cleanse life of\nreligion is not so simple a process as they seem to fancy it. Its actual\ndogmas may be readily put away from us; not so the effect which these\ndogmas have worked during the course of centuries. In disguised forms\nthey are around us everywhere; they confront us in every human interest,\nin every human pleasure. They have beaten themselves into life; they\nhave eaten their way into it. Like a secret sap they have flavoured\nevery fruit in the garden. They are like a powerful drug, a stimulant,\nthat has been injected into our whole system.\n\nIf then we could appraise the vigour and value of life independent of\nreligion, we can draw no direct conclusions from observing it in its\npresent state. Before such observations can teach us anything, there is\na great deal that will have to be made allowance for: and the positive\nschool, when they reason from life as it is, are building therefore on\nan utterly unsound foundation. It is emphatically untrue to say that a\nsingle example in the present day, or for matter of that any number of\nexamples, either goes or can go any way towards proving the adequacy of\nany non-religious formula. For all such formulae have first to be further\nanalysed before we know how far they are really non-religious; and\nsecondly the religious element that will be certainly found existing in\nthem will have, hypothetically, to be removed.\n\nIt would be well if the positive school would spend in this spiritual\nanalysis but a little of that skill they have attained to in their\nanalysis of matter. In their experiments, for instance, on spontaneous\ngeneration, what untold pains have been taken! With what laborious\nthought, with what emulous ingenuity, have they struggled to completely\nsterilise the fluids in which they are to seek for the new production of\nlife! How jealously do they guard against leaving there any already\nexisting germs! How easily do they tell us their experiments may be\nvitiated by the smallest oversight!\n\nSurely spiritual matters are worthy of an equally careful treatment.\nFor what we have here to study is not the production of the lowest forms\nof animal life, but the highest forms of human happiness. These were\nonce thought to be always due to religion. The modern doctrine is that\nthey are producible without such aid. Let us treat, then, the beauty of\nholiness, the love of truth, '_the treasure of human affection_,' and so\nforth, as Dr. Tyndall has treated the infusions in which life is said to\noriginate. Let us boil them down, so to speak, and destroy every germ of\nreligion in them, and then see how far they will generate the same\necstatic happiness. And let us treat in this way vice no less than\nvirtue. Having once done this, we may honestly claim whatever yet\nremains to us. Then, we shall see what materials of happiness we can, as\npositive thinkers, call our own. Then, a positive moral system, if any\nsuch be possible, will begin to have a real value for us--then, but not\ntill then.\n\nSuch an analysis as this must be naturally a work of time; and much of\nit must be performed by each one of us for ourselves. But a sample of\nthe operation can be given here, which will show plainly enough its\nnature, and the ultimate results of it. I shall begin, for this purpose,\nwith reconsidering the moral end generally, and the three primary\ncharacteristics that are ascribed, by all parties, to it, as\nessentials. I shall point out, generally also, how much of religion is\nembodied in all these; and shall then proceed to one or two concrete\nexamples, taken from the pleasures and passions that animate the life\naround us.\n\nThese three characteristics of the moral end are its inwardness, its\nimportance, and, within certain limits, its absolute character.\n\nI begin with its inwardness. I have spoken of this several times\nalready, but the matter is so important that it will well bear\nrepetition. By calling the moral end inward, I mean that it resides\nprimarily not in action, but in motives to action; in the will, not in\nthe deed; not in what we actually do, but in what we actually endeavour\nto do; in the love we give, rather than in the love that we receive.\nWhat defiles a man is that which comes out of his heart--evil thoughts,\nmurders, adulteries. The thoughts may never find utterance in a word,\nthe murders and adulteries may never be fulfilled in act; and yet, if a\nman be restrained, not by his own will, but only by outer circumstances,\nhis immorality will be the same. The primary things we are '_responsible\nfor_,' observes a recent positive writer,[12] are '_frames of mind into\nwhich we knowingly and willingly work ourselves_': and when these are\nonce wrong, he adds, '_they are wrong for ever: no accidental failure\nof their good or evil fruits can possibly alter that_.' And as with what\nis wrong or vicious, so with what is right or virtuous; this in a like\nmanner proceeds out of the mind or heart. '_The gladness of true\nheroism_,' says Dr. Tyndall, '_visits the heart of him who is really\ncompetent to say, \"I court truth.\"_' It is not, be it observed, the\nobjective attainment of truth that creates the gladness. It is the\nsubjective desire, the subjective resolution. The moral end, for the\npositivist just as much as for the believer, is a certain inward state\nof the heart, or mind--a state which will of necessity, if possible,\nexpress itself in action, but whose value is not to be measured by the\nsuccess of that expression. The battle-ground of good and evil is within\nus; and the great human event is the issue of the struggle between them.\n\nAnd this leads us on to the second point. The language used on all hands\nrespecting this struggle, implies that its issue is of an importance\ngreat out of all proportion to our own consciousness of the results of\nit, nay, even that it is independent of our consciousness. It is implied\nthat though a man may be quite ignorant of the state of his own heart,\nand though no one else can so much as guess at it, what that state is is\nof great and peculiar moment. If this were not so, and the importance of\nour inner state had reference only to our own feelings about it,\nself-deception would be as good as virtue. To believe we were upright,\npure, and benevolent would be as good as to be so. We might have all the\npleasures of morality with none of its inconveniences; for it is easy,\nif I may borrow a phrase of Mr. Tennyson's, to become _so false that we\ntake ourselves for true_; and thus, tested by any pain or joy that we\nourselves were conscious of, the results of the completest falsehood\nwould be the same as those of the completest virtue.\n\nBut let a man be never so perfect an instance of a result like this, no\npositivist moralist would contend that he was virtuous, or that he could\nbe said, at his death, to have found the true treasure of life. On the\ncontrary his career would be regarded as, in the profoundest sense, a\ntragedy. It is for this reason that such a value is set at present upon\nfeminine purity, and that we are accustomed to call the woman ruined\nthat has lost it. The outer harm done may not be great, and may lead to\nno ill consequences. The harm is all within: the tragedy is in the soul\nitself. But--and this is more important still--even here the harm may\nnot be recognised: the act in question may lead to no remorse; and yet\ndespite this, the case will be made no better. On the contrary it will\nbe made a great deal worse. Any father or husband would recognise this,\nwho was not professedly careless about all moral matters altogether. It\nwould not, for instance, console a positivist for his daughter's\nseduction to know that the matter was hushed up, and that it gave the\nlady herself no concern whatever. It is implied in the language of all\nwho profess to regard morality, that whether the guilty person be\nconscious or no of any remorse or sorrow, the same harm has been done by\nwhat we call guilt.\n\nThere is, however (and this brings us to the third point), a very large\npart of the world that, as a fact, no matter what it professes, really\nsets upon morality no true value whatever. If it has ever realised at\nall what morality is, it has done so only partially; it has been more\nimpressed with its drawbacks than with its attractions, and it becomes\npractically happier and more contented, the more it forgets the very\nidea of virtue. But it is implied, as we have seen, in the usual\nlanguage of all of us that, let the vicious be as happy as possible,\nthey have no right to such a happiness, and that if they choose to take\nit, it will in some way or other be the worse for them. This language\nevidently implies farther that there is some standard by which happiness\nis to be measured, quite apart from its completeness, and from our\nindividual desire for it. That standard is something absolute, beyond\nand above the taste of any single man or of any body of men. It is a\nstandard to which the human race can be authoritatively ordered to\nconform, or be despised, derided, and hated, if it refuse to do so. It\nis implied that those who find their happiness in virtue have a right to\norder and to force, if possible, all others to do the same. Unless we\nbelieved this there would be no such thing as moral earnestness in the\npropagation of any system. There could, indeed, be no such thing as\npropagandism at all. If a man (to use an example of Mill's) preferred to\nbe a contented pig rather than a discontented Socrates, we should have\nno positive reason for thinking him wrong; even did we think so we\nshould have no motive for telling him so; even if we told him, we should\nhave no means of convincing him.\n\nThose, then, who regard morality as the rule of action, and the one key\nthat can unlock for each of us the true treasure of life, who talk of\nthings being noble and sacred and heroic, who call our responsibilities\nand our privileges[13] awful, and who urge on a listless world the\nearnestness and the solemnity of existence--all those, I say, who use\nsuch language as this, imply of the moral end three necessary things:\nfirst, that its essence is inward, in the heart of man; secondly, that\nits value is incalculable, and its attainment the only true happiness\nfor us; thirdly, that its standard is something absolute, and not in\nthe competence of any man or of all men to alter or abolish. That this\nis true may be very easily seen. Deny any one of these propositions; say\nthat the moral end consists in something outward and alienable, not in\nsomething inward and inalienable; that its importance is small, and\nsecond to many other things; that its standard is not absolute, but\nvaries according to individual taste; and morality becomes at once\nimpossible to preach, and not worth preaching.\n\nNow for all these characteristics of the end of life, the theism that\nmodern thought is rejecting could offer a strictly logical basis. And\nfirst, as to its importance. Here it may be said, certainly, that theism\ncuts the knot, and does not untie it. But at all events it gets rid of\nit; and in the following way. The theist confesses freely that the\nimportance of the moral end is a thing that the facts of life, as we now\nknow them, will never properly explain to us. It can at present be\ndivined and augured only; its value is one of promise rather than of\nperformance; and the possession itself is a thing that passes\nunderstanding. It belongs to a region of mystery into which neither\nlogic nor experiment will ever suffice to carry us; and whose secrets\nare beyond the reach of any intellectual aeronaut. But it is a part of\nthe theistic creed that such a region is; and that the things that pass\nunderstanding are the most important things of life. Nothing would be\ngained, however, by postulating merely a mystery--an unknowable. This\nmust be so far known by the theist, that he knows its connection with\nhimself. He must know, too, that if this connection is to have any\neffect on him, it must be not merely temporary, but permanent and\nindissoluble. Such a connection he finds in his two distinctive\ndoctrines--the existence of a personal God, which _gives_ him the\nconnection; and his own personal immortality, which _perpetuates_ it.\nThus the theist, upon his own theory, has an eye ever upon him. He is in\nconstant relationship with a conscious omnipotent Being, in whose\nlikeness he is in some sort formed, and to which he is in some sort kin.\nTo none of his actions is this Being indifferent; and with this Being\nhis relations for good or evil will never cease. Thus, though he may not\nrealise their true nature now, though he may not realise how infinitely\ngood the good is, or how infinitely evil the evil, there is a day in\nstore for him when his eyes will be opened, and what he now sees only\nthrough a glass darkly, he will see face to face.\n\nThe objectivity of the moral end--or rather the objective standard of\nthe subjective end--is explained in the same way. The standard is God's\nwill, not man's immediate happiness. And yet to this will, as soon as,\nby natural or supernatural means, we discern it, the Godlike part of\nour nature at once responds: it at once acknowledges it as eternal and\ndivine, although we can give no logical reasons for such acknowledgment.\n\nBy the light, too, of these same beliefs, the inwardness of the moral\nend assumes an explicable meaning. Man's primary duty is towards God;\nhis secondary duty is towards his brother men; and it is only from the\nfilial relation that the fraternal springs. The moral end, then, is so\nprecious in the eyes of the theist, because the inward state that it\nconsists of is agreeable to what God wills--a God who reads the heart,\nand who cannot be deceived. And the theist's peace or gladness in his\nhighest moral actions springs not so much from the consciousness of what\nhe does or is, as of the reasons why he does or is it--reasons that\nreach far away beyond the earth and its destinies, and connect him with\nsome timeless and holy mystery.\n\nThus theism, whether it be true or no, can give a logical and a full\naccount of the supposed nature of the moral end, and of its supposed\nimportance. Let us turn now to positivism, and consider what is its\nposition. The positivist, we must remember, conceives of the moral end\nin the same way, and sets upon it the same value. Let us see how far his\nown premisses will give him any support in this. These premisses, so far\nas they differ from those of theism, consist of two great denials:\nthere is no personal God, and there is no personal immortality. We will\nglance rapidly at the direct results of these.\n\nIn the first place, they confine all the life with which we can have the\nleast moral connection to the surface of this earth, and to the limited\ntime for which life and consciousness can exist upon it. They isolate\nthe moral law, as I shall show more clearly hereafter, from any law or\nforce in the universe that may be wider and more permanent. When the\nindividual dies, he can only be said to live by metaphor, in the results\nof his outward actions. When the race dies, in no thinkable way can we\nsay that it will live at all. Everything will then be as though it never\nhad been. Whatever humanity may have done before its end arrives,\nhowever high it may have raised itself, however low it may have sunk\nitself,\n\n              _The event\n    Will trammel up the consequence, and catch\n    With its success surcease_.\n\nAll the vice of the world, and all its virtue, all its pleasures and all\nits pains, will have effected nothing. They will all have faded like an\nunsubstantial pageant, and not left a wrack behind.\n\nHere, then, the importance of morality at once changes both its\ndimensions and its kind. It is confined within narrow limitations of\nspace and time. It is no longer a thing we can talk vaguely about, or\nto which any sounding but indefinite phrases will be applicable. We can\nno longer say either to the individual or the race,\n\n    _Choose well, and your choice is\n    Brief, but yet endless._[14]\n\nWe can only say that it is brief, and that bye and bye what it was will\nbe no matter to anyone.\n\nStill within these limits it may be said, certainly, that it is a great\nthing for us that we should be happy; and if it be true that the moral\nend brings the greatest happiness, then it is man's greatest achievement\nto attain to the moral end. But when we say that the greatest happiness\nresides in the moral end, we must be careful to see what it is we mean.\nWe may mean that as a matter of fact men generally give a full assent to\nthis, and act accordingly, which is the most obvious falsehood that\ncould be uttered on any subject; or we may mean--indeed, if we mean\nanything we must mean--that they would give a full assent, and act\naccordingly, could their present state of mind undergo a complete\nchange, and their eyes be opened, which at present are fast closed. But\naccording to the positivist theory, this hypothesis is in most cases an\nimpossibility. The moral end, as we have seen, is an inward state of the\nheart; and the heart, on the showing of the positivists, is for each\nman an absolute solitude. No one can gain admission to it but by his\nassistance; and to the larger part no one can ever gain admission at\nall.\n\n    _Thus in the seas of life enisled,\n      With echoing straits between us thrown,\n    Dotting the shoreless watery wild,\n      We mortal myriads live alone._\n\nSo says Mr. Matthew Arnold; and the gentle Keble utters the same\nsentiment, remarking, with a delicate pathos, how seldom those even who\nhave known us best and longest\n\n    _Know half the reason why we smile or sigh._\n\nThus in the recesses of his own soul each man is, for the positivist, as\nmuch alone as if he were the only conscious thing in the universe; and\nhis whole inner life, when he dies, will, to use some words of George\nEliot's that I have already quoted,\n\n    _Be gathered like a scroll within the tomb,\n    Unread for ever._\n\nNo one shall enquire into his inward thoughts, much less shall anyone\njudge him for them. To no one except himself can he in any way have to\nanswer for them.\n\nSuch is the condition of the individual according to the positivist\ntheory. It is evident, therefore, that one of the first results of\npositivism is to destroy even the rudiments of any machinery by which\none man could govern, with authority, the inward kingdom of another;\nand the moral imperative is reduced to an empty vaunt. For what can be\nan emptier flourish than for one set of men, and these a confessed\nminority, to proclaim imperious laws to others, which they can never get\nthe others to obey, and which are essentially meaningless to the only\npeople to whom they are not superfluous? Suppose that, on positive\ngrounds, I find pleasure in humility, and my friend finds pleasure in\npride, and so far as we can form a judgment the happiness of us both is\nequal; what possible grounds can I have for calling my state better than\nhis? Were I a theist, I should have the best of grounds, for I should\nbelieve that hereafter my friend's present contentment would be\ndissipated, and would give place to despair. But as a positivist, if his\ncontentment do but last his lifetime, what can I say except this, that\nhe has chosen what, for him, was his better part for ever, and no God or\nman will ever take it away from him? To say then that his immoral state\nwas worse than my moral state would be a phrase incapable of any\npractical meaning. It might mean that, could my friend be made to think\nas I do, he would be happier than he is at present; but we have here an\nimpossible hypothesis, and an unverifiable conclusion. It is true enough\nthat I might present to my friend some image of my own inward state, and\nof all the happiness it gave me; but if, having compared his happiness\nand mine as well as he could, he still liked his own best, exhortation\nwould have no power, and reproach no meaning.\n\nHere, then, are three results--simple, immediate, and necessary--of\npositivism, on the moral end. Of the three characteristics at present\nsupposed essential to it, positivism eliminates two and materially\nmodifies the third.\n\nIn the first place, the importance of the moral end is altogether\nchanged in character. It has nothing in it whatever of the infinite, and\na scientific forecast can already see the end of it.\n\nIn the second place, it is nothing absolute, and not being absolute is\nincapable of being enforced.\n\nIn the third place, its value, such as it is, is measured only by the\n_conscious_ happiness that its possession gives us, or the conscious\npains that its loss gives us.\n\nStill it may be contended with plausibility that the moral end, when\nonce seen, is sufficient to attract us by its own inalienable charm, and\ncan hold its own independently of any further theories as to its nature\nand its universality. It remains now to come to practical life, and see\nif this really be so; to see if the pleasures in life that are supposed\nthe highest will not lose their attractiveness when robbed of the three\ncharacteristics of which the positive theory robs them.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[11] Vide _Pessimism_, by James Sully.\n\n[12] Professor Clifford; 'Ethics of Belief,' _Contemporary Review_, Jan.\n1877.\n\n[13] '_An awful privilege, and an awful responsibility, that we should\nhelp to create a world in which posterity will live!_'--Professor\nClifford.\n\n[14] Goethe, translated by Carlyle.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\nLOVE AS A TEST OF GOODNESS.\n\n    [Greek: Erota de, ton tyrannon andron,\n    Ton tas Aphroditas\n    Philtaton thalamon\n    Kledouchon, ou sebizomen,\n    Perthonta.]--_Euripides._\n\n\nI will again re-state, in other words than my own, the theory we are now\ngoing to test by the actual facts of life. '_The assertion_,' says\nProfessor Huxley, '_that morality is in any way dependent on certain\nphilosophical problems, produces the same effect on my mind as if one\nshould say that a man's vision depends on his theory of sight, or that\nhe has no business to be sure that ginger is hot in his mouth, unless he\nhas formed definite views as to the nature of ginger_.' Or, to put the\nmatter in slightly different language, the sorts of happiness, we are\ntold, that are secured to us by moral conduct are facts, so far as\nregards our own consciousness of them, as simple, as constant and as\nuniversal, as is the perception of the outer world secured to us by our\neyesight, or as the sensation formed on the palate by the application of\nginger to it.\n\nLove, for instance, according to this view, is as simple a delight for\nmen in its highest forms as it is for animals in its lowest. What George\nEliot calls '_the treasure of human affection_' depends as little for\nits value on any beliefs outside itself as does the treasure of animal\nappetite; and just as no want of religious faith can deprive the animals\nof the last, so no want of religious faith can deprive mankind of the\nfirst. It will remain a stable possession to us, amid the wreck of\ncreeds, giving life a solemn and intense value of its own. It will never\nfail us as a sure test of conduct. Whatever guides us to this treasure\nwe shall know is moral; whatever tends to withdraw us from it we shall\nknow is immoral.\n\nSuch is the positivist theory as to all the higher pleasures of life, of\nwhich affection confessedly is one of the chief, and also the most\nobviously human. Let us proceed now from generalities to special\nconcrete facts, and see how far this theory is borne out by them. And we\ncan find none better than those which are now before us--the special\nconcrete facts of affection, and of sexual affection in particular.\n\nThe affection of man for woman--or, as it will be best to call it,\nlove--has been ever since time was, one of the chief elements in the\nlife of man. But it was not till Christianity had very fully developed\nitself that it assumed the peculiar importance that is now claimed for\nit. For the ancient world it was a passion sure to come to most men, and\nthat would bring joy or sorrow to them as the case might be. The\nworldly wisdom of some convinced them that it gave more joy than sorrow;\nso they took and used it as long as it chanced to please them. The\nworldly wisdom of others convinced them that it gave more sorrow than\njoy, so they did all they could, like Lucretius, to school themselves\ninto a contempt for it. But for the modern world it is on quite a\ndifferent footing, and its value does not depend on such a chance\nbalance of pains and pleasures. The latter are not of the same nature as\nthe former, and so cannot be outweighed by them. In the judgment of the\nmodern world,\n\n    '_Tis better to have loved and lost\n    Than never to have loved at all_.\n\nTo love, in fact, though not exactly said to be incumbent upon all men,\nis yet endowed with something that is almost of the nature of a duty. If\na man cannot love, it is looked on as a sort of moral misfortune, if not\nas a moral fault in him. And when a man can love, and does love\nsuccessfully, then it is held that his whole nature has burst out into\nblossom. The imaginative literature of the modern world centres chiefly\nabout this human crisis; and its importance in literature is but a\nreflection of its importance in life. It is, as it were, the sun of the\nworld of sentiment--the source of its lights and colours, and also of\nits shadows. It is the crown of man's existence; it gives life its\nhighest quality; and, if we can believe what those who have known it\ntell us, earth under its influence seems to be melting into, and to be\nalmost joined with, heaven.\n\nAll this language, however, about love, no matter how true in a certain\nsense it may be, is emphatically true about it in a certain sense only,\nand is by no means to be taken without reserve. It is emphatically not\ntrue about love in general, but only about love as modified in a certain\nspecial way. The form of the affection, so to speak, is more important\nthan the substance of it. It will need but little consideration to show\nus that this is so. Love is a thing that can take countless forms; and\nwere not the form, for the modern world, the thing of the first\nimportance, the praise bestowed upon all forms of it would be equal, or\ngraduated only with reference to intensity. But the very reverse of this\nis the case really. In our estimate of an affection, its intensity,\nthough doubtless of great importance, is yet of an importance that is\nclearly secondary. Else things that the modern world regards as the most\nabominable might be on a level with the things it regards as most pure\nand holy; the lovers of Athens might even put to shame with their\npassion the calm sacramental constancy of many a Christian pair; and the\nwhole fabric of modern morals would be undermined. For, according to\nthe modern conception of morals, love can not only give life its highest\nquality, but its lowest also. If it can raise man to the angels, it can\nalso sink him below the beasts; and as to its intensity, it is a force\nwhich will carry him in the one direction just as well as the other.\nKind and not degree is the first thing needful. It is the former, and\nnot the latter, that essentially separates David and Jonathan from\nHarmodius and Aristogeiton, St. Elizabeth from Cleopatra, the beloved\ndisciple from Antinous. How shall we love? is the great question for us.\nIt comes long before, How much shall we love?\n\nLet us imagine a bride and bridegroom of the type that would now be most\nhighly reverenced, and try to understand something of what their\naffection is. It is, of course, impossible here to treat such a subject\nadequately; for, as Mr. Carlyle says, '_except musically, and in the\nlanguage of poetry, it can hardly be so much as spoken about_.' But\nenough for the present purpose can perhaps be said. In the first place,\nthen, the affection in question will be seen to rest mainly upon two\nthings--firstly, on the consciousness of their own respective characters\non the part of each; and, secondly, on the idea formed by each of the\ncharacter of the other. Each must have a faith, for instance, in his or\nher own purity, and each must have a like faith, also in the purity of\nthe other. Thus, to begin with the first requisites, a man can only\nlove a woman in the highest sense when he does so with a perfectly clear\nconscience. There must be no obstacle between them which shocks his\nsense of right, or which, if known by the woman, would shock hers. Were\nthe affection indulged in, in spite of such an obstacle, its fine\nquality would be injured, no matter how great its intensity; and,\ninstead of a moral blessing, it would become a moral curse. An exquisite\nexpression of the necessity of this personal sense of rightness may be\nread into the well-known lines,\n\n    _I could not love thee, dear, so well,\n    Loved I not honour more._\n\nNor shall we look on _honour_ here as having reference only to external\nacts and conditions. It has reference equally, if not more, to the\ninward state of the heart. The man must be conscious not only that he is\nloving the right woman, but that he is loving her in the right way. '_If\nI loved not purity more than you_,' he would say to her, '_I were not\nworthy of you_.'\n\nAnd further, just as he requires to possess this taintless conscience\nhimself, so does he require to be assured that the like is possessed by\nher. Unless he knows that she loves purity more than him, there is no\nmeaning in his aspiration that he may be found worthy of her. The gift\nof her affection that is of such value to him, is not of value because\nit is affection simply, but because it is affection of a high kind; and\nits elevation is of more consequence to him than its intensity, or even\nthan its continuance. He would sooner that at the expense of its\nintensity it remained pure, than that at the expense of its purity it\nremained intense. Othello was certainly not a husband of the highest\ntype, and yet we see something of this even in his case. His sufferings\nat his wife's supposed inconstancy have doubtless in them a large\nselfish element. Much of them is caused by the mere passion of jealousy.\nBut the deepest sting of all does not lie here. It lies rather in the\nthought of what his wife has done to herself, than of what she has done\nto him. This is what overcomes him.\n\n    _The bawdy wind, that kisses all it meets,\n    Is hushed within the hollow mine of earth,\n    And will not hear it_.\n\nHe could have borne anything but a soul's tragedy like this:\n\n              _Alas! to make me\n      A fixed figure for the time of scorn\n    To point his slow unmoving finger at!\n    Yet I could bear that too, well--very well:\n    But there, where I have garnered up my heart,\n    Where I must either live, or bear no life;\n    The fountain from the which my current runs\n    Or else dries up; to be discarded thence!\n    Or keep it as a cistern for foul toads\n    To knot and gender in!_\n\nWhenever he was with her, Desdemona might still be devoted to him. She\nmight only give to Cassio what she could not give to her husband. But to\nOthello this would be no comfort. The fountain would be polluted '_from\nwhich his current runs_'; and though its waters might still flow for\nhim, he would not care to touch them. If this feeling is manifest in\nsuch a love as Othello's, much more is it manifest in love of a higher\ntype. It is expressed thus, for instance, by the heroine of Mrs.\nCraven's '_Recit d'une Soeur_.' '_I can indeed say_,' she says, '_that\nwe never loved each other so much as when we saw how we both loved\nGod:_' and again, '_My husband would not have loved me as he did, if he\nhad not loved God a great deal more._' This language is of course\ndistinctly religious; but it embodies a meaning that is appreciated by\nthe positive school as well. In positivist language it might be\nexpressed thus: '_My husband would not have loved me as he did, if he\nwould not, sooner than love me in any other way, have ceased to love me\naltogether._' It is clear that this sentiment is proper, nay essential,\nto positivist affection, just as well as to Christian. Any pure and\nexalted love would at once change its character, if, without any\nfurther change, it merely believed it were free to change it. Its\nstrongest element is the consciousness, not that it is of such a\ncharacter only, but that this character is the right one. The ideal\nbride and bridegroom, the ideal man and wife, would not value purity as\nthey are supposed to do, did they not believe that it was not only\ndifferent from impurity, but essentially and incalculably better than\nit. For the positivist, just as much as the Christian, this sense of\nrightness in love is interfused with the affection proper, and does as\nit were give wings to it. It far more than makes good for the lovers any\nloss of intensity that may be created by the chastening down of passion:\nand figuratively at least, it may be said to make them conscious that\n'_underneath them are the everlasting arms_.'\n\nHere then in love, as the positive school at present offer it to us, are\nall these three characteristics to which that school, as we have seen,\nmust renounce all right. It is characterised as conforming to some\nspecial and absolute standard, of which no positive account can be\ngiven; the conformity is inward, and so cannot be enforced; and for all\nthat positive knowledge can show us, its importance may be a dream.\n\nWe shall realise this better if we consider a love from which these\nthree characteristics have, as far as possible, been abstracted--a love\nwhich professes frankly to rest upon its own attractions, and which\nrepudiates all such epithets as worse or better. This will at once show\nus not only of what various developments the passion of love is capable,\nbut also how false it is to imagine that the highest kind need naturally\nbe the most attractive.\n\nI have quoted Othello, and Mrs. Craven's heroine as types of love when\nreligionized. We will go to the modern Parisian school for the type of\nlove when de-religionized--a school which, starting from the same\npremisses as do the positive moralists, yet come to a practical teaching\nthat is singularly different. And let us remember that just as the ideal\nwe have been considering already, is the ideal most ardently looked to\nby one part of the world, so is the ideal we are going to consider now,\nlooked to with an equal ardour by another part of the world. The writer\nin particular from whom I am about to quote has been one of the most\npopular of all modern romancers; and has been hailed by men of the most\nfastidious culture as a preacher to these latter generations of a bolder\nand more worthy gospel. '_This_,'[15] says one of the best known of our\nliving poets, of the work that I select to quote from--\n\n    _This is the golden book of spirit and sense,\n    The holy writ of beauty._\n\nOf this '_holy writ_' the chief theme is love. Let us go on to see how\nlove is there presented to us.\n\n'_You know_,' says Theophile Gautier's best-known hero, in a letter to a\nfriend, '_you know the eagerness with which I have sought for physical\nbeauty, the importance I attach to outward form, and how the world I am\nin love with is the world that the eyes can see: or to put the matter in\nmore conventional language, I am so corrupt and blase that my faith in\nmoral beauty is gone, and my power of striving after it also. I have\nlost the faculty to discern between good and evil, and this loss has\nwell nigh brought me back to the ignorance of the child or savage. To\ntell the plain truth, nothing seems to me to be worthy either of praise\nor blame, and I am but little perturbed by even the most abnormal\nactions. My conscience is deaf and dumb. Adultery seems to me the most\ncommonplace thing possible. I see nothing shocking in a young girl\nselling herself.'... 'I find that the earth is all as fair as heaven,\nand virtue for me is nothing but the perfection of form.' 'Many a time\nand long_,' he continues farther on, '_have I paused in some cathedral,\nunder the shadow of the marble foliage, when the lights were quivering\nin through the stained windows, when the organ unbidden made a low\nmurmuring of itself, and the wind was breathing amongst the pipes; and I\nhave plunged my gaze far into the pale blue depths of the almond-shaped\neyes of the Madonna. I have followed with a tender reverence the curves\nof that wasted figure of hers, and the arch of her eyebrows, just\nvisible and no more than that. I have admired her smooth and lustrous\nbrow, her temples with their transparent chastity, and her cheeks shaded\nwith a sober virginal colour, more tender than the colour of a\npeach-flower. I have counted one by one the fair and golden lashes that\nthrew their tremulous shade upon it. I have traced out with care in the\nsubdued tone that surrounds her, the evanescent lines of her throat, so\nfragile and inclined so modestly. I have even lifted with an adventuring\nhand the folds of her tunic, and have seen unveiled that bosom, maiden\nand full of milk, that has never been pressed by any except divine lips.\nI have traced out the rare clear veins of it, even to their faintest\nbranchings. I have laid my finger on it, to draw the white drops forth,\nof the draught of heaven. I have so much as touched with my lips the\nvery bud of the_ rosa mystica.\n\n'_Well, and I confess it honestly, all this immaterial beauty, this\nthing so winged and so aerial that one knows well enough it is soon\ngoing to fly away from one, has never moved me to any great degree. I\nlove the Venus Anadyomene better, better a thousand times. These\nold-world eyes, slightly raised at the corners! these lips so pure and\nso firmly chiselled, so amorous, and so fit for kissing! this low,\nbroad brow! these tresses with the curves in them of the sea water, and\nbound behind her head in a knot, negligently! these firm and shining\nshoulders! this back, with its thousand alluring contours! all these\nfair and rounded outlines, this air of superhuman vigour in a body so\ndivinely feminine--all this enraptures and enchants me in a way of which\nyou can have no idea--you the Christian and the philosopher._\n\n'_Mary, despite the humble air affected by her, is a deal too haughty\nfor me. It is as much as her foot does, swathed in its white coverings,\nif it just touches the earth, now purpling where the old serpent\nwrithes. Her eyes are the loveliest eyes in the world; but they are\nalways turned heavenwards, or else they are cast down. They never look\nyou straight in the face. They have never served as the mirror of a\nhuman form.... Venus comes, from the sea to take possession of the\nworld, as a goddess who loves men should--quite naked and quite alone.\nEarth is more to her liking than is Olympus, and amongst her lovers she\nhas more men than gods. She drapes herself in no faint veils of mystery.\nShe stands straight upright, her dolphin behind her, and her foot upon\nher opal-coloured shell. The sun strikes full upon her smooth limbs, and\nher white hand holds in air the waves of her fair locks, which old\nfather Ocean has sprinkled with his most perfect pearls. One can see\nher. She hides nothing; for modesty was only made for those who have no\nbeauty. It is an invention of the modern world; the child of the\nChristian contempt for form and matter._\n\n'_Oh ancient world! all that you held in reverence is held in scorn by\nus. Thine idols are overthrown in the dust; fleshless anchorites clad in\nrags and tatters, martyrs with the blood fresh on them, and their\nshoulders torn by the tigers of thy circuses, have perched themselves on\nthe pedestals of thy fair desirable gods. The Christ has enveloped the\nwhole world in his winding-sheet.... Oh purity, plant of bitterness,\nborn on a blood-soaked soil, and whose degenerate and sickly blossom\nexpands with difficulty in the dank shade of cloisters, under a chill\nbaptismal rain; rose without scent, and spiked all round with thorns,\nthou hast taken the place for us of the glad and gracious roses, bathed\nwith nard and wine, of the dancing girls of Sybaris!_\n\n'_The ancient world knew thee not, oh sterile flower! thou wast never\nenwoven in its chaplets of delirious perfume. In that vigorous and\nhealthy society they would have spurned thee under foot disdainfully.\nPurity, mysticism, melancholy--three words unknown to thee, three new\nmaladies brought into our life by the Christ!... For me, I look on\nwoman in the old world manner, like a fair slave, made only for our\npleasures. Christianity, in my eyes, has done nothing to rehabilitate\nher.... To say the truth, I cannot conceive for what reason there should\nbe this desire in woman to be looked on as on a level with men.... I\nhave made some love-verses in my time, or at least something that\naspired to pass for such ... and there is not a vestige in them of the\nmodern feeling of love.... There is nothing there, as in all the\nlove-poetry since the Christian era, of a soul which, because it loves,\nbegs another soul to love it back again; nothing there of a blue and\nshining lake, which begs a stream to pour itself into its bosom, that\nboth together they may mirror the stars of heaven; nothing there of a\npair of ring-doves, opening their wings together, that they may both\ntogether fly to the same nest._'[16]\n\nSuch is the account the hero gives of the nature of his love for woman.\nNor does he give this account regretfully, or think that it shows him to\nbe in any diseased condition. It shows rather a return, on his part, to\na health that others have lost. As he looks round upon the modern world\nand the purity that George Eliot says in her verses she would die for,\n'_Woman_,' he exclaims mournfully, '_is become the symbol of moral and\nphysical beauty. The real fall of man was on the birthday of the babe\nof Bethlehem_.'[17] It will be instructive to notice further that these\nviews are carried out by him to their full legitimate consequences, even\nthough this, to some degree, is against his will. '_Sometimes_,' he\nsays, '_I try to persuade myself that such passions are abominable, and\nI say as much to myself in as severe a way as I can. But the words come\nonly from my lips. They are arguments that I make. They are not\narguments that I feel. The thing in question really seems quite natural\nto me, and anyone else in my place would, it seems to me, do as I\ndo._'[18]\n\nNor is this conception of love peculiar to the hero only. The heroine's\nconception is its exact counterpart, and exactly fits it. The heroine as\ncompletely as the hero has freed herself from any discernment between\ngood and evil. She recoils from abnormal impurity no more than from\nnormal, and the climax of the book is her full indulgence in both.\n\nNow here we have a specimen of love raised to intensity, but divested as\nfar as possible of the religious element. I say divested as far as\npossible, because even here, as I shall prove hereafter, the process is\nnot complete, and something of religion is still left fermenting. But it\nis quite complete enough for our present purpose. It will remind us in\nthe sharpest and clearest way that love is no force which is naturally\nconstant in its development, or which if left to itself can be in any\nway a moral director to us. It will show us that many of its\ndevelopments are what the moralist calls abominable, and that the very\nworst of these may perhaps be the most attractive, and be deliberately\npresented to us as such by men of the most elaborate culture. We shall\nthus see that love as a test of conduct, as an aim of life, or as an\nobject of any heroic devotion, is not love in general, but love of a\nspecial kind, and that to fulfil this function it must not only be\nselected from the rest, but also removed from them, and set above them\nat a quite incalculable distance. And the kind thus chosen, let me\nrepeat again (for this, though less obvious, is more important still),\nis not chosen because it is naturally intense, but it becomes intense\nbecause it is the chosen one.\n\nHere then lies the weak point in the position of the positive moralists,\nwhen they hold up such love to us as so supreme a treasure in life. They\nobserve, and quite correctly, that it is looked upon as a treasure; but\nthe source of its preciousness is something that their system expressly\ntakes from it. That choice amongst the loves, so solemn and so imperious\nand yet so tender, which descends like a tongue of flame upon the love\nit delights to honour; which fixes on a despised and a weak affection,\ntaking it like Elisha from his furrows, or like David from his\npastures, setting it above all its fellows, and making it at once a\nqueen and prophetess--this is a choice that positivism has no power to\nmake; or which, if it makes, it makes only a caprice, or a listless\npreference. It does not, indeed, confound pure love with impure, but it\nsets them on an equal footing; and those who contend that the former\nunder these conditions is intrinsically more attractive to men than the\nlatter, betray a most naive ignorance of what human nature is.\nSupposing, for argument's sake, that to themselves it may be so, this\nfact is not of the slightest use to them. It is merely the possession on\ntheir part of a certain personal taste, which those who do not share it\nmay regard as disease or weakness, and which they themselves can neither\ndefend nor inculcate. It is true they may call their opponents hard\nnames if they choose; but their opponents can call them hard names back\nagain; but in the absence of any common standard, the recriminations on\nneither side can have the least sting in them. Could, however, any\nargument on such a matter be possible, it is the devotees of impurity\nthat would have the strongest case; for the pleasures of indulgence are\nadmitted by both sides, while the merits of abstention are admitted by\nonly one.\n\nLet us go back, for instance, in connection with this matter, to what\nProfessor Huxley has told us is the grand result of education. It leads\nus away, he says, from '_the rank and steaming valleys of sense_,' up to\nthe '_highest good_,' which is '_discerned by reason_,' '_resting in\neternal calm_.' And let us ask him again, what, as uttered by a\npositivist, these words can by any possibility mean. '_The rank and\nsteaming valleys of sense_'! Why are they rank and steaming? Or, if they\nare, why is that any condemnation of them? Or, if we do condemn them,\nwhat else are we to praise? The entire raw material, not of our\npleasures only, but of our knowledge also, is given us, say the positive\nschool, by the senses. Surely then to condemn the senses must be to\ncondemn life. Let us imagine Professor Huxley talking in this way to\nTheophile Gautier. Let us imagine him frowning grimly at the licentious\nFrenchman, and urging him with all vehemence to turn to the _highest\ngood_. The answer will at once be, '_That is exactly, my dear Professor,\nwhat I do turn to. And, listen_,' he might say--the following is again a\npassage from his own writings--'_to the way in which I figure the\nhighest good to myself. It is a huge building, with its outer walls all\nblind and windowless; a huge court within, surrounded by a colonnade of\nwhite marble; in the midst a musical fountain with a jet of quick-silver\nin the Arabian fashion; leaves of orange-trees and pomegranates placed\nalternately; overhead the bluest of skies and the mellowest of suns;\ngreat long-nosed greyhounds should be sleeping here and there; from time\nto time barefoot negresses with golden ankle-rings, fair women servants\nwhite and slender, and clad in rich strange garments, should pass\nbetween the hollow arches, basket on arm, or urn poised on head._[19]\n_Three things give me pleasure, gold, marble, and purple--brilliance,\nmass, and colour. These are the stuffs out of which my dreams are made;\nand all my ideal palaces are constructed of these materials._'[20] What\nanswer could Professor Huxley make to this that would not seem to the\nother at once barbarous and nonsensical? The best answer he could make\nwould be simply, '_I do not agree with you_.' And to this again the\nanswer would at once be, '_That is because you are still hampered by\nprejudices, whose only possible foundations we have both removed; and\nbecause I am a man of culture, and you are not._'\n\nLet us also consider again that other utterance of Professor Huxley's,\nwith which I began this chapter. According to the positive view of\nmorals, he says, those special sets of happiness that a moral system\nselects for us, have no more to do with any theory as to the reason of\ntheir selection, than a man's sight has to do with his theory of vision,\nor than the hot taste of ginger has to do with a knowledge of its\nanalysis. That is a most clear and succinct statement of the whole\npositive position; and we shall now be able to profit by its clearness,\nand to see how all that it does is to reveal confusion. In the first\nplace, Professor Huxley's comparisons really illustrate the very fact\nthat he designs them to invalidate. It is precisely on his theory of\nvision that a man's sight practically does depend. All sight, so far as\nit conveys any meaning to him, is an act of inference; and though\ngenerally this process may be so rapid that it is not perceived by him,\nyet the doubt often felt about distant or unusual objects will make him\nkeenly conscious of it. Whilst as to ginger and the taste produced by\nit, the moral question is not whether it is hot or not; but whether or\nno it will be for our advantage to eat it; and this resolves itself into\ntwo further questions; firstly, whether its heat is pleasant, and\nsecondly whether its heat is wholesome. On the first of these Professor\nHuxley throws no light whatever; whilst as to the second, it really\nhangs entirely on the very point that he cited as indifferent. We must\nhave some knowledge, even though it be only vague and negative, of the\nnature of a food, before we know whether it will be well for us in the\nlong run to habitually eat it, or to abstain from it.\n\nLet us apply this illustration to love. Professor Huxley's ginger shall\nstand for the sort of love he would most approve of; and love, as a\nwhole, will be represented by a varied dessert, of which ginger is one\nof the dishes. Now what Professor Huxley has to do is to recommend this\nginger, and to show that it is divided by an infinite gulf--say from\nprunes or from Huntley and Palmer's biscuits. But how is he to do this?\nTo say that ginger is hot is to say nothing. To many, that may condemn\ninstead of recommending it: and they will have as much to say for their\nown tastes if they rejoin that prunes and biscuits are sweet. If he can\nprove to them that what they choose is unwholesome, and that if they eat\nit they will be too unwell to say their prayers, then, supposing they\nwant to say their prayers, he will have gained his point. But if he\ncannot prove that it is unwholesome, or if his friends have no prayers\nto say, his entire recommendation dwindles to a declaration of his own\npersonal taste. But in this case his whole tone will be different. There\nwill be nothing in it of the moral imperative. He will be only laughed\nat and not listened to, if he proclaims his own taste in sweetmeats with\nall the thunders of Sinai. And the choice between the various kinds of\nlove is, on positive principles, only a choice between sweetmeats. It is\nthis, and nothing more, than this, avowedly; and yet the positivists\nwould keep for it the earnest language of the Christian, for whom it is\na choice, not between sweetmeats and sweetmeats, but between a\nconfectioner's wafer and the Host.\n\nIt may perhaps be urged by some that, according to this view of it,\npurity is degraded into a bitter something, which we only accept\nreluctantly, through fear of the consequences of its alternatives. And\nit is quite true that a fear of the consequences of wrong love is\ninseparably connected with our sense of the value of right love. But\nthis is a necessity of the case; the quality of the right love is in no\nway lowered by it, and it will lead us to consider another important\npoint.\n\nIt is impossible to hold that one thing is incalculably better than\nothers, without holding also that others are incalculably worse than it.\nIndeed, the surest test we can give of the praise we bestow on what we\nchoose, is the measure of condemnation we bestow on what we reject. If\nwe maintain that virtuous love constitutes its own heaven, we must also\nmaintain that vicious love constitutes its own hell. If we cannot do the\nlast we certainly cannot do the first. And the positive school can do\nneither. It can neither elevate one kind of love nor depress the others;\nand for this reason. The results of love in both cases are, according to\ntheir teaching, bounded by our present consciousness; and our present\nconsciousness, divorced from all future expectation, has no room in it\nfor so vast an interval as all moral systems postulate between the\nright love and the wrong. Indeed, if happiness be the test of right, it\ncannot, as a general truth, be said that they are practically separable\nat all. It is notorious that, as far as the present life goes, a man of\neven the vilest affections may effectually elude all pain from them.\nSometimes they may injure his health, it is true; but they need not even\ndo that; and if they do, it necessitates no moral condemnation of them,\nfor many heroic labours would do just the same. Injury to the health, at\nany rate, is a mere accident; so is also injury to the reputation; and\nconditions are easily conceivable by which both these dangers would be\nobviated. The supposed evils of impurity have but a very slight\nreference to these. They depend, not on any present consciousness, but\non the expectations of a future consciousness--a consciousness that will\nreveal things to us hereafter which we can only augur here.\n\n    _I do not know them now, but after death\n    God knows I know the faces I shall see:\n    Each one a murdered self with last low breath,\n    'I am thyself; what hast thou done to me?'\n    'And I, and I thyself!' lo each one saith,\n    'And thou thyself, to all eternity.'_[21]\n\nSuch is the expectation on which the supposed evils of impurity depend.\nAccording to positive principles, the expectation will never be\nfulfilled; the evils therefore exist only in a diseased imagination.\n\nAnd with the beauty of purity the case is just the same. According to\nthe view which the positivists have adopted, so little counting the cost\nof it, a pure human affection is a union of two things. It is not a\npossession only, but a promise; not a sentiment only, but a\n_pre_-sentiment; not a taste only, but a foretaste; and the chief\nsweetness said to be found in the former, is dependent altogether upon\nthe latter. '_Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God_,'\nis the belief which, whether true or false as a fact, is implied in the\nwhole modern cultus of love, and the religious reverence with which it\nhas come to be regarded. In no other way can we explain either its\neclecticism or its supreme importance. Nor is the belief in question a\nthing that is implied only. Continually it is expressed also, and this\neven by writers who theoretically repudiate it. Goethe, for instance,\ncannot present the moral aspects of Margaret's love-story without\nassuming it. And George Eliot has been obliged to presuppose it in her\ncharacters, and to exhibit the virtues she regards as noblest, on the\npedestal of a belief that she regards as most irrational. But its\ncompletest expression is naturally to be found elsewhere. Here, for\ninstance, is a verse of Mr. Robert Browning's, who, however we rank him\notherwise, is perhaps unrivalled for his subtle analysis of the\nemotions:\n\n    _Dear, when our one soul understands\n      The great soul that makes all things new,\n    When earth breaks up, and heaven expands,\n      How will the change strike me and you,\n    In the house not made with hands?_\n\nHere, again, is another, in which the same sentiment is presented in a\nsomewhat different form:\n\n    _Is there nought better than to enjoy?\n      No deed which done, will make time break,\n        Letting us pent-up creatures through\n        Into eternity, our due--\n    No forcing earth teach heaven's employ?_\n\n    _No wise beginning, here and now,\n      Which cannot grow complete (earth's feat)\n        And heaven must finish there and then?\n        No tasting earth's true food for men,\n    Its sweet in sad, its sad in sweet?_\n\nTo the last of these verses a singular parallel may be found in the\nworks of a much earlier, and a very different writer, only the affection\nthere dealt with is filial and not marital. In spite of this difference,\nhowever, it will still be much in point.\n\n'_The day was fast approaching_,' says Augustine, '_whereon my mother\nwas to depart this life, when it happened, Lord, as I believe by thy\nspecial ordinance, that she and I were alone together, leaning in a\ncertain window that looked into the garden of the house, where we were\nthen staying at Ostia. We were talking together alone, very sweetly, and\nwere wondering what the life would be of God's saints in heaven. And\nwhen our discourse was come to that point, that the highest delight and\nbrightest of all the carnal senses seemed not fit to be so much as named\nwith that life's sweetness, we, lifting ourselves yet more ardently to\nthe Unchanging One, did by degrees pass through all things\nbodily--beyond the heaven even, and the sun and stars. Yea, we soared\nhigher yet by inward musing. We came to our own minds, and we passed\nbeyond them, that we might reach that place of plenty, where Thou\nfeedest Israel for ever with the food of truth, and where life is the\nWisdom by which all these things are made. And whilst we were\ndiscoursing and panting after her, we slightly touched on her with the\nwhole effort of our heart; and we sighed, and there left bound the first\nfruits of the spirit, and came back again to the sounds of our own\nmouths--to our own finite language. And what we then said was in this\nwise: If to any the tumult of the flesh were hushed, hushed the images\nof the earth and air and waters, hushed too the poles of heaven, yea the\nvery soul be hushed to herself, and by not thinking on self transcend\nself, hushed all dreams and imaginary revelations, every tongue and\nevery sign, and whatever exists only in transition--if these should all\nbe hushed, having only roused our ears to Him that made them, and He\nspeak alone, not by them but by Himself, that we might hear His word,\nnot through any tongue of flesh, nor angel's voice, nor sound of\nthunder, nor in the dark riddle of a similitude, but might hear Him,\nwhom in these things we love--His very self without any aid from these\n(even as we two for that brief moment had touched the eternal\nWisdom)--could this be continued on, and other visions, far unlike it,\nbe withdrawn, and this one ravish and absorb and wrap up its beholders\namid these inward joys, so that life might be for ever like that one\nmoment of understanding, were not this, Enter thou into the joy of thy\nLord? And when shall that be? Shall it be when we rise again, but shall\nnot all be changed?_'[22]\n\nIn this exceedingly striking passage we have the whole case before us.\nThe belief on which modern love rests, and which makes it so single and\nso sacred is, as it were, drawn for us on an enlarged scale: and we see\nthat it is a belief to which positivism has no right. The belief,\nindeed, is by no means a modern thing. Rudiments of it on the contrary\nare as old as man himself, and may represent a something that inheres in\nhis very nature. But none the more for this will it be of any service to\nthe positivist; for this something can only be of power or value if the\nprophecy it inevitably developes into be regarded as a true one. In the\nconsciousness of the ancient world it lay undeciphered like the dark\nsentence of an oracle; and though it might be revered by some, it could\nnot be denied by any. But its meaning is now translated for us, and\nthere is a new factor in the case. We now can deny it; and if we do, its\nwhole power is paralysed.\n\nThis when once recognised must be evident enough. But a curious\nconfusion of thought has prevented the positive school from seeing it.\nThey have imagined that what religion adds to love is the hope of\nprolongation only, not of development also; and thus we find Professor\nHuxley curtly dismissing the question by saying that the quality of such\na pleasure '_is obviously in no way affected by the abbreviation or\nprolongation of our conscious life_.' How utterly this is beside the\npoint may be shown instantly by a very simple example. A painter, we\nwill say, inspired with some great conception, sets to work at a\npicture, and finds a week of the intensest happiness in preparing his\ncanvas and laying his first colours. Now the happiness of that week is,\nof course, a fact for him. It would not have been greater had it lasted\na whole fortnight; and it would not have been less had he died at the\nweek's end. But though obviously, as Professor Huxley says, it in no way\ndepends on its prolongation, what it does depend on is the belief that\nit will be prolonged, and that in being prolonged it will change its\ncharacter. It depends on the belief on the painter's part that he will\nbe able to continue his painting, and that as he continues it, his\npicture will advance to completion. The positivists have confused the\ntrue saying that the pleasure of painting one picture does not depend on\nthe fact that we shall paint many, with the false saying that the\npleasure of beginning that one does not depend on the belief that we\nshall finish it. On this last belief it is plain that the pleasure does\ndepend, largely if not entirely; and it is precisely this last belief\nthat positivism takes away.\n\nTo return again, then, to the subject of human love--we are now in a\nposition to see that, as offered us at present by the positive school of\nmoralists, it cannot, properly speaking, be called a positive pleasure\nat all, but that, it is still essentially a religious one; and that when\nthe religious element is eradicated, its entire character will change.\nIt may be, of course, contended that the religious element is\nineradicable: but this is simply either to call positivism an\nimpossibility, or religion an incurable disease. Here, however, we are\ntouching on a side issue, which I shall by and by return to, but which\nis at present beside the point. My aim now is not to argue either that\npositivism can or cannot be accepted by humanity, but to show what, if\naccepted, it will have to offer us. I wish to point out the error, for\ninstance, of such writers as George Eliot, who, whilst denying the\nexistence of any sun-god in the heavens, are yet perpetually adoring the\nsunlight on the earth; who profess to extinguish all fire on principle,\nand then offer us boiling water to supply its place; or who, sending\nlove to us as a mere Cassandra, continue to quote as Scripture the\nprophecies they have just discredited.\n\nThus far what we have seen is this. Love as a positive pleasure, if it\nbe ever reduced to such, will be a very different thing from what our\npositivist moralists at present see it to be. It will perform none of\nthose functions for which they now look to it. It will no longer supply\nthem, as now, with any special pinnacle on which human life may raise\nitself. The one type of it that is at present on an eminence will sink\nto the same level as the others. All these will be offered to us\nindiscriminately, and our choice between them will have no moral value.\nNone of the ethical epithets by which these varieties are at present so\nsharply distinguished from each other will have any virtue left in them.\nMorality in this connection will be a word without a meaning.\n\nI have as yet dealt only with one of those resources, which have been\nsupposed to impart to life a positive general value. This one, however,\nhas been the most important and the most comprehensive of all; and its\ncase will explain that of the others, and perhaps, with but few\nexceptions, include them. One or two of these others I shall by and by\ntreat separately; but we will first enquire into the results on life of\nthe change we have been considering already.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[15] Mr. A.C. Swinburne.\n\n[16] _Mademoiselle de Maupin_, pp. 213-222. Ed. Paris. 1875.\n\n[17] _Mademoiselle de Maupin_, p. 223.\n\n[18] _Ibid._, p. 225.\n\n[19] _Mademoiselle de Maupin_, p. 222.\n\n[20] _Ibid._, p. 211.\n\n[21] Dante Gabriel Rosetti.\n\n[22] Aug. Conf., lib. ix. In the earlier part of the passage the extreme\nredundancy of the original has been curtailed somewhat. In the rendering\nhere given I have to a great extent followed Dr. Pusey.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI.\n\nLIFE AS ITS OWN REWARD.\n\n    '_If in this life only we have hope_--'\n\n\nWhat we have now before us is a certain subtraction sum. We have to take\nfrom life one of its strongest present elements; and see as well as we\ncan what will then be the remainder. An exact answer we shall, of\ncourse, not expect; but we can arrive at an approximate one without much\ndifficulty.\n\nWhat we have to subtract has been shown in the previous chapter; but it\nmay again be described briefly in the following way. Life in its present\nstate, as we have just seen, is a union of two sets of feelings, and of\ntwo kinds of happiness, and is partly the sum of the two, and partly a\ncompromise between them. Its resources, by one classification, are\nseparable into two groups, according as in themselves they chance to\nrepel or please us; and the most obvious measure of happiness would seem\nto be nothing more than our gain of what is thus pleasant, and our\nshirking of what is thus painful. But if we examine life as it actually\nexists about us, we shall see that this classification has been\ntraversed by another. Many things naturally repellent have received a\nsupernatural blessing; many things naturally pleasant have received a\nsupernatural curse; and thus our highest happiness is often composed of\npain, and our profoundest misery is nearly always based on pleasure.\nAccordingly, whereas happiness naturally would seem the test of right,\nright has come supernaturally to be the test of happiness. And so\ncompletely is this notion engrained in the world's consciousness, that\nin all our deeper views of life, no matter whether we be saints or\nsinners, right and wrong are the things that first appeal to us, not\nhappiness and misery. A certain supernatural moral judgment, in fact,\nhas become a primary faculty with us, and it mixes with every estimate\nwe form of the world around us.\n\nIt is this faculty that positivism, if accepted fully, must either\ndestroy or paralyse; it is this, therefore, that in imagination we must\nnow try to eliminate. To do this--to see what will be left in life to\nus, without this faculty, we must first see in general, how much is at\npresent dependent on it.\n\nThis might at first sight seem a hard task to perform; the interests we\nshall have to deal with are so many and so various. But the difficulty\nmay be eluded. I have already gone to literature for examples of special\nfeelings on the part of individuals, and under certain circumstances.\nWe will now go to it for a kindred, though not for the same assistance;\nand for this end we shall approach it in a slightly different way. What\nwe did before was this. We took certain works of literary art, and\nselecting, as it were, one or two special patches of colour, we analysed\nthe composition of these. What we shall now do will be to take the\npictures as organic wholes, with a view to analysing the effect of them\nas pictures--the harmony or the contrast of their colours, and the\nmassing of their lights and shadows. If we reflect for a moment what art\nis--literary and poetical art in particular--we shall at once see how,\nexamined in this way, it will be of use to us. In the first place, then,\nwhat is art? and what is the reason that it pleases us? It is a\nreflection, a reproduction of the pleasures of life, and is altogether\nrelative to these, and dependent on them. We should, for instance, take\nno interest in portraits unless we took some interest in the human face.\nWe should take none in statues if we took none in the human form. We\nmust know something of love as a feeling, or we should never care for\nlove-songs. Art may send us back to these with intenser appreciation of\nthem, but we must bring to art from life the appreciation we want\nintensified. Art is a factor in common human happiness, because by its\nmeans common men are made partakers in the vision of uncommon men.\n\nGreat art is a speculum reflecting life as the keenest eyes have seen\nit. All its forms and imagery are of value only as this. Taken by\nthemselves, '_the best in this kind are but shadows_.' We have to\n'_piece out their imperfections, with our thoughts_;' '_imagination has\nto amend them_,' and '_it must be our imagination, not theirs_.'[23] In\nexamining a work of art, then, we are examining life itself; or rather,\nin examining the interest which we take in a work of art, in examining\nthe reasons why we think it beautiful, or great, or interesting, we are\nexamining our own feelings as to the realities represented by it.\n\nAnd now remembering this, let us turn to certain of the world's greatest\nworks of art--I mean its dramas: for just as poetry is the most\narticulate of all the arts, so is the drama the most comprehensive form\nof poetry. In the drama we have the very thing we are now in want of. We\nhave life as a whole--that complex aggregate of details, which forms, as\nit were, the mental landscape of existence, presented to us in a\n'_questionable shape_,' at once concentrated and intensified. And it is\nno exaggeration to say that the reasons why men think life worth\nliving, can be all found in the reasons why they think a great drama\ngreat.\n\nLet us turn, then, to some of the greatest works of Sophocles, of\nShakespeare, and of Goethe, and consider briefly how these present life\nto us. Let us take _Macbeth_, _Hamlet_, _Measure for Measure_, and\n_Faust_. We have here five presentations of life, under what confessedly\nare its most striking aspects, and with such interests as men have been\nable to find in it, raised to their greatest intensity. Such, at least,\nis the way in which these works are regarded, and it is only in virtue\nof this estimate that they are called great. Now, in producing this\nestimate, what is the chief faculty in us that they appeal to? It will\nneed but little thought to show us that they appeal primarily to the\nsupernatural moral judgment; that this judgment is perpetually being\nexpressed explicitly in the works themselves; and, which is far more\nimportant, that it is always pre-supposed in us. In other words, these\nsupreme presentations of life are presentations of men struggling, or\nfailing to struggle, not after natural happiness, but after supernatural\nright; and it is always pre-supposed on our part that we admit this\nstruggle to be the one important thing. And this importance, we shall\nsee further, is based, not on the external and the social consequences\nof conduct, but essentially and primarily on its internal and its\npersonal consequences.\n\nIn _Macbeth_, for instance, the main incident, the tragic-colouring\nmatter of the drama, is the murder of Duncan. But in what aspect of this\ndoes the real tragedy lie? Not in the fact that Duncan is murdered, but\nin the fact that Macbeth is the murderer. What appals us, what purges\nour passions with pity and with terror as we contemplate it, is not the\nexternal, the social effect of the act, but the personal, the internal\neffect of it. As for Duncan, he is in his grave; after life's fitful\nfever he sleeps well. What our minds are made to dwell upon is not that\nDuncan shall sleep for ever, but that Macbeth shall sleep no more; it is\nnot the extinction of a dynasty, but the ruin of a character.\n\nWe see in _Hamlet_ precisely the same thing. The action there that our\ninterest centres in, is the hero's struggle to conform to an internal\npersonal standard of right, utterly irrespective of use to others, or of\nnatural happiness to himself. In the course of this struggle, indeed, he\ndoes nothing but ruin the happiness around him; and this ruin adds\ngreatly to the pathos of the spectacle. But we are not indignant with\nHamlet, as being the cause of it. We should have been indignant rather\nwith him if the case had been reversed, and if, instead of sacrificing\nsocial happiness for the sake of personal right, he had sacrificed\npersonal right for the sake of social happiness.\n\nIn _Antigone_ the case is just the same, only there its nature is yet\nmore distinctly exhibited. We have for the central interest the same\npersonal struggle after right, not after use or happiness; and one of\nthe finest passages in that whole marvellous drama is a distinct\nstatement by the heroine that this is so. The one rule she says, that\nshe is resolved to live by, and not live by only, but if needs be to die\nfor, is no human rule, is no standard of man's devising, nor can it be\nmodified to suit our changing needs; but it is\n\n    _The unwritten and the enduring laws of God,\n    Which are not of to-day nor yesterday,\n    But live from everlasting, and none breathes\n    Who knows them, whence begotten._\n\nIn _Measure for Measure_ and _Faust_ we can see the matter reduced to a\nnarrower issue still. In both these plays we can see at once that one\nmoral judgment at least, not to name others, is before all things\npre-supposed in us. This is a hard and fixed judgment with regard to\nfemale chastity, and the supernatural value of it. It is only because we\nassent to this judgment that Isabella is heroic to us; and primarily for\nthe same reason that Margaret is unfortunate. Let us suspend this\njudgment for a moment, and what will become of these two dramas? The\nterror and the pity of them will vanish instantly like a dream. The\nfittest name for both of them will be '_Much Ado about Nothing_.'\n\nIt will thus be seen, and the more we consider the matter the more\nplain will it become to us--that in all such art as that which we have\nbeen now considering, the premiss on which all its power and greatness\nrests is this: The grand relation of man is not first to his brother\nmen, but to something else, that is beyond humanity--that is at once\nwithout and also beyond himself; to this first, and to his brother men\nthrough this. We are not our own; we are bought with a price. Our bodies\nare God's temples, and the joy and the terror of life depends on our\nkeeping these temples pure, or defiling them. Such are the solemn and\nprofound beliefs, whether conscious or unconscious, on which all the\nhigher art of the world has based itself. All the profundity and\nsolemnity of it is borrowed from these, and exists for us in exact\nproportion to the intensity with which we hold them.\n\nNor is this true of sublime and serious art only. It is true of cynical,\nprofligate, and concupiscent art as well. It is true of Congreve as it\nis true of Sophocles; it is true of _Mademoiselle de Maupin_ as it is\ntrue of _Measure for Measure_. This art differs from the former in that\nthe end presented in it as the object of struggle is not only not the\nmorally right, but is also to a certain extent essentially the morally\nwrong. In the case of cynical and profligate art this is obvious. For\nsuch art does not so much depend on the substitution of some new object,\nas in putting insult on the present one. It does not make right and\nwrong change places; on the contrary it carefully keeps them where they\nare; but it insults the former by transferring its insignia to the\nlatter. It is not the ignoring of the right, but the denial of it.\nCynicism and profligacy are essentially the spirits that deny, but they\nmust retain the existing affirmations for their denial to prey upon.\nTheir function is not to destroy the good, but to keep it in lingering\ntorture. It is a kind of spiritual bear-baiting. They hate the good, and\nits existence piques them; but they must know that the good exists none\nthe less. '_I'd no sooner_,' says one of Congreve's characters, '_play\nwith a man that slighted his ill-fortune, than I'd make love to a woman\nwho undervalued the loss of her reputation_.' In this one sentence is\ncontained the whole secret of profligacy; and profligacy is the same as\ncynicism, only it is cynicism sensualized. Now we have in the above\nsentence the exact counterpart to the words of Antigone that I have\nalready quoted. For just as her life lay in conformity to '_The\nunwritten, and the enduring laws of God_,' so does the life of the\nprofligate lie in the violation of them. To each the existence of laws\nis equally essential. For profligacy is not merely the gratification of\nthe appetites, but the gratification of them at the expense of something\nelse. Beasts are not profligate. We cannot have a profligate goat.\n\nIn what I have called concupiscent art, the case might seem different,\nand to a certain extent it is so. The objects of struggle that we are\nthere presented with are meant to be presented as pleasures, not in\ndefiance of right and wrong, but independently of them. The chief of\nthese, indeed, as Theophile Gautier has told us, are the physical\nendearments of a man and a woman, with no other qualification than that\nthey are both of them young and beautiful. But though this art professes\nto be thus independent of the moral judgment, and to trust for none of\nits effects to the discernment between good and evil, this really is\nvery far from being the case. Let us turn once again to the romance we\nhave already quoted from. The hero says, as we have seen already, that\nhe has completely lost the power of discernment in question. Now, even\nthis, as might be shown easily, is not entirely true; for argument's\nsake, however, we may grant him that it is so. The real point in the\nmatter to notice is that he is at any rate conscious of the loss. He is\na man tingling with the excitement of having cast off some burden. The\nburden may be gone, but it is still present in the sharp effects of its\nabsence. He is a kind of moral poacher, who, though he may not live by\nlaw, takes much of his life's tone from the sense that he is eluding it.\nHis pleasures, though pleasurable in themselves, yet have this quality\nheightened by the sense of contrast. '_I am at any rate not virtuous_,'\nhis mistress says to him, '_and that is always something gained_.'\nGeorge Eliot says of Maggie Tulliver, that she liked her aunt Pullet\nchiefly because she was not her aunt Gleg. Theophile Gautier's hero\nlikes the Venus Anadyomene, partly at least, because she is not the\nMadonna.\n\nNay, let us even descend to worse spectacles--to the sight of men\nstruggling for enjoyments that are yet more obviously material, more\ndevoid yet of any trace of mind or morals, and we shall see plainly, if\nwe consult the mirror of art, that the moral element is present even\nhere. We shall trace it even in such abnormal literature of indulgence\nas the erotic work commonly ascribed to Meursius. We shall trace it in\nthe orgies of Tiberius at Capri; or of Quartilla, as Petronius describes\nthem, at Neapolis. It is like a ray of light coming in at the top of a\ndark cavern, whose inmates see not _it_, but _by_ it; and which only\nbrings to them a consciousness of shadow. It is this supernatural\nelement that leavens natural passion, and gives its mad rage to it. It\ncreates for it '_a twilight where virtues are vices_.' The pleasures\nthus sought for are supposed to enthral men not in proportion to their\nintensity (for this through all their varieties would be probably nearly\nequal) but in proportion to their lowness--to their sullying power.\nDegradation is the measure of enjoyment; or rather it is an increasing\nnumeral by which one constant figure of enjoyment is multiplied.\n\n    _Ah, where shall we go then, for pastime,\n    If the_ worst _that can be has been done?_\n\nThis is the great question of the votaries of such joys as these.[24]\n\nThus if we look at life in the mirror of art, we shall see how the\nsupernatural is ever present to us. If we climb up into heaven it is\nthere; if we go down into hell it is there also. We shall see it at the\nbottom of those two opposite sets of pleasures, to the one or the other\nof which all human pleasures belong. The source of one is an impassioned\nstruggle after the supernatural right, or an impassioned sense of rest\nupon attaining it; the source of the other is the sense of revolt\nagainst it, which in various ways flatters or excites us. In both cases\nthe supernatural moral judgment is the sense appealed to, primarily in\nthe first case, and secondarily if not primarily in the second. All the\nlife about us is coloured by this, and naturally if this be destroyed or\nwrecked, the whole aspect of life will change for us. What then will\nthis change be? Looking still into the mirror of art, the general\ncharacter of it will be very readily perceptible. I noticed just now,\nin passing, how _Measure for Measure_ and _Faust_ would suffer in their\nmeaning and their interest, by the absence on our part of a certain\nmoral judgment. They would become like a person singing to a deaf\naudience--a series of dumb grimaces with no meaning in them. The same\nthing is equally true in all the other cases. Antigone's heroism will\nevaporate;[25] she will be left obstinate only. The lives of Macbeth and\nHamlet will be tales of little meaning for us, though the words are\nstrong. They will be full of sound and fury, but they will signify\nnothing. What they produce in us will be not interest but a kind of\nwondering weariness--weariness at the weary fate of men who could\n'_think so brainsickly of things_.' So in like manner will all the\nemphasis and elaboration in the literature of sensuality become a\nweariness without meaning, also. Congreve's caustic wit will turn to\nspasmodic truism; and Theophile Gautier's excess of erotic ardour, into\nprolix and fantastic affectation. All its sublimity, its brilliance, and\na large part of its interest, depend in art on the existence of the\nmoral sense, and would in its absence be absolutely unproducible. The\nreason of this is plain. The natural pains and pleasures of life,\nmerely manipulated by the imagination and the memory, have too little\nvariety or magnitude in them without further aid. Art without the moral\nsense to play upon, is like a pianist whose keyboard is reduced to a\nsingle octave.\n\nAnd exactly the same will be the case with life. Life will lose just the\nsame qualities that art will--neither more nor less. There will be no\nintroduction of any new interests, but merely the elimination of certain\nexisting ones. The subtraction of the moral sense will not revolutionise\nhuman purposes, but simply make them listless. It will reduce to a\nparti-coloured level the whole field of pains and pleasures. The moral\nelement gives this level a new dimension. Working underneath it as a\nsubterranean force, it convulses and divides its surface. Here vast\nareas subside into valleys and deep abysses; there mountain peaks shoot\nup heavenwards. Mysterious shadows begin to throng the hollows; new\ntints and half-tints flicker and shift everywhere; mists hang floating\nover ravines and precipices; the vegetation grows more various, here\nslenderer, there richer and more luxuriant; whilst high over all, bright\non the topmost summits, is a new strange something--the white snows of\npurity, catching the morning streaks on them of a brighter day, that has\nnever as yet risen upon the world below.\n\nWith the subtraction, or nullifying, of the moral force, all this will\ngo. The mountains will sink, the valleys be filled up; all will be once\nmore dead level--still indeed parti-coloured, but without light and\nshadow, and with the colours reduced in number, and robbed of all their\nvividness. The chiaro-oscuro will have gone from life; the moral\nlandscape, whose beauty and grandeur is at present so much extolled,\nwill have dissolved like an insubstantial pageant. Vice and virtue will\nbe set before us in the same grey light; every deeper feeling either of\njoy or sorrow, of desire or of repulsion, will lose its vigour, and\ncease any more to be resonant.\n\nIt may be said indeed, and very truly, that under favourable\ncircumstances there must always remain a joy in the mere act of living,\nin the exercising of the bodily functions, and in the exciting and\nappeasing of the bodily appetites. Will anything, it may be asked, for\ninstance, rob the sunshine of its gladness, or deaden the vital\ninfluence of a spring morning?--when the sky is a cloudless blue, and\nthe sea is like a wild hyacinth, when the pouring brooks seem to live as\nthey sparkle, and the early air amongst the woodlands has the breath in\nit of unseen violets? All this, it is quite true, will be left to us;\nthis and a great deal more. This, however, is but one side of the\npicture. If life has its own natural gladness which is expressed by\nspring, it has also its own natural sadness which is expressed by\nwinter; and the worth of life, if this is all we trust to, will be as\nvarious and as changing as the weather is. But this is not all. Even\nthis worth, such as it is, depends for us at present, in a large\nmeasure, upon religion--not directly indeed, but indirectly. This life\nof air, and nerve, and muscle, this buoyant consciousness of joyous and\nabounding health, which seems so little to have connection with faiths\nor theories, is for us impregnated with a life that is impregnated with\nthese, and thus their subtle influence pervades it everywhere. There is\nno impulse from without which stirs or excites the senses, that does not\neither bring to us, or send us on to, a something beyond itself. In each\nof these pleasures that seems to us so simple, floats a swarm of hopes\nand memories, like the gnats in a summer twilight. There is not a sight,\na sound, a smell, not a breath from sea or garden, that is not full of\nthem, and on which, busy and numberless, they are not wafted into us.\nAnd each of these volatile presences brings the notions of right and\nwrong with it; and it is these that make sensuous life tingle with so\nstrange and so elaborate an excitement. Indirectly then, though not\ndirectly, the mere joy in the act of living will suffer from the loss of\nreligion, in the same manner, though perhaps not in the same degree, as\nthe other joys will. It will not lose its existence, but it will lose\nzest. The fabric of its pleasures will of course remain what it ever\nwas; but its brightest inhabitants will have left it. It will be as\ndesolate as Mayfair in September, or as a deserted college during a long\nvacation.\n\nWe may here pause in passing, to remark on the shallowness of that\nphilosophy of culture, to be met with in certain quarters, which, whilst\nadmitting all that can be said as to the destruction for us of any moral\nobligation, yet advises us still to profit by the variety of moral\ndistinctions. '_Each moment_,' says Mr. Pater for instance, '_some form\ngrows perfect in hand or face; some tone on the hills or sea is choicer\nthan the rest; some mood of passion or insight or intellectual\nexcitement, is irresistibly real and attractive for us_.' And thus, he\nadds, '_while all melts under our feet, we may well catch at any\nexquisite passion, or any contribution to knowledge, that seems by a\nlifted horizon to set the spirit free for a moment, or any stirring of\nthe senses, strange dyes, strange flowers, and curious odours, or the\nwork of the artist's hand, or the face of one's friend_.' It is plain\nthat this positive teaching of culture is open to the same objections,\nand is based on the same fallacy, as the positive teaching of morals. It\ndoes not teach us, indeed, to let right and wrong guide us in the choice\nof our pleasures, in the sense that we should choose the one sort and\neschew the other; but teaching us to choose the two, in one sense\nindifferently, it yet teaches us to choose them as distinct and\ncontrasted things. It teaches us in fact to combine the two fruits\nwithout confusing their flavours. But in the case of good and evil, as\nhas been seen, this is quite impossible; for good is only good as the\nthing that ought to be chosen; evil is only evil as the thing that ought\nnot to be chosen; and the only reasons that could justify us in\ncombining them would altogether prevent our distinguishing them. The\nteachings of positive culture, in fact, rest on the naive supposition\nthat shine and shadow, as it were, are portable things; and that we can\ntake bright objects out of the sunshine, and dark objects out of the\nshadow, and setting them both together in the diffused grey light of a\nstudio, make a magical mosaic out of them, of gloom and glitter. Or such\nteachings, to put the matter yet more simply, are like telling us to\npick a primrose at noonday, and to set it by our bed-side for a\nnight-light.\n\nIt is plain therefore that, in that loss of zest and interest, which the\ndeadening of the moral sense, as we have seen, must bring to life, we\nshall get no help there. The massy fabric of which saints and heroes\nwere the builders, will never be re-elected by this mincing moral\ndandyism.\n\nBut there is another last resource of the modern school, which is far\nmore worthy of attention, and which, being entirely _sui generis_, I\nhave reserved to treat of here. That resource is the devotion to truth\nas truth; not for the sake of its consequences, but in scorn of them.\nHere we are told we have at least one moral end that can never be taken\naway from us. It will still survive to give life a meaning, a dignity,\nand a value, even should the pursuit of it prove destructive to all the\nothers. The language used by the modern school upon this subject is very\ncurious and instructive. I will take two typical instances. The common\nargument, says Dr. Tyndall, in favour of belief is the comfort and the\ngladness that it brings us, its redemption of life, in fact, from that\ndead and dull condition we have been just considering. '_To this,_' he\nsays, '_my reply is that I choose the nobler part of Emerson when, after\nvarious disenchantments, he exclaimed \"I covet_ truth!\" _The gladness of\ntrue heroism, visits the heart of him who is really competent to say\nthis._' The following sentences are Professor Huxley's: '_If it is\ndemonstrated to me,_' he says, '_that without this or that theological\ndogma the human race will lapse into bipedal cattle, more brutal than\nthe beasts by reason of their greater cleverness, my next question is to\nask for the proof of the dogma. If this proof is forthcoming, it is my\nconviction that no drowning sailor ever clutched a hen-coop more\ntenaciously than mankind will hold by such dogma, whatever it may be.\nBut if not, then I verily believe that the human race will go its own\nevil way; and my only consolation lies in the reflection that, however\nbad our posterity may become, so long as they hold by the plain rule of\nnot pretending to believe what they have no reason to believe, because\nit may be to their advantage so to pretend, they will not have reached\nthe lowest depths of immorality._' I will content myself with these two\ninstances, but others of a similar kind might be multiplied\nindefinitely.\n\nNow by a simple substitution of terms, such language as this will reveal\nat once one important fact to us. According to the avowed principles of\npositive morality, morality has no other test but happiness. Immorality,\ntherefore, can have no conceivable meaning but unhappiness, or at least\nthe means to it, which in this case are hardly distinguishable from the\nend; and thus, according to the above rigid reasoners, the human race\nwill not have reached the lowest depths of misery so long as it rejects\nthe one thing which _ex hypothesi_ might render it less miserable.\nEither then all this talk about truth must really be so much irrelevant\nnonsense, or else, if it be not nonsense, the test of conduct is\nsomething distinct from happiness. The question before us is a plain\none, which may be answered in one of two ways, but which positivism\ncannot possibly answer in both. Is truth to be sought only because it\nconduces to happiness, or is happiness only to be sought for when it is\nbased on truth? In the latter case truth, not happiness, is the test of\nconduct. Are our positive moralists prepared to admit this? If so, let\nthem explicitly and consistently say so. Let them keep this test and\nreject the other, for the two cannot be fused together.\n\n    [Greek: oxos t' aleipha t' egcheas tauto kutei\n    dichostatount an ou philoin prosennepois.]\n\nThis inconsistency is here, however, only a side point--a passing\nillustration of the slovenliness of the positivist logic. As far as my\npresent argument goes, we may let this pass altogether, and allow the\njoint existence of these mutually exclusive ends. What I am about to do\nis to show that on positive grounds the last of these is more hopelessly\ninadequate than the first--that truth as a moral end has even more of\nreligion in its composition than happiness, and that when this religion\ngoes, its value will even more hopelessly evaporate.\n\nAt first sight this may seem impossible. The devotion to truth may seem\nas simple as it is sacred. But if we consider the matter further, we\nshall soon think differently. To begin then; truth, as the positivists\nspeak of it, is plainly a thing that is to be worshipped in two\nways--firstly by its discovery, and secondly by its publication. Thus\nProfessor Huxley, however much it may pain him, will not hide from\nhimself the fact that there is no God; and however bad this knowledge\nmay be for humanity, his highest and most sacred duty still consists in\nimparting it. Now why should this be? I ask. Is it simply because the\nfact in question is the truth? That surely cannot be so, as a few other\nexamples will show us. A man discovers that his wife has been seduced by\nhis best friend. Is there anything very high or very sacred in that\ndiscovery? Having made it, does he feel any consolation in the knowledge\nthat it is the entire truth? And will the '_gladness of true heroism_'\nvisit him if he proclaims it to everyone in his club? A chattering nurse\nbetrays his danger to a sick man. The sick man takes fright and dies.\nWas the discovery of the truth of his danger very glorious for the\npatient? or was its publication very sacred in the nurse? Clearly the\ntruths that it is sacred to find out and to publish are not all truths,\nbut truths of a certain kind only. They are not particular truths like\nthese, but the universal and eternal truths that underlie them. They are\nin fact what we call the truths of Nature, and the apprehension of them,\nor truth as attained by us, means the putting ourselves _en rapport_\nwith the life of that infinite existence which surrounds and sustains\nall of us. Now since it is this kind of truth only that is supposed to\nbe so sacred, it is clear that its sacredness does not depend on itself,\nbut on its object. Truth is sacred because Nature is sacred; Nature is\nnot sacred because truth is; and our supreme duty to truth means neither\nmore nor less than a supreme faith in Nature. It means that there is a\nsomething in the Infinite outside ourselves that corresponds to a\ncertain something within ourselves; that this latter something is the\nstrongest and the highest part of us, and that it can find no rest but\nin communion with its larger counterpart. Truth sought for in this way\nis evidently a distinct thing from the truth of utilitarianism. It is no\nfalse reflection of human happiness in the clouds. For it is to be\nsought for none the less, as our positivists decidedly tell us, even\nthough all other happiness should be ruined by it. Now what on positive\nprinciples is the groundwork of this teaching? All ethical epithets such\nas sacred, heroic, and so forth--all the words, in fact, that are by\nimplication applied to Nature--have absolutely no meaning save as\napplied to conscious beings; and as a subject for positive observation,\nthere exists no consciousness in the universe outside this earth. By\nwhat conceivable means, then, can the positivists transfer to Nature in\ngeneral qualities which, so far as they know, are peculiar to human\nnature only? They can only do this in one of two ways--both of which\nthey would equally repudiate--either by an act of fancy, or by an act of\nfaith. Tested rigidly by their own fundamental common principles, it is\nas unmeaning to call the universe sacred as to say that the moon talks\nFrench.\n\nLet us however pass this by; let us refuse to subject their teaching to\nthe extreme rigour of even their own law; and let us grant that by some\nmixed use of fancy or of mysticism, they can turn to Nature as to some\nvast moral hieroglyph. What sort of morality do they find in it? Nature,\nas positive observation reveals her to us, is a thing that can have no\nclaim either on our reverence or our approbation. Once apply any moral\ntest to her conduct, and as J.S. Mill has so forcibly pointed out, she\nbecomes a monster. There is no crime that men abhor or perpetrate that\nNature does not commit daily on an exaggerated scale. She knows no sense\neither of justice or mercy. Continually indeed she seems to be tender,\nand loving, and bountiful; but all that, at such times, those that know\nher can exclaim to her, is\n\n          _Miseri quibus\n    Intentata nites_.\n\nAt one moment she will be blessing a country with plenty, peace, and\nsunshine; and she will the next moment ruin the whole of it by an\nearthquake. Now she is the image of thrift, now of prodigality; now of\nthe utmost purity, now of the most revolting filth; and if, as I say,\nshe is to be judged by any moral standard at all, her capacities for\nwhat is admirable not only make her crimes the darker, but they also\nmake her virtues partake of the nature of sin. How, then, can an\nintimacy with this eternal criminal be an ennobling or a sacred thing?\nThe theist, of course, believes that truth _is_ sacred. But his belief\nrests on a foundation that has been altogether renounced by the\npositivists. He values truth because, in whatever direction it takes\nhim, it takes him either to God or towards Him--God, to whom he is in\nsome sort akin, and after whose likeness he is in some sort made. He\nsees Nature to be cruel, wicked, and bewildering when viewed by itself.\nBut behind Nature he sees a vaster power--his father--in whom\nmysteriously all contradictions are reconciled. Nature for him is God's,\nbut it is not God; and '_though God slay me_,' he says, '_yet will I\ntrust in Him_.' This trust can be attained to only by an act of faith\nlike this. No observation or experiment, or any positive method of any\nkind, will be enough to give it us; rather, without faith, observation\nand experiment will do nothing but make it seem impossible. Thus a\nbelief in the sacredness of Nature, or, in other words, in the essential\nvalue of truth, is as strictly an act of religion, as strictly a\ndefiance of the whole positive formula, as any article in any\necclesiastical creed. It is simply a concrete form of the beginning of\nthe Christian symbol, '_I believe in God the Father Almighty_.' It rests\non the same foundation, neither more nor less. Nor is it too much to\nsay that without a religion, without a belief in God, no fetish-worship\nwas ever more ridiculous than this cultus of natural truth.\n\nThis subject is so important that it will be well to dwell on it a\nlittle longer. I will take another passage from Dr. Tyndall, which\npresents it to us in a slightly different light, and which speaks\nexplicitly not of truth itself, but of that sacred Object beyond, of\nwhich truth is only the sacramental channel to us. '\"_Two things,\" said\nImanuel Kant_' (it is thus Dr. Tyndall writes), '\"_fill me with awe--the\nstarry heavens, and the sense of moral responsibility in man.\" And in\nthe hours of health and strength and sanity, when the stroke of action\nhas ceased, and when the pause of reflection has set in, the scientific\ninvestigator finds himself overshadowed by the same awe. Breaking\ncontact with the hampering details of earth, it associates him with a\npower which gives fulness and tone to his existence, but which he can\nneither analyse nor comprehend._' This, Dr. Tyndall tells us, is the\nonly rational statement of the fact of that '_divine communion_,' whose\nnature is '_simply distorted and desecrated_' by the unwarranted\nassumptions of theism.\n\nNow let us try to consider accurately what Dr. Tyndall's statement\nmeans. Knowledge of Nature, he says, associates him with Nature. It\nwithdraws him from '_the hampering details of earth_,' and enables the\nindividual human being to have communion with a something that is beyond\nhumanity. But what is communion? It is a word with no meaning at all\nsave as referring to conscious beings. There could be no communion\nbetween two corpses; nor, again, between a corpse and a living man. Dr.\nTyndall, for instance, could have no communion with a dead canary.\nCommunion implies the existence on both sides of a common something. Now\nwhat is there in common between Dr. Tyndall and the starry heavens, or\nthat '_power_' of which the starry heavens are the embodiment? Dr.\nTyndall expressly says that he not only does not know what there is in\ncommon, but that he '_dare_' not even say that, as conscious beings,\nthey two have anything in common at all.[26] The only things he can know\nabout the power in question are that it is vast, and that it is uniform;\nbut a contemplation of these qualities by themselves, must tend rather\nto produce in him a sense of separation from it than of union with it.\nUnited with it, in one sense, he of course is; he is a fraction of the\nsum of things, and everything, in a certain way, is dependent upon\neverything else. But in this union there is nothing special. Its\nexistence is an obvious fact, common to all men, whether they dwell upon\nit or no: and though by a knowledge of Nature we may grow to realise it\nmore keenly, it is impossible to make the union in the least degree\ncloser, or to turn it into anything that can be in any way called a\ncommunion. Indeed, for the positivists to talk about communion or\nassociation with Nature is about as rational as to talk about communion\nor association with a steam-engine. The starry skies at night are\ndoubtless an imposing spectacle; but man, on positive principles, can be\nno more raised by watching them than a commercial traveller can by\nwatching a duke--probably far less: for if the duke were well behaved,\nthe commercial traveller might perhaps learn some manners from him; but\nthere is nothing in the panorama of the universe that can in any way be\nany model for the positivist. There are but two respects in which he can\ncompare himself to the rest of nature--firstly, as a revealed force;\nand, secondly, as a force that works by law. But the forces that are\nrevealed by the stars, for instance, are vast, and the force revealed in\nhimself is small; and he, as he considers, is a self-determining agent,\nand the stars are not. There are but two points of comparison between\nthe two; and in these two points they are contrasts, and not\nlikenesses. It is true, indeed, as I said just now, that a sense of awe\nand of hushed solemnity is, as a fact, born in us at the spectacle of\nthe starry heavens--world upon luminous world shining and quivering\nsilently; it is true, too, that a spontaneous feeling connects such a\nsense somehow with our deepest moral being. But this, on positive\nprinciples, must be feeling only. It means absolutely nothing: it can\nhave no objective fact that corresponds to it. It is an illusion, a\npathetic fallacy. And to say that the heavens with their stars declare\nto us anything high or holy, is no more rational than to say that\nBrighton does, which itself, seen at night from the sea, is a long braid\nof stars descended upon the wide horizon. All that the study of nature,\nall that the love of truth, can do for the positivist is not to guide\nhim to any communion with a vaster power, but to show him that no such\ncommunion is possible. His devotion to truth, if it mean anything--and\nthe language he often uses about it betrays this--let us know the worst,\nnot let us find out the best:--a wish which is neither more nor less\nnoble than the wish to sit down at once in a slop upon the floor rather\nthan sustain oneself any longer above it on a chair that is discovered\nto be rickety.\n\nHere then again, in this last resource of positivism we have religion\nembodied as a yet more important element than in any of the others; and\nwhen this element is driven out of it, it collapses yet more hopelessly\nthan they do. By the whole positive system we are bound to human life.\nThere is no mystical machinery by which we can rise above it. It is by\nits own isolated worth that this life must stand or fall.\n\nAnd what, let us again ask, will this worth, be? The question is of\ncourse, as I have said, too vague to admit of more than a general\nanswer, but a general answer, as I have said also, may be given\nconfidently enough. Man when fully imbued with the positive view of\nhimself, will inevitably be an animal of far fewer capacities than he at\npresent is. He will not be able to suffer so much; but also he will not\nbe able to enjoy so much. Surround him, in imagination, with the most\nfavourable circumstances; let social progress have been carried to the\nutmost perfection; and let him have access to every happiness of which\nwe can conceive him capable. It is impossible even thus to conceive of\nlife as a very valuable possession to him. It would at any rate be far\nless valuable than it is to many men now, under outer circumstances that\nare far less favourable. The goal to which a purely human progress is\ncapable of conducting us, is thus no vague condition of glory and\nfelicity, in which men shall develop new and ampler powers. It is a\ncondition in which, the keenest life attainable has continually been\nfar surpassed already, without anything having been arrived at that in\nitself seemed of surpassing value.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[23] 'Hippolyta.--_This is the silliest stuff I ever heard._\nTheseus.--_The best in this kind are but shadows, and the worst no\nworse, if imagination amend them._ Hippolyta.--_It must be your\nimagination then, not theirs._'--Midsummer's Night's Dream, Act V.\n\n'_Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts._'--Prologue to Henry\nV.\n\n[24] Seneca says of virtue, '_Non quia delectat placet, sed quia placet\ndelectat_.' Of vice in the same way we may say, '_Non quia delectat_\npudet, _sed quia_ pudet _delectat_.'\n\n[25] It will be of course recollected that in this abstraction of the\nmoral sense, we have to abstract it from the characters as well as\nourselves.\n\n[26] '_When I attempt to give the power which I see manifested in the\nuniverse an objective form, personal or otherwise, it slips away from\nme, declining all intellectual manipulation. I dare not, save\npoetically, use the pronoun_ \"He\" _regarding it. I dare not call it a_\n\"Mind.\" _I refuse even to call it a_ \"Cause.\" _Its mystery overshadows\nme; but it remains a mystery, while the objective frames which my\nneighbours try to make it fit, simply distort and desecrate it._'--Dr.\nTyndall, '_Materialism and its Opponents_.'\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII.\n\nTHE SUPERSTITION OF POSITIVISM.\n\nGlendower. _I can call spirits from the vasty deep._\n\nHotspur. _Why so can I, or so can any man,\n         But will they come when you do call for them?_\n                                          Henry IV. Part 1.\n\n\nGeneral and indefinite as the foregoing considerations have been, they\nare quite definite enough to be of the utmost practical import. They are\ndefinite enough to show the utter hollowness of that vague faith in\nprogress, and the glorious prospects that lie before humanity, on which\nthe positive school at present so much rely, and about which so much is\nsaid. To a certain extent, indeed, a faith in progress is perfectly\nrational and well grounded. There are many imperfections in life, which\nthe course of events tends manifestly to lessen if not to do away with,\nand so far as these are concerned, improvements may go on indefinitely.\nBut the things that this progress touches are, as has been said before,\nnot happiness, but the negative conditions of it. A belief in this kind\nof progress is not peculiar to positivism. It is common to all educated\nmen, no matter what their creed may be. What is peculiar to positivism\nis the strange corollary to this belief, that man's subjective powers of\nhappiness will go on expanding likewise. It is the belief not only that\nthe existing pleasures will become more diffused, but that they will, as\nGeorge Eliot says, become '_more intense in diffusion_.' It is this\nbelief on which the positivists rely to create that enthusiasm, that\nimpassioned benevolence, which is to be the motive power of their whole\nethical machinery. They have taken away the Christian heaven, and have\nthus turned adrift a number of hopes and aspirations that were once\npowerful. These hopes and aspirations they acknowledge to be of the\nfirst necessity; they are facts, they say, of human nature, and no\nhigher progress would be possible without them. What the enlightened\nthought is to do is not to extinguish, but to transfer them. They are to\nbe given a new object more satisfactory than the old one; not our own\nprivate glory in another world, but the common glory of our whole race\nin this.\n\nNow let us consider for a moment some of the positive criticisms on the\nChristian heaven, and then apply them to the proposed substitute. The\nbelief in heaven, say the positivists, is to be set aside for two great\nreasons. In the first place there is no objective proof of its\nexistence, and in the second place there is subjective proof of its\nimpossibility. Not only is it not deducible, but it is not even\nthinkable. Give the imagination _carte blanche_ to construct it, and\nthe imagination will either do nothing, or will do something ridiculous.\n'_My position [with regard to this matter]_' says a popular living\nwriter,[27] '_is this--The idea of a glorified energy in an ampler life,\nis an idea utterly incompatible with exact thought, one which evaporates\nin contradictions, in phrases, which when pressed have no meaning._'\n\nNow if this criticism has the least force, as used against the Christian\nheaven, it has certainly far more as used against the future glories of\nhumanity. The positivists ask the Christians how they expect to enjoy\nthemselves in heaven. The Christians may, with far more force, ask the\npositivists how they expect to enjoy themselves on earth. For the\nChristians' heaven being _ex hypothesi_ an unknown world, they do not\nstultify their expectations from being unable to describe them. On the\ncontrary it is a part of their faith that they are indescribable. But\nthe positivists' heaven is altogether in this world; and no mystical\nfaith has any place in their system. In this case, therefore, whatever\nwe may think of the other, it is plain that the tests in question are\naltogether complete and final. To the Christians, indeed, it is quite\nopen to make their supposed shame their glory, and to say that their\nheaven would be nothing _if_ describable. The positivists have bound\nthemselves to admit that theirs is nothing _unless_ describable.\n\nWhat then, let us ask the enthusiasts of humanity, will humanity be like\nin its ideally perfect state? Let them show us some sample of the\ngeneral future perfection; let them describe one of the nobler, ampler,\nglorified human beings of the future. What will he be like? What will he\nlong for? What will he take pleasure in? How will he spend his days? How\nwill he make love? What will he laugh at? And let him be described in\nphrases which _when pressed_ do not _evaporate in contradictions_, but\nwhich have some _distinct meaning_, and _are not incompatible with exact\nthought_. Do our exact thinkers in the least know what they are\nprophesying? If not, what is the meaning of their prophecy? The\nprophecies of the positive school are rigid scientific inferences; they\nare that or nothing. And one cannot infer an event of whose nature one\nis wholly ignorant.\n\nLet these obvious questions be put to our positive moralists--these\nquestions they have themselves suggested, and the grotesque unreality of\nthis vague optimism will be at once apparent. Never was vagary of\nmediaeval faith so groundless as this. The Earthly Paradise that the\nmediaeval world believed in was not more mythical than the Earthly\nParadise believed in by our exact thinkers now; and George Eliot might\njust as well start in a Cunard steamer to find the one, as send her\nfaith into the future to find the other.\n\nCould it be shown that these splendid anticipations were well founded,\nthey might perhaps kindle some new and active enthusiasm; though it is\nvery doubtful, even then, if the desire would be ardent enough to bring\nabout its own accomplishment. This, however, it is quite useless to\nconsider, the anticipations in question being simply an empty dream. A\ncertain kind of improvement, as I have said, we are no doubt right in\nlooking for, not only with confidence, but with complacency. But\npositivism, so far from brightening this prospect, makes it indefinitely\nduller than it would be otherwise. The practical results therefore to be\nlooked for from a faith in progress may be seen at their utmost already\nin the world around us; and the positivists may make the sobering\nreflection that their system can only change these from what they\nalready see them, not by strengthening, but by weakening them. Take the\nworld then as it is at present, and the sense, on the individual's part,\nthat he personally is promoting its progress, can belong to, and can\nstimulate, exceptional men only, who are doing some public work; and it\nwill be found even in these cases that the pleasure which this sense\ngives them is largely fortified (as is said of wine) by the entirely\nalien sense of fame and power. On the generality of men it neither has,\nnor can have, any effect whatever, or even if it gives a glow to their\ninclinations in some cases, it will at any rate never curb them in any.\nThe fact indeed that things in general do tend to get better in certain\nways, must produce in most men not effort but acquiescence. It may, when\nthe imagination brings it home to them, shed a pleasing light\noccasionally over the surface of their private lives: but it would be as\nirrational to count on this as a stimulus to farther action, as to\nexpect that the summer sunshine would work a steam-engine.\n\nIf we consider, then, that even the present condition of things is far\nmore calculated to produce the enthusiasm of humanity than the condition\nthat the positivists are preparing for themselves, we shall see how\nutterly chimerical is their entire practical system. It is like a\ndrawing of a cathedral, which looks magnificent at the first glance, but\nwhich a second glance shows to be composed of structural\nimpossibilities--blocks of masonry resting on no foundations, columns\nhanging from the roofs, instead of supporting them, and doors and\nwindows with inverted arches. The positive system could only work\npractically were human nature to suffer a complete change--a change\nwhich it has no spontaneous tendency to make, which no known power could\never tend to force on it, and which, in short, there is no ground of\nany kind for expecting.\n\nThere are two characteristics in men, for instance, which, though they\nundoubtedly do exist, the positive system requires to be indefinitely\nmagnified--the imagination, and unselfishness. The work of the\nimagination is to present to the individual consciousness the remote\nends to which all progress is to be directed; and the desire to work for\nthese is, on the positive supposition, to conquer all mere personal\nimpulses. Now men have already had an end set before them, in the shape\nof the joys of heaven, which was far brighter and far more real to them\nthan these others can ever be; and yet the imagination has so failed to\nkeep this before them, that its small effect upon their lives is a\ncommonplace with the positivists themselves. How then can these latter\nhope that their own pale and distant ideal will have a more vivid effect\non the world than that near and glowing one, in whose place they put it?\nWill it incite men to virtues to which heaven could not incite them? or\nlure them away from vices from which hell-fire would not scare them?\nBefore it can do so, it is plain that human nature must have completely\nchanged, and its elements have been re-mixed, in completely new\nproportions. In a state of things where such a result was possible, a\nman would do a better day's work for a penny to be given to his unborn\ngrandson, than he would now do for a pound to be paid to himself at\nsunset.\n\nFor argument's sake, however, let us suppose such a change possible. Let\nus suppose the imagination to be so developed that the remote end of\nprogress--that happier state of men in some far off century--is ever\nvividly present to us as a possibility we may help to realise. Another\nquestion still remains for us. To preserve this happiness for others, we\nare told, we must to a large extent sacrifice our own. Is it in human\nnature to make this sacrifice? The positive moralists assure us that it\nis, and for this reason. Man, they say, is an animal who enjoys\nvicariously with almost as much zest as in his own person; and therefore\nto procure a greater pleasure for others makes him far happier than to\nprocure a less one for himself. In this statement, as I have observed in\nan earlier chapter, there is no doubt a certain general truth; but how\nfar it will hold good in particular instances depends altogether on\nparticular circumstances. It depends on the temperament of the person\nwho is to make the sacrifice, on the nature of his feelings towards the\nperson for whom he is to make it, and on the proportion between the\npleasure he is to forego himself, and the pleasure he is to secure for\nanother. Now if we consider human nature as it is, and the utmost\ndevelopment of it that on positive grounds is possible, the conditions\nthat can produce the requisite self-sacrifice will be found to be\naltogether wanting. The future we are to labour for, even when viewed in\nits brightest light, will only excel the present in having fewer\nmiseries. So far as its happiness goes it will be distinctly less\nintense. It will, as we have seen already, be but a vapid consummation\nat its best; and the more vividly it is brought before us in\nimagination, the less likely shall we be to '_struggle, groan, and\nagonize_,' for the sake of hastening it in reality. It will do nothing,\nat any rate, to increase the tendency to self-sacrifice that is now at\nwork in the world; and this, though startling us now and then by some\nspasmodic manifestation, is not strong enough to have much general\neffect on the present; still less will it have more effect on the\nfuture. Vicarious happiness as a rule is only possible when the object\ngained for another is enormously greater than the object lost by self;\nand it is not always possible even then: whilst when the gains on either\nside are nearly equal, it ceases altogether. And necessarily so. If it\ndid not, everything would be at a dead-lock. Life would be a perpetual\nholding back, instead of a pushing forward. Everyone would be waiting at\nthe door, and saying to everyone else, '_After you_.' But all these\npractical considerations are entirely forgotten by the positivists. They\nlive in a world of their own imagining, in which all the rules of this\nworld are turned upside down. There, the defeated candidate in an\nelection would be radiant at his rival's victory. When a will was read,\nthe anxiety of each relative would be that he or she should be excluded\nin favour of the others; or more probably still that they should be all\nexcluded in favour of a hospital. Two rivals, in love with the same\nwoman, would be each anxious that his own suit might be thwarted. And a\nman would gladly involve himself in any ludicrous misfortune, because he\nknew that the sight of his catastrophe would rejoice his whole circle of\nfriends. The course of human progress, in fact, would be one gigantic\ndonkey-race, in which those were the winners who were farthest off from\nthe prize.\n\nWe have but to state the matter in terms of common life, to see how\nimpossible is the only condition of things that would make the positive\nsystem practicable. The first wonder that suggests itself, is how so\ngrotesque a conception could ever have originated. But its genesis is\nnot far to seek. The positivists do not postulate any new elements in\nhuman nature, but the reduction of some, elimination of others, and the\nmagnifying of others. And they actually find cases where this process\nhas been effected. But they quite forget the circumstances that have\nmade such an event possible. They forget that in their very nature they\nhave been altogether exceptional and transitory; and that it is\nimpossible to construct a Utopia in which they shall exist at all. We\ncan, for instance, no doubt point to Leonidas and the three hundred as\nspecimens of what human heroism can rise to; and we can point to the\nStoics as specimens of human self-control. But to make a new Thermopylae\nwe want a new Barbarian; and before we can recoil from temptation as the\nStoics did, we must make pleasure as perilous and as terrible as it was\nunder the Roman emperors. Such developments of humanity are at their\nvery essence abnormal; and to suppose that they could ever become the\ncommon type of character, would be as absurd as to suppose that all\nmankind could be kings. I will take another instance that is more to the\npoint yet. A favourite positivist parable is that of the miser. The\nmiser in the first place desires gold because it can buy pleasure. Next\nhe comes to desire it more than the pleasure it can buy. In the same\nway, it is said, men can be taught to desire virtue by investing it with\nthe attractions of the end, to which, strictly speaking it is no more\nthan the means. But this parable really disproves the very possibility\nit is designed to illustrate. It is designed to illustrate the\npossibility of our choosing actions that will give pleasure to others,\nin contradistinction to actions that will give pleasure to ourselves.\nBut the miser desires gold for an exactly opposite reason. He desires it\nas potential selfishness, not as potential philanthropy. Secondly, we\nare to choose the actions in question because they will make us happy.\nBut the very name we give the miser shows that the analogous choice in\nhis case makes him miserable. Thirdly, the material miser is an\nexceptional character; there is no known means by which it can be made\nmore common; and with the moral miser the case will be just the same.\nLastly, if such a character be barely producible even in the present\nstate of the world, much less will it be producible when human\ncapacities shall have been curtailed by positivism, when the pleasures\nthat the gold of virtue represents are less intense than at present, and\nthe value of the coveted coin is indefinitely depreciated.\n\nMuch more might be added to the same purpose, but enough has been said\nalready to make these two points clear:--firstly, that the positive\nsystem, if it is to do any practical work in the world, requires that\nthe whole human character shall be profoundly altered; and secondly,\nthat the required alteration is one that may indeed be dreamt about, but\nwhich can never possibly be made. Even were it made, the results would\nnot be splendid; but no matter how splendid they might be, this is of no\npossible moment to us. There are few things on which it is idler to\nspeculate than the issues of impossible contingencies. And the\npositivists would be talking just as much to the purpose as they do now,\nwere they to tell us how fast we should travel supposing we had wings,\nor what deep water we could wade through if we were twenty-four feet\nhigh. These last, indeed, are just the suppositions that they do make.\nBetween our human nature and the nature they desiderate there is a deep\nand fordless river, over which they can throw no bridge, and all their\ntalk supposes that we shall be able to fly or wade across it, or else\nthat it will dry up of itself.\n\n    _Rusticus expectat dum defluat amnis, at ille\n    Labitur et labetur, in omne volubilis aevum._\n\nSo utterly grotesque and chimerical is this whole positive theory of\nprogress, that, as an outcome of the present age, it seems little short\nof a miracle. Professing to embody what that age considers its special\ncharacteristics, what it really embodies is the most emphatic negation\nof these. It professes to rest on experience, and yet no Christian\nlegend ever contradicted experience more. It professes to be sustained\nby proof, and yet the professions of no conjuring quack ever appealed\nmore exclusively to credulity.\n\nIts appearance, however, will cease to be wonderful, and its real\nsignificance will become more apparent, if we consider the class of\nthinkers who have elaborated and popularised it. They have been men and\nwomen, for the most part, who have had the following characteristics in\ncommon. Their early training has been religious;[28] their temperaments\nhave been naturally grave and earnest; they have had few strong\npassions; they have been brought up knowing little of what is commonly\ncalled the world; their intellects have been vigorous and active; and\nfinally they have rejected in maturity the religion by which all their\nthoughts have been coloured. The result has been this. The death of\ntheir religion has left a quantity of moral emotions without an object;\nand this disorder of the moral emotions has left their mental energies\nwithout a leader. A new object instantly becomes a necessity. They are\nethical Don Quixotes in want of a Dulcinea; the best they can find is\nhappiness and the progress of Humanity; and to this their imagination\nsoon gives the requisite glow. Their strong intellects, their activity,\nand their literary culture each supplements the power that it\nundoubtedly does give, with a sense of knowing the world that is\naltogether fictitious. They imagine that their own narrow lives, their\nown feeble temptations, and their own exceptional ambitions represent\nthe universal elements of human life and character; and they thus expect\nthat an object which has really been but the creature of an impulse in\nthemselves, will be the creator of a like impulse in others; and that in\nthe case of others, it will revolutionise the whole natural character,\nwhereas it has only been a symbol of it in their own.\n\nMost of our positive moralists, at least in this country, have been and\nare people of such excellent character, and such earnest and high\npurpose, that there is something painful in having to taunt them with an\nignorance which is not their own fault, and which must make their whole\nposition ridiculous. The charge, however, is one that it is quite\nnecessary to make, as we shall never properly estimate their system if\nwe pass it over. It will be said, probably, that the simplicity as to\nworldly matters I attribute to them, so far from telling against them,\nis really essential to their character as moral teachers. And to moral\nteachers of a certain kind it may be essential. But it is not so to\nthem. The religious moralist might well instruct the world, though he\nknew little of its ways and passions; for the aim of his teaching was to\nwithdraw men from the world. But the aim of the positive moralist is\nprecisely opposite; it is to keep men in the world. It is not to teach\nmen to despise this life, but to adore it. The positions of the two\nmoralists are in fact the exact converses of each other. For the\ndivine, earth is an illusion, heaven a reality; for the positivist,\nearth is a reality, and heaven an illusion. The former in his retirement\nstudied intensely the world that he thought real, and he could do this\nthe better for being not distracted by the other. The positivists\nimitate the divine in neglecting what they think is an illusion; but\nthey do not attempt to imitate him in studying what they think is the\nreality. The consequence is, as I have just been pointing out, that the\nworld they live in and to which alone their system could be applicable,\nis a world of their own creation, and its bloodless populations are all\nof them _idola specus_.\n\nIf we will but think all this calmly over, and try really to sympathise\nwith the position of these poor enthusiasts, we shall soon see their\nsystem in its true light, and shall learn at once to realise and to\nexcuse its fatuity. We shall see that it either has no meaning whatever,\nor that its meaning is one that its authors have already repudiated, and\nonly do not recognise now, because they have so inadequately\nre-expressed it. We shall see that their system has no motive power at\nall in it, or that its motive power is simply the theistic faith they\nrejected, now tied up in a sack and left to flounder instead of walking\nupright. We shall see that their system is either nothing, or that it is\na mutilated reproduction of the very thing it professes to be\nsuperseding. Once set it upon its own professed foundations, and the\nentire quasi-religious structure, with its visionary hopes, its\nimpossible enthusiasms--all its elaborate apparatus for enlarging the\nsingle life, and the generation that surrounds it, falls to earth\ninstantly like a castle of cards. We are left simply each of us with our\nown lives, and with the life about us, amplified indeed to a certain\nextent by sympathy, but to a certain extent only--an extent whose limits\nwe are quite familiar with from experience, and which positivism, if it\ntends to move them at all, can only narrow, and can by no possibility\nextend. We are left with this life, changed only in one way. It will\nhave nothing added to it, but it will have much taken from it.\nEverything will have gone that is at present keenest in it--joys and\nmiseries as well. In this way positivism is indeed an engine of change,\nand may inaugurate if not complete a most momentous kind of progress.\nThat progress is the gradual de-religionizing of life, the slow\nsublimating out of it of its concrete theism--the slow destruction of\nits whole moral civilisation. And as this progress continues there will\nnot only fade out of the human consciousness the things I have before\ndwelt on--all capacity for the keener pains and pleasures, but there\nwill fade out of it also that strange sense which is the union of all\nthese--the white light woven of all these rays; that is, the vague but\ndeep sense of some special dignity in ourselves--a sense which we feel\nto be our birthright, inalienable except by our own act and deed; a\nsense which, at present, in success sobers us, and in failure sustains\nus, and which is visible more or less distinctly in our manners, in our\nbearing, and even in the very expression of the human countenance: it\nis, in other words, the sense that life is worth living, not\naccidentally but essentially. And as this sense goes its place will be\ntaken by one precisely opposite--the sense that life, in so far as it is\nworth living at all, is worth living not essentially, but accidentally;\nthat it depends entirely upon what of its pleasures we can each one of\nus realise; that it will vary as a positive quantity, like wealth, and\nthat it may become also a various quantity, like poverty; and that\nbehind and beyond these vicissitudes it can have no abiding value.\n\nTo realise fully a state of things like this is for us not possible. But\nwe can, however, understand something of its nature. I conceive those to\nbe altogether wrong who say that such a state would be one of any wild\nlicense, or anything that we should call very revolting depravity.\nOffences, certainly, that we consider the most abominable would\ndoubtless be committed continually and as matters of course. Such a\nfeeling as shame about them would be altogether unknown. But the normal\nforms of passion would remain, I conceive, the most important; and it\nis probable, that though no form of vice would have the least anathema\nattached to it, the rage for the sexual pleasures would be far less\nfierce than it is in many cases now. The sort of condition to which the\nworld would be tending would be a condition rather of dulness than what\nwe, in our parlance, should now call degradation. Indeed the state of\nthings to which the positive view of life seems to promise us, and which\nto some extent it is actually now bringing on us, is exactly what was\npredicted long ago, with an accuracy that seems little less than\ninspired, at the end of Pope's _Dunciad_.\n\n    _In vain, in vain: the all-composing hour\n    Resistless falls! the muse obeys the power.\n    She comes! she comes! the sable throne behold\n    Of night primaeval and of chaos old.\n    Before her, fancy's gilded clouds decay,\n    And all its varying rainbows die away.\n    Wit shoots in vain its momentary fires,\n    The meteor drops, and in a flash expires.\n    As one by one, at dread Medea's strain,\n    The sickening stars fade off the ethereal plain;\n    As Argus' eyes, by Hermes' wand oppress'd\n    Clos'd one by one to everlasting rest;\n    Thus, at her felt approach and secret might,\n    Art after art goes out, and all is night.\n    See skulking truth to her old cavern fled,\n    Mountains of casuistry heap'd o'er her head.\n    Philosophy, that lean'd on heaven before,\n    Shrinks to her second cause, and is no more._\n\n    _Physic of metaphysic begs defence,\n    And metaphysic calls for aid on sense!\n    See mystery to mathematics fly.\n    In vain: they gaze, turn giddy, rave, and die.\n    Religion, blushing, veils her sacred fires;\n    And, unawares, morality expires.\n    Nor public flame, nor private, dares to shine,\n    Nor human spark is left, nor glimpse divine.\n    Lo! thy dread empire, Chaos! is restor'd,\n    Light dies before thy uncreating word,\n    Thy hand, great Anarch! lets the curtain fall;\n    And universal darkness buries all._\n\nDr. Johnson said that these verses were the noblest in English poetry.\nCould he have read them in our day, and have realised with what a\npitiful accuracy their prophecy might soon begin to fulfil itself, he\nwould probably have been too busy with dissatisfaction at the matter of\nit to have any time to spare for an artistic approbation of the manner.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[27] Mr. Frederic Harrison.\n\n[28] The case of J.S. Mill may seem at first sight to be an exception to\nthis. But it is really not so. Though he was brought up without any\nreligious teaching, yet the severe and earnest influences of his\nchildhood would have been impossible except in a religious country. He\nwas in fact brought up in an atmosphere (if I may borrow with a slight\nchange a phrase of Professor Huxley's) of Puritanism minus Christianity.\nIt may be remembered farther that Mill says of himself, '_I am one of\nthe very few examples of one who has not thrown off religious belief,\nbut never had it_.'\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII.\n\nTHE PRACTICAL PROSPECT.\n\n    _Not from the stars do I my judgment pluck....\n    Nor can I fortune to brief minutes tell._\n\n    Shakespeare, _Sonnet XIV_.\n\n\nThe prospects I have been just describing as the goal of positive\nprogress will seem, no doubt, to many to be quite impossible in its\ncheerlessness. If the future glory of our race was a dream, not worth\ndwelling on, much more so, they will say, is such a future abasement of\nit as this. They will say that optimism may at times have perhaps been\nover-sanguine, but that this was simply the exuberance of health;\nwhereas pessimism is, in its very nature, the gloom and languor of a\ndisease.\n\nNow with much of this view of the matter I entirely agree. I admit that\nthe prospect I have described may be an impossible one; personally, I\nbelieve it is so. I admit also that pessimism is the consciousness of\ndisease, confessing itself. But the significance of these admissions is\nthe very opposite of what it is commonly supposed to be. They do not\nmake the pessimism I have been arguing one whit less worthy of\nattention; on the contrary, they make it more worthy. This is the point\non which I may most readily be misunderstood. I will therefore try to\nmake my meaning as clear as possible.\n\nPessimism, then, represents, to the popular mind, a philosophy or view\nof life the very name of which is enough to condemn it. The popular\nmind, however, overlooks one important point. Pessimism is a vague word.\nIt does not represent one philosophy, but several; and before we, in any\ncase, reject its claims on our attention, we should take care to see\nwhat its exact meaning is.\n\nThe views of life it includes may be classified in two ways. In the\nfirst place, they are either what we may call critical pessimisms or\nprospective pessimisms: of which the thesis of the first is that human\nlife is essentially evil; and of the second, that whatever human life\nmay be now, its tendency is to get worse instead of better. The one is\nthe denial of human happiness; the other the denial of human hope. But\nthere is a second classification to make, traversing this one, and far\nmore important. Pessimism may be either absolute or hypothetical. The\nfirst of these maintains its theses as statements of actual facts; the\nsecond, which is, of its nature, prospective mainly, only maintains them\nas statements of what will be facts, in the event of certain possible\nthough it may be remote contingencies.\n\nNow, absolute pessimism, whether it be critical or prospective, can be\nnothing, in the present state of the world, but an exhibition of ill\ntemper or folly. It is hard to imagine a greater waste of ingenuity than\nthe attempts that have been made sometimes to deduce from the nature of\npain and pleasure, that the balance in life must be always in favour of\nthe former, and that life itself is necessarily and universally an evil.\nLet the arguments be never so elaborate, they are blown away like\ncobwebs by a breath of open-air experience. Equally useless are the\nattempts to predict the gloom of the future. Such predictions either\nmean nothing, or else they are mere loose conjectures, suggested by low\nspirits or disappointment. They are of no philosophic or scientific\nvalue; and though in some cases they may give literary expression to\nmoods already existing, they will never produce conviction in minds that\nwould else be unconvinced. The gift of prophecy as to general human\nhistory is not a gift that any philosophy can bestow. It could only be\nacquired through a superhuman inspiration which is denied to man or\nthrough a superhuman sagacity which is never attained by him.\n\nThe hypothetical pessimism that is contained in my arguments is a very\ndifferent thing from this, and far humbler. It makes no foolish attempts\nto say anything general about the present, or anything absolute about\nthe future. As to the future, it only takes the absolute things that\nhave been said by others; and not professing any certainty about their\ntruth, merely explains their meaning. It deals with a certain change in\nhuman beliefs, now confidently predicted; but it does not say that this\nprediction will be fulfilled. It says only that if it be, a change, not\nat present counted on, will be effected in human life. It says that\nhuman life will degenerate if the creed of positivism be ever generally\naccepted; but it not only does not say that it ever will be accepted by\neverybody: rather, it emphatically points out that as yet it has been\naccepted fully by nobody. The positive school say that their view of\nlife is the only sound one. They boast that it is founded on the rock of\nfact, not on the sand-bank of sentiment; that it is the final\nphilosophy, that will last as long as man lasts, and that very soon it\nwill have seen the extinction of all the others. It is the positivists\nwho are the prophets, not I. My aim has been not to confirm the\nprophecy, but to explain its meaning; and my arguments will be all the\nmore opportune at the present moment, the more reason we have to think\nthe prophecy false.\n\nIt may be asked why, if we think it false, we should trouble our heads\nabout it. And the answer to this is to be found in the present age\nitself. Whatever may be the future fate of positive thought, whatever\nconfidence may be felt by any of us that it cannot in the long run gain\na final hold upon the world, its present power and the present results\nof it cannot be overlooked. That degradation of life that I have been\ndescribing as the result of positivism--of what the age we live in calls\nthe only rational view of things--may indeed never be completed; but let\nus look carefully around us, and we shall see that it is already begun.\nThe process, it is true, is at present not very apparent; or if it is,\nits nature is altogether mistaken. This, however, only makes it more\nmomentous; and the great reason why it is desirable to deal so rudely\nwith the optimist system of the positivists is that it lies like a misty\nveil over the real surface of facts, and conceals the very change that\nit professes to make impossible. It is a kind of moral chloroform,\nwhich, instead of curing an illness, only makes us fatally unconscious\nof its most alarming symptoms.\n\nBut though an effort be thus required to realise our true condition, it\nis an effort which, before all things, we ought to make; and which, if\nwe try, we can all make readily. A little careful memory, a little\ncareful observation, will open the eyes of most of us to the real truth\nof things; it will reveal to us a spectacle that is indeed appalling,\nand the more candidly we survey it, the more shall we feel aghast at it.\nTo begin, then, let us once more consider two notorious facts: first,\nthat over all the world at the present day a denial is spreading itself\nof all religions dogmas, more complete than has ever before been known;\nand, secondly, that in spite of this speculative denial, and in the\nplaces where it has done its work most thoroughly, a mass of moral\nearnestness seems to survive untouched. I do not attempt to deny the\nfact; I desire, on the contrary, to draw all attention to it. But the\ncondition in which it survives is commonly not in the least realised.\nThe class of men concerned with it are like soldiers who may be fighting\nmore bravely perhaps than ever; but who are fighting, though none\nobserve it, with the death-wound under their uniforms. Of all the signs\nof the times, these high-minded unbelievers are thought to be the most\nreassuring; but really they are the very reverse of this. The reason why\ntheir true condition has passed unnoticed is, that it is a condition\nthat is naturally silent, and that has great difficulty in finding a\nmouthpiece. The only two parties who have had any interest in commenting\non it have been the very parties least able to understand, and most\ncertain to distort it. They have been either the professed champions of\ntheism, or else the visionary optimists of positivism; the former of\nwhom have had no sympathy with positive principles, and the latter no\ndiscernment of their results. The class of men we are considering are\nequally at variance with both of these; they agree with each in one\nrespect, and in another they agree with neither. They agree with the one\nthat religious belief is false; they agree with the other that unbelief\nis miserable. What wonder then that they should have kept their\ncondition to themselves? Nearly all public dealing with it has been left\nto men who can praise the only doctrines that they can preach as true,\nor who else can condemn as false the doctrines that they deplore as\nmischievous. As for the others, whose mental and moral convictions are\nat variance, they have neither any heart to proclaim the one, nor any\nintellectual standpoint from which to proclaim the other. Their only\nimpulse is to struggle and to endure in silence. Let us, however, try to\nintrude upon their privacy, even though it be rudely and painfully, and\nsee what their real state is; for it is these men who are the true\nproduct of the present age, its most special and distinguishing feature,\nand the first-fruits of what we are told is to be the philosophy of the\nenlightened future.\n\nTo begin, then, let us remember what these men were when Christians; and\nwe shall be better able to realise what they are now. They were men who\nbelieved firmly in the supreme and solemn importance of life, in the\nprivilege that it was to live, despite all temporal sorrow. They had a\nrule of conduct which would guide them, they believed, to the true end\nof their being--to an existence satisfying and excellent beyond anything\nthat imagination could suggest to them; they had the dread of a\ncorresponding ruin to fortify themselves in their struggle against the\nwrong; and they had a God ever present, to help and hear, and take pity\non them. And yet even thus, selfishness would beset the most unselfish,\nand weariness the most determined. How hard the battle was, is known to\nall; it has been the most prominent commonplace in human thought and\nlanguage. The constancy and the strength of temptation, and the\ninsidiousness of the arguments it was supported by, has been proverbial.\nTo explain away the difference between good and evil, to subtly steal\nits meaning out of long-suffering and self-denial, and, above all, to\nargue that in sinning '_we shall not surely die_,' a work which was\nsupposed to belong especially to the devil, has been supposed to have\nbeen accomplished by him with a success continually irresistible. What,\nthen, is likely to be the case now, with men who are still beset with\nthe same temptations, when not only they have no hell to frighten, no\nheaven to allure, and no God to help them; but when all the arguments\nthat they once felt belonged to the father of lies, are pressed on them\nfrom every side as the most solemn and universal truths? Thus far the\nresult has been a singular one. With an astonishing vigour the moral\nimpetus still survives the cessation of the forces that originated and\nsustained it; and in many cases there is no diminution of it traceable,\nso far as action goes. This, however, is only true, for the most part,\nof men advanced in years, in whom habits of virtue have grown strong,\nand whose age, position, and circumstances secure them from strong\ntemptation. To see the real work of positive thought we must go to\nyounger men, whose characters are less formed, whose careers are still\nbefore them, and on whom temptation of all kinds has stronger hold. We\nshall find such men with the sense of virtue equally vivid in them, and\nthe desire to practise it probably far more passionate; but the effect\nof positive thought on them we shall see to be very different.\n\nNow, the positive school itself will say that such men have all they\nneed. They confessedly have conscience left to them--the supernatural\nmoral judgment, that is, as applied to themselves--which has been\nanalysed, but not destroyed; and the position of which, we are told, has\nbeen changed only by its being set on a foundation of fact, instead of a\nfoundation of superstition. Mill said that having learnt what the sunset\nclouds were made of, he still found that he admired them as much as\never; '_therefore_,' he said, '_I saw at once that there was nothing to\nbe feared from analysis_.' And this is exactly what the positive school\nsay of conscience. A shallower falsehood, however, it is not easy to\nconceive. It is true that conscience in one way may, for a time at\nleast, survive any kind of analysis. It may continue, with undiminished\ndistinctness, its old approvals and menaces. But that alone is nothing\nat all to the point. Conscience is of practical value, not only because\nit says certain things, but because it says them, as we think, with\nauthority. If its authority goes, and its advice continues, it may\nindeed molest, but it will no longer direct us. Now, though the voice of\nconscience may, as the positive school say, survive their analysis of\nit, its authority will not. That authority has always taken the form of\na menace, as well as of an approval; and the menace at any rate, upon\nall positive principles, is nothing but big words that can break no\nbones. As soon as we realise it to be but this, its effect must cease\ninstantly. The power of conscience resides not in what we hear it to be,\nbut in what we believe it to be. A housemaid may be deterred from going\nto meet her lover in the garden, because a howling ghost is believed to\nhaunt the laurels; but she will go to him fast enough when she discovers\nthat the sounds that alarmed her were not a soul in torture, but the cat\nin love. The case of conscience is exactly analogous to this.\n\nAnd now let us turn again to the case in question. Men of such a\ncharacter as I have been just describing may find conscience quite equal\nto giving a glow, by its approval, to their virtuous wishes; but they\nwill find it quite unequal to sustaining them against their vicious\nones; and the more vigorous the intellect of the man, the more feeble\nwill be the power of conscience. When a man is very strongly tempted to\ndo a thing which he believes to be wrong, it is almost inevitable that\nhe will test to the utmost the reasons of this belief; or if he does not\ndo this before he yields to the temptation, yet if he does happen to\nyield to it, he will certainly do so after. Thus, unless we suppose\nhuman nature to be completely changed, and all our powers of observation\ncompletely misleading, the inward condition of the class in question is\nthis. However calm the outer surface of their lives may seem, under the\nsurface there is a continual discord; and also, though they alone may\nperceive it, a continued decadence. In various degrees they all yield to\ntemptation; all men in the vigour of their manhood do; and conscience\nstill fills them with its old monitions and reproaches. But it cannot\nenforce obedience. They feel it to be the truth, but at the same time\nthey know it to be a lie; and though they long to be coerced by it, they\nfind it cannot coerce them. Reason, which was once its minister, is now\nthe tribune of their passions, and forbids them, in times of passion,\nto submit to it. They are not suffered to forget that it is not what it\nsays it is, that\n\n    _It never came from on high,\n      And never rose from below_:\n\nand they cannot help chiding themselves with the irrepressible\nself-reproach,\n\n    _Am I to be overawed\n      By what I cannot but know,\n    Is a juggle born of the brain?_\n\nThus their conscience, though not stifled, is dethroned; it is become a\nfugitive Pretender; and that part of them that would desire its\nrestoration is set down as an intellectual _malignant_, powerless indeed\nto restore its sovereign.\n\n    _Invalidasque tibi tendens, heu non tua, palmas._\n\nConscience, in short, as soon as its power is needed, is like their own\nselves dethroned within themselves, wringing its hands over a rebellion\nit is powerless to suppress. And then, when the storm is over, when the\npassions again subside, and their lives once more return to their wonted\nchannels, it can only come back humbly and dejected, and give them in a\ntimid voice a faint, dishonoured blessing.\n\nSuch lives as these are all of them really in a state of moral\nconsumption. The disease in its earlier stage is a very subtle one; and\nit may not be generally fatal for years, or even for generations. But\nit is a disease that can be transmitted from parent to child; and its\nprogress is none the less sure because it is slow; nor is it less fatal\nand painful because it may often give a new beauty to the complexion. On\nvarious constitutions it takes hold in various ways, and its presence is\nfirst detected by the sufferer under various trials, and betrayed to the\nobserver by various symptoms. What I have just been describing is the\naction that is at the root of it; but with the individual it does not\nalways take that form. Often indeed it does; but oftener still perhaps\nit is discovered not in the helpless yet reluctant yielding to vice, but\nin the sadness and the despondency with which virtue is practised--in\nthe dull leaden hours of blank endurance or of difficult endeavour; or\nin the little satisfaction that, when the struggle has ceased, the\nreward of struggle brings with it.\n\nAn earlier, and perhaps more general symptom still, is one that is not\npersonal. It consists not in the way in which men regard themselves, but\nin the way in which they regard others. In their own case, their\nhabitual desire of right, and their habitual aversion to wrong, may have\nbeen enough to keep them from any open breach with conscience, or from\nputting it to an open shame. But its precarious position is revealed to\nthem when they turn to others. Sin from which they recoil themselves\nthey see committed in the life around them, and they find that it\ncannot excite the horror or disapproval, which from its supposed nature\nit should. They find themselves powerless to pass any general judgment,\nor to extend the law they live by to any beyond themselves. The whole\nprospect that environs them has become morally colourless; and they\ndiscern in their attitude towards the world without, what it must one\nday come to be towards the world within. A state of mind like this is no\ndream. It is a malady of the modern world--a malady of our own\ngeneration, which can escape no eyes that will look for it. It is\nbetraying itself every moment around us, in conversation, in literature,\nand in legislation.\n\nSuch, then, is the condition of that large and increasing class on which\nmodern thought is beginning to do its work. Its work must be looked for\nhere, and not in narrower quarters; not amongst professors and\nlecturers, but amongst the busy crowd about us; not on the platforms of\ninstitutions, or in the lay sermons of specialists, but amongst\npoliticians, artists, sportsmen, men of business, lovers--in '_the tides\nof life, and in the storm of action_'--amongst men who have their own\nway to force or choose in the world, and their daily balance to strike\nbetween self-denial and pleasure--on whom the positive principles have\nbeen forced as true, and who have no time or talent to do anything else\nbut live by them. It is amongst these that we must look to see what\nsuch principles really result in; and of these we must choose not those\nwho would welcome license, but those who long passionately to live by\nlaw. It is the condition of such men that I have been just describing.\nIts characteristics are vain self-reproach, joyless commendation, weary\nstruggle, listless success, general indifference, and the prospect that\nif matters are going thus badly with them, they will go even worse with\ntheir children.\n\nSuch a spectacle certainly is not one that has much promise for the\noptimist; and the more we consider it, the more sad and ominous will it\nappear to us. Indeed, when the present age shall realise its own\ncondition truly, the dejection of which it is slowly growing conscious\nmay perhaps give way to despair. This condition, however, is so\nportentous that it is difficult to persuade ourselves that it is what it\nseems to be, and that it is not a dream. But the more steadily we look\nat it, the more real will its appalling features appear to us. We are\nliterally in an age to which history can show no parallel, and which is\nnew to the experience of humanity; and though the moral dejection we\nhave been dwelling on may have had many seeming counterparts in other\ntimes, this is, as it were, solid substance, whereas they were only\nshadows. I have pointed out already in my first chapter how unexampled\nis the state in which the world now finds itself; but we will dwell\nonce again upon its more general features. Within less than a century,\ndistance has been all but annihilated, and the earth has practically,\nand to the imagination, been reduced to a fraction of its former size.\nIts possible resources have become mean and narrow, set before us as\nmatters of every-day statistics. All the old haze of wonder is melting\naway from it; and the old local enthusiasms, which depended so largely\non ignorance and isolation, are melting likewise. Knowledge has\naccumulated in a way never before dreamed of. The fountains of the past\nseem to have been broken up, and to be pouring all their secrets into\nthe consciousness of the present. For the first time man's wide and\nvaried history has become a coherent whole to him. Partly a cause and\npartly a result of this, a new sense has sprung up in him--an intense\nself-consciousness as to his own position; and his entire view of\nhimself is undergoing a vague change: whilst the positive basis on which\nknowledge has been placed, has given it a constant and coercive force,\nand has made the same change common to the whole civilised world.\nThought and feeling amongst the western nations are conforming to a\nsingle pattern: they are losing their old chivalrous character, their\npossibilities of isolated conquest and intellectual adventure. They are\nsettling down into a uniform mass, that moves or stagnates like a\nmodern army, and whose alternative lines of march have been mapped out\nbeforehand. Such is the condition of the western world; and the western\nworld is beginning now, at all points, to bear upon the east. Thus\nopinions that the present age is forming for itself have a weight and a\nvolume that opinions never before possessed. They are the first\nbeginnings, not of natural, or of social, but of human opinion--an\noecumenical self-consciousness on the part of man as to his own\nprospects and his own position. The great question is, what shape\nfinally will this dawning self-consciousness take? Will it contain in it\nthat negation of the supernatural which our positive assertions are at\npresent supposed to necessitate? If so, then it is not possible to\nconceive that this last development of humanity, this stupendous break\nfrom the past which is being accomplished by our understanding of it,\nwill not be the sort of break which takes place when a man awakes from a\ndream, and finds all that he most prized vanished from him. It is\nimpossible to conceive that this awakening, this discovery by man of\nhimself, will not be the beginning of his decadence; that it will not be\nthe discovery on his part that he is a lesser and a lower thing than he\nthought he was, and that his condition will not sink till it tallies\nwith his own opinion of it.\n\nIf this be really the case, we shall not be able to dispose of\npessimism by calling it a disease; for the disease will be real and\nuniversal, and pessimism will be nothing but the scientific description\nof it. The pessimist is only silenced by being called diseased, when it\nis meant that the disease imputed to him is either hypochondriacal or\npeculiar to himself. But in the present case the disease is real,\ndeep-seated, and extending steadily. The only question for us is, is it\ncurable or incurable? This the event alone can answer: but as no future\ncan be produced but through the agency of the present, the event, to a\ncertain extent, must be in our own hands. For us, at any rate, the first\nthing to be done is to face boldly our own present condition, and the\ncauses that are producing it. To become alive to our danger is the one\nway to escape from it. But the danger is at present felt rather than\nknown. The class of men we are considering are conscious, as Mr. Matthew\nArnold says, '_of a void that mines the breast_;' but each thinks that\nthis is a fancy only, and hardly dares communicate it to his fellows.\nHere and there, however, by accident, it is already finding unintended\nexpression; and signs come to the surface of the vague distrust and\nmisgiving that are working under it. The form it takes amongst the\ngeneral masses that are affected by it is, as might be expected,\npractical rather than analytical. They are conscious of the loss that\nthe loss of faith is to them; and more or less coherently they long for\nits recovery. Outwardly, indeed, they may often sneer at it; but outward\nsigns in such matters are very deceiving. Much of the bitter and\narrogant certitude to be found about us in the expression of unbelief,\nis really like the bitterness of a woman against her lover, which has\nnot been the cause of her resolving to leave him, but which has been\ncaused by his having left her. In estimating what is really the state of\nfeeling about us, we must not look only at the surface. We must remember\nthat deep feeling often expresses itself by contradicting itself; also\nthat it often exists where it is not expressed at all, or where it\nbetrays rather than expresses itself; and, further, that during the\nhours of common intercourse, it tends, for the time being, to disappear.\nPeople cannot be always exclaiming in drawing-rooms that they have lost\ntheir Lord; and the fact may be temporarily forgotten because they have\nlost their portmanteau. All serious reflections are like reflections in\nwater--a pebble will disturb them, and make a dull pond sparkle. But the\nsparkle dies, and the reflection comes again. And there are many about\nus, though they never confess their pain, and perhaps themselves hardly\nlike to acknowledge it, whose hearts are aching for the religion that\nthey can no longer believe in. Their lonely hours, between the intervals\nof gaiety, are passed with barren and sombre thoughts; and a cry rises\nto their lips but never passes them.\n\nAmongst such a class it is somehow startling to find the most unlikely\npeople at times placing themselves. Professor Clifford, for instance,\nwho of all our present positivists is most uproarious in his optimism,\nhas yet admitted that the religion he invites us to trample on is, under\ncertain forms, an ennobling and sustaining thing; and for such theism as\nthat of Charles Kingsley's he has expressed his deepest reverence.\nAgain, there is Professor Huxley. He denies with the most dogmatic and\nunbending severity any right to man to any supernatural faith; and he\n'_will not for a moment admit_' that our higher life will suffer in\nconsequence.[29] And yet '_the lover of moral beauty_,' he says\nwistfully, '_struggling through a world of sorrow and sin, is surely as\nmuch the stronger for believing that sooner or later a vision of perfect\npeace and goodness will burst upon him, as the toiler up a mountain for\nthe belief that beyond crag and snow lie home and rest_.' And he adds,\nas we have seen already, that could a faith like what he here indicates\nbe placed upon a firm basis, mankind would cling to it as '_tenaciously\nas ever a drowning sailor did to a hen-coop_.' But all this wide-spread\nand increasing feeling is felt at present to be of no avail. The wish to\nbelieve is there; but the belief is as far off as ever. There is a power\nin the air around us by which man's faith seems paralysed. The\nintellect, we were thinking but now, had acquired a new vigour and a\nclearer vision; but the result of this growth is, with many, to have\nmade it an incubus, and it lies upon all their deepest hopes and wishes\n\n                  _Like a weight\n    Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life._\n\nSuch is the condition of mind that is now spreading rapidly, and which,\nsooner or later, we must look steadily in the face. Nor is it confined\nto those who are its direct victims. Those who still cling, and cling\nfirmly, to belief are in an indirect way touched by it. Religion cannot\nfail to be changed by the neighbourhood of irreligion. If it is\npersecuted, it may burn up with greater fervour; but if it is not\npersecuted, it must in some measure be chilled. Believers and\nunbelievers, separated as they are by their tenets, are yet in these\ndays mixed together in all the acts and relations of life. They are\nunited by habits, by blood, and by friendship, and they are each obliged\ncontinually to ignore or excuse what they hold to be the errors of the\nother. In a state of things like this, it is plain that the conviction\nof believers can have neither the fierce intensity that belongs to a\nminority under persecution, nor the placid confidence that belongs to an\noverwhelming majority. They can neither hate the unbelievers, for they\ndaily live in amity with them, nor despise altogether their judgment,\nfor the most eminent thinkers of the day belong to them. By such\nconditions as these the strongest faith cannot fail to be affected. As\nregards the individuals who retain it, it may not lose its firmness, but\nit must lose something of its fervour; and as regards its own future\nhold upon the human race, it is faith no longer, but is anxious doubt,\nor, at best, a desperate trust. Dr. Newman has pointed out how even the\nPope has recognised in the sedate and ominous rise of our modern\nearth-born positivism some phenomenon vaster and of a different nature\nfrom the outburst of a petulant heresy; he seems to recognise it as a\nbelligerent rather than a rebel.[30] '_One thing_,' says Dr. Newman,\n'_except by an almost miraculous interposition, cannot be; and that is a\nreturn to the universal religious sentiment, the public opinion, of the\nmediaeval time. The Pope himself calls those centuries \"the ages of\nfaith.\" Such endemic faith may certainly be decreed for some future\ntime; but_ _as far as we have the means of judging at present,\ncenturies must run out first._'[31]\n\nIn this last sentence is indicated the vast and universal question,\nwhich the mind of humanity is gathering itself together to ask--will the\nfaith that we are so fast losing ever again revive for us? And my one\naim in this book has been to demonstrate that the entire future tone of\nlife, and the entire course of future civilisation, depends on the\nanswer which this question receives.\n\nThere is, however, this further point to consider. Need the answer we\nare speaking of be definite and universal? or can we look forward to its\nremaining undecided till the end of time? Now I have already tried to\nmake it evident that for the individual, at any rate, it must by-and-by\nbe definite one way or the other. The thorough positive thinker will not\nbe able to retain in supreme power principles which have no positive\nbasis. He cannot go on adoring a hunger which he knows can never be\nsatisfied, or cringing before fears which he knows will never be\nrealised. And even if this should for a time be possible, his case will\nbe worse, not better. Conscience, if it still remains with him, will\nremain not as a living thing--a severe but kindly guide--but as the\nmenacing ghost of the religion he has murdered, and which comes to\nembitter degradation, not to raise it. The moral life, it is true, will\nstill exist for him, but it will probably, in literal truth,\n\n                    _Creep on a broken wing\n    Through cells of madness, haunts of horror and fear._\n\nBut a state of things like this can hardly be looked forward to as\nconceivably of any long continuance. Religion would come back, or\nconscience would go. Nor do I think that the future which Dr. Newman\nseems to anticipate can be regarded as probable either. He seems to\nanticipate a continuance side by side of faith and positivism, each with\ntheir own adherents, and fighting a ceaseless battle in which neither\ngains the victory. I venture to submit that the new forms now at work in\nthe world are not forms that will do their work by halves. When once the\nage shall have mastered them, they will be either one thing or the\nother--they will be either impotent or omnipotent. Their public\nexponents at present boast that they will be omnipotent; and more and\nmore the world about us is beginning to believe the boast. But the world\nfeels uneasily that the import of it will be very different from what we\nare assured it is. One English writer, indeed, on the positive side, has\nalready seen clearly what the movement really means, whose continuance\nand whose consummation he declares to us to be a necessity. '_Never_,'\nhe says, '_in the history of man has so terrific a calamity befallen the\nrace as that which all who look may now behold, advancing as a deluge,\nblack with destruction, resistless in might, uprooting our most\ncherished hopes, engulfing our most precious creed, and burying our\nhighest life in mindless desolation._'[32]\n\nThe question I shall now proceed to is the exact causes of this\nmovement, and the chances and the powers that the human race has of\nresisting it.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[29] '_For my own part, I do not for one moment admit that morality is\nnot strong enough to hold its own._'--Prof. Huxley, _Nineteenth\nCentury_, May, 1877.\n\n[30] These words may no doubt be easily pressed into a sense which\nCatholics would repudiate. But if not pressed unduly, they represent\nwhat will, I believe, be admitted to be a fact.\n\n[31] A letter to the Duke of Norfolk, by J.H. Newman, D.D., p. 35.\nPickering: 1875.\n\n[32] A Candid Examination of Theism. By Physicus. Truebner & Co.: 1878.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX.\n\nTHE LOGIC OF SCIENTIFIC NEGATION.\n\n                    _I am Sir Oracle,\n    And when I ope my mouth let no dog bark._\n\n\nBefore beginning to analyse the forces that are decomposing religious\nbelief, it will be well to remark briefly on the means by which these\nforces are applied to the world at large. To a certain extent they are\napplied directly; that is, many of the facts that are now becoming\nobvious the common sense of all men assimilates spontaneously, and\nderives, unbidden, its own doubts or denials from them. But the chief\npower of positivism is derived otherwise. It is derived not directly\nfrom the premisses that it puts before us, but from the intellectual\nprestige of its exponents, who, to the destruction of private judgment,\nare forcing on us their own personal conclusions from them. This\nprestige, indeed, is by no means to be wondered at. If men ever believed\na teacher '_for his works' sake_,' the positive school is associated\nwith enough signs and wonders. All those astonishing powers that man has\nacquired in this century are with much justice claimed by it as its\nworks and gifts. The whole sensuous surroundings of our lives are its\nsubjects, and are doing it daily homage; and there is not a conquest\nover distance, disease, or darkness that does not seem to bear witness\nto its intellectual supremacy. The opinion, therefore, that is now\nabroad in the world is that the positive school are the monopolists of\nunbiassed reason; that reason, therefore, is altogether fatal to\nreligion; and that those who deny this, only do so through ignorance or\nthrough wilful blindness. As long as this opinion lasts, the revival of\nfaith is hopeless. What we are now about to examine is, how far this\nopinion is well founded.\n\nThe arguments which operate against religion with the leaders of modern\nthought, and through their intellectual example on the world at large,\ndivide themselves into three classes, and are derived from three\ndistinct branches of thought and study. They may be distinguished as\nphysical, moral, and historical. Few of these arguments, taken\nseparately, can be called altogether new. Their new power has been\ncaused by the simultaneous filling up and completion of all of them; by\ntheir transmutation from filmy visions into massive and vast realities;\nfrom unauthorised misgivings into the most rigid and compelling of\ndemonstrations: and still more, by the brilliant and sudden annihilation\nof the most obvious difficulties, which till very lately had neutralised\nand held their power in check.\n\nOf these three sets of arguments, the two first bear upon all religion,\nwhilst the third bears upon it only as embodied in some exclusive form.\nThus the physicist argues, for example, that consciousness being a\nfunction of the brain, unless the universe be a single brain itself,\nthere can be no conscious God.[33] The moral philosopher argues that sin\nand misery being so prevalent, there can be no Almighty and all-merciful\nGod. And the historian argues that all alleged revelations can be shown\nto have had analogous histories; and that therefore, even if God exists,\nthere is no one religion through which He has specially revealed\nHimself. These are rough specimens solubly, _so far as observation can\ncarry us_, mind with matter. The great gulf between the two has at last\nbeen spanned. The bridge across it, that was so long seen in dreams and\ndespaired of, has been thrown triumphantly--a solid compact fabric, on\nwhich a hundred intellectual masons are still at work, adding stone on\nponderous stone to it. Science, to put the matter in other words, has\naccomplished these three things. Firstly, to use the words of a\nwell-known writer, '_it has established a functional relation to exist\nbetween every fact of thinking, willing, or feeling, on the one side,\nand some molecular change in the body on the other side_.' Secondly, it\nhas connected, through countless elusive stages, this organic human body\nwith the universal lifeless matter. And thirdly, it claims to have\nplaced the universal matter itself in a new position for us, and to\nexhibit all forms of life as developed from it, through its own\nspontaneous motion. Thus for the first time, beyond the reach of\nquestion, the entire sensible universe is brought within the scope of\nthe physicist. Everything that is, is matter moving. Life itself is\nnothing but motion of an infinitely complex kind. It is matter in its\nfinest ferment. The first traceable beginnings of it are to be found in\nthe phenomenon of crystallisation; we have there, we are told by the\nhighest scientific authority, '_the first gropings of the so-called\nvital force_;' and we learn from the same quarter, that between these\nand the brain of Christ there is a difference in degree only, not in\nkind: they are each of them '_an assemblage of molecules, acting and\nre-acting according to law_.' '_We believe_,' says Dr. Tyndall, '_that\nevery thought and every feeling has its definite mechanical\ncorrelative--that it is accompanied by a certain breaking up and\nre-marshalling of the atoms of the brain_.' And though he of course\nadmits that to trace out the processes in detail is infinitely beyond\nour powers, yet '_the quality of the problem and of our powers_,' he\nsays, '_are, we believe, so related, that a mere expansion of the latter\nwould enable them to cope with the former_.' Nowhere is there any break\nin Nature; and '_supposing_,' in Dr. Tyndall's words, '_a planet carved\nfrom the sun, set spinning on an axis, and sent revolving round the sun\nat a distance equal to that of our earth_,' science points to the\nconclusion that as the mass cooled, it would flower out in places into\njust such another race as ours--creatures of as large discourse, and,\nlike ourselves, looking before and after. The result is obvious. Every\nexisting thing that we can ever know, or hope to know, in the whole\ninward as well as in the whole outward world--everything from a star to\na thought, or from a flower to an affection, is connected with certain\nmaterial figures, and with certain mechanical forces. All have a certain\nbulk and a certain place in space, and could conceivably be made the\nsubjects of some physical experiment. Faith, sanctity, doubt, sorrow,\nand love, could conceivably be all gauged and detected by some\nscientific instrument--by a camera or by a spectroscope; and their\nconditions and their intensity be represented by some sort of diagram.\n\nThese marvellous achievements, as I have said, have been often before\ndreamed of. Now they are accomplished. As applied to natural religion,\nthe effect of them is as follows.\n\nFirstly, with regard to God, they have taken away every external proof\nof His existence, and, still more, every sign of His daily providence.\nThey destroy them completely at a sudden and single blow, and send them\nfalling about us like so many dead flies. God, as connected with the\nexternal world, was conceived of in three ways--as a Mover, as a\nDesigner, and as a Superintendent. In the first two capacities He was\nrequired by thought; in the last, He was supposed to be revealed by\nexperience. But now in none of these is He required or revealed longer.\nSo far as thought goes, He has become a superfluity; so far as\nexperience goes, He has become a fanciful suggestion.\n\nSecondly, with regard to man, the life and soul are presented to us, not\nas an entity distinct from the body, and therefore capable of surviving\nit, but as a function of it, or the sum of its functions, which has\ndemonstrably grown with its growth, which is demonstrably dependent upon\neven its minutest changes, and which, for any sign or hint to the\ncontrary, will be dissolved with its dissolution.\n\nA God, therefore, that is the master of matter, and a human soul that is\nindependent of it--any second world, in fact, of alien and\ntrans-material forces, is reduced, on physical grounds, to an utterly\nunsupported hypothesis. Were this all, however, it would logically have\non religion no effect at all. It would supply us with nothing but the\nbarren verbal proposition that the immaterial was not material, or that\nwe could find no trace of it by merely studying matter. Its whole force\nrests on the following suppressed premiss, that nothing exists but what\nthe study of matter conceivably could reveal to us; or that, in other\nwords, the immaterial equals the nonexistent. The case stands thus. The\nforces of thought and spirit were supposed formerly to be quite distinct\nfrom matter, and to be capable of acting without the least connection\nwith it. Now, it is shown that every smallest revelation of these to us,\nis accomplished by some local atomic movement, which, on a scientific\ninstrument fine enough, would leave a distinct impression; and thus it\nis argued that no force is revealed through matter that is not\ninseparable from the forms revealing it. Here we see the meaning of that\ngreat modern axiom, that verification is the test of truth; or that we\ncan build on nothing as certain but what we can prove true. The meaning\nof the word '_proof_' by itself may perhaps be somewhat hazy; but the\nmeaning that positive science attaches to it is plain enough. A fact is\nonly proved when the evidence it rests upon leaves us no room for\ndoubt--when it forces on every mind the same invincible conviction; that\nis, in other words, when, directly or indirectly, its material\nequivalent can be impressed upon our bodily senses.\n\nThis is the fulcrum of the modern intellectual lever. Ask anyone\noppressed and embittered by the want of religion the reason why he does\nnot again embrace it, and the answer will still be this--that there is\nno proof that it is true. Granting, says Professor Huxley, that a\nreligious creed would be beneficial, '_my next step is to ask for a_\nproof _of its dogmas_.' And with contemptuous passion another well-known\nwriter, Mr. Leslie Stephen, has classified all beliefs, according as we\ncan prove or not prove them, into realities and empty dreams. '_The\nignorant and childish_,' he says, '_are hopelessly unable to draw the\nline between dreamland and reality; but the imagery which takes its rise\nin the imagination as distinguished from the perceptions, bears\nindelible traces of its origin in comparative unsubstantiality and\nvagueness of outline_.' And '_now_,' he exclaims, turning to the\ngeneration around him, '_at last your creed is decaying. People have\ndiscovered that you know nothing about it; that heaven and hell belong\nto dreamland; that the impertinent young curate who tells me that I\nshall be burnt everlastingly for not sharing his superstition, is just\nas ignorant as I myself, and that I know as much as my dog._'[34]\n\nSuch is that syllogism of the physical sciences which is now supposed to\nbe so invincible against all religion, and which has already gone so far\ntowards destroying the world's faith in it. Now as to the minor premiss,\nthat there is no proof of religion, we may concede, _at least\nprovisionally_, that it is completely true. What it is really important\nto examine is the major premiss, that we can be certain of nothing that\nwe cannot support by proof. This it is plain does not stand on the same\nfooting as the former, for it is of its very nature not capable of being\nproved itself. Its foundation is something far less definable--the\ngeneral character for wisdom of the leading thinkers who have adopted\nit, and the general acceptance of its consequences by the common sense\nof mankind.\n\nNow if we examine its value by these tests, the result will be somewhat\nstartling. We find that not only are mankind at large as yet but very\npartially aware of its consequences, but that its true scope and meaning\nhas not even dawned dimly on the leading thinkers themselves. Few\nspectacles, indeed, in the whole history of thought are more ludicrous\nthan that of the modern positive school with their great doctrine of\nverification. They apply it rigorously to one set of facts, and then\nutterly fail to see that it is equally applicable to another. They apply\nit to religion, and declare that the dogmas of religion are dreams; but\nwhen they pass from the dogmas of religion to those of morality, they\nnot only do not use their test, but unconsciously they denounce it with\nthe utmost vehemence. Thus Mr. Leslie Stephen, in the very essay from\nwhich I have just now quoted, not only has recourse, for giving weight\nto his arguments, to such ethical epithets as _low_, _lofty_, and even\n_sacred_, but he puts forward as his own motive for speaking, a belief\nwhich on his own showing is a dream. That motive, he says, is devotion\nto truth for its own sake--the only principle that is really worthy of\nman. His argument is simply this. It is man's holiest and most important\nduty to discover the truth at all costs, and the one test of truth is\nphysical verification. Here he tells us we find the only high morality,\nand the men who cling to religious dream-dogmas which they cannot\nphysically verify, can only answer their opponents, says Mr. Stephen,\n'_by a shriek or a sneer_.' '_The sentiment_,' he proceeds, '_which the\ndreamer most thoroughly hates and misunderstands, is the love of truth\nfor its own sake. He cannot conceive why a man should attack a lie\nsimply because it is a lie._' Mr. Stephen is wrong. That is exactly what\nthe dreamer can do, and no one else but he; and Mr. Stephen is himself a\ndreamer when he writes and feels like this. Why, let me ask him, should\nthe truth be loved? Do the '_perceptions_,' which are for him the only\nvalid guides, tell him so? The perceptions tell him, as he expressly\nsays, that the truths of nature, so far as man is concerned with them,\nare '_harsh_' truths. Why should '_harsh_' things be loveable? Or\nsupposing Mr. Stephen does love them, why is that love '_lofty_'? and\nwhy should he so brusquely command all other men to share it? _Low_ and\n_lofty_--what has Mr. Stephen to do with words like these? They are part\nof the language of dreamland, not of real life. Mr. Stephen has no right\nto them. If he has, he must be able to draw a hard and fast line between\nthem; for if his conceptions of them be '_vague in outline_' and\n'_unsubstantial_,' they belong by his own express definition to the land\nof dreams. But this is what Mr. Stephen, with the solemn imbecility of\nhis school, is quite incapable of seeing. Professor Huxley is in exactly\nthe same case. He says, as we have seen already, that, come what may of\nit, our highest morality is to follow truth; that the '_lowest depth of\nimmorality_' is to _pretend to believe what we see no reason for\nbelieving_;' and that our only proper reasons for belief are some\nphysical, some _perceptible_ evidence. And yet at the same time he says\nthat to '_attempt to upset morality_' by the help of the physical\nsciences is about as rational or as possible as to '_attempt to upset\nEuclid by the help of the Rig Veda_.' Now on Professor Huxley's\nprinciples, this last sentence, though it sounds very weighty, is, if so\nungracious a word may be allowed me, nothing short of nonsense. It would\nbe the lowest depth of immorality, he says, to believe in God, when we\nsee that there is no physical evidence to justify the belief. And\nphysical science in this way he admits--he indeed proclaims--has upset\nreligion. How then has physical science in the same way failed to upset\nmorality? The foundation of morality, he says, is the belief that truth\nfor its own sake is sacred. But what proof can he discover of this\nsacredness? Does any positive method of experience or observation so\nmuch as tend to suggest it? We have already seen that it does not. What\nProfessor Huxley's philosophy really proves to him is that it is true\nthat nothing is sacred; not that it is a sacred thing to discover the\ntruth.\n\nWe saw all this already when we were examining his comparison of the\nperception of moral beauty to the perception of the heat of ginger. It\nis the same thing with which we are again dealing now, only we are\napproaching it from a slightly different point of view. What we saw\nbefore, was that without an assent to the religious dogmas, the moral\ndogmas can have no logical meaning. We have now seen that even were the\ntwo logically independent, they yet belong both of them to the same\norder of things; and that if our tests of truth prove the former to be\nillusions, they will, with precisely the same force, prove the same\nthing of the latter.\n\nBut the most crucial test of all we have still to come to, which will\nput this conclusion in a yet clearer and a more unmistakable light. Thus\nfar what we have seen has amounted to only this--that if science can\ntake from man his religious faith, it leaves him a being without any\nmoral guidance. What we shall now see is that, by the same arguments,\nit will prove him to be not a moral being at all; that it will prove not\nonly that he has no rule by which to direct his will, but also that he\nhas no will to direct.\n\nTo understand this we must return to physical science, and to the exact\nresults that have been accomplished by it. We have seen how completely,\nfrom one point of view, it has connected mind with matter, and how\ntriumphantly it is supposed to have unified the apparent dualism of\nthings. It has revealed the brain to us as matter in a combination of\ninfinite complexity, which it has reached at last through its own\nautomatic workings; and it has revealed consciousness to us as a\nfunction of this brain, and as altogether inseparable from it. But for\nthis, the old dualism now supposed to be obsolete would remain\nundisturbed. Indeed, if this doctrine were denied, such a dualism would\nbe the only alternative. For every thought, then, that we think, and\nevery feeling or desire that we feel, there takes place in the brain\nsome definite material movement, on the force or figure of which the\nthoughts and feelings are dependent. Now if physical observations are to\nbe the only things that guide us, one important fact will become at once\nevident. Matter existed and fermented long before the evolution of mind;\nmind is not an exhibition of new forces, but the outcome of a special\ncombination of old. Mental facts are therefore essentially dependent on\nmolecular facts; molecular facts are not dependent on mental. They may\nseem to be so, but this is only seeming. They are as much the outcome of\nmolecular groupings and movements as the figures in a kaleidoscope are\nof the groupings and movements of the colored bits of glass. They are\nthings entirely by the way; and they can as little be considered links\nin any chain of causes as can the figure in a kaleidoscope be called the\ncause of the figure that succeeds it.\n\nThe conclusion, however, is so distasteful to most men, that but few of\nthem can be brought even to face it, still less to accept it. There is\nnot a single physicist of eminence--none at least who has spoken\npublicly on the moral aspects of life--who has honestly and fairly\nconsidered it, and said plainly whether he accepts it, rejects it, or is\nin doubt about it. On the contrary, instead of meeting this question,\nthey all do their best to avoid it, and to hide it from themselves and\nothers in a vague haze of mystery. And there is a peculiarity in the\nnature of the subject that has made this task an easy one. But the dust\nthey have raised is not impenetrable, and can, with a little patience,\nbe laid altogether.\n\nThe phenomenon of consciousness is in one way unique. It is the only\nphenomenon with which science comes in contact, of which the scientific\nimagination cannot form a coherent picture. It has a side, it is true,\nthat we can picture well enough--'_the thrilling of the nerves_,' as Dr.\nTyndall says, '_the discharging of the muscles, and all the subsequent\nchanges of the organism_.' But of how these changes come to have another\nside, we can form no picture. This, it is perfectly true, is a complete\nmystery. And this mystery it is that our modern physicists seize on, and\ntry to hide and lose in the shadow of it a conclusion which they admit\nthat, in any other case, a rigorous logic would force on them.\n\nThe following is a typical example of the way in which they do this. It\nis taken from Dr. Tyndall. '_The mechanical philosopher, as such_,' he\nsays, '_will never place a state of consciousness and a group of\nmolecules in the position of mover and moved. Observation proves them to\ninteract; but in passing from one to the other, we meet a blank which\nthe logic of deduction is unable to fill.... I lay bare unsparingly the\ninitial difficulty of the materialist, and tell him that the facts of\nobservation which he considers so simple are \"almost as difficult to be\nseized as the idea of a soul.\" I go further, and say in effect: \"If you\nabandon the interpretation of grosser minds, who image the soul as a\nPsyche which could be thrown out of the window--an entity which is\nusually occupied we know not how, among the molecules of the brain, but\nwhich on due occasion, such as the intrusion of a bullet, or the blow\nof a club, can fly away into other regions of space--if abandoning this\nheathen notion you approach the subject in the only way in which\napproach is possible--if you consent to make your soul a poetic\nrendering of a phenomenon which--as I have taken more pains than anyone\nelse to show you--refuses the ordinary yoke of physical laws, then I,\nfor one, would not object to this exercise of ideality.\" I say it\nstrongly, but with good temper, that the theologian who hacks and\nscourges me for putting the matter in this light is guilty of black\ningratitude._'\n\nNow if we examine this very typical passage, we shall see that in it are\nconfused two questions which, as regards our own relation to them, are\non a totally different footing. One of these questions cannot be\nanswered at all. The other can be answered in distinct and opposite\nways. About the one we must rest in wonder; about the other we must make\na choice. And the feat which our modern physicists are trying to perform\nis to hide the importunate nature of the second in the dark folds of the\nfirst. This first question is, Why should consciousness be connected\nwith the brain at all? The second question is, What is it when\nconnected? Is it simply the product of the brain's movement; or is the\nbrain's movement in any degree produced by it? We only know it, so to\nspeak, as the noise made by the working of the brain's machinery--as the\ncrash, the roar, or the whisper of its restless colliding molecules. Is\nthis machinery self-moving, or is it, at least, modulated, if not moved,\nby some force other than itself? The brain is the organ of\nconsciousness, just as the instrument called an organ is an organ of\nmusic; and consciousness itself is as a tune emerging from the\norgan-pipes. Expressed in terms of this metaphor our two questions are\nas follows. The first is, Why, when the air goes through them, are the\norgan-pipes resonant? The second is, What controls the mechanism by\nwhich the air is regulated--a musician, or a revolving barrel? Now what\nour modern physicists fail to see is, not only that these two questions\nare distinct in detail, but that also they are distinct in kind; that a\nwant of power to answer them means, in the two cases, not a distinct\nthing only, but also an opposite thing; and that our confessed impotence\nto form any conjecture at all as to the first, does not in the least\nexonerate us from choosing between conjectures as to the second.\n\nAs to the first question, our discovery of the fact it is concerned\nwith, and our utter inability to account for this fact, has really no\nbearing at all upon the great dilemma--the dilemma as to the unity or\nthe dualism of existence, and the independence or automatism of the life\nand will of man. All that science tells us on this first head the whole\nworld may agree with, with the utmost readiness; and if any theologian\n'_hacks and scourges_' Dr. Tyndall for his views thus far, he must,\nbeyond all doubt, be a very foolish theologian indeed. The whole bearing\nof this matter modern science seems to confuse and magnify, and it\nfancies itself assaulted by opponents who in reality have no existence.\nLet a man be never so theological, and never so pledged to a faith in\nmyths and mysteries, he would not have the least interest in denying\nthat the brain, though we know not how, is the only seat for us of\nthought and mind and spirit. Let him have never so firm a faith in life\nimmortal, yet this immortal has, he knows, put on mortality, through an\ninexplicable contact with matter; and his faith is not in the least\nshaken by learning that this point of contact is the brain. He can admit\nwith the utmost readiness that the brain is the only instrument through\nwhich supernatural life is made at the same time natural life. He can\nadmit that the moral state of a saint might be detected by some form of\nspectroscope. At first sight, doubtless, this may appear somewhat\nstartling; but there is nothing really in it that is either strange or\nformidable. Dr. Tyndall says that the view indicated can, '_he thinks_,'\nbe maintained '_against all attack_.' But why he should apprehend any\nattack at all, and why he should only '_think_' it would be\nunsuccessful, it is somewhat hard to conceive. To say that a\nspectroscope as applied to the brain might conceivably detect such a\nthing as sanctity, is little more than to say that our eyes as applied\nto the face can actually detect such a thing as anger. There is nothing\nin that doctrine to alarm the most mystical of believers. In the\ncompleteness with which it is now brought before us it is doubtless new\nand wonderful, and will doubtless tend presently to clarify human\nthought. But no one need fear to accept it as a truth; and probably\nbefore long we shall all accept it as a truism. It is not denying the\nexistence of a soul to say that it cannot move in matter without leaving\nsome impress in matter, any more than it is denying the existence of an\norganist to say that he cannot play to us without striking the notes of\nhis organ. Dr. Tyndall then need hardly have used so much emphasis and\niteration in affirming that '_every thought and feeling has its definite\nmechanical correlative, that it is accompanied by a certain breaking-up\nand re-marshalling of the atoms of the brain_.' And he is no more likely\nto be '_hacked and scourged_' for doing so than he would be for\naffirming that every note we hear in a piece of music has its definite\ncorrelative in the mechanics of the organ, and that it is accompanied by\na depression and a rising again of some particular key. In his views\nthus far the whole world may agree with him; whilst when he adds so\nemphatically that in these views there is still involved a mystery, we\nshall not so much say that the world agrees with him as that he, like a\ngood sensible man, agrees with the world. The passage from mind to\nmatter is, Dr. Tyndall says, unthinkable. The common sense of mankind\nhas always said the same. We have here a something, not which we are\ndoubtful how to explain, but which we cannot explain at all. We have not\nto choose or halt between alternative conjectures, for there are\nabsolutely no conjectures to halt between. We are now, as to this point,\nin the same state of mind in which we have always been, only this state\nof mind has been revealed to us more clearly. We are in theoretical\nignorance, but we are in no practical perplexity.\n\nThe perplexity comes in with the second question; and it is here that\nthe issue lies between the affirmation and the denial of a second and a\nsupernatural order. We will see, first, how this question is put and\ntreated by Dr. Tyndall, and we will then see what his treatment comes\nto. Is it true, he asks, as many physicists hold it is, '_that the\nphysical processes are complete in themselves, and would go on just as\nthey do if consciousness were not at all implicated_,' as an engine\nmight go on working though it made no noise, or as a barrel-organ might\ngo on playing even though there were no ear to listen to it? Or do\n'_states of consciousness enter as links into the chain of antecedence\nand sequence which gives rise to bodily actions?_' Such is the question\nin Dr. Tyndall's own phrases; and here, in his own phrases also, comes\nhis answer. '_I have no power_,' he says, '_of imagining such states\ninterposed between the molecules of the brain, and influencing the\ntransference of motion among the molecules. The thing_ eludes all mental\npresentation. _But_,' he adds, '_the production of consciousness by\nmolecular motion is quite as unpresentable to the mental vision as the\nproduction of molecular motion by consciousness. If I reject one result,\nI reject both. I, however, reject neither, and thus stand in the\npresence of two Incomprehensibles, instead of one Incomprehensible._'\n\nNow what does all this mean? There is one meaning of which the words are\ncapable, which would make them perfectly clear and coherent; but that\nmeaning, as we shall see presently, cannot possibly be Dr. Tyndall's.\nThey would be perfectly clear and coherent if he meant this by\nthem--that the brain was a natural instrument, in the hands of a\nsupernatural player; but that why the instrument should be able to be\nplayed upon, and how the player should be able to play upon it, were\nboth matters on which he could throw no light. But elsewhere he has told\nus expressly that he does not mean this. This he expressly says is '_the\ninterpretation of_ grosser _minds_,' and science will not for a moment\npermit us to retain it. The brain contains no '_entity usually occupied\nwe know not how amongst its molecules_,' but at the same time separable\nfrom them. According to him, this is a '_heathen_' notion, and, until we\nabandon it, '_no approach_,' he says, '_to the subject is possible_.'\nWhat does he mean, then, when he tells us he rejects neither result;\nwhen he tells us that he believes that molecular motion produces\nconsciousness, and also that consciousness in its turn produces\nmolecular motion?--when he tells us distinctly of these two that\n'_observation proves them to interact_'? If such language as this means\nanything, it must have reference to two distinct forces, one material\nand the other immaterial. Indeed, does he not himself say so? Does he\nnot tell us that one of the beliefs he does not reject is the belief in\n'_states of consciousness_ interposed between _the molecules of the\nbrain, and influencing the transference of motion among the molecules_'?\nIt is perfectly clear, then, that these states are not molecules; in\nother words, they are not material. But if not material, what are they,\nacting on matter, and yet distinct from matter? What can they belong to\nbut that '_heathen_' thing the soul--that '_entity which could be thrown\nout of the window_,' and which, as Dr. Tyndall has said elsewhere,\nscience forbids us to believe in? Surely for an exact thinker this is\nthought in strange confusion. '_Matter_,' he says, '_I define as that\nmysterious something by which all this is accomplished_;' and yet here\nwe find him, in the face of this, invoking some second mystery as well.\nAnd for what reason? This is the strangest thing of all. He believes in\nhis second Incomprehensible _because_ he believes in his first\nIncomprehensible. '_If I reject one result_,' he says, '_I_ must _reject\nboth. I, however, reject neither_.' But why? Because one undoubted fact\nis a mystery, is every mystery an undoubted fact? Such is Dr. Tyndall's\nlogic in this remarkable utterance: and if this logic be valid, we can\nat once prove to him the existence of a personal God, and a variety of\nother '_heathen_' doctrines also. But, applied in this way, it is\nevident that the argument fails to move him; for a belief in a personal\nGod is one of the first things that his science rejects. What shall we\nsay of him, then, when he applies the argument in his own way? We can\nsay simply this--that his mind for the time being is in a state of such\nconfusion, that he is incapable really of clearly meaning anything. What\nhis position logically must be--what, on other occasions, he clearly\navows it to be--is plain enough. It is essentially that of a man\nconfronted by one Incomprehensible, not confronted by two. But, looked\nat in certain ways, or rather looked _from_ in certain ways, this\nposition seems to stagger him. The problem of existence reels and grows\ndim before him, and he fancies that he detects the presence of two\nIncomprehensibles, when he has really, in his state of mental\ninsobriety, only seen one Incomprehensible double. If this be not the\ncase, it must be one that, intellectually, is even weaker than this. It\nmust be that, not of a man with a single coherent theory which his\nintellect in its less vigorous moments sometimes relaxes its hold upon,\nbut it must be that of a man with two hostile theories which he vainly\nimagines to be one, and which he inculcates alternately, each with an\nequal emphasis.\n\nIf this bewilderment were peculiar to Dr. Tyndall, I should have no\nmotive or meaning in thus dwelling on it. But it is no peculiarity of\nhis. It is characteristic of the whole school he belongs to; it is\ninherent in our whole modern positivism--the whole of our exact and\nenlightened thought. I merely choose Dr. Tyndall as my example, not\nbecause there is more confusion in his mind than there is in that of his\nfellow-physicists, but because he is, as it were, the _enfant terrible_\nof his family, who publicly lets out the secrets which the others are\nmore careful to conceal.\n\nBut I have not done with this matter yet. We are here dealing with the\ncentral problem of things, and we must not leave it till we have made it\nas plain as possible. I will therefore re-state it in terms of another\nmetaphor. Let us compare the universal matter, with its infinity of\nmolecules, to a number of balls on a billiard-table, set in motion by\nthe violent stroke of a cue. The balls at once begin to strike each\nother and rebound from the cushions at all angles and in all directions,\nand assume with regard to each other positions of every kind. At last\nsix of them collide or cannon in a particular corner of the table, and\nthus group themselves so as to form a human brain; and their various\nchanges thereafter, so long as the brain remains a brain, represent the\nvarious changes attendant on a man's conscious life. Now in this life\nlet us take some moral crisis. Let us suppose the low desire to cling to\nsome pleasing or comforting superstition is contending with the heroic\ndesire to face the naked truth at all costs. The man in question is at\nfirst about to yield to the low desire. For a time there is a painful\nstruggle in him. At last there is a sharp decisive pang; the heroic\ndesire is the conqueror, the superstition is cast away, and '_though\ntruth slay me_,' says the man, '_yet will I trust in it_.' Such is the\naspect of the question when approached from one side. But what is it\nwhen approached from the other? The six billiard balls have simply\nchanged their places. When they corresponded to low desire, they formed,\nlet us say, an oval; when they corresponded to the heroic desire, they\nformed, let us say, a circle. Now what is the cause and what the\nconditions of this change? Clearly a certain impetus imparted to the\nballs, and certain fixed laws under which that impetus operates. The\nquestion is what laws and what impetus are these? Are they the same or\nnot the same, now the balls correspond to consciousness, as they were\nbefore, when the balls did not correspond to it? One of two things must\nhappen. Either the balls go on moving by exactly the same laws and\nforces they have always moved by, and are in the grasp of the same\ninvincible necessity, or else there is some new and disturbing force in\nthe midst of them, with which we have to reckon. But if consciousness is\ninseparable from matter, this cannot be. Do the billiard-balls when so\ngrouped as to represent consciousness generate some second motive power\ndistinct from, at variance with, and often stronger than, the original\nimpetus? Clearly no scientific thinker can admit this. To do so would be\nto undermine the entire fabric of science, to contradict what is its\nfirst axiom and its last conclusion. If then the motion of our six\nbilliard balls has anything, when it corresponds to consciousness,\ndistinct in kind from what it always had, it can only derive this from\none cause. That cause is a second cue, tampering with the balls and\ninterfering with them, or even more than this--a second hand taking them\nup and arranging them arbitrarily in certain figures.\n\nScience places the positive school on the horns of a dilemma. The mind\nor spirit is either arranged entirely by the molecules it is connected\nwith, and these molecules move with the same automatic necessity that\nthe earth moves with; or else these molecules are, partially at least,\narranged by the mind or spirit. If we do not accept the former theory we\nmust accept the latter: there is no third course open to us. If man is\nnot an automaton, his consciousness is no mere function of any physical\norgan. It is an alien and disturbing element. Its impress on physical\nfacts, its disturbance of physical laws, may be doubtless the only\nthings through which we can perceive its existence; but it is as\ndistinct from the things by which we can alone at present perceive it,\nas a hand unseen in the dark, that should arrest or change the course of\na phosphorescent billiard-ball. Once let us deny even in the most\nqualified way that the mind in the most absolute way is a material\nmachine, an automaton, and in that denial we are affirming a second and\nimmaterial universe, independent of the material, and obeying different\nlaws. But of this universe, if it exists, no natural proof can be given,\nbecause _ex hypothesi_ it lies quite beyond the region of nature.\n\nOne theory then of man's life is that it is a union of two orders of\nthings; another, that it is single, and belongs to only one. And of\nthese theories--opposite, and mutually exclusive, Dr. Tyndall, and\nmodern positivism with him, says '_I reject neither_.'[35]\n\nNow this statement of their position, if taken as they state it, is of\ncourse nonsense. It is impossible to consider matter as '_that\nmysterious something by which all that is is accomplished;_' and then to\nsolve the one chief riddle of things by a second mysterious something\nthat is not material. Nor can we '_reject_,' as the positivists say they\ndo, an '_outside builder_' of the world, and then claim the assistance\nof an _outside_ orderer of the brain. The positivists would probably\ntell us that they do not do so, or that they do not mean to do so. And\nwe may well believe them. Their fault is that they do not know what they\nmean. I will try to show them.\n\nFirst, they mean something, with which, as I have said already, we may\nall agree. They mean that matter moving under certain laws (which may\npossibly be part and parcel of its own essence) combines after many\nchanges into the human brain, every motion of which has its definite\nconnection with consciousness, and its definite correspondence to some\nstate of it. And this fact is a mystery, though it may be questioned if\nit be more mysterious why matter should think of itself, than why it\nshould move of itself. At any rate, thus far we are all agreed; and\nwhatever mystery we may be dealing with, it is one that leaves us in\nignorance but not in doubt. The doubt comes in at the next step. We have\nthen not to wonder at one fact, but, the mystery being in either case\nthe same, to choose between two hypotheses. The first is that there is\nin consciousness one order of forces only, the second is that there are\ntwo. And when the positive school say that they reject neither of these,\nwhat they really mean to say is that as to the second they neither dare\nopenly do one thing or the other--to deny it or accept it, but that they\nremain like an awkward child when offered some more pudding, blushing\nand looking down, and utterly unable to say either yes or no.\n\nNow the question to ask the positive school is this. Why are they in\nthis state of suspense? '_There is an iron strength in the logic_,' as\nDr. Tyndall himself says, that rejects the second order altogether. The\nhypothesis of its existence explains no fact of observation. The scheme\nof nature, if it cannot be wholly explained without it, can, at any\nrate, be explained better without it than with it. Indeed from the\nstandpoint of the thinker who holds that all that is is matter, it seems\na thing too superfluous, too unmeaning, to be even worth denial. And yet\nthe positive school announce solemnly that they will not deny it. Now\nwhy is this? It is true that they cannot prove its non-existence; but\nthis is no reason for professing a solemn uncertainty as to its\nexistence. We cannot prove that each time a cab drives down Regent\nStreet a stick of barley-sugar is not created in Sirius. But we do not\nproclaim, to the world our eternal ignorance as to whether or no this is\nso. Why then should our positivists treat in this way the alleged\nimmaterial part of consciousness? Why this emphatic protestation on\ntheir part that there may exist a something which, as far as the needs\nof their science go, is superfluous, and as far as the logic of their\nscience goes is impossible? The answer is plain. Though their science\ndoes not need it, the moral value of life does. As to that value they\nhave certain foregone conclusions, which they cannot resolve to abandon,\nbut which their science can make no room for. Two alternatives are\noffered them--to admit that life has not the meaning they thought it\nhad, or that their system has not the completeness they thought it had;\nand of these two alternatives they will accept neither. They could tell\nus '_with an iron strength of logic_' that all human sorrow was as\ninvoluntary and as unmeaning as sea-sickness; that love and faith were\nbut distillations of what exists diluted in mutton-chops and beer; and\nthat the voice of one crying in the wilderness was nothing but an\nautomatic metamorphosis of the locusts and wild honey. They could tell\nus '_with an iron strength of logic_' that all the thoughts and moral\nstruggles of humanity were but as the clanging whirr of a machine, which\nif a little better adjusted might for the future go on spinning in\nsilence. But they see that the discovery on man's part that his life was\nnothing more than this would mean a complete change in its mechanism,\nand that thenceforward its entire action would be different. They\ntherefore seek a refuge in saying it _may_ be more than this. But what\ndo they mean by _may be_? Do they mean that in spite of all that science\ncan teach them, in spite of that uniformity absolute and omnipresent\nwhich alone it reveals to them, which day by day it is forcing with more\nvividness on their imaginations, and which seems to have no room for\nanything besides itself--do they mean that in spite of this there may\nstill be a second something, a power of a different order, acting on\nman's brain and grappling with its automatic movements? Do they mean\nthat that '_heathen_' and '_gross_' conception of an immaterial soul is\nprobably after all the true one? Either they must mean this or else they\nmust mean the exact opposite. There is no third course open to them.[36]\n\nTheir opinion, as soon as they form one, must rest either on this\nextreme or that. They will see, as exact and scientific thinkers, that\nif it be not practically certain that there is some supernatural entity\nin us, it is practically certain that there is not one. To say merely\nthat it _may_ exist is but to put an ounce in one scale whilst there is\na ton in the other. It is an admission that is utterly dead and\nmeaningless. They can only entertain the question of its existence\nbecause its existence is essential to man as a moral being. The only\nreason that can tempt us to say it _may_ be forces us in the same moment\nto say that it _must_ be, and that it _is_.\n\nWhich answer eventually the positive school will choose, and which\nanswer men in general will accept, I make as I have said before, no\nattempt to answer. My only purpose to show is, that if man has any moral\nbeing at all, he has it in virtue of his _immaterial_ will--a force, a\nsomething of which physical science can give no account whatever, and\nwhich it has no shadow of authority either for affirming or for denying;\nand further, that if we are not prevented by it from affirming his\nimmaterial will, we are not prevented from affirming his immortality,\nand the existence of God likewise.\n\nAnd now I come to that third point which I said I should deal with here,\nbut which I have not yet touched upon. Every logical reasoner who admits\nthe power of will must admit not only the possibility of miracles, but\nalso the actual fact of their daily and hourly occurrence. Every\nexertion of the human will is a miracle in the strictest sense of the\nword; only it takes place privately, within the closed walls of the\nbrain. The molecules of the brain are arranged and ordered by a\nsupernatural agency. Their natural automatic movements are suspended, or\ndirected and interfered with. It is true that in common usage the word\n_miracle_ has a more restricted sense. It is applied generally not to\nthe action of man's will, but of God's. But the sense in both cases is\nessentially the same. God's will is conceived of as disturbing the\nautomatic movements of matter without the skull, in just the same way as\nman's will is conceived of as disturbing those of the brain within it.\nNor, though the alleged manifestations of the former do more violence to\nthe scientific imagination than do those of the latter, are they in the\neye of reason one whit more impossible. The erection of a pyramid at the\nwill of an Egyptian king would as much disturb the course of nature as\nthe removal of a mountain by the faith of a Galilean fisherman; whilst\nthe flooding of the Sahara at the will of a speculating company would\ninterfere with the weather of Europe far more than the most believing of\nmen ever thought that any answer to prayer would.\n\nIt will thus be seen that morality and religion are, so far as science\ngoes, on one and the same footing--of one and the same substance, and\nthat as assailed by science they either fall together or stand\ntogether. It will be seen too that the power of science against them\nresides not in itself, but in a certain intellectual fulcrum that we\nourselves supply it with. That its methods can discover no trace of\neither of them, of itself proves nothing, unless we first lay down as a\ndogma that its methods of discovery are the only methods. If we are\nprepared to abide by this, there is little more to be said. The rest, it\nis becoming daily plainer, is a very simple process; and what we have to\nurge against religion will thenceforth amount to this. There is no\nsupernatural, because everything is natural; there is no spirit, because\neverything is matter; or there is no air, because everything is earth;\nthere is no fire, because everything is water; a rose has no smell\nbecause our eyes cannot detect any.\n\nThis, in its simplest form, is the so-called argument of modern\nmaterialism. Argument, however, it is quite plain it is not. It is a\nmere dogmatic statement, that can give no logical account of itself, and\nmust trust, for its acceptance, to the world's vague sense of its\nfitness. The modern world, it is true, has mistaken it for an argument,\nand has been cowed by it accordingly; but the mistake is a simple one,\nand can be readily accounted for. The dogmatism of denial was formerly a\nsort of crude rebellion, inconsistent with itself, and vulnerable in a\nthousand places. Nature, as then known, was, to all who could weigh the\nwonder of it, a thing inexplicable without some supernatural agency.\nIndeed, marks of such an agency seemed to meet men everywhere. But now\nall this has changed. Step by step science has been unravelling the\ntangle, and has loosened with its human fingers the knots that once\nseemed _deo digni vindice_. It has enabled us to see in nature a\ncomplete machine, needing no aid from without. It has made a conception\nof things rational and coherent that was formerly absurd and arbitrary.\nScience has done all this; but this is all that it has done. The\ndogmatism of denial it has left as it found it, an unverified and\nunverifiable assertion. It has simply made this dogmatism consistent\nwith itself. But in doing this, as men will soon come to see, it has\ndone a great deal more than its chief masters bargained for. Nature, as\nexplained by science, is nothing more than a vast automaton; and man\nwith all his ways and works is simply a part of Nature, and can, by no\ndevice of thought, be detached from or set above it. He is as absolutely\nautomatic as a tree is, or as a flower is; and is an incapable as a tree\nor flower of any spiritual responsibility or significance. Here we see\nthe real limits of science. It will explain the facts of life to us, it\nis true, but it will not explain the value that hitherto we have\nattached to them. Is that solemn value a fact or fancy? As far as proof\nand reason go, we can answer either way. We have two simple and opposite\nstatements set against each other, between which argument will give us\nno help in choosing, and between which the only arbiter is a judgment\nformed upon utterly alien grounds. As for proof, the nature of the case\ndoes not admit of it. The world of moral facts, if it existed a thousand\ntimes, could give no more proof of its existence than it does now. If on\nother grounds we believe that it does exist, then signs, if not proofs\nof it, at once surround us everywhere. But let the belief in its reality\nfail us, and instantly the whole cloud of witnesses vanishes. For\nscience to demand a proof that shall convince it on its own premisses is\nto demand an impossibility, and to involve a contradiction in terms.\nScience is only possible on the assumption that nature is uniform.\nMorality is only possible on the assumption that this uniformity is\ninterfered with by the will. The world of morals is as distinct from the\nworld of science as a wine is from the cup that holds it; and to say\nthat it does not exist because science can find no trace of it, is to\nsay that a bird has not flown over a desert because it has left no\nfootprints in the sand. And as with morals, so it is with religion.\nScience will allow us to deny or to affirm both. Reason will not allow\nus to deny or affirm only one.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[33] The argument has been used in this exact form by Professor\nClifford.\n\n[34] _Dreams and Realities_, by Leslie Stephen.\n\n[35] The feebleness and vacillation of Dr. Tyndall's whole views of\nthings, as soon as they bear on matters that are of any universal\nmoment, is so typical of the entire positive thought of the day, that I\nmay with advantage give one or two further illustrations of it. Although\nin one place he proclaims loudly that the emergence of consciousness\nfrom matter must ever remain a mystery, he yet shows indication of a\nhope that it may yet be solved. He quotes with approval, and with an\nimplication that he himself leans to the view expressed in them, the\nfollowing words of Ueberweg, whom he calls '_one of the subtlest heads\nthat Germany has produced_.' '_What happens in the brain_, says\nUeberweg, '_would in my opinion not be possible if the process which\nhere appears in its greatest concentration, did not obtain generally,\nonly in a vastly diminished degree. Take a pair of mice, and a cask of\nflour. By copious nourishment the animals increase and multiply, and in\nthe same proportion sensations and feelings augment. The quantity of\nthese preserved by the first pair is not simply diffused among their\ndescendants, for in that case the last would feel more fully than the\nfirst. The sensations and the feelings must necessarily be referred back\nto the flour, where they exist, weak and pale, it is true, and not\nconcentrated, as in the brain._' '_We may not_,' Dr. Tyndall adds, by\nway of a gloss to this, '_be able to taste or smell alcohol in a tub of\nfermented cherries, but by distillation we obtain from them concentrated\nKirschwasser. Hence Ueberweg's comparison of the brain to a still, which\nconcentrates the sensation and feeling pre-existing, but diluted, in the\nfood._'\n\nLet us now compare this with the following. '_It is no explanation_,'\nsays Dr. Tyndall, '_to say that objective and subjective are two sides\nof one and the same phenomenon. Why should phenomena have two sides?\nThere are plenty of molecular motions which do not exhibit this\ntwo-sidedness. Does water think or feel when it runs into frost-ferns\nupon a window pane? If not, why should the molecular motions of the\nbrain be yoked to this mysterious companion consciousness?_'\n\nHere we have two views, diametrically opposed to each other, the one\nsuggested with approval, and the other implied as his own, by the same\nwriter, and in the same short essay. The first view is that\nconsciousness is the general property of all matter, just as motion is.\nThe second view is that consciousness is not the general property of\nmatter, but the inexplicable property of the brain only.\n\nHere again we have a similar inconsistency. Upon one page Dr. Tyndall\nsays that when we have '_exhausted physics, and reached its very rim, a\nmighty Mystery stills looms beyond us. We have made no step towards its\nsolution. And thus it will ever loom._' And on the opposite page he says\nthus: '_If asked whether science has solved, or is likely in our day to\nsolve, the problem of the universe, I must shake my head in doubt._'\n\nFurther, I will remind the reader of Dr. Tyndall's arguments, on one\noccasion, against any outside builder or creator of the material\nuniverse. He argued that such did not exist, because his supposed action\nwas not definitely presentable. '_I should enquire after its shape_,' he\nsays:--'_Has it legs or arms? If not, I would wish it to be made clear\nto me how a thing without these appliances can act so perfectly the part\nof a builder?_ He challenged the theist (the theist addressed at the\ntime was Dr. Martineau) to give him some account of his God's workings;\nand '_When he does this_,' said Dr. Tyndall, '_I shall \"demand of him an\nimmediate exercise\" of the power \"of definite mental presentation.\"_' If\nhe fails here, Dr. Tyndall argues, his case is at once disproved; for\nnothing exists that is not thus presentable. Let us compare this with\nhis dealing with the fact of consciousness. Consciousness, he admits, is\nnot thus presentable; and yet consciousness, he admits, exists.\n\nInstances might be multiplied of the same vacillation and confusion of\nthought--the same feminine inability to be constant to one train of\nreasoning. But those just given suffice. What weight can we attach to a\nman's philosophy, who after telling us that consciousness may possibly\nbe an inherent property of matter, of which '_the receit of reason is a\nlimbec only_,' adds in the same breath almost, that matter generally is\ncertainly not conscious, and that consciousness comes to the brain we\nknow not whence nor wherefore? What shall we say of a man who in one\nsentence tells us that it is impossible that science can ever solve the\nriddle of things, and tells us in the next sentence that it is doubtful\nif this impossibility will be accomplished within the next fifty\nyears?--who argues that God is a mystery, and therefore God is a\nfiction; who admits that consciousness is a fact, and yet proclaims that\nit is a mystery; and who says that the fact of matter producing\nconsciousness being a mystery, proves the mystery of consciousness\nacting on matter to be a fact?\n\n[36] It is true that one of the favourite teachings of the positive\nschool is, that as to this question the proper attitude is that of\nAgnosticism; in other words, that a state of perpetual suspense on this\nsubject is the only rational one. They are asked, have we a soul, a\nwill, and consequently any moral responsibility? And the answer is that\nthey must shake their heads in doubt. It is true they tell us that it is\nbut _as men of science_ that they shake their heads. But Dr. Tyndall\ntells us what this admission means. '_If the materialist is\nconfounded_,' he says, '_and science rendered dumb_, who else is\nprepared with an answer? _Let us lower our heads and acknowledge our\nignorance, priest and philosopher--one and all._' In like manner,\nreferring to the feeling which others have supposed to be a sense of\nGod's presence and majesty: this, for the '_man of science_,' he says is\nthe sense of a '_power which gives fulness and force, to his existence,\nbut which he can neither analyse nor comprehend_.' Which means, that\nbecause a physical specialist cannot analyse this sense, it is therefore\nincapable of analysis. A bishop might with equal propriety use just the\nsame language about a glass of port wine, and argue with, equal cogency\nthat it was a primary and simple element. What is meant is, that the\nfacts of the materialist are the only facts we can be certain of; and\nbecause these can give man no moral guidance, that therefore man can\nhave no moral guidance at all.\n\nLet us illustrate the case by some example that is mentally presentable.\nSome ruined girl, we will say, oppressed with a sense of degradation,\ncomes to Dr. Tyndall and lays her case before him. '_I have heard you\nare a very wise man_,' she says to him, '_and that you have proved that\nthe priest is all wrong, who prepared me a year ago for my confirmation.\nNow tell me, I beseech you tell me, is mine really the desperate state I\nhave been taught to think it is? May my body be likened to the temple of\nthe Holy Ghost defiled? or do I owe it no more reverence than I owe the\nAlhambra Theatre? Am I guilty, and must I seek repentance? or am I not\nguilty, and may I go on just as I please?' 'My dear girl_,' Dr. Tyndall\nreplies to her, '_I must shake my head in doubt. Come, let its lower our\nheads, and acknowledge our ignorance as to whether you are a wretched\ngirl or no. Materialism is confounded, and science rendered dumb by\nquestions such as yours; they can, therefore, never be answered, and\nmust always remain open. I may add, however, that if you ask me\npersonally whether I consider you to be degraded, I lean to the\naffirmative. But I can give you no reason in support of this judgment,\nso you may attach to it what value you will._'\n\nSuch is the position of agnostics, when brought face to face with the\nworld. They are undecided only about one question, and this is the one\nquestion which cannot be left undecided. Men cannot remain agnostics as\nto belief that their actions must depend upon, any more than a man who\nis compelled to go on walking can refrain from choosing one road or\nother when there are two open to him. Nor does it matter that our\nbelieving may in neither case amount to a complete certitude. It is\nsufficient that the balance of probability be on one side or the other.\nTwo ounces will out-weigh one ounce, quite as surely as a ton will. But\nwhat our philosophers profess to teach us (in so far as they profess to\nbe agnostics, and disclaim being dogmatists) is, that there is no\nbalance either way. The message they shout to us is, that they have no\nmessage at all; and that because they are without one, the whole world\nis in the same condition.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X.\n\nMORALITY AND NATURAL THEISM.\n\n    _Credo quia impossibile est._\n\n\nIf we look calmly at the possible future of human thought, it will\nappear from what we have just seen, that physical science of itself can\ndo little to control or cramp it; nor until man consents to resign his\nbelief in virtue and his own dignity altogether, will it be able to\nrepress religious faith, should other causes tend to produce a new\noutbreak of it. But the chief difficulties in the matter are still in\nstore for us. Let us see never so clearly that science, if we are moral\nbeings, can do nothing to weaken our belief in God and immortality, but\nstill leaves us free, if we will, to believe in them, it seems getting\nclearer and yet more clear that these beliefs are inconsistent with\nthemselves, and conflict with these very moral feelings, of which they\nare invoked as an explanation. Here it is true that reason does confront\nus, and what answer to make to it is a very serious question. This\napplies even to natural religion in its haziest and most compliant form;\nand as applied to any form of orthodoxy its force is doubled. What we\nhave seen thus far is, that if there be a moral world at all, our\nknowledge of nature contains nothing inconsistent with theism. We have\nnow to enquire how far theism is inconsistent with our conceptions of\nthe moral world.\n\nIn treating these difficulties, we will for the present consider them as\napplying only to religion in general, not to any special form of it. The\nposition of orthodoxy we will reserve for a separate treatment. For\nconvenience' sake, however, I shall take as a symbol of all religion the\nvaguer and more general teachings of Christianity; but I shall be\nadducing them not as teachings revealed by heaven, but simply as\ndeveloped by the religious consciousness of men.\n\nTo begin then with the great primary difficulties: these, though they\ntake various forms, can all in the last resort be reduced to two--the\nexistence of evil in the face of the power of God, and the freedom of\nman's will in the face of the will of God. And what I shall try to make\nplain with respect to these is this: not that they are not\ndifficulties--not that they are not insoluble difficulties; but that\nthey are not difficulties due to religion or theism, nor by abandoning\ntheism can we in any way escape from them. They start into being not\nwith the belief in God, and a future of rewards and punishments, but\nwith the belief in the moral law and in virtue, and they are common to\nall systems in which the worth of virtue is recognised.\n\nThe vulgar view of the matter cannot be better stated than in the\nfollowing account given by J.S. Mill of the anti-religious reasonings of\nhis father. He looked upon religion, says his son, '_as the greatest\nenemy of morality; first, by setting up fictitious excellences--belief\nin creeds, devotional feelings, and ceremonies, not connected with the\ngood of humankind, and causing them to be accepted as substitutes for\ngenuine virtues_; but above all _by radically vitiating the standard of\nmorals, making it consist in doing the will of a being, on whom, indeed,\nit lavishes all the phrases of adulation, but whom, in sober truth, it\ndepicts as eminently hateful. I have a hundred times heard him say that_\nall ages and nations have represented their gods as wicked _in a\nconstantly increasing progression; that mankind had gone on adding trait\nafter trait, till they reached the most perfect expression of wickedness\nwhich the human mind can devise, and have called this God, and\nprostrated themselves before it. The_ ne plus ultra _of wickedness he\nconsidered to be embodied in what is commonly presented to mankind as\nthe creed of Christianity. Think (he used to say) of a being who would\nmake a hell--who would create the human race with the infallible\nforeknowledge, and therefore with the intention, that the great majority\nof them, should be consigned to horrible and everlasting torment._'\nJames Mill, adds his son, knew quite well that Christians were not, in\nfact, as demoralised by this monstrous creed as, if they were logically\nconsistent, they ought to be. '_The same slovenliness of thought (he\nsaid) and subjection of the reason to fears, wishes, and affections,\nwhich enable them to accept a theory involving a contradiction in terms,\nprevent them from perceiving the logical consequence of the theory._'\n\nNow, in spite of its coarse and exaggerated acrimony, this passage\ndoubtless expresses a great truth, which presently I shall go on to\nconsider. But it contains also a very characteristic falsehood, of which\nwe must first divest it. God is here represented as _making_ a hell,\nwith the express intention of forcibly putting men into it, and His main\nhatefulness consists in this capricious and wanton cruelty. Such a\nrepresentation is, however, an essentially false one. It is not only not\ntrue to the true Christian teaching, but it is absolutely opposed to it.\nThe God of Christianity does not _make_ hell; still less does He\ndeliberately put men into it. It is made by men themselves; the essence\nof its torment consists in the loss of God; and those that lose Him,\nlose Him by their own act, from having deliberately made themselves\nincapable of loving Him. God never wills the death of the sinner. It is\nto the sinner's own will that the sinner's death is due.\n\nAll this rhetoric, therefore, about God's malevolence and wickedness is\nentirely beside the point, nor does it even touch the difficulty that,\nin his heart, James Mill is aiming at. His main difficulty is nothing\nmore than this: How can an infinite will that rules everywhere, find\nroom for a finite will not in harmony with itself? Whilst the only\nfarther perplexity that the passage indicates, is the existence of those\nevil conditions by which the finite will, already so weak and wavering,\nis yet farther hampered.\n\nNow these difficulties are doubtless quite as great as James Mill\nthought they were; but we must observe this, that they are not of the\nsame kind. They are merely intellectual difficulties. They are not moral\ndifficulties at all. Mill truly says that they involve a contradiction\nin terms. But why? Not, as Mill says, because a wicked God is set up as\nthe object of moral worship, but because, in spite of all the wickedness\nexisting, the Author of all existences is affirmed not to be wicked.\n\nNor, again, is Mill right in saying that this contradiction is due to\n'_slovenliness of thought_.' Theology accepts it with its eyes wide\nopen, making no attempt to explain the inexplicable; and the human will\nit treats in the same way. It makes no offer to us to clear up\neverything, or to enable thought to put a girdle round the universe. On\nthe contrary, it proclaims with emphasis that its first axioms are\nunthinkable; and its most renowned philosophic motto is, '_I believe\nbecause it is impossible_.'\n\nWhat shall it say, then, when assailed by the rational moralist? It will\nnot deny its own condition, but it will show its opponent that his is\nreally the same. It will show him that, let him give his morality what\nbase he will, he cannot conceive of things without the same\ncontradiction in terms. If good be a thing of any spiritual value--if it\nbe, in other words, what every moral system supposes it to be--that good\ncan co-exist with evil is just as unthinkable as that God can. The value\nof moral good is supposed to lie in this--that by it we are put _en\nrapport_ with something that is better than ourselves--some '_stream of\ntendency_,' let us say, '_that makes for righteousness_,' But if this\nstream of tendency be not a personal God, what is it? Is it Nature?\nNature, we have seen already, is open to just the same objections that\nGod is. It is equally guilty of all the evil that is contained in it. Is\nit Truth, then--pure Truth for its own sake? Again, we have seen already\nthat as little can it be that. Is it Human Nature as opposed to\nNature?--Man as distinct from, and holier than, any individual men? Of\nall the substitutes for God this at first sight seems the most\npromising, or, at any rate, the most practical. But, apart from all the\nother objections to this, which we have already been considering in such\ndetail, it will very soon be apparent that it involves the very same\ninconsistency, the same contradiction in terms. The fact of moral evil\nstill confronts us, and the humanity to which we lift our hearts up is\nstill taxable with that. But perhaps we separate the good in humanity\nfrom the evil, and only worship the former as struggling to get free\nfrom the latter. This, however, will be of little help to us. If what we\ncall humanity is nothing but the good part of it, we can only vindicate\nits goodness at the expense of its strength. Evil is at least an equal\nmatch for it, and in most of the battles hitherto it is evil that has\nbeen victorious. But to conceive of good in this way is really to\ndestroy our conception of it. Goodness is in itself an incomplete\nnotion; it is but one facet of a figure which, approached from other\nsides, appears to us as eternity, as omnipresence, and, above all, as\nsupreme strength; and to reduce goodness to nothing but the higher part\nof humanity--to make it a wavering fitful flame that continually sinks\nand flickers, that at its best can but blaze for a while, and at its\nbrightest can throw no light beyond this paltry parish of a world--is to\ndeprive it of its whole meaning and hold on us. Or again, even were this\nnot so, and could we believe, and be strengthened by believing, that the\ngood in humanity would one day gain the victory, and that some higher\nfuture, which even we might partake in by preparing, was in store for\nthe human race, would our conception of the matter then be any more\nharmonious? As we surveyed our race as a whole, would its brighter\nfuture ever do away with its past? Would not the depth and the darkness\nof the shadow grow more portentous as the light grew brighter? And would\nnot man's history strike more clearly on us as the ghastly embodiment of\na vast injustice? But it may be said that the sorrows of the past will\nhereafter be dead and done with; that evil will literally be as though\nit had never been. Well, and so in a short time will the good likewise;\nand if we are ever to think lightly of the world's sinful and sorrowful\npast, we shall have to think equally lightly of its sinless and cheerful\nfuture.\n\nLet us pass now to the secondary points. Opponents of theism, or of\nreligion in general, are perpetually attacking it for its theories of a\nfuture life. Its eternal rewards and punishments are to them permanent\nstumbling-blocks. A future life of happiness they think an unmeaning\npromise; and a future life of misery they think an unworthy and brutal\nthreat. And if reason and observation are to be our only guides, we\ncannot say that they do not argue with justice. If we believe in heaven,\nwe believe in something that the imagination fails to grasp. If we\nbelieve in hell, we believe in something that our moral sense revolts\nat: for though hell may be nothing but the conscious loss of God, and\nthough those that lose Him may have made their own hell for themselves,\nstill their loss, if eternal, will be an eternal flaw and disease in the\nsum of things--the eternal self-assertion against omnipotence of some\ndepraved and alien power.\n\nFrom these difficulties it is impossible to escape. All we can do here,\nas in the former case, is to show that they are not peculiar to the\nspecial doctrines to which they are supposed generally to be due; but\nthat they are equally inseparable from any of the proposed substitutes.\nWe can only show that they are inevitable, not that they are not\ninsoluble. If we condemn a belief in heaven because it is unthinkable,\nwe must for the same reason, as we have seen already, condemn a Utopia\non earth--the thing we are now told we should fix our hopes upon,\ninstead of it. As to the second question--that of eternal punishment, we\nmay certainly here get rid of one difficulty by adopting the doctrine of\na final restitution. But, though one difficulty will be thus got rid of,\nanother equally great will take its place. Our moral sense, it is true,\nwill no more be shocked by the conception of an eternal discord in\nthings, but we shall be confronted by a fatalism that will allow to us\nno moral being at all. If we shall all reach the same place in the\nend--if inevitably we shall all do so--it is quite plain that our\nfreedom to choose in the matter is a freedom that is apparent only. Mr.\nLeslie Stephen, it seems, sees this clearly enough. Once give morality\nits spiritual and supernatural meaning, and there is, he holds, '_some\nunderlying logical necessity which binds_ [a belief in hell]\n_indissolubly with the primary articles of the faith_.' Such a system of\nretribution, he adds, is '_created spontaneously_' by the '_conscience.\nHeaven and hell are corollaries that rise and fall together.... Whatever\nthe meaning of [Greek: aionios], the_ fearful _emotion which is\nsymbolised, is eternal or independent of time, by the same right as the_\necstatic _emotion_.' He sees this clearly enough; but the strange thing\nis that he does not see the converse. He sees that the Christian\nconception of morality necessitates the affirmation of hell. He does not\nsee that the denial of hell is the denial of Christian morality, and\nthat in calling the former a dream, as he does, he does not call the\nlatter a dream likewise.\n\nWe can close our eyes to none of these perplexities. The only way to\nresist their power is not to ignore them, but to realise to the full\ntheir magnitude, and to see how, if we let them take away from us\nanything, they will in another moment take everything; to see that we\nmust either set our foot upon their necks, or that they will set their\nfeet on ours; to see that we can look them down, but that we can never\nlook them through; to see that we can make them impotent if we will, but\nthat if they are not impotent they will be omnipotent.\n\nBut the strongest example of this is yet to come: and this is not any\nspecial belief either as to religion or morals, but a belief underlying\nboth of these, and without which neither of them were possible. It is a\nbelief which from one point of view we have already touched upon--the\nbelief in the freedom of the will. But we have as yet only considered it\nin relation to physical science. What we have now to do is to consider\nit in relation to itself.\n\nWhat, then, let us ask, is the nature of the belief? To a certain extent\nthe answer is very easy. When we speak and think of free-will\nordinarily, we know quite well what we mean by it; and we one and all of\nus mean exactly the same thing. It is true that when professors speak\nupon this question, they make countless efforts to distinguish between\nthe meaning which they attach to the belief, and the meaning which the\nworld attaches to it. And it is possible that in their studies or their\nlecture-rooms they may contrive for the time being to distort or to\nconfuse for themselves the common view of the matter. But let the\nprofessor once forget his theories, and be forced to buffet against his\nlife's importunate and stern realities: let him quarrel with his\nhousekeeper because she has mislaid his spectacles, or his night-cap,\nor, preoccupied with her bible, has not mixed his gruel properly; and\nhis conception of free-will will revert in an instant to the universal\ntype, and the good woman will discern only too plainly that her master's\nconvictions as to it are precisely the same things as her own.\nEverywhere, indeed, in all the life that surrounds us--in the social and\nmoral judgments on which the fabric of society has reared itself, in the\npersonal judgments on which so much depends in friendship and\nantipathies--everywhere, in conduct, in emotion, in art, in language,\nand in law, we see man's common belief in will written, broad, and\nplain, and clear. There is, perhaps, no belief to which, for practical\npurposes, he attaches so important and so plain a meaning.\n\nSuch is free-will when looked at from a distance. But let us look at it\nmore closely, and see what happens then. The result is strange. Like a\npath seen at dusk across a moorland, plain and visible from a distance,\nbut fading gradually from us the more near we draw to it, so does the\nbelief in free-will fade before the near inspection of reason. It at\nfirst grows hazy; at last it becomes indistinguishable. At first we\nbegin to be uncertain of what we mean by it; at last we find ourselves\ncertain that so far as we trust to reason, we cannot possibly have any\nmeaning at all. Examined in this way, every act of our lives--all our\nchoices and refusals, seem nothing but the necessary outcome of things\nthat have gone before. It is true that between some actions the choice\nhangs at times so evenly, that our _will_ may seem the one thing that at\nlast turns the balance. But let us analyse the matter a little more\ncarefully, and we shall see that there are a thousand microscopic\nmotives, too small for us to be entirely conscious of, which, according\nto how they settle on us, will really decide the question. Nor shall we\nsee only that this is so. Let us go a little further, and reason will\ntell us that it must be so. Were this not the case, there would have\nbeen an escape left for us. Though admitting that what controlled our\nactions could be nothing but the strongest motive, it might yet be\ncontended that the will could intensify any motive it chose, and that\nthus motives really were only tools in its hands. But this does but\npostpone the difficulty, not solve it. What is this free-will when it\ncomes to use its tools? It is a something, we shall find, that our minds\ncannot give harbour to. It is a thing contrary to every analogy of\nnature. It is a thing which is forever causing, but which is in itself\nuncaused.\n\nTo escape from this difficulty is altogether hopeless. Age after age has\ntried to do so, but tried in vain. There have been always metaphysical\nexperts ready to engage to make free-will a something intellectually\nconceivable. But they all either leave the question where they found\nit, or else they only seem to explain it, by denying covertly the fact\nthat really wants explaining.\n\nSuch is free-will when examined by the natural reason--a thing that\nmelts away inevitably first to haze, and then to utter nothingness. And\nfor a time we feel convinced that it really is nothing. Let us, however,\nagain retire from it to the common distance, and the phantom we thought\nexorcised is again back in an instant. There is the sphinx once more,\ndistinct and clear as ever, holding in its hand the scales of good and\nevil, and demanding a curse or a blessing for every human action. We are\nonce more certain--more certain of this than anything--that we are, as\nwe always thought we were, free agents, free to choose, and free to\nrefuse; and that in virtue of this freedom, and in virtue of this alone,\nwe are responsible for what we do and are.\n\nLet us consider this point well. Let us consider first how free-will is\na moral necessity; next how it is an intellectual impossibility; and\nlastly how, though it be impossible, we yet, in defiance of intellect,\ncontinue, as moral beings, to believe in it. Let us but once realise\nthat we do this, that all mankind universally do this and have done--and\nthe difficulties offered us by theism will no longer stagger us. We\nshall be prepared for them, prepared not to drive them away, but to\nendure their presence. If in spite of my reason I can believe that my\nwill is free, in spite of my reason I can believe that God is good. The\nlatter belief is not nearly so hard as the former. The greatest\nstumbling-block in the moral world lies in the threshold by which to\nenter it.\n\nSuch then are the moral difficulties, properly so called, that beset\ntheism; but there are certain others of a vaguer nature, that we must\nglance at likewise. It is somewhat hard to know how to classify these;\nbut it will be correct enough to say that whereas those we have just\ndealt with appeal to the moral intellect, the ones we are to deal with\nnow appeal to the moral imagination. The facts that these depend on, and\nwhich are practically new discoveries for the modern world, are the\ninsignificance of the earth, when compared with the universe, of which\nit is visibly and demonstrably an integral but insignificant fragment;\nthe enormous period of his existence for which man has had no religious\nhistory, and has been, so far as we can tell, not a religious being at\nall; and the vast majority of the race that are still stagnant and\nsemi-barbarous. Is it possible, we ask, that a God, with so many stars\nto attend to, should busy himself with this paltry earth, and make it\nthe scene of events more stupendous than the courses of countless\nsystems? Is it possible that of the swarms, vicious and aimless, that\nbreed upon it, each individual--Bushman, Chinaman, or Negro--is a\nprecious immortal being, with a birthright in infinity and eternity? The\neffect of these considerations is sometimes overwhelming. Astronomy\noppresses us with the gulfs of space; geology with the gulfs of time;\nhistory and travel with a babel of vain existence. And here as in the\nformer case, our perplexities cannot be explained away. We can only meet\nthem by seeing that if they have any power at all, they are\nall-powerful, and that they will not destroy religion only, but the\nentire moral conception of man also. Religious belief, and moral belief\nlikewise, involve both of them some vast mystery; and reason can do\nnothing but focalise, not solve it.\n\nAll, then, that I am trying to make evident is this--and this must be\nsufficient for us--not that theism, with its attendant doctrines,\npresents us with no difficulties, necessitates no baffling\ncontradictions in terms, and confronts us with no terrible and piteous\nspectacles, but that all this is not peculiar to theism. It is not the\nprice we pay for rising from morality to religion. It is the price we\npay for rising from the natural to the supernatural. Once double the sum\nof things by adding this second world to it, and it swells to such a\nsize that our reason can no longer encircle it. We are torn this way and\nthat by convictions, each of which is equally necessary, but each of\nwhich excludes the others. When we try to grasp them all at once, our\nmind is like a man tied to wild horses; or like Phaeton in the Sun's\nchariot, bewildered and powerless over the intractable and the terrible\nteam. We can only recover our strength by a full confession of our\nweakness. We can only lay hold on the beliefs that we see to be needful,\nby asking faith to join hands with reason. If we refuse to do this,\nthere is but one alternative. Without faith we can perhaps explain\nthings if we will; but we must first make them not worth explaining. We\ncan only think them out entirely by regarding them as something not\nworth thinking out at all.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI.\n\nTHE HUMAN RACE AND REVELATION.\n\n    '_The scandal of the pious Christian, and the fallacious triumph of\n    the infidel, should cease as soon as they recollect not only_ by\n    whom, _but likewise to whom, the Divine Revelation was\n    given._'--Gibbon.[37]\n\n\nAnd now let us suppose ourselves convinced, at least for the sake of\nargument, that man will always believe in himself as a moral being, and\nthat he will, under no compulsion, let this belief go. Granting this,\nfrom what we have just seen, thus much will be plain to us, that theism,\nshould it ever tend to reassert itself, can have no check to fear at the\nhands of positive thought. Let us, therefore, suppose further, that such\na revival of faith is imminent, and that the enlightened world, with its\neyes wide open, is about to turn once again to religious desires and\naims. This brings us face to face with the second question, that we have\nnot as yet touched upon: will the religion thus turned to be a natural\nreligion only, or is it possible that some exclusive dogmatism may be\nrecognised as a supernatural re-statement of it?\n\nBefore going further with this question it will be well to say a few\nwords as to the exact position it occupies. This, with regard to the\nneeds of man, is somewhat different to the position of natural theism.\nThat a natural theism is essential to man's moral being is a proposition\nthat can be more or less rigidly demonstrated; but that a revelation is\nessential as a supplement to natural theism can be impressed upon us\nonly in a much looser way. Indeed, many men who believe most firmly that\nwithout religion human life will be dead, rest their hopes for the\nfuture not on the revival and triumph of any one alleged revelation, but\non the gradual evanescence of the special claims of all. Nor can we find\nany sharp and defined line of argument to convince them that they are\nwrong. The objections, however, to which this position is open are, I\nthink, none the less cogent because they are somewhat general; and to\nall practical men, conversant with life and history, it must be plain\nthat the necessity of doing God's will being granted, it is a most\nanxious and earnest question whether that will has not been in some\nspecial and articulate way revealed to us.\n\nTake the mass of religious humanity, and giving it a natural creed, it\nwill be found that instinctively and inevitably it asks for more. Such a\ncreed by itself has excited more longings than it has satisfied, and\nraised more perplexities than it has set at rest. It is true that it\nhas supplied men with a sufficient analysis of the worth they attach to\nlife, and of the momentous issues attendant on the way in which they\nlive it. But when they come practically to choose their way, they find\nthat such religion is of little help to them. It never puts out a hand\nto lift or lead them. It is an alluring voice, heard far off through a\nfog, and calling to them, '_Follow me!_' but it leaves them in the fog\nto pick their own way out towards it, over rocks and streams and\npitfalls, which they can but half distinguish, and amongst which they\nmay be either killed or crippled, and are almost certain to grow\nbewildered. And even should there be a small minority, who feel that\nthis is not true of themselves, they can hardly help feeling that it is\ntrue of the world in general. A purely natural theism, with no organs of\nhuman speech, and with no machinery for making its spirit articulate,\nnever has ruled men, and, so far as we can see, never possibly can rule\nthem. The choices which our life consists of are definite things. The\nrule which is to guide our choices must be something definite also. And\nhere it is that natural theism fails. It may supply us with the major\npremiss, but it is vague and uncertain about the minor. It can tell us\nwith sufficient emphasis that all vice is to be avoided; it is\ncontinually at a loss to tell us whether this thing or whether that\nthing is vicious. Indeed, this practical insufficiency of natural theism\nis borne witness to by the very existence of all alleged revelations.\nFor, if none of these be really the special word of God, a belief in\nthem is all the more a sign of a general need in man. If none of them\nrepresent the actual attainment of help, they all of them embody the\npassionate and persistent cry for it.\n\nWe shall understand this more clearly if we consider one of the first\ncharacteristics that a revelation necessarily claims, and the results\nthat are at this moment, in a certain prominent case, attending on a\ndenial of it. The characteristic I speak of is an absolute\ninfallibility. Any supernatural religion that renounces its claim to\nthis, it is clear can profess to be a semi-revelation only. It is a\nhybrid thing, partly natural and partly supernatural, and it thus\npractically has all the qualities of a religion that is wholly natural.\nIn so far as it professes to be revealed, it of course professes to be\ninfallible; but if the revealed part be in the first place hard to\ndistinguish, and in the second place hard to understand--if it may mean\nmany things, and many of those things contradictory--it might just as\nwell have been never made at all. To make it in any sense an infallible\nrevelation, or in other words a revelation at all, _to us_, we need a\npower to interpret the testament that shall have equal authority with\nthat testament itself.\n\nSimple as this truth seems, mankind have been a long time in learning\nit. Indeed, it is only in the present day that its practical meaning has\ncome generally to be recognised. But now at this moment upon all sides\nof us, history is teaching it to us by an example, so clearly that we\ncan no longer mistake it.\n\nThat example is Protestant Christianity, and the condition to which,\nafter three centuries, it is now visibly bringing itself. It is at last\nbeginning to exhibit to us the true result of the denial of\ninfallibility to a religion that professes to be supernatural. We are at\nlast beginning to see in it neither the purifier of a corrupted\nrevelation, nor the corrupter of a pure revelation, but the practical\ndenier of all revelation whatsoever. It is fast evaporating into a mere\nnatural theism, and is thus showing us what, as a governing power,\nnatural theism is. Let us look at England, Europe, and America, and\nconsider the condition of the entire Protestant world. Religion, it is\ntrue, we shall still find in it; but it is religion from which not only\nthe supernatural element is disappearing, but in which the natural\nelement is fast becoming nebulous. It is indeed growing, as Mr. Leslie\nStephen says it is, into a religion of dreams. All its doctrines are\ngrowing vague as dreams, and like dreams their outlines are for ever\nchanging. Mr. Stephen has pitched on a very happy illustration of this.\nA distinguished clergyman of the English Church, he reminds us, has\npreached and published a set of sermons,[38] in which he denies\nemphatically any belief in eternal punishment, although admitting at the\nsame time that the opinion of the Christian world is against him. These\nsermons gave rise to a discussion in one of the leading monthly reviews,\nto which Protestant divines of all shades of opinion contributed their\nvarious arguments. '_It is barely possible_,' says Mr. Stephen, '_with\nthe best intentions, to take such a discussion seriously. Boswell tells\nus how a lady interrogated Dr. Johnson as to the nature of the spiritual\nbody. She seemed desirous, he adds, of \"knowing more; but he left the\nsubject in obscurity.\" We smile at Boswell's evident impression that\nJohnson could, if he had chosen, have dispelled the darkness. When we\nfind a number of educated gentlemen seriously enquiring as to the\nconditions of existence in the next world, we feel that they are sharing\nBoswell's_ naivete _without his excuse. What can any human being outside\na pulpit say upon such a subject which does not amount to a confession\nof his own ignorance, coupled, it may be, with more or less suggestion\nof shadowy hopes and fears? Have the secrets of the prison-house really\nbeen revealed to Canon Farrar or Mr. Beresford Hope?... When men search\ninto the unknowable, they naturally arrive at very different results._'\nAnd Mr. Stephen argues with perfect justice that if we are to judge\nChristianity from such discussions as these, its doctrines of a future\nlife are all visibly receding into a vague '_dreamland_;' and we shall\nbe quite ready to admit, as he says, in words I have already quoted,\n'_that the impertinent young curate who tells [him he] will be burnt\neverlastingly for not sharing such superstitions, is just as ignorant as\n[Mr. Stephen himself], and that [Mr. Stephen] knows as much as [his]\ndog_.'\n\nThe critic, in the foregoing passages, draws his conclusion from the\ncondition of but one Protestant doctrine. But he might draw the same\nconclusion from all; for the condition of all of them is the same. The\ndivinity of Christ, the nature of his atonement, the constitution of the\nTrinity, the efficacy of the sacraments, the inspiration of the\nBible--there is not one of these points on which the doctrines, once so\nfiercely fought for, are not now, among the Protestants, getting as\nvague and varying, as weak and as compliant to the caprice of each\nindividual thinker, as the doctrine of eternal punishment. And Mr.\nStephen and his school exaggerate nothing in the way in which they\nrepresent the spectacle. Protestantism, in fact, is at last becoming\nexplicitly what it always was implicitly, not a supernatural religion\nwhich fulfils the natural, but a natural religion which denies the\nsupernatural.\n\nAnd what, as a natural religion, is its working power in the world? Much\nof its earlier influence doubtless still survives; but that is a\nsurvival only of what is passing, and we must not judge it by that. We\nmust judge it by what it is growing into, not by what it is growing out\nof. And judged in this way, its practical power--its moral, its\nteaching, its guiding power--is fast growing as weak and as uncertain as\nits theology. As long as its traditional moral system is in accordance\nwith what men, on other grounds, approve of, it may serve to express the\ngeneral tendency impressively, and to invest it with the sanction of\nmany reverend associations. But let the general tendency once begin to\nconflict with it, and its inherent weakness in an instant becomes\napparent. We may see this by considering the moral character of Christ,\nand the sort of weight that is claimed for His example. This example, so\nthe Christian world teaches, is faultless and infallible; and as long as\nwe believe this, the example has supreme authority. But apply to this\nthe true Protestant method, and the authority soon shows signs of\nwavering. Let us once deny that Christ was more than a faultless man,\nand we lose by that denial our authority for asserting that he was as\nmuch as a faultless man. Even should it so happen that we do approve\nentirely of his conduct, it is we who are approving of him, not he who\nis approving of us. The old position is reversed: we become the patrons\nof our most worthy Judge eternal; and the moral infallibility is\ntransferred from him to ourselves. In other words, the practical\nProtestant formula can be nothing more than this. The Protestant teacher\nsays to us, '_Such a way of life is the best, take my word for it: and\nif you want an example, go to that excellent Son of David, who, take my\nword for it, was the very best of men._' But even in this case the\nquestion arises, how shall the Protestants interpret the character that\nthey praise? And to this they can never give any satisfactory answer.\nWhat really happens with them is inevitable and obvious. The character\nis simply for them a symbol of what each happens to think most\nadmirable; and the identity in all cases of its historical details does\nnot produce an identity as of a single portrait, but an identity as of\none frame applied to many. Mr. Matthew Arnold, for instance, sees in\nJesus one sort of man, Father Newman another, Charles Kingsley another,\nand M. Renan another; and the _Imitatio Christi_, as understood by\nthese, will be found in each case to mean a very different thing. The\ndifference between these men, however, will seem almost unanimity, if we\ncompare them with others who, so far as logic and authority go, have\njust as good a claim on our attention. There is hardly any conceivable\naberration of moral licence that has not, in some quarter or other,\nembodied itself into a rule of life, and claimed to be the proper\noutcome of Protestant Christianity. Nor is this true only of the wilder\nand more eccentric sects. It is true of graver and more weighty thinkers\nalso; so much so, that a theological school in Germany has maintained\nboldly '_that fornication is blameless, and that it is not interdicted\nby the precepts of the Gospel_.'[39]\n\nThe matter, however, does not end thus. The men I have just mentioned\nagree, all of them, that Christ's moral example was perfect; and their\nonly disagreement has been as to what that example was. But the\nProtestant logic will by no means leave us here. That alleged\nperfection, if we ourselves are to be the judges of it, is sure,\nby-and-by, to exhibit to us traces of imperfection. And this is exactly\nthe thing that has already begun to happen. A generation ago one of the\nhighest-minded and most logical of our English Protestants, Professor\nFrancis Newman, declared that in Christ's character there were certain\nmoral deficiencies;[40] and the last blow to the moral authority of\nProtestantism was struck by one of its own household. It is true that\nProfessor Newman's censures were small and were not irreverent. But if\nthese could come from a man of his intense piety, what will and what do\ncome from other quarters may be readily conjectured. Indeed, the fact is\ndaily growing more and more evident, that for the world that still calls\nitself Protestant, the autocracy of Christ's moral example is gone; and\nits nominal retention of power only makes its real loss of it the more\nvisible. It merely reflects and focalises the uncertainty that men are\nagain feeling--the uncertainty and the sad bewilderment. The words and\nthe countenance, once so sure and steadfast, now change, as we look at,\nand listen to them, into new accents and aspects; and the more earnestly\nwe gaze and listen, the less can we distinguish clearly what we hear or\nsee. '_What shall we do to be saved?_' men are again crying. And the\nlips that were once oracular now merely seem to murmur back confusedly,\n'_Alas! what shall you do?_'\n\nSuch and so helpless, even now, is natural theism showing itself; and in\nthe dim and momentous changes that are coming over things, in the vast\nflux of opinion that is preparing, in the earthquake that is rocking the\nmoral ground under us, overturning and engulfing the former landmarks,\nand re-opening the graves of the buried lusts of paganism, it will show\nitself very soon more helpless still. Its feet are on the earth, only.\nThe earth trembles, and it trembles: it is in the same case as we are.\nIt stretches in vain its imploring hands to heaven. But the heaven takes\nno heed of it. No divine hand reaches down to it to uphold and guide it.\n\nThis must be the feeling, I believe, of most honest and practical men,\nwith regard to natural religion, and its necessary practical\ninefficiency. Nor will the want it necessarily leaves of a moral rule be\nthe only consideration that will force this conviction on them. The\n_heart_, as the phrase goes, will corroborate the evidence of the\n_head_. It will be felt, even more forcibly than it can be reasoned,\nthat if there be indeed a God who loves and cares for men, he must\nsurely, or almost surely, have spoken in some audible and certain way to\nthem. At any rate I shall not be without many who agree with me, when I\nsay that for the would-be religious world it is an anxious and earnest\nquestion whether any special and explicit revelation from God exist for\nus; and this being the case, it will be not lost time if we try to deal\nfairly and dispassionately with the question.\n\nBefore going further, however, let us call to mind two things. Let us\nremember first, that if we expect to find a revelation at all, it is\nmorally certain that it must be a revelation already in existence. It is\nhardly possible, if we consider that all the supernatural claims that\nhave been made hitherto are false, to expect that a new manifestation,\naltogether different in kind, is in store for the world in the future.\nSecondly, our enquiries being thus confined to religions that are\nalready in existence, what we are practically concerned with is the\ntruth of Christianity only. It is true that we have heard, on all sides,\nof the superiority of other religions to the Christian. But the men who\nhold such language, though they may affect to think that such religions\nare superior in certain moral points, yet never dream of claiming for\nthem the miraculous and supernatural authority that they deny to\nChristianity. No man denies that Christ was born of a virgin, in order\nto make the same claim for Buddha: or denies the Christian Trinity in\norder to affirm the Brahminic. There is but one alleged revelation that,\n_as a revelation_, the progressive nations of the world are concerned\nwith, or whose supernatural claims are still worthy of being examined by\nus: and that religion is the Christian. These claims, it is true, are\nbeing fast discredited; but still, as yet they have not been silenced\nwholly; and what I propose to ask now is, what chance is there of their\npower again reviving.\n\nNow considering the way in which I have just spoken of Protestantism, it\nmay seem to many that I have dismissed this question already. With the\n'_enlightened_' English thinker such certainly will be the first\nimpression. But there is one point that such thinkers all forget:\nProtestant Christianity is not the only form of it. They have still the\nform to deal with which is the oldest, the most legitimate, and the most\ncoherent--the Church of Rome. They surely cannot forget the existence of\nthis Church or her magnitude. To suppose this would be to attribute to\nthem too insular, or rather too provincial, an ignorance. The cause,\nhowever, certainly is ignorance, and an ignorance which, though less\nsurprising, is far deeper. In this country the popular conception of\nRome has been so distorted by our familiarity with Protestantism, that\nthe true conception of her is something quite strange to us. Our divines\nhave exhibited her to us as though she were a lapsed Protestant sect,\nand they have attacked her for being false to doctrines that were never\nreally hers. They have failed to see that the first and essential\ndifference which separates her from them lies, primarily not in any\nspecial dogma, but in the authority on which all her dogmas rest.\nProtestants, basing their religion on the Bible solely, have conceived\nthat Catholics of course profess to do so likewise; and have covered\nthem with invective for being traitors to their supposed profession. But\nthe Church's primary doctrine is her own perpetual infallibility. She is\ninspired, she declares, by the same Spirit that inspired the Bible; and\nher voice is, equally with the Bible, the voice of God. This theory,\nhowever, upon which really her whole fabric rests, popular\nProtestantism either ignores altogether, or treats it as if it were a\nmodern superstition, which, so far from being essential to the Church's\nsystem, is, on the contrary, inconsistent with it. Looked at in this\nway, Rome to the Protestant's mind has seemed naturally to be a mass of\nsuperstitions and dishonesties; and it is this view of her that,\nstrangely enough, our modern advanced thinkers have accepted without\nquestion. Though they have trusted the Protestants in nothing else, they\nhave trusted them here. They have taken the Protestants' word for it,\nthat Protestantism is more reasonable than Romanism; and they think,\ntherefore, that if they have destroyed the former, _a fortiori_ have\nthey destroyed the latter.[41]\n\nNo conception of the matter, however, could be more false than this. To\nwhatever criticism the Catholic position may be open, it is certainly\nnot thus included in Protestantism, nor is it reached through it. Let us\ntry and consider the matter a little more truly. Let us grant all that\nhostile criticism can say against Protestantism as a supernatural\nreligion: in other words, let us set it aside altogether. Let us suppose\nnothing, to start with, in the world but a natural moral sense, and a\nsimple natural theism; and let us then see the relation of the Church of\nRome to that. Approached in this way, the religious world will appear to\nus as a body of natural theists, all agreeing that they must do God's\nwill, but differing widely amongst themselves as to what His will and\nHis nature are. Their moral and religious views will be equally vague\nand dreamlike--more dreamlike even than those of the Protestant world at\npresent. Their theories as to the future will be but '_shadowy hopes and\nfears_.' Their practice, in the present, will vary from asceticism to\nthe widest license. And yet, in spite of all this confusion and\ndifference, there will be amongst them a vague tendency to unanimity.\nEach man will be dreaming his own spiritual dream, and the dreams of all\nwill be different. All their dreams, it will be plain, cannot represent\nreality; and yet the belief will be common to all that some common\nreality is represented by them. Men, therefore, will begin to compare\ntheir dreams together, and try to draw out of them the common element,\nso that the dream may come slowly to be the same for all; that, if it\ngrows, it may grow by some recognizable laws; that it may, in other\nwords, lose its character of a dream, and assume that of a reality. We\nsuppose, therefore, that our natural theists form themselves into a kind\nof parliament, in which they may compare, adjust, and give shape to the\nideas that were before so wavering, and which shall contain some\nmachinery for formulating such agreements as may be come to. The common\nreligious sense of the world is thus organized, and its conclusions\nregistered. We have no longer the wavering _dreams_ of men; we have\ninstead of them the constant _vision_ of man.\n\nNow in such a universal parliament we see what the Church of Rome\nessentially is, viewed from her natural side. She is ideally, if not\nactually, the parliament of the believing world. Her doctrines, as she\none by one unfolds them, emerge upon us like petals from a half-closed\nbud. They are not added arbitrarily from without; they are developed\nfrom within. They are the flowers contained from the first in the bud of\nour moral consciousness. When she formulates in these days something\nthat has not been formulated before, she is no more enunciating a new\ntruth than was Newton when he enunciated the theory of gravitation.\nWhatever truths, hitherto hidden, she may in the course of time grow\nconscious of, she holds that these were always implied in her teaching,\nthough before she did not know it; just as gravitation was implied in\nmany ascertained facts that men knew well enough long before they knew\nthat it was implied in them. Thus far, then, the Church of Rome\nessentially is the spiritual sense of humanity, speaking to men through\nits proper and only possible organ. Its intricate machinery, such as its\nsystems of representation, its methods of voting, the appointment of its\nspeaker, and the legal formalities required in the recording of its\ndecrees, are things accidental only; or if they are necessary, they are\nnecessary only in a secondary way.\n\nBut the picture of the Church thus far is only half drawn. She is all\nthis, but she is something more than this. She is not only the\nparliament of spiritual man, but she is such a parliament guided by the\nSpirit of God. The work of that Spirit may be secret, and to the natural\neyes untraceable, as the work of the human will is in the human brain.\nBut none the less it is there.\n\n                  _Totam infusa per artus\n    Mens agitat molem, et magno se corpore miscet._\n\nThe analogy of the human brain is here of great help to us. The human\nbrain is an arrangement of material particles which can become connected\nwith consciousness only in virtue of such a special arrangement. The\nChurch is theoretically an arrangement of individuals which can become\nconnected with the Spirit of God only in virtue of an arrangement\nequally special.\n\nIf this be a true picture of the Catholic Church, and the place which\nthe only revelation we are concerned with ideally holds in the world,\nthere can be no _a priori_ difficulty in the passage from a natural\nreligion to such a supernatural one. The difficulties begin when we\ncompare the ideal picture with the actual facts; and it is true, when we\ndo this, that they at once confront us with a strength that seems\naltogether disheartening. These difficulties are of two distinct kinds;\nsome, as in the case of natural theism, are moral; others are\nhistorical. We will deal with the former first, beginning with that\nwhich is at once the profoundest and the most obvious.\n\nThe Church, as has been said already, is ideally the parliament of the\nwhole believing world; but we find, as a matter of fact, that she is the\nparliament of a small part only. Now what shall we say to this? If God\nwould have all men do His will, why should He place the knowledge of it\nwithin reach of such a small minority of them? And to this question we\ncan give no answer. It is a mystery, and we must acknowledge frankly\nthat it is one. But there is this to say yet--that it is not a new\nmystery. We already suppose ourselves to have accepted it in a simpler\nform: in the form of the presence of evil, and the partial prevalence of\ngood. By acknowledging the claim of the special revelation in question,\nwe are not adding to the complexity of that old world-problem. I am\naware, however, that many think just the reverse of this. I will\ntherefore dwell upon the subject for a few moments longer. To many who\ncan accept the difficulty of the partial presence of good, the\ndifficulty seems wantonly aggravated by the claims of a special\nrevelation. These claims seem to them to do two things. In the first\nplace, they are thought to make the presence of good even more partial\nthan it otherwise would be; and secondly--which is a still greater\nstumbling-block--to oblige us to condemn as evil much that would else\nseem good of the purest kind. There are many men, as we must all know,\nwithout the Church, who are doing their best to fight their way to God;\nand orthodoxy is supposed to pass a cruel condemnation on these, because\nthey have not assented to some obscure theory, their rejection or\nignorance of which has plainly stained neither their lives nor hearts.\nAnd of orthodoxy under certain forms this is no doubt true; but it is\nnot true of the orthodoxy of Catholicism. There is no point, probably,\nconnected with this question, about which the general world is so\nmisinformed and ignorant, as the sober but boundless charity of what it\ncalls the anathematising Church. So little indeed is this charity\nunderstood generally, that to assert it seems a startling paradox. Most\nparadoxes are doubtless in reality the lies they at first sight seem to\nbe; but not so this one. It is the simple statement of a fact. Never was\nthere a religious body, except the Roman, that laid the intense stress\nshe does on all her dogmatic teachings, and had yet the justice that\ncomes of sympathy for those that cannot receive them. She condemns no\ngoodness, she condemns even no earnest worship, though it be outside her\npale. On the contrary, she declares explicitly that a knowledge of '_the\none true God, our Creator and Lord_,' may be attained to by the\n'_natural light of human reason_,' meaning by '_reason_' faith\nunenlightened by revelation; and she declares those to be anathema who\ndeny this. The holy and humble men of heart who do not know her, or who\nin good faith reject her, she commits with confidence to God's\nuncovenanted mercies; and these she knows are infinite; but, except as\nrevealed to her, she can of necessity say nothing distinct about them.\nIt is admitted by the world at large, that of her supposed bigotry she\nhas no bitterer or more extreme exponents than the Jesuits; and this is\nwhat a Jesuit theologian says upon this matter: '_A heretic, so long as\nhe believes his sect to be more or equally deserving of belief, has no\nobligation to believe the Church ... [and] when men who have been\nbrought up in heresy, are persuaded from boyhood that we impugn and\nattack the word of God, that we are idolaters, pestilent deceivers, and\nare therefore to be shunned as pestilence, they cannot, while this\npersuasion lasts, with a safe conscience hear us._'[42] Thus for those\nwithout her the Church has one condemnation only. Her anathemas are on\nnone but those who reject her with their eyes open, by tampering with a\nconviction that she really is the truth. These are condemned, not for\nnot seeing that the teacher is true, but because having really seen\nthis, they continue to close their eyes to it. They will not obey when\nthey know they ought to obey. And thus the moral offence of a Catholic\nin denying some recondite doctrine, does not lie merely, and need not\nlie at all, in the immediate bad effects that such a denial would\nnecessitate; but in the disobedience, the self-will, and the rebellion\nthat must in such a case be both a cause and a result of it.\n\nIn the light of these considerations, though the old perplexity of evil\nwill still confront us, it will be seen that the claims of Catholic\northodoxy do nothing at all to add to it. If orthodoxy, however, admit\nso much good without itself, we may perhaps be inclined to ask what\nspecial good it claims within itself, and what possible motives can\nexist for either understanding or teaching it. But we might ask with\nexactly equal force, what is the good of true physical science, and why\nshould we try to impress on the world its teachings? Such a question, we\ncan at once see, is absurd. Because a large number of men know nothing\nof physical science, and are apparently not the worse for their\nignorance, we do not for that reason think physical science worthless.\nWe believe, on the whole, that a knowledge of the laws of matter,\nincluding those of our organisms and their environments, will steadily\ntend to better our lives, in so far as they are material. It will tend,\nfor instance, to a better preservation of our health. But we do not for\nthis reason deny that many individuals may preserve their health who are\nbut very partially acquainted with the laws of it. Nor do we deny the\nvalue of a thorough study of astronomy and meteorology because a certain\npractical knowledge of the weather and of navigation may be attained\nwithout it. On the contrary, we hold that the fullest knowledge we can\nacquire on such matters it is our duty to acquire, and not acquire only,\nbut as far as possible promulgate. It is true that the mass of men may\nnever master such knowledge thoroughly; but what they do master of it we\nfeel convinced should be the truth, and even what they do not, will, we\nfeel convinced, be some indirect profit to them. And the case of\nspiritual science is entirely analogous to the case of natural science.\nA man to whom the truth is open is not excused from finding it because\nhe knows it is not so open to all. A heretic who denies the dogmas of\nthe Church has his counterpart in the quack who denies the verified\nconclusions of science. The moral condemnation that is given to the one\nis illustrated by the intellectual condemnation that is given to the\nother.\n\nIf we will think this over carefully, we shall get a clearer view of the\nmoral value claimed for itself by orthodoxy. Some of its doctrines, the\ngreat and picturable parts of them, that appeal to all, and that in some\ndegree can be taken in by all, it declares doubtless to be saving, in\ntheir own nature. But for the mass of men the case is quite different\nwith the facts underlying these. That we eat Christ's body in the\nEucharist is a belief that, in a practical way, can be understood\nperfectly by anyone; but the philosophy that is involved in this belief\nwould be to most men the merest gibberish. Yet it is no more unimportant\nthat those who do understand this philosophy, should do so truly and\ntransmit it faithfully, than it is unimportant that a physician should\nunderstand the action of alcohol, because anyone independent of such\nknowledge can tell that so many glasses of wine will have such and such\nan effect on him. Theology is to the spiritual body what anatomy and\nmedicine are to the natural body. The parts they each play in our lives\nare analogous, and in their respective worlds their _raison d'etre_ is\nthe same. What then can be shallower than the rhetoric of such thinkers\nas Mr. Carlyle, in which natural religion and orthodoxy are held up to\nus as contrasts and as opposites, the former being praised as simple and\ngoing straight to the heart, and the latter described and declaimed\nagainst as the very reverse of this? '_On the one hand_,' it is said,\n'_see the soul going straight to its God, feeling His love, and content\nthat others should feel it. On the other hand, see this pure and free\ncommunion, distracted and interrupted by a thousand tortuous reasonings\nas to the exact nature of it. What can obscure intellectual\npropositions,_' it is asked, '_have to do with a religion of the heart?\nAnd do not they check the latter by being thus bound up with it?_' But\nwhat really can be more misleading than this? Natural religion is\ndoubtless simpler in one sense than revealed religion; but it is only\nsimple because it has no authoritative science of itself. It is simple\nfor the same reason that a boy's account of having given himself a\nheadache is simpler than a physician's would be. The boy says merely,\n'_I ate ten tarts, and drank three bottles of ginger-beer._' The\nphysician, were he to explain the catastrophe, would describe a number\nof far more complex processes. The boy's account would be of course the\nsimplest, and would certainly go more home to the general heart of\nboyhood; but it would not for that reason be the correctest or the most\nimportant. And just like this will be the case of the divine communion,\nwhich the simple saint may feel, and the subtle theologian analyse.\n\nBut it will be well to observe, further, that the simplicity of a\nreligion can of itself be no test of the probable truth of it. And in\nthe case of natural religion, what is called simplicity is in general\nnothing more than vagueness. If _simplicity_ used in this way be a term\nof praise, we might praise a landscape as simple because it was\nhalf-drowned in mist. As a matter of fact, however, the religion of the\nCatholic Church, putting out of the question its theology, is a thing\nfar simpler than the outside world supposes; nor is there a doctrine in\nit without a direct moral meaning for us, and not tending to have a\ndirect effect on the character.\n\nBut the outside world misjudges of all this for various reasons. In the\nfirst place, it can reach it as a rule through explanations only; and\nthe explanation or the account of anything is always far more intricate\nthan the apprehension of the thing itself. Take, for instance, the\npractice of the invocation of saints. This seems to many to complicate\nthe whole relation of the soul to God, to be introducing a number of new\nand unnecessary go-betweens, and to make us, as it were, communicate\nwith God through a dragoman. But the case really is very different. Of\ncourse it may be contended that intercessory prayer, or that prayer of\nany kind, is an absurdity; but for those who do not think this, there\ncan be nothing to object to in the invocation of saints. It is admitted\nby such men that we are not wrong in asking the living to pray for us.\nSurely, therefore, it is not wrong to make a like request of the dead.\nIn the same way, to those who believe in purgatory, to pray for the dead\nis as natural and as rational as to pray for the living. Next, as to\nthis doctrine of purgatory itself--which has so long been a\nstumbling-block to the whole Protestant world--time goes on, and the\nview men take of it is changing. It is becoming fast recognized on all\nsides that it is the only doctrine that can bring a belief in future\nrewards and punishments into anything like accordance with our notions\nof what is just or reasonable. So far from its being a superfluous\nsuperstition, it is seen to be just what is demanded at once by reason\nand morality; and a belief in it to be not an intellectual assent only,\nbut a partial harmonising of the whole moral ideal. And the whole\nCatholic _religion_, if we only distinguish and apprehend it rightly,\nwill present itself to us in the same light.\n\nBut there are other reasons besides those just described, by which\noutsiders are hindered from arriving at such a right view of the\nmatter. Not only does the intricacy of Catholicism _described_, blind\nthem to the simplicity of Catholicism _experienced_, but they confuse\nwith the points of faith, not only the scientific accounts the\ntheologians give of them, but mere rules of discipline, and pious\nopinions also. It is supposed popularly, for instance, to be of Catholic\nfaith that celibacy is essential to the priesthood. This as a fact,\nhowever, is no more a part of the Catholic faith than the celibacy of a\ncollege fellow is a part of the Thirty-nine Articles, or than the skill\nof an English naval officer depends on his not having his wife with him\non shipboard. Nor again, to take another popular instance, is the\nheadship of the Catholic Church connected essentially with Rome, any\nmore than the English Parliament is essentially connected with\nWestminster.\n\nThe difficulty of distinguishing things that are of faith, from mere\npious opinions, is a more subtle one. From the confusion caused by it,\nthe Church seems pledged to all sorts of grotesque stories of saints,\nand accounts of the place and aspect of heaven, of hell and purgatory,\nand to be logically bound to stand and fall by these. Thus Sir James\nStephen happened once in the course of his reading to light on an\nopinion of Bellarmine's, and certain arguments by which he supported it,\nas to the place of purgatory. It is quite true that to us Bellarmine's\nopinion seems sufficiently ludicrous; and Sir James Stephen argued that\nthe Roman Church is ludicrous in just the same degree. But if he had\nstudied the matter a little deeper, he would soon have dropped his\nargument. He would have seen that he was attacking, not the doctrine of\nthe Church, but simply an opinion, not indeed condemned by her, but held\navowedly without her sanction. Had he studied Bellarmine to a little\nmore purpose, he would have seen that that writer expressly states it to\nbe '_a question where purgatory is, but that the Church has defined\nnothing on this point_.' He would also have learned from the same source\nthat it is no article of Catholic faith, though it was of Bellarmine's\nopinion, that there is in purgatory any material fire; and that, '_as to\nthe intensity of the pains of purgatory, though all admit that they are\ngreater than anything that we suffer in this life, still it is doubtful\nhow this is to be explained and understood_.' He would have learned too\nthat, according to Bonaventura, '_the sufferings of purgatory are only\nseverer than those of this life, inasmuch as the greatest suffering in\npurgatory is more severe than the greatest suffering endured in this\nlife; though there may be a degree of punishment in purgatory less\nintense than what may sometimes be undergone in this world_.' And\nfinally he would have learned--what in this connection would have been\nwell worth his attention--that the duration of pains in purgatory is\naccording to Bellarmine, '_so completely uncertain, that it is rash to\npretend to determine anything about it_.'\n\nHere is one instance, that will be as good as many, of the way in which\nthe private opinions of individual Catholics, or the transitory opinions\nof particular epochs, are taken for the unalterable teachings of the\nCatholic Church herself; and it is no more logical to condemn the latter\nas false because the former are, than it would be to say that all modern\ngeography is false because geographers may still entertain false\nopinions about regions as to which they do not profess certainty.\nMediaeval doctors thought that purgatory might be the middle of the\nearth. Modern geographers have thought that there might be an open sea\nat the North Pole. But that wrong conjectures have been hazarded in both\ncases, can prove in neither that there have been no true discoveries.\nThe Church, it is undeniable, has for a long time lived and moved\namongst countless false opinions; and to the external eye they have\nnaturally seemed a part of her. But science moves on, and it is shown\nthat she can cast them off. She has cast off some already; soon\ndoubtless she will cast off others; not in any petulant anger, but with\na composed determined gentleness, as some new light gravely dawns upon\nher.\n\nGranting all this, however, there remains a yet subtler characteristic\nof the Church, which goes to make her a rock of offence to many; and\nthat is, the temper and the intellectual tone which she seems to develop\nin her members. But here, again, we must call to our aid considerations\nsimilar to those we have just been dwelling on. We must remember that\nthe particular tone and temper that offends us is not necessarily\nCatholicism. The temper of the Catholic world may change, and, as a\nmatter of fact, does change. It is not the same, indeed, in any two\ncountries, or in any two eras. And it may have a new and unsuspected\nfuture in store for it. It may absorb ideas that we should consider\nbroader, bolder, and more rational than any it seems to possess at\npresent. But if ever it does so, the Church, in the opinion of\nCatholics, will not be growing false to herself; she will only, in due\ntime, be unfolding her own spirit more fully. Thus some people associate\nCatholic conceptions of extreme sanctity with a neglect of personal\ncleanliness; and imagine that a clean Catholic can, according to his own\ncreed, never come very near perfection. But the Church has never given\nthis view her sanction; she has never made it of faith that dirt is\nsacred; she has added no ninth beatitude in favour of an unchanged\nshirt. Many of the greatest saints were doubtless dirty; but they were\ndirty not because of the Church they belonged to, but because of the age\nthey lived in. Such an expression of sanctity for themselves, it is\nprobable, will be loathed by the saints of the future; yet they may none\nthe less reverence, for all that, the saints who so expressed it in the\npast. This is but a single instance; but it may serve as a type of the\nwide circle of changes that the Church as a living organism, still full\nof vigour and power of self-adaptation, will be able to develop, as the\nworld develops round her, and yet lose nothing of her supernatural\nsameness.\n\nTo sum up, then; if we would obtain a true view of the general character\nof Catholicism, we must begin by making a clean sweep of all the views\nthat, as outsiders, we have been taught to entertain about her. We must,\nin the first place, learn to conceive of her as a living, spiritual\nbody, as infallible and as authoritative now as she ever was, with her\neyes undimmed and her strength not abated, continuing to grow still as\nshe has continued to grow hitherto: and the growth of the new dogmas\nthat she may from time to time enunciate, we must learn to see are, from\nher own stand-point, signs of life and not signs of corruption. And\nfurther, when we come to look into her more closely, we must separate\ncarefully the diverse elements we find in her--her discipline, her pious\nopinions, her theology, and her religion.\n\nLet honest enquirers do this to the best of their power, and their views\nwill undergo an unlooked-for change. Other difficulties of a more\ncircumstantial kind, it is true, still remain for them; and of these I\nshall speak presently. But putting these for the moment aside, and\nregarding the question under its widest aspects only--regarding it only\nin connection with the larger generalisations of science, and the\nprimary postulates of man's spiritual existence--the theist will find in\nCatholicism no new difficulties. He will find in it the logical\ndevelopment of our natural moral sense, developed, indeed, and still\ndeveloping, under a special and supernatural care--but essentially the\nsame thing; with the same negations, the same assertions, the same\npositive truths, and the same impenetrable mysteries; and with nothing\nnew added to them, but help, and certainty, and guidance.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[37] It is curious to reflect that what Gibbon said as a sarcasm, is\nreally a serious and profound truth, and leads to conclusions exactly\nopposite to those drawn from it in that witty and most fascinating\nchapter from which the above words are quoted.\n\n[38] _Our Eternal Hope._ By Canon Farrar.\n\n[39] See Doellinger's _Continuation of Hortig's Church History_, quoted\nby Mr. J.B. Robertson, in his _Memoir of Dr. Moehler_.\n\n[40] See _Phases of my Faith_, by Francis Newman.\n\n[41] It is difficult on any other supposition to account for the marked\nfact that hardly any of our English rationalists have criticised\nChristianity, except as presented to them in a form essentially\nProtestant; and that a large proportion of their criticisms are solely\napplicable to this. It is amusing, too, to observe how, to men of often\nsuch really wide minds, all theological authority is represented by the\nvarious social types of contemporary Anglican or dissenting dignitaries.\nMen such as Professors Huxley and Clifford, Mr. Leslie Stephen, and Mr.\nFrederic Harrison, can find no representatives of dogmatism but in\nbishops, deans, curates, Presbyterian ministers--and, above all,\ncurates. The one mouthpiece of the _Ecclesia docens_ is for them the\nparish pulpit; and the more ignorant be its occupant the more\nrepresentative do they think his utterances. Whilst Mr. Matthew Arnold\napparently thinks the whole cause of revealed religion stands and falls\nwith the vagaries of the present Bishop of Gloucester.\n\n[42] Busenbaum, quoted by Dr. J.H. Newman, _Letter to the Duke of\nNorfolk_, p. 65.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII.\n\nUNIVERSAL HISTORY AND THE CLAIMS OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH.\n\n    _Oh the little more, and how much it is,\n    And the little less, and what worlds away!_--Robert Browning.\n\n\nAnd now we come to the last objections left us, of those which modern\nthought has arrayed against the Christian Revelation; and these to many\nminds are the most conclusive and overwhelming of all--the objections\nraised against it by a critical study of history. Hitherto we have been\nconsidering the Church only with reference to our general sense of the\nfitness and the rational probability of things. We have now to consider\nher with reference to special facts. Her claims and her character, as\nshe exists at present, may make perhaps appeal overpoweringly to us; but\nshe cannot be judged only by these. For these are closely bound up with\na long earthly history, which the Church herself has written in one way,\nbinding herself to stand or fall by the truth of it; and this all the\nsecular wisdom of the world seems to be re-writing in quite another.\nThis subject is so vast and intricate that even to approach the details\nof it would require volumes, not a single chapter. But room in a chapter\nmay be found for one thing, of prior importance to any mass of detail;\nand that is a simple statement of the principles--unknown to, or\nforgotten by external critics--by which all this mass of detail is to be\ninterpreted.\n\nLet us remember first, then, to take a general view of the matter, that\nhistory as cited in witness against the Christian Revelation, divides\nitself into two main branches. The one is a critical examination of\nChristianity, taken by itself--the authorship, and the authenticity of\nits sacred books, and the origin and growth of its doctrines. The other\nis a critical examination of Christianity as compared with other\nreligions. And the result of both these lines of study is, to those\nbrought up in the old faith, to the last degree startling, and in\nappearance at least altogether disastrous. Let us sum up briefly the\ngeneral results of them; and first of these the historical.\n\nWe shall begin naturally with the Bible, as giving us the earliest\nhistorical point at which Christianity is assailable. What then has\nmodern criticism accomplished on the Bible? The Biblical account of the\ncreation it has shown to be, in its literal sense, an impossible fable.\nTo passages thought mystical and prophetic it has assigned the\nhomeliest, and often retrospective meanings. Everywhere at its touch\nwhat seemed supernatural has been humanized, and the divinity that\nhedged the records has rapidly abandoned them. And now looked at in the\ncommon daylight their whole aspect changes for us; and stories that we\nonce accepted with a solemn reverence seem childish, ridiculous,\ngrotesque, and not unfrequently barbarous. Or if we are hardly prepared\nto admit so much as this, this much at least has been established\nfirmly--that the Bible, if it does not give the lie itself to the\nastonishing claims that have been made for it, contains nothing in\nitself, at any rate, that can of itself be sufficient to support them.\nThis applies to the New Testament just as much as to the Old; and the\nconsequences here are even more momentous. Weighed as mere human\ntestimony, the value of the Gospels becomes doubtful or insignificant.\nFor the miracles of Christ, and for his superhuman nature, they contain\nlittle evidence, that even tends to be satisfactory; and even his daily\nwords and actions it seems probable may have been inaccurately reported,\nin some cases perhaps invented, and in others supplied by a deceiving\nmemory. When we pass from the Gospels to the Epistles, a kindred sight\npresents itself. We discern in them the writings of men not inspired\nfrom above; but, with many disagreements amongst themselves, struggling\nupwards from below, influenced by a variety of existing views, and\ndoubtful which of them to assimilate. We discern in them, as we do in\nother writers, the products of their age and of their circumstances. The\nmaterials out of which they formed their doctrines we can find in the\nlay world around them. And as we follow the Church's history farther,\nand examine the appearance and the growth of her great subsequent\ndogmas, we can trace all of them to a natural and a non-Christian\norigin. We can see, for instance, how in part, at least, men conceived\nthe idea of the Trinity from the teachings of Greek Mysticism; and how\nthe theory of the Atonement was shaped by the ideas of Roman\nJurisprudence. Everywhere, in fact, in the holy building supposed to\nhave come down from God, we detect fragments of older structures,\nconfessedly of earthly workmanship.\n\nBut the matter does not end here. Historical science not only shows us\nChristianity, with its sacred history, in this new light; but it sets\nother religions by the side of it, and shows us that their course\nthrough the world has been strangely similar. They too have had their\nsacred books, and their incarnate Gods for prophets; they have had their\npriesthoods, their traditions, and their growing bodies of doctrine:\nthere is nothing in Christianity that cannot find its counterpart, even\nto the most marked details, in the life of its founder. Two centuries,\nfor instance, before the birth of Christ, Buddha is said to have been\nborn without human father. Angels sang in heaven to announce his advent;\nan aged hermit blessed him in his mother's arms; a monarch was advised,\nthough he refused, to destroy the child, who, it was predicted, should\nbe a universal ruler. It is told how he was once lost, and was found\nagain in a temple; and how his young wisdom astonished all the doctors.\nA woman in a crowd was rebuked by him for exclaiming, '_Blessed is the\nwomb that bare thee_.' His prophetic career began when he was about\nthirty years old; and one of the most solemn events of it is his\ntemptation in solitude by the evil one. Everywhere, indeed, in other\nreligions we are discovering things that we once thought peculiar to the\nChristian. And thus the fatal inference is being drawn on all sides,\nthat they have all sprung from a common and an earthly root, and that\none has no more certainty than another. And thus another blow is dealt\nto a faith that was already weakened. Not only, it is thought, can\nChristianity not prove itself in any supernatural sense to be sacred,\nbut other religions prove that even in a natural sense it is not\nsingular. It has not come down from heaven: it is not exceptional even\nin its attempt to rise to it.\n\nSuch are the broad conclusions which in these days seem to be forced\nupon us; and which knowledge, as it daily widens, would seem to be\ndaily strengthening. But are these altogether so destructive as they\nseem? Let us enquire into this more closely. If we do this, it will be\nsoon apparent that the so-called enlightened and critical modern\njudgment has been misled as to this point by an error I have already\ndwelt upon. It has considered Christianity solely as represented by\nProtestantism; or if it has glanced at Rome at all, it has ignorantly\ndismissed as weaknesses the doctrines which are the essence of her\nstrength. Now, as far as Protestantism is concerned, the modern critical\njudgment is undoubtedly in the right. Not only, as I have pointed out\nalready, has experience proved the practical incoherency of its\nsuperstructure, but criticism has washed away like sand every vestige of\nits supernatural foundation. If Christianity relies solely, in proof of\nits revealed message to us, on the external evidences as to its history\nand the source of its doctrines, it can never again hope to convince\nmen. The supports of external evidence are quite inadequate to the\nweight that is put upon them. They might possibly serve as props; but\nthey crush and crumble instantly, when they are used as pillars. And as\npillars it is that Protestantism is compelled to use them. It will be\nquite sufficient, here, to confine our attention to the Bible, and the\nplace which it occupies in the structure of the Protestant fabric.\n'_There--in that book,_' says Protestantism, '_is the Word of God;\nthere is my unerring guide; I listen to none but that. All special\nChurches have varied, and have therefore erred; but it is my first axiom\nthat that book has never erred. On that book, and on that book only, do\nI rest myself; and out of its mouth shall you judge me._' And for a long\ntime this language had much force in it; for the Protestant axiom was\nreceived by all parties. It is true, indeed, as we have seen already,\nthat in the absence of an authoritative interpreter, an ambiguous\ntestament would itself have little authority. But it took a long time\nfor men to perceive this; and all admitted meanwhile that the testament\nwas there, and it at any rate meant something. But now all this is\nchanged. The great Protestant axiom is received by the world no longer.\nTo many it seems not an axiom, but an absurdity; at best it appears but\nas a very doubtful fact: and if external proof is to be the thing that\nguides us, we shall need more proof to convince us that the Bible is the\nWord of God, than that Protestantism is the religion of the Bible.\n\nWe need not pursue the enquiry further, nor ask how Protestantism will\nfare at the hands of Comparative Mythology. The blow dealt by Biblical\ncriticism is to all appearances mortal, and there is no need to look\nabout for a second. But let us turn to Catholicism, and we shall see\nthat the whole case is different. To its past history, to external\nevidence, and to the religions outside itself, Protestant Christianity\nbears one relation, and Roman Christianity quite another.\n\nProtestantism offers itself to the world as a strange servant might,\nbringing with it a number of written testimonials. It asks us to examine\nthem, and by them to judge of its merits. It expressly begs us not to\ntrust to its own word. '_I cannot_,' it says, '_rely upon my memory. It\nhas failed me often; it may fail me again. But look at these\ntestimonials in my favour, and judge me only by them._' And the world\nlooks at them, examines them carefully; it at last sees that they look\nsuspicious, and that they may, very possibly, be forgeries. It ask the\nProtestant Church to prove them genuine; and the Protestant Church\ncannot.\n\nBut the Catholic Church comes to us in an exactly opposite way. She too\nbrings with her the very same testimonials; but she knows the\nuncertainty that obscures all remote evidences, and so at first she does\nnot lay much stress upon them. First she asks us to make some\nacquaintance with herself; to look into her living eyes, to hear the\nwords of her mouth, to watch her ways and works, and to feel her inner\nspirit; and then she says to us, '_Can you trust me? If you can, you\nmust trust me all in all; for the very first thing I declare to you is,\nI have never lied._ _Can you trust me thus far? Then listen, and I will\ntell you my history. You have heard it told one way, I know; and that\nway often goes against me. My career, I admit it myself, has many\nsuspicious circumstances. But none of them positively condemn me: all\nare capable of a guiltless interpretation. And when you know me, as I\nam, you will give me the benefit of every doubt._' It is thus that the\nCatholic Church presents the Bible to us. '_Believe the Bible, for my\nsake_,' she says, '_not me for the Bible's_.' And the book, as thus\noffered us, changes its whole character. We have not the formal\ntestimonials of a stranger; we have instead the memoranda of a friend.\nWe have now that presumption in their favour that in the former case was\nwanting altogether; and all that we ask of the records now is, not that\nthey contain any inherent evidence of their truth, but that they contain\nno inherent evidence of their falsehood.\n\nFarther, there is this point to remember. Catholic and Protestant alike\ndeclare the Bible to be inspired. But the Catholics can attach to\n_inspiration_ a far wider, and less assailable meaning: for their Church\nclaims for herself a perpetual living power, which can always\nconcentrate the inspired element, be it never so diffused; whereas for\nthe Protestants, unless that element be closely bound up with the\nletter, it at once becomes intangible and eludes them altogether. And\nthus, whilst the latter have committed themselves to definite\nstatements, now proved untenable, as to what inspiration is, the\nCatholic Church, strangely enough, has never done anything of the kind.\nShe has declared nothing on the subject that is to be held of faith. The\nwhole question is still, within limits, an open one. As the Catholic\nChurch, then, stands at present, it seems hard to say that, were we for\nother reasons inclined to trust her, she makes any claims, on behalf of\nher sacred books, which, in the face of impartial history, would prevent\nour doing so.\n\nLet us now go farther, and consider those great Christian doctrines\nwhich, though it is claimed that they are all implied in the Bible, are\nconfessedly not expressed in it, and were confessedly not consciously\nassented to by the Church, till long after the Christian Canon was\nclosed. And here let us grant the modern critics their most hostile and\nextreme position. Let us grant that all the doctrines in question can be\ntraced to external, and often to non-Christian sources. And what is the\nresult on Romanism? Does this logically go any way whatever towards\ndiscrediting its claims? Let us consider the matter fairly, and we shall\nsee that it has not even a tendency to do so. Here, as in the case of\nthe Bible, the Church's doctrine of her infallibility meets all\nobjections. For the real question here is, not in what storehouse of\nopinions the Church found her doctrines, but why she selected those she\ndid, and why she rejected and condemned the rest. History and scientific\ncriticism cannot answer this. History can show us only who baked the\nseparate bricks; it cannot show us who made or designed the building. No\none believes that the devil made the plans of Cologne Cathedral; but\nwere we inclined to think he did, the story would be disproved in no way\nby our discovering from what quarries every stone had been taken. And\nthe doctrines of the Church are but as the stones in a building, the\nletters of an alphabet, or the words of a language. Many are offered and\nfew chosen. The supernatural action is to be detected in the choice. The\nwhole history of the Church, in fact, as she herself tells it, may be\ndescribed as a history of supernatural selection. It is quite possible\nthat she may claim it to be more than that; but could she vindicate for\nherself but this one faculty of an infallible choice, she would\nvindicate to the full her claim to be under a superhuman guidance.\n\nThe Church may be conceived of as a living organism, for ever and on all\nsides putting forth feelers and tentacles, that seize, try, and seem to\ndally with all kinds of nutriment. A part of this she at length takes\ninto herself. A large part she at length puts down again. Much that is\nthus rejected she seems for a long time on the point of choosing. But\nhowever slow may be the final decision in coming, however reluctant or\nhesitating it may seem to be, when it is once made, it is claimed for it\nthat it is infallible. And this claim is one, as we shall see when we\nunderstand its nature, that no study of ecclesiastical history, no study\nof comparative mythology can invalidate now, or even promise to\ninvalidate. There is nothing rash in saying this. The Church knows the\ndifficulties that her past records present to us, especially that of the\ndivine character of the Bible. But she knows too that this divinity is\nat present protected by its vagueness; nor is she likely to expose it\nmore openly to its enemies, till some sure plan of defence has been\ndevised for it. Rigid as were the opinions entertained as to Biblical\ninspiration, throughout the greater part of the Church's history, the\nChurch has never formally assumed them as articles of faith. Had she\ndone so, she might indeed have been convicted of error, for many of\nthese opinions can be shown to be at variance with fact. But though she\nlived and breathed for so many centuries amongst them, though for ages\nnone of her members perhaps ever doubted their truth, she has not laid\nthem on succeeding ages: she has left them opinions still. A Catholic\nmight well adduce this as an instance, not indeed of her supernatural\nselection, but of its counterpart, her supernatural rejection.\n\nAnd now, to turn from the past to the future, her possible future\nconduct in this matter will give us a very vivid illustration of her\nwhole past procedure. It may be that before the Church defines\ninspiration exactly (if she ever does so), she will wait till lay\ncriticism has done all it can do. She may then consider what views of\nthe Bible are historically tenable, and what not; and may faithfully\nshape her teaching by the learning of this world, though it may have\nbeen gathered together for the express purpose of overthrowing her.\nAtheistic scholars may be quoted in her councils; and supercilious and\nsceptical philologists, could they live another hundred years, might\nperhaps recognise their discoveries, even their words and phrases,\nembodied in an ecclesiastical definition. To the outer world such a\ndefinition would seem to be a mere natural production. But in the eyes\nof a Catholic it would be as truly supernatural, as truly the work of\nthe Holy Spirit, as if it had come down ready-made out of heaven, with\nall the accompaniments of a rushing mighty wind, and of visible tongues\nof flame. Sanguine critics might expose the inmost history of the\ncouncil in which the definition was made; they might show the whole\nconduct of it, from one side, to be but a meshwork of accident and of\nhuman motives; and they would ask triumphantly for any traces of the\naction of the divine spirit. But the Church, would be unabashed. She\nwould answer in the words of Job, '_Behold I go forward, but He is not\nthere; and backward, but I cannot perceive Him; but He knoweth the way\nthat I take; when He hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold. Behold\nmy witness is in heaven, and my champion is on high._'\n\nAnd thus the doctrine of the Church's infallibility has a side that is\njust the opposite of that which is commonly thought to be its only one.\nIt is supposed to have simply gendered bondage; not to have gendered\nliberty. But as a matter of fact it has done both; and if we view the\nmatter fairly, we shall see that it has done the latter at least as\ncompletely as the former. The doctrine of infallibility is undoubtedly a\nrope that tethers those that hold it to certain real or supposed facts\nof the past; but it is a rope that is capable of indefinite lengthening.\nIt is not a fetter only; it is a support also; and those who cling to it\ncan venture fearlessly, as explorers, into currents of speculation that\nwould sweep away altogether men who did but trust to their own powers of\nswimming. Nor does, as is often supposed, the centralizing of this\ninfallibility in the person of one man present any difficulty from the\nCatholic point of view. It is said that the Pope might any day make a\ndogma of any absurdities that might happen to occur to him; and that the\nCatholic would be bound to accept these, however strongly his reason\nmight repudiate them. And it is quite true that the Pope _might_ do this\nany day, in the sense that there is no external power to prevent him.\nBut he who has assented to the central doctrine of Catholicism knows\nthat he never _will_. And it is precisely the obvious absence of any\nrestraint from without that brings home to the Catholic his faith in the\nguiding power from within.\n\nSuch, then, and so compacted is the Church of Rome, as a visible and\nearthly body, with a past and future history. And with so singular a\nfirmness and flexibility is her frame knit together, that none of her\nmodern enemies can get any lasting hold on her, or dismember her or\ndislocate her limbs on the racks of their criticism.\n\nBut granting all this, what does this do for her? Does it do more than\npresent her to us as the toughest and most fortunate religion, out of\nmany co-ordinate and competing ones? Does it tend in any way to set her\non a different platform from the others? And the answer to this is,\nthat, so far as exact proof goes, we have nothing to expect or deal with\nin the matter, either one way or the other. The evidences at our\ndisposal will impart a general tendency to our opinions, but no more\nthan that. The general tendency here, however, is the very reverse of\nwhat it is vulgarly supposed to be. So far from the similarities to her\nin other religions telling against the special claims of the Catholic\nChurch, they must really, with the candid theist, tell very strongly in\nher favour. For the theist, all theisms have a profound element of truth\nin them; and all alleged revelations will, in his eyes, be natural\ntheisms, struggling to embody themselves in some authorised and\nauthoritative form. The Catholic Church, as we have seen, is a human\norganism, capable of receiving the Divine Spirit; and this is what all\nother religious bodies, in so far as they have claimed authority for\ntheir teaching, have consciously or unconsciously attempted to be\nlikewise; only the Catholic Church represents success, where the others\nrepresent failure: and thus these, from the Catholic stand-point, are\nabortive and incomplete Catholicisms. The Bethesda of human faith is\nworld-wide and as old as time; only in one particular spot an angel has\ncome down and troubled it; and the waters have been circling there,\nthenceforth, in a healing vortex. Such is the sort of claim that the\nCatholic Church makes for herself; and, if this be so, what she is, does\nnot belie what she claims to be. Indeed, the more we compare her with\nthe other religions, her rivals, the more, even where she most resembles\nthem, shall we see in her a something that marks her off from them. The\nothers are like vague and vain attempts at a forgotten tune; she is like\nthe tune itself, which is recognised the instant it is heard, and which\nhas been so near to us all the time, though so immeasurably far away\nfrom us. The Catholic Church is the only dogmatic religion that has seen\nwhat dogmatism really implies, and what will, in the long run, be\ndemanded of it, and she contains in herself all appliances for meeting\nthese demands. She alone has seen that if there is to be an infallible\nvoice in the world, this voice must be a living one, as capable of\nspeaking now as it ever was in the past; and that as the world's\ncapacities for knowledge grow, the teacher must be always able to unfold\nto it a fuller teaching. The Catholic Church is the only historical\nreligion that can conceivably thus adapt itself to the wants of the\npresent day, without virtually ceasing to be itself. It is the only\nreligion that can keep its identity without losing its life, and keep\nits life without losing its identity; that can enlarge its teachings\nwithout changing them; that can be always the same, and yet be always\ndeveloping.\n\nAll this, of course, does not prove that Catholicism _is_ the truth; but\nit will show the theist that, for all that the modern world can tell\nhim, it may be. And thus much at least will by-and-by come to be\nrecognised generally. Opinion, that has been clarified on so many\nsubjects, cannot remain forever turbid here. A change must come, and a\nchange can only be for the better. At present the so-called leaders of\nenlightened and liberal thought are in this matter, so far as fairness\nand insight go, on a level with the wives and mothers of our small\nprovincial shopkeepers, or the beadle or churchwarden of a country\nparish. But prejudice, even when so virulent and so dogged as this, will\nlift and disappear some day like a London fog; and then the lineaments\nof the question will confront us clearly--the question: but who shall\ndecide the answer?\n\nWhat I have left to say bears solely upon this.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII.\n\nBELIEF AND WILL.\n\n     '_Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him for\n     righteousness._'\n\n\nArguments are like the seed, or like the soul, as Paul conceived of it,\nwhich he compared to seed. They are not quickened unless they die. As\nlong as they remain for us in the form of arguments they do no work.\nTheir work begins only, after a time and in secret, when they have sunk\ndown into the memory, and have been left to lie there; when the\nhostility and distrust they were regarded with dies away; when,\nunperceived, they melt into the mental system, and, becoming part of\noneself, effect a turning round of the soul. This is true, at least,\nwhen the matters dealt with are such as have engaged us here. It may be\ntrue, too, of those who discern and urge the arguments, just as well as\nof those upon whom they urge them. But the immediate barrenness of much\npatient and careful reasoning should not make us think that it is lost\nlabour. One way or other it will some day bear its fruit. Sometimes the\nintellect is the servant of the heart. At other times the heart must\nfollow slowly upon the heels of the intellect.\n\nAnd such is the case now. For centuries man's faith and all his loftier\nfeelings had their way made plain before them. The whole empire of human\nthought belonged to them. But this old state of things endures no\nlonger. Upon this Empire, as upon that of Rome, calamity has at last\nfallen. A horde of intellectual barbarians has burst in upon it, and has\noccupied by force the length and breadth of it. The result has been\nastounding. Had the invaders been barbarians only, they might have been\nrepelled easily; but they were barbarians armed with the most powerful\nweapons of civilisation. They were a phenomenon new to history: they\nshowed us real knowledge in the hands of real ignorance; and the work of\nthe combination thus far has been ruin, not reorganisation. Few great\nmovements at the beginning have been conscious of their own true\ntendency; but no great movement has mistaken it like modern Positivism.\nSeeing just too well to have the true instinct of blindness, and too ill\nto have the proper guidance from sight, it has tightened its clutch upon\nthe world of thought, only to impart to it its own confusion. What lies\nbefore men now is to reduce this confusion to order, by a patient and\ncalm employment of the intellect. Intellect itself will never re-kindle\nfaith, or restore any of those powers that are at present so failing and\nso feeble; but it will work like a pioneer to prepare their way before\nthem, if they are ever revived otherwise, encouraged in its labours,\nperhaps not even by hope, but at any rate by the hope of hope.\n\nAs a pioneer, and not as a preacher, I have tried to indicate the real\nposition in which modern knowledge has placed us, and the way in which\nit puts the problem of life before us. I have tried to show that,\nwhatever ultimately its tendency may prove to be, it cannot be the\ntendency that, by the school that has given it to us, it is supposed to\nhave been; and that it either does a great deal more than that school\nthinks it does, or a great deal less. History would teach us this, even\nif nothing else did. The school in question has proceeded from denial to\ndenial, thinking at each successive moment that it had reached its final\nhalting-place, and had struck at last on a solid and firm foundation.\nFirst, it denied the Church to assert the Bible; then it denied the\nBible to assert God; then it denied God to assert the moral dignity of\nman: and there, if it could remain, it would. But what it would do is of\nno avail. It is not its own master; it is compelled to move onwards; and\nnow, under the force of its own relentless logic, this last\nresting-place is beginning to fail also. It professed to compensate for\nits denials of God's existence by a freer and more convincing\nre-assertion of man's dignity. But the principles which obliged it to\ndeny the first belief are found to be even more fatal to the\nsubstitute. '_Unless I have seen with my eyes I will not believe_,'\nexpresses a certain mental tendency that has always had existence. But\ntill Science and its positive methods began to dawn on the world, this\ntendency was vague and wavering. Positive Science supplied it with solid\nnutriment. Its body grew denser; its shape more and more definite; and\nnow the completed portent is spreading its denials through the whole\nuniverse. So far as spirit goes and spiritual aspirations, it has left\nexistence empty, swept and garnished. If spirit is to enter in again and\ndwell there, we must seek by other methods for it. Modern thought has\nnot created a new doubt; it has simply made perfect an old one; and has\nadvanced it from the distant regions of theory into the very middle of\nour hearts and lives. It has made the question of belief or of unbelief\nthe supreme practical question for us. It has forced us to stake\neverything on the cast of a single die. What are we? Have we been\nhitherto deceived in ourselves, or have we not? And is every hope that\nhas hitherto nerved our lives, melting at last away from us, utterly and\nfor ever? Or are we indeed what we have been taught to think we are?\nHave we indeed some aims that we may still call high and holy--still\nsome aims that are more than transitory? And have we still some right to\nthat reverence that we have learnt to cherish for ourselves?\n\nHere lie the difficulties. The battle is to be fought here--here at the\nvery threshold--at the entrance to the spiritual world. Are we moral and\nspiritual beings, or are we not? That is the decisive question, which we\nmust say our Yes or No to. If, with our eyes open, and with all our\nhearts, it be given us to say Yes--to say Yes without fear, and firmly,\nand in the face of everything--then there will be little more to fear.\nWe shall have fought the good fight, we shall have kept the faith; and\nwhatever we lack more, will without doubt be added to us. From this\nbelief in ourselves we shall pass to the belief in God, as its only\nrational basis and its only emotional completion; and, perhaps, from a\nbelief in God, to a recognition of His audible voice amongst us. But at\nany rate, whatever after-difficulties beset us, they will not be new\ndifficulties; only those we had braved at first, showing themselves more\nclearly.\n\nBut that first decision--how shall we make it? Who or what shall help\nus, or give us counsel? There is no evidence that can do so in the\nsensible world around us. The universe, as positive thought approaches\nit, is blind and dumb about it. Science and history are sullen, and\nblind, and dumb. They await upon our decision before they will utter a\nsingle word to us: and that decision, if we have a will at all, it lies\nwith our own will--with our will alone, to make. It may, indeed, be said\nthat the will has to create itself by an initial exercise of itself, in\nan assent to its own existence. If it can do this, one set of obstacles\nis surmounted; but others yet confront us. The world into which the\nmoral will has borne itself--not a material world, but a spiritual--a\nworld which the will's existence alone makes possible, this world is not\nsilent, like the other, but it is torn and divided against itself, and\nis resonant with unending contradictions. Its first aspect is that of a\nplace of torture, a hell of the intellect, in which reason is to be\nracked for ever by a tribe of sphinx-like monsters, themselves\ndespairing. Good and evil inhabit there, confronting each other, for\never unreconciled: _there_ is omnipotent power baffled, and omnipotent\nmercy unexercised. Is the will strong enough to hold on through this\nbaffling and monstrous world, and not to shrink back and bid the vision\nvanish? Can we still resolve to say, 'I believe, although it is\nimpossible'? Is the will to assert our own moral nature--our own\nbirthright in eternity, strong enough to bear us on?\n\nThe trial is a hard one, and whilst we doubt and hesitate under it the\nuniversal silence of the vast physical world itself disheartens us. Who\nare we, in the midst of this unheeding universe, that we can claim for\nourselves so supreme a heritage; that we can assert for ourselves other\nlaws than those which seem to be all-pervading, and that we can dream\nof breaking through them into a something else beyond?\n\nAnd yet it may be that faith will succeed and conquer sight--that the\npreciousness of the treasure we cling to will nerve us with enough\nstrength to retain it. It may be that man, having seen the way that,\nunaided, he is forced to go, will change his attitude; that, finding\nonly weakness in pride, he will seek for strength in humility, and will\nagain learn to say, '_I believe, although I never can comprehend_.' Once\nlet him say this, his path will again grow clearer for him. Through\nconfusion, and doubt, and darkness, the brightness of God's countenance\nwill again be visible; and by-and-by again he may hear the Word calling\nhim. From his first assent to his own moral nature he _must_ rise to a\ntheism, and he _may_ rise to the recognition of a Church--to a visible\nembodiment of that moral nature of his, as directed and joined to its\none aim and end--to its delight, and its desire, and its completion.\nThen he will see all that is high and holy taking a distinct and helping\nform for him. Grace and mercy will come to him through set and certain\nchannels. His nature will be redeemed visibly from its weakness and from\nits littleness--redeemed, not in dreams or in fancy, but in fact. God\nHimself will be his brother and his father; he will be near akin to the\nPower that _is_ always, and _is_ everywhere. His love of virtue will be\nno longer a mere taste of his own: it will be the discernment and\ntaking to himself of the eternal strength and of the eternal treasure;\nand, whatever he most reveres in mother, or wife, or sister--this he\nwill know is holy, everywhere and for ever, and is exalted high over all\nthings in one of like nature with theirs, the Mother of grace, the\nParent of sweet clemency, who will protect him from the enemy, and save\nhim in the hour of death.\n\nSuch is the conception of himself, and of his place in existence, that,\nalways implicit in man, man has at last developed. He has at last\nconceived his race--the faithful of it--as the bride of God. Is this\nmajestic conception a true one, or is it a dream only, with no abiding\nsubstance? Is it merely a misty vision rising up like an exhalation from\nthe earth, or does a something more come down to it out of heaven, and\nstrike into it substance and reality? This figure of human dreams has\ngrown and grown in stature: does anything divine descend to it, and so\nmuch as touch its lips or its lifted hands? If so, it is but the work of\na moment. The contact is complete. Life, and truth, and force, like an\nelectric current, pass into the whole frame. It lives, it moves, it\nbreathes: it has a body and a being: the divine and the eternal is\nindeed dwelling amongst us. And thus, though mature knowledge may seem,\nas it still widens, to deepen the night around us; though the universe\nyawn wider on all sides of us, in vaster depths, in more unfathomable,\nsoulless gulfs; though the roar of the loom of time grow more audible\nand more deafening in our ears--yet through the night and through the\ndarkness the divine light of our lives will only burn the clearer: and\nthis speck of a world as it moves through the blank immensity will bear\nthe light of all the worlds upon its bosom.\n\nThinkers like Mr. Leslie Stephen say that such beliefs as these belong\nto dreamland; and they are welcome if they please to keep their names.\nTheir terminology at least has this merit, that it recognises the\ndualism of the two orders of things it deals with. Let them keep their\nnames if they will; and in their language the case amounts to this--that\nit is only for the sake of the dreams that visit it that the world of\nreality has any certain value for us. Will not the dreams continue, when\nthe reality has passed away?\n\n\n\n\nG.P. PUTNAM'S SONS have in preparation a series of volumes, to be\nissued under the title of\n\nCURRENT DISCUSSION,\n\nA COLLECTION FROM THE CHIEF ENGLISH ESSAYS ON QUESTIONS\nOF THE TIME.\n\nThe series will be edited by Edward L. Burlingame, and is\ndesigned to bring together, for the convenience of readers and for a\nlasting place in the library, those important and representative papers\nfrom recent English periodicals, which may fairly be said to form the\nbest history of the thought and investigation of the last few years. It\nis characteristic of recent thought and science, that a much larger\nproportion than ever before of their most important work has appeared in\nthe form of contributions to reviews and magazines; the thinkers of the\nday submitting their results at once to the great public, which is\neasiest reached in this way, and holding their discussions before a\nlarge audience, rather than in the old form of monographs reaching the\nspecial student only. As a consequence there are subjects of the deepest\npresent and permanent interest, almost all of whose literature exists\nonly in the shape of detached papers, individually so famous that their\ntopics and opinions are in everybody's mouth--yet collectively only\naccessible, for re-reading and comparison, to those who have carefully\npreserved them, or who are painstaking enough to study long files of\nperiodicals.\n\nIn so collecting these separate papers as to give the reader a fair if\nnot complete view of the discussions in which they form a part; to make\nthem convenient for reference in the future progress of those\ndiscussions; and especially to enable them to be preserved as an\nimportant part of the history of modern thought,--it is believed that\nthis series will do a service that will be widely appreciated.\n\nSuch papers naturally include three classes:--those which by their\noriginality have recently led discussion into altogether new channels;\nthose which have attracted deserved attention as powerful special pleas\nupon one side or the other in great current questions; and finally,\npurely critical and analytical dissertations. The series will aim to\ninclude the best representatives of each of these classes of expression.\n\nIt is designed to arrange the essays included in the Series under such\ngeneral divisions as the following, to each of which one or more volumes\nwill be devoted:--\n\nINTERNATIONAL POLITICS,\nNATURAL SCIENCE,\nRECENT ARCHAEOLOGICAL DISCOVERY,\nQUESTIONS OF BELIEF,\nECONOMICAL AND SOCIAL SCIENCE,\nHISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY,\nLITERARY TOPICS.\n\nAmong the material selected for the first volume (International\nPolitics), which will be issued immediately, are the following papers:\n\n    Archibald Forbes's Essay on \"The Russians, Turks, and Bulgarians;\"\n    Vsct. Stratford de Redcliffe's \"Turkey;\" Mr. Gladstone's\n    \"Montenegro;\" Professor Goldwin Smith's Paper on \"The Political\n    Destiny of Canada,\" and his Essay called \"The Slaveholder and the\n    Turk;\" Professor Blackie's \"Prussia in the Nineteenth Century;\"\n    Edward Dicey's \"Future of Egypt;\" Louis Kossuth's \"What is in Store\n    for Europe;\" and Professor Freeman's \"Relation of the English People\n    to the War.\"\n\nAmong the contents of the second volume (Questions of Belief), are:\n\n    The two well-known \"Modern Symposia;\" the Discussion by Professor\n    Huxley, Mr. Hutton, Sir J.F. Stephen, Lord Selborne, James\n    Martineau, Frederic Harrison, the Dean of St. Paul's, the Duke of\n    Argyll, and others, on \"The Influence Upon Morality of a Decline in\n    a Religious Belief;\" and the Discussion by Huxley, Hutton, Lord\n    Blatchford, the Hon. Roden Noel, Lord Selborne, Canon Barry, Greg,\n    the Rev. Baldwin Brown, Frederic Harrison, and others, on \"The Soul\n    and Future Life.\" Also, Professor Calderwood's \"Ethical Aspects of\n    the Development Theory;\" Mr. G.H. Lewes's Paper on \"The Course of\n    Modern Thought;\" Thomas Hughes on \"The Condition and Prospects Of\n    the Church of England;\" W.H. Mallock's \"Is Life Worth Living?\"\n    Frederic Harrison's \"The Soul and Future Life;\" and the Rev. R.F.\n    Littledale's \"The Pantheistic Factor in Christian Thought.\"\n\nThe volumes will be printed in a handsome crown octavo form, and will\nsell for about $1.50 each.\n\nG.P. PUTNAM'S SONS, 182 Fifth Avenue, New York.\n\n\n\n\nPUBLICATIONS OF G.P. PUTNAM'S SONS.\n\n\n=A History of American Literature.= By Moses Coit Tyler, Professor of\nEnglish Literature in the University of Michigan. Volumes I and II,\ncomprising the period, 1607-1765. Large 8vo, about 700 pages, handsomely\nbound in cloth, extra, gilt top, $5.00; half calf, extra, $9 50\n\n     The History of American Literature, now offered to the public, is\n     the first attempt ever made to give a systematic and critical\n     account of the literary development of the American people. It is\n     not a mere cyclopaedia of literature, or a series of detached\n     biographical sketches accompanied by literary extracts: but an\n     analytic and sustained narrative of our literary history from the\n     earliest English settlement in America down to the present time.\n     The work is the result of original and independent studies\n     prosecuted by the author for the past ten years, and gives an\n     altogether new analysis of American literary forces and results\n     during nearly three centuries. The present two volumes--a complete\n     work in themselves--cover the whole field of our history during the\n     colonial time.\n\n     \"An important national work.\"--_New York Tribune._\n\n     \"The literary event of the decade.\"--_Hartford Courant._\n\n     \"A book more interesting than half the new novels.\"--_The Nation._\n\n     \"A work of great and permanent importance.\"--_New York Evening\n     Post._\n\n     \"One of the most valuable publications of the century.\"--_Boston\n     Post._\n\n     \"A book actually fascinating from beginning to end.\"--Prest.\n     J.B. Angell.\n\n     \"As the work stands, it may rightfully claim a place on the library\n     table of every cultivated American.\"--_New York Times._\n\n     \"No work of similar scope and magnitude and erudition exists, or\n     has been attempted in this country.\"--_New York Evangelist._\n\n     \"A unique and valuable work.\"--_Chicago Tribune._\n\n     \"A work which will rank with those of Sismondi, Ticknor, and\n     Taine.\"--_New York Evening Express._\n\n     \"It is this philosophical character of the work which brings it not\n     far distant from the works of Taine, of Buckle, and of\n     Lecky.\"--_Buffalo Express._\n\n     \"One can hardly speak too strongly in praise of these\n     conscientious, careful and successful volumes, which deserve to be\n     studied alike by scholars and patriots.\"--_Rev. Henry Martyn\n     Dexter, D.D._\n\n     \"But the plan of Professor Tyler's book is so vast and its\n     execution so fearless, that no reader can expect or wish to agree\n     with all its personal judgments. It is a book truly admirable, both\n     in design and in general execution; the learning is great, the\n     treatment wise, the style fresh and vigorous. Here and there occurs\n     a phrase which a severer revision would perhaps exclude, but all\n     such criticisms are trivial in view of so signal a success. Like\n     Parkman, Professor Tyler may almost be said to have created, not\n     merely his volumes, but their theme. Like Parkman, at any rate, he\n     has taken a whole department of human history, rescued it from\n     oblivion, and made it henceforward a matter of deep interest to\n     every thinking mind.\"--T.W. Higginson, in _The Nation_.\n\n     \"The work betrays acute philosophical insight, a rare power of\n     historical research, and a cultivated literary habit, which was\n     perhaps no less essential than the two former conditions, to its\n     successful accomplishment. The style of the author is marked by\n     vigor, originality, comprehensiveness, and a curious instinct in\n     the selection of words. In this latter respect, though not in the\n     moulding of sentences, the reader may perhaps be reminded of the\n     choice and fragrant vocabulary of Washington Irving, whose words\n     alone often leave an exquisite odor like the perfume of sweet-briar\n     and arbutus.\"--George Ripley, in the _Tribune_.\n\n     \"Professor Moses Coit Tyler's 'History of American Literature,' of\n     which the first two volumes have just been issued, will take rank\n     at once as a book of lasting value, even though the author should\n     advance no further than he has already done in the scheme of his\n     work. We are not unmindful of the eminent historians this country\n     has produced, when we express our opinion that his history is the\n     best study of American historic material that has been written by\n     an American. There has been manifestly no limit to the enthusiasm,\n     conscientiousness and industry with which he has possessed himself\n     of the entire body of the literature of which he treats, and at the\n     same time he has displayed the qualities of a true literary artist\n     in giving form, color and perspective to his work.\"--Daniel\n     Gray, in the _Buffalo Courier_.\n\n\n=VAN LAUN. The History of French Literature.=\n\nBy Henri Van Laun, Translator of Taine's \"History of English\nLiterature,\" \"the Works of Moliere,\" etc.\n\nVol I. From its Origin to the Renaissance. 8vo, cloth\nextra                                                           $2 50\n\nVol. II. From the Renaissance to the Close of the Reign\nof Louis XIV. 8vo, cloth extra                                  $2 50\n\nVol. III. From the Reign of Louis XIV. to that of\nNapoleon III. 8vo, cloth extra                                  $2 50\n\nThe set, three volumes, in box, half calf, $15.00; cloth extra,  7 50\n\n     \"We have to deal with a people essentially spirited and\n     intellectual, whose spirit and intellect have been invariably the\n     wonder and admiration, if not the model and mold of contemporary\n     thought, and whose literary triumphs remain to this day among the\n     most notable landmarks of modern literature.\" * * *--_Extract from\n     Author's Preface._\n\n     \"Mr. Van Laun has not given us a mere critical study of the works\n     he considers, but has done his best to bring their authors, their\n     way of life, and the ways of those around them, before us in a\n     living likeness.\"--_London Daily News._\n\n     \"This history is extremely interesting in its exposition of the\n     literary progress of the age, in connection with the social and\n     political influences which helped to mould the character and the\n     destinies of the people.\"--_Boston Daily Globe._\n\n     \"It is full of keenest interest for every person who knows or\n     wishes to learn anything of French literature, or of French\n     literary history or biography. Scarcely any book of recent origin,\n     indeed, is better fitted than this to win general favor with all\n     classes of persons.\"--_N.Y. Evening-Post._\n\n=THIERS= (Louis Adolphe) =Life of.= By Francois Le Goff,\nDocteur-es-lettres, Author of a \"History of the Government of National\nDefense in the Provinces,\" etc. Translated, from the author's\nunpublished manuscript, by Theodore Stanton, A.M. Octavo, with\nPortrait, cloth extra. (In Press.)\n\n     This book is written especially for the American public by M.\n     Francois Le Goff, of Paris, a French publicist of the\n     Conservative-Republican school, who knew Thiers personally and who\n     is thoroughly conversant with the history and politics of France.\n     Besides the biographical narrative, which is enlivened by many\n     fresh anecdotes, the writer attempts to present such a connected\n     view of French political history for the last fifty years, as will\n     throw light upon the present crisis in France, so incomprehensible\n     to most Americans. The work will also be interesting as an able\n     defense of the unity of Thiers' political life, a position rarely\n     assumed by even the most ardent friends of the great statesman. It\n     is illustrated by a fac-simile of his handwriting and autograph, a\n     view of his home, etc.\n\n=BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES.= First Series. =Contemporary Statesmen of Europe.=\nEdited by Thomas Wentworth Higginson.\n\nThey are handsomely printed in square 16mo, and attractively bound in\ncloth extra. Price per vol.                                     $1 50\n\nVol.  I. English Statesmen. By T.W. Higginson.\n \"   II. English Radical Leaders. By R.J. Hinton.\n \"  III. French Leaders. By Edward King.\n \"   IV. German Political Leaders. By Herbert Tuttle.\n\n     These volumes are planned to meet the desire which exists for\n     accurate and graphic information in regard to the leaders of\n     political action in other countries. They will give portraitures of\n     the men and analysis of their lives and work, that will be vivid\n     and picturesque, as well as accurate and faithful, and that will\n     combine the authority of careful historic narration with the\n     interest attaching to anecdote and personal delineation.\n\n     \"Compact and readable * * * leaves little to be desired.\"--_N.Y.\n     Nation._\n\n\nTranscriber's Note:\n\nPage 232--Changed spelling of conquerer to conqueror.","title":"Is Life Worth Living?","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":87456}