{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_470/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_470","id":"gutenberg_470","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/470","summary":null,"tags":["Apologetics","Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Chesterton, G. K. (Gilbert Keith), 1874-1936","Christianity"],"text":"HERETICS\n\n\nby\n\nGilbert K. Chesterton\n\n\n\n\n\u201cTo My Father\u201d\n\n\n\n\nSource\n\nHeretics was copyrighted in 1905 by the John Lane Company. This\nelectronic text is derived from the twelfth (1919) edition published by\nthe John Lane Company of New York City and printed by the Plimpton\nPress of Norwood, Massachusetts.  The text carefully follows that of\nthe published edition (including British spelling).\n\n\nThe Author\n\nGilbert Keith Chesterton was born in London, England on the 29th of\nMay, 1874.  Though he considered himself a mere \u201crollicking\njournalist,\u201d he was actually a prolific and gifted writer in virtually\nevery area of literature.  A man of strong opinions and enormously\ntalented at defending them, his exuberant personality nevertheless\nallowed him to maintain warm friendships with people\u2014such as George\nBernard Shaw and H. G. Wells\u2014with whom he vehemently disagreed.\n\nChesterton had no difficulty standing up for what he believed. He was\none of the few journalists to oppose the Boer War. His 1922 \u201cEugenics\nand Other Evils\u201d attacked what was at that time the most progressive of\nall ideas, the idea that the human race could and should breed a\nsuperior version of itself. In the Nazi experience, history\ndemonstrated the wisdom of his once \u201creactionary\u201d views.\n\nHis poetry runs the gamut from the comic 1908 \u201cOn Running After One\u2019s\nHat\u201d to dark and serious ballads.  During the dark days of 1940, when\nBritain stood virtually alone against the armed might of Nazi Germany,\nthese lines from his 1911 Ballad of the White Horse were often quoted:\n\n    I tell you naught for your comfort,\n    Yea, naught for your desire,\n    Save that the sky grows darker yet\n    And the sea rises higher.\n\nThough not written for a scholarly audience, his biographies of authors\nand historical figures like Charles Dickens and St. Francis of Assisi\noften contain brilliant insights into their subjects. His Father Brown\nmystery stories, written between 1911 and 1936, are still being read\nand adapted for television.\n\nHis politics fitted with his deep distrust of concentrated wealth and\npower of any sort.  Along with his friend Hilaire Belloc and in books\nlike the 1910 \u201cWhat\u2019s Wrong with the World\u201d he advocated a view called\n\u201cDistributionism\u201d that was best summed up by his expression that every\nman ought to be allowed to own \u201cthree acres and a cow.\u201d Though not known\nas a political thinker, his political influence has circled the world.\nSome see in him the father of the \u201csmall is beautiful\u201d movement and a\nnewspaper article by him is credited with provoking Gandhi to seek a\n\u201cgenuine\u201d nationalism for India rather than one that imitated the\nBritish.\n\nHeretics belongs to yet another area of literature at which Chesterton\nexcelled.  A fun-loving and gregarious man, he was nevertheless\ntroubled in his adolescence by thoughts of suicide.  In Christianity he\nfound the answers to the dilemmas and paradoxes he saw in life. Other\nbooks in that same series include his 1908 Orthodoxy (written in\nresponse to attacks on this book) and his 1925 The Everlasting Man.\nOrthodoxy is also available as electronic text.\n\nChesterton died on the 14th of June, 1936 in Beaconsfield,\nBuckinghamshire, England.  During his life he published 69 books and at\nleast another ten based on his writings have been published after his\ndeath.  Many of those books are still in print. Ignatius Press is\nsystematically publishing his collected writings.\n\n\n\n\nTable of Contents\n\n\n   1. Introductory Remarks on the Importance of Orthodoxy\n   2. On the Negative Spirit\n   3. On Mr. Rudyard Kipling and Making the World Small\n   4. Mr. Bernard Shaw\n   5. Mr. H. G. Wells and the Giants\n   6. Christmas and the Esthetes\n   7. Omar and the Sacred Vine\n   8. The Mildness of the Yellow Press\n   9. The Moods of Mr. George Moore\n  10. On Sandals and Simplicity\n  11. Science and the Savages\n  12. Paganism and Mr. Lowes Dickinson\n  13. Celts and Celtophiles\n  14. On Certain Modern Writers and the Institution of the Family\n  15. On Smart Novelists and the Smart Set\n  16. On Mr. McCabe and a Divine Frivolity\n  17. On the Wit of Whistler\n  18. The Fallacy of the Young Nation\n  19. Slum Novelists and the Slums\n  20. Concluding Remarks on the Importance of Orthodoxy\n\n\n\n\nI. Introductory Remarks on the Importance of Orthodoxy\n\n\nNothing more strangely indicates an enormous and silent evil of modern\nsociety than the extraordinary use which is made nowadays of the word\n\u201corthodox.\u201d  In former days the heretic was proud of not being a\nheretic.  It was the kingdoms of the world and the police and the\njudges who were heretics. He was orthodox.  He had no pride in having\nrebelled against them; they had rebelled against him.  The armies with\ntheir cruel security, the kings with their cold faces, the decorous\nprocesses of State, the reasonable processes of law\u2014all these like\nsheep had gone astray. The man was proud of being orthodox, was proud\nof being right. If he stood alone in a howling wilderness he was more\nthan a man; he was a church.  He was the centre of the universe; it was\nround him that the stars swung.  All the tortures torn out of forgotten\nhells could not make him admit that he was heretical. But a few modern\nphrases have made him boast of it.  He says, with a conscious laugh, \u201cI\nsuppose I am very heretical,\u201d and looks round for applause.  The word\n\u201cheresy\u201d not only means no longer being wrong; it practically means\nbeing clear-headed and courageous. The word \u201corthodoxy\u201d not only no\nlonger means being right; it practically means being wrong.  All this\ncan mean one thing, and one thing only.  It means that people care less\nfor whether they are philosophically right.  For obviously a man ought\nto confess himself crazy before he confesses himself heretical. The\nBohemian, with a red tie, ought to pique himself on his orthodoxy. The\ndynamiter, laying a bomb, ought to feel that, whatever else he is, at\nleast he is orthodox.\n\nIt is foolish, generally speaking, for a philosopher to set fire to\nanother philosopher in Smithfield Market because they do not agree in\ntheir theory of the universe.  That was done very frequently in the\nlast decadence of the Middle Ages, and it failed altogether in its\nobject.  But there is one thing that is infinitely more absurd and\nunpractical than burning a man for his philosophy. This is the habit of\nsaying that his philosophy does not matter, and this is done\nuniversally in the twentieth century, in the decadence of the great\nrevolutionary period. General theories are everywhere contemned; the\ndoctrine of the Rights of Man is dismissed with the doctrine of the\nFall of Man. Atheism itself is too theological for us to-day.\nRevolution itself is too much of a system; liberty itself is too much\nof a restraint. We will have no generalizations.  Mr. Bernard Shaw has\nput the view in a perfect epigram:  \u201cThe golden rule is that there is\nno golden rule.\u201d We are more and more to discuss details in art,\npolitics, literature. A man\u2019s opinion on tramcars matters; his opinion\non Botticelli matters; his opinion on all things does not matter.  He\nmay turn over and explore a million objects, but he must not find that\nstrange object, the universe; for if he does he will have a religion,\nand be lost. Everything matters\u2014except everything.\n\nExamples are scarcely needed of this total levity on the subject of\ncosmic philosophy.  Examples are scarcely needed to show that, whatever\nelse we think of as affecting practical affairs, we do not think it\nmatters whether a man is a pessimist or an optimist, a Cartesian or a\nHegelian, a materialist or a spiritualist. Let me, however, take a\nrandom instance.  At any innocent tea-table we may easily hear a man\nsay, \u201cLife is not worth living.\u201d We regard it as we regard the\nstatement that it is a fine day; nobody thinks that it can possibly\nhave any serious effect on the man or on the world.  And yet if that\nutterance were really believed, the world would stand on its head.\nMurderers would be given medals for saving men from life; firemen would\nbe denounced for keeping men from death; poisons would be used as\nmedicines; doctors would be called in when people were well; the Royal\nHumane Society would be rooted out like a horde of assassins. Yet we\nnever speculate as to whether the conversational pessimist will\nstrengthen or disorganize society; for we are convinced that theories\ndo not matter.\n\nThis was certainly not the idea of those who introduced our freedom.\nWhen the old Liberals removed the gags from all the heresies, their\nidea was that religious and philosophical discoveries might thus be\nmade. Their view was that cosmic truth was so important that every one\nought to bear independent testimony.  The modern idea is that cosmic\ntruth is so unimportant that it cannot matter what any one says. The\nformer freed inquiry as men loose a noble hound; the latter frees\ninquiry as men fling back into the sea a fish unfit for eating. Never\nhas there been so little discussion about the nature of men as now,\nwhen, for the first time, any one can discuss it.  The old restriction\nmeant that only the orthodox were allowed to discuss religion. Modern\nliberty means that nobody is allowed to discuss it. Good taste, the\nlast and vilest of human superstitions, has succeeded in silencing us\nwhere all the rest have failed. Sixty years ago it was bad taste to be\nan avowed atheist. Then came the Bradlaughites, the last religious men,\nthe last men who cared about God; but they could not alter it.  It is\nstill bad taste to be an avowed atheist.  But their agony has achieved\njust this\u2014that now it is equally bad taste to be an avowed Christian.\nEmancipation has only locked the saint in the same tower of silence as\nthe heresiarch.  Then we talk about Lord Anglesey and the weather, and\ncall it the complete liberty of all the creeds.\n\nBut there are some people, nevertheless\u2014and I am one of them\u2014who\nthink that the most practical and important thing about a man is still\nhis view of the universe.  We think that for a landlady considering a\nlodger, it is important to know his income, but still more important to\nknow his philosophy.  We think that for a general about to fight an\nenemy, it is important to know the enemy\u2019s numbers, but still more\nimportant to know the enemy\u2019s philosophy. We think the question is not\nwhether the theory of the cosmos affects matters, but whether in the\nlong run, anything else affects them. In the fifteenth century men\ncross-examined and tormented a man because he preached some immoral\nattitude; in the nineteenth century we feted and flattered Oscar Wilde\nbecause he preached such an attitude, and then broke his heart in penal\nservitude because he carried it out. It may be a question which of the\ntwo methods was the more cruel; there can be no kind of question which\nwas the more ludicrous. The age of the Inquisition has not at least the\ndisgrace of having produced a society which made an idol of the very\nsame man for preaching the very same things which it made him a convict\nfor practising.\n\nNow, in our time, philosophy or religion, our theory, that is, about\nultimate things, has been driven out, more or less simultaneously, from\ntwo fields which it used to occupy.  General ideals used to dominate\nliterature.  They have been driven out by the cry of \u201cart for art\u2019s\nsake.\u201d  General ideals used to dominate politics. They have been driven\nout by the cry of \u201cefficiency,\u201d which may roughly be translated as\n\u201cpolitics for politics\u2019 sake.\u201d Persistently for the last twenty years\nthe ideals of order or liberty have dwindled in our books; the\nambitions of wit and eloquence have dwindled in our parliaments.\nLiterature has purposely become less political; politics have purposely\nbecome less literary. General theories of the relation of things have\nthus been extruded from both; and we are in a position to ask, \u201cWhat\nhave we gained or lost by this extrusion?  Is literature better, is\npolitics better, for having discarded the moralist and the philosopher?\u201d\n\nWhen everything about a people is for the time growing weak and\nineffective, it begins to talk about efficiency.  So it is that when a\nman\u2019s body is a wreck he begins, for the first time, to talk about\nhealth. Vigorous organisms talk not about their processes, but about\ntheir aims. There cannot be any better proof of the physical efficiency\nof a man than that he talks cheerfully of a journey to the end of the\nworld. And there cannot be any better proof of the practical efficiency\nof a nation than that it talks constantly of a journey to the end of\nthe world, a journey to the Judgment Day and the New Jerusalem. There\ncan be no stronger sign of a coarse material health than the tendency\nto run after high and wild ideals; it is in the first exuberance of\ninfancy that we cry for the moon. None of the strong men in the strong\nages would have understood what you meant by working for efficiency.\nHildebrand would have said that he was working not for efficiency, but\nfor the Catholic Church. Danton would have said that he was working not\nfor efficiency, but for liberty, equality, and fraternity.  Even if the\nideal of such men were simply the ideal of kicking a man downstairs,\nthey thought of the end like men, not of the process like paralytics.\nThey did not say, \u201cEfficiently elevating my right leg, using, you will\nnotice, the muscles of the thigh and calf, which are in excellent\norder, I\u2014\u201d Their feeling was quite different. They were so filled with\nthe beautiful vision of the man lying flat at the foot of the staircase\nthat in that ecstasy the rest followed in a flash.  In practice, the\nhabit of generalizing and idealizing did not by any means mean worldly\nweakness. The time of big theories was the time of big results.  In the\nera of sentiment and fine words, at the end of the eighteenth century,\nmen were really robust and effective.  The sentimentalists conquered\nNapoleon. The cynics could not catch De Wet.  A hundred years ago our\naffairs for good or evil were wielded triumphantly by rhetoricians. Now\nour affairs are hopelessly muddled by strong, silent men. And just as\nthis repudiation of big words and big visions has brought forth a race\nof small men in politics, so it has brought forth a race of small men\nin the arts.  Our modern politicians claim the colossal license of\nCaesar and the Superman, claim that they are too practical to be pure\nand too patriotic to be moral; but the upshot of it all is that a\nmediocrity is Chancellor of the Exchequer. Our new artistic\nphilosophers call for the same moral license, for a freedom to wreck\nheaven and earth with their energy; but the upshot of it all is that a\nmediocrity is Poet Laureate. I do not say that there are no stronger\nmen than these; but will any one say that there are any men stronger\nthan those men of old who were dominated by their philosophy and\nsteeped in their religion? Whether bondage be better than freedom may\nbe discussed. But that their bondage came to more than our freedom it\nwill be difficult for any one to deny.\n\nThe theory of the unmorality of art has established itself firmly in\nthe strictly artistic classes.  They are free to produce anything they\nlike.  They are free to write a \u201cParadise Lost\u201d in which Satan shall\nconquer God.  They are free to write a \u201cDivine Comedy\u201d in which heaven\nshall be under the floor of hell. And what have they done?  Have they\nproduced in their universality anything grander or more beautiful than\nthe things uttered by the fierce Ghibbeline Catholic, by the rigid\nPuritan schoolmaster? We know that they have produced only a few\nroundels. Milton does not merely beat them at his piety, he beats them\nat their own irreverence.  In all their little books of verse you will\nnot find a finer defiance of God than Satan\u2019s. Nor will you find the\ngrandeur of paganism felt as that fiery Christian felt it who described\nFaranata lifting his head as in disdain of hell. And the reason is very\nobvious.  Blasphemy is an artistic effect, because blasphemy depends\nupon a philosophical conviction. Blasphemy depends upon belief and is\nfading with it. If any one doubts this, let him sit down seriously and\ntry to think blasphemous thoughts about Thor.  I think his family will\nfind him at the end of the day in a state of some exhaustion.\n\nNeither in the world of politics nor that of literature, then, has the\nrejection of general theories proved a success. It may be that there\nhave been many moonstruck and misleading ideals that have from time to\ntime perplexed mankind.  But assuredly there has been no ideal in\npractice so moonstruck and misleading as the ideal of practicality.\nNothing has lost so many opportunities as the opportunism of Lord\nRosebery.  He is, indeed, a standing symbol of this epoch\u2014the man who\nis theoretically a practical man, and practically more unpractical than\nany theorist.  Nothing in this universe is so unwise as that kind of\nworship of worldly wisdom. A man who is perpetually thinking of whether\nthis race or that race is strong, of whether this cause or that cause\nis promising, is the man who will never believe in anything long enough\nto make it succeed. The opportunist politician is like a man who should\nabandon billiards because he was beaten at billiards, and abandon golf\nbecause he was beaten at golf.  There is nothing which is so weak for\nworking purposes as this enormous importance attached to immediate\nvictory. There is nothing that fails like success.\n\nAnd having discovered that opportunism does fail, I have been induced\nto look at it more largely, and in consequence to see that it must\nfail. I perceive that it is far more practical to begin at the\nbeginning and discuss theories.  I see that the men who killed each\nother about the orthodoxy of the Homoousion were far more sensible than\nthe people who are quarrelling about the Education Act. For the\nChristian dogmatists were trying to establish a reign of holiness, and\ntrying to get defined, first of all, what was really holy. But our\nmodern educationists are trying to bring about a religious liberty\nwithout attempting to settle what is religion or what is liberty.  If\nthe old priests forced a statement on mankind, at least they previously\ntook some trouble to make it lucid. It has been left for the modern\nmobs of Anglicans and Nonconformists to persecute for a doctrine\nwithout even stating it.\n\nFor these reasons, and for many more, I for one have come to believe in\ngoing back to fundamentals.  Such is the general idea of this book.  I\nwish to deal with my most distinguished contemporaries, not personally\nor in a merely literary manner, but in relation to the real body of\ndoctrine which they teach. I am not concerned with Mr. Rudyard Kipling\nas a vivid artist or a vigorous personality; I am concerned with him as\na Heretic\u2014that is to say, a man whose view of things has the hardihood\nto differ from mine.  I am not concerned with Mr. Bernard Shaw as one\nof the most brilliant and one of the most honest men alive; I am\nconcerned with him as a Heretic\u2014that is to say, a man whose philosophy\nis quite solid, quite coherent, and quite wrong. I revert to the\ndoctrinal methods of the thirteenth century, inspired by the general\nhope of getting something done.\n\nSuppose that a great commotion arises in the street about something,\nlet us say a lamp-post, which many influential persons desire to pull\ndown.  A grey-clad monk, who is the spirit of the Middle Ages, is\napproached upon the matter, and begins to say, in the arid manner of\nthe Schoolmen, \u201cLet us first of all consider, my brethren, the value of\nLight.  If Light be in itself good\u2014\u201d At this point he is somewhat\nexcusably knocked down.  All the people make a rush for the lamp-post,\nthe lamp-post is down in ten minutes, and they go about congratulating\neach other on their unmediaeval practicality. But as things go on they\ndo not work out so easily.  Some people have pulled the lamp-post down\nbecause they wanted the electric light; some because they wanted old\niron; some because they wanted darkness, because their deeds were evil.\nSome thought it not enough of a lamp-post, some too much; some acted\nbecause they wanted to smash municipal machinery; some because they\nwanted to smash something. And there is war in the night, no man\nknowing whom he strikes. So, gradually and inevitably, to-day,\nto-morrow, or the next day, there comes back the conviction that the\nmonk was right after all, and that all depends on what is the\nphilosophy of Light. Only what we might have discussed under the\ngas-lamp, we now must discuss in the dark.\n\n\n\n\nII.  On the negative spirit\n\n\nMuch has been said, and said truly, of the monkish morbidity, of the\nhysteria which as often gone with the visions of hermits or nuns. But\nlet us never forget that this visionary religion is, in one sense,\nnecessarily more wholesome than our modern and reasonable morality. It\nis more wholesome for this reason, that it can contemplate the idea of\nsuccess or triumph in the hopeless fight towards the ethical ideal, in\nwhat Stevenson called, with his usual startling felicity, \u201cthe lost\nfight of virtue.\u201d  A modern morality, on the other hand, can only point\nwith absolute conviction to the horrors that follow breaches of law;\nits only certainty is a certainty of ill. It can only point to\nimperfection.  It has no perfection to point to. But the monk\nmeditating upon Christ or Buddha has in his mind an image of perfect\nhealth, a thing of clear colours and clean air. He may contemplate this\nideal wholeness and happiness far more than he ought; he may\ncontemplate it to the neglect of exclusion of essential THINGS; he may\ncontemplate it until he has become a dreamer or a driveller; but still\nit is wholeness and happiness that he is contemplating. He may even go\nmad; but he is going mad for the love of sanity. But the modern student\nof ethics, even if he remains sane, remains sane from an insane dread\nof insanity.\n\nThe anchorite rolling on the stones in a frenzy of submission is a\nhealthier person fundamentally than many a sober man in a silk hat who\nis walking down Cheapside.  For many such are good only through a\nwithering knowledge of evil. I am not at this moment claiming for the\ndevotee anything more than this primary advantage, that though he may\nbe making himself personally weak and miserable, he is still fixing his\nthoughts largely on gigantic strength and happiness, on a strength that\nhas no limits, and a happiness that has no end. Doubtless there are\nother objections which can be urged without unreason against the\ninfluence of gods and visions in morality, whether in the cell or\nstreet.  But this advantage the mystic morality must always have\u2014it is\nalways jollier.  A young man may keep himself from vice by continually\nthinking of disease. He may keep himself from it also by continually\nthinking of the Virgin Mary.  There may be question about which method\nis the more reasonable, or even about which is the more efficient. But\nsurely there can be no question about which is the more wholesome.\n\nI remember a pamphlet by that able and sincere secularist, Mr. G. W.\nFoote, which contained a phrase sharply symbolizing and dividing these\ntwo methods.  The pamphlet was called BEER AND BIBLE, those two very\nnoble things, all the nobler for a conjunction which Mr. Foote, in his\nstern old Puritan way, seemed to think sardonic, but which I confess to\nthinking appropriate and charming. I have not the work by me, but I\nremember that Mr. Foote dismissed very contemptuously any attempts to\ndeal with the problem of strong drink by religious offices or\nintercessions, and said that a picture of a drunkard\u2019s liver would be\nmore efficacious in the matter of temperance than any prayer or praise.\nIn that picturesque expression, it seems to me, is perfectly embodied\nthe incurable morbidity of modern ethics. In that temple the lights are\nlow, the crowds kneel, the solemn anthems are uplifted.  But that upon\nthe altar to which all men kneel is no longer the perfect flesh, the\nbody and substance of the perfect man; it is still flesh, but it is\ndiseased. It is the drunkard\u2019s liver of the New Testament that is\nmarred for us, which we take in remembrance of him.\n\nNow, it is this great gap in modern ethics, the absence of vivid\npictures of purity and spiritual triumph, which lies at the back of the\nreal objection felt by so many sane men to the realistic literature of\nthe nineteenth century.  If any ordinary man ever said that he was\nhorrified by the subjects discussed in Ibsen or Maupassant, or by the\nplain language in which they are spoken of, that ordinary man was\nlying.  The average conversation of average men throughout the whole of\nmodern civilization in every class or trade is such as Zola would never\ndream of printing. Nor is the habit of writing thus of these things a\nnew habit. On the contrary, it is the Victorian prudery and silence\nwhich is new still, though it is already dying.  The tradition of\ncalling a spade a spade starts very early in our literature and comes\ndown very late.  But the truth is that the ordinary honest man,\nwhatever vague account he may have given of his feelings, was not\neither disgusted or even annoyed at the candour of the moderns. What\ndisgusted him, and very justly, was not the presence of a clear\nrealism, but the absence of a clear idealism. Strong and genuine\nreligious sentiment has never had any objection to realism; on the\ncontrary, religion was the realistic thing, the brutal thing, the thing\nthat called names.  This is the great difference between some recent\ndevelopments of Nonconformity and the great Puritanism of the\nseventeenth century.  It was the whole point of the Puritans that they\ncared nothing for decency. Modern Nonconformist newspapers distinguish\nthemselves by suppressing precisely those nouns and adjectives which\nthe founders of Nonconformity distinguished themselves by flinging at\nkings and queens. But if it was a chief claim of religion that it spoke\nplainly about evil, it was the chief claim of all that it spoke plainly\nabout good. The thing which is resented, and, as I think, rightly\nresented, in that great modern literature of which Ibsen is typical, is\nthat while the eye that can perceive what are the wrong things\nincreases in an uncanny and devouring clarity, the eye which sees what\nthings are right is growing mistier and mistier every moment, till it\ngoes almost blind with doubt.  If we compare, let us say, the morality\nof the DIVINE COMEDY with the morality of Ibsen\u2019s GHOSTS, we shall see\nall that modern ethics have really done. No one, I imagine, will accuse\nthe author of the INFERNO of an Early Victorian prudishness or a\nPodsnapian optimism. But Dante describes three moral\ninstruments\u2014Heaven, Purgatory, and Hell, the vision of perfection, the\nvision of improvement, and the vision of failure.  Ibsen has only\none\u2014Hell. It is often said, and with perfect truth, that no one could\nread a play like GHOSTS and remain indifferent to the necessity of an\nethical self-command. That is quite true, and the same is to be said of\nthe most monstrous and material descriptions of the eternal fire. It is\nquite certain the realists like Zola do in one sense promote\nmorality\u2014they promote it in the sense in which the hangman promotes\nit, in the sense in which the devil promotes it. But they only affect\nthat small minority which will accept any virtue of courage.  Most\nhealthy people dismiss these moral dangers as they dismiss the\npossibility of bombs or microbes. Modern realists are indeed\nTerrorists, like the dynamiters; and they fail just as much in their\neffort to create a thrill. Both realists and dynamiters are\nwell-meaning people engaged in the task, so obviously ultimately\nhopeless, of using science to promote morality.\n\nI do not wish the reader to confuse me for a moment with those vague\npersons who imagine that Ibsen is what they call a pessimist. There are\nplenty of wholesome people in Ibsen, plenty of good people, plenty of\nhappy people, plenty of examples of men acting wisely and things ending\nwell.  That is not my meaning. My meaning is that Ibsen has throughout,\nand does not disguise, a certain vagueness and a changing attitude as\nwell as a doubting attitude towards what is really wisdom and virtue in\nthis life\u2014a vagueness which contrasts very remarkably with the\ndecisiveness with which he pounces on something which he perceives to\nbe a root of evil, some convention, some deception, some ignorance. We\nknow that the hero of GHOSTS is mad, and we know why he is mad. We do\nalso know that Dr. Stockman is sane; but we do not know why he is sane.\nIbsen does not profess to know how virtue and happiness are brought\nabout, in the sense that he professes to know how our modern sexual\ntragedies are brought about. Falsehood works ruin in THE PILLARS OF\nSOCIETY, but truth works equal ruin in THE WILD DUCK.  There are no\ncardinal virtues of Ibsenism. There is no ideal man of Ibsen.  All this\nis not only admitted, but vaunted in the most valuable and thoughtful\nof all the eulogies upon Ibsen, Mr. Bernard Shaw\u2019s QUINTESSENCE OF\nIBSENISM. Mr. Shaw sums up Ibsen\u2019s teaching in the phrase, \u201cThe golden\nrule is that there is no golden rule.\u201d  In his eyes this absence of an\nenduring and positive ideal, this absence of a permanent key to virtue,\nis the one great Ibsen merit. I am not discussing now with any fulness\nwhether this is so or not. All I venture to point out, with an\nincreased firmness, is that this omission, good or bad, does leave us\nface to face with the problem of a human consciousness filled with very\ndefinite images of evil, and with no definite image of good. To us\nlight must be henceforward the dark thing\u2014the thing of which we cannot\nspeak.  To us, as to Milton\u2019s devils in Pandemonium, it is darkness\nthat is visible.  The human race, according to religion, fell once, and\nin falling gained knowledge of good and of evil. Now we have fallen a\nsecond time, and only the knowledge of evil remains to us.\n\nA great silent collapse, an enormous unspoken disappointment, has in\nour time fallen on our Northern civilization.  All previous ages have\nsweated and been crucified in an attempt to realize what is really the\nright life, what was really the good man. A definite part of the modern\nworld has come beyond question to the conclusion that there is no\nanswer to these questions, that the most that we can do is to set up a\nfew notice-boards at places of obvious danger, to warn men, for\ninstance, against drinking themselves to death, or ignoring the mere\nexistence of their neighbours.  Ibsen is the first to return from the\nbaffled hunt to bring us the tidings of great failure.\n\nEvery one of the popular modern phrases and ideals is a dodge in order\nto shirk the problem of what is good. We are fond of talking about\n\u201cliberty\u201d; that, as we talk of it, is a dodge to avoid discussing what\nis good.  We are fond of talking about \u201cprogress\u201d; that is a dodge to\navoid discussing what is good. We are fond of talking about\n\u201ceducation\u201d; that is a dodge to avoid discussing what is good.  The\nmodern man says, \u201cLet us leave all these arbitrary standards and\nembrace liberty.\u201d This is, logically rendered, \u201cLet us not decide what\nis good, but let it be considered good not to decide it.\u201d  He says,\n\u201cAway with your old moral formulae; I am for progress.\u201d This, logically\nstated, means, \u201cLet us not settle what is good; but let us settle\nwhether we are getting more of it.\u201d He says, \u201cNeither in religion nor\nmorality, my friend, lie the hopes of the race, but in education.\u201d\nThis, clearly expressed, means, \u201cWe cannot decide what is good, but let\nus give it to our children.\u201d\n\nMr. H.G. Wells, that exceedingly clear-sighted man, has pointed out in\na recent work that this has happened in connection with economic\nquestions. The old economists, he says, made generalizations, and they\nwere (in Mr. Wells\u2019s view) mostly wrong.  But the new economists, he\nsays, seem to have lost the power of making any generalizations at all.\nAnd they cover this incapacity with a general claim to be, in specific\ncases, regarded as \u201cexperts\u201d, a claim \u201cproper enough in a hairdresser\nor a fashionable physician, but indecent in a philosopher or a man of\nscience.\u201d But in spite of the refreshing rationality with which Mr.\nWells has indicated this, it must also be said that he himself has\nfallen into the same enormous modern error.  In the opening pages of\nthat excellent book MANKIND IN THE MAKING, he dismisses the ideals of\nart, religion, abstract morality, and the rest, and says that he is\ngoing to consider men in their chief function, the function of\nparenthood. He is going to discuss life as a \u201ctissue of births.\u201d  He is\nnot going to ask what will produce satisfactory saints or satisfactory\nheroes, but what will produce satisfactory fathers and mothers.  The\nwhole is set forward so sensibly that it is a few moments at least\nbefore the reader realises that it is another example of unconscious\nshirking.  What is the good of begetting a man until we have settled\nwhat is the good of being a man? You are merely handing on to him a\nproblem you dare not settle yourself. It is as if a man were asked,\n\u201cWhat is the use of a hammer?\u201d and answered, \u201cTo make hammers\u201d; and\nwhen asked, \u201cAnd of those hammers, what is the use?\u201d answered, \u201cTo make\nhammers again\u201d. Just as such a man would be perpetually putting off the\nquestion of the ultimate use of carpentry, so Mr. Wells and all the\nrest of us are by these phrases successfully putting off the question\nof the ultimate value of the human life.\n\nThe case of the general talk of \u201cprogress\u201d is, indeed, an extreme one.\nAs enunciated to-day, \u201cprogress\u201d is simply a comparative of which we\nhave not settled the superlative. We meet every ideal of religion,\npatriotism, beauty, or brute pleasure with the alternative ideal of\nprogress\u2014that is to say, we meet every proposal of getting something\nthat we know about, with an alternative proposal of getting a great\ndeal more of nobody knows what.  Progress, properly understood, has,\nindeed, a most dignified and legitimate meaning.  But as used in\nopposition to precise moral ideals, it is ludicrous.  So far from it\nbeing the truth that the ideal of progress is to be set against that of\nethical or religious finality, the reverse is the truth. Nobody has any\nbusiness to use the word \u201cprogress\u201d unless he has a definite creed and\na cast-iron code of morals. Nobody can be progressive without being\ndoctrinal; I might almost say that nobody can be progressive without\nbeing infallible\u2014at any rate, without believing in some infallibility.\nFor progress by its very name indicates a direction; and the moment we\nare in the least doubtful about the direction, we become in the same\ndegree doubtful about the progress. Never perhaps since the beginning\nof the world has there been an age that had less right to use the word\n\u201cprogress\u201d than we. In the Catholic twelfth century, in the philosophic\neighteenth century, the direction may have been a good or a bad one,\nmen may have differed more or less about how far they went, and in what\ndirection, but about the direction they did in the main agree, and\nconsequently they had the genuine sensation of progress. But it is\nprecisely about the direction that we disagree. Whether the future\nexcellence lies in more law or less law, in more liberty or less\nliberty; whether property will be finally concentrated or finally cut\nup; whether sexual passion will reach its sanest in an almost virgin\nintellectualism or in a full animal freedom; whether we should love\neverybody with Tolstoy, or spare nobody with Nietzsche;\u2014these are the\nthings about which we are actually fighting most.  It is not merely\ntrue that the age which has settled least what is progress is this\n\u201cprogressive\u201d age. It is, moreover, true that the people who have\nsettled least what is progress are the most \u201cprogressive\u201d people in it.\nThe ordinary mass, the men who have never troubled about progress,\nmight be trusted perhaps to progress.  The particular individuals who\ntalk about progress would certainly fly to the four winds of heaven\nwhen the pistol-shot started the race. I do not, therefore, say that\nthe word \u201cprogress\u201d is unmeaning; I say it is unmeaning without the\nprevious definition of a moral doctrine, and that it can only be\napplied to groups of persons who hold that doctrine in common.\nProgress is not an illegitimate word, but it is logically evident that\nit is illegitimate for us. It is a sacred word, a word which could only\nrightly be used by rigid believers and in the ages of faith.\n\n\n\n\nIII.  On Mr. Rudyard Kipling and Making the World Small\n\n\nThere is no such thing on earth as an uninteresting subject; the only\nthing that can exist is an uninterested person. Nothing is more keenly\nrequired than a defence of bores. When Byron divided humanity into the\nbores and bored, he omitted to notice that the higher qualities exist\nentirely in the bores, the lower qualities in the bored, among whom he\ncounted himself. The bore, by his starry enthusiasm, his solemn\nhappiness, may, in some sense, have proved himself poetical.  The bored\nhas certainly proved himself prosaic.\n\nWe might, no doubt, find it a nuisance to count all the blades of grass\nor all the leaves of the trees; but this would not be because of our\nboldness or gaiety, but because of our lack of boldness and gaiety. The\nbore would go onward, bold and gay, and find the blades of grass as\nsplendid as the swords of an army.  The bore is stronger and more\njoyous than we are; he is a demigod\u2014nay, he is a god. For it is the\ngods who do not tire of the iteration of things; to them the nightfall\nis always new, and the last rose as red as the first.\n\nThe sense that everything is poetical is a thing solid and absolute; it\nis not a mere matter of phraseology or persuasion.  It is not merely\ntrue, it is ascertainable.  Men may be challenged to deny it; men may\nbe challenged to mention anything that is not a matter of poetry. I\nremember a long time ago a sensible sub-editor coming up to me with a\nbook in his hand, called \u201cMr. Smith,\u201d or \u201cThe Smith Family,\u201d or some\nsuch thing.  He said, \u201cWell, you won\u2019t get any of your damned mysticism\nout of this,\u201d or words to that effect.  I am happy to say that I\nundeceived him; but the victory was too obvious and easy. In most cases\nthe name is unpoetical, although the fact is poetical. In the case of\nSmith, the name is so poetical that it must be an arduous and heroic\nmatter for the man to live up to it. The name of Smith is the name of\nthe one trade that even kings respected, it could claim half the glory\nof that arma virumque which all epics acclaimed.  The spirit of the\nsmithy is so close to the spirit of song that it has mixed in a million\npoems, and every blacksmith is a harmonious blacksmith.\n\nEven the village children feel that in some dim way the smith is\npoetic, as the grocer and the cobbler are not poetic, when they feast\non the dancing sparks and deafening blows in the cavern of that\ncreative violence.  The brute repose of Nature, the passionate cunning\nof man, the strongest of earthly metals, the wierdest of earthly\nelements, the unconquerable iron subdued by its only conqueror, the\nwheel and the ploughshare, the sword and the steam-hammer, the arraying\nof armies and the whole legend of arms, all these things are written,\nbriefly indeed, but quite legibly, on the visiting-card of Mr. Smith.\nYet our novelists call their hero \u201cAylmer Valence,\u201d which means\nnothing, or \u201cVernon Raymond,\u201d which means nothing, when it is in their\npower to give him this sacred name of Smith\u2014this name made of iron and\nflame. It would be very natural if a certain hauteur, a certain\ncarriage of the head, a certain curl of the lip, distinguished every\none whose name is Smith.  Perhaps it does; I trust so. Whoever else are\nparvenus, the Smiths are not parvenus. From the darkest dawn of history\nthis clan has gone forth to battle; its trophies are on every hand; its\nname is everywhere; it is older than the nations, and its sign is the\nHammer of Thor. But as I also remarked, it is not quite the usual case.\nIt is common enough that common things should be poetical; it is not so\ncommon that common names should be poetical. In most cases it is the\nname that is the obstacle. A great many people talk as if this claim of\nours, that all things are poetical, were a mere literary ingenuity, a\nplay on words. Precisely the contrary is true.  It is the idea that\nsome things are not poetical which is literary, which is a mere product\nof words. The word \u201csignal-box\u201d is unpoetical.  But the thing\nsignal-box is not unpoetical; it is a place where men, in an agony of\nvigilance, light blood-red and sea-green fires to keep other men from\ndeath. That is the plain, genuine description of what it is; the prose\nonly comes in with what it is called.  The word \u201cpillar-box\u201d is\nunpoetical. But the thing pillar-box is not unpoetical; it is the place\nto which friends and lovers commit their messages, conscious that when\nthey have done so they are sacred, and not to be touched, not only by\nothers, but even (religious touch!) by themselves. That red turret is\none of the last of the temples.  Posting a letter and getting married\nare among the few things left that are entirely romantic; for to be\nentirely romantic a thing must be irrevocable. We think a pillar-box\nprosaic, because there is no rhyme to it. We think a pillar-box\nunpoetical, because we have never seen it in a poem.  But the bold fact\nis entirely on the side of poetry. A signal-box is only called a\nsignal-box; it is a house of life and death. A pillar-box is only\ncalled a pillar-box; it is a sanctuary of human words.  If you think\nthe name of \u201cSmith\u201d prosaic, it is not because you are practical and\nsensible; it is because you are too much affected with literary\nrefinements.  The name shouts poetry at you. If you think of it\notherwise, it is because you are steeped and sodden with verbal\nreminiscences, because you remember everything in Punch or Comic Cuts\nabout Mr. Smith being drunk or Mr. Smith being henpecked.  All these\nthings were given to you poetical. It is only by a long and elaborate\nprocess of literary effort that you have made them prosaic.\n\nNow, the first and fairest thing to say about Rudyard Kipling is that\nhe has borne a brilliant part in thus recovering the lost provinces of\npoetry.  He has not been frightened by that brutal materialistic air\nwhich clings only to words; he has pierced through to the romantic,\nimaginative matter of the things themselves. He has perceived the\nsignificance and philosophy of steam and of slang. Steam may be, if you\nlike, a dirty by-product of science. Slang may be, if you like, a dirty\nby-product of language. But at least he has been among the few who saw\nthe divine parentage of these things, and knew that where there is\nsmoke there is fire\u2014that is, that wherever there is the foulest of\nthings, there also is the purest. Above all, he has had something to\nsay, a definite view of things to utter, and that always means that a\nman is fearless and faces everything. For the moment we have a view of\nthe universe, we possess it.\n\nNow, the message of Rudyard Kipling, that upon which he has really\nconcentrated, is the only thing worth worrying about in him or in any\nother man.  He has often written bad poetry, like Wordsworth.  He has\noften said silly things, like Plato. He has often given way to mere\npolitical hysteria, like Gladstone. But no one can reasonably doubt\nthat he means steadily and sincerely to say something, and the only\nserious question is, What is that which he has tried to say?  Perhaps\nthe best way of stating this fairly will be to begin with that element\nwhich has been most insisted by himself and by his opponents\u2014I mean\nhis interest in militarism. But when we are seeking for the real merits\nof a man it is unwise to go to his enemies, and much more foolish to go\nto himself.\n\nNow, Mr. Kipling is certainly wrong in his worship of militarism, but\nhis opponents are, generally speaking, quite as wrong as he. The evil\nof militarism is not that it shows certain men to be fierce and haughty\nand excessively warlike.  The evil of militarism is that it shows most\nmen to be tame and timid and excessively peaceable. The professional\nsoldier gains more and more power as the general courage of a community\ndeclines.  Thus the Pretorian guard became more and more important in\nRome as Rome became more and more luxurious and feeble.  The military\nman gains the civil power in proportion as the civilian loses the\nmilitary virtues. And as it was in ancient Rome so it is in\ncontemporary Europe. There never was a time when nations were more\nmilitarist. There never was a time when men were less brave.  All ages\nand all epics have sung of arms and the man; but we have effected\nsimultaneously the deterioration of the man and the fantastic\nperfection of the arms. Militarism demonstrated the decadence of Rome,\nand it demonstrates the decadence of Prussia.\n\nAnd unconsciously Mr. Kipling has proved this, and proved it admirably.\nFor in so far as his work is earnestly understood the military trade\ndoes not by any means emerge as the most important or attractive. He\nhas not written so well about soldiers as he has about railway men or\nbridge builders, or even journalists. The fact is that what attracts\nMr. Kipling to militarism is not the idea of courage, but the idea of\ndiscipline. There was far more courage to the square mile in the Middle\nAges, when no king had a standing army, but every man had a bow or\nsword. But the fascination of the standing army upon Mr. Kipling is not\ncourage, which scarcely interests him, but discipline, which is, when\nall is said and done, his primary theme.  The modern army is not a\nmiracle of courage; it has not enough opportunities, owing to the\ncowardice of everybody else.  But it is really a miracle of\norganization, and that is the truly Kiplingite ideal. Kipling\u2019s subject\nis not that valour which properly belongs to war, but that\ninterdependence and efficiency which belongs quite as much to\nengineers, or sailors, or mules, or railway engines. And thus it is\nthat when he writes of engineers, or sailors, or mules, or\nsteam-engines, he writes at his best.  The real poetry, the \u201ctrue\nromance\u201d which Mr. Kipling has taught, is the romance of the division\nof labour and the discipline of all the trades. He sings the arts of\npeace much more accurately than the arts of war. And his main\ncontention is vital and valuable.  Every thing is military in the sense\nthat everything depends upon obedience.  There is no perfectly\nepicurean corner; there is no perfectly irresponsible place. Everywhere\nmen have made the way for us with sweat and submission. We may fling\nourselves into a hammock in a fit of divine carelessness. But we are\nglad that the net-maker did not make the hammock in a fit of divine\ncarelessness.  We may jump upon a child\u2019s rocking-horse for a joke. But\nwe are glad that the carpenter did not leave the legs of it unglued for\na joke.  So far from having merely preached that a soldier cleaning his\nside-arm is to be adored because he is military, Kipling at his best\nand clearest has preached that the baker baking loaves and the tailor\ncutting coats is as military as anybody.\n\nBeing devoted to this multitudinous vision of duty, Mr. Kipling is\nnaturally a cosmopolitan.  He happens to find his examples in the\nBritish Empire, but almost any other empire would do as well, or,\nindeed, any other highly civilized country. That which he admires in\nthe British army he would find even more apparent in the German army;\nthat which he desires in the British police he would find flourishing,\nin the French police. The ideal of discipline is not the whole of life,\nbut it is spread over the whole of the world.  And the worship of it\ntends to confirm in Mr. Kipling a certain note of worldly wisdom, of\nthe experience of the wanderer, which is one of the genuine charms of\nhis best work.\n\nThe great gap in his mind is what may be roughly called the lack of\npatriotism\u2014that is to say, he lacks altogether the faculty of\nattaching himself to any cause or community finally and tragically; for\nall finality must be tragic.  He admires England, but he does not love\nher; for we admire things with reasons, but love them without reasons.\nHe admires England because she is strong, not because she is English.\nThere is no harshness in saying this, for, to do him justice, he avows\nit with his usual picturesque candour.  In a very interesting poem, he\nsays that\u2014\n\n  \u201cIf England was what England seems\u201d\n\n\u2014that is, weak and inefficient; if England were not what (as he\nbelieves) she is\u2014that is, powerful and practical\u2014\n\n  \u201cHow quick we\u2019d chuck \u2019er! But she ain\u2019t!\u201d\n\nHe admits, that is, that his devotion is the result of a criticism, and\nthis is quite enough to put it in another category altogether from the\npatriotism of the Boers, whom he hounded down in South Africa. In\nspeaking of the really patriotic peoples, such as the Irish, he has\nsome difficulty in keeping a shrill irritation out of his language. The\nframe of mind which he really describes with beauty and nobility is the\nframe of mind of the cosmopolitan man who has seen men and cities.\n\n  \u201cFor to admire and for to see,\n   For to be\u2019old this world so wide.\u201d\n\nHe is a perfect master of that light melancholy with which a man looks\nback on having been the citizen of many communities, of that light\nmelancholy with which a man looks back on having been the lover of many\nwomen.  He is the philanderer of the nations. But a man may have learnt\nmuch about women in flirtations, and still be ignorant of first love; a\nman may have known as many lands as Ulysses, and still be ignorant of\npatriotism.\n\nMr. Rudyard Kipling has asked in a celebrated epigram what they can\nknow of England who know England only.  It is a far deeper and sharper\nquestion to ask, \u201cWhat can they know of England who know only the\nworld?\u201d for the world does not include England any more than it\nincludes the Church.  The moment we care for anything deeply, the\nworld\u2014that is, all the other miscellaneous interests\u2014becomes our\nenemy. Christians showed it when they talked of keeping one\u2019s self\n\u201cunspotted from the world;\u201d but lovers talk of it just as much when\nthey talk of the \u201cworld well lost.\u201d  Astronomically speaking, I\nunderstand that England is situated on the world; similarly, I suppose\nthat the Church was a part of the world, and even the lovers\ninhabitants of that orb.  But they all felt a certain truth\u2014the truth\nthat the moment you love anything the world becomes your foe. Thus Mr.\nKipling does certainly know the world; he is a man of the world, with\nall the narrowness that belongs to those imprisoned in that planet. He\nknows England as an intelligent English gentleman knows Venice. He has\nbeen to England a great many times; he has stopped there for long\nvisits.  But he does not belong to it, or to any place; and the proof\nof it is this, that he thinks of England as a place. The moment we are\nrooted in a place, the place vanishes. We live like a tree with the\nwhole strength of the universe.\n\nThe globe-trotter lives in a smaller world than the peasant. He is\nalways breathing, an air of locality.  London is a place, to be\ncompared to Chicago; Chicago is a place, to be compared to Timbuctoo.\nBut Timbuctoo is not a place, since there, at least, live men who\nregard it as the universe, and breathe, not an air of locality, but the\nwinds of the world.  The man in the saloon steamer has seen all the\nraces of men, and he is thinking of the things that divide men\u2014diet,\ndress, decorum, rings in the nose as in Africa, or in the ears as in\nEurope, blue paint among the ancients, or red paint among the modern\nBritons.  The man in the cabbage field has seen nothing at all; but he\nis thinking of the things that unite men\u2014hunger and babies, and the\nbeauty of women, and the promise or menace of the sky.  Mr. Kipling,\nwith all his merits, is the globe-trotter; he has not the patience to\nbecome part of anything. So great and genuine a man is not to be\naccused of a merely cynical cosmopolitanism; still, his cosmopolitanism\nis his weakness. That weakness is splendidly expressed in one of his\nfinest poems, \u201cThe Sestina of the Tramp Royal,\u201d in which a man declares\nthat he can endure anything in the way of hunger or horror, but not\npermanent presence in one place.  In this there is certainly danger.\nThe more dead and dry and dusty a thing is the more it travels about;\ndust is like this and the thistle-down and the High Commissioner in\nSouth Africa.  Fertile things are somewhat heavier, like the heavy\nfruit trees on the pregnant mud of the Nile.  In the heated idleness of\nyouth we were all rather inclined to quarrel with the implication of\nthat proverb which says that a rolling stone gathers no moss.  We were\ninclined to ask, \u201cWho wants to gather moss, except silly old ladies?\u201d\nBut for all that we begin to perceive that the proverb is right. The\nrolling stone rolls echoing from rock to rock; but the rolling stone is\ndead.  The moss is silent because the moss is alive.\n\nThe truth is that exploration and enlargement make the world smaller.\nThe telegraph and the steamboat make the world smaller. The telescope\nmakes the world smaller; it is only the microscope that makes it\nlarger.  Before long the world will be cloven with a war between the\ntelescopists and the microscopists. The first study large things and\nlive in a small world; the second study small things and live in a\nlarge world.  It is inspiriting without doubt to whizz in a motor-car\nround the earth, to feel Arabia as a whirl of sand or China as a flash\nof rice-fields. But Arabia is not a whirl of sand and China is not a\nflash of rice-fields. They are ancient civilizations with strange\nvirtues buried like treasures. If we wish to understand them it must\nnot be as tourists or inquirers, it must be with the loyalty of\nchildren and the great patience of poets. To conquer these places is to\nlose them.  The man standing in his own kitchen-garden, with fairyland\nopening at the gate, is the man with large ideas.  His mind creates\ndistance; the motor-car stupidly destroys it.  Moderns think of the\nearth as a globe, as something one can easily get round, the spirit of\na schoolmistress. This is shown in the odd mistake perpetually made\nabout Cecil Rhodes. His enemies say that he may have had large ideas,\nbut he was a bad man. His friends say that he may have been a bad man,\nbut he certainly had large ideas.  The truth is that he was not a man\nessentially bad, he was a man of much geniality and many good\nintentions, but a man with singularly small views.  There is nothing\nlarge about painting the map red; it is an innocent game for children.\nIt is just as easy to think in continents as to think in cobble-stones.\nThe difficulty comes in when we seek to know the substance of either of\nthem. Rhodes\u2019 prophecies about the Boer resistance are an admirable\ncomment on how the \u201clarge ideas\u201d prosper when it is not a question of\nthinking in continents but of understanding a few two-legged men. And\nunder all this vast illusion of the cosmopolitan planet, with its\nempires and its Reuter\u2019s agency, the real life of man goes on concerned\nwith this tree or that temple, with this harvest or that drinking-song,\ntotally uncomprehended, totally untouched. And it watches from its\nsplendid parochialism, possibly with a smile of amusement, motor-car\ncivilization going its triumphant way, outstripping time, consuming\nspace, seeing all and seeing nothing, roaring on at last to the capture\nof the solar system, only to find the sun cockney and the stars\nsuburban.\n\n\n\n\nIV.  Mr. Bernard Shaw\n\n\nIn the glad old days, before the rise of modern morbidities, when\ngenial old Ibsen filled the world with wholesome joy, and the kindly\ntales of the forgotten Emile Zola kept our firesides merry and pure, it\nused to be thought a disadvantage to be misunderstood. It may be\ndoubted whether it is always or even generally a disadvantage. The man\nwho is misunderstood has always this advantage over his enemies, that\nthey do not know his weak point or his plan of campaign. They go out\nagainst a bird with nets and against a fish with arrows. There are\nseveral modern examples of this situation.  Mr. Chamberlain, for\ninstance, is a very good one.  He constantly eludes or vanquishes his\nopponents because his real powers and deficiencies are quite different\nto those with which he is credited, both by friends and foes. His\nfriends depict him as a strenuous man of action; his opponents depict\nhim as a coarse man of business; when, as a fact, he is neither one nor\nthe other, but an admirable romantic orator and romantic actor. He has\none power which is the soul of melodrama\u2014the power of pretending, even\nwhen backed by a huge majority, that he has his back to the wall. For\nall mobs are so far chivalrous that their heroes must make some show of\nmisfortune\u2014that sort of hypocrisy is the homage that strength pays to\nweakness.  He talks foolishly and yet very finely about his own city\nthat has never deserted him. He wears a flaming and fantastic flower,\nlike a decadent minor poet. As for his bluffness and toughness and\nappeals to common sense, all that is, of course, simply the first trick\nof rhetoric. He fronts his audiences with the venerable affectation of\nMark Antony\u2014\n\n  \u201cI am no orator, as Brutus is;\n   But as you know me all, a plain blunt man.\u201d\n\nIt is the whole difference between the aim of the orator and the aim of\nany other artist, such as the poet or the sculptor. The aim of the\nsculptor is to convince us that he is a sculptor; the aim of the\norator, is to convince us that he is not an orator. Once let Mr.\nChamberlain be mistaken for a practical man, and his game is won.  He\nhas only to compose a theme on empire, and people will say that these\nplain men say great things on great occasions. He has only to drift in\nthe large loose notions common to all artists of the second rank, and\npeople will say that business men have the biggest ideals after all.\nAll his schemes have ended in smoke; he has touched nothing that he did\nnot confuse. About his figure there is a Celtic pathos; like the Gaels\nin Matthew Arnold\u2019s quotation, \u201che went forth to battle, but he always\nfell.\u201d He is a mountain of proposals, a mountain of failures; but still\na mountain.  And a mountain is always romantic.\n\nThere is another man in the modern world who might be called the\nantithesis of Mr. Chamberlain in every point, who is also a standing\nmonument of the advantage of being misunderstood. Mr. Bernard Shaw is\nalways represented by those who disagree with him, and, I fear, also\n(if such exist) by those who agree with him, as a capering humorist, a\ndazzling acrobat, a quick-change artist. It is said that he cannot be\ntaken seriously, that he will defend anything or attack anything, that\nhe will do anything to startle and amuse. All this is not only untrue,\nbut it is, glaringly, the opposite of the truth; it is as wild as to\nsay that Dickens had not the boisterous masculinity of Jane Austen.\nThe whole force and triumph of Mr. Bernard Shaw lie in the fact that he\nis a thoroughly consistent man. So far from his power consisting in\njumping through hoops or standing on his head, his power consists in\nholding his own fortress night and day. He puts the Shaw test rapidly\nand rigorously to everything that happens in heaven or earth.  His\nstandard never varies. The thing which weak-minded revolutionists and\nweak-minded Conservatives really hate (and fear) in him, is exactly\nthis, that his scales, such as they are, are held even, and that his\nlaw, such as it is, is justly enforced.  You may attack his principles,\nas I do; but I do not know of any instance in which you can attack\ntheir application. If he dislikes lawlessness, he dislikes the\nlawlessness of Socialists as much as that of Individualists.  If he\ndislikes the fever of patriotism, he dislikes it in Boers and Irishmen\nas well as in Englishmen. If he dislikes the vows and bonds of\nmarriage, he dislikes still more the fiercer bonds and wilder vows that\nare made by lawless love. If he laughs at the authority of priests, he\nlaughs louder at the pomposity of men of science.  If he condemns the\nirresponsibility of faith, he condemns with a sane consistency the\nequal irresponsibility of art. He has pleased all the bohemians by\nsaying that women are equal to men; but he has infuriated them by\nsuggesting that men are equal to women. He is almost mechanically just;\nhe has something of the terrible quality of a machine.  The man who is\nreally wild and whirling, the man who is really fantastic and\nincalculable, is not Mr. Shaw, but the average Cabinet Minister.  It is\nSir Michael Hicks-Beach who jumps through hoops.  It is Sir Henry\nFowler who stands on his head. The solid and respectable statesman of\nthat type does really leap from position to position; he is really\nready to defend anything or nothing; he is really not to be taken\nseriously. I know perfectly well what Mr. Bernard Shaw will be saying\nthirty years hence; he will be saying what he has always said. If\nthirty years hence I meet Mr. Shaw, a reverent being with a silver\nbeard sweeping the earth, and say to him, \u201cOne can never, of course,\nmake a verbal attack upon a lady,\u201d the patriarch will lift his aged\nhand and fell me to the earth. We know, I say, what Mr. Shaw will be,\nsaying thirty years hence. But is there any one so darkly read in stars\nand oracles that he will dare to predict what Mr. Asquith will be\nsaying thirty years hence?\n\nThe truth is, that it is quite an error to suppose that absence of\ndefinite convictions gives the mind freedom and agility. A man who\nbelieves something is ready and witty, because he has all his weapons\nabout him.  He can apply his test in an instant. The man engaged in\nconflict with a man like Mr. Bernard Shaw may fancy he has ten faces;\nsimilarly a man engaged against a brilliant duellist may fancy that the\nsword of his foe has turned to ten swords in his hand.  But this is not\nreally because the man is playing with ten swords, it is because he is\naiming very straight with one. Moreover, a man with a definite belief\nalways appears bizarre, because he does not change with the world; he\nhas climbed into a fixed star, and the earth whizzes below him like a\nzoetrope. Millions of mild black-coated men call themselves sane and\nsensible merely because they always catch the fashionable insanity,\nbecause they are hurried into madness after madness by the maelstrom of\nthe world.\n\nPeople accuse Mr. Shaw and many much sillier persons of \u201cproving that\nblack is white.\u201d  But they never ask whether the current\ncolour-language is always correct.  Ordinary sensible phraseology\nsometimes calls black white, it certainly calls yellow white and green\nwhite and reddish-brown white. We call wine \u201cwhite wine\u201d which is as\nyellow as a Blue-coat boy\u2019s legs. We call grapes \u201cwhite grapes\u201d which\nare manifestly pale green. We give to the European, whose complexion is\na sort of pink drab, the horrible title of a \u201cwhite man\u201d\u2014a picture\nmore blood-curdling than any spectre in Poe.\n\nNow, it is undoubtedly true that if a man asked a waiter in a\nrestaurant for a bottle of yellow wine and some greenish-yellow grapes,\nthe waiter would think him mad.  It is undoubtedly true that if a\nGovernment official, reporting on the Europeans in Burmah, said, \u201cThere\nare only two thousand pinkish men here\u201d he would be accused of cracking\njokes, and kicked out of his post.  But it is equally obvious that both\nmen would have come to grief through telling the strict truth. That too\ntruthful man in the restaurant; that too truthful man in Burmah, is Mr.\nBernard Shaw.  He appears eccentric and grotesque because he will not\naccept the general belief that white is yellow. He has based all his\nbrilliancy and solidity upon the hackneyed, but yet forgotten, fact\nthat truth is stranger than fiction. Truth, of course, must of\nnecessity be stranger than fiction, for we have made fiction to suit\nourselves.\n\nSo much then a reasonable appreciation will find in Mr. Shaw to be\nbracing and excellent.  He claims to see things as they are; and some\nthings, at any rate, he does see as they are, which the whole of our\ncivilization does not see at all. But in Mr. Shaw\u2019s realism there is\nsomething lacking, and that thing which is lacking is serious.\n\nMr. Shaw\u2019s old and recognized philosophy was that powerfully presented\nin \u201cThe Quintessence of Ibsenism.\u201d  It was, in brief, that conservative\nideals were bad, not because they were conservative, but because they\nwere ideals.  Every ideal prevented men from judging justly the\nparticular case; every moral generalization oppressed the individual;\nthe golden rule was there was no golden rule. And the objection to this\nis simply that it pretends to free men, but really restrains them from\ndoing the only thing that men want to do. What is the good of telling a\ncommunity that it has every liberty except the liberty to make laws?\nThe liberty to make laws is what constitutes a free people.  And what\nis the good of telling a man (or a philosopher) that he has every\nliberty except the liberty to make generalizations.  Making\ngeneralizations is what makes him a man. In short, when Mr. Shaw\nforbids men to have strict moral ideals, he is acting like one who\nshould forbid them to have children. The saying that \u201cthe golden rule\nis that there is no golden rule,\u201d can, indeed, be simply answered by\nbeing turned round. That there is no golden rule is itself a golden\nrule, or rather it is much worse than a golden rule.  It is an iron\nrule; a fetter on the first movement of a man.\n\nBut the sensation connected with Mr. Shaw in recent years has been his\nsudden development of the religion of the Superman. He who had to all\nappearance mocked at the faiths in the forgotten past discovered a new\ngod in the unimaginable future.  He who had laid all the blame on\nideals set up the most impossible of all ideals, the ideal of a new\ncreature.  But the truth, nevertheless, is that any one who knows Mr.\nShaw\u2019s mind adequately, and admires it properly, must have guessed all\nthis long ago.\n\nFor the truth is that Mr. Shaw has never seen things as they really\nare. If he had he would have fallen on his knees before them. He has\nalways had a secret ideal that has withered all the things of this\nworld.  He has all the time been silently comparing humanity with\nsomething that was not human, with a monster from Mars, with the Wise\nMan of the Stoics, with the Economic Man of the Fabians, with Julius\nCaesar, with Siegfried, with the Superman.  Now, to have this inner and\nmerciless standard may be a very good thing, or a very bad one, it may\nbe excellent or unfortunate, but it is not seeing things as they are.\nIt is not seeing things as they are to think first of a Briareus with a\nhundred hands, and then call every man a cripple for only having two.\nIt is not seeing things as they are to start with a vision of Argus\nwith his hundred eyes, and then jeer at every man with two eyes as if\nhe had only one. And it is not seeing things as they are to imagine a\ndemigod of infinite mental clarity, who may or may not appear in the\nlatter days of the earth, and then to see all men as idiots.  And this\nis what Mr. Shaw has always in some degree done.  When we really see\nmen as they are, we do not criticise, but worship; and very rightly.\nFor a monster with mysterious eyes and miraculous thumbs, with strange\ndreams in his skull, and a queer tenderness for this place or that\nbaby, is truly a wonderful and unnerving matter. It is only the quite\narbitrary and priggish habit of comparison with something else which\nmakes it possible to be at our ease in front of him. A sentiment of\nsuperiority keeps us cool and practical; the mere facts would make our\nknees knock under as with religious fear.  It is the fact that every\ninstant of conscious life is an unimaginable prodigy. It is the fact\nthat every face in the street has the incredible unexpectedness of a\nfairy-tale. The thing which prevents a man from realizing this is not\nany clear-sightedness or experience, it is simply a habit of pedantic\nand fastidious comparisons between one thing and another.  Mr. Shaw, on\nthe practical side perhaps the most humane man alive, is in this sense\ninhumane. He has even been infected to some extent with the primary\nintellectual weakness of his new master, Nietzsche, the strange notion\nthat the greater and stronger a man was the more he would despise other\nthings.  The greater and stronger a man is the more he would be\ninclined to prostrate himself before a periwinkle. That Mr. Shaw keeps\na lifted head and a contemptuous face before the colossal panorama of\nempires and civilizations, this does not in itself convince one that he\nsees things as they are. I should be most effectively convinced that he\ndid if I found him staring with religious astonishment at his own feet.\n\u201cWhat are those two beautiful and industrious beings,\u201d I can imagine\nhim murmuring to himself, \u201cwhom I see everywhere, serving me I know not\nwhy? What fairy godmother bade them come trotting out of elfland when I\nwas born?  What god of the borderland, what barbaric god of legs, must\nI propitiate with fire and wine, lest they run away with me?\u201d\n\nThe truth is, that all genuine appreciation rests on a certain mystery\nof humility and almost of darkness.  The man who said, \u201cBlessed is he\nthat expecteth nothing, for he shall not be disappointed,\u201d put the\neulogy quite inadequately and even falsely.  The truth \u201cBlessed is he\nthat expecteth nothing, for he shall be gloriously surprised.\u201d The man\nwho expects nothing sees redder roses than common men can see, and\ngreener grass, and a more startling sun.  Blessed is he that expecteth\nnothing, for he shall possess the cities and the mountains; blessed is\nthe meek, for he shall inherit the earth.  Until we realize that things\nmight not be we cannot realize that things are. Until we see the\nbackground of darkness we cannot admire the light as a single and\ncreated thing.  As soon as we have seen that darkness, all light is\nlightening, sudden, blinding, and divine. Until we picture nonentity we\nunderrate the victory of God, and can realize none of the trophies of\nHis ancient war. It is one of the million wild jests of truth that we\nknow nothing until we know nothing.\n\nNow this is, I say deliberately, the only defect in the greatness of\nMr. Shaw, the only answer to his claim to be a great man, that he is\nnot easily pleased.  He is an almost solitary exception to the general\nand essential maxim, that little things please great minds. And from\nthis absence of that most uproarious of all things, humility, comes\nincidentally the peculiar insistence on the Superman. After belabouring\na great many people for a great many years for being unprogressive, Mr.\nShaw has discovered, with characteristic sense, that it is very\ndoubtful whether any existing human being with two legs can be\nprogressive at all.  Having come to doubt whether humanity can be\ncombined with progress, most people, easily pleased, would have elected\nto abandon progress and remain with humanity. Mr. Shaw, not being\neasily pleased, decides to throw over humanity with all its limitations\nand go in for progress for its own sake. If man, as we know him, is\nincapable of the philosophy of progress, Mr. Shaw asks, not for a new\nkind of philosophy, but for a new kind of man.  It is rather as if a\nnurse had tried a rather bitter food for some years on a baby, and on\ndiscovering that it was not suitable, should not throw away the food\nand ask for a new food, but throw the baby out of window, and ask for a\nnew baby. Mr. Shaw cannot understand that the thing which is valuable\nand lovable in our eyes is man\u2014the old beer-drinking, creed-making,\nfighting, failing, sensual, respectable man. And the things that have\nbeen founded on this creature immortally remain; the things that have\nbeen founded on the fancy of the Superman have died with the dying\ncivilizations which alone have given them birth. When Christ at a\nsymbolic moment was establishing His great society, He chose for its\ncorner-stone neither the brilliant Paul nor the mystic John, but a\nshuffler, a snob a coward\u2014in a word, a man. And upon this rock He has\nbuilt His Church, and the gates of Hell have not prevailed against it.\nAll the empires and the kingdoms have failed, because of this inherent\nand continual weakness, that they were founded by strong men and upon\nstrong men. But this one thing, the historic Christian Church, was\nfounded on a weak man, and for that reason it is indestructible. For no\nchain is stronger than its weakest link.\n\n\n\n\nV. Mr. H. G. Wells and the Giants\n\n\nWe ought to see far enough into a hypocrite to see even his sincerity.\nWe ought to be interested in that darkest and most real part of a man\nin which dwell not the vices that he does not display, but the virtues\nthat he cannot.  And the more we approach the problems of human history\nwith this keen and piercing charity, the smaller and smaller space we\nshall allow to pure hypocrisy of any kind. The hypocrites shall not\ndeceive us into thinking them saints; but neither shall they deceive us\ninto thinking them hypocrites. And an increasing number of cases will\ncrowd into our field of inquiry, cases in which there is really no\nquestion of hypocrisy at all, cases in which people were so ingenuous\nthat they seemed absurd, and so absurd that they seemed disingenuous.\n\nThere is one striking instance of an unfair charge of hypocrisy. It is\nalways urged against the religious in the past, as a point of\ninconsistency and duplicity, that they combined a profession of almost\ncrawling humility with a keen struggle for earthly success and\nconsiderable triumph in attaining it.  It is felt as a piece of humbug,\nthat a man should be very punctilious in calling himself a miserable\nsinner, and also very punctilious in calling himself King of France.\nBut the truth is that there is no more conscious inconsistency between\nthe humility of a Christian and the rapacity of a Christian than there\nis between the humility of a lover and the rapacity of a lover. The\ntruth is that there are no things for which men will make such\nherculean efforts as the things of which they know they are unworthy.\nThere never was a man in love who did not declare that, if he strained\nevery nerve to breaking, he was going to have his desire. And there\nnever was a man in love who did not declare also that he ought not to\nhave it.  The whole secret of the practical success of Christendom lies\nin the Christian humility, however imperfectly fulfilled. For with the\nremoval of all question of merit or payment, the soul is suddenly\nreleased for incredible voyages.  If we ask a sane man how much he\nmerits, his mind shrinks instinctively and instantaneously. It is\ndoubtful whether he merits six feet of earth. But if you ask him what\nhe can conquer\u2014he can conquer the stars. Thus comes the thing called\nRomance, a purely Christian product. A man cannot deserve adventures;\nhe cannot earn dragons and hippogriffs. The mediaeval Europe which\nasserted humility gained Romance; the civilization which gained Romance\nhas gained the habitable globe. How different the Pagan and Stoical\nfeeling was from this has been admirably expressed in a famous\nquotation.  Addison makes the great Stoic say\u2014\n\n  \u201c\u2019Tis not in mortals to command success;\n   But we\u2019ll do more, Sempronius, we\u2019ll deserve it.\u201d\n\nBut the spirit of Romance and Christendom, the spirit which is in every\nlover, the spirit which has bestridden the earth with European\nadventure, is quite opposite.  \u2019Tis not in mortals to deserve success.\nBut we\u2019ll do more, Sempronius; we\u2019ll obtain it.\n\nAnd this gay humility, this holding of ourselves lightly and yet ready\nfor an infinity of unmerited triumphs, this secret is so simple that\nevery one has supposed that it must be something quite sinister and\nmysterious. Humility is so practical a virtue that men think it must be\na vice. Humility is so successful that it is mistaken for pride. It is\nmistaken for it all the more easily because it generally goes with a\ncertain simple love of splendour which amounts to vanity. Humility will\nalways, by preference, go clad in scarlet and gold; pride is that which\nrefuses to let gold and scarlet impress it or please it too much.  In a\nword, the failure of this virtue actually lies in its success; it is\ntoo successful as an investment to be believed in as a virtue.\nHumility is not merely too good for this world; it is too practical for\nthis world; I had almost said it is too worldly for this world.\n\nThe instance most quoted in our day is the thing called the humility of\nthe man of science; and certainly it is a good instance as well as a\nmodern one.  Men find it extremely difficult to believe that a man who\nis obviously uprooting mountains and dividing seas, tearing down\ntemples and stretching out hands to the stars, is really a quiet old\ngentleman who only asks to be allowed to indulge his harmless old hobby\nand follow his harmless old nose. When a man splits a grain of sand and\nthe universe is turned upside down in consequence, it is difficult to\nrealize that to the man who did it, the splitting of the grain is the\ngreat affair, and the capsizing of the cosmos quite a small one.  It is\nhard to enter into the feelings of a man who regards a new heaven and a\nnew earth in the light of a by-product. But undoubtedly it was to this\nalmost eerie innocence of the intellect that the great men of the great\nscientific period, which now appears to be closing, owed their enormous\npower and triumph. If they had brought the heavens down like a house of\ncards their plea was not even that they had done it on principle; their\nquite unanswerable plea was that they had done it by accident. Whenever\nthere was in them the least touch of pride in what they had done, there\nwas a good ground for attacking them; but so long as they were wholly\nhumble, they were wholly victorious. There were possible answers to\nHuxley; there was no answer possible to Darwin.  He was convincing\nbecause of his unconsciousness; one might almost say because of his\ndulness.  This childlike and prosaic mind is beginning to wane in the\nworld of science. Men of science are beginning to see themselves, as\nthe fine phrase is, in the part; they are beginning to be proud of\ntheir humility. They are beginning to be aesthetic, like the rest of\nthe world, beginning to spell truth with a capital T, beginning to talk\nof the creeds they imagine themselves to have destroyed, of the\ndiscoveries that their forbears made.  Like the modern English, they\nare beginning to be soft about their own hardness. They are becoming\nconscious of their own strength\u2014that is, they are growing weaker.  But\none purely modern man has emerged in the strictly modern decades who\ndoes carry into our world the clear personal simplicity of the old\nworld of science.  One man of genius we have who is an artist, but who\nwas a man of science, and who seems to be marked above all things with\nthis great scientific humility. I mean Mr. H. G. Wells.  And in his\ncase, as in the others above spoken of, there must be a great\npreliminary difficulty in convincing the ordinary person that such a\nvirtue is predicable of such a man. Mr. Wells began his literary work\nwith violent visions\u2014visions of the last pangs of this planet; can it\nbe that a man who begins with violent visions is humble?  He went on to\nwilder and wilder stories about carving beasts into men and shooting\nangels like birds. Is the man who shoots angels and carves beasts into\nmen humble? Since then he has done something bolder than either of\nthese blasphemies; he has prophesied the political future of all men;\nprophesied it with aggressive authority and a ringing decision of\ndetail. Is the prophet of the future of all men humble?  It will indeed\nbe difficult, in the present condition of current thought about such\nthings as pride and humility, to answer the query of how a man can be\nhumble who does such big things and such bold things. For the only\nanswer is the answer which I gave at the beginning of this essay.  It\nis the humble man who does the big things. It is the humble man who\ndoes the bold things.  It is the humble man who has the sensational\nsights vouchsafed to him, and this for three obvious reasons:  first,\nthat he strains his eyes more than any other men to see them; second,\nthat he is more overwhelmed and uplifted with them when they come;\nthird, that he records them more exactly and sincerely and with less\nadulteration from his more commonplace and more conceited everyday\nself. Adventures are to those to whom they are most unexpected\u2014that\nis, most romantic.  Adventures are to the shy:  in this sense\nadventures are to the unadventurous.\n\nNow, this arresting, mental humility in Mr. H. G. Wells may be, like a\ngreat many other things that are vital and vivid, difficult to\nillustrate by examples, but if I were asked for an example of it, I\nshould have no difficulty about which example to begin with. The most\ninteresting thing about Mr. H. G. Wells is that he is the only one of\nhis many brilliant contemporaries who has not stopped growing.  One can\nlie awake at night and hear him grow. Of this growth the most evident\nmanifestation is indeed a gradual change of opinions; but it is no mere\nchange of opinions. It is not a perpetual leaping from one position to\nanother like that of Mr. George Moore.  It is a quite continuous\nadvance along a quite solid road in a quite definable direction.  But\nthe chief proof that it is not a piece of fickleness and vanity is the\nfact that it has been upon the whole an advance from more startling\nopinions to more humdrum opinions.  It has been even in some sense an\nadvance from unconventional opinions to conventional opinions. This\nfact fixes Mr. Wells\u2019s honesty and proves him to be no poseur. Mr.\nWells once held that the upper classes and the lower classes would be\nso much differentiated in the future that one class would eat the\nother.  Certainly no paradoxical charlatan who had once found arguments\nfor so startling a view would ever have deserted it except for\nsomething yet more startling.  Mr. Wells has deserted it in favour of\nthe blameless belief that both classes will be ultimately subordinated\nor assimilated to a sort of scientific middle class, a class of\nengineers.  He has abandoned the sensational theory with the same\nhonourable gravity and simplicity with which he adopted it. Then he\nthought it was true; now he thinks it is not true. He has come to the\nmost dreadful conclusion a literary man can come to, the conclusion\nthat the ordinary view is the right one. It is only the last and\nwildest kind of courage that can stand on a tower before ten thousand\npeople and tell them that twice two is four.\n\nMr. H. G. Wells exists at present in a gay and exhilarating progress of\nconservativism.  He is finding out more and more that conventions,\nthough silent, are alive.  As good an example as any of this humility\nand sanity of his may be found in his change of view on the subject of\nscience and marriage.  He once held, I believe, the opinion which some\nsingular sociologists still hold, that human creatures could\nsuccessfully be paired and bred after the manner of dogs or horses.  He\nno longer holds that view. Not only does he no longer hold that view,\nbut he has written about it in \u201cMankind in the Making\u201d with such\nsmashing sense and humour, that I find it difficult to believe that\nanybody else can hold it either. It is true that his chief objection to\nthe proposal is that it is physically impossible, which seems to me a\nvery slight objection, and almost negligible compared with the others.\nThe one objection to scientific marriage which is worthy of final\nattention is simply that such a thing could only be imposed on\nunthinkable slaves and cowards.  I do not know whether the scientific\nmarriage-mongers are right (as they say) or wrong (as Mr. Wells says)\nin saying that medical supervision would produce strong and healthy\nmen. I am only certain that if it did, the first act of the strong and\nhealthy men would be to smash the medical supervision.\n\nThe mistake of all that medical talk lies in the very fact that it\nconnects the idea of health with the idea of care.  What has health to\ndo with care?  Health has to do with carelessness.  In special and\nabnormal cases it is necessary to have care.  When we are peculiarly\nunhealthy it may be necessary to be careful in order to be healthy. But\neven then we are only trying to be healthy in order to be careless. If\nwe are doctors we are speaking to exceptionally sick men, and they\nought to be told to be careful.  But when we are sociologists we are\naddressing the normal man, we are addressing humanity. And humanity\nought to be told to be recklessness itself. For all the fundamental\nfunctions of a healthy man ought emphatically to be performed with\npleasure and for pleasure; they emphatically ought not to be performed\nwith precaution or for precaution. A man ought to eat because he has a\ngood appetite to satisfy, and emphatically not because he has a body to\nsustain.  A man ought to take exercise not because he is too fat, but\nbecause he loves foils or horses or high mountains, and loves them for\ntheir own sake. And a man ought to marry because he has fallen in love,\nand emphatically not because the world requires to be populated. The\nfood will really renovate his tissues as long as he is not thinking\nabout his tissues.  The exercise will really get him into training so\nlong as he is thinking about something else.  And the marriage will\nreally stand some chance of producing a generous-blooded generation if\nit had its origin in its own natural and generous excitement. It is the\nfirst law of health that our necessities should not be accepted as\nnecessities; they should be accepted as luxuries. Let us, then, be\ncareful about the small things, such as a scratch or a slight illness,\nor anything that can be managed with care. But in the name of all\nsanity, let us be careless about the important things, such as\nmarriage, or the fountain of our very life will fail.\n\nMr. Wells, however, is not quite clear enough of the narrower\nscientific outlook to see that there are some things which actually\nought not to be scientific.  He is still slightly affected with the\ngreat scientific fallacy; I mean the habit of beginning not with the\nhuman soul, which is the first thing a man learns about, but with some\nsuch thing as protoplasm, which is about the last. The one defect in\nhis splendid mental equipment is that he does not sufficiently allow\nfor the stuff or material of men. In his new Utopia he says, for\ninstance, that a chief point of the Utopia will be a disbelief in\noriginal sin.  If he had begun with the human soul\u2014that is, if he had\nbegun on himself\u2014he would have found original sin almost the first\nthing to be believed in. He would have found, to put the matter\nshortly, that a permanent possibility of selfishness arises from the\nmere fact of having a self, and not from any accidents of education or\nill-treatment. And the weakness of all Utopias is this, that they take\nthe greatest difficulty of man and assume it to be overcome, and then\ngive an elaborate account of the overcoming of the smaller ones. They\nfirst assume that no man will want more than his share, and then are\nvery ingenious in explaining whether his share will be delivered by\nmotor-car or balloon.  And an even stronger example of Mr. Wells\u2019s\nindifference to the human psychology can be found in his\ncosmopolitanism, the abolition in his Utopia of all patriotic\nboundaries.  He says in his innocent way that Utopia must be a\nworld-state, or else people might make war on it. It does not seem to\noccur to him that, for a good many of us, if it were a world-state we\nshould still make war on it to the end of the world. For if we admit\nthat there must be varieties in art or opinion what sense is there in\nthinking there will not be varieties in government? The fact is very\nsimple.  Unless you are going deliberately to prevent a thing being\ngood, you cannot prevent it being worth fighting for. It is impossible\nto prevent a possible conflict of civilizations, because it is\nimpossible to prevent a possible conflict between ideals. If there were\nno longer our modern strife between nations, there would only be a\nstrife between Utopias.  For the highest thing does not tend to union\nonly; the highest thing, tends also to differentiation. You can often\nget men to fight for the union; but you can never prevent them from\nfighting also for the differentiation. This variety in the highest\nthing is the meaning of the fierce patriotism, the fierce nationalism\nof the great European civilization. It is also, incidentally, the\nmeaning of the doctrine of the Trinity.\n\nBut I think the main mistake of Mr. Wells\u2019s philosophy is a somewhat\ndeeper one, one that he expresses in a very entertaining manner in the\nintroductory part of the new Utopia.  His philosophy in some sense\namounts to a denial of the possibility of philosophy itself. At least,\nhe maintains that there are no secure and reliable ideas upon which we\ncan rest with a final mental satisfaction. It will be both clearer,\nhowever, and more amusing to quote Mr. Wells himself.\n\nHe says, \u201cNothing endures, nothing is precise and certain (except the\nmind of a pedant)....  Being indeed!\u2014there is no being, but a\nuniversal becoming of individualities, and Plato turned his back on\ntruth when he turned towards his museum of specific ideals.\u201d Mr. Wells\nsays, again, \u201cThere is no abiding thing in what we know. We change from\nweaker to stronger lights, and each more powerful light pierces our\nhitherto opaque foundations and reveals fresh and different opacities\nbelow.\u201d  Now, when Mr. Wells says things like this, I speak with all\nrespect when I say that he does not observe an evident mental\ndistinction. It cannot be true that there is nothing abiding in what we\nknow. For if that were so we should not know it all and should not call\nit knowledge.  Our mental state may be very different from that of\nsomebody else some thousands of years back; but it cannot be entirely\ndifferent, or else we should not be conscious of a difference. Mr.\nWells must surely realize the first and simplest of the paradoxes that\nsit by the springs of truth.  He must surely see that the fact of two\nthings being different implies that they are similar. The hare and the\ntortoise may differ in the quality of swiftness, but they must agree in\nthe quality of motion.  The swiftest hare cannot be swifter than an\nisosceles triangle or the idea of pinkness. When we say the hare moves\nfaster, we say that the tortoise moves. And when we say of a thing that\nit moves, we say, without need of other words, that there are things\nthat do not move. And even in the act of saying that things change, we\nsay that there is something unchangeable.\n\nBut certainly the best example of Mr. Wells\u2019s fallacy can be found in\nthe example which he himself chooses.  It is quite true that we see a\ndim light which, compared with a darker thing, is light, but which,\ncompared with a stronger light, is darkness. But the quality of light\nremains the same thing, or else we should not call it a stronger light\nor recognize it as such. If the character of light were not fixed in\nthe mind, we should be quite as likely to call a denser shadow a\nstronger light, or vice versa If the character of light became even for\nan instant unfixed, if it became even by a hair\u2019s-breadth doubtful, if,\nfor example, there crept into our idea of light some vague idea of\nblueness, then in that flash we have become doubtful whether the new\nlight has more light or less.  In brief, the progress may be as varying\nas a cloud, but the direction must be as rigid as a French road. North\nand South are relative in the sense that I am North of Bournemouth and\nSouth of Spitzbergen.  But if there be any doubt of the position of the\nNorth Pole, there is in equal degree a doubt of whether I am South of\nSpitzbergen at all.  The absolute idea of light may be practically\nunattainable.  We may not be able to procure pure light. We may not be\nable to get to the North Pole.  But because the North Pole is\nunattainable, it does not follow that it is indefinable. And it is only\nbecause the North Pole is not indefinable that we can make a\nsatisfactory map of Brighton and Worthing.\n\nIn other words, Plato turned his face to truth but his back on Mr. H.\nG. Wells, when he turned to his museum of specified ideals. It is\nprecisely here that Plato shows his sense.  It is not true that\neverything changes; the things that change are all the manifest and\nmaterial things.  There is something that does not change; and that is\nprecisely the abstract quality, the invisible idea. Mr. Wells says\ntruly enough, that a thing which we have seen in one connection as dark\nwe may see in another connection as light. But the thing common to both\nincidents is the mere idea of light\u2014which we have not seen at all.\nMr. Wells might grow taller and taller for unending aeons till his head\nwas higher than the loneliest star. I can imagine his writing a good\nnovel about it.  In that case he would see the trees first as tall\nthings and then as short things; he would see the clouds first as high\nand then as low. But there would remain with him through the ages in\nthat starry loneliness the idea of tallness; he would have in the awful\nspaces for companion and comfort the definite conception that he was\ngrowing taller and not (for instance) growing fatter.\n\nAnd now it comes to my mind that Mr. H. G. Wells actually has written a\nvery delightful romance about men growing as tall as trees; and that\nhere, again, he seems to me to have been a victim of this vague\nrelativism.  \u201cThe Food of the Gods\u201d is, like Mr. Bernard Shaw\u2019s play,\nin essence a study of the Superman idea.  And it lies, I think, even\nthrough the veil of a half-pantomimic allegory, open to the same\nintellectual attack.  We cannot be expected to have any regard for a\ngreat creature if he does not in any manner conform to our standards.\nFor unless he passes our standard of greatness we cannot even call him\ngreat.  Nietszche summed up all that is interesting in the Superman\nidea when he said, \u201cMan is a thing which has to be surpassed.\u201d  But the\nvery word \u201csurpass\u201d implies the existence of a standard common to us\nand the thing surpassing us. If the Superman is more manly than men\nare, of course they will ultimately deify him, even if they happen to\nkill him first. But if he is simply more supermanly, they may be quite\nindifferent to him as they would be to another seemingly aimless\nmonstrosity. He must submit to our test even in order to overawe us.\nMere force or size even is a standard; but that alone will never make\nmen think a man their superior.  Giants, as in the wise old\nfairy-tales, are vermin.  Supermen, if not good men, are vermin.\n\n\u201cThe Food of the Gods\u201d is the tale of \u201cJack the Giant-Killer\u201d told from\nthe point of view of the giant.  This has not, I think, been done\nbefore in literature; but I have little doubt that the psychological\nsubstance of it existed in fact.  I have little doubt that the giant\nwhom Jack killed did regard himself as the Superman. It is likely\nenough that he considered Jack a narrow and parochial person who wished\nto frustrate a great forward movement of the life-force. If (as not\nunfrequently was the case) he happened to have two heads, he would\npoint out the elementary maxim which declares them to be better than\none.  He would enlarge on the subtle modernity of such an equipment,\nenabling a giant to look at a subject from two points of view, or to\ncorrect himself with promptitude. But Jack was the champion of the\nenduring human standards, of the principle of one man one head and one\nman one conscience, of the single head and the single heart and the\nsingle eye. Jack was quite unimpressed by the question of whether the\ngiant was a particularly gigantic giant.  All he wished to know was\nwhether he was a good giant\u2014that is, a giant who was any good to us.\nWhat were the giant\u2019s religious views; what his views on politics and\nthe duties of the citizen?  Was he fond of children\u2014or fond of them\nonly in a dark and sinister sense?  To use a fine phrase for emotional\nsanity, was his heart in the right place? Jack had sometimes to cut him\nup with a sword in order to find out. The old and correct story of Jack\nthe Giant-Killer is simply the whole story of man; if it were\nunderstood we should need no Bibles or histories. But the modern world\nin particular does not seem to understand it at all. The modern world,\nlike Mr. Wells is on the side of the giants; the safest place, and\ntherefore the meanest and the most prosaic. The modern world, when it\npraises its little Caesars, talks of being strong and brave:  but it\ndoes not seem to see the eternal paradox involved in the conjunction of\nthese ideas. The strong cannot be brave.  Only the weak can be brave;\nand yet again, in practice, only those who can be brave can be trusted,\nin time of doubt, to be strong.  The only way in which a giant could\nreally keep himself in training against the inevitable Jack would be by\ncontinually fighting other giants ten times as big as himself. That is\nby ceasing to be a giant and becoming a Jack. Thus that sympathy with\nthe small or the defeated as such, with which we Liberals and\nNationalists have been often reproached, is not a useless\nsentimentalism at all, as Mr. Wells and his friends fancy.  It is the\nfirst law of practical courage. To be in the weakest camp is to be in\nthe strongest school. Nor can I imagine anything that would do humanity\nmore good than the advent of a race of Supermen, for them to fight like\ndragons. If the Superman is better than we, of course we need not fight\nhim; but in that case, why not call him the Saint?  But if he is merely\nstronger (whether physically, mentally, or morally stronger, I do not\ncare a farthing), then he ought to have to reckon with us at least for\nall the strength we have.  If we are weaker than he, that is no reason\nwhy we should be weaker than ourselves. If we are not tall enough to\ntouch the giant\u2019s knees, that is no reason why we should become shorter\nby falling on our own. But that is at bottom the meaning of all modern\nhero-worship and celebration of the Strong Man, the Caesar the\nSuperman. That he may be something more than man, we must be something\nless.\n\nDoubtless there is an older and better hero-worship than this. But the\nold hero was a being who, like Achilles, was more human than humanity\nitself.  Nietzsche\u2019s Superman is cold and friendless. Achilles is so\nfoolishly fond of his friend that he slaughters armies in the agony of\nhis bereavement.  Mr. Shaw\u2019s sad Caesar says in his desolate pride, \u201cHe\nwho has never hoped can never despair.\u201d The Man-God of old answers from\nhis awful hill, \u201cWas ever sorrow like unto my sorrow?\u201d  A great man is\nnot a man so strong that he feels less than other men; he is a man so\nstrong that he feels more. And when Nietszche says, \u201cA new commandment\nI give to you, \u2018be hard,\u2019\u201d he is really saying, \u201cA new commandment I\ngive to you, \u2018be dead.\u2019\u201d Sensibility is the definition of life.\n\nI recur for a last word to Jack the Giant-Killer. I have dwelt on this\nmatter of Mr. Wells and the giants, not because it is specially\nprominent in his mind; I know that the Superman does not bulk so large\nin his cosmos as in that of Mr. Bernard Shaw. I have dwelt on it for\nthe opposite reason; because this heresy of immoral hero-worship has\ntaken, I think, a slighter hold of him, and may perhaps still be\nprevented from perverting one of the best thinkers of the day.  In the\ncourse of \u201cThe New Utopia\u201d Mr. Wells makes more than one admiring\nallusion to Mr. W. E. Henley. That clever and unhappy man lived in\nadmiration of a vague violence, and was always going back to rude old\ntales and rude old ballads, to strong and primitive literatures, to\nfind the praise of strength and the justification of tyranny.  But he\ncould not find it. It is not there.  The primitive literature is shown\nin the tale of Jack the Giant-Killer. The strong old literature is all\nin praise of the weak. The rude old tales are as tender to minorities\nas any modern political idealist.  The rude old ballads are as\nsentimentally concerned for the under-dog as the Aborigines Protection\nSociety. When men were tough and raw, when they lived amid hard knocks\nand hard laws, when they knew what fighting really was, they had only\ntwo kinds of songs.  The first was a rejoicing that the weak had\nconquered the strong, the second a lamentation that the strong had, for\nonce in a way, conquered the weak.  For this defiance of the statu quo,\nthis constant effort to alter the existing balance, this premature\nchallenge to the powerful, is the whole nature and inmost secret of the\npsychological adventure which is called man. It is his strength to\ndisdain strength.  The forlorn hope is not only a real hope, it is the\nonly real hope of mankind. In the coarsest ballads of the greenwood men\nare admired most when they defy, not only the king, but what is more to\nthe point, the hero. The moment Robin Hood becomes a sort of Superman,\nthat moment the chivalrous chronicler shows us Robin thrashed by a poor\ntinker whom he thought to thrust aside.  And the chivalrous chronicler\nmakes Robin Hood receive the thrashing in a glow of admiration. This\nmagnanimity is not a product of modern humanitarianism; it is not a\nproduct of anything to do with peace. This magnanimity is merely one of\nthe lost arts of war. The Henleyites call for a sturdy and fighting\nEngland, and they go back to the fierce old stories of the sturdy and\nfighting English. And the thing that they find written across that\nfierce old literature everywhere, is \u201cthe policy of Majuba.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nVI.  Christmas and the Aesthetes\n\n\nThe world is round, so round that the schools of optimism and pessimism\nhave been arguing from the beginning whether it is the right way up.\nThe difficulty does not arise so much from the mere fact that good and\nevil are mingled in roughly equal proportions; it arises chiefly from\nthe fact that men always differ about what parts are good and what\nevil. Hence the difficulty which besets \u201cundenominational religions.\u201d\nThey profess to include what is beautiful in all creeds, but they\nappear to many to have collected all that is dull in them. All the\ncolours mixed together in purity ought to make a perfect white. Mixed\ntogether on any human paint-box, they make a thing like mud, and a\nthing very like many new religions.  Such a blend is often something\nmuch worse than any one creed taken separately, even the creed of the\nThugs. The error arises from the difficulty of detecting what is really\nthe good part and what is really the bad part of any given religion.\nAnd this pathos falls rather heavily on those persons who have the\nmisfortune to think of some religion or other, that the parts commonly\ncounted good are bad, and the parts commonly counted bad are good.\n\nIt is tragic to admire and honestly admire a human group, but to admire\nit in a photographic negative.  It is difficult to congratulate all\ntheir whites on being black and all their blacks on their whiteness.\nThis will often happen to us in connection with human religions. Take\ntwo institutions which bear witness to the religious energy of the\nnineteenth century.  Take the Salvation Army and the philosophy of\nAuguste Comte.\n\nThe usual verdict of educated people on the Salvation Army is expressed\nin some such words as these:  \u201cI have no doubt they do a great deal of\ngood, but they do it in a vulgar and profane style; their aims are\nexcellent, but their methods are wrong.\u201d To me, unfortunately, the\nprecise reverse of this appears to be the truth.  I do not know whether\nthe aims of the Salvation Army are excellent, but I am quite sure their\nmethods are admirable. Their methods are the methods of all intense and\nhearty religions; they are popular like all religion, military like all\nreligion, public and sensational like all religion.  They are not\nreverent any more than Roman Catholics are reverent, for reverence in\nthe sad and delicate meaning of the term reverence is a thing only\npossible to infidels. That beautiful twilight you will find in\nEuripides, in Renan, in Matthew Arnold; but in men who believe you will\nnot find it\u2014you will find only laughter and war.  A man cannot pay\nthat kind of reverence to truth solid as marble; they can only be\nreverent towards a beautiful lie.  And the Salvation Army, though their\nvoice has broken out in a mean environment and an ugly shape, are\nreally the old voice of glad and angry faith, hot as the riots of\nDionysus, wild as the gargoyles of Catholicism, not to be mistaken for\na philosophy. Professor Huxley, in one of his clever phrases, called\nthe Salvation Army \u201ccorybantic Christianity.\u201d  Huxley was the last and\nnoblest of those Stoics who have never understood the Cross.  If he had\nunderstood Christianity he would have known that there never has been,\nand never can be, any Christianity that is not corybantic.\n\nAnd there is this difference between the matter of aims and the matter\nof methods, that to judge of the aims of a thing like the Salvation\nArmy is very difficult, to judge of their ritual and atmosphere very\neasy.  No one, perhaps, but a sociologist can see whether General\nBooth\u2019s housing scheme is right. But any healthy person can see that\nbanging brass cymbals together must be right.  A page of statistics, a\nplan of model dwellings, anything which is rational, is always\ndifficult for the lay mind. But the thing which is irrational any one\ncan understand. That is why religion came so early into the world and\nspread so far, while science came so late into the world and has not\nspread at all. History unanimously attests the fact that it is only\nmysticism which stands the smallest chance of being understanded of the\npeople. Common sense has to be kept as an esoteric secret in the dark\ntemple of culture.  And so while the philanthropy of the Salvationists\nand its genuineness may be a reasonable matter for the discussion of\nthe doctors, there can be no doubt about the genuineness of their brass\nbands, for a brass band is purely spiritual, and seeks only to quicken\nthe internal life.  The object of philanthropy is to do good; the\nobject of religion is to be good, if only for a moment, amid a crash of\nbrass.\n\nAnd the same antithesis exists about another modern religion\u2014I mean\nthe religion of Comte, generally known as Positivism, or the worship of\nhumanity.  Such men as Mr. Frederic Harrison, that brilliant and\nchivalrous philosopher, who still, by his mere personality, speaks for\nthe creed, would tell us that he offers us the philosophy of Comte, but\nnot all Comte\u2019s fantastic proposals for pontiffs and ceremonials, the\nnew calendar, the new holidays and saints\u2019 days. He does not mean that\nwe should dress ourselves up as priests of humanity or let off\nfireworks because it is Milton\u2019s birthday. To the solid English Comtist\nall this appears, he confesses, to be a little absurd.  To me it\nappears the only sensible part of Comtism. As a philosophy it is\nunsatisfactory.  It is evidently impossible to worship humanity, just\nas it is impossible to worship the Savile Club; both are excellent\ninstitutions to which we may happen to belong. But we perceive clearly\nthat the Savile Club did not make the stars and does not fill the\nuniverse.  And it is surely unreasonable to attack the doctrine of the\nTrinity as a piece of bewildering mysticism, and then to ask men to\nworship a being who is ninety million persons in one God, neither\nconfounding the persons nor dividing the substance.\n\nBut if the wisdom of Comte was insufficient, the folly of Comte was\nwisdom.  In an age of dusty modernity, when beauty was thought of as\nsomething barbaric and ugliness as something sensible, he alone saw\nthat men must always have the sacredness of mummery. He saw that while\nthe brutes have all the useful things, the things that are truly human\nare the useless ones.  He saw the falsehood of that almost universal\nnotion of to-day, the notion that rites and forms are something\nartificial, additional, and corrupt. Ritual is really much older than\nthought; it is much simpler and much wilder than thought.  A feeling\ntouching the nature of things does not only make men feel that there\nare certain proper things to say; it makes them feel that there are\ncertain proper things to do. The more agreeable of these consist of\ndancing, building temples, and shouting very loud; the less agreeable,\nof wearing green carnations and burning other philosophers alive. But\neverywhere the religious dance came before the religious hymn, and man\nwas a ritualist before he could speak.  If Comtism had spread the world\nwould have been converted, not by the Comtist philosophy, but by the\nComtist calendar.  By discouraging what they conceive to be the\nweakness of their master, the English Positivists have broken the\nstrength of their religion.  A man who has faith must be prepared not\nonly to be a martyr, but to be a fool. It is absurd to say that a man\nis ready to toil and die for his convictions when he is not even ready\nto wear a wreath round his head for them. I myself, to take a corpus\nvile, am very certain that I would not read the works of Comte through\nfor any consideration whatever. But I can easily imagine myself with\nthe greatest enthusiasm lighting a bonfire on Darwin Day.\n\nThat splendid effort failed, and nothing in the style of it has\nsucceeded. There has been no rationalist festival, no rationalist\necstasy. Men are still in black for the death of God.  When\nChristianity was heavily bombarded in the last century upon no point\nwas it more persistently and brilliantly attacked than upon that of its\nalleged enmity to human joy. Shelley and Swinburne and all their armies\nhave passed again and again over the ground, but they have not altered\nit.  They have not set up a single new trophy or ensign for the world\u2019s\nmerriment to rally to. They have not given a name or a new occasion of\ngaiety. Mr. Swinburne does not hang up his stocking on the eve of the\nbirthday of Victor Hugo.  Mr. William Archer does not sing carols\ndescriptive of the infancy of Ibsen outside people\u2019s doors in the snow.\nIn the round of our rational and mournful year one festival remains out\nof all those ancient gaieties that once covered the whole earth.\nChristmas remains to remind us of those ages, whether Pagan or\nChristian, when the many acted poetry instead of the few writing it. In\nall the winter in our woods there is no tree in glow but the holly.\n\nThe strange truth about the matter is told in the very word \u201choliday.\u201d\nA bank holiday means presumably a day which bankers regard as holy. A\nhalf-holiday means, I suppose, a day on which a schoolboy is only\npartially holy.  It is hard to see at first sight why so human a thing\nas leisure and larkiness should always have a religious origin.\nRationally there appears no reason why we should not sing and give each\nother presents in honour of anything\u2014the birth of Michael Angelo or\nthe opening of Euston Station.  But it does not work. As a fact, men\nonly become greedily and gloriously material about something\nspiritualistic.  Take away the Nicene Creed and similar things, and you\ndo some strange wrong to the sellers of sausages. Take away the strange\nbeauty of the saints, and what has remained to us is the far stranger\nugliness of Wandsworth. Take away the supernatural, and what remains is\nthe unnatural.\n\nAnd now I have to touch upon a very sad matter.  There are in the\nmodern world an admirable class of persons who really make protest on\nbehalf of that antiqua pulchritudo of which Augustine spoke, who do\nlong for the old feasts and formalities of the childhood of the world.\nWilliam Morris and his followers showed how much brighter were the dark\nages than the age of Manchester.  Mr. W. B. Yeats frames his steps in\nprehistoric dances, but no man knows and joins his voice to forgotten\nchoruses that no one but he can hear.  Mr. George Moore collects every\nfragment of Irish paganism that the forgetfulness of the Catholic\nChurch has left or possibly her wisdom preserved. There are innumerable\npersons with eye-glasses and green garments who pray for the return of\nthe maypole or the Olympian games. But there is about these people a\nhaunting and alarming something which suggests that it is just possible\nthat they do not keep Christmas. It is painful to regard human nature\nin such a light, but it seems somehow possible that Mr. George Moore\ndoes not wave his spoon and shout when the pudding is set alight. It is\neven possible that Mr. W. B. Yeats never pulls crackers. If so, where\nis the sense of all their dreams of festive traditions? Here is a solid\nand ancient festive tradition still plying a roaring trade in the\nstreets, and they think it vulgar. If this is so, let them be very\ncertain of this, that they are the kind of people who in the time of\nthe maypole would have thought the maypole vulgar; who in the time of\nthe Canterbury pilgrimage would have thought the Canterbury pilgrimage\nvulgar; who in the time of the Olympian games would have thought the\nOlympian games vulgar. Nor can there be any reasonable doubt that they\nwere vulgar. Let no man deceive himself; if by vulgarity we mean\ncoarseness of speech, rowdiness of behaviour, gossip, horseplay, and\nsome heavy drinking, vulgarity there always was wherever there was joy,\nwherever there was faith in the gods.  Wherever you have belief you\nwill have hilarity, wherever you have hilarity you will have some\ndangers.  And as creed and mythology produce this gross and vigorous\nlife, so in its turn this gross and vigorous life will always produce\ncreed and mythology. If we ever get the English back on to the English\nland they will become again a religious people, if all goes well, a\nsuperstitious people. The absence from modern life of both the higher\nand lower forms of faith is largely due to a divorce from nature and\nthe trees and clouds. If we have no more turnip ghosts it is chiefly\nfrom the lack of turnips.\n\n\n\n\nVII.  Omar and the Sacred Vine\n\n\nA new morality has burst upon us with some violence in connection with\nthe problem of strong drink; and enthusiasts in the matter range from\nthe man who is violently thrown out at 12.30, to the lady who smashes\nAmerican bars with an axe.  In these discussions it is almost always\nfelt that one very wise and moderate position is to say that wine or\nsuch stuff should only be drunk as a medicine. With this I should\nventure to disagree with a peculiar ferocity. The one genuinely\ndangerous and immoral way of drinking wine is to drink it as a\nmedicine.  And for this reason, If a man drinks wine in order to obtain\npleasure, he is trying to obtain something exceptional, something he\ndoes not expect every hour of the day, something which, unless he is a\nlittle insane, he will not try to get every hour of the day.  But if a\nman drinks wine in order to obtain health, he is trying to get\nsomething natural; something, that is, that he ought not to be without;\nsomething that he may find it difficult to reconcile himself to being\nwithout.  The man may not be seduced who has seen the ecstasy of being\necstatic; it is more dazzling to catch a glimpse of the ecstasy of\nbeing ordinary. If there were a magic ointment, and we took it to a\nstrong man, and said, \u201cThis will enable you to jump off the Monument,\u201d\ndoubtless he would jump off the Monument, but he would not jump off the\nMonument all day long to the delight of the City. But if we took it to\na blind man, saying, \u201cThis will enable you to see,\u201d he would be under a\nheavier temptation.  It would be hard for him not to rub it on his eyes\nwhenever he heard the hoof of a noble horse or the birds singing at\ndaybreak.  It is easy to deny one\u2019s self festivity; it is difficult to\ndeny one\u2019s self normality. Hence comes the fact which every doctor\nknows, that it is often perilous to give alcohol to the sick even when\nthey need it. I need hardly say that I do not mean that I think the\ngiving of alcohol to the sick for stimulus is necessarily\nunjustifiable. But I do mean that giving it to the healthy for fun is\nthe proper use of it, and a great deal more consistent with health.\n\nThe sound rule in the matter would appear to be like many other sound\nrules\u2014a paradox.  Drink because you are happy, but never because you\nare miserable.  Never drink when you are wretched without it, or you\nwill be like the grey-faced gin-drinker in the slum; but drink when you\nwould be happy without it, and you will be like the laughing peasant of\nItaly.  Never drink because you need it, for this is rational drinking,\nand the way to death and hell. But drink because you do not need it,\nfor this is irrational drinking, and the ancient health of the world.\n\nFor more than thirty years the shadow and glory of a great Eastern\nfigure has lain upon our English literature. Fitzgerald\u2019s translation\nof Omar Khayyam concentrated into an immortal poignancy all the dark\nand drifting hedonism of our time. Of the literary splendour of that\nwork it would be merely banal to speak; in few other of the books of\nmen has there been anything so combining the gay pugnacity of an\nepigram with the vague sadness of a song. But of its philosophical,\nethical, and religious influence which has been almost as great as its\nbrilliancy, I should like to say a word, and that word, I confess, one\nof uncompromising hostility. There are a great many things which might\nbe said against the spirit of the Rubaiyat, and against its prodigious\ninfluence. But one matter of indictment towers ominously above the\nrest\u2014a genuine disgrace to it, a genuine calamity to us.  This is the\nterrible blow that this great poem has struck against sociability and\nthe joy of life.  Some one called Omar \u201cthe sad, glad old Persian.\u201d Sad\nhe is; glad he is not, in any sense of the word whatever. He has been a\nworse foe to gladness than the Puritans.\n\nA pensive and graceful Oriental lies under the rose-tree with his\nwine-pot and his scroll of poems.  It may seem strange that any one\u2019s\nthoughts should, at the moment of regarding him, fly back to the dark\nbedside where the doctor doles out brandy. It may seem stranger still\nthat they should go back to the grey wastrel shaking with gin in\nHoundsditch. But a great philosophical unity links the three in an evil\nbond. Omar Khayyam\u2019s wine-bibbing is bad, not because it is\nwine-bibbing. It is bad, and very bad, because it is medical\nwine-bibbing. It is the drinking of a man who drinks because he is not\nhappy. His is the wine that shuts out the universe, not the wine that\nreveals it. It is not poetical drinking, which is joyous and\ninstinctive; it is rational drinking, which is as prosaic as an\ninvestment, as unsavoury as a dose of camomile.  Whole heavens above\nit, from the point of view of sentiment, though not of style, rises the\nsplendour of some old English drinking-song\u2014\n\n  \u201cThen pass the bowl, my comrades all,\n   And let the zider vlow.\u201d\n\nFor this song was caught up by happy men to express the worth of truly\nworthy things, of brotherhood and garrulity, and the brief and kindly\nleisure of the poor.  Of course, the great part of the more stolid\nreproaches directed against the Omarite morality are as false and\nbabyish as such reproaches usually are.  One critic, whose work I have\nread, had the incredible foolishness to call Omar an atheist and a\nmaterialist.  It is almost impossible for an Oriental to be either; the\nEast understands metaphysics too well for that. Of course, the real\nobjection which a philosophical Christian would bring against the\nreligion of Omar, is not that he gives no place to God, it is that he\ngives too much place to God. His is that terrible theism which can\nimagine nothing else but deity, and which denies altogether the\noutlines of human personality and human will.\n\n  \u201cThe ball no question makes of Ayes or Noes,\n   But Here or There as strikes the Player goes;\n   And He that tossed you down into the field,\n   He knows about it all\u2014he knows\u2014he knows.\u201d\n\nA Christian thinker such as Augustine or Dante would object to this\nbecause it ignores freewill, which is the valour and dignity of the\nsoul. The quarrel of the highest Christianity with this scepticism is\nnot in the least that the scepticism denies the existence of God; it is\nthat it denies the existence of man.\n\nIn this cult of the pessimistic pleasure-seeker the Rubaiyat stands\nfirst in our time; but it does not stand alone. Many of the most\nbrilliant intellects of our time have urged us to the same\nself-conscious snatching at a rare delight. Walter Pater said that we\nwere all under sentence of death, and the only course was to enjoy\nexquisite moments simply for those moments\u2019 sake.  The same lesson was\ntaught by the very powerful and very desolate philosophy of Oscar\nWilde. It is the carpe diem religion; but the carpe diem religion is\nnot the religion of happy people, but of very unhappy people. Great joy\ndoes, not gather the rosebuds while it may; its eyes are fixed on the\nimmortal rose which Dante saw. Great joy has in it the sense of\nimmortality; the very splendour of youth is the sense that it has all\nspace to stretch its legs in. In all great comic literature, in\n\u201cTristram Shandy\u201d or \u201cPickwick\u201d, there is this sense of space and\nincorruptibility; we feel the characters are deathless people in an\nendless tale.\n\nIt is true enough, of course, that a pungent happiness comes chiefly in\ncertain passing moments; but it is not true that we should think of\nthem as passing, or enjoy them simply \u201cfor those moments\u2019 sake.\u201d To do\nthis is to rationalize the happiness, and therefore to destroy it.\nHappiness is a mystery like religion, and should never be rationalized.\nSuppose a man experiences a really splendid moment of pleasure. I do\nnot mean something connected with a bit of enamel, I mean something\nwith a violent happiness in it\u2014an almost painful happiness. A man may\nhave, for instance, a moment of ecstasy in first love, or a moment of\nvictory in battle.  The lover enjoys the moment, but precisely not for\nthe moment\u2019s sake.  He enjoys it for the woman\u2019s sake, or his own sake.\nThe warrior enjoys the moment, but not for the sake of the moment; he\nenjoys it for the sake of the flag. The cause which the flag stands for\nmay be foolish and fleeting; the love may be calf-love, and last a\nweek.  But the patriot thinks of the flag as eternal; the lover thinks\nof his love as something that cannot end.  These moments are filled\nwith eternity; these moments are joyful because they do not seem\nmomentary. Once look at them as moments after Pater\u2019s manner, and they\nbecome as cold as Pater and his style.  Man cannot love mortal things.\nHe can only love immortal things for an instant.\n\nPater\u2019s mistake is revealed in his most famous phrase. He asks us to\nburn with a hard, gem-like flame.  Flames are never hard and never\ngem-like\u2014they cannot be handled or arranged. So human emotions are\nnever hard and never gem-like; they are always dangerous, like flames,\nto touch or even to examine. There is only one way in which our\npassions can become hard and gem-like, and that is by becoming as cold\nas gems. No blow then has ever been struck at the natural loves and\nlaughter of men so sterilizing as this carpe diem of the aesthetes. For\nany kind of pleasure a totally different spirit is required; a certain\nshyness, a certain indeterminate hope, a certain boyish expectation.\nPurity and simplicity are essential to passions\u2014yes even to evil\npassions.  Even vice demands a sort of virginity.\n\nOmar\u2019s (or Fitzgerald\u2019s) effect upon the other world we may let go, his\nhand upon this world has been heavy and paralyzing. The Puritans, as I\nhave said, are far jollier than he. The new ascetics who follow Thoreau\nor Tolstoy are much livelier company; for, though the surrender of\nstrong drink and such luxuries may strike us as an idle negation, it\nmay leave a man with innumerable natural pleasures, and, above all,\nwith man\u2019s natural power of happiness. Thoreau could enjoy the sunrise\nwithout a cup of coffee.  If Tolstoy cannot admire marriage, at least\nhe is healthy enough to admire mud. Nature can be enjoyed without even\nthe most natural luxuries. A good bush needs no wine.  But neither\nnature nor wine nor anything else can be enjoyed if we have the wrong\nattitude towards happiness, and Omar (or Fitzgerald) did have the wrong\nattitude towards happiness. He and those he has influenced do not see\nthat if we are to be truly gay, we must believe that there is some\neternal gaiety in the nature of things. We cannot enjoy thoroughly even\na pas-de-quatre at a subscription dance unless we believe that the\nstars are dancing to the same tune.  No one can be really hilarious but\nthe serious man.  \u201cWine,\u201d says the Scripture, \u201cmaketh glad the heart of\nman,\u201d but only of the man who has a heart. The thing called high\nspirits is possible only to the spiritual. Ultimately a man cannot\nrejoice in anything except the nature of things. Ultimately a man can\nenjoy nothing except religion.  Once in the world\u2019s history men did\nbelieve that the stars were dancing to the tune of their temples, and\nthey danced as men have never danced since. With this old pagan\neudaemonism the sage of the Rubaiyat has quite as little to do as he\nhas with any Christian variety. He is no more a Bacchanal than he is a\nsaint.  Dionysus and his church was grounded on a serious joie-de-vivre\nlike that of Walt Whitman. Dionysus made wine, not a medicine, but a\nsacrament. Jesus Christ also made wine, not a medicine, but a\nsacrament. But Omar makes it, not a sacrament, but a medicine.  He\nfeasts because life is not joyful; he revels because he is not glad.\n\u201cDrink,\u201d he says, \u201cfor you know not whence you come nor why. Drink, for\nyou know not when you go nor where.  Drink, because the stars are cruel\nand the world as idle as a humming-top. Drink, because there is nothing\nworth trusting, nothing worth fighting for. Drink, because all things\nare lapsed in a base equality and an evil peace.\u201d  So he stands\noffering us the cup in his hand. And at the high altar of Christianity\nstands another figure, in whose hand also is the cup of the vine.\n\u201cDrink\u201d he says \u201cfor the whole world is as red as this wine, with the\ncrimson of the love and wrath of God.  Drink, for the trumpets are\nblowing for battle and this is the stirrup-cup. Drink, for this my\nblood of the new testament that is shed for you.  Drink, for I know of\nwhence you come and why. Drink, for I know of when you go and where.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nVIII.  The Mildness of the Yellow Press\n\n\nThere is a great deal of protest made from one quarter or another\nnowadays against the influence of that new journalism which is\nassociated with the names of Sir Alfred Harmsworth and Mr. Pearson. But\nalmost everybody who attacks it attacks on the ground that it is very\nsensational, very violent and vulgar and startling. I am speaking in no\naffected contrariety, but in the simplicity of a genuine personal\nimpression, when I say that this journalism offends as being not\nsensational or violent enough.  The real vice is not that it is\nstartling, but that it is quite insupportably tame. The whole object is\nto keep carefully along a certain level of the expected and the\ncommonplace; it may be low, but it must take care also to be flat.\nNever by any chance in it is there any of that real plebeian pungency\nwhich can be heard from the ordinary cabman in the ordinary street.  We\nhave heard of a certain standard of decorum which demands that things\nshould be funny without being vulgar, but the standard of this decorum\ndemands that if things are vulgar they shall be vulgar without being\nfunny.  This journalism does not merely fail to exaggerate life\u2014it\npositively underrates it; and it has to do so because it is intended\nfor the faint and languid recreation of men whom the fierceness of\nmodern life has fatigued. This press is not the yellow press at all; it\nis the drab press. Sir Alfred Harmsworth must not address to the tired\nclerk any observation more witty than the tired clerk might be able to\naddress to Sir Alfred Harmsworth.  It must not expose anybody (anybody\nwho is powerful, that is), it must not offend anybody, it must not even\nplease anybody, too much.  A general vague idea that in spite of all\nthis, our yellow press is sensational, arises from such external\naccidents as large type or lurid headlines. It is quite true that these\neditors print everything they possibly can in large capital letters.\nBut they do this, not because it is startling, but because it is\nsoothing.  To people wholly weary or partly drunk in a dimly lighted\ntrain, it is a simplification and a comfort to have things presented in\nthis vast and obvious manner. The editors use this gigantic alphabet in\ndealing with their readers, for exactly the same reason that parents\nand governesses use a similar gigantic alphabet in teaching children to\nspell. The nursery authorities do not use an A as big as a horseshoe in\norder to make the child jump; on the contrary, they use it to put the\nchild at his ease, to make things smoother and more evident. Of the\nsame character is the dim and quiet dame school which Sir Alfred\nHarmsworth and Mr. Pearson keep.  All their sentiments are\nspelling-book sentiments\u2014that is to say, they are sentiments with\nwhich the pupil is already respectfully familiar. All their wildest\nposters are leaves torn from a copy-book.\n\nOf real sensational journalism, as it exists in France, in Ireland, and\nin America, we have no trace in this country. When a journalist in\nIreland wishes to create a thrill, he creates a thrill worth talking\nabout.  He denounces a leading Irish member for corruption, or he\ncharges the whole police system with a wicked and definite conspiracy.\nWhen a French journalist desires a frisson there is a frisson; he\ndiscovers, let us say, that the President of the Republic has murdered\nthree wives. Our yellow journalists invent quite as unscrupulously as\nthis; their moral condition is, as regards careful veracity, about the\nsame. But it is their mental calibre which happens to be such that they\ncan only invent calm and even reassuring things. The fictitious version\nof the massacre of the envoys of Pekin was mendacious, but it was not\ninteresting, except to those who had private reasons for terror or\nsorrow.  It was not connected with any bold and suggestive view of the\nChinese situation. It revealed only a vague idea that nothing could be\nimpressive except a great deal of blood.  Real sensationalism, of which\nI happen to be very fond, may be either moral or immoral. But even when\nit is most immoral, it requires moral courage. For it is one of the\nmost dangerous things on earth genuinely to surprise anybody.  If you\nmake any sentient creature jump, you render it by no means improbable\nthat it will jump on you. But the leaders of this movement have no\nmoral courage or immoral courage; their whole method consists in\nsaying, with large and elaborate emphasis, the things which everybody\nelse says casually, and without remembering what they have said.  When\nthey brace themselves up to attack anything, they never reach the point\nof attacking anything which is large and real, and would resound with\nthe shock.  They do not attack the army as men do in France, or the\njudges as men do in Ireland, or the democracy itself as men did in\nEngland a hundred years ago. They attack something like the War\nOffice\u2014something, that is, which everybody attacks and nobody bothers\nto defend, something which is an old joke in fourth-rate comic papers.\nJust as a man shows he has a weak voice by straining it to shout, so\nthey show the hopelessly unsensational nature of their minds when they\nreally try to be sensational. With the whole world full of big and\ndubious institutions, with the whole wickedness of civilization staring\nthem in the face, their idea of being bold and bright is to attack the\nWar Office. They might as well start a campaign against the weather, or\nform a secret society in order to make jokes about mothers-in-law. Nor\nis it only from the point of view of particular amateurs of the\nsensational such as myself, that it is permissible to say, in the words\nof Cowper\u2019s Alexander Selkirk, that \u201ctheir tameness is shocking to me.\u201d\nThe whole modern world is pining for a genuinely sensational\njournalism. This has been discovered by that very able and honest\njournalist, Mr. Blatchford, who started his campaign against\nChristianity, warned on all sides, I believe, that it would ruin his\npaper, but who continued from an honourable sense of intellectual\nresponsibility. He discovered, however, that while he had undoubtedly\nshocked his readers, he had also greatly advanced his newspaper. It was\nbought\u2014first, by all the people who agreed with him and wanted to read\nit; and secondly, by all the people who disagreed with him, and wanted\nto write him letters.  Those letters were voluminous (I helped, I am\nglad to say, to swell their volume), and they were generally inserted\nwith a generous fulness.  Thus was accidentally discovered (like the\nsteam-engine) the great journalistic maxim\u2014that if an editor can only\nmake people angry enough, they will write half his newspaper for him\nfor nothing.\n\nSome hold that such papers as these are scarcely the proper objects of\nso serious a consideration; but that can scarcely be maintained from a\npolitical or ethical point of view. In this problem of the mildness and\ntameness of the Harmsworth mind there is mirrored the outlines of a\nmuch larger problem which is akin to it.\n\nThe Harmsworthian journalist begins with a worship of success and\nviolence, and ends in sheer timidity and mediocrity. But he is not\nalone in this, nor does he come by this fate merely because he happens\npersonally to be stupid.  Every man, however brave, who begins by\nworshipping violence, must end in mere timidity. Every man, however\nwise, who begins by worshipping success, must end in mere mediocrity.\nThis strange and paradoxical fate is involved, not in the individual,\nbut in the philosophy, in the point of view. It is not the folly of the\nman which brings about this necessary fall; it is his wisdom.  The\nworship of success is the only one out of all possible worships of\nwhich this is true, that its followers are foredoomed to become slaves\nand cowards. A man may be a hero for the sake of Mrs. Gallup\u2019s ciphers\nor for the sake of human sacrifice, but not for the sake of success.\nFor obviously a man may choose to fail because he loves Mrs. Gallup or\nhuman sacrifice; but he cannot choose to fail because he loves success.\nWhen the test of triumph is men\u2019s test of everything, they never endure\nlong enough to triumph at all. As long as matters are really hopeful,\nhope is a mere flattery or platitude; it is only when everything is\nhopeless that hope begins to be a strength at all.  Like all the\nChristian virtues, it is as unreasonable as it is indispensable.\n\nIt was through this fatal paradox in the nature of things that all\nthese modern adventurers come at last to a sort of tedium and\nacquiescence. They desired strength; and to them to desire strength was\nto admire strength; to admire strength was simply to admire the statu\nquo. They thought that he who wished to be strong ought to respect the\nstrong. They did not realize the obvious verity that he who wishes to\nbe strong must despise the strong.  They sought to be everything, to\nhave the whole force of the cosmos behind them, to have an energy that\nwould drive the stars.  But they did not realize the two great\nfacts\u2014first, that in the attempt to be everything the first and most\ndifficult step is to be something; second, that the moment a man is\nsomething, he is essentially defying everything. The lower animals, say\nthe men of science, fought their way up with a blind selfishness.  If\nthis be so, the only real moral of it is that our unselfishness, if it\nis to triumph, must be equally blind. The mammoth did not put his head\non one side and wonder whether mammoths were a little out of date.\nMammoths were at least as much up to date as that individual mammoth\ncould make them. The great elk did not say, \u201cCloven hoofs are very much\nworn now.\u201d He polished his own weapons for his own use.  But in the\nreasoning animal there has arisen a more horrible danger, that he may\nfail through perceiving his own failure.  When modern sociologists talk\nof the necessity of accommodating one\u2019s self to the trend of the time,\nthey forget that the trend of the time at its best consists entirely of\npeople who will not accommodate themselves to anything. At its worst it\nconsists of many millions of frightened creatures all accommodating\nthemselves to a trend that is not there. And that is becoming more and\nmore the situation of modern England. Every man speaks of public\nopinion, and means by public opinion, public opinion minus his opinion.\nEvery man makes his contribution negative under the erroneous\nimpression that the next man\u2019s contribution is positive.  Every man\nsurrenders his fancy to a general tone which is itself a surrender. And\nover all the heartless and fatuous unity spreads this new and wearisome\nand platitudinous press, incapable of invention, incapable of audacity,\ncapable only of a servility all the more contemptible because it is not\neven a servility to the strong. But all who begin with force and\nconquest will end in this.\n\nThe chief characteristic of the \u201cNew journalism\u201d is simply that it is\nbad journalism.  It is beyond all comparison the most shapeless,\ncareless, and colourless work done in our day.\n\nI read yesterday a sentence which should be written in letters of gold\nand adamant; it is the very motto of the new philosophy of Empire. I\nfound it (as the reader has already eagerly guessed) in Pearson\u2019s\nMagazine, while I was communing (soul to soul) with Mr. C. Arthur\nPearson, whose first and suppressed name I am afraid is Chilperic. It\noccurred in an article on the American Presidential Election. This is\nthe sentence, and every one should read it carefully, and roll it on\nthe tongue, till all the honey be tasted.\n\n\u201cA little sound common sense often goes further with an audience of\nAmerican working-men than much high-flown argument.  A speaker who, as\nhe brought forward his points, hammered nails into a board, won\nhundreds of votes for his side at the last Presidential Election.\u201d\n\nI do not wish to soil this perfect thing with comment; the words of\nMercury are harsh after the songs of Apollo. But just think for a\nmoment of the mind, the strange inscrutable mind, of the man who wrote\nthat, of the editor who approved it, of the people who are probably\nimpressed by it, of the incredible American working-man, of whom, for\nall I know, it may be true. Think what their notion of \u201ccommon sense\u201d\nmust be!  It is delightful to realize that you and I are now able to\nwin thousands of votes should we ever be engaged in a Presidential\nElection, by doing something of this kind.  For I suppose the nails and\nthe board are not essential to the exhibition of \u201ccommon sense;\u201d there\nmay be variations. We may read\u2014\n\n\u201cA little common sense impresses American working-men more than\nhigh-flown argument.  A speaker who, as he made his points, pulled\nbuttons off his waistcoat, won thousands of votes for his side.\u201d Or,\n\u201cSound common sense tells better in America than high-flown argument.\nThus Senator Budge, who threw his false teeth in the air every time he\nmade an epigram, won the solid approval of American working-men.\u201d Or\nagain, \u201cThe sound common sense of a gentleman from Earlswood, who stuck\nstraws in his hair during the progress of his speech, assured the\nvictory of Mr. Roosevelt.\u201d\n\nThere are many other elements in this article on which I should love to\nlinger.  But the matter which I wish to point out is that in that\nsentence is perfectly revealed the whole truth of what our\nChamberlainites, hustlers, bustlers, Empire-builders, and strong,\nsilent men, really mean by \u201ccommonsense.\u201d  They mean knocking, with\ndeafening noise and dramatic effect, meaningless bits of iron into a\nuseless bit of wood.  A man goes on to an American platform and behaves\nlike a mountebank fool with a board and a hammer; well, I do not blame\nhim; I might even admire him. He may be a dashing and quite decent\nstrategist.  He may be a fine romantic actor, like Burke flinging the\ndagger on the floor. He may even (for all I know) be a sublime mystic,\nprofoundly impressed with the ancient meaning of the divine trade of\nthe Carpenter, and offering to the people a parable in the form of a\nceremony. All I wish to indicate is the abyss of mental confusion in\nwhich such wild ritualism can be called \u201csound common sense.\u201d And it is\nin that abyss of mental confusion, and in that alone, that the new\nImperialism lives and moves and has its being. The whole glory and\ngreatness of Mr. Chamberlain consists in this: that if a man hits the\nright nail on the head nobody cares where he hits it to or what it\ndoes.  They care about the noise of the hammer, not about the silent\ndrip of the nail.  Before and throughout the African war, Mr.\nChamberlain was always knocking in nails, with ringing decisiveness.\nBut when we ask, \u201cBut what have these nails held together? Where is\nyour carpentry?  Where are your contented Outlanders? Where is your\nfree South Africa?  Where is your British prestige? What have your\nnails done?\u201d then what answer is there? We must go back (with an\naffectionate sigh) to our Pearson for the answer to the question of\nwhat the nails have done: \u201cThe speaker who hammered nails into a board\nwon thousands of votes.\u201d\n\nNow the whole of this passage is admirably characteristic of the new\njournalism which Mr. Pearson represents, the new journalism which has\njust purchased the Standard.  To take one instance out of hundreds, the\nincomparable man with the board and nails is described in the Pearson\u2019s\narticle as calling out (as he smote the symbolic nail), \u201cLie number\none. Nailed to the Mast!  Nailed to the Mast!\u201d  In the whole office\nthere was apparently no compositor or office-boy to point out that we\nspeak of lies being nailed to the counter, and not to the mast. Nobody\nin the office knew that Pearson\u2019s Magazine was falling into a stale\nIrish bull, which must be as old as St. Patrick. This is the real and\nessential tragedy of the sale of the Standard. It is not merely that\njournalism is victorious over literature. It is that bad journalism is\nvictorious over good journalism.\n\nIt is not that one article which we consider costly and beautiful is\nbeing ousted by another kind of article which we consider common or\nunclean. It is that of the same article a worse quality is preferred to\na better. If you like popular journalism (as I do), you will know that\nPearson\u2019s Magazine is poor and weak popular journalism.  You will know\nit as certainly as you know bad butter.  You will know as certainly\nthat it is poor popular journalism as you know that the Strand, in the\ngreat days of Sherlock Holmes, was good popular journalism. Mr. Pearson\nhas been a monument of this enormous banality. About everything he says\nand does there is something infinitely weak-minded. He clamours for\nhome trades and employs foreign ones to print his paper.  When this\nglaring fact is pointed out, he does not say that the thing was an\noversight, like a sane man. He cuts it off with scissors, like a child\nof three.  His very cunning is infantile.  And like a child of three,\nhe does not cut it quite off. In all human records I doubt if there is\nsuch an example of a profound simplicity in deception.  This is the\nsort of intelligence which now sits in the seat of the sane and\nhonourable old Tory journalism. If it were really the triumph of the\ntropical exuberance of the Yankee press, it would be vulgar, but still\ntropical.  But it is not. We are delivered over to the bramble, and\nfrom the meanest of the shrubs comes the fire upon the cedars of\nLebanon.\n\nThe only question now is how much longer the fiction will endure that\njournalists of this order represent public opinion. It may be doubted\nwhether any honest and serious Tariff Reformer would for a moment\nmaintain that there was any majority for Tariff Reform in the country\ncomparable to the ludicrous preponderance which money has given it\namong the great dailies. The only inference is that for purposes of\nreal public opinion the press is now a mere plutocratic oligarchy.\nDoubtless the public buys the wares of these men, for one reason or\nanother. But there is no more reason to suppose that the public admires\ntheir politics than that the public admires the delicate philosophy of\nMr. Crosse or the darker and sterner creed of Mr. Blackwell. If these\nmen are merely tradesmen, there is nothing to say except that there are\nplenty like them in the Battersea Park Road, and many much better.  But\nif they make any sort of attempt to be politicians, we can only point\nout to them that they are not as yet even good journalists.\n\n\n\n\nIX.  The Moods of Mr. George Moore\n\n\nMr. George Moore began his literary career by writing his personal\nconfessions; nor is there any harm in this if he had not continued them\nfor the remainder of his life.  He is a man of genuinely forcible mind\nand of great command over a kind of rhetorical and fugitive conviction\nwhich excites and pleases. He is in a perpetual state of temporary\nhonesty.  He has admired all the most admirable modern eccentrics until\nthey could stand it no longer.  Everything he writes, it is to be fully\nadmitted, has a genuine mental power.  His account of his reason for\nleaving the Roman Catholic Church is possibly the most admirable\ntribute to that communion which has been written of late years. For the\nfact of the matter is, that the weakness which has rendered barren the\nmany brilliancies of Mr. Moore is actually that weakness which the\nRoman Catholic Church is at its best in combating. Mr. Moore hates\nCatholicism because it breaks up the house of looking-glasses in which\nhe lives.  Mr. Moore does not dislike so much being asked to believe in\nthe spiritual existence of miracles or sacraments, but he does\nfundamentally dislike being asked to believe in the actual existence of\nother people. Like his master Pater and all the aesthetes, his real\nquarrel with life is that it is not a dream that can be moulded by the\ndreamer. It is not the dogma of the reality of the other world that\ntroubles him, but the dogma of the reality of this world.\n\nThe truth is that the tradition of Christianity (which is still the\nonly coherent ethic of Europe) rests on two or three paradoxes or\nmysteries which can easily be impugned in argument and as easily\njustified in life. One of them, for instance, is the paradox of hope or\nfaith\u2014that the more hopeless is the situation the more hopeful must be\nthe man. Stevenson understood this, and consequently Mr. Moore cannot\nunderstand Stevenson.  Another is the paradox of charity or chivalry\nthat the weaker a thing is the more it should be respected, that the\nmore indefensible a thing is the more it should appeal to us for a\ncertain kind of defence.  Thackeray understood this, and therefore Mr.\nMoore does not understand Thackeray.  Now, one of these very practical\nand working mysteries in the Christian tradition, and one which the\nRoman Catholic Church, as I say, has done her best work in singling\nout, is the conception of the sinfulness of pride. Pride is a weakness\nin the character; it dries up laughter, it dries up wonder, it dries up\nchivalry and energy. The Christian tradition understands this;\ntherefore Mr. Moore does not understand the Christian tradition.\n\nFor the truth is much stranger even than it appears in the formal\ndoctrine of the sin of pride.  It is not only true that humility is a\nmuch wiser and more vigorous thing than pride. It is also true that\nvanity is a much wiser and more vigorous thing than pride.  Vanity is\nsocial\u2014it is almost a kind of comradeship; pride is solitary and\nuncivilized.  Vanity is active; it desires the applause of infinite\nmultitudes; pride is passive, desiring only the applause of one person,\nwhich it already has. Vanity is humorous, and can enjoy the joke even\nof itself; pride is dull, and cannot even smile.  And the whole of this\ndifference is the difference between Stevenson and Mr. George Moore,\nwho, as he informs us, has \u201cbrushed Stevenson aside.\u201d  I do not know\nwhere he has been brushed to, but wherever it is I fancy he is having a\ngood time, because he had the wisdom to be vain, and not proud.\nStevenson had a windy vanity; Mr. Moore has a dusty egoism. Hence\nStevenson could amuse himself as well as us with his vanity; while the\nrichest effects of Mr. Moore\u2019s absurdity are hidden from his eyes.\n\nIf we compare this solemn folly with the happy folly with which\nStevenson belauds his own books and berates his own critics, we shall\nnot find it difficult to guess why it is that Stevenson at least found\na final philosophy of some sort to live by, while Mr. Moore is always\nwalking the world looking for a new one. Stevenson had found that the\nsecret of life lies in laughter and humility. Self is the gorgon.\nVanity sees it in the mirror of other men and lives. Pride studies it\nfor itself and is turned to stone.\n\nIt is necessary to dwell on this defect in Mr. Moore, because it is\nreally the weakness of work which is not without its strength. Mr.\nMoore\u2019s egoism is not merely a moral weakness, it is a very constant\nand influential aesthetic weakness as well. We should really be much\nmore interested in Mr. Moore if he were not quite so interested in\nhimself.  We feel as if we were being shown through a gallery of really\nfine pictures, into each of which, by some useless and discordant\nconvention, the artist had represented the same figure in the same\nattitude.  \u201cThe Grand Canal with a distant view of Mr. Moore,\u201d \u201cEffect\nof Mr. Moore through a Scotch Mist,\u201d \u201cMr. Moore by Firelight,\u201d \u201cRuins\nof Mr. Moore by Moonlight,\u201d and so on, seems to be the endless series.\nHe would no doubt reply that in such a book as this he intended to\nreveal himself. But the answer is that in such a book as this he does\nnot succeed. One of the thousand objections to the sin of pride lies\nprecisely in this, that self-consciousness of necessity destroys\nself-revelation. A man who thinks a great deal about himself will try\nto be many-sided, attempt a theatrical excellence at all points, will\ntry to be an encyclopaedia of culture, and his own real personality\nwill be lost in that false universalism. Thinking about himself will\nlead to trying to be the universe; trying to be the universe will lead\nto ceasing to be anything. If, on the other hand, a man is sensible\nenough to think only about the universe; he will think about it in his\nown individual way. He will keep virgin the secret of God; he will see\nthe grass as no other man can see it, and look at a sun that no man has\never known. This fact is very practically brought out in Mr. Moore\u2019s\n\u201cConfessions.\u201d In reading them we do not feel the presence of a\nclean-cut personality like that of Thackeray and Matthew Arnold. We\nonly read a number of quite clever and largely conflicting opinions\nwhich might be uttered by any clever person, but which we are called\nupon to admire specifically, because they are uttered by Mr. Moore. He\nis the only thread that connects Catholicism and Protestantism, realism\nand mysticism\u2014he or rather his name.  He is profoundly absorbed even\nin views he no longer holds, and he expects us to be. And he intrudes\nthe capital \u201cI\u201d even where it need not be intruded\u2014even where it\nweakens the force of a plain statement. Where another man would say,\n\u201cIt is a fine day,\u201d Mr. Moore says, \u201cSeen through my temperament, the\nday appeared fine.\u201d Where another man would say \u201cMilton has obviously a\nfine style,\u201d Mr. Moore would say, \u201cAs a stylist Milton had always\nimpressed me.\u201d The Nemesis of this self-centred spirit is that of being\ntotally ineffectual.  Mr. Moore has started many interesting crusades,\nbut he has abandoned them before his disciples could begin. Even when\nhe is on the side of the truth he is as fickle as the children of\nfalsehood.  Even when he has found reality he cannot find rest. One\nIrish quality he has which no Irishman was ever without\u2014pugnacity; and\nthat is certainly a great virtue, especially in the present age. But he\nhas not the tenacity of conviction which goes with the fighting spirit\nin a man like Bernard Shaw.  His weakness of introspection and\nselfishness in all their glory cannot prevent him fighting; but they\nwill always prevent him winning.\n\n\n\n\nX. On Sandals and Simplicity\n\n\nThe great misfortune of the modern English is not at all that they are\nmore boastful than other people (they are not); it is that they are\nboastful about those particular things which nobody can boast of\nwithout losing them.  A Frenchman can be proud of being bold and\nlogical, and still remain bold and logical. A German can be proud of\nbeing reflective and orderly, and still remain reflective and orderly.\nBut an Englishman cannot be proud of being simple and direct, and still\nremain simple and direct. In the matter of these strange virtues, to\nknow them is to kill them. A man may be conscious of being heroic or\nconscious of being divine, but he cannot (in spite of all the\nAnglo-Saxon poets) be conscious of being unconscious.\n\nNow, I do not think that it can be honestly denied that some portion of\nthis impossibility attaches to a class very different in their own\nopinion, at least, to the school of Anglo-Saxonism. I mean that school\nof the simple life, commonly associated with Tolstoy. If a perpetual\ntalk about one\u2019s own robustness leads to being less robust, it is even\nmore true that a perpetual talking about one\u2019s own simplicity leads to\nbeing less simple. One great complaint, I think, must stand against the\nmodern upholders of the simple life\u2014the simple life in all its varied\nforms, from vegetarianism to the honourable consistency of the\nDoukhobors. This complaint against them stands, that they would make us\nsimple in the unimportant things, but complex in the important things.\nThey would make us simple in the things that do not matter\u2014that is, in\ndiet, in costume, in etiquette, in economic system. But they would make\nus complex in the things that do matter\u2014in philosophy, in loyalty, in\nspiritual acceptance, and spiritual rejection. It does not so very much\nmatter whether a man eats a grilled tomato or a plain tomato; it does\nvery much matter whether he eats a plain tomato with a grilled mind.\nThe only kind of simplicity worth preserving is the simplicity of the\nheart, the simplicity which accepts and enjoys. There may be a\nreasonable doubt as to what system preserves this; there can surely be\nno doubt that a system of simplicity destroys it. There is more\nsimplicity in the man who eats caviar on impulse than in the man who\neats grape-nuts on principle. The chief error of these people is to be\nfound in the very phrase to which they are most attached\u2014\u201cplain living\nand high thinking.\u201d These people do not stand in need of, will not be\nimproved by, plain living and high thinking.  They stand in need of the\ncontrary. They would be improved by high living and plain thinking. A\nlittle high living (I say, having a full sense of responsibility, a\nlittle high living) would teach them the force and meaning of the human\nfestivities, of the banquet that has gone on from the beginning of the\nworld.  It would teach them the historic fact that the artificial is,\nif anything, older than the natural. It would teach them that the\nloving-cup is as old as any hunger. It would teach them that ritualism\nis older than any religion. And a little plain thinking would teach\nthem how harsh and fanciful are the mass of their own ethics, how very\ncivilized and very complicated must be the brain of the Tolstoyan who\nreally believes it to be evil to love one\u2019s country and wicked to\nstrike a blow.\n\nA man approaches, wearing sandals and simple raiment, a raw tomato held\nfirmly in his right hand, and says, \u201cThe affections of family and\ncountry alike are hindrances to the fuller development of human love;\u201d\nbut the plain thinker will only answer him, with a wonder not untinged\nwith admiration, \u201cWhat a great deal of trouble you must have taken in\norder to feel like that.\u201d High living will reject the tomato.  Plain\nthinking will equally decisively reject the idea of the invariable\nsinfulness of war. High living will convince us that nothing is more\nmaterialistic than to despise a pleasure as purely material.  And plain\nthinking will convince us that nothing is more materialistic than to\nreserve our horror chiefly for material wounds.\n\nThe only simplicity that matters is the simplicity of the heart. If\nthat be gone, it can be brought back by no turnips or cellular\nclothing; but only by tears and terror and the fires that are not\nquenched. If that remain, it matters very little if a few Early\nVictorian armchairs remain along with it.  Let us put a complex entree\ninto a simple old gentleman; let us not put a simple entree into a\ncomplex old gentleman.  So long as human society will leave my\nspiritual inside alone, I will allow it, with a comparative submission,\nto work its wild will with my physical interior.  I will submit to\ncigars. I will meekly embrace a bottle of Burgundy.  I will humble\nmyself to a hansom cab.  If only by this means I may preserve to myself\nthe virginity of the spirit, which enjoys with astonishment and fear. I\ndo not say that these are the only methods of preserving it. I incline\nto the belief that there are others.  But I will have nothing to do\nwith simplicity which lacks the fear, the astonishment, and the joy\nalike.  I will have nothing to do with the devilish vision of a child\nwho is too simple to like toys.\n\nThe child is, indeed, in these, and many other matters, the best guide.\nAnd in nothing is the child so righteously childlike, in nothing does\nhe exhibit more accurately the sounder order of simplicity, than in the\nfact that he sees everything with a simple pleasure, even the complex\nthings.  The false type of naturalness harps always on the distinction\nbetween the natural and the artificial. The higher kind of naturalness\nignores that distinction. To the child the tree and the lamp-post are\nas natural and as artificial as each other; or rather, neither of them\nare natural but both supernatural.  For both are splendid and\nunexplained. The flower with which God crowns the one, and the flame\nwith which Sam the lamplighter crowns the other, are equally of the\ngold of fairy-tales. In the middle of the wildest fields the most\nrustic child is, ten to one, playing at steam-engines. And the only\nspiritual or philosophical objection to steam-engines is not that men\npay for them or work at them, or make them very ugly, or even that men\nare killed by them; but merely that men do not play at them. The evil\nis that the childish poetry of clockwork does not remain. The wrong is\nnot that engines are too much admired, but that they are not admired\nenough.  The sin is not that engines are mechanical, but that men are\nmechanical.\n\nIn this matter, then, as in all the other matters treated in this book,\nour main conclusion is that it is a fundamental point of view, a\nphilosophy or religion which is needed, and not any change in habit or\nsocial routine.  The things we need most for immediate practical\npurposes are all abstractions.  We need a right view of the human lot,\na right view of the human society; and if we were living eagerly and\nangrily in the enthusiasm of those things, we should, ipso facto, be\nliving simply in the genuine and spiritual sense. Desire and danger\nmake every one simple.  And to those who talk to us with interfering\neloquence about Jaeger and the pores of the skin, and about Plasmon and\nthe coats of the stomach, at them shall only be hurled the words that\nare hurled at fops and gluttons, \u201cTake no thought what ye shall eat or\nwhat ye shall drink, or wherewithal ye shall be clothed.  For after all\nthese things do the Gentiles seek. But seek first the kingdom of God\nand His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.\u201d\nThose amazing words are not only extraordinarily good, practical\npolitics; they are also superlatively good hygiene.  The one supreme\nway of making all those processes go right, the processes of health,\nand strength, and grace, and beauty, the one and only way of making\ncertain of their accuracy, is to think about something else. If a man\nis bent on climbing into the seventh heaven, he may be quite easy about\nthe pores of his skin.  If he harnesses his waggon to a star, the\nprocess will have a most satisfactory effect upon the coats of his\nstomach.  For the thing called \u201ctaking thought,\u201d the thing for which\nthe best modern word is \u201crationalizing,\u201d is in its nature, inapplicable\nto all plain and urgent things. Men take thought and ponder\nrationalistically, touching remote things\u2014things that only\ntheoretically matter, such as the transit of Venus. But only at their\nperil can men rationalize about so practical a matter as health.\n\n\n\n\nXI. Science and the Savages\n\n\nA permanent disadvantage of the study of folk-lore and kindred subjects\nis that the man of science can hardly be in the nature of things very\nfrequently a man of the world.  He is a student of nature; he is\nscarcely ever a student of human nature. And even where this difficulty\nis overcome, and he is in some sense a student of human nature, this is\nonly a very faint beginning of the painful progress towards being\nhuman.  For the study of primitive race and religion stands apart in\none important respect from all, or nearly all, the ordinary scientific\nstudies. A man can understand astronomy only by being an astronomer; he\ncan understand entomology only by being an entomologist (or, perhaps,\nan insect); but he can understand a great deal of anthropology merely\nby being a man.  He is himself the animal which he studies. Hence\narises the fact which strikes the eye everywhere in the records of\nethnology and folk-lore\u2014the fact that the same frigid and detached\nspirit which leads to success in the study of astronomy or botany leads\nto disaster in the study of mythology or human origins. It is necessary\nto cease to be a man in order to do justice to a microbe; it is not\nnecessary to cease to be a man in order to do justice to men.  That\nsame suppression of sympathies, that same waving away of intuitions or\nguess-work which make a man preternaturally clever in dealing with the\nstomach of a spider, will make him preternaturally stupid in dealing\nwith the heart of man. He is making himself inhuman in order to\nunderstand humanity. An ignorance of the other world is boasted by many\nmen of science; but in this matter their defect arises, not from\nignorance of the other world, but from ignorance of this world.  For\nthe secrets about which anthropologists concern themselves can be best\nlearnt, not from books or voyages, but from the ordinary commerce of\nman with man. The secret of why some savage tribe worships monkeys or\nthe moon is not to be found even by travelling among those savages and\ntaking down their answers in a notebook, although the cleverest man\nmay pursue this course.  The answer to the riddle is in England; it is\nin London; nay, it is in his own heart.  When a man has discovered why\nmen in Bond Street wear black hats he will at the same moment have\ndiscovered why men in Timbuctoo wear red feathers. The mystery in the\nheart of some savage war-dance should not be studied in books of\nscientific travel; it should be studied at a subscription ball.  If a\nman desires to find out the origins of religions, let him not go to the\nSandwich Islands; let him go to church. If a man wishes to know the\norigin of human society, to know what society, philosophically\nspeaking, really is, let him not go into the British Museum; let him go\ninto society.\n\nThis total misunderstanding of the real nature of ceremonial gives rise\nto the most awkward and dehumanized versions of the conduct of men in\nrude lands or ages.  The man of science, not realizing that ceremonial\nis essentially a thing which is done without a reason, has to find a\nreason for every sort of ceremonial, and, as might be supposed, the\nreason is generally a very absurd one\u2014absurd because it originates not\nin the simple mind of the barbarian, but in the sophisticated mind of\nthe professor.  The teamed man will say, for instance, \u201cThe natives of\nMumbojumbo Land believe that the dead man can eat and will require food\nupon his journey to the other world.  This is attested by the fact that\nthey place food in the grave, and that any family not complying with\nthis rite is the object of the anger of the priests and the tribe.\u201d To\nany one acquainted with humanity this way of talking is topsy-turvy. It\nis like saying, \u201cThe English in the twentieth century believed that a\ndead man could smell.  This is attested by the fact that they always\ncovered his grave with lilies, violets, or other flowers. Some priestly\nand tribal terrors were evidently attached to the neglect of this\naction, as we have records of several old ladies who were very much\ndisturbed in mind because their wreaths had not arrived in time for the\nfuneral.\u201d  It may be of course that savages put food with a dead man\nbecause they think that a dead man can eat, or weapons with a dead man\nbecause they think that a dead man can fight. But personally I do not\nbelieve that they think anything of the kind. I believe they put food\nor weapons on the dead for the same reason that we put flowers, because\nit is an exceedingly natural and obvious thing to do.  We do not\nunderstand, it is true, the emotion which makes us think it obvious and\nnatural; but that is because, like all the important emotions of human\nexistence it is essentially irrational.  We do not understand the\nsavage for the same reason that the savage does not understand himself.\nAnd the savage does not understand himself for the same reason that we\ndo not understand ourselves either.\n\nThe obvious truth is that the moment any matter has passed through the\nhuman mind it is finally and for ever spoilt for all purposes of\nscience.  It has become a thing incurably mysterious and infinite; this\nmortal has put on immortality.  Even what we call our material desires\nare spiritual, because they are human. Science can analyse a pork-chop,\nand say how much of it is phosphorus and how much is protein; but\nscience cannot analyse any man\u2019s wish for a pork-chop, and say how much\nof it is hunger, how much custom, how much nervous fancy, how much a\nhaunting love of the beautiful.  The man\u2019s desire for the pork-chop\nremains literally as mystical and ethereal as his desire for heaven.\nAll attempts, therefore, at a science of any human things, at a science\nof history, a science of folk-lore, a science of sociology, are by\ntheir nature not merely hopeless, but crazy. You can no more be certain\nin economic history that a man\u2019s desire for money was merely a desire\nfor money than you can be certain in hagiology that a saint\u2019s desire\nfor God was merely a desire for God. And this kind of vagueness in the\nprimary phenomena of the study is an absolutely final blow to anything\nin the nature of a science. Men can construct a science with very few\ninstruments, or with very plain instruments; but no one on earth could\nconstruct a science with unreliable instruments.  A man might work out\nthe whole of mathematics with a handful of pebbles, but not with a\nhandful of clay which was always falling apart into new fragments, and\nfalling together into new combinations. A man might measure heaven and\nearth with a reed, but not with a growing reed.\n\nAs one of the enormous follies of folk-lore, let us take the case of\nthe transmigration of stories, and the alleged unity of their source.\nStory after story the scientific mythologists have cut out of its place\nin history, and pinned side by side with similar stories in their\nmuseum of fables.  The process is industrious, it is fascinating, and\nthe whole of it rests on one of the plainest fallacies in the world.\nThat a story has been told all over the place at some time or other,\nnot only does not prove that it never really happened; it does not even\nfaintly indicate or make slightly more probable that it never happened.\nThat a large number of fishermen have falsely asserted that they have\ncaught a pike two feet long, does not in the least affect the question\nof whether any one ever really did so.  That numberless journalists\nannounce a Franco-German war merely for money is no evidence one way or\nthe other upon the dark question of whether such a war ever occurred.\nDoubtless in a few hundred years the innumerable Franco-German wars\nthat did not happen will have cleared the scientific mind of any belief\nin the legendary war of \u201970 which did. But that will be because if\nfolk-lore students remain at all, their nature will be unchanged; and\ntheir services to folk-lore will be still as they are at present,\ngreater than they know. For in truth these men do something far more\ngod-like than studying legends; they create them.\n\nThere are two kinds of stories which the scientists say cannot be true,\nbecause everybody tells them.  The first class consists of the stories\nwhich are told everywhere, because they are somewhat odd or clever;\nthere is nothing in the world to prevent their having happened to\nsomebody as an adventure any more than there is anything to prevent\ntheir having occurred, as they certainly did occur, to somebody as an\nidea. But they are not likely to have happened to many people. The\nsecond class of their \u201cmyths\u201d consist of the stories that are told\neverywhere for the simple reason that they happen everywhere. Of the\nfirst class, for instance, we might take such an example as the story\nof William Tell, now generally ranked among legends upon the sole\nground that it is found in the tales of other peoples. Now, it is\nobvious that this was told everywhere because whether true or\nfictitious it is what is called \u201ca good story;\u201d it is odd, exciting,\nand it has a climax.  But to suggest that some such eccentric incident\ncan never have happened in the whole history of archery, or that it did\nnot happen to any particular person of whom it is told, is stark\nimpudence.  The idea of shooting at a mark attached to some valuable or\nbeloved person is an idea doubtless that might easily have occurred to\nany inventive poet. But it is also an idea that might easily occur to\nany boastful archer. It might be one of the fantastic caprices of some\nstory-teller. It might equally well be one of the fantastic caprices of\nsome tyrant. It might occur first in real life and afterwards occur in\nlegends. Or it might just as well occur first in legends and afterwards\noccur in real life.  If no apple has ever been shot off a boy\u2019s head\nfrom the beginning of the world, it may be done to-morrow morning, and\nby somebody who has never heard of William Tell.\n\nThis type of tale, indeed, may be pretty fairly paralleled with the\nordinary anecdote terminating in a repartee or an Irish bull. Such a\nretort as the famous \u201cje ne vois pas la necessite\u201d we have all seen\nattributed to Talleyrand, to Voltaire, to Henri Quatre, to an anonymous\njudge, and so on.  But this variety does not in any way make it more\nlikely that the thing was never said at all. It is highly likely that\nit was really said by somebody unknown. It is highly likely that it was\nreally said by Talleyrand. In any case, it is not any more difficult to\nbelieve that the mot might have occurred to a man in conversation than\nto a man writing memoirs. It might have occurred to any of the men I\nhave mentioned. But there is this point of distinction about it, that\nit is not likely to have occurred to all of them.  And this is where\nthe first class of so-called myth differs from the second to which I\nhave previously referred.  For there is a second class of incident\nfound to be common to the stories of five or six heroes, say to Sigurd,\nto Hercules, to Rustem, to the Cid, and so on. And the peculiarity of\nthis myth is that not only is it highly reasonable to imagine that it\nreally happened to one hero, but it is highly reasonable to imagine\nthat it really happened to all of them. Such a story, for instance, is\nthat of a great man having his strength swayed or thwarted by the\nmysterious weakness of a woman. The anecdotal story, the story of\nWilliam Tell, is as I have said, popular, because it is peculiar.  But\nthis kind of story, the story of Samson and Delilah of Arthur and\nGuinevere, is obviously popular because it is not peculiar.  It is\npopular as good, quiet fiction is popular, because it tells the truth\nabout people. If the ruin of Samson by a woman, and the ruin of\nHercules by a woman, have a common legendary origin, it is gratifying\nto know that we can also explain, as a fable, the ruin of Nelson by a\nwoman and the ruin of Parnell by a woman.  And, indeed, I have no doubt\nwhatever that, some centuries hence, the students of folk-lore will\nrefuse altogether to believe that Elizabeth Barrett eloped with Robert\nBrowning, and will prove their point up to the hilt by the\nunquestionable fact that the whole fiction of the period was full of\nsuch elopements from end to end.\n\nPossibly the most pathetic of all the delusions of the modern students\nof primitive belief is the notion they have about the thing they call\nanthropomorphism.  They believe that primitive men attributed phenomena\nto a god in human form in order to explain them, because his mind in\nits sullen limitation could not reach any further than his own clownish\nexistence.  The thunder was called the voice of a man, the lightning\nthe eyes of a man, because by this explanation they were made more\nreasonable and comfortable. The final cure for all this kind of\nphilosophy is to walk down a lane at night.  Any one who does so will\ndiscover very quickly that men pictured something semi-human at the\nback of all things, not because such a thought was natural, but because\nit was supernatural; not because it made things more comprehensible,\nbut because it made them a hundred times more incomprehensible and\nmysterious. For a man walking down a lane at night can see the\nconspicuous fact that as long as nature keeps to her own course, she\nhas no power with us at all.  As long as a tree is a tree, it is a\ntop-heavy monster with a hundred arms, a thousand tongues, and only one\nleg. But so long as a tree is a tree, it does not frighten us at all.\nIt begins to be something alien, to be something strange, only when it\nlooks like ourselves.  When a tree really looks like a man our knees\nknock under us.  And when the whole universe looks like a man we fall\non our faces.\n\n\n\n\nXII. Paganism and Mr. Lowes Dickinson\n\n\nOf the New Paganism (or neo-Paganism), as it was preached flamboyantly\nby Mr. Swinburne or delicately by Walter Pater, there is no necessity\nto take any very grave account, except as a thing which left behind it\nincomparable exercises in the English language.  The New Paganism is no\nlonger new, and it never at any time bore the smallest resemblance to\nPaganism. The ideas about the ancient civilization which it has left\nloose in the public mind are certainly extraordinary enough. The term\n\u201cpagan\u201d is continually used in fiction and light literature as meaning\na man without any religion, whereas a pagan was generally a man with\nabout half a dozen.  The pagans, according to this notion, were\ncontinually crowning themselves with flowers and dancing about in an\nirresponsible state, whereas, if there were two things that the best\npagan civilization did honestly believe in, they were a rather too\nrigid dignity and a much too rigid responsibility. Pagans are depicted\nas above all things inebriate and lawless, whereas they were above all\nthings reasonable and respectable. They are praised as disobedient when\nthey had only one great virtue\u2014civic obedience.  They are envied and\nadmired as shamelessly happy when they had only one great sin\u2014despair.\n\nMr. Lowes Dickinson, the most pregnant and provocative of recent\nwriters on this and similar subjects, is far too solid a man to have\nfallen into this old error of the mere anarchy of Paganism. In order to\nmake hay of that Hellenic enthusiasm which has as its ideal mere\nappetite and egotism, it is not necessary to know much philosophy, but\nmerely to know a little Greek. Mr. Lowes Dickinson knows a great deal\nof philosophy, and also a great deal of Greek, and his error, if error\nhe has, is not that of the crude hedonist.  But the contrast which he\noffers between Christianity and Paganism in the matter of moral\nideals\u2014a contrast which he states very ably in a paper called \u201cHow\nlong halt ye?\u201d which appeared in the Independent Review\u2014does, I think,\ncontain an error of a deeper kind.  According to him, the ideal of\nPaganism was not, indeed, a mere frenzy of lust and liberty and\ncaprice, but was an ideal of full and satisfied humanity. According to\nhim, the ideal of Christianity was the ideal of asceticism. When I say\nthat I think this idea wholly wrong as a matter of philosophy and\nhistory, I am not talking for the moment about any ideal Christianity\nof my own, or even of any primitive Christianity undefiled by after\nevents.  I am not, like so many modern Christian idealists, basing my\ncase upon certain things which Christ said. Neither am I, like so many\nother Christian idealists, basing my case upon certain things that\nChrist forgot to say. I take historic Christianity with all its sins\nupon its head; I take it, as I would take Jacobinism, or Mormonism, or\nany other mixed or unpleasing human product, and I say that the meaning\nof its action was not to be found in asceticism.  I say that its point\nof departure from Paganism was not asceticism.  I say that its point of\ndifference with the modern world was not asceticism. I say that St.\nSimeon Stylites had not his main inspiration in asceticism. I say that\nthe main Christian impulse cannot be described as asceticism, even in\nthe ascetics.\n\nLet me set about making the matter clear.  There is one broad fact\nabout the relations of Christianity and Paganism which is so simple\nthat many will smile at it, but which is so important that all moderns\nforget it.  The primary fact about Christianity and Paganism is that\none came after the other.  Mr. Lowes Dickinson speaks of them as if\nthey were parallel ideals\u2014even speaks as if Paganism were the newer of\nthe two, and the more fitted for a new age. He suggests that the Pagan\nideal will be the ultimate good of man; but if that is so, we must at\nleast ask with more curiosity than he allows for, why it was that man\nactually found his ultimate good on earth under the stars, and threw it\naway again. It is this extraordinary enigma to which I propose to\nattempt an answer.\n\nThere is only one thing in the modern world that has been face to face\nwith Paganism; there is only one thing in the modern world which in\nthat sense knows anything about Paganism: and that is Christianity.\nThat fact is really the weak point in the whole of that hedonistic\nneo-Paganism of which I have spoken. All that genuinely remains of the\nancient hymns or the ancient dances of Europe, all that has honestly\ncome to us from the festivals of Phoebus or Pan, is to be found in the\nfestivals of the Christian Church. If any one wants to hold the end of\na chain which really goes back to the heathen mysteries, he had better\ntake hold of a festoon of flowers at Easter or a string of sausages at\nChristmas. Everything else in the modern world is of Christian origin,\neven everything that seems most anti-Christian. The French Revolution\nis of Christian origin.  The newspaper is of Christian origin. The\nanarchists are of Christian origin.  Physical science is of Christian\norigin.  The attack on Christianity is of Christian origin. There is\none thing, and one thing only, in existence at the present day which\ncan in any sense accurately be said to be of pagan origin, and that is\nChristianity.\n\nThe real difference between Paganism and Christianity is perfectly\nsummed up in the difference between the pagan, or natural, virtues, and\nthose three virtues of Christianity which the Church of Rome calls\nvirtues of grace.  The pagan, or rational, virtues are such things as\njustice and temperance, and Christianity has adopted them. The three\nmystical virtues which Christianity has not adopted, but invented, are\nfaith, hope, and charity.  Now much easy and foolish Christian rhetoric\ncould easily be poured out upon those three words, but I desire to\nconfine myself to the two facts which are evident about them.  The\nfirst evident fact (in marked contrast to the delusion of the dancing\npagan)\u2014the first evident fact, I say, is that the pagan virtues, such\nas justice and temperance, are the sad virtues, and that the mystical\nvirtues of faith, hope, and charity are the gay and exuberant virtues.\nAnd the second evident fact, which is even more evident, is the fact\nthat the pagan virtues are the reasonable virtues, and that the\nChristian virtues of faith, hope, and charity are in their essence as\nunreasonable as they can be.\n\nAs the word \u201cunreasonable\u201d is open to misunderstanding, the matter may\nbe more accurately put by saying that each one of these Christian or\nmystical virtues involves a paradox in its own nature, and that this is\nnot true of any of the typically pagan or rationalist virtues. Justice\nconsists in finding out a certain thing due to a certain man and giving\nit to him.  Temperance consists in finding out the proper limit of a\nparticular indulgence and adhering to that.  But charity means\npardoning what is unpardonable, or it is no virtue at all. Hope means\nhoping when things are hopeless, or it is no virtue at all. And faith\nmeans believing the incredible, or it is no virtue at all.\n\nIt is somewhat amusing, indeed, to notice the difference between the\nfate of these three paradoxes in the fashion of the modern mind.\nCharity is a fashionable virtue in our time; it is lit up by the\ngigantic firelight of Dickens.  Hope is a fashionable virtue to-day;\nour attention has been arrested for it by the sudden and silver trumpet\nof Stevenson.  But faith is unfashionable, and it is customary on every\nside to cast against it the fact that it is a paradox. Everybody\nmockingly repeats the famous childish definition that faith is \u201cthe\npower of believing that which we know to be untrue.\u201d Yet it is not one\natom more paradoxical than hope or charity. Charity is the power of\ndefending that which we know to be indefensible. Hope is the power of\nbeing cheerful in circumstances which we know to be desperate.  It is\ntrue that there is a state of hope which belongs to bright prospects\nand the morning; but that is not the virtue of hope. The virtue of hope\nexists only in earthquake and, eclipse. It is true that there is a\nthing crudely called charity, which means charity to the deserving\npoor; but charity to the deserving is not charity at all, but justice.\nIt is the undeserving who require it, and the ideal either does not\nexist at all, or exists wholly for them. For practical purposes it is\nat the hopeless moment that we require the hopeful man, and the virtue\neither does not exist at all, or begins to exist at that moment.\nExactly at the instant when hope ceases to be reasonable it begins to\nbe useful. Now the old pagan world went perfectly straightforward until\nit discovered that going straightforward is an enormous mistake. It was\nnobly and beautifully reasonable, and discovered in its death-pang this\nlasting and valuable truth, a heritage for the ages, that\nreasonableness will not do.  The pagan age was truly an Eden or golden\nage, in this essential sense, that it is not to be recovered. And it is\nnot to be recovered in this sense again that, while we are certainly\njollier than the pagans, and much more right than the pagans, there is\nnot one of us who can, by the utmost stretch of energy, be so sensible\nas the pagans. That naked innocence of the intellect cannot be\nrecovered by any man after Christianity; and for this excellent reason,\nthat every man after Christianity knows it to be misleading. Let me\ntake an example, the first that occurs to the mind, of this impossible\nplainness in the pagan point of view.  The greatest tribute to\nChristianity in the modern world is Tennyson\u2019s \u201cUlysses.\u201d The poet\nreads into the story of Ulysses the conception of an incurable desire\nto wander.  But the real Ulysses does not desire to wander at all. He\ndesires to get home.  He displays his heroic and unconquerable\nqualities in resisting the misfortunes which baulk him; but that is\nall. There is no love of adventure for its own sake; that is a\nChristian product.  There is no love of Penelope for her own sake; that\nis a Christian product.  Everything in that old world would appear to\nhave been clean and obvious.  A good man was a good man; a bad man was\na bad man.  For this reason they had no charity; for charity is a\nreverent agnosticism towards the complexity of the soul. For this\nreason they had no such thing as the art of fiction, the novel; for the\nnovel is a creation of the mystical idea of charity. For them a\npleasant landscape was pleasant, and an unpleasant landscape\nunpleasant.  Hence they had no idea of romance; for romance consists in\nthinking a thing more delightful because it is dangerous; it is a\nChristian idea.  In a word, we cannot reconstruct or even imagine the\nbeautiful and astonishing pagan world. It was a world in which common\nsense was really common.\n\nMy general meaning touching the three virtues of which I have spoken\nwill now, I hope, be sufficiently clear. They are all three\nparadoxical, they are all three practical, and they are all three\nparadoxical because they are practical. It is the stress of ultimate\nneed, and a terrible knowledge of things as they are, which led men to\nset up these riddles, and to die for them. Whatever may be the meaning\nof the contradiction, it is the fact that the only kind of hope that is\nof any use in a battle is a hope that denies arithmetic.  Whatever may\nbe the meaning of the contradiction, it is the fact that the only kind\nof charity which any weak spirit wants, or which any generous spirit\nfeels, is the charity which forgives the sins that are like scarlet.\nWhatever may be the meaning of faith, it must always mean a certainty\nabout something we cannot prove.  Thus, for instance, we believe by\nfaith in the existence of other people.\n\nBut there is another Christian virtue, a virtue far more obviously and\nhistorically connected with Christianity, which will illustrate even\nbetter the connection between paradox and practical necessity. This\nvirtue cannot be questioned in its capacity as a historical symbol;\ncertainly Mr. Lowes Dickinson will not question it. It has been the\nboast of hundreds of the champions of Christianity. It has been the\ntaunt of hundreds of the opponents of Christianity. It is, in essence,\nthe basis of Mr. Lowes Dickinson\u2019s whole distinction between\nChristianity and Paganism.  I mean, of course, the virtue of humility.\nI admit, of course, most readily, that a great deal of false Eastern\nhumility (that is, of strictly ascetic humility) mixed itself with the\nmain stream of European Christianity. We must not forget that when we\nspeak of Christianity we are speaking of a whole continent for about a\nthousand years.  But of this virtue even more than of the other three,\nI would maintain the general proposition adopted above.  Civilization\ndiscovered Christian humility for the same urgent reason that it\ndiscovered faith and charity\u2014that is, because Christian civilization\nhad to discover it or die.\n\nThe great psychological discovery of Paganism, which turned it into\nChristianity, can be expressed with some accuracy in one phrase. The\npagan set out, with admirable sense, to enjoy himself. By the end of\nhis civilization he had discovered that a man cannot enjoy himself and\ncontinue to enjoy anything else. Mr. Lowes Dickinson has pointed out in\nwords too excellent to need any further elucidation, the absurd\nshallowness of those who imagine that the pagan enjoyed himself only in\na materialistic sense. Of course, he enjoyed himself, not only\nintellectually even, he enjoyed himself morally, he enjoyed himself\nspiritually. But it was himself that he was enjoying; on the face of\nit, a very natural thing to do.  Now, the psychological discovery is\nmerely this, that whereas it had been supposed that the fullest\npossible enjoyment is to be found by extending our ego to infinity, the\ntruth is that the fullest possible enjoyment is to be found by reducing\nour ego to zero.\n\nHumility is the thing which is for ever renewing the earth and the\nstars. It is humility, and not duty, which preserves the stars from\nwrong, from the unpardonable wrong of casual resignation; it is through\nhumility that the most ancient heavens for us are fresh and strong. The\ncurse that came before history has laid on us all a tendency to be\nweary of wonders.  If we saw the sun for the first time it would be the\nmost fearful and beautiful of meteors. Now that we see it for the\nhundredth time we call it, in the hideous and blasphemous phrase of\nWordsworth, \u201cthe light of common day.\u201d We are inclined to increase our\nclaims.  We are inclined to demand six suns, to demand a blue sun, to\ndemand a green sun. Humility is perpetually putting us back in the\nprimal darkness. There all light is lightning, startling and\ninstantaneous. Until we understand that original dark, in which we have\nneither sight nor expectation, we can give no hearty and childlike\npraise to the splendid sensationalism of things.  The terms \u201cpessimism\u201d\nand \u201coptimism,\u201d like most modern terms, are unmeaning. But if they can\nbe used in any vague sense as meaning something, we may say that in\nthis great fact pessimism is the very basis of optimism.  The man who\ndestroys himself creates the universe. To the humble man, and to the\nhumble man alone, the sun is really a sun; to the humble man, and to\nthe humble man alone, the sea is really a sea. When he looks at all the\nfaces in the street, he does not only realize that men are alive, he\nrealizes with a dramatic pleasure that they are not dead.\n\nI have not spoken of another aspect of the discovery of humility as a\npsychological necessity, because it is more commonly insisted on, and\nis in itself more obvious.  But it is equally clear that humility is a\npermanent necessity as a condition of effort and self-examination. It\nis one of the deadly fallacies of Jingo politics that a nation is\nstronger for despising other nations.  As a matter of fact, the\nstrongest nations are those, like Prussia or Japan, which began from\nvery mean beginnings, but have not been too proud to sit at the feet of\nthe foreigner and learn everything from him.  Almost every obvious and\ndirect victory has been the victory of the plagiarist. This is, indeed,\nonly a very paltry by-product of humility, but it is a product of\nhumility, and, therefore, it is successful. Prussia had no Christian\nhumility in its internal arrangements; hence its internal arrangements\nwere miserable.  But it had enough Christian humility slavishly to copy\nFrance (even down to Frederick the Great\u2019s poetry), and that which it\nhad the humility to copy it had ultimately the honour to conquer.  The\ncase of the Japanese is even more obvious; their only Christian and\ntheir only beautiful quality is that they have humbled themselves to be\nexalted. All this aspect of humility, however, as connected with the\nmatter of effort and striving for a standard set above us, I dismiss as\nhaving been sufficiently pointed out by almost all idealistic writers.\n\nIt may be worth while, however, to point out the interesting disparity\nin the matter of humility between the modern notion of the strong man\nand the actual records of strong men.  Carlyle objected to the\nstatement that no man could be a hero to his valet. Every sympathy can\nbe extended towards him in the matter if he merely or mainly meant that\nthe phrase was a disparagement of hero-worship. Hero-worship is\ncertainly a generous and human impulse; the hero may be faulty, but the\nworship can hardly be.  It may be that no man would be a hero to his\nvalet.  But any man would be a valet to his hero. But in truth both the\nproverb itself and Carlyle\u2019s stricture upon it ignore the most\nessential matter at issue.  The ultimate psychological truth is not\nthat no man is a hero to his valet. The ultimate psychological truth,\nthe foundation of Christianity, is that no man is a hero to himself.\nCromwell, according to Carlyle, was a strong man.  According to\nCromwell, he was a weak one.\n\nThe weak point in the whole of Carlyle\u2019s case for aristocracy lies,\nindeed, in his most celebrated phrase. Carlyle said that men were\nmostly fools.  Christianity, with a surer and more reverent realism,\nsays that they are all fools. This doctrine is sometimes called the\ndoctrine of original sin. It may also be described as the doctrine of\nthe equality of men. But the essential point of it is merely this, that\nwhatever primary and far-reaching moral dangers affect any man, affect\nall men. All men can be criminals, if tempted; all men can be heroes,\nif inspired. And this doctrine does away altogether with Carlyle\u2019s\npathetic belief (or any one else\u2019s pathetic belief) in \u201cthe wise few.\u201d\nThere are no wise few.  Every aristocracy that has ever existed has\nbehaved, in all essential points, exactly like a small mob. Every\noligarchy is merely a knot of men in the street\u2014that is to say, it is\nvery jolly, but not infallible.  And no oligarchies in the world\u2019s\nhistory have ever come off so badly in practical affairs as the very\nproud oligarchies\u2014the oligarchy of Poland, the oligarchy of Venice.\nAnd the armies that have most swiftly and suddenly broken their enemies\nin pieces have been the religious armies\u2014the Moslem Armies, for\ninstance, or the Puritan Armies.  And a religious army may, by its\nnature, be defined as an army in which every man is taught not to exalt\nbut to abase himself.  Many modern Englishmen talk of themselves as the\nsturdy descendants of their sturdy Puritan fathers. As a fact, they\nwould run away from a cow.  If you asked one of their Puritan fathers,\nif you asked Bunyan, for instance, whether he was sturdy, he would have\nanswered, with tears, that he was as weak as water.  And because of\nthis he would have borne tortures. And this virtue of humility, while\nbeing practical enough to win battles, will always be paradoxical\nenough to puzzle pedants. It is at one with the virtue of charity in\nthis respect. Every generous person will admit that the one kind of sin\nwhich charity should cover is the sin which is inexcusable.  And every\ngenerous person will equally agree that the one kind of pride which is\nwholly damnable is the pride of the man who has something to be proud\nof. The pride which, proportionally speaking, does not hurt the\ncharacter, is the pride in things which reflect no credit on the person\nat all. Thus it does a man no harm to be proud of his country, and\ncomparatively little harm to be proud of his remote ancestors. It does\nhim more harm to be proud of having made money, because in that he has\na little more reason for pride. It does him more harm still to be proud\nof what is nobler than money\u2014intellect.  And it does him most harm of\nall to value himself for the most valuable thing on earth\u2014goodness.\nThe man who is proud of what is really creditable to him is the\nPharisee, the man whom Christ Himself could not forbear to strike.\n\nMy objection to Mr. Lowes Dickinson and the reassertors of the pagan\nideal is, then, this.  I accuse them of ignoring definite human\ndiscoveries in the moral world, discoveries as definite, though not as\nmaterial, as the discovery of the circulation of the blood. We cannot\ngo back to an ideal of reason and sanity. For mankind has discovered\nthat reason does not lead to sanity. We cannot go back to an ideal of\npride and enjoyment.  For mankind has discovered that pride does not\nlead to enjoyment.  I do not know by what extraordinary mental accident\nmodern writers so constantly connect the idea of progress with the idea\nof independent thinking. Progress is obviously the antithesis of\nindependent thinking. For under independent or individualistic\nthinking, every man starts at the beginning, and goes, in all\nprobability, just as far as his father before him.  But if there really\nbe anything of the nature of progress, it must mean, above all things,\nthe careful study and assumption of the whole of the past.  I accuse\nMr. Lowes Dickinson and his school of reaction in the only real sense.\nIf he likes, let him ignore these great historic mysteries\u2014the mystery\nof charity, the mystery of chivalry, the mystery of faith. If he likes,\nlet him ignore the plough or the printing-press. But if we do revive\nand pursue the pagan ideal of a simple and rational self-completion we\nshall end\u2014where Paganism ended. I do not mean that we shall end in\ndestruction.  I mean that we shall end in Christianity.\n\n\n\n\nXIII.  Celts and Celtophiles\n\n\nScience in the modern world has many uses; its chief use, however, is\nto provide long words to cover the errors of the rich. The word\n\u201ckleptomania\u201d is a vulgar example of what I mean. It is on a par with\nthat strange theory, always advanced when a wealthy or prominent person\nis in the dock, that exposure is more of a punishment for the rich than\nfor the poor.  Of course, the very reverse is the truth. Exposure is\nmore of a punishment for the poor than for the rich. The richer a man\nis the easier it is for him to be a tramp. The richer a man is the\neasier it is for him to be popular and generally respected in the\nCannibal Islands.  But the poorer a man is the more likely it is that\nhe will have to use his past life whenever he wants to get a bed for\nthe night.  Honour is a luxury for aristocrats, but it is a necessity\nfor hall-porters. This is a secondary matter, but it is an example of\nthe general proposition I offer\u2014the proposition that an enormous\namount of modern ingenuity is expended on finding defences for the\nindefensible conduct of the powerful. As I have said above, these\ndefences generally exhibit themselves most emphatically in the form of\nappeals to physical science. And of all the forms in which science, or\npseudo-science, has come to the rescue of the rich and stupid, there is\nnone so singular as the singular invention of the theory of races.\n\nWhen a wealthy nation like the English discovers the perfectly patent\nfact that it is making a ludicrous mess of the government of a poorer\nnation like the Irish, it pauses for a moment in consternation, and\nthen begins to talk about Celts and Teutons.  As far as I can\nunderstand the theory, the Irish are Celts and the English are Teutons.\nOf course, the Irish are not Celts any more than the English are\nTeutons. I have not followed the ethnological discussion with much\nenergy, but the last scientific conclusion which I read inclined on the\nwhole to the summary that the English were mainly Celtic and the Irish\nmainly Teutonic.  But no man alive, with even the glimmering of a real\nscientific sense, would ever dream of applying the terms \u201cCeltic\u201d or\n\u201cTeutonic\u201d to either of them in any positive or useful sense.\n\nThat sort of thing must be left to people who talk about the\nAnglo-Saxon race, and extend the expression to America. How much of the\nblood of the Angles and Saxons (whoever they were) there remains in our\nmixed British, Roman, German, Dane, Norman, and Picard stock is a\nmatter only interesting to wild antiquaries. And how much of that\ndiluted blood can possibly remain in that roaring whirlpool of America\ninto which a cataract of Swedes, Jews, Germans, Irishmen, and Italians\nis perpetually pouring, is a matter only interesting to lunatics.  It\nwould have been wiser for the English governing class to have called\nupon some other god. All other gods, however weak and warring, at least\nboast of being constant.  But science boasts of being in a flux for\never; boasts of being unstable as water.\n\nAnd England and the English governing class never did call on this\nabsurd deity of race until it seemed, for an instant, that they had no\nother god to call on.  All the most genuine Englishmen in history would\nhave yawned or laughed in your face if you had begun to talk about\nAnglo-Saxons. If you had attempted to substitute the ideal of race for\nthe ideal of nationality, I really do not like to think what they would\nhave said.  I certainly should not like to have been the officer of\nNelson who suddenly discovered his French blood on the eve of\nTrafalgar.  I should not like to have been the Norfolk or Suffolk\ngentleman who had to expound to Admiral Blake by what demonstrable ties\nof genealogy he was irrevocably bound to the Dutch.  The truth of the\nwhole matter is very simple. Nationality exists, and has nothing in the\nworld to do with race. Nationality is a thing like a church or a secret\nsociety; it is a product of the human soul and will; it is a spiritual\nproduct. And there are men in the modern world who would think anything\nand do anything rather than admit that anything could be a spiritual\nproduct.\n\nA nation, however, as it confronts the modern world, is a purely\nspiritual product.  Sometimes it has been born in independence, like\nScotland.  Sometimes it has been born in dependence, in subjugation,\nlike Ireland.  Sometimes it is a large thing cohering out of many\nsmaller things, like Italy.  Sometimes it is a small thing breaking\naway from larger things, like Poland. But in each and every case its\nquality is purely spiritual, or, if you will, purely psychological.  It\nis a moment when five men become a sixth man.  Every one knows it who\nhas ever founded a club.  It is a moment when five places become one\nplace. Every one must know it who has ever had to repel an invasion.\nMr. Timothy Healy, the most serious intellect in the present House of\nCommons, summed up nationality to perfection when he simply called it\nsomething for which people will die, As he excellently said in reply to\nLord Hugh Cecil, \u201cNo one, not even the noble lord, would die for the\nmeridian of Greenwich.\u201d And that is the great tribute to its purely\npsychological character. It is idle to ask why Greenwich should not\ncohere in this spiritual manner while Athens or Sparta did.  It is like\nasking why a man falls in love with one woman and not with another.\n\nNow, of this great spiritual coherence, independent of external\ncircumstances, or of race, or of any obvious physical thing, Ireland is\nthe most remarkable example.  Rome conquered nations, but Ireland has\nconquered races.  The Norman has gone there and become Irish, the\nScotchman has gone there and become Irish, the Spaniard has gone there\nand become Irish, even the bitter soldier of Cromwell has gone there\nand become Irish.  Ireland, which did not exist even politically, has\nbeen stronger than all the races that existed scientifically. The\npurest Germanic blood, the purest Norman blood, the purest blood of the\npassionate Scotch patriot, has not been so attractive as a nation\nwithout a flag.  Ireland, unrecognized and oppressed, has easily\nabsorbed races, as such trifles are easily absorbed. She has easily\ndisposed of physical science, as such superstitions are easily disposed\nof.  Nationality in its weakness has been stronger than ethnology in\nits strength.  Five triumphant races have been absorbed, have been\ndefeated by a defeated nationality.\n\nThis being the true and strange glory of Ireland, it is impossible to\nhear without impatience of the attempt so constantly made among her\nmodern sympathizers to talk about Celts and Celticism. Who were the\nCelts?  I defy anybody to say.  Who are the Irish? I defy any one to be\nindifferent, or to pretend not to know. Mr. W. B. Yeats, the great\nIrish genius who has appeared in our time, shows his own admirable\npenetration in discarding altogether the argument from a Celtic race.\nBut he does not wholly escape, and his followers hardly ever escape,\nthe general objection to the Celtic argument. The tendency of that\nargument is to represent the Irish or the Celts as a strange and\nseparate race, as a tribe of eccentrics in the modern world immersed in\ndim legends and fruitless dreams. Its tendency is to exhibit the Irish\nas odd, because they see the fairies.  Its trend is to make the Irish\nseem weird and wild because they sing old songs and join in strange\ndances. But this is quite an error; indeed, it is the opposite of the\ntruth. It is the English who are odd because they do not see the\nfairies. It is the inhabitants of Kensington who are weird and wild\nbecause they do not sing old songs and join in strange dances. In all\nthis the Irish are not in the least strange and separate, are not in\nthe least Celtic, as the word is commonly and popularly used. In all\nthis the Irish are simply an ordinary sensible nation, living the life\nof any other ordinary and sensible nation which has not been either\nsodden with smoke or oppressed by money-lenders, or otherwise corrupted\nwith wealth and science. There is nothing Celtic about having legends.\nIt is merely human. The Germans, who are (I suppose) Teutonic, have\nhundreds of legends, wherever it happens that the Germans are human.\nThere is nothing Celtic about loving poetry; the English loved poetry\nmore, perhaps, than any other people before they came under the shadow\nof the chimney-pot and the shadow of the chimney-pot hat.  It is not\nIreland which is mad and mystic; it is Manchester which is mad and\nmystic, which is incredible, which is a wild exception among human\nthings. Ireland has no need to play the silly game of the science of\nraces; Ireland has no need to pretend to be a tribe of visionaries\napart. In the matter of visions, Ireland is more than a nation, it is a\nmodel nation.\n\n\n\n\nXIV. On Certain Modern Writers and the Institution of the Family\n\n\nThe family may fairly be considered, one would think, an ultimate human\ninstitution.  Every one would admit that it has been the main cell and\ncentral unit of almost all societies hitherto, except, indeed, such\nsocieties as that of Lacedaemon, which went in for \u201cefficiency,\u201d and\nhas, therefore, perished, and left not a trace behind.  Christianity,\neven enormous as was its revolution, did not alter this ancient and\nsavage sanctity; it merely reversed it. It did not deny the trinity of\nfather, mother, and child. It merely read it backwards, making it run\nchild, mother, father. This it called, not the family, but the Holy\nFamily, for many things are made holy by being turned upside down. But\nsome sages of our own decadence have made a serious attack on the\nfamily.  They have impugned it, as I think wrongly; and its defenders\nhave defended it, and defended it wrongly. The common defence of the\nfamily is that, amid the stress and fickleness of life, it is peaceful,\npleasant, and at one. But there is another defence of the family which\nis possible, and to me evident; this defence is that the family is not\npeaceful and not pleasant and not at one.\n\nIt is not fashionable to say much nowadays of the advantages of the\nsmall community.  We are told that we must go in for large empires and\nlarge ideas.  There is one advantage, however, in the small state, the\ncity, or the village, which only the wilfully blind can overlook. The\nman who lives in a small community lives in a much larger world. He\nknows much more of the fierce varieties and uncompromising divergences\nof men.  The reason is obvious.  In a large community we can choose our\ncompanions.  In a small community our companions are chosen for us.\nThus in all extensive and highly civilized societies groups come into\nexistence founded upon what is called sympathy, and shut out the real\nworld more sharply than the gates of a monastery. There is nothing\nreally narrow about the clan; the thing which is really narrow is the\nclique.  The men of the clan live together because they all wear the\nsame tartan or are all descended from the same sacred cow; but in their\nsouls, by the divine luck of things, there will always be more colours\nthan in any tartan. But the men of the clique live together because\nthey have the same kind of soul, and their narrowness is a narrowness\nof spiritual coherence and contentment, like that which exists in hell.\nA big society exists in order to form cliques.  A big society is a\nsociety for the promotion of narrowness.  It is a machinery for the\npurpose of guarding the solitary and sensitive individual from all\nexperience of the bitter and bracing human compromises. It is, in the\nmost literal sense of the words, a society for the prevention of\nChristian knowledge.\n\nWe can see this change, for instance, in the modern transformation of\nthe thing called a club.  When London was smaller, and the parts of\nLondon more self-contained and parochial, the club was what it still is\nin villages, the opposite of what it is now in great cities. Then the\nclub was valued as a place where a man could be sociable. Now the club\nis valued as a place where a man can be unsociable. The more the\nenlargement and elaboration of our civilization goes on the more the\nclub ceases to be a place where a man can have a noisy argument, and\nbecomes more and more a place where a man can have what is somewhat\nfantastically called a quiet chop. Its aim is to make a man\ncomfortable, and to make a man comfortable is to make him the opposite\nof sociable.  Sociability, like all good things, is full of\ndiscomforts, dangers, and renunciations. The club tends to produce the\nmost degraded of all combinations\u2014the luxurious anchorite, the man who\ncombines the self-indulgence of Lucullus with the insane loneliness of\nSt. Simeon Stylites.\n\nIf we were to-morrow morning snowed up in the street in which we live,\nwe should step suddenly into a much larger and much wilder world than\nwe have ever known.  And it is the whole effort of the typically modern\nperson to escape from the street in which he lives. First he invents\nmodern hygiene and goes to Margate. Then he invents modern culture and\ngoes to Florence. Then he invents modern imperialism and goes to\nTimbuctoo.  He goes to the fantastic borders of the earth.  He pretends\nto shoot tigers. He almost rides on a camel.  And in all this he is\nstill essentially fleeing from the street in which he was born; and of\nthis flight he is always ready with his own explanation.  He says he is\nfleeing from his street because it is dull; he is lying.  He is really\nfleeing from his street because it is a great deal too exciting. It is\nexciting because it is exacting; it is exacting because it is alive. He\ncan visit Venice because to him the Venetians are only Venetians; the\npeople in his own street are men.  He can stare at the Chinese because\nfor him the Chinese are a passive thing to be stared at; if he stares\nat the old lady in the next garden, she becomes active. He is forced to\nflee, in short, from the too stimulating society of his equals\u2014of free\nmen, perverse, personal, deliberately different from himself.  The\nstreet in Brixton is too glowing and overpowering. He has to soothe and\nquiet himself among tigers and vultures, camels and crocodiles.  These\ncreatures are indeed very different from himself.  But they do not put\ntheir shape or colour or custom into a decisive intellectual\ncompetition with his own. They do not seek to destroy his principles\nand assert their own; the stranger monsters of the suburban street do\nseek to do this. The camel does not contort his features into a fine\nsneer because Mr. Robinson has not got a hump; the cultured gentleman\nat No. 5 does exhibit a sneer because Robinson has not got a dado. The\nvulture will not roar with laughter because a man does not fly; but the\nmajor at No. 9 will roar with laughter because a man does not smoke.\nThe complaint we commonly have to make of our neighbours is that they\nwill not, as we express it, mind their own business. We do not really\nmean that they will not mind their own business. If our neighbours did\nnot mind their own business they would be asked abruptly for their\nrent, and would rapidly cease to be our neighbours. What we really mean\nwhen we say that they cannot mind their own business is something much\ndeeper.  We do not dislike them because they have so little force and\nfire that they cannot be interested in themselves.  We dislike them\nbecause they have so much force and fire that they can be interested in\nus as well. What we dread about our neighbours, in short, is not the\nnarrowness of their horizon, but their superb tendency to broaden it.\nAnd all aversions to ordinary humanity have this general character.\nThey are not aversions to its feebleness (as is pretended), but to its\nenergy. The misanthropes pretend that they despise humanity for its\nweakness. As a matter of fact, they hate it for its strength.\n\nOf course, this shrinking from the brutal vivacity and brutal variety\nof common men is a perfectly reasonable and excusable thing as long as\nit does not pretend to any point of superiority. It is when it calls\nitself aristocracy or aestheticism or a superiority to the bourgeoisie\nthat its inherent weakness has in justice to be pointed out.\nFastidiousness is the most pardonable of vices; but it is the most\nunpardonable of virtues.  Nietzsche, who represents most prominently\nthis pretentious claim of the fastidious, has a description\nsomewhere\u2014a very powerful description in the purely literary sense\u2014of\nthe disgust and disdain which consume him at the sight of the common\npeople with their common faces, their common voices, and their common\nminds.  As I have said, this attitude is almost beautiful if we may\nregard it as pathetic. Nietzsche\u2019s aristocracy has about it all the\nsacredness that belongs to the weak.  When he makes us feel that he\ncannot endure the innumerable faces, the incessant voices, the\noverpowering omnipresence which belongs to the mob, he will have the\nsympathy of anybody who has ever been sick on a steamer or tired in a\ncrowded omnibus. Every man has hated mankind when he was less than a\nman. Every man has had humanity in his eyes like a blinding fog,\nhumanity in his nostrils like a suffocating smell.  But when Nietzsche\nhas the incredible lack of humour and lack of imagination to ask us to\nbelieve that his aristocracy is an aristocracy of strong muscles or an\naristocracy of strong wills, it is necessary to point out the truth. It\nis an aristocracy of weak nerves.\n\nWe make our friends; we make our enemies; but God makes our next-door\nneighbour.  Hence he comes to us clad in all the careless terrors of\nnature; he is as strange as the stars, as reckless and indifferent as\nthe rain.  He is Man, the most terrible of the beasts. That is why the\nold religions and the old scriptural language showed so sharp a wisdom\nwhen they spoke, not of one\u2019s duty towards humanity, but one\u2019s duty\ntowards one\u2019s neighbour.  The duty towards humanity may often take the\nform of some choice which is personal or even pleasurable. That duty\nmay be a hobby; it may even be a dissipation. We may work in the East\nEnd because we are peculiarly fitted to work in the East End, or\nbecause we think we are; we may fight for the cause of international\npeace because we are very fond of fighting. The most monstrous\nmartyrdom, the most repulsive experience, may be the result of choice\nor a kind of taste.  We may be so made as to be particularly fond of\nlunatics or specially interested in leprosy. We may love negroes\nbecause they are black or German Socialists because they are pedantic.\nBut we have to love our neighbour because he is there\u2014a much more\nalarming reason for a much more serious operation. He is the sample of\nhumanity which is actually given us. Precisely because he may be\nanybody he is everybody. He is a symbol because he is an accident.\n\nDoubtless men flee from small environments into lands that are very\ndeadly.  But this is natural enough; for they are not fleeing from\ndeath.  They are fleeing from life.  And this principle applies to ring\nwithin ring of the social system of humanity. It is perfectly\nreasonable that men should seek for some particular variety of the\nhuman type, so long as they are seeking for that variety of the human\ntype, and not for mere human variety. It is quite proper that a British\ndiplomatist should seek the society of Japanese generals, if what he\nwants is Japanese generals. But if what he wants is people different\nfrom himself, he had much better stop at home and discuss religion with\nthe housemaid. It is quite reasonable that the village genius should\ncome up to conquer London if what he wants is to conquer London.  But\nif he wants to conquer something fundamentally and symbolically hostile\nand also very strong, he had much better remain where he is and have a\nrow with the rector. The man in the suburban street is quite right if\nhe goes to Ramsgate for the sake of Ramsgate\u2014a difficult thing to\nimagine. But if, as he expresses it, he goes to Ramsgate \u201cfor a\nchange,\u201d then he would have a much more romantic and even melodramatic\nchange if he jumped over the wall into his neighbours garden. The\nconsequences would be bracing in a sense far beyond the possibilities\nof Ramsgate hygiene.\n\nNow, exactly as this principle applies to the empire, to the nation\nwithin the empire, to the city within the nation, to the street within\nthe city, so it applies to the home within the street. The institution\nof the family is to be commended for precisely the same reasons that\nthe institution of the nation, or the institution of the city, are in\nthis matter to be commended. It is a good thing for a man to live in a\nfamily for the same reason that it is a good thing for a man to be\nbesieged in a city. It is a good thing for a man to live in a family in\nthe same sense that it is a beautiful and delightful thing for a man to\nbe snowed up in a street. They all force him to realize that life is\nnot a thing from outside, but a thing from inside.  Above all, they all\ninsist upon the fact that life, if it be a truly stimulating and\nfascinating life, is a thing which, of its nature, exists in spite of\nourselves. The modern writers who have suggested, in a more or less\nopen manner, that the family is a bad institution, have generally\nconfined themselves to suggesting, with much sharpness, bitterness, or\npathos, that perhaps the family is not always very congenial. Of course\nthe family is a good institution because it is uncongenial. It is\nwholesome precisely because it contains so many divergencies and\nvarieties.  It is, as the sentimentalists say, like a little kingdom,\nand, like most other little kingdoms, is generally in a state of\nsomething resembling anarchy. It is exactly because our brother George\nis not interested in our religious difficulties, but is interested in\nthe Trocadero Restaurant, that the family has some of the bracing\nqualities of the commonwealth. It is precisely because our uncle Henry\ndoes not approve of the theatrical ambitions of our sister Sarah that\nthe family is like humanity. The men and women who, for good reasons\nand bad, revolt against the family, are, for good reasons and bad,\nsimply revolting against mankind. Aunt Elizabeth is unreasonable, like\nmankind.  Papa is excitable, like mankind Our youngest brother is\nmischievous, like mankind. Grandpapa is stupid, like the world; he is\nold, like the world.\n\nThose who wish, rightly or wrongly, to step out of all this, do\ndefinitely wish to step into a narrower world.  They are dismayed and\nterrified by the largeness and variety of the family. Sarah wishes to\nfind a world wholly consisting of private theatricals; George wishes to\nthink the Trocadero a cosmos.  I do not say, for a moment, that the\nflight to this narrower life may not be the right thing for the\nindividual, any more than I say the same thing about flight into a\nmonastery.  But I do say that anything is bad and artificial which\ntends to make these people succumb to the strange delusion that they\nare stepping into a world which is actually larger and more varied than\ntheir own. The best way that a man could test his readiness to\nencounter the common variety of mankind would be to climb down a\nchimney into any house at random, and get on as well as possible with\nthe people inside. And that is essentially what each one of us did on\nthe day that he was born.\n\nThis is, indeed, the sublime and special romance of the family.  It is\nromantic because it is a toss-up. It is romantic because it is\neverything that its enemies call it.  It is romantic because it is\narbitrary. It is romantic because it is there.  So long as you have\ngroups of men chosen rationally, you have some special or sectarian\natmosphere. It is when you have groups of men chosen irrationally that\nyou have men. The element of adventure begins to exist; for an\nadventure is, by its nature, a thing that comes to us.  It is a thing\nthat chooses us, not a thing that we choose.  Falling in love has been\noften regarded as the supreme adventure, the supreme romantic accident.\nIn so much as there is in it something outside ourselves, something of\na sort of merry fatalism, this is very true. Love does take us and\ntransfigure and torture us.  It does break our hearts with an\nunbearable beauty, like the unbearable beauty of music. But in so far\nas we have certainly something to do with the matter; in so far as we\nare in some sense prepared to fall in love and in some sense jump into\nit; in so far as we do to some extent choose and to some extent even\njudge\u2014in all this falling in love is not truly romantic, is not truly\nadventurous at all.  In this degree the supreme adventure is not\nfalling in love.  The supreme adventure is being born. There we do walk\nsuddenly into a splendid and startling trap. There we do see something\nof which we have not dreamed before. Our father and mother do lie in\nwait for us and leap out on us, like brigands from a bush.  Our uncle\nis a surprise.  Our aunt is, in the beautiful common expression, a bolt\nfrom the blue. When we step into the family, by the act of being born,\nwe do step into a world which is incalculable, into a world which has\nits own strange laws, into a world which could do without us, into a\nworld that we have not made.  In other words, when we step into the\nfamily we step into a fairy-tale.\n\nThis colour as of a fantastic narrative ought to cling to the family\nand to our relations with it throughout life. Romance is the deepest\nthing in life; romance is deeper even than reality.  For even if\nreality could be proved to be misleading, it still could not be proved\nto be unimportant or unimpressive. Even if the facts are false, they\nare still very strange. And this strangeness of life, this unexpected\nand even perverse element of things as they fall out, remains incurably\ninteresting. The circumstances we can regulate may become tame or\npessimistic; but the \u201ccircumstances over which we have no control\u201d\nremain god-like to those who, like Mr. Micawber, can call on them and\nrenew their strength.  People wonder why the novel is the most popular\nform of literature; people wonder why it is read more than books of\nscience or books of metaphysics.  The reason is very simple; it is\nmerely that the novel is more true than they are. Life may sometimes\nlegitimately appear as a book of science. Life may sometimes appear,\nand with a much greater legitimacy, as a book of metaphysics.  But life\nis always a novel.  Our existence may cease to be a song; it may cease\neven to be a beautiful lament. Our existence may not be an intelligible\njustice, or even a recognizable wrong.  But our existence is still a\nstory.  In the fiery alphabet of every sunset is written, \u201cto be\ncontinued in our next.\u201d If we have sufficient intellect, we can finish\na philosophical and exact deduction, and be certain that we are\nfinishing it right. With the adequate brain-power we could finish any\nscientific discovery, and be certain that we were finishing it right.\nBut not with the most gigantic intellect could we finish the simplest\nor silliest story, and be certain that we were finishing it right. That\nis because a story has behind it, not merely intellect which is partly\nmechanical, but will, which is in its essence divine. The narrative\nwriter can send his hero to the gallows if he likes in the last chapter\nbut one.  He can do it by the same divine caprice whereby he, the\nauthor, can go to the gallows himself, and to hell afterwards if he\nchooses.  And the same civilization, the chivalric European\ncivilization which asserted freewill in the thirteenth century,\nproduced the thing called \u201cfiction\u201d in the eighteenth. When Thomas\nAquinas asserted the spiritual liberty of man, he created all the bad\nnovels in the circulating libraries.\n\nBut in order that life should be a story or romance to us, it is\nnecessary that a great part of it, at any rate, should be settled for\nus without our permission.  If we wish life to be a system, this may be\na nuisance; but if we wish it to be a drama, it is an essential.  It\nmay often happen, no doubt, that a drama may be written by somebody\nelse which we like very little. But we should like it still less if the\nauthor came before the curtain every hour or so, and forced on us the\nwhole trouble of inventing the next act.  A man has control over many\nthings in his life; he has control over enough things to be the hero of\na novel. But if he had control over everything, there would be so much\nhero that there would be no novel.  And the reason why the lives of the\nrich are at bottom so tame and uneventful is simply that they can\nchoose the events.  They are dull because they are omnipotent. They\nfail to feel adventures because they can make the adventures. The thing\nwhich keeps life romantic and full of fiery possibilities is the\nexistence of these great plain limitations which force all of us to\nmeet the things we do not like or do not expect.  It is vain for the\nsupercilious moderns to talk of being in uncongenial surroundings. To\nbe in a romance is to be in uncongenial surroundings. To be born into\nthis earth is to be born into uncongenial surroundings, hence to be\nborn into a romance.  Of all these great limitations and frameworks\nwhich fashion and create the poetry and variety of life, the family is\nthe most definite and important. Hence it is misunderstood by the\nmoderns, who imagine that romance would exist most perfectly in a\ncomplete state of what they call liberty. They think that if a man\nmakes a gesture it would be a startling and romantic matter that the\nsun should fall from the sky. But the startling and romantic thing\nabout the sun is that it does not fall from the sky.  They are seeking\nunder every shape and form a world where there are no limitations\u2014that\nis, a world where there are no outlines; that is, a world where there\nare no shapes. There is nothing baser than that infinity.  They say\nthey wish to be as strong as the universe, but they really wish the\nwhole universe as weak as themselves.\n\n\n\n\nXV. On Smart Novelists and the Smart Set\n\n\nIn one sense, at any rate, it is more valuable to read bad literature\nthan good literature.  Good literature may tell us the mind of one man;\nbut bad literature may tell us the mind of many men. A good novel tells\nus the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about\nits author.  It does much more than that, it tells us the truth about\nits readers; and, oddly enough, it tells us this all the more the more\ncynical and immoral be the motive of its manufacture.  The more\ndishonest a book is as a book the more honest it is as a public\ndocument. A sincere novel exhibits the simplicity of one particular\nman; an insincere novel exhibits the simplicity of mankind. The\npedantic decisions and definable readjustments of man may be found in\nscrolls and statute books and scriptures; but men\u2019s basic assumptions\nand everlasting energies are to be found in penny dreadfuls and\nhalfpenny novelettes.  Thus a man, like many men of real culture in our\nday, might learn from good literature nothing except the power to\nappreciate good literature. But from bad literature he might learn to\ngovern empires and look over the map of mankind.\n\nThere is one rather interesting example of this state of things in\nwhich the weaker literature is really the stronger and the stronger the\nweaker.  It is the case of what may be called, for the sake of an\napproximate description, the literature of aristocracy; or, if you\nprefer the description, the literature of snobbishness. Now if any one\nwishes to find a really effective and comprehensible and permanent case\nfor aristocracy well and sincerely stated, let him read, not the modern\nphilosophical conservatives, not even Nietzsche, let him read the Bow\nBells Novelettes. Of the case of Nietzsche I am confessedly more\ndoubtful. Nietzsche and the Bow Bells Novelettes have both obviously\nthe same fundamental character; they both worship the tall man with\ncurling moustaches and herculean bodily power, and they both worship\nhim in a manner which is somewhat feminine and hysterical. Even here,\nhowever, the Novelette easily maintains its philosophical superiority,\nbecause it does attribute to the strong man those virtues which do\ncommonly belong to him, such virtues as laziness and kindliness and a\nrather reckless benevolence, and a great dislike of hurting the weak.\nNietzsche, on the other hand, attributes to the strong man that scorn\nagainst weakness which only exists among invalids.  It is not, however,\nof the secondary merits of the great German philosopher, but of the\nprimary merits of the Bow Bells Novelettes, that it is my present\naffair to speak. The picture of aristocracy in the popular sentimental\nnovelette seems to me very satisfactory as a permanent political and\nphilosophical guide. It may be inaccurate about details such as the\ntitle by which a baronet is addressed or the width of a mountain chasm\nwhich a baronet can conveniently leap, but it is not a bad description\nof the general idea and intention of aristocracy as they exist in human\naffairs. The essential dream of aristocracy is magnificence and valour;\nand if the Family Herald Supplement sometimes distorts or exaggerates\nthese things, at least, it does not fall short in them. It never errs\nby making the mountain chasm too narrow or the title of the baronet\ninsufficiently impressive.  But above this sane reliable old literature\nof snobbishness there has arisen in our time another kind of literature\nof snobbishness which, with its much higher pretensions, seems to me\nworthy of very much less respect.  Incidentally (if that matters), it\nis much better literature.  But it is immeasurably worse philosophy,\nimmeasurably worse ethics and politics, immeasurably worse vital\nrendering of aristocracy and humanity as they really are. From such\nbooks as those of which I wish now to speak we can discover what a\nclever man can do with the idea of aristocracy. But from the Family\nHerald Supplement literature we can learn what the idea of aristocracy\ncan do with a man who is not clever. And when we know that we know\nEnglish history.\n\nThis new aristocratic fiction must have caught the attention of\neverybody who has read the best fiction for the last fifteen years. It\nis that genuine or alleged literature of the Smart Set which represents\nthat set as distinguished, not only by smart dresses, but by smart\nsayings.  To the bad baronet, to the good baronet, to the romantic and\nmisunderstood baronet who is supposed to be a bad baronet, but is a\ngood baronet, this school has added a conception undreamed of in the\nformer years\u2014the conception of an amusing baronet. The aristocrat is\nnot merely to be taller than mortal men and stronger and handsomer, he\nis also to be more witty. He is the long man with the short epigram.\nMany eminent, and deservedly eminent, modern novelists must accept some\nresponsibility for having supported this worst form of snobbishness\u2014an\nintellectual snobbishness.  The talented author of \u201cDodo\u201d is\nresponsible for having in some sense created the fashion as a fashion.\nMr. Hichens, in the \u201cGreen Carnation,\u201d reaffirmed the strange idea that\nyoung noblemen talk well; though his case had some vague biographical\nfoundation, and in consequence an excuse.  Mrs. Craigie is considerably\nguilty in the matter, although, or rather because, she has combined the\naristocratic note with a note of some moral and even religious\nsincerity.  When you are saving a man\u2019s soul, even in a novel, it is\nindecent to mention that he is a gentleman. Nor can blame in this\nmatter be altogether removed from a man of much greater ability, and a\nman who has proved his possession of the highest of human instinct, the\nromantic instinct\u2014I mean Mr. Anthony Hope. In a galloping, impossible\nmelodrama like \u201cThe Prisoner of Zenda,\u201d the blood of kings fanned an\nexcellent fantastic thread or theme. But the blood of kings is not a\nthing that can be taken seriously. And when, for example, Mr. Hope\ndevotes so much serious and sympathetic study to the man called\nTristram of Blent, a man who throughout burning boyhood thought of\nnothing but a silly old estate, we feel even in Mr. Hope the hint of\nthis excessive concern about the oligarchic idea. It is hard for any\nordinary person to feel so much interest in a young man whose whole aim\nis to own the house of Blent at the time when every other young man is\nowning the stars.\n\nMr. Hope, however, is a very mild case, and in him there is not only an\nelement of romance, but also a fine element of irony which warns us\nagainst taking all this elegance too seriously. Above all, he shows his\nsense in not making his noblemen so incredibly equipped with impromptu\nrepartee.  This habit of insisting on the wit of the wealthier classes\nis the last and most servile of all the servilities.  It is, as I have\nsaid, immeasurably more contemptible than the snobbishness of the\nnovelette which describes the nobleman as smiling like an Apollo or\nriding a mad elephant. These may be exaggerations of beauty and\ncourage, but beauty and courage are the unconscious ideals of\naristocrats, even of stupid aristocrats.\n\nThe nobleman of the novelette may not be sketched with any very close\nor conscientious attention to the daily habits of noblemen.  But he is\nsomething more important than a reality; he is a practical ideal. The\ngentleman of fiction may not copy the gentleman of real life; but the\ngentleman of real life is copying the gentleman of fiction. He may not\nbe particularly good-looking, but he would rather be good-looking than\nanything else; he may not have ridden on a mad elephant, but he rides a\npony as far as possible with an air as if he had. And, upon the whole,\nthe upper class not only especially desire these qualities of beauty\nand courage, but in some degree, at any rate, especially possess them.\nThus there is nothing really mean or sycophantic about the popular\nliterature which makes all its marquises seven feet high.  It is\nsnobbish, but it is not servile. Its exaggeration is based on an\nexuberant and honest admiration; its honest admiration is based upon\nsomething which is in some degree, at any rate, really there.  The\nEnglish lower classes do not fear the English upper classes in the\nleast; nobody could. They simply and freely and sentimentally worship\nthem. The strength of the aristocracy is not in the aristocracy at all;\nit is in the slums.  It is not in the House of Lords; it is not in the\nCivil Service; it is not in the Government offices; it is not even in\nthe huge and disproportionate monopoly of the English land. It is in a\ncertain spirit.  It is in the fact that when a navvy wishes to praise a\nman, it comes readily to his tongue to say that he has behaved like a\ngentleman.  From a democratic point of view he might as well say that\nhe had behaved like a viscount. The oligarchic character of the modern\nEnglish commonwealth does not rest, like many oligarchies, on the\ncruelty of the rich to the poor. It does not even rest on the kindness\nof the rich to the poor. It rests on the perennial and unfailing\nkindness of the poor to the rich.\n\nThe snobbishness of bad literature, then, is not servile; but the\nsnobbishness of good literature is servile.  The old-fashioned\nhalfpenny romance where the duchesses sparkled with diamonds was not\nservile; but the new romance where they sparkle with epigrams is\nservile. For in thus attributing a special and startling degree of\nintellect and conversational or controversial power to the upper\nclasses, we are attributing something which is not especially their\nvirtue or even especially their aim.  We are, in the words of Disraeli\n(who, being a genius and not a gentleman, has perhaps primarily to\nanswer for the introduction of this method of flattering the gentry),\nwe are performing the essential function of flattery which is\nflattering the people for the qualities they have not got. Praise may\nbe gigantic and insane without having any quality of flattery so long\nas it is praise of something that is noticeably in existence.  A man\nmay say that a giraffe\u2019s head strikes the stars, or that a whale fills\nthe German Ocean, and still be only in a rather excited state about a\nfavourite animal. But when he begins to congratulate the giraffe on his\nfeathers, and the whale on the elegance of his legs, we find ourselves\nconfronted with that social element which we call flattery. The middle\nand lower orders of London can sincerely, though not perhaps safely,\nadmire the health and grace of the English aristocracy. And this for\nthe very simple reason that the aristocrats are, upon the whole, more\nhealthy and graceful than the poor. But they cannot honestly admire the\nwit of the aristocrats. And this for the simple reason that the\naristocrats are not more witty than the poor, but a very great deal\nless so.  A man does not hear, as in the smart novels, these gems of\nverbal felicity dropped between diplomatists at dinner.  Where he\nreally does hear them is between two omnibus conductors in a block in\nHolborn.  The witty peer whose impromptus fill the books of Mrs.\nCraigie or Miss Fowler, would, as a matter of fact, be torn to shreds\nin the art of conversation by the first boot-black he had the\nmisfortune to fall foul of. The poor are merely sentimental, and very\nexcusably sentimental, if they praise the gentleman for having a ready\nhand and ready money. But they are strictly slaves and sycophants if\nthey praise him for having a ready tongue.  For that they have far more\nthemselves.\n\nThe element of oligarchical sentiment in these novels, however, has, I\nthink, another and subtler aspect, an aspect more difficult to\nunderstand and more worth understanding. The modern gentleman,\nparticularly the modern English gentleman, has become so central and\nimportant in these books, and through them in the whole of our current\nliterature and our current mode of thought, that certain qualities of\nhis, whether original or recent, essential or accidental, have altered\nthe quality of our English comedy. In particular, that stoical ideal,\nabsurdly supposed to be the English ideal, has stiffened and chilled\nus.  It is not the English ideal; but it is to some extent the\naristocratic ideal; or it may be only the ideal of aristocracy in its\nautumn or decay. The gentleman is a Stoic because he is a sort of\nsavage, because he is filled with a great elemental fear that some\nstranger will speak to him.  That is why a third-class carriage is a\ncommunity, while a first-class carriage is a place of wild hermits. But\nthis matter, which is difficult, I may be permitted to approach in a\nmore circuitous way.\n\nThe haunting element of ineffectualness which runs through so much of\nthe witty and epigrammatic fiction fashionable during the last eight or\nten years, which runs through such works of a real though varying\ningenuity as \u201cDodo,\u201d or \u201cConcerning Isabel Carnaby,\u201d or even \u201cSome\nEmotions and a Moral,\u201d may be expressed in various ways, but to most of\nus I think it will ultimately amount to the same thing. This new\nfrivolity is inadequate because there is in it no strong sense of an\nunuttered joy.  The men and women who exchange the repartees may not\nonly be hating each other, but hating even themselves. Any one of them\nmight be bankrupt that day, or sentenced to be shot the next.  They are\njoking, not because they are merry, but because they are not; out of\nthe emptiness of the heart the mouth speaketh. Even when they talk pure\nnonsense it is a careful nonsense\u2014a nonsense of which they are\neconomical, or, to use the perfect expression of Mr. W. S. Gilbert in\n\u201cPatience,\u201d it is such \u201cprecious nonsense.\u201d Even when they become\nlight-headed they do not become light-hearted. All those who have read\nanything of the rationalism of the moderns know that their Reason is a\nsad thing.  But even their unreason is sad.\n\nThe causes of this incapacity are also not very difficult to indicate.\nThe chief of all, of course, is that miserable fear of being\nsentimental, which is the meanest of all the modern terrors\u2014meaner\neven than the terror which produces hygiene.  Everywhere the robust and\nuproarious humour has come from the men who were capable not merely of\nsentimentalism, but a very silly sentimentalism.  There has been no\nhumour so robust or uproarious as that of the sentimentalist Steele or\nthe sentimentalist Sterne or the sentimentalist Dickens. These\ncreatures who wept like women were the creatures who laughed like men.\nIt is true that the humour of Micawber is good literature and that the\npathos of little Nell is bad.  But the kind of man who had the courage\nto write so badly in the one case is the kind of man who would have the\ncourage to write so well in the other. The same unconsciousness, the\nsame violent innocence, the same gigantesque scale of action which\nbrought the Napoleon of Comedy his Jena brought him also his Moscow.\nAnd herein is especially shown the frigid and feeble limitations of our\nmodern wits. They make violent efforts, they make heroic and almost\npathetic efforts, but they cannot really write badly.  There are\nmoments when we almost think that they are achieving the effect, but\nour hope shrivels to nothing the moment we compare their little\nfailures with the enormous imbecilities of Byron or Shakespeare.\n\nFor a hearty laugh it is necessary to have touched the heart. I do not\nknow why touching the heart should always be connected only with the\nidea of touching it to compassion or a sense of distress. The heart can\nbe touched to joy and triumph; the heart can be touched to amusement.\nBut all our comedians are tragic comedians. These later fashionable\nwriters are so pessimistic in bone and marrow that they never seem able\nto imagine the heart having any concern with mirth.  When they speak of\nthe heart, they always mean the pangs and disappointments of the\nemotional life. When they say that a man\u2019s heart is in the right place,\nthey mean, apparently, that it is in his boots.  Our ethical societies\nunderstand fellowship, but they do not understand good fellowship.\nSimilarly, our wits understand talk, but not what Dr. Johnson called a\ngood talk.  In order to have, like Dr. Johnson, a good talk, it is\nemphatically necessary to be, like Dr. Johnson, a good man\u2014to have\nfriendship and honour and an abysmal tenderness. Above all, it is\nnecessary to be openly and indecently humane, to confess with fulness\nall the primary pities and fears of Adam. Johnson was a clear-headed\nhumorous man, and therefore he did not mind talking seriously about\nreligion.  Johnson was a brave man, one of the bravest that ever\nwalked, and therefore he did not mind avowing to any one his consuming\nfear of death.\n\nThe idea that there is something English in the repression of one\u2019s\nfeelings is one of those ideas which no Englishman ever heard of until\nEngland began to be governed exclusively by Scotchmen, Americans, and\nJews.  At the best, the idea is a generalization from the Duke of\nWellington\u2014who was an Irishman.  At the worst, it is a part of that\nsilly Teutonism which knows as little about England as it does about\nanthropology, but which is always talking about Vikings. As a matter of\nfact, the Vikings did not repress their feelings in the least.  They\ncried like babies and kissed each other like girls; in short, they\nacted in that respect like Achilles and all strong heroes the children\nof the gods.  And though the English nationality has probably not much\nmore to do with the Vikings than the French nationality or the Irish\nnationality, the English have certainly been the children of the\nVikings in the matter of tears and kisses. It is not merely true that\nall the most typically English men of letters, like Shakespeare and\nDickens, Richardson and Thackeray, were sentimentalists.  It is also\ntrue that all the most typically English men of action were\nsentimentalists, if possible, more sentimental. In the great\nElizabethan age, when the English nation was finally hammered out, in\nthe great eighteenth century when the British Empire was being built up\neverywhere, where in all these times, where was this symbolic stoical\nEnglishman who dresses in drab and black and represses his feelings?\nWere all the Elizabethan palladins and pirates like that?  Were any of\nthem like that? Was Grenville concealing his emotions when he broke\nwine-glasses to pieces with his teeth and bit them till the blood\npoured down? Was Essex restraining his excitement when he threw his hat\ninto the sea? Did Raleigh think it sensible to answer the Spanish guns\nonly, as Stevenson says, with a flourish of insulting trumpets? Did\nSydney ever miss an opportunity of making a theatrical remark in the\nwhole course of his life and death?  Were even the Puritans Stoics? The\nEnglish Puritans repressed a good deal, but even they were too English\nto repress their feelings.  It was by a great miracle of genius\nassuredly that Carlyle contrived to admire simultaneously two things so\nirreconcilably opposed as silence and Oliver Cromwell. Cromwell was the\nvery reverse of a strong, silent man. Cromwell was always talking, when\nhe was not crying.  Nobody, I suppose, will accuse the author of \u201cGrace\nAbounding\u201d of being ashamed of his feelings.  Milton, indeed, it might\nbe possible to represent as a Stoic; in some sense he was a Stoic, just\nas he was a prig and a polygamist and several other unpleasant and\nheathen things. But when we have passed that great and desolate name,\nwhich may really be counted an exception, we find the tradition of\nEnglish emotionalism immediately resumed and unbrokenly continuous.\nWhatever may have been the moral beauty of the passions of Etheridge\nand Dorset, Sedley and Buckingham, they cannot be accused of the fault\nof fastidiously concealing them. Charles the Second was very popular\nwith the English because, like all the jolly English kings, he\ndisplayed his passions. William the Dutchman was very unpopular with\nthe English because, not being an Englishman, he did hide his emotions.\nHe was, in fact, precisely the ideal Englishman of our modern theory;\nand precisely for that reason all the real Englishmen loathed him like\nleprosy. With the rise of the great England of the eighteenth century,\nwe find this open and emotional tone still maintained in letters and\npolitics, in arts and in arms.  Perhaps the only quality which was\npossessed in common by the great Fielding, and the great Richardson was\nthat neither of them hid their feelings. Swift, indeed, was hard and\nlogical, because Swift was Irish. And when we pass to the soldiers and\nthe rulers, the patriots and the empire-builders of the eighteenth\ncentury, we find, as I have said, that they were, If possible, more\nromantic than the romancers, more poetical than the poets.  Chatham,\nwho showed the world all his strength, showed the House of Commons all\nhis weakness. Wolfe walked about the room with a drawn sword calling\nhimself Caesar and Hannibal, and went to death with poetry in his\nmouth. Clive was a man of the same type as Cromwell or Bunyan, or, for\nthe matter of that, Johnson\u2014that is, he was a strong, sensible man\nwith a kind of running spring of hysteria and melancholy in him. Like\nJohnson, he was all the more healthy because he was morbid. The tales\nof all the admirals and adventurers of that England are full of\nbraggadocio, of sentimentality, of splendid affectation. But it is\nscarcely necessary to multiply examples of the essentially romantic\nEnglishman when one example towers above them all. Mr. Rudyard Kipling\nhas said complacently of the English, \u201cWe do not fall on the neck and\nkiss when we come together.\u201d It is true that this ancient and universal\ncustom has vanished with the modern weakening of England.  Sydney would\nhave thought nothing of kissing Spenser.  But I willingly concede that\nMr. Broderick would not be likely to kiss Mr. Arnold-Foster, if that be\nany proof of the increased manliness and military greatness of England.\nBut the Englishman who does not show his feelings has not altogether\ngiven up the power of seeing something English in the great sea-hero of\nthe Napoleonic war.  You cannot break the legend of Nelson. And across\nthe sunset of that glory is written in flaming letters for ever the\ngreat English sentiment, \u201cKiss me, Hardy.\u201d\n\nThis ideal of self-repression, then, is, whatever else it is, not\nEnglish. It is, perhaps, somewhat Oriental, it is slightly Prussian,\nbut in the main it does not come, I think, from any racial or national\nsource. It is, as I have said, in some sense aristocratic; it comes not\nfrom a people, but from a class.  Even aristocracy, I think, was not\nquite so stoical in the days when it was really strong. But whether\nthis unemotional ideal be the genuine tradition of the gentleman, or\nonly one of the inventions of the modern gentleman (who may be called\nthe decayed gentleman), it certainly has something to do with the\nunemotional quality in these society novels. From representing\naristocrats as people who suppressed their feelings, it has been an\neasy step to representing aristocrats as people who had no feelings to\nsuppress.  Thus the modern oligarchist has made a virtue for the\noligarchy of the hardness as well as the brightness of the diamond.\nLike a sonneteer addressing his lady in the seventeenth century, he\nseems to use the word \u201ccold\u201d almost as a eulogium, and the word\n\u201cheartless\u201d as a kind of compliment.  Of course, in people so incurably\nkind-hearted and babyish as are the English gentry, it would be\nimpossible to create anything that can be called positive cruelty; so\nin these books they exhibit a sort of negative cruelty. They cannot be\ncruel in acts, but they can be so in words. All this means one thing,\nand one thing only.  It means that the living and invigorating ideal of\nEngland must be looked for in the masses; it must be looked for where\nDickens found it\u2014Dickens among whose glories it was to be a humorist,\nto be a sentimentalist, to be an optimist, to be a poor man, to be an\nEnglishman, but the greatest of whose glories was that he saw all\nmankind in its amazing and tropical luxuriance, and did not even notice\nthe aristocracy; Dickens, the greatest of whose glories was that he\ncould not describe a gentleman.\n\n\n\n\nXVI. On Mr. McCabe and a Divine Frivolity\n\n\nA critic once remonstrated with me saying, with an air of indignant\nreasonableness, \u201cIf you must make jokes, at least you need not make\nthem on such serious subjects.\u201d  I replied with a natural simplicity\nand wonder, \u201cAbout what other subjects can one make jokes except\nserious subjects?\u201d  It is quite useless to talk about profane jesting.\nAll jesting is in its nature profane, in the sense that it must be the\nsudden realization that something which thinks itself solemn is not so\nvery solemn after all. If a joke is not a joke about religion or\nmorals, it is a joke about police-magistrates or scientific professors\nor undergraduates dressed up as Queen Victoria.  And people joke about\nthe police-magistrate more than they joke about the Pope, not because\nthe police-magistrate is a more frivolous subject, but, on the\ncontrary, because the police-magistrate is a more serious subject than\nthe Pope. The Bishop of Rome has no jurisdiction in this realm of\nEngland; whereas the police-magistrate may bring his solemnity to bear\nquite suddenly upon us.  Men make jokes about old scientific\nprofessors, even more than they make them about bishops\u2014not because\nscience is lighter than religion, but because science is always by its\nnature more solemn and austere than religion.  It is not I; it is not\neven a particular class of journalists or jesters who make jokes about\nthe matters which are of most awful import; it is the whole human race.\nIf there is one thing more than another which any one will admit who\nhas the smallest knowledge of the world, it is that men are always\nspeaking gravely and earnestly and with the utmost possible care about\nthe things that are not important, but always talking frivolously about\nthe things that are. Men talk for hours with the faces of a college of\ncardinals about things like golf, or tobacco, or waistcoats, or party\npolitics. But all the most grave and dreadful things in the world are\nthe oldest jokes in the world\u2014being married; being hanged.\n\nOne gentleman, however, Mr. McCabe, has in this matter made to me\nsomething that almost amounts to a personal appeal; and as he happens\nto be a man for whose sincerity and intellectual virtue I have a high\nrespect, I do not feel inclined to let it pass without some attempt to\nsatisfy my critic in the matter. Mr. McCabe devotes a considerable part\nof the last essay in the collection called \u201cChristianity and\nRationalism on Trial\u201d to an objection, not to my thesis, but to my\nmethod, and a very friendly and dignified appeal to me to alter it.  I\nam much inclined to defend myself in this matter out of mere respect\nfor Mr. McCabe, and still more so out of mere respect for the truth\nwhich is, I think, in danger by his error, not only in this question,\nbut in others. In order that there may be no injustice done in the\nmatter, I will quote Mr. McCabe himself.  \u201cBut before I follow Mr.\nChesterton in some detail I would make a general observation on his\nmethod. He is as serious as I am in his ultimate purpose, and I respect\nhim for that.  He knows, as I do, that humanity stands at a solemn\nparting of the ways.  Towards some unknown goal it presses through the\nages, impelled by an overmastering desire of happiness. To-day it\nhesitates, lightheartedly enough, but every serious thinker knows how\nmomentous the decision may be.  It is, apparently, deserting the path\nof religion and entering upon the path of secularism. Will it lose\nitself in quagmires of sensuality down this new path, and pant and toil\nthrough years of civic and industrial anarchy, only to learn it had\nlost the road, and must return to religion? Or will it find that at\nlast it is leaving the mists and the quagmires behind it; that it is\nascending the slope of the hill so long dimly discerned ahead, and\nmaking straight for the long-sought Utopia? This is the drama of our\ntime, and every man and every woman should understand it.\n\n\u201cMr. Chesterton understands it.  Further, he gives us credit for\nunderstanding it.  He has nothing of that paltry meanness or strange\ndensity of so many of his colleagues, who put us down as aimless\niconoclasts or moral anarchists. He admits that we are waging a\nthankless war for what we take to be Truth and Progress.  He is doing\nthe same. But why, in the name of all that is reasonable, should we,\nwhen we are agreed on the momentousness of the issue either way,\nforthwith desert serious methods of conducting the controversy? Why,\nwhen the vital need of our time is to induce men and women to collect\ntheir thoughts occasionally, and be men and women\u2014nay, to remember\nthat they are really gods that hold the destinies of humanity on their\nknees\u2014why should we think that this kaleidoscopic play of phrases is\ninopportune? The ballets of the Alhambra, and the fireworks of the\nCrystal Palace, and Mr. Chesterton\u2019s Daily News articles, have their\nplace in life. But how a serious social student can think of curing the\nthoughtlessness of our generation by strained paradoxes; of giving\npeople a sane grasp of social problems by literary sleight-of-hand; of\nsettling important questions by a reckless shower of rocket-metaphors\nand inaccurate \u2018facts,\u2019 and the substitution of imagination for\njudgment, I cannot see.\u201d\n\nI quote this passage with a particular pleasure, because Mr. McCabe\ncertainly cannot put too strongly the degree to which I give him and\nhis school credit for their complete sincerity and responsibility of\nphilosophical attitude.  I am quite certain that they mean every word\nthey say.  I also mean every word I say.  But why is it that Mr. McCabe\nhas some sort of mysterious hesitation about admitting that I mean\nevery word I say; why is it that he is not quite as certain of my\nmental responsibility as I am of his mental responsibility? If we\nattempt to answer the question directly and well, we shall, I think,\nhave come to the root of the matter by the shortest cut.\n\nMr. McCabe thinks that I am not serious but only funny, because Mr.\nMcCabe thinks that funny is the opposite of serious. Funny is the\nopposite of not funny, and of nothing else. The question of whether a\nman expresses himself in a grotesque or laughable phraseology, or in a\nstately and restrained phraseology, is not a question of motive or of\nmoral state, it is a question of instinctive language and\nself-expression. Whether a man chooses to tell the truth in long\nsentences or short jokes is a problem analogous to whether he chooses\nto tell the truth in French or German. Whether a man preaches his\ngospel grotesquely or gravely is merely like the question of whether he\npreaches it in prose or verse. The question of whether Swift was funny\nin his irony is quite another sort of question to the question of\nwhether Swift was serious in his pessimism. Surely even Mr. McCabe\nwould not maintain that the more funny \u201cGulliver\u201d is in its method the\nless it can be sincere in its object. The truth is, as I have said,\nthat in this sense the two qualities of fun and seriousness have\nnothing whatever to do with each other, they are no more comparable\nthan black and triangular. Mr. Bernard Shaw is funny and sincere.  Mr.\nGeorge Robey is funny and not sincere.  Mr. McCabe is sincere and not\nfunny. The average Cabinet Minister is not sincere and not funny.\n\nIn short, Mr. McCabe is under the influence of a primary fallacy which\nI have found very common in men of the clerical type. Numbers of\nclergymen have from time to time reproached me for making jokes about\nreligion; and they have almost always invoked the authority of that\nvery sensible commandment which says, \u201cThou shalt not take the name of\nthe Lord thy God in vain.\u201d Of course, I pointed out that I was not in\nany conceivable sense taking the name in vain.  To take a thing and\nmake a joke out of it is not to take it in vain.  It is, on the\ncontrary, to take it and use it for an uncommonly good object.  To use\na thing in vain means to use it without use.  But a joke may be\nexceedingly useful; it may contain the whole earthly sense, not to\nmention the whole heavenly sense, of a situation.  And those who find\nin the Bible the commandment can find in the Bible any number of the\njokes. In the same book in which God\u2019s name is fenced from being taken\nin vain, God himself overwhelms Job with a torrent of terrible\nlevities. The same book which says that God\u2019s name must not be taken\nvainly, talks easily and carelessly about God laughing and God winking.\nEvidently it is not here that we have to look for genuine examples of\nwhat is meant by a vain use of the name.  And it is not very difficult\nto see where we have really to look for it. The people (as I tactfully\npointed out to them) who really take the name of the Lord in vain are\nthe clergymen themselves.  The thing which is fundamentally and really\nfrivolous is not a careless joke. The thing which is fundamentally and\nreally frivolous is a careless solemnity.  If Mr. McCabe really wishes\nto know what sort of guarantee of reality and solidity is afforded by\nthe mere act of what is called talking seriously, let him spend a happy\nSunday in going the round of the pulpits.  Or, better still, let him\ndrop in at the House of Commons or the House of Lords.  Even Mr. McCabe\nwould admit that these men are solemn\u2014more solemn than I am. And even\nMr. McCabe, I think, would admit that these men are frivolous\u2014more\nfrivolous than I am.  Why should Mr. McCabe be so eloquent about the\ndanger arising from fantastic and paradoxical writers? Why should he be\nso ardent in desiring grave and verbose writers? There are not so very\nmany fantastic and paradoxical writers. But there are a gigantic number\nof grave and verbose writers; and it is by the efforts of the grave and\nverbose writers that everything that Mr. McCabe detests (and everything\nthat I detest, for that matter) is kept in existence and energy. How\ncan it have come about that a man as intelligent as Mr. McCabe can\nthink that paradox and jesting stop the way?  It is solemnity that is\nstopping the way in every department of modern effort. It is his own\nfavourite \u201cserious methods;\u201d it is his own favourite \u201cmomentousness;\u201d\nit is his own favourite \u201cjudgment\u201d which stops the way everywhere.\nEvery man who has ever headed a deputation to a minister knows this.\nEvery man who has ever written a letter to the Times knows it.  Every\nrich man who wishes to stop the mouths of the poor talks about\n\u201cmomentousness.\u201d  Every Cabinet minister who has not got an answer\nsuddenly develops a \u201cjudgment.\u201d Every sweater who uses vile methods\nrecommends \u201cserious methods.\u201d I said a moment ago that sincerity had\nnothing to do with solemnity, but I confess that I am not so certain\nthat I was right. In the modern world, at any rate, I am not so sure\nthat I was right. In the modern world solemnity is the direct enemy of\nsincerity. In the modern world sincerity is almost always on one side,\nand solemnity almost always on the other.  The only answer possible to\nthe fierce and glad attack of sincerity is the miserable answer of\nsolemnity. Let Mr. McCabe, or any one else who is much concerned that\nwe should be grave in order to be sincere, simply imagine the scene in\nsome government office in which Mr. Bernard Shaw should head a\nSocialist deputation to Mr. Austen Chamberlain.  On which side would be\nthe solemnity? And on which the sincerity?\n\nI am, indeed, delighted to discover that Mr. McCabe reckons Mr. Shaw\nalong with me in his system of condemnation of frivolity. He said once,\nI believe, that he always wanted Mr. Shaw to label his paragraphs\nserious or comic.  I do not know which paragraphs of Mr. Shaw are\nparagraphs to be labelled serious; but surely there can be no doubt\nthat this paragraph of Mr. McCabe\u2019s is one to be labelled comic.  He\nalso says, in the article I am now discussing, that Mr. Shaw has the\nreputation of deliberately saying everything which his hearers do not\nexpect him to say. I need not labour the inconclusiveness and weakness\nof this, because it has already been dealt with in my remarks on Mr.\nBernard Shaw. Suffice it to say here that the only serious reason which\nI can imagine inducing any one person to listen to any other is, that\nthe first person looks to the second person with an ardent faith and a\nfixed attention, expecting him to say what he does not expect him to\nsay. It may be a paradox, but that is because paradoxes are true. It\nmay not be rational, but that is because rationalism is wrong. But\nclearly it is quite true that whenever we go to hear a prophet or\nteacher we may or may not expect wit, we may or may not expect\neloquence, but we do expect what we do not expect.  We may not expect\nthe true, we may not even expect the wise, but we do expect the\nunexpected. If we do not expect the unexpected, why do we go there at\nall? If we expect the expected, why do we not sit at home and expect it\nby ourselves?  If Mr. McCabe means merely this about Mr. Shaw, that he\nalways has some unexpected application of his doctrine to give to those\nwho listen to him, what he says is quite true, and to say it is only to\nsay that Mr. Shaw is an original man. But if he means that Mr. Shaw has\never professed or preached any doctrine but one, and that his own, then\nwhat he says is not true. It is not my business to defend Mr. Shaw; as\nhas been seen already, I disagree with him altogether.  But I do not\nmind, on his behalf offering in this matter a flat defiance to all his\nordinary opponents, such as Mr. McCabe.  I defy Mr. McCabe, or anybody\nelse, to mention one single instance in which Mr. Shaw has, for the\nsake of wit or novelty, taken up any position which was not directly\ndeducible from the body of his doctrine as elsewhere expressed.  I have\nbeen, I am happy to say, a tolerably close student of Mr. Shaw\u2019s\nutterances, and I request Mr. McCabe, if he will not believe that I\nmean anything else, to believe that I mean this challenge.\n\nAll this, however, is a parenthesis.  The thing with which I am here\nimmediately concerned is Mr. McCabe\u2019s appeal to me not to be so\nfrivolous. Let me return to the actual text of that appeal.  There are,\nof course, a great many things that I might say about it in detail. But\nI may start with saying that Mr. McCabe is in error in supposing that\nthe danger which I anticipate from the disappearance of religion is the\nincrease of sensuality.  On the contrary, I should be inclined to\nanticipate a decrease in sensuality, because I anticipate a decrease in\nlife.  I do not think that under modern Western materialism we should\nhave anarchy.  I doubt whether we should have enough individual valour\nand spirit even to have liberty. It is quite an old-fashioned fallacy\nto suppose that our objection to scepticism is that it removes the\ndiscipline from life. Our objection to scepticism is that it removes\nthe motive power. Materialism is not a thing which destroys mere\nrestraint. Materialism itself is the great restraint.  The McCabe\nschool advocates a political liberty, but it denies spiritual liberty.\nThat is, it abolishes the laws which could be broken, and substitutes\nlaws that cannot.  And that is the real slavery.\n\nThe truth is that the scientific civilization in which Mr. McCabe\nbelieves has one rather particular defect; it is perpetually tending to\ndestroy that democracy or power of the ordinary man in which Mr. McCabe\nalso believes.  Science means specialism, and specialism means\noligarchy.  If you once establish the habit of trusting particular men\nto produce particular results in physics or astronomy, you leave the\ndoor open for the equally natural demand that you should trust\nparticular men to do particular things in government and the coercing\nof men.  If, you feel it to be reasonable that one beetle should be the\nonly study of one man, and that one man the only student of that one\nbeetle, it is surely a very harmless consequence to go on to say that\npolitics should be the only study of one man, and that one man the only\nstudent of politics. As I have pointed out elsewhere in this book, the\nexpert is more aristocratic than the aristocrat, because the aristocrat\nis only the man who lives well, while the expert is the man who knows\nbetter. But if we look at the progress of our scientific civilization\nwe see a gradual increase everywhere of the specialist over the popular\nfunction. Once men sang together round a table in chorus; now one man\nsings alone, for the absurd reason that he can sing better. If\nscientific civilization goes on (which is most improbable) only one man\nwill laugh, because he can laugh better than the rest.\n\nI do not know that I can express this more shortly than by taking as a\ntext the single sentence of Mr. McCabe, which runs as follows: \u201cThe\nballets of the Alhambra and the fireworks of the Crystal Palace and Mr.\nChesterton\u2019s Daily News articles have their places in life.\u201d I wish\nthat my articles had as noble a place as either of the other two things\nmentioned.  But let us ask ourselves (in a spirit of love, as Mr.\nChadband would say), what are the ballets of the Alhambra? The ballets\nof the Alhambra are institutions in which a particular selected row of\npersons in pink go through an operation known as dancing.  Now, in all\ncommonwealths dominated by a religion\u2014in the Christian commonwealths\nof the Middle Ages and in many rude societies\u2014this habit of dancing\nwas a common habit with everybody, and was not necessarily confined to\na professional class. A person could dance without being a dancer; a\nperson could dance without being a specialist; a person could dance\nwithout being pink. And, in proportion as Mr. McCabe\u2019s scientific\ncivilization advances\u2014that is, in proportion as religious civilization\n(or real civilization) decays\u2014the more and more \u201cwell trained,\u201d the\nmore and more pink, become the people who do dance, and the more and\nmore numerous become the people who don\u2019t. Mr. McCabe may recognize an\nexample of what I mean in the gradual discrediting in society of the\nancient European waltz or dance with partners, and the substitution of\nthat horrible and degrading oriental interlude which is known as\nskirt-dancing. That is the whole essence of decadence, the effacement\nof five people who do a thing for fun by one person who does it for\nmoney. Now it follows, therefore, that when Mr. McCabe says that the\nballets of the Alhambra and my articles \u201chave their place in life,\u201d it\nought to be pointed out to him that he is doing his best to create a\nworld in which dancing, properly speaking, will have no place in life\nat all.  He is, indeed, trying to create a world in which there will be\nno life for dancing to have a place in. The very fact that Mr. McCabe\nthinks of dancing as a thing belonging to some hired women at the\nAlhambra is an illustration of the same principle by which he is able\nto think of religion as a thing belonging to some hired men in white\nneckties. Both these things are things which should not be done for us,\nbut by us.  If Mr. McCabe were really religious he would be happy. If\nhe were really happy he would dance.\n\nBriefly, we may put the matter in this way.  The main point of modern\nlife is not that the Alhambra ballet has its place in life. The main\npoint, the main enormous tragedy of modern life, is that Mr. McCabe has\nnot his place in the Alhambra ballet. The joy of changing and graceful\nposture, the joy of suiting the swing of music to the swing of limbs,\nthe joy of whirling drapery, the joy of standing on one leg,\u2014all these\nshould belong by rights to Mr. McCabe and to me; in short, to the\nordinary healthy citizen. Probably we should not consent to go through\nthese evolutions. But that is because we are miserable moderns and\nrationalists. We do not merely love ourselves more than we love duty;\nwe actually love ourselves more than we love joy.\n\nWhen, therefore, Mr. McCabe says that he gives the Alhambra dances (and\nmy articles) their place in life, I think we are justified in pointing\nout that by the very nature of the case of his philosophy and of his\nfavourite civilization he gives them a very inadequate place. For (if I\nmay pursue the too flattering parallel) Mr. McCabe thinks of the\nAlhambra and of my articles as two very odd and absurd things, which\nsome special people do (probably for money) in order to amuse him. But\nif he had ever felt himself the ancient, sublime, elemental, human\ninstinct to dance, he would have discovered that dancing is not a\nfrivolous thing at all, but a very serious thing. He would have\ndiscovered that it is the one grave and chaste and decent method of\nexpressing a certain class of emotions. And similarly, if he had ever\nhad, as Mr. Shaw and I have had, the impulse to what he calls paradox,\nhe would have discovered that paradox again is not a frivolous thing,\nbut a very serious thing. He would have found that paradox simply means\na certain defiant joy which belongs to belief.  I should regard any\ncivilization which was without a universal habit of uproarious dancing\nas being, from the full human point of view, a defective civilization.\nAnd I should regard any mind which had not got the habit in one form or\nanother of uproarious thinking as being, from the full human point of\nview, a defective mind. It is vain for Mr. McCabe to say that a ballet\nis a part of him. He should be part of a ballet, or else he is only\npart of a man. It is in vain for him to say that he is \u201cnot quarrelling\nwith the importation of humour into the controversy.\u201d He ought himself\nto be importing humour into every controversy; for unless a man is in\npart a humorist, he is only in part a man. To sum up the whole matter\nvery simply, if Mr. McCabe asks me why I import frivolity into a\ndiscussion of the nature of man, I answer, because frivolity is a part\nof the nature of man.  If he asks me why I introduce what he calls\nparadoxes into a philosophical problem, I answer, because all\nphilosophical problems tend to become paradoxical. If he objects to my\ntreating of life riotously, I reply that life is a riot.  And I say\nthat the Universe as I see it, at any rate, is very much more like the\nfireworks at the Crystal Palace than it is like his own philosophy.\nAbout the whole cosmos there is a tense and secret festivity\u2014like\npreparations for Guy Fawkes\u2019 day. Eternity is the eve of something.  I\nnever look up at the stars without feeling that they are the fires of a\nschoolboy\u2019s rocket, fixed in their everlasting fall.\n\n\n\n\nXVII. On the Wit of Whistler\n\n\nThat capable and ingenious writer, Mr. Arthur Symons, has included in a\nbook of essays recently published, I believe, an apologia for \u201cLondon\nNights,\u201d in which he says that morality should be wholly subordinated\nto art in criticism, and he uses the somewhat singular argument that\nart or the worship of beauty is the same in all ages, while morality\ndiffers in every period and in every respect.  He appears to defy his\ncritics or his readers to mention any permanent feature or quality in\nethics. This is surely a very curious example of that extravagant bias\nagainst morality which makes so many ultra-modern aesthetes as morbid\nand fanatical as any Eastern hermit.  Unquestionably it is a very\ncommon phrase of modern intellectualism to say that the morality of one\nage can be entirely different to the morality of another. And like a\ngreat many other phrases of modern intellectualism, it means literally\nnothing at all.  If the two moralities are entirely different, why do\nyou call them both moralities? It is as if a man said, \u201cCamels in\nvarious places are totally diverse; some have six legs, some have none,\nsome have scales, some have feathers, some have horns, some have wings,\nsome are green, some are triangular. There is no point which they have\nin common.\u201d  The ordinary man of sense would reply, \u201cThen what makes\nyou call them all camels? What do you mean by a camel?  How do you know\na camel when you see one?\u201d Of course, there is a permanent substance of\nmorality, as much as there is a permanent substance of art; to say that\nis only to say that morality is morality, and that art is art.  An\nideal art-critic would, no doubt, see the enduring beauty under every\nschool; equally an ideal moralist would see the enduring ethic under\nevery code. But practically some of the best Englishmen that ever lived\ncould see nothing but filth and idolatry in the starry piety of the\nBrahmin. And it is equally true that practically the greatest group of\nartists that the world has ever seen, the giants of the Renaissance,\ncould see nothing but barbarism in the ethereal energy of Gothic.\n\nThis bias against morality among the modern aesthetes is nothing very\nmuch paraded.  And yet it is not really a bias against morality; it is\na bias against other people\u2019s morality.  It is generally founded on a\nvery definite moral preference for a certain sort of life, pagan,\nplausible, humane.  The modern aesthete, wishing us to believe that he\nvalues beauty more than conduct, reads Mallarme, and drinks absinthe in\na tavern.  But this is not only his favourite kind of beauty; it is\nalso his favourite kind of conduct. If he really wished us to believe\nthat he cared for beauty only, he ought to go to nothing but Wesleyan\nschool treats, and paint the sunlight in the hair of the Wesleyan\nbabies.  He ought to read nothing but very eloquent theological sermons\nby old-fashioned Presbyterian divines.  Here the lack of all possible\nmoral sympathy would prove that his interest was purely verbal or\npictorial, as it is; in all the books he reads and writes he clings to\nthe skirts of his own morality and his own immorality.  The champion of\nl\u2019art pour l\u2019art is always denouncing Ruskin for his moralizing. If he\nwere really a champion of l\u2019art pour l\u2019art, he would be always\ninsisting on Ruskin for his style.\n\nThe doctrine of the distinction between art and morality owes a great\npart of its success to art and morality being hopelessly mixed up in\nthe persons and performances of its greatest exponents. Of this lucky\ncontradiction the very incarnation was Whistler. No man ever preached\nthe impersonality of art so well; no man ever preached the\nimpersonality of art so personally. For him pictures had nothing to do\nwith the problems of character; but for all his fiercest admirers his\ncharacter was, as a matter of fact far more interesting than his\npictures. He gloried in standing as an artist apart from right and\nwrong. But he succeeded by talking from morning till night about his\nrights and about his wrongs.  His talents were many, his virtues, it\nmust be confessed, not many, beyond that kindness to tried friends, on\nwhich many of his biographers insist, but which surely is a quality of\nall sane men, of pirates and pickpockets; beyond this, his outstanding\nvirtues limit themselves chiefly to two admirable ones\u2014courage and an\nabstract love of good work.  Yet I fancy he won at last more by those\ntwo virtues than by all his talents. A man must be something of a\nmoralist if he is to preach, even if he is to preach unmorality.\nProfessor Walter Raleigh, in his \u201cIn Memoriam: James McNeill Whistler,\u201d\ninsists, truly enough, on the strong streak of an eccentric honesty in\nmatters strictly pictorial, which ran through his complex and slightly\nconfused character. \u201cHe would destroy any of his works rather than\nleave a careless or inexpressive touch within the limits of the frame.\nHe would begin again a hundred times over rather than attempt by\npatching to make his work seem better than it was.\u201d\n\nNo one will blame Professor Raleigh, who had to read a sort of funeral\noration over Whistler at the opening of the Memorial Exhibition, if,\nfinding himself in that position, he confined himself mostly to the\nmerits and the stronger qualities of his subject. We should naturally\ngo to some other type of composition for a proper consideration of the\nweaknesses of Whistler. But these must never be omitted from our view\nof him. Indeed, the truth is that it was not so much a question of the\nweaknesses of Whistler as of the intrinsic and primary weakness of\nWhistler. He was one of those people who live up to their emotional\nincomes, who are always taut and tingling with vanity.  Hence he had no\nstrength to spare; hence he had no kindness, no geniality; for\ngeniality is almost definable as strength to spare. He had no god-like\ncarelessness; he never forgot himself; his whole life was, to use his\nown expression, an arrangement. He went in for \u201cthe art of living\u201d\u2014a\nmiserable trick. In a word, he was a great artist; but emphatically not\na great man. In this connection I must differ strongly with Professor\nRaleigh upon what is, from a superficial literary point of view, one of\nhis most effective points.  He compares Whistler\u2019s laughter to the\nlaughter of another man who was a great man as well as a great artist.\n\u201cHis attitude to the public was exactly the attitude taken up by Robert\nBrowning, who suffered as long a period of neglect and mistake, in\nthose lines of \u2018The Ring and the Book\u2019\u2014\n\n \u201c\u2018Well, British Public, ye who like me not,\n   (God love you!) and will have your proper laugh\n   At the dark question; laugh it!  I\u2019d laugh first.\u2019\n\n\u201cMr. Whistler,\u201d adds Professor Raleigh, \u201calways laughed first.\u201d The\ntruth is, I believe, that Whistler never laughed at all. There was no\nlaughter in his nature; because there was no thoughtlessness and\nself-abandonment, no humility.  I cannot understand anybody reading\n\u201cThe Gentle Art of Making Enemies\u201d and thinking that there is any\nlaughter in the wit.  His wit is a torture to him. He twists himself\ninto arabesques of verbal felicity; he is full of a fierce carefulness;\nhe is inspired with the complete seriousness of sincere malice.  He\nhurts himself to hurt his opponent. Browning did laugh, because\nBrowning did not care; Browning did not care, because Browning was a\ngreat man.  And when Browning said in brackets to the simple, sensible\npeople who did not like his books, \u201cGod love you!\u201d he was not sneering\nin the least. He was laughing\u2014that is to say, he meant exactly what he\nsaid.\n\nThere are three distinct classes of great satirists who are also great\nmen\u2014that is to say, three classes of men who can laugh at something\nwithout losing their souls.  The satirist of the first type is the man\nwho, first of all enjoys himself, and then enjoys his enemies. In this\nsense he loves his enemy, and by a kind of exaggeration of Christianity\nhe loves his enemy the more the more he becomes an enemy. He has a sort\nof overwhelming and aggressive happiness in his assertion of anger; his\ncurse is as human as a benediction. Of this type of satire the great\nexample is Rabelais.  This is the first typical example of satire, the\nsatire which is voluble, which is violent, which is indecent, but which\nis not malicious. The satire of Whistler was not this.  He was never in\nany of his controversies simply happy; the proof of it is that he never\ntalked absolute nonsense.  There is a second type of mind which\nproduces satire with the quality of greatness.  That is embodied in the\nsatirist whose passions are released and let go by some intolerable\nsense of wrong. He is maddened by the sense of men being maddened; his\ntongue becomes an unruly member, and testifies against all mankind.\nSuch a man was Swift, in whom the saeva indignatio was a bitterness to\nothers, because it was a bitterness to himself.  Such a satirist\nWhistler was not.  He did not laugh because he was happy, like\nRabelais. But neither did he laugh because he was unhappy, like Swift.\n\nThe third type of great satire is that in which he satirist is enabled\nto rise superior to his victim in the only serious sense which\nsuperiority can bear, in that of pitying the sinner and respecting the\nman even while he satirises both.  Such an achievement can be found in\na thing like Pope\u2019s \u201cAtticus\u201d a poem in which the satirist feels that\nhe is satirising the weaknesses which belong specially to literary\ngenius.  Consequently he takes a pleasure in pointing out his enemy\u2019s\nstrength before he points out his weakness. That is, perhaps, the\nhighest and most honourable form of satire. That is not the satire of\nWhistler.  He is not full of a great sorrow for the wrong done to human\nnature; for him the wrong is altogether done to himself.\n\nHe was not a great personality, because he thought so much about\nhimself.  And the case is stronger even than that. He was sometimes not\neven a great artist, because he thought so much about art.  Any man\nwith a vital knowledge of the human psychology ought to have the most\nprofound suspicion of anybody who claims to be an artist, and talks a\ngreat deal about art. Art is a right and human thing, like walking or\nsaying one\u2019s prayers; but the moment it begins to be talked about very\nsolemnly, a man may be fairly certain that the thing has come into a\ncongestion and a kind of difficulty.\n\nThe artistic temperament is a disease that afflicts amateurs. It is a\ndisease which arises from men not having sufficient power of expression\nto utter and get rid of the element of art in their being. It is\nhealthful to every sane man to utter the art within him; it is\nessential to every sane man to get rid of the art within him at all\ncosts.  Artists of a large and wholesome vitality get rid of their art\neasily, as they breathe easily, or perspire easily. But in artists of\nless force, the thing becomes a pressure, and produces a definite pain,\nwhich is called the artistic temperament. Thus, very great artists are\nable to be ordinary men\u2014men like Shakespeare or Browning.  There are\nmany real tragedies of the artistic temperament, tragedies of vanity or\nviolence or fear. But the great tragedy of the artistic temperament is\nthat it cannot produce any art.\n\nWhistler could produce art; and in so far he was a great man. But he\ncould not forget art; and in so far he was only a man with the artistic\ntemperament.  There can be no stronger manifestation of the man who is\na really great artist than the fact that he can dismiss the subject of\nart; that he can, upon due occasion, wish art at the bottom of the sea.\nSimilarly, we should always be much more inclined to trust a solicitor\nwho did not talk about conveyancing over the nuts and wine.  What we\nreally desire of any man conducting any business is that the full force\nof an ordinary man should be put into that particular study.  We do not\ndesire that the full force of that study should be put into an ordinary\nman. We do not in the least wish that our particular law-suit should\npour its energy into our barrister\u2019s games with his children, or rides\non his bicycle, or meditations on the morning star. But we do, as a\nmatter of fact, desire that his games with his children, and his rides\non his bicycle, and his meditations on the morning star should pour\nsomething of their energy into our law-suit. We do desire that if he\nhas gained any especial lung development from the bicycle, or any\nbright and pleasing metaphors from the morning star, that the should be\nplaced at our disposal in that particular forensic controversy. In a\nword, we are very glad that he is an ordinary man, since that may help\nhim to be an exceptional lawyer.\n\nWhistler never ceased to be an artist.  As Mr. Max Beerbohm pointed out\nin one of his extraordinarily sensible and sincere critiques, Whistler\nreally regarded Whistler as his greatest work of art. The white lock,\nthe single eyeglass, the remarkable hat\u2014these were much dearer to him\nthan any nocturnes or arrangements that he ever threw off.  He could\nthrow off the nocturnes; for some mysterious reason he could not throw\noff the hat. He never threw off from himself that disproportionate\naccumulation of aestheticism which is the burden of the amateur.\n\nIt need hardly be said that this is the real explanation of the thing\nwhich has puzzled so many dilettante critics, the problem of the\nextreme ordinariness of the behaviour of so many great geniuses in\nhistory. Their behaviour was so ordinary that it was not recorded;\nhence it was so ordinary that it seemed mysterious.  Hence people say\nthat Bacon wrote Shakespeare.  The modern artistic temperament cannot\nunderstand how a man who could write such lyrics as Shakespeare wrote,\ncould be as keen as Shakespeare was on business transactions in a\nlittle town in Warwickshire.  The explanation is simple enough; it is\nthat Shakespeare had a real lyrical impulse, wrote a real lyric, and so\ngot rid of the impulse and went about his business. Being an artist did\nnot prevent him from being an ordinary man, any more than being a\nsleeper at night or being a diner at dinner prevented him from being an\nordinary man.\n\nAll very great teachers and leaders have had this habit of assuming\ntheir point of view to be one which was human and casual, one which\nwould readily appeal to every passing man. If a man is genuinely\nsuperior to his fellows the first thing that he believes in is the\nequality of man.  We can see this, for instance, in that strange and\ninnocent rationality with which Christ addressed any motley crowd that\nhappened to stand about Him. \u201cWhat man of you having a hundred sheep,\nand losing one, would not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness,\nand go after that which was lost?\u201d Or, again, \u201cWhat man of you if his\nson ask for bread will he give him a stone, or if he ask for a fish\nwill he give him a serpent?\u201d This plainness, this almost prosaic\ncamaraderie, is the note of all very great minds.\n\nTo very great minds the things on which men agree are so immeasurably\nmore important than the things on which they differ, that the latter,\nfor all practical purposes, disappear.  They have too much in them of\nan ancient laughter even to endure to discuss the difference between\nthe hats of two men who were both born of a woman, or between the\nsubtly varied cultures of two men who have both to die. The first-rate\ngreat man is equal with other men, like Shakespeare. The second-rate\ngreat man is on his knees to other men, like Whitman. The third-rate\ngreat man is superior to other men, like Whistler.\n\n\n\n\nXVIII. The Fallacy of the Young Nation\n\n\nTo say that a man is an idealist is merely to say that he is a man;\nbut, nevertheless, it might be possible to effect some valid\ndistinction between one kind of idealist and another. One possible\ndistinction, for instance, could be effected by saying that humanity is\ndivided into conscious idealists and unconscious idealists. In a\nsimilar way, humanity is divided into conscious ritualists and\nunconscious ritualists.  The curious thing is, in that example as in\nothers, that it is the conscious ritualism which is comparatively\nsimple, the unconscious ritual which is really heavy and complicated.\nThe ritual which is comparatively rude and straightforward is the\nritual which people call \u201critualistic.\u201d  It consists of plain things\nlike bread and wine and fire, and men falling on their faces. But the\nritual which is really complex, and many coloured, and elaborate, and\nneedlessly formal, is the ritual which people enact without knowing it.\nIt consists not of plain things like wine and fire, but of really\npeculiar, and local, and exceptional, and ingenious things\u2014things like\ndoor-mats, and door-knockers, and electric bells, and silk hats, and\nwhite ties, and shiny cards, and confetti. The truth is that the modern\nman scarcely ever gets back to very old and simple things except when\nhe is performing some religious mummery. The modern man can hardly get\naway from ritual except by entering a ritualistic church.  In the case\nof these old and mystical formalities we can at least say that the\nritual is not mere ritual; that the symbols employed are in most cases\nsymbols which belong to a primary human poetry.  The most ferocious\nopponent of the Christian ceremonials must admit that if Catholicism\nhad not instituted the bread and wine, somebody else would most\nprobably have done so. Any one with a poetical instinct will admit that\nto the ordinary human instinct bread symbolizes something which cannot\nvery easily be symbolized otherwise; that wine, to the ordinary human\ninstinct, symbolizes something which cannot very easily be symbolized\notherwise. But white ties in the evening are ritual, and nothing else\nbut ritual. No one would pretend that white ties in the evening are\nprimary and poetical.  Nobody would maintain that the ordinary human\ninstinct would in any age or country tend to symbolize the idea of\nevening by a white necktie.  Rather, the ordinary human instinct would,\nI imagine, tend to symbolize evening by cravats with some of the\ncolours of the sunset, not white neckties, but tawny or crimson\nneckties\u2014neckties of purple or olive, or some darkened gold.  Mr. J.\nA. Kensit, for example, is under the impression that he is not a\nritualist. But the daily life of Mr. J. A. Kensit, like that of any\nordinary modern man, is, as a matter of fact, one continual and\ncompressed catalogue of mystical mummery and flummery.  To take one\ninstance out of an inevitable hundred:  I imagine that Mr. Kensit takes\noff his hat to a lady; and what can be more solemn and absurd,\nconsidered in the abstract, than, symbolizing the existence of the\nother sex by taking off a portion of your clothing and waving it in the\nair? This, I repeat, is not a natural and primitive symbol, like fire\nor food. A man might just as well have to take off his waistcoat to a\nlady; and if a man, by the social ritual of his civilization, had to\ntake off his waistcoat to a lady, every chivalrous and sensible man\nwould take off his waistcoat to a lady.  In short, Mr. Kensit, and\nthose who agree with him, may think, and quite sincerely think, that\nmen give too much incense and ceremonial to their adoration of the\nother world. But nobody thinks that he can give too much incense and\nceremonial to the adoration of this world.  All men, then, are\nritualists, but are either conscious or unconscious ritualists.  The\nconscious ritualists are generally satisfied with a few very simple and\nelementary signs; the unconscious ritualists are not satisfied with\nanything short of the whole of human life, being almost insanely\nritualistic. The first is called a ritualist because he invents and\nremembers one rite; the other is called an anti-ritualist because he\nobeys and forgets a thousand.  And a somewhat similar distinction to\nthis which I have drawn with some unavoidable length, between the\nconscious ritualist and the unconscious ritualist, exists between the\nconscious idealist and the unconscious idealist. It is idle to inveigh\nagainst cynics and materialists\u2014there are no cynics, there are no\nmaterialists.  Every man is idealistic; only it so often happens that\nhe has the wrong ideal. Every man is incurably sentimental; but,\nunfortunately, it is so often a false sentiment.  When we talk, for\ninstance, of some unscrupulous commercial figure, and say that he would\ndo anything for money, we use quite an inaccurate expression, and we\nslander him very much. He would not do anything for money.  He would do\nsome things for money; he would sell his soul for money, for instance;\nand, as Mirabeau humorously said, he would be quite wise \u201cto take money\nfor muck.\u201d He would oppress humanity for money; but then it happens\nthat humanity and the soul are not things that he believes in; they are\nnot his ideals. But he has his own dim and delicate ideals; and he\nwould not violate these for money.  He would not drink out of the\nsoup-tureen, for money. He would not wear his coat-tails in front, for\nmoney.  He would not spread a report that he had softening of the\nbrain, for money. In the actual practice of life we find, in the matter\nof ideals, exactly what we have already found in the matter of ritual.\nWe find that while there is a perfectly genuine danger of fanaticism\nfrom the men who have unworldly ideals, the permanent and urgent danger\nof fanaticism is from the men who have worldly ideals.\n\nPeople who say that an ideal is a dangerous thing, that it deludes and\nintoxicates, are perfectly right.  But the ideal which intoxicates most\nis the least idealistic kind of ideal. The ideal which intoxicates\nleast is the very ideal ideal; that sobers us suddenly, as all heights\nand precipices and great distances do. Granted that it is a great evil\nto mistake a cloud for a cape; still, the cloud, which can be most\neasily mistaken for a cape, is the cloud that is nearest the earth.\nSimilarly, we may grant that it may be dangerous to mistake an ideal\nfor something practical. But we shall still point out that, in this\nrespect, the most dangerous ideal of all is the ideal which looks a\nlittle practical. It is difficult to attain a high ideal; consequently,\nit is almost impossible to persuade ourselves that we have attained it.\nBut it is easy to attain a low ideal; consequently, it is easier still\nto persuade ourselves that we have attained it when we have done\nnothing of the kind.  To take a random example. It might be called a\nhigh ambition to wish to be an archangel; the man who entertained such\nan ideal would very possibly exhibit asceticism, or even frenzy, but\nnot, I think, delusion. He would not think he was an archangel, and go\nabout flapping his hands under the impression that they were wings. But\nsuppose that a sane man had a low ideal; suppose he wished to be a\ngentleman.  Any one who knows the world knows that in nine weeks he\nwould have persuaded himself that he was a gentleman; and this being\nmanifestly not the case, the result will be very real and practical\ndislocations and calamities in social life. It is not the wild ideals\nwhich wreck the practical world; it is the tame ideals.\n\nThe matter may, perhaps, be illustrated by a parallel from our modern\npolitics.  When men tell us that the old Liberal politicians of the\ntype of Gladstone cared only for ideals, of course, they are talking\nnonsense\u2014they cared for a great many other things, including votes.\nAnd when men tell us that modern politicians of the type of Mr.\nChamberlain or, in another way, Lord Rosebery, care only for votes or\nfor material interest, then again they are talking nonsense\u2014these men\ncare for ideals like all other men. But the real distinction which may\nbe drawn is this, that to the older politician the ideal was an ideal,\nand nothing else. To the new politician his dream is not only a good\ndream, it is a reality. The old politician would have said, \u201cIt would\nbe a good thing if there were a Republican Federation dominating the\nworld.\u201d But the modern politician does not say, \u201cIt would be a good\nthing if there were a British Imperialism dominating the world.\u201d He\nsays, \u201cIt is a good thing that there is a British Imperialism\ndominating the world;\u201d whereas clearly there is nothing of the kind.\nThe old Liberal would say \u201cThere ought to be a good Irish government in\nIreland.\u201d  But the ordinary modern Unionist does not say, \u201cThere ought\nto be a good English government in Ireland.\u201d  He says, \u201cThere is a good\nEnglish government in Ireland;\u201d which is absurd. In short, the modern\npoliticians seem to think that a man becomes practical merely by making\nassertions entirely about practical things. Apparently, a delusion does\nnot matter as long as it is a materialistic delusion.  Instinctively\nmost of us feel that, as a practical matter, even the contrary is true.\nI certainly would much rather share my apartments with a gentleman who\nthought he was God than with a gentleman who thought he was a\ngrasshopper. To be continually haunted by practical images and\npractical problems, to be constantly thinking of things as actual, as\nurgent, as in process of completion\u2014these things do not prove a man to\nbe practical; these things, indeed, are among the most ordinary signs\nof a lunatic. That our modern statesmen are materialistic is nothing\nagainst their being also morbid.  Seeing angels in a vision may make a\nman a supernaturalist to excess.  But merely seeing snakes in delirium\ntremens does not make him a naturalist.\n\nAnd when we come actually to examine the main stock notions of our\nmodern practical politicians, we find that those main stock notions are\nmainly delusions.  A great many instances might be given of the fact.\nWe might take, for example, the case of that strange class of notions\nwhich underlie the word \u201cunion,\u201d and all the eulogies heaped upon it.\nOf course, union is no more a good thing in itself than separation is a\ngood thing in itself.  To have a party in favour of union and a party\nin favour of separation is as absurd as to have a party in favour of\ngoing upstairs and a party in favour of going downstairs. The question\nis not whether we go up or down stairs, but where we are going to, and\nwhat we are going, for?  Union is strength; union is also weakness.  It\nis a good thing to harness two horses to a cart; but it is not a good\nthing to try and turn two hansom cabs into one four-wheeler. Turning\nten nations into one empire may happen to be as feasible as turning ten\nshillings into one half-sovereign. Also it may happen to be as\npreposterous as turning ten terriers into one mastiff. The question in\nall cases is not a question of union or absence of union, but of\nidentity or absence of identity. Owing to certain historical and moral\ncauses, two nations may be so united as upon the whole to help each\nother.  Thus England and Scotland pass their time in paying each other\ncompliments; but their energies and atmospheres run distinct and\nparallel, and consequently do not clash.  Scotland continues to be\neducated and Calvinistic; England continues to be uneducated and happy.\nBut owing to certain other Moral and certain other political causes,\ntwo nations may be so united as only to hamper each other; their lines\ndo clash and do not run parallel.  Thus, for instance, England and\nIreland are so united that the Irish can sometimes rule England, but\ncan never rule Ireland. The educational systems, including the last\nEducation Act, are here, as in the case of Scotland, a very good test\nof the matter. The overwhelming majority of Irishmen believe in a\nstrict Catholicism; the overwhelming majority of Englishmen believe in\na vague Protestantism. The Irish party in the Parliament of Union is\njust large enough to prevent the English education being indefinitely\nProtestant, and just small enough to prevent the Irish education being\ndefinitely Catholic. Here we have a state of things which no man in his\nsenses would ever dream of wishing to continue if he had not been\nbewitched by the sentimentalism of the mere word \u201cunion.\u201d\n\nThis example of union, however, is not the example which I propose to\ntake of the ingrained futility and deception underlying all the\nassumptions of the modern practical politician. I wish to speak\nespecially of another and much more general delusion. It pervades the\nminds and speeches of all the practical men of all parties; and it is a\nchildish blunder built upon a single false metaphor. I refer to the\nuniversal modern talk about young nations and new nations; about\nAmerica being young, about New Zealand being new.  The whole thing is a\ntrick of words.  America is not young, New Zealand is not new. It is a\nvery discussable question whether they are not both much older than\nEngland or Ireland.\n\nOf course we may use the metaphor of youth about America or the\ncolonies, if we use it strictly as implying only a recent origin. But\nif we use it (as we do use it) as implying vigour, or vivacity, or\ncrudity, or inexperience, or hope, or a long life before them or any of\nthe romantic attributes of youth, then it is surely as clear as\ndaylight that we are duped by a stale figure of speech. We can easily\nsee the matter clearly by applying it to any other institution parallel\nto the institution of an independent nationality. If a club called \u201cThe\nMilk and Soda League\u201d (let us say) was set up yesterday, as I have no\ndoubt it was, then, of course, \u201cThe Milk and Soda League\u201d is a young\nclub in the sense that it was set up yesterday, but in no other sense.\nIt may consist entirely of moribund old gentlemen.  It may be moribund\nitself. We may call it a young club, in the light of the fact that it\nwas founded yesterday.  We may also call it a very old club in the\nlight of the fact that it will most probably go bankrupt to-morrow. All\nthis appears very obvious when we put it in this form. Any one who\nadopted the young-community delusion with regard to a bank or a\nbutcher\u2019s shop would be sent to an asylum. But the whole modern\npolitical notion that America and the colonies must be very vigorous\nbecause they are very new, rests upon no better foundation.  That\nAmerica was founded long after England does not make it even in the\nfaintest degree more probable that America will not perish a long time\nbefore England. That England existed before her colonies does not make\nit any the less likely that she will exist after her colonies.  And\nwhen we look at the actual history of the world, we find that great\nEuropean nations almost invariably have survived the vitality of their\ncolonies. When we look at the actual history of the world, we find,\nthat if there is a thing that is born old and dies young, it is a\ncolony. The Greek colonies went to pieces long before the Greek\ncivilization. The Spanish colonies have gone to pieces long before the\nnation of Spain\u2014nor does there seem to be any reason to doubt the\npossibility or even the probability of the conclusion that the colonial\ncivilization, which owes its origin to England, will be much briefer\nand much less vigorous than the civilization of England itself.  The\nEnglish nation will still be going the way of all European nations when\nthe Anglo-Saxon race has gone the way of all fads.  Now, of course, the\ninteresting question is, have we, in the case of America and the\ncolonies, any real evidence of a moral and intellectual youth as\nopposed to the indisputable triviality of a merely chronological youth?\nConsciously or unconsciously, we know that we have no such evidence,\nand consciously or unconsciously, therefore, we proceed to make it up.\nOf this pure and placid invention, a good example, for instance, can be\nfound in a recent poem of Mr. Rudyard Kipling\u2019s. Speaking of the\nEnglish people and the South African War Mr. Kipling says that \u201cwe\nfawned on the younger nations for the men that could shoot and ride.\u201d\nSome people considered this sentence insulting.  All that I am\nconcerned with at present is the evident fact that it is not true. The\ncolonies provided very useful volunteer troops, but they did not\nprovide the best troops, nor achieve the most successful exploits. The\nbest work in the war on the English side was done, as might have been\nexpected, by the best English regiments. The men who could shoot and\nride were not the enthusiastic corn merchants from Melbourne, any more\nthan they were the enthusiastic clerks from Cheapside.  The men who\ncould shoot and ride were the men who had been taught to shoot and ride\nin the discipline of the standing army of a great European power.  Of\ncourse, the colonials are as brave and athletic as any other average\nwhite men. Of course, they acquitted themselves with reasonable credit.\nAll I have here to indicate is that, for the purposes of this theory of\nthe new nation, it is necessary to maintain that the colonial forces\nwere more useful or more heroic than the gunners at Colenso or the\nFighting Fifth.  And of this contention there is not, and never has\nbeen, one stick or straw of evidence.\n\nA similar attempt is made, and with even less success, to represent the\nliterature of the colonies as something fresh and vigorous and\nimportant. The imperialist magazines are constantly springing upon us\nsome genius from Queensland or Canada, through whom we are expected to\nsmell the odours of the bush or the prairie.  As a matter of fact, any\none who is even slightly interested in literature as such (and I, for\none, confess that I am only slightly interested in literature as such),\nwill freely admit that the stories of these geniuses smell of nothing\nbut printer\u2019s ink, and that not of first-rate quality. By a great\neffort of Imperial imagination the generous English people reads into\nthese works a force and a novelty. But the force and the novelty are\nnot in the new writers; the force and the novelty are in the ancient\nheart of the English. Anybody who studies them impartially will know\nthat the first-rate writers of the colonies are not even particularly\nnovel in their note and atmosphere, are not only not producing a new\nkind of good literature, but are not even in any particular sense\nproducing a new kind of bad literature.  The first-rate writers of the\nnew countries are really almost exactly like the second-rate writers of\nthe old countries.  Of course they do feel the mystery of the\nwilderness, the mystery of the bush, for all simple and honest men feel\nthis in Melbourne, or Margate, or South St. Pancras. But when they\nwrite most sincerely and most successfully, it is not with a background\nof the mystery of the bush, but with a background, expressed or\nassumed, of our own romantic cockney civilization. What really moves\ntheir souls with a kindly terror is not the mystery of the wilderness,\nbut the Mystery of a Hansom Cab.\n\nOf course there are some exceptions to this generalization. The one\nreally arresting exception is Olive Schreiner, and she is quite as\ncertainly an exception that proves the rule. Olive Schreiner is a\nfierce, brilliant, and realistic novelist; but she is all this\nprecisely because she is not English at all. Her tribal kinship is with\nthe country of Teniers and Maarten Maartens\u2014that is, with a country of\nrealists.  Her literary kinship is with the pessimistic fiction of the\ncontinent; with the novelists whose very pity is cruel.  Olive\nSchreiner is the one English colonial who is not conventional, for the\nsimple reason that South Africa is the one English colony which is not\nEnglish, and probably never will be. And, of course, there are\nindividual exceptions in a minor way. I remember in particular some\nAustralian tales by Mr. McIlwain which were really able and effective,\nand which, for that reason, I suppose, are not presented to the public\nwith blasts of a trumpet. But my general contention if put before any\none with a love of letters, will not be disputed if it is understood.\nIt is not the truth that the colonial civilization as a whole is giving\nus, or shows any signs of giving us, a literature which will startle\nand renovate our own.  It may be a very good thing for us to have an\naffectionate illusion in the matter; that is quite another affair. The\ncolonies may have given England a new emotion; I only say that they\nhave not given the world a new book.\n\nTouching these English colonies, I do not wish to be misunderstood. I\ndo not say of them or of America that they have not a future, or that\nthey will not be great nations.  I merely deny the whole established\nmodern expression about them.  I deny that they are \u201cdestined\u201d to a\nfuture.  I deny that they are \u201cdestined\u201d to be great nations. I deny\n(of course) that any human thing is destined to be anything. All the\nabsurd physical metaphors, such as youth and age, living and dying,\nare, when applied to nations, but pseudo-scientific attempts to conceal\nfrom men the awful liberty of their lonely souls.\n\nIn the case of America, indeed, a warning to this effect is instant and\nessential.  America, of course, like every other human thing, can in\nspiritual sense live or die as much as it chooses. But at the present\nmoment the matter which America has very seriously to consider is not\nhow near it is to its birth and beginning, but how near it may be to\nits end.  It is only a verbal question whether the American\ncivilization is young; it may become a very practical and urgent\nquestion whether it is dying. When once we have cast aside, as we\ninevitably have after a moment\u2019s thought, the fanciful physical\nmetaphor involved in the word \u201cyouth,\u201d what serious evidence have we\nthat America is a fresh force and not a stale one?  It has a great many\npeople, like China; it has a great deal of money, like defeated\nCarthage or dying Venice. It is full of bustle and excitability, like\nAthens after its ruin, and all the Greek cities in their decline.  It\nis fond of new things; but the old are always fond of new things.\nYoung men read chronicles, but old men read newspapers.  It admires\nstrength and good looks; it admires a big and barbaric beauty in its\nwomen, for instance; but so did Rome when the Goth was at the gates.\nAll these are things quite compatible with fundamental tedium and\ndecay. There are three main shapes or symbols in which a nation can\nshow itself essentially glad and great\u2014by the heroic in government, by\nthe heroic in arms, and by the heroic in art.  Beyond government, which\nis, as it were, the very shape and body of a nation, the most\nsignificant thing about any citizen is his artistic attitude towards a\nholiday and his moral attitude towards a fight\u2014that is, his way of\naccepting life and his way of accepting death.\n\nSubjected to these eternal tests, America does not appear by any means\nas particularly fresh or untouched.  She appears with all the weakness\nand weariness of modern England or of any other Western power. In her\npolitics she has broken up exactly as England has broken up, into a\nbewildering opportunism and insincerity.  In the matter of war and the\nnational attitude towards war, her resemblance to England is even more\nmanifest and melancholy.  It may be said with rough accuracy that there\nare three stages in the life of a strong people. First, it is a small\npower, and fights small powers.  Then it is a great power, and fights\ngreat powers.  Then it is a great power, and fights small powers, but\npretends that they are great powers, in order to rekindle the ashes of\nits ancient emotion and vanity. After that, the next step is to become\na small power itself. England exhibited this symptom of decadence very\nbadly in the war with the Transvaal; but America exhibited it worse in\nthe war with Spain. There was exhibited more sharply and absurdly than\nanywhere else the ironic contrast between the very careless choice of a\nstrong line and the very careful choice of a weak enemy. America added\nto all her other late Roman or Byzantine elements the element of the\nCaracallan triumph, the triumph over nobody.\n\nBut when we come to the last test of nationality, the test of art and\nletters, the case is almost terrible.  The English colonies have\nproduced no great artists; and that fact may prove that they are still\nfull of silent possibilities and reserve force. But America has\nproduced great artists.  And that fact most certainly proves that she\nis full of a fine futility and the end of all things. Whatever the\nAmerican men of genius are, they are not young gods making a young\nworld.  Is the art of Whistler a brave, barbaric art, happy and\nheadlong?  Does Mr. Henry James infect us with the spirit of a\nschoolboy?  No; the colonies have not spoken, and they are safe. Their\nsilence may be the silence of the unborn.  But out of America has come\na sweet and startling cry, as unmistakable as the cry of a dying man.\n\n\n\n\nXIX. Slum Novelists and the Slums\n\n\nOdd ideas are entertained in our time about the real nature of the\ndoctrine of human fraternity.  The real doctrine is something which we\ndo not, with all our modern humanitarianism, very clearly understand,\nmuch less very closely practise.  There is nothing, for instance,\nparticularly undemocratic about kicking your butler downstairs. It may\nbe wrong, but it is not unfraternal.  In a certain sense, the blow or\nkick may be considered as a confession of equality: you are meeting\nyour butler body to body; you are almost according him the privilege of\nthe duel.  There is nothing, undemocratic, though there may be\nsomething unreasonable, in expecting a great deal from the butler, and\nbeing filled with a kind of frenzy of surprise when he falls short of\nthe divine stature.  The thing which is really undemocratic and\nunfraternal is not to expect the butler to be more or less divine.  The\nthing which is really undemocratic and unfraternal is to say, as so\nmany modern humanitarians say, \u201cOf course one must make allowances for\nthose on a lower plane.\u201d All things considered indeed, it may be said,\nwithout undue exaggeration, that the really undemocratic and\nunfraternal thing is the common practice of not kicking the butler\ndownstairs.\n\nIt is only because such a vast section of the modern world is out of\nsympathy with the serious democratic sentiment that this statement will\nseem to many to be lacking in seriousness. Democracy is not\nphilanthropy; it is not even altruism or social reform. Democracy is\nnot founded on pity for the common man; democracy is founded on\nreverence for the common man, or, if you will, even on fear of him.  It\ndoes not champion man because man is so miserable, but because man is\nso sublime.  It does not object so much to the ordinary man being a\nslave as to his not being a king, for its dream is always the dream of\nthe first Roman republic, a nation of kings.\n\nNext to a genuine republic, the most democratic thing in the world is a\nhereditary despotism.  I mean a despotism in which there is absolutely\nno trace whatever of any nonsense about intellect or special fitness\nfor the post. Rational despotism\u2014that is, selective despotism\u2014is\nalways a curse to mankind, because with that you have the ordinary man\nmisunderstood and misgoverned by some prig who has no brotherly respect\nfor him at all.  But irrational despotism is always democratic, because\nit is the ordinary man enthroned. The worst form of slavery is that\nwhich is called Caesarism, or the choice of some bold or brilliant man\nas despot because he is suitable.  For that means that men choose a\nrepresentative, not because he represents them, but because he does\nnot. Men trust an ordinary man like George III or William IV. because\nthey are themselves ordinary men and understand him. Men trust an\nordinary man because they trust themselves. But men trust a great man\nbecause they do not trust themselves. And hence the worship of great\nmen always appears in times of weakness and cowardice; we never hear of\ngreat men until the time when all other men are small.\n\nHereditary despotism is, then, in essence and sentiment democratic\nbecause it chooses from mankind at random. If it does not declare that\nevery man may rule, it declares the next most democratic thing; it\ndeclares that any man may rule. Hereditary aristocracy is a far worse\nand more dangerous thing, because the numbers and multiplicity of an\naristocracy make it sometimes possible for it to figure as an\naristocracy of intellect. Some of its members will presumably have\nbrains, and thus they, at any rate, will be an intellectual aristocracy\nwithin the social one. They will rule the aristocracy by virtue of\ntheir intellect, and they will rule the country by virtue of their\naristocracy. Thus a double falsity will be set up, and millions of the\nimages of God, who, fortunately for their wives and families, are\nneither gentlemen nor clever men, will be represented by a man like Mr.\nBalfour or Mr. Wyndham, because he is too gentlemanly to be called\nmerely clever, and just too clever to be called merely a gentleman. But\neven an hereditary aristocracy may exhibit, by a sort of accident, from\ntime to time some of the basically democratic quality which belongs to\na hereditary despotism.  It is amusing to think how much conservative\ningenuity has been wasted in the defence of the House of Lords by men\nwho were desperately endeavouring to prove that the House of Lords\nconsisted of clever men.  There is one really good defence of the House\nof Lords, though admirers of the peerage are strangely coy about using\nit; and that is, that the House of Lords, in its full and proper\nstrength, consists of stupid men. It really would be a plausible\ndefence of that otherwise indefensible body to point out that the\nclever men in the Commons, who owed their power to cleverness, ought in\nthe last resort to be checked by the average man in the Lords, who owed\ntheir power to accident. Of course, there would be many answers to such\na contention, as, for instance, that the House of Lords is largely no\nlonger a House of Lords, but a House of tradesmen and financiers, or\nthat the bulk of the commonplace nobility do not vote, and so leave the\nchamber to the prigs and the specialists and the mad old gentlemen with\nhobbies.  But on some occasions the House of Lords, even under all\nthese disadvantages, is in some sense representative. When all the\npeers flocked together to vote against Mr. Gladstone\u2019s second Home Rule\nBill, for instance, those who said that the peers represented the\nEnglish people, were perfectly right. All those dear old men who\nhappened to be born peers were at that moment, and upon that question,\nthe precise counterpart of all the dear old men who happened to be born\npaupers or middle-class gentlemen. That mob of peers did really\nrepresent the English people\u2014that is to say, it was honest, ignorant,\nvaguely excited, almost unanimous, and obviously wrong.  Of course,\nrational democracy is better as an expression of the public will than\nthe haphazard hereditary method. While we are about having any kind of\ndemocracy, let it be rational democracy.  But if we are to have any\nkind of oligarchy, let it be irrational oligarchy.  Then at least we\nshall be ruled by men.\n\nBut the thing which is really required for the proper working of\ndemocracy is not merely the democratic system, or even the democratic\nphilosophy, but the democratic emotion.  The democratic emotion, like\nmost elementary and indispensable things, is a thing difficult to\ndescribe at any time. But it is peculiarly difficult to describe it in\nour enlightened age, for the simple reason that it is peculiarly\ndifficult to find it. It is a certain instinctive attitude which feels\nthe things in which all men agree to be unspeakably important, and all\nthe things in which they differ (such as mere brains) to be almost\nunspeakably unimportant.  The nearest approach to it in our ordinary\nlife would be the promptitude with which we should consider mere\nhumanity in any circumstance of shock or death. We should say, after a\nsomewhat disturbing discovery, \u201cThere is a dead man under the sofa.\u201d\nWe should not be likely to say, \u201cThere is a dead man of considerable\npersonal refinement under the sofa.\u201d We should say, \u201cA woman has fallen\ninto the water.\u201d  We should not say, \u201cA highly educated woman has\nfallen into the water.\u201d  Nobody would say, \u201cThere are the remains of a\nclear thinker in your back garden.\u201d Nobody would say, \u201cUnless you hurry\nup and stop him, a man with a very fine ear for music will have jumped\noff that cliff.\u201d But this emotion, which all of us have in connection\nwith such things as birth and death, is to some people native and\nconstant at all ordinary times and in all ordinary places.  It was\nnative to St. Francis of Assisi.  It was native to Walt Whitman. In\nthis strange and splendid degree it cannot be expected, perhaps, to\npervade a whole commonwealth or a whole civilization; but one\ncommonwealth may have it much more than another commonwealth, one\ncivilization much more than another civilization. No community,\nperhaps, ever had it so much as the early Franciscans. No community,\nperhaps, ever had it so little as ours.\n\nEverything in our age has, when carefully examined, this fundamentally\nundemocratic quality.  In religion and morals we should admit, in the\nabstract, that the sins of the educated classes were as great as, or\nperhaps greater than, the sins of the poor and ignorant. But in\npractice the great difference between the mediaeval ethics and ours is\nthat ours concentrate attention on the sins which are the sins of the\nignorant, and practically deny that the sins which are the sins of the\neducated are sins at all. We are always talking about the sin of\nintemperate drinking, because it is quite obvious that the poor have it\nmore than the rich. But we are always denying that there is any such\nthing as the sin of pride, because it would be quite obvious that the\nrich have it more than the poor. We are always ready to make a saint or\nprophet of the educated man who goes into cottages to give a little\nkindly advice to the uneducated. But the medieval idea of a saint or\nprophet was something quite different. The mediaeval saint or prophet\nwas an uneducated man who walked into grand houses to give a little\nkindly advice to the educated. The old tyrants had enough insolence to\ndespoil the poor, but they had not enough insolence to preach to them.\nIt was the gentleman who oppressed the slums; but it was the slums that\nadmonished the gentleman.  And just as we are undemocratic in faith and\nmorals, so we are, by the very nature of our attitude in such matters,\nundemocratic in the tone of our practical politics. It is a sufficient\nproof that we are not an essentially democratic state that we are\nalways wondering what we shall do with the poor. If we were democrats,\nwe should be wondering what the poor will do with us. With us the\ngoverning class is always saying to itself, \u201cWhat laws shall we make?\u201d\nIn a purely democratic state it would be always saying, \u201cWhat laws can\nwe obey?\u201d  A purely democratic state perhaps there has never been.  But\neven the feudal ages were in practice thus far democratic, that every\nfeudal potentate knew that any laws which he made would in all\nprobability return upon himself. His feathers might be cut off for\nbreaking a sumptuary law. His head might be cut off for high treason.\nBut the modern laws are almost always laws made to affect the governed\nclass, but not the governing. We have public-house licensing laws, but\nnot sumptuary laws. That is to say, we have laws against the festivity\nand hospitality of the poor, but no laws against the festivity and\nhospitality of the rich. We have laws against blasphemy\u2014that is,\nagainst a kind of coarse and offensive speaking in which nobody but a\nrough and obscure man would be likely to indulge.  But we have no laws\nagainst heresy\u2014that is, against the intellectual poisoning of the\nwhole people, in which only a prosperous and prominent man would be\nlikely to be successful.  The evil of aristocracy is not that it\nnecessarily leads to the infliction of bad things or the suffering of\nsad ones; the evil of aristocracy is that it places everything in the\nhands of a class of people who can always inflict what they can never\nsuffer. Whether what they inflict is, in their intention, good or bad,\nthey become equally frivolous.  The case against the governing class of\nmodern England is not in the least that it is selfish; if you like, you\nmay call the English oligarchs too fantastically unselfish. The case\nagainst them simply is that when they legislate for all men, they\nalways omit themselves.\n\nWe are undemocratic, then, in our religion, as is proved by our efforts\nto \u201craise\u201d the poor.  We are undemocratic in our government, as is\nproved by our innocent attempt to govern them well. But above all we\nare undemocratic in our literature, as is proved by the torrent of\nnovels about the poor and serious studies of the poor which pour from\nour publishers every month. And the more \u201cmodern\u201d the book is the more\ncertain it is to be devoid of democratic sentiment.\n\nA poor man is a man who has not got much money.  This may seem a simple\nand unnecessary description, but in the face of a great mass of modern\nfact and fiction, it seems very necessary indeed; most of our realists\nand sociologists talk about a poor man as if he were an octopus or an\nalligator.  There is no more need to study the psychology of poverty\nthan to study the psychology of bad temper, or the psychology of\nvanity, or the psychology of animal spirits. A man ought to know\nsomething of the emotions of an insulted man, not by being insulted,\nbut simply by being a man.  And he ought to know something of the\nemotions of a poor man, not by being poor, but simply by being a man.\nTherefore, in any writer who is describing poverty, my first objection\nto him will be that he has studied his subject. A democrat would have\nimagined it.\n\nA great many hard things have been said about religious slumming and\npolitical or social slumming, but surely the most despicable of all is\nartistic slumming.  The religious teacher is at least supposed to be\ninterested in the costermonger because he is a man; the politician is\nin some dim and perverted sense interested in the costermonger because\nhe is a citizen; it is only the wretched writer who is interested in\nthe costermonger merely because he is a costermonger.  Nevertheless, so\nlong as he is merely seeking impressions, or in other words copy, his\ntrade, though dull, is honest. But when he endeavours to represent that\nhe is describing the spiritual core of a costermonger, his dim vices\nand his delicate virtues, then we must object that his claim is\npreposterous; we must remind him that he is a journalist and nothing\nelse. He has far less psychological authority even than the foolish\nmissionary. For he is in the literal and derivative sense a journalist,\nwhile the missionary is an eternalist.  The missionary at least\npretends to have a version of the man\u2019s lot for all time; the\njournalist only pretends to have a version of it from day to day. The\nmissionary comes to tell the poor man that he is in the same condition\nwith all men.  The journalist comes to tell other people how different\nthe poor man is from everybody else.\n\nIf the modern novels about the slums, such as novels of Mr. Arthur\nMorrison, or the exceedingly able novels of Mr. Somerset Maugham, are\nintended to be sensational, I can only say that that is a noble and\nreasonable object, and that they attain it.  A sensation, a shock to\nthe imagination, like the contact with cold water, is always a good and\nexhilarating thing; and, undoubtedly, men will always seek this\nsensation (among other forms) in the form of the study of the strange\nantics of remote or alien peoples.  In the twelfth century men obtained\nthis sensation by reading about dog-headed men in Africa. In the\ntwentieth century they obtained it by reading about pig-headed Boers in\nAfrica.  The men of the twentieth century were certainly, it must be\nadmitted, somewhat the more credulous of the two. For it is not\nrecorded of the men in the twelfth century that they organized a\nsanguinary crusade solely for the purpose of altering the singular\nformation of the heads of the Africans.  But it may be, and it may even\nlegitimately be, that since all these monsters have faded from the\npopular mythology, it is necessary to have in our fiction the image of\nthe horrible and hairy East-ender, merely to keep alive in us a fearful\nand childlike wonder at external peculiarities. But the Middle Ages\n(with a great deal more common sense than it would now be fashionable\nto admit) regarded natural history at bottom rather as a kind of joke;\nthey regarded the soul as very important. Hence, while they had a\nnatural history of dog-headed men, they did not profess to have a\npsychology of dog-headed men. They did not profess to mirror the mind\nof a dog-headed man, to share his tenderest secrets, or mount with his\nmost celestial musings. They did not write novels about the semi-canine\ncreature, attributing to him all the oldest morbidities and all the\nnewest fads. It is permissible to present men as monsters if we wish to\nmake the reader jump; and to make anybody jump is always a Christian\nact. But it is not permissible to present men as regarding themselves\nas monsters, or as making themselves jump.  To summarize, our slum\nfiction is quite defensible as aesthetic fiction; it is not defensible\nas spiritual fact.\n\nOne enormous obstacle stands in the way of its actuality. The men who\nwrite it, and the men who read it, are men of the middle classes or the\nupper classes; at least, of those who are loosely termed the educated\nclasses.  Hence, the fact that it is the life as the refined man sees\nit proves that it cannot be the life as the unrefined man lives it.\nRich men write stories about poor men, and describe them as speaking\nwith a coarse, or heavy, or husky enunciation. But if poor men wrote\nnovels about you or me they would describe us as speaking with some\nabsurd shrill and affected voice, such as we only hear from a duchess\nin a three-act farce.  The slum novelist gains his whole effect by the\nfact that some detail is strange to the reader; but that detail by the\nnature of the case cannot be strange in itself. It cannot be strange to\nthe soul which he is professing to study. The slum novelist gains his\neffects by describing the same grey mist as draping the dingy factory\nand the dingy tavern.  But to the man he is supposed to be studying\nthere must be exactly the same difference between the factory and the\ntavern that there is to a middle-class man between a late night at the\noffice and a supper at Pagani\u2019s. The slum novelist is content with\npointing out that to the eye of his particular class a pickaxe looks\ndirty and a pewter pot looks dirty. But the man he is supposed to be\nstudying sees the difference between them exactly as a clerk sees the\ndifference between a ledger and an edition de luxe.  The chiaroscuro of\nthe life is inevitably lost; for to us the high lights and the shadows\nare a light grey. But the high lights and the shadows are not a light\ngrey in that life any more than in any other.  The kind of man who\ncould really express the pleasures of the poor would be also the kind\nof man who could share them.  In short, these books are not a record of\nthe psychology of poverty.  They are a record of the psychology of\nwealth and culture when brought in contact with poverty. They are not a\ndescription of the state of the slums.  They are only a very dark and\ndreadful description of the state of the slummers. One might give\ninnumerable examples of the essentially unsympathetic and unpopular\nquality of these realistic writers. But perhaps the simplest and most\nobvious example with which we could conclude is the mere fact that\nthese writers are realistic. The poor have many other vices, but, at\nleast, they are never realistic. The poor are melodramatic and romantic\nin grain; the poor all believe in high moral platitudes and copy-book\nmaxims; probably this is the ultimate meaning of the great saying,\n\u201cBlessed are the poor.\u201d Blessed are the poor, for they are always\nmaking life, or trying to make life like an Adelphi play.  Some\ninnocent educationalists and philanthropists (for even philanthropists\ncan be innocent) have expressed a grave astonishment that the masses\nprefer shilling shockers to scientific treatises and melodramas to\nproblem plays. The reason is very simple.  The realistic story is\ncertainly more artistic than the melodramatic story.  If what you\ndesire is deft handling, delicate proportions, a unit of artistic\natmosphere, the realistic story has a full advantage over the\nmelodrama. In everything that is light and bright and ornamental the\nrealistic story has a full advantage over the melodrama.  But, at\nleast, the melodrama has one indisputable advantage over the realistic\nstory. The melodrama is much more like life.  It is much more like man,\nand especially the poor man.  It is very banal and very inartistic when\na poor woman at the Adelphi says, \u201cDo you think I will sell my own\nchild?\u201d But poor women in the Battersea High Road do say, \u201cDo you think\nI will sell my own child?\u201d  They say it on every available occasion;\nyou can hear a sort of murmur or babble of it all the way down the\nstreet.  It is very stale and weak dramatic art (if that is all) when\nthe workman confronts his master and says, \u201cI\u2019m a man.\u201d But a workman\ndoes say \u201cI\u2019m a man\u201d two or three times every day. In fact, it is\ntedious, possibly, to hear poor men being melodramatic behind the\nfootlights; but that is because one can always hear them being\nmelodramatic in the street outside. In short, melodrama, if it is dull,\nis dull because it is too accurate. Somewhat the same problem exists in\nthe case of stories about schoolboys. Mr. Kipling\u2019s \u201cStalky and Co.\u201d\nis much more amusing (if you are talking about amusement) than the late\nDean Farrar\u2019s \u201cEric; or, Little by Little.\u201d  But \u201cEric\u201d is immeasurably\nmore like real school-life. For real school-life, real boyhood, is full\nof the things of which Eric is full\u2014priggishness, a crude piety, a\nsilly sin, a weak but continual attempt at the heroic, in a word,\nmelodrama. And if we wish to lay a firm basis for any efforts to help\nthe poor, we must not become realistic and see them from the outside.\nWe must become melodramatic, and see them from the inside. The novelist\nmust not take out his notebook and say, \u201cI am an expert.\u201d  No; he must\nimitate the workman in the Adelphi play. He must slap himself on the\nchest and say, \u201cI am a man.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nXX.  Concluding Remarks on the Importance of Orthodoxy\n\n\nWhether the human mind can advance or not, is a question too little\ndiscussed, for nothing can be more dangerous than to found our social\nphilosophy on any theory which is debatable but has not been debated.\nBut if we assume, for the sake of argument, that there has been in the\npast, or will be in the future, such a thing as a growth or improvement\nof the human mind itself, there still remains a very sharp objection to\nbe raised against the modern version of that improvement.  The vice of\nthe modern notion of mental progress is that it is always something\nconcerned with the breaking of bonds, the effacing of boundaries, the\ncasting away of dogmas.  But if there be such a thing as mental growth,\nit must mean the growth into more and more definite convictions, into\nmore and more dogmas.  The human brain is a machine for coming to\nconclusions; if it cannot come to conclusions it is rusty. When we hear\nof a man too clever to believe, we are hearing of something having\nalmost the character of a contradiction in terms. It is like hearing of\na nail that was too good to hold down a carpet; or a bolt that was too\nstrong to keep a door shut. Man can hardly be defined, after the\nfashion of Carlyle, as an animal who makes tools; ants and beavers and\nmany other animals make tools, in the sense that they make an\napparatus.  Man can be defined as an animal that makes dogmas.  As he\npiles doctrine on doctrine and conclusion on conclusion in the\nformation of some tremendous scheme of philosophy and religion, he is,\nin the only legitimate sense of which the expression is capable,\nbecoming more and more human. When he drops one doctrine after another\nin a refined scepticism, when he declines to tie himself to a system,\nwhen he says that he has outgrown definitions, when he says that he\ndisbelieves in finality, when, in his own imagination, he sits as God,\nholding no form of creed but contemplating all, then he is by that very\nprocess sinking slowly backwards into the vagueness of the vagrant\nanimals and the unconsciousness of the grass.  Trees have no dogmas.\nTurnips are singularly broadminded.\n\nIf then, I repeat, there is to be mental advance, it must be mental\nadvance in the construction of a definite philosophy of life.  And that\nphilosophy of life must be right and the other philosophies wrong. Now\nof all, or nearly all, the able modern writers whom I have briefly\nstudied in this book, this is especially and pleasingly true, that they\ndo each of them have a constructive and affirmative view, and that they\ndo take it seriously and ask us to take it seriously. There is nothing\nmerely sceptically progressive about Mr. Rudyard Kipling. There is\nnothing in the least broad minded about Mr. Bernard Shaw. The paganism\nof Mr. Lowes Dickinson is more grave than any Christianity. Even the\nopportunism of Mr. H. G. Wells is more dogmatic than the idealism of\nanybody else.  Somebody complained, I think, to Matthew Arnold that he\nwas getting as dogmatic as Carlyle. He replied, \u201cThat may be true; but\nyou overlook an obvious difference. I am dogmatic and right, and\nCarlyle is dogmatic and wrong.\u201d The strong humour of the remark ought\nnot to disguise from us its everlasting seriousness and common sense;\nno man ought to write at all, or even to speak at all, unless he thinks\nthat he is in truth and the other man in error.  In similar style, I\nhold that I am dogmatic and right, while Mr. Shaw is dogmatic and\nwrong.  But my main point, at present, is to notice that the chief\namong these writers I have discussed do most sanely and courageously\noffer themselves as dogmatists, as founders of a system.  It may be\ntrue that the thing in Mr. Shaw most interesting to me, is the fact\nthat Mr. Shaw is wrong. But it is equally true that the thing in Mr.\nShaw most interesting to himself, is the fact that Mr. Shaw is right.\nMr. Shaw may have none with him but himself; but it is not for himself\nhe cares. It is for the vast and universal church, of which he is the\nonly member.\n\nThe two typical men of genius whom I have mentioned here, and with\nwhose names I have begun this book, are very symbolic, if only because\nthey have shown that the fiercest dogmatists can make the best artists.\nIn the fin de siecle atmosphere every one was crying out that\nliterature should be free from all causes and all ethical creeds. Art\nwas to produce only exquisite workmanship, and it was especially the\nnote of those days to demand brilliant plays and brilliant short\nstories. And when they got them, they got them from a couple of\nmoralists. The best short stories were written by a man trying to\npreach Imperialism. The best plays were written by a man trying to\npreach Socialism. All the art of all the artists looked tiny and\ntedious beside the art which was a by-product of propaganda.\n\nThe reason, indeed, is very simple.  A man cannot be wise enough to be\na great artist without being wise enough to wish to be a philosopher. A\nman cannot have the energy to produce good art without having the\nenergy to wish to pass beyond it.  A small artist is content with art;\na great artist is content with nothing except everything. So we find\nthat when real forces, good or bad, like Kipling and G. B. S., enter\nour arena, they bring with them not only startling and arresting art,\nbut very startling and arresting dogmas.  And they care even more, and\ndesire us to care even more, about their startling and arresting dogmas\nthan about their startling and arresting art. Mr. Shaw is a good\ndramatist, but what he desires more than anything else to be is a good\npolitician.  Mr. Rudyard Kipling is by divine caprice and natural\ngenius an unconventional poet; but what he desires more than anything\nelse to be is a conventional poet. He desires to be the poet of his\npeople, bone of their bone, and flesh of their flesh, understanding\ntheir origins, celebrating their destiny. He desires to be Poet\nLaureate, a most sensible and honourable and public-spirited desire.\nHaving been given by the gods originality\u2014that is, disagreement with\nothers\u2014he desires divinely to agree with them. But the most striking\ninstance of all, more striking, I think, even than either of these, is\nthe instance of Mr. H. G. Wells. He began in a sort of insane infancy\nof pure art.  He began by making a new heaven and a new earth, with the\nsame irresponsible instinct by which men buy a new necktie or\nbutton-hole. He began by trifling with the stars and systems in order\nto make ephemeral anecdotes; he killed the universe for a joke.  He has\nsince become more and more serious, and has become, as men inevitably\ndo when they become more and more serious, more and more parochial.  He\nwas frivolous about the twilight of the gods; but he is serious about\nthe London omnibus. He was careless in \u201cThe Time Machine,\u201d for that\ndealt only with the destiny of all things; but he is careful, and even\ncautious, in \u201cMankind in the Making,\u201d for that deals with the day after\nto-morrow. He began with the end of the world, and that was easy. Now\nhe has gone on to the beginning of the world, and that is difficult.\nBut the main result of all this is the same as in the other cases. The\nmen who have really been the bold artists, the realistic artists, the\nuncompromising artists, are the men who have turned out, after all, to\nbe writing \u201cwith a purpose.\u201d  Suppose that any cool and cynical\nart-critic, any art-critic fully impressed with the conviction that\nartists were greatest when they were most purely artistic, suppose that\na man who professed ably a humane aestheticism, as did Mr. Max\nBeerbohm, or a cruel aestheticism, as did Mr. W. E. Henley, had cast\nhis eye over the whole fictional literature which was recent in the\nyear 1895, and had been asked to select the three most vigorous and\npromising and original artists and artistic works, he would, I think,\nmost certainly have said that for a fine artistic audacity, for a real\nartistic delicacy, or for a whiff of true novelty in art, the things\nthat stood first were \u201cSoldiers Three,\u201d by a Mr. Rudyard Kipling; \u201cArms\nand the Man,\u201d by a Mr. Bernard Shaw; and \u201cThe Time Machine,\u201d by a man\ncalled Wells. And all these men have shown themselves ingrainedly\ndidactic. You may express the matter if you will by saying that if we\nwant doctrines we go to the great artists.  But it is clear from the\npsychology of the matter that this is not the true statement; the true\nstatement is that when we want any art tolerably brisk and bold we have\nto go to the doctrinaires.\n\nIn concluding this book, therefore, I would ask, first and foremost,\nthat men such as these of whom I have spoken should not be insulted by\nbeing taken for artists.  No man has any right whatever merely to enjoy\nthe work of Mr. Bernard Shaw; he might as well enjoy the invasion of\nhis country by the French.  Mr. Shaw writes either to convince or to\nenrage us.  No man has any business to be a Kiplingite without being a\npolitician, and an Imperialist politician. If a man is first with us,\nit should be because of what is first with him. If a man convinces us\nat all, it should be by his convictions. If we hate a poem of Kipling\u2019s\nfrom political passion, we are hating it for the same reason that the\npoet loved it; if we dislike him because of his opinions, we are\ndisliking him for the best of all possible reasons. If a man comes into\nHyde Park to preach it is permissible to hoot him; but it is\ndiscourteous to applaud him as a performing bear. And an artist is only\na performing bear compared with the meanest man who fancies he has\nanything to say.\n\nThere is, indeed, one class of modern writers and thinkers who cannot\naltogether be overlooked in this question, though there is no space\nhere for a lengthy account of them, which, indeed, to confess the\ntruth, would consist chiefly of abuse.  I mean those who get over all\nthese abysses and reconcile all these wars by talking about \u201caspects of\ntruth,\u201d by saying that the art of Kipling represents one aspect of the\ntruth, and the art of William Watson another; the art of Mr. Bernard\nShaw one aspect of the truth, and the art of Mr. Cunningham Grahame\nanother; the art of Mr. H. G. Wells one aspect, and the art of Mr.\nCoventry Patmore (say) another. I will only say here that this seems to\nme an evasion which has not even had the sense to disguise itself\ningeniously in words. If we talk of a certain thing being an aspect of\ntruth, it is evident that we claim to know what is truth; just as, if\nwe talk of the hind leg of a dog, we claim to know what is a dog.\nUnfortunately, the philosopher who talks about aspects of truth\ngenerally also asks, \u201cWhat is truth?\u201d  Frequently even he denies the\nexistence of truth, or says it is inconceivable by the human\nintelligence.  How, then, can he recognize its aspects? I should not\nlike to be an artist who brought an architectural sketch to a builder,\nsaying, \u201cThis is the south aspect of Sea-View Cottage. Sea-View\nCottage, of course, does not exist.\u201d  I should not even like very much\nto have to explain, under such circumstances, that Sea-View Cottage\nmight exist, but was unthinkable by the human mind. Nor should I like\nany better to be the bungling and absurd metaphysician who professed to\nbe able to see everywhere the aspects of a truth that is not there.  Of\ncourse, it is perfectly obvious that there are truths in Kipling, that\nthere are truths in Shaw or Wells. But the degree to which we can\nperceive them depends strictly upon how far we have a definite\nconception inside us of what is truth. It is ludicrous to suppose that\nthe more sceptical we are the more we see good in everything.  It is\nclear that the more we are certain what good is, the more we shall see\ngood in everything.\n\nI plead, then, that we should agree or disagree with these men.  I\nplead that we should agree with them at least in having an abstract\nbelief. But I know that there are current in the modern world many\nvague objections to having an abstract belief, and I feel that we shall\nnot get any further until we have dealt with some of them. The first\nobjection is easily stated.\n\nA common hesitation in our day touching the use of extreme convictions\nis a sort of notion that extreme convictions specially upon cosmic\nmatters, have been responsible in the past for the thing which is\ncalled bigotry. But a very small amount of direct experience will\ndissipate this view. In real life the people who are most bigoted are\nthe people who have no convictions at all.  The economists of the\nManchester school who disagree with Socialism take Socialism seriously.\nIt is the young man in Bond Street, who does not know what socialism\nmeans much less whether he agrees with it, who is quite certain that\nthese socialist fellows are making a fuss about nothing. The man who\nunderstands the Calvinist philosophy enough to agree with it must\nunderstand the Catholic philosophy in order to disagree with it. It is\nthe vague modern who is not at all certain what is right who is most\ncertain that Dante was wrong.  The serious opponent of the Latin Church\nin history, even in the act of showing that it produced great infamies,\nmust know that it produced great saints. It is the hard-headed\nstockbroker, who knows no history and believes no religion, who is,\nnevertheless, perfectly convinced that all these priests are knaves.\nThe Salvationist at the Marble Arch may be bigoted, but he is not too\nbigoted to yearn from a common human kinship after the dandy on church\nparade. But the dandy on church parade is so bigoted that he does not\nin the least yearn after the Salvationist at the Marble Arch. Bigotry\nmay be roughly defined as the anger of men who have no opinions.  It is\nthe resistance offered to definite ideas by that vague bulk of people\nwhose ideas are indefinite to excess. Bigotry may be called the\nappalling frenzy of the indifferent. This frenzy of the indifferent is\nin truth a terrible thing; it has made all monstrous and widely\npervading persecutions. In this degree it was not the people who cared\nwho ever persecuted; the people who cared were not sufficiently\nnumerous.  It was the people who did not care who filled the world with\nfire and oppression. It was the hands of the indifferent that lit the\nfaggots; it was the hands of the indifferent that turned the rack.\nThere have come some persecutions out of the pain of a passionate\ncertainty; but these produced, not bigotry, but fanaticism\u2014a very\ndifferent and a somewhat admirable thing.  Bigotry in the main has\nalways been the pervading omnipotence of those who do not care crushing\nout those who care in darkness and blood.\n\nThere are people, however, who dig somewhat deeper than this into the\npossible evils of dogma.  It is felt by many that strong philosophical\nconviction, while it does not (as they perceive) produce that sluggish\nand fundamentally frivolous condition which we call bigotry, does\nproduce a certain concentration, exaggeration, and moral impatience,\nwhich we may agree to call fanaticism. They say, in brief, that ideas\nare dangerous things. In politics, for example, it is commonly urged\nagainst a man like Mr. Balfour, or against a man like Mr. John Morley,\nthat a wealth of ideas is dangerous.  The true doctrine on this point,\nagain, is surely not very difficult to state.  Ideas are dangerous, but\nthe man to whom they are least dangerous is the man of ideas. He is\nacquainted with ideas, and moves among them like a lion-tamer. Ideas\nare dangerous, but the man to whom they are most dangerous is the man\nof no ideas.  The man of no ideas will find the first idea fly to his\nhead like wine to the head of a teetotaller. It is a common error, I\nthink, among the Radical idealists of my own party and period to\nsuggest that financiers and business men are a danger to the empire\nbecause they are so sordid or so materialistic. The truth is that\nfinanciers and business men are a danger to the empire because they can\nbe sentimental about any sentiment, and idealistic about any ideal, any\nideal that they find lying about. Just as a boy who has not known much\nof women is apt too easily to take a woman for the woman, so these\npractical men, unaccustomed to causes, are always inclined to think\nthat if a thing is proved to be an ideal it is proved to be the ideal.\nMany, for example, avowedly followed Cecil Rhodes because he had a\nvision. They might as well have followed him because he had a nose; a\nman without some kind of dream of perfection is quite as much of a\nmonstrosity as a noseless man.  People say of such a figure, in almost\nfeverish whispers, \u201cHe knows his own mind,\u201d which is exactly like\nsaying in equally feverish whispers, \u201cHe blows his own nose.\u201d Human\nnature simply cannot subsist without a hope and aim of some kind; as\nthe sanity of the Old Testament truly said, where there is no vision\nthe people perisheth.  But it is precisely because an ideal is\nnecessary to man that the man without ideals is in permanent danger of\nfanaticism.  There is nothing which is so likely to leave a man open to\nthe sudden and irresistible inroad of an unbalanced vision as the\ncultivation of business habits. All of us know angular business men who\nthink that the earth is flat, or that Mr. Kruger was at the head of a\ngreat military despotism, or that men are graminivorous, or that Bacon\nwrote Shakespeare. Religious and philosophical beliefs are, indeed, as\ndangerous as fire, and nothing can take from them that beauty of\ndanger. But there is only one way of really guarding ourselves against\nthe excessive danger of them, and that is to be steeped in philosophy\nand soaked in religion.\n\nBriefly, then, we dismiss the two opposite dangers of bigotry and\nfanaticism, bigotry which is a too great vagueness and fanaticism which\nis a too great concentration.  We say that the cure for the bigot is\nbelief; we say that the cure for the idealist is ideas. To know the\nbest theories of existence and to choose the best from them (that is,\nto the best of our own strong conviction) appears to us the proper way\nto be neither bigot nor fanatic, but something more firm than a bigot\nand more terrible than a fanatic, a man with a definite opinion.  But\nthat definite opinion must in this view begin with the basic matters of\nhuman thought, and these must not be dismissed as irrelevant, as\nreligion, for instance, is too often in our days dismissed as\nirrelevant. Even if we think religion insoluble, we cannot think it\nirrelevant. Even if we ourselves have no view of the ultimate verities,\nwe must feel that wherever such a view exists in a man it must be more\nimportant than anything else in him.  The instant that the thing ceases\nto be the unknowable, it becomes the indispensable. There can be no\ndoubt, I think, that the idea does exist in our time that there is\nsomething narrow or irrelevant or even mean about attacking a man\u2019s\nreligion, or arguing from it in matters of politics or ethics.  There\ncan be quite as little doubt that such an accusation of narrowness is\nitself almost grotesquely narrow. To take an example from comparatively\ncurrent events:  we all know that it was not uncommon for a man to be\nconsidered a scarecrow of bigotry and obscurantism because he\ndistrusted the Japanese, or lamented the rise of the Japanese, on the\nground that the Japanese were Pagans.  Nobody would think that there\nwas anything antiquated or fanatical about distrusting a people because\nof some difference between them and us in practice or political\nmachinery. Nobody would think it bigoted to say of a people, \u201cI\ndistrust their influence because they are Protectionists.\u201d  No one\nwould think it narrow to say, \u201cI lament their rise because they are\nSocialists, or Manchester Individualists, or strong believers in\nmilitarism and conscription.\u201d  A difference of opinion about the nature\nof Parliaments matters very much; but a difference of opinion about the\nnature of sin does not matter at all.  A difference of opinion about\nthe object of taxation matters very much; but a difference of opinion\nabout the object of human existence does not matter at all. We have a\nright to distrust a man who is in a different kind of municipality; but\nwe have no right to mistrust a man who is in a different kind of\ncosmos.  This sort of enlightenment is surely about the most\nunenlightened that it is possible to imagine. To recur to the phrase\nwhich I employed earlier, this is tantamount to saying that everything\nis important with the exception of everything. Religion is exactly the\nthing which cannot be left out\u2014because it includes everything.  The\nmost absent-minded person cannot well pack his Gladstone-bag and leave\nout the bag. We have a general view of existence, whether we like it or\nnot; it alters or, to speak more accurately, it creates and involves\neverything we say or do, whether we like it or not.  If we regard the\nCosmos as a dream, we regard the Fiscal Question as a dream. If we\nregard the Cosmos as a joke, we regard St. Paul\u2019s Cathedral as a joke.\nIf everything is bad, then we must believe (if it be possible) that\nbeer is bad; if everything be good, we are forced to the rather\nfantastic conclusion that scientific philanthropy is good.  Every man\nin the street must hold a metaphysical system, and hold it firmly. The\npossibility is that he may have held it so firmly and so long as to\nhave forgotten all about its existence.\n\nThis latter situation is certainly possible; in fact, it is the\nsituation of the whole modern world.  The modern world is filled with\nmen who hold dogmas so strongly that they do not even know that they\nare dogmas. It may be said even that the modern world, as a corporate\nbody, holds certain dogmas so strongly that it does not know that they\nare dogmas.  It may be thought \u201cdogmatic,\u201d for instance, in some\ncircles accounted progressive, to assume the perfection or improvement\nof man in another world.  But it is not thought \u201cdogmatic\u201d to assume\nthe perfection or improvement of man in this world; though that idea of\nprogress is quite as unproved as the idea of immortality, and from a\nrationalistic point of view quite as improbable. Progress happens to be\none of our dogmas, and a dogma means a thing which is not thought\ndogmatic.  Or, again, we see nothing \u201cdogmatic\u201d in the inspiring, but\ncertainly most startling, theory of physical science, that we should\ncollect facts for the sake of facts, even though they seem as useless\nas sticks and straws. This is a great and suggestive idea, and its\nutility may, if you will, be proving itself, but its utility is, in the\nabstract, quite as disputable as the utility of that calling on oracles\nor consulting shrines which is also said to prove itself. Thus, because\nwe are not in a civilization which believes strongly in oracles or\nsacred places, we see the full frenzy of those who killed themselves to\nfind the sepulchre of Christ.  But being in a civilization which does\nbelieve in this dogma of fact for facts\u2019 sake, we do not see the full\nfrenzy of those who kill themselves to find the North Pole.  I am not\nspeaking of a tenable ultimate utility which is true both of the\nCrusades and the polar explorations. I mean merely that we do see the\nsuperficial and aesthetic singularity, the startling quality, about the\nidea of men crossing a continent with armies to conquer the place where\na man died. But we do not see the aesthetic singularity and startling\nquality of men dying in agonies to find a place where no man can\nlive\u2014a place only interesting because it is supposed to be the\nmeeting-place of some lines that do not exist.\n\nLet us, then, go upon a long journey and enter on a dreadful search.\nLet us, at least, dig and seek till we have discovered our own\nopinions. The dogmas we really hold are far more fantastic, and,\nperhaps, far more beautiful than we think.  In the course of these\nessays I fear that I have spoken from time to time of rationalists and\nrationalism, and that in a disparaging sense.  Being full of that\nkindliness which should come at the end of everything, even of a book,\nI apologize to the rationalists even for calling them rationalists.\nThere are no rationalists.  We all believe fairy-tales, and live in\nthem. Some, with a sumptuous literary turn, believe in the existence of\nthe lady clothed with the sun.  Some, with a more rustic, elvish\ninstinct, like Mr. McCabe, believe merely in the impossible sun itself.\nSome hold the undemonstrable dogma of the existence of God; some the\nequally undemonstrable dogma of the existence of the man next door.\n\nTruths turn into dogmas the instant that they are disputed. Thus every\nman who utters a doubt defines a religion.  And the scepticism of our\ntime does not really destroy the beliefs, rather it creates them; gives\nthem their limits and their plain and defiant shape. We who are\nLiberals once held Liberalism lightly as a truism. Now it has been\ndisputed, and we hold it fiercely as a faith. We who believe in\npatriotism once thought patriotism to be reasonable, and thought little\nmore about it.  Now we know it to be unreasonable, and know it to be\nright.  We who are Christians never knew the great philosophic common\nsense which inheres in that mystery until the anti-Christian writers\npointed it out to us.  The great march of mental destruction will go\non.  Everything will be denied. Everything will become a creed.  It is\na reasonable position to deny the stones in the street; it will be a\nreligious dogma to assert them.  It is a rational thesis that we are\nall in a dream; it will be a mystical sanity to say that we are all\nawake. Fires will be kindled to testify that two and two make four.\nSwords will be drawn to prove that leaves are green in summer. We shall\nbe left defending, not only the incredible virtues and sanities of\nhuman life, but something more incredible still, this huge impossible\nuniverse which stares us in the face. We shall fight for visible\nprodigies as if they were invisible.  We shall look on the impossible\ngrass and the skies with a strange courage. We shall be of those who\nhave seen and yet have believed.\n\n\nTHE END","title":"Heretics","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":64682}