{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_74416/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_74416","id":"gutenberg_74416","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/74416","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Intellect"],"text":"PROTEUS\n\n\n\n\n             TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW SERIES\n\n\n  _D\u00c6DALUS, or Science and the Future_\n      By J. B. S. Haldane\n\n  _ICARUS, or The Future of Science_\n      By the Hon. Bertrand Russell, F.R.S.\n\n  _THE MONGOL IN OUR MIDST_\n      By F. G. Crookshank, M.D. _Fully Illustrated_\n\n  _WIRELESS POSSIBILITIES_\n      By Prof. A. M. Low. _With four Diagrams_\n\n  _NARCISSUS, or An Anatomy of Clothes_\n      By Gerald Heard. _Illustrated_\n\n  _TANTALUS, or The Future of Man_\n      By F. C. S. Schiller\n\n  _THE PASSING OF THE PHANTOMS_\n      By Prof. C. J. Patten, M.A., M.D., Sc.D., F.R.A.I.\n\n  _CALLINICUS, A Defense of Chemical Warfare_\n      By J. B. S. Haldane\n\n  _QUO VADIMUS? Some Glimpses of the Future_\n      By E. E. Fournier d\u2019Albe, D.Sc., F.Inst.P.\n\n  _THE CONQUEST OF CANCER_\n      By H. W. S. Wright, M.S., F.R.C.S.\n\n  _HYPATIA, or Woman and Knowledge_\n      By Dora Russell (The Hon. Mrs. Bertrand Russell)\n\n  _LYSISTRATA, or Woman\u2019s Future and Future Woman_\n      By A. M. Ludovici\n\n  _WHAT I BELIEVE_\n      By the Hon. Bertrand Russell, F.R.S.\n\n  _PERSEUS, or Of Dragons_\n      By H. F. Scott Stokes, M.A.\n\n  _THE FUTURE OF SEX_\n      By Rebecca West\n\n  _THE EVOCATION OF GENIUS_\n      By Alan Porter\n\n  _AESCULAPIUS, or Disease and The Man_\n      By F. G. Crookshank, M.D.\n\n  _PROTEUS, or The Future of Intelligence_\n      By Vernon Lee\n\n             _Other Volumes in Preparation_\n\n                 E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY\n\n\n\n\n                                PROTEUS\n                                  OR\n                      THE FUTURE OF INTELLIGENCE\n\n\n                                  BY\n                          VERNON LEE, LITT.D.\n\n               Author of _Vital Lies, Satan the Waster,\n                     The Handling of Words, etc._\n\n\n                            [Illustration]\n\n\n                               New York\n                        E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY\n                           681 Fifth Avenue\n\n\n\n\n                            Copyright 1925\n                       By E. P. Dutton & Company\n\n                         _All Rights Reserved_\n\n\n               _Printed in the United States of America_\n\n\n\n\n                          _To my dear friend\n                              BELLA DUFFY\n                      with thanks for a lifetime\n                         of intelligent talk._\n                               1880\u20131925\n\n\n\n\n               TABLE OF CONTENTS\n\n\n CHAPTER                                    PAGE\n\n     I  INTELLIGENCE AND PROTEUS               1\n\n    II  PROTEUS AND ETHICS                    25\n\n   III  PROTEUS AND \u00c6STHETICS                 38\n\n    IV  PROTEUS AND INTELLECTUAL MANNERS      42\n\n     V  USES AND ABUSES                       50\n\n\n\n\n                                PROTEUS\n                                  OR\n                      THE FUTURE OF INTELLIGENCE\n\n\n\n\n                                   I\n\n                       INTELLIGENCE AND PROTEUS\n\n\nThere seems not to exist a word\u2015\u2015for words are old while meanings\nmay be new\u2015\u2015which answers exactly to what I shall speak of as\n_Intelligence_. But space being short for what has to be said, I\nwill not waste any in preliminary definitions. That which I mean by\nIntelligence will become evident by what I expect from its presence\nand attribute to its absence. I start from the assumption that it\nalready exists, however insufficiently; and I deduce from what it has\ndone that its nature is to intensify and extend. Whether this will be\nwitnessed in the near future, or whether it may be checked by adverse\ncircumstances, is no concern of mine. Writers of this series, and\nseveral others besides, have enlarged on the political and economic\ncontingencies to which Intelligence, or persons presumed to have it,\nseem likely to be exposed. Whether Intelligence may become the weapon\nof a dominant caste, as was the hope of Comte, of Renan, and, at one\nmoment, of Mr. H. G. Wells; or whether, as proposed by M. Charles\nMaurras, Intelligence shall be honoured with a subordinate function in\nsome sort of Fascist State, I am inadequate to judge. Nor do I even\nfeel certain that history has shown, or economic theory demonstrated,\nthat Intelligence can be bullied or starved out of existence. Meanwhile\nlet me confess that what I have to say about the Future of Intelligence\nis the expression as much of my hopes as of my convictions, both,\nhowever, arising from a longish experience of changes already brought\nabout, and changes beginning to be brought about, by the particular,\nand perhaps rather modern, something I mean by _Intelligence_. What\n_I_ mean, and what, under restriction to that meaning, appears _to\nme_ likely or desirable. By underlining these personal pronouns, I am\nable to forestall the mention of one great change which Intelligence\nis already initiating, namely, the recognition and avowal that what\none thinks (as distinguished from what primers, manuals and other\nauthorities have taught one to believe) is\u2015\u2015well, _just what one does\nthink_, and neither the consensus of human opinion nor the revelation\nof the Deity\u2019s irrefragable truth.\n\nReturning to the word _Intelligence_, the meaning I attach to it will\nbecome sooner obvious by clearing away some misconceptions thereof\nwhich may occur to my reader. And first: The Intelligence whose future\ninterests me is not the same thing as the _Intelligentsia_. Those of\nus who belong to that class presumably possess _Intelligence_, since\nwe live, or try to live, by its exercise. But it is no monopoly of\nours, nor do we always employ it in the manner which answers to my\nmeaning. For living on or by its employment may, as is often seen\namong men of science and philosophers, result in their capital of\nnatural Intelligence being sunk in a few enterprises of especial value,\nleaving them, as in the notorious case of Dr. Faust, but a scanty\nbalance for current use and pleasure. I have brought in the word\n_pleasure_ because the pleasantness of its varied exercise is one of\nthe chief characteristics of what I mean by _Intelligence_, fostering\nthat nimbleness, elasticity, hence also pervasiveness, which makes\nit a chief factor of human progress, as well as one of progressive\nmankind\u2019s indisputable marks and unalienable rewards. Now these same\npleasant properties, so often sacrificed by very studious persons,\nturn Intelligence into the stock-in-trade (eked out with plentiful\nsurrogates) of that other branch of the _Intelligentsia_, those who\nmake a livelihood by living down to their readers, relieving their\nboredom, lapping their thick skins in sentimentality, and keeping up\nthe sooty flame of their collective passions; for alas, the Man of\nLetters is tempted to serve his public not merely as an unconsidered\njester but as a respected moral guide.\n\nThus it comes about that we of the _Intelligentsia_ cannot stand\nas faultless specimens of Intelligence. Besides, our facility for\nself-expression and our habit of holding forth unchecked combine to\nexaggerate, stereotype and warp our best ideas: only think of Carlyle\nand Ruskin, let alone Tolstoy and Nietzsche!\n\nHaving so far established what I do _not_ mean by Intelligence, and\nbefore entering on discussion of Intelligence\u2019s future achievements, it\nseems fitting to say a word or two about Proteus, to whom this little\ntreatise is consecrated. It is so, I confess, partly because I am\nattracted by the classical titles, _D\u00e6dalus_, _Icarus_, _Tantalus_, of\nmy predecessors, and then because, as described by Virgil, Proteus is\nto me one of the most engaging figures of mythology: ... \u201cIlle, suae\ncontra non immemor artis, omnia transformat sese in miracula rerum,\nignemque, horribilem feram, fluviumque liquentem....\u201d\n\nBut here again I must forestall another wrong identification likely\nto jump into the reader\u2019s mind: to wit, of Proteus with Intelligence.\nOn the contrary: Proteus, multiform and ever-elusive, represents that\nwhich Intelligence (lighter equipped than specialized Intellect for\nsuch rapid hunts) can sometimes catch sight of and, for however brief\na contact, sometimes even clutch. Proteus, in my mythology, is the\nmysterious whole which we know must exist, but know not how to descry:\nReality. For, whatever else we may believe it to be, Reality when thus\npartially revealed, is never twice the same. Nor merely because of\nwhat we call waxing and waning, growth and decay, and whatever other\nphases of individual and racial transformation biology has made us\nsuperficially familiar with. There may well be some \u03c0\u03ac\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1 \u1fe4\u03b5\u1fd6 outside\nand irrespective of our thoughts; indeed, it may have been in miming\nthe universal flux that our thoughts themselves have grown _protean_.\nLook, for instance, at that strange (well named _auxiliary_) verb\nwhereby we testify belief in reality, _esse_, _to be_; which holds\nin its emptiness the possibility of all qualities and happenings and\nimplies in its assertion of mere blank existence the assurance of\ncontinual change: a future and past. For, whenever we speak of what we\ncall a _thing_, its mere name, like the name of Virgil\u2019s Proteus, is\na spell making us witness aspect after aspect, take stock of relation\nafter relation, admit likelihood after likelihood. And our belief in\nthat thing\u2019s reality, in its being _that thing_ and no other, means\nthat it has had a certain, however unknown; past, and will have a more\nor less certain future. In this sense _Reality_, the fact of aspects\nperceived, remembered and expected in regularly connected sequences and\ncombinations, _that_ is what I mean by Proteus. Maybe that Proteus does\nnot change at all except in our narrow, and shifting, field of vision.\nMaybe that the multiform Virgilian Proteus might turn out to undergo\nbut one first and last transformation, into that great auxiliary\n_esse_, _to be_, holding in its stark emptiness all that, for us, is\nthings and happenings.... Such a transcendent and sole real Reality I\nleave to metaphysicians, not without wondering secretly whence, save\nfrom occasional experience of this (to them) unreal Proteus, they ever\ngot to think about Reality at all.\n\nSo, dealing in this shallow treatise solely with such (even if\nspurious) Reality as Proteus represents, I need now only justify\nmy outrageous claim that mere Intelligence can have any privileged\nintercourse therewith. My ground for saying so is that specialized\nintellect screws its marvellous lenses down on only a single, and\n_singled out_, aspect of Reality; employs subtle reagents revealing\nonly the properties for which they have been devised. Moreover, that\nthe world of regular, foretellable sequences which science constructs\nis a map teaching us why to turn to the right or the left, but not a\nmoving slice of the landscape we are moving in. Instead of which mere\nIntelligence, with its rule-of-thumb logic and well-nigh automatic\nmovements, may be fairly fitted, not indeed to inventory and schedule\nseparate items of Proteus\u2019 multifold embodiments, but to keep us aware\nthat Proteus is there at that eternal game of his: changing his aspects\nperpetually, whether you watch him or not, nay, changing aspect by the\nvery fact of your watching him.\n\nThis may suggest that Intelligence is never at rest; and no more it is.\nBut its movements being responsive to what strikes it from outside,\nare, just as the outside\u2019s own ways, orderly, and such as organize\nthemselves into regular rhythms of sameness and diversity. For Proteus\nis absolutely unexpected only to persons like Virgil\u2019s Arist\u00e6us who,\nyou must remember, was so hide-bound in his business of _h_oney-making\n(alter one letter, you won\u2019t alter my meaning!) as to be wholly unaware\nthat his own caddish behaviour had occasioned the death of Eurydice\nand so remarkable an event as the Descent of Orpheus into Hell.\nPractical people like that are nearly always astonished and dismayed\nwhen confronted with Proteus; \u201cthey had forgotten....\u201d Now Intelligence\nis as much memory as perception; and for it there is always in the\ntransformations it is watching something familiar which carries it\nback to what it has already witnessed, and forwards, expectantly, to\nsomething it may be going to witness. Hence to Intelligence there is\nnever mere repetition, just as there is never utter novelty. And its\nfrequent doubts are always conditioned by its habitual beliefs. That\nexplains why Intelligence is so chock-full of prejudices, as all those\nare aware who have ever asked it to accept miracles and ghosts on\ntheir testimony or on someone else\u2019s authority. Such people exclaim\nat the sceptic\u2019s blindness to evidence, because they do not know that\ndoubting and even denying are part of Intelligence\u2019s active rhythm of\ngrasping and acquiescing; a process of assimilation and elimination\nin which the already experienced and accepted selects that which\nshall be accepted or rejected. Moreover, such selective action often\nexpresses itself in the most impertinent (because most pertinent)\nqueries, as: \u201cNow how would you explain that?\u201d \u201cIn what sense are you\nusing that word?\u201d etc., etc., etc. Queries, all of them, which in\ntheir exasperating amateurishness have probably done more than the\nelaborate arguments of specialized Intellect to shoo away some of the\nmany Chim\u00e6ras, Entities, and Essences, which, as Rabelais already\nremarked, had gone on _bombinating in vacuo_ through the resounding\nspaciousness of philosophy and science, leaving behind only the fainter\nbuzz of _Historical and Economic Laws_, _Entelechies_, _Teleologies_\nand _Vital Elans_. It was, I take it, Intelligence which first scoffed\nin Moli\u00e8re\u2019s play at opium\u2019s _Virtus Dormitiva_....\n\nAt this point a parenthesis must be opened on account of a reader\nasking, not impertinently, whether what I have been talking of under\nthe name of Intelligence is not plain _Common Sense_. Yes; but also\n_No_. Since, on behalf of practicality, Common Sense usually warns us\noff from just such questions as Intelligence should deal with. So one\nmight say that Intelligence is a kind of Common Sense, but applied to\nuncommon (not common or garden!) subjects, and as yet, alas, only by\nrather uncommon people.\n\nIf Proteus be taken to represent that Reality which all save\nmetaphysicians believe to be real, he represents especially that half\nof it which I have (elsewhere) called _Otherness_, that is to say,\nwhatever is not _ourself_. And just as the essential, unshareable\n_ourself_ is what we feel, to wit: moods, passions, efforts, hope\nand fear, liking and disliking; so the _not-ourself_ (other persons\nas well as other things, and even our own personalities when viewed\nas if they were not our own)\u2015\u2015the _Otherness_ in short, is, on the\ncontrary, _seen_, because it is outside us. Seen by the mental eye of\nIntelligence, which, like the bodily one, moves in every direction and\nfocuses to all distances, thereby informing us of the proportions and\nrelations of whatever is not ourself, and following step by step the\nactions which are not our own. And though it must borrow the lenses\nof Science (which centuries of thinkers cut and polished) before it\ncan know things in their microscopic detail or their astronomical\nremoteness, yet with no aid save everyday experience, Intelligence\nsuffices to teach us the most important and most overlooked fact\nconcerning that Reality which is _Otherness_: namely, that it has ways\nof its own and does not exist merely to suit our likings.\n\nThe habit of taking \u201cotherness\u201d into account, and a wider and wider\ncircle thereof, might serve as a rough test of Intelligence and of\nits progress: young children, as is notorious, referring everything\nto themselves; and \u201cuneducated\u201d people, from the narrowness of their\nknowledge, rarely conceiving anything beyond their own personal\nexperience. At the risk of incurring the same criticism, I hazard\nmy own impression that the dominance of possessive pronouns,\nthe restriction of interest to one\u2019s own history and circle of\nacquaintances, has become less usual among \u201ceducated\u201d persons.\n\nSimilarly, that there is getting to be something rather old-fashioned\nabout settling general questions on the strength of single personal\nexperiences. Except where strong likes and dislikes come into play,\nit is rarer than formerly to hear (shall we say?) divorce condemned\nbecause of the sad case of Mrs. Blank; or the eight-hours day rejected\non account of last harvest having been soaked; or the practical utility\nof a classical education justified by the career of Mr. Gladstone.\nModes of thought like this seem to be (slowly!) disappearing in the\nwake of the anecdote-mongering and epigram-and-joke button-holing\nof ancient bores who may have been brilliant conversationalists at\nMeredithian dinner-tables. And when one thinks of it: was not such\nthe substance of much of our grandparents\u2019 wit and wisdom? Nay, a\nlittle further back did not \u201cgentlemen\u201d ask the ladies riddles after\nthemselves exchanging smutty _Joe Millers_ over their wine? And\nbehold! there opens up a vista of euphuism, of pedantic discussions,\nof \u201csonnet, c\u2019est un sonnet,\u201d of \u201cdelici\u00e6 eruditorum,\u201d and \u201cfaceti\u00e6\u201d;\nboredom incalculable back through H\u00f4tels de Rambouillets and\nMedicean academies to Courts of Love and the stale scurrilities of\nShakespearian clowns.... Nay, was not Shakespeare himself ready to\nadorn with supremest poetry and philosophy stories often preposterously\ncock-and-bull? Which makes one suspect that Intelligence, in the sense\nin which I have been using the word, is of amazingly recent growth;\nand that the people of the past, superior though they may have been\nin genius, wit, humour, and even wisdom, would have struck us (and we\nshall doubtless strike future generations) as decidedly stupid.\n\nFor instance (returning to Proteus!), in their capacity of _thinking\nin terms of change_. This seems an _intrinsic part of thinking in\nterms of otherness_; yet, as, a fact, it dates only from the days of\nMontesquieu, Voltaire, Gibbon and Condorcet. This last name brings home\nthat until the eighteenth century the only Future which people thought\nabout was the Future in Heaven or Hell. The importance of the latter\nalternative explains quite sufficiently why no interest was left over\nfor any other after-life, to wit, that of unborn generations. Indeed,\nthe sway of religious conceptions accounts also for our ancestors\nhaving been no less cut off from the Past and replacing it (as their\npainters dressed Abraham or C\u00e6sar in Renaissance costume) by the\nPresent. For all religion tends to think _sub specie \u00e6ternitatis_,\nas of the god who is sacrificed afresh at every celebration, and who\nconsecrates the routine of the seasons and the seasonal monotony of\nagriculture and pastoral life; whence, no doubt, the persistence of the\namazing fallacy _that there is nothing new under the sun_, with its\ncorollary that there ought to be nothing not _old_. Whence also the\ndouble superstition (till Science broke in with something different!)\nof chewing and rechewing the cud of Scripture and the Classics. With,\nin turn, the practical results that Milton\u2019s Puritans modelled\nthemselves on Joshua and Gideon; and frilled and waistcoated French\nRevolutionaries postured as heroes of Plutarch. Why, at this very\nmoment do we not see the rods and axes of antique hangmen figuring (not\nmerely in figurative manner!) as emblems of post-war Italy, itself\nidentified (to the neglect of schools and irrigation works) with a\nparticularly high and palmy Rome? Rome! to rule which squalid medi\u00e6val\nvillage Dante called on a _C\u00e6sar_ who was a _Kaiser_ elected by German\nfeudatories; Rome, which we may take as a _reductio ad absurdum_ of\nthe refusal to realize that Past is Past and Present is Present. Which\nis perhaps the only \u201cLesson of History\u201d; and whose application would\ndissolve many mythical alloys of conflicting nations welded together\nby the passionate white-heat of a name: England, France, America,\nChristianity, and nowadays, I fear, also Socialism, nations, and\ncreeds concerning which, when asked for our allegiance, we have need\nto inquire: In which of its phases, which of its characteristics and\nembodiments?\n\nFor Intelligence warns us that we are dealing with Proteus, with him of\nceaseless change. Not with the eternal, immutable divinities to whom\nour forebears brought their sometimes quaint and lovely, but, quite as\noften, obscene and grisly oblations.\n\nBut while ignoring distinctions between Past and Present, even our\nnearer ancestors conducted much of their thinking in elaborate\nwater-tight compartments; for they conceived of \u201cTruth\u201d as a battleship,\ncontinually exposed to the murderous broadsides of \u201cError.\u201d Of these\nhermetic partitions, say, between _Faith_ and _Reason_, _Body_ and\n_Soul_, or _Good_ and _Evil_, Intelligence has already rammed in a\nnumber, without drowning us. _Error_ itself has lost its capital E,\nbeing usually called _Mistake_. And, what is more important, we have\nbegun to notice that it and _Truth_ are not at all irreconcilable, but\ncradled originally together, and sometimes intermarrying, with mixed or\nalternating generations, as by Mendelian rules; but very rarely, either\nTruth or Error, affording us a pure breed.\n\nThese examples will have justified, I trust, my contention that\nIntelligence is specially fitted to deal with Change. Not to praise or\nblame it after mature deliberation, like solemn and sedentary Reason;\nstill less to filter concrete realities into immutable, because purely\nabstract, entities, which is the business of scientific thought; but\njust to perceive change on its passage and in so far help us to make\nthe best of its coming.\n\nNeed one add that Intelligence is far more liable to mistakes than\neither \u201cReason\u201d or \u201cLogic\u201d? But its mistakes, though so much more\nnumerous, are, methinks, less massively enthroned and less likely to\nblock the way than theirs, for there is something self-satisfied and\nwithout appeal about \u201cReason\u201d and \u201cLogic\u201d: does not the one issue\n\u201cdictates\u201d and the other enunciate \u201claws\u201d? Whereas the mistakes which\nIntelligence commits to-day, it will, in its light-hearted way, correct\nto-morrow, being as little ashamed of revokes as its disconcerting\nfriend Proteus is of transformations. Of course, Intelligence _is_\nrather irresponsible and, one might add, cannot help being so because\nit is essentially _responsive_. Like the human eye (to which I have\ncompared it) Intelligence turns to whichever side the light comes from,\nadjusting itself, in discursive, often desultory fashion, to all manner\nof directions and distances, comparing and measuring with unabashed\nslovenliness, extracting the qualities which strike it and hastening\non to connect them with something it was struck by before. Being thus\nrapidly responsive, Intelligence may often, I admit, seem _on the\npounce_, and more so than politeness warrants. But it can also take\nits time, poise circling round and round, and reverse its movement,\nbecause it is never motionless and always able to readjust its balance.\n\nSuch do I see Intelligence in those who possess it; such do I feel it,\non some delightful occasions, in myself. Such also I frequently notice\nit failing to make itself agreeable to some kinds of persons. Those\nwho take a just pride in Reason or Logic are often a little ruffled;\nor else, as Wagner said of Mozart, they find Intelligence just a\nlittle _frivol_. But in the long run they recognize an ally; and their\nconscious superiority makes them indulgent. Not so with people\u2015\u2015I might\nhave said Peoples\u2015\u2015who happen to be indulging in the glorious unimpeded\nviolence of collective passions, specially those which are magnanimous\nand cruel, as, for instance, in war time, when a conscientious objector\nmay come off better than an intelligent one.\n\nIn like fashion Intelligence\u2019s passionate pleasure in dealing with\n_Otherness_ and in looking out for Proteus, Intelligence\u2019s frequent\nindifference to _here_ and _now_, disrespect to _self_ and refusal\nto regard _means_ as _ends_\u2015\u2015all this renders it unpopular with\nthose practical-minded men who are bent on personal advantage and on\noutstripping competitors in the great race to _Nowhere_. These acute\npersons are quite aware that Intelligence might make an invaluable\nslave, only you cannot keep its nose, with any regularity, to the\ngrindstone. In default of such practical usefulness it may be worth\nhiring, as one buys a yacht or an old master, for a mark of wealth\nand being in the know. But let us have none of your _whys_ and\n_wherefores_! Besides, the Rulers of Men have by this time mostly\nrecognized that Intelligence is harder to deal with than any number of\nHigh Principles, for you cannot hope to bamboozle it into serving you\nunawares.\n\nBut Intelligence, though thus in some quarters deservedly unpopular\nis adored by all who have it; and that is the reason why, once it has\ngot a footing in the world, it is bound to increase and multiply and\neventually conquer its promised land.\n\n\n\n\n                                  II\n\n                          PROTEUS AND ETHICS\n\n\nI have just come across a passage from Huxley\u2019s famous _Romanes\nLecture_, read thirty years ago and long since forgotten; and which\nhas brought home to me all our elusive Proteus has been doing in the\ndomain of ethics; moreover the share of Intelligence in confirming\nthose changes. Huxley is pointing out a fact which he finds\ndisconcerting, namely, \u201cthat ethical nature, while born of cosmic\nnature, is necessarily at enmity with its parent.\u201d The allusion to\nthe harmony reigning in Victorian families may make one smile, like\nsome well-bred Du Maurier illustration. But how those words bring back\nwhat some of us are old enough to have suffered in days when Free\nThought drew a terrifying line between religious dogmas and moral\nones, clinging to these to steady itself after jettisoning the others!\nOne\u2019s youthful deistic anguish (as cruel, perhaps, as any believer\u2019s\nsense of God\u2019s forsaking him) at discarding God for insufficient\nmorality, was merely transferred to one\u2019s terms with Huxley\u2019s ogre\nCosmos, devouring the moral instincts itself had begotten. Occupied\nas my studies then were with art-history, I can remember wrestling\nwith the horrid inconsistency of the art of Michael Angelo and Rafael\nhaving arisen in a civilization described by Taine as partaking of\nthe brothel and the cut-throat\u2019s den. And I remember the heavenly\nrelief of hitting on the notion that, since such art is not born in a\nday, it must have been begotten and incubated during the Franciscan\nAge, immune from all Borgian infections. Of course, the generation\nimmediately younger than mine was taught by Nietzsche that Michael\nAngelo\u2019s greatness was, on the contrary, due to presiding Renaissance\nvillainy; but that pseudo-Nietzschian generation is, in its turn,\nsuperannuated, and the cult of _immoralism_ along with it. Not only\nbecause paradoxes do not bear repetition, but for another reason which\nthat quotation from Huxley has made me realize. Namely, that we have\nleft off thinking of art as either moral or immoral, simply because\nmorality no longer holds the same place in our thoughts as, say, in\nthose of Ruskin, George Eliot, or, as that quotation shows, even in\nthose of Huxley. Not the same (if one may say so, _ubiquitous_) place;\na place more clearly defined, but only the more important, ever since\nIntelligence, ferreting about among _Golden Boughs_, _Religion of\nthe Semites_, and similar books, has quietly stripped from our moral\nvaluations that half-supernatural, half-\u00e6sthetic halo which is but the\nshrunken religious involucrum wherein they came into the world. The\n\u201cproblem of evil\u201d has already become the problem not of its toleration\nby God, but of its diminution by Man. _That_ is the great change we\nare still witnessing; a change, I cannot but think, greater than any\nbrought about by the material applications of science, and implying\na deliverance from individual suffering not less than that we owe to\nPasteur and to Lister.\n\nWhether we notice it or not, Morality is already taking a new status,\nindependent alike of an absentee (or absent) Deity, and of an\nindifferent Cosmos. But its new domain, narrow and self-governing,\nessentially _sui generis_, has sanctions and imperatives only the\nstronger for being man-made and man-regarding. And, one may add, only\nthe more austerely binding on the present that we shall recognize them\nas different from those of the Past and different, no doubt, from those\ninto which the Future will transform them.\n\nThus we are already conceiving of punishment only as a mechanism,\nsuccessful or not, for social defence. And we scarcely ever hear\nmore than the last echo of those incentives to virtue and deterrents\nfrom vice of the _Sandford and Merton_ type of my own childhood\u2019s\ncopybooks. Still less of the Stoical, and (alas!) Platonic mendacities\nabout remorse torturing evil-doers, and the unhappy life of Browning\u2019s\n_Instans Tyrannus_ with his \u201cThen _I_ was afraid.\u201d Neither do we talk\nany longer of the virtuous glows which (failing the increase of flocks\nand herds!) used to reward the virtuous acts of the generation adorned\nby Butler\u2019s Mr. Pontifex. We are getting to think of our own virtues,\nsupposing we have any, as conducive not to our own advantage but to\nthat of other folk.\n\nConsonantly with the psychologist\u2019s recognition that, of the two\npolar feelings determining human action, the (positive) attraction of\npleasure is far less potent than the (negative) repulsion of pain, it\nseems as if our future ethics would emphasize not good actions but\nbad ones. That will be following up the rule-of-thumb wisdom of the\nCommandments, of which the surviving ones are all \u201cthou _shalt not_\u201d;\nthe positive ones about loving God and honouring Father and Mother\nhaving become either difficult to enforce or optional. I am glad of\nthat word _optional_, because it leads to the remark that Intelligence\nis surely abolishing that neutral territory whence \u201cgood actions\u201d can\nissue at \u201cgood\u201d people\u2019s good pleasure and as an expression of their\ngoodness, but which no one has a right to insist upon; indeed, which\nthey have a perfect right to withhold, since they are patted on the\nback for doing them, or have their hands kissed, as children were\ntaught to kiss those of the \u201crevered author of their being.\u201d I expect\nthat before so very long Intelligence may bluntly suggest that if the\naction, whatever it happen to be, is _really good_, that must mean that\nit is _really needed_; and if it is really needed, your fellow men can\nclaim it and oblige you to claim it from your unwilling self. And to\ndishonour that claim may become in their eyes (mirrored in your own),\nmean, disgraceful, dirty. In the language of contemporary youth, it\nwill not be _decent_.[1] That substitution of the word _decency_ for\nthe word _virtue_ gives, methinks, the clue to the future revaluation\nof our moral standards. It implies, as I have suggested, a more\nintelligent and, in some ways, more indulgent, morality; but a morality\non the whole more austere, a stark notion of duty armed with the\nrelentless imperative which nowadays makes us abashed at the revelation\nin ourself of physical cowardice or bodily dirtiness. A morality, I\nventure to add, eventually able to do without the adornments coming\nunder the head of \u201cMoral Beauty.\u201d\n\n  [1] \u201cNo, we may not be as moral as they (_i.e._ the older generation)\n      are, but we are fifty times decenter.\u201d\u2015\u2015G. B. Stern, _Tents of\n      Israel_, 1924; p. 244.\n\nAnd, speaking of a future standard of \u201cdecency,\u201d there will necessarily\ncome sundry revaluations quite intolerable to our present morality.\nI will not speak (since far too much is nowadays being spoken\nconcerning what, after all, is but a small part of conduct) about\nsuch revaluations of sexual morals as _D\u00e6dalus_ prognosticates from\ntransplantation of ovaries. _That_, and coming facilitations for\nchanging one\u2019s sex, cannot, indeed, fail to modify family arrangements;\nalthough I have greater belief in the effects of future methods of\nproducing and exchanging, not offspring, but other commodities, and\nthe consequent alteration in our tenure and conception of property.\nIndissoluble marriage, which already strikes some of us as scarcely\ndecent, will lose its practical utility once inheritance is more\nor less abolished, and the subsistence and education of children\nno longer a charge on parents. Nor is this all: a more restricted\npractice and therefore habitual notion of ownership may at some\ndistant day educate men and women, parents and children, lovers and\nfriends, nay, masters and disciples, to admit Proteus even into the\nimpregnable stronghold and inviolable sanctuary of human selfishness\ncalled _Love_. The \u201cmarriage of true minds\u201d may, like the other one,\ncome to be supplemented by honourable divorce. Exclusive reciprocal\nattachment, surely of all spiritual essences the most delicate, if not\nmost volatile, may cease to be regarded as an inalienable piece of\nproperty, guaranteed by honour more terrible than law; and which, while\nall else (and ourselves most!) alters and shifts, cannot be altered and\nshifted without guilt of theft. There may come an end to the ideal of\nsuch fidelity as implies the claim of him or her once preferred to be\npreferred for ever; the duty also of continuing to prefer once having\nbegun. Like much of the morality of a more intelligent age, \u201cdecent\u201d\nbehaviour in matters of sentiment will be based less upon an _ought_\nthan an _is_. And I can conceive that such a change may make love\u2019s\ntenure less insecure and less routinish and perfunctory. It will, at\nleast, save one of the finest kinds of happiness (and the multiplying\nfactor of many other ones) not indeed from the passing misery of\nchange, but from the ignominy of claimed or accepted sacrifice, and the\ncruel pollution of jealousy, not between lovers only, but between all\nwho love. And when there shall be applied to love the solemn saying\n\u201cthe Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away\u201d we may learn to temper our\nloss by the intenser gratitude for whatever, even if only for a time,\nhas been ours.\n\nAs with fidelity in love, so also with \u201cloyalty\u201d to persons, even\nto causes and ideas. But such, too often degrading, loyalty will, I\nimagine, be more than compensated for by the condemnation of a new sin\nagainst the Holy Ghost, and by insistence on a minimum (at least!) of\nconsistency in one\u2019s own ideas and a minimum of conformity between\none\u2019s judgment of others and one\u2019s judgment of oneself: the mote in\none\u2019s brother\u2019s eye awakening the suspicion of the beam in one\u2019s own.\n\nAt the same time (which is not our time!), and as Intelligence takes\non a leading part in morals, there will come the indulgent recognition\nthat such a \u201cdecency\u201d as we may exact (or try to exact) from ourselves,\ncannot, any more than personal cleanliness in our own day, be exacted\nfrom all our neighbours. It may take a good many transformations of\nProteus before the mote can always be removed from our brother\u2019s eye,\neven supposing the beam to have been taken away from our own. It is no\neasy matter to be always clean inside and out, especially when, like\nthe little boy in Stevenson\u2019s rhyme, \u201cyour dear Papa is poor,\u201d poor\nin spirit, perchance one of a long line of moral paupers. Neither is\n\u201cdecency\u201d always attainable where there has been no past charwoman to\nprepare your easy tidiness at expense of previous dirty hands. Still\nless when, as nowadays, wallowing in excess or in cruelty is the only\nexcitement many people can get out of life. Hence it may be a long\nwhile yet before the bare decencies of the spirit, even if recognized\nfor such, can lose the value of rarity and the status of virtues. For,\nlet us remember that, the fouler mankind\u2019s surroundings and sores, the\ngreater the need for incense and myrrh and even for the questionable\nodour of sanctity. Is not early Christianity\u2019s, say St. Paul\u2019s,\ninsistence on chastity and mansuetude the expression of the otherwise\ninexpressible bestiality, cruelty, and vaingloriousness of decadent\nRome? And what is the foolish Franciscan laudation of beggary save the\nmeasure of medi\u00e6val rapine and simony?\n\nSo, for the time being and the world as it may, alas! long continue,\nmankind will need something besides a taste for moral decency, to wit,\nan admiration for generous, nay, quixotic impulses and for tender\nsensibilities. These Intelligence, respectful towards the need for\nthem, can neither create, nor, except by negative measures, even\nincrease. But it can do something as necessary. Intelligence, and only\nIntelligence, can see to it that, even to-day, such rare and precious\nimpulses and sensibilities be not diverted to evil results, wasted in\nbarren self-sacrifice, or the fostering of hide-bound selfishness.\nWasted, above all, in hecatombs to the Molochs of collective\nsuperstition, like the one which is only just over, and may begin again\nto-morrow.\n\n\n\n\n                                  III\n\n                         PROTEUS AND \u00c6STHETICS\n\n\n\u201cIf there be any truth in these forecasts of what your fine Intelligence\nmay bring about or justify in the domain of ethics, then\u201d (it\u2019s a\ncertain kind of reader interrupting), \u201cthen may I never enter, nay, cast\na glance into this detestable world of rationalized righteousness!\n_Human_ do you call it, because you have made it godless? What is this\nIntelligence of yours worth if it fails to perceive that God exists\nbecause Man has need of Him; and that the true mission of virtue, of\ntruth, of heroism, is not to make the world more endurable, but to\nsatisfy our deepest human craving, that for greater harmony and\nloveliness, for deeper, steadier passion than otherwise life affords?\u201d\n\nMy answer is that such a craving will become stronger, or at least\nwider-spread, in proportion as mankind grows more intelligent,\ntherefore less exhausted by struggling against adverse circumstances,\ninbred defects and inherited superstitions. In proportion, likewise, as\nit will have learned to value its own virtues as they can minister to\nman\u2019s prosperity and betterment. Nay, more: the time will come when we\nshall turn with disgust and wrath at their cultivation for any other\npurpose; and when pleasure in virtue and in heroism for its own sake\nmay come to be accounted so much \u00e6sthetic dilettantism, questionable\nand well-nigh obsolete. For with the orientation of morals towards\nhuman usefulness, towards dutifulness conceived as decency, people\nwill get to understand that what man craves for as consolation and\nenhancement, the passion deeper and steadier, the harmony more complete\nthan real life furnishes, Man creates for himself in poetry and art,\nand in the things of reality seen as poetry and art. In all this he\nhas made himself a realm where truth is never betrayed, because in its\nsheer existence _true_ and _false_ become words without a meaning;\nmoreover, where the deepest and highest passions are satisfied without\nbeing misapplied or wasted, because satisfied by their mere expression.\nArt and whatever the poor word _Art_ may stand for\u2015\u2015is the man-made\nsanctuary of the legitimate, the innocent, the immaculately _decent_,\nbecause it is closed to the shifting _needs_, the partial truths, above\nall, the _mine_ and _thine_, which trouble real life. This, in its way,\nis also a realm of _otherness_, inasmuch as it transcends the self with\nits _here_ and its _now_. Yet an _otherwise_ not merely recognized\nby Intelligence, but made by the heart\u2019s desire out of the heart\u2019s\nown substance and in desire\u2019s own shape; for of such are the forms of\nthe painter and sculptor, no less than the counterfeit presentments\nof the poet. Above all, in the twin arts of architecture and of\nmusic do we already meet the clarified embodiment of the longing and\nclinging, the solemn appeasement and victorious stress and fulfilment\nof human passion. Here, in art\u2019s interludes of life, we can obtain\nwhat religious creeds lay open to the reproach of being false because\nthey give it for true; and what love seeks to make unchanging, only\nto taste the bitterness of change. So that many as have been and will\nbe the successive responses to our \u00e6sthetic cravings, the manifold\nsatisfactions thereof, embodying as they do the purified essence of\nour feelings and activities, will, in the endless shifting of our\nvaluations, perhaps constitute the one region where we need not be\nwatching for Proteus.\n\n\n\n\n                                  IV\n\n                   PROTEUS AND INTELLECTUAL MANNERS\n\n\nThough many other causes will bring about such moral revaluations as\nI have mentioned, Intelligence will play its part in justifying them.\nBut Intelligence will itself effectuate great changes, methinks, in the\nminor moral realm of intellectual manners. For instance, proscribing\n_perfunctoriness_; making us ashamed, which we are not, of offering\nin the guise of opinion much which we know to be stop-gap and shoddy.\nThe condemnation of perfunctoriness will lead to discarding heckler\u2019s\ntricks and dialectic pit-falls like that concerning the future status\nof the widow of seven successive husbands, wherewith the Sadducees,\nthough disbelieving in any after-life at all, tried to trip up\nJesus. His answer: that there would be neither marrying nor giving\nin marriage, may stand as the typical silencer to many queries with\nwhich debaters embarrass each other without advancing a step in the\ninquiry. For instance: \u201cthen, what do you propose to do?\u201d Well! we\nmay be intelligent enough to know that in nine cases out of ten there\n_is_ nothing to propose. Since the more habitually we get to regard\nthe Future as resulting from the Present and the Present from the\nPast, the more often we must admit that we know too little of the\nhidden Past, and less of the fleeting Present, to make sure what new\ncombinations, including reciprocal neutralizations, are preparing to\narise. The oftener we have watched the Old Man Proteus, the less,\nperhaps, our cocksureness about his next metamorphosis. Or, take\nanother question which intellectual good breeding will refrain from\nbecause Intelligence foresees no answer: \u201cIn that case, what will you\nput in its place?\u201d _It_ being, let us say, indissoluble marriage,\nexclusive private ownership, war (you remember William James was,\nshortly before 1914, looking out for a _surrogate_!) or even what used\nto be called _God_, but may now be thankful when philosophers (like\nMr. Lloyd Morgan) allow it merely adjectival rank as \u201c_Deity_.\u201d How do\nyou know that _it_, whatever _it_ is, _will leave a place_? Do we not\ndaily see that, when things vanish, their place (place in the world,\nin our thoughts, and also, in our hearts!) are apt to vanish along\nwith them and be forgotten? And among such things as may some day\nvanish and be forgotten there will, I trust, be the dialectic ju-jitsu\nwhich makes many pages even of Plato such dreary reading. Lacking,\nas the world then did, all discipline of experimental science, such\nacrobatics may have afforded an indispensable training to logical\nthought, and a preparation for that latest-comer of all intellectual\nhabits: care for the exact sense in which a word is being employed.\nApart, however, from this, controversy of this kind has but a personal\nvalue, adding nothing to knowledge, just as nothing is added to wealth\nwhen one gamester loses money to another: the personal value of downing\nan adversary and magnifying oneself by mere comparison, which may be\nreckoned in some distant Future an intellectual entertainment fit for\ncads.\n\nSuch are a few of the improvements one might foresee in our intellectual\nmanners. Allied with these is one which appertains to our intellectual\nmorals. In another book[2] I have written at some length against the\nsurvival of the lawyer\u2019s and politician\u2019s arts of _Persuasion_, and of\nthe priestly arts of _Exhortation_ and _Denunciation_, both sets of them\nintended to influence men to think, feel and act differently from how\nthey would otherwise do, but in compliance with the persuasive person\u2019s\nwishes. Some day or other such attempts may be accounted impertinent\nwhere they fail, and dishonest where they succeed; they and the sway of\nwords should constitute a chapter of intellectual morals.\n\n  [2] _The Handling of Words._\n\nReturning to mere intellectual _manners_, I think intellectual prize\nfights, duels and _vendettas_, such as wasted half the life of the\ngreatest intellects from Ab\u00e9lard to Samuel Butler, are a little going\nout of fashion, like the quarrels for precedence we read about in\n_Herbert of Cherbury_ and such-like: they stop the traffic, make a\nnoise and, after a minute, bore us! Moreover, I fancy I see a reason\nwhy, let alone mere spectators of such frays, even those who might have\nbeen principals in them will refrain and call them ill-mannered. I mean\nthat, as people grow more intelligent, or more people grow intelligent\nat all, we shall discover other opportunities for exercising\nintellectual energy and for obtaining the thrill and uplift of\nintellectual prowess. There will appear other adversaries to wrestle\nwith and circumvent: _Things_, _Reasons why_, the Universe\u2019s riddles;\nnot any longer mere other people trying to make us write ourselves down\nasses as we try to make them. The finest sport in all the world is\nhunting Proteus....\n\nNor will I let myself be heckled with the objection that joys like\nthese are reserved for minds like yours and mine, dear reader, minds\n_Creative_.... As if books, pictures, policies, opinions, etc., etc.,\nwere created _ex nihilo_, obeying that august _fiat_ which evolutional\nphilosophy has filched from the old Creator of all things to bestow on\nevery member of the Intelligentsia. No, no, the joys I speak of are\nunprofessional. And the chief creative joy is that of understanding\nand appreciating; say the joy of every deserving reader outrunning the\nstraight path of the writer in circles like those of a dog pleased to\nbe taken a walk.\n\nAmateurishness! I can hear those of you _pshah!_ and _tosh!_ who\nbelieve in training the (involuntary) attention and who value work\nless by results than by efforts. Amateurish? Why, of course, that\u2019s\njust the fun and the good of it. Also the unsought moral gain. For, are\nwe not made more \u201cdecent\u201d by these private, irresponsible dealings with\nthe Unknown (at least to us); for instance, those secret inaccurate\nguesses at geological and historical riddles which make up half the\npleasure of a journey? Since these amateurish stalkings of Proteus\nattain an attractiveness such that personal controversy seems insipid\nor odious by comparison.\n\nI have had the good fortune once or twice, even in an old-fashioned\nlifetime, to witness the full flowering of such selfless intellectual\nhappiness: to watch a mind so passionately interested in certain\nsubjects as to care nothing whether the enchanting new ideas were its\nown or other folks\u2019; nay, whether its own were by them confirmed or\nutterly demolished. I have seen that unusual spectacle, but once or\ntwice only. For Intelligence has yet to establish its claim to such\ngenerous happiness. Once or twice only. But never more clearly have I\nseen it than in you, Mario Calderoni, dear dead young friend, who have\nembodied my hopes for the Intelligence of a distant Future, when you\nwill not have received a posthumous recognition and I may be entirely\nforgotten.\n\n\n\n\n                                   V\n\n                            USES AND ABUSES\n\n\nConsidering the great pleasantness, let alone the various uses, of the\nmental habits I have summed up as _Intelligence_, it is surprising\nthere should not yet be more of it forthcoming. It has, at present,\na way of giving out suddenly in individuals and nations, just when\nits mixture of light-hearted scepticism and steady hopefulness would\nseem most needed. By which inadequacy of its supply I am confirmed\nin the suspicion that Intelligence is a much more recent human\naccomplishment than the Past\u2019s other achievements in art and poetry\nand wit and humour would lead us to expect. Indeed, the deserved\nprestige of that Past, and the consequent survival of its educational\nand religious traditions and institutions, is very likely what has\nso strangely delayed the advent of modern Intelligence. And it is\ntheir dwindling, itself partly attributable to nascent Intelligence,\nwhich has delivered our intellectual activities from sundry blind\nalleys and sloughs of despond, like those presided over by the\nterrible, and most unintelligent, word _Salvation_. For Intelligence,\none of whose virtues is abolishing Fear, is itself stifled by the\nobsession of danger in this world or the next: are we not seeing the\nmost naturally intelligent of all countries fallen into incredible\nself-defeating stupidity through its present mania for \u201cSecurity\u201d? It\nis, of course, evident that, apart from the decay of religious and\nclassical superstition, the growth of Intelligence in our own days has\nbeen enormously fostered by increase both of scientific knowledge and\nof civic liberty, and also, as far as it goes, of well-being; also of\nopportunities for variety of impression at least for the well-to-do\nclasses. And one hopes there may be other kinds of yet unforeseen\nnovelties coming to Intelligence\u2019s assistance in the Future. Yet, the\nchief obstacles once removed, my hope is chiefly in what one might\ncall Intelligence\u2019s own natural proliferation. One intelligent mode\nof thought inevitably leads to another, and puts out of action an\nunintelligent one. Every intelligent book adds, let us hope, to the\nintelligence of at least one reader; so that we could almost do without\nthe tremendous launchings-forth of the great challengers, Ruskin,\nTolstoy, Ibsen, Nietzsche; even of the more purely beneficent (because\nlighter-hearted) stirrers-up of thought like Bernard Shaw.\n\nBelieving, therefore, in such spontaneous multiplication of\nIntelligence, I do not find much use for the methods, whereof that\none is but an extreme example which is attributed to the late Dr.\nMetchnikoff, proposing (it is said) to increase the output of genius\nby judicious doses of syphilitic virus. Surely, the supply of raw\ngenius would be fairly adequate if only we could put it to the best\nuse? And the best use of genius is not, in my opinion, the practical\napplication of science to methods of reciprocal slaughter and\ndevastation. Nor even its application to easier locomotion, intercourse\nand the cheapening of food, heat and light, except to the extent which\nwould secure more health, more leisure and more opportunity all round;\ncertainly at present not the case. And, speaking for myself, the best\nuse of genius and the most necessary application of science, seems to\nbe teaching people what Descartes called (whatever his precise meaning)\nthe _m\u00e9thode de bien conduire son esprit_; at least to the slight\ndegree of not letting obsolete shibboleths and new-fangled catchwords\ncarry us, as they did ten years ago, headlong into the disasters we\nwere trying to avoid.\n\nThe next best thing to be done with our existing supply of genius\nmight be to train it to check, by application of common sense and a\nlittle modesty, certain ailments inherent in its own constitution,\nnamely: exaggeration, contrariness and, of course, megalomania. Such\nself-purification, on the part of persons of genius or what passes for\nsuch, would save the rest of us the disheartening task of throwing\nhalf of their sayings onto the scrap-heap, and of picking out of the\nscrap-heap some of the sayings of rival persons of genius consigned\nthereunto at their bidding. There is quite enough to be done in the way\nof selection, assimilation and elimination (since all understanding\nmeans that) without setting such Intelligence as we have to play\nscavenger to wasteful or slatternly genius.... And yet, and yet....\nMay not those trashinesses of genius, and the scavengering entailed\nthereby, be that which secures to Intelligence its highest activities,\nand in so far fulfils one of Genius\u2019s chief missions? For, after all,\nIntelligence is the living, changing mass of unprofessional thought,\nthe averaged, habitual thought of the majority of us. And is not the\nchief use of all such genius as is not set aside in science or in art,\nrather to make the rest of us think, than to furnish us with ready-made\nthoughts, however true or sublime? Nay, I would hazard the supposition\nthat it was because the men of the Past were presented with such a mass\nof ready-made thoughts, creeds, philosophies, and moral formul\u00e6 (think\nof _Deuteronomy_!) all given for perfect and definitively valid, that\nthere did not appear till so late in the day just what I have called\n_Intelligence_, which alone could give that without which the greatest\ngenius is solitary and barren: an audience, a reader, a mind able to\ncarry on the thinking and, in so far, able to eliminate the deciduous,\nthe rubbishy elements of the thought already offered to it.\n\nThe consideration of this loss which mankind may have suffered\nthrough the notion that thoughts must be accepted ready-made rather\nthan transformed into one\u2019s own, and that, consequently, men must be\nset apart to do the thinking (as the priests once did the praying\nand sacrificing) for others; this consideration is at the bottom\nof my present hatred of the idea (which I shared in my youth) that\nexceptionally gifted persons should consecrate themselves into a caste,\nministers, maybe, of a new religion, chosen vessels for a new-fangled\ndeity.\n\nAnd since we are discussing the reciprocal uses of Genius and of mere\nIntelligence (Genius ever stimulating Intelligence, Intelligence ever\nkeeping Genius within the bounds of sense and of decency), allow me to\nset my face against all those oligarchies of genius and virtue which\nevery Utopian philosopher from Plato to Comte, from Renan to H. G.\nWells, has wanted to foist on dull, driven Mankind. And let us take to\nheart the _reductio ad absurdum_ of all such schemes in the latest and\nhugest joke of our one great laughing philosopher, when he shows us\nthe world governed by bald, toothless and passionless sages, who, even\nwithout having reached the years of Methuselah, have long survived the\nage when every decent person should retire to his or her coffin.\n\nAnd before leaving the subject of the services (sometimes scarcely\ndesired) which Genius may need at the humble hands of Intelligence,\nlet me point out how our men of genius or thereabouts (\u201cCreative\nIntellects\u201d is the official expression) have latterly taken over\none of the most remunerative and mischievous employments of all\nobsolete priesthoods, to wit: of frightening believers with bogies\nof their manufacture. For, just as the Torments of Hell and the\nPitfalls of Sin formerly supplied matter for all the learning and\neloquence of centuries of Divines, so nowadays encyclop\u00e6dic science\nand journalistic emphasis are being applied to making our flesh creep\nwith prophecies of Perils. There is Peril from black, brown, yellow\nraces; from Semites, Mongols, Latins (in \u201cNordic\u201d countries), Teutons\n(in Latin countries), Celts all over Anglo-Saxondom, Jews throughout\nthe globe; Bolsheviks, Fascists and Junkers, International Communism\nand International Finance, Militarism which was put an end to by the\nWar, besides our old friends Jesuits and Freemasons. There is Peril\nfrom the multiplication of Idiots and the multiplication of Supermen;\nPeril from depopulation and Peril from overpopulation, from unsexed\nwomen and over-sexed women; Peril from over-much altruism, and Peril\nfrom insufficient altruism. Perils which I cannot even remember, but\nby whose side those of War, Pestilence and Famine are, of course, too\nfamiliar to be noticed. Indeed, it is characteristic of this latter-day\napocalypse that none of the prophets of disaster prophesied the War\nand the Fruits of Victory, except, if I remember correctly, Mr. H. G.\nWells, who, however, once the War had been declared, enlisted at once\nfor the Fleet Street Front and bid us unsheath the Sword of Peace for\nthe final extermination of Militarism....\n\nTherefore, it strikes me that in view of this multifold reincarnation\nof the spirit of prophecy in our Men of Science and of Letters, some\nincrease of Intelligence may well be needed to steady our nerves and\nallow us to recognize the real dangers of which, heaven knows, there\nare plenty requiring to be faced with ... well, the far-too-little\nIntelligence already at our disposal. For, possibly because it is not\n\u201ccreative\u201d (and _creation_ usually implies chaos and refuse-heaps),\nIntelligence is especially preservative and sheltering. It is the\nnatural purifier and tidier-up where Genius and Stupidity, disrupting\nand corrupting by turns, have between them played the deuce with our\npoor mortal heritage. And in the face of the millionfold sacrifices of\nself and others which Ideals and Heroisms have once again presented to\nour foolish admiration, I would go so far as to add that Intelligence\nis often more humane than Sentiment, and, oftener still, more\nbeneficent than what we call Virtue.\n\nFrom the misapplications of our Science, the exaggerations and lunacies\nof our Genius, and the havoc wrought by our higher instincts, we\ntherefore need to be saved, not by Reason, which is always too long\nin getting under weigh, but by Intelligence, active, alacritous and\nubiquitous, afraid neither of being laughed at nor of laughing at\nothers.... But even as I stammer out this old-fashioned demand for\n_Salvation_, the name of Proteus sounds suddenly in the ear of my\nspirit. How can I tell what Proteus may next be\u2015\u2015perhaps already\nis\u2015\u2015changing into? And after prating about Intelligence being one-half\nlight-hearted scepticism and one-half steady confidence, am I going to\njoin the mixed choir, ecstatic or growling, of prophesying optimists\nand pessimists?\n\nBut, though restrained by that thought of Proteus and his frequently\ninconsiderate metamorphoses, I should like to add a word on one\nquestion regarding the near future of Intelligence, but with the\nunderstanding that I do so not as a prophet of what may happen, so\nmuch as a witness of half a century\u2019s already accomplished changes.\nThe question, or rather query, has doubtless occurred to some of\nmy readers, and is as follows: Granted that Intelligence rids us\nof dangerous superstitions, and rids us, moreover, of the habit of\nsuperstition, which is a matter less of _what_ than of _how_ one\nbelieves; granted that along with lucidity Intelligence brings also\nintellectual equity, cleanness and dignity; granted all this, may\nnot such gains be paid for in disproportionate loss? And may not\nIntelligence itself constitute a danger? Has it not already begun\ndespoiling life of many of the shelters built by the Ages with\nunknowing or inspired hands? Worse still: will it not replace with its\nnarrow and wavering lucidity those dark unquestioning instincts and\naspirations, lurking ever ready in the obscure organization and the\nmysterious formul\u00e6 inherited from our remotest ancestors?\n\nTo this I would answer that, so far as my observation tells me, the\nsoul will always find some shape and some material wherein to build, or\nto restore, the shelters needed in its moments of weariness and sorrow,\nthere to await the consolation which no creed seems to bring without\nthe supreme aid of time. On the other hand, that the instinctive part\nof our nature, when it is truly instinctive, can surely be trusted\nto keep itself alive in the face of the (alas!) inevitably feeble\nimperatives of such new-comers as Reason and Intelligence. Moreover,\nthat all the sciences dealing with man point to the fact that\ntraditional commandments and, even more, physiologically transmitted\ntendencies, have constituted themselves as responses to changing\nenvironments and needs, so that their transformation may be expected as\na result of the very movement of things which has produced them.\n\nAnd, finally, I would add that, even if all this were doubtful, we\nmust accept the risks which the coming of Intelligence may entail upon\nus, because (so at least appears evident to me) whatever sets-back and\ntemporary overwhelmings it may suffer in the future, Intelligence is of\nsuch nature that, once come, it must develop, or at least bide its time\nand revive in as yet unforeseeable manner. And Intelligence itself must\nprepare us to expect that every change may mean a loss, but likewise\nmean an opportunity. Perhaps it may even sometimes show us how the\none can turn into the other; for does not Intelligence keep an eye on\nProteus?\n\n\n                                FINIS.\n\n\n\n\n Transcriber\u2019s Notes:\n\n \u2015\u2015A Table of Contents has been provided for the convenience of the\n   reader, and is granted to the public domain.\n\n \u2015\u2015Text in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).\n\n \u2015\u2015Punctuation and spelling inaccuracies were silently corrected.","title":"Proteus : $b or, The future of intelligence","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":9716}