{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_78119/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_78119","id":"gutenberg_78119","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/78119","summary":null,"tags":["Humanism","Literature -- Philosophy","Philosophy, Modern","United States -- Civilization -- 20th century"],"text":"HUMANISM\n                                   AND\n                                 AMERICA\n\n                                 ESSAYS\n                             ON THE OUTLOOK\n                         OF MODERN CIVILISATION\n\n\n                               _Edited by_\n                             NORMAN FOERSTER\n\n\n                           FARRAR AND RINEHART\n                              INCORPORATED\n                         PUBLISHERS    NEW YORK\n\n\n                 COPYRIGHT, 1930, BY FARRAR AND RINEHART\n                 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA\n                           ALL RIGHTS RESERVED\n\n\n\n\n_Preface_\n\n\n\u201cLife\u2019s a long headache in a noisy street,\u201d sang the poet Masefield\nin _The Widow in the Bye Street_ seventeen years ago. Since then, we\nhave all come to live in Main rather than Bye Street, and our headache\nhas grown apace despite the best efforts of the physicians of the age.\nThe noise and whirl increase, the disillusion and depression deepen,\nthe nightmare of Futility stalks before us in the inevitable intervals\nwhen activity flags. Heroically or mock-heroically we distrust or\nreject such stimulants and anodynes as religion, moral conventions, the\ndignity of manners, the passion for beauty, and even our recent faith\nin democracy, in liberalism, in progress, in science, in efficiency, in\nmachinery. At length revolt and scepticism themselves have ceased to be\ninteresting. The modern temper has produced a terrible headache.\n\nIn vain does our Chief Executive assure us that \u201cwe have reached a\nhigher degree of comfort and security than ever existed before in the\nhistory of the world.\u201d Like Mr. Punch when it was announced that the\ngovernment would soon be broadcasting intelligence by radio, we wonder\n\u201cWhere will the government get it?\u201d All governments, all nations, are\nto-day in this predicament.\n\nThe alleged Americanisation of Europe appears to signify, at bottom,\nthat tendencies native to Europe are being worked out most thoroughly\nin the United States and are therefore making the United States the\nmodel of twentieth-century Europe. At the same time Europe knows that\nthe model is, to speak very gently, inadequate. For a good many years\nour own writers have deplored the condition of civilisation in the\nUnited States, with exaggeration but essential truth. But they have\ngenerally made of revolt and scepticism ends rather than beginnings\nof wisdom. For materialistic complacency they have substituted a\nsmart superiority resting on the most dubious foundations. Their\nfeebleness in constructive power is very patent. They are part of the\ndisease--symptoms not remedies.\n\nOur \u201cintellectual atmosphere,\u201d however, is now rapidly changing, is\nbecoming charged with new interests. More and more persons, oppressed\nwith the stale scepticism of the post-war period, are beginning to\ngrow sceptical of that scepticism, and are looking for a new set of\ncontrolling ideas capable of restoring value to human existence.\nCertain forces are making for order and for new objectives. They are\nnot strong forces, they can scarcely be called movements, but they are\nreceiving a hearing and they contain the promise of growth.\n\nOne of these forces is known as \u201chumanism,\u201d which is rapidly becoming\na word to conjure with. In its broadest signification, it denotes a\nbelief that the proper study of mankind is man, and that this study\nshould enable mankind to perceive and realise its humanity. But the\nstudy of mankind is capable of yielding all manner of results, so that,\nfor a long time to come, we may expect the word denoting this study\nto carry a large variety of meanings. Since man may be conceived as\nliving on three planes, the natural, the human, and the religious, the\ncontent of the middle term will frequently tend to be invaded by that\nof the extremes. Thus, many persons who call themselves humanists, in\nthis naturistic era from which we have not yet emerged, are unwittingly\nnaturists yearning stoically for adaptation to the universe or\nmystically for a fusion of the human and the natural. Such persons\nmight call themselves, paradoxically, humanistic naturists. In the\ninterest of clearness, as it seems to me, the word humanism should be\nconfined to a working philosophy seeking to make a resolute distinction\nbetween man and nature and between man and the divine.\n\nThe most fruitful approximation to such a distinction, in the twentieth\ncentury, has been the work of two American scholar-critics, Irving\nBabbitt and Paul Elmer More. The characteristic thought of Irving\nBabbitt was already adumbrated in 1895 in an address at the University\nof Wisconsin on \u201cThe Rational Study of the Classics,\u201d published two\nyears later in the _Atlantic Monthly_ and in 1908 included in his\nbook on _Literature and the American College_. This book contains in\nessence, one may almost say, everything in the series of volumes in\nwhich he has since applied his humanistic standards to various aspects\nof modern life and thought. With a tenacity of purpose unexampled in\nan age shifting aimlessly from one enthusiasm and disillusionment to\nanother, with an effect growing more massive as he has worked out\nhis ideas in such fields as \u00e6sthetics, literary criticism, ethics,\npsychology, education, and politics, with a remarkable power of\nrelating his sense of permanent values to an historical sense (so that\nhis books are in one view works of history, and in another, doctrinal\ninductions from facts), with a vast accumulation of learning that has\nbeen thoroughly assimilated, and with a mode of expression notable for\nweighty vigour, earnestness, brilliant ridicule, and an instinct for\nruinous quotation, Professor Babbitt has done more than any one else\nto formulate the concept of humanism and gain for it an ever-widening\nhearing. A great teacher as well as writer, lecturing to students at\nHarvard for some thirty-five years, he has done much to shape the minds\nand purposes of a whole generation of young men, and thus to render\npossible the continuance of his task in the future.\n\nPaul Elmer More, after a brief experience as teacher of Sanskrit\nand Classical literature, entered criticism through the avenue of\njournalism, becoming literary editor of the _Independent_ and the New\nYork _Evening Post_ and editor of the _Nation_. Through his relation\nwith contributors to the _Nation_, in particular, he exerted a powerful\ninfluence upon the higher critical activity of the country, an\ninfluence extended more widely through his long series of _Shelburne\nEssays_, beginning in 1904, in which he united in fine balance a\nprofound and far-ranging scholarship, unusual psychological insight,\nan humanistic point of view, and a gift of firm, luminous, urbane\nbut penetrating writing. Undervalued because of their hostility to\nthe popular tendencies of the epoch, these essays will one day be\ngenerally recognised, I believe, as the highest accomplishment in\nliterary criticism in the whole of American literature. The fundamental\nunity in the work of our two leading humanistic thinkers may be seen\nby comparing, say, the conclusion of Mr. Babbitt\u2019s _Masters of Modern\nFrench Criticism_ and the \u201cDefinitions of Dualism\u201d at the close of the\neighth series of _Shelburne Essays_, or the introduction to _Democracy\nand Leadership_ and the first essay in the _New Shelburne Essays_,\nVolume I. The main difference, perhaps, lies in emphasis; while Mr.\nBabbitt has been first and last concerned with building up a sound\nconception of individualism, Mr. More has been progressively absorbed\nin the study of the duality of human nature. His strong religious\nbent in this study led, in the years following his retirement from\njournalism, to the writing of _The Greek Tradition_, in five volumes,\non the relation of Platonic and Hellenistic to Christian thought--a\nmonumental work, the full significance of which can scarcely be\nestimated in its own time.\n\nIn a book recently crowned by the French Academy, _Le Mouvement\nhumaniste aux \u00c9tats-Unis_, Louis J. A. Mercier, professor of French at\nHarvard, restricts his account to Irving Babbitt, Paul Elmer More, and\nW. C. Brownell. In a broad view of the \u201cmovement\u201d the late Mr. Brownell\ndoubtless merits a conspicuous place. Entering criticism, like Mr.\nMore, by way of journalism, Brownell performed valuable service through\nhis acute non-provincial book on _French Traits_ as far back as 1888,\nand through his perennial insistence on high standards in literature\nand the fine arts. Never a humanist in the strict doctrinal sense,\nbefore his death he inclined to respond to the humanitarian optimism\nof America. The tendency toward humanitarianism, emotional sympathy\nwith divine or undivine average humanity, appeared more strikingly in\nthe post-war writings of Stuart P. Sherman. A student under Professor\nBabbitt, a contributor to the _Nation_ under Mr. More, Sherman became\nthe author of two books written in a vigorous and accomplished style\nand permeated with humanistic principles, one on Matthew Arnold\nconceived as a Victorian humanist, and one _On Contemporary Literature_\nconceived as a chaos of naturalism. Then, carried away by admiration\nof Wilsonian idealism and hatred of \u201cPrussian autocracy,\u201d and by an\nuncritical devotion to Emerson, he drifted from his humanistic position\ninto an ever vaguer faith in the common man, and at length, as a\nliterary journalist in New York, into a rather indulgent impressionism.\nIn the field of the fine arts, the most humanistic writer has been\nFrank Jewett Mather, Jr., of Princeton. Among others who published\nsignificant books in various fields, prior to 1928, are P. H. Frye,\nSherlock Bronson Gass, Robert Shafer, Percy H. Houston, and W. F.\nGiese. By 1928 something like a movement could indeed be discerned:\nbooks began to multiply, and periodicals were printing series of\narticles--the _Forum_ and the _Bookman_ in America, the _Criterion_\n(edited by T. S. Eliot) and the _Nineteenth Century and After_ in\nEngland. Whether the movement will continue to develop, whether it\nwill succumb to disunion and vagueness, or be submerged by a narrow\nconventionalism of one sort or other, it would be idle to predict.\n\nThough we have in America the semblance of a new movement, humanism\nitself is not new. It was new, I conceive, when human wisdom was new.\nIt was comparatively new in ancient Greece, Judea, India, and China. It\nwas rather old by the time of the Renaissance, when the word humanist\ncame into currency. In one way or another, its doctrine and discipline\nhave been clarified by persons as various as Homer, Phideas, Plato,\nAristotle, Confucius, Buddha, Jesus, Paul, Virgil, Horace, Dante,\nShakspere, Milton, Goethe; more recently, by Matthew Arnold in England\nand Emerson and Lowell in America: a strange assortment of names,\nno doubt, but also an indication of the inner diversity as well as\nthe central unity of the humanist ideal. For into the aim of human\nperfection enter many elements, no less than that central order which\nis the fruit of discipline.\n\nYet, if humanism is never new, it must constantly confront new\nproblems in time and place. In the Renaissance, its great foe was\nmedi\u00e6val otherworldliness; to-day its great foe is thisworldliness,\nobsession with physical things and the instincts that bind us to the\nanimal order--in a word, the many forms of naturism that have all but\ndestroyed humane insight, discipline, and elevation. In a given age,\nhumanism may have the task of urging the claims of beauty; in another\nage the claims of science, or of conduct. It may have one problem in\nFrance, and another across the Channel. So long as America tends to\nset the pattern for the twentieth century, so long will the greatest\nproblem of humanism lie here in the United States.\n\nThis relativity of humanistic needs will perhaps go far toward\nexplaining the special traits of the movement in America and the\ncorresponding special lines of attack by its naturistic opponents.\nRomantics, realists, and sceptics are daily attacking on four fronts:\nhumanists, it is held, are academic, un-American, reactionary, and\nPuritanic.\n\nHumanists are said to be academic. If this means that they are all\nuniversity teachers, it is obviously not true. If it means that they\nare not interested in the present, it is obviously not true. If it\nmeans that they are interested in theory and not in practical affairs,\nit is not true, for what specially concerns them is the relation of\ntheory and practice. They can scarcely be convicted of displaying what\nStuart P. Sherman, who knew American academic life from the inside,\ntermed \u201cthe professorial vices of pedantry, indolence, timidity, and\nintellectual quietism, which is a euphemism for the sluggish tolerance\nof men without philosophic conviction or intellectual purpose.\u201d If it\nmeans that our humanists have been more interested than the workaday\njournalist critics in concrete knowledge and in general ideas, then\nindeed they may be termed academic. They perceive that when a new\nmovement of thought and life is to be got under way, the first stage\nis naturally one of acquiring and organising knowledge--particularly\nneglected knowledge. This was clear to Emerson, Longfellow, and Lowell\nin our little New England renaissance; it was clear to Lessing, Herder,\nand the Schlegel brothers in Germany; it was clear to the humanists\nof the Renaissance throughout Europe. Let us remember that the first\nof all universities was Plato\u2019s \u201cAcademy,\u201d the object of which was to\nattain a wisdom deeper than that of the market-place. Let us remember\nthat \u201cmere\u201d theories are often high explosives, destructive of the\nprevailing practical life of the market-place, as witness Locke and\nRousseau and the German thinkers from Kant to Hegel and Nietzsche.\n\nHumanists are said to be un-American. According to those who cultivate\nthe nationalist conception, a valid new criticism, new literature, new\nculture must spring from our American experience, not from imported\nideas. They forget the lesson of the past that cultural movements have\ntwo sexes, so to speak, one native and one foreign, and that the native\nexpresses itself in the main unconsciously under the incitement of the\nforeign. The native for the most part takes care of itself, the foreign\nmust be sedulously cultivated. In the Renaissance a humanism imported\nfrom Italy fructified the native genius of most of Europe. Later,\nEngland, for example, drew upon France and then Germany; Germany upon\nFrance and England; France upon Spain and England; the United States\nupon England and Germany. Unlike some of his followers our Walt Whitman\nhimself finally perceived the need of America\u2019s assimilation of foreign\nculture--even from \u201call former lands\u201d beginning with ancient India and\nGreece. It is doubtful whether a _real_ American culture could ever\nspring from our own experience; it is certain that it could be _caused_\nto spring from our own experience by a happy use of foreign culture.\n\nHumanists are supposed to be reactionary. According to those who pride\nthemselves on living in the present if not in the future, humanists\nwant \u201cto return to Buddha and the Bho Tree, to Socrates and the ilex.\u201d\nBeing, in the main, historically educated men, however, humanists are\nwell aware that a return to the past is impossible. On the other hand,\nthey are also aware that, as cultural movements must draw upon foreign\nsupplies, so they must also draw upon past culture. If a present age\nappears to be bad, it can be changed only by the introduction of forces\nnot vitally existing in that age, and since the future is always a\nblank, these forces can be found only through a reinterpretation of the\npast. Thus, to a large extent the Renaissance was rendered possible\nthrough the \u201crevival of learning\u201d by the humanists, and the romantic\nmovement of the late eighteenth century was in part a \u201creturn\u201d to the\nMiddle Ages and the national past. Even the typical modernist, in his\nefforts to escape being a Victorian or a Puritan, is plainly bent on\n\u201creturning\u201d to the primitive.\n\nThis brings us to the last and most frequent charge: that humanists are\nPuritans in disguise. It is hard to answer. Nobody knows what a Puritan\nis, and when he is disguised such a person is not easy to deal with.\nEven Professor Percy Gardner, a leading English authority on Greek\nart, ventures to speak of the \u201cpuritanism\u201d of the Dorians. While in\nAmerica humanists are attacked as Puritan, in France they are attacked\nas Catholic, and Mr. T. S. Eliot has been attacked as both. Even though\nAmerican historians do not agree as to what the distinguishing virtues\nand vices of the seventeenth-century Puritans were, it may be suggested\nthat one of their plainest virtues was the possession of a certain\nfaith, now extinct. Their successors, wanting this faith, cannot well\nbe said to have even the Puritan defects of that virtue. Sometimes\nthose dire opposites of the humanists, the promoters of Uplift, are\ncalled Puritans. For my part, I think of our Uplifters rather as\nmisguided humanitarians, followers not of Calvin but rather of that\nother Genevan, Rousseau.\n\nWhat the naturists are really driving at, when they fight this phantom\nPuritan, this Feathertop, is regimentation or discipline. Now, humanism\ndoes wish to emphasise discipline, whenever, as to-day, it needs to\nbe emphasised. It has no desire to measure conduct quantitatively,\naccording to the familiar formula, as three-fourths of life, but it\ndoes desire to show that the quality of all life is higher or lower\naccording as our power of vital restraint is exercised. Humanism\nconceives that the power of restraint is peculiarly human, and that\nthose who throw down the reins are simply abandoning their humanity\nto the course of animal life or the complacency of vegetables. It\nconceives, further, that the attainment of the ideal of completeness\nof life, of a human nature rounded and perfect on all its sides,\nis fatally frustrated at the start unless the ideal of centrality\nor self-control is introduced as the regulating principle. The\nsubstitution of _intensity_ as the regulating principle, which is\nproposed by many modernists such as Aldous Huxley, provides for\nquantity but not quality of life, and tends to defeat the ideal\nof completeness, because certain parts of human nature, if not\ndisciplined, will always thrive at the expense of other parts. This\nfact was glimpsed even by Walter Pater, notwithstanding his doctrine\nof the intense moment, when he wrote: \u201cFor us of the modern world,\nwith its conflicting claims, its entangled interests, distracted by so\nmany sorrows, with many preoccupations, so bewildering an experience,\nthe problem of unity with ourselves, in blitheness and repose, is far\nharder than it was for the Greek within the simple terms of antique\nlife. Yet, no less than ever, the intellect demands completeness,\ncentrality.\u201d\n\nMany other modernists reject the ideal of completeness itself as making\nfor a dull uniformity, and propose instead the ideal of diversity. Life\nis \u201cfull of a number of things,\u201d one of them prattles, remembering\nhis _Child\u2019s Garden_, but forgetting that humanism itself aims at\ndiversity--not by urging men to be queerly \u201cdifferent,\u201d each in his own\ninfantile way, but by urging them to develop with mature reasonableness\nthe diversities latent within themselves and thus to work toward a\nmany-sided human type. Humanism believes, with Goethe, that \u201cevery one\nmust form himself as a particular being, seeking, however, to attain\nthat general idea of which all mankind are constituents.\u201d There have\nbeen enough humanists in the world to prove that in fact (and not only\nin theory) this image of a dull humanistic uniformity is merely another\nscarecrow. It is not the humanists, certainly, who look forward to a\nmillennium in which all men and women will be superbly alike! If they\nspeak more of the past than of the future, it is because the wisdom of\nthe ages is on record and the wisdom of the future a hope devoid of\nuseful content. But they unreservedly agree with critics who protest\nthat \u201cbeyond anything that has yet been said by the academic humanists,\nthere is work for the humane imagination to do.\u201d\n\nThis does not exhaust the attacks on the humanists. They are reproached\nby romanticists for being romantic, but I let that pass. More sensibly,\nthey are ridiculed by irreligionists for being religious, but I let\nthat pass also. Something should be said, however, of still another\nattack--the objection, by impressionists, that they employ words and\nphrases as catchwords and labels in disregard of the elusiveness\nof truth. To offer this objection, surely, is to object to the use\nof language itself. If words are not more or less arbitrary labels\nfor things and ideas and the relationship of things and ideas, all\nlanguage is pure nonsense. When Mr. Van Wyck Brooks fifteen years\nago, in _America\u2019s Coming-of-Age_, called for \u201ccatchwords\u201d as well\nas a \u201cprogramme,\u201d he showed a sounder instinct than he and his\nfollowers have displayed since: they have found no programme, and are\nincreasingly averse to catchwords. No doubt the truth _an sich_ is\nhopelessly elusive, but the attainment of provisional or human truth\nis the reward of courage and labour. We cannot afford to shirk the\ntask of achieving a reasonably clear and consistent terminology, even\nthough every definition is by nature an affirmation that tends to shut\nout some portion of absolute truth. Whenever words become too hard and\nexclusive, humanism is concerned with reconsidering their frontiers;\nbut whenever, as to-day, they become so vague and fluid as to imperil\nhuman communication, humanism aims to achieve a clear relation of\nlabels to thought.\n\nIf the object of this book, on the one hand, is to indicate the\nfundamental needs of America as the dominant world power and inadequate\nmodel of civilisation in the twentieth century, on the other hand its\nobject is to inquire into the fundamental needs of humanism--to work\ntoward a set of definitions and a terminology neither too rigid nor\ntoo loose, to consider the requirements of humanism in the various\nactivities of modern thought and life, to determine the special tasks\nthat confront humanism in this latest moment of time, and to enlist the\ninterest and efforts of that \u201crather considerable leaven of intelligent\npeople\u201d who, as the _Forum_ has said editorially, \u201ccannot view with\nindifference the general decay of standards and the resultant chaos\ninto which our intellectual and moral life has been plunged.\u201d The\npublication of a symposium addressed to this public was first proposed,\nyears ago, by Percy H. Houston, and to him as well as to G. R. Elliott\nand Robert Shafer, advisory editors in this undertaking, cordial thanks\nare due for many valuable suggestions, although I am alone responsible\nfor the form which the book has finally assumed. The contributors\nare for the most part between thirty and forty-five years of age\n(perhaps three or four are over, and three or four under these limits).\nOne-third of them, as it happens, hold or have held important editorial\npositions. The academic group comprises several professors of English\nliterature, one of French and comparative literature, one of the\nfine arts (also director of an art museum), and one of physics (also\ndean of a graduate school). The youngest contributor, a student and\nathlete, represents that rapidly growing part of the rising generation\nwhich is turning from aimless revolt to the quest of standards. In\nconsequence of a diversity in occupations, as well as in temperament\nand personality, the authors of the book display numerous divergencies\nin outlook, in emphasis, and especially in tone. While all of them,\nfor example, are lovers of the law of measure or \u201cGolden Mean,\u201d some\nof them seek the way of quiet firmness or \u201csweet reasonableness,\u201d even\nin this blatant age, while others conceive that modern excesses must be\n\n  \u201cScorch\u2019d by a flaming speech on moderation.\u201d\n\nAs the reader will soon perceive, the contributors agree in certain\nbroad, fundamental opinions. Without exception they have sought to\nwork their way free of the dogmatic incrustations that threaten to\ncorrode even what is sound in characteristically modern thought. None\nof them, I think, can be suspect of a secret attraction to those\npseudo-scientific and humanitarian short-cuts to truth and morality\nthat lead in fact to pure scepticism and anarchy. All of them perceive\nthat a naturistic humanism is finally a paradox. Some of them might be\ntermed \u201cpure\u201d or \u201cmere\u201d humanists, others are religious humanists. Each\nhas been free to speak his own mind, and is responsible only for what\nhe has himself said. If the reader chances to conceive, as I personally\ndo, that Irving Babbitt is at the centre of the humanistic movement,\nsome of the other authors will appear to be near the periphery,\nalthough they too may seem near the centre from some other point of\nview. The authors of this symposium, in a word, have no desire to form\na closed school, or party, or cult, or religion. They would agree that\nthe _ism_ in humanism is at present a necessary evil. They are here\ntemporarily assembled for the sole end of offering suggestions toward\nthat new integration of values which may yet justify modernity.\n\n                                                      Norman Foerster.\n\n_January, 1930._\n\n\n\n\n_Contents_\n\n\n                                                                    PAGE\n  PREFACE: _Norman Foerster_                                           v\n\n  THE PRETENSIONS OF SCIENCE: _Louis Trenchard More_                   3\n\n  HUMANISM: AN ESSAY AT DEFINITION: _Irving Babbitt_                  25\n\n  THE HUMILITY OF COMMON SENSE: _Paul Elmer More_                     52\n\n  THE PRIDE OF MODERNITY: _G. R. Elliott_                             75\n\n  RELIGION WITHOUT HUMANISM: _T. S. Eliot_                           105\n\n  THE PLIGHT OF OUR ARTS: _Frank Jewett Mather, Jr._                 113\n\n  THE DILEMMA OF MODERN TRAGEDY: _Alan Reynolds Thompson_            127\n\n  AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY: _Robert Shafer_                               149\n\n  PANDORA\u2019S BOX IN AMERICAN FICTION: _Harry Hayden Clark_            170\n\n  DIONYSUS IN DISMAY: _Stanley P. Chase_                             205\n\n  OUR CRITICAL SPOKESMEN: _Gorham B. Munson_                         231\n\n  BEHAVIOUR AND CONTINUITY: _Bernard Bandler II_                     258\n\n  THE WELL OF DISCIPLINE: _Sherlock Bronson Gass_                    268\n\n  COURAGE AND EDUCATION: _Richard Lindley Brown_                     285\n\n  A LIST OF BOOKS                                                    291\n\n\n  _The essence of Elizabethan as of other humanisms is the\n  understanding of man and the definition of the sphere of properly\n  human activity. The philosophical mind of Shakespeare\u2019s age began\n  the work of reflection by cleaving the universe along three levels.\n  On the lowest level is the natural world, which is the plane\n  of instinct, appetite, animality, lust, the animal passions or\n  affections; on this level the regulation is by necessary or natural\n  law. On the middle level is the human world, which is regulated\n  and, in a sense, created by the will and knowledge of man; working\n  upon the natural world; but governed by reason, the special human\n  faculty; and illuminated more or less from the level above. On\n  the third level is the supernatural world, which is the plane of\n  spiritual beings, and the home of eternal ideas._\n\n  --STUART P. SHERMAN: \u201cON CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n                                HUMANISM\n                                   AND\n                                 AMERICA\n\n\n\n\n_The Pretensions of Science_\n\nLOUIS TRENCHARD MORE\n\n\nI\n\nSince the time when the Whigs of England fastened the specific title of\n_Pretender_ on the son and grandson of James II, the word has retained\nin our speech a sinister significance. For us a pretender is one who\nmakes a false claim to a title. But in speaking of the pretensions of\nscience, humanists do not mean precisely this. No humanist would deny\nthat science has a legitimate field of its own when investigating the\nphenomena of the objective world and attempting to find law and order\nin the flux of events. Nor would he deny that it has added much to our\nsecurity and power and has increased our opportunities for a richer\nlife and character.\n\nScience has its legitimate pretensions to power; but false claims are\nnow being advanced on all sides under the shelter of its name, and\nit is these false claims which the humanist is concerned to expose.\nWhile our modern pretenders are unfortunately far greater in number\nthan the two descendants of James, they do fall into two classes. The\nfirst includes those men of science who are not content to work in\ntheir limited field, but are really metaphysicians who have created\na fictitious world of the imagination made out of \u00e6thers, electrons,\nand mathematical symbols, and have confused it in their own and\nothers\u2019 minds with the sensible world of brute fact. This class does\ncomparatively little direct harm, as it merely creates some confusion\nin the orderly domain of science; but, indirectly, it has given a\nstimulus and specious authority to the pseudo-scientists. The second\nclass comprises those who are claiming that the phenomena of the\nsubjective world also lie in the field of science and have imposed on\nthe age the pseudo-sciences of psychology and sociology. They would\nhave us believe that all truth is scientific and that the conclusions\nof self-examination are but guess-work. By mere verbal analogies they\nhave linked the study of man\u2019s intellectual and spiritual nature to the\nphysical world of mechanical matter and motion. It is the false claims\nof these pseudo-sciences which must be exposed and renounced in order\nthat humanism may come again into its own as the arbiter of character.\n\nAs in the Middle Ages canting simulation of goodness, as well as honest\nvirtue, was covered by the word religion, so to-day vague speculation,\nas well as accurate experimentation, is proclaimed as science. By a\ncurious throw-back we are apparently using the word \u201cscience\u201d in the\nprimitive sense of \u201call knowledge,\u201d as the Greeks used it. And they,\nin spite of their acumen, had not been able to differentiate between\nthe two equally valid methods of learning by objective experimentation\nand by personal experience. We have seemingly forgotten that one\nof the greatest achievements of the Renaissance was to discover\nthis difference of method and to limit \u201cscience\u201d strictly to the\ninvestigation of objective phenomena. Even Descartes, who attempted to\ncreate a purely mechanical world, excluded the processes of thought as\nsomething foreign to the scientific method.\n\nIt was the biologists of the nineteenth century, intoxicated with the\ndelusion that the magic word evolution was a key to unlock all the\nmysteries of the universe, who foisted on the world the idea that man\nis but a complicated physical and chemical machine, and who sought to\ndiscredit the dualistic philosophy of the Renaissance physicists. And\nof all the biologists, Huxley, the militant propagandist, was the\none who did the most to degrade humanism into the pseudo-sciences of\npsychology and sociology. He first correctly emphasised the fact that\nthere is but one scientific method which is best exemplified by the\nsubject of mechanics. But--and in this lies the source of his mischief\nto clear thinking--_he then defined science as merely organised common\nsense_. One has only to analyse this definition to discover its\nspeciousness and its confusion of thought. His definition has been\nalmost universally accepted, although it undoes all the lessons taught\nus by the religious thinkers of the Middle Ages and the scientific\nexperimentalists of the Renaissance; and its effect has been to drive\ntheoretical science back into the hypothetical metaphysics of the\nGreeks.\n\nIt is merely a truism to say that our contact with the objective\nand subjective worlds is based, directly or indirectly, on our\nsense-perceptions; and, to be intelligibly transmitted from one person\nto another, such data must be common to many individuals. Also, it\nis an inevitable tendency of the mind to organise all facts or to\nlink them together. Thus Huxley really classes all sound knowledge\nas science. But, since this sound knowledge, according to him, can\nbe attained only by following the method of mechanics, which is the\ninterpretation by the mind of the spatial and temporal relations\nbetween sensible bodies, his inference is clear that the phenomena of\nconsciousness, the individual mind, and our social relations, are to be\ninterpreted as problems of matter and motion.\n\nYet what, actually, is the process of exact science? The answer to this\nquestion should show us whether or not the term does have any precise\nand limited significance, and whether or not fundamental confusion must\nresult from the attempt to make it synonymous with all knowledge.\n\nExact science, then, is first of all based on the na\u00efve belief in an\nobjective and real world whose events are connected in an orderly and\nprescribed manner, and occur independently of our thought or will. The\nphenomena of this objective world appeal to us through our sense-organs\nby some form of action, which we call energy, and are interpreted by\nour minds. We speak of this interpretation as observation; but to be\nscientific we must also select the phenomena to be observed, in order\nthat we may classify their similarities and their dissimilarities.\nIn the course of time, we have found such precision in many of our\nclassifications and such regularity in the past actions of phenomena,\nthat we are able to predict future events. Those predictions, which\nfrom past experience we find to have been accurately verified, we\nformulate as laws. For example, we have observed the actions of so\nmany falling bodies that we have formulated the law of gravitation. It\nwould be an error to say that a body fell, yesterday, because of this\nlaw; that event was simply one of the observed facts from which the\nlaw was deduced; but it is quite proper to predict that such a body\nwill fall, to-morrow, in accordance with the law of gravitation. To\nsum up, the scientific method is limited to experimental observation\nand the formulation of laws; its value lies in the fact that, by its\ncultivation, we have done much to allay our apprehensions for the\nfuture and thus have abated the edge of superstition; and we also\nhave vastly increased our power over our environment, or, in the much\nmisunderstood aphorism of Francis Bacon, we have found science to be\nvaluable for its fruits.\n\nIn a general way, we may say that the scientist should follow in his\ninvestigations the phenomena of the objective world only until their\nspecial forms of energy are absorbed by our nervous system. It is in\nthe province of the humanist to study the phenomena of the subjective\nworld after these stimuli have been translated into emotion and thought.\n\nIf a scientific prediction, or law, is to be something more than a\nvague statement of what will probably occur, we feel the necessity\nof measuring the quantity of the event; that is, our minds are not\nsatisfied until we are able to express it mathematically. Since the\nonly measurable attributes, concerning which our opinion of more or\nless is definite, are geometrical lengths, the aim of all science is,\nand must be, to express its laws in the language of mechanics; for that\nsubject alone deals exclusively with simple, sensible masses and their\ngeometrical relations in space. We have then the paradox that while\nmathematics is the goal of science, in that it is the ideal method,\nor language of expression, it is not itself a science since it is\nconcerned with subjective ideas and is not limited by the restrictions\nof sensible bodies. Modern men of science may rebel against this fact;\nbut even the newer, and more dubious, of the pseudo-sciences are\nforced to substantiate their claims with the support of factitious\nmathematical formul\u00e6 and tables and to simulate the mechanistic method.\nThe inevitable tendency of science is to investigate all phenomena\nquantitatively, and to view the whole universe as a vast and measurable\nmachine.\n\nIf the phenomena of life are to be classed as an exact science, it is\nnecessary to postulate that the living organism, also, is a machine,--a\nthing of various material parts, acting on each other by mechanical\nforces. Such a postulate is pure _fiat_, for we have found no common\nfactors between what we call vital actions and mechanical and physical\nforces. Biology is, at best, confined to the discovery of qualitative\nclassifications, and the mutual chemical and physical reactions of\nthe organism; and life is so complex and so variable that very few of\nits phenomena can be predicted with any accuracy. For example, the\nso-called law of heredity is often cited, but we have made scarcely\nany progress towards predicting variations in even an immediately\nsucceeding generation. Even if a general law of progressive evolution\nwere granted to have been established, no one could foretell by it the\nfuture variations of any species.\n\nIf the scientific method is badly strained when applied to even the\nsimplest forms of life, it completely fails when used to elucidate the\nphenomena of the mind. The fundamental definition of science excludes\nthe processes of consciousness from its field, for it assumes that\nobjective phenomena are to be interpreted by the mind. If we attempt to\nstudy the mind objectively, then we come face to face with the absurd\nparadox of a thing investigating itself by means of I itself. And the\ngibe cast at the scientific psychologists, that they propose to study\nthe mind by first denying its existence, is only too well founded.\n\nThe possibility of a scientific method is based on a rational\ninterpretation of objective phenomena. Psychology, as a science, would\nbe a solemn version of _Alice Through the Looking Glass_ in which\nreal persons are viewed and analysed by their images, or rather by\nsome other intelligence, such as a dog or an inhabitant of Mars. The\nfutility of such a process should be apparent if we recollect that an\nanimal\u2019s mental processes can themselves be estimated and expressed\nonly as a vaguer and more rudimentary sort of human mind.\n\n\nII\n\nOur modern idea that science embraces all kinds of knowledge is, as\nI have mentioned before, a curious reversion to the Greeks. In spite\nof the fact that they formulated the great deductive laws of physics,\nsuch as cause and effect, conservation of matter, etc., and developed\nan extraordinarily fruitful science of geometry, they remained\nindifferent to the experimental method. They developed almost no\napparatus for experimentation, established no standards of measurement,\nand their arithmetical symbols were so awkward that only the simplest\ncalculations could be made. They never succeeded in disentangling\nsubjective and objective ideas. Plato could anticipate the modern\nconception of natural law in his aphorism that God geometrises, but\nat the same time he vaguely identified the human soul with the stars\nand endued the universe with life. Democritus pictured the world as an\naggregation of atoms, differing only in size, shape, and motion; yet\nhe also tacitly ascribed to them a will or desire to move which was\nonly less pronounced than in those finer particles which constituted\nthe souls of men. Also the four classic elements,--earth, water, air,\nand fire,--which combined in different proportions to form all material\nbodies, were actuated by the animistic principle that each element\nsought its own place. One could multiply these examples of classical\nthought which confused mechanical forces with the vital attributes of\nwill and desire.\n\nThe failure of the Greeks to develop an objective and experimental\nmethod was intensified by the domination of the Christian religion\nduring the Middle Ages. The emphasis of thought was placed on the\nproblems of human character. At a time when men were taught that our\nenvironment was a trap set by the powers of evil to allure our souls to\neternal damnation, there could be little stimulus to study the laws of\nnature or to apply them to increase our interest in a temporal life. It\nis customary for historians to condemn the Church for having crushed\nscience, but no concerted opposition was necessary in a society which\nsaw no advantage in gathering its fruits. It was an axiom that truth\nwas the direct consequence of intuition and revelation, that God had\nrevealed in the Bible, and through His living Church, all the knowledge\nnecessary for man\u2019s guidance in a transitory state. To neglect such a\ncertainty for the perceptions of our fallible and sinful senses, and to\nconstruct a world from them according to our reason, would be to fall\ninto the sin of the pride of the intellect. Furthermore, in a society\nsmall in numbers and in area, where the greater number were believed to\nhave been created to minister to the comfort of the few, little need\nwas felt for mechanical power and industry. The only science which\nseemed to be worth cultivating was one which was believed to foretell\nhuman events and to affect our spiritual life.\n\nIt had been generally accepted from ancient times that the stars\ninfluenced our lives and foretold the future. Such knowledge was\neagerly sought by a society which was principally concerned with\nreligion and was, at the same time, a prey to superstitious fear.\nIt is not surprising that astrology was seriously cultivated. If we\ngrant the postulate that the stars do affect us, then we must admit\nthat astrology was a true science. The positions and the motions of\nthe planets and stars were observed and recorded as accurately as\npossible, and deductions were made according to rules and laws believed\nto have been verified by experience. Nor does it seem to me much more\ncredulous to believe that our character is determined by the relative\npositions of the planets, than to assume, as do Mr. Watson and the\nmodern behaviourists, that our thoughts are caused by the relative\npositions and motions of the material atoms which happen to compose\nthe substance of our brains. The astrologists had, at least, the great\nadvantage of dealing with real bodies which we can observe, while these\npsychologists have for their use only the hypothetical and machine-made\natoms of the chemist which they can never hope to observe. There is\nlittle to choose between the superstition that the planets foretell our\ncharacters and the superstition that atoms constitute thought; both\nlead to equally foolish and irrational practices. And there is the\nless excuse for the psychologist, since he has had the benefit of a\nlonger past experience than had the astrologer to convince him of the\nfutility of identifying mind and matter.\n\nThe only other science which aroused popular interest was alchemy. The\nbasis of this subject was the postulate that all matter was composed\nof the four elements combined in various proportions. By the use\nof chemical reagents, the combinations of these elements could be\naltered and a given substance be thus changed into another. Alchemy\nis generally associated with the attempt to transmute metals and, in\nparticular, to change lead into gold, because the natural cupidity\nof their patrons made it advisable for the alchemists to hold that\nprospect before them in order to obtain a livelihood. In principle,\nalchemy is but little different from modern chemistry. Our most recent\ntheory still holds that the difference between lead and gold is due\nonly to the numerical relations of a single element, the electron. The\ndifference between chemistry and alchemy does not lie in either their\nfundamental hypotheses or their methods, but in our vastly superior\ntechnique of experimentation and accumulated knowledge. The nature of\nthe modern electronic atom is essentially as fictitious as was the\nnature of the medi\u00e6val elements.\n\nBesides exciting the hope of wealth, alchemy was important as an aid\nto health and longevity. Since health required that the four elements\nof the body should be preserved in their proper balance, illness, and\neven death, were but the temporary or permanent loss of their right\nproportions. Alchemists, convinced of this truth, were led to seek for\na sovereign substance, the philosopher\u2019s stone, which would have the\npower to restore this disturbed balance and give to its fortunate owner\npermanent health and life.\n\nIt is a mistake to suppose that the Church oppressed these\nsciences--many of its most orthodox fathers and saints eagerly studied\nthem. The abuses due to the rampant charlatanry of many of their\npractitioners were repressed, but their serious doctrines were fused\ninto the religion of the time much as, in our day, the clergy have\ntried to harmonise Christianity and biological evolution. In fact, as\nwe shall see, the most determined opposition which the new Copernican\ntheory of the solar system had to overcome was the fusion of Christian\ndogma with Aristotelian astrology and alchemy.\n\nIt was natural that the first fruits of the new science of the\nRenaissance should have been in astronomy and mechanics. The\naccumulated observations of the astrologers had vastly increased the\ncomplexity of the Ptolemaic system, and the discrepancies between\nthe observed and calculated positions of the planets had become\nglaringly evident. When the great treatise of Copernicus was finally\npublished as he lay on his death-bed, it is altogether probable that\nno one suspected that it marked the beginning of a new philosophy. He\nhad merely proved that the calculations of astronomers were greatly\nsimplified by assuming that the sun, instead of the earth, was the\nfixed centre of the solar system, and that the earth and other planets\nrevolved about it in circular orbits. It must remain a mooted question\nwhether Copernicus believed that his discovery was only a mathematical\ndevice; his book states explicitly that he, as a Catholic, still\nsubscribed to the belief that the earth was actually the fixed centre\nof the universe as the Church and the Aristotelians both taught to be\na necessary article of faith. At all events, it was not until Galileo\nsome sixty years later invented the telescope and turned it on the\nheavens, that men saw the significance of the discovery. The eye of\nthe telescope penetrated the depths of the solar system. It proved\nthat the planets were not pure celestial matter but were mere masses\nlike the earth. Their brilliance was not a divine fire but ordinary\nsunlight reflected from their dull surfaces; they, like the earth,\nwere inanimate bodies revolving about the sun and the Copernican system\nbecame a fact instead of a mathematic device. It is not extravagant to\nassert that, with the acceptance of Copernican astronomy, the whole\nmedi\u00e6val conception of nature gave place to a reliance on experimental\nevidence.\n\nThe work of Galileo in founding the science of mechanics was fatal to\nthe mysticism of the contemporary alchemists. Instead of the elements\nwith their natural places, their likes and dislikes, their hierarchy of\nnobility, and their subserviency to planetary influences, he laid down\nthe universal principle that all natural actions were due to mechanical\nforces whose only function was to alter the motions of bodies and whose\namount was measurable in mathematical symbols. His significant work for\nus was an uncompromising war waged against the scientific dogmatism\nof the Aristotelians on the clear-cut issue that knowledge of the\nobjective world could be obtained only by experimental evidence, and\nnot by subjective preconceptions. Understood rightly, he had reinstated\nthe Platonic dualism of two worlds, one of matter, and the other of the\nmind or spirit.\n\nIt is significant that during Galileo\u2019s lifetime, so swift was the\nmovement, Descartes saw the trend of the new science and its inevitable\neffect on philosophy and religion. In his _Syst\u00e8me du Monde_, he\npictured a universe of matter and motion and nothing else,--a\nmachine. From matter he tried to strip every sensible attribute\nexcept extension, or its mere geometrical position and extent. All\nphenomena became for him merely phases of motion. With the courage\nof his conviction, he even tried to imagine plants and animals to be\nmechanically acting automata. One thing only he could not include in\nthis mechanism,--and that was _thought and consciousness_.\n\nThe cosmogony of Descartes has long since crumbled to dust, but the\ngap he made between the subjective and objective worlds has never been\nclosed in spite of incessant later attempts. And these early creators\nof science, as something distinct from humanism, were quite conscious\nthat they were engaged in a revolution which could end only with the\noverthrow of the dogmatic science of the Middle Ages, sheltered by the\nauthority of Aristotle and the Bible. Galileo, Descartes, Pascal, and\nBacon all declared explicitly that the old order must pass. From their\nday to ours, we have more and more regarded the universe as a machine,\na combination of inert matter and moving forces, acting not as we may\ndesire, but according to invariable laws which we have personified as\nNature. Man was left, by the physicists, as a unique outsider who could\ninterpret this machine in terms of his sensations and mind, but could\nneither alter nor avoid its fateful operation.\n\nOnly one step further was needed to identify all science with mechanics\nand to compress the scientific method within the limits imposed by\nmechanical laws. This fundamental principle was Newton\u2019s discovery\nof the universal attraction of matter. According to this law, a\nsingle kind of force, depending only on the amount of matter and the\ndistance between bodies, operated to hold the stars in their paths\nand to cause all the chemical and physical activities of atoms. With\nits discovery, the mechanistic theory was complete and dominant,\nand science had, in principle, gone as far as it can ever go. But,\nwhat is even more important, Newton grasped in his early years the\nfact that the scientific method is limited to the experimental\ninvestigation of objective phenomena, those which can be classified,\nmeasured geometrically, and formulated in laws which predict future\nevents. He held with absolute consistency and restraint that what is\nonce accomplished by this method is permanent. The experimental laws\nof gravitation, of the pressure of gases, and all others of like\nnature, are true within the limits of accuracy of our observation\nand measurement. If these improve, such laws do not fail, their\nmathematical expression is merely made more precise. They belong to the\npermanent acquisitions of the mind.\n\n\nIII\n\nTo attempt to explain the nature of matter, or heat, or light, the\nmechanism by which they act, or the method by which their energy is\ntranslated into sensation and thought, this, however, is to pass\ninto the realm of metaphysics, or what Newton excellently called\nhypothesis. All such speculations are, at best, transitory, and,\ninstead of predicting new lines of work, they lag behind the sure and\nsteady advance of experimentation; they are constantly being revised\nto explain new phenomena after they are discovered. A convincing\nillustration of this criticism can be found in the history of the\nhypotheses of the nature of light. Physicists commonly assert that the\ncorpuscular hypothesis retarded the advance of the subject of light for\na century; their answer was to replace it by an equally metaphysical\nhypothesis of mechanical waves in an \u00e6ther. After incessantly\npatching up this new conception during the next century, they are\nagain returning to a corpuscular hypothesis, even more metaphysical\nand incomprehensible than its prototype. It seems impossible for us\nto learn that the trouble does not arise from the weakness of any\nparticular variety, but lies in the nature of hypothesis, itself.\nWe have created fictitious \u00e6thers, atoms, and electrons which bear\nno resemblance to sensible bodies; light is alternately a stream of\ncorpuscles, or waves, or quanta of energy, or even a mathematical\nsymbol; space is declared to be impenetrable except along certain\ncurves; and time is confused with space. What one age proposes as a\ngreat advance is flung aside by the next which makes a new hypothesis\nwhose only fate is to be rejected. So far have these speculations been\ncarried that the dogma is seriously maintained that a false scientific\nhypothesis is valuable because in some mysterious way it leads to the\ndiscovery of truth.\n\nAs we have advanced in sober experimental science, these hypotheses\nhave become more and more abstruse and more and more dogmatic until\nthe most recent of these dreamers, Whitehead, Eddington, Einstein,\nhave pictured a phantasmagoria, instead of a world, as non-sensical as\nthe hallucinations of the medi\u00e6val monk driven mad by the fevers of\nasceticism.\n\nSuch models of the structure of matter may, indeed, be useful to\ngive substance to our thought and a language for our ideas. They\nhave something of the same sort of relation to real objects that\nportraits do to living persons. But there is this important point to be\nremembered. A skilful painter has seen and studied the person and can\nmake so faithful a likeness as to create the illusion of reality. But\nthe man of science is attempting to picture things which can never be\nseen, for atoms lie in the realm of the infinitely small, whose very\nexistence is problematical. Models of atoms, of \u00e6thers, or of space\nhave about the same degree of authenticity as the posthumous portrait\nof a person whom no one then alive had ever seen. Men of science are\ntoo prone to confuse the thing and the model in their own minds, and\nthey have certainly been so careless in their teaching that even very\nhighly educated laymen accept these hypotheses as facts. Is it not true\nthat the world pretty generally takes the hypothetical explanation of\ngravitation by Einstein, which involves the concept of a fictitious\nspace of more than three dimensions and the fusion of time with space,\nto be equally as scientific, and therefore equally as true, as the\nexperimental law of the attraction of bodies? Do not many accept as\na demonstrated fact one or another of the many hypotheses advanced by\nbiologists to explain the cause of the observed variations in species?\nAnd having failed to distinguish between scientific fact and fiction,\nwe have incorporated this mass of speculation into our philosophy of\nlife and especially into our religion. We are worse confused than the\nDeists of the eighteenth century who believed that the mind of God\ncould be defined by learning the facts and laws of Nature; we now\npropose that the intellectual and spiritual attributes of Man be framed\nin the hypotheses of dogmatic Science.\n\nThat the scientific method, as evolved from physics and chemistry, is\nnot applicable to the problems of life has been the settled conviction\nof virtually all the investigators in those sciences. In fact, in\norder to achieve their results they have had to assume that life is a\nperturbation which cannot be included in a mechanical and mathematical\nworld, and that so far as possible sense-perceptions must be excluded\nas criteria of laws. However, it has not been so clear to many of\nthem that the mechanical method imposes definite, and rather narrow,\nlimitations even upon the study of physical and chemical problems.\nThese limitations were clearly defined in the seventeenth century\nduring the protracted controversy between Newton on the one side, and\nHooke and Huygens on the other, as to the nature of light and the\n_modus operandi_, or mechanism, of its transmission. The question\ninvolved was clear-cut; and it will pay to discuss it in some detail\nbecause it settled once for all, I think, the distinction between\nscience and humanism.\n\nTheoretical physics, from the very beginning, has been a synthesis of\nphenomena in terms of mechanics; that is, in terms of substance and\nmotion. For example, the physical properties of heat, sound, and light\nare expressed by the same mathematical formul\u00e6 which express the motion\nof a wave in water. To distinguish between them, we assign different\nnames to the substances involved, as a molecule of air, a corpuscle of\nlight, or an \u00e6ther. But whatever names we may give to them, or however\nwe may try to distinguish them, we assign to all of them the common\nattribute of mass, or inertia, which is the only essential coefficient\nin a mechanical equation. And we use for all these different phenomena\nthe same formula of motion, the quotient of the distance by the time.\nThese quantities, mass and motion, when combined give us the law of\nmechanical energy, and our synthesis rests on the single fact that\nheat, sound, and light may be changed into mechanical motion, and may\nbe produced by it. This energy is then their common and mutable factor.\n\nBut the objective phenomena of heat, light, and sound are cognisable\nto us through three separate sense-organs and are perceived as\ntemperature, sight, and tone. These sensations are fundamentally\ndifferent and, in fact, to confuse any of them with another is one of\nthe surest indications of insanity. Thus the world as depicted by the\nphysicist does not correspond with our world of sensation; nor does he\nattempt to do more than to discuss a restricted set of attributes, and\nnot even those which really distinguish heat, light, etc., as such.\n\nNewton, in his earliest published work, made evident this essential\ndifference between the fields of physics and psychology. By means\nof a prism he refracted a beam of white sunlight into a continuous\nspectrum. He then placed a screen, containing a narrow slit, behind\nthe prism in such a way as to permit only a very thin ray from the\nspectrum to pass on, and through, a second prism fastened parallel to\nthe first prism. (I call it a homogeneous light ray to distinguish it\nfrom its psychological analogue, colour.) No matter what portion of the\nspectrum was used for the second prism, there was no further change of\ncolour; the ray merely suffered a second angular deviation equal to\nthat produced by the first refraction. He also recombined the whole\nspectrum by a reversed prism and obtained a single ray parallel to the\noriginal ray and pure white in colour. As a result of his experiments,\nhe announced the following law: a primary ray of light is one which\nhas a definite and specific angle of refraction by a prism, and each\nsuch primary ray is, to the eye, a primary colour. White is therefore\na mixture of an indefinitely large number of primary rays, each\npossessing a different angle of deviation when passed through a prism;\nand when so separated each primary ray is seen by the eye as a primary\ncolour.\n\nThe experiments of Newton were accepted as correct by Huygens and\nHooke, probably the two most eminent physicists of the time. But they\nobjected to his definition of a primary colour and to his conclusions.\nThey had found previously, by their own experiments, that certain\npairs of complementary colours, such as a certain red and a certain\nblue, gave to the eye the same sensation of white as did clear\nsunlight. They had defined them as the two primary colours which, by\ndifferent proportions of mixture, would produce all other colours,\nincluding white. They therefore objected that it was unnecessary and\ncumbersome to assume an infinite number of primary rays when two were\nquite sufficient. By no process of reasoning could these two opinions\nbe either reconciled or controverted. They involved fundamentally\ndifferent criteria. White produced by the combination of a continuous\nspectrum and the white produced by a combination of red and blue\nwere one and the same to Hooke and Huygens because their criterion\nof identity was the sensation of sight, and it must be the same for\nall psychologists who deal with subjective light. To Newton, the two\nwhites were altogether different. The one examined by a prism gives a\ncontinuous spectrum, and the other gives two separated bands of blue\nand red. What, then, to the physicist is a fundamental dissimilarity\nis to the psychologist complete identity. How then can psychological\nsensations be studied by physical methods?\n\nTo show that this is not an isolated case, but that this gulf runs\nbetween the entire fields of physics and psychology, I can give an\nartificial example. While I deprecate the pseudo-scientific pictures,\nnow fashionable, of the state of prehistoric man and of the condition\nof the earth before its habitability, I am able to imagine a world\nin which the eye had never developed, so that all life was blind. I\nam sure the word colour would never have been coined in such a world\nand that there could be no psychology of sight, but I also know that\nthe blind race could develop a physical science of light because very\nmany of its phenomena can be, and are now exclusively, studied by such\napparatus as thermometers and electric galvanometers which can be read\nby touch. Or, to cite an everyday example, is not the mere fact, that\nthe sensation produced by pepper on the tongue cannot be distinguished\nfrom that of heat, sufficient to make us hesitate before trying to\nstudy the sensations objectively, to synthesise the objective and\nsubjective worlds, or to try to investigate them by the same method?\n\nThe history of physics, since the time of Maxwell, shows a record of\nvain efforts to reconstruct a materialistic monism. These attempts\nhave failed because they involved a supposititious \u00e6ther and atom\nwhich could no longer satisfy the growing body of experimental facts\nabout radiant energy. After Maxwell predicted the existence of\nelectro-magnetic radiation, an \u00e6ther or atom possessing the ordinary\nattributes of matter became an absurdity.\n\nBut our childish, or at least youthful, reluctance to admit our\nlimitations is so great that we proceeded to repeat the hypothetical\nmethod once more by substituting an energiastic monism. Unmindful of\nPascal\u2019s dictum that man cannot investigate the world of either the\ninfinitely small or the infinitely large, we are replacing a material\natom and \u00e6ther by Planck\u2019s hypothesis of discrete and disembodied\n_quanta_, or atoms, of energy. Already there have arisen four\ninsuperable difficulties.\n\nThe hypothesis affirms action without specifying something to act,\nunless the word _energy_ is given all the physical attributes of\nmatter. In which case a _quantum_ of radiant energy is merely our old\nfriend, a corpuscle of light, masquerading under a new name. Again, it\nsubstitutes the principle of discontinuity of action for continuity,\nand one is puzzled to know from what the _quantum_ originates and\nin what it ends. And again, it creates the dilemma that light is\nsimultaneously corpuscular and vibrational, since without the latter\nquality none of the phenomena of interference is explicable. Lastly, it\ndrifts into a pure philosophy of idealism.\n\nMy discussion would not be complete without a reference to the theory\nof relativity. It is significant that the earliest serious critique\nof Newtonian physics was made by Bishop Berkeley. With the greatest\ningenuity and skill, he pointed out that objects can become known\nto us only _by_ the mind and that since light, sound, and motion\nare interpreted by the mind as essentially different, they cannot\nbe synthesised by any experimental and objective process. So far\nBerkeley\u2019s critique is thoroughly valid. He proceeded, however, to make\nthe _non-sequitur_ that objects exist only _in_ the mind. If we accept\nthis postulate, the logic of idealism is irrefutable; few, however,\nwill accept it. Idealism fails because it ignores brute fact, and we\naccept the answer of Dr. Johnson who made his objection by merely\nkicking a large stone in his path.\n\nEinstein also began with a critique of Newtonian dynamics to prove\nthat the conclusions we can draw from electrodynamics are as limited\nand as relative as those from mechanics. From this denial of our\nability to obtain real or absolute knowledge he, like Berkeley,\nhas proceeded to construct a positive philosophy of the absolute.\nRelativity, as it has now been interpreted by such disciples as\nWhitehead and Eddington, is merely idealism under a new guise. The\nobjective world of sensation and experience is illusion, and truth\nexists only in a set of subjective mathematical formul\u00e6 of cosmic\n_events_. The relativists openly rejoice that mathematics has come into\nits own kingdom and is no longer to be the handmaiden of physics, no\nlonger to be restricted by the limitations of the sense-perceptions.\nEuclidean geometry, which is limited to the three dimensions of tactual\nspace, has been replaced by a geometry of hyper-space, the properties\nof which no one can be cognisant of. Subjective time is eliminated, and\nobjective time is conflated with space. They, too, deny the validity of\nthe senses, as did the medi\u00e6val schoolman, and picture a topsy-turvy\nworld. They are labouring under the delusion that the limitations of\nlogic can be avoided by the simple substitution of mathematical symbols\nfor words, forgetting that mathematical symbols are as meaningless as\nwords when they are detached from facts. They fail to see that the\nequation is but a form of the syllogism. One can trace all through\ntheir argument the old and familiar fallacy of the ambiguous middle.\nThey are quite reckless, as it suits their convenience, in confusing\nphysical space of three dimensions with mathematical space of an\nunlimited number; neither do they distinguish time as a subjective\nsequence of events from time as a measurable component of velocity. The\nrelativists are as rash as those sociologists who see a real connection\nbetween physical energy of motion and mental energy of thought and so\ndeceive themselves with the notion that they are scientific.\n\nA note of uncertainty is beginning to show itself, however, for\nthoughtful physicists are seeing the _impasse_ into which their\nunbridled hypotheses have led them. Abstruse mathematical analysis is\nagain proving to us, what Pascal, Newton, Lagrange, and philosophy\nhad demonstrated in a simpler way, that the mechanistic method can,\nat best, only picture an objective world as it seems to us, and not\nas it is. As a recent physicist confesses: \u201cThe physicist thus finds\nhimself in a world from which the bottom has dropped clean out; as he\npenetrates deeper and deeper it eludes him and fades away by the highly\nunsportsmanlike device of just becoming meaningless. No refinement of\nmeasurement will avail to carry him beyond the portals of this shadowy\ndomain which he cannot even mention without logical inconsistency. A\n_bound_ is thus forever set to the curiosity of the physicist. What\nis more, the mere existence of this bound means that he must give up\nhis most cherished convictions and faith. The world is not a world of\nreason, understandable by the intellect of man, but as we penetrate\never deeper, the very law of cause and effect, which we had thought to\nbe a formula to which we could force God himself to subscribe, ceases\nto have meaning.\u201d[1] The answer to this na\u00efve confession is simple\nenough: there never was a _bottom_ to his hypothetical world, as he\ncould have foreseen if he had acquainted himself with the warning of\nthe more profound men of science, philosophers, and humanists.\n\nThe writer adds that this failure, now proved, \u201cmust forever keep the\nphysicist humble.\u201d But there is no cause for him to think lowly of\nhimself for what he has accomplished and for what he may achieve. He\nshould, rather, be modest and restrict himself to what can be done\nlegitimately by the scientific method. I fear, however, that in spite\nof such occasional confessions, the physicists are neither humble nor\nmodest, but are merely bewildered. The false pretensions of science\nmust be wholly abandoned, and the problems of our destiny be examined\nby a wise judgment drawn from human experience, before we can hope for\na sane and humanistic philosophy.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES\n\n[1] \u201cThe New Vision of Science,\u201d by Professor P. W. Bridgman, _Harper\u2019s\nMagazine_, 1929.\n\n\n\n\n_Humanism: An Essay at Definition_\n\nIRVING BABBITT\n\n\nI\n\nThe art of defining is so indispensable that one needs to define the\nlimits of definition itself. A very eminent humanist, Erasmus, showed\nhis awareness of these limits when he complained of the attempts of the\ntheologians of the Reformation to formulate deity that every definition\nwas a disaster. Though the humanist does not seek to define God and is\nin general chary of ultimates, he is wont in more mundane matters to\nput the utmost emphasis on definition. This Socratic emphasis would\nseem especially needed at a time like the present which has probably\nsurpassed all previous epochs in its loose and irresponsible use of\ngeneral terms. Unless this tendency is corrected, the day may come\nwhen, outside of words that stand for the measurements of science or\nthe objects of sense, communication between men will be well-nigh\nimpossible. The exchange of ideas regarding those aspects of life\nthat fall outside the merely quantitative and material may become\nas difficult as economic exchanges would be with coins that have no\ndefinite value.\n\nThis growing debasement of the intellectual coinage may be illustrated\nfrom the word humanism itself. The boundaries of a genuine humanism\nare broad and flexible. It is plain, however, that the word is being\nappropriated for points of view that cannot be brought within these\nboundaries, however generously extended. As a preliminary to pointing\nout some of the more serious of the resulting confusions it would\nseem desirable to build up the historical background. For what a word\nactually has meant should surely throw light on what it ought to mean.\n\nAs is well known, the word humanist was applied, first in the Italy of\nthe fifteenth century, and later in other European countries, to the\ntype of scholar who was not only proficient in Greek and Latin, but who\nat the same time inclined to prefer the humanity of the great classical\nwriters to what seemed to him the excess of divinity in the medi\u00e6vals.\nThis contrast between humanity and divinity was often conceived very\nsuperficially. However, the best of the humanists were not content with\nopposing a somewhat external imitation of the Ciceronian or Virgilian\nelegance to the scholastic carelessness of form. They actually caught\na glimpse of the fine proportionateness of the ancients at their best.\nThey were thus encouraged to aim at a harmonious development of their\nfaculties in this world rather than at an other-worldly felicity.\nEach faculty, they held, should be cultivated in due measure without\none-sidedness or over-emphasis, whether that of the ascetic or that of\nthe specialist. \u201cNothing too much\u201d is indeed the central maxim of all\ngenuine humanists, ancient and modern.\n\nIn a world of ever-shifting circumstance, this maxim is not always of\neasy application. Whoever has succeeded in bridging the gap between\nthe general precept and some particular emergency has to that extent\nachieved the fitting and the decorous. Decorum is simply the law of\nmeasure in its more concrete aspects. For every type of humanist\ndecorum is, in Milton\u2019s phrase, the \u201cgrand masterpiece to observe.\u201d\nActually this observation may rest on deep insight, as it did in the\ncase of Milton himself, or it may degenerate into empty formalism.\nThe adjustment of which I have spoken between the variable and the\npermanent elements in human experience requires spiritual effort and\nmost men are spiritually indolent. For genuine adjustment they tend\nto substitute outer conformity so that decorum itself finally comes\nto seem a mere veneer, something that has no deep root in the nature\nof things. Moreover the notions of decent behaviour to which men have\nconformed at any particular period have always been more or less\nlocal and relative. It is easy to take the next step and assume that\nthey have been _only_ local and relative, an assumption subversive\nnot merely of decorum but of humanism itself. Humanism, one of our\nmodernists has argued, may have done very well for other times and\nplaces, but under existing circumstances, it is at best likely to prove\nonly a \u201cnoble anachronism.\u201d A similar objection to humanism is that\nit has its source in a psychology of \u201cescape,\u201d that it is an attempt\nto take flight from the present into a past that has for the modern\nman become impossible. But humanism is not to be identified with this\nor that body of traditional precepts. The law of measure on which it\ndepends becomes meaningless unless it can be shown to be one of the\n\u201claws unwritten in the heavens\u201d of which Antigone had the immediate\nperception, laws that are \u201cnot of to-day or yesterday,\u201d that transcend\nin short the temporal process. The final appeal of the humanist is not\nto any historical convention but to intuition.\n\nIt does not follow that the humanist is ready to abandon history to\nthe relativist. The main conventions that have prevailed in the past\nreveal important identities as well as differences. These identities\ncannot be explained as due to their common derivation from some\nprevious convention. The Chinese made an independent discovery of\nthe law of measure.[2] An important task, indeed, that awaits some\nproperly qualified scholar, preferably a Chinese, is a comparison of\nConfucian humanism with occidental humanism as it appears, for example,\nin the _Ethics_ of Aristotle. The announcement was made recently in\nthe press that a Harvard astronomer had discovered the \u201ccentre of the\nuniverse\u201d (more strictly the centre of our galactic system). In the\nmeanwhile the far more important question is being neglected whether\nhuman nature itself has any centre. One\u2019s faith in the existence of\nsuch a centre increases when one finds the best commentary on Pascal\u2019s\ndictum that the great man is he who combines in himself opposite\nvirtues and occupies all the space between them, in a Confucian book\nthe very title of which, literally rendered, means the \u201cuniversal norm\u201d\nor \u201ccentre.\u201d[3] Here and elsewhere the Confucian books reveal a deep\nand direct insight into the law of measure. Legge\u2019s translation of the\nChinese word for decorum (_li_) as \u201cthe rules of propriety\u201d has been\nrightly censured as unduly prim and formalistic; though it must be\nadmitted that a formalistic element is very marked at times even in the\nolder Confucian writings.\n\nPractically the assertion of a \u201cuniversal centre\u201d means the setting\nup of some pattern or model for imitation. The idea of imitation goes\neven deeper than that of decorum, but is an idea that humanism shares\nwith religion. Humanism, however, differs from religion in putting\nat the basis of the pattern it sets up, not man\u2019s divinity, but the\nsomething in his nature that sets him apart simply as man from other\nanimals and that Cicero defines as a \u201csense of order and decorum and\nmeasure in deeds and words.\u201d[4] It dwells on the danger of any attempt\nto pass too abruptly to the religious level; it holds, if I may be\npardoned for quoting myself, that the world would have been a better\nplace if more persons had made sure they were human before setting\nout to be superhuman. The virtue that results from a right cultivation\nof one\u2019s humanity, in other words from moderate and decorous living,\nis poise. Perfect poise is no doubt impossible: not even Sophocles\nsucceeded in seeing life steadily and seeing it whole. The difference\nis none the less marked between the man who is moving towards poise and\nthe man who is moving away from it. Since the break with the somewhat\nartificial decorum of the eighteenth century most men have been moving\naway from it. It would not be easy to argue with any plausibility that\nthe typical modernist is greatly concerned with the law of measure;\nhis interest, as a glance at our newspapers should suffice to show,\nis rather in the doing of stunts and the breaking of records, in\n\u201cprodigies, feats of strength and crime,\u201d[5] the very topics that,\naccording to the traditional report, Confucius banished from his\nconversation. \u201cLet us confess it,\u201d says Nietzsche, speaking not merely\nfor the rank and file but for the leaders, \u201cproportionateness is\nforeign to us.\u201d It is foreign to us because we no longer refer our\nexperience to any centre. With the growth of the naturalistic temper,\nthe normal has come to have less appeal than the novel. The pursuit\nof poise has tended to give way to that of uniqueness, spontaneity,\nand above all intensity. \u201cThe last remnant of God on earth,\u201d says\nNietzsche himself, \u201care the men of great longing, of great loathing, of\ngreat satiety.\u201d Once grant that there is no constant element in life\nand one might agree with Walter Pater that a man\u2019s highest ambition\nshould be \u201cto burn with a hard gem-like flame,\u201d to get \u201cas many\npulsations as possible into the given time.\u201d[6] \u00c6sthetic perceptiveness\nis an excellent thing, but thus to set it up as an end in itself is\nalmost at the opposite pole from humanism. Yet Pater has been called\na humanist. One might so regard him if one accepted his view that\nthe distinctive humanistic trait is an all-embracing curiosity.[7]\nHumanism appears primarily, not in the enlargement of comprehension\nand sympathy, desirable though this enlargement may be, but in the act\nof selection, in the final imposition on mere multiplicity of a scale\nof values. Matthew Arnold, with his striving for centrality, has far\nbetter claims to be regarded as a humanist than Pater--and that in\nspite of his inadequacy on the side of religion. The model that Arnold\nsets up for imitation in the name of culture is a constant corrective\nof everything that is one-sided and out of proportion. \u201cI hate,\u201d he\nsays, speaking not only for himself but for all true humanists, \u201call\nover-preponderance of single elements.\u201d\n\n\nII\n\nWe have seen thus far that the word humanist has two main meanings--an\nhistorical meaning in its application to the scholars who turned away\nfrom the Middle Ages to the Greeks and Romans, and a psychological\nmeaning, as one may say, that derives directly from the historical\none: humanists in this latter sense are those who, in any age, aim at\nproportionateness through a cultivation of the law of measure. Keeping\nthis definition in mind, we should now be prepared to deal with the\nconfusions in the use of the word of which I spoke at the beginning.\nThese confusions have arisen from its misapplication to various types\nof naturalists and supernaturalists, especially the former.\n\nFor example, the eminent orientalist, M. Sylvain L\u00e9vi, has in a recent\nbook used the term humanism in speaking of persons as far apart as\nBuddha and Rousseau.[8] Buddha, it is true, had his humanistic side:\nhe recommended that one follow a _via media_ between asceticism and\nself-indulgence. But, unlike Confucius, he is in his primary emphasis\nnot humanistic, but religious. The association of humanism with\nRousseau is especially unjustifiable. Rousseau was, in the current\nsense of the word, a highly vital individual, but he cannot be properly\nregarded as either religious or humanistic. He attacked both humanism\nand religion in their traditional forms, and instead of working out\nsome modern equivalent for these forms, helped to usher in the era of\nfree naturalistic expansion in the midst of which we are still living.\nHe was above all for free temperamental expansion. He was himself\nemotionally expansive to a degree that was incompatible not only with\nartificial but with real decorum. He encouraged the humanitarian hope\nthat brotherhood among men may be based on emotional overflow. In\ngeneral the most serious confusion in the use of the word humanist\nhas arisen from its appropriation by the humanitarians. Walt Whitman\nwas, for instance, highly Rousseauistic in his notion of brotherhood.\nWe should therefore know what to think of the assertion of Mr. Lewis\nMumford that Walt Whitman was a true humanist; also of the assumption\nof the term by the left-wing Unitarians and other Protestants who have\nbeen moving towards humanitarianism.[9]\n\nThe humanitarian has favoured not only temperamental expansion; he\nhas also, as a rule, favoured the utmost expansion of scientific\nknowledge with a view to realising the Baconian ideal. Perhaps indeed\nthe chief driving power behind the humanitarian movement has been the\nconfidence inspired in man by the progressive control physical science\nhas enabled him to acquire over the forces of nature. It goes without\nsaying that the humanist is not hostile to science as such but only\nto a science that has overstepped its due bounds, and in general to\nevery form of naturalism, whether rationalistic or emotional, that\nsets up as a substitute for humanism or religion. In the case of such\nencroachments there is not only a quarrel between the naturalist and\nthe humanist, but a quarrel of first principles. When first principles\nare involved the law of measure is no longer applicable. One should\nnot be moderate in dealing with error. I have pointed out elsewhere\nthe danger of confounding the humanistic attitude with that of the\nLaodicean.[10]\n\nThe reason for the radical clash between the humanist and the purely\nnaturalistic philosopher is that the humanist requires a centre to\nwhich he may refer the manifold of experience; and this the phenomenal\nworld does not supply. In getting his centre the humanist may appeal\nprimarily to tradition, or as I have said, to intuition. In the latter\ncase he will need to submit to a searching Socratic dialectic the word\nintuition itself--to distinguish between intuitions of the One and\nintuitions of the Many. Otherwise he will run the risk of not being a\nmodern but only a modernist. The contrast between modern and modernist\nis not unlike that between Socrates and the sophists. Both modern and\nmodernist are under compulsion to accept in some form the ancient\nmaxim that man is the measure of all things.[11] Only, the measure of\nthe modern is based on a perception of the something in himself that\nis set above the flux and that he possesses in common with other men;\nwhereas the perception with which the modernist is chiefly concerned,\nto the subversion of any true measure whatsoever, is of the divergent\nand the changeful both within and without himself. The present menace\nto humanism, it has been said, is less from its enemies than from\nthose who profess to be its friends. Thus Mr. F. C. S. Schiller of\nOxford proclaims himself a humanist, and at the same time seeks to show\nthat the true humanist was not Socrates but that precursor of recent\n\u201cflowing\u201d philosophers, Protagoras.\n\nIt should be noted that many of our votaries of change and mobility\nare more emotional than Protagoras or any other Greek sophist. They\ntend to make, not their own thoughts, but their own feelings the\nmeasure of all things. This indulgence in feeling has been encouraged\nby the sentimentalists who have discovered in feeling not only the\nquintessentially human element, but, as I said in speaking of Rousseau,\nthe ultimate ground of fraternal union. In our own time, partly perhaps\nas a result of the psycho-analytical probing of the sources of the\nemotional life in the subconscious, there is a growing distrust of the\nsentimentalist. To be sure, one may, according to the psycho-analyst,\nturn the emotions to good account by a process of \u201csublimation.\u201d Why\nnot escape still more completely from one\u2019s complexes and infantile\nsurvivals by adjusting oneself to the cosmic order that is revealed\nto the scientific investigator in his laboratory? One may thus cease\nto be ego-centric and become truly mature and disinterested. This is\nthe attitude that Mr. Walter Lippmann recommends in _A Preface to\nMorals_, and it is this attitude that, by a flagrant misuse of the\nword, he terms \u201chumanism.\u201d It is well that a man should adjust himself\nto the reality of the natural order and, as a preliminary, should\nstrive to be objective in the scientific sense; but humanism calls\nfor an adjustment to a very different order that is also \u201creal\u201d and\n\u201cobjective\u201d in its own way. It insists in short that there is a \u201claw\nfor man\u201d as well as a \u201claw for thing,\u201d and is in this sense dualistic.\nMr. Lippmann\u2019s attempt to base ethics on monistic postulates is,\nfrom either a religious or humanistic point of view, a revival of the\nstoical error. Yet he would have us believe that any one who has become\ndisinterested after the scientific fashion has got the equivalent not\nonly of humanism but of \u201chigh religion.\u201d By thus dissimulating the gap\nbetween the wisdom of the ages and the wisdom of the laboratory, he is\nflattering some of the most dangerous illusions of the present time.\nHe escapes from the main humanitarian tendency to give to feeling a\nprimacy that does not belong to it, only to encourage its other main\ntendency to accord to physical science a hegemony to which it is not\nentitled.\n\nIt is self-evident that humanitarianism of the scientific or\nutilitarian type, with its glorification of the specialist who is\nready to sacrifice his rounded development, if only he can contribute\nhis mite to \u201cprogress,\u201d is at odds with the humanistic ideal of\npoise and proportion. The religious pretensions of humanitarianism\nof this type are even more inacceptable, at least if one understands\nby religion anything resembling the great traditional faiths. The\nBaconian has inclined from the outset to substitute an outer for an\ninner working--the effort of the individual upon himself--that religion\nhas, in some form or other, always required. The result has been to\nencourage the acquisitive life and also the pursuit of material instead\nof spiritual \u201ccomfort.\u201d A typical example of this utilitarian trend is\nProfessor T. N. Carver\u2019s _Religion Worth Having_, in which he so exalts\nthe \u201cproductive life\u201d that religion is all but identified with thrift.\nAt this rate it may soon be possible to get one\u2019s religion securely\ntucked away in a safe-deposit drawer! One should, however, be grateful\nto Professor Carver for not having called himself a humanist.\n\nIt does not seem possible to supply from the sentimental or\nRousseauistic side of the humanitarian movement the elements that are,\nreligiously speaking, absent from its utilitarian side. The nature to\nwhich the Rousseauist invites one to return, is, as I have sought to\nshow elsewhere, only a projection of the idyllic imagination. In the\nstate of nature or some similar state thus projected, in other words\nin Arcadia, man is \u201cgood.\u201d Practically this has meant that there is\nin the natural man an altruistic impulse that may prevail over his\negoism. The upshot of this myth of man\u2019s natural goodness has been to\ndiscredit the traditional controls, both humanistic and religious.\nHumility, conversion, decorum, all go by the board in favour of\nunrestricted temperamental overflow. The crucial question is whether\nthe immense machinery of power that has resulted from the efforts of\nthe utilitarians can be made, on this basis of unlimited expansion, to\nserve disinterested ends. Everything converges indeed on both sides\nof the humanitarian movement upon the idea of service. If it can\nbe shown that there has been no vital omission in the passage from\nthe service of God to the service of man, one may safely side with\nall the altruists from the third Earl of Shaftesbury to John Dewey.\nUnfortunately a formidable mass of evidence has been accumulating (the\nGreat War was for many a convincing demonstration) that, in the natural\nman as he exists in the real world and not in some romantic dreamland,\nthe will to power is more than a match for the will to service.\n\nThe benefits that have ensued from the major concentration upon the\nnatural order that has been under way since the Renaissance have\nbeen numerous and dazzling. We are still celebrating these benefits\nunder the name of progress. It is no longer possible, however, to\nallay the suspicion that the price which has been paid for progress\nof this type has been a growing superficiality in dealing with the\nstill more important problems of the human order. \u201cNothing is more\ncertain,\u201d says Burke in a well-known passage, \u201cthan that our manners,\nour civilisation, and all the good things which are connected with\nmanners and with civilisation, have, in this European world of ours,\ndepended for ages upon two principles; and were indeed the result of\nboth combined; I mean the spirit of a gentleman and the spirit of\nreligion.\u201d The whole debate would seem to narrow down to the question\nwhether it is possible to secure on utilitarian-sentimental lines a\nvalid equivalent for Burke\u2019s two principles. As for the \u201cspirit of a\ngentleman,\u201d its decline is so obvious as scarcely to admit of argument.\nIt has even been maintained that in America, the country in which the\ncollapse of traditional standards has been most complete, the gentleman\nis at a positive disadvantage in the world of practical affairs; he\nis likely to get on more quickly if he assumes the \u201cmucker pose.\u201d[12]\nAccording to William James, usually taken to be the representative\nAmerican philosopher, the very idea of the gentleman has about it\nsomething slightly satanic. \u201cThe prince of darkness,\u201d says James, \u201cmay\nbe a gentleman, as we are told he is, but, whatever the God of earth\nand heaven is, he can surely be no gentleman.\u201d\n\nAs for the \u201cspirit of religion,\u201d I have already glanced at its\nhumanitarian substitute. The humanitarian maintains that the spirit\nthat appears in Christianity will, if disengaged from mere dogma, be\nfound to be something very similar to his own spirit of service. One\nshould at least be able to understand the position of the person who\nhas become convinced that there is a supernatural element in genuine\nChristianity, lost in the passage from the old dispensation to the\nnew, for which mere altruism is no substitute, and who therefore takes\nhis stand on the side of tradition. Dogmatic and revealed religion, he\nargues, was alone capable of rescuing the ancient world from a decadent\nnaturalism. It alone affords an avenue of escape from the analogous\nsituation that confronts the world to-day.\n\n\nIII\n\nThe relation of the humanist to this religious traditionalist can\nscarcely be defined too carefully. Between the humanist and the\nhumanitarian, I have said, there is a clash of first principles.\nBetween the humanist and the authentic Christian, on the other hand,\nthere is room for important co-operation. To be sure, many of the\nleaders of the early Church were satisfied with nothing short of a\nstark supernaturalism and inclined to reject the genuinely humanistic\nelements of the ancient civilisation along with its naturalistic\nerrors. But the orthodox attitude has, in spite of the difficulties\nof reconciling otherworldliness with a merely secular wisdom, come\nto be one of friendliness to the classical humanities.[13] Mr. T.\nS. Eliot is probably close to this attitude when he maintains that\nhumanism is of very great value, but only in subordination to the\nhistorical Church. As an independent doctrine, at least in any large\nway, it is, he maintains, ineffective. A broad survey of the past\ndoes not, however, confirm the view that humanism is thus either\nprecarious or parasitical. The two most notable manifestations of the\nhumanistic spirit that the world has seen, that in ancient Greece and\nthat in Confucian China, did not have the support of Christianity\nor any other form of revealed religion. Take again the humanism of\nseventeenth-century France: the ideal of the finely poised gentleman\nwho \u201cdoes not plume himself on anything\u201d was often allied with\nChristianity (\u201cdevout humanism\u201d), but it was also found among the\nfree-thinkers (\u201clibertines\u201d) who were hostile to every form of belief\nin the supernatural.\n\nIn general, why should not the humanist, it may be asked, devote\nhimself quietly to his own task--that of effecting an adjustment\nbetween the law of measure and the ever-novel emergencies of actual\nliving, and at the same time refuse to take sides too decisively in\nthe great debate between the naturalists and the supernaturalists? If\npressed too hard by the supernaturalists in particular, why should he\nnot reply in the words of Pope:\n\n            \u201cPresume not God to scan;\n  The proper study of mankind is man\u201d?\n\nOne must, however, admit an element of truth in the assertion of\nPlato that things human cannot be properly known without a previous\ninsight into things divine. Another thinker, Pascal, who had this\nreligious insight in a high degree, though combined with a form of\ndogma peculiarly alien to most modern men, declared that unless man\nhas the support of the supernatural, unless in short he attains to\ntrue humility, he will fall fatally either into the stoic pride or\nelse, through the intermediary stage of scepticism, into the epicurean\nrelaxation. The whole question bristles with difficulties: one thinks\nof the immense and, on the whole, salutary influence that two Roman\nhumanists, Cicero and Horace, have exercised on occidental culture,\nthough, to adopt Pascal\u2019s classification, the humanism of Cicero leaned\nunduly to the stoical side, that of Horace to the epicurean. Yet I\nbelieve that the humanist will finally be forced to recognise that\nthere is truth in Pascal\u2019s contention, that he will have to take sides\nin the debate between naturalists and supernaturalists, however much he\nmay deplore the frequent failure of both of these fell antagonists to\ndo justice to the immense range of human experience that is subject\nprimarily to the law of measure.\n\nFor my own part, I range myself unhesitatingly on the side of the\nsupernaturalists. Though I see no evidence that humanism is necessarily\nineffective apart from dogmatic and revealed religion, there is, as\nit seems to me, evidence that it gains immensely in effectiveness\nwhen it has a background of religious insight. One is conscious of\nsuch a background, for example, in Sophocles, who ranks high among\noccidental humanists, as well as in Confucius, the chief exponent of\nthe humanistic idea in the Orient. The phrase religious insight is in\nitself vague. Is it not possible to give the phrase a definite content\nwithout departing from the critical attitude? One may be helped to\nsuch a definition by asking oneself what element has tended to fall\nout of the life of the modern man with the decline of the traditional\ndisciplines. According to Mr. Walter Lippmann, the conviction the\nmodern man has lost is that \u201cthere is an immortal essence presiding\nlike a king over his appetites.\u201d But why abandon the affirmation of\nsuch an \u201cessence\u201d or higher will, to the mere traditionalist? Why not\naffirm it first of all as a psychological fact, one of the immediate\ndata of consciousness, a perception so primordial that, compared\nwith it, the deterministic denials of man\u2019s moral freedom are only\na metaphysical dream? One would thus be in a position to perform a\nswift flanking movement on the behaviourists and other naturalistic\npsychologists who are to be regarded at present as among the chief\nenemies of human nature. One might at the same time be in a fair way\nto escape from the modernist dilemma and become a thoroughgoing and\ncomplete modern.\n\nThe philosophers have often debated the question of the priority of\nwill or intellect in man. The quality of will that I am discussing and\nthat rightly deserves to be accounted superrational, has, however,\nbeen associated in traditional Christianity not primarily with man\u2019s\nwill, but with God\u2019s will in the form of grace. The theologians have\nindulged in many unprofitable subtleties apropos of grace. One cannot\nafford, however, as has been the modern tendency, to discard the\npsychological truth of the doctrine along with these subtleties. The\nhigher will must simply be accepted as a mystery that may be studied in\nits practical effects, but that, in its ultimate nature, is incapable\nof formulation. Herein the higher will is not peculiar. \u201cAll things,\u201d\naccording to the scholastic maxim, \u201cend in a mystery\u201d (_Omnia exeunt in\nmysterium_). The man of science is increasingly willing to grant that\nthe reality behind the phenomena he is studying not only eludes him,\nbut must in the nature of the case ever elude him. He no longer holds,\nfor example, as his more dogmatic forebears of the nineteenth century\ninclined to do, that the mechanistic hypothesis, valuable as it has\nproved itself to be as a laboratory technique, is absolutely true; its\ntruth is, he admits, relative and provisional.\n\nThe person who declines to turn the higher will to account until he\nis sure he has grasped its ultimate nature is very much on a level\nwith the man who should refuse to make practical use of electrical\nenergy until he is certain he has an impeccable theory of electricity.\nNegatively one may say of the higher will, without overstepping\nthe critical attitude, that it is not the absolute, nor again the\ncategorical imperative; not the organic and still less the mechanical;\nfinally, not the \u201cideal\u201d in the current sense of that term. Positively\none may define it as the higher immediacy that is known in its\nrelation to the lower immediacy--the merely temperamental man with\nhis impressions and emotions and expansive desires--as a power of\nvital control (_frein vital_). Failure to exercise this control is the\nspiritual indolence that is for both Christian and Buddhist a chief\nsource, if not the chief source, of evil. Though Aristotle, after the\nGreek fashion, gives the primacy not to will but to mind, the power of\nwhich I have been speaking is surely related to his \u201cenergy of soul,\u201d\nthe form of activity distinct from a mere outer working, deemed by\nhim appropriate for the life of leisure that he proposes as the goal\nof a liberal education. Happiness, which is for him the end of ends,\nis itself, he tells us, \u201ca kind of working.\u201d Here is a difference,\none may note in passing, between a true humanist like Aristotle and\nthe epicurean who also has his doctrine of moderation and so often\nsets up as a humanist. It is no doubt well, as the epicurean urges,\nso to indulge in present pleasures that they may not be injurious to\nfuture ones. To employ the trivial illustration, it is well to avoid\novereating at dinner lest one impair one\u2019s appetite for supper. But the\nmeaning of the Aristotelian working is that one should not be content\nwith transitory pleasure at all, but should be striving constantly to\nrise from a lower to a higher range of satisfactions. The energy of\nsoul that has served on the humanistic level for mediation appears on\nthe religious level in the form of meditation. Religion may of course\nmean a great deal more than meditation. At the same time humanistic\nmediation that has the support of meditation may correctly be said to\nhave a religious background. Mediation and meditation are after all\nonly different stages in the same ascending \u201cpath\u201d and should not be\narbitrarily separated.\n\nThis question comes up especially in connection with the r\u00f4le of\nenthusiasm. Humanism is not primarily enthusiastic, whereas religion\nis. There is a touch of enthusiasm even in Aristotle, in general one of\nthe coolest and most detached of thinkers, when he comes to the passage\nfrom the humanistic to the religious level. \u201cWe should not,\u201d he says,\n\u201cpay heed to those who bid us think as mortals, but should, as far as\nmay be, seek to make ourselves immortal.\u201d At the same time it must be\nadmitted that even a true religious enthusiasm is hard to combine with\npoise and that this true enthusiasm has many counterfeits. \u201cFor one\ninspired, ten thousand are possessed,\u201d wrote the Earl of Roscommon,\nhaving in mind the religious zealots of the English seventeenth\ncentury. The neo-classic gentleman was therefore as a rule distinctly\nunfriendly to the enthusiast. The humanist, however, should not deny\nenthusiasm but merely insist on defining it. He cannot afford to be\nan enthusiast in Rousseau\u2019s sense; on the other hand, he should not\nneglect the truth of Rousseau\u2019s saying that \u201ccold reason has never done\nanything illustrious.\u201d\n\nThough one should, in my judgment, side with the oriental as against\nAristotle and the Greeks in giving priority to the higher will over\nmind,[14] especially if one attaches importance to the supreme\nreligious virtue, humility, it yet remains true that this will must\nbe exercised intelligently. Granted that the existence in man of a\npower of control may be affirmed, quite apart from any dogma, as\na psychological fact, the individual must nevertheless go beyond\nthis fact if he is to decide rightly how far he needs to exercise\ncontrol in any particular instance: in short, he needs standards. In\ngetting his standards the humanist of the best type is not content\nto acquiesce inertly in tradition. He is aware that there is always\nentering into life an element of vital novelty and that the wisdom\nof the past, invaluable though it is, cannot therefore be brought to\nbear too literally on the present. He knows that, though standards\nare necessary, they should be held flexibly and that, to accomplish\nthis feat, he must make the most difficult of all mediations, that\nbetween the One and the Many. The chief enemies of the humanist are\nthe pragmatists and other philosophers of the flux who simplify this\nproblem for themselves by dismissing the One, which is actually a\nliving intuition, as a metaphysical abstraction.\n\nWhatever reality man achieves in his dealings with either the human or\nthe natural order, is dependent, I have tried to show elsewhere, on the\ndegree to which he establishes a correct relationship between the part\nof himself that perceives, the part that conceives, and the part that\ndiscriminates. The part that conceives, that reaches out and seizes\nlikenesses and analogies, may be defined as imagination; the part that\ndiscriminates and tests the unity thus apprehended from the point of\nview of its truth may be defined as analytical reason; the part that\nperceives is, in the case of the humanist, primarily concerned with\nthe something in man that is set above the phenomenal order and that I\nhave already defined as a power of control. One may say therefore that\nstandards result from a co-operation between imagination and reason,\ndealing with the more specifically human aspects of experience, and\nthat these standards should be pressed into the service of the higher\nwill with a view to imposing a right direction on the emotions and\nexpansive desires of the natural man. The supreme goal of ethical\nendeavour, as Plato pointed out long ago, is that one should come to\nlike and dislike the right things.\n\n\nIV\n\nHumanism, even humanism of the distinctly individualistic type I have\nbeen outlining, may, as I have already suggested, work in harmony\nwith traditional religion. In that case there must be a careful\ndetermination of boundaries. Though humanism and religion both lie\non the same ascending path from the naturalistic flux, one must\ninsist that each has its separate domain. It is an error to hold that\nhumanism can take the place of religion. Religion indeed may more\nreadily dispense with humanism than humanism with religion. Humanism\ngains greatly by having a religious background in the sense I have\nindicated; whereas religion, for the man who has actually renounced\nthe world, may very conceivably be all in all. On the other hand, the\nman who sets out to live religiously in the secular order without\nhaving recourse to the wisdom of the humanist is likely to fall into\nvicious confusions--notably, into a confusion between the things of God\nand the things of C\u00e6sar. The Catholic Church has therefore been well\ninspired in rounding out its religious doctrine with the teaching of\nAristotle and other masters of the law of measure. It can scarcely fail\nto recognise that the position of the positive and critical humanist\nis sound _as far as it goes_. It follows that the Catholic and the\nnon-Catholic should be able to co-operate on the humanistic level.\nA like co-operation should be possible between the humanist and the\nmembers of other Christian communions who have not as yet succumbed\nentirely to humanitarianism.\n\nI have tried to show that the weakness of humanitarianism from both\nthe humanistic and the religious point of view is that it holds out\nthe hope of securing certain spiritual benefits--for example, peace\nand brotherhood--without any ascent from the naturalistic level. The\npositive and critical humanist would seem to have a certain tactical\nsuperiority over the religious traditionalist in dealing with the\ndefects of the humanitarian programme. In the battle of ideas, as in\nother forms of warfare, the advantage is on the side of those who\ntake the offensive. The modernists have broken with tradition partly\nbecause it is not sufficiently immediate, partly because it is not\nsufficiently experimental. Why not meet them on their own ground\nand, having got rid of every ounce of unnecessary metaphysical and\ntheological baggage, oppose to them something that is both immediate\nand experimental--namely the presence in man of a higher will or\npower of control? I use the word experimental deliberately by way of\nprotest against the undue narrowing of this word by the scientific\nnaturalists to observation of the phenomenal order and of man only in\nso far as he comes under this order. One should also protest against\nthe restriction of the term reality to observation of this type.\nSome of the most monstrous mutilations of reality that the world has\never seen are being perpetrated at this moment--for example, by the\nbehaviouristic psychologists--in the name of the \u201creal.\u201d At all events\neverything in the modernist movement will be found to converge either\nupon the r\u00f4le of feeling or upon the r\u00f4le of experiment, and the final\nquestion raised in either case is that of the will. As a result of the\ncombined influence of the various types of naturalists, the present age\nis at once more emotional and more mechanical than any other of which\nwe have historical record. By mechanical I refer primarily not to the\nmultiplication of machines in the outer world but to the mechanising\nof mind itself. An effective procedure is, as I have said, to meet the\nmechanist on his own ground and point out to him that he is unduly\ndogmatic, if he holds that his hypothesis is absolutely valid even for\nthe natural order, and that, if he goes further and seeks to make it\ncover the whole of experience, to impose a deterministic nightmare on\nthe human spirit itself, he is abandoning the experimental attitude for\nan even more objectionable form of dogmatism.\n\nSimilarly one should meet the emotionalist on his favourite ground\nof immediacy. Inasmuch as the higher immediacy has been largely\nassociated in the Christian occident with the operation of God\u2019s will,\nthe substitution for it of the lower immediacy has meant practically\nthe setting up of a subrational parody of grace. In order to make this\nparody plausible, the emotionalist has had recourse to the usual arts\nof the sophist, chief among which are a juggling with half-truths and\na tampering with general terms. I have commented elsewhere on the way\nin which words like \u201cvirtue\u201d and \u201cconscience\u201d have been so twisted from\ntheir traditional meaning as to eliminate the dualistic element that\nboth humanism and religion require. If there is to be any recovery\nof the truths of dualism, at least along critical lines, a battle\nroyal will need to be fought over the word \u201cnature\u201d itself; here, if\nanywhere, one needs to practise a Socratic dichotomy.\n\nThe half-truth that has been used to compromise religion in particular\nis that, though religion is in itself something quite distinct from\nemotion, it is in its ordinary manifestations very much mixed up with\nemotion. I give an example of this error in its latest and fashionable\nform. In a very learned and, in some respects, able book,[15] the\nRev. N. P. Williams seeks to show that St. Augustine\u2019s experience of\ngrace or, what amounts to the same thing, his love of God, was only a\n\u201csublimation\u201d of his \u201clust.\u201d St. Augustine was a very passionate man\nand his passionateness no doubt enters into his love of God. But if\nit could be shown that the love of God was in St. Augustine or any\nother of the major saints merely emotion, sublimated or unsublimated,\nreligion would be only the \u201cillusion\u201d that Freud himself has declared\nit to be. The psycho-analytical divine, who is, I am told, a fairly\nfrequent type in England, is about the worst _m\u00e9lange des genres_ that\nhas appeared even in the present age of confusion.\n\nOne may be helped in escaping from this confusion by considering, so\nfar as possible from a strictly psychological point of view, what the\nexercise of the higher will has actually meant in genuine religion.\nOne must admit at the outset the difficulty of determining what is\ngenuine religion. Religion, not merely to-day but always, has been\nsubject to extraordinary perversions. It has ever been the chosen\ndomain of self-deception and \u201cwishful\u201d thinking. When one reflects\non the fanaticism, casuistry, obscurantism, and hypocrisy that have\ndefaced the history of Christianity itself, one is tempted at times\nto acquiesce in the famous exclamation of Lucretius.[16] Yet one must\ninsist that religion is in its purity the very height of man. As to\nwhere this pure religion is to be found, we should keep in mind the\nsaying of Joubert that in matters religious it is a bad sign when one\ndiffers from the saints. Let us then turn to the saints in whom there\nis some authentic survival of the spirit of the Founder. This spirit\nsurely appears in the author of the _Imitation_ when he writes: \u201cKnow\nfor certain that thou must lead a dying life; and the more a man dies\nto himself the more he begins to live in God.\u201d Moreover the author of\nthe _Imitation_ is at one here not only with Christ but with Buddha,\nthe chief source of sanctity in the Far East.\n\nThe point on which Christ and Buddha are in accord is the need of\nrenunciation. It should be abundantly plain from all I have said that\nthe higher will is felt in its relation to the expansive desires as a\nwill to refrain. The humanist does not carry the exercise of this will\nbeyond a subduing of his desires to the law of measure; but it may\nbe carried much further until it amounts to a turning away from the\ndesires of the natural man altogether--the \u201cdying to the world\u201d of the\nChristian.\n\nWith this background in mind, we should know what to think of the\nhumanistic and religious claims of the modernist movement. This\nmovement has, from the eighteenth century and in some respects from\nthe Renaissance, been marked by a growing discredit of the will to\nrefrain. The very word renunciation has been rarely pronounced by those\nwho have entered into the movement. The chief exception that occurs\nto one is Goethe (echoed at times by Carlyle). Any one who thinks\nof the series of Goethe\u2019s love affairs prolonged into the seventies,\nis scarcely likely to maintain that his _Entsagung_ was of a very\naustere character even for the man of the world, not to speak of the\nsaint. The humanitarians in particular, whether of the utilitarian\nor of the sentimental type, have put slight emphasis on the inner\ncontrol of appetite. They have encouraged, either directly or through\nthe ineffectiveness of the substitutes they have offered for this\ncontrol, a multiplication and complication of desires that is in flat\ncontradiction with the wisdom of the ages. Judged by the standards of\nthe great traditional faiths, the religion of \u201cprogress\u201d or \u201cservice\u201d\nor \u201chumanity\u201d merely illustrates on a vast scale the truth of the\nold Latin adage that \u201cthe world wishes to be deceived.\u201d The various\nnaturalistic philosophies that have been built up on the ruins of\ntradition should, at all events, whatever their merits or demerits, be\nmade to stand on their own feet. It should be one\u2019s ambition to develop\nso keen a Socratic dialectic, supported by such a wealth of historical\nillustration, that it will not be easy for the Walter Lippmanns of\nthe future to propose some form of naturalism as the equivalent of\n\u201chumanism\u201d and \u201chigh religion.\u201d\n\nIn his attempt to show the inadequacy of humanism apart from dogmatic\nand revealed religion, Mr. T. S. Eliot has painted a picture of the\nhumanist exercising in a sort of psychic solitude self-control purely\nfor the sake of control. It is evident however that the real humanist\nconsents, like Aristotle, to limit his desires only in so far as this\nlimitation can be shown to make for his own happiness. This primary\nreference to the individual and his happiness is something with which\nwe are nowadays rather unfamiliar. Our preoccupation, one is almost\ntempted to say our obsession, is, at least in our official philosophy,\nwith society and its supposed interests. A study of humanism from\nthe sociological point of view would call for a separate essay. I\nmay, however, indicate briefly the main issue: the individual who is\npractising humanistic control is really subordinating to the part of\nhimself which he possesses in common with other men, that part of\nhimself which is driving him apart from them. If several individuals\nsubmit to the same or a similar humanistic discipline, they will become\npsychically less separate, will, in short, move towards a communion. A\ngroup that is thus getting together on a sound ethical basis will be\nfelt at once as an element of social order and stability.\n\nNo doubt a still more perfect communion may be achieved on the\nreligious level. There are however differences of dogma and\necclesiastical discipline that make a meeting on this plane difficult\neven for the various denominations of Christians. If one\u2019s survey\nis extended, as it should be in these days of universal and facile\nmaterial communication, to include Mahometans and Hindus and Chinese,\nthe obstacles in the way of a union among men that is primarily\nreligious are seen to be well-nigh insuperable. It might, for example,\nbe conducive to the peace of the world if everybody, East and West,\naccepted the authority of the Pope. The chances of such universal\nacceptance are, however, short of some very \u201cvisible upset of grace,\u201d\npractically negligible. One can scarcely remind oneself too often that\nthe great traditional faiths, notably Christianity and Buddhism,[17]\nhave their humanistic side where closer agreement may be possible. If\nthe leaders of the various national and cultural groups could bring\nthemselves to display in their dealings with one another moderation,\ncommon sense and common decency, they would accomplish a great\ndeal--vastly more than they have been accomplishing of late. The\ndifficulties in the way of an understanding, even on this humanistic\nbasis, not to speak of any deeper religious understanding, have been\naugmented by the fact that large numbers in the Christian occident as\nwell as in the orient, especially in China, are falling away from their\ntraditional disciplines into spiritual anarchy. The dangers of this\nanarchy, combined, as it is, with the accumulation of a formidable mass\nof machinery that, in the abeyance of any higher will, is likely to be\npressed into the service of the will to power, are appalling.\n\nThe first step, if there is to be an effective opposition to spiritual\nanarchy of the current type, must be, as I remarked at the outset,\nright definition. The idea is becoming fairly widespread that there is\nneeded at present a reaction from the romantic movement and that this\nreaction should assume a religious or a humanistic character. This\nidea will not in itself take us very far. Even Benedetto Croce, whose\nphilosophy would seem to be in its underlying postulates almost at the\nopposite pole from a genuinely religious or humanistic position, has\ndeclared that we need a \u201cnew Christianity\u201d or a \u201cnew humanism,\u201d if we\nare to escape \u201cfrom intellectual anarchy, from unbridled individualism,\nfrom sensualism, from scepticism, from pessimism, from every aberration\nwhich for a century and a half has been harassing the soul of man and\nthe society of mankind under the name of Romanticism.\u201d\n\nOccasional humanists may appear under existing conditions, but if there\nis to be anything deserving to be called a humanistic movement, it\nwill be necessary that a considerable number of persons get at least\nwithin hailing distance of one another as to the definition of the word\nhumanism itself and the nature of the discipline that this definition\nentails. This preliminary understanding once established, they could\nthen proceed, in the literal sense of that unjustly discredited term,\nto work out a convention. Their next concern would almost inevitably\nbe with education. Education is, as Professor Gass has remarked,\nthe one altruistic activity of the humanist. The reason is that if\nthe humanistic goal is to be achieved, if the adult is to like and\ndislike the right things, he must be trained in the appropriate habits\nalmost from infancy. The whole question should be of special interest\nto Americans. Economic and other conditions are more favourable in\nthis country than elsewhere for the achievement of a truly liberal\nconception of education with the idea of leisure enshrined at its very\ncentre. In the meanwhile, our educational policies, from the elementary\ngrades to the university, are being controlled by humanitarians. They\nare busy at this very moment, almost to a man, proclaiming the gospel\nof service. It will be strange indeed if dissatisfaction with this\nsituation is not felt by a growing minority, if a demand does not arise\nfor at least a few institutions of learning that are humanistic rather\nthan humanitarian in their aims. One is at all events safe in affirming\nthat the battle that is to determine the fate of American civilisation\nwill be fought out first of all in the field of education.\n\n  Note.--For a humanistic view of the field of education, the reader\n  may be referred to an article by Irving Babbitt, \u201cPresident Eliot\n  and American Education,\u201d in the _Forum_, January, 1929, or to his\n  book on _Literature and the American College: Essays in Defence\n  of the Humanities_ (Houghton Mifflin Co., 1908). See also Norman\n  Foerster\u2019s recent book, _The American Scholar: A Study in Litter\u00e6\n  Inhumaniores_ (University of North Carolina Press, 1929).--Editor.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES\n\n[2] For an outline of Chinese humanism, see the article by Chang\nHsin-Hai in the _Hibbert Journal_ for April, 1928 (\u201cThe Essentials of\nConfucian Wisdom\u201d).\n\n[3] See _The Conduct of Life_, translation of the _Tsung Yung_ by Ku\nHung Ming (Wisdom of the East series), p. 55.\n\n[4] \u201cUnum hoc animal sentit quid sit ordo, quid sit quod deceat, in\nfactis dictisque qui modus.\u201d _De Officiis_, Lib. I.\n\n[5] See _Analects_ (Wisdom of the East series), p. 109.\n\n[6] \u201cConclusion\u201d to his volume _The Renaissance_.\n\n[7] For Pater\u2019s definition of humanism see the end of his essay on Pico\ndella Mirandola (_The Renaissance_).\n\n[8] See _L\u2019Inde el le Monde_, pp. 32, 165.\n\n[9] See, for example, the symposium entitled _Humanist Sermons_ edited\nby C. W. Reese (1927). On page 60 of this volume one encounters the\nstatement that \u201call Americans are humanists\u201d! For a fuller elucidation\nof the distinction between the humanist and the humanitarian see the\nopening chapters of my book _Literature and the American College_\n(1908).\n\n[10] See my book _Democracy and Leadership_, p. 25.\n\n[11] For the different meanings that this maxim may have see the last\nchapter of my book _The Masters of Modern French Criticism_.\n\n[12] See \u201cThe Mucker Pose\u201d by James Truslow Adams, _Harper\u2019s Magazine_,\nNovember, 1928; reprinted in _Our Business Civilisation_ (1929).\n\n[13] For the early hostility of certain Christians to Graeco-Roman\nculture and the final reconciliation between this culture and the\nChurch, see E. K. Rand\u2019s _Founders of the Middle Ages_, _passim_. _Cf._\nalso P. E. More\u2019s \u201cParadox of Oxford\u201d (_Shelburne Essays_, Vol. IX).\n\n[14] See Ch. V of _Democracy and Leadership_ (\u201cEurope and Asia\u201d); also\nAppendix A (\u201cTheories of the Will\u201d).\n\n[15] _The Ideas of the Fall and of Original Sin_ (Bampton Lectures for\n1924). See p. 331.\n\n[16] \u201cTantum religio potuit suadere malorum.\u201d\n\n[17] Confucianism is of course primarily humanistic.\n\n\n\n\n_The Humility of Common Sense_[18]\n\nPAUL ELMER MORE\n\n\nI\n\nIt is a nice question to ask whether belief in the absolute\nirresponsibility of the artistic temperament has engendered the modern\nideal of absolute art, or the contrary. Which is first, the complacency\nof conceit or of theory? For myself I am willing to leave the solution\nof such a problem to the Demon himself, who alone knoweth his own\nmind; but from the _\u00c6sthetic_[19] of Signor Croce, the most epoptic\nhierophant of the demonic mysteries in these days, I can see how\nnearly the two absolutes are related, and can get some glimpse of the\nprocedure of the metaphysical mind at its highest point of activity.\n\nNow Signor Croce, though really himself a child of Hegel, makes\ngood sport of the theoretical \u00e6stheticians in the train of Kant and\nHegel who define art as pure hedonism, or pure moralism, or pure\nconceptualism; and so far he does well. You might suppose he was taking\nthe ordinary and sensible point of view, viz., that art must of course\ngive pleasure, and must be psychologically moral (not pedantically so),\nand must contain ideas, but that it is a false sort of simplification\nto define art itself therefore _as_ pleasure, or _as_ morals, or\n_as_ ideas. If such were the motive behind Croce\u2019s antipathy to the\nTeutonic \u00e6sthetics of the last century, he would seem, as I say, to\nbe pleading for the liberty of common sense against the absolutism of\nthe Demon; but he too quickly dispels any such illusion. \u201cArt,\u201d he\ndeclares, \u201cwhich _depends_ on morals or pleasure or philosophy _is_\nmorals or pleasure or philosophy, and not art at all.\u201d Now what kind of\nlogic is this that argues: Because art is not pure pleasure, therefore\npure art is absolved from the need of giving pleasure; because art is\nnot pure morals, therefore pure art is absolved from any concern with\nmorals? One might as well say, e.g., that cookery which is relished\nfor the pleasure it gives _is_ pleasure, and not cookery at all;\ntherefore cookery has nothing to do with pleasure. It is the old story\nof Luther\u2019s drunken man on horseback: prop him up on one side and over\nhe flops on the other. Because one absolute is not true, therefore the\ncontrary absolute must be true; because art which gives pleasure is not\ndefinable simply as pleasure, therefore art is a hieratic abstraction\nentirely independent of pleasure.\n\nBut if such a theory of art would seem to be buzzing in a metaphysical\nvacuum, it is not without its very practical aspect, whether as\ncause or effect. \u201cThe artist,\u201d says Signor Croce, coming down\nabruptly to earth, \u201cis always above blame morally and above censure\nphilosophically.\u201d There you have it, the claim to irresponsibility, so\ndear to our militant gentlemen of the press, vested in the authority of\nan awesome name. I do not suppose many of our emancipated writers are\ndeeply versed in the thin dialectic of \u00e6sthetics, but they understand\npretty well what is meant when they are told that in their work as\ncreative artists they need not concern themselves with the ethical laws\nsupposed to govern life or with the dull maxims of truth.\n\nIt may be a question, as I have said, whether the great Neapolitan\nhas risen from the popular lust of irresponsibility to his theory\nof independent art or has condescended to the lower level from the\nheights of abstract reasoning. In either case the next step, from a\ndefinition by negation to a definition by affirmation, carries him\ninto an altitude beyond the reach of any earthly telescope. Art, he\nhas shown, is absolutely not pleasure or morals or philosophy; it just\nabsolutely _is_--but is what? In the answer to this question I seem\nto hear no human voice but the very diction of the Demon. Otherwise\nI cannot understand whence the avowed foe of Kantian and Hegelian\nabstractions has derived his positive definition of art, which of\nall abstractions is the most abstract and of all absolutes the most\nabsolute. \u201cArt is intuition,\u201d he says, that and nothing else; not the\nvision of something, mind you, but pure vision. Or, if you desire\nmore words in your definition, you may have it thus: \u201cAn aspiration\ninclosed in the circle of a representation, that is art; and in it the\naspiration exists solely by the representation, and the representation\nsolely by the aspiration.\u201d Which words, if they mean anything, signify,\nI suppose, that art is of the spirit of pure creativeness, a reaching\nout towards a goal which is non-existent until visualised by the very\nact of reaching out. Such a definition may engage the attention of\nmetaphysicians; in my common-place mind, frankly, it draws blank. I\ndo not comprehend what is meant by aspiring towards that which is\nnon-existent until we visualise it by aspiring.\n\nCroce is the pope of the new school, and as such ought to be immune\nfrom the questioning of the lay intelligence. For a more accessible\nexposition of the ideas stirring the young modernists, I turn to the\ndistinguished critic and philosopher of Spain, Jos\u00e9 Ortega y Gasset,\nand in particular to his essay published under the significant title of\n_The Dehumanization of Art_.[20] Unless I mistake his language, Se\u00f1or\nOrtega finds little satisfaction \u00e6sthetically in the extreme products\nof the movement he describes. But he believes that it is not the\nfunction of a critic to value works of art in accordance with his own\ntaste or distaste. And especially to-day, when more than ever before\nit is a characteristic of art to divide mankind sharply into those who\ncomprehend and those who do not, the business of criticism should be to\nenter into the intention of the artist, and not to judge his work from\nsome alien point of view, least of all to condemn. Well, Se\u00f1or Ortega\nin a sense comprehends; he states the various theories adopted by the\n_j\u00f3venes_ to justify their adventurous ways with admirable perspicuity\nand precision--and with that final confusion at the back of his mind\nwhich enables him to speak as one who belongs intellectually to the\nmovement, however practically his taste may lag a little behind its\nutmost advance.\n\nThe central thesis of Se\u00f1or Ortega\u2019s book, which at once justifies his\ntitle and summarises the most advanced attitude towards art, is exactly\nthis: \u201cTo rejoice or suffer with the human lot which a work of art\nmay incidentally suggest or present to us, is a very different thing\nfrom the true artistic pleasure. More than that: this occupation with\nthe human element of the work is essentially incompatible with pure\n\u00e6sthetic fruition.\u201d[21]\n\nThat clearly is the voice of the Demon once more, appealing to the\nsame lust for an irresponsible absolute as inspires the Crocean\n\u00e6sthetics. And now art is to be not only independent of morals but in\nits essence divided altogether from human nature; and if it still aims\nto please, its pleasure is of a kind peculiar to itself and unrelated\nto the coarse fodder of life. Suppose, to take the illustration given\nby Se\u00f1or Ortega, a notable man is lying at the point of death. His\nwife will be standing by his bed, a physician will be counting his\npulse, while elsewhere in the house a reporter awaits the news and\na painter is engaged to depict the scene. All four persons--wife,\nphysician, reporter, painter--are intent upon the same fact, but with\nvarying degrees of intimacy and with different kinds of interest. To\nthe wife the event is an occasion of grief and anxiety; she is, as it\nwere, a part of it; whereas to the artist, at the other extreme, the\nsituation is entirely divested of human sympathy or sentiment: \u201chis\nmind is set solely on the exterior, on certain lights and shadows,\ncertain chromatic values.\u201d And so it happens that if the natural\nemotions felt on such an occasion by the wife, the physician, and\neven to a lesser degree by the news-reporter, are what the ordinary\nman (the \u201cphilistine\u201d or \u201cbourgeois\u201d of the older romantic jargon)\nregards as the real stuff of life, then art to the ordinary man is\nremoved to a sphere of incomprehensible unreality. \u201cAn artistic\nobject,\u201d says Se\u00f1or Ortega, \u201cis artistic only in the measure in which\nit ceases to be real.\u201d Hence, in the scene just described, the actual\ndeath-bed and the artist\u2019s picture of it are two things \u201cabsolutely\ndifferent (_completamente distintos_).\u201d We may interest ourselves in\none or the other; in one case we live with, or in, the event, in the\nother case we \u201ccontemplate\u201d an object of art as such, with \u00e6sthetic\npleasure perhaps, but with no human emotions. Just in so far as the\npicture shows any feeling for, or awakens in the beholder any response\nto, the significance of death, it falls below the high function of\nart. The tragedy of loss, the frustration of ambition, the humility\nof surrender, the consolations of hope, the victory of love, the\nsanctities of religion,--any shadow of these resting upon the canvas\nwill detract from the purity of \u00e6sthetic pleasure. The artist and the\nconnoisseur in the presence of death find only an occasion for certain\nlines and colours. And further, as our power of contemplation becomes\nmore refined, we cease to discern (or, if we are artists, to paint)\neven the unreal representation of a real event; a picture will cease to\ndepend on, or suggest, any subject whatsoever. For art is like a window\nthrough which we look out upon a garden. The ordinary man sees only the\nflowers and leaves beyond, and is so absorbed in these as to be quite\nunaware of the pane of glass, the more so as the glass is purer and\nclearer. But with effort we can make ourselves conscious of the medium\nthrough which we are looking; and as our vision is thus concentrated on\nthe glass, the garden fades into a confused blotch of colours or even\npasses out of conscious perception altogether.\n\nThat is Se\u00f1or Ortega\u2019s vivid metaphor for the Crocean theory of\nart as pure intuition--which he professes to reach, however, by no\ntheorising of his own but from study of the actual practice of certain\nof the _j\u00f3venes_. For those who believe in the divine mission of art\nthe elevation of society might seem to lie in obeying the command\nof Mr. Skionar in Peacock\u2019s _Crotchet Castle_: \u201cBuild sacella for\ntranscendental oracles to teach the world how to see through a glass\ndarkly.\u201d It all sounds rather funny to me. But I hope I am not laughing\nat an unfair caricature. What else in fact is the meaning of those\nsapient critics, who might join me in repudiating the language of\nmetaphysics, yet insist that in judging a picture we shall pay no heed\nto the subject represented but consider it as pure representation,\nor who say that the value of a work of art depends not at all on\nthe character of the human experience put into it but only on the\nsincerity of self-expression?--as if there were some mystical virtue\nin self-expression even when the self has no experience worthy to be\nexpressed. It is, in fact, pedantic talk of this sort in the mouths of\nrespected critics that indicates how far the depredations of the Demon\nhave extended into the realm of common sense.\n\nAs for the creators, so called, there may be a young votary of art\nhere and there who is trying honestly to put these abstractions into\npractice; and for him, I should suppose, the goal of dehumanisation and\nderealisation will have been attained when his pictures are simplified\nto a cunning design of line and colour with no suggestion of a definite\nsubject, or still further to a spread of pure colour with no design at\nall; his music to a pure tone without melody or even variation; his\npoems to a succession of beautiful words unsullied by sense. That would\nseem to be the nearest practical equivalent to seeing a pure pane of\nglass. One wonders why the pilgrim of vacuity should be so slow and\nhesitant in his progress towards so easy a mark. Perhaps he foresees\nthat absolute art, so reached, will cease to be art at all. Perhaps\nhe has a foreboding that the prize if obtained would not be very\nvaluable. It is hard to imagine the pleasure or profit to be derived\nfrom concentrating one\u2019s attention upon a pane of transparent glass\nuntil one sees nothing through it; most of us would prefer to retain\nour impure perception of the flowers in the garden beyond. Despite the\nmajestic logic of youth we persist in thinking that such a picture\nas Leonardo da Vinci\u2019s Last Supper is a truer work of art than the\ndeftest whirl of colours ever painted; that the _\u00c6neid_ is richer in\npoetical joy than _Kubla Khan_ (not to mention the latest lyric from\nthe American colony in Paris); that Bach\u2019s Mass in B Minor is still a\nmiracle and a rapture of sound. Yet all these--the painting and the\nepic and the mass--are brimming with human emotion and with a brooding\nsense of the eternal values of life. They are great for various\nreasons, no doubt; but certainly among those reasons is the fact that\nthey are not art at all as the modernists would have us believe.\n\nThe simple truth is that the effort to create pure art is nothing\nmore than idolatry to a fetish of abstract reason--unless you prefer\nto ticket it as empty conceit--and could never engage the practical\ninterest of any but a few witless cranks. There is a profound confusion\nin Se\u00f1or Ortega\u2019s interpretation of what is happening among the mass of\nthe younger artists, as indeed there is often in their own statement of\nwhat they are endeavouring to do. They may be seeking an absolute, but\nit is not an absolute of purity in any sense of the word.\n\nNow I grant at once that there is a difference between art and life,\nthat the attitude of the painter, to return to the old illustration,\nis not identical with that of the wife in the house of mourning.\nThere is in art a change, a transmutation, a something taken away\nand a something added. \u201cArt,\u201d said Goethe, \u201cis art only because it\nis not nature.\u201d And Aristotle, perhaps, had the same truth in mind\nin his famous theory of the purgation of the human passions. In that\nsense we can accept a maxim that comes from Japan: \u201cArt lies in the\nshadowy frontiers between reality and unreality.\u201d[22] The point I\nwould make is the falseness and futility of the logical deduction that\nart can therefore dispense with the stuff of humanity or nature, or\ncan weigh anchor and sail off into a shoreless sea of unreality. What\nhas actually happened is this. Always the great creators have taken\nthe substance of life, and, not by denying it or attempting to evade\nits laws, but by looking more intently below its surface, have found\nmeanings and values that transmute it into something at once the same\nand different. The passions that distract the individual man with the\ndespair of isolated impotence they have invested with a universal\nsignificance fraught with the destinies of humanity; the scenery of the\nmaterial world they have infused with suggestions of an indwelling\notherworld. And so by a species of symbolism, or whatever you choose\nto call it, they have lifted mortal life and its theatre to a higher\nreality which only to the contented or dust-choked dwellers in things\nas they are may appear as unreal. That, for instance, is precisely what\nPerugino has achieved in his picture of a death-scene entitled the\nMystic Crucifixion, where pain and grief and the fear that clutches the\nindividual heart in its hand of ice have been transmuted into a drama\nof divine redemption through suffering, while the tender burgeoning of\nspring thrown up against the far-off juncture of earth and sky gives\nhints of a mode of existence in joyous and infinite freedom. Even the\nlesser creators, those who in innocence of spirit have undertaken\nmerely to reproduce what they see, may have done so with a clarity and\nlargeness of vision capable of working a magic alchemy of which they\nthemselves perhaps never dreamed.\n\nThat was the tradition of agelong practice; it is what we mean,\nor ought to mean, by classical. And then, after the devastating\nmaterialism of late eighteenth-century philosophy there came a change\nof ideals. The veritable feeling for the otherworld and for spiritual\nvalues was lost, while at the same time the new school, stirred\nwith vague aspirations, was not satisfied with a simple and, in its\nway, wholesome naturalism. Above all these prophets of the romantic\nmovement, as we designate it, revolted from the restrictive rules\nof an art which was neither classical nor innocently naturalistic,\nbut pseudo-classical, and which had developed from one side of the\nRenaissance. They too perceived that no great art was possible without\nescape from the levelling tyranny of natural law, and, being unable\nto transcend nature, seeing indeed no higher reality into which\nnature could be raised, they sought freedom by sinking below nature.\nIn painting, as Mr. Mather has shown with fulness of knowledge\nand admirable acumen, this process of escape meant \u201ca successive\nelimination of academic authority, imagination, memory, fidelity to\nnature, and nature itself. It would seem as if the last sacrifice had\nbeen made; but no. In all these rejections and in the most grotesque\nexperiments the painter had retained his seriousness and self-respect.\nThis too went by the board in a brief moment after the War, when the\nDadaists bade the artist create in a mood of joyous bluff, meanwhile\nmocking himself and his world. The oft-repeated demonstration is\ncomplete once more--the latter end of expansive Romantic individualism\nis Romantic disillusionment and Romantic irony.\u201d[23] And the same\nhistory might be given of modern music and literature, though in\nthe case of the latter the disinvolution, by reason of the medium\nemployed, is more complicated. For instance the liberation of art\nfrom the moral obligations of life, so vaunted by Mr. Cabell and\nothers of the left wing in America as a new achievement, is really\ncontemporaneous with the romantic movement. At least as far back as\n1837 we find George Sand declaring that by almost universal consent\nthe arts have become accomplices in this strange tendency towards\n\u201camoralism.\u201d Now conscientious theorists may hold that amoralism is a\nstep in the direction of freedom; in practice it became commonly a mere\neuphemism for immorality, not to say vulgar indecency. The climax of\nthe movement in that direction was reached in the realism of Zola and\nothers who, quite frankly and systematically and \u201cscientifically,\u201d made\nhuman nature coterminous with the bestial in man. Art may have been\nemancipated from one set of bonds, but it was wrapt and enfolded and\nconstricted in a bondage tenfold straiter. It may have been dehumanised\nin the sense that it had repudiated the government of reason which to\nthe older humanists was the distinguishing trait of man as man; it\ncertainly was not purged of its attempt to evoke passions which on a\nlower plane are _menschlich allzu menschlich_.\n\nAs a matter of fact the radical writers of to-day who are accomplishing\nanything of magnitude are still predominantly of that school of\nrealism. But a few restless souls, those in particular whom Se\u00f1or\nOrtega has in mind, driven on by the despotic Demon of the Absolute,\nhave not been content to abide in this halfway house. They see clearly\nenough that art has not been purified by such realism, but mixed and\nmuddied by deliberate opposition to the ethical interpretation of life;\nthey will detach art from even that poor remnant of deliberation which\nmade a selection among the elements of composite human nature with\na certain regard, though an inverted regard, for moral values. They\nhold deliberation to be the foe of liberation. Hence the later theory,\nexemplified in English by James Joyce, that art shall not reproduce\na picture of life as the humanist sees it, or even from the inverted\npoint of view of the realist, but for its subject matter shall descend\nto what they call the pure \u201cstream of consciousness.\u201d The hero of\nfiction shall have no will, no purpose, no inhibition, no power of\nchoice whether for good or evil, but shall be merely a medium through\nwhich passes an endless, unchecked, meaningless flux of sensations and\nmemories and emotions and impulses.\n\nAnd so the limit of elimination has been reached--at least the\npractical limit, since below the stream of consciousness there would\nseem to remain nothing to represent save bottomless inanity. But\nthis fact is to be noted: though the process of evolution may seem\nto have been carried on in the name of absolute art, the actual goal\nattained is an absolute of quite another order; there has been no true\nliberation, but a progressive descent in slavery. As, successively, one\nafter another of the higher elements of our composite nature has been\nsuppressed, a lower instinct has taken its place. The submergence of\nthe humanistic conception of man as a responsible creature of free will\nhas been accompanied by an emergence of the romantic glorification of\nuncontrollable temperament; this has been supplanted by a realistic\ntheory of subjection to the bestial passions, and this, at the last, by\nan attempt to represent life as an unmitigated flux, which in practice,\nhowever it be in literature, means confinement in a mad-house. The\npractitioners of the newest art call themselves _surr\u00e9alistes_,\nsuper-realists; they flatter themselves, they are sub-realists.\nArt may be dehumanised, but only in the sense that, having passed\nbeyond the representation of men as undifferentiated from animals,\nit undertakes to portray them as complete imbeciles. To speak of the\nworks produced by the boastful modern school as pure art is, from any\npoint of view, mere bluff. By their fruits you shall know them. Turn\nthe pages of the little magazine published in Paris under the title\nof _transition_, wherein Mr. Joyce and a group of denationalised\nAmericans and Americanised Frenchmen collaborate to their own mutual\nsatisfaction: you will there find what the Simon-pure article is in\ntheory and practice. For instance a certain M. Louis Aragon,--described\nby his admiring introducer as \u201can intellectual on a lifelong holiday,\na twentieth-century pilgrim with a pack of words on his back,\u201d\netc.,--expounds the theory thus:\n\n  Reason, reason, o abstract day-phantom, I have already driven you\n  from my dreams. And now I am at the point where they are ready\n  to blend with the realities of appearance. There is no longer\n  room only for me. In vain reason denounces the dictatorship of\n  sensuality. In vain it puts me on guard against error. Error is\n  here the queen. Come in, Madame, this is my body, this is your\n  throne. I pat my delirium as I would a beautiful horse.... Nothing\n  can assure me of reality. Nothing, neither the exactness of logic\n  nor the strength of a sensation, can assure me that I do not base\n  it on the delirium of interpretation.\n\nAnd so M. Aragon, concluding \u201cthat only the syllables of reality are\nartistically usable,\u201d exemplifies the new style:\n\n  _It\u00e9 it\u00e9 la r\u00e9a\n  It\u00e9 it\u00e9 la r\u00e9alit\u00e9\n  La r\u00e9a la r\u00e9a\n  T\u00e9 t\u00e9 La r\u00e9a\n  Li\n  T\u00e9 La r\u00e9alit\u00e9\n  Il y avait une fois LA R\u00c9ALIT\u00c9._\n\nSuch is the manifesto of Super-realism, \u201cthe Freudian period,\u201d as the\naddicts of the stream of consciousness call it, \u201cto the realistic\nmisconception.\u201d Their title, I have said, is a pretty mistake for\nsub-realism; but they are not mistaken in their claim to have reached\na kind of absolute. At least I cannot imagine what lower level of\nimbecility may still be honoured with the name of art.\n\n(If any votary of \u201cpure art\u201d chances to read this essay, he will say:\nSo Keats and Milton were treated by critics of their age.)\n\n\nII\n\nOne of the hardest things for a student to learn, which yet, if he\ncould but know it at the beginning, would save him from endless\nperplexities and perhaps from final despair, is just the simple fact\nthat _brain-power is no guarantee for rightness of thinking_, that on\nthe contrary a restlessly outreaching mind, unchecked by the humility\nof common sense, is more than likely to lead its owner into bogs of\nduplicity if not into the bottomless pit of fatuity, that, to repeat\nthe phrase of Bacon, himself a shining example, the _intellectus sibi\npermissus_ is the easiest of all dupes for the Demon of the Absolute.\nThere has been no more powerful intellect for the past hundred years\nthan Kant\u2019s; I doubt if any writer ever filled the world with more\nconfusion of thought or clouded the truth with a thicker dust of\nobscurity. And it is in this spirit of distrust, not incompatible with\na kind of admiration, that I criticise the works of one who to-day has\nreached the pinnacle of fame as a thinker.\n\nProfessor Whitehead\u2019s philosophy spans the double field of religion and\nscience; and in each of these, I presume to say, he has come by the\ncircuitous ways of abstract reasoning to conclusions that in a lesser\nman would be regarded as preposterous. If such a statement shocks you\nor sounds disrespectful, take yourself the argument of his _Religion in\nthe Making_ and strip it to the bones. You will find that it proceeds\nfrom the definition of religion as \u201cthe longing for justification,\u201d\nand is directed by the fact that \u201cto-day there is but one religious\ndogma in debate: What do you mean by \u2018God\u2019?\u201d Upon this basis, then, Mr.\nWhitehead undertakes to find such a meaning for the word \u201cGod\u201d as will\nsatisfy man\u2019s \u201clonging for justification.\u201d Such a simplification of the\nreligious problem will strike some inquirers as high-handed, but I let\nthat pass; it has at least whatever merits appertain to simplicity. And\nI admit ungrudgingly that in the course of his lectures Mr. Whitehead\nmakes many shrewd observations on the deeper mysteries of human life.\nMemorable passages might be quoted, for instance such sentences as\nthese, that touch the Crocean metaphysic on the quick: \u201cTo be an actual\nthing is to be limited,\u201d \u201cThus rightness of limitation is essential for\ngrowth of reality,\u201d \u201cUnlimited possibility and abstract creativity can\nprocure nothing.\u201d\n\nBut in the end how does Mr. Whitehead reply to his own question: \u201cWhat\ndo you mean by \u2018God\u2019?\u201d For convenience\u2019 sake I quote this summary of\nhis answer from a eulogistic article in the _Hibbert Journal_ for July\n1927:\n\n  All being does this [_i.e._, \u201ccomes to a focus in each thing\u201d]\n  because it is its nature so to do. _This inherent nature of all\n  being is God._ All being does this because it is organised\n  according to the principle of concretion. All being does this\n  because of a certain order or character which pervades it. That\n  order pervading the universe that makes it concrete is God. God is\n  not himself concrete, says Whitehead, but he is the principle which\n  constitutes the concreteness of things.\n\nThat is to say, in still simpler language: An individual object is not\ncut off from the universe, but stands in some relation to all other\nobjects and owes its character to this relationship; this is so because\nit is the nature of things to be so; such is the law of \u201cconcretion,\u201d\nand the \u201cprinciple of concretion\u201d is God.\n\nNow, apart from the final clause, a plain man might suggest that the\nargument, so relieved of the obscurantism of metaphysical jargon, is\nmore true than original--true to the point of insipidity. As for the\nconclusion, no doubt, so left in its native jargon, it comes with the\nshock of originality; but has it sense? Will any man admit that the God\nwhom he worships and to whom he prays--and without worship and prayer\nthe use of the word \u201cGod\u201d is a pure solecism--is no more than the\n\u201cprinciple of concretion\u201d in the universe? Has such a definition any\nbearing on religion as the \u201clonging for justification\u201d? Is it anything\nmore than a phantom of abstract science surreptitiously substituted for\nthe object of faith? The fact is that between the last clause of the\nargument and what precedes there is a sheer hiatus. It is the age-old\nfallacy of metaphysics: you take a word used in ordinary speech (\u201cGod\u201d)\nwith a perfectly clear connotation; you define the word in a manner\nto suit your convenience (\u201cthe principle of concretion\u201d); you prove\nthat there is something in the nature of things corresponding to your\ndefinition, and then casually assume that your proof holds good of the\nword in its popular sense. It is the oft-repeated adventure of the\nAbsolute: you wrap a common-place up in abstract terminology, and then\nin that fog of language you find yourself precipitated into an abyss of\nnonsense (that the \u201clonging for justification\u201d is satisfied by belief\nin \u201cthe inherent nature of all being\u201d).[24]\n\nBut this is by the way. Our present topic is rather Mr. Whitehead\u2019s\nphilosophy of science, which is his real concern, and in which the\nterms \u201cGod\u201d and \u201creligion\u201d are manifestly unwarranted intrusions.\nHere, again, to the student of contemporary thought Mr. Whitehead\u2019s\n_Science and the Modern World_ must be in many ways a welcome book. His\ncomments on the connexion between the poets and the physical theories\nof their day are illuminating and bring to the subject a knowledge not\noften found in the literary critic. And I for one am much beholden to\nhim for his treatment of the ghastly relic of materialism bequeathed\nto us by our fathers--I would almost say his indecent burial of it,\nwere the epithet indecent applicable to the disposal of a corpse which\nhas remained too long above ground. And very cleverly he directs his\nattack to the two points where the mechanistic philosophy is most\nvulnerable--its apparent simplicity and its presumptive regard of facts.\n\nThere was indeed at first sight a seductive simplicity about the\ntheories of Huxley and his militant brothers. It is so easy to say\nthat the world is nothing but a machine nicely constructed of atoms,\nrunning smoothly and undeviatingly under the mechanical laws of\nmotion; to deny that anything new or incalculable ever breaks in to\ndisarrange the regularity demanded by science; to dispose of the\npassions and appetites and the very consciousness of man as mere\nproducts of atomical reaction. It was the kind of simplification that\npromised to solve for us all the annoying problems of life, exactly\nthe kind of bait that the Demon of the Absolute loves to dangle before\na mind unprotected by the humility of common sense. Certainly if\never any group of men had a cosmic footrule in their pockets, it was\nthis particular group of mid-Victorians who married the atheistical\nphilosophy of the eighteenth century to the physical discoveries of\nthe nineteenth. Unfortunately, what seemed a process of simplification\nhas led step by step to such a complexity of adjustments to keep\nthe machine going that long ago the plain man, if he dared, would\nhave scouted the whole conception as a fantastic dream. And here Mr.\nWhitehead, by virtue of his standing as a mathematician, speaks with an\nauthority for which the plain man must be very grateful. \u201cThe physical\ndoctrine of the atom,\u201d he says, \u201chas got into a state which is strongly\nsuggestive of the epicycles of astronomy before Copernicus.\u201d In all\nconscience, is it not true that to accept the more recent developments\nof scientific mechanism requires about the same sort of credulity as\nwas demanded of the theologian in the Middle Ages when asked to debate\nthe number of angels who could stand together on the point of a needle?\n\nAnd as the mechanistic theory, when used to explain the inner workings\nof matter, instead of simplifying science, breaks down under a weight\nof infinite complications, so, when applied to the nature of man, it\nshatters itself on what Mr. Whitehead rightly calls certain \u201cstubborn\nand irreducible facts\u201d--the most stubborn and irreducible of these\nfacts being, as every unperverted mind knows, that we are not pure\nmachines, and that any argument which would subject the human will and\nconsciousness to the mechanical laws of motion is void because based\non false premises. Against the high-handed assumptions of Darwinian\nmaterialism and the fanatical dogmatism of its votaries (relics of\nwhich still circulate in the backwaters of the biological laboratory),\nas against all forms of complacent obscurantism, whether theological or\nscientific, \u201cOliver Cromwell\u2019s cry echoes down the ages: \u2018My brethren,\nby the bowels of Christ I beseech you, bethink you that you may be\nmistaken.\u2019\u201d\n\nIt is the bare truth that one must rake the records of history to\ndiscover a more complete and abject subservience to the Demon of the\nAbsolute than that of the philosophy, falsely called science, of the\nperiod now closing. And, as I say, any one who clings to common sense\nmust be thankful to Mr. Whitehead for lending his authority as a\nscientist to the unlocking of these shackles. But then, why should so\nmasterly an intellect, again like Luther\u2019s drunken man, topple over on\nthe other side into a contrary but equally impossible absolutism? Why?\n\u201cThe only way of mitigating mechanism,\u201d he says, \u201cis by the discovery\nthat it is not mechanism.\u201d And so, instead of admitting humbly that\nmechanism is mechanism while beside it there exists something of a\ntotally different nature, and that the ultimate nexus between these two\nfields of experience surpasses our comprehension, he must demonstrate\nmechanism out of the world altogether. In his philosophy there will be\nno more solid obstinate material things such as go to the making of\nmachines, but only \u201cevents.\u201d Time and space, which used to be regarded\nas modes of perception, become internal components of things; value,\nwhich used to be a name for our conscious estimation of what we could\ndo with things or for their effect on our spiritual life, now proves to\nbe \u201cthe intrinsic reality of an event.\u201d There is, you see, an entire\nreversal of the mechanistic hypothesis. Formerly it was held that the\nhuman soul obeys the same laws as a stone; now we are to believe that\na stone is of the same nature as the soul. In either case we avoid the\ndiscomfort of a paradoxical dualism and reduce the world to a monism\nwhich may plausibly call itself science, though as a matter of fact Mr.\nWhitehead\u2019s theory, if carried out, would simply abolish science.\n\nAnd it is clear enough that the new monism is open to precisely\nthe same criticism as was that of the mechanists which it looks to\nsupplant. Aiming ostensibly to simplify, it really renders the nature\nof things incomprehensibly complex. Promising to release us from the\nknown paradox of a world composed of two irreconcilable classes of\nthings, it ends by forcing a perfectly arbitrary paradox upon us in\nits definition of inanimate objects. To define a stone as an event\nconsisting of a bundle of time, space, value, and relationships, does\nnot seem to me to be moving in the direction of lucid simplicity. \u201cWhat\nis the sense,\u201d Mr. Whitehead asks, \u201cof talking about a mechanical\nexplanation when you do not know what you mean by mechanics?\u201d And the\nquestion is entirely pertinent, if by the word \u201cmechanics\u201d we mean\nslyly to imply something more than the observed actions and reactions\nof material bodies in motion. Mr. Whitehead therefore discards the\n\u201ctraditional scientific materialism\u201d for an \u201calternative doctrine of\norganism,\u201d that is, for a \u201ctheory of _organic mechanism_.\u201d Well and\ngood. But is it unkind to ask the use of talking about an organical\nexplanation when you do not know what you mean by \u201corganism,\u201d or to\nhint that no very clear idea will be evoked by joining together two\nunknown quantities, \u201corganism\u201d and \u201cmechanism,\u201d and calling the world\nan \u201corganic mechanism\u201d?\n\nAnd again, what of the \u201cstubborn and irreducible facts,\u201d in whose name\nMr. Whitehead attacks the rationalism of the Huxleyites and their\npredecessors of the eighteenth century? If we are to cast away their\nimposing structure of logic as unreasonable for the simple reason\nthat, after all is said, we still know that the human mind (or soul,\nif you please) is something other than a stone, shall we swallow the\ncontrary theory, which has not even the virtue of logic, and which\ntransfers human qualities to a stone? Aristotle made the proper and\nsufficient distinction long ago, when he said that a stone obeys laws\nand a man forms habits: you may throw a stone into the air a thousand\ntimes and it will continue to do the same thing, whereas a man learns\nby experience. But alas for those \u201cstubborn and irreducible facts\u201d! How\nbravely we all summon them to our aid! How desperately we run from them\nwhen they appear!\n\nBut if this merging together of the animate and the inanimate in a new\nnaturalism makes a travesty of the inorganic world, its real menace\nis that, equally with the older naturalism, it reacts to deprive\nhumanity of what is distinctly human. The solid objects of \u201cour na\u00efve\nexperience\u201d have been made organic by a kind of relaxation into fluid\ncomposites of time and space and value and relationships; they have\nevaporated into a semblance of psychical events (the very term \u201cevents\u201d\nindeed is little more than an awkward translation of Berkeley\u2019s \u201cideas\nin the mind\u201d), and the peculiar note of an event is its transitoriness:\n\u201cone all-pervasive fact, inherent in the character of what is real,\nis the transition of things, the passage one to another.\u201d Thus it\nhappens that the organic and the inorganic worlds flow together in an\nindistinguishable flux, wherein the soul also, dissolved by association\ninto a complex of relationships, loses that central permanence of\nentity which used to be held to mark the dignity of man. Nor, if we\nlook beyond, is there anywhere \u201can ultimate reality\u201d to which we can\nappeal \u201cfor the removal of perplexity,\u201d but only an endless concurrence\nof events. \u201cIn the place of Aristotle\u2019s God as Prime Mover [itself a\nconception, one might suppose, far enough removed from \u2018our na\u00efve\nexperience\u2019 into the abyss of abstraction], we require God as the\nPrinciple of Concretion\u201d--not a person, not an entity of any sort,\nnor even a law apparently, but a mere name for the fact that concrete\ngroups of qualities are everlastingly forming and reforming in the\ninfinite vortex of existence. A cynic might distinguish between the\nold naturalism and the naturalism now proposed to take its place by\nsaying that under the r\u00e9gime of the former true science might flourish\nbut no humanism or religion, whereas the metaphysical naturalism of\nMr. Whitehead would leave us neither true science nor humanism and\nreligion, but only mathematics. The Demon of the Absolute, whether he\nappears as the advocate of a mechanical fatalism or of the universal\nflux of relativity, is brother germane to Apollyon, the Destroyer.\n\nThe curious thing in all this farrago of insight and error is the\nsuperstitious hold of the word science on a mind otherwise so awakened.\nMr. Whitehead perceives that one scientific hypothesis swallows up\nanother--as indeed he could not fail to see that his own hypothesis\nturns its predecessor upside down; he admits with engaging candour\nthat one and all they rest on a \u201cna\u00efve faith\u201d which cannot be verified\nand is \u201cindifferent to refutation\u201d; yet he clings fanatically to the\nscientific attitude as possessing a monopoly of truth and honesty.\n\u201cWhen,\u201d he says, \u201cDarwin or Einstein proclaim[s] theories which modify\nour ideas, it is a triumph for science. We do not go about saying that\nthere is another defeat for science, because its old ideas have been\nabandoned. We know that another step of scientific insight has been\ngained.\u201d\n\nI suspect that an utter confusion of thought has arisen here\nfrom the ambiguity of a word--as has happened immemorially with\nmetaphysicians better and worse than Mr. Whitehead. Science as an\naccumulation and classification and utilisation of observed facts\nmay go on from victory to victory; but science as a name for such\nhypothetical theories of time and space, matter and motion and life,\nas those broached by the Darwinians of the nineteenth century, or the\nEinsteinian relativists of the twentieth, is not a progress in insight\nbut a lapse from one na\u00efve assumption to another in a vicious circle\nof self-contradicting monisms. It really is not easy to understand the\nstate of mind of one, cognisant of the history of thought, who urges\nus to seek relief from the present _d\u00e9b\u00e2cle_--Mr. Whitehead himself\nplaces our intellectual and spiritual level lower than it has ever been\nsince the Dark Ages--by introducing the hypothetical method of science\ninto religion. This is his analysis of the present condition of the\npopular mind: \u201cA scientific realism, based on mechanism, is conjoined\nwith an unwavering belief in the world of men and of the higher\nanimals as being composed of self-determining organisms. This radical\ninconsistency at the basis of modern thought accounts for much that is\nhalf-hearted and wavering in our civilisation.\u201d My reading of history\nis different. I should assert that our vacillating half-heartedness\nis the inevitable outcome of the endeavour, persistent since the\nnaturalistic invasion of the Renaissance, to flee from the paradox of\nlife to some philosophy which will merge, no matter how, the mechanical\nand the human together. I should assert that the only escape from our\nmuddle is to overthrow this idol of Unity, this Demon of the Absolute,\nthis abortion sprung from the union of science and metaphysics, and to\nsubmit ourselves humbly to the stubborn and irreducible fact that a\nstone and the human soul cannot be brought under the same definition.\n\n  There are two laws discrete\n  Not reconciled,--\n  Law for man, and law for thing;\n  The last builds town and fleet,\n  But it runs wild,\n  And doth the man unking.\n\nFor legitimate science one may have the deepest respect. But to\nscientific absolutism masquerading as religion, one may say justly and\ntruly what was said so unjustly and cruelly to Keats: Back to your\ngallipots!\n\n\nFOOTNOTES\n\n[18] Sections IV and V of the title essay in _The Demon of the\nAbsolute_ (New Shelburne Essays, Vol. I), 1928; reprinted with the kind\npermission of the author and of the Princeton University Press. Section\nIV (I, as here reprinted) concerns \u201cThe Fetish of Pure Art\u201d and section\nV (II) \u201cThe Fetish of Pure Science.\u201d\n\n[19] _Nuovi Saggi di Estetica_, 1920.\n\n[20] _La Deshumanizaci\u00f3n del Arte_, Madrid, 1925.\n\n[21] _Alegrarse o sufrir con los destinos humanos que, tal vez, la obra\nde arte nos refiere o presenta, es cosa muy diferente del verdadero\ngoce artistico. M\u00e1s a\u00fan: esa ocupaci\u00f3n con lo humano de la obra es, en\nprincipio, incompatible con la estricta fruici\u00f3n est\u00e9tica._\n\n[22] _Masterpieces of Chikamatsu, the Japanese Shakespeare_, translated\nby Asataro Miyamori, p. 48.\n\n[23] _Modern Painting_, by Frank Jewett Mather, Jr., p. 375.\n\n[24] There are passages in Mr. Whitehead\u2019s books in which the word\n\u201cGod\u201d is used properly, even nobly, with its religious connotation; and\nindeed, as Professor A. E. Taylor has shown in the _Dublin Review_ for\nJuly 1927, part of the difficulty in grasping his argument is owing to\nthis intellectual double-dealing. But in the end the conception of God\nas a physical law, or impersonal principle, quite wins out.\n\n\n\n\n_The Pride of Modernity_\n\nG. R. ELLIOTT\n\n\nI\n\nIn European literature from Homer down to Milton and Racine (not to\nspeak of Oriental literature) pride, wrong pride, is represented as\nfar and away the chief of human evils. Such is not the case with the\ncomparatively brief stretch of literature that ensues. Of course there\nare sharp exceptions to the rule. But speaking by and large recent\nliterature--if that of the past two hundred years may so be termed in\nview of the long eras behind it--has not held up pride as the towering\nvillain of the human drama. That villain has become more and more\nshrunken and shadowy. The _hubris_ of the Greeks, the proud presumption\nagainst the high gods that constituted for ancient writers the crown of\nhuman errors, seems now an old, unhappy, far-off thing, quite hopeless\nfor literary purposes in the opening twentieth century. Even more\nhopeless seems the lineal successor to _hubris_, the Pride that led\nthe seven deadly sins in medi\u00e6val pageantry, and doomed the heroes of\nhumane tragedy in the Renaissance.\n\nThe surface reason for the fading of pride on our literary scene is\nobvious enough. Pride used to be considered not only the most immoral\nbut also the most dramatic quality of human life. But recently life,\nor our imaginative way with life, has assumed a non-dramatic air.\nThe interminable series of the falls of proud heroes and princes,\nhistorical or legendary, that runs through the bulk of the world\u2019s\nliterature--well, this series seems now to have terminated.\nDemocracy\u2019s interest in such personages is lackadaisical. I heard\na bright American undergraduate refer to them as \u201cthose old guys\nthat used to get bumped off quick.\u201d And one must bear in mind that\nAmerica, if still a bright undergraduate, is widely representative of\nmodern civilisation. Yesterday a remote collection of insignificant\nstates, she is now becoming an international state of mind and, more\nsignificantly, of imagination. In this state of imagination the old\nproud-falling potentate cuts a small figure. Recently, to be sure, many\nprinces have fallen, in fact the majority of them; but they have fallen\nsoftly. The downfall of a business corporation is far more noisy and\ngenerally disturbing; but a corporation is impersonal and undramatic.\nAs for pride, doubtless some American presidents have shown promising\ntragic signs of it, but of course these had to be nipped in the bud.\nA prince, even so powerful and autocratic a prince as the American\npresident, cannot fall proudly and dramatically when he has to fall\nregularly every four years.\n\nPride is not popular with democracy either as a vice or as a virtue.\nEven a just pride in oneself is publicly regarded as not justifiable.\nSelf-esteem must be submerged in party loyalty; and party loyalty, in\nturn, must whitewash its rising arrogance with humanitarian sentiment,\nwith eloquent devotion to the welfare of men in general. To be sure,\nintelligent persons dislike the blatancy of this sentiment. Most of\nthem nevertheless are actually in accord with the very heart of it.\nThey wince and shrug at the slogan trumpet of \u201cService to Mankind,\u201d\nbut they quietly salute the flag. They bow in spirit to the reigning\nstandard of \u201cSocial Value.\u201d Tacitly accepting it as prime motive they\ndeprecate their own self-esteem. They abet the general feeling that\npride as the ruler of this world, good and evil pride alike, has\nmodernly been deposed: it is a thing of the past.\n\nThis feeling, more than any other feature of modernity, constitutes our\nbreak with the past. It has inspired the general conviction that the\nmodern age, so far from being merely one phase, even the most important\nphase, of human history, has brought about a permanent alteration in\nthe basic conditions of human history. And here again the majority\nof the leaders of opinion, while disavowing the popular view in its\nblatant extreme, have been moulded in spirit by the accumulating\npressure of it. At the same time our knowledge of the _facts_ of the\npast has continued to increase. Popular biographies and surveys have\ncirculated through a vast reading public. Hence has arisen what may be\ntermed the modern historical paradox. The opening twentieth century has\na wider speaking acquaintance with the past, and a fainter grip of its\nessential reality, than was ever the case before. The past is quite\nvivid to us, and quite unreal. Its main motif, its pride, is a dramatic\nghost.\n\nRecently Lytton Strachey\u2019s keen book on Queen Elizabeth and her Essex,\nand Francis Hackett\u2019s glowing story of Henry Eighth and his wives, have\nmade the pageant of the sixteenth century brilliantly alive for us. But\nin the end the pageant is more a pageant than ever; the past is more\nutterly past. The scene sparkles along before our eyes in sharp and\nmultitudinous detail. Above all, the persons are amazingly human, as\nthey loom toward us in vivid \u201cclose-ups.\u201d Yet in the end they are human\nforeigners. They belong to a remote clime, and our attitude toward them\nis ironic and superior even when most sympathetic. In fact they seem\nto us _amazingly_ human just because we are surprised that they can be\nhuman at all. For the central motive of their lives, their pride of\nspirit, is or seems to us entirely out of date. Their ordinary desires\nwere the same as ours; we see that more fully every day. But the power\nof their pride, which swamped or swept before it all those common\ndesires, like the gale that ruled their little sailing-ships on the\nAtlantic, is obsolete. It appears almost as strange and superstitious,\nwhen we pause to reflect upon it, as the spasmodic fits of humility\nthat made those proud ghosts grovel at the feet of their kings and\ngods. We think we have changed all that.\n\nBut so deep-going an alteration in human nature, such a huge\ndiscrepancy between present and past, is disconcerting to the mind.\nIt must needs be reduced and accounted for. Our emotional conviction\nof the obsolescence of pride, like every other strong and persistent\nfeeling harboured by human beings, must needs be rationalised. And the\nrationalisation is now in progress. Pride has seemed to our imagination\nvery unreal in the present; therefore our reason is demonstrating that\nit was also quite unreal in the past. Historical science aided by other\nsciences has undermined the pride of the past. It appears now that\nproud princes, as well as proud nations and empires, fell of old not by\nreason of pride but by reason of economics--or the lack of economics.\nOr else there were geographical, ethnological, biological, or\npsychological causes. The last-mentioned category is the most effective\nof all for eliminating moral factors from human history. For example,\nonly an old-fashioned reader may still fancy that Henry the Second,\nby conquering the violence of his pride, could have refrained from\ncausing the slaughter of Becket. That, to be sure, was the subsequent\nopinion of Henry himself. But, psychologically speaking, Henry and the\nold-fashioned reader are mistaken. Henry was subject to certain stimuli\nand certain complexes that completely determined, and completely\nexplain, his extraordinary behaviour before and after the murder of the\narchbishop.\n\nEmerson, looking back mildly from Concord upon the greedy and murderous\npride of old days, found human history very tiresome because it was\nso very bad. To-day many disillusioned persons are finding it still\nmore tiresome because it seems to them neither bad nor good. It is\nnon-moral, and therefore non-dramatic. Never does it hang dramatically\nin the fearful balance of the free human will between a false pride and\na right humility. It merely moves back and forth like the waves and\ncurrents of the sea. History, unhappily, just happens.\n\nPerhaps, however, this ultra-modern view of history, in which pride\nseems so unreal, is itself the offspring of a very real pride. Modern\npride is not of necessity less real than ancient pride just because, so\nfar, its way is less conscious and dramatic. After all it takes time\nto dramatise ourselves to ourselves; and the modern age, so modernists\nsay, is not yet in full swing. They say that the modern theatre has\nmerely made a beginning and that in the future it will do great things.\nIf so, I would claim that the greatest of those great things must be an\nadequate dramatisation of modern pride. But we cannot wait for that.\nIf we did, it would never come. It cannot come until there is general\nrecognition of the fact that pride is still the grand protagonist in\nthe human drama; and that under its drab modern dress it has lost not a\nwhit of its ancient sinew.\n\nPride is most virulent, indeed, when it wears plain clothes, when it\nhides itself from itself. Self-blindness, not dramatic display, is\nand always has been the very heart of it. Precisely when pride is\nmost insidious is it least dramatic. Recognition of itself, which is\nthe preliminary step toward cure, is also the preliminary step toward\ndramatic manifestation. Pride was very dramatic in old literature\njust because it was unearthed from its very _un_dramatic lair in old\nhuman nature. Discovery is the essence of drama. Life is intensely\ndramatic as soon as its least discoverable motive is discovered, as\nsoon as its \u201clast infirmity,\u201d its most hidden pride of spirit, is shown\nin action. Therefore if a superficial glance persuades us, as I said\nat the beginning, that pride has faded in modern literature because\nmodern life is non-dramatic, a deeper search informs us that modern\nlife _seems_ non-dramatic because the meaning of pride has faded in\nour thought. We need to rediscover the truth of the truism that pride\nis the most insidious and blinding of all human qualities. Then we may\ndiscover the way of modern pride. We must see how utterly non-dramatic\npride can be before our poets may show us how intensely dramatic\nmodern life is. We cannot envisage the drama of modern life in its\nfull reality, we cannot touch the very heart of its tragedy, until we\nrealise the peculiar blindness of modern pride.\n\n\nII\n\nFor example. Some twelve years ago President Wilson announced on behalf\nof the United States, or was quoted as announcing, that we were \u201ctoo\nproud to fight.\u201d Soon afterwards we were fighting, not without martial\npride, in the greatest war of all time. The irony of this sequence was\ntoo broad to escape notice. Yet the notice was comparatively slight.\nAnd the whole matter has faded with ominous speed from the imagination\nof a public debauched with the most adulterous mixture of pacific\nand pugnacious prides that the world has ever known. The Wilsonian\nremark was easily smiled into oblivion. The full dramatic irony of\nthe situation, and the tragedy behind it, cannot appear until that\nproud utterance is recognised, not as the passing whimsy of a single\nperson or party or nation, but as a vivid symbol of the modern spirit\nat large. It may fairly be regarded, indeed, as the verbal apex of\nthe whole bad pyramid of modern pride--the pride of quick and direct\nsolutions, the pride of immediacy.\n\nThe basis of that pyramid is religious. No doubt the superstructure\nowes much to our triumphantly swift results in science, industry, and\nhumanitarian reform. But the pride of practical achievement, thoroughly\nwholesome in its proper _locale_, would not have formed a modern\nBabel unless assembled and underpinned by modern religion. And modern\nreligion, while denouncing more and more the various arrogancies of our\nmaterial civilisation, has not unearthed the deep foundation which it\nitself has provided for them. As religion is properly the founder and\nguardian of human humility, so religious pride is the prime evil. We\nsee this very easily in the past. We know that the most blinding and\nhateful pride that grew among the ancient Greeks and Romans was not\nthe pride of city-state, of empire, of symmetric culture. It was the\narrogance of the religious philosophy of the Stoics, their assumption\nof a pseudo-divine impassivity of spirit. Likewise the medi\u00e6val\nglorification of chivalry, and even of ecclesiastic and theological\nedifice, is as nothing to modern eyes in comparison with the spiritual\npresumption that grew in medi\u00e6val asceticism. We see how vicious it was\nfor the Stoic to be proud of his pride, and for the monk to be proud\nof his humility. We have not yet seen how vicious it is for the modern\ncitizen to be proud of being neither proud nor humble.\n\nHe is spiritually proud of having escaped from spiritual pride. He\nbelieves he has left that historic vice far and forever behind.\nIn his leisure hours he has learned all about it, he thinks, from\ninteresting books, periodicals, preachers, lecturers, travels,\nhistorical moving-pictures, and maybe survey courses in college. He\nis amused and in better moments saddened at the tremendous dramatic\ndisplay of religious pride in old times,--unaware that this evil never\n_displayed_ itself to the hearts it mastered, nor does to-day. What,\nthen, can he know of real humility? \u201cWhy,\u201d I was recently asked by\na sincerely puzzled undergraduate whose psychological interests had\nled him to scrutinise certain ancient documents, \u201cwhy were the old\nChristians always jawing about humility?\u201d The modern man is conscious,\nexplicitly or implicitly, of possessing a new form of humility much\nsuperior to the old. He is proud of his freedom from the fearful\nself-abasement of his benighted ancestors. He is certain that his own\nbrand of humility, his kindly modesty in relation to nature and to\nother men, is far more reasonable and real. Reality, indeed, is his\nkeynote. He believes he sees the facts of human nature with a plain\nand full reality, or immediacy, that was impossible to men of old,\ndistracted as their vision was by the extremes of pride and humility.\nHe has done away with those two \u201cmighty opposites.\u201d His realism, his\ndirect contact with life, has antiquated their histrionic conflict.\nHe is superior to that primitive battle in the human breast. He has\nemerged from that cave warfare into the light of immediate reality. He\nis \u201ctoo proud to fight.\u201d\n\nAnd this pride of immediacy, as I have called it, is at bottom\nreligious. It was founded by the Protestant Reformation. More broadly\nspeaking, it grows from that urgent religious revolution still going\non which was publicly begun by the Protestant revolt of the sixteenth\ncentury. It goes on in Catholic and Protestant realms alike and has\nmany modes, ranging all the way from the glittering wit of French\nCatholico-Modernism to the rash eloquence of the Protestant pulpits\nof New York. Revolution it is with a vengeance, not re-formation.\nAnd if it be true that the modern intelligence under the influence\nof science is coming to see the natural need of ordered evolution,\ninstead of destructive revolution, in all human affairs, then we should\nsee this need primarily in religion. Here the cost of revolution is\nheaviest. For the mischief of the revolutionary method--namely, that\nit externalises the issue--is greatest in that sphere which should be\nof all the most internal. The mental surfaces of religion are thrown\ninto false prominence as the insignia of controversy. Sacred rites and\ndogmas, through the protective devotion of the loyalist and the pointed\nhostility of the rebel, are externalised. The imaginative flexibility\nproperly belonging to them is congealed into a stiff surface that\nhides their inmost meaning, human and divine. Instead of vital human\norganisms, nourished in their growth and change by something of the\ndivine circulation, they become fixed mechanisms; to be maintained in\nrunning order or else discarded altogether--windmills, pumping the\nliving water direct to the household of faith, or suddenly assaulted\ninto junk-heaps by quixotic insurgents.[25] Loyalists and rebels,\nin reaction from each other, attribute to their own doctrines an\nimpossible immediacy of truth. Thus both parties foster the pride of\nspiritual immediacy.\n\nObviously, however, it is not the conservative but the protestant or\nmodernist pride of immediacy that, for the time being at least, has won\nthe day. Indeed it has flourished like a weed in the very midst of our\nbest achievements. The great achievement of modern times is the general\nrealisation that life is of necessity experimental, that change is a\nconstant law for us, and that the human spirit is more important than\nhuman customs and institutions however sacrosanct. Hence our pride of\nfreedom, freedom from the past. And this pride is proper and sound\nin so far as it is a proud gratitude for the general dissemination\nof a truth that the great saints and sages, under all dispensations,\nknew--the experimentality of life. But our pride is rank and noxious\nwhen we imagine we know this truth as well as the saints and sages knew\nit, if not better. To be sure, we know it more widely in a certain\nsense than they did, having discovered with the aid of science many\nexterior illustrations of it which were unknown to them. We know it\nwith a wide and superficial immediacy. But they knew it with a profound\nimmediacy.\n\nThey knew the basal experimentality of life because they knew it was\nbasifixed. They knew the depth and height of change because they knew\nthe permanency below and above it. They knew the Permanency that does\nthe experimenting, the Changeless that enables us to know change. Of\nthis we have lost hold. And the main source of our modern spiritual\ncatastrophe, the cancerous growth that disguises itself and induces\nthe thronging diagnosticians to limit their attention to secondary\nsymptoms and remedies, is the ancient evil in modern form, blind\nspiritual pride. The modern imagination has more and more lost hold of\nthe changing Permanency as the modern mind has more and more developed\nits arrogance of change, its pride of immediacy. This very pride keeps\nus from seeing the permanence of the law of pride and humility in\nhuman nature. We patronise the wise men of old--confident writers on\n\u201cpersonal religion\u201d in American magazines patronise them--assuming that\nwhen they signalised spiritual pride as the _permanent_ root of human\nills, they were speaking only for an age and not for all time, at any\nrate not for our time.\n\nThis pride means a false emphasis on \u201cpersonal religion\u201d over against\ninstitutional religion. \u201cPersonal religion\u201d now comprises a vast\nvariety of creeds. Many of these are asserted by their proponents,\nsometimes angrily asserted, to be not religious at all, but they really\nare religious in the broadest or lowest extension of this term. A few\nyears ago newspaper reporters discovered in a western state a not\ninsane man who claimed that the earth was flat. As to the long story\nof geodesy, he said it meant little to him, for he had \u201ca science of\nmy own.\u201d Nowadays many a person has in the same way \u201ca religion of\nmy own.\u201d But this phenomenon, unlike the other, is too popular just\nat present to have any comic news-value. It would start a public\nlaugh only in the thirteenth or, who knows, in the thirtieth century.\nTo-day many persons who religiously swallow the authority of science,\nwho religiously believe that Einsteinism is true and wish they could\nunderstand what it means, reject all authority in religion.\n\nThey say that Jesus himself rejected it, and patronise Him as the first\nof the moderns. They isolate Him from the religious organism to which\nhe was deeply attached; which shaped his principles no less than his\nimages; and through which indeed, during the long preceding centuries\nof Hebrew history, his sublime nature itself had been (if this may be\nsaid without irreverence) gradually \u201cevolved.\u201d Thus they affix to Him a\nsingularity no less miraculous, no less disruptive of the laws of human\nnature and history, than that attributed to him by popular orthodoxy;\nbut far better calculated to debauch with blind pride the souls of his\nworshippers or, as the case may be, his modern rivals or superseders.\nThey have learned from Him, not wisely but too well, that the Sabbath\nwas made for man and not man for the Sabbath. They hug the false\ninference which he so sternly and constantly rejected, namely, that\nman was made to disuse instead of to use the Sabbath, to win spiritual\nmaturity by discarding institutional religion. Jesus discarded\nrevolution. He continued and reformed a great religious tradition. He\nmade it capable of feeding itself--and us--upon the best of Greek as\nwell as Hebrew thought. He made it nobly catholic in the very process\nof nourishing his individual soul upon it. He was crucified because\nhe was more deeply true to it than the modernists, as well as the\nloyalists, of his day. Our modernists, however, deem that his hand was\nraised and pierced to direct us to bite the hand that fed us.\n\nThe gnawing pride of religious individualism cloaks itself in the\nassumption that the individual has transferred his reverence _entire_\nfrom the traditional deity to \u201cthe present; God\u201d as Emerson called\nHim, or to the present Reality as successors of Emerson often prefer\nto call It. But actually that transfer is never accomplished. The\nreverence never arrives entire. Always some of it, often most of it,\nleaks away unnoticed during the transshipment. Therefore this exchange\nis never attempted by the greatest men of religion, nor advocated\nby the truest realists or humanists. Jesus and Socrates both found\nthe \u201cFather\u2019s business\u201d in the Temple, in the moral and imaginative\norganism of orthodox religion, and never more so than when they were\ndoing their best to cleanse it of thieves. They were wrongly accused\nof an intention for which some of our modern spiritual leaders have\nbeen wrongly praised, the intention of destroying the Temple in order\nto rebuild it on their own insights, as it were in three days. No\ndoubt all men of deepest insight are strongly tempted, in their first\nmaturity, by this pseudo-divine impatience with tradition. They yearn\nto show immediately that the Power within them is more reliable than\nthe \u201cpinnacle of the Temple.\u201d[26] But they perceive the spiritual\npride of this yearning, its tempting of God, and they forthwith\nschool themselves to the divine patience. They recognise that the\nTemple is essential for _their own_ fullest development. They do not\npatronise it diplomatically for the public welfare while deprecating\nit for themselves. They see that the fullest type of spiritual life\nis attainable only through the unbroken \u201ctension,\u201d[27] the constant\ncritical interaction, between personal and institutional religion,\nbetween individual inspiration and a rich tradition. They know that\ntheir own humility, like that of the multitudes whom they influence,\nmust grow and bear fruit in the kind of temple that George Herbert saw,\nthe temple which is at once, and mysteriously, within and without. In\nshort, the greatest leaders of the spirit faced the pride of spiritual\nimmediacy and subdued it.\n\nBut Emerson did not. He only partly faced it, and he very considerably\nsuccumbed to it.[28] He fell, and modern spirituality fell with him.\nThe greatness of this default in so great a man is admitted very\nreluctantly by those of us who have loved him from youth. When they\nwere beginning life, he told them what a happy day it was for the youth\nwhen he discovered that \u201cthe above\u201d was the same as \u201cthe within.\u201d He\ndid not tell them that \u201cthe within,\u201d on the same happy day, begins to\nleak down through an unseen pride to \u201cthe below.\u201d He told them that \u201cI\nthe imperfect adore my own Perfect.\u201d He was not careful to explain to\nthem how very imperfect is this Perfect--or else, how scantily It is my\nown.\n\nEmerson\u2019s effect on young men is most significant, I think, in the\ncase of Matthew Arnold. In Arnold\u2019s Oxford days, Newman impressed\nhim with a sense of the laborious difficulty of spiritual truth. But\nthat sense was considerably soothed and weakened, I think, by the\ncheery, confident voice that came to him from across the Atlantic;\nthrowing into contrast the melancholy beauty of Newman\u2019s voice and\nrelegating its religious message to a past which, however alluring\nin its beautiful melancholy, seemed now so utterly past. Arnold lost\nNewman for religion while continuing to patronise him for beauty and\nculture. He did not discern how greatly Newman, on account of his fresh\nand profound humility, joined with a mind unsurpassed in the modern\nage for analytic penetration, was needed by this age as a \u201cfriend and\naider of those who would live in the spirit.\u201d Therefore Arnold left\nthe way open for T. H. Huxley to persuade the oncoming generation, in\nthe blundering pride of his naturalistic sophistry, that Newman\u2019s way\nwith truth was in the main sophistic.[29] I am very far from wishing to\ndisparage Arnold, as I am accused of having done in previous papers.\nIt is just because he was so great and influential a critic, such a\nfine stronghold of humanism in the midst of the nineteenth century,\nthat his deficiency in this matter is costly to-day. His tendency to a\ncertain superior ease, not free from presumption, in his treatment of\nreligious truth was doubtless due in good measure to the influence of\nEmerson. Hence when Arnold came to America in the eighteen-eighties he\ncould tell us how matchless Emerson was as a modern \u201cfriend and aider\nof those who would live in the spirit\u201d without telling us how deficient\nthis friend was in the pertinent and prime requisite of spiritual\nhumility.\n\nJust here, perhaps, some readers are priding themselves on never\nhaving cared for Emerson, in other words on never having been young.\nBut maybe they have absorbed some jots and tittles of his toxin\nby way of Arnold and the college professors, or of Huxley and the\nscientific metaphysicians, or of Whitman and the current poets.\nBy de-personalising his individualism in a rare and not unspecious\nfashion, Emerson could send it seeping through an extraordinary variety\nof individuals. To-day wherever two or three, or two or three hundred,\nare gathered together in the name of God (modern)--in the name of the\nOver-Soul or the Under-Soul, of Reality, Nature, Humanity, Hinduism,\nGood Will, Progress, World Peace, World Religion, Individual Freedom,\nyes and even Enlightened Disillusion--there is Emerson in the midst\nof them. To be sure it is but a shade, a distorted shade, of the\nmaster. Yet it reminds us what a crooked, widening shadow is thrown\nforward through the years by a hidden grain of pride in a master mind.\nEmerson\u2019s spiritual pride was veiled by his personal modesty, which\nwas the tolerant deference and flexibility of the modern spirit at its\nbrightest. His luminous nobility of nature and the underlying soundness\nof his humanism[30] enabled him to give unexampled force and radiance\nto the proud errors he inherited from the eighteenth-century naturists\nand the great Romantic poets. It was he, above all, who made naturism\nseem deeply natural and Romantic irresponsibility nigh divine.\n\nHe disclaimed responsibility for his words, yet spoke as one\nhaving authority. He claimed the moody freedom of a Romantic poet\ntogether with the plain weight of a prose prophet of common sense.\nHe consummated the noxious amalgam that his predecessors in prose\nand verse had prepared: he _solidly_ confused poetic immediacy of\nexperience with the immediate presence of Truth. Admirers, half\nperceiving his confusion, have wholly excused it on the ground of his\nunique constitution--just as he did! If gold rust, what will iron do?\nIf Emerson could be vitally yet complacently muddled, what of the\nEmersonians? If the modern outlook is now confused and unhappy, one\nreason is that the chief modern sage was confused and at the same time\nspiritually proud.\n\nThe balefulness of his confusion was concealed from him by the subtle\nmingling of his pride into his modesty. He was too modest to believe\nthat his individual outlook could become a public tragedy, and too\nproud to doubt that his individual inspirations were universally valid.\nHe attributed these too much to deity and not at all to Rousseau. He\ndisavowed all predecessors and all disciples. In his study or along the\nwoodpath he deemed he was alone with the Soul; never realising how much\nthe thoughts that arose in him were determined by the souls who had\ninfluenced his soul and by the souls whom his soul wanted to influence.\nHis solitude of the Soul was thronged with unacknowledged souls. He\ndislimned them all into deity. His religious predecessors had loudly\ndemolished one religious form after another to leave no barrier, so\nthey thought, between the soul and God. He, the last great Protestant,\nserenely set fire to the limits of the soul itself. With suave and\nawful presumption, he melted all souls into God. The outcome is a new\nbarrier between them and Him, a cool, unobtrusive glaze of pride.\n\nThe modern pride that Emerson helped so much to crystallise, wears a\nlucent, modest air. It looks like a lens turned directly upon Reality.\nBut it has the opaqueness of a mirror and is turned upon ourselves--if\nonly by the grace of God we could see our reflections in it. Its\nsurface seems plain, undramatic, when compared with the ancient modes\nof _hubris_,--until one perceives therein the swarming shapes and\nconflicts of the modern tragedy.\n\nDramatic enough is the way this pride, during the past two hundred\nyears, has worked out cogently from its religious centre to its secular\ncircumference, in recent years with catastrophic speed. In religion\nit has meant more and more a blind emphasis upon the _immediacy_ of\nspiritual values--as though their close presence to Everyman were\nthe same, or almost the same, as his real possession of them. Modern\nreligionists have debased the great doctrine of the Immanence of God\nand, therewith, the doctrines of divine love, the brotherhood of man,\nthe goodness of the human heart, and the \u201cpositiveness\u201d of morality.\nThe results for Everyman are now glaring.\n\nDeity, from Everyman\u2019s modern viewpoint, is fast disappearing into\nhuman nature; or into that mystic conglomerate of man and the universe\nwhich is either called Nature or, as Mark Twain might say, is \u201cthe same\ngentleman under another name.\u201d New names are being invented for It\ndaily by pseudo-science. Advanced Protestant theology lies at the proud\nfoot of this conqueror. Forgetting that modern religion at the first\ndid help to wound herself, the more conservative type of theist blames\nscience for harming religion. The up-to-date theist blames religion\nfor not equalling the flight of science, unaware how terribly religion\nhas maimed her wing with pride. A common type of minister deprecates\nthe spread of atheism while confidently advocating the very doctrine\nthat fosters it. If he is shrewd enough to glimpse his dilemma, he\ncan justify himself with Emersonian blandness by pointing out that\nthe abuse of an excellent idea is not a good ground for the disuse\nof it--the excellent idea being a conceited, facile, and slippery\nsentiment of divine immanence.\n\nThis immanentism has proudly pawed down holy truths to the everyday\nlevel of Everyman. And he, finding that when thus muddied they sour\nthe daily bread of his happiness, is now rejecting them wholesale;\nthereby exhibiting the destructive aspect of that divine justice, that\nrelentless Love of Perfection, which his pastors have hidden behind\na gross version of the divine love for men. Our religious leaders,\nannouncing promiscuously the perfect love that casteth out fear--a\ndoctrine which the holiest saints approached with awe--have succeeded\nin casting out the true fear that belongs with our imperfect love. They\nhave speciously disparaged \u201cnegative\u201d in favour of \u201cpositive\u201d morality.\nWith Emersonian impatience they have shrugged at the _definite_ moral\nprecepts of the ages, as trite and rather forbidding antiquities, while\nadvocating an _indefinite_ moral sentiment, as the prime discovery and\npanacea of the modern age. They have slurred the divine negation, the\n\u201cEverlasting No,\u201d which, acting down through the poor human conscience,\nconstitutes the great _unadulterable_ factor of positive morals and, in\nthe end, the most positive provision against positive unhappiness.\n\nThis proud religious blindness has opened the highway for blind secular\nnaturism. The one has played into the hands of the other; the blind\nhas led the blind toward the pit of spiritual anarchy. Consider, for\nexample, the quick succession and interplay of these three phases of\nthe modern spiritual drama: first, the Protestant notion of immediate\njustification by faith in Christ; second, the humanitarian notion of\njustification by faith in mankind; and third, the cynical notion of\njustification by faith in nothing--except primitive desire. In the\nthird act of the tragedy, as in the other two, the leading motive is a\nspecious emotional immediacy fed by subconscious pride. For the Nothing\nthat modern sceptics are devoted to (its finest dramatic representation\nis in the works of Thomas Hardy) includes a concupiscent Something\nby the exercise of which, so they feel, we may be saved--or at least\nvitally damned. Hence our very disillusion to-day is flown with pride.\nOur current disillusionists, not humbled by the fact that the modern\nrejection of moral severity is eventuating in a febrile weakness of\nthe vital human appetites, continue to disparage that severity and to\nadvocate, as our only hope, a romantic resurgence of those appetites.\nThey yearn for a flood-tide between rotten banks; fancying, apparently,\nthat \u201csinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains,\u201d\nimmediately. They hymn a spurious Primitive as their Protestant\nforbears hymned a spurious Christ.[31]\n\nConsider, too, the dramatic inevitability with which the \u201cpsychists\u201d\nand the \u201clegislationists,\u201d so to call them, have come swarming more\nand more into the breaches that modern religion has made in the human\nconscience. The psychists are proudly animated with the old Sophist\nhope of reducing that mysterious citadel and of rearranging the\nwhole soul on modern rational lines. They are teaching the oncoming\ngeneration to _think_ in a fashion indicated in the following remark\nmade to me by a thoughtful youth: \u201cWhen a fellow tries to do the right\nthing, he has a satisfaction that seems at the time very real; but of\ncourse, as soon as he _thinks_, he sees that this satisfaction isn\u2019t\nreal at all.\u201d At a recent American congress of thinkers, one of them\nexplained how religion and morality are being taken over and saved, in\nso far as worth saving, by psychology. He was confident of tucking the\nsetting sun, quite immediately, into his grandstand.\n\nThe legislationists, on the other hand, would save the fading rays\nby immediate public measures, national and international. In a world\ndim with unprecedented bloodshed, misty with subtle suspicion and\nself-seeking, and darkening ever more with impiety and lust, they would\nproduce by political or social machinery the lights of peace, good\nwill, purity, and temperance. They are busily wiring a twilight world\nfor incandescent goodness. They would arrest and soften with electric\nlegislation the awful working-out of divine laws. The leader in this\nproject is an ideal figure of Columbia. But under grave scrutiny the\nradiant figure reveals a good many lineaments of her who was the leader\nof the seven deadly sins. One recalls with something of a shiver the\nqueenly \u201cprogress\u201d of Lucifera in her pleasant twilight--oblivious of\nthe dead men\u2019s bones thick under foot and the \u201cfoggy mist\u201d all along\nthe way.[32]\n\nColumbia, the progressive modern spirit, is too proud to face the\nfearful carnage of human values and the foggy confusion of principles\nbrought about by the modern _heart_. Kindly persons after criticising\nvarious modern ills, take comfort by concluding that, after all, the\nmodern age is sound and right at heart. But here, precisely, is the\nsource of all those ills. The modern heart has gone wrong. The chief\nleaders of imagination during the past two centuries assumed that\nmodernity meant a real change of heart, a change for the better; that\nowing to the long schooling of the past and the new lights of the\npresent, the human heart could now afford to relax its old combat\nwith itself. This assumption is parroted to-day, with varying degrees\nof subtlety, by preachers, philosophers, educators, youngsters,\nlegislationists, artists, Rotarians, and disillusionists. At the same\ntime they are demonstrating conclusively that the old human heart,\nunregenerate, is still with us. They are showing its ancient and\namazing capacity for inventing new ways of disguising old Duty,--the\nkind of duty that means a daily, painful, but not inglorious battle\nwithin the heart itself. They are showing us how inglorious human\nthought and art can become, how shallow, cheap, and in the end\nintolerable, when the human _heart_ has become \u201ctoo proud to fight.\u201d\n\n\nIII\n\nThis catastrophe, when fully recognised, can point us to fresh hope\nand faith. We may win afresh the old faith which goes hand in hand\nwith a certain disillusion, a certain kind of scepticism, foreign to\nour current disillusionists. This faith, says Newman, \u201clooks for no\nessential improvements or permanent reformations in the dispensation\nof those precious gifts which are ever pure in their origin, ever\ncorrupted in man\u2019s use of them.\u201d[33]\n\nSo far, the moral corruption of the twentieth century has not produced\nthe flagrancy of conduct that characterised a good many earlier ages.\n\u201cMy _ideas_ of life have become so rotten,\u201d thus a Pragmatised and\nBehaviourised youngster confessed to me, \u201cthat I wonder my _life_ is\nnot rottener.\u201d He looked startled when I told him to give his ideas\ntime. However, it appeared that, partly in spite of and partly by means\nof his marked self-consciousness, he had attained to some veracity\nof inward unhappiness. We may hope that his case is quite typical.\nIn other words, our self-conscious modern age has provided a wide\nand unprecedented demonstration of the fact that the chief danger to\nhuman happiness is immorality of _ideas_. Previous ages have done\nlip-homage to high moral standards while grossly violating them in\npractice. The modern age has proudly assumed that it has grown far\nbeyond such hypocrisy. Meanwhile it has developed the subtler hypocrisy\nof cultivating depraved and specious ideas while shrinking from the\n_full_ consequences of them in conduct. The result is that life looks\ndully undramatic, culture and art degenerate, and thoughtful persons\nwho are harmless enough in their acts have a real misery in their\nspirit. Surely, therefore, we have now a chance to learn afresh the\n_inward_ relentlessness of the Moral Laws; particularly that \u201cprecious\ngift\u201d which we have so bitterly corrupted, the law of humility. We may\nnow perceive that the universal proverb \u201cPride goes before a fall\u201d is\nno less applicable to our age than to the old aristocratic ages; and\nthat, far from being merely a maxim of external prudence, it is the\nfolk-sign of an _inward_ region of cause and effect that we, with all\nour self-consciousness, have scarcely penetrated.\n\nWe may find again the inward and yet superhuman rigour of the Laws. We\nmay learn that they are supernatural without being ever _un_natural;\nalways immanent in us and yet, in a mystery beyond the reach of our\nscience, always transcendent of us. Browning\u2019s Paracelsus, embodying\nthe modern mixture of romance and science, complained in regard to his\nown catastrophe that \u201cGod\u2019s intimations fail in clearness rather than\nin force.\u201d Precisely so; but there is no use in whining about it. The\nhuman task is to clarify and obey, as well as we can, Laws which we did\nnot invent; which no man, except when stupified by pride--either his\nown pride or the pride of his teachers, relentlessly visited upon him\nto the third and fourth generation--can conceive to be merely human\ninventions.\n\nThose Laws fail in human clearness, certainly, but not in force. They\ncame to send a sword into the earth, more than Peace. They have been\nthe cause of agony and misery for millions of innocent or ignorant\npeople; and no man has succeeded in making clear the full ground of\nthis. From the standpoint of human justice, those Laws are fearfully\ngeneral, vague, and incalculable. Yet our truest happiness, and indeed\nour truest originality, depend on a constant effort to elucidate them\nand apply them afresh to each new generation and individual. This task\nis of course, in a worldly sense, an impossible one. New sins and\ndifficulties, or rather old sins and difficulties in inexhaustibly new\nmodes, appear at every step. Salvation for the individual never becomes\neasier; and the social frame is so built, beneath our building, that\nit cannot be saved. Old seers and new scientists are true to a deep\nhuman instinct in prophesying that some day the world will be destroyed\nby fire, collision, or decay; will \u201cdissolve like an insubstantial\npageant faded.\u201d Our surest Comfort, at the opposite pole from modern\ncomfortableness and not divisible from right conduct, is in knowing\nthat those Laws, while \u201cever corrupted by man\u2019s use of them\u201d are indeed\n\u201cprecious gifts ever pure in their origin.\u201d Clough, that fine religious\nhumanist who faced the modern situation without blinking, had a sound\nhumility when he wrote:\n\n  \u201cI steadier step\n  When I recall\n  That though I slip\n  Thou dost not fall.\u201d\n\nThe fresh humility that we need must be built up patiently by religion\nand by humanism; each working in its own way and carefully respectful\nof the other, even (perhaps _especially_) when these two approaches are\nequally employed by one person.\n\nReligion is normally theistic, and therewith mediatorial and\nsacramental. Otherwise she is not catholic and, _in the long run_,\nloses her right humility. This should be evident enough from the long\nhistory of religion, Christian and non-Christian, past and present.\nTheism decays continually, but by reason of its own sins rather than\nthe virtues of opposing doctrines. Pantheism, deism, and all the others\nflourish in its decadencies, more or less parasitically, but cannot\ntake deep root in human humility. I do not mean that theism is true\nbecause it works, but that it works because at its best it is our\ntruest mode of conceiving the Eternal One. Voltaire\u2019s epigram, \u201cGod\ncreated man in His own image and man promptly returned the compliment,\u201d\nis superb and lasting because the doctrine here parodied is lasting\nand sublime. The parody is catholically critical because the doctrine\nitself is deeply catholic. Modernism, when strictly criticising\ncatholic doctrine, is helpful; when frankly rejecting it, respectable;\nwhen blandly attempting to reduce it to poetry, baneful--baneful in\nits hidden pride--and, I trust, hopeless. Not similarly hopeless\nis Latin Fundamentalism; by which I mean the attempt of Latinised\ntheology, no matter in what branch of the Christian church it appears,\nto define religious mysteries with a literalism that is too precise\nto be accurate. Most hopeful is the work of a small and quiet group\nof theologians, belonging to various churches, who are resuming and\ncarrying forward the thwarted hope of the great Christian humanists\nof the Renaissance. They are striving for a non-revolutionary, a firm\nand organic, development of Christian doctrine; that is, for a real\ncatholicity. It is they, studious, ethical, open-eyed, and humble who\nare rebuilding the foundations of the Temple.\n\nYet the Temple, or let us say \u201cthe church militant here upon earth,\u201d\nis at its best inadequate. The man of good sense has always found and\nwill always find it necessary to take the church with a grain of salt,\neven though the salt loseth its savour without the church. Good sense\nis a distinct foundation; and humanism is built upon it. Humanism\nmay be theistic or _non_-theistic; it is unsound when it is anything\nbetween. When non-theistic, it falls short of the full truth that is\nin the human imagination. The pre-eminent example of course is the\nsublime religious humanism of the Buddha. However, if it be true that\nthe primitive Hindu pantheon had 330,000,000 gods, doubtless the Buddha\nhad several million good reasons for not being a theist. Theism at\nits worst fosters, as nothing else can, the proud imaginations of the\nhuman heart. Humanism, which in one of its most important functions is\na criticism of religion, is essential for sound religious humility.\nReligion needs the humility derivable from the consideration that\nhappiness may be obtained without religion. Humanism is the study\nand practice of the principles of human happiness _uncomplicated_ by\nnaturistic dogmas on the one side and religious dogmas on the other.\nWhen religion, as at present, has degraded \u201cGod\u2019s love\u201d and abolished\n\u201cGod\u2019s anger,\u201d humanism will insist that the former doctrine (though\nat its best supreme) is no less _metaphorical_ than the latter, and\nnot less subject to unconscious superstition. When religion assists\nirreligion in softening God\u2019s laws, humanism will insist that a\nrediscovery of their severity is essential for right humility and\nhappiness.\n\nJust here I am forced to express the hope that those estimable critics,\nMr. T. S. Eliot and Mr. Walter Lippmann, will at one point counteract\neach other\u2019s influence upon the public. Mr. Eliot, aiming toward\nhumane religion, tends to reduce humanism to a mere balance of mind,\na ghost of the Arnoldian culture, subservient to anglo-catholicism.\nMr. Lippmann, aiming toward religious humanism, tends to reduce deity\nto \u201can ideal of the human personality,\u201d[34] a rather ghostly ally of\npractical morals. Each is somewhat swayed by the modern desire for\nimmediate measures.\n\nProvidentially, however, a more catholic attitude has already been\nerected by two older critics, Baron Friedrich von H\u00fcgel and Professor\nIrving Babbitt--the two most potent and distinguished personalities,\nthough not the finest writers, that have so far appeared in English\nliterature of the twentieth century. The one, a devout Roman Catholic\nof England, has indirectly done much for the best interests of\nhumanism. The other, a rigorous moral humanist of New England, has\nindirectly done much for the best interests of religion. Their\nextraordinary scholarship is guided by a sound humility of spirit. In\ntheir writings, neither ventures further than his equipment warrants\ninto the other\u2019s field, and they do not contradict each other in\nfundamental points. They agree in the conviction that now, for the sake\nof religion itself, the way of humanism must be clearly discriminated\nfrom the way of religion. Mr. Babbitt has urged that religion at its\nbest is far above, and at its worst far below, a sound humanism. Baron\nvon H\u00fcgel has urged that Christians should face now, more frankly and\nfully than they have ever faced before, the fact that the ethical or\nhumane way has a distinct and _divinely ordained_ validity of its own\nfor those who cannot honestly follow the religious way; and that the\nfull health of each way depends upon the health of the other.\n\nThis truly catholic attitude, which is essential for modern humility,\nis not palatable to the pseudo-catholicity of the modern mind. We\nhave fancied, especially in America, that expert reason aided by\ndemocratic tolerance could soon discover the underlying relationships\nbetween the different ways of salvation, thus federating these in\na single \u201cconcern,\u201d a sort of efficient successor and substitute\nfor the universal infallible church of the Middle Ages. Behind this\nenterprise stands the overweening assumption of modern philosophy\nthat the universe itself is a single organism with a large variety\nof inter-assimilable aspects, such as religion and science, love and\nmorals, good and evil, God and Nature. Tennyson would not have been so\nshocked by his rediscovery of the perennial fact that God and Nature\nare at strife if he had not been so infected by the modern notion that\nthey ought not to be,--that properly they belong in a universal banking\ntrust whose members, however they may quarrel on the surface, never\nsuffer a real severance of business relations. Nor would our current\ndisillusionists feel so badly about the inevitable dissolution of that\ntrust if their grandfathers had not credited it so heavily. Let us\nnow recognise pride as the grand sponsor of that trust--the pride of\nunity and immediacy, or of universal \u201ccontinuity\u201d as the late T. E.\nHulme would say. Let us humbly admit that the universe is faulted,\ngeologically speaking, deeper and higher than our knowing. What of\nultimate plan and unity its strata may have, God only knows.\n\nOur youths who have learned to smile with a weary superior air at\nthe traditional division of reality into God, Man, and Nature, would\nbreathe more freely and begin again to taste the vital zest of the\nuniversal drama, if we would now teach them that this traditional\ndivision is _less na\u00efve_ than the theory of universal continuity; is\nbetter grounded in universal human experience; and, above all, is more\ntruly accordant with the profound division which any thinking man\nmay find within himself to-day when he is sufficiently self-reliant\nand experimental to plumb beneath the surfaces where our ephemeral\npsycho-physicisms weave and flutter. Recently humanism, in its attempt\nto fulfil and deepen the experimentality of the modern spirit, has\nof necessity placed its chief emphasis upon that inward division. It\nhas insisted that the _opposition_ between the higher and lower wills\nwithin us, whether they be called \u201cdivine\u201d and \u201cnatural\u201d or what not,\nis essentially inexplicable by expert reason and is nevertheless, from\nthe present standpoint of human happiness, the most important feature\nof the universe arrived at by free and full experimentation.\n\nThis humane _dualism_ strikes at the very heart of modern pride,\nthe pride of spiritual _monism_. It sets a true immediacy over\nagainst a false immediacy. It assigns a central value to the paradox\nestablished by the immediate experience of Everyman when he tries\n(in the terminology of common sense) to be \u201cat one with himself\u201d by\nkeeping his \u201cbetter self\u201d above his \u201cworser self.\u201d It depreciates\nthe expert reasonings and romantic emotions which, overriding that\nvital paradox of good sense, would leap immediately at spiritual\nunity and continuity. Consequently the humane dualism, more than any\nother doctrine of recent criticism, has met with angry rejection or\nobfuscating comment. A good example of the latter is afforded by\na generous and intelligent reviewer who comments as follows upon\nthe dualistic humanism of Milton: \u201cMilton, after all, had not read\nDarwin; we have ... Milton\u2019s energetic dualism was based on religious\nconceptions which are genuinely outlived; the power behind his allegory\nof the soul was his belief that the world was shaped and created for\nmankind; and, conceiving of ourselves now so much more humbly than he\ndid, we cannot set our lives on such a stage.... We cannot invent an\nopposition we do not feel.\u201d[35]\n\nThe above, in a representative modern fashion, confuses modesty and\nhumility. The modern modest dogma that the world was not \u201cshaped and\ncreated for mankind\u201d has shown itself, when all its implications are\nconsidered, no less deficient in real humility than the conceited\nbelief that the world was created for human comfortableness. This\nbelief was far more radically repudiated by Milton than by us. Only\nwith the aid of modern pride can we be sure that his _basic_ religious\nideas have been \u201c_genuinely_ outlived\u201d and that we, having read Darwin,\nconceive of ourselves \u201cmuch more _humbly_ than he did.\u201d He, to be\nsure, was no adept either in Darwinian or in Emersonian modesty. As a\nman among men he had strong intellectual and even personal pride. But\nabove it he had true spiritual humility; which may consist with, and\nderive support from, that virtue too much obscured by modern modesty,\nnamely \u201cself-esteem, founded on justice and right, well managed.\u201d\nThis kind of self-reliance enabled Milton to assign full value to\nthe moral division he found within himself. His \u201cenergetic dualism,\u201d\nas the reviewer calls it, his dramatic sense of the _real_ opposition\nbetween the nature of lust, pride, and Chaos and the nature of purity,\nhumility, and Peace, was not \u201cbased on\u201d transient religious concepts.\nIt was \u201cbased on\u201d the duality he found at the centre of himself as well\nas at the centre of European experience, Christian and pagan. He would\nhave found it also at the centre of ancient Buddhism, if he had known\nthis as we know it to-day. But, says my reviewer, \u201cwe cannot invent an\nopposition we do not feel.\u201d Very true. Nevertheless, with the aid of\nright self-esteem and humility, with a patient critical reverence for\nwhat is best in ourselves and in accumulated tradition, European and\nOriental, we may not only \u201cfeel\u201d but realise, in thought and conduct,\nan opposition we did not invent.\n\nOnly thus can we proceed to a spiritual use of our scientific modesty.\nOver against the self-flattery of religious superstition, science\nhas revealed the indifference of a vast physical universe. Here is\nwholesome seed for a fresh humility. But so far its growth in the\nmodern spirit is blighted; blighted much less by the old superstitions\nwhich the modern religionist enjoys attacking than by the new\nsuperstition which he himself has fostered--the bastard ideal of love.\nThis ideal, religiously derived from an illegitimate mixture of two\nfallibles, democracy and St. John, infects to-day the blood of many\nwho, rejecting St. John and perhaps also democracy, believe loudly in\nSex; or who, tired of Sex also, believe in nothing because it seems\nthe sole alternative to the spurious all-immanent divinity of modern\nlove. This love, though masquerading as powerful and strenuous, is\nessentially soft. It has succeeded in masking the Cross, not only\nthe Christian but the universal Cross, in soft flummeries. The hard\nuniverse of science disowns it. And so does the severity of the divine\nLaws. If we learn again to revere these in their full severity as we\nfind it in history (especially recent history) and in ourselves, to bow\nbefore their awful beauty with a love that fears to call itself worthy\nof casting out fear, then the outward laws can again become real images\nof the inward Laws.\n\nOutward nature with her unfathomable self-subsistence, her rigorous\ndetachment from the egoistic delusions of the human heart, and her\nfirm satisfactions for those who seek only to know and follow her\nlaws, can again be seen as a real though very distant representation\nof the Divine Nature itself. The dual nature of man, freed from the\nintervolving vapours of old metaphysical dualisms and new metaphysical\nmonisms, guarded from insidious loves, and cultivated with renewed\nmoral vigour, can be seen again as the isthmus between Time and\nEternity: our firm and fruitful land between unfathomable, unmixing,\nbut not unkindly seas.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES\n\n[25] Recently I attended on successive Sundays an extremely Catholic\nand an extremely Protestant celebration of the Holy Communion. The\nsolemnity of the former was injured by the priest\u2019s sermon, which\nevinced the pumping process, the \u201cdefence-mechanism,\u201d referred to\nabove. At the other service, the mound of bread-cubes that appeared on\nthe table below the pulpit, alongside a pitcher of grape-juice, was\nsuggestive, I fear, of the above mentioned junk-heaps. For the minister\ninterrupted his readings from old sacramental liturgies to explain how\nmuch the ceremony rightly meant to his sect, and how much it wrongly\nmeant to the Catholics.\n\n[26] Luke IV, 9-13.\n\n[27] This word is borrowed from the late Baron Friedrich von H\u00fcgel, in\nwhose life and writings the truth of it is powerfully and beautifully\nillustrated.\n\n[28] His crucial period in early maturity, his \u201ctemptation in the\nwilderness,\u201d is examined in my article \u201cOn Emerson\u2019s \u2018Grace\u2019 and\n\u2018Self-Reliance\u2019\u201d in the _New England Quarterly_, Vol. II, No. 1, 1929.\n\n[29] See the essays on Newman, Arnold, and Huxley in Robert Shafer\u2019s\n_Christianity and Naturalism_, 1926.\n\n[30] See the chapter on him in Norman Foerster\u2019s _American Criticism_,\n1928.\n\n[31] An interesting critique bearing on this subject is \u201cThe Modern\nDistemper\u201d by Professor Ralph Barton Perry in the _Saturday Review of\nLiterature_, June 1, 1929.\n\n[32] Spenser\u2019s _Faerie Queene_, Book I, canto 4. This great poetic\nfable would be studied in our schools and colleges with deeper emotion\nif its application to modern pride were not screened off by modern\npride itself.\n\n[33] From _Parochial and Plain Sermons_, 1880, Vol. II, No. XXXI.\n\n[34] _A Preface to Morals_, p. 326.\n\n[35] From a review of my book _The Cycle of Modern Poetry_ in the\n_Times Literary Supplement_ (London), June 20, 1929.\n\n\n\n\n_Religion Without Humanism_\n\nT. S. ELIOT\n\n\nI must rely, in these few pages, upon a brief summary of the\nlimitations within which I believe humanism must work, which I\npublished in the _Hound and Horn_, June, 1929. In that paper I stated\nmy belief that humanism is in the end futile without religion. Here I\nwish to put forward briefly a view which seems to me equally important,\nthe counterpart of the other, and one which ought to be more welcome to\nhumanists. Having called attention to what I believe to be a danger,\nI am bound to call attention to the danger of the other extreme: the\ndanger, a very real one, of _religion without humanism_.\n\nI believe that the sceptic, even the pyrrhonist, but particularly the\nhumanist-sceptic, is a very useful ingredient in a world which is no\nbetter than it is. In saying this I do not think that I am committing\nmyself to any theological heresy. The ideal world would be the ideal\nChurch. But very little knowledge of human nature is needed to convince\nus that hierarchy is liable to corruption, and certainly to stupidity;\nthat religious belief, when unquestioned and uncriticised, is liable\nto degeneration into superstition; that the human mind is much lazier\nthan the human body; and that the communion of saints in Tibet is of\na very low order. If we cannot rely, and it seems that we can never\nrely, upon adequate criticism from within, it is better that there\nshould be criticism from without. But here I wish to make a capital\ndistinction: criticism, infidelity and agnosticism must, to be of\nvalue, be _original_ and not inherited. Orthodoxy must be traditional,\nheterodoxy must be original. The attitude of Voltaire has value,\nbecause of its place in time; the attitude of Renan has value, in its\nhistorical perspective; Anatole France I can only consider as a man who\ncame at the most unfortunate date for his own reputation--too late to\nbe a great sceptic, and too soon to be a great sceptic. There must be\nmore orthodoxy before there can be another Voltaire. And precisely I\nfear lest humanism should make a tradition of dissent and agnosticism,\nand so cut itself off from the sphere of influence in which it is most\nneeded.\n\nFor there is no doubt in my mind that contemporary religious\ninstitutions are in danger from themselves; that they have with few\nexceptions lost the \u201cintellectual,\u201d except that pernicious kind of\nintellectual who adopts dogma merely because doubt is out of date.\nNowhere is this more obvious than in America. All the religious forms\nwhich have some ancestry, and many which have none, flourish there;\nbut among persons whom I have known, there is hardly one who had any\nconnection (not to say any conviction) with any of them.\n\nBut America is not isolated in this respect; it merely shows us under\na magnifying glass what occurs everywhere. The two dangers to which\nreligion is exposed are apparent everywhere--and they are both cases\nfor which \u201chumanism\u201d or \u201cculture\u201d might be called in: _petrified\necclesiasticism_, and _modernism_.\n\nThe great merit of the Catholic Church, from the worldly point of view,\nis its catholicity. That is to say, it is obvious that every religion\nis effectively limited by the racial characters of the people who\npractise it, and that a strictly racial or national religion is certain\nto hold many irrelevances and impurities, from lack of an outside\nstandard of criticism. When the Catholic Faith really is catholic, the\naberrations of one race will be corrected by those of another. But it\nis obviously very difficult even for the Roman Church, nowadays, to\nbe truly catholic. The embarrassment of temporal powers, the virulence\nof racial and national enthusiasms, are enormous centrifugal forces.\nThe great majority of English speaking people, or at least the vast\nmajority of persons of British descent; half of France, half of\nGermany, the whole of Scandinavia, are outside of the Roman communion:\nthat is to say, the Roman Church has lost some organic parts of the\nbody of modern civilisation. It is a recognition of this fact which\nmakes some persons of British extraction hesitate to embrace the Roman\ncommunion; and which makes them feel that those of their race who have\nembraced it have done so only by the surrender of some essential part\nof their inheritance and by cutting themselves off from their family.\n\nBut if one feels that the culture of the Roman Catholic Church to-day\nis imperfect--and also in danger of splitting up into various local\nand national bigotries and political factions which will retain only\nthe name and the observances of catholicism--one cannot get any\nsatisfaction from what happens outside of that church either. The Roman\nChurch in America has little contact with some of the most valuable\nelements in American culture; it not only lacks humanism, but is in\ndanger of adding vulgarity. In England it is negligible. But both in\nEngland and America, Protestantism is in still worse case. It can be,\nand usually is, equally vulgar; it can be equally narrow and bigoted;\nwith the alternative that when it is not narrow and bigoted it is\nliberal, sloppy, hypocritical and humanitarian. The Roman Church is\ndangerous in one direction; the Protestant Churches are dangerous in\ntwo directions.\n\nI have already said what I think of humanism without religion; I\nrespect it, but believe it to be sterile. Religion without humanism\nproduces the vulgarities and the political compromises of Roman\nCatholicism; the vulgarities and the fanaticism of Tennessee; it\nproduces Mrs. MacPherson; and it produces liberal uplift; and it\nproduces the Bishop of Birmingham. For it is the chief point of this\nshort paper, that religion without humanism produces the opposite\nand conflicting types of religious bigotry (liberalism in religion\nis a form of bigotry). We have Cardinal O\u2019Connell; the late W. J.\nBryan; and we have the cultivated divines of the most radical wing\nof Unitarianism. The sum of _disjecta membra_ is completed by the\nhumanists.\n\nI have examined several popular theological works by Anglican\nclergy of the liberal school.[36] It would I am sure be difficult\nto convince any of these worthy people that they were humanitarian\nwithout being humanist. Humanitarians (and among them we must include\nanti-humanitarians like Dean Inge, a sentimentalist _\u00e0 rebours_) are\noften highly cultivated people who have read many books; some of them,\nin England at least, can read Latin and Greek; the Bishop of Birmingham\ntook honours in mathematics. Yet in surrendering dogmatic faith they\nare at the same time surrendering their humanism. It is from such\npeople that we hear most about \u201cscience and religion\u201d; it is such\npeople who pay, and lead the flock to pay, that exaggerated devotion to\n\u201cscience\u201d which the true humanist deplores.\n\nIt is curious that whilst on the one hand the liberal theologian tends\nto pay homage to an illusory divinity called \u201cscience\u201d the advanced\nscientist tends to pay homage to an equally vague \u201creligion.\u201d People\nseem to suppose that by science yielding points to religion, and\nreligion yielding points to science, we shall quite soon arrive at a\nposition of comfortable equilibrium. What will be \u201creal\u201d will be the\ntechnical progress of science, and the material organisation of the\nchurches: we shall still have professors of physics and we shall still\nhave clergy, and nobody will lose his job. Scientists and clergy alike\nseem to speak nowadays as if they were in terror of the spectre of\nunemployment: \u201cI will not make exaggerated claims,\u201d they both seem to\nsay, \u201clest I may be discovered to be superfluous.\u201d\n\nBut this apparent approximation of science and religion, which we\ndiscover in such theological works as those I have mentioned, and in\nsuch popular scientific works as those of Whitehead and Eddington,\nis a delusion. The meeting is a mere cancellation to zero. Nothing\npositive is attained by reciprocal surrender. The theologian says \u201cof\ncourse dogma is not truth,\u201d and the scientist says, \u201cof course science\nis not truth.\u201d Every one is happy together; and possibly both parties\nturn to _poetry_ (about which neither scientist nor theologian knows\nanything) and say \u201c_there_ is truth, in the inspiration of the poet.\u201d\nThe poet himself, who perhaps knows more about his own inspiration than\na psycho-analyst does, is not allowed to reply that poetry is poetry,\nand not science or religion--unless he or some of his mistaken friends\nproduce a theory that Poetry is Pure Poetry, Pure Poetry turning out to\nbe something else than poetry and thereby securing respect.\n\nBoth parties, the liberal theologian and the scientist, are deficient\nin humanism. But what is more serious, to my mind, is that the humanist\nis deficient in humanism too, and must take his responsibility with\nthe others. What happens, in the general confusion, is not only that\neach party abdicates his proper part, but that he interferes with the\nproper part of the others. The theologian is terrified of science, and\nthe scientist is becoming terrified of religion; whilst the humanist,\nendeavouring to pay proper, but not excessive due to both, reels from\nside to side. And the world reels with him.\n\nOn the following point I speak with diffidence, recognising my lack\nof qualification where qualification is severe and exact. Humanism\nhas much to say of Discipline and Order and Control; and I have\nparroted these terms myself. I found no discipline in humanism; only\na little intellectual discipline from a little study of philosophy.\nBut the difficult discipline is the discipline and training of\nemotion; this the modern world has great need of; so great need that\nit hardly understands what the word means; and this I have found is\nonly attainable through dogmatic religion. I do not say that dogmatic\nreligion is justified because it supplies this need--that is just the\npsychologism and the anthropocentrism that I wish to avoid--but merely\nstate my belief that in no other way can the need be supplied. There\nis much chatter about mysticism: for the modern world the word means\nsome spattering indulgence of emotion, instead of the most terrible\nconcentration and askesis. But it takes perhaps a lifetime merely to\nrealise that men like the forest sages, and the desert sages, and\nfinally the Victorines and John of the Cross and (in his fashion)\nIgnatius really _mean what they say_. Only those have the right to talk\nof discipline who have looked into the Abyss. The need of the modern\nworld is the discipline and training of the emotions; which neither\nthe intellectual training of philosophy or science, nor the wisdom of\nhumanism, nor the negative instruction of psychology can give.\n\nIn short, we can use the term Humanism in two ways. In the narrower\nsense, which tends always under emphasis to become narrower still, it\nis an important part in a larger whole; and humanists, by offering\nthis part as a substitute for the whole, are lessening, instead\nof increasing, its importance; they offer an excuse to the modern\ntheologian and the modern scientist (only too ready to grasp it) for\n_not_ being humanistic themselves, and for leaving humanism to its own\nspecialists. Humanism can offer neither the intellectual discipline\nof philosophy or of science (two different disciplines), nor the\nemotional discipline of religion. On the other hand, these other\nactivities depend upon humanism to preserve their sanity. Without it,\nreligion tends to become either a sentimental tune, or an emotional\ndebauch; or in theology, a skeleton dance of fleshless dogmas, or in\necclesiasticism, a soulless political club. Without it, science can be\nmerely a process of technical research, bursting out from time to time,\nand especially in our time, into sentimental monstrosities like the\nLife Force, or Professor Whitehead\u2019s God.\n\nBut in the full and complete sense of the word, Humanism is something\nquite different from a part trying to pretend to be a whole, and\nsomething quite different from a \u201cparasite\u201d of religion. It can\nonly be quite actual in the full realisation and balance of the\ndisciplined intellectual and emotional life of man. For, as I have\nsaid, without humanism both religion and science tend to become other\nthan themselves, and without religion and science--without emotional\nand intellectual discipline--humanism tends to shrink into an atrophied\ncaricature of itself. It is the spirit of humanism which has operated\nto reconcile the mystic and the ecclesiastic in one church; having done\nthis in the past, humanism should not set itself up now as another\nsect, but strive to continue and enlarge its task, labouring to\nreconcile and unite all the parts into a whole. It is the humanist who\ncould point out to the theologian the absurdities of his repudiation,\nacceptance, or exploitation of \u201cscience,\u201d and to the scientist the\nabsurdities of his repudiation, acceptance, or exploitation of\nreligion. For when I say \u201creconcile,\u201d I mean something very different\nfrom the dangerous and essentially anti-humanistic adventures of the\nBishop of Birmingham or Professor Whitehead. And let us leave Einstein\nalone, who has his own business to attend to.\n\nAs I believe I am writing chiefly for those who know or think they\nknow, what \u201chumanism\u201d means, I have not in this paper attempted any\ndefinition of it. I take it that the reader thinks he knows what it\nmeans, and that he will understand that I am putting before him the\ndifference between what I think he thinks it means and what I think I\nthink it means.\n\nI have just one note to add, which is the preface to an extensive\nsequel. I believe that at the present time the problem of the\nunification of the world and the problem of the unification of the\nindividual, are in the end one and the same problem; and that the\nsolution of one is the solution of the other. Analytical psychology\n(even if accepted far more enthusiastically than I can accept it) can\ndo little except produce monsters; for it is attempting to produce\nunified individuals in a world without unity; the social, political,\nand economic sciences can do little, for they are attempting to produce\nthe great society with an aggregation of human beings who are not units\nbut merely bundles of incoherent impulses and beliefs. The problem of\nnationalism and the problem of dissociated personalities may turn out\nto be the same. The relevance of this paragraph to what precedes it\nwill, I hope, appear upon examination.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES\n\n[36] E.g., _Should Such a Faith Offend?_, by the Bishop of Birmingham;\n_I Believe in God_, by Maude Royden; _The Impatience of a Parson_, by\nH. R. L. Sheppard.\n\n\n\n\n_The Plight of Our Arts_\n\nFRANK JEWETT MATHER, Jr.\n\n\nI\n\nAny expression of a humanistic society through the arts depends upon\nthe acceptance by the artist of some sort of central authority. The\nauthority is not that of official organisations or written codes; it is\nrather that of approved traditional ideals in which both the artist and\nthe laity believe. In their application to the work of art, such ideals\nappear concretely as accredited conventions. In a humanistic society,\nthese conventions assume no burdensome or arbitrarily authoritative\nform. They represent merely a body of successful experience--ways\nthat have been tried and found good. The accepted convention tells\nthe artist how he must begin; it does not tell him how he must end.\nIt does, however, warn him off from any too abrupt breaking with\ntradition, and from any too urgent assertion of his individual taste\nsave in so far as that taste finds sanction in precedent and in opinion\nother than his own. Right here is the stone of stumbling. The humanist\nartist willingly admits that his own genius is not his final authority.\nHe checks its impulses by the practice and teaching of other geniuses,\nand by the degree of acceptance which its expression commands from\ncompetent criticism and patronage. It is not enough that he shall have\nexpressed just himself; it matters quite as much that he shall have\ncommunicated himself to a fit public with whom he shares a confidence\nin the guiding conventions of his art and in ideals mutually honoured.\n\nOn the side of the artist, this relation will indicate a procedure of\ndelicate adjustment. The accepted conventions of his art and the ideals\nof the society for which he works, will of course not fit him precisely\nany more than a ready-made suit fits perfectly either the artist or\nlayman. The practical problem of the humanist artist, then, will be\nhow far he shall reshape himself to the expectations of his public;\nand how far he may change these expectations in a sense favourable to\nhis individual bent. And this implies chiefly a very superior sort of\njudgment and common sense. The humanist artist will feel that it is a\nvain thing to have expressed himself, however gorgeously, if nobody\nknows that he has expressed himself, and he will also admit that the\nmere feelingful and urgent self gains richness and value only when it\nis measured by other selves in society.\n\nOn the side of society and patronage, a humanised art would imply\nin practice a central authority lightly and genially imposed, a\njust offishness towards the artists who too overtly repudiated the\ntradition, withal a somewhat sceptical hopefulness towards experiment\nand innovation, a hospitable desire to understand the artist even when\nhis communication is obscure, a wish to have its own ideals expressed\nthrough the arts. In short a humanised society co-operates with the\nartist to a degree difficult even to imagine to-day. It provides him\nwith incentive, furnishes most of his \u00e6sthetic notions, helps him to\nrealise himself through opportune criticism and companionship, thus\ntaking an active part in what is the essential thing--the formation of\nhis spirit.\n\nSo far I have dealt in convenient abstractions which are in part\nmisleading. I have made the reciprocal relation between the artist and\npublic too conscious, much more conscious than it has been in history.\nI shall presently try to correct the error by appealing to precedents\nconcretely in given time and place. However, the over-emphasis on\nconsciousness as producing mutuality between artist and public may\nwell be pragmatically justified. It seems unlikely that our society\nwill simply gravitate towards humanism. On the contrary, if we are to\nachieve a humanistic social balance, it will apparently be done only\nthrough much taking of thought, on the part of both the enlightened\nlaity and the intelligent artist. So the analysis I have tried to make\nof the mutually helpful relation of artist and layman in a humanised\nworld, though it overstresses the conscious element in this reciprocity\nin seeming disregard of past history, may for that very reason suggest\na programme for history yet to be realised.\n\nProgrammes, however, are entirely valueless except as they rest soundly\non dynamic states of mind. Our problem as humanists is to create a\nstate of mind in which neither artist nor layman will exaggerate\nthe worth of his idiosyncrasy, nor yet follow the general drift\nunthinkingly. We are trying to make a man who is a friendly critic both\nof himself and of the society in which he moves, a man who accepts\nthe growing complexity of living as offering him fascinating and\nprofitable problems of adjustment. To maintain this hope in the face\nof the chicken-and-lobster-eating motorist, the radio fan, the devotee\nof the \u201ctalkies,\u201d the sycophant artist who bows to base authority, and\nthe behaviourist artist who admits none but that of his own glands--to\nkeep the hope of making humanists in the face of the daily American\nspectacle requires an audacity which even the Expressionist might\nenvy. But we contributors to this symposium have actually seen a few\nhumanists made, have helped a little to make them perhaps; and we are\ndealing with spiritual values which transcend ordinary statistics.\nA few thousand genuine humanists in America would make our society\nhumanistic; a hundred humanist painters, sculptors, architects,\nmusicians, and men of letters would make our art solidly humanistic.\nIn this hope we keep our tiny banner up beside the hoardings that\npromise to beautify our teeth, remove our corns, clothe our bodies\nappealingly, or incase the relentlessly exposed legs of our women in\nsilk as durable as filmy.\n\n\nII\n\nThat adjustment between artist and layman which seems so difficult\nto-day, until the seventeenth century and the beginning of modern times\ncame of itself and in some such fashion as this--it hardly matters\nwhether the scene be Italy, Spain, France, England, China, Japan,\nIndia, or Persia: in every case the basis was fine craftsmanship.\nPretty much all objects of common use were delicately conceived and\ncarefully made. The amateur of to-day gladly pays great prices for the\nordinary grave figurines and temple vessels of China, for the horse\ntrappings of the Scythians, for the common household gear and even the\nworkman\u2019s tools of the European Middle Ages and Renaissance, for the\ncomfit boxes and carved fobs of feudal Japan, for the peasant furniture\nof Brittany and Scandinavia. This general high level of craftsmanship\ndepended chiefly on the fact that even the humblest craftsman was also\na designer. To the joy of fit execution was joined that of successful\ninvention.\n\nA very few craftsmen became what we now call artists,--that is made\nfiner inventions on a more impressive scale, designed a cathedral or a\npalace instead of a simple house, decorated an entire chapel instead\nof a bride chest or tournament shield, made a bronze statue instead\nof a chiselled ink stand. But the line between the craftsman and the\nartist was not a sharp one. At Florence a Donatello belonged to the\nStonecutters Guild and officially was merely a very highly esteemed\nstonecutter. And every future artist entered upon his career as a\nsimple apprentice in a craft. The tragedy and frustration so common in\nthe artists\u2019 career to-day were absent. The apprentice with only a fine\ncraftsman\u2019s endowment lived out his life contentedly as a craftsman.\nBut he was free, had he the ability, to become an artist and to achieve\nthe companionship of princes.\n\nThe step from craftsman to artist lay really in the artist\u2019s\nintelligent assimilation of greater subject matter or in his fuller\nexpression of subject matter common to artist and craftsman alike.\nSuch subject matter was furnished him by his ecclesiastical and\ntemporal betters; he did not invent it. There was no hardship in this\nimposition, for the values of his betters were also his own. There was\na like-mindedness and real co-operation between artist and patron. A\nromantic and sentimentally individualistic criticism has challenged\nthis case. No person who knows either history or human nature, however,\nwill hold that Giotto was hampered because he had to paint the legends\nof Saint Francis and those of the Virgin; that Raphael was great in\nspite of the fact that he had to find symbols for syncretic theology;\nthat Hogarth is belittled by the fact that he so genially followed\nthe literary, satirical current of his age. A humanistic criticism\nwill hold, on the contrary, that an essential factor in the greatness\nof these artists was that, their themes coming almost ready made,\nthey were spared the waste and perturbation of so-called original\ninvention and were free to face in tranquillity their real problem of\ntransformation and execution.\n\nTo recapitulate: the craftsman, until at most a couple of centuries\nago, depended on a universal taste for the well-made thing, while the\nartist depended on the taste of a minority, the taste of an aristocracy\nwith which he himself felt in harmony. The few remaining fine craftsmen\nof to-day find no general taste for the well-made thing upon which they\nmay depend, while the myriad artists of to-day face no aristocracy\nwhatever, no accepted body of taste whatever, but rather a congeries\nof pseudo-aristocracies each with its shifting preferences, which\nhardly deserve the name of tastes at all.\n\nHow the isolation of the artist with the virtual extinction of the\ncraftsman has come about is a commonplace of history which need be\nrecalled here only in its broad lines. The factory within a century\nhas done away with the craftsman designer. Still earlier the crumbling\nof the old aristocracy of birth and religion at once put an end to\ncommunity of taste at the top, and gave exaggerated scope to the\nalready strongly rising ideal of originality and individuality as\nhighest \u00e6sthetic values. A stable and spiritually profitable patronage\nceased and was succeeded by a capricious and heavy handed patronage\nfrom a new wealth undisciplined either by tradition or by fine and\nbroad personal experience. The artist\u2019s immemorial task of realising\nhimself in society became almost impossibly difficult. If he were\nweak and clever, his resort was to sycophancy; if he were strong and\nwise, there was little for him but patience, resignation, and a tragic\nhopefulness; if he were strong and unwise, he became a rebel. And the\nrebel, in a manner perfectly familiar to the neurologist, built up his\ncompensations, by which he extolled that isolation which was really\nhis sore misfortune as his superiority and his advantage, until after\nthree generations it has become a common conviction among artists that\ntheir proper task is self-expression in a void, that there should be no\ndesire to communicate and, obviously, no need to be understood.\n\nAnd just at the moment when the position of the artist was becoming\nbarely tenable, the number of artists increased inordinately. The\ncraftsman who didn\u2019t want to go into a factory but wanted to use his\nhead and hands delicately, had to become an artist, while wholesale\nmethods of education in the practice of art made the way to becoming an\nartist easy to any young person with a modicum of money and diligence.\nAs if that were not enough, the false glamour thrown about the artist\nlife by romantic poets and novelists brought new hordes of the unfit to\njoin the bewildered survivors from the old r\u00e9gime.\n\n\nIII\n\nNow, any going back to the conditions of the Middle Ages or to those of\nthe Renaissance is of course impossible; but if craftsmanship and art\nare again to become normal functions in a helpful social order, the old\nformulas, at least in principle, must hold. There will be no generally\nfine craftsmanship until most people want well-made things and get\nthem from craftsmen who design; and the so-called fine arts will have\nno general importance until there are many patrons with a common bond\nof taste which is sympathetic to most artists. Is there anything which\npromises so desirable a reconstruction?\n\nOn the side of craftsmanship, I fear nothing is to be expected. The\ngallant counter-attacks of a John Ruskin and a William Morris against\nmodern industrialism show just how much and how little can be gained\nfrom a militant reaction. A hundred passionate spinsters are printing\nbatiks or glazing pottery in as many \u00e6sthetic last ditches, but they\nare mostly doing so at the expense of rich and generous eccentrics,\nin short are merely subsidised artists disguised as craftsmen. We\nare getting better designed things from the factory--the museums are\nworking usefully to this end--but this reform only enlists a handful\nof professional designers, and does nothing to produce the old type\nof creative craftsman. In short we probably must say good-bye to the\ncraftsman save as a picturesque survival, like the man who is skilful\nwith the rapier or the long bow. All we can hope for is that some\nimprovement in the general taste, which I think is reasonable to look\nfor,--since for a century it could hardly have been lower,--may cause a\ndiscriminating demand for better designed factory goods. This of course\nleaves the problem of the artist and the craftsman just where it was,\nwith the sole difference that the passing of the craftsman shuts off\nthe possibility of any return of the artist to his traditionally best\nschool, the shop of a good craftsman.\n\nSo if there is to be any useful rebuilding, I feel it must proceed\nafter the very modern precedent of the skyscraper, from the top\ndown. Much might conceivably be done to produce a more coherent and\nintelligent patronage for the fine arts, much is already being done\nby museums, art dealers, colleges and universities, and all manner of\nart societies. Indeed the increased activity of museums, collectors,\nand colleges in behalf of the acquisition and appreciation of fine\nworks of art has persuaded Mr. R. C. Duffus that we are well launched\non an American Renaissance, and to that effect he has published a very\ninteresting book. Far be it from me to minimise the importance of\nactivities in which I have been and am deeply engaged myself. One may\ngladly admit that to multiply our art treasures--and for a generation\nthe multiplication has been astoundingly accelerated--is in itself an\nunqualified benefit. But the mere accumulation of great works of art\nand much talk about them does not imply understanding of them, and the\nquestion the humanist must raise is always--Are these masterpieces\nunderstood? And how are they understood? Medi\u00e6val Rome lay in full\nartistic decadence when much of the glory of her old art was visible\non every hand. To understand any nobly conceived work of art, one must\nhave lived nobly in deed, in imagination, or in both. To own a great\nwork of art may be a mere counsel of personal vanity; to expound a\nwork of art, a mere assertion of self-importance. A whole school of\ninterpretation, which has its faculty, museum, and journal, tears the\nwork of art from its human context and studies its forms as if these\nwere ends in themselves. And this sort of teaching is popular. Along\nsuch lines one may make a generation of resolute pedants. For the\nhumanist such teaching is not merely defective but positively harmful.\nOn the other side, there is much sound and modest teaching, and the\nnext generation of art patrons will be far better trained than that\nwhich is passing.\n\nYet all such useful activities are simply marginal. Without a\npredisposition in its visitors, the museum might just as well be\nunvisited, since it then has no more dignity or value than the peep\nshow. It is a proper uneasiness before flattering statistics of\nattendance that has rightly induced our museums to inaugurate direct\ninstruction in appreciation. It is a weakness and limitation of such\nteaching that it too often merely foments a diffused interest in art\ntaken as an entity and not as related to human values generally. For\nappreciation really requires a right and balanced attitude towards\nlife. It was really more important for Florence that her great\ncitizens, while bowing to the glory that was Greece and the grandeur\nthat was Rome, wanted a full and honourable life in Florence--it was\nreally more important, I say, that they cared discriminatingly for the\ndignity of their ordinary activities and for the authority of their\nfaith, than that they cared _specifically_ for painting, sculpture, and\narchitecture.\n\nIn short some aristocratic vision of the good life has always been the\nfoundation on which great national art has been reared in the past.\nIt behooves us then to ask what is in America our accepted vision of\nthe good life? For upon it must rest our art. What do we all agree to\n(saving always negligible minorities of \u201cknockers\u201d)? I fear it would\ncome to these few articles of faith:--to make a lot of money by fair\nmeans; to spend it generously; to be friendly; to move fast; to die\nwith one\u2019s boots on. This is a credo which has within its limitations\npositive merits, and it is by no means lightly to be decried, but it\npalpably offers little spiritual nourishment to the \u201cart-artist,\u201d\nto quote a recent mayor of New York. A certain kind of art it feeds\nadmirably. And it naturally gets the art it feeds--the immaculate bank\nclerk in campus clothes, the sylph-like apparition in the porcelain\ntub, the beach party in the classy car--the art of the advertisement\ngenerally. And this ideal also finds its authentic expression in the\ncheap heroics and shallow idealisms of the moving picture, and the\npotpourri of dubious music and eloquence over the radio. These are our\nrepresentative arts, as sculpture was the representative art of Greece,\nor painting of Florence.\n\nThe prospect is more pleasing when we turn to architecture, really the\nonly art that is perennial. Here there is at least a great progress, a\nfar higher level of taste than that of a generation ago, a competent\nand audacious coping with unprecedented problems. Yet here as elsewhere\nthe cult of haste works harm. No architect of a skyscraper is given\ntime to think his building out. Perfection in the arts rests largely on\ntrifles lovingly meditated, and what successful architect has time for\nmeditation? We have in abundance such arts as we deserve, and we shall\nhave better arts only as we deserve them through better ideals of life\ngenerally.\n\nPainting and sculpture are kept alive by a sort of artificial\nrespiration. It is to be hoped that the increasing public use of\nboth in decoration may restore to these traditionally leading arts\na fuller measure of vitality. As it is, these arts have joined\nfine craftsmanship as an elegant survival, like fencing or court\ntennis. Since painting and sculpture are the arts I most love, it\nwould be pleasant indeed to come forward with a programme for their\nrehabilitation. But I have no such programme. I feel rather that we\nshould at once accept the situation and emphasise it. The only remedy,\nand a partial one at that, is, I think, this: since painting and\nsculpture have become exotic, relatively unwanted, and subsidised\narts, let us rebuild on their rarity value. If instead of making\nit ridiculously easy to learn painting and sculpture, we made it\ndifficult, we should probably have better painting and sculpture. This\ncould be done by withdrawing charitable support from the art schools,\nkeeping open such as reasonably pay their way, and by suspending the\nartificially encouraged salesmanship of painting and sculpture. There\nwould remain the human problem of what to do with the thousands of\nyoung men and women who legitimately wish to work delicately with their\nhands; but in a civilisation that is supplied from the factory, that\nproblem seems insoluble. And withal there may be a satisfactory outlet\nin amateurism--this has happened notably in the art of the theatre at\nthe very moment when the moving picture seemed to announce the end\nof the spoken play. In general I am not discouraging the support of\nsurvivals. Indeed I see in such support a singularly sympathetic act of\npatronage. But one should know what he is about. I have, for example,\na predilection for the quill pen, but I should be very unwise to endow\nan institution for writing with the quill. And we are very unwise in\nAmerica when, not really wanting their works, we artificially multiply\npainters and sculptors.\n\nWhatever reform comes from within the arts, will probably not come\nfrom carefully fostered survivals nor yet from conscious revivals,\nbut rather from the response of the wanted arts to a finer demand.\nThe comic strip and the moving picture seem barometric to me, as does\nillustration for advertising. Whenever I see a marked improvement in\nthese popular arts, I shall expect to find greater improvement in the\ntraditional fine arts of sculpture, painting, and architecture. And\nwhile I am only a casual observer of these barometric arts, what I\nhave observed of design for advertising and of the moving picture\ndoes not cause me either to hope unduly nor yet to despair utterly.\nCertainly both have improved much within my experience. There remains\nthe dilemma: can the democratic arts really acquire distinction, that\nsolicitude for perfecting trifles which we have already remarked, or\nmust they stop at a certain level simply because they are democratic\narts? It would be hazardous to answer this question, but historically\nno democratic art, with the possible exception of engraving, has as yet\ntranscended fine craftsmanship and successfully invaded the realm of\ngreat ideas. That realm has without exception been occupied by the arts\nthat were frankly aristocratic.\n\n\nIV\n\nOur desired rehabilitation of the traditional and also of the new\narts may in the last analysis depend upon the creation _within_ our\ndemocracy of the right sort of an aristocracy. Here we are back to\nthe central problem of humanism--how to produce a superiority that\nis generally accepted and socially available. If we can make such\nan aristocracy, it will foster the artist and the arts justly and\ngenerously; it will provide a world in which the creative artist is\nno longer a tolerated alien but solidly at home. Whenever such an\naristocracy has a clear and noble vision of the good life, it will want\nsymbols for its ideals, and will call upon the only man who can provide\nsuch symbols--the artist.\n\nOne would like to think that the oncoming generation, with unparalleled\nadvantages in museums and in collegiate instruction in art, endowed\nwith a great open-mindedness, audacity, and hopefulness--one would like\nto think, I say, that this young generation will provide the needed\nhumanistic support for art. But association with youth, delightful as\nit is, gives me no very clear hope in any humanistic direction. The\nmost typical and engaging youths and maidens of to-day illustrate\nmerely the lovelier and more attractive traits of the barbarian. They\nhave an unlimited confidence, very beautiful in its way, with the\nsmallest background of lived or imagined experience. They think life is\nso simple that they may ignore all the traditional solutions for its\nmanifold problems, trusting to their own instinct of the moment to meet\nemergencies that have engaged the best wits of generations of sages\nand saints. We have, characteristically tinged with humanitarianism,\nthe mentality of the noble bandit sheik or the generous sea rover,\nwho knows what he wants and asks nothing from tradition or authority.\nTo make humanists of this generation of self-elected spiritual\nadventurers implies preliminary contrition and moral rebuilding. There\nwas a better chance really of making humanists out of my own somewhat\nover-sophisticated and _fain\u00e9ant_ generation. At least we started\nfrom the sound postulate that life was complex, and the problem of\nliving a problem of delicate adjustment in which one needed whatever\nhelp he might draw from any time or source. So I am really glad that\nI shall probably not see the young generation when it passes the\nforties. Bruised in its self-confidence, perplexed and baffled by a\nlife envisaged too simply, it is all too likely to manifest a general\nrevulsion to indiscriminately chosen formalisms--social, political, and\nreligious--with the result that the middle-aged dull dog of to-day will\nbe as nothing in view of his successor of twenty years hence. On the\nbetter side, a general return to formalism may be the opportunity for\nan intelligently aggressive humanism. It will be an advantage to find,\nwhat we to-day sadly lack, a basis of agreement on any traditional\nplane, however narrow. Thus the new generation may after all serve the\nends of a future humanism, if only by living into entire discredit\ntheir barbarous programme of individualism.\n\nIn fine, the problem of a humanistic art is no discrete problem, but\nrather that of humanism generally. It has been my task merely to define\nthe issue in a single aspect, and not at all to find a solution that\ncould be adopted to-morrow. The deep gap that isolates the serious\nartist from a public content with the puerilities of the radio and\nthe \u201ctalkie,\u201d will scarcely be bridged to-morrow or the day after.\nMany critics, indeed, hail the latter-day individualist as the finally\nliberated artist, and bid us joyously expect even more individualism\nthan that which has already been so generously vouchsafed us. This\nmay be a true prognosis. No one can safely deny the possibility that\nart may be permanently \u201con its own.\u201d If so, art will of course become\nmerely an eccentric activity, an indulgence and luxury of coteries,\nhence of no more concern really to the humanist than the trade, say,\nof the perfume maker. On the other hand, no one can safely deny the\npossibility that art may once again be profoundly integrated with\nsociety. Every contributor to this volume is perforce thinking toward\nthat reintegration, even if the theme be not in his mind nor the words\non his pen. To my younger colleagues, then, in whom the hope of a\nnew humanism lies, I leave the problem and the solution, with that\nchastened confidence which befits a humanist grown old in the most\nunpopular of faiths.\n\n\n\n\n_The Dilemma of Modern Tragedy_\n\nALAN REYNOLDS THOMPSON\n\n\nI\n\nMost modern tragedy is depressing; classic tragedy is elevating.\nThat the best tragic art of the past, in spite of the calamities it\npresents, elevates the spirit is obvious; but the cause of the \u201clift\u201d\nit produces is obscure. If the cause were technical and formal beauty,\n_Ghosts_ ought to be more inspiriting than _Macbeth_. If it were wholly\nthe melody of verse--which most modern drama has foregone--no great\nclassic tragedy could endure translation. But Greek tragedies can\nstill powerfully exalt an audience, though presented in the English\nrenderings of Campbell and Potter!\n\nThe problem seems particularly to have appealed to the German\nmetaphysical mind. Hegel thought tragedy a transcendental\nreconciliation of opposites. Schopenhauer found in it resignation to\nloss of individuality and return to the universal Will. Nietzsche\nturned the latter\u2019s pessimism into the semblance of optimism by\ndefining the spirit of Dionysus as an intoxicated joy in annihilation\nand union with nature.\n\nBut one hardly need resort to metaphysics, since the experience seems\nsufficiently explained by psychology. It is in my opinion chiefly\nthe result of admiration. Every tragedy grows from a struggle of the\nindividual against circumstance; but this emotional elevation we are\ndiscussing, as distinguished from more melodramatic thrills, seems to\narise not from the mere struggle but from an impressive exhibition\nof will. The spectator is inspirited because in tragedy he sees an\nexhibition of convincing heroism. The tragic hero achieves a spiritual\nvictory in spite of a physical defeat. \u201cTo affect the soul, and excite\nthe passions, and above all to move admiration,\u201d says Dryden, \u201cis the\ndelight of serious plays.\u201d[37]\n\nIn some respects the reverse of this view is the neo-classic doctrine\nof poetic justice, which is still held by some critics. According to\npoetic justice it is not the hero whom we are to admire, but the moral\nlaw which destroys him. Thus Mr. Ludwig Lewisohn writes: \u201cTraditionally\nthe serious drama deals with the transgressions of an immutable moral\nlaw by a self-originating will.... In each instance the destruction of\nthe protagonist reconciles the spectator to a universe in which guilt\nis punished and justice is upheld.\u201d That some such view governed the\n_intentions_ of religious dramatists like \u00c6schylus or Racine we must\nadmit; but for the modern sceptic at least their plays are inspiriting\nin proportion as the struggle exalts the endurance, if not the goodness\nof the hero. That such was even the intention of other dramatists,\nShakespeare in particular, is more than doubtful.\n\nOther critics like Mr. Joseph Wood Krutch foretell the extinction of\ntragedy because it is dependent on an anthropocentric view of the\nuniverse. It is the \u201ctragic fallacy,\u201d says Mr. Krutch, to fancy that\none\u2019s \u201cpassions are important throughout all time and all space.\u201d\nThough we may agree that they are not, to conclude from that rather\nobvious fact that tragedy is dead seems not wholly logical. Whatever\nthe nature of the world, human greatness remains important for human\nbeings; and Mr. Krutch would seem to give away his case by so plainly\nadmiring greatness in the very tragedies whose passing he deplores.\n\nThe ethical victory of the tragic hero is not a vindication of a moral\norder in the universe; neither is it a victory for an elaborated system\nsuch as religion fosters. Macbeth is wicked but admirable. Something\nprimitive and universal in mankind responds to courage, fidelity,\nendurance, even for evil ends. Such admiration rises spontaneously\nfrom our strongest impulses, those toward survival and success. In\nthe theatre to behold a man steadfast in his will even to death is to\nfeel our own natures enhanced and to discover in ourselves unrealised\npowers. Such heroic manifestation of will is essential to tragedy of\nthe great tradition, and is found in Sophocles, in Shakespeare, in\nCorneille alike.\n\nSeveral influences have combined in destroying heroic tragedy. It\nwas the tradition of the Renaissance to make the hero a prince, the\nmere semblance of nobility securing a deferential response from the\naudience. Modern democracy has changed all that. Industrialism,\nfurthermore, has fostered the feeling that success is synonymous\nwith getting rich. And science has not only helped destroy popular\ntraditions that might have nourished a modern spirit of admiration,\nbut has fostered a wintry air of scepticism, making man appear not an\nimperfect angel but a super-educated monkey. Psychology in particular\nhas been industriously cutting at the root of heroism, the belief in\nfree will, by exhibiting the mechanical causes for conduct.\n\nThe writer of tragedy who succumbs to these influences finds himself\nthus in a dilemma. Unable to believe in greatness, he cannot inspire\nothers. If he would gain elevation, he must falsify his beliefs; if\nhe would express his candid view of life, he must forego the tragic\nlift. Heroic tragedy was the outcome of a view perhaps pessimistic\nabout things in general, but always optimistic about the human quality\nof individuals. The modern view is pessimistic about everything. As\nHardy expressed it, the prospect most harmonious with the temper of\nthe thinking modern would be a gaunt waste in Thule. As a result the\ndilemma of the naturalist poet is this: _He cannot be both honest and\nsublime._[38]\n\n\nII\n\nThis statement will be more convincing when illustrated with examples\ndrawn from various manifestations of the tragic spirit--in narrative\npoetry and the novel as well as in the drama.\n\nI have emphasised the effect of science; and at first thought it might\nseem that the great romantics of a century ago, who preceded the\nscientific disillusionment, still kept the heroic tradition alive. It\nis true that they inherited the tradition, but in their hands it became\nnot heroism but heroics. The romantic tendency was to seek thrills\nrather than truth, and to draw less from human nature than from a\nliterary fashion.\n\n_Hernani_ and _Ruy Blas_, for example, are highly effective\nconstructions of clap-trap, to which Hugo\u2019s beautiful and rhetorical\nverse gives a semblance of significance. But they can be taken\nseriously only by abandoning the intelligence. To-day they seem no more\ntragic than Dumas _p\u00e8re_ or the _m\u00e9lodrames_ of the Boulevards from\nwhich Hugo learned his technic. As melodrama they are, to be sure,\nstill entertaining.\n\nSuch romantic literature of escape did not of course decrease in\npopularity with the development of science, but it distinctly lost\nliterary prestige. After the fifties and sixties the romantic who would\nbe taken seriously had to cope with scepticism and disillusionment.\nThus Rostand, writing _Cyrano de Bergerac_, was careful to preserve the\nsmile of sophistication; he delicately played with pathos, and even\nflirted with comedy. We can take the extravagances of the drama half\nin the spirit of play and enjoy them as a fairy tale. Its heroism is\nthe heroism of fancy, not of life. It is in a similar spirit that we\nenjoy the thrillers and detective tales of to-day. We seek them for\nrecreation only; and it is difficult to imagine that such romance can\never again be thought of as seriously tragic.\n\nThe romantic writer, however, can scarcely be expected to be content\nwith the r\u00f4le of popular entertainer. Though for the past fifty years\non the defensive, he has persisted in attempting the exaltation of\ntragic art. Maeterlinck, for example, sought to reconcile pessimism\nwith romance by developing a fatalistic \u201cstatic drama\u201d and throwing\nover it a Pre-Raphaelite mist of romantic symbolism. With him a symbol\nbecame less a visible sign of another object than a stimulant to\nemotional intoxication; and if we look at the early plays with clear\nheads we see that they are rooted in a determinism fatal to the heroic\ntradition. Later Maeterlinck grew more optimistic, but in _Monna\nVanna_, which was inspired by Browning, we get exaltation of passion\nrather than will.\n\nWhereas Maeterlinck tried to preserve romantic values, if not heroism,\nby reconciling them with science, the great Russians, Tolstoi and\nDostoevski, evaded scientific pessimism by escape into a romanticised\nChristianity. The result was no less fatal to heroism. As they saw it,\nthe Christian paradox was that the worst persons achieve the greatest\nregeneration; and they presented it with extreme violence. Thus in\nTolstoi\u2019s _The Power of Darkness_ the leading character is not only\na drunkard, a lecher, and a murderer of his own child, but he is\nhopelessly craven, stupid, and weak. Yet he wins salvation by public\nconfession. Such a conversion seems more emotional than religious,\nsince it is the result of no discipline of the will. But apart from\nsuch questions it would appear obvious that such a play as this is\npoles apart from heroic tragedy. It is Tolstoi\u2019s sentimentalised\nconception of Christian poetic justice which is exalted.\n\nThe exaltation which the romanticist failed to achieve, the scientific\nnaturalist did not even attempt. Ibsen, apart from his great intrinsic\nimportance, is interesting because he shows the transition from the\none mode to the other. His early plays were modelled after Scribe and\nSchiller; and use of the sagas links him with the heroic tradition.\nThough sceptically, he exalted the will and prophesied the superman.\nBut his mature work shows the effect of science: men are portrayed\nmore as victims than shapers of events, and responsibility is shifted\nfrom the individual to society. His transition from romanticism to\nscientific naturalism was made easy by the fact that romanticism had\nalready identified man with nature. Disillusion concerning the latter\nbrought about degradation of the former.\n\nThough the increasing use of symbolism gives Ibsen\u2019s later work a\nromantic tone, the plays are built on studies of mental abnormalities\nwhich seem almost intended to demonstrate the non-existence of heroism.\nThe fall of the master builder is indeed a symbol of the falsity of\nwhat Shaw calls \u201cideals.\u201d But Ibsen\u2019s anti-heroic tendency is seen\nperhaps most forcefully in the famous tragedy of his middle period.\n\nIn _Ghosts_ the formal resemblances to Greek tragedy and the element of\nhuman error obscure the essential differences. The animus vitalising\nthe action is the attack upon a false code of morals--or \u201cideals\u201d--of\nwhich the heroine is the victim. And, as is proper in a naturalist\ntragedy, the _Spirocheta pallida_ is made the _deus ex machina_. The\nemotional effect, furthermore, is not elevation but horror. We can\nadmire the author for honesty and daring, but not the characters. The\nbest of them, Mrs. Alving, is admirable only in intention, and false to\nher convictions, as the author makes a point of showing. She is at the\ncurtain so far from a \u201cspiritual victory\u201d that there remains for her a\ndilemma which is probably the cruelest in dramatic literature: killing\nher own son or letting him live an idiot.\n\nThe contrast between this play and, let us say, _Hamlet_ is plain when\nwe compare Oswald\u2019s cry, \u201cThe sun--the sun,\u201d and the final speech of\nFortinbras:\n\n  Bear Hamlet, like a soldier, to the stage;\n  For he was likely, had he been put on,\n  To have prov\u2019d most royally; and for his passage,\n  The soldiers\u2019 music and the rites of war\n  Speak loudly for him.\n\nThe former is the bitter irony of disillusion, the very mockery of the\nromantic clich\u00e9, \u201cThen came the dawn.\u201d The latter ends the play with\neloquent praise.[39]\n\n\nIII\n\nThe elevation which Ibsen gains in _Ghosts_ through beauty of structure\nand atmospheric effect does not carry over to the theme; here the\nauthor frankly chooses honesty and foregoes sublimity. Few or no\nwriters since have been at once as great and as honest. If we observe\nthe literature of the last quarter century to see how it has met the\ndilemma, we shall find perhaps an explanation of current anarchy and\nexperimentation. Some take refuge in subtle evasions, disguised by the\ncleverness of novel technic or material. But those who do not evade the\nissue follow two roads: _the road of laughter_, which goes by way of\nirony and satire; and _the road of tears_, by way of pathos or cruelty.\n\nThe former path, since it leads away from the tragic emotions, need\nnot detain us long. With effort the romantic can school himself into\na detachment of head from heart in which he can smile at the contrast\nbetween his dreams and the reality. His laughter may be bitter, but\nit is laughter. Pirandello, aware of the flux and illusoriness of\nlife, deliberately contrasts it with the permanence and significance\nof fiction; and extracts mirth from the grotesquerie and cleverness\nof his paradoxes, in spite of the disillusionment underlying them.\nAnatole France armoured his sensibility with detached artistry and the\n_esprit gaulois_. Aldous Huxley, too much the moralist to be wholly\ndetached, solaces himself with savage satire. The whole work of Cabell\nis a series of repetitions of one bitter \u201cjest\u201d involving the night\nbefore and the morning after. Such writers, emotionally romantic but\nintellectually sceptical, choose to laugh at their predicament rather\nthan weep.\n\nThe road of tears concerns us directly. It usually follows the way of\npathos. Though Aristotle made pity and fear correlative emotions, it is\na fact that we feel the former more for the weak victim like Ophelia\nthan for the hero, and that the more we admire, the less we need weep.\nPathos must be subordinate in heroic tragedy if the play is to elevate\nour spirits. Obviously, however, the modern who sees nothing to admire\nis left with pathos as his chief effect.\n\nPathos and horror we find in Hardy, little mitigated by any admiration\nexcept for the author\u2019s artistry. Rarely we find a heroism of sorts\nin characters like Michael Henchard; but it is significant that the\nauthor ended his novels with _Jude_. Galsworthy\u2019s habitual irony always\nborders on pathos if not sentiment. French \u201cnaturalism\u201d is harsher and\nat times, as in _Madame Bovary_, finds expression in bitter irony. But\npathos is none the less its most powerful effect. _The Old Wives\u2019 Tale_\nof Arnold Bennett is an English imitation; here we feel the pathos of\nmere mortality quite apart from anything the very ordinary characters\ndo. In Theodore Dreiser, \u201cnaturalism,\u201d though sadly in need of pruning,\nstill bears its bitter fruit. It is characteristic of its spirit that\nDreiser uses the word \u201ctragedy\u201d with reference to the fate of a Clyde\nGriffiths.\n\nBut since pathos skirts the gulf of sentimentality, the \u201chard-boiled\u201d\ngeneration since the war have turned from it. Those of the younger\ngroup who cannot laugh have as a result begun to explore another\nemotion, which lies even deeper in our nature, and which is also\ncompatible with disillusionment. The savage in all of us finds a fierce\nand hard delight in torture. Significantly the word \u201csadism\u201d has become\nfashionable. We may name the emotion \u201ccruelty,\u201d though the word is\nperhaps inadequate.\n\nIn the drama an important forerunner of contemporary exploitations\nof cruelty and sex, as well as of expressionism, was Frank Wedekind.\nCruelty is manifest in James Joyce. In D. H. Lawrence it accompanies\na pathological exaltation of sexuality, and thus gives him greater\nhardness than his American parallel, Sherwood Anderson. A very\ninteresting instance of it is the work of a contemporary American poet\nwhose fame is still unequal to his remarkable achievements. I speak of\nRobinson Jeffers.\n\nJeffers\u2019 long narrative poems spread a more than Thyestian banquet of\nhorrors. With surprise we learn that in private life the author is so\nunwilling to inflict pain that \u201che never picks a flower wantonly.\u201d\nBut in his art he more than compensates for such sensibilities. _Roan\nStallion_, for example, depicts the passion of a modern Pasipha\u00eb. The\nunlucky husband is trampled by the stallion, and the woman shoots the\nanimal. _Tamar_ deals with incest between brother and sister, and ends\nwith a fire which burns down the house and its more or less crazy\ninmates. _The Tower Beyond Tragedy_, though treating the Clytemnestra\nlegend with great power, ends in the incest motive between Orestes and\nElectra.\n\nThe perversity of theme, however, is partly compensated by elevation of\ntreatment, for Jeffers has a certain grandeur of style, drawing as he\ndoes upon Greek literature, the Bible, modern psychology, and physical\nscience for thought, and the beauty of natural scenery for description.\nA passage which illustrates at once his power of style and his drift\ntoward cruelty is found in preparation for the crucial scene of _Roan\nStallion_.\n\n                Humanity is the start of the race; I say\n  Humanity is the mould to break away from, the crust to break\n      through, the coal to break into fire,\n  The atom to be split.\n                        Tragedy that breaks man\u2019s face\n      and a white fire flies out of it; vision that fools him\n  Out of his limits, desire that fools him out of his limits, unnatural\n      crime, inhuman science,\n  Slit eyes in the mask; wild loves that leap over the walls of nature,\n      the wild fence-vaulter science,\n  Useless intelligence of far stars, dim knowledge of the spinning\n      demons that make an atom,\n  These break, these pierce, these deify, praising their God shrilly\n      with fierce voices: not in a man\u2019s shape\n  He approves the praise, he that walks lightning-naked on the\n      Pacific, that laces the suns with planets,\n  The heart of the atom with electrons: what is humanity in this\n      cosmos? For him, the last\n  Least taint of a trace in the dregs of the solution; for itself, the\n      mould to break away from, the coal\n  To break into fire, the atom to be split.[40]\n\nIn interpretation of his thought Mr. Louis Adamic quotes Mr. Jeffers\nas saying that civilisation tends inevitably toward downfall through\nsexual introversion. Although to attempt to \u201cbreak out of humanity\u201d\nafter the fashion exalted in _Roan Stallion_ is, to be sure, dangerous,\n\u201cmisinterpreted in the mind of a fool or a lunatic,\u201d nevertheless the\nfault of the civilised person is that he \u201cregards man exclusively,\u201d\n\u201cfounding his values, desires, his picture of the universe, all on\nhis own humanity.\u201d Mr. Jeffers thus levels his attack directly at the\nfoundation of humanism, and allies himself with the naturalists who\nseek salvation in the physical.\n\nHe thus flies from normal humanity into cruelty and perversion. But the\nend of these is death. And in poem after poem is expressed the longing\nfor the peace and endurance of granite,--of the grave. The violent\ndestruction of the individual is the logical outcome of his creed, and\nthe denial of human values leads to the annihilation of humanity.\n\nThis tendency, the extreme development of which we find in Jeffers, we\nfind in less degree in our leading American dramatist. But in Eugene\nO\u2019Neill it is obscured by other qualities; and generalisations are\nrendered difficult because he is groping and experimental, not only in\ntechnic but in philosophy. Because of this difficulty as well as for\nhis intrinsic importance, O\u2019Neill requires special consideration.\n\n\nIV\n\nA writer\u2019s \u2019prentice work is likely to be revealing, and O\u2019Neill\u2019s\nis no exception. The one-act play _Thirst_, for example, reveals an\nimaginative absorption in the violences and brutalities of life. Most\nof the one-acts in the volume with _The Moon of the Caribbees_ have\nmore normal and convincing characterisation, but about half are built\nupon abnormal situations involving incipient insanities or morbid\npassions.\n\nThis interest in mental abnormality has not diminished. O\u2019Neill\u2019s plays\nare studies in psychopathology. _Beyond the Horizon_ deals with a weak\nromantic who takes refuge from harsh reality in dreams, and finally\ndies of consumption. _Gold_ is a melodrama growing out of an insane\ndelusion. _Diff\u2019rent_ is the horrible case-history of a victim of\nsex-repression. _The Hairy Ape_ describes a character who, if he is not\na mere symbol, develops from incipient to raving madness. A play with\na normal beginning, \u201c_The First Man_,\u201d turns out to be a study of an\nemotional fixation. _Welded_ depicts two egotistical introverts in whom\ngoes on the torturing conflict between passionate love and uncontrolled\ntemperament. The flames of lust and greed, fanned into madness--these\nare the materials of _Desire Under the Elms_. _The Great God Brown_,\nviewed apart from its symbolism, portrays split personality and\nmadness. _The Fountain_, beneath its exotic romanticism, is the story\nof an _id\u00e9e fixe_. The plot of _Strange Interlude_ might have come\nfrom the case-book of Freud. If we cannot judge the chief character\nof _Lazarus Laughed_ by human standards, we can recognise in Caligula\nand Tiberius realistic studies of psychic abnormalities born of lust,\ncruelty, and fear. And the author\u2019s latest play, _Dynamo_, is a study\nof religious mania.\n\nThe blighting effects of our industrial and social life seem hardly\nadequate to explain this persistent interest in the pathological. To\nfollow the method of the new psychology which O\u2019Neill uses so largely,\nwe are likely to be correct if we seek an emotional frustration; but\nAmerican life is hardly the chief cause. Similar interests are seen,\nfor example, in Ibsen, Strindberg, and Wedekind, all of whom must\nhave had their effect on the younger dramatist. My suggestion is that\nO\u2019Neill has found his highly romantic temperament incompatible with the\nteachings of science, and has sought to evade the dilemma of modern\ntragedy by the road of tears, exploiting both pathos and cruelty.\n\nThat his temperament is highly romantic is obvious. His early work is\nalmost Conradian in atmosphere; and his great vigour of imagination is\nstrikingly displayed in the gorgeous settings and strange situations\nof plays like _Marco Millions_ and _The Fountain_. Indeed, in the\nmelodrama of fear and horror he is a genius, fertile in themes to\nstartle and amaze, and skilful in adapting them effectively to the\nstage. Such a play as _Ile_, moreover, is not only horrible but\npoetically true. _The Emperor Jones_ is in my opinion his masterpiece,\nperfectly constructed and artistically inevitable. The settings and\nplot contribute with as inexorable an art as that of Poe to a single\nemotional effect, which is furthermore bound up with a clear and\nconvincing problem in character. The theme of _The Emperor Jones_ is\nthe regression of a negro to savagery; and as we watch the succession\nof weird visions, and feel the emotional crescendo of the tom-toms,\nat the same time we see the disintegration of the negro\u2019s mind. The\nparallel progress of outer and inner effects is beautifully executed;\nand behind the individual we become aware of the dark tragedy of his\nrace.\n\nBut with so luxuriant a fancy, O\u2019Neill has never been content to\nconstruct a dream-world of his own, out of despair of the real one.\nHe has never abandoned the search for his dreams in actual life, and\nas a consequence in his later plays his visions of beauty are forever\nbeing distorted by the lurid light of disillusion. Thus he has seldom\nwritten pure romance. _Marco Millions_ becomes heavy satire; and _The\nFountain_ leaves a bitter taste. For the most part he seeks to deal\nrealistically with contemporary life.\n\nTo see men as mere parts of a mechanistic and soulless universe, and\nat the same time to long passionately for the beautiful visions of\nimagination, is to find those visions a torture unless they can in some\nway be reconciled with reality. Lesser writers have often been diverted\ninto a seeming reconciliation of them by becoming ardent propagandists;\nby adopting programmes of reform, and writing problem or thesis plays.\nBut while O\u2019Neill shows the romantic\u2019s characteristic hatred of\ntradition and restraint, he is not content to do less than face the\nfundamental problem. And if he hates \u201cpuritanism\u201d and sympathises with\nits victim, he by no means blindly admires the libertine. Indeed, he\nseems to find no man whom he can whole-heartedly admire; he can exalt\nno character or cause, and thus does not gain the elevation of heroic\ntragedy. He finds life a muddle; he leaves it a muddle.\n\nToo often, indeed, the muddlement gets into the construction as well\nas the themes of his plays. _Desire Under the Elms_, one of the most\nnearly tragic of his plays, starts as a study of greed, with old Cabot\nas the central character. Cabot, in fact, has heroic qualities, for\nhe is a man of will. But half way through, the play turns off into\nthe more alluring theme of sexual lust; old Cabot is thrust into the\nbackground; and the ending is, surprisingly, the traditional one of\ncrime and retribution. The play lacks artistic unity; it falls in two.\n\nThe lack of unity is felt, again, in _Anna Christie_, which in spite\nof the author\u2019s expressed intention has for the audience simply a\nconventional happy ending. It is strikingly manifest in _Strange\nInterlude_. The central character of this alone knits together the\nvarious situations and themes of the nine acts. Of the situations\nthree or four distinct plays might have been built. Of the themes\nthere are at least eight; and it is impossible to say which the author\nconsidered central. Much, for example, is said about \u201chappiness\u201d\nas the end of life. Again, the doubtful value of self-sacrifice is\nillustrated. From Darrell\u2019s point of view, love, that blind biological\nurge, seems to be a modern variety of Fate. More than once Nina\nexpresses the notion that God is a woman. The most powerful scene of\nthe play is where Nina exults over her \u201cthree men\u201d: are we to look\nfor possessiveness in love as a theme? Or a woman\u2019s need of several\nsorts of love? Or is the play a study in relativity with reference\nto insanity? Certainly the character with the insane inheritance is\nactually the most normal person. Or perhaps we have a study in the\nresults of meddling with other people\u2019s lives. The popular success of\nthis play is hardly an indication of unification. That success seems\nto be attained in spite of lack of unity, and to rest chiefly on the\nnovelty of the nine acts and of the technic of spoken thought, on the\nfrank treatment of sex, and on the great power of characterisation and\nof separate situations.\n\nHere is a writer with a genius for the theatre, a powerful imagination,\nand great emotional force, who except in shorter studies of\nmelodramatic horror seems unable to canalise his energies into rounded\nand unified works of art. He suffers the conflict he symbolises in\n\u201cDion Anthony,\u201d between his inborn longing for goodness and beauty,\nand an acquired frustration, cynicism, and despair. Often the despair\nconquers; but we must honour him for the fact that, having no faith,\nhe persists in seeking one. Unlike lesser writers he is no compromiser\nwith truth as he sees it; but in one play at least he has persuaded\nhimself into a positive affirmation. The play is _Lazarus Laughed_.\n\nThe symbolist technic of this play forces attention upon the\nunderlying theme. Only Lazarus is unmasked, and he is thus shown\nfreed from the illusions of mortality. The rhythmical repetitions and\nsymmetrical groups of the choruses materialise ethical sympathies and\nantagonisms. And the theme is stated repeatedly: there is no death.\n\nBut when we try to understand this affirmation we are repeatedly\nbaffled. It cannot be the Christian belief in personal immortality. The\nresurrection of Lazarus would give ground for such a view were it not\nobvious that the author has taken over a Christian legend merely as\nstarting point for his non-Christian allegory. Not only is Christian\nimmortality not preached, but Christian morality is not expounded.\nThe hero displays not humility but arrogance. For him men are not\nevil until redeemed by the grace of God; they are innately good but\nperverted by fear. He thus incites them not to love one another because\nchildren of a loving God, but to live passionately and instinctively.\nTo be freed from the fear of death means for those who come under\nhis spell not to live on earth after the Golden Rule, in meekness to\nforgive and suffer wrong; but to drown all human interests in a mad\ndelight in death. And they laugh with exultation at the prospect of\nannihilation. The paradox seems essentially irrational.\n\nCries Lazarus: \u201cOnce as squirming specks we crept from the tides of\nthe sea! Once as quivering flecks of rhythm we beat down the sun. Now\nwe re-enter the sun! Cast aside is our pitiable pretence, our immortal\negohood, the holy lantern behind which cringed our Fear of the Dark....\nWe will to die!\u201d In a manner strikingly similar to that of Jeffers,\nO\u2019Neill exalts pan-evolutionary nature; having passed beyond horror at\nthe scientific demonstration of an inhuman universe, he attempts to\npull himself out of humanity into a rapturous acceptance of Nature.\nBut Jeffers finds no source for laughter in his god \u201cthat laces the\nsuns with planets, the heart of the atom with electrons.\u201d Whence does\nO\u2019Neill derive his mirth?\n\nHe may well have got his inspiration from Nietzsche. I have summed\nup Nietzsche\u2019s idea in _The Birth of Tragedy_ as \u201can intoxicated joy\nin annihilation and union with nature.\u201d Significantly it is just\nfollowing an attack on Christianity that he exalts the laughing mood.\nWe must fear the \u201cromantic,\u201d he says, because the romantic tends to end\ncomforted like a Christian. \u201cNo! ye should first of all learn the art\nof earthly comfort, ye should learn to _laugh_, my young friends, if ye\nare at all determined to remain pessimists: if so, you will perhaps,\nas laughing ones, eventually send all metaphysical comfortism to the\ndevil--and metaphysics first of all! Or, to say it in the language of\nthat Dionysian ogre, called Zarathustra:\n\n  \u201c\u2018Lift up your hearts, my brethren, high, higher! And do not forget\n  your legs! Lift up also your legs, ye good dancers--and better\n  still if ye stand also on your heads!...\n\n  \u201c\u2018This crown of the laughter, this rose-garland crown--to you, my\n  brethren, do I cast this crown! Laughing have I consecrated: ye\n  higher men, _learn_, I pray you--to laugh!\u2019\u201d\n\nIt needs intoxication--of one Dionysian sort or another--to find such\nincitements mirth-provoking. It is necessary to abandon all reasonable\ngrounds for comfort except the rather chilly one that we are physically\nmade of stardust, and therefore should rejoice to dissolve our living\ncomplexity back into it. _Lazarus Laughed_ indeed arouses a fair\nmeasure of the necessary intoxication, so imaginative and emotional is\nit. But its comfort can last, I fear, only while we actually hear the\nlaughter of Lazarus.\n\n\nV\n\nThus our most gifted American dramatist, together with other finer\nspirits of to-day, is unable to accept traditional modes or satisfy\nthe desire for admiration and worship. Romanticism, in identifying man\nwith nature, hastened the decay of a heroic tradition which it at first\nattempted to foster; and under scientific naturalism the decay ended\nin dissolution. Whether the author uses a so-called \u201cnaturalistic\u201d\ntechnique after Ibsen or Maupassant; or whether, like Wedekind or\nJeffers or Cabell, he seeks other modes of expression, so long as he\nthinks of man as in no way superior to the outer world or different\nfrom it, he is none the less subject to the naturalistic point of\nview.[41]\n\nRecently, to be sure, certain developments of science have given rise\nto hopes of mysticism within a naturalistic monism. The argument,\nso far as an unscientific reader understands it, seems to run thus:\nEinstein has offered proof that time and space form a continuum and\nthat events are \u201crelative.\u201d Studies of the atom have upset orthodox\nconceptions of physics, and physicists themselves are beginning to\ntalk about matter in terms that sound for all the world like Bishop\nBerkeley. Science admits a mysterious enveloping Unknown.\n\nThe new hypotheses, of course, merely re-enforce the acknowledgment of\nultimate mystery which thoughtful people have always made. The novelty\nof the new mysticism is that it builds not on theology or metaphysics\nbut mathematics and laboratory experiment. The next step in its\nargument is the dubious one.\n\nIf science grants an enveloping Unknown, the man who would explain\nthat Unknown in terms of his desires is as likely to be right as one\nwho explains it in inhuman terms. And if there is a chance that one\u2019s\ndesires may be true, it needs no psychologist to assure us that plenty\nof people will immediately assume that they are true. For them science\nseems to justify mysticism and open the door for the hosts of dreams,\nso long shut out of a rationalistic universe. But the weakness of\nsuch wishful thinking seems obvious; and to the humanist the whole\nargument is beside the point because it would vindicate human values by\nnaturalistic data.\n\nIf some scientists are nowadays growing mystical, it is not therefore\nlogical to deny the facts that their controlled experiments have\ndemonstrated. The dilemma of modern tragedy remains very real. There\nis no refuge in obscurantism through return to illusions which science\nhas shattered. Reason denies the objective reality of our dreams; and\nso long as the honest man accepts a monism which identifies man with\nnature, he can find no justification for tragic exaltation.\n\nThe humanist, however, denies the necessity for this identification.\nWithout in the slightest degree disparaging the truth or worth of\nphysical knowledge he maintains that the realm of value has significant\nvalidity when taken as distinct from the realm of fact. The realm of\nvalue belongs to man; that of fact, to outer nature. One depends on the\nother, but the two are different.\n\nValue depends on the operation of physical laws, but it remains value.\nThe fallacy of the naturalist has been the assumption that to explain\nthe cause of a thing is to explain away its value. Human emotions may\nbe caused on the naturalistic plane by the secretion of endocrine\nglands or what not; on the human plane they remain what they were to\nHomer or Shakespeare. It is interesting to know about chromosomes\nand Mendelian laws, about biochemistry and vital machinery; but human\nvalues remain the same. Whatever the findings of science, man humanly\nspeaking is still what he always was: comic, pitiful, despicable--now\nand then sublime.\n\nThe humanist is concerned with the realm of values, and thus is\nconcerned with ethical laws. The lives of all men progress under\nthese laws; and the endeavours of great men have been to discover and\nformulate them. To the humanist it seems evident that literary art,\ndealing as it does with human actions, must deal with ethical laws,\nwhich are the foundation of conduct. And it would seem obvious folly to\nattempt to divorce literature from them.\n\nRomantic art as recreation is a blessing to jaded mortals; and\nnaturalistic art at its best is, within its limits, penetrating. But\nto the humanist it seems that both types of art have failed in dealing\nwith ethical laws. The romantic is always an extremist, demanding\nperfection, or denying the existence of goodness. The naturalist has\nbecome so absorbed in the mechanism of the instrument that he has\nbecome deaf to its music. The humanist desires emotional satisfaction;\nhe desires to face the truth. But he also wishes to preserve a\nnormal humanity in which human values are central. Though hearing\nthe revelations of science, he keeps his ear attuned to the music of\nhumanity. Though enjoying the thrills of liberated feeling, he is\nunwilling to purchase them at the expense of moderation or proportion.\nHe believes not in prohibition but in temperance.\n\nEthical laws are what make man human, and it is these that the artist\nmust ponder. And to find guidance he cannot do better than follow\nArnold\u2019s advice--not less sound for being tiresomely familiar--to know\nthe best that has been thought and said in the world. He must break\nwith the contemporary tradition of romantic scorn for tradition; he\nmust seek to become a part of the great tradition, by knowing the\nbest. To become a part of it does not mean to attempt mere imitation;\nit means that the artist will be forevermore dissatisfied with\npettiness or insincerity in himself, and will have a lofty but possible\nstandard by which to measure his work.\n\nThose who work in the \u201cmodern temper\u201d are unable to discover a worthy\nheroism to exalt. But if one turns to the records of classic art, he\nwill find a nobility of spirit no less admirable to-day than in the\npast. His response will be an evidence of the existence of heroism,\na proof of its reality in human nature. It will be a proof of its\nreality, of course, not in perfection but in aspiration. And if one\nlooks about him he will find the same aspiration in living men and\nwomen. He will find it even expressed in deeds--imperfectly, humanly.\nIf he should be artist enough to give adequate expression to what\nhe feels and sees, he could rise above the dilemma against which\nnaturalism has forced our modern literature.\n\nCynicism will, to be sure, urge that every man finds what he looks\nfor, and to look for greatness will lead to a denial of evident\nimperfections. The humanist professes himself not unaware of the\nlatter. Long before naturalist novelists pictured the _b\u00eate humaine_,\nChristianity declared man innately evil; but unlike naturalism,\nChristianity believed man capable of redemption by Grace. The humanist\nas such is not concerned with theology, and is content to believe that\nGrace, however it comes, is sometimes found. He is inclined to doubt\nthat it comes only to those who have joined a church; he is inclined\nto believe that nobility is found now and again in all sorts and\nconditions of men. But the main thing is that it exists; and no artist\nwho does not see the good with the evil sees life steadily and whole.\n\nTo follow the narrow path between cynicism and romantic idealisation;\nto recognise the imperfections in man and the inevitable domination of\nphysical force over the individual, and yet to preserve admiration for\nthe indomitable spirit which drives the individual to will and to do\nnobly; and finally to find adequate means of artistic expression--that\nis the task of one who would write great tragedy. Though hard, it is\nstill possible. Only when the artist follows lofty standards can he\nhope to control and guide his own efforts toward sublimity. While\nhumanism offers him no magic key to success, it offers him hope, and a\ndiscipline.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES\n\n[37] I have considered the tragic emotions more fully in an article,\n\u201cMelodrama and Tragedy,\u201d _Publications of the Modern Language\nAssociation_, September, 1928.\n\n[38] Since this paper was written my attention has been called to\n\u201cHumanism and Tragedy,\u201d an admirable article by Mr. F. McEachran\n(_Nineteenth Century and After_, July, 1929). Based on Professor\nBabbitt\u2019s three levels of human conduct, naturalistic, human, and\nreligious, Mr. McEachran\u2019s thesis is that tragedy, since it demands an\nassumption of human dignity, cannot develop in a naturalistic age like\nthe present, and is difficult in a religious one. The age of Pericles,\nof Elizabeth, and of Louis XIV were humanistic; they were followed by\nnaturalistic decadence in which man and nature were equated and tragedy\nbecame impossible. Mr. McEachran\u2019s \u201chuman dignity\u201d and my \u201cheroism\u201d\nseem equivalent.\n\n[39] It is to be noted, as further illustration of the anti-heroic\ntendency of modern thought, that critics have sought to explain Hamlet\nas not a hero but a psychopath. What Shakespeare wished his audience to\nfeel, however, seems open to no doubt.\n\n[40] From _Roan Stallion, Tamar, and Other Poems_, Boni & Liveright,\n1925.\n\n[41] Should I remind the reader that in thus generalising I admit\nexceptions? One such, whom I have discussed elsewhere (_Sewanee\nReview_, April, 1929) is, in my opinion, Joseph Conrad.\n\n\n\n\n_An American Tragedy_\n\nROBERT SHAFER\n\n\nI\n\nMr. Theodore Dreiser\u2019s critical friends have always been ready to admit\nhis deficiencies as a literary artist, and these deficiencies are\nreally extraordinary. Nevertheless, by universal consent Mr. Dreiser\nstands at the head of the realistic movement in American fiction, not\nmerely because he is its pioneer, and has endured obloquy and even\npersecution for the Cause, but primarily on account of his seriousness\nand singleness of purpose, his depth of keen feeling, and his earnest\nreflectiveness. His work also anticipates in important respects\nthe efforts of the post-realists and super-realists, so-called,\nand altogether has a present salience which insistently demands\nconsideration.\n\nThe work, however, cannot be assessed--cannot indeed be\nunderstood--apart from the man; and fortunately Mr. Dreiser has written\nmuch about himself.[42] He was born in 1871 in Terre Haute, Indiana,\nof German Catholic parents who struggled vainly against poverty.\nIn the schools of another Indiana town he received the elements of\nan education, but apparently learned little of value to him beyond\nreading and writing. In boyhood and youth, in school or out, he became\nacquainted with a number of the better-known writers, chiefly of\nfiction, of the nineteenth century, but without gaining from them\nmore than momentary entertainment. He has said that as a boy he \u201chad\nno slightest opportunity to get a correct or even partially correct\nestimate of what might be called the mental A B abs of life.\u201d [sic]\n\nIf the truth is to be told, one reason for this lay clearly within\nhimself. For he was, as his records show him, a stupid boy and young\nman, lapped in vague reverie and hazy dreams of enjoyment, and roused\nslowly to puzzled observation and thought. \u201cNo common man am I,\u201d he\nused to tell himself when he was scarcely out of his \u2019teens, with no\nevident reason save that with adolescence came an intense craving for\nfreedom from the shackles of common life--freedom to indulge fully\nhis temperamental longing for sensuous and materialised delight. This\nself-conceit helped to prevent him from learning what could have been\nlearned during his boyhood, and, as he grew older, aroused in him\nbitter resentment against the limitations of his early environment.\n\nThose limitations, at the same time, were extreme. The Dreiser\nhousehold was one combining almost unrelieved ignorance with perfect\ntastelessness, presided over by a father whose consuming interest was\na Catholicism degraded into mere ceremonies and prohibitions. Mr.\nDreiser explicitly denotes the quality of the purifying influence\ndominant in the home and community of his youth: \u201cOne should read only\ngood books ... from which any reference to sex had been eliminated,\nand what followed ... was that all intelligent interpretation of\ncharacter and human nature was immediately discounted. A picture of a\nnude or partially nude woman was sinful.... The dance in our home and\nour town was taboo. The theatre was an institution which led to crime,\nthe saloon a centre of low, even bestial vices.... It was considered\ngood business, if you please, to be connected with some religious\norganisation.... We were taught persistently to shun most human\nexperiences as either dangerous or degrading or destructive. The less\nyou knew about life the better; the more you knew about the fictional\nheaven and hell ditto.... In my day there were apparently no really\nbad men who were not known as such to all the world, ... and few if\nany good men who were not sufficiently rewarded by the glorious fruits\nof their good deeds here and now!... Positively, and I stake my solemn\nword on this, until I was between seventeen and eighteen I had scarcely\nbegun to suspect any other human being of harbouring the erratic and\nsinful thoughts which occasionally flashed through my own mind.\u201d\n\nBy the time Mr. Dreiser had fairly formed the suspicion that, despite\nappearances, other people might not be much better than himself, his\nfamily had begun to break up, following the death of his mother, and he\nhimself had been thrust into the world--or rather into Chicago, where\nthe Dreisers by now lived--to earn his way. He did manage to spend one\nyear at Indiana University, to the great improvement of his health,\nbut with no positive intellectual benefit, so that he refused to waste\na second year, which he might have had there. He confesses this, it\nshould be said, in no boastful spirit. He was in fact made to realise\nat Bloomington that there were elements of knowledge which it would be\nuseful to him to acquire--but he found the effort hopeless. His mind\ncould not be constrained, and, besides, the deficiencies of his earlier\nschooling stood in his way. Hence he returned to Chicago, to become a\ncollector for an easy-payment furniture shop.\n\nIt was at this time that his feelings--scarcely yet his imagination or\nhis reason--were awakened by the spectacle of \u201cAmerica on the make.\u201d\nHe found that spectacle intensely vital. At the same time, too, he was\ndoing the first reading that really came home to him:--he was reading a\ndaily column of Eugene Field\u2019s in a Chicago newspaper. It gave him the\nnotion of doing something like that himself, and sent him hunting for a\npost on a news-sheet. This he finally obtained, and at the reporter\u2019s\ndesk achieved his real education, one not beyond his grasp. His first\ninstructor promptly informed him that \u201clife was a God-damned stinking,\ntreacherous game, and that nine hundred and ninety-nine men out of\nevery thousand were bastards.\u201d The truth of this generalisation Mr.\nDreiser proceeded to establish for himself, by observation of those\nof life\u2019s realities which constitute news, and by intercourse with\nfellow-journalists. He discovered that practically all men, high or\nlow, were lying hypocrites, outwardly professing a fine morality, but\nprivately violating this without hesitation whenever it would serve\ntheir turn in the pursuit of gain or in the satisfaction of lust.\n\nThis was the reality, at any rate, which the young reporter saw, and\nwhich, as he says, broadened considerably his viewpoint, finally\nliberating him \u201cfrom moralistic and religionistic qualms.\u201d So\nliberated was he, indeed, that he came to judge men \u201cthoroughly sound\nintellectually\u201d in proportion as he found them \u201cquite free from the\nnarrow, cramping conventions of their day.\u201d So liberated was he that he\ncame to see the \u201creligionist\u201d for what he was: \u201ca swallower of romance\nor a masquerader looking to profit and preferment.\u201d He came also to see\nbehind \u201cthe blatherings of thin-minded, thin-blooded, thin-experienced\nreligionists\u201d only \u201ca brainless theory.\u201d Nor was this the limit of\nhis discoveries. He came further to see that life was not simply a\nruthless struggle for material advantages, because, howsoever ruthless\nand intelligent one\u2019s struggle, still, one might be defrauded by sheer\naccident. Chance seemed, at times, the final ruler of all things--many\nof the reporter\u2019s assignments combining \u201cto prove that life is\nhaphazard and casual and cruel; to some lavish, to others niggardly.\u201d\n\nMr. Dreiser, it is fair to say, was the more ready to learn these\nlessons of experience because, as he plainly tells his readers,\nhe himself was lustful and passionately eager for the material\nsatisfactions of life. He longed to join in the antics of the rich, who\nalone, as he judged, were bathed in happiness. He felt, as he gazed\nenviously upon the gilded sons and daughters of earth, that, from no\nfault of his, life was tragically cheating him. And this sense of\ngrievance, feeding upon itself, passed easily through a sentimental\nphase into bitterness, as his reminiscences show: \u201cWhenever I returned\nto any place in which I had once lived and found things changed, as\nthey always were, I was fairly transfixed by the oppressive sense of\nthe evanescence of everything; a mood so hurtful and dark and yet\nwith so rich if sullen a lustre that I was left wordless with pain. I\nwas all but crucified at realising how unimportant I was, how nothing\nstayed but all changed.... Life was so brief, ... and so soon, whatever\nits miserable amount or character, it would be gone.... But I, poor\nwaif, with no definite or arresting skill of any kind, not even that of\ncommerce, must go fumbling about looking in upon life from the outside,\nas it were. Beautiful women, or so I argued, were drawn to any but\nme.... I should never have a fraction of the means to do as I wished or\nto share in the life that I most craved. I was an Ishmael.\u201d\n\nNot always, of course, was Mr. Dreiser sunk in a bitterness induced\nby self-pity and sentimental regret. Often in moments of successful\nwork or of flattering companionship he was quickly lifted up into a\nmood of expansive self-satisfaction, equally unbalanced. Then he would\nsay to himself: \u201cI must be an exceptional man.... Life itself was\nnot so bad; it was just higgledy-piggledy, catch-as-catch-can, that\nwas all. If one were clever, like myself, it was all right.\u201d It was\nindeed magnificent, so long as the slave of temperament could dream\nof his heroic future as something assured. But dreams, like life, were\nunstable, and the fever for self-advancement, becoming intolerable\nfrom its intensity, would transmute itself--not every time into frank\nself-pity--but sometimes into tearful \u201csympathy for the woes of others,\nlife in all its helpless degradation and poverty, the unsatisfied\ndreams of people.\u201d And from the downtrodden for whom he wept he also\ndrew a lesson. The hideous inequalities both of fortune and of capacity\nwhich he saw, proved to him that democracy, like morality, was a sham,\na hollow convention, irrelevant, indeed opposed, to the facts of life\nand practice.\n\nMr. Dreiser\u2019s journalistic career took him from Chicago to St. Louis,\nand thence, with several stops on the way, to Pittsburgh, during a\nperiod of rather more than three years. In these years, he says,\nspeaking of his \u201cblood-moods or so-called spiritual aspirations,\u201d he\nwas \u201cwhat might be called a poetic melancholiac, crossed with a vivid\nmaterialistic lust of life.\u201d His body, he adds, \u201cwas blazing with sex,\nas well as with a desire for material and social supremacy.\u201d It is\nnot surprising, consequently, that he found himself able to entertain\ncarnal desires for several women at the same time--though this at first\nsurprised him, and troubled him also, until his day of liberation from\n\u201cmoralistic qualms.\u201d It is not surprising either that he presently\nwas captivated by a charming country girl, several years older than\nhimself, who had no single idea and only one desire in common with\nhim. He had welcomed his liberation from \u201cmoralistic and religionistic\nqualms\u201d the more complacently because of the simplification of thought\nand conduct to which it pointed. From this time the conduct of life\nwas to be straightforward as well as simple, in accordance with the\nbrutish yet vital law of following your dominant impulse regardlessly,\nruthlessly, slavishly. But now this liberation itself was mainly\ninstrumental in plunging him into a new, long-continued, and grievous\ndifficulty. For his simple country maiden, though she was drawn to\nhim as he was drawn to her, was nevertheless rigidly conventional,\nimmovably \u201cmoralistic,\u201d one of the predestined pillars of an ordered\nsociety and a stable family. She steadfastly refused to yield him her\nbody without marriage, and he, alas, was not only unable to support her\nbut deeply unwilling to marry her even if he could.\n\nClearly this pair did not understand all that divided them in spirit,\nbut, still, Mr. Dreiser knew from the first some portion of the truth.\nFor he knew what love really was: it was a mere \u201cblood-mood\u201d; it was a\nvivid lust crossed with poetic fires; it was irresistible, of course,\nbut it was like everything else, transient, shifting, evanescent. He\nalready suspected, as he later concluded, that monogamy--marriage\nindeed of any kind--was a debasing institution which not only killed\nthe love that brought men to it, but also deformed and dwarfed their\npersonalities. It might not harm stupid and lethargic men, but the man\nof individuality, at least, the highest type of citizen, required utter\nfreedom to follow his vital impulses--required the joys of the sexual\nact \u201cwithout any of the hindrances or binding chains of convention.\u201d\nHe knew, in fine, that \u201cthe tug of his immense physical desire for his\nbeloved\u201d might easily have been satisfied, despite his poverty, without\ncompromising the future, and without doing a hurt to society, had there\nonly been \u201cany such thing as sanity in life,\u201d outside of himself. He\neven knew, after the first raptures of idyllic feeling had passed,\nthat any other beautiful woman would have served his need as well;\nbut, nevertheless, he clung to this one, because in fact no beautiful\nwoman whom he found accessible did keep alive in him the same fever of\ndesire. Yet his beloved remained immovable, and so drew him on, through\nseveral years of miserably divided feeling, into a marriage finally\naccomplished after his carnal fires had cooled, owing to the passage\nof time and the casual ministrations of certain other fair creatures,\nmore pliant, but unsatisfying.\n\nI dwell upon this painful episode, following Mr. Dreiser\u2019s own example,\nbecause it tells so much. It was the crucial event of his early life,\nand it left an ineffaceable scar. The fact is, indeed, that without\ndefinite knowledge of this miserable union, it would not be easy to\nunderstand how Mr. Dreiser became so obstinately fixed in those notions\nof life which journalism and its associations gave him and which he was\neager to accept. Without definite knowledge of this marriage, further,\nit would be impossible fully to understand his novels; for none of them\ncould have been written quite as it stands save in the light of this\nafflictive experience of his, and several, it is extremely likely,\ncould not otherwise have been written at all.[43]\n\nSome knowledge of another side of Mr. Dreiser\u2019s life, however, during\nhis years of work for the news-sheets, is also necessary for those who\nwould understand his novels. He has told us that in St. Louis the great\nliterary idol of his associates was Zola, and after Zola, Balzac. These\nnovelists, and especially the former, were constantly held up to him as\nmodels by one of his assignment-editors, who made it abundantly clear\nwhat Zola stood for. Mr. Dreiser read none of the Frenchman\u2019s books\nat this time, but he did read an unpublished novel by two St. Louis\nnewspaper men which made a deep and lasting impression upon him and\nwhich, as he later discovered, was wholly inspired by Zola and Balzac.\nThis was \u201cthe opening wedge for him into the realm of realism,\u201d and,\ntoo, \u201cit fixed his mind definitely on this matter of writing,\u201d firing\nhim with a desire to create something of the sort himself. He thought\nthe novel \u201cintensely beautiful,\u201d \u201cwith its frank pictures of raw,\ngreedy, sensual human nature, and its open pictures of self-indulgence\nand vice.\u201d In these indirect ways, evidently, Zola exerted upon the\nyoung reporter an influence real and significant. It was, indeed,\nprobably much more important than the direct influence exerted by\nBalzac not long thereafter; though the accident which brought Mr.\nDreiser to a fevered and ecstatic reading of many of Balzac\u2019s novels,\nwhile he was in Pittsburgh, marked what was for him \u201ca literary\nrevolution.\u201d\n\nThe crowning stage of Mr. Dreiser\u2019s education, however, was now to\ncome, while he was still in Pittsburgh, with his discovery of certain\nof the writings of Huxley, Tyndall, and Herbert Spencer. Huxley, Mr.\nDreiser credits with finally dispelling the \u201clingering filaments\u201d of\nChristianity still trailing about him; and Huxley\u2019s work of dispersion\nwas completed by Spencer\u2019s _First Principles_. This book wholly\n\u201cthrew him down in his conceptions or non-conceptions of life\u201d by its\n\u201cquestioning or dissolving into other and less understandable things\u201d\nall that he had deemed substantial. \u201cUp to this time,\u201d he says,\n\u201cthere had been in me a blazing and unchecked desire to get on and\nthe feeling that in doing so we did get somewhere; now in its place\nwas the definite conviction that spiritually one got nowhere, that\nthere was no hereafter, that one lived and had his being because one\nhad to, and that it was of no importance. Of one\u2019s ideals, struggles,\ndeprivations, sorrows and joys, it could only be said that they were\nchemic compulsions.... Man was a mechanism, undevised and uncreated,\nand a badly and carelessly driven one at that.\u201d\n\nThe seeming ill logic of some of these remarks--the sudden concern\nover spiritual things felt by one who had hitherto devoted himself\nwhole-heartedly to the world by sensuous appearances--is not\nunimportant. Clearly Spencer\u2019s book left an abiding mark on Mr. Dreiser\nbecause it represented in a general way the abstract conclusion towards\nwhich his own observations had been pointing. Without knowing it, and\nwithout any attempt to set his intellectual house in order, he had\nhimself been drifting towards a mechanistic naturalism. Spencer made\nhim aware of this, and if, as he thought, that awareness left him\ncrushed and hopeless, it at least seemed to clear his mind of rubbish,\nand to give his view-point self-consistency and finality. Nevertheless,\nhe did not come forth a Spencerian; and, indeed, his debt to the\n_Synthetic Philosophy_ may easily be exaggerated--the more easily\nbecause it really is important.\n\nMr. Dreiser emphasises the fact that his reading of the _First\nPrinciples_ was followed by an emotional revulsion--a revulsion which\nthe Synthetic Philosopher can scarcely alone have caused. And in\ntruth just at the time when he stumbled upon Spencer his feelings\nwere strained to the breaking-point. He had just returned from a last\ndesperate, yet unsuccessful, effort to seduce his country maiden,\nwhich left him crushed, not only by that defeat itself, but by the\nconsciousness that the gratification he was bound to secure was now\ndriving him towards a marriage for which he had no capacity, no desire,\nand no prospect of sufficient means. Moreover, immediately after his\nWestern visit he had gone, for the first time, to New York, where he\nhad received an extraordinarily vivid impression of all the glories\nand delights of that worldly success, with its attendant wealth, which\nhe so intensely craved. The sight had fired him to renew his efforts\nafter so grand a reward, but, at the same time, had made him gloomily\nfeel his distance from it, lodging in his mind a stubborn doubt if it\ncould, after all, ever be attained by him. The combined weight of these\nexperiences had intensified his already bitter sense of the world\u2019s\nindifference to his desires and aims, of the world\u2019s unconscious\ncruelty, and of its brutal injustice. He had eagerly embraced the world\nat his earliest opportunity, had reviled those who opposed themselves\nto it--and what was the world doing for him, what was it not blindly\nand carelessly doing against him? He was brought to the point of\nsheer despair, and was ready to turn upon the world--yet not ready to\nturn his back upon it. For he had not the slightest conception of any\nother than sensuous and worldly values, of any other than material\ngratifications which might bring to him fulness of life. Years ago he\nhad defiantly closed _that_ door, without in the least knowing what\nhe was doing, and it was never to be opened to him. He was miserably\nexasperated by defeat, but the world\u2019s appeal was still insistent and\ncompelling, and would be heard and obeyed for many a year, whether or\nnot it became suspect for a siren\u2019s call.\n\nIn these circumstances the _First Principles_ came really as a\ngod-send. The book had the impressive appearance of being the voice\nof science itself uttering at last the Truth. Yet its weight and\nauthority left undisturbed Mr. Dreiser\u2019s worldliness and some of his\ndear prejudices. It left, indeed, everything as it was with him; but\nit did appear to rob everything of value, and so, as he thought, left\nhim crushed and hopeless. Actually, however, it offered him a species\nof consolation for the crushed and hopeless state into which he had\nalready been plunged by his efforts after a \u201crealistic\u201d way of life.\nA species of consolation;--because, though the dehumanised conception\nof the world and life presented by naturalism was \u201ccold comfort,\u201d\nstill, it did enable one who felt badly used to turn upon the universe\nand _say_, if not feel, that life was a meaningless and unimportant\nphenomenon anyhow.\n\nThe _Synthetic Philosophy_, Mr. Dreiser tells the world, \u201ceternally\nverified\u201d his \u201cgravest fears as to the unsolvable disorder and\nbrutality of life.\u201d Precisely; as these turns of phrase show, it left\nhis feelings what they had been, likewise his desires and aims, and\nhis sentimental humanitarianism and more. What Spencer gave him was\nsomething to fall back upon and _say_ in hopeless or disillusioned\nmoments, but something which, leaving him otherwise where he was,\neven helped to preserve him inviolate from self-criticism or\nself-discipline. Following the guidance of temperament and mood, he\ntook from Spencer what he wanted, and nothing else; and it so happened\nthat this included little or nothing specifically characteristic of\nSpencer as against various other naturalistic thinkers. The tone,\nindeed, of Mr. Dreiser\u2019s naturalism, as well as its emphasis upon\naccident and chaotic disorder, is not only more sophisticated than that\nof Spencer\u2019s, but abruptly contradictory of the Synthetic gentleman\u2019s\ngrandiose fancy of one eternal, universal law infallibly working to\nbring about perfection in all things earthly.\n\nHis dark emotional naturalism--and, it may be added, several of the\ncontradictions it has involved him in--bring Mr. Dreiser, as some of\nhis readers have perceived, close to Thomas Hardy, in proportion as\nhe is far from Spencer. He does not mention Hardy in the record of\nhis development which I have been following, but he is said to have\nconfessed to \u201can enchanted discovery\u201d of that novelist in 1896, and his\ndelight is what was to be expected. As far as one can see, however, his\nindebtedness to Hardy, though real, is not important.\n\n\nII\n\nThis, in summary form, is the story of Mr. Dreiser\u2019s preparation for\na novelist\u2019s career. His first novel was published in 1900, and his\nsixth in 1925. Though from an early time he has had warm friends\namongst the critics, still, even the most devoted of these have harshly\ncondemned some of his books; and, in general, critical opinion, when\nnot predominantly hostile, has been sharply divided. Nevertheless,\nin the face of whatever difficulties, Mr. Dreiser has slowly won a\nleading position in the world of fiction, for reasons which I began by\nmentioning. And his sixth novel, _An American Tragedy_, was, upon its\nappearance, widely proclaimed a masterpiece.\n\nCertainly, moreover, _An American Tragedy_ is by all odds the best of\nMr. Dreiser\u2019s novels, though perhaps not the most _interesting_. In\nit his language is still faulty, as in his earlier books; the quality\nof his style is mediocre, when not worse; his narrative is badly\nproportioned;--but, nevertheless, the novel also has excellences which\nits author had not previously achieved, and which are seldom to be\nfound save in works of a serious and mature artistry. It has a sombre\ninevitableness, a self-contained adequacy, a restraint, dignity, and\ndetachment which bespeak not merely the experienced craftsman, but also\nthe workman\u2019s sure grasp of his theme united with a deeply emotional\nconfidence in its truth and importance. A far higher intelligence is\nexhibited in its execution than in Mr. Dreiser\u2019s play, _The Hand of\nthe Potter_ (1918), whose theme is similar in several respects. If one\nshould name a single change indicative of the intelligent masterliness\nof _An American Tragedy_, perhaps the most significant is the fact\nthat in this book, for the first time, Mr. Dreiser has permitted his\ncharacters and events to speak entirely for themselves.\n\nBut though _An American Tragedy_ marks a really notable advance in\ntechnique, and a heightened plausibility thus attained, partly through\nrestraint, still, it exhibits Mr. Dreiser\u2019s thought and the essential\nquality of his realism entirely unchanged. How Mr. Dreiser reached\na mechanistic naturalism has above been shown, and how he became\nconscious of the fact. The appropriate result was that all his novels\nbecame tales of human irresponsibility, constructed to illustrate\nlife\u2019s contradiction of the hollow conventions of society, and life\u2019s\nobedience to blind laws which make the individual\u2019s experience a\nchaos with an end unrelated to desert. This is the theme of _An\nAmerican Tragedy_, as of the earlier novels. It is a tale of human\nirresponsibility, supported by youthful prejudices never relinquished,\nbuilt up on false antitheses, and capped by a merely circumstantial\nrealism calculated to give the narrative a deceptive air of importance.\n\nYouthful prejudice, for example, transparently dictates the important\npart played by religion in this novel. Religion is represented as an\nillusion capable of deceiving only those blind to life\u2019s realities--the\nhopelessly incompetent and unintelligent, those whose advocacy would\nitself discredit any doctrine. Religion\u2019s illusory nature is said to\nbe self-evident, indeed, since it has much to say of Providence, yet\nmanifestly bestows on the convert no worldly rewards, in satisfaction\nof the real needs and desires with which he is endowed, not by his\nown design or wish. Convention, too, is represented as a force which\nsways only the stupid and lethargic, which makes no demands entitling\nit to respect, and which the intelligent disregard deliberately, the\ntemperamental wilfully. Intelligence itself is pictured as merely an\ninstrument useful for devising methods of self-advancement;--in other\nwords, as the servant of inborn temperament. And temperament is the one\nirresistible, compelling force in life, to which all else is ultimately\nobedient. Hence no one is really responsible for anything;--save,\nperhaps, the novelist who sees this important truth, at length, and by\ncareful selection of appropriate matter is able to picture it for us.\n\nNot even Mr. Dreiser\u2019s expert care and long practice, however, are\nsufficient to enable him to evade a difficulty inherent in the nature\nof his theme. For the predicament of Roberta Alden is infinitely sad,\nand her creator narrates her history and murder with an exemplary\ntruthfulness which emphasises that sadness to the full. Nevertheless,\nthe reader\u2019s sympathy is not invoked. The girl, on the contrary, is\npresented as the inevitable resultant of inheritance, environment,\nand sex, and she lives as an embodied energy rather than as a person.\nExtraordinary pains are taken, with all the multitudinous details\nof her story, to balance causes against effects, and she emerges a\nplausible creature. There is nothing incredible in her being just\nconventional enough and unwary enough and love-sick enough to suit\nthe story\u2019s purpose; but, too, there is nothing in her nature or her\nhistory to render either important. Indeed, her grievous distress,\nleading up to her murder, takes on, under Mr. Dreiser\u2019s hand, the\nsame significance as the squirming of an angleworm, impaled by some\nmischievous boy--no less, but certainly no more.\n\n\u201cChemic compulsion\u201d draws Roberta Alden as it draws other substances.\n\u201cChemic compulsion\u201d epitomises the book. It \u201cjust happens\u201d--and this is\nall--that \u201cchemic compulsion\u201d entangles Roberta with the squid--Clyde\nGriffiths, the defeated squid. For readers of Mr. Dreiser\u2019s \u201cepic\u201d\ntale, _The Financier_, who recall the apologue of the lobster and the\nsquid cannot fail to recognise Clyde Griffiths as the embodiment of\nthe latter--and his cousin Gilbert as the patient, triumphant lobster.\nThe squid, it need scarcely be said, commands no more sympathy than\nRoberta;--indeed, most readers inevitably must sympathise with the\nspirit of the \u201cirate woodsman\u2019s\u201d brutal question during the trial. This\nundefiled son of the forest asked: \u201cWhy don\u2019t they kill the God-damned\nbastard and be done with him?\u201d But, just for this reason, it has to be\nremembered that Mr. Dreiser exhausts every possible means so to account\nfor Clyde as to preserve him from all blame. The squid is the complete\nplaything of \u201cchemic compulsion,\u201d the paragon of irresponsibility, the\nperfect exemplar of the truth as the truth has been revealed to his\ncreator.\n\nThis being so, it is little less than a miracle that Mr. Dreiser has\ncontrived--through the infinite detail of a merely circumstantial\nrealism--to save Clyde Griffiths\u2019 humanity sufficiently to maintain\nthe reader\u2019s \u201csuspension of disbelief\u201d until the end of the book.\nUndoubtedly he has done so, though he has not succeeded in making all\nreaders feel that patience has been adequately rewarded. They have\nbeen impressed, as is fitting before so monumental a composition; they\nhave been troubled; they have not been recompensed. Eight hundred\nand forty pages devoted to the unconscionable prolongation of a mere\nsensational newspaper story! Remarks to this effect I have heard\nmore than once; and they roughly indicate the real difficulty--the\ninevitably self-destroying effect of such an effort as Mr. Dreiser\u2019s,\nin proportion as it is successful.\n\nThis difficulty, however, does not actually lie in the plot of _An\nAmerican Tragedy_, as the remark just cited implies. The bare plot of\nthe _Agamemnon_ of \u00c6schylus might equally well form the basis of a\nmere sensational newspaper story, and Clytemnestra in that play and\nin the _Choephori_ makes for herself, not without seeming justice,\nthe plea that is made for Clyde Griffiths. Not she, but Destiny, she\nsays, through her its helpless instrument slew Agamemnon; and she also\npleads that she did not make herself, yet can only act out her inborn\nnature. But it is not for his plots, nor because he was well acquainted\nwith Mr. Dreiser\u2019s view of life, that \u00c6schylus lives on still amongst\nus. His dramas have a perennial and deep value for mankind because,\nrejecting the plausible notion of \u201cchemic compulsion,\u201d he struggled\nwith profound conviction to convey a very different meaning through\ntheir form, characters, and action. Without evading any of its\ndifficulty, he asserted his faith that Moral Law uncompromisingly\ngoverns the life of man, making for an order which is divine, in\nthe face of a chaos intrinsically evil, and that men are fully, if\ntragically, responsible for the consequences of their acts, whatever\ntheir motives or compulsions, so that ignorance and self-conceit are\nequally as criminal as violence.\n\nThis is not to say all, of course, but it may suffice to show how\n\u00c6schylus and, more clear-sightedly, Sophocles cut straight through to\nthe centre of the human problem and propounded a solution which, if\nnot the only one, nor by itself a complete one, is still, strictly\nspeaking, irrefutable, being founded directly upon facts of experience\nwhich have not changed with the passing generations;--an unassailable\nsolution, moreover, which gives weight and meaning to every individual\nand to all of his acts. And hence it is that the bloody and sensational\nfables of \u00c6schylus and Sophocles, triumphantly formed in full harmony\nwith their meaning, have an interest and value for men which time does\nnot exhaust.\n\nMr. Dreiser\u2019s difficulty is not that he has different facts of\nexperience to interpret;--he has precisely the same facts concerning\nan essentially unchanged human nature. His difficulty is that his\nmechanistic naturalism compels him so to select and manipulate facts of\nexperience as to deny, through his narrative, that human life has any\nmeaning or value. The attempt is suicidal, and the more consistently\nit is carried out the more completely is Mr. Dreiser forced to divest\nhis creatures and their actions of any distinctively human quality and\nmeaning. The more successful he is the more insignificant his work\nbecomes. _An American Tragedy_, as I have said, is more skilfully,\nfaithfully, and consistently executed on the naturalistic level than\nany of its author\u2019s earlier novels, and precisely for this reason it\ncontains no single element of tragedy in any legitimate sense of\nthe word, and it impresses thoughtful readers as a mere sensational\nnewspaper story long drawn out. In other words, in proportion as Mr.\nDreiser contrives to accomplish his self-imposed task he has nothing to\ntell us except that there is nothing to tell about life until it can be\nreduced even below the apparent level of animal existence, to the point\nwhere it becomes a meaningless chaos of blind energies.\n\nWhether or not any real sense of the self-destroying character of\nthis effort, to create a literature as valueless and insignificant\nas possible, will ever strike Mr. Dreiser\u2019s consciousness, I should\nnot venture to guess. But only an obstinate self-conceit, or an\ninvincible stupidity, one imagines, could have kept him from seeing the\nabsurdities into which he was forced, in the course of half-a-dozen\nsentences, when he recently attempted to draw up a brief statement of\nhis present belief. He wrote: \u201cI can make no comment on my work or my\nlife that holds either interest or import for me. Nor can I imagine\nany explanation or interpretation of any life, my own included, that\nwould be either true--or important, if true. Life is to me too much a\nwelter and play of inscrutable forces to permit, in my case at least,\nany significant comment. One may paint for one\u2019s own entertainment,\nand that of others--perhaps. As I see him the utterly infinitesimal\nindividual weaves among the mysteries a floss-like and wholly\nmeaningless course--if course it be. In short I catch no meaning from\nall I have seen, and pass quite as I came, confused and dismayed.\u201d[44]\n\nTo this point has Mr. Dreiser\u2019s naturalism driven him. If the general\nsense of this awkward yet mannered statement comprised the truth about\nhim and his work, he would, of course, never have been asked to make\nit. He would, in all probability, have been confined long ago to an\nasylum; and he would certainly never have written any of his books.\nThose books, moreover, have manifestly not been written just for his\nown entertainment. They have been written because he felt he had\nsomething to say--because of his certainty that he had come to know the\ntruth, as men in general knew it not. And with singular faithfulness\nof purpose and of industry, involving what for him must have been\nalmost superhuman effort, because of his defects of mind and training,\nhe has devoted himself to the struggle to express the truth as he\nconceived it--that is, to reduce it to consistency and give it coherent\nform. He has also neglected nothing, within his limits, to make it\nimpressive. He has thus lived a rationally purposive life, reducing at\nleast to symptoms of order the welter of his impressions and impulses,\ncontrolling at least fitfully his rebellious temperament, and mastering\n(or \u201csublimating\u201d) at least partially his almost pathological obsession\nby sex. For the sake of self-expression--or, as I shall presently\nsuggest, of self-justification--he has thus achieved an appreciably\ndisciplined life, and so has in his own person, against his own\nliterary aim, furnished a convincing refutation of his philosophy. He\nhas effectively proved that _An American Tragedy_ gives form to a view\nof life as gratuitous as it is unmeaning.\n\nFortunately it is now realised by an increasing number of people that\nnaturalistic philosophies are merely speculative ventures, which derive\nno valid support from \u201cmodern science.\u201d And it has, besides, been\nshown above how little \u201cscience\u201d had to do with the formation of Mr.\nDreiser\u2019s naturalistic prejudice. Mr. Dreiser, on his own showing, was\nfirst awakened to a sense of life as a problem to be solved by his\ndiscovery of the radical contrast between the ethical standards of his\nfather and his church (as he understood its teaching), and his own\nspontaneous impulses and desires. His haphazard, undirected education\ngave him an unexcelled opportunity to learn that there were many\nothers like himself, that they seemed to be the most vigorous members\nof their communities, and that they never hesitated to transgress every\nethical standard, when they could get away with it, in their struggle\nfor self-advancement and self-gratification. He treasured every\nimpression which seemed to be on his side against ethical standards\nby which he stood condemned. His self-esteem had been gravely shocked\nby the discordance he had discovered, and he now found the means to\nrestore it and, indeed, to strengthen it, by appeal from home and\nchurch to the larger world. Not he was in the wrong of it, but the\n\u201csenseless,\u201d \u201cimpossible\u201d theories which would have convicted him of\nshameful tendencies. \u201cIn shame there is no comfort, but to be beyond\nall bounds of shame,\u201d says one of Sidney\u2019s Arcadians, and this Mr.\nDreiser might thenceforth have taken for his motto.\n\nGoverned by this apolaustic prejudice, he has since continued his\ntransparent course of seeing only what he has desired to see, or\nrather of admitting the reality of only what has suited him, while\nsetting down all else as either hypocrisy or delusion. And while it is\ntrue that no one escapes the necessity of bringing only a selective\nattention to bear upon the outer world, it by no means follows that we\nare all alike cut off from \u201creality.\u201d On the contrary, it does mean\nthat the basis of our selective attention, the interests and purposes\nserved by it, are of fundamental importance. And the disastrous effect\nof Mr. Dreiser\u2019s apolaustic prejudice is that it encouraged him in\nslavery to mere temperament, in helpless surrender to the chaotic flow\nof \u201cnatural\u201d impulses, while it brought to his attention from the\nouter world only what fed itself, the antics of complicated beasts\nwith strange illusions. The trouble with what he thus saw is not that\nit was non-existent, some gross trick of the fevered imagination;--it\nwas there to be seen--it is there, in grievous plenty. No, the\ntrouble is that none of it has positive significance. The naturalism\nwhich it fathers lights up the animal in man, but tells man nothing\nof that which positively distinguishes him from the beast--more, it\nvindictively denies that anything save hypocrisy and delusion does so\ndistinguish him. And while it seeks to dissolve our humanity, it ends,\nas it ends in Mr. Dreiser, in a bottomless morass of misrepresentation\nand despair. This is the American tragedy of our confused age which\nconstitutes the real import of Mr. Dreiser\u2019s masterpiece.\n\n  Note--For permission to quote from the writings of Mr. Dreiser, I\n  am indebted both to him and to his publisher, Mr. Horace Liveright.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES\n\n[42] In that which follows I draw chiefly upon _A Book About Myself_\n(1922), but also make use of _A Hoosier Holiday_ (1916), _Twelve Men_\n(1919), and _Hey Rub-A-Dub-Dub_ (1920). _A Traveler at Forty_ (1913) is\nalso a revealing book.\n\n[43] I refer particularly to _Jennie Gerhardt_ and _The \u201cGenius.\u201d_\nLimitations of space unfortunately prevent me from considering here any\nsave Mr. Dreiser\u2019s latest novel, _An American Tragedy_.\n\n[44] From the _Bookman_, September, 1928 (Vol. 68, p. 25).\n\n\n\n\n_Pandora\u2019s Box in American Fiction_\n\nHARRY HAYDEN CLARK\n\n\nAmerica, Carlyle wrote Emerson, \u201cis verily the Door of Hope to\ndistracted Europe; which otherwise I should see crumbling down into\nblackness of darkness.\u201d\n\nThe Door of Hope! It is perhaps time now to ask down what corridors\nthis door has led, to scrutinise the precise quality of American hope.\nIs it a new hope, or a disguised form of the European hope which has\nled \u201cto blackness of darkness\u201d? What, for example, have our fiction\nwriters, reflecting the American mind, past and present, reported\nregarding the success of their quest for happiness? If they have\nreported that certain sorts of hope have led to despair, what evidence\nis there that other sorts lead to joy? For \u201cthe desire for happiness,\u201d\nsays Arnold, \u201cis the root and ground of man\u2019s being. Tell him and show\nhim that he places his happiness wrong, that he seeks for delight where\ndelight will never really be found; then you illumine and further\nhim.\u201d Let us sketch the quality, first, of the hope of a paradise of\nsupernal beauty; second, the hope of an American paradise of nature;\nand finally, the hope of \u201cA Paradise _within_ thee, happier far.\u201d\n\n\nI\n\nIf we consider the European background of the hope to escape to a\nparadise of supernal beauty and bliss, we find that in the classical\nlegends of the Golden Age, in such Renaissance writers as Lyly,\nSidney, and Spenser, and in such later work as Thomson\u2019s _Castle of\nIndolence_, this idyllic Arcadianism was either frankly recreational\nand non-philosophic or else a cloak for allegory. Not until the middle\nof the eighteenth century was the idyllic dream taken seriously.\nRevolting from earlier and contemporary restriction of the imagination,\nAkenside advocated refusing to \u201crestrain\u201d one\u2019s \u201csoaring fancy,\u201d Joseph\nWarton glorified the \u201ccreative and glowing imagination,\u201d and Edward\nYoung sought to escape \u201cthis pestilential earth\u201d by the \u201ccreative\npower\u201d of the imagination to call forth paradisiacal beauties, \u201cshadowy\nbeings and unknown worlds,\u201d in the \u201cvast void beyond real existence.\u201d\nHe exalted a genius which was to \u201cwander wild\u201d in \u201cthe fairy land of\nfancy,\u201d \u201creign arbitrarily over its own empire of chimeras,\u201d and \u201csport\nwith its infinite objects uncontrolled.\u201d Thus in _Vathek_ Beckford\ncreated a sensuous and erotic paradise with its five palaces which he\ndestined \u201cfor the particular gratification of each of the five senses.\u201d\n\u201cThe light that never was, on sea or land,\u201d enthralled the youthful\nWordsworth, but he soon questioned it as a \u201cfond illusion.\u201d Keats\nsought to escape on \u201cthe viewless wings of Poesy\u201d from the \u201cweariness\u201d\nof actuality to the \u201ccharmed magic casements.\u201d Shelley, the high priest\nof this ceaseless and aimless quest for the unattainable, tells us\nthat only his \u201cfearful and monstrous\u201d story of _The Cenci_ is \u201ca sad\nreality\u201d; otherwise he \u201cdreams of what ought to be, or what may be.\u201d\nFor him the Spirit of Beauty leaves \u201cThis dim vast vale of tears,\nvacant and desolate.\u201d His is a longing indeterminate, a\n\n            \u201cdevotion to something afar\n  From the sphere of our sorrow.\u201d\n\n  \u201cI loved I know not what--but this low sphere,\n  And all that it contains, contains not thee.\u201d\n\n_Alastor_ and _Epipsychidion_ are matchless records of his fruitless\nquest for the phantom of desire. DeQuincey\u2019s fantasies are \u201cfilled\nwith perishing dreams, and the wrecks of forgotten deliriums.\u201d _The\nLady of Shalott_ and _The Palace of Art_ testify to Tennyson\u2019s\nreluctant renunciation of the life of illusion. Swinburne characterised\nhimself in _A Nympholept_, while his friend, the author of _The Earthly\nParadise_, strove to\n\n               \u201cbuild a shadowy isle of bliss\n  Midmost the beating of the steely sea.\u201d\n\nWith this background in mind, let us see to what extent the American\nstory-tellers\u2019 hope for a paradise of supernal beauty coincides with\nthe idyllic, indeterminate hope of the English romanticists. In _The\nAuthor\u2019s Account of Himself_, Irving, our first master of the short\nstory, states his Old World longing \u201cto escape, in short, from the\ncommon-place realities of the present,\u201d to \u201cthe shadowy grandeurs\nof the past,\u201d the \u201cearthly paradise\u201d of \u201cBellissima Granada\u201d and\nthe legend-haunted Alhambra. _The Legend of Prince Ahmed al Kamel_,\ndealing with the quest for the phantom of desire, illustrates the\nidyllic quality of his imagination. The Prince, called the \u201cPerfect\u201d\non account of his \u201csuper-excellence,\u201d receives from a dove tidings\nof a fair princess--\u201cno flower of the field could compare with her\nfor loveliness.\u201d In the Spanish spring-time the Prince, a \u201cpilgrim of\nlove,\u201d resolves to \u201cseek this unknown princess throughout the world.\u201d\nGuided by a parrot and an owl, he eventually finds her in the court of\nher hostile father. The lover produces his \u201csilken carpet of the throne\nof Solomon,\u201d and after confessing his devotion, \u201cthe carpet rose in\nthe air, bearing off the prince and princess ... and then disappeared\nin the blue vault of heaven.\u201d Irving, however, sought \u201cescape ... from\nthe common-place\u201d not only in the picturesque fantasies of Old Spain\nbut also in the glamorous aspects of the American past, as illustrated\nin _The Legend of Sleepy Hollow_. In \u201ca remote period of American\nhistory,\u201d among \u201csome of the goodliest scenes of the mighty Hudson,\u201d\nIchabod rides on a \u201cfine autumnal day\u201d through the \u201crich and golden\nlivery\u201d of a natural paradise to win the \u201cpeerless,\u201d \u201cripe and melting\nand rosy-cheeked Katrina\u201d and her \u201cunimaginable luxury.\u201d Introduced\nby lines from _The Castle of Indolence_, _The Legend_ illustrates\nIrving\u2019s somewhat sentimental and humorous continuation of the merely\nrecreational Arcadianism of earlier days. And the ruse of the Headless\nHorseman, in connection with the \u201ctwilight superstitions\u201d of one who\nwas \u201ca perfect master of Cotton Mather\u2019s _History of New England\nWitchcraft_,\u201d suggests the interesting tendency of the native Puritan\ninterest in things unearthly, with the waning of faith, to become a\nsubject for the \u00e6sthetic imagination as in the case of Hawthorne and\nPoe.\n\nUnlike Irving, Poe takes the idyllic dream seriously. He defines\nthe Poetic Principle as \u201csimply the Human Aspiration for Supernal\nBeauty,\u201d manifested \u201cin an elevating excitement of the Soul.\u201d Of\ncourse, as every one knows, his vigorous reason controlled the decadent\nimagination and emotion of the earlier Gothic school and made him\nperhaps our greatest master of the short story technique. But let us\nillustrate and define the content of his \u201caspiration,\u201d his \u201celevating\nexcitement of the Soul.\u201d Where does he seek happiness? One thinks of\nthe \u201cdelirious bliss\u201d of \u201cthe Valley of the Many-Coloured Grass\u201d in\n_Eleanora_. We might better, however, turn to _The Domain of Arnheim_,\nwhere Ellison, with \u201c_a fortune of four hundred and fifty million\ndollars_,\u201d seeks to satisfy his passion for an exclusively \u201cphysical\nloveliness,\u201d his \u201cfour elementary conditions of bliss,\u201d which are\n\u201cfree exercise,\u201d \u201cthe love of woman,\u201d \u201ccontempt of ambition,\u201d and \u201can\nobject of unceasing pursuit.\u201d After a four year quest he finds in the\n\u201cluxuriant nature of the Pacific Islands\u201d \u201can elevated tableland of\nwonderful fertility and beauty\u201d; it was the \u201cParadise of Arnheim,\u201d\ncombining everything rich and voluptuous. Ellison, however, sought to\ngratify the \u201cone passion of his soul, the thirst for beauty,\u201d \u201cabove\nall ... in the sympathy of a woman, not unwomanly, whose loveliness\nand love enveloped his existence in the pure atmosphere of Paradise.\u201d\nThus the content of Poe\u2019s aspiration, as well as his references here\nto the \u201cchimera of the perfectionists\u201d \u201cTurgot, Price, Priestley and\nCondorcet,\u201d to \u201cFonthill,\u201d the birthplace of _Vathek_, and to the \u201crapt\nday-dreams of De Sta\u00ebl,\u201d suggest that his aspiration is essentially one\nwith that ceaseless and aimless sensuous longing already illustrated in\nthe English romanticists. Or take _The Island of the Fay_, which deals\nwith the contemplation of \u201cthe glory of God\u201d in \u201cnatural scenery\u201d--\u201call\nwithin the Spirit Divine\u201d--in a \u201crivulet and island,\u201d \u201call one\nradiant harem of garden beauties.\u201d Shelley-like, he sees approach the\n\u201cenchanted\u201d island a gentle Fay in a \u201cfragile canoe\u201d with a \u201cphantom\nof an oar.\u201d This vision of loveliness, however, passed \u201cdisconsolately\nwith her boat into the region of the ebony flood,\u201d and \u201cdarkness fell\nover all things and I beheld her magical figure no more.\u201d Thus, as\nProfessor Foerster has so finely said, Poe gives us only \u201cshuddering\nharmonies of the murky subconscious, and roseate harmonies of\nsensuous longing posing as spirituality.... His vision oscillated not\nbetween the earthly and the supernal, but between the infernal and\nthe Arcadian.\u201d But what did Poe report regarding the success of his\naspiration for supernal beauty? \u201cTo be thoroughly conversant with Man\u2019s\nheart,\u201d he concludes, \u201cis to take our final lesson in the iron-clasped\nvolume of Despair.\u201d Thinking of writing a book on his life, he said:\n\u201cNo man will ever dare write it. No man could write it, even if he\ndared. The paper would shrivel and blaze at every touch of the fiery\npen.\u201d\n\nPerhaps the most vigorous and passionate Arcadian in American\nliterature is Herman Melville, mariner and mystic. Descended from Dutch\nand New England parents proud and conservative, Melville was driven\nto \u201cthe water world,\u201d he tells us, by \u201csad disappointments ... united\nwith a naturally roving disposition.\u201d He deserted his ship and found\nin the valley of the Typees \u201cperpetual hilarity. Surrounded by all the\nluxurious provisions of nature,\u201d the innocent natives enjoy the idyllic\nbliss \u201cthat springs principally from that all-pervading sensation which\nRousseau told us he at one time experienced: the mere buoyant sense of\nhealthful, physical existence.\u201d This was before the missionaries and\n\u201cthe worst attendances of civilisation\u201d drove \u201call peace and happiness\nfrom the valley.\u201d In _Mardi_, frankly idyllic and nympholeptic, devoted\nto the savages \u201cas they are not,\u201d Melville\u2019s nostalgic idealism and his\nhatred of reality become intensified. Here he creates a dream-girl,\nYillah, \u201cthe earthly semblance of that sweet vision, that haunted my\nearliest thought,\u201d and the book is a record of the allegorical quest\nfor her through all the nations of the earth. It follows Unitarianism\nand Transcendentalism, with their hope for the infinite perfectibility\nof men; it is the quest of _Alastor_ and _Epipsychidion_, the quest\nof Novalis for the Blue Flower. \u201cBut fiery yearnings their own\nphantom-future make, and deem it present. So, if after all these\nfearful, fainting trances, the verdict be, the golden haven was not\ngained;--yet, in bold quest thereof better to sink in boundless deeps\nthan float on vulgar shoals; and give me, ye gods, an utter wreck,\nif wreck I do.\u201d If Melville fled, however, \u201cnot so much bound to any\nhaven ahead as rushing from all havens astern\u201d--such as the \u201cBabylonish\nbrick-kiln of New York,\u201d \u201cCommonness and Conventionalism,\u201d \u201cmines\nand marts,\u201d and Democracy, \u201cthe harlot on horseback\u201d--his first-hand\nexperience with the reality of a sea red in tooth and claw as well as\n\u201cthe mystery of iniquity\u201d tended to clash with his dreams of Utopia.\n_Moby-Dick_ was born of this clash between the hope of a paradise of\nsupernal beauty and the sight of a malignant reality from the deck of a\nwhaler. We have his own commentary on the final results of nympholeptic\nlonging:\n\n  \u201cExplain this darkness, exorcise this devil, ye cannot.... The\n  truest of men was the Man of Sorrows, and the truest of all books\n  is Solomon\u2019s, and the Ecclesiastes is the fine hammered steel of\n  woe. All is vanity. All.... He who ... calls Cowper, Young, Pascal,\n  Rousseau, poor devils all of sick men.... And your only Mardian\n  happiness is but exemption from great woes--no more.... Sadness\n  makes the silence throughout the realms of space; Sadness is\n  universal and eternal.\u201d\n\nLet us skip the realism of the later nineteenth century, most of which\nis essentially arid, and approach such a figure as Floyd Dell. Born\nof autobiographical revery, _Moon-Calf_ is the history of a \u201clonely,\nunhappy, desperately desiring and bewildered child\u201d in various Middle\nWestern towns as he sought refuge in dreams from \u201cthe mysterious and\ntroublesome real world which he feared and disliked.\u201d The avenues of\nescape are two: the \u201cgorgeous fantasies which were unrolled for him in\nthe pages of books,\u201d and the quest of the dream-girl. Lured by the hope\nof \u201cfreedom, of happiness, of a world altogether new and beautiful,\u201d\nFelix becomes a Socialist, only to find later that \u201cthat garret\nUtopia had somehow lost its savour.\u201d He becomes a factory worker--in\nthe chaste language of his boss, \u201cthe messiest, absent-mindedest,\nGod-damn carelessest person he had ever seen around a factory.\u201d And\nthen he tries newspaper work, and is again discharged. Then \u201che wanted,\nwith a kind of nostalgia, to write that novel.\u201d Like Shelley, he\nsought refuge from a world to which he refused to adjust himself by\nturning \u201chis gaze inward upon a world of ideas and dreams.\u201d As Wheels\nsays, \u201cThe world itself is hideous. You can\u2019t do anything with it.\nBut you can dream beautiful dreams.... There is no other beauty.\u201d\nAn \u201cincorrigible Utopian,\u201d a member of the Agnostic Society, Felix\nescaped to poetry--an \u201cenchanted land\u201d--loving the \u201cdrug-like beauty\u201d\nof \u201cwords, which were like a perfumed breeze out of nowhere, or out of\nsome strange life lived before, affecting him with a strange nostalgia.\u201d\n\n  \u201cNay, I was sent a wanderer\n  On Beauty\u2019s desperate quest--\n  To go forever seeking Her,\n  Nor, ere I find her, rest.\u201d\n\nAnd then there is the quest for the dream-girl. First there is Rose,\nthe gardener\u2019s daughter, whom he meets in the attic and to whom he\nreads Rousseau\u2019s _Confessions_. One night they stay in the woods,\nwatching the stars, and \u201cawakened chill and stiff, a little before\ndawn.\u201d In \u201cthe innermost caves of fantasy\u201d she was the \u201cVirgin Queen\u201d\nof Atlantis, and he her Harper.... \u201cShe was ... hope that turns to\ndespair.\u201d And then there was Margaret, Helen Raymond, Daisy Fisher,\nEmily, Mrs. Miller, Lucy, and finally Joyce, with whom he spent the\nnights in the cabin. He explains to Joyce that he seeks \u201csomething\nbetter than just ordinary, everyday happiness,\u201d that he doesn\u2019t believe\nin private property, God, the home, or the support of one\u2019s wife. He\nwants a companionship \u201cat once light and gracious, irresponsible and\nsincere, generous and self-respecting!\u201d Finally he felt \u201ca discrepancy\nbetween her and a not very distinct ideal of his imagination.\u201d He\n\u201cclung to the memory of his shadow-land of ideas\u201d in preference to the\n\u201cworld of desperate reality,\u201d and when his beloved Joyce tells him she\nis to work out her human destiny with another the \u201cworld of his dreams\nfell shattering about him.\u201d Obviously, _Moon-Calf_ is the creation of\nthe sort of hope which robbed Shelley of \u201cpeace within.\u201d\n\nLet us turn to Willa Cather, whose main theme is the struggle for\n\u00e6sthetic or emotional self-realisation amid the sordid environment\nof either the frontier or an industrial society. In _O Pioneers!_\nmost piteous is the fate of the fair Marie Tovesky, murdered in the\narms of her lover. In _The Song of the Lark_ Thea Kronsburg develops\nher rare voice in spite of a gossipy Colorado town. \u201cThere is only\none big thing--desire.\u201d In _My \u00c1ntonia_ the heroine says, \u201cThat is\nhappiness--to be dissolved in something complete and great.\u201d Her lust\nfor richness of experience leads to her becoming an unmarried mother\nand finally the mother of a large family. In _Youth and the Bright\nMedusa_ a typical story is that of Paul, whose longing for an \u00e6sthetic\nparadise in a flatly stolid industrial town led him to robbery and\nto suicide after a week\u2019s fulfilment of his hopes. Most instructive,\nperhaps, is _The Professor\u2019s House_, based on the fruitless struggle of\nthe romantic spirit against materialism and convention. The Professor\ndoes not \u201cthink much of science as a phase of human development\u201d; he\nresisted the new \u201ccommercialism\u201d in education; he preferred his old\ndingy study to the one in the pretentious house which his worldly\nwife and daughters had planned; he loathes the petty quarrels of his\ndaughters over fashions; and his wife accuses him of \u201cshutting yourself\naway from everybody.\u201d In place of materialism and convention, however,\nhe seeks to substitute not a central interest in what is most richly\nand typically human but rather a refuge in the romantic past: in the\npomp of the Middle Ages when man was \u201ca principal in a gorgeous drama\nwith God\u201d; in the bygone glories of the Spanish adventurers; in\nreliving in revery his youth, \u201cthe realest of his lives\u201d; in the loving\nstudy of many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore; and in his\ninterest in his former student\u2019s worship of the ancient Cliff-dwellers.\nThe seemingly irrelevant interpolation of Tom Outland\u2019s story of his\ninability to interest official Washington, \u201cso petty, so slavish,\u201d\nin his \u201creligious emotion\u201d regarding his discovery of the relics of\nthe Cliff-dwellers is explained by its paralleling and under-scoring\nthe Professor\u2019s own struggle--the romantic spirit struggling in vain\nagainst materialism and convention. Finally, when the Professor\u2019s\nfamily departed for Europe, he \u201cthought of eternal solitude with\ngratefulness,\u201d and \u201cwanted to run away from everything he had intensely\ncared for.\u201d One night while he is resting in his old study a storm\nblows out his gas stove and slams his window shut: he awakens to find\nhimself \u201cnearly asphyxiated\u201d; he wished to die. \u201cHe hadn\u2019t lifted his\nhand against himself--was he required to lift it for himself?\u201d He\ncannot bear the thought of his wife\u2019s return and the continuation of\ntheir way of life. Finally an old friend revives him, but he found that\n\u201che had let something go--and it was gone: something very precious.\u201d\nHe reflects that \u201chis apathy\u201d will not trouble a family \u201cpreoccupied\nwith their own affairs.\u201d No, the merely romantic devotion to what is\npicturesque in the storied past will never avail in the quest for peace\nin a conventional and materialistic environment.\n\nLike Poe, Joseph Hergesheimer strives to escape \u201cthe dreary and\nimpertinent duty of improving the world\u201d in his worship of an\nunattainable beauty. His friend Mr. Cabell finds \u201cin all the\nHergesheimer novels\u201d \u201cmen labouring toward the unattainable, and a\nhigh questing foiled.\u201d For example, in _Linda Condon_, based on this\ntheme, Peyton, a sculptor, seeks in vain to win the beautiful Linda,\nwho marries another. The sculptor endeavours to sublimate his passion\nin the creation of a great statue, which is destroyed by a mob, and he\ndies in forlorn desolation.\n\n  \u201cLove was the supreme force, and its greatest expression a desire\n  beyond the body.... The endless service of beauty. Of course,\n  a woman--but never the animal; the spirit always. Born in the\n  spirit, served in the spirit, ending in the spirit. A direct\n  contradiction, you see, to nature and common sense, frugality and\n  the sacred symbol of the dollar.... The old gesture toward the\n  stars, the bridge of perfection, the escape from the fatality of\n  the flesh. Yet it was a service of the body made incredibly lovely\n  in actuality and still never to be grasped. Never to be won.\u201d\n\nThis spiritualised beauty, however, is of course dependent upon\nsensuousness, and Mr. Hergesheimer asserts that \u201cthe whole discharge\nof my responsibility was contained in the imperative obligation to\n... put down the colours and scents and emotions of existence.\u201d And,\nlike Keats, like all who found life on a merely sensuous beauty,\nhe is haunted by the dread of transience, by \u201cthat sharp sense of\nbeauty which came from a firm, delicate consciousness of certain high\npretensions, valours, maintained in the face of imminent destruction\n... in the category none was sharper than the charm of a woman, soon to\nperish in a vanity of array as momentary and iridescent as a May-fly.\u201d\nHe tells us that he creates ideal beauty as a result of \u201cthe assault of\na persuasive discontent.\u201d Nothing matters but an unattainable sensuous\nbeauty; and this merely impresses him with its evanescence. This\ntransient beauty can be arrested only by art, and he begins a later\nessay on art with the words, \u201cI am getting damned tired of art....\u201d\n\nPerhaps the endless and aimless longing for the unattainable has\nreceived most elaborate treatment at the hands of Mr. Hergesheimer\u2019s\nfriend, James Branch Cabell. In _Beyond Life_, a series of essays,\nhe outlines his literary creed, his hostility to realism. Holding\nthat \u201cveracity is the one unpardonable sin,\u201d he \u201cperceives this race\n... to be beyond all wording petty and ineffectual,\u201d and he follows\nthe \u201cinstinct of any hurt animal to seek revenge ... in the field\nof imagination\u201d by retreating to Poictesme, \u201cthat fair country ...\nwhich is bounded by Avalon and Ph\u00e6acia and Sea-coast Bohemia, and\nthe contiguous forests of Arden and Broceliande, and on the west of\ncourse by the Hesperides.\u201d Let us examine the quality and success\nof Mr. Cabell\u2019s aspiration as embodied in _The Cream of the Jest_.\nFelix Kennaston, the hero, is actually a conventional novelist, a\nconservative property-owner, a Presbyterian, and a good husband.\nInwardly, however, he is a dreamer who seeks to escape from the\nthralldom of actuality in his quest of \u201cEttarre, who embodied all\nKennaston was ever able to conceive of beauty and fearlessness and\nstrange purity, all perfections, all the attributes of divinity,\nin a word, such as his slender human faculties were competent to\nunderstand.\u201d \u201cIt is the cream of a vile jest,\u201d he says, \u201cthat I am\nforbidden ever to win quite to you, ever to touch you.\u201d These magic\ndreams of Ettarre are induced by a sigil--a broken disc which Felix\nfound on one of his walks. Finally, near his death, it is discovered\nthat this magic sigil is only \u201cthe metal top of a cold cream jar,\u201d\nand his dreams become a tale told by an idiot, signifying nothing.\nThis is perhaps the blackest pessimism in American literature--the\nconviction that reality is a \u201cdragging nightmare,\u201d and the discovery\nthat the illusion which alone makes life bearable is founded on nothing\nmore sacred than the broken \u201ctop of a cold cream jar.\u201d And it should\nbe noted that, all Mr. Cabell\u2019s books being parts of a \u201cBiography,\u201d\nFelix is nothing less than a symbol of \u201chumanity.\u201d \u201cHis history was,\nin essentials, the history of our race thus far. All I advanced for or\nagainst him, was true of all men that have ever lived.\u201d\n\n_Jurgen_ may be said to deal mainly with the poignancy of the\nrealisation of the contrast between the veiled loveliness of youthful\nillusions and a cold and ugly sensuous reality; relief is sought\nthrough an escape from this reality in dreaming of these illusions now\nshattered, or in dreaming of new illusions. In actuality, Jurgen is\nonly a dirty little pot-bellied pawn-broker of the Middle Ages married\nto a shrewish, cowardly wife. Through magic, however, he is enabled to\npack into one year \u201cthe follies of a quarter of a century,\u201d to seek\nthrough a land of fabulous loveliness the phantom of desire. There he\nmeets Dorothy la D\u00e9sir\u00e9e, \u201cin all things perfect,\u201d as he had loved\nher in the \u201cgarden between Dawn and Sunrise\u201d; in reality she was a\n\u201chorrible lascivious woman.\u201d And there in her robe of flaming silk is\nthe young Guenevere, \u201cthe fairest of mortal women\u201d; there is the Queen\nSylvia Tereu of pallid charm who vanishes at dawn; there is Anaitis,\nthe personification of a nature myth, with her ecstatic rites and\nsensual orgies; there is the plump Chloris, loveliest of Hamadryads;\nthere is Queen Helen, for whose fabulous beauty he hungered even in\nchildhood; there is the proud Dolores, \u201clovely as a hawk is lovely\u201d;\nthere is Florimel who dwelt by the Sea of Blood; and there is Phyllis,\nSatan\u2019s wife, \u201cthe loveliest little slip of devilishness.\u201d Of one and\nall Jurgen tires. His remark that his \u201ctender heart and tolerably keen\neyes\u201d force him \u201cto jeer out of season\u201d to avoid \u201cfar more untimely\ntears\u201d reminds us of the Bohemian Byron who finally confesses with\ninfinite sadness:\n\n  \u201cIf I laugh at any mortal thing,\n    \u2019Tis that I may not weep; and if I weep,\n  \u2019Tis that our nature cannot always bring\n    Itself to apathy.\u201d\n\nAnd in the end we have Jurgen\u2019s Shelley-like admission of the futility\nand hopelessness of his aimless longing:\n\n  \u201cOh, nothing can help me, for I do not know what thing it is that\n  I desire!... For I am Jurgen who seeks he knows not what.... I have\n  gone romancing through the world, ... nowhere have I found what I\n  desired.... I am compact of weariness and apprehension, for I no\n  longer discern what thing is I, nor what is my desire, and I fear\n  that I am already dead.\u201d\n\nIt is evident, then, that in the hope for a paradise of supernal\nbeauty Americans have been lured as by a Siren to an abyss of despair\nof which the English romanticists, who experimented with this idyllic\nhope, warned us over a century ago. The Edward Young who sported in\nhis paradisiacal \u201cempire of chimeras\u201d \u201ccast the total\u201d of his life as\n\u201cdespair.\u201d Keats reported that in the romantic \u201cTemple of Delight\u201d\n\n  \u201cVeiled Melancholy has her sovran shrine.\u201d\n\nAnd Shelley of the iridescent dreams, who would\n\n              \u201cHope till Hope creates\n  From its own wreck the thing it contemplates,\u201d\n\nconfessed in the end:\n\n  \u201cAlas! I have nor hope nor health,\n    Nor peace within nor calm around.\u201d\n\nVery beautiful are these rainbow visions--but they are conjured out of\nnight.\n\n\nII\n\nLet us turn to a second sort of hope--the hope of an American paradise\nof nature. Although the paradise of nature appears in Vergil, in\nRenaissance pastorals by Lyly, Sidney, and Spenser, in Perdita\u2019s\nshepherd home and in the sylvan cave of Cymbeline\u2019s sons, its use\nwas mainly either decorative or allegorical until the eighteenth\ncentury. In 1711 Shaftesbury proclaimed the natural man benevolent,\ncompassionate, and altruistic; and as such he appears in _Ossian_. Pope\nsaid, \u201cThe state of Nature was the reign of God.\u201d Rousseau broadcast\nthe doctrine that civilisation had tended to corrupt the morals of\nmankind, while he described the enchanting life of man in a natural\nparadise. Cowper united literary simplicity, religious emotionalism,\nand the naturalistic humanitarianism of Rousseau. Burns glorified the\nsimple peasant close to nature. And Coleridge and Southey dreamed\nfondly of an American Pantisocracy--\u201cA Dell of Peace and Equality\u201d--on\nthe banks of the Susquehanna. In 1771, Philip Freneau, our first man\nof letters, deriving his radical democracy and his devotion to the\nindigenous scene from naturalism, envisaged \u201cThe Rising Glory of\nAmerica\u201d:\n\n  \u201cA new Jerusalem, sent down from heaven,\n  Shall grace our happy earth, ...\n  Thence called _Millennium_. Paradise anew\n  Shall flourish, by no second Adam lost ...\n  No tempting serpent to allure the soul\n  From native innocence.\u201d\n\nIndeed, it is interesting to speculate upon the extent to which\nthis English romantic faith in the \u201cnative innocence\u201d of mankind,\ntransplanted to the inexhaustible resources of the American frontier,\nhas under these unique conditions furnished philosophic sanction\nfor an unbridled materialism which has become so characteristically\nnational. Frontier isolation tended to breed self-confidence, equality,\nself-reliance, optimism, contempt for artificial distinctions and a\ndependence upon the material world. Cr\u00e8vec\u0153ur in 1782 defined \u201can\nAmerican\u201d as a \u201cnew man who acts upon new principles.\u201d\n\n  \u201cWe have no princes, for whom we toil, starve, and bleed: we are\n  the most perfect society now existing in the world. Here man is\n  free as he ought to be.\u201d\n\nOur first novelist who sought a paradise of American nature was James\nFenimore Cooper. Revolting against both the feudalism of aristocratic\nEurope and the crude democracy of Jacksonian America, Cooper sought\nrefuge in projecting his ideals in the character of Leatherstocking\nand also in such a Utopian paradise as in _The Crater_. Whatever one\nmay think of Cooper\u2019s Indians, his \u201cfemales,\u201d his woodcraft, or his\nrhetoric, Leatherstocking remains a great contribution to the fiction\nof the world, \u201cperhaps,\u201d according to Professor Paine, \u201cthe greatest\nembodiment of native character in American literature.\u201d He is strangely\ncompounded of Cooper\u2019s memories of his old hunter-friend Shipman, of\nthe heroic saga of the early frontiersman as synthesised in Daniel\nBoone, of the Rousseauistic-Wordsworthian myth of the natural man\nspiritualised by contact with forest and stream, and of the idealism of\nAmerican manhood. According to Cooper\u2019s summary,\n\n  \u201c... His feelings appeared to possess the freshness and nature of\n  the forest in which he passed so much of his time, and no casuist\n  could have made clearer decisions in matters relating to right and\n  wrong.... In short ... he was a fair example of what a just-minded\n  and pure man might be, while untempted by unruly or ambitious\n  desires, and left to follow the bias of his feelings, amid the\n  solitary grandeur and ennobling influences of a sublime nature.\u201d\n\nIn 1828, however, we find Cooper disillusioned: \u201cAll attempts to blend\nhistory and romance in America have been comparative failures....\nThe baldness of American life is in deadly hostility to scenic\nrepresentation.\u201d And in _The Crater_ (1847) we find him creating a\nUtopia in a fabulous mid-Pacific island in order to furnish a contrast\nto the wretchedness of contemporary American life. This is a story\nof how some folk, shipwrecked on a reef which is the crater of a\nvolcano, succeed in causing vegetation to grow, of how they create\na \u201csettlement surrounded with a sort of earthly paradise\u201d which is\nfinally \u201cburied beneath the ocean.\u201d The story, as Cooper conceives it,\nis a parable: \u201cOf such is the world and its much-coveted advantages.\nFor a time our efforts seem to create, and to adorn, and to perfect,\nuntil we forget our origin and destination, substituting self for that\ndivine hand ...\u201d Already, in _The Monikins_ (1835), born of bitter\ndisenchantment, Cooper the former idealist had presented the world as\na country ruled by a race of monkeys who laughed to scorn the Yahoo\nrace of mankind. The hope of an American paradise of nature ended for\nCooper in disillusionment; natural goodness, democracy, human ideals\nare revealed here as sounding brass and tinkling cymbals. Professor\nPattee compares Cooper\u2019s final pessimism with that of Mark Twain: \u201cBoth\nbegan as border-minded individualists, parochial-minded, intoxicated\nwith American idealism; both by travel and by wide contacts with urban\npessimism were educated into blas\u00e9 cosmopolitanism ... and both went\nout at last in utter misanthropy.... It is an American evolution!\u201d\n\nThe most significant history of our national quest for a material\nhappiness is perhaps embodied in the work of Mark Twain, whose\nmuch-discussed pessimism may be explained mainly by the fact that,\nas the spokesman of frontier America living exclusively \u201cin the\npresent,\u201d he served as the faithful mirror to a whole nation in which\nan Industrial Revolution, philosophic mechanistic determinism, and\nthe collapse of illusions led to despair. His stories illustrate the\nchanging importance of the two planes of consciousness in the frontier\nmind--the consciousness of a hopeful and radiant illusion, and the\nconsciousness of a hopeless and sordid reality. Take three stories,\nrepresenting three different periods. _The Jumping Frog_ (1865),\ndealing with the winning of a bet by roguery, embodies in a humorous\nway the reckless exuberance and joyousness of the dawning West after\nthe Gold Rush. To this type belong also the books which glorify the\n\u201cnatural man\u201d and the free-born American--_Roughing It_ (1873), _Tom\nSawyer_ (1876), _Life on the Mississippi_ (1883), and _Huck Finn_\n(1884). In contrast, his first book, _Innocents Abroad_ (1869),\nrepresents the frontiersman\u2019s life-long contempt for European tradition\nand Europe, \u201cone vast museum of magnificence and misery,\u201d groping \u201cin\nthe midnight of priestly superstition for sixteen hundred years.\u201d A\nstory of a second period, _The Million Pound Bank Note_ (1893) mirrors\na materialistic \u201cgilded age\u201d in which, lured on by a fabulous hope,\nmen bowed to the Golden Calf while the spectre of reality haunted\ntheir thoughts. In this story the two planes of consciousness are in\nequipoise until the end, when the plane of illusion prevails. It is\nthe tale, briefly, of how a poor tramp masquerades as the owner of a\nmillion pound bank note; grim poverty stalks behind him, but every\none worships the illusion of his wealth, and he finally wins the girl\nof his heart as well as the million pounds. The story is a parable of\nthe West: these were the days of illusory fortunes in transcontinental\nrailroads, in iron and steel, the days of the Morgans and Carnegies\nand Fricks and Goulds. \u201cI am,\u201d said Mark Twain, \u201cfrightened at the\nproportion of my prosperity ... Whatever I touch turns to gold.\u201d In\n1895 he was bankrupt. But take a story representative of the third\nperiod--_The $30,000 Bequest_ (1907). A poor book-keeper and his wife,\nlearning of a promised fortune at the death of a relative, each night\n\u201cput the plodding world away, and lived in another and a fairer,\nreading romances to each other, dreaming dreams, comrading with kings\nand princes.\u201d They increasingly neglect realities and scorn their\nassociates. \u201cThe castle-building habit, the day-dreaming habit--how it\ngrows! What a luxury it becomes; how we revel in them, steep our souls\nin them, intoxicate ourselves with their beguiling fantasies--oh, yes,\nand how soon and how easily our dream life and our material life become\nso immingled and so fused together that we can\u2019t tell which is which,\nany more.\u201d Just as the Golden West was unable to keep its \u201cdream life,\u201d\nits illusions, triumphant over its \u201cmaterial life,\u201d its stark reality,\nso with the brutal news that the \u201ctown had to bury\u201d the deceitful\nrelative, the poverty-stricken book-keeper and his wife \u201clived yet two\nyears, in mental night, always brooding, steeped in vague regrets and\nmelancholy dreams\u201d--like the modern realists!\n\nWhat did Mark Twain report regarding his early hope for a material\nparadise? In _The Mysterious Stranger_ (1916) he recorded his final\ndespair, his conviction that life is cruel and meaningless--a\n\u201cwandering forlorn among the empty eternities\u201d--and in that nightmare\nof the fancy cowardice, hypocrisy and slavery are all that man can hope\nfor. After the death of his daughter the master of comedy said, \u201cMy\nlife is a bitterness, but I am content; for she has been enriched with\nthe most precious of all gifts--the gift that makes all other gifts\nmean and poor--death.\u201d His _What Is Man?_ and _To a Person Sitting in\nDarkness_ express the same vein. \u201cThere is, of course, a Master Mind,\nbut it cares nothing for our happiness or our unhappiness ... As to the\nhereafter, we have not the slightest evidence that there is any ...\u201d To\nhim man became \u201ca poor joke--the poorest that was ever contrived!\u201d\n\nAlthough Hamlin Garland came to believe that \u201ctruth was a higher\nquality than beauty\u201d and set himself down as \u201can unflinching realist,\u201d\none must recall that he comes of a race of \u201cpotential poets, bards, and\ndreamers,\u201d that he traces in general the disillusionment resulting\nfrom an idyllic hope based upon an idealistic quest for an American\nparadise of nature. He records the \u201cdeep vein of poetry,\u201d the illusion,\nthrough which the pioneer viewed a sordid reality, \u201cthe place of the\nrainbow, and the pot of gold.\u201d \u201cBeneath the sunset lay the enchanted\nland of opportunity.\u201d\n\n  \u201cWhen we\u2019ve wood and prairie land,\n  Won by our toil,\n  We\u2019ll reign like kings in fairy land,\n  Lords of the soil!\u201d\n\nHere is Pater\u2019s \u201cSangreal of an endless pilgrimage\u201d transferred to\nprairie-land. Later he confesses, \u201cI had idealised all the figures and\nscenes of my boyhood.\u201d \u201cThis land of my childhood,\u201d \u201cits charm, its\nstrange dominion,\u201d he has to admit, \u201cdid not in truth exist--it was a\nmagical world, born of the vibrant union of youth and firelight, of\nmusic and the voice of moaning winds.\u201d Like Wordsworth\u2019s early \u201clight\nthat never was, on sea or land,\u201d Garland\u2019s illusion \u201chas all the\nquality of a vision, something experienced in another world,\u201d covered\nwith \u201ca poetic glamour.\u201d\n\nHowever, if the Son of the Middle Border sought a pot of gold at the\nfoot of the rainbow which did not exist, if he is pursuing fancifully\na phantom of hope, he is honest enough to record the results of such a\nquest. As he grew up he noted a \u201cgrowing bitterness\u201d--\u201cdisillusionment\nhad begun.\u201d The Shelleyan rainbow of hope faded into the light of\ncommon day. What had been the \u201cmarvel of a golden earth before a\ncrimson sky\u201d became merely \u201cUncle Sam\u2019s domain, bleak, semi-arid, and\nwind-swept.\u201d \u201cI perceived little that was poetic, little that was\nidyllic.\u201d\n\n  \u201cWhat purpose does a man serve by toiling like that for sixty years\n  with no increase in leisure, with no growth in mental grace?...\n  At the moment nothing glozed the essential tragic futility of\n  their existence.... The essential tragedy and hopelessness of most\n  human life under the conditions into which our society was swiftly\n  hardening embittered me, called for expression, but even then I did\n  not know that I had found my theme.... Now, suddenly I perceived\n  the futility of our quest....\u201d\n\nIt is clear, also, that Garland is attempting a serious generalised\nstudy of the outcome of frontier hope. The young orator, meeting his\nfather, is shocked at his sudden appearance of age and gloom: \u201cHe\nhad come a long way from the buoyant faith of \u201966, and the change in\nhim was typical of the change in the West--in America.\u201d \u201cThe almost\nuniversal disappointment and suffering of the West was typical.\u201d\n\u201cAll the gilding of farm life melted away. The hard and bitter\nrealities came back upon me in a flood ... Every house I visited had\nits individual message of sordid struggle and half-hidden despair.\u201d\nGarland, then, has given us a cross-section of our national history; he\nhas faithfully recorded the \u201calmost universal\u201d despair which greets men\nwho would \u201creign like kings in fairyland.\u201d\n\nRolvaag\u2019s _Giants in the Earth_, \u201cA Saga of the Prairie,\u201d is\nanother impressive record of the Odyssey \u201cToward the Sunset\u201d of the\nfrontiersman and the finding of despair instead of the pot of gold.\nPer Hansa and his religious wife Beret, Norwegians, journey \u201cstraight\ntoward the west, straight toward the sky line,\u201d \u201cdeeper and deeper\ninto a bluish-green infinity--on and on, ... for Sunset Land.\u201d\nFinally they halt and raise a sod hut in \u201cthe endless solitude,\u201d the\n\u201ceternal, unbroken wilderness\u201d; they plant crops, and winter sets\nin; Beret has a child. Here again we meet the two planes of frontier\nconsciousness--idyllic hope built on illusion and the dread of a sordid\nand terrifying reality.\n\n  \u201cThat summer Per Hansa was transported, was carried farther and\n  ever farther away on the wings of a wonderful fairy tale--a romance\n  in which he was both prince and king, the sole possessor of\n  countless treasures. In this, as in all other fairy tales, the\n  story grew ever more fascinating and dear to the heart, the farther\n  it advanced.... Ever more beautiful grew the tale; ever more\n  dazzlingly shone the sunlight over the fairy castle.\u201d\n\nOn one side there is the \u201cdivine restlessness,\u201d the \u201cenchanting\njoyousness\u201d of Per Hansa, on the other, Beret\u2019s poignant yearning for\nhuman companionship and inner spiritual peace which her dread of the\nstark reality cannot satisfy. \u201cBleak, grey, God-forsaken, the empty\ndesolation stretched on every hand ... How could one lift up one\u2019s\nvoice against such silence!\u201d As winter came on Beret saw only the snow,\nand for her the day \u201cdied in a pitch-black night that weighed down the\nheart.\u201d Her reflections give the key to the book:\n\n  \u201cThe country did not at all come up to her expectations; here, too,\n  she saw enough of poverty and grinding toil. What did it avail,\n  that the rich soil lay in endless stretches? More than ever did she\n  realise that \u2018man liveth not by bread alone.\u2019... Even the bread was\n  none too plentiful at times....\n\n  \u201cBut no sooner had they reached America than the west-fever had\n  smitten the old settlements like a plague. Such a thing had never\n  happened before in the history of mankind; people were intoxicated\n  by bewildering visions; they spoke dazedly, as though under the\n  force of a spell.... \u2018Go west!... Go west, folks!... The farther\n  west, the better the land!\u2019 Men beheld in feverish dreams the\n  endless plains, teeming with fruitfulness, glowing, out there\n  where day sank into night--a Beulah Land of corn and wine!... Ever\n  westward led the course, to where the sun glowed in matchless glory\n  as it sank at night; people drifted about in a sort of delirium,\n  like birds in mating time; then they flew toward the sunset, in\n  small flocks and large--always toward Sunset Land.... Now she saw\n  it clearly: here on the trackless plains, the thousand-year-old\n  hunger of the poor after human happiness had been unloosed!\u201d\n\nAs she expects to die in childbirth, she pleads with Per Hansa to take\nthe other children back to civilisation: \u201cHuman beings cannot exist\nhere!... They grow into beasts!\u201d And the magic of a fairy tale turns\nout to be simply nature red in tooth and claw. In the last section of\nthe book, entitled \u201cThe Great Plain Drinks the Blood of Christian Men\nand is Satisfied,\u201d the story is told of how Per Hansa the faithful, the\nhopeful, the loving husband and father, is frozen to death while going\nfor a doctor to help a neighbour.\n\n  \u201cThere was the Red Son of the Great Prairie, who hated the\n  Palefaces with a hot hatred; stealthily he swooped down upon them,\n  tore up and laid waste the little settlements. Great was the terror\n  he spread; bloody the saga concerning him.\n\n  \u201cBut more to be dreaded than this tribulation was the strange spell\n  of sadness which the unbroken solitude cast upon the minds of some.\n  Many took their own lives; asylum after asylum was filled with\n  disordered beings who had once been human.... Then, too, there were\n  years of pestilence--toil and travail, famine and disease.\u201d\n\nThe frontier is exhausted, but it should be carefully noted that the\nquest for a physical, external paradise lives on in the American\nmachine-age, in the dream of an industrial Utopia. To take but one\nillustration recorded in our fiction, Sherwood Anderson\u2019s _Poor\nWhite_--paralleling the frontier stories--traces the transition\nfrom the optimism born of untapped resources to the despair of a\nstandardised industrialism. It is the tale of a stolid boy, Hugh McVey,\nwho manages to invent machines from which every one hopes great things;\nit is supposed to be typical, to present a cross-section of American\nlife.\n\n  \u201cIn every mind the future was bright with promise. Throughout the\n  whole Mid-American country ... a hopeful spirit prevailed.... The\n  youth and optimistic spirit of the country led it to take hold of\n  the hand of the giant, industrialism, and lead him laughing into\n  the land.... The thing that was happening in Bidwell happened in\n  towns all over the Middle West. Out through the coal and iron\n  regions of Pennsylvania, into Ohio and Indiana, and on westward\n  into the States bordering on the Mississippi River, industry\n  crept. Gas and oil were discovered in Ohio and Indiana. Over night\n  towns grew into cities. A madness took hold of the minds of the\n  people.... Wealth seemed to be spurting out of the very earth....\n  Farmers owning oil-producing land went to bed in the evening poor\n  and owing money at the bank, and awoke in the morning rich.\u201d\n\nBut Hugh McVey, \u201cthe poor white, son of the defeated dreamer by the\nriver,\u201d finds mere money and the satisfaction of physical needs\ninsufficient. \u201cHe was unfilled by the life he led.\u201d Conscious of\n\u201csome indefinable, inner struggle,\u201d \u201che fought to accept himself, to\nunderstand himself, to relate himself with the life about him.\u201d For\nthe sanctity of the individual personality America had substituted the\nworship of mass production, of material gain.\n\n  \u201cIt was a time of hideous architecture, a time when thought and\n  learning paused. Without music, without poetry, without beauty in\n  their lives or impulses, a whole people, full of the native energy\n  and strength of lives lived in a new land, rushed pell-mell into a\n  new age.\u201d\n\nIn place of the free workman, joyously expressing with his own hands\nthe dream of his own mind, came the factory-hand, blindly bitter from\nthe machine-standardisation which thwarted the self-expression which\neven the farmer enjoyed. In the town of Bidwell, Jim Gibson exults\nin selling machine-made harnesses and ruining Joe Wainsworth, the\nold harness maker. Finally, in a fit of rage Wainsworth kills his\ntormentor. Clara, the wife of Hugh McVey, points the moral:\n\n  \u201cIn her mind the harness maker had come to stand for all the men\n  and women who were in secret revolt against the absorption of the\n  age in machines and the products of machines. He had stood as a\n  protesting figure against what her father had become and what she\n  thought her husband had become.... As a child she had gone often to\n  Wainsworth\u2019s shop with her father or some farm hand, and she now\n  remembered sharply the peace and quiet of the place.... Everything\n  worth while is very far away.... The machines men are so intent on\n  making have carried them very far from the old sweet things.\u201d\n\nAnd we have Anderson\u2019s summary indictment of industrialism:\n\n  \u201cModern men and women who live in industrial cities are like mice\n  that have come out of the fields to live in houses that do not\n  belong to them. They live within the dark walls of the houses where\n  only a dim light penetrates, and so many have come that they grow\n  thin and haggard with the constant toil of getting food and warmth.\u201d\n\nThus those who have sought an American paradise of nature, a physical\nparadise, have reported finding only despair. In essentials this hope\nis identical with the primitivistic and industrial hope which Europe\nfound inadequate over a century ago. Wordsworth, the high priest of\nnaturalism, confessed he had \u201ctoo blindly reposed\u201d his trust, and he\nhad the wisdom to seek the support of the classical and the Christian\ntraditions. And Ruskin and Carlyle exposed the criminal fallacies\ninvolved in setting material gain above the sanctity of the individual\npersonality. But when this outworn, exploded philosophy, based upon\nprimitivism, faith in natural goodness, absolute liberty, _laissez\nfaire_, and reliance upon nature and material things, was transplanted\nto the vast material resources of a frontier land, it was given a\nnew, hysterical lease of life. Now, a century and a quarter later, a\ndisenchanted America agrees with the English naturalist who testified\nof his infinite \u201cdejection\u201d and his conviction that man\n\n            \u201cmay not hope from outward forms to win\n  The passion and the life, whose fountains are within.\u201d\n\n\nIII\n\nIf those who have entered the American Door of Hope in quest of\nhappiness have reported that it is to be found neither in the Land of\nthe Blue Flower nor in the Land of Sensuous Desire, let us inquire what\nthose have reported who have sought the happiness of self-perfection,\nof an exalted personal life, of \u201cA Paradise within thee, happier\nfar.\u201d This quest involves a definitely focused aspiration toward,\nand a disciplined imitation of what is most richly and deeply human,\nof what is most balanced and poised and complete, of what has in the\npast been reported to yield lasting contentment and peace. This sort\nof quest is very old. To Plato and Aristotle, justice, the crown of\nlife, consisted of the ideal balance of all the desires. Behind the\nHoratian doctrine of the golden mean--_auream mediocritatem_--and\nCicero\u2019s praise of _mediocritatem illam quae est inter nimium et parum_\nis the ideal of mediation and centrality. The Christian tradition,\naccording to Mr. G. K. Chesterton, is peculiar in its reconciling of\nopposites, in its synthetic balance. At any rate, the worldly classical\nand the other-worldly Christian traditions have united in upholding\nthe doctrines of imitation, restraint, of a dualistic conflict in\nman between appetite and aspiration, and of a definitely focused\naspiration which culminates in inner peace. In the Middle Ages the\n\u201claw for measure\u201d was allied to the theory of the four humours, the\nbalance of which caused health, the excess of any one of which caused\n\u201cone-sidedness\u201d and disease. In the Renaissance the author of _Everyman\nin His Humour_ used satire to render eccentricity ridiculous, and the\nHamlet who allowed all to be \u201csicklied o\u2019er with the pale cast of\nthought\u201d recognised that \u201cby the o\u2019ergrowth of some complexion,\u201d by\n\u201cone defect,\u201d men \u201ctake corruption.\u201d He honoured Horatio, his \u201csoul\u2019s\nchoice,\u201d because in him \u201cblood and judgment are so well commingl\u2019d.\u201d\nThe Elizabethans recognised that a great man, like a tall tower,\nmust be balanced at all points, or be drawn down to ruin by his own\nstrength. If space permitted, one might trace through the impetus given\nscientific specialisation and material progress by Bacon and the Royal\nSociety, through such figures as Congreve and Pope and Edward Young\nand Rousseau, the gradual evolution of the theory of humours into\nthe theory of the master-passion and the \u201coriginal genius\u201d of being\nidiosyncratic. But let us remember that Milton, uniting the Renaissance\npassion for sensuous delight and the Puritan passion for saintliness,\nkept his sublime balance, his vision of centrality, his ideal of\nself-mastery. His exhortation to Adam as he leaves the physical\nparadise of Eden is his exhortation to us:\n\n                                    \u201cOnly add\n  Deeds to thy knowledge answerable; add faith;\n  Add virtue, patience, temperance; add love\n  By name to come called Charity, the soul\n  Of all the rest: then wilt thou not be loth\n  To leave this Paradise, but shalt possess\n  A Paradise within thee, happier far.\u201d\n\nMindful of the dark impulses of the natural man, the great liberal\ndistinguished sharply between anarchy and the true liberty resulting\nfrom the substitution of inner for outer control: \u201cLicense they mean\nwhen they cry Liberty,\u201d he remarks of the Cavaliers, \u201cFor who loves\nthat must first be wise and good.\u201d \u201cHe who reigns within himself ... is\nmore than a king.... Real and substantial liberty is rather from within\nthan from without.\u201d\n\nAmericans may well be proud that this noble hope partially lives on\nin Emerson, our greatest man of letters, who found Milton \u201cforemost\nof all men ... to inspire,\u201d to communicate \u201cthe vibration of hope, of\nself-reverence, of piety, of delight in beauty.\u201d Out of materialistic\nAmerica has come this \u201cfriend and aider of those who would live in\nthe spirit,\u201d who strove above all to celebrate \u201cthe Ideal and Holy\nLife, the life within life, ... the spiritual powers in their infinite\ncontrast to the mechanical powers and the mechanical philosophy of this\ntime.\u201d It is true, of course, that Emerson did not altogether escape\nthe contagion of his romantic age; that in his apparent praise of the\nunique and the individual, in his most un-Miltonic faith in natural\ngoodness, in his belittling of logic, of tradition, and of the aid\nwhich culture can give as a guide to conduct, Emerson has a certain\nkinship with Rousseau. Let us grant it--and guard against it! One must\nrecall, however, that part of his dubious influence has resulted from\na superficial and piece-meal reading of Emerson, encouraged by his\ncharacteristic oracular device of presenting two conflicting statements\nrather than a balanced and qualified generalisation. If one reads\nall of Emerson, however, in an endeavour to relate and define his\nthought, it is apparent, as Professor Harrison and Professor Foerster\nhave found, that his stronger affinities are not with Rousseau but\nwith Plato and the humanists. His central doctrine of self-reliance\nturns out to be a reliance on a self which is not unique but common to\nall men, \u201ca reliance upon man\u2019s share of divinity,\u201d upon his higher,\nuniversal self. \u201cWe become divine,\u201d he says, not by eccentricity, by\nrevolt, but by \u201cobedience,\u201d by conformity to \u201cthe common heart,\u201d to\nwhat is normally, typically, and nobly human. In fact he strictly\nwarns us against the \u201crudeness\u201d of failing to \u201cdistinguish between\nthe private and the universal consciousness.\u201d He perceived the\nunity of man, the need of spiritual concentration; his occasional\nassumption of good intentions is balanced by his own Spartan virtue\nand his confession that \u201cbecause the temptations are so manifold and\nso subtle,\u201d he agrees with Socrates and the Hindoos in denominating\nthe Supreme Being the \u201cInternal Check.\u201d In common with the Christian\ntradition, he sharply severs the \u201claw for man\u201d from the \u201claw for\nthing.\u201d He is aware of \u201cthe eternal distinction between the soul and\nthe world,\u201d aware that too great a preoccupation with the outward,\nsensuous, mundane life about us (the \u201cwork\u201d rather than the \u201cworkman\u201d)\nat the expense of \u201cthe integrity of your own mind\u201d and deeper spiritual\nneeds, breeds a dread of transience and hence \u201cuneasiness\u201d and\ndespair. Behind the fleeting scenes of daily life he perceived \u201cthat\nwhich changes not,\u201d permanent human elements common to every one, the\ncultivation of which gave him that sweet serenity, that \u201ccheerfulness\nand courage\u201d which Arnold pronounced the outcome of his philosophy,\n\u201chis abiding word for us.\u201d \u201cHappiness in labour, righteousness,\nand veracity; in all the life of the spirit; happiness and eternal\nhope;--that was Emerson\u2019s gospel.\u201d\n\nHere, then, in our own native tradition is a sort of hope which led to\nhappiness. Can such a hope, however, be reconciled with the artist\u2019s\ndevotion to beauty? To Emerson, as to the \u00e6sthetes, art is simply \u201cthe\ncreation of beauty,\u201d \u201cbeauty is its own excuse for being,\u201d and \u201cthe\nBeautiful is the highest.\u201d But, unlike the \u00e6sthetes, he proclaims the\nunity and parity of beauty, truth, and goodness--\u201cdifferent faces of\nthe same All.\u201d Beauty has \u201cits source in perfect goodness\u201d; it is \u201cthe\nmark God sets upon virtue.\u201d In other words, the rarest beauty is a\nby-product of that perfect harmony by which a man realises his complete\nhumanity, his complete happiness. This ideal of beauty was given the\nsupport of a literary creed by James Russell Lowell, who never feared\nto expose the weakness of a romanticism whose ultimate fruit was a\n\u201cmelancholy liver-complaint.\u201d He urged the study and creation of a\nliterature which should be an ideal representation of life, \u201cstripped\nof all unessential particulars\u201d by an imagination which found \u201cthe\ntrue ideal\u201d not by escape but by a purposeful selection of the real.\nFor Lowell as for Emerson the \u201cfirst duty\u201d of the artist \u201cis to be\ndelightful.\u201d He distinguishes, however, between a merely recreational\n\u201cliterature as holiday\u201d and a literature which, ideally \u201crepresenting\nlife, ... teaches, like life, by indirection.\u201d Such a literature,\nministering to all the higher needs of the mind and spirit, yields the\ngreatest delight and the greatest beauty.\n\nAspiration and art of this quality, however, are rare in American\nfiction. We looked for them in vain in the seekers for a paradise of\nsupernal beauty, and in the seekers for an American paradise of nature.\nGreat as is Hawthorne as an artist, in my judgment he falls short of an\naspiration of the Emersonian quality on account of his penchant for the\neccentric, the fanciful, and the morbid. One seeks it in vain in the\nrealists\u2019 transcripts from life, which lack the selection and focusing\nthat distinguish art from experience. There is evidence, nevertheless,\nthat the novel is no longer hostile to the specifically human destiny\nof normal humanity, no longer oblivious to that rare beauty which is\nthe by-product of the struggle by which a noble character imposes order\non the chaos of natural desire and approaches the imaginative ideal of\na life richly varied, finely poised, and of exalted happiness.\n\nI have space for but one example in modern fiction--Dorothy Canfield\u2019s\n_The Brimming Cup_. This deals with the \u201ceternal triangle\u201d in a\nlittle Vermont town. Marise Chittenden, whose children have gradually\ntaken her interest from Neale, her husband, becomes lonely when her\nchildren all go to school and she senses that \u201cthe days of her physical\nflowering are numbered.\u201d She is loved by Marsh, a wealthy man visiting\nher elderly neighbour Mr. Wells; Marsh tries to convince her that\nshe is sacrificing \u201ca world of impassioned living\u201d for \u201can outworn\nideal\u201d of \u201cthe traditional thing to do.\u201d The characters, not always\nvividly humanised, symbolise man\u2019s universe. Marise, the \u201cbrimming\ncup,\u201d \u201cfilled with some emotion ... gushing up in a great flooding\nrush,\u201d typifies the surge of impulse. Marsh, a \u201cswirly brook,\u201d to\nwhom life is but a moment\u2019s \u201cblind sensual groping and grabbing\u201d\nbefore the \u201cbig final smash-up,\u201d typifies unbridled lust and greed.\nThe \u201csteady, visible light\u201d of Neale\u2019s life, Neale who had found\ntrue freedom by conquering his \u201cgreat, fierce, unguessed appetite,\nthe longing for wandering, lawless freedom,\u201d typifies centrality.\nMr. Wells, who surrenders \u201cthe happiness that comes of living as\nsuits his nature\u201d to help make the world more courteous to negroes,\ntypifies humanitarian sympathy. The much-travelled Eugenia typifies\n\u201csophisticated cosmopolitanism,\u201d \u00e6sthetic escape: to her \u201ceverything\u2019s\nso common-place\u201d; she cultivates her fading beauty by \u201cbreathing in and\nout through one nostril, and thinking of the Infinite!\u201d Cousin Hetty\nsymbolises tradition; the Indian Toucl\u00e9, mysticism. Marise sees her\nconflict as one not between \u201croutine, traditional, narrow domestic life\nand the mightiness and richness of mature passion,\u201d but as a conflict\nbetween the lure of sensuousness and \u201cwhat is deepest and most living\nin you.\u201d It is a psychological novel, a novel of introspection: it\nis based on the quest, not for what is conventionally moral, but for\nwhat in the end gives the richest human satisfaction. It presents a\nstruggle based on self-reliance and self-conquest. Neale \u201cwanted her\nto be herself, to be all that Marise could ever grow to be, he wanted\nher to attain her full stature.\u201d \u201cNothing is your own, if you haven\u2019t\nmade it so.\u201d Marise wonders if her mother-love is what Marsh calls\n\u201cinverted sensuality\u201d; Neale says, \u201cLook into your own heart and see\nfor yourself.\u201d He \u201clonged for her sake to have her strike out into the\ndeep,\u201d he knew that peace could only come from \u201cMarise\u2019s acting with\nher own strength on her own decision.\u201d He urges not outer but inner\ncontrol--\u201cas few umpires as possible.\u201d In her conflict Marise sought\n\u201cwhat was deepest and most living in her ...; that was what the voices\nwere trying to cry her down from finding.\u201d She longed to be \u201cone with\nthe great current\u201d--Emerson\u2019s \u201cstream of power.\u201d She discovers that she\nis being lured by \u201cthe conventional pose of revolt,\u201d that separation\nfrom her children would not be true \u201cgrowth and freedom, and generous\nexpansion of the soul.\u201d Like Milton and Emerson, she finally becomes\nfree by discovering and obeying what is deepest within:\n\n  \u201cShe was a free woman, free from something in her heart that was\n  afraid. For the moment she could think of nothing else beyond the\n  richness of that freedom. Why, here was the total fulfilment she\n  had longed for. Here was the life more abundant, within, within her\n  own heart, waiting for her!\u201d\n\nJoyous in her centrality, poise and freedom, she sees Marsh as an\n\u201cundeveloped and tyrannical soul, the cramped mind without experience\nor conception of breadth and freedom.\u201d \u201cHow narrow and cramped,\u201d\nand \u201cblinded to the bigness and variety of life\u201d seemed people who\nthought that \u201ca woman of beauty and intelligence\u201d was wasting her\nlife \u201cunless she was engaged in ... stimulating ... sexual desire.\u201d\nMarise had the serene joy of her home, her beloved children and her\nunderstanding husband; she had the marvel of her music; and she had\nthe surpassing wisdom to seek her happiness not in the miraculous but\nin the common--in the symbolic neighbourly gathering on the night of\nthe blooming of the Cereus, that rite of beauty; in the calm strength\nof simple folk whom experience has made wise. And this woman, living\nout her \u201cheritage, alive and rooted deep,\u201d with her \u201cvivid charm like\nan aureole of golden mist,\u201d \u201cfelt slowly coming into her, like a tide\nof a great ocean,\u201d the ineffable peace which comes from self-mastery,\nfrom the quest of what is most universally and nobly human. Calm and\nfree, she was lifted \u201chigh, high above the smallness of life, up to a\nrich realm of security in joy.\u201d\n\n\nIV\n\nWhat are we to conclude from this cursory sketch of the quality of\nthree different sorts of American hope represented in our fiction?\nTo the hope for a paradise of supernal beauty we owe much delicate\nartistry of a high order; one may maintain, however, as Emerson and\nLowell did, that other things being equal, the truthful representation\nof typical humanity alone produces that harmony which yields the\nhighest beauty. To this hope we owe much which, when read for\nrecreation, can give delight; one takes issue only with those, like\nPoe and Cabell, who take Arcadianism seriously as a universal way of\nlife and would substitute it for a literary ideal which resolutely\nconfronts life and seeks to solve its meaning. To the hope for a\nparadise of American nature, a physical paradise, we owe the imposing\nof order upon the natural chaos of the wilderness; we owe the physical\n\u201cimprovements,\u201d the miracles of the machinery and science of a great\nnation. Of what ultimate avail, however, are material resources,\nphysical comfort, time-saving machinery, and science unless the time\nand energy conserved are used for higher intellectual or spiritual\nends, for the attainment of happiness? To those who have recorded this\nhope in fiction we owe the faithful preservation of an important aspect\nof the social history of America; but literature is greater than social\nhistory: it aspires to embody the meaning of life in terms at once\ntimeless and universal and beautiful. Our frontier lands are exhausted,\nand those who have sought the physical paradise of a standardized\nindustrialism have found nothing but boredom and despair. In place of\nthis dead level of repression and standardisation let us develop a new\nrespect for personality--for personality richly varied and healthily\nindividual. Let us re-direct the joy-giving passion for creation\nthrough the matchless resources of the realm of the spirit. If both\nthe rarest happiness and the rarest beauty are the fruit only of the\nhope of a paradise within, it would appear that American fiction would\nin the future be wise in dealing not with escape or with externalities\nbut with the infinite variety and eternal mystery of the human soul\u2019s\nconflict between appetite and aspiration on its quest for an exalted\ninward happiness. Before we can expect American fiction to do this,\nhowever, the way must be prepared by the development of an adequate\nsocial imagination. For great art has always been organic with and\nsupported by the life and vision of a whole people. Shakespeare was the\n\u201cSoul of the Age,\u201d Dante the \u201cvoice of ten silent centuries.\u201d A hope\nmust have throbbed in the breasts of a whole age before a writer can\nbody it forth with the concentration, the brooding intensity, and the\nunerring congruency to human nature demanded of great art. Such a hope,\nsuch a social imagination, such an agreement in aspiration, can be\ndeveloped best, perhaps, through education--through our interpreters of\nliterature in college and university. Mindful of the heritage of heroic\npioneers, we must embark upon our intellectual pioneering with the same\nresolute courage, the same loyal devotion, the same consecration to a\nhigh cause. Although our scholars are still being lured aside either to\nthe camp of the \u00e6sthetes or the camp of the philologists, America must\nhereafter strive to develop the \u201cmiddle-of-the-road\u201d scholar who shall\nbe, as Emerson said, Man Thinking, the delegated mind of society, whose\nmajor aim shall be the purposeful and discriminating interpretation of\nthe record man has left, in terms of beauty, regarding \u201cthe conduct of\nlife\u201d and the path to peace. When such scholar-critics have developed\nsuch a social imagination, such a popular unanimity of hope, we shall\nbe ready to receive the artist of genius who is to write for us the\ngreat American novel.\n\n  Note--For copyrighted evidence used in the foregoing essay I am\n  indebted as follows: Sherwood Anderson, _Poor White_ (Modern\n  Library, N. Y., 1925); Dorothy Canfield Fisher, _The Brimming\n  Cup_ (Grosset and Dunlap, N. Y., 1921); James Branch Cabell,\n  _The Cream of the Jest_ (Modern Library, N. Y., 1922); _Jurgen_\n  (Grosset and Dunlap, N. Y., 1927); _Beyond Life_ (Modern Library,\n  N. Y., 1919); _Straws and Prayerbooks_ (Robert M. McBride and\n  Co., N. Y., 1925); Willa Cather, _The Professor\u2019s House_ (Alfred\n  A. Knopf, N. Y., 1925); Floyd Dell, _Moon-Calf_ (Alfred A. Knopf,\n  N. Y., 1921); R. W. Emerson, _Complete Works_ (Houghton Mifflin\n  Co., Boston, 1903); _Journals_ (Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston,\n  1909-14); _The Correspondence of Emerson and Carlyle_ (Houghton\n  Mifflin Co., Boston, 1888); Norman Foerster, _American Criticism_\n  (Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston, 1928); Hamlin Garland, _A Son of\n  the Middle Border_ (Grosset and Dunlap, N. Y., 1927); Joseph\n  Hergesheimer, _Linda Condon_ (Alfred A. Knopf, N. Y., 1919); Mark\n  Twain, _Complete Works_ (American Publishing Co., Hartford, 1903);\n  A. B. Paine, _Mark Twain, A Biography_ (Harper and Brothers, N. Y.,\n  1912); F. L. Pattee, \u201cJames Fenimore Cooper\u201d (_American Mercury_,\n  Alfred A. Knopf, N. Y.); Gregory Paine, Introduction to _The\n  Deerslayer_ (Harcourt, Brace and Co., N. Y., 1927); O. E. Rolvaag,\n  _Giants in the Earth_ (Harper and Brothers, N. Y., 1929).\n\n\n\n\n_Dionysus in Dismay_\n\nSTANLEY P. CHASE\n\n\nTwenty-five years ago, when my generation were beginning to find their\nway around in the world of print and paint, a group of us used to\nmeet occasionally to share each other\u2019s discoveries in contemporary\nthought and literature. You may smile at the association of the date\n1904 and contemporary literature, and confessedly some of the objects\nof our attention were fantastic enough--Elbert Hubbard, Edward Howard\nGriggs, and even \u201cI, Mary MacLane.\u201d The more daring among us were\ndelving in Haeckel and Henry George; our conservatives, according to\ntheir bents, delighted in Kipling and Barrie, or a group of alluring\nCelts, or became expert in discriminations between the earlier and the\nlater manner of Henry James. We all read, of course, William James and\nBernard Shaw and H. G. Wells and Chesterton. In poetry, to be sure, we\nhad no such variegated menu as the contemporary road-house affords; I\nshould say that our diet was easily digestible and a little saccharine.\nFor the most part, as I recall, we followed along the vagabondia trail\nafter Richard Hovey and Bliss Carman. In that old college town near the\ncoast, we could still thrill to such verses as\n\n  Three of us without a care\n  In the red September\n  Tramping down the roads of Maine,\n  Making merry with the rain,\n  With the fellow winds a-fare\n  Where the winds remember.\n\nFrost and Sandburg, Lindsay and Masefield, had not come into our\nworld--much less Walter de la Mare or Aldous Huxley or Robinson\nJeffers. But we were not so entirely neglected by the contemporary\nmuse as you may suppose. We knew the early work of Yeats, and \u201cThe\nHound of Heaven\u201d of Francis Thompson; we had discovered the sonnets\nof Santayana; we could repeat a large part of _A Shropshire Lad_; and\nof course for our more cosmic moods we had Walt Whitman. Hundreds of\nother such groups must have existed, like ours callow, inexperienced,\nbumptious, but very inquisitive, very receptive. Not against us did the\n\u201cnew poetry\u201d (no longer such) have to hurl its bolts.\n\nAnd even in that distant, unreal decade of the nineteen-hundreds,\nbefore President Roosevelt, by a few kindly pages in the _Outlook_, put\nEdwin Arlington Robinson\u2019s name into every one\u2019s mouth, we knew the\npoet of \u201cTilbury Town\u201d (only thirty miles from our own). There was one\npoem of his whose meaning used to be a great subject of dispute,--for\nwe were than na\u00efve enough to think that a poem must be susceptible of\nsome rational explanation. It was entitled \u201cCort\u00e8ge,\u201d and had appeared\nin the _Captain Craig_ volume of 1902.[45]\n\n  Four o\u2019clock this afternoon,\n  Fifteen hundred miles away:\n  So it goes, the crazy tune,\n  So it pounds and hums all day.\n\n  Four o\u2019clock this afternoon,\n  Earth will hide them far away:\n  Best they go to go so soon,\n  Best for them the grave to-day.\n\n  Had she gone but half so soon,\n  Half the world had passed away.\n  Four o\u2019clock this afternoon,\n  Best for them they go to-day.\n\n  Four o\u2019clock this afternoon\n  Love will hide them deep, they say;\n  Love that made the grave so soon,\n  Fifteen hundred miles away.\n\n  Four o\u2019clock this afternoon--\n  Ah, but they go slow to-day:\n  Slow to suit my crazy tune,\n  Past the need of all we say.\n\n  Best it came to come so soon,\n  Best for them they go to-day:\n  Four o\u2019clock this afternoon,\n  Fifteen hundred miles away.\n\nThe half-benumbing, half-intensifying effect of the \u201ccrazy tune,\u201d the\ncurious way in which a mere pattern of words can usurp the mind, now\nstealing its attention from the very grief they point to, and now\nflashing upon it a new aspect of that grief--something like that,\nI suppose, accounts for the fascination the poem had for us. But a\nnumber of us were dissatisfied with an explanation so simple. No, we\nwanted to know, first, who and how many persons were being buried at\nfour o\u2019clock to-day, and their relationship to the poet (was it, for\ninstance, a former sweetheart and her husband?), and whether \u201cshe\u201d in\nthe third stanza was one of the deceased, and in what sense it could\nbe said that Love \u201cmade the grave so soon,\u201d and what \u201chalf so soon\u201d\nmeant--was it any different from \u201ctwice as soon\u201d? We even calculated\nthat the burial must be taking place some fifteen hundred miles to the\n_west_, since otherwise, all (Protestant) funerals being held commonly\nat two o\u2019clock, the poet\u2019s time would be twelve noon instead of four\nafternoon. All, of course, very silly and irrelevant questions.\n\nOnly a few years ago, in a poetry course, I was recalling these old\nagitations of ours, as a warning, I feel sure, against such literalness\nof interpretation. But, as will happen with class-room instruction, my\nadmonitions produced quite the opposite effect from that intended, for\none member of the class was so intrigued by the problem, even as we had\nbeen twenty years before, that he evolved the staggering theory that\nthe poem was not about a funeral at all, but about a marriage. This\ningenious view having been communicated, in a circuitous way, to Mr.\nRobinson, he settled the matter quite simply with the following note to\nthe inquirer:\n\n  \u201cI have long given up attempting to interpret my own poetry, but\n  in this instance, would go so far as to suggest a funeral rather\n  than a marriage. I remember this poem chiefly as a more or less\n  reprehensible experiment in sound and feeling--a performance more\n  pardonable thirty years ago--perhaps--than it would be to-day.\u201d\n\nOf course, it was not Mr. Robinson\u2019s performance, but ours, which was\nreprehensible. We were treating an \u201cexperiment in sound and feeling\u201d\nas we might have treated a deposition in court or an application for\nthe payment of life-insurance; we were bringing to a poem an attitude\nof mind alien to its character _as a poem_. It was as if one should\nread Mr. Frost\u2019s \u201cThe Thatch\u201d and demand to know _why_ he \u201cwould not\ngo in till the light went out.\u201d For \u201cCort\u00e8ge\u201d in essential matters is\nnot cryptic in the least; it is only irrelevant, external details that\nare left unexplained. And ultimately, I suppose, what we call a taste\nfor poetry, of any except a very elementary sort, depends upon the\npossession of tact or intelligence to perceive just such a distinction.\n\nI have used this personal recollection because much more frequently\nto-day and to a greater degree a somewhat similar feeling of puzzlement\nassails the reader of contemporary poetry. This simple instance of an\nobscurity gratuitously created by readers may lead to the consideration\nof a problem of poetic form more comprehensive than any question of\nmere technique (though technical elements of poetry are involved in\nit too), I mean the question of those necessities which are laid on\npoetry from its being a form of communication between mind and mind.\nFor, I believe, from misapprehension and confusion in this matter,\non the part now of poets and now of their readers, springs, to some\nextent, the unsatisfactory state of poetry at the present time. On\nthe one side, there is reported a feeling of exasperation, by readers\ncompetent enough in other kinds of literature or in the older poetry,\nwho \u201ccan make nothing of this modernist stuff,\u201d and on the other side\nthe modernists\u2019 rejoinder that such readers are precisely in the\nposition of my group of twenty-five years ago--lacking the intelligence\nto grasp what is essential and to disregard non-essentials. Surely a\nconsideration of the nature and limits of that community of mind which\nmust be assumed to subsist between the poet and his readers is not\nforeign to the subject of this book.\n\n\nI\n\nAt the outset we encounter the Crocean view of all art, including\npoetry, as expression merely, and conversely of all expression\nas art. But leaving the confusions of Signor Croce to be dealt\nwith by others,[46] we are warranted in assuming, I think, that,\ngenerally and typically, the poet desires communication with other\npersons,--conceivably only one other person, or persons of the\nfuture, but at any rate communication and not merely self-expression.\nOtherwise, he wouldn\u2019t publish or circulate or read his poems, as\ngenerally and typically poets do. The theory of Laura Riding and\nRobert Graves[47] that the poet publishes (or \u201cexternalises\u201d) only\nout of consideration for the rights of the poem, which, like physical\noffspring, has attained an independent status with a life of its own,\nis a na\u00efve and superfluous bit of mystification, sufficiently answered\nby the query, \u201cWhy then sign one\u2019s name?\u201d--and I have not remarked any\nunusually wide return to the practice of anonymity. And one is led\nto wonder, as one turns the pages of our more advanced periodicals,\nwhat possible readers some of these poets are addressing. After a\nmoderate success in comprehending, let us say, such diverse productions\nas those of the medi\u00e6val mystics, the wits of the Roman Empire and\nthe Restoration, the English metaphysical poets, and the symbolist\ngroup in France, and after a period of conscientious schooling in\nthe pronouncements of this newest movement, it is disconcerting to\nfind oneself completely balked by the innocent-appearing contents of\nthe latest anthology of verse. Among the ten possible but improbable\ninterpretations of some poem, it seems somehow less than a sporting\nchance that the one you finally choose as the least implausible will be\nwhat was intended.\n\nTake, for instance, this poem of Mr. Wallace Stevens, which I select\nnot as an example of that writer\u2019s often delightful connoisseurship in\nverse, but as fairly representative of this decline in what has been\ncalled \u201ccommunicative efficacy.\u201d\n\n  ANECDOTE OF THE JAR[48]\n\n  I placed a jar in Tennessee,\n  And round it was, upon a hill.\n  It made the slovenly wilderness\n  Surround that hill.\n\n  The wilderness rose up to it,\n  And sprawled around, no longer wild.\n  The jar was round upon the ground\n  And tall and of a port in air.\n\n  It took dominion everywhere.\n  The jar was grey and bare.\n  It did not give of bird or bush,\n  Like nothing else in Tennessee.\n\nNow the elements of this experience--the jar, its shape, colour, and\nquality, the hill in Tennessee where it is placed, the behaviour or\nappearance of the wilderness, the bird, the bush--stand doubtless in\nsome kind of relation with each other in the poet\u2019s mind, have possibly\ncertain symbolic values. Since we have no clues to these relationships\nand values, our mind is free to do anything it pleases with the bare\ngrey jar, the hill, and the wilderness. This freedom, however, and any\npleasure we may take in the separate images, in the rhythms, or the\nplacing of the words, are not sufficient compensation for the state of\nuncertainty and slight irritation in which we are left. Very likely\nthe little poem is meant to suggest nothing more than the superiority,\nto an intensely civilised person, of the simplest bit of handicraft\nover any extent of unregulated \u201cnature,\u201d but it has been seriously\ninterpreted to me, by devotees of recent poetry, as, respectively, an\n_objet d\u2019art_, a sex-symbol, and a burial-urn containing the remains of\na valued friend. And so it must remain, for me, not only like nothing\nelse in Tennessee but like nothing else in the universe.\n\nConsiderable damage was done to this shallow affectation of knowingness\nof the last few years by Max Eastman\u2019s witty article in the April\n(1929) _Harper\u2019s_. A young intellectual from one of our well-known\nprivate schools told me that members of his group were observed to\ndiscontinue their perusal of _transition_[49] upon the appearance\nof Mr. Eastman\u2019s \u201cThe Cult of Unintelligibility.\u201d But contemporary\npoetry is still afflicted by an acute attack of that extreme of\nPuritanism--separatism: it asserts the right not only of private\njudgment, but of a private symbolism,--which is, \u00e6sthetically, of\nmuch graver consequences. My point here, of course, has nothing to do\nwith the values or qualities of the experience which the writer is\npresumably seeking to share. I am simply saying that, in the reading\nof the slightest as of the most profound poem, a sense of singleness\nor wholeness is the most essential part of the experience, and that\nthis totality of effect cannot be achieved if all clues to the way the\npoem is organised are withheld or too casually indicated. The enigmatic\ncharacter of Dr. William Carlos Williams\u2019s poems, we are told, is due\nin part to his habit of jotting down free-verse impressions in the\nintervals between his professional visits to patients. I can only hope\nthat in writing out his prescriptions he makes a greater allowance for\nthe mental capacity of the pharmacist than he seems to make for mine.\nTo speak bluntly, the difficulty of reading much \u201cmodernist\u201d verse is\ndue less to the superior sophistication or cleverness of these writers\nthan to their essential lack of art.\n\nBy contrast, in the following lyric of Elinor Wylie, even though it is\na repudiation of something accustomed, beautiful, and comforting, there\nis so clear and deft an employment of symbol, so perfect a fusion of\nmood with image, that the effect of totality is achieved; the peace\ndenied to this orthodox landscape (or universe) is momentarily attained\nin the very denial of it, and thus one of the functions of poetry is\ndischarged.\n\n  INNOCENT LANDSCAPE[50]\n\n  Here is no peace, although the air has fainted,\n    And footfalls die and are buried in deep grass,\n  And reverential trees are softly painted\n    Like saints upon an oriel of glass.\n\n  The pattern of the atmosphere is spherical,\n    A bubble in the silence of the sun,\n  Blown thinner by the very breath of miracle\n    Around a core of loud confusion.\n\n  Here is no virtue; here is nothing bless\u00e8d\n    Save this foredoomed suspension of the end;\n  Faith is the blossom, but the fruit is curs\u00e8d;\n    Go hence, for it is useless to pretend.\n\n\u201cThe transport ... that the poet kindles in us,\u201d observes Professor\nDe Selincourt in his Inaugural Lecture at Oxford, \u201csprings from our\ninstinctive recognition that his form, a term that includes both rhythm\nand diction, is an entirely faithful rendering of his experience,\nso that we gain from it a sudden clear sense of fulfilment, such as\nwe can hardly hope to gain outside the ideal world of art.\u201d That may\nbe a rather narrowly \u00e6sthetic interpretation of Longinus\u2019s doctrine\nof the poetic \u201ctransport,\u201d but certainly \u201ca sudden clear sense of\nfulfilment\u201d is an experience which it is easy to miss in the poetry of\nour contemporaries.\n\nIn fact, this \u201csense of fulfilment\u201d is precisely what the typical\nmodernist, experiencing nothing of the sort in life itself and\ndisdaining an \u201cideal world\u201d thus cut off from reality, avoids giving\nus. He would regard it as part of the old hocus-pocus of orthodoxy.\nLife being to him fragmentary, inchoate, he would say that his poetry,\nif it is to be \u201can entirely faithful rendering of his experience,\u201d must\nitself produce an effect of inchoateness, fragmentariness.\n\n  THE END OF THE WORLD[51]\n\n  Quite unexpectedly as Vasserot\n  The armless ambidextrian was lighting\n  A match between his great and second toe\n  And Ralph the lion was engaged in biting\n  The neck of Madame Sossman while the drum\n  Pointed, and Teeny was about to cough\n  In waltz-time swinging Jocko by the thumb--\n  Quite unexpectedly the top blew off:\n\n  And there, there overhead, there, there, hung over\n  Those thousands of white faces, those dazed eyes,\n  There in the starless dark the poise, the hover,\n  There with vast wings across the cancelled skies,\n  There in the sudden blackness the black pall\n  Of nothing, nothing, nothing,--nothing at all.\n\nHere Archibald MacLeish, who stands somewhere between the centre and\nthe extreme left wing in poetry, employs a traditional verse-form\nin a poem the theme of which is the absurdity of the spectacle of\nhuman antics in a cosmos without intelligibility or significance. He\nguards against any specious effect of \u201cfulfilment\u201d by the unexpected\nreiteration of the word _nothing_. Yet there remains the regrettable\nnecessity of rounding out the sestet and capping the rhyme; and, more\nimportant, the method of presentation has imposed an adventitious\nkind of order on a scene which, in the poet\u2019s apprehension of it, is\nan even wilder scramble and jumble of absurdities. And so the sonnet,\nthoroughly \u201cmodern\u201d in spirit, is quite conservative in technique.\nThe distinctiveness of this new poetry, indeed, is less a matter of\nmeasures, whether new or old, than of the principle of association\nby which it is governed. It aims at an organisation of images and a\nsuccession of rhythms which spring more immediately from the poet\u2019s\nstream of consciousness.\n\nIn attempting to divert this stream through the reader\u2019s mind, without\nspilling over or filtering, some recent poets have adopted startling\ninnovations in typography, including punctuation, use of capitals and\nsmall letters, spacing, and line-division. The fashion is prompted in\npart by a spirit of mere impishness, but back of it also is a certain\namount of genuine experimentation in the resources and the graphical\nrepresentation of language, the object being to prod the reader out of\nthe lethargy and complacency which, it is alleged, are fostered by the\nconventions of verse-form and page-arrangement. Undeniably, if one is\nwilling to play this game and doesn\u2019t mind having the rules made up as\none goes along, some of the results are amusing. You will understand\nmost readily what it is all about if you first take one of these poems\ndown from some one\u2019s dictation, then attempt to write it as you think\nthe poet would do to bring out the subtler shadings and nuances, and\nfinally compare your representation of the poem with his. Here, for\ninstance, are the words (written as ordinary prose) of a poem by E. E.\nCummings from a group called \u201cImpressions.\u201d\n\n  \u201cI was considering how, within night\u2019s loose sack, a star\u2019s\n  nibbling infinitesimally devours darkness, the hungry star,\n  which will eventually jiggle the bait of dawn and be jerked into\n  eternity, when over my head a shooting-star burst into a stale\n  shriek like an alarm-clock.\u201d[52]\n\nOn the chance that at this point the reader may wish to try the\nexperiment which has been suggested, I postpone to a later page Mr.\nCummings\u2019s original arrangement of the words. If you will compare his\nprinting of the poem with that above, you will see how the tininess and\nthe quick little repeated nibbles of the mouse at the grain-sack are\nsuggested by the short, broken lines; how ingeniously the shooting-star\nis made to interrupt the poet\u2019s revery; how the effect of flare,\nstreaking, and slower fading is conveyed in the printing of \u201cbursts\u201d;\nand how the new simile of the alarm-clock impinges upon the retinal\nimage of the meteor.[53] But--\u201cthe pleasures of sudden wonder are soon\nexhausted.\u201d After scrambling up a hundred or so of these typographical\nescarpments, I found that there was seldom a view from the summit\ncommensurate with the discomforts of the climb, and my interest in\nthe new sport began to flag. It is hard to imagine a mature artist\ninteresting himself for long in this sort of preciosity.\n\nThough each individual\u2019s inner life is in a measure unique, the\nmere attempt to convey some fraction of it to others by written or\nprinted words presupposes a certain shared and common ground of human\nexperience. Freshness, piquancy, gusto, can be properly savoured only\nwhen they are delicately blended with \u201chuman nature\u2019s daily food.\u201d The\nimportance of a common understanding upon essentials is clear in the\nsphere of our personal relationships, which become rich and satisfying\nonly with the mutual recognition of things that may be _taken for\ngranted_; oddities and varieties are most engaging in those with whom\nwe already own a fundamental bond. Now the forms and conventions of\npoetry may be regarded as so many aids to the speedier establishment of\nsuch understanding between reader and poet,--the indispensable means\nby which an original experience is so shaped and clarified that it has\nsignificance for others. No one of these conventions, naturally, is\nabsolutely fixed or static, and skilful manipulation of their elements\nis constantly yielding new and unsuspected possibilities of \u00e6sthetic\npleasure, and even of social comprehension. For this reason we may look\nwith a tolerant and not unfriendly eye upon such experimentation by\nsome of our younger poets as I have described.[54] Nevertheless, it is\nimperative that persons who wish to modify or to replace the accepted\nvehicles of poetic expression should have a clear understanding of\nwhat convention in literature or art is _for_. Adequate treatment of\nthis subject would require a separate book, and here I must content\nmyself with a mere statement of faith: that some set of assumptions as\nto the experiences most valuable and important for mankind--in other\nwords, of universals in the Aristotelian sense--is as necessary in\nthe establishment or the maintenance of an \u00e6sthetic convention as in\nany purely social or political activity. Indeed, the most promising\ndevelopment in American poetry at the present time, I believe, is to\nbe found, not in these centrifugal and eccentric movements, but in the\nconsiderable amount of genuine if less spectacular work which is being\ndone upon the lines of a firmly rooted literary tradition.[55]\n\n\nII\n\nIn the last few paragraphs, though concerned primarily with the aspect\nof communicability, I have been skirting the topic which lies at the\ncentre of all movements of thought and feeling in our day, and with\nwhich I shall be concerned through the rest of this essay. I refer\nto the prevalent spirit of disillusionment, a state of mind which in\nAmerica has made itself felt, acutely and widely, only within the last\nthree or four years.\n\nCertainly the mood of the younger generation of poets (the men and\nwomen now in their twenties or early thirties) is very different from\nthe poetic temper of fifteen years ago--those exciting, strained,\nexalted, painful years that witnessed, among other things, the rise\nof the \u201cnew poetry\u201d in England and America and, somewhat later, the\nbeginning of the war. Any comprehensive view of the stream of poetry\nwarns us not to make too much of these twists and turns between one\ndecade and the next; yet there is some reason to think that we have now\nreached or are approaching one of the major bends in the course. The\n\u201cpoetic renascence\u201d of 1912-1917 was, it is true, in reaction against\ncertain nineteenth-century attitudes,--against its Puritan code in\nmorals and its tradition of gentility in belles-lettres; as some one\nhas said, it delighted in hurling bricks at the silk hat of Hamilton\nW. Mabie; but to the most characteristic force of nineteenth-century\nthought and life--namely, an expansive philosophy of naturalism,\nembraced with enthusiasm and glorified by a romantic imagination--it\nmerely gave a fresh impetus.\n\n  The serene and humble mould\n  Does in herself all selves enfold--\n  Kingdoms, destinies, and creeds,\n  Great dreams, and dauntless deeds,\n  Science that metes the firmament,\n  The high, inflexible intent\n  Of one for many sacrificed--\n  Plato\u2019s brain, the heart of Christ;\n\n     *     *     *     *     *\n\n  Out of the earth the poem grows\n  Like the lily, or the rose;\n  And all man is, or yet may be,\n  Is but herself in agony\n  Toiling up the steep ascent\n  Toward the complete accomplishment\n  When all dust shall be, the whole\n  Universe, one conscious soul.[56]\n\nThese lines by John Hall Wheelock epitomise the thought that had been\nthe main inspiration of the nineteenth century. Despite their regular\nmetrical form, with its reminiscence of Emerson, we recognise in them\nthe ecstatic evolutionary naturalism of Walt Whitman.\n\nIndeed, it was the spirit of Whitman, more than any other, that\npresided over our \u201cpoetic renascence.\u201d Not, of course, that all the\npoets who made their appearance in those years were akin to him. Frost,\nfor instance, was hardly more like Whitman than he was like Pope;\nconsciously, in his living and in his poetry, he was facing and he has\ncontinued to move in just the opposite direction. Nor perhaps in the\nwork of Masters or of Robinson[57] is the relation to Whitman at once\napparent, for superficially neither the _Spoon River Anthology_, that\nsardonic record of stunted human growths, nor Robinson\u2019s sombre studies\nof the thwarted lives of his New Englanders suggest the tolerance,\nthe breadth and human warmth of the older poet\u2019s sympathies. But the\nanalysis of these unfortunate victims of a repressive and unhumane\nmorality (for such is the way the poetry of both writers was commonly\ndescribed, and such, in one aspect, it is) was really in line with\nWhitman\u2019s gospel of emotional emancipation, as well as with the new\ndirection given to psychology by Freud and Jung. In the work of Lindsay\nand Sandburg, and notably in that of the far less original Oppenheim\n(whose disappearance from current collections is itself significant\nof the change that has taken place), the influence of Whitman was\npatent. All the spokesmen and contemporary critics of the movement,\nfrom Amy Lowell (1917) to Bruce Weirick (1924), with varying degrees\nof emphasis, stress Whitman\u2019s primacy in American literature. He had\nhad his lovers and disciples before, but now for the first time a\ngroup of American poets could give him whole-hearted welcome with no\ninner abashment to overcome. Throughout the earlier productions of the\nmovement, even in the poems of the Imagists, whose theory and practice\nof verse were so different from his own, is diffused the vibrant\nspirit of Walt Whitman. It is experienced as a certain buoyancy and\nexpectancy of mood, and most characteristically as an underlying trust\nin a life-force which is felt to be working here in America to high,\nunforeseen ends.\n\nIt would be an over-simplification, but somewhere near the heart of the\nmatter, to say that the presence we are most aware of in the poetry of\nto-day is not Walt Whitman, but Thomas Hardy--his desolating irony,\nat least, if not his artistic and personal elevation. These younger\npoets accept, but coldly and without enthusiasm, the account which\ncontemporary science offers of the universe and of the human make-up,\nand they are as hostile to the glowing affirmations of the great\nromantics as they are to the evasions and tepidity of the Victorians.\nPerhaps this is but an inversion, a different guise, of that restless\nand changeable temper which we call romanticism, but to me at least\nits emergence seems to be more significant than were any of the varied\nenergies released by the last poetic movement. This new spirit is not\nmore characteristic of poetry, of course, than of other expressions\nof the age. To some extent, though less here than abroad, it is an\nafter-effect of the war--the inability of nervous organisations\noverstrained by the excitements of those years to respond to normal\nstimuli. It may be briefly described as a despair of achieving any\nreading of life in its totality which will be tolerable in the light\nof all we know and feel. \u201cIn the course of a few centuries,\u201d writes\nMr. Joseph Wood Krutch in _The Modern Temper_, \u201c[man\u2019s] knowledge, and\nhence the universe of which he finds himself an inhabitant, has been\ncompletely revolutionised, but his instincts and his emotions have\nremained, relatively at least, unchanged. He is still, as he always\nwas, adjusted to the orderly, purposeful, humanised world which all\npeoples unburdened by experience have figured to themselves, but that\nworld no longer exists.\u201d This modern sense of frustration differs\nfrom states of disillusion or pessimism experienced in the past in\ntwo respects. It is, for one thing, more widespread, producing a\nconsiderable body of poetry of sheer negation, turning some writers\nto mere elaboration of surfaces and appearances, and making itself\nfelt as an undercurrent, now cynical, now passionate, in much\nwriting which seems superficially to be almost free of philosophical\nimplications. And secondly, this spirit of denial is a more positive\nand uncompromising thing than we have known in the past. Not only is it\nunable to effect any synthesis of its intelligence and its emotional\npromptings; it has come to believe that such a synthesis is in the\nnature of things impossible. It grows \u201cmore and more likely,\u201d continues\nMr. Krutch, \u201cthat [man] must remain an ethical animal in a universe\nwhich contains no ethical element.\u201d His dilemma is that he cannot\neither feel as his intelligence bids him or think as his emotions would\nhave him. Even the highest of the personal emotions, love itself, which\nhad somehow eluded the cold touch of nineteenth-century science, has\nnot been able to withstand the psycho-analysis of the twentieth. \u201cHave\nyou not heard,\u201d asks the lady in _Cavender\u2019s House_,\n\n  \u201cHave you not heard yet, anywhere, death-bells ringing\n  For Love and poor Romance? Biologists\n  And bolshevists are ringing them like mad--\n  So loud that Love, we\u2019re told, will soon be lost\n  With dodos, dinosaurs, and pterodactyls.\u201d\n\nSpecifically, a feeling is abroad that poetry is at some kind of crisis\nor turning-point, and there are even predictions that poetry of a sort\nthat the past would recognise as such cannot continue much longer to be\nproduced.\n\nThe poetry of T. S. Eliot has been praised for its seizing of just\nthis aspect of the modern situation, the sense of frustration, of\ninsignificance. \u201cThe passions which swept through the once major\npoets,\u201d writes Mr. Krutch, \u201cno longer awaken any profound response,\nand only in the bleak, tortuous complexities of a T. S. Eliot\ndoes [the present age] find its moods given adequate expression.\u201d\nLove-making carried on with an accompanying sense of its futility\nand ridiculousness, an acquaintance with art and poetry which serves\nonly to confirm misgivings as to their relevancy for us to-day, the\nemployment of religious symbols to arouse a poor mirthless mockery--in\nsuch experiences our young intellectuals find mirrored the age and body\nof their time. The cryptic character of the writing, the sometimes\narbitrary connection between one image and the next, the casual\nallusions to one person\u2019s recondite reading, are all indications of\nthe contemporary sense of the individual\u2019s isolation. The broken\nrhythms, the fragmentariness of the scenes or movements, the deliberate\nforegoing of any rational principle of organisation, reflect the\nfeeling of the fragmentariness of life itself, the modern inability to\neffect any kind of integration of experience. And this, we are told by\nsome, is the only kind of poetry which an honest and sensitive mind in\nan age like ours can be expected to produce.\n\nMr. Eliot, though no longer belonging even nominally to American\nliterature, is worth attention because of his present high reputation\nin intellectual circles. He has written literary criticism of a kind\nespecially needed at the present time, based as it is on a wide\nknowledge of literature, informed by a delicate taste, and guided by\nsevere yet humane standards. And in his poetry he has shown himself\ncapable of finding a comedy of the mind in these hesitations and\ninhibitions of modernity,--as in the early \u201cLove Song of J. Alfred\nPrufrock.\u201d By the haunting, individual rhythms of his poems alone,\nwe are apprised of an exceptional poetic endowment. Yet Mr. Eliot\u2019s\nliterary output, poetry and prose, constitutes, to my mind, one of the\nmost arresting paradoxes of this paradoxical age: an advocate of the\nsterner disciplines of the past (\u201cclassicist in literature, royalist in\npolitics, and anglo-catholic in religion\u201d), who gives to these causes\nall the organising power of a firm intelligence, and is content to let\nhis poetry express chiefly the states of confusion, doubt, faintness,\nwith which the positive principles of his thought have had to wrestle.\n\n  \u201cWe are the hollow men,\n  We are the stuffed men.\u201d\n\nIn a recent essay Mr. Eliot has ventured the opinion that a great\nevent in the intellectual world would be the conversion of Professor\nIrving Babbitt to Roman or Anglo-Catholicism, but, he concludes\nregretfully, such a consummation, though devoutly to be wished, is\nhardly likely, for Mr. Babbitt \u201cknows too much.\u201d Perhaps an even more\nsalutary conversion, in its immediate effects upon other poets, would\nbe Mr. Eliot\u2019s compassing, in his creative work, of those genuinely\nclassical values of which, in his critical writing, he shows such fine\napprehension. For a transformation of that kind, one need not fear that\nany man of letters knows too much. One may at least entertain the hope\nthat Mr. Eliot\u2019s permanent reputation as a poet is not going to lie\nin the fact that he has voiced, more completely than any one else in\nverse, the confusion and disillusionment of this post-war generation.\n\nThe humanist is aware that poetry, like mythology, possesses no\npower of conferring immediate revelation of truth; he knows that its\nscenes and personages, its thoughts and passions, from the earthiest\nto the most ethereal, belong to the world of unsubstantiality, of\nillusion--of dreams, if you will. He will go further: this element of\nillusion, this impassable gulf between reality and our comprehension\nor representation of reality, is not confined to poetry and mythology;\nit is part of all our conscious life; it baffles us even in our\nattempt to comprehend that nearest thing of all--ourself. \u201c... beneath\nthe surface of all we see and feel, beneath the very act of seeing\nand feeling, lies the unredeemed chaos of desires and impressions,\nunlimited, unmeaning, unfathomable, incalculable, formless, dark.\nLife is but appearance, and this personality we call by our name is\nbut illusion within illusion.\u201d[58] But working within the illusion is\nalso a power to control and order these impulses, to check them or to\nbring them into a harmonious co-operation, yielding a serenity and a\nsense of stability which, of all human experiences, seems freest of\nillusion. It was the characteristic error of much nineteenth-century\npoetry (of Browning\u2019s in England, of Whitman\u2019s in America) to limit\npersonality to the mere welter of desires and feelings, to find there\nits central \u201curge\u201d (the favourite word of romantic criticism), and\nto erect upon such foundations a philosophy of the \u201cideal.\u201d But the\nhollowness of _this_ illusion (the philosophy which found an immediacy\nof truth in natural instincts, impulses, and feelings) has to-day\nbecome all too apparent; and when its former adherents ask where then\ncertainty can be found, they are bidden to direct their gaze to the\nabstract world of the physicist and the mathematician. Here, in the\nwords of Mr. I. A. Richards, \u201cintellectual certainty is, almost for\nthe first time, available, and on an unlimited scale.\u201d[59] But even\nif this were so,--and one hears of developments in these fields that\nappear to make the certainty considerably less than absolute,--it would\nstill be a certainty about matters that have no particular relation to\nthe behaviour and feelings of human beings, and that give no support\nfor poetry. The beguiling mirage of an Absolute fostered by romantic\npoetry has disappeared, only to be replaced by the mirage of another\nAbsolute, terrifying though incomprehensible. And so we have come to\nthe _impasse_ already described.\n\nFrom the point of view of the humanist, what has so suddenly collapsed\nis the towering structure of nineteenth-century romanticism, not any\ndwelling necessary to the continued life of poetry. For he has long\nrecognised those metaphysical limitations with which contemporary\nphysics is so deeply entangled; and he has been unwilling to trust\nmetaphysics, any more completely than natural science, with the whole\ndetermination of a philosophy of life. Instead of asserting that\nintellectual certainty in the field of science is available now almost\nfor the first time on an unlimited scale, he would postulate a large\ndegree of what amounts to _practical_ certainty, in all that concerns\nus most nearly as ethical beings, available now, as it has been for\ncenturies. This assurance is embodied, for him, in the dualism of the\ngreat historic religions, in the teachings of Socrates and of Jesus,\nand in the most persistent traditions of European literature. But\nits final sanctions are not found in any \u201cgreat tradition,\u201d however\nimposing; they are arrived at empirically and experimentally by any\none who, divesting his mind of shibboleths and catch-words, will\nhonestly examine his own impulses and springs of action. In his own\nsoul he will find the cleavage, the dualism, which runs through human\nnature. This opposition of forces, by whatever names he calls them,\nby whatever symbols he represents them, may never be resolved; but in\nhis mysterious power of intervention in their unending conflict lies,\nfor him, the ultimate reality within the illusion. To the reading of\npoetry, then, he will bring the same habit of discrimination that\nserves him in the conduct of life, mindful that it is still a world\ncommunicating with ours by the gate of horn and the gate of ivory, and\nthat the phantasms which issue therefrom may light our way a few steps\nnearer truth, or may deepen for us the shadows of the dark, chaotic\nflux.\n\nTo the consciousness of intellectual defeat and spiritual dismay,\nevidenced so widely in contemporary literature, it is not to be\nexpected that poetry will for the present make any very direct or\nexplicit answer. For we do not look to poetry for polemics, for the\nformulation of ethical or metaphysical ideas; and when poetry tries\nto assume a burden that belongs rather to criticism and philosophy,\nthe result may have literary interest and excellence, as does Pope\u2019s\n_Essay on Man_, but is more likely to be merely dull and forced, like\nthe later work of Wordsworth or Browning. In either case some fulness\nof life belonging to poetry when confident in its own right is missing.\nNo, what we look for in the poet is some more pervasive or implicit\nevidence of his scale of values, some intuitive, and for that reason\nmore certain, indication of the quality of his response to life, felt\nas unmistakably in his imagery, his diction, and his rhythms as in\nthose more ponderable elements of style which the eighteenth century\ncalled \u201cfable\u201d and \u201csentiments.\u201d Thus, in two stanzas[60] of A. E.\nHousman--\n\n  The year might age, and cloudy\n    The lessening day might close,\n  But air of other summers\n    Breathed from beyond the snows,\n    And I had hope of those.\n\n  They came and were and are not\n    And come no more anew;\n  And all the years and seasons\n    That ever can ensue\n    Must now be worse and few.\n\n--something that belongs to his deepest intuition (his acceptance,\nwithout evasion and without reconciliation, of life\u2019s transitoriness)\nis caught in the very movement of the lines and the simplicity of the\nwords:\n\n  They came and were and are not.\n\nThis pervasive sense of things chiefly valued and most deeply felt,\nwhich every great poet\u2019s work gives us, is surely not determined\naltogether by forces external to him. The poet is something more than a\nhighly sensitised receiving-set for remote, scattered goings-on in the\nworld at large. What we prize in every poet we come to know intimately\nis some irreducible, _given_ quality of the personality. We shall not\neasily accept, therefore, the current argument that, in an age like\nours of dissolving faiths, the only genuine kind of poetry must be one\nwhich has cut itself off from belief of any kind.[61] The history\nof English literature is not lacking in instances of poets who have\nwithstood the pressure of their age: to recall only the greatest, the\npoems of Milton, from _Lycidas_ to _Samson Agonistes_, are triumphant\ntestimonies against the idea that poetry need be so utterly subject to\ncontemporaneous disintegrating influences. But if we claim for poetry a\ncertain power of immunity from such forces, neither, by the same course\nof reasoning, should we expect too much from the _direct_ effect upon\nit of those forces which we think salutary, such as humanism.\n\nI do not mean to suggest here the notion of poetry\u2019s having a life of\nits own in any transcendental sense, or to imply that poets possess\nmysterious astral powers. My thought is simply that the new humanism,\nbefore it is given any large imaginative expression in American poetry,\nmust expect to prove its worth by responding to broadly human, and\nnot alone specifically poetic needs. It will do this by its power\nof bringing harmony into lives which are ordered in accordance with\nits insight, of establishing in society \u201ca current of fresh and true\nideas,\u201d and of creating thus \u201ca quickening and sustaining atmosphere\u201d\nwhich poetry can breathe. I feel no need of apologising for my use of\nthese well-worn phrases of Matthew Arnold; not only was he the best\nrepresentative of the spirit of humanism in nineteenth-century England\nor America, but also, in his realisation of the hopeless disparity\nbetween natural processes and human aims, he anticipated the very\npattern of our own dilemma. The paralysis which came over Arnold\u2019s\npoetic powers in later life is sometimes attributed to the steady\ngrowth of his humanistic interests, requiring the ampler medium of\nprose. However that may be, I believe it certain that his humanism--his\nsense, that is, of the worth and fruitfulness of human powers when\nwisely exercised and his acceptance of the limitations which such a\nview imposes--gave to his poetry nearly all that power of invigoration\nand refreshment for which we chiefly value it. A contemporary critic,\nR. H. Hutton, observed how frequently Arnold closes a poem on the\nburdensomeness of existence by some seemingly unconnected figure or\nstory, such as the simile of the Tyrian trader in \u201cThe Scholar Gipsy,\u201d\ninstinct with the pride and buoyancy of old world enterprise. \u201c\u2018The\nproblem is insoluble,\u2019 he seems to say, \u2018but insoluble or not, let\nus recall the pristine strength of the human spirit, and not forget\nthat we have access to great resources still.\u2019\u201d[62] In such ways\nto-day, indirectly and obliquely, humanism may make itself felt as one\ninfluence among many upon contemporary poetry: by rendering accessible\nand operative, for the poets as for the rest of us, some of these\nmoral energies from times of more robust faith and higher intellectual\nvitality than our own.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES\n\n[45] Reprinted by permission of The Macmillan Company, Publishers.\n\n[46] \u201cIf you disregard critical trivialities and didactic accessories,\nthe entire \u00e6sthetic system of Croce amounts to a hunt for pseudonyms\nof the word \u2018art,\u2019 and may indeed be stated briefly and accurately in\nthis formula: art = intuition = expression = feeling = imagination =\nfancy = lyricism = beauty. And you must be careful not to take these\nwords with the shadings and distinctions which they have in ordinary or\nscientific language. Not a bit of it. Every word is merely a different\nseries of syllables signifying absolutely and completely the same\nthing.\u201d--G. Papini, _Four and Twenty Minds_, quoted by I. A. Richards,\n_The Principles of Literary Criticism_ (1924), p. 255, note 4.\n\nMr. Richards adds: \u201cIt is interesting to notice that Croce\u2019s appeal has\nbeen exclusively to those unfamiliar with the subject, to the man of\nletters and the dilettante. He has been ignored by serious students of\nthe mind.... [Papini] has here rendered a notable service to those who\nhave been depressed by the vogue of \u2018Expressionism.\u2019\u201d\n\n_Cf._ also the following from Gilbert Murray\u2019s _The Classical\nTradition in Poetry_ (1927), p. 243: \u201cEverything that a man does is\nself-expression. The way a man laces his boots, the way he writes,\nthe way he says, \u2018Good-morning,\u2019 is probably different from the way\nfollowed by any other man, and is thus expressive of his personality.\nBut it need not be good art for that reason. Imagine a pompous and\negotistic man in a state of personal irritation, having to make an\nafter-dinner speech. It would probably express him only too well, but\nit might not be a good speech.\u201d\n\n[47] _A Survey of Modernist Poetry_, by Laura Riding and Robert Graves,\n1927, p. 125.\n\n[48] From _Harmonium_, by Wallace Stevens, 1923. Reprinted by and with\npermission of and special arrangement with Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.,\nauthorised publishers.\n\n[49] For the sake of \u201ccommunicative efficacy,\u201d as the editors remind\nme, I should explain that _transition_ is \u201can international quarterly\nfor creative experiment,\u201d edited in Paris by a group of young Americans\nand others.\n\n[50] From _Trivial Breath_, by Elinor Wylie, 1928. Reprinted by and\nwith permission of and special arrangement with Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.,\nauthorised publishers.\n\n[51] From _Streets in the Moon_, by Archibald MacLeish, 1926. Reprinted\nby permission of Houghton Mifflin Company, Publishers.\n\n[52] From _Tulips and Chimneys_. Reprinted by permission of Alfred &\nCharles Boni, Inc., Publishers.\n\n[53] For a more elaborate analysis of such effects in Mr. Cummings\u2019s\npoetry, see Laura Riding and Robert Graves, _A Survey of Modernist\nPoetry_, Chapter I.\n\n[54] E. E. Cummings\u2019s poem, previously referred to, is printed by him\nas follows (_Tulips and Chimneys_, New York, 1924, p. 78):\n\n  i was considering how\n  within night\u2019s loose\n  sack a star\u2019s\n  nibbling in-\n  fin\n  -i-\n  tes-\n  i\n  -mal-\n  ly devours\n\n  darkness the\n  hungry star\n  which\n  will e\n  -ven\n  tu-\n  al\n  -ly jiggle\n  the bait of\n  dawn and be jerked\n\n  into\n  eternity. when over my head a\n  shooting\n  star\n  Bur    s\n          (t\n            into a stale shriek\n  like an alarm-clock)\n\n[55] Such, for instance, as the poetry of John Crowe Ransom and Donald\nDavidson in the South, and of Wilbert Snow and Robert P. Tristram\nCoffin in New England.\n\n[56] From the poem \u201cEarth,\u201d in _Dust and Light_, 1919, published by\nCharles Scribner\u2019s Sons.\n\n[57] Mr. Robinson, of course, had been publishing poetry for nearly\ntwenty years before the new movement got under way, but his work was\nregarded as belonging to it in temper and outlook.\n\n[58] Paul Elmer More, \u201cDefinitions of Dualism,\u201d Section LXXIII, in\n_The Drift of Romanticism_ (1913), p. 291. The next section is almost\nprophetic of what has happened in American poetry of the last few years:\n\n\u201cIn some men, especially in an age of spiritual apathy, the sense of\ndisillusion may spring up without the corresponding assurance of faith.\nTo such men nothing is real; they walk in a place of shadows, and feel\nthat life is continually slipping away from them into a bottomless\nabyss. All their labour is to re-create for themselves the illusion\nwhich has been shattered, or, by ceaseless occupation, to escape the\ndull horror of the void.\u201d\n\n[59] I. A. Richards, _Science and Poetry_, 1926, p. 60.\n\n[60] From _Last Poems_, by A. E. Housman, 1922, published by Henry Holt\nand Company.\n\n[61] I. A. Richards, _Science and Poetry_, Chapter VII.\n\n[62] Richard Holt Hutton, _Essays on Some of the Modern Guides to\nEnglish Thought in Matters of Faith_, 1891 (Second Ed., revised), p.\n146.\n\n\n\n\n_Our Critical Spokesmen_\n\nGORHAM B. MUNSON\n\n\n\u201cArt,\u201d I thought I heard a voice say as I sat down to my table, \u201caims\nto _be_ something; while criticism aims first to clarify and then to\n_value_ something. Criticism is talk _about_ something with a view to\npassing judgment upon it. It is an aspect of man the valuer, weighing\nthe actions, impulses, passions, thoughts, and imaginings of his\nfellow-men. Study the criticism of a period and it will show you the\nstate of the general intelligence and the kind of values professed and\nin vogue, and above all it will enable you to divine the amount of\nconsciousness of life\u2019s processes and meanings which is current in this\nperiod.\u201d\n\n\u201cSo,\u201d I remarked to the air, \u201cthe subject I have been thinking about\nhas some importance? It has to do with man in his most human r\u00f4le,\nthat of valuing, and it assists in indicating the range and depth and\nintensity of his awareness of life.\u201d\n\nBut there was no reply to this, and perceiving that I must dig with\nmy own mind, I scratched down what I had previously decided should be\nmy opening sentence. I had been dwelling on the subject of American\nliterary criticism from 1915 to the present. About 1915 a new phase in\nour national letters began to be manifest. Europe was well drenched\nin blood and the _Lusitania_ was torpedoed in 1915--events that were\nvitally to affect us. Mr. Dreiser\u2019s _The \u201cGenius\u201d_ came out, and the\nnext year, 1916, it was suppressed by its publishers out of deference\nto the power of a narrow censoring body soon to be effectively\nchallenged. American liberals in the wake of Bull Moose Progressivism\nhad hopefully established the _New Republic_. Mr. P. E. More in the\nyear previous to 1915 had resigned from the editorship of the _Nation_.\n\nAfterwards there came our participation in the war: the crushing\nof liberalism: post-war disillusion. There came a ferment of new\nmagazines and new publishers, captivating the sons and leaving the\nfathers cold. There came a tide of naturalistic novels, a foam of _vers\nlibre_, a roar of essays attacking the genteel tradition. Since 1915\nthe reputations have been made of Messrs. Sinclair Lewis, Sherwood\nAnderson, Carl Sandburg, Waldo Frank, H. L. Mencken, and Eugene\nO\u2019Neill--to name only enough to establish a contrast with the writers\nof the preceding period. Inevitably it happened that some excitable\njournalists in the midst of the uprising promptly called this decade\nand a half an American literary renaissance.\n\nTo me, on reviewing these years, they seem more like a tragi-comedy,\nalmost a tragi-farce. So when I penned my premeditated first sentence I\nspoke of the tragi-comedy of American criticism. But even if our recent\ncriticism has been very often foolish, we are to take it seriously for\nreasons outside itself,--if my voice out of the air is to be believed.\nI must now try to develop the line of thought that moves out from the\nopening sentence I wrote down when my aerial counsellor deserted me.\n\n\nI\n\nThere have been no villains in the recent tragi-comedy of American\nliterary criticism.\n\nThe leading critics of our nation have not been villains--that is,\namazing men of initiative, strength, and will bent on destruction--but\nrather they make us think of well-intentioned bookish gentlemen\ngyrating in the fields of certain hidden sociological magnets and\nvociferating their reflexes to the magnetic attractions. On behalf of\na potential human greatness, there are perhaps great errors in the\npresent world of literary criticism to be opposed, but there are with\nus no great men, no geniuses, to be overthrown. In other words, our\ncritics are not germinative but derivative.\n\nI mean, of course, our professional critics. It is plain that I am\nnot setting out to praise them--not even by calling them villains,\nfor villains must, to satisfy my conception of the scale on which the\nintellectual drama of the race has been played, possess a certain\nepical character. There is another world of criticism, the academic\nworld, whose faults have often been exposed scornfully and truthfully.\nLying out of the eye of the reading public, it never bears any\nrelation, according to the professional critics, with what is being\ncurrently written. Yet it has its virtues of course: there is a\nlaudatory paper for some one to write on recent advances in American\nliterary scholarship: within academic circles there has grown up\nthe only critical movement in our land now worthy of international\ninterest, and the leaders of this movement, Professors Irving Babbitt\nand Paul Elmer More, are--I have several times committed myself to the\nassertion--the best living critics America can show. It is not with the\nacademic world nor with humanism, however, that I am here dealing, but\nwith the critics of the past fifteen years who have enjoyed something\nlike popularity. First, let us follow the figure of the late Stuart P.\nSherman, once a successful university professor, as he flies away from\nthe campus into the full light of public attention beating upon the\nworld of professional criticism.\n\nStuart P. Sherman is of exceptional interest to us. He admired Matthew\nArnold: he wrote a popular exposition of Arnold, and a course of his\nentirely devoted to Arnold is said to have been popular with the\nstudents at the University of Illinois. Let us then, noting this\naffinity, measure Sherman by Arnold. The difference in their prose is\nthe difference between distinction and mere competence. Sherman\u2019s is\ndemocratic: it is as if written in shirt-sleeves or talked with the\nfeet on the table, the writer or speaker deliberately putting on easy\nmanners. Note the \u201cIt\u2019s-a-plain-man-speaking\u201d effect in the following\ntypical passage at the beginning of Sherman\u2019s essay, _Towards an\nAmerican Type_: \u201cWhen I was in college, I used to poke around in the\nlibrary a good deal looking for books which would take me out of the\nshallow water of college life into the deep channel of experience,\ninto the serious life of the world. And naturally enough the works of\nTolstoy came into my hands. Now one knows what a typical Tolstoy novel\nis, etc.\u201d[63] Lucid writing, of course, but it is not charming: it has\nnone of Arnold\u2019s aristocratic sweetness.\n\nI am going to try to point out a fatal lack of austerity in Sherman,\na certain ultimate slackness of mind and purpose. The prose, so\nlustreless beside Arnold\u2019s, shows that Sherman failed to achieve any of\nthe rarer virtues of verbal deportment: just as clearly one realises\nthat not so superficially, so mushily, could Arnold have defined\nreligion as, in Sherman\u2019s words, \u201cthat which binds us and holds us.\nReligion is that which at heart we do earnestly believe in, whatever it\nis.\u201d Nor could Arnold, doughty wrestler with himself, so easily drop\nhis hard questions and substitute gentler ones. In the essay quoted\nfrom above, Sherman went on to raise the question all great minds\nhave most seriously confronted: \u201cIs life worth living, and for what\npurpose?\u201d But it did not take him long to say, \u201cAssuming that life is\nworth living, what are its durable satisfactions?\u201d--a serious enough\nquestion, but subtly veering the asker away from any tragic vision of\nlife and encouraging him to settle into a limited pattern of behaviour\nthat happens to appeal to his temperament rather than to go forth and\nlead the great adventure of pursuing perfection.\n\nIn his growth Sherman was influenced by the books of three conservative\ncritics, Mr. Paul Elmer More, Mr. Irving Babbitt, and the late W. C.\nBrownell; and here again his conduct was significant of some lack of\ndesperation in him or of some softening influence on the fibres of his\nmind. For under the pressure of the ideas of Mr. More and Mr. Babbitt\nhe was a little impatient. They were too austere for his taste, whereas\nhe could not admire Brownell sufficiently. But of the three critics\nBrownell dealt least in the primary ideas of life: he elaborated with a\ngreat deal of fine sense secondary ideas about literature and society.\nHe had, it appears to me, a mind more localised in the nineteenth\ncentury than the minds of his two colleagues. And nineteenth-century\nminded, rather than classical minded, was Stuart P. Sherman: his\nperennial enthusiasms were for Emerson, Whitman, and Stevenson.\n\nSherman conceived that he was a spokesman for the \u201caverage man,\u201d and\nthe point is important in estimating him. It makes it fitting that his\nstyle should be passably good but inconspicuous in any pageant of fine\nstyles, fitting that his thinking should constantly deflect from issues\nthat require an unusual severity of discipline for meeting them to\nissues that are less agitating to the pulse, and most fitting that he\nshould seem not out of joint with his time, like a Forest Philosopher\ndiscoursing with men who regard motor-cars as a convincing symbol of\nprogress, but that he should seem to be a contemporary with a touch\nof conservatism, crying with other average men for Prohibition and\nvituperating with them our one-time Teutonic enemies. My reader, are\nyou now chiding me for drawing an unsympathetic portrait? Recall then\none of the pieces in _Americans_ (1922) and then say, if you can,\nthat in respect to Sherman\u2019s chief weakness I am wrong. The piece in\nevidence is _An Imaginary Conversation with Mr. P. E. More_, wherein,\nafter paying his respects to Mr. More\u2019s gifts, Sherman complained: \u201cBut\nhe has done too little to meet his poor living fellow-countrymen.\u201d In\nfact, he said, and this is the self-incriminating statement, \u201cMr. More\nhas not attended to the technique of ingratiation by which a master\nof popularity plays upon an unready public with his personality,\nflattering, cajoling, seducing it to accept his shadow before his\nsubstance arrives.\u201d[64] It all depends! The genuine writer does seek to\nreduce his reader by a species of white magic, he labours to compel him\nto be his slave. But this is a more virile conception of the writer\u2019s\nr\u00f4le than Sherman\u2019s ingratiator embodies. If one puts the emphasis on\ningratiation rather than on the skilful imposition of one\u2019s values,\nthen as is well known something is likely to happen to one\u2019s values.\nConsider the following sad example: Said Sherman, would that Mr. More\nhad loved the aristocratic Plato less and Socrates more. \u201cIf,\u201d he went\non, \u201cSocrates were among us to-day, I am convinced that he would be\na leader of the Democrats in the House; but Plato, I suspect, would\nbe a member of the Senate from Massachusetts.\u201d Quite apart from the\nfact, apparently forgotten by Sherman, that Socrates at his trial spoke\nof his brief experience in politics and explained scathingly why he\nhad thereafter abstained from politics, I say that what has occurred\nhere in Sherman\u2019s illustration is the domestication of two men so\nuncompromisingly at variance with ourselves, so deeply critical of\nus that if we really felt their presence to-day, we would be, to put\nit mildly, thoroughly uncomfortable. But Senators and Congressmen do\nnot abash us, and Plato and Socrates transformed into them take on an\nundisturbing and familiar air. This, I say, is a vicious technique of\ningratiation. But there is more and worse: in the same paper Sherman\neulogises the average man and then lets himself go deep in the sin of\ncant. \u201cIf \u2018P. E. M.\u2019 had a bit more of that natural sympathy of which\nhe is so distrustful, he would have perceived that what more than\nanything else to-day keeps the average man from lapsing into Yahooism\nis the _religion of democracy_, consisting of a little bundle of\ngeneral principles which make him respect himself and his neighbour; a\nbundle of principles kindled in crucial times by an intense emotion, in\nwhich his self-interest, his petty vices, and his envy are consumed as\nwith fire; etc.\u201d[65]\n\nIn the lexicon of contemporary humanism there is a damning phrase,\n\u201cunselective sympathy.\u201d I think it applies to what Sherman meant when\nhe said \u201creligion of democracy,\u201d else why does he base so much of his\nmessage on the statistical average man? He could, like Mr. More, have\nappealed to the latent common sense of man, which is not a visible\nproperty of the average man to-day any more than it characterises his\nleaders, or he could, like M. Charles Maurras, have tried to conceive\nclearly of a perfect and normal man and argued for a closer approach to\nnormality in human affairs;[66] but no--there was working in Sherman\nan element of \u201cunselective sympathy\u201d and it made his grasp relax on\nenterprises of perfection. It was no divine average man he espoused.\n\nWhen in 1924 he became literary editor of the New York _Herald\nTribune_, Sherman had his opportunity to establish what our milieu\nsorely lacks, a vigorous _conservative_ literary review. But what he\norganised was essentially not different from any intelligent liberal\nreview with romantic tendencies: many of his regular reviewers were,\nfor instance, already identified as reviewers for the _Nation_. We\nhave followed Sherman from the academic world to the professional\nliterary world, and it would seem to a superficial glance that Sherman\nchanged remarkably in his transit from one to the other. He had been an\nassailant of Mr. Dreiser\u2019s naturalism: he was to praise _An American\nTragedy_. He had sneered, and not very well, at the \u201cmoderns\u201d: he was\nto become their friendly counsellor. He had learned, he said, that it\nwas a certain \u201cvitality,\u201d no matter under what guise, that he wanted in\nletters, and this platform enabled him to do a great deal of explaining\naway of his altered views. He became less provincial.\n\nBut underneath there was no change. He had not the stuff of leadership.\nFor what was this element of \u201cunselective sympathy\u201d in him which he\ncalled a \u201creligion of democracy\u201d? It was a fear of distinction, a fear\nof standing away from the mass, a fear of striving far enough ahead to\nbe a leader. Was Sherman, I wonder, one of those numerous professors\nwho are so anxious to be taken as in spirit \u201cone of the boys\u201d that they\nwill compromise the dignity of their learning, that they will feel\n_defensive_ about the life of the mind? As a critic certainly he was on\nthe defensive in presenting his values to the average audience. Of no\nmarked force in himself, on him the registry of environment would be\nspeedily and plainly made. In an academic environment he had fought the\nNew York critics. He came as an editor to New York and the environment\nquickly persuaded him to blend with it.[67]\n\nWhen Sherman died, the professional literary world eulogised fulsomely\nthe _\u00e9migr\u00e9_ from the academy. That already tells us a great deal about\nthis world. Let us see more distinctly what it was with which Sherman\nassimilated.\n\n\nII\n\nIt was a tragi-comedy begun in high spirits and closing now in\ndisillusion and pathos. Three representative players have been Mr. Joel\nElias Spingarn, Mr. Van Wyck Brooks, and Mr. H. L. Mencken: a study of\ntheir r\u00f4les will instruct us in the mediocrity of contemporary American\ncriticism. The influence of the first of these is a most curious\nphenomenon in our recent history.\n\nIn type Mr. J. E. Spingarn is the leisured gentleman and scholar who\nadorns all too rarely our national society. His interests are wide: for\na number of years he was in politics and he has distinguished himself\nby his generous efforts in behalf of the Negro: he has been an army\nofficer and has, one fancies, a spark of the old-time gallantry of the\nmilitary man. For us, however, he is the wealthy amateur of the arts\nand philosophy; but what, one may still ask, are his claims to critical\nleadership?\n\nLike Sherman, Mr. Spingarn spent a number of years teaching in an\nacademic environment. He specialised in the history of literary\ncriticism, producing the three-volume compilation, _Critical Essays\nof the Seventeenth Century_ (1909) and the volume, _Literary\nCriticism in the Renaissance_ (1899), which pleased certain Italian\nthinkers and began that friendship with them later to be cemented\nby his championship of Croce. Neither of these works is more than\nthe usual competent product of academic industry and research: Mr.\nSpingarn himself revolted against the type of sterile scholarship\nthey represent. In 1910 he delivered his famous lecture, _The New\nCriticism_. He declaimed it at the climax of a spree, for he had\nintoxicated himself with the \u00e6sthetic theory of Benedetto Croce: he\nwas in full cry against academic dry rot. Consequently his statements\nat the time were more extreme than those he would probably make on the\nsame theme to-day.\n\nNevertheless, for the purposes of a record, we must write down such\npronunciamentos in this lecture, in the addenda to it in _Creative\nCriticism_ (1917), in his article, _The Seven Arts and the Seven\nConfusions_, and in his contribution to _Civilization in the United\nStates_ (1921) as bear on the following topics: the essence of art, the\nfunction of the artist, the duty of the critic.\n\nLiterature, he said, pointing to the trend of nineteenth-century\ncriticism, \u201cis an expression of something, of experience or emotion,\nof the external or internal, of the man himself or something outside\nthe man; yet it is always conceived of as an art of expression.\u201d As for\nthe artist, he bade him know that \u201cmadness and courage are the very\nlife of art.... For the madness of poets is nothing more or less than\nunhampered freedom of self-expression.... To let one\u2019s self go--that\nis what art is always aiming at, and American art needs most of all.\u201d\nThe duty of the critic? To ask and answer these questions: \u201cWhat has\nthe poet tried to do, and how has he fulfilled his intention? What is\nhe striving to express and how has he expressed it? What impression\ndoes his work make on me, and how can I best express this impression?\u201d\nWith the flourishes of a platform speaker who knows instinctively that\nit is not straight hard thinking which sways an audience so much as\nthe verve with which possibly dubious generalities are pronounced, Mr.\nSpingarn exclaimed vehemently that the new critics have done with the\nwhole question of standards, including genres, hierarchies, and moral\njudgments.\n\nThis is, of course, an unsubtilised outright statement of romantic\n\u00e6stheticism. Mr. Spingarn was positive that the critic\u2019s essential\nresponse to a work of art must be \u00e6sthetic, but he has always withheld\nwhat exactly he means by the \u00e6sthetic emotion or response or judgment.\n(It _is_ hard to make concrete statements about the so-called \u00e6sthetic\nemotion.) But that did not in the least militate against the \u201c\u00e6sthetic\nresponse\u201d being used as a campaign catchword. For Mr. Spingarn had\nwritten the proclamations for a new generation of American writers.\nThis is the curious phenomenon I spoke of. One is astonished not just\nat the slight quantity of Mr. Spingarn\u2019s writing in proportion to his\nreputation, but more astonished at the complete lack of originality\nin the documents of this apostle for originality. He added nothing\nto the Crocean doctrine: he clarified nothing or modified nothing\nin it. He did not even apply it, abstaining, then and since, from\nconcrete criticism of individual works. He merely proclaimed it. And a\nwidespread revolt against standards followed in American criticism. So\nhearty, and eventually so wilful and silly, was the revolt that in 1922\nits opponents were entertained by the issuance from Mr. Spingarn of a\nrestraining manifesto entitled _The Younger Generation_. This time,\nrecoiling from the destructiveness of the young men, Mr. Spingarn would\nherd them back into an idealistic fold, back to \u201cdiscipline, character,\nmorals, imagination, beauty, freedom.\u201d Very often before, romantic\nexpansiveness has run its course into disillusion: it is a soberer\nCrocean who said, \u201cI, who once called upon young men for rebellion and\ndoubt, now call upon them for thought and faith.\u201d\n\nIt is not Mr. J. E. Spingarn, enthusiastic amateur of letters, trained\nscholar, man of feeling, who can detain us, for there is literally\nnothing in his writing for the mind to work on: as a thinker, he is\nthoroughly derivative and weak on definitions. But what Mr. Spingarn\nstands for, the theory of self-expression, still needs a scotching.\n\n\u201cSelf-expression\u201d is simply a magical catchword of the black variety.\nIt is a good catchword in that it emphasises the self, but it is\npernicious to the best interests of the self. For to express one\u2019s\nself means no more than just to manifest oneself, and if we say\nself-manifestation instead of self-expression, we see at once how\nparalysing the latter term has been. It has placed the emphasis, one\nsees, on the artist _as he is_ and not on his possibilities of growth:\nthus it has a static effect. Think now: impulses, people say, arise in\nthem or occur to them; no one claims to create his own impulses, to\nself-induce his inclinations; in a manner of speaking, our impulses\ncome to us from the outside. Therefore, advice to be spontaneous, to\nlet oneself go without check, to follow one\u2019s impulses is necessarily\nadvice--to do what?--_to live as unconsciously and mechanically as\npossible_. The romantic may just as well hand himself over to the\nBehaviourist psychologist, saying, \u201cHere am I, a creature of whim\nand impulse, the living proof of your thesis of automatism.\u201d But the\nromantic is not sternly logical. He has been proof against the question\nas to the value of the self that is being expressed, and not only proof\nagainst it: self-expression as a theory has encouraged his conceit and\nsometimes fostered megalomania, thus pitching him deeper into bondage\nto _external_ conditions, for conceit makes one exaggeratedly sensitive\nto the environment.\n\nTo identify one\u2019s self with the mechanical temperamental flux of\none\u2019s existence and call that freedom is surely strange, and it is no\nwonder that it is a strange \u201cscience\u201d which has risen to support this\nidentification. I am of course referring to psycho-analysis, spoken\nof respectfully by Mr. Spingarn, utilised as a probing instrument in\nbiography by Mr. Van Wyck Brooks, and championed by Mr. Mencken. It\ndoes not seem necessary here to make a serious attempt to discredit\npsycho-analysis, for that is being done rapidly enough by such\ncritics of it as Dr. Trigant Burrow, by the Behaviourists, by the\nacademic psychologists themselves. The facts have never been other\nthan these: that psycho-analysis is admittedly experimental (and\ntherefore speculative in its procedures, unsure of itself), that its\ncentral conception, the unconscious, not to speak of its many little\nmetaphors like the \u201ccensor,\u201d has never been objectively established,\nand that it has no ideal of psychological health toward which to guide\nits adherents (in lieu of such an ideal, the analyst has either gone\nin for an excessive relativity or he has taken the \u201creality\u201d of the\nstatistical average to be the norm). These are the undeniable facts\nand one who would like to take pride in the sturdy commonsense of\nthe literary profession must regret that they were not kept in mind.\nLiterary men to-day, one must conclude, are no less gullible than any\nother group. Naively, they welcomed the psycho-analytical dramatising\nof inhibitions as the causes of ills, they agreed at once that thought\nwas a sublimation of sex energy and somehow not quite a legitimate\nfunction of man, they wiseacred in jargon about that bastard soul,\nthe unconscious. Ah, my highly suggestible writers, it is easy come,\neasy go with your ideas: within a decade you will be sneering at\npsycho-analysis as now you sneer at Christian Science.\n\nMr. Van Wyck Brooks in his social studies and biographical\ninterpretations came to use psycho-analysis with tact: he is not the\nsort of critic whose errors will be glaring. A sensitive man but shy\nof \u00e6sthetic ideas: a sociological critic of letters in control of a\npersuasive and considerate prose style: a sentimental naturalist, to\nuse the terminology of Mr. Irving Babbitt, but far from extreme in his\nhumanitarian socialism and, despite his psycho-analytic superstitions,\ntemperate in his faith in emotional expansiveness.\n\nWho would dispute Mr. Brooks\u2019s central idea, namely, that an\nacquisitive society provides unfavourable conditions for the\ndevelopment of the artistic life? Of course it does. It badly\nnourishes its men of genius, and Mr. Brooks became almost obsessed\nwith literary failure or what he conceived to be literary failure,\nas witness his books on Symonds, Mark Twain, and Henry James. He was\ncontinually calling the attention of the new writers to the conditions\nin the history of America which had hampered and throttled their\npredecessors: he showed how frontier life had made the machinery\nof existence, the actual getting of a living, paramount and from\nthis necessity had originated the contempt for the arts of enjoying\nexistence, and how this split had perpetuated itself in the divorce\nbetween the world of practice (\u201clowbrow\u201d) and the world of theory\n(\u201chighbrow\u201d): but he failed at the very crux of his pleading. For\nstruggling and unappreciated writers are too ready to believe that\nthe hostile environment is responsible for their shortcomings. They\nare likely to wilt into self-pity and to feel victimised. That is\nprecisely the effect that Mr. Brooks\u2019s writings produced, even though\nhe casually said: \u201cIf our literature is to grow it can only be through\nthe development of a sense of \u2018free will\u2019 on the part of our writers\nthemselves. To be, to feel oneself, a \u2018victim\u2019 is in itself not to be\nan artist, for it is the nature of the artist to live, not in the world\nof which he is an effect, but in the world of which he is the cause,\nthe world of his own creation.\u201d But Mr. Brooks has not grown eloquent\non this theme. He seems rather to have the sweet wistfulness and\nyearning of one pledged to a lost cause. This mood of wistfulness and\nyearning, this image of oneself as an outcast, lonely and eager, has\nnot revived and will never, it seems to me, revive the spirit of the\nAmerican writer.\n\nWas it fortuitous, as in the example of Mr. Spingarn, that Mr. Van Wyck\nBrooks should have held a certain leadership, should have put far more\nthan most of his generation his impress upon American taste and thought\nin literary matters? It would seem that he has been a leader _faute de\nmieux_, for although a charming minor critic, he has never managed to\nawake an indomitable desire among his followers to master the odds. He\nvoiced the sentiments of a wistfully rebellious generation but shed no\nlight on the object of their rebellion, the achievement in a democracy\nof real individuality.\n\nThat is the problem Mr. H. L. Mencken has at least perceived, and\nhis bold tone better fits a leader in our present straits than Mr.\nBrooks\u2019s gentle accents, but alas! He \u201csolved\u201d the problem of being\nan individual in a \u201cdemocratic\u201d nation simply by striking an attitude\nof swagger, and like Midas he is cursed with a touch that changes all\nobjects into some one thing else. It is easy--and this is the secret\nof his influence--to adopt Mr. Mencken\u2019s attitude toward the current\naffairs of men. Let me quote his _Catechism_ and you will have it\nin one simple lesson. \u201c_Q._ If you find so much that is unworthy of\nreverence in the United States, then why do you live here? _A._ Why\ndo men go to zoos?\u201d But let us observe the man in the zoo, traipsing\nopen-mouthed and superciliously from cage to cage, grinning in silly\npatronage at the imprisoned beasts who at least are true to the laws of\ntheir being, and shall we not mock at man\u2019s cheap sense of superiority\nbased not on what he (poor lunatic!) has done for himself but only\non what Nature has made of him? No, no, it is not by contempt for\nthe inferior that man will grow but by dissatisfaction with himself.\nThe net effect of Mr. Mencken\u2019s writings, however, is to produce\nself-satisfaction and a feeling of false superiority, and this\nnaturally enough makes for personal passivity.\n\nAs for the Mencken touch! It turns everything to horse sense (not to be\nconfused with the hard-won virtue of commonsense) and it is admirable\nwhen it is applied to current cant, as this: \u201cLaw Enforcement becomes\nthe new state religion. A law is something that A wants and can\nhornswoggle B, C, D, E and F into giving him--by bribery, by lying,\nby bluff and bluster, by making faces. G and H are therefore bound\nto yield it respect--nay, to worship it. It is something sacred. To\nquestion it is to sin against the Holy Ghost.\u201d\n\nBut shrewdness is not enough when one is trying to cope with\nmaster-ideas, and in their realm Mr. Mencken is, as he might say,\na clodhopper. One of the master-ideas in \u00e6sthetics and psychology,\none that has engaged great minds and been pondered upon each century\nsince the _Poetics_ was introduced into European thought, is the\nAristotelian conception of _katharsis_. Hear Mr. Mencken after the\nsages and the learned have spoken. He is saying that capital punishment\naffords _katharsis_ to modern societies. \u201c_Katharsis_, so used, means\na salubrious discharge of emotions, a healthy letting off of steam. A\nschoolboy, disliking his teacher, deposits a tack upon the pedagogical\nchair; the teacher jumps and the boy laughs. This is _katharsis_. A\nbootlegger, paying off a Prohibition agent, gives him a counterfeit\n$10 bill; the agent, dropping it in the collection plate on Sunday,\nis arrested and jailed. This is also _katharsis_. A subscriber to a\nnewspaper, observing his name spelled incorrectly in the report of a\nlodge meeting, spreads a report that the editor of the paper did not\nbuy Liberty bonds. This again is _katharsis_.\u201d[68] And this again is\ncheap intellectual vaudeville or--it is clodhopperism. Something like\nthis always happens when Mr. Mencken fingers the diamond ideas of the\nworld; the process of degrading intellectual grandeur to horse sense\nbegan when he grossly misunderstood Nietzsche years ago.\n\nBy way of a last word on this idol of the emancipated Rotarian, do\nnot forget that Mr. Mencken, destructive critic that he is, is also\ngiven to fulsome and extravagant praise of certain transient artists.\nMr. Edgar Lee Masters\u2019 _Spoon River Anthology_, he says, is \u201cthe most\neloquent, the most profound and the most thoroughly national volume of\npoetry published in America since _Leaves of Grass_.\u201d Conceivably, it\nmay be the third, but is it eloquent, is it profound? Such judgments\nare not uncommon when Mr. Mencken feels a praising mood come on.\n\n\nIII\n\nInto the critical pond presided over by Messrs. Spingarn, Brooks, and\nMencken leapt Sherman. His academic values were in deliquescence, and\nhe was greeted with cheers when he began to revise his former estimates\nand with eulogies when he died untimely. Much may be said for the\nthree critics I have taken as big frogs in this puddle: do not forget\nthe gusto of Mr. Spingarn\u2019s temperament, the historical consciousness\nand fine humanity of Mr. Brooks, the valuable scavenger-work of Mr.\nMencken. But after all is said there is no seed, no fertility in the\nviewpoint of each. We must stress their failures: the failure of Mr.\nSpingarn to offer for application and development \u00e6sthetic ideas, the\nfailure of Mr. Brooks to give the new American writers an image of\nthemselves that would effectively inspire them against the crushing\nforces of their environment, the failure of Mr. Mencken to escape\nsophisticated superstitions as he escaped gross superstitions. Look\nat their disciples and behold clearly the limitations of the pond\u2019s\nmasters.\n\nMr. Mencken has bred a score of little Menckens, men who imitate his\nstyle, who spend their time demonstrating, as Mr. Kenneth Burke said\nof Mr. Mencken, the stupidity of many a stupidity and invariably\nshowing that it is stupid: they have no more capacity for realising\ngreat central ideas than Mr. Mencken. Mr. Brooks has inspired Mr.\nLewis Mumford, who is a pleasing writer on architecture, a literary\ncritic who seizes on the romantic elements of Emerson, Thoreau, and\nWhitman and repeats with spirit what his predecessor has said, a\nthinker whose general terms are vague, and who is impractical because\nof his credulity as to what modern letters can actually effect in\nmodern society. His distinguishing trait, like Mr. Brooks\u2019s, is a\ncertain fine, sensitive, generous humanity, but beware here! Without\na corresponding growth of intellectual power, a corresponding stress\non deeds, this fervour may degenerate into mere emotional bluff.\nAnd the followers of Mr. Spingarn? Are there any now? There is an\n\u00e6sthetic school of young critics, but they derive rather from Mr. Ezra\nPound and the T. S. Eliot who wrote _The Sacred Wood_. For after all\nMr. Spingarn only winded a horn and left the startled and delighted\nself-expressionists to hunt for themselves.\n\nWe have, it would seem, come to the end of a decade and a half of\nexuberance. Enter mournfully Mr. Joseph Wood Krutch to confess the\ndisillusioned after-thoughts of the modern romanticist. It is a\nsupine admission he makes, without blushes be it added, when he\nsays in beginning his account of the modern temper or mood: \u201cI have\nbeen compelled to make references to many facts or supposed facts\nin biology, psychology, and anthropology. Obviously no person is\nqualified to assert them all with authority and obviously I am much\nless qualified than many others, but when I state them I do so not as\nfacts, but simply as commonplaces which we have been taught to believe.\nMy subject is not any series of objective facts, but a state of mind,\nand in the effort to describe and account for it I am responsible not\nfor Truth, but for the convictions, scientific or otherwise, which\nI and my contemporaries have been led to hold ... if the tenets of\nFreudianism or the hypotheses of the Darwinian theory are false, they\nhave at least been so accepted as to influence the modern temper quite\nas unmistakably as if they were true ... these supposed facts have an\nemotional significance. That is as far as it is necessary to go if\nthey are to be used as I use them, only in the effort to account for a\nmood.\u201d[69]\n\nShades of the heroes of the mind! Here is a critic who can entertain\nthe possibility that much of our contemporary \u201cknowledge\u201d is untrue,\nand then merely wring his hands elegantly in the melancholy produced\nby _assuming_ that it is true. In _The Modern Temper_ (1929) romantic\ncriticism in America culminates in weak despair.\n\nAs we should expect, there have been departures lately. There is Mr.\nWalter Lippmann,[70] as able a cartographer of the Kingdom of Whirl as\nMr. Krutch. He sees clearly that the bell-tent of civilisation is in\ncollapse because society has no common human aim, no hold, that is,\non a center-pole capable of raising the whole structure. \u201cThe effect\nof modernity, then,\u201d he says in _A Preface to Morals_ (1929), \u201cis to\nspecialise and to intensify our separated activities. Once all things\nwere phases of a single destiny: the church, the state, the family,\nthe school were means to the same end; the rights and duties of the\nindividual in society, the rules of morality, the themes of art,\nand the teachings of science were all of them ways of revealing, of\ncelebrating, of applying the laws laid down in the divine constitution\nof the universe. In the modern world institutions are more or less\nindependent, each serving its own proximate purpose, and our culture\nis really a collection of separate interests each sovereign within its\nown realm.\u201d[71] And the remedy he proposes, who can quarrel with it?\nThe \u201cgood life,\u201d he says, is an _acquired_ disposition,--surely an\nadvance over the implication of the other critics we have mentioned\nthat somehow the \u201cgood life\u201d would _naturally_ come to pass, if one\ncould only eliminate puritanic inhibitions and flow with one\u2019s desires.\nNo, says Mr. Lippmann, we must develop \u201cdetachment, understanding, and\ndisinterestedness in the presence of reality itself.\u201d We must enter\ninto a new asceticism--who would have anticipated five years ago such\na phrase from our new critics?--defined as \u201can effort to overcome\nimmaturity.\u201d\n\nThis is excellent in that it perceives the problem and the goal of the\nclear-insighted modern man, but does not Mr. Lippmann underestimate\nthe enormous psychological difficulties that block the passage from\nunregenerate to regenerate man? One has the feeling that his is a paper\nsolution, and one is appalled to read of his hopes for psycho-analysis\nas a technique for achieving the re-education of desire. The aim of\npsycho-analysis is adjustment to reality, and Mr. Lippmann adopts\nthe dangerous phrase. It is dangerous: for what does \u201cadjustment\u201d\nin practice mean but taking the position of maximum comfort, the\nfollowing of the path of least resistance? Continual adjustments\nby beings to an environment progressively unfavourable mean the\nprogressive deterioration of a species: ultimately adjustment means\nextinction. Perhaps the dinosaurs can give us a lesson in the fallacy\nof adjustment. It is farcical for this critic to patronise Pythagoras,\nfor instance, who \u201ccould not have known any tested method either of\nequipping his followers to appreciate science or anything besides a\ncrude asceticism as a means of moral discipline,\u201d as long as we can\ncontrast the ancient perception of the human necessity of surmounting\nthe environment with the contemporary belief in the value of adjusting\n(merely reacting) to it.\n\nNevertheless Mr. Lippmann among others has articulated what will\nprobably be the fundamental position of American criticism in the\nnext decade, namely, the conviction that we are thinking and acting\nchaotically and senselessly, and the deep surmise that man can \u201clearn\nto desire the kind of happiness which is possible.\u201d The brilliant but\neccentric Mr. Waldo Frank has dwelt for some time on the dissolution\nof the Medi\u00e6val Synthesis of Europe. America he announces is the grave\nof Europe and he hopes for a kind of miracle: a generation within\nthe grave of a mystical revival. He too has had his thoughts turned\nto the all-important question of a method of realising Wholeness in\nfact as well as in concept. You will find his method outlined at\nthe close of _The Re-discovery of America_ (1929). It is, I fear,\nhastily constructed, and more than smacks of amateurishness and of\nthe armchair. One wishes that he had not rushed in where sages fear\nto tread, but he has at least thrown the question of a method for the\ndevelopment of human potentialities into open discussion.[72]\n\nThe most impressive of the contemporary critics who offer us \u201ca way\nout\u201d is Mr. T. S. Eliot, but before examining him, it is proper to\nrepeat here that I am excluding from this paper any consideration of\nthe formidable opposition party to all that has been described thus\nfar, the new humanists whom the romanticists have found raised up\nagainst them. In passing, I may say that I have before this dipped\nmy freelance pen to the humanists in salutations of great respect\nmingled with a few misgivings, and I have not the least hesitation in\nvolunteering to defend them against the oblique attack of Mr. T. S.\nEliot.\n\nThis painstaking critic owes much to Professor Babbitt, far more than\ndoes Mr. Lippmann. There is in fact much overlapping between his views\nand modern humanism. Yet there is an issue between the new humanists\nand Mr. T. S. Eliot: it resolves itself into the question of Authority.\nLet us trace out the evolution of Mr. Eliot\u2019s ideas and we shall see\nthe latent weakness of his position, and those who wish may compare\nit with the new humanists\u2019 position. In _The Sacred Wood_ (1921) he\nbegan as an acute \u00e6sthetic critic, basing the exercise of criticism\nupon sensibility and intellect. He professed to be a classicist.\nOpposed to romantic excesses he was, in spite of an admiration for\ncertain decadent poets, but was he a classicist? If so, what about the\nessay on _Tradition and the Individual Talent_, in which the idea of\n\u201ccreative imitation\u201d is pushed to an extreme that makes one suspicious?\nMatters became explicit a few years later when he debated with Mr.\nJ. Middleton Murry. In this debate Mr. Eliot admitted that such were\nthe instabilities and insufficiencies of private judgment and private\nexperience that a man should discipline himself in allegiance to some\noutside Authority, and for the literary critic this meant loyalty to\nthe classical literary tradition. Something was here given away: the\nstrict corroboration by personal experiment of classical wisdom was\nleft out. Mr. Eliot was revealed as by disposition a neo-classicist\n(with some romantic elements) thoroughly dependent upon literary\nauthority.\n\nThe next step for him, as a man too intelligent and too serious to\nevade the problems of social and moral chaos, was to acknowledge that\ncriticism in our age could not be so limited as it was conceived to be\nin _The Sacred Wood_. On the contrary, the critic he saw must become\nphilosophic: he must be a creator of values. But here again he was\nneo-classical, for he searched for external Authority in politics and\nin religion. In the former he is Royalist, in the latter Anglo-Catholic.\n\nTurn to his essays on style and order entitled _For Lancelot\nAndrewes_. They are the work of a fine judicial temperament, but not,\nnot at all, the work of a general in the warfare of the mind. The\ndistinction is worth making much of. I have elsewhere[73] analysed the\nstructure and procedures of Mr. Eliot\u2019s prose to show its thoroughly\njudicial characteristics: its calmness and gravity, its balance and\ndiscriminatory powers among precedents, its fulfilment in a final\nelucidation arrived at by comparisons and analyses. It is not a\nfull-bodied prose, the weight of the whole man concentrated on the pen,\nbut the prose of a judge conscious of the weight of authority _behind_,\nnot in, him. Now observe that in _For Lancelot Andrewes_ Mr. Eliot,\nlike a learned judge and with an air of profundity, is continually\npointing to the tradition of a Church, set up as an authority external\nto himself. He is at his best when he presents comparatively narrow\nideas, ideas about literary style for the most part, as in his\nexposition of the relevant intensity of Andrewes\u2019 prose. At his most\ndisappointing, he ventures upon a safe common-place generality, as\nwhen he remarks, \u201cThe greatest tragedies are occupied with great and\npermanent moral conflicts.\u201d The last is true enough, but Mr. Eliot\nnever talks very much or directly about this occupation, about the\nstuff itself of moral conflicts.\n\nLikewise Mr. Eliot, apologist for religion, does not write about\nreligion: he points to _a_ Church and the intellectual riches of its\nhistory. \u201cFor us,\u201d he declares, \u201creligion is of course Christianity;\nand Christianity implies, I think, the conception of a Church.\u201d And\nagain, \u201cAnd the spirit killeth, but the letter giveth life\u201d--but\nwe need both the letter and the spirit! Stress on the letter gives\nus legalism in religious thinking, and on the spirit gives us what\nMr. Eliot calls \u201c_Ersatz_-religion\u201d: the two, spirit and letter,\nmust correspond. There we are! the last critical \u201cleader\u201d in this\nexamination turns out to be merely sitting on a judge\u2019s bench and\ntherefore necessarily inactive: he points out where Authority may be\nfound, but one may doubt from the evidence of his writing whether\nAuthority resides in him.\n\n\nIV\n\nFollowing the course of Sherman, we entered the professional literary\nworld and explored its criticism, coming finally to Mr. T. S. Eliot,\nwhose latest departure turns our eyes outwards again to the academic\nworld, to Professor Babbitt and humanism, or to the worlds of religion\nor philosophy. It appears to me that our purely literary critics have\nat one point or another all failed fundamentally: they are all leaders\nby default only and not by essence. Either they are bound to move\ntowards the position of Mr. Joseph Wood Krutch, who realises that \u201call\nthe bases upon which modern despair rests were laid joyously by people\nwho were quite sure that they were serving humanity, and all the chains\nby which we are now bound so much more firmly to earth than we want\nto be were forged amidst shouts of triumph,\u201d or they are spying some\nloophole which on inspection seems not to exist. But in either case,\nand this is a hopeful sign, they are all converging toward a common\nrealisation that King Whirl must, if possible, be deposed. The goal is\nseen: the reconstructed human spirit. But without adequate leadership\nhow may we start to approach it?\n\nWell, it is easy to exaggerate the power of literary criticism. If\ncertain things in our culture have gone dead, criticism cannot revive\nthem. The essential \u201cabout-ness\u201d of the critical activity limits it\nto the guidance, stimulation, and judging of things in which there\nis still some life. But assuming that a funeral ceremony such as Mr.\nKrutch has conducted is still premature,--and it is premature so long\nas any doubt exists of final decay,--we may then try to conceive of\nwhat a genuine leader in critical thought would be like, and by this\nideal measure ourselves.\n\nObjectivity in judgment would be one of the principal marks of the\nleader. That requires a sufficient scale of values to stand outside\nnot only the frame of one\u2019s century but outside the frames of all\ncenturies. It means the ascertainment of _primary_ laws in our field,\nwhich may be possible as it has been possible in physics to say that a\nfew laws are true regardless of what frame of time and space one may\nbe in. Objectively considered, literature may be found to have been\nin decline, not just for a century and a half or just for six hundred\nyears but almost from its classical sources and from the Scriptures of\nancient lands. Is this depressing? It is not depressing to contemplate\na magnificent mountain from its base.\n\nOn the contrary, a real view of the heights of Parnassus and Olympus\nmay inspire an uncommon elevation of aim--a second mark of the critical\nleader; it seems to me unnecessary to argue that the critics we have\nlooked at do not realise how high man has ascended in the past or can\nconceivably ascend now. Their ideas of human greatness are small.\nReally, _are_ we practitioners of literary criticism distinguished by\nany grandeur in breadth and elevation of thought? No one can believe it.\n\nNor can I believe that we approximate the ideal critic in passion, in\na burning unquenchable indomitable love of perfect things. This is\nthe spirit that giveth life to standards that otherwise would seem\ntoo skeletal, too non-human to be glamorous and magical in their\nremoteness: this is the spirit that killeth despair and compromise.\nInfused with it, our imagined critic becomes single-minded and proof\nagainst deviations and resting-places.\n\nFinally, he would, I conceive, be distinguished by an immense capacity\nfor relating deeds to words. His interest would not cease with a\nbeautiful formulation, but would continue until the formulation was\nembodied in experience. Not words alone, not deeds alone, but words\n_and_ actions would be his great desideratum.\n\nOf whom am I thinking? It is dangerous in calling attention to concepts\nor principles to cite examples until the concept or principle or, in\nour case, ideal has been thoroughly understood, and I dare not hope\nfor that within the space of this paper. But with a caution not to\ndebate the achievements of him but only to study his framework, I take\nthe risk of nominating Matthew Arnold as having the build of a great\ncritic. We need in our national letters a critic of the stamp and\ndimensions of Arnold.\n\n\nV\n\nI append _The Prayer of a Young Critic_.\n\n  But we have heard rumour of the Mistral.\n  It is a cold wind that blows from the heights,\n  Day after day it sweeps steadily down,\n  Cold and from above, changing the air\n  In the lowlands.\n                    We are dwellers in lowlands\n  And our air has been breathed before. It is\n  A sultry air: men talk to each other\n  In haze and their words are close and fevered.\n  A warm breeze crosses our little hillocks,\n  And then the dust settles down again.\n  Not near the Alps do we live.\n                                Great Genius,\n  Grant us an electric climate! Touch us\n  With snowy fire, send the Mistral to sweep\n  Bare our plain and proclaim the gaiety\n  Of altitudes, the glory of clear stars,\n  The exaltation of the sun burning\n  The rare air. Great Genius, send the Mistral!\n\n\nFOOTNOTES\n\n[63] From _Points of View_, 1924, Charles Scribner\u2019s Sons, publisher.\n\n[64] From _Americans_, 1922, Charles Scribner\u2019s Sons, publisher.\n\n[65] The rest of the sentence is \u201cand he sees the common weal as the\nmighty rock in the shadow of which his little life and personality are\nto be surrendered, if need be, as things negligible and transitory.\u201d\n\n[66] Also he could have mastered the philosophy of Mr. John Dewey and\nmade his \u201creligion of democracy\u201d more respectable.\n\n[67] A perusal of the _Life and Letters of Stuart P. Sherman_,\npublished after this essay was written, increases my confidence in the\ndiagnosis above of Sherman\u2019s weaknesses. Mr. P. E. More wondered many\nyears ago whether his young reviewer did not have \u201can inclination to\navoid the central problem.\u201d Later, he warned Sherman: \u201cI do not like to\nsee a man of your ability and insight deliberately taking up the job of\nwhitewasher\u201d for democracy. And finally Mr. More said: \u201cYours is but a\nsickly sort of democracy at bottom, and needs a doctor.\u201d\n\n[68] From _Prejudices: Fourth Series_, Alfred A. Knopf, publisher.\n\n[69] From _The Modern Temper_, Harcourt, Brace & Co., publisher.\n\n[70] Mr. Lippmann is not a literary critic but his views are pertinent\nto this discussion.\n\n[71] The Macmillan Company, publisher.\n\n[72] Even in a footnote I mention Mr. Ludwig Lewisohn with some\nreluctance, and only because there are so few critics among us who have\nany interest in trying to plot a direction for the future. Pauline\nChristianity (grossly libelled by him as akin to the degenerate\npuritanism of our day) must be destroyed, he preaches. Salvation lies\nin a fusion of Hellenism (Science) and Judaism (which he interprets\nselectively and sentimentally). He is a suggestive writer: he is also a\nprig, a special pleader, and embarrassing in his frequent intervals of\nself-pity and in his intrusions of hearth-side intimacies (proper for\ntelling only to his closest friends) into the public medium of print.\nOne cannot take this muddled romanticist seriously.\n\n[73] In _Style and Form in American Prose_ (1929).\n\n\n\n\n_Behaviour and Continuity_\n\nBERNARD BANDLER II\n\n\nI\n\nUntil humanism and psychology are more suitably defined than they are\nat present the task of establishing their relations is hazardous.\nPsychology is still in a primitive state: its basic problems and\nprinciples are disputed, its relation to the other sciences is\nundetermined, and its method is loose and unsystematic. That it may be\na science, however, is indubitable. The constitution of human nature\nis open to analysis: human behaviour no less than the stars and plants\nmay be observed and hypothesis may be employed to order its seeming\nirregularities. But the common scientific ground of purpose which\nunderlies the differences of psychological theories does not unite the\nhumanists, and the problem of stating the nature and scope of humanism\nis correspondingly difficult. The absence of a common scientific\nground, of an accepted subject matter and a technique, enables any\nman interested in human activities to call himself a humanist and to\nmaintain his contention, whereas no man, unless technically trained,\nwill consider himself a psychologist. He may observe society and\ndeliver himself of apothegms and epigrams that characterise people\ntruly--like the French moralists, La Rochefoucauld, La Bruy\u00e8re, and\nJoubert. He may trace the influence of ideas on conduct, as Mr. Babbitt\nhas done. But that is ethics and philosophy, not psychology. Psychology\nlimits itself to studying how human beings behave and to reducing their\nmost complex actions to primitive elements. Ethics evaluates their\nactivities and judges them. So, however confusing the positions of\ncontemporary psychologists and humanists, if we keep in mind the formal\naspects of psychology and ethics, a study of the relations of the two\nmay be instructive.\n\nUpon psychology as a science, as upon physics and chemistry, humanism\ncan have nothing to say. It may examine the logic of psychology and\ncriticise its presuppositions, although that is properly the task of\nthe cosmologist, like Mr. Whitehead. But towards the conclusion of\npsychology, the \u201claws\u201d it may formulate, humanism\u2019s only possible\nattitude is one of interested acceptance. An ethics should not\nprescribe the limits of science, nor dictate the nature of its results.\nAnd if the science deals successfully with human actions, ethics,\ninstead of criticising, should respect its results, that ideals may not\nbe founded on ignorance and fancy but rather on knowledge.\n\nUnfortunately, the amount of psychology which is scientific and\nrelevant to human nature is small. Much of it reduces to physiology.\nThe chemistry of the glands and blood, the nature of sensation,\nfeeling, emotion, and of the thinking processes, and those\npredispositions of the body which we call instincts are ultimately\nproblems of physiology and await the development of that science for\ntheir solution. What distinguishes psychology from physiology is the\nstudy of behaviour in society: the transmutation of the instincts and\ntemperament into habits and sentiments. Of psychology proper we have,\nso far, elaborate programmes, a bewildering variety of theories,--part\nepistemology, part logic, part metaphysics, and part mythology,--a\nvast accumulation of data, some classifications, and hardly any\nscience. Yet the studies of \u201ctypes,\u201d \u201cpersonality,\u201d \u201cculture forms,\u201d\nand particularly the researches of psychiatrists contain many accurate\ndescriptions of human behaviour. Their endeavour to explain the most\nsublimated actions, by reference to the constitution of the organism\nand to the determining factors of its environment, approaches sound\nscience.\n\nBut \u201cbehaviour in society\u201d and \u201cthe determining factors of environment\u201d\nare vague phrases. If there is to be a science of behaviour and society\ntwo conditions are necessary: first, that the organisms in spite of\nindividual variations should be essentially the same; and second, that\nthe environment to which they react should be stable and limited. For\nif each organism were essentially unique there would be no basis for\nthe science of psychology, and if the environment were constantly\nchanging there would be no conditions and no control for studying\nthe organism. But human environment, the totality of forces which\naffect us and help satisfy our needs, is not stable and limited. It is\nplastic and relative. Tradition and convention are added to the forces\ncomposing an animal\u2019s environment. These multiply the possibilities of\nbehaviour indefinitely. In proportion as a man frees himself from a\nblind adherence to custom, the more personal his environment will be.\nTo know such a man\u2019s environment is to become acquainted with a unique\nworld. It is to know not only his ancestry, his history, his habits,\nhis occupation, and his social milieu, but also his purposes, the ends\nwhich he consciously seeks and which are the meaning of his actions to\nhim. It is to know his mind. But a mind, being unique, can never be\nabsolutely known. Even if it were completely revealed in behaviour,\nconversation, and writing, and if all the occasions that have served to\nform it were discovered, one could never be certain to capture a man\u2019s\nunderstanding of his words, or his interpretation of his attitude and\nactions.\n\nBehaviourists are therefore right in excluding consciousness, purpose,\nand mind from psychology. These are inaccessible to science: first,\nbecause they can never be precisely seized; and second, because they\nintroduce an indefinite number of objects which preclude a limited and\nstable environment. Mind can reflect upon all objects of experience,\nand these in turn can become objectives of action. So soon as this\nhappens the exact control which experimental science demands is\nprevented and the progress of psychology is blocked. It thus seems\nimpossible for psychology to deal with the most interesting aspect\nof human behaviour, those where action is guided and dominated by\nthought and is not blindly reflexive. To avoid this limitation of\npsychology certain behaviourists, in the name of what they conceive\nto be mechanism, have denied the efficacy of purpose and mind\naltogether. According to the argument, consciousness, purpose, and\nmind are waste products, attendant upon natural processes, like sparks\nfrom a locomotive. Or they are like the decorations on illuminated\nmanuscripts, illustrating the text, and quite superfluous. Otherwise\nthey would be forces, inexplicably interfering with natural processes.\nThese arguments fail by misconstruing the notion of purpose, which is\nnot a force but an end. Purpose does not direct action but _is_ the\ndirection which action takes. It is the rational explication of the\nobjects of our desires and wishes. The end has no initial power, but,\nonce thought has discerned it as the true object of our desires and\nthey have attached themselves to it, as a lover to his mistress, so\nthat satisfaction cannot be found elsewhere, then the end acquires a\ndeputed power which it may never surrender. Since purpose defines the\nobjects of desire which thereby become objectives of action, it is a\ndetermining factor of human behaviour, and the so-called mechanistic\narguments against it are invalid. Yet, since science deals with\nmaterial and efficient causes only, psychologists are compelled to\ndisregard formal and final causes, purposes, and ends.\n\n\nII\n\nThe goal of ethics, on the other hand, is to discover the most\norganised system of ends, of goods, which a rational life can realise.\nThis goal of ethics can never be fully achieved, for so long as man\nacts and reflects he may pursue and conceive novel ends. But though\nthe most elaborate system of ethics is in origin an expression of\npersonal preferences, it is not therefore arbitrary and unjustifiable\nby reason. My values have their roots in my nature. I can exhibit\nthem, demonstrate that they are mutually consistent and do not defeat\nthe interests which underlie them. Furthermore I can declare that if\nany one honestly questioned his heart he might find that my values\nrepresented it. It is not to psychology, then, that one must turn for\nknowledge of human goods. For psychology, although it may analyse the\nefficient causes of desire, cannot estimate the value of its objects,\nof the ideal form of a rational life. If psychologists talk of a normal\norganism, they mean one whose desires are adjusted to its environment,\nthe one most likely to survive. If they speak of superior organisms\nand civilisation, they mean increased ability for adjustment to a more\ncomplex environment. Thus though psychologists speak of normal and\ncivilised they are unable either to define or to evaluate them.\n\nKnowledge of human goods is furnished by philosophers, when they\nare frank and speak for themselves; by the founders of religions,\nthe saints, and the mystics; by the poets, and chiefly, as Socrates\nknew, by knowledge of oneself. Self-knowledge, though it may first\nlook back upon the behaviour studied by psychology, moves in the\nopposite direction toward the objects sought. These it endeavours to\ncomprehend, to purge of contradictions, to regard intently _sub specie\nmortalitatis_. From the vantage point of death one becomes a spectator\nof human life. Thought acquires the prestige of impersonality, without\nthe sacrifice of its warm interest in life. The point of view of death\ndiffers from seeing things _sub specie \u00e6ternitatis_ both in essence\nand in purpose. It does not abolish time or elevate mind to the\ncontemplation of a necessary order, which is the function of seeing\nthings _sub specie \u00e6ternitatis_, although consideration of death (as in\nthe Ph\u00e6do) may do this. It enables one to regard life in its totality\nand, without projecting it against the background of nature, to\nestimate each partial aim in the perspective of all others, and thus to\ndistinguish the objects one truly desires.\n\nThe effort to detach oneself from the present and to incorporate it\nwith the past and future in a satisfactory whole, which psychology\ndoes not attempt, is what makes action ethical. In the unique self the\npast exists in memory, which is one\u2019s personal tradition. Thus memory,\nbesides being the mother of the muses, is the mother of ethics and\nof rational action. It enables us to confront our present condition,\nits projects, hopes, and fears, with the past, and by comparison\nto evaluate the present action. It enables us to utilise the whole\nof our experience in the active organisation of our life and thus\nto attain a continuity of being. Consequently a succession of full\nmoments does not, as Pater thought, constitute a full life. For each\nof those separate selves which a past moment represented and which\nthe subsequent one renounced lives in memory to advance its claim to\nexistence against the present; and only similar circumstances are\nneeded, a chance odour, or gesture, or phrase, to revive it, and make\none feel the desolation of its loss. These intermittances of the heart,\nas Proust calls them, are dependent on the infinite passive occasions\nof sensation, and since they never represented an ideal actively\nstriven for, no analysis is able to penetrate to an underlying unity.\nOn the other hand the consequence of dispossessing oneself of the past\nin order to live in the moment is a reduction of the personality to\nindecision and apathy. Besides, the past preserved in memory and the\nfuture that we anticipate enrich the present and give it its fulness\nof being, as a musical phrase has more significance in a symphony than\nwhen played in isolation.\n\nAs one interrogates the present, with its What shall I do? What shall\nI be? it expands to absorb the relevant testimony that relates it to\nthe past and to the future. Ordinarily the present includes a fairly\ndefinite content, some concrete situation and prospect, often trivial,\nas a dinner to be ordered. Choice when it is not automatic can easily\nreview the relevant factors; one\u2019s favourite dishes, the season of\nthe year; possible illness on the morrow. At other times the relevant\nrelations are endless, particularly when an irrevocable choice forces\nus to discriminate among all the elements of our being: love, honour,\ncountry, and religion each claiming our allegiance. The infinite\nvariety of situations that may arise and the impossibility of relating\nthem to a definite past and a definite future are responsible for the\ndifferences of ethical systems. A philosopher\u2019s conception of the\ntypical situation will define his problems and dictate the general\nterms of his solution. Buddha saw sorrow and suffering as the main\nportion of human existence. His endeavour, therefore, was to emancipate\nmankind from them. Aristotle started with man\u2019s desire for happiness.\nTherefore he analysed the actions of men, the pursuit of wealth, of\nhonour, and of knowledge to see which conformed most with the essential\nnature of man. Amiel\u2019s situation was intensely personal, but he stated\nhis problem in universal terms. Amiel recognised from his youth the\nnecessity of an organising purpose and a continuous effort. His culture\nand sympathies, however, extended to all human actions; to limit his\nlife to one of the manifold beings he felt contained within himself\nseemed a violation of the ideal.\n\nNow what is the context, the appropriate situation and problem, from\nwhich ethics should start? Is it some general aspect of life common\nto all people, like sorrow or suffering, or the generic nature of\nman, or the attempt to discover an organising purpose? Or is it our\nimmediate context, the world to which our traditions, conduct, desires,\nand ambitions have engaged us? It is this world that confronts us\ndaily. Our actions in it are the theme of the novel, the drama, and\nthe epic, which are an almost inexhaustible field for ethical study.\nEach work is a representation of an action, and in proportion as the\nwriter concentrates his imagination on the situation before him, on his\n_donn\u00e9e_, and reveals its possibilities, the action will illustrate\nsome ideal. Literature always retains the concrete immediacy of life,\nthe movement of an action never being from a situation to a principle.\nBut all the comprehensiveness of a principle, the innumerable\nunsuspected relations which it opens when once intuition has leapt the\ngap between a formula and the fact it covers is implied by an action\nat its close. The characters are still flesh and blood, but as they\nfinally define themselves their situation includes all their relevant\npast and all that is significant in their future, so that they become\ntransparent, and the whole moral world which they represent shines\nclearly through them. Hence it is possible that a profound ethics and a\ngreat work of art may introduce us to the same moral world, so that the\norientation of our being, emotional and intellectual, after reading the\n_Ethics_ of Spinoza and _The Wings of the Dove_ say, will be identical.\n\nIf ethics is to be persuasive and reasonable it must be founded on the\nmost complete experience possible. The context from which it arises,\nas in life and literature, should be rich and concrete. The defect of\nmost ethical systems is that they quit life too abruptly. Instead\nof studying the complex conditions which underlie any achieved good,\nas psychology is contented to do, philosophers ignore them, except\nin their generality, and so attain a factitious unity. Consequently\nrationalistic philosophers invert the proper procedure of thought.\nThey start from the typical, the general, and the rational, whereas\nthese are the ultimate fruits of reflection. When an ethics, however,\nrepudiates the purpose of rationalism as well as its method, it severs\nitself from all connection with the good. If it speaks of goods and\nideals, it speaks of them only provisionally and instrumentally. Its\nexcessive preoccupation with the conditions marks the return of ethics\nto that immersion in the present from which it initially arose.\n\nHumanism differs from other ethical systems by its data and by its\nmethod. Its data are each individual in his context; his inherited\nvalues, his body, his capabilities, and the relations formed by them.\nIt is the task of each individual to preserve himself in the world,\nand to establish a continuity of being. The essence of humanism is the\nrefusal to allow any sudden break of development, any shift of basis\nthat arbitrarily repudiates one\u2019s past, such as breaking one\u2019s word.\nIts method is to survey life in the light of death. By this means one\u2019s\npersonal situation can be enlarged by history, and by the contemplation\nof the ideals which men pursue. The more vivid the conception of\nan ideal society and a rational life within it, so long as it does\nnot weaken one\u2019s personal reality, the more likely is life to yield\nhappiness.\n\nPsychology and ethics deal with the same subject matter, human\nbehaviour, but they regard it from opposite points of view. Psychology\nregards it externally as a physical phenomenon having already taken\nplace in time. Like any other science psychology tries to correlate\nits diverse data and to reduce them to the simplest elements possible.\nBut since psychology requires that the organisms which it studies\nshould be essentially the same and that the environment to which they\nreact should be stable and limited, it cannot deal with the behaviour\ndominated by mind. For mind is unique and its possible objects are\ninfinite. Its language is that of meaning, purpose, end. The effort of\na moral individual is to know what he wants, to know his mind. Hence\nethics regards human behaviour internally and as directed towards the\nfuture. The goal of ethics is the satisfactory synthesis of the unique\nperspectives of different minds. It approximates this synthesis by\nstudying the dialectic of desire, the logical implications of each\npurpose in relation to all other objects. In this way ethics will\ndescribe ideally how an individual may harmonise with himself and with\nsociety, which psychology can never do, and thus point the way to\nhappiness.\n\n\n\n\n_The Well of Discipline_\n\nSHERLOCK BRONSON GASS\n\n\nThe lapidary precedes the historian, and the sound of the mallet is\nheard in the land chipping _Hic Jacet_ on the monuments which humanism\nhas erected, with an epitaph which runs blithely thus:\n\n  \u201cHumanism enjoyed four hundred years of prosperity in the later\n  world and then gave way to Modernism. From Mid-Fifteenth to\n  Mid-Nineteenth Century, Humanism traced the patterns of the\n  Occident. Then, with a dramatic flourish comparable to that of the\n  Renaissance, a new pattern was superimposed on the palimpsest of\n  the West, based on the concepts and methods of Natural Science.\u201d\n\nMeantime, while the historian waits for a deeper perspective, I am\nwriting in the belief that there is more vitality in humanism than\nthe lapidaries have given it credit for. Humanity, at all events, is\nperennial, and men are not likely to forget for long that science is\nnot ineluctable nature itself, but only human knowledge, and that all\nknowledge, even knowledge of nature, is pursued at will for whatever\nit is worth to them in their own esteem--that behind the pursuit of\nnatural science lies the authority of the evaluating mind.\n\nThe human worth of the sciences, I ardently echo, is beyond compare.\nThey have, it is true, played a sardonic trick on their pursuers,\nand have seemed for the moment honestly to nullify any significant\nworth in human existence. But men may still recollect that it is they\nthemselves who have made the nullifying discovery. They are worth at\nleast what that discovery implies--an intelligence, a power to think\nand judge, and an impulse to act selectively on the basis of a sense\nof values--or why have they pursued the sciences at all? With these\nresources to start with, and science in their scrip, they may also have\nthe humour to see that there remains to them, as of old, the eternal\ntask of making the best of it--the very task to which science itself is\na contribution. When this perception shall have grown lively enough,\nhumanism will again come into its own.\n\nGranted a will to return to humanism, however, the return itself will\nnot be simple. Something, we shall find, has been lost in the meantime.\nValue and significance are not handed to us on a platter; they are\nthemselves products of thought. If life, then, has seemed to be emptied\nof them by the findings of natural science, it is equally possible\nto suppose that this bathos is due to a diluted capacity for thought\nin precisely the field of thought where value and significance are\nconceived.\n\nThis is the possibility that I have set out to examine. The broad\nhint of it lies on the surface. If discipline of the mind has any\nvirtue--and modernism itself with its austere regimen is its current\nchampion--that virtue has been lifted from the field of thought where\nhuman values are explicitly involved, to a field of thought from which\nthey are explicitly banned. By every calculation, therefore, the minds\nthus affected should have lost something of their capacity to think in\nthe undisciplined area, and should have lost something of their powers\nto conceive or discover the values that, under happier auspices, give\nlife its significance.\n\n\nI\n\nIn imagination we dramatise the Renaissance as a sweeping revolution.\nWhether humanists or modernists, we look upon it as a beginning,\nor a resumption, at all events as the turning-point from which we\nare the continuators in a straight line. Historians of philosophy,\nof letters, of politics, of science all concur. More impressively\nstill the men of the Renaissance themselves were quite conscious of\nthe change--Bessarion, Aldus, Erasmus, da Vinci, Galileo, Bruno, to\ntake names at random. The shift of curiosity from the divine to the\nsecular, and the responsive shift of discipline from scholasticism to\nhumanism opened out new vistas to the voyaging mind. It would be hard\nto exaggerate the almost theatric reversals which the times witnessed\nand welcomed.\n\nSweeping as it was, however, the revolution of the Renaissance was\nless radical than that of the second half of the nineteenth century.\nIn contrast to the latter the changes wrought by the Renaissance were\non the level of explicit ideas. The essential stuff of thought was\nunchanged. New ideas were astir, but the elements of which they were\nbuilt were the old elements. Theology gave way to humanism; God as\nthe centre gave way to man as the centre. But after all, God had been\nconceived as a father and man as a child of God, and, God or man,\ntheir psychology was the same. The very literature which had laid the\npremisses of medi\u00e6val thought--the Bible--permeated the consciousness\nof the humanistic period yet more deeply.\n\nThe shift of discipline from sacred to profane letters, as a\nconsequence, made no profound break in the consciousness itself.\nThe major impulses of the two periods blended easily and naturally.\nThe religious impulse of the Middle Ages lent itself triumphantly\nto literary expression; there was the _Divine Comedy_. The literary\nimpulse of the Renaissance lent itself no less triumphantly to\nreligious themes; there was _Paradise Lost_. Natural science, indeed,\nbegan its modern course under the impulse of the Renaissance. Still,\nfrom the fifteenth to the nineteenth century, while the common\ndiscipline of the West was humanistic, natural science did not\nprofoundly alter the minds of men. It was an incident, a special play\nof curiosity and thought on the part of men whose minds were formed and\ninformed in the medium of humane letters. Even Doctor Johnson had his\nchemical apparatus.\n\nNot until the latter half of the nineteenth century did the common\ndiscipline of letters begin to give way. Up to that time, therefore,\nthere had been a basic continuity in the cultivated consciousness of\nthe West, not only from the Middle Ages but from high antiquity itself.\nFor the Renaissance was avowedly a resumption of the broken threads\nof ancient thought. And its humanism, however loosely it spliced the\nbreak, was evidence that here too the essential elements of its reason\nwere the same. What so intoxicated the Renaissance mind was the very\nspontaneity of its grasp of ancient ideas. And this affinity has been\nthe mark of humanism ever since.\n\nNow continuity is not necessarily a virtue. Nothing, alas, is so\npersistent as error and evil. One aspect of the shift to modernism,\nhowever, seems to me itself an evil, promising persistence--a rupture\nat the basis of reason. Modernism, indeed, also had its dramatic\nconfrontations, its moments of intense self-consciousness. New\nconceptions came into tragic conflict with old, yielding many a Robert\nElsmere, and many a family cleavage like that between the elder and the\nyounger Gosse. Such conflicts are disconcerting and painful, and for a\ngeneration or two terribly impressive. It is not to such overt changes,\nhowever, that I refer. They belong to the normal life of the mind.\nIt is the very function of intellect to incur and mediate them. One\nis inclined to bid the intellect be a man and face the frank hazards\nof the life of reason. I refer rather to a change, not in ideas, but\nprior to ideas, among the ultimate premisses of thought, in the\ndiscipline by which the powers of the mind and the fortunes of ideas\nare themselves in a large measure disposed. And this change, it seems\nto me, has proved a scotching of the goose that lays the golden egg.\n\n\nII\n\nWhere is the bottom of the well into which discipline--vaunted so\nhighly by both humanist and modernist--is poured? Discipline, as\ndistinguished from any guise of propaganda, is a delicate affair. Its\nconcern is not for the specific ideas with which perforce it must do\nits deed, and which it pours into the depths in an unremitting stream.\nIts subtle task is to enrich and enhance the powers of thought and yet\nleave them free--free to think, and free to judge even the ideas by\nwhich they are enriched.\n\nThe bottom lies deeper, therefore, than the level at which the Huxleys,\nthe Spencers, the Eliots placed the controversy--the relative merits\nof two sorts of knowledge, of Homer and Sophocles, of Plato\u2019s Ideas\nand C\u00e6sar\u2019s battles, of _Jerusalem Recovered_ and _Paradise Lost_,\nas against the constitution of matter and the laws of nature. These\nrelative merits are themselves matters of judgment, as the controversy\nwitnesses. And it is precisely the quality of such judgment that is\nmomentously at stake.\n\nOf course the Hellenist must know his Greek and the astronomer his\nphysics. They are specialists, and the question is not of them.\nIt is a question of that common humanity of which Hellenist and\nastronomer, poet and chemist, man of leisure and man of affairs are\nalike responsible members. As between humanist and modernist a sort of\nofficial decision has already been rendered, and the common discipline,\ntogether with the faith that animates it, has gone over to the\nsciences. Is it ill-humoured to point out that the decision itself has\nbeen arrived at and progressively confirmed in that field of judgment\nfrom which discipline has been progressively withdrawn? At all events,\nit is toward that deeper level that I am delving, to get at the roots\nof that common humanity.\n\nThe Darwinian hypothesis of the descent of man is a biological way\nof dealing with a reflection old in the tradition of humanism.\nFrom Plato down, curiosity has toyed with theories of the origin\nof language. Language is patently artificial, a device, a product\nof human ingenuity. That a child is born without speech might mean\nnothing, since there are instincts that emerge only in the course of\ndevelopment. But language differs from language; every term in every\nlanguage is arbitrary; the child, whatever his blood, picks up the\nspeech of his community; individuals differ in the extent and character\nof their deliberate acquisition. All these considerations point to its\nartificiality. One speaks, indeed, before one\u2019s mind is mature enough\nto reflect upon the accomplishment. But that is the very point, as will\nappear in a moment.\n\nWhatever the theory, the origin of speech implies ancestors before\nspeech. And those ancestors--is it fantastic to identify them, in\na slightly modified version of our evolutionary history, with the\nprehuman race of the Darwinian rendering? We should not, I think, have\ncalled them men. For bound up with language is all that we think of\nas human--the power of communication, the fixation and tradition of\nthought, the comparison and criticism of ideas, co-operation on the\nbasis of common principles, all history and philosophy, all literature\nand science, the very process of reason itself prior to its expression.\n\nI say reason, not intelligence. Intelligence itself--a primary\nmystery--is scarcely the monopoly of men. The cat here on the hearth\nhas a share of it, and the mouse of which she is apparently dreaming.\nIt is not intelligence that distinguishes the human species sweepingly\nfrom the brute, but a particular deployment of it, a way of using it or\nmanaging it, that we call _reason_.\n\nTo linger in imagination over this moment of evolution is to linger\nover a transition from the dumb fluidity of animal consciousness to\nits articulation by the use of language. Sheer animal consciousness\nmay alight, perhaps, upon any imaginable concept. Its rational defect\nis its inability to return after departure to the same spot. Who by\ntaking pains could return again to precisely the number 91 but for the\narticulating, identifying, stabilising symbol? The rational use of the\nnative intelligence thus hangs upon an ability to identify particles of\nconsciousness arbitrarily shaped, to quit them, and then to return. And\nspeech serves this end; so far as it is carried it precipitates fluid\nconsciousness into stable, negotiable blocks for the architectural\nstructures of thought.\n\nNow it is true that what is original, what is new, what is invented or\ndiscovered by the thinking mind itself emerges, not in the articulate\nparticles--they are perforce old stuff--but in the perception by the\nintelligence of relations between them. This spontaneous perception\nof relationships is the play of reason; thought is a sort of creative\nmiracle.\n\nOn the other hand--and this is the point I am driving at--just because\nthought is the perception of relationships between particles of old\nstuff, the particles themselves condition these perceptions. I see only\nsuch relationships as hold between the particles I happen to possess;\ncertainly I can see none between such as I do not possess. And those I\nhave are none of my own creation. They are handed down to me. In this\nsense the power of thought the \u201cfaculty\u201d of reason, is a _tradition_.\n\nIn fancy I may picture a Romulus--abandoned on a hillside and suckled\nby a wolf--inventing for himself a system of symbols with which to\narticulate his own fluid consciousness, conning them into spontaneity,\nand building them into thought. But in reality he would not--he could\nnot. The actual articulations with which one thinks are not native to\nthe consciousness. Who of us can count more than a stray one or two of\nhis own invention, even with the hint and model of a whole armory of\nthem already in possession? They are, on the contrary, a heritage. And\nwhat one can think is conditioned by that heritage--such items of it as\nthrough hap or care one has previously acquired.\n\nAll that I, for instance, can think in the field of chemistry is\nsharply limited to what I can construe with the articulate particles in\nthat area of my consciousness. In my actual experience that area has\nbeen poorly endowed. All that I can think there I could say in a bad\nquarter of an hour. And what I can think there is cabined and cribbed\nby the special particles I happen to possess.\n\nThis analysis, so obviously valid in any special field of thought in\nwhich one is aware of one\u2019s ignorance, holds no less, it seems to me,\nfor that universal ignorance in which all of us are born. If it does\nhold there, it may stand as one version of the hypothesis of human\nevolution--rational mind out of animal consciousness, man out of brute.\nThe change that effected this evolution was not accomplished, however,\nonce for all in some remote past. The outer device was transmissible,\nand hence became a racial characteristic. But the change itself\nmust still be re-enacted in every growing child. Something of it is\nre-enacted in the emergence of every idea in the rational mind. How far\nit is carried and how complete the evolution depends upon deliberate\ncultivation.\n\nIntelligence is pure gift, the prior condition and animating agent\nof all thought. Whether intelligence itself may be increased by\nexercise is a matter of faith or doubt, as one chooses. In face of a\nprimary mystery one can only be humble and dumb. But of that ingenious\nartifice, the arbitrary articulation of the consciousness into stable\nparticles, there can be no doubt. It is a human invention in human\nhands. What can be done with these particles by way of thought depends\nin a given mind upon their range, the richness of their substance,\ntheir stability, and their clarity. And they can, with care, be\nextended, enriched, stabilised, clarified.\n\nThat there are larger units, whole structures of thought, with which\ndiscipline may be occupied goes without saying. Not all the heritage\nof the civilised mind is deposited in these particles. But the larger\nunits are themselves built of the smaller, and what any mind makes of\nthem hangs on its prior possession of the elements of which they are\nbuilt, and the quality of those elements. In childhood one may have\nread, say, _Gulliver_, or _Through the Looking Glass_, with delight,\nand in maturity may still read them with delight. The outer symbols are\nthe same now as then, but the responsive thoughts are not. In response\nto each symbol now there rises richer substance than the mind then\npossessed, grounds for relationships which then escaped detection.\n\nThe two, indeed--particle and structure--are inseparable in practice.\nIt is in use that the particles have accumulated their substance\nand quality; it is by finding them in use that the mind identifies\nand enriches and clarifies them for itself. But it is they, I\nthink--the ultimate premisses of all thought and the basis of all\nunderstanding--that lie at the bottom of the well into which discipline\nis poured.\n\nFor in the first place they lie at the deepest level to which\ndiscipline can go. That is something. But by a happy fortuity there,\nat the very node between animal consciousness and rational thought,\nthey occupy a strategic position. Through them the fluid streams of\nconsciousness, rising from below, are articulated for thought--and\none thinks what he can with the shapes thus formed. And through these\nsame shapes come the chief enrichments of the consciousness from above.\nFor in reality what I apprehend of the thoughts of others is not\ntheir thoughts but my own. It is what I build in my own mind with the\nparticles of my own consciousness called up by the symbols they have\nused. They are the determinants, coming and going, and a discipline\nthat thickens and deepens and clarifies them enhances at one stroke\nboth the give and the take of the mind, its power to think and its\npower to learn.\n\nThey lie at a strategic point, moreover, in another and no less\nmomentous transaction. They not only articulate the individual mind\nfor thinking; coming from a common tradition they tend, in the measure\nin which that tradition is mastered, to articulate disparate minds\nalike. Only so can two minds think the same thought. It is here that\nmind comes together with mind--or forever fails to come together.\nAnd situated between two realms of freedom--the wild realm of animal\nconsciousness and the cultivated realm of reason--they alone are\namenable to coercion. Arbitrary agreements, sheer conventions,\nsubsequent to all native idiosyncrasies and prior to all conflict of\nprejudice or opinion, they are open to utter community. And since in\nrelation to all thinking they are the ultimate premisses, they afford\nthe unquestioned common grounds imperative for mutual understanding and\ncommunity of idea.\n\nDiscipline can thus bring its pressures to bear upon them with a clear\nconscience, assured that here it can do its essential task without\nviolating its own principles--cultivate the individual judgment without\ninfringing upon its freedom, and bring mind into community with mind\nwithout the weakness of assumption or the affront of dogmatism.\nAssured, too, that in a sort of beneficent circle community itself\nbreeds both mind and further community. For given a broad community in\nthese particles, the common legacy comes the purer to its inheritors;\nrecurrence of each particle confirms and enriches and clarifies it in\nthe experience of each mind. In a community without community, on the\nother hand, occurrence and recurrence tend rather to lead it astray and\nconfuse it; and though men talk in common symbols, they build them into\ntacit obliquities of mutual incomprehension.\n\nIs it too much to suggest, in passing, that the phenomenon of the\nbrilliant period, the curious clustering of great names in the\nbead-roll of history, may be explained as a moment when by a community\nof mind with mind, here at the basis of all thought, a fine individual\nclarity and a lively spontaneity of mutual understanding have lifted\nthe current of ideas to a high level? At all events, by such community\nthe capacity of the mind both to think and to learn is heightened and\nthe ardour of thought is stimulated, expression meeting comprehension,\nand comprehension quickening the impulse to think.\n\n\nIII\n\nI have gone a long way about and brought up with a conclusion that\non its own showing should be as valid for modernism as for humanism.\nThat, indeed, is my own sense of it--that here is the organic economy\nof thought in whatever field. And in fact, as I have intimated, its\napplication is likely to be most obvious in the sciences, which we\ncome upon after the mind is in some measure formed. Each science has a\nspecial articulation and nomenclature outside our normal experience,\nwithout which we can think but meagrely and vaguely in that area. The\npart they play there is evident. To these articulate particles it gives\nprecise definition, at once for the sake of accuracy of calculation\nand for the sake of mutual understanding and wide co-operation among\nthose who pursue it. Incidentally by its technology it escapes the\nloose corruptions with which lay usage always threatens a vernacular.\nThe extraordinary results of the discipline which establishes these\narticulations, these precisions, and these communities need no bush.\n\nIt is perhaps less obvious that discipline is even more imperative\nin that other area which the casual, voluble experience of living\nbegins to articulate before we are aware, laying the premisses of that\ncommon mind which we tend to take for granted as a native gift. Though\nit is not a native gift, no man feels deficient in it, as Descartes\npointed out. What it yields him is life as he knows it; it is his\napprehension of reality. In one sense this trust is his intellectual\nvirtue. It marks his faith in the judgments of reason--the best reason\nhe knows. He may be aware of his ignorance in this or that field of\nknowledge--know that he knows nothing of astronomy, of Homer, of\nplumbing, of torts. But no one knows everything; these ignorances are\ncomparable to those of other men; by turning his mind to them he could\nmaster them.\n\nBy turning his mind! This contrast between _mind_, on the one hand, and\non the other hand specific knowledge to which a _mind_ may be turned,\nis the very heart of the conflict between humanist and modernist. To\nthe modernist, justifiably proud of his special methods, that mind\nwhich comes to him unaware is a casual and amateur affair. As a process\nof reason it is the way fools think, and asses, and the cohorts of\nstupidity. Well, it is.\n\nTo the humanist, however, this liability is precisely its momentous\nimportance. Here is mind itself by which man becomes human out of\nbrute, mind in symmetry as it develops by confronting life and carrying\non the adventure. According to its competence it apprehends the scene,\nthe play, and the players, conceives the significance of the plot,\nexercises its judgment, lays its guiding principles, and conducts\nits affairs in wisdom or unwisdom, justice or injustice, harmony or\ninharmony. That it may be the mind of a fool is always its tragic\npossibility.\n\nIn shifting the basic common discipline from humane letters to natural\nscience, then, modernism has, in so far, _abandoned the mind_. I say\nthis in conscious enjoyment of hyperbole. There remains just so much\nof mind as develops in casual experience--that corrupting casual\nexperience which science so sedulously avoids in its technology. But\nthe point at issue is one of discipline, the conscious extension of\nmental competence beyond the limits of casual experience. Plainly the\ndiscipline of natural science neglects much of the mind as irrelevant.\n\nFor natural science is an attempt to picture and understand the\nmaterial universe as it still would be if the knower were not in\nit--things and their relations to each other. The virtue sought by the\nman of science is the ability to ignore what he, by the accident of\nhis conscious existence, thrusts into the situation. Obviously this\ndiscipline will articulate the consciousness for thought only here\nwithin this field of knowledge--among things and their relations, to\nthe rigid exclusion of the knower and his affairs.\n\nHumane letters, on the other hand, make no such exclusion. They too\ndeal with things and their relations. But they include what natural\nscience ignores--the knower and his responsive evaluation of what\nhe knows. Literature looks out from the common centre at which the\nexperience of life itself places us. It is an imaginative, reflective\nextension of that experience. And it does directly what experience\nitself does only indirectly if at all, for being articulate or\nnothing--symbol and meaning forever hand in glove--it specifically\narticulates the reader\u2019s mind, enriching and clarifying the premisses\nof consciousness with which in turn that mind thinks in the field of\ncommon human responsibility. Here is the telling difference between the\nliterate and the empiric mind--not in intelligence, not in specific\nknowledge, but in the substance and quality of the premisses of thought.\n\nLiterature uses the unprecise vernacular, it is true; but that is its\nvirtue. For the vernacular, in contrast with any and all technologies,\nis the idiom of the mind itself, its fundamental humanising tradition.\nIt is the essential historic feat of any civilisation, not so much\nperhaps to have conceived its guiding ideas--ideas change--as, in\nconceiving them, to have slowly evolved the articulate elements by\nwhich its heritors may conceive their own. Nature cares nothing for\nthem or for what is made of them. They are none of hers. We come by\nthem only through familiar contact with the tradition which has shaped\nand accumulated them.\n\nHere, then, is the great human task--now for the first time in the\nhistory of the West abandoned to the mercies of casual experience. Man\nis a social being in more than his habits and his institutions. His\nhumanity itself hangs on his sociability. Deprive him of his social\nlegacy of articulations and he is once again the sub-human animal.\nIt was the essence of humanism as a discipline that it attempted,\nnot to inculcate a doctrine, but to carry on and on this ultimate\nhumanising process. And in this it served three ends, distinct but\ninterdependent--mind, community, and the tradition on which both mind\nand community depend.\n\n\nIV\n\nFrom Plato to Irving Babbitt humanists have been occupied with\nthe idea of leadership, since men are social beings, unhappy and\nself-destructive in mutual hostility, happiest and greatest when\nco-operating in community in the wisest available ideas. Whose ideas?\nPlato proposed the leadership of philosophers. But he himself did all\nthat a philosopher can do. He was of the greatest; in one of the high\nmasterpieces of human thought he proposed a scheme for the salvation\nof Greece--and while he wrote and Athens read, Greek civilisation\ndeclined. Something had departed that but an age before had made of\nAthens the supreme exemplar of what human existence may come to at its\nbest, in zest of life and ardour of co-operation, in brilliance and\nprofundity of thought, something that had created a society more lovely\nthan any other in recorded history, and produced a literature and a\nfull free current of ideas that are still the model and despair of all\nour aspirations.\n\nMay this loss have been loss of disciplined community at the basis of\nall thought? Each man thinks not what he will but what he can with\nthe articulate particles of his consciousness. Only by community here\ncan one mind think the same thoughts as another. In such community\nminds will hold their common ideas with heightened ardour, as in\nfriendship a common thought rises to new vitality by being shared in\nutter comprehension. It was not an accident that friendship played so\nprofound a part in Greek life, not an accident that thought and letters\nso flourished. For expression had met understanding, and understanding\nhad enriched the common premisses of thought. One among them, at all\nevents, made the association.\n\n\u201cNot long afterwards,\u201d says Thucydides, \u201cnearly the whole Hellenic\nworld was in commotion. When trouble had once begun in the cities,\nthose who followed carried the revolutionary spirit further and\nfurther.... _The meanings of words had no longer the same relations to\nthings_....\u201d And he goes on to detail wherein the confused meanings\nof terms unsettled the mutual comprehension upon which the harmony of\ncivilised life depends.\n\nAs for us, we are in something of a like predicament. The most striking\naspect of contemporary life is the contrast between the fruitfulness\nof the scientific world, its vitality, its harmony, its world-wide\nco-operation, and our frankly acknowledged moral bankruptcy--vigour\nand fecundity in the area to which discipline has been shifted,\nand futility and chaos in the area from which discipline has been\nwithdrawn. It is not that men have ceased to be concerned with moral\nchoice. So long as they pursue on reflection what seems to be good, so\nlong are they exercising their moral nature. Never, I dare say, has\nthere been a wilder play of reflection on what seems to be good.\n\nIf we are suffering a moral chaos it is not from the abandonment of\nmorals but from a helpless discrepancy, an incapacity to think the same\nthoughts. Given another Plato, our only chance of accord under his\nleadership would be such community with him and with each other in the\narticulate elements of his utterance as would evoke the same living\nthoughts in our various minds.\n\nThe task of creating such community is a subtle one, immeasurably more\ndifficult than the corresponding task of modernism. The particles of\nconsciousness with which we think here are quick with feeling--with\nsentiment, impulse, passion, and desire, drawn in each individual from\nhis own native depths. They are neither such sheer conventions as the\nunits of measure that make up the syntax of scientific thought, nor\nobjective and tangible like the data of nature with which science\ndeals. They are the dynamic forces of life itself, spontaneous and\nimperious, and they impel us whether or no. Whether they are to drive\nus in anarchy or in harmony, however, depends upon our ability so to\nchannelise them, so to articulate and identify them for thought, as to\nbring us into mutual understanding of those ideas in which they play a\npart. The first service of the humanistic discipline was that it put\nthe individual mind into intimate contact with the tradition of humane\nletters in which were embodied and shaped the articulate elements\nof such ideas. It was the second and no less significant service of\nthis discipline that in clinging sedulously to the great tradition\nof that literature it tended to give to all minds thus imbued _the\nsame_ elements filled with _the same_ substance, and so put mind into\ncommunity with mind. In abandoning the common discipline of this area\nof the consciousness modernism has not only done something to dilute\nour powers of thought there, but has left us, mind and mind, out of\ncommunity and in a moral confusion that lies, not in the open conflict\nof ideas, but in tacit disparities of idea that never meet.\n\nModernism reaches its ultimate goal in a knowledge of nature. But\nnature has no need of our knowledge. It is _we_ who need it, for our\nown ends. In the measure in which, for the conception of those ends, we\nlose our powers of thought, so precariously wrought in the long travail\nof the past, and so dependent upon unremitting reconquest, we shall in\nfact have killed the goose that lays the golden egg.\n\n\n\n\n_Courage and Education_[74]\n\nRICHARD LINDLEY BROWN\n\n\nDiverse and variegated as the texture of our contemporary life and\nliterature is, a great part of it may be shown to have a fundamental\nunity. That unity lies in a certain fear and hopelessness,--occasioned\nby a mechanistic philosophy and ultimately owing, I think, to the\nmisapplied and ill-digested implications of a popular scientific\neducation. One meets everywhere some attempt to analyse and explain\nthe life and destiny of man solely on the basis of his physique or\nenvironment, or on some other basis equally uncoloured by human\nimagination and idealisation. This attitude is not universal with us,\nnor is it even general, but it contains almost all that is original\nwith us, and if we consider what is original as also characteristic, we\ncan only postulate that the characteristic feature in our contemporary\nliterature is the interpretation of life as a phase of merely\nanimalistic existence.\n\nNow, this admission that man in no way transcends the limits of purely\nphysical life is an act of cowardice to which no previous generation\nhas ever so thoroughly committed itself. This admission is directly\ncontrary to the general spirit of Ancient philosophy, impossible to\nthe serenity of the Middle Ages, repugnant to the exuberance of the\nRenaissance, unnatural to the Romanticism, however defined, of the\nearly nineteenth century. And even during the faltering generations\njust preceding our own, there were still eloquent humanists able to\nshow that whatever man\u2019s circumstances may be, and whatever his origin\nmay have been, man was yet able to form for himself an intellectual\nand spiritual life and destiny independent of origin and circumstance.\n\nThis courage of the past--this self-confidence of the past by which it\nwas enabled to broaden the scope of its life and pass on to us a social\nand imaginative heritage by which every situation and relationship of\nour lives is rendered more beautiful--was not the result of accident.\nIt was the result of long and untiring efforts in self-cultivation, and\nthe records of these efforts are to be found in the great literatures\nwhich not only recorded, but inspired and motivated them. In those\ntimes the staple of education was the study of literature; and, for my\npresent purposes, the important features of this study were, that it\nwas thorough and exact, that it neglected no labour which might aid in\nthe central purpose, and that, in requiring a certain common background\nin all students, it was eminently a social and even international thing.\n\nTo attain the same degree of courage and self-confidence, it would\nbe necessary to us to make the same effort of self-cultivation. The\nquality of contemporary literature suggests that we are not exerting\nthat effort; manners and excesses and failures in contemporary life\nequally suggest that we are not. And if we examine the habitual methods\nof contemporary teachers of literature, we find so many differences\nbetween these methods and those of the past that it is plain that our\neducators have all but lost sight of their central objects.\n\nAs early as 1882, in _Literature and Science_, Matthew Arnold set\nforth a rather singular prophecy, describing with great exactness much\nof our present situation. \u201cAs with Greek,\u201d he said, \u201cso with letters\ngenerally: they will some day come, we may hope, to be studied more\nrationally, but they will not lose their place. What will happen\nwill rather be that there will be crowded into education other\nmatters besides, far too many; there will be, perhaps, a period of\nunsettlement and confusion and false tendency; but letters will not in\nthe end lose their leading place.\u201d\n\nIt is essential to consider how far this prophecy has been realised,\nfor it penetrates the very heart of our problem; it suggests the entire\nlack of a central emphasis which characterises even the literary\neducation of our day. American education might very well be said to\nbe passing through a period of unsettlement and confusion and false\ntendency, but by no manner of means might it be said that in American\neducation letters had obtained or regained their leading place.\nAlthough the colleges swarm with students of literature, the greater\npart of these students have a more accurate knowledge of the problems\nof the natural sciences or of economics than they have of the problems\nand methods of literary study. As a plain matter of fact, a great many\nundergraduates choose to specialise in literature, and particularly\nin English literature, because they believe it a study easier than\nany other. And through a smattering of all the ologies which has been\ntheir education from early childhood, they interpret and condemn great\nmasterpieces of which they have never learned the true significance,\nsince they have never confronted soberly the old traditions that\nilluminate and sustain those masterpieces. It is largely because our\neducation deals seriously with almost every subject except literature,\nthat literature has lost its leading place; and it is because\nliterature has lost its leading place that education has lost much\nof its inspiring power, and our contemporary literary innovators are\ncharacterised to such a degree by fear and hopelessness.\n\nIt is not unnatural, however, that popular opinion, which to-day\ninfluences even the teaching of literature, should consider scientific\neducation so important, for the public sees its leaders in every\nfield profoundly influenced by science. The leader of our political\norganisation, like most of our leaders, happens to be a scientist; most\nof our philosophers are scientists, and our magazines deal monthly\nwith the concessions that our religious leaders are making to the new\nimplications of science. It is not unnatural that science should be\npopularly considered an important study and the study of literature\nthe recreation of an idle day. And it follows just as naturally that\nswarms of undergraduate students should have imposed upon the teaching\nof literature much of the dilettantism which this popular view suggests\nis inherent in it. The typical student of literature--of English\nliterature, for example--may be known by four characteristics,--a\nfear of Spenser, a dislike of Milton, a hatred of Wordsworth, and\na suppressed desire to write a musical comedy. This is the type of\nstudent that must be taught, and it easily follows that the teaching\nof him should come to lack the thoroughness and exactness, the desire\nto master ancillary subjects, and the common background, which I have\nenumerated above as having once been the ideals of literary study.\n\nThe place of these ideals is taken by a dilettantism which displays\nitself in two forms,--in individualism and in sciolism. The first,\na shallow type of individualism, is directed by the theory that a\nstudent\u2019s peculiar tastes are the ultimate criteria by which he\nshould make his judgments, and that he must be seduced into a liking\nfor literature by the application of whatever literary candy pleases\nhis palate. The thought that a man should be somewhat adapted to his\nreading, and not his reading to him, is altogether alien to this\ntheory, and the existence of common social ideals, which, if they are\nnot present in the student, should be developed, is not suspected by\nits propounders.\n\nIt is to the adoption of this principle by many secondary-school\nteachers that we owe the presence in our colleges of the campus\nradicals who curse their fates and the restraints prohibiting them\nfrom living their own lives. The ordinary progress of students guided\nby such principles is to begin easily with something on the level,\nsay, of Kipling, and gradually to work up to the high seriousness of\nthe poetry of Oscar Wilde. The popularity and influence of the sort\nof contemporary literature which I have mentioned may be very well\nexplained, I think, by the existence of this view in the minds of many\nof our educators.\n\nThe sciolism which is the second form of our literary dilettantism,--a\nshallowness which investigates only the superficialities of things,\nwhich delights in accepted definitions and phrases,--is largely\ninvolved in the manner in which our times have forsaken the study of\nthe classics, as well as of the other literatures and other subjects\nwithout which the study of no one literature can be complete. No\nteacher of science would admit to his classes students unversed in\nmathematics; he would say that science without some mathematical\nknowledge was an impossibility. Now, a knowledge of the literature and\ncustoms of classical antiquity is just as necessary to the student of\na modern literature as a mathematical knowledge is to the student of\nscience. The teacher of literature, however, who demanded from his\nstudents this indispensable knowledge, would soon lecture to empty\nhalls. Popular opinion, as reflected by those who are to be taught, is\naltogether on the side of those \u201cother matters, far too many,\u201d which\nhave been crowded into education.\n\nThe teacher of literature may well turn out, in the end, to be the sole\nmeans by which society and literature can be raised from their present\ndepression, and then only provided his influence be stricter and more\nhumane. For a materialistic epoch such as ours, the only refuge and\nthe only basis for further progress is in the idealistic humanity of\nthe past; but the search of the past must not be such a frail and\nself-indulgent one as condemns before it understands. Whether we have\noutworn the ideals of history or whether they were projected into a\nrealm of life beyond our present power of realisation, in either case\nthey reflect the tendency directing all human achievement,--a tendency\nto rise to a plane uncircumscribed by the limits of physical existence.\nAccordingly, the teacher of any branch of our cultural heritage has\nwithin his hands the reins of destiny; slackly and half-heartedly he\nmay lose them from his grasp, or by firmly holding them he may guide\nthe future toward a new triumph of the human spirit. There is no sound\nwhere there are no ears, nor without the development of the inner\nmind and segregated human life, of which our literature has been both\nthe motivation and the record, could there again be true community or\nbeauty in the world.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES\n\n[74] A Senior paper read at Bowdoin College, Commencement,\n1929.--Editor.\n\n\n\n\n_A List of Books Published Since 1900_\n\n\nNote--The following list contains most of the recent books that are\nhumanistic in a strict sense, together with a few books humanistic\nin a sense more general and indefinite. Magazine articles have been\nexcluded; but illuminating articles dealing with various aspects of\nhumanism may be found in the 1928 and 1929 volumes of _The Forum_, _The\nBookman_, _The Hound and Horn_, _The Criterion_, and _The Nineteenth\nCentury and After_. Helpful recent critiques of the work of Irving\nBabbitt and Paul Elmer More are those by a young English critic, Philip\nS. Richards, in _The Nineteenth Century and After_ for April, 1928,\nMay, 1928, and April, 1929, and an article on \u201cMr. More and the Gentle\nReader\u201d by G. R. Elliott in _The Bookman_ for April, 1929.\n\nSantayana, George. Interpretations of Poetry and Religion. 1900.\n\nBrownell, W. C. French Art, Revised ed. 1901.\n\n---- Victorian Prose Masters. 1901.\n\nMore, Paul Elmer. Shelburne Essays, First Series. 1904.\n\nChesterton, G. K. Heretics. 1905.\n\nCox, Kenyon. Old Masters and New. 1905.\n\nMore, Paul Elmer. Shelburne Essays, Second Series. 1905.\n\n---- Shelburne Essays, Third Series. 1905.\n\nWoodberry, George Edward. The Torch: Eight Lectures on Race Power in\nLiterature. 1905.\n\nMore, Paul Elmer. Shelburne Essays, Fourth Series. 1906.\n\nCox, Kenyon. Painters and Sculptors. 1907.\n\nLasserre, Pierre. Le Romantisme fran\u00e7ais. 1907.\n\nBabbitt, Irving. Literature and the American College: Essays in Defence\nof the Humanities. 1908.\n\nFrye, P. H. Literary Reviews and Criticisms. 1908.\n\nMore, Paul Elmer. Shelburne Essays, Fifth Series. 1908.\n\nSeilli\u00e8re, E. Le Mal romantique. 1908.\n\nBrownell, W. C. American Prose Masters. 1909.\n\nChesterton, G. K. Orthodoxy. 1909.\n\nMore, Paul Elmer. Shelburne Essays, Sixth Series. 1909.\n\nBabbitt, Irving. The New Laokoon: An Essay on the Confusion of the\nArts. 1910.\n\nMore, Paul Elmer. Shelburne Essays, Seventh Series. 1910.\n\nCox, Kenyon. The Classic Point of View: Six Lectures on Painting. 1911.\n\nBabbitt, Irving. The Masters of Modern French Criticism. 1912.\n\nMore, Paul Elmer. The Drift of Romanticism (Shelburne Essays, Eighth\nSeries). 1913.\n\nBrownell, W. C. Criticism. 1914.\n\nCox, Kenyon. Artist and Public. 1914.\n\nMore, Louis Trenchard. The Limitations of Science. 1915.\n\nMore, Paul Elmer. Aristocracy and Justice (Shelburne Essays, Ninth\nSeries). 1915.\n\nMather, Frank Jewett, Jr. Estimates in Art. 1916.\n\nBrownell, W. C. Standards. 1917.\n\nMore, Paul Elmer. Platonism (The Greek Tradition, Introduction). 1917,\n1927.\n\nSherman, Stuart P. Matthew Arnold: How to Know Him. 1917.\n\n---- On Contemporary Literature. 1917.\n\nShorey, Paul. The Assault on Humanism. 1917.\n\nAdams, George Plimpton. Idealism and the Modern Age. 1919.\n\nBabbitt, Irving. Rousseau and Romanticism. 1919.\n\nGass, Sherlock Bronson. A Lover of the Chair. 1919.\n\nMore, Paul Elmer. With the Wits (Shelburne Essays, Tenth Series). 1919.\n\nEliot, T. S. The Sacred Wood: Essays on Poetry and Criticism. 1920,\n1928.\n\nInge, W. R. The Idea of Progress. 1920.\n\nPatrick, G. T. W. The Psychology of Social Reconstruction. 1920.\n\nLasserre, Pierre. Cinquante Ans de Pens\u00e9e fran\u00e7aise. 1921.\n\nMore, Paul Elmer. A New England Group and Others (Shelburne Essays,\nEleventh Series). 1921.\n\n---- The Religion of Plato (The Greek Tradition, Vol. I). 1921.\n\nCanby, Henry S. Definitions. 1922.\n\nFrye, P. H. Romance and Tragedy. 1922.\n\nShafer, Robert. Progress and Science: Essays in Criticism. 1922.\n\nFoerster, Norman. Nature in American Literature: Studies in the Modern\nView of Nature. 1923.\n\nHouston, Percy H. Doctor Johnson: A Study in Eighteenth Century\nHumanism. 1923.\n\nMassis, Henri. Jugements I. 1923.\n\nMather, Frank Jewett, Jr. A History of Italian Painting. 1923.\n\nMore, Paul Elmer. Hellenistic Philosophies (The Greek Tradition, Vol.\nII). 1923.\n\nWaterhouse, Francis A. Random Studies in the Romantic Chaos. 1923.\n\nBabbitt, Irving. Democracy and Leadership. 1924.\n\nBrownell, W. C. The Genius of Style. 1924.\n\nCanby, Henry S. Definitions, Second Series. 1924.\n\nCriticism in America. (Essays by Irving Babbitt and others, ed. by J.\nE. Spingarn.) 1924.\n\nEliot, T. S. Homage to John Dryden. 1924.\n\nHulme, T. E. Speculations (ed. by Herbert Read). 1924.\n\nMassis, Henri. Jugements II. 1924.\n\nMore, Paul Elmer. The Christ of the New Testament (The Greek Tradition,\nVol. III). 1924.\n\nSeilli\u00e8re, E. J.-J. Rousseau. 1924.\n\nGass, Sherlock Bronson. Criers of the Shops. 1925.\n\nMore, Louis Trenchard. The Dogma of Evolution. 1925.\n\nCerf, Barry. Anatole France: The Degeneration of a Great Artist. 1926.\n\nFerrero, Guglielmo. Words to the Deaf. 1926.\n\nGiese, W. F. Victor Hugo, The Man and the Poet. 1926.\n\nShafer, Robert. Christianity and Naturalism: Essays in Criticism,\nSecond Series. 1926.\n\nBrownell, W. C. Democratic Distinction in America. 1927.\n\nMather, Frank Jewett, Jr. The American Spirit in Art (The Pageant of\nAmerica, Vol. XII). 1927.\n\n---- Modern Painting. 1927.\n\nMore, Paul Elmer. Christ the Word (The Greek Tradition, Vol. IV). 1927.\n\nMunson, Gorham B. Robert Frost: A Study in Sensibility and Good Sense.\n1927.\n\nVon H\u00fcgel, Baron Friedrich. Selected Letters, 1896-1924. 1927.\n\nBabbitt, Irving. French Literature (A. L. A. booklet). 1928.\n\nBenda, Julien. La Trahison des Clercs. 1928. (Trans., The Treason of\nthe Intellectuals. 1928.)\n\nEliot, T. S. For Lancelot Andrewes: Essays on Style and Order. 1928.\n\nElliott, W. Y. The Pragmatic Revolt in Politics. 1928.\n\nFoerster, Norman. American Criticism: A Study in Literary Theory from\nPoe to the Present. 1928.\n\nMaritain, Jacques. Three Reformers: Luther--Descartes--Rousseau. 1928.\n\nMercier, Louis J. A. Le Mouvement humaniste aux \u00c9tats-Unis. 1928.\n\nMore, Paul Elmer. The Demon of the Absolute (New Shelburne Essays, Vol.\nI). 1928.\n\nMunson, Gorham B. Destinations: A Canvass of American Literature Since\n1900. 1928.\n\nRand, E. K. Founders of the Middle Ages. 1928.\n\nSherman, Stuart P. Shaping Men and Women: Essays on Literature and\nLife. 1928.\n\nBenda, Julien. Belph\u00e9gor (Trans., Introduction by Irving Babbitt). 1929.\n\nCanby, Henry S. American Estimates. 1929.\n\nChesterton, G. K. Generally Speaking. 1929.\n\n---- The Thing. 1929.\n\nElliott, G. R. The Cycle of Modern Poetry: A Series of Essays toward\nClearing our Present Poetic Dilemma. 1929.\n\nFoerster, Norman. The American Scholar: A Study in Litter\u00e6\nInhumaniores. 1929.\n\nFrye, P. H. Visions and Chimeras. 1929.\n\nMunson, Gorham B. Style and Form in American Prose. 1929.\n\nWarren, Austin. Alexander Pope as Critic and Humanist. 1929.\n\nWickham, Harvey. The Impuritans. 1929.\n\nZeitlin, Jacob, and Woodbridge, Homer. Life and Letters of Stuart P.\nSherman. 2 vols. 1929.","title":"Humanism and America : $b Essays on the outlook of modern civilisation","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":94290}