HERETICS

by

Gilbert K. Chesterton

"To My Father"

Source

Heretics was copyrighted in 1905 by the John Lane Company. Thiselectronic text is derived from the twelfth (1919) edition published bythe John Lane Company of New York City and printed by the PlimptonPress of Norwood, Massachusetts. The text carefully follows that ofthe published edition (including British spelling). 

The Author

Gilbert Keith Chesterton was born in London, England on the 29th ofMay, 1874. Though he considered himself a mere "rollickingjournalist, " he was actually a prolific and gifted writer in virtuallyevery area of literature. A man of strong opinions and enormouslytalented at defending them, his exuberant personality neverthelessallowed him to maintain warm friendships with people--such as GeorgeBernard Shaw and H. G. Wells--with whom he vehemently disagreed. 

Chesterton had no difficulty standing up for what he believed. He wasone of the few journalists to oppose the Boer War. His 1922 "Eugenicsand Other Evils" attacked what was at that time the most progressive ofall ideas, the idea that the human race could and should breed asuperior version of itself. In the Nazi experience, historydemonstrated the wisdom of his once "reactionary" views. 

His poetry runs the gamut from the comic 1908 "On Running After One'sHat" to dark and serious ballads. During the dark days of 1940, whenBritain stood virtually alone against the armed might of Nazi Germany, these lines from his 1911 Ballad of the White Horse were often quoted:

 I tell you naught for your comfort, Yea, naught for your desire, Save that the sky grows darker yet And the sea rises higher. 

Though not written for a scholarly audience, his biographies of authorsand historical figures like Charles Dickens and St. Francis of Assisioften contain brilliant insights into their subjects. His Father Brownmystery stories, written between 1911 and 1936, are still being readand adapted for television. 

His politics fitted with his deep distrust of concentrated wealth andpower of any sort. Along with his friend Hilaire Belloc and in bookslike the 1910 "What's Wrong with the World" he advocated a view called"Distributionism" that was best summed up by his expression that everyman ought to be allowed to own "three acres and a cow. " Though not knownas a political thinker, his political influence has circled the world. Some see in him the father of the "small is beautiful" movement and anewspaper article by him is credited with provoking Gandhi to seek a"genuine" nationalism for India rather than one that imitated theBritish. 

Heretics belongs to yet another area of literature at which Chestertonexcelled. A fun-loving and gregarious man, he was neverthelesstroubled in his adolescence by thoughts of suicide. In Christianity hefound the answers to the dilemmas and paradoxes he saw in life. Otherbooks in that same series include his 1908 Orthodoxy (written inresponse to attacks on this book) and his 1925 The Everlasting Man. Orthodoxy is also available as electronic text. 

Chesterton died on the 14th of June, 1936 in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, England. During his life he published 69 books and atleast another ten based on his writings have been published after hisdeath. Many of those books are still in print. Ignatius Press issystematically publishing his collected writings. 

Table of Contents

 1. Introductory Remarks on the Importance of Othodoxy 2. On the Negative Spirit 3. On Mr. Rudyard Kipling and Making the World Small 4. Mr. Bernard Shaw 5. Mr. H. G. Wells and the Giants 6. Christmas and the Esthetes 7. Omar and the Sacred Vine 8. The Mildness of the Yellow Press 9. The Moods of Mr. George Moore 10. On Sandals and Simplicity 11. Science and the Savages 12. Paganism and Mr. Lowes Dickinson 13. Celts and Celtophiles 14. On Certain Modern Writers and the Institution of the Family 15. On Smart Novelists and the Smart Set 16. On Mr. McCabe and a Divine Frivolity 17. On the Wit of Whistler 18. The Fallacy of the Young Nation 19. Slum Novelists and the Slums 20. Concluding Remarks on the Importance of Orthodoxy

I. Introductory Remarks on the Importance of Orthodoxy

Nothing more strangely indicates an enormous and silent evil of modernsociety than the extraordinary use which is made nowadays of the word"orthodox. " In former days the heretic was proud of not being aheretic. It was the kingdoms of the world and the police and thejudges who were heretics. He was orthodox. He had no pride in havingrebelled against them; they had rebelled against him. The armies withtheir cruel security, the kings with their cold faces, the decorousprocesses of State, the reasonable processes of law--all these likesheep had gone astray. The man was proud of being orthodox, was proudof being right. If he stood alone in a howling wilderness he was morethan a man; he was a church. He was the centre of the universe; it wasround him that the stars swung. All the tortures torn out of forgottenhells could not make him admit that he was heretical. But a few modernphrases have made him boast of it. He says, with a conscious laugh, "Isuppose I am very heretical, " and looks round for applause. The word"heresy" not only means no longer being wrong; it practically meansbeing clear-headed and courageous. The word "orthodoxy" not only nolonger means being right; it practically means being wrong. All thiscan mean one thing, and one thing only. It means that people care lessfor whether they are philosophically right. For obviously a man oughtto confess himself crazy before he confesses himself heretical. TheBohemian, with a red tie, ought to pique himself on his orthodoxy. Thedynamiter, laying a bomb, ought to feel that, whatever else he is, atleast he is orthodox. 

It is foolish, generally speaking, for a philosopher to set fire toanother philosopher in Smithfield Market because they do not agree intheir theory of the universe. That was done very frequently in thelast decadence of the Middle Ages, and it failed altogether in itsobject. But there is one thing that is infinitely more absurd andunpractical than burning a man for his philosophy. This is the habit ofsaying that his philosophy does not matter, and this is doneuniversally in the twentieth century, in the decadence of the greatrevolutionary period. General theories are everywhere contemned; thedoctrine of the Rights of Man is dismissed with the doctrine of theFall of Man. Atheism itself is too theological for us to-day. Revolution itself is too much of a system; liberty itself is too muchof a restraint. We will have no generalizations. Mr. Bernard Shaw hasput the view in a perfect epigram: "The golden rule is that there isno golden rule. " We are more and more to discuss details in art, politics, literature. A man's opinion on tramcars matters; his opinionon Botticelli matters; his opinion on all things does not matter. Hemay turn over and explore a million objects, but he must not find thatstrange object, the universe; for if he does he will have a religion, and be lost. Everything matters--except everything. 

Examples are scarcely needed of this total levity on the subject ofcosmic philosophy. Examples are scarcely needed to show that, whateverelse we think of as affecting practical affairs, we do not think itmatters whether a man is a pessimist or an optimist, a Cartesian or aHegelian, a materialist or a spiritualist. Let me, however, take arandom instance. At any innocent tea-table we may easily hear a mansay, "Life is not worth living. " We regard it as we regard thestatement that it is a fine day; nobody thinks that it can possiblyhave any serious effect on the man or on the world. And yet if thatutterance were really believed, the world would stand on its head. Murderers would be given medals for saving men from life; firemen wouldbe denounced for keeping men from death; poisons would be used asmedicines; doctors would be called in when people were well; the RoyalHumane Society would be rooted out like a horde of assassins. Yet wenever speculate as to whether the conversational pessimist willstrengthen or disorganize society; for we are convinced that theoriesdo not matter. 

This was certainly not the idea of those who introduced our freedom. When the old Liberals removed the gags from all the heresies, theiridea was that religious and philosophical discoveries might thus bemade. Their view was that cosmic truth was so important that every oneought to bear independent testimony. The modern idea is that cosmictruth is so unimportant that it cannot matter what any one says. Theformer freed inquiry as men loose a noble hound; the latter freesinquiry as men fling back into the sea a fish unfit for eating. Neverhas there been so little discussion about the nature of men as now, when, for the first time, any one can discuss it. The old restrictionmeant that only the orthodox were allowed to discuss religion. Modernliberty means that nobody is allowed to discuss it. Good taste, thelast and vilest of human superstitions, has succeeded in silencing uswhere all the rest have failed. Sixty years ago it was bad taste to bean avowed atheist. Then came the Bradlaughites, the last religious men, the last men who cared about God; but they could not alter it. It isstill bad taste to be an avowed atheist. But their agony has achievedjust his--that now it is equally bad taste to be an avowed Christian. Emancipation has only locked the saint in the same tower of silence asthe heresiarch. Then we talk about Lord Anglesey and the weather, andcall it the complete liberty of all the creeds. 

But there are some people, nevertheless--and I am one of them--whothink that the most practical and important thing about a man is stillhis view of the universe. We think that for a landlady considering alodger, it is important to know his income, but still more important toknow his philosophy. We think that for a general about to fight anenemy, it is important to know the enemy's numbers, but still moreimportant to know the enemy's philosophy. We think the question is notwhether the theory of the cosmos affects matters, but whether in thelong run, anything else affects them. In the fifteenth century mencross-examined and tormented a man because he preached some immoralattitude; in the nineteenth century we feted and flattered Oscar Wildebecause he preached such an attitude, and then broke his heart in penalservitude because he carried it out. It may be a question which of thetwo methods was the more cruel; there can be no kind of question whichwas the more ludicrous. The age of the Inquisition has not at least thedisgrace of having produced a society which made an idol of the verysame man for preaching the very same things which it made him a convictfor practising. 

Now, in our time, philosophy or religion, our theory, that is, aboutultimate things, has been driven out, more or less simultaneously, fromtwo fields which it used to occupy. General ideals used to dominateliterature. They have been driven out by the cry of "art for art'ssake. " General ideals used to dominate politics. They have been drivenout by the cry of "efficiency, " which may roughly be translated as"politics for politics' sake. " Persistently for the last twenty yearsthe ideals of order or liberty have dwindled in our books; theambitions of wit and eloquence have dwindled in our parliaments. Literature has purposely become less political; politics have purposelybecome less literary. General theories of the relation of things havethus been extruded from both; and we are in a position to ask, "Whathave we gained or lost by this extrusion? Is literature better, ispolitics better, for having discarded the moralist and the philosopher?"

When everything about a people is for the time growing weak andineffective, it begins to talk about efficiency. So it is that when aman's body is a wreck he begins, for the first time, to talk abouthealth. Vigorous organisms talk not about their processes, but abouttheir aims. There cannot be any better proof of the physical efficiencyof a man than that he talks cheerfully of a journey to the end of theworld. And there cannot be any better proof of the practical efficiencyof a nation than that it talks constantly of a journey to the end ofthe world, a journey to the Judgment Day and the New Jerusalem. Therecan be no stronger sign of a coarse material health than the tendencyto run after high and wild ideals; it is in the first exuberance ofinfancy that we cry for the moon. None of the strong men in the strongages would have understood what you meant by working for efficiency. Hildebrand would have said that he was working not for efficiency, butfor the Catholic Church. Danton would have said that he was working notfor efficiency, but for liberty, equality, and fraternity. Even if theideal of such men were simply the ideal of kicking a man downstairs, they thought of the end like men, not of the process like paralytics. They did not say, "Efficiently elevating my right leg, using, you willnotice, the muscles of the thigh and calf, which are in excellentorder, I--" Their feeling was quite different. They were so filled withthe beautiful vision of the man lying flat at the foot of the staircasethat in that ecstasy the rest followed in a flash. In practice, thehabit of generalizing and idealizing did not by any means mean worldlyweakness. The time of big theories was the time of big results. In theera of sentiment and fine words, at the end of the eighteenth century, men were really robust and effective. The sentimentalists conqueredNapoleon. The cynics could not catch De Wet. A hundred years ago ouraffairs for good or evil were wielded triumphantly by rhetoricians. Nowour affairs are hopelessly muddled by strong, silent men. And just asthis repudiation of big words and big visions has brought forth a raceof small men in politics, so it has brought forth a race of small menin the arts. Our modern politicians claim the colossal license ofCaesar and the Superman, claim that they are too practical to be pureand too patriotic to be moral; but the upshot of it all is that amediocrity is Chancellor of the Exchequer. Our new artisticphilosophers call for the same moral license, for a freedom to wreckheaven and earth with their energy; but the upshot of it all is that amediocrity is Poet Laureate. I do not say that there are no strongermen than these; but will any one say that there are any men strongerthan those men of old who were dominated by their philosophy andsteeped in their religion? Whether bondage be better than freedom maybe discussed. But that their bondage came to more than our freedom itwill be difficult for any one to deny. 

The theory of the unmorality of art has established itself firmly inthe strictly artistic classes. They are free to produce anything theylike. They are free to write a "Paradise Lost" in which Satan shallconquer God. They are free to write a "Divine Comedy" in which heavenshall be under the floor of hell. And what have they done? Have theyproduced in their universality anything grander or more beautiful thanthe things uttered by the fierce Ghibbeline Catholic, by the rigidPuritan schoolmaster? We know that they have produced only a fewroundels. Milton does not merely beat them at his piety, he beats themat their own irreverence. In all their little books of verse you willnot find a finer defiance of God than Satan's. Nor will you find thegrandeur of paganism felt as that fiery Christian felt it who describedFaranata lifting his head as in disdain of hell. And the reason is veryobvious. Blasphemy is an artistic effect, because blasphemy dependsupon a philosophical conviction. Blasphemy depends upon belief and isfading with it. If any one doubts this, let him sit down seriously andtry to think blasphemous thoughts about Thor. I think his family willfind him at the end of the day in a state of some exhaustion. 

Neither in the world of politics nor that of literature, then, has therejection of general theories proved a success. It may be that therehave been many moonstruck and misleading ideals that have from time totime perplexed mankind. But assuredly there has been no ideal inpractice so moonstruck and misleading as the ideal of practicality. Nothing has lost so many opportunities as the opportunism of LordRosebery. He is, indeed, a standing symbol of this epoch--the man whois theoretically a practical man, and practically more unpractical thanany theorist. Nothing in this universe is so unwise as that kind ofworship of worldly wisdom. A man who is perpetually thinking of whetherthis race or that race is strong, of whether this cause or that causeis promising, is the man who will never believe in anything long enoughto make it succeed. The opportunist politician is like a man who shouldabandon billiards because he was beaten at billiards, and abandon golfbecause he was beaten at golf. There is nothing which is so weak forworking purposes as this enormous importance attached to immediatevictory. There is nothing that fails like success. 

And having discovered that opportunism does fail, I have been inducedto look at it more largely, and in consequence to see that it mustfail. I perceive that it is far more practical to begin at thebeginning and discuss theories. I see that the men who killed eachother about the orthodoxy of the Homoousion were far more sensible thanthe people who are quarrelling about the Education Act. For theChristian dogmatists were trying to establish a reign of holiness, andtrying to get defined, first of all, what was really holy. But ourmodern educationists are trying to bring about a religious libertywithout attempting to settle what is religion or what is liberty. Ifthe old priests forced a statement on mankind, at least they previouslytook some trouble to make it lucid. It has been left for the modernmobs of Anglicans and Nonconformists to persecute for a doctrinewithout even stating it. 

For these reasons, and for many more, I for one have come to believe ingoing back to fundamentals. Such is the general idea of this book. Iwish to deal with my most distinguished contemporaries, not personallyor in a merely literary manner, but in relation to the real body ofdoctrine which they teach. I am not concerned with Mr. Rudyard Kiplingas a vivid artist or a vigorous personality; I am concerned with him asa Heretic--that is to say, a man whose view of things has the hardihoodto differ from mine. I am not concerned with Mr. Bernard Shaw as oneof the most brilliant and one of the most honest men alive; I amconcerned with him as a Heretic--that is to say, a man whose philosophyis quite solid, quite coherent, and quite wrong. I revert to thedoctrinal methods of the thirteenth century, inspired by the generalhope of getting something done. 

Suppose that a great commotion arises in the street about something, let us say a lamp-post, which many influential persons desire to pulldown. A grey-clad monk, who is the spirit of the Middle Ages, isapproached upon the matter, and begins to say, in the arid manner ofthe Schoolmen, "Let us first of all consider, my brethren, the value ofLight. If Light be in itself good--" At this point he is somewhatexcusably knocked down. All the people make a rush for the lamp-post, the lamp-post is down in ten minutes, and they go about congratulatingeach other on their unmediaeval practicality. But as things go on theydo not work out so easily. Some people have pulled the lamp-post downbecause they wanted the electric light; some because they wanted oldiron; some because they wanted darkness, because their deeds were evil. Some thought it not enough of a lamp-post, some too much; some actedbecause they wanted to smash municipal machinery; some because theywanted to smash something. And there is war in the night, no manknowing whom he strikes. So, gradually and inevitably, to-day, to-morrow, or the next day, there comes back the conviction that themonk was right after all, and that all depends on what is thephilosophy of Light. Only what we might have discussed under thegas-lamp, we now must discuss in the dark. 

II. On the negative spirit

Much has been said, and said truly, of the monkish morbidity, of thehysteria which as often gone with the visions of hermits or nuns. Butlet us never forget that this visionary religion is, in one sense, necessarily more wholesome than our modern and reasonable morality. Itis more wholesome for this reason, that it can contemplate the idea ofsuccess or triumph in the hopeless fight towards the ethical ideal, inwhat Stevenson called, with his usual startling felicity, "the lostfight of virtue. " A modern morality, on the other hand, can only pointwith absolute conviction to the horrors that follow breaches of law;its only certainty is a certainty of ill. It can only point toimperfection. It has no perfection to point to. But the monkmeditating upon Christ or Buddha has in his mind an image of perfecthealth, a thing of clear colours and clean air. He may contemplate thisideal wholeness and happiness far more than he ought; he maycontemplate it to the neglect of exclusion of essential THINGS he maycontemplate it until he has become a dreamer or a driveller; but stillit is wholeness and happiness that he is contemplating. He may even gomad; but he is going mad for the love of sanity. But the modern studentof ethics, even if he remains sane, remains sane from an insane dreadof insanity. 

The anchorite rolling on the stones in a frenzy of submission is ahealthier person fundamentally than many a sober man in a silk hat whois walking down Cheapside. For many such are good only through awithering knowledge of evil. I am not at this moment claiming for thedevotee anything more than this primary advantage, that though he maybe making himself personally weak and miserable, he is still fixing histhoughts largely on gigantic strength and happiness, on a strength thathas no limits, and a happiness that has no end. Doubtless there areother objections which can be urged without unreason against theinfluence of gods and visions in morality, whether in the cell orstreet. But this advantage the mystic morality must always have--it isalways jollier. A young man may keep himself from vice by continuallythinking of disease. He may keep himself from it also by continuallythinking of the Virgin Mary. There may be question about which methodis the more reasonable, or even about which is the more efficient. Butsurely there can be no question about which is the more wholesome. 

I remember a pamphlet by that able and sincere secularist, Mr. G. W. Foote, which contained a phrase sharply symbolizing and dividing thesetwo methods. The pamphlet was called BEER AND BIBLE, those two verynoble things, all the nobler for a conjunction which Mr. Foote, in hisstern old Puritan way, seemed to think sardonic, but which I confess tothinking appropriate and charming. I have not the work by me, but Iremember that Mr. Foote dismissed very contemptuously any attempts todeal with the problem of strong drink by religious offices orintercessions, and said that a picture of a drunkard's liver would bemore efficacious in the matter of temperance than any prayer or praise. In that picturesque expression, it seems to me, is perfectly embodiedthe incurable morbidity of modern ethics. In that temple the lights arelow, the crowds kneel, the solemn anthems are uplifted. But that uponthe altar to which all men kneel is no longer the perfect flesh, thebody and substance of the perfect man; it is still flesh, but it isdiseased. It is the drunkard's liver of the New Testament that ismarred for us, which we take in remembrance of him. 

Now, it is this great gap in modern ethics, the absence of vividpictures of purity and spiritual triumph, which lies at the back of thereal objection felt by so many sane men to the realistic literature ofthe nineteenth century. If any ordinary man ever said that he washorrified by the subjects discussed in Ibsen or Maupassant, or by theplain language in which they are spoken of, that ordinary man waslying. The average conversation of average men throughout the whole ofmodern civilization in every class or trade is such as Zola would neverdream of printing. Nor is the habit of writing thus of these things anew habit. On the contrary, it is the Victorian prudery and silencewhich is new still, though it is already dying. The tradition ofcalling a spade a spade starts very early in our literature and comesdown very late. But the truth is that the ordinary honest man, whatever vague account he may have given of his feelings, was noteither disgusted or even annoyed at the candour of the moderns. Whatdisgusted him, and very justly, was not the presence of a clearrealism, but the absence of a clear idealism. Strong and genuinereligious sentiment has never had any objection to realism; on thecontrary, religion was the realistic thing, the brutal thing, the thingthat called names. This is the great difference between some recentdevelopments of Nonconformity and the great Puritanism of theseventeenth century. It was the whole point of the Puritans that theycared nothing for decency. Modern Nonconformist newspapers distinguishthemselves by suppressing precisely those nouns and adjectives whichthe founders of Nonconformity distinguished themselves by flinging atkings and queens. But if it was a chief claim of religion that it spokeplainly about evil, it was the chief claim of all that it spoke plainlyabout good. The thing which is resented, and, as I think, rightlyresented, in that great modern literature of which Ibsen is typical, isthat while the eye that can perceive what are the wrong thingsincreases in an uncanny and devouring clarity, the eye which sees whatthings are right is growing mistier and mistier every moment, till itgoes almost blind with doubt. If we compare, let us say, the moralityof the DIVINE COMEDY with the morality of Ibsen's GHOSTS, we shall seeall that modern ethics have really done. No one, I imagine, will accusethe author of the INFERNO of an Early Victorian prudishness or aPodsnapian optimism. But Dante describes three moralinstruments--Heaven, Purgatory, and Hell, the vision of perfection, thevision of improvement, and the vision of failure. Ibsen has onlyone--Hell. It is often said, and with perfect truth, that no one couldread a play like GHOSTS and remain indifferent to the necessity of anethical self-command. That is quite true, and the same is to be said ofthe most monstrous and material descriptions of the eternal fire. It isquite certain the realists like Zola do in one sense promotemorality--they promote it in the sense in which the hangman promotesit, in the sense in which the devil promotes it. But they only affectthat small minority which will accept any virtue of courage. Mosthealthy people dismiss these moral dangers as they dismiss thepossibility of bombs or microbes. Modern realists are indeedTerrorists, like the dynamiters; and they fail just as much in theireffort to create a thrill. Both realists and dynamiters arewell-meaning people engaged in the task, so obviously ultimatelyhopeless, of using science to promote morality. 

I do not wish the reader to confuse me for a moment with those vaguepersons who imagine that Ibsen is what they call a pessimist. There areplenty of wholesome people in Ibsen, plenty of good people, plenty ofhappy people, plenty of examples of men acting wisely and things endingwell. That is not my meaning. My meaning is that Ibsen has throughout, and does not disguise, a certain vagueness and a changing attitude aswell as a doubting attitude towards what is really wisdom and virtue inthis life--a vagueness which contrasts very remarkably with thedecisiveness with which he pounces on something which he perceives tobe a root of evil, some convention, some deception, some ignorance. Weknow that the hero of GHOSTS is mad, and we know why he is mad. We doalso know that Dr. Stockman is sane; but we do not know why he is sane. Ibsen does not profess to know how virtue and happiness are broughtabout, in the sense that he professes to know how our modern sexualtragedies are brought about. Falsehood works ruin in THE PILLARS OFSOCIETY, but truth works equal ruin in THE WILD DUCK. There are nocardinal virtues of Ibsenism. There is no ideal man of Ibsen. All thisis not only admitted, but vaunted in the most valuable and thoughtfulof all the eulogies upon Ibsen, Mr. Bernard Shaw's QUINTESSENCE OFIBSENISM. Mr. Shaw sums up Ibsen's teaching in the phrase, "The goldenrule is that there is no golden rule. " In his eyes this absence of anenduring and positive ideal, this absence of a permanent key to virtue, is the one great Ibsen merit. I am not discussing now with any fullnesswhether this is so or not. All I venture to point out, with anincreased firmness, is that this omission, good or bad, does leave usface to face with the problem of a human consciousness filled with verydefinite images of evil, and with no definite image of good. To uslight must be henceforward the dark thing--the thing of which we cannotspeak. To us, as to Milton's devils in Pandemonium, it is darknessthat is visible. The human race, according to religion, fell once, andin falling gained knowledge of good and of evil. Now we have fallen asecond time, and only the knowledge of evil remains to us. 

A great silent collapse, an enormous unspoken disappointment, has inour time fallen on our Northern civilization. All previous ages havesweated and been crucified in an attempt to realize what is really theright life, what was really the good man. A definite part of the modernworld has come beyond question to the conclusion that there is noanswer to these questions, that the most that we can do is to set up afew notice-boards at places of obvious danger, to warn men, forinstance, against drinking themselves to death, or ignoring the mereexistence of their neighbours. Ibsen is the first to return from thebaffled hunt to bring us the tidings of great failure. 

Every one of the popular modern phrases and ideals is a dodge in orderto shirk the problem of what is good. We are fond of talking about"liberty"; that, as we talk of it, is a dodge to avoid discussing whatis good. We are fond of talking about "progress"; that is a dodge toavoid discussing what is good. We are fond of talking about"education"; that is a dodge to avoid discussing what is good. Themodern man says, "Let us leave all these arbitrary standards andembrace liberty. " This is, logically rendered, "Let us not decide whatis good, but let it be considered good not to decide it. " He says, "Away with your old moral formulae; I am for progress. " This, logicallystated, means, "Let us not settle what is good; but let us settlewhether we are getting more of it. " He says, "Neither in religion normorality, my friend, lie the hopes of the race, but in education. "This, clearly expressed, means, "We cannot decide what is good, but letus give it to our children. "

Mr. H. G. Wells, that exceedingly clear-sighted man, has pointed out ina recent work that this has happened in connection with economicquestions. The old economists, he says, made generalizations, and theywere (in Mr. Wells's view) mostly wrong. But the new economists, hesays, seem to have lost the power of making any generalizations at all. And they cover this incapacity with a general claim to be, in specificcases, regarded as "experts", a claim "proper enough in a hairdresseror a fashionable physician, but indecent in a philosopher or a man ofscience. " But in spite of the refreshing rationality with which Mr. Wells has indicated this, it must also be said that he himself hasfallen into the same enormous modern error. In the opening pages ofthat excellent book MANKIND IN THE MAKING, he dismisses the ideals ofart, religion, abstract morality, and the rest, and says that he isgoing to consider men in their chief function, the function ofparenthood. He is going to discuss life as a "tissue of births. " He isnot going to ask what will produce satisfactory saints or satisfactoryheroes, but what will produce satisfactory fathers and mothers. Thewhole is set forward so sensibly that it is a few moments at leastbefore the reader realises that it is another example of unconsciousshirking. What is the good of begetting a man until we have settledwhat is the good of being a man? You are merely handing on to him aproblem you dare not settle yourself. It is as if a man were asked, "What is the use of a hammer?" and answered, "To make hammers"; andwhen asked, "And of those hammers, what is the use?" answered, "To makehammers again". Just as such a man would be perpetually putting off thequestion of the ultimate use of carpentry, so Mr. Wells and all therest of us are by these phrases successfully putting off the questionof the ultimate value of the human life. 

The case of the general talk of "progress" is, indeed, an extreme one. As enunciated today, "progress" is simply a comparative of which wehave not settled the superlative. We meet every ideal of religion, patriotism, beauty, or brute pleasure with the alternative ideal ofprogress--that is to say, we meet every proposal of getting somethingthat we know about, with an alternative proposal of getting a greatdeal more of nobody knows what. Progress, properly understood, has, indeed, a most dignified and legitimate meaning. But as used inopposition to precise moral ideals, it is ludicrous. So far from itbeing the truth that the ideal of progress is to be set against that ofethical or religious finality, the reverse is the truth. Nobody has anybusiness to use the word "progress" unless he has a definite creed anda cast-iron code of morals. Nobody can be progressive without beingdoctrinal; I might almost say that nobody can be progressive withoutbeing infallible--at any rate, without believing in some infallibility. For progress by its very name indicates a direction; and the moment weare in the least doubtful about the direction, we become in the samedegree doubtful about the progress. Never perhaps since the beginningof the world has there been an age that had less right to use the word"progress" than we. In the Catholic twelfth century, in the philosophiceighteenth century, the direction may have been a good or a bad one, men may have differed more or less about how far they went, and in whatdirection, but about the direction they did in the main agree, andconsequently they had the genuine sensation of progress. But it isprecisely about the direction that we disagree. Whether the futureexcellence lies in more law or less law, in more liberty or lessliberty; whether property will be finally concentrated or finally cutup; whether sexual passion will reach its sanest in an almost virginintellectualism or in a full animal freedom; whether we should loveeverybody with Tolstoy, or spare nobody with Nietzsche;--these are thethings about which we are actually fighting most. It is not merelytrue that the age which has settled least what is progress is this"progressive" age. It is, moreover, true that the people who havesettled least what is progress are the most "progressive" people in it. The ordinary mass, the men who have never troubled about progress, might be trusted perhaps to progress. The particular individuals whotalk about progress would certainly fly to the four winds of heavenwhen the pistol-shot started the race. I do not, therefore, say thatthe word "progress" is unmeaning; I say it is unmeaning without theprevious definition of a moral doctrine, and that it can only beapplied to groups of persons who hold that doctrine in common. Progress is not an illegitimate word, but it is logically evident thatit is illegitimate for us. It is a sacred word, a word which could onlyrightly be used by rigid believers and in the ages of faith. 

III. On Mr. Rudyard Kipling and Making the World Small

There is no such thing on earth as an uninteresting subject; the onlything that can exist is an uninterested person. Nothing is more keenlyrequired than a defence of bores. When Byron divided humanity into thebores and bored, he omitted to notice that the higher qualities existentirely in the bores, the lower qualities in the bored, among whom hecounted himself. The bore, by his starry enthusiasm, his solemnhappiness, may, in some sense, have proved himself poetical. The boredhas certainly proved himself prosaic. 

We might, no doubt, find it a nuisance to count all the blades of grassor all the leaves of the trees; but this would not be because of ourboldness or gaiety, but because of our lack of boldness and gaiety. Thebore would go onward, bold and gay, and find the blades of grass assplendid as the swords of an army. The bore is stronger and morejoyous than we are; he is a demigod--nay, he is a god. For it is thegods who do not tire of the iteration of things; to them the nightfallis always new, and the last rose as red as the first. 

The sense that everything is poetical is a thing solid and absolute; itis not a mere matter of phraseology or persuasion. It is not merelytrue, it is ascertainable. Men may be challenged to deny it; men maybe challenged to mention anything that is not a matter of poetry. Iremember a long time ago a sensible sub-editor coming up to me with abook in his hand, called "Mr. Smith, " or "The Smith Family, " or somesuch thing. He said, "Well, you won't get any of your damned mysticismout of this, " or words to that effect. I am happy to say that Iundeceived him; but the victory was too obvious and easy. In most casesthe name is unpoetical, although the fact is poetical. In the case ofSmith, the name is so poetical that it must be an arduous and heroicmatter for the man to live up to it. The name of Smith is the name ofthe one trade that even kings respected, it could claim half the gloryof that arma virumque which all epics acclaimed. The spirit of thesmithy is so close to the spirit of song that it has mixed in a millionpoems, and every blacksmith is a harmonious blacksmith. 

Even the village children feel that in some dim way the smith ispoetic, as the grocer and the cobbler are not poetic, when they feaston the dancing sparks and deafening blows in the cavern of thatcreative violence. The brute repose of Nature, the passionate cunningof man, the strongest of earthly metals, the wierdest of earthlyelements, the unconquerable iron subdued by its only conqueror, thewheel and the ploughshare, the sword and the steam-hammer, the arrayingof armies and the whole legend of arms, all these things are written, briefly indeed, but quite legibly, on the visiting-card of Mr. Smith. Yet our novelists call their hero "Aylmer Valence, " which meansnothing, or "Vernon Raymond, " which means nothing, when it is in theirpower to give him this sacred name of Smith--this name made of iron andflame. It would be very natural if a certain hauteur, a certaincarriage of the head, a certain curl of the lip, distinguished everyone whose name is Smith. Perhaps it does; I trust so. Whoever else areparvenus, the Smiths are not parvenus. From the darkest dawn of historythis clan has gone forth to battle; its trophies are on every hand; itsname is everywhere; it is older than the nations, and its sign is theHammer of Thor. But as I also remarked, it is not quite the usual case. It is common enough that common things should be poetical; it is not socommon that common names should be poetical. In most cases it is thename that is the obstacle. A great many people talk as if this claim ofours, that all things are poetical, were a mere literary ingenuity, aplay on words. Precisely the contrary is true. It is the idea thatsome things are not poetical which is literary, which is a mere productof words. The word "signal-box" is unpoetical. But the thingsignal-box is not unpoetical; it is a place where men, in an agony ofvigilance, light blood-red and sea-green fires to keep other men fromdeath. That is the plain, genuine description of what it is; the proseonly comes in with what it is called. The word "pillar-box" isunpoetical. But the thing pillar-box is not unpoetical; it is the placeto which friends and lovers commit their messages, conscious that whenthey have done so they are sacred, and not to be touched, not only byothers, but even (religious touch!) by themselves. That red turret isone of the last of the temples. Posting a letter and getting marriedare among the few things left that are entirely romantic; for to beentirely romantic a thing must be irrevocable. We think a pillar-boxprosaic, because there is no rhyme to it. We think a pillar-boxunpoetical, because we have never seen it in a poem. But the bold factis entirely on the side of poetry. A signal-box is only called asignal-box; it is a house of life and death. A pillar-box is onlycalled a pillar-box; it is a sanctuary of human words. If you thinkthe name of "Smith" prosaic, it is not because you are practical andsensible; it is because you are too much affected with literaryrefinements. The name shouts poetry at you. If you think of itotherwise, it is because you are steeped and sodden with verbalreminiscences, because you remember everything in Punch or Comic Cutsabout Mr. Smith being drunk or Mr. Smith being henpecked. All thesethings were given to you poetical. It is only by a long and elaborateprocess of literary effort that you have made them prosaic. 

Now, the first and fairest thing to say about Rudyard Kipling is thathe has borne a brilliant part in thus recovering the lost provinces ofpoetry. He has not been frightened by that brutal materialistic airwhich clings only to words; he has pierced through to the romantic, imaginative matter of the things themselves. He has perceived thesignificance and philosophy of steam and of slang. Steam may be, if youlike, a dirty by-product of science. Slang may be, if you like, a dirtyby-product of language. But at least he has been among the few who sawthe divine parentage of these things, and knew that where there issmoke there is fire--that is, that wherever there is the foulest ofthings, there also is the purest. Above all, he has had something tosay, a definite view of things to utter, and that always means that aman is fearless and faces everything. For the moment we have a view ofthe universe, we possess it. 

Now, the message of Rudyard Kipling, that upon which he has reallyconcentrated, is the only thing worth worrying about in him or in anyother man. He has often written bad poetry, like Wordsworth. He hasoften said silly things, like Plato. He has often given way to merepolitical hysteria, like Gladstone. But no one can reasonably doubtthat he means steadily and sincerely to say something, and the onlyserious question is, What is that which he has tried to say? Perhapsthe best way of stating this fairly will be to begin with that elementwhich has been most insisted by himself and by his opponents--I meanhis interest in militarism. But when we are seeking for the real meritsof a man it is unwise to go to his enemies, and much more foolish to goto himself. 

Now, Mr. Kipling is certainly wrong in his worship of militarism, buthis opponents are, generally speaking, quite as wrong as he. The evilof militarism is not that it shows certain men to be fierce and haughtyand excessively warlike. The evil of militarism is that it shows mostmen to be tame and timid and excessively peaceable. The professionalsoldier gains more and more power as the general courage of a communitydeclines. Thus the Pretorian guard became more and more important inRome as Rome became more and more luxurious and feeble. The militaryman gains the civil power in proportion as the civilian loses themilitary virtues. And as it was in ancient Rome so it is incontemporary Europe. There never was a time when nations were moremilitarist. There never was a time when men were less brave. All agesand all epics have sung of arms and the man; but we have effectedsimultaneously the deterioration of the man and the fantasticperfection of the arms. Militarism demonstrated the decadence of Rome, and it demonstrates the decadence of Prussia. 

And unconsciously Mr. Kipling has proved this, and proved it admirably. For in so far as his work is earnestly understood the military tradedoes not by any means emerge as the most important or attractive. Hehas not written so well about soldiers as he has about railway men orbridge builders, or even journalists. The fact is that what attractsMr. Kipling to militarism is not the idea of courage, but the idea ofdiscipline. There was far more courage to the square mile in the MiddleAges, when no king had a standing army, but every man had a bow orsword. But the fascination of the standing army upon Mr. Kipling is notcourage, which scarcely interests him, but discipline, which is, whenall is said and done, his primary theme. The modern army is not amiracle of courage; it has not enough opportunities, owing to thecowardice of everybody else. But it is really a miracle oforganization, and that is the truly Kiplingite ideal. Kipling's subjectis not that valour which properly belongs to war, but thatinterdependence and efficiency which belongs quite as much toengineers, or sailors, or mules, or railway engines. And thus it isthat when he writes of engineers, or sailors, or mules, orsteam-engines, he writes at his best. The real poetry, the "trueromance" which Mr. Kipling has taught, is the romance of the divisionof labour and the discipline of all the trades. He sings the arts ofpeace much more accurately than the arts of war. And his maincontention is vital and valuable. Every thing is military in the sensethat everything depends upon obedience. There is no perfectlyepicurean corner; there is no perfectly irresponsible place. Everywheremen have made the way for us with sweat and submission. We may flingourselves into a hammock in a fit of divine carelessness. But we areglad that the net-maker did not make the hammock in a fit of divinecarelessness. We may jump upon a child's rocking-horse for a joke. Butwe are glad that the carpenter did not leave the legs of it unglued fora joke. So far from having merely preached that a soldier cleaning hisside-arm is to be adored because he is military, Kipling at his bestand clearest has preached that the baker baking loaves and the tailorcutting coats is as military as anybody. 

Being devoted to this multitudinous vision of duty, Mr. Kipling isnaturally a cosmopolitan. He happens to find his examples in theBritish Empire, but almost any other empire would do as well, or, indeed, any other highly civilized country. That which he admires inthe British army he would find even more apparent in the German army;that which he desires in the British police he would find flourishing, in the French police. The ideal of discipline is not the whole of life, but it is spread over the whole of the world. And the worship of ittends to confirm in Mr. Kipling a certain note of worldly wisdom, ofthe experience of the wanderer, which is one of the genuine charms ofhis best work. 

The great gap in his mind is what may be roughly called the lack ofpatriotism--that is to say, he lacks altogether the faculty ofattaching himself to any cause or community finally and tragically; forall finality must be tragic. He admires England, but he does not loveher; for we admire things with reasons, but love them without reasons. He admires England because she is strong, not because she is English. There is no harshness in saying this, for, to do him justice, he avowsit with his usual picturesque candour. In a very interesting poem, hesays that--

 "If England was what England seems"

--that is, weak and inefficient; if England were not what (as hebelieves) she is--that is, powerful and practical--

 "How quick we'd chuck 'er! But she ain't!"

He admits, that is, that his devotion is the result of a criticism, andthis is quite enough to put it in another category altogether from thepatriotism of the Boers, whom he hounded down in South Africa. Inspeaking of the really patriotic peoples, such as the Irish, he hassome difficulty in keeping a shrill irritation out of his language. Theframe of mind which he really describes with beauty and nobility is theframe of mind of the cosmopolitan man who has seen men and cities. 

 "For to admire and for to see, For to be'old this world so wide. "

He is a perfect master of that light melancholy with which a man looksback on having been the citizen of many communities, of that lightmelancholy with which a man looks back on having been the lover of manywomen. He is the philanderer of the nations. But a man may have learntmuch about women in flirtations, and still be ignorant of first love; aman may have known as many lands as Ulysses, and still be ignorant ofpatriotism. 

Mr. Rudyard Kipling has asked in a celebrated epigram what they canknow of England who know England only. It is a far deeper and sharperquestion to ask, "What can they know of England who know only theworld?" for the world does not include England any more than itincludes the Church. The moment we care for anything deeply, theworld--that is, all the other miscellaneous interests--becomes ourenemy. Christians showed it when they talked of keeping one's self"unspotted from the world;" but lovers talk of it just as much whenthey talk of the "world well lost. " Astronomically speaking, Iunderstand that England is situated on the world; similarly, I supposethat the Church was a part of the world, and even the loversinhabitants of that orb. But they all felt a certain truth--the truththat the moment you love anything the world becomes your foe. Thus Mr. Kipling does certainly know the world; he is a man of the world, withall the narrowness that belongs to those imprisoned in that planet. Heknows England as an intelligent English gentleman knows Venice. He hasbeen to England a great many times; he has stopped there for longvisits. But he does not belong to it, or to any place; and the proofof it is this, that he thinks of England as a place. The moment we arerooted in a place, the place vanishes. We live like a tree with thewhole strength of the universe. 

The globe-trotter lives in a smaller world than the peasant. He isalways breathing, an air of locality. London is a place, to becompared to Chicago; Chicago is a place, to be compared to Timbuctoo. But Timbuctoo is not a place, since there, at least, live men whoregard it as the universe, and breathe, not an air of locality, but thewinds of the world. The man in the saloon steamer has seen all theraces of men, and he is thinking of the things that divide men--diet, dress, decorum, rings in the nose as in Africa, or in the ears as inEurope, blue paint among the ancients, or red paint among the modernBritons. The man in the cabbage field has seen nothing at all; but heis thinking of the things that unite men--hunger and babies, and thebeauty of women, and the promise or menace of the sky. Mr. Kipling, with all his merits, is the globe-trotter; he has not the patience tobecome part of anything. So great and genuine a man is not to beaccused of a merely cynical cosmopolitanism; still, his cosmopolitanismis his weakness. That weakness is splendidly expressed in one of hisfinest poems, "The Sestina of the Tramp Royal, " in which a man declaresthat he can endure anything in the way of hunger or horror, but notpermanent presence in one place. In this there is certainly danger. The more dead and dry and dusty a thing is the more it travels about;dust is like this and the thistle-down and the High Commissioner inSouth Africa. Fertile things are somewhat heavier, like the heavyfruit trees on the pregnant mud of the Nile. In the heated idleness ofyouth we were all rather inclined to quarrel with the implication ofthat proverb which says that a rolling stone gathers no moss. We wereinclined to ask, "Who wants to gather moss, except silly old ladies?"But for all that we begin to perceive that the proverb is right. Therolling stone rolls echoing from rock to rock; but the rolling stone isdead. The moss is silent because the moss is alive. 

The truth is that exploration and enlargement make the world smaller. The telegraph and the steamboat make the world smaller. The telescopemakes the world smaller; it is only the microscope that makes itlarger. Before long the world will be cloven with a war between thetelescopists and the microscopists. The first study large things andlive in a small world; the second study small things and live in alarge world. It is inspiriting without doubt to whizz in a motor-carround the earth, to feel Arabia as a whirl of sand or China as a flashof rice-fields. But Arabia is not a whirl of sand and China is not aflash of rice-fields. They are ancient civilizations with strangevirtues buried like treasures. If we wish to understand them it mustnot be as tourists or inquirers, it must be with the loyalty ofchildren and the great patience of poets. To conquer these places is tolose them. The man standing in his own kitchen-garden, with fairylandopening at the gate, is the man with large ideas. His mind createsdistance; the motor-car stupidly destroys it. Moderns think of theearth as a globe, as something one can easily get round, the spirit ofa schoolmistress. This is shown in the odd mistake perpetually madeabout Cecil Rhodes. His enemies say that he may have had large ideas, but he was a bad man. His friends say that he may have been a bad man, but he certainly had large ideas. The truth is that he was not a manessentially bad, he was a man of much geniality and many goodintentions, but a man with singularly small views. There is nothinglarge about painting the map red; it is an innocent game for children. It is just as easy to think in continents as to think in cobble-stones. The difficulty comes in when we seek to know the substance of either ofthem. Rhodes' prophecies about the Boer resistance are an admirablecomment on how the "large ideas" prosper when it is not a question ofthinking in continents but of understanding a few two-legged men. Andunder all this vast illusion of the cosmopolitan planet, with itsempires and its Reuter's agency, the real life of man goes on concernedwith this tree or that temple, with this harvest or that drinking-song, totally uncomprehended, totally untouched. And it watches from itssplendid parochialism, possibly with a smile of amusement, motor-carcivilization going its triumphant way, outstripping time, consumingspace, seeing all and seeing nothing, roaring on at last to the captureof the solar system, only to find the sun cockney and the starssuburban. 

IV. Mr. Bernard Shaw

In the glad old days, before the rise of modern morbidities, whengenial old Ibsen filled the world with wholesome joy, and the kindlytales of the forgotten Emile Zola kept our firesides merry and pure, itused to be thought a disadvantage to be misunderstood. It may bedoubted whether it is always or even generally a disadvantage. The manwho is misunderstood has always this advantage over his enemies, thatthey do not know his weak point or his plan of campaign. They go outagainst a bird with nets and against a fish with arrows. There areseveral modern examples of this situation. Mr. Chamberlain, forinstance, is a very good one. He constantly eludes or vanquishes hisopponents because his real powers and deficiencies are quite differentto those with which he is credited, both by friends and foes. Hisfriends depict him as a strenuous man of action; his opponents depicthim as a coarse man of business; when, as a fact, he is neither one northe other, but an admirable romantic orator and romantic actor. He hasone power which is the soul of melodrama--the power of pretending, evenwhen backed by a huge majority, that he has his back to the wall. Forall mobs are so far chivalrous that their heroes must make some show ofmisfortune--that sort of hypocrisy is the homage that strength pays toweakness. He talks foolishly and yet very finely about his own citythat has never deserted him. He wears a flaming and fantastic flower, like a decadent minor poet. As for his bluffness and toughness andappeals to common sense, all that is, of course, simply the first trickof rhetoric. He fronts his audiences with the venerable affectation ofMark Antony--

 "I am no orator, as Brutus is; But as you know me all, a plain blunt man. "

It is the whole difference between the aim of the orator and the aim ofany other artist, such as the poet or the sculptor. The aim of thesculptor is to convince us that he is a sculptor; the aim of theorator, is to convince us that he is not an orator. Once let Mr. Chamberlain be mistaken for a practical man, and his game is won. Hehas only to compose a theme on empire, and people will say that theseplain men say great things on great occasions. He has only to drift inthe large loose notions common to all artists of the second rank, andpeople will say that business men have the biggest ideals after all. All his schemes have ended in smoke; he has touched nothing that he didnot confuse. About his figure there is a Celtic pathos; like the Gaelsin Matthew Arnold's quotation, "he went forth to battle, but he alwaysfell. " He is a mountain of proposals, a mountain of failures; but stilla mountain. And a mountain is always romantic. 

There is another man in the modern world who might be called theantithesis of Mr. Chamberlain in every point, who is also a standingmonument of the advantage of being misunderstood. Mr. Bernard Shaw isalways represented by those who disagree with him, and, I fear, also(if such exist) by those who agree with him, as a capering humorist, adazzling acrobat, a quick-change artist. It is said that he cannot betaken seriously, that he will defend anything or attack anything, thathe will do anything to startle and amuse. All this is not only untrue, but it is, glaringly, the opposite of the truth; it is as wild as tosay that Dickens had not the boisterous masculinity of Jane Austen. The whole force and triumph of Mr. Bernard Shaw lie in the fact that heis a thoroughly consistent man. So far from his power consisting injumping through hoops or standing on his head, his power consists inholding his own fortress night and day. He puts the Shaw test rapidlyand rigorously to everything that happens in heaven or earth. Hisstandard never varies. The thing which weak-minded revolutionists andweak-minded Conservatives really hate (and fear) in him, is exactlythis, that his scales, such as they are, are held even, and that hislaw, such as it is, is justly enforced. You may attack his principles, as I do; but I do not know of any instance in which you can attacktheir application. If he dislikes lawlessness, he dislikes thelawlessness of Socialists as much as that of Individualists. If hedislikes the fever of patriotism, he dislikes it in Boers and Irishmenas well as in Englishmen. If he dislikes the vows and bonds ofmarriage, he dislikes still more the fiercer bonds and wilder vows thatare made by lawless love. If he laughs at the authority of priests, helaughs louder at the pomposity of men of science. If he condemns theirresponsibility of faith, he condemns with a sane consistency theequal irresponsibility of art. He has pleased all the bohemians bysaying that women are equal to men; but he has infuriated them bysuggesting that men are equal to women. He is almost mechanically just;he has something of the terrible quality of a machine. The man who isreally wild and whirling, the man who is really fantastic andincalculable, is not Mr. Shaw, but the average Cabinet Minister. It isSir Michael Hicks-Beach who jumps through hoops. It is Sir HenryFowler who stands on his head. The solid and respectable statesman ofthat type does really leap from position to position; he is reallyready to defend anything or nothing; he is really not to be takenseriously. I know perfectly well what Mr. Bernard Shaw will be sayingthirty years hence; he will be saying what he has always said. Ifthirty years hence I meet Mr. Shaw, a reverent being with a silverbeard sweeping the earth, and say to him, "One can never, of course, make a verbal attack upon a lady, " the patriarch will lift his agedhand and fell me to the earth. We know, I say, what Mr. Shaw will be, saying thirty years hence. But is there any one so darkly read in starsand oracles that he will dare to predict what Mr. Asquith will besaying thirty years hence?

The truth is, that it is quite an error to suppose that absence ofdefinite convictions gives the mind freedom and agility. A man whobelieves something is ready and witty, because he has all his weaponsabout him. He can apply his test in an instant. The man engaged inconflict with a man like Mr. Bernard Shaw may fancy he has ten faces;similarly a man engaged against a brilliant duellist may fancy that thesword of his foe has turned to ten swords in his hand. But this is notreally because the man is playing with ten swords, it is because he isaiming very straight with one. Moreover, a man with a definite beliefalways appears bizarre, because he does not change with the world; hehas climbed into a fixed star, and the earth whizzes below him like azoetrope. Millions of mild black-coated men call themselves sane andsensible merely because they always catch the fashionable insanity, because they are hurried into madness after madness by the maelstrom ofthe world. 

People accuse Mr. Shaw and many much sillier persons of "proving thatblack is white. " But they never ask whether the currentcolour-language is always correct. Ordinary sensible phraseologysometimes calls black white, it certainly calls yellow white and greenwhite and reddish-brown white. We call wine "white wine" which is asyellow as a Blue-coat boy's legs. We call grapes "white grapes" whichare manifestly pale green. We give to the European, whose complexion isa sort of pink drab, the horrible title of a "white man"--a picturemore blood-curdling than any spectre in Poe. 

Now, it is undoubtedly true that if a man asked a waiter in arestaurant for a bottle of yellow wine and some greenish-yellow grapes, the waiter would think him mad. It is undoubtedly true that if aGovernment official, reporting on the Europeans in Burmah, said, "Thereare only two thousand pinkish men here" he would be accused of crackingjokes, and kicked out of his post. But it is equally obvious that bothmen would have come to grief through telling the strict truth. That tootruthful man in the restaurant; that too truthful man in Burmah, is Mr. Bernard Shaw. He appears eccentric and grotesque because he will notaccept the general belief that white is yellow. He has based all hisbrilliancy and solidity upon the hackneyed, but yet forgotten, factthat truth is stranger than fiction. Truth, of course, must ofnecessity be stranger than fiction, for we have made fiction to suitourselves. 

So much then a reasonable appreciation will find in Mr. Shaw to bebracing and excellent. He claims to see things as they are; and somethings, at any rate, he does see as they are, which the whole of ourcivilization does not see at all. But in Mr. Shaw's realism there issomething lacking, and that thing which is lacking is serious. 

Mr. Shaw's old and recognized philosophy was that powerfully presentedin "The Quintessence of Ibsenism. " It was, in brief, that conservativeideals were bad, not because They were conservative, but because theywere ideals. Every ideal prevented men from judging justly theparticular case; every moral generalization oppressed the individual;the golden rule was there was no golden rule. And the objection to thisis simply that it pretends to free men, but really restrains them fromdoing the only thing that men want to do. What is the good of telling acommunity that it has every liberty except the liberty to make laws?The liberty to make laws is what constitutes a free people. And whatis the good of telling a man (or a philosopher) that he has everyliberty except the liberty to make generalizations. Makinggeneralizations is what makes him a man. In short, when Mr. Shawforbids men to have strict moral ideals, he is acting like one whoshould forbid them to have children. The saying that "the golden ruleis that there is no golden rule, " can, indeed, be simply answered bybeing turned round. That there is no golden rule is itself a goldenrule, or rather it is much worse than a golden rule. It is an ironrule; a fetter on the first movement of a man. 

But the sensation connected with Mr. Shaw in recent years has been hissudden development of the religion of the Superman. He who had to allappearance mocked at the faiths in the forgotten past discovered a newgod in the unimaginable future. He who had laid all the blame onideals set up the most impossible of all ideals, the ideal of a newcreature. But the truth, nevertheless, is that any one who knows Mr. Shaw's mind adequately, and admires it properly, must have guessed allthis long ago. 

For the truth is that Mr. Shaw has never seen things as they reallyare. If he had he would have fallen on his knees before them. He hasalways had a secret ideal that has withered all the things of thisworld. He has all the time been silently comparing humanity withsomething that was not human, with a monster from Mars, with the WiseMan of the Stoics, with the Economic Man of the Fabians, with JuliusCaesar, with Siegfried, with the Superman. Now, to have this inner andmerciless standard may be a very good thing, or a very bad one, it maybe excellent or unfortunate, but it is not seeing things as they are. It is not seeing things as they are to think first of a Briareus with ahundred hands, and then call every man a cripple for only having two. It is not seeing things as they are to start with a vision of Arguswith his hundred eyes, and then jeer at every man with two eyes as ifhe had only one. And it is not seeing things as they are to imagine ademigod of infinite mental clarity, who may or may not appear in thelatter days of the earth, and then to see all men as idiots. And thisis what Mr. Shaw has always in some degree done. When we really seemen as they are, we do not criticise, but worship; and very rightly. For a monster with mysterious eyes and miraculous thumbs, with strangedreams in his skull, and a queer tenderness for this place or thatbaby, is truly a wonderful and unnerving matter. It is only the quitearbitrary and priggish habit of comparison with something else whichmakes it possible to be at our ease in front of him. A sentiment ofsuperiority keeps us cool and practical; the mere facts would make, ourknees knock under as with religious fear. It is the fact that everyinstant of conscious life is an unimaginable prodigy. It is the factthat every face in the street has the incredible unexpectedness of afairy-tale. The thing which prevents a man from realizing this is notany clear-sightedness or experience, it is simply a habit of pedanticand fastidious comparisons between one thing and another. Mr. Shaw, onthe practical side perhaps the most humane man alive, is in this senseinhumane. He has even been infected to some extent with the primaryintellectual weakness of his new master, Nietzsche, the strange notionthat the greater and stronger a man was the more he would despise otherthings. The greater and stronger a man is the more he would beinclined to prostrate himself before a periwinkle. That Mr. Shaw keepsa lifted head and a contemptuous face before the colossal panorama ofempires and civilizations, this does not in itself convince one that hesees things as they are. I should be most effectively convinced that hedid if I found him staring with religious astonishment at his own feet. "What are those two beautiful and industrious beings, " I can imaginehim murmuring to himself, "whom I see everywhere, serving me I know notwhy? What fairy godmother bade them come trotting out of elfland when Iwas born? What god of the borderland, what barbaric god of legs, mustI propitiate with fire and wine, lest they run away with me?"

The truth is, that all genuine appreciation rests on a certain mysteryof humility and almost of darkness. The man who said, "Blessed is hethat expecteth nothing, for he shall not be disappointed, " put theeulogy quite inadequately and even falsely. The truth "Blessed is hethat expecteth nothing, for he shall be gloriously surprised. " The manwho expects nothing sees redder roses than common men can see, andgreener grass, and a more startling sun. Blessed is he that expectethnothing, for he shall possess the cities and the mountains; blessed isthe meek, for he shall inherit the earth. Until we realize that thingsmight not be we cannot realize that things are. Until we see thebackground of darkness we cannot admire the light as a single andcreated thing. As soon as we have seen that darkness, all light islightening, sudden, blinding, and divine. Until we picture nonentity weunderrate the victory of God, and can realize none of the trophies ofHis ancient war. It is one of the million wild jests of truth that weknow nothing until we know nothing. 

Now this is, I say deliberately, the only defect in the greatness ofMr. Shaw, the only answer to his claim to be a great man, that he isnot easily pleased. He is an almost solitary exception to the generaland essential maxim, that little things please great minds. And fromthis absence of that most uproarious of all things, humility, comesincidentally the peculiar insistence on the Superman. After belabouringa great many people for a great many years for being unprogressive, Mr. Shaw has discovered, with characteristic sense, that it is verydoubtful whether any existing human being with two legs can beprogressive at all. Having come to doubt whether humanity can becombined with progress, most people, easily pleased, would have electedto abandon progress and remain with humanity. Mr. Shaw, not beingeasily pleased, decides to throw over humanity with all its limitationsand go in for progress for its own sake. If man, as we know him, isincapable of the philosophy of progress, Mr. Shaw asks, not for a newkind of philosophy, but for a new kind of man. It is rather as if anurse had tried a rather bitter food for some years on a baby, and ondiscovering that it was not suitable, should not throw away the foodand ask for a new food, but throw the baby out of window, and ask for anew baby. Mr. Shaw cannot understand that the thing which is valuableand lovable in our eyes is man--the old beer-drinking, creed-making, fighting, failing, sensual, respectable man. And the things that havebeen founded on this creature immortally remain; the things that havebeen founded on the fancy of the Superman have died with the dyingcivilizations which alone have given them birth. When Christ at asymbolic moment was establishing His great society, He chose for itscomer-stone neither the brilliant Paul nor the mystic John, but ashuffler, a snob a coward--in a word, a man. And upon this rock He hasbuilt His Church, and the gates of Hell have not prevailed against it. All the empires and the kingdoms have failed, because of this inherentand continual weakness, that they were founded by strong men and uponstrong men. But this one thing, the historic Christian Church, wasfounded on a weak man, and for that reason it is indestructible. For nochain is stronger than its weakest link. 

V. Mr. H. G. Wells and the Giants

We ought to see far enough into a hypocrite to see even his sincerity. We ought to be interested in that darkest and most real part of a manin which dwell not the vices that he does not display, but the virtuesthat he cannot. And the more we approach the problems of human historywith this keen and piercing charity, the smaller and smaller space weshall allow to pure hypocrisy of any kind. The hypocrites shall notdeceive us into thinking them saints; but neither shall they deceive usinto thinking them hypocrites. And an increasing number of cases willcrowd into our field of inquiry, cases in which there is really noquestion of hypocrisy at all, cases in which people were so ingenuousthat they seemed absurd, and so absurd that they seemed disingenuous. 

There is one striking instance of an unfair charge of hypocrisy. It isalways urged against the religious in the past, as a point ofinconsistency and duplicity, that they combined a profession of almostcrawling humility with a keen struggle for earthly success andconsiderable triumph in attaining it. It is felt as a piece of humbug, that a man should be very punctilious in calling himself a miserablesinner, and also very punctilious in calling himself King of France. But the truth is that there is no more conscious inconsistency betweenthe humility of a Christian and the rapacity of a Christian than thereis between the humility of a lover and the rapacity of a lover. Thetruth is that there are no things for which men will make suchherculean efforts as the things of which they know they are unworthy. There never was a man in love who did not declare that, if he strainedevery nerve to breaking, he was going to have his desire. And therenever was a man in love who did not declare also that he ought not tohave it. The whole secret of the practical success of Christendom liesin the Christian humility, however imperfectly fulfilled. For with theremoval of all question of merit or payment, the soul is suddenlyreleased for incredible voyages. If we ask a sane man how much hemerits, his mind shrinks instinctively and instantaneously. It isdoubtful whether he merits six feet of earth. But if you ask him whathe can conquer--he can conquer the stars. Thus comes the thing calledRomance, a purely Christian product. A man cannot deserve adventures;he cannot earn dragons and hippogriffs. The mediaeval Europe whichasserted humility gained Romance; the civilization which gained Romancehas gained the habitable globe. How different the Pagan and Stoicalfeeling was from this has been admirably expressed in a famousquotation. Addison makes the great Stoic say--

 "'Tis not in mortals to command success; But we'll do more, Sempronius, we'll deserve it. "

But the spirit of Romance and Christendom, the spirit which is in everylover, the spirit which has bestridden the earth with Europeanadventure, is quite opposite. 'Tis not in mortals to deserve success. But we'll do more, Sempronius; we'll obtain it. 

And this gay humility, this holding of ourselves lightly and yet readyfor an infinity of unmerited triumphs, this secret is so simple thatevery one has supposed that it must be something quite sinister andmysterious. Humility is so practical a virtue that men think it must bea vice. Humility is so successful that it is mistaken for pride. It ismistaken for it all the more easily because it generally goes with acertain simple love of splendour which amounts to vanity. Humility willalways, by preference, go clad in scarlet and gold; pride is that whichrefuses to let gold and scarlet impress it or please it too much. In aword, the failure of this virtue actually lies in its success; it istoo successful as an investment to be believed in as a virtue. Humility is not merely too good for this world; it is too practical forthis world; I had almost said it is too worldly for this world. 

The instance most quoted in our day is the thing called the humility ofthe man of science; and certainly it is a good instance as well as amodern one. Men find it extremely difficult to believe that a man whois obviously uprooting mountains and dividing seas, tearing downtemples and stretching out hands to the stars, is really a quiet oldgentleman who only asks to be allowed to indulge his harmless old hobbyand follow his harmless old nose. When a man splits a grain of sand andthe universe is turned upside down in consequence, it is difficult torealize that to the man who did it, the splitting of the grain is thegreat affair, and the capsizing of the cosmos quite a small one. It ishard to enter into the feelings of a man who regards a new heaven and anew earth in the light of a by-product. But undoubtedly it was to thisalmost eerie innocence of the intellect that the great men of the greatscientific period, which now appears to be closing, owed their enormouspower and triumph. If they had brought the heavens down like a house ofcards their plea was not even that they had done it on principle; theirquite unanswerable plea was that they had done it by accident. Wheneverthere was in them the least touch of pride in what they had done, therewas a good ground for attacking them; but so long as they were whollyhumble, they were wholly victorious. There were possible answers toHuxley; there was no answer possible to Darwin. He was convincingbecause of his unconsciousness; one might almost say because of hisdulness. This childlike and prosaic mind is beginning to wane in theworld of science. Men of science are beginning to see themselves, asthe fine phrase is, in the part; they are beginning to be proud oftheir humility. They are beginning to be aesthetic, like the rest ofthe world, beginning to spell truth with a capital T, beginning to talkof the creeds they imagine themselves to have destroyed, of thediscoveries that their forbears made. Like the modern English, theyare beginning to be soft about their own hardness. They are becomingconscious of their own strength--that is, they are growing weaker. Butone purely modern man has emerged in the strictly modern decades whodoes carry into our world the clear personal simplicity of the oldworld of science. One man of genius we have who is an artist, but whowas a man of science, and who seems to be marked above all things withthis great scientific humility. I mean Mr. H. G. Wells. And in hiscase, as in the others above spoken of, there must be a greatpreliminary difficulty in convincing the ordinary person that such avirtue is predicable of such a man. Mr. Wells began his literary workwith violent visions--visions of the last pangs of this planet; can itbe that a man who begins with violent visions is humble? He went on towilder and wilder stories about carving beasts into men and shootingangels like birds. Is the man who shoots angels and carves beasts intomen humble? Since then he has done something bolder than either ofthese blasphemies; he has prophesied the political future of all men;prophesied it with aggressive authority and a ringing decision ofdetail. Is the prophet of the future of all men humble? It will indeedbe difficult, in the present condition of current thought about suchthings as pride and humility, to answer the query of how a man can behumble who does such big things and such bold things. For the onlyanswer is the answer which I gave at the beginning of this essay. Itis the humble man who does the big things. It is the humble man whodoes the bold things. It is the humble man who has the sensationalsights vouchsafed to him, and this for three obvious reasons: first, that he strains his eyes more than any other men to see them; second, that he is more overwhelmed and uplifted with them when they come;third, that he records them more exactly and sincerely and with lessadulteration from his more commonplace and more conceited everydayself. Adventures are to those to whom they are most unexpected--thatis, most romantic. Adventures are to the shy: in this senseadventures are to the unadventurous. 

Now, this arresting, mental humility in Mr. H. G. Wells may be, like agreat many other things that are vital and vivid, difficult toillustrate by examples, but if I were asked for an example of it, Ishould have no difficulty about which example to begin with. The mostinteresting thing about Mr. H. G. Wells is that he is the only one ofhis many brilliant contemporaries who has not stopped growing. One canlie awake at night and hear him grow. Of this growth the most evidentmanifestation is indeed a gradual change of opinions; but it is no merechange of opinions. It is not a perpetual leaping from one position toanother like that of Mr. George Moore. It is a quite continuousadvance along a quite solid road in a quite definable direction. Butthe chief proof that it is not a piece of fickleness and vanity is thefact that it has been upon the whole in advance from more startlingopinions to more humdrum opinions. It has been even in some sense anadvance from unconventional opinions to conventional opinions. Thisfact fixes Mr. Wells's honesty and proves him to be no poseur. Mr. Wells once held that the upper classes and the lower classes would beso much differentiated in the future that one class would eat theother. Certainly no paradoxical charlatan who had once found argumentsfor so startling a view would ever have deserted it except forsomething yet more startling. Mr. Wells has deserted it in favour ofthe blameless belief that both classes will be ultimately subordinatedor assimilated to a sort of scientific middle class, a class ofengineers. He has abandoned the sensational theory with the samehonourable gravity and simplicity with which he adopted it. Then hethought it was true; now he thinks it is not true. He has come to themost dreadful conclusion a literary man can come to, the conclusionthat the ordinary view is the right one. It is only the last andwildest kind of courage that can stand on a tower before ten thousandpeople and tell them that twice two is four. 

Mr. H. G. Wells exists at present in a gay and exhilarating progress ofconservativism. He is finding out more and more that conventions, though silent, are alive. As good an example as any of this humilityand sanity of his may be found in his change of view on the subject ofscience and marriage. He once held, I believe, the opinion which somesingular sociologists still hold, that human creatures couldsuccessfully be paired and bred after the manner of dogs or horses. Heno longer holds that view. Not only does he no longer hold that view, but he has written about it in "Mankind in the Making" with suchsmashing sense and humour, that I find it difficult to believe thatanybody else can hold it either. It is true that his chief objection tothe proposal is that it is physically impossible, which seems to me avery slight objection, and almost negligible compared with the others. The one objection to scientific marriage which is worthy of finalattention is simply that such a thing could only be imposed onunthinkable slaves and cowards. I do not know whether the scientificmarriage-mongers are right (as they say) or wrong (as Mr. Wells says)in saying that medical supervision would produce strong and healthymen. I am only certain that if it did, the first act of the strong andhealthy men would be to smash the medical supervision. 

The mistake of all that medical talk lies in the very fact that itconnects the idea of health with the idea of care. What has health todo with care? Health has to do with carelessness. In special andabnormal cases it is necessary to have care. When we are peculiarlyunhealthy it may be necessary to be careful in order to be healthy. Buteven then we are only trying to be healthy in order to be careless. Ifwe are doctors we are speaking to exceptionally sick men, and theyought to be told to be careful. But when we are sociologists we areaddressing the normal man, we are addressing humanity. And humanityought to be told to be recklessness itself. For all the fundamentalfunctions of a healthy man ought emphatically to be performed withpleasure and for pleasure; they emphatically ought not to be performedwith precaution or for precaution. A man ought to eat because he has agood appetite to satisfy, and emphatically not because he has a body tosustain. A man ought to take exercise not because he is too fat, butbecause he loves foils or horses or high mountains, and loves them fortheir own sake. And a man ought to marry because he has fallen in love, and emphatically not because the world requires to be populated. Thefood will really renovate his tissues as long as he is not thinkingabout his tissues. The exercise will really get him into training solong as he is thinking about something else. And the marriage willreally stand some chance of producing a generous-blooded generation ifit had its origin in its own natural and generous excitement. It is thefirst law of health that our necessities should not be accepted asnecessities; they should be accepted as luxuries. Let us, then, becareful about the small things, such as a scratch or a slight illness, or anything that can be managed with care. But in the name of allsanity, let us be careless about the important things, such asmarriage, or the fountain of our very life will fail. 

Mr. Wells, however, is not quite clear enough of the narrowerscientific outlook to see that there are some things which actuallyought not to be scientific. He is still slightly affected with thegreat scientific fallacy; I mean the habit of beginning not with thehuman soul, which is the first thing a man learns about, but with somesuch thing as protoplasm, which is about the last. The one defect inhis splendid mental equipment is that he does not sufficiently allowfor the stuff or material of men. In his new Utopia he says, forinstance, that a chief point of the Utopia will be a disbelief inoriginal sin. If he had begun with the human soul--that is, if he hadbegun on himself--he would have found original sin almost the firstthing to be believed in. He would have found, to put the mattershortly, that a permanent possibility of selfishness arises from themere fact of having a self, and not from any accidents of education orill-treatment. And the weakness of all Utopias is this, that they takethe greatest difficulty of man and assume it to be overcome, and thengive an elaborate account of the overcoming of the smaller ones. Theyfirst assume that no man will want more than his share, and then arevery ingenious in explaining whether his share will be delivered bymotor-car or balloon. And an even stronger example of Mr. Wells'sindifference to the human psychology can be found in hiscosmopolitanism, the abolition in his Utopia of all patrioticboundaries. He says in his innocent way that Utopia must be aworld-state, or else people might make war on it. It does not seem tooccur to him that, for a good many of us, if it were a world-state weshould still make war on it to the end of the world. For if we admitthat there must be varieties in art or opinion what sense is there inthinking there will not be varieties in government? The fact is verysimple. Unless you are going deliberately to prevent a thing beinggood, you cannot prevent it being worth fighting for. It is impossibleto prevent a possible conflict of civilizations, because it isimpossible to prevent a possible conflict between ideals. If there wereno longer our modern strife between nations, there would only be astrife between Utopias. For the highest thing does not tend to uniononly; the highest thing, tends also to differentiation. You can oftenget men to fight for the union; but you can never prevent them fromfighting also for the differentiation. This variety in the highestthing is the meaning of the fierce patriotism, the fierce nationalismof the great European civilization. It is also, incidentally, themeaning of the doctrine of the Trinity. 

But I think the main mistake of Mr. Wells's philosophy is a somewhatdeeper one, one that he expresses in a very entertaining manner in theintroductory part of the new Utopia. His philosophy in some senseamounts to a denial of the possibility of philosophy itself. At least, he maintains that there are no secure and reliable ideas upon which wecan rest with a final mental satisfaction. It will be both clearer, however, and more amusing to quote Mr. Wells himself. 

He says, "Nothing endures, nothing is precise and certain (except themind of a pedant). .. . Being indeed!--there is no being, but auniversal becoming of individualities, and Plato turned his back ontruth when he turned towards his museum of specific ideals. " Mr. Wellssays, again, "There is no abiding thing in what we know. We change fromweaker to stronger lights, and each more powerful light pierces ourhitherto opaque foundations and reveals fresh and different opacitiesbelow. " Now, when Mr. Wells says things like this, I speak with allrespect when I say that he does not observe an evident mentaldistinction. It cannot be true that there is nothing abiding in what weknow. For if that were so we should not know it all and should not callit knowledge. Our mental state may be very different from that ofsomebody else some thousands of years back; but it cannot be entirelydifferent, or else we should not be conscious of a difference. Mr. Wells must surely realize the first and simplest of the paradoxes thatsit by the springs of truth. He must surely see that the fact of twothings being different implies that they are similar. The hare and thetortoise may differ in the quality of swiftness, but they must agree inthe quality of motion. The swiftest hare cannot be swifter than anisosceles triangle or the idea of pinkness. When we say the hare movesfaster, we say that the tortoise moves. And when we say of a thing thatit moves, we say, without need of other words, that there are thingsthat do not move. And even in the act of saying that things change, wesay that there is something unchangeable. 

But certainly the best example of Mr. Wells's fallacy can be found inthe example which he himself chooses. It is quite true that we see adim light which, compared with a darker thing, is light, but which, compared with a stronger light, is darkness. But the quality of lightremains the same thing, or else we should not call it a stronger lightor recognize it as such. If the character of light were not fixed inthe mind, we should be quite as likely to call a denser shadow astronger light, or vice versa If the character of light became even foran instant unfixed, if it became even by a hair's-breadth doubtful, if, for example, there crept into our idea of light some vague idea ofblueness, then in that flash we have become doubtful whether the newlight has more light or less. In brief, the progress may be as varyingas a cloud, but the direction must be as rigid as a French road. Northand South are relative in the sense that I am North of Bournemouth andSouth of Spitzbergen. But if there be any doubt of the position of theNorth Pole, there is in equal degree a doubt of whether I am South ofSpitzbergen at all. The absolute idea of light may be practicallyunattainable. We may not be able to procure pure light. We may not beable to get to the North Pole. But because the North Pole isunattainable, it does not follow that it is indefinable. And it is onlybecause the North Pole is not indefinable that we can make asatisfactory map of Brighton and Worthing. 

In other words, Plato turned his face to truth but his back on Mr. H. G. Wells, when he turned to his museum of specified ideals. It isprecisely here that Plato shows his sense. It is not true thateverything changes; the things that change are all the manifest andmaterial things. There is something that does not change; and that isprecisely the abstract quality, the invisible idea. Mr. Wells saystruly enough, that a thing which we have seen in one connection as darkwe may see in another connection as light. But the thing common to bothincidents is the mere idea of light--which we have not seen at all. Mr. Wells might grow taller and taller for unending aeons till his headwas higher than the loneliest star. I can imagine his writing a goodnovel about it. In that case he would see the trees first as tallthings and then as short things; he would see the clouds first as highand then as low. But there would remain with him through the ages inthat starry loneliness the idea of tallness; he would have in the awfulspaces for companion and comfort the definite conception that he wasgrowing taller and not (for instance) growing fatter. 

And now it comes to my mind that Mr. H. G. Wells actually has written avery delightful romance about men growing as tall as trees; and thathere, again, he seems to me to have been a victim of this vaguerelativism. "The Food of the Gods" is, like Mr. Bernard Shaw's play, in essence a study of the Superman idea. And it lies, I think, eventhrough the veil of a half-pantomimic allegory, open to the sameintellectual attack. We cannot be expected to have any regard for agreat creature if he does not in any manner conform to our standards. For unless he passes our standard of greatness we cannot even call himgreat. Nietszche summed up all that is interesting in the Supermanidea when he said, "Man is a thing which has to be surpassed. " But thevery word "surpass" implies the existence of a standard common to usand the thing surpassing us. If the Superman is more manly than menare, of course they will ultimately deify him, even if they happen tokill him first. But if he is simply more supermanly, they may be quiteindifferent to him as they would be to another seemingly aimlessmonstrosity. He must submit to our test even in order to overawe us. Mere force or size even is a standard; but that alone will never makemen think a man their superior. Giants, as in the wise oldfairy-tales, are vermin. Supermen, if not good men, are vermin. 

"The Food of the Gods" is the tale of "Jack the Giant-Killer" told fromthe point of view of the giant. This has not, I think, been donebefore in literature; but I have little doubt that the psychologicalsubstance of it existed in fact. I have little doubt that the giantwhom Jack killed did regard himself as the Superman. It is likelyenough that he considered Jack a narrow and parochial person who wishedto frustrate a great forward movement of the life-force. If (as notunfrequently was the case) he happened to have two heads, he wouldpoint out the elementary maxim which declares them to be better thanone. He would enlarge on the subtle modernity of such an equipment, enabling a giant to look at a subject from two points of view, or tocorrect himself with promptitude. But Jack was the champion of theenduring human standards, of the principle of one man one head and oneman one conscience, of the single head and the single heart and thesingle eye. Jack was quite unimpressed by the question of whether thegiant was a particularly gigantic giant. All he wished to know waswhether he was a good giant--that is, a giant who was any good to us. What were the giant's religious views; what his views on politics andthe duties of the citizen? Was he fond of children--or fond of themonly in a dark and sinister sense? To use a fine phrase for emotionalsanity, was his heart in the right place? Jack had sometimes to cut himup with a sword in order to find out. The old and correct story of Jackthe Giant-Killer is simply the whole story of man; if it wereunderstood we should need no Bibles or histories. But the modern worldin particular does not seem to understand it at all. The modern world, like Mr. Wells is on the side of the giants; the safest place, andtherefore the meanest and the most prosaic. The modern world, when itpraises its little Caesars, talks of being strong and brave: but itdoes not seem to see the eternal paradox involved in the conjunction ofthese ideas. The strong cannot be brave. Only the weak can be brave;and yet again, in practice, only those who can be brave can be trusted, in time of doubt, to be strong. The only way in which a giant couldreally keep himself in training against the inevitable Jack would be bycontinually fighting other giants ten times as big as himself. That isby ceasing to be a giant and becoming a Jack. Thus that sympathy withthe small or the defeated as such, with which we Liberals andNationalists have been often reproached, is not a uselesssentimentalism at all, as Mr. Wells and his friends fancy. It is thefirst law of practical courage. To be in the weakest camp is to be inthe strongest school. Nor can I imagine anything that would do humanitymore good than the advent of a race of Supermen, for them to fight likedragons. If the Superman is better than we, of course we need not fighthim; but in that case, why not call him the Saint? But if he is merelystronger (whether physically, mentally, or morally stronger, I do notcare a farthing), then he ought to have to reckon with us at least forall the strength we have. It we are weaker than he, that is no reasonwhy we should be weaker than ourselves. If we are not tall enough totouch the giant's knees, that is no reason why we should become shorterby falling on our own. But that is at bottom the meaning of all modernhero-worship and celebration of the Strong Man, the Caesar theSuperman. That he may be something more than man, we must be somethingless. 

Doubtless there is an older and better hero-worship than this. But theold hero was a being who, like Achilles, was more human than humanityitself. Nietzsche's Superman is cold and friendless. Achilles is sofoolishly fond of his friend that he slaughters armies in the agony ofhis bereavement. Mr. Shaw's sad Caesar says in his desolate pride, "Hewho has never hoped can never despair. " The Man-God of old answers fromhis awful hill, "Was ever sorrow like unto my sorrow?" A great man isnot a man so strong that he feels less than other men; he is a man sostrong that he feels more. And when Nietszche says, "A new commandmentI give to you, 'be hard, '" he is really saying, "A new commandment Igive to you, 'be dead. '" Sensibility is the definition of life. 

I recur for a last word to Jack the Giant-Killer. I have dwelt on thismatter of Mr. Wells and the giants, not because it is speciallyprominent in his mind; I know that the Superman does not bulk so largein his cosmos as in that of Mr. Bernard Shaw. I have dwelt on it forthe opposite reason; because this heresy of immoral hero-worship hastaken, I think, a slighter hold of him, and may perhaps still beprevented from perverting one of the best thinkers of the day. In thecourse of "The New Utopia" Mr. Wells makes more than one admiringallusion to Mr. W. E. Henley. That clever and unhappy man lived inadmiration of a vague violence, and was always going back to rude oldtales and rude old ballads, to strong and primitive literatures, tofind the praise of strength and the justification of tyranny. But hecould not find it. It is not there. The primitive literature is shownin the tale of Jack the Giant-Killer. The strong old literature is allin praise of the weak. The rude old tales are as tender to minoritiesas any modern political idealist. The rude old ballads are assentimentally concerned for the under-dog as the Aborigines ProtectionSociety. When men were tough and raw, when they lived amid hard knocksand hard laws, when they knew what fighting really was, they had onlytwo kinds of songs. The first was a rejoicing that the weak hadconquered the strong, the second a lamentation that the strong had, foronce in a way, conquered the weak. For this defiance of the statu quo, this constant effort to alter the existing balance, this prematurechallenge to the powerful, is the whole nature and inmost secret of thepsychological adventure which is called man. It is his strength todisdain strength. The forlorn hope is not only a real hope, it is theonly real hope of mankind. In the coarsest ballads of the greenwood menare admired most when they defy, not only the king, but what is more tothe point, the hero. The moment Robin Hood becomes a sort of Superman, that moment the chivalrous chronicler shows us Robin thrashed by a poortinker whom he thought to thrust aside. And the chivalrous chroniclermakes Robin Hood receive the thrashing in a glow of admiration. Thismagnanimity is not a product of modern humanitarianism; it is not aproduct of anything to do with peace. This magnanimity is merely one ofthe lost arts of war. The Henleyites call for a sturdy and fightingEngland, and they go back to the fierce old stories of the sturdy andfighting English. And the thing that they find written across thatfierce old literature everywhere, is "the policy of Majuba. "

VI. Christmas and the Aesthetes

The world is round, so round that the schools of optimism and pessimismhave been arguing from the beginning whether it is the right way up. The difficulty does not arise so much from the mere fact that good andevil are mingled in roughly equal proportions; it arises chiefly fromthe fact that men always differ about what parts are good and whatevil. Hence the difficulty which besets "undenominational religions. "They profess to include what is beautiful in all creeds, but theyappear to many to have collected all that is dull in them. All thecolours mixed together in purity ought to make a perfect white. Mixedtogether on any human paint-box, they make a thing like mud, and athing very like many new religions. Such a blend is often somethingmuch worse than any one creed taken separately, even the creed of theThugs. The error arises from the difficulty of detecting what is reallythe good part and what is really the bad part of any given religion. And this pathos falls rather heavily on those persons who have themisfortune to think of some religion or other, that the parts commonlycounted good are bad, and the parts commonly counted bad are good. 

It is tragic to admire and honestly admire a human group, but to admireit in a photographic negative. It is difficult to congratulate alltheir whites on being black and all their blacks on their whiteness. This will often happen to us in connection with human religions. Taketwo institutions which bear witness to the religious energy of thenineteenth century. Take the Salvation Army and the philosophy ofAuguste Comte. 

The usual verdict of educated people on the Salvation Army is expressedin some such words as these: "I have no doubt they do a great deal ofgood, but they do it in a vulgar and profane style; their aims areexcellent, but their methods are wrong. " To me, unfortunately, theprecise reverse of this appears to be the truth. I do not know whetherthe aims of the Salvation Army are excellent, but I am quite sure theirmethods are admirable. Their methods are the methods of all intense andhearty religions; they are popular like all religion, military like allreligion, public and sensational like all religion. They are notreverent any more than Roman Catholics are reverent, for reverence inthe sad and delicate meaning of the term reverence is a thing onlypossible to infidels. That beautiful twilight you will find inEuripides, in Renan, in Matthew Arnold; but in men who believe you willnot find it--you will find only laughter and war. A man cannot paythat kind of reverence to truth solid as marble; they can only bereverent towards a beautiful lie. And the Salvation Army, though theirvoice has broken out in a mean environment and an ugly shape, arereally the old voice of glad and angry faith, hot as the riots ofDionysus, wild as the gargoyles of Catholicism, not to be mistaken fora philosophy. Professor Huxley, in one of his clever phrases, calledthe Salvation Army "corybantic Christianity. " Huxley was the last andnoblest of those Stoics who have never understood the Cross. If he hadunderstood Christianity he would have known that there never has been, and never can be, any Christianity that is not corybantic. 

And there is this difference between the matter of aims and the matterof methods, that to judge of the aims of a thing like the SalvationArmy is very difficult, to judge of their ritual and atmosphere veryeasy. No one, perhaps, but a sociologist can see whether GeneralBooth's housing scheme is right. But any healthy person can see thatbanging brass cymbals together must be right. A page of statistics, aplan of model dwellings, anything which is rational, is alwaysdifficult for the lay mind. But the thing which is irrational any onecan understand. That is why religion came so early into the world andspread so far, while science came so late into the world and has notspread at all. History unanimously attests the fact that it is onlymysticism which stands the smallest chance of being understanded of thepeople. Common sense has to be kept as an esoteric secret in the darktemple of culture. And so while the philanthropy of the Salvationistsand its genuineness may be a reasonable matter for the discussion ofthe doctors, there can be no doubt about the genuineness of their brassbands, for a brass band is purely spiritual, and seeks only to quickenthe internal life. The object of philanthropy is to do good; theobject of religion is to be good, if only for a moment, amid a crash ofbrass. 

And the same antithesis exists about another modern religion--I meanthe religion of Comte, generally known as Positivism, or the worship ofhumanity. Such men as Mr. Frederic Harrison, that brilliant andchivalrous philosopher, who still, by his mere personality, speaks forthe creed, would tell us that he offers us the philosophy of Comte, butnot all Comte's fantastic proposals for pontiffs and ceremonials, thenew calendar, the new holidays and saints' days. He does not mean thatwe should dress ourselves up as priests of humanity or let offfireworks because it is Milton's birthday. To the solid English Comtistall this appears, he confesses, to be a little absurd. To me itappears the only sensible part of Comtism. As a philosophy it isunsatisfactory. It is evidently impossible to worship humanity, justas it is impossible to worship the Savile Club; both are excellentinstitutions to which we may happen to belong. But we perceive clearlythat the Savile Club did not make the stars and does not fill theuniverse. And it is surely unreasonable to attack the doctrine of theTrinity as a piece of bewildering mysticism, and then to ask men toworship a being who is ninety million persons in one God, neitherconfounding the persons nor dividing the substance. 

But if the wisdom of Comte was insufficient, the folly of Comte waswisdom. In an age of dusty modernity, when beauty was thought of assomething barbaric and ugliness as something sensible, he alone sawthat men must always have the sacredness of mummery. He saw that whilethe brutes have all the useful things, the things that are truly humanare the useless ones. He saw the falsehood of that almost universalnotion of to-day, the notion that rites and forms are somethingartificial, additional, and corrupt. Ritual is really much older thanthought; it is much simpler and much wilder than thought. A feelingtouching the nature of things does not only make men feel that thereare certain proper things to say; it makes them feel that there arecertain proper things to do. The more agreeable of these consist ofdancing, building temples, and shouting very loud; the less agreeable, of wearing green carnations and burning other philosophers alive. Buteverywhere the religious dance came before the religious hymn, and manwas a ritualist before he could speak. If Comtism had spread the worldwould have been converted, not by the Comtist philosophy, but by theComtist calendar. By discouraging what they conceive to be theweakness of their master, the English Positivists have broken thestrength of their religion. A man who has faith must be prepared notonly to be a martyr, but to be a fool. It is absurd to say that a manis ready to toil and die for his convictions when he is not even readyto wear a wreath round his head for them. I myself, to take a corpusvile, am very certain that I would not read the works of Comte throughfor any consideration whatever. But I can easily imagine myself withthe greatest enthusiasm lighting a bonfire on Darwin Day. 

That splendid effort failed, and nothing in the style of it hassucceeded. There has been no rationalist festival, no rationalistecstasy. Men are still in black for the death of God. WhenChristianity was heavily bombarded in the last century upon no pointwas it more persistently and brilliantly attacked than upon that of itsalleged enmity to human joy. Shelley and Swinburne and all their armieshave passed again and again over the ground, but they have not alteredit. They have not set up a single new trophy or ensign for the world'smerriment to rally to. They have not given a name or a new occasion ofgaiety. Mr. Swinburne does not hang up his stocking on the eve of thebirthday of Victor Hugo. Mr. William Archer does not sing carolsdescriptive of the infancy of Ibsen outside people's doors in the snow. In the round of our rational and mournful year one festival remains outof all those ancient gaieties that once covered the whole earth. Christmas remains to remind us of those ages, whether Pagan orChristian, when the many acted poetry instead of the few writing it. Inall the winter in our woods there is no tree in glow but the holly. 

The strange truth about the matter is told in the very word "holiday. "A bank holiday means presumably a day which bankers regard as holy. Ahalf-holiday means, I suppose, a day on which a schoolboy is onlypartially holy. It is hard to see at first sight why so human a thingas leisure and larkiness should always have a religious origin. Rationally there appears no reason why we should not sing and give eachother presents in honour of anything--the birth of Michael Angelo orthe opening of Euston Station. But it does not work. As a fact, menonly become greedily and gloriously material about somethingspiritualistic. Take away the Nicene Creed and similar things, and youdo some strange wrong to the sellers of sausages. Take away the strangebeauty of the saints, and what has remained to us is the far strangerugliness of Wandsworth. Take away the supernatural, and what remains isthe unnatural. 

And now I have to touch upon a very sad matter. There are in themodern world an admirable class of persons who really make protest onbehalf of that antiqua pulchritudo of which Augustine spoke, who dolong for the old feasts and formalities of the childhood of the world. William Morris and his followers showed how much brighter were the darkages than the age of Manchester. Mr. W. B. Yeats frames his steps inprehistoric dances, but no man knows and joins his voice to forgottenchoruses that no one but he can hear. Mr. George Moore collects everyfragment of Irish paganism that the forgetfulness of the CatholicChurch has left or possibly her wisdom preserved. There are innumerablepersons with eye-glasses and green garments who pray for the return ofthe maypole or the Olympian games. But there is about these people ahaunting and alarming something which suggests that it is just possiblethat they do not keep Christmas. It is painful to regard human naturein such a light, but it seems somehow possible that Mr. George Mooredoes not wave his spoon and shout when the pudding is set alight. It iseven possible that Mr. W. B. Yeats never pulls crackers. If so, whereis the sense of all their dreams of festive traditions? Here is a solidand ancient festive tradition still plying a roaring trade in thestreets, and they think it vulgar. If this is so, let them be verycertain of this, that they are the kind of people who in the time ofthe maypole would have thought the maypole vulgar; who in the time ofthe Canterbury pilgrimage would have thought the Canterbury pilgrimagevulgar; who in the time of the Olympian games would have thought theOlympian games vulgar. Nor can there be any reasonable doubt that theywere vulgar. Let no man deceive himself; if by vulgarity we meancoarseness of speech, rowdiness of behaviour, gossip, horseplay, andsome heavy drinking, vulgarity there always was wherever there was joy, wherever there was faith in the gods. Wherever you have belief youwill have hilarity, wherever you have hilarity you will have somedangers. And as creed and mythology produce this gross and vigorouslife, so in its turn this gross and vigorous life will always producecreed and mythology. If we ever get the English back on to the Englishland they will become again a religious people, if all goes well, asuperstitious people. The absence from modern life of both the higherand lower forms of faith is largely due to a divorce from nature andthe trees and clouds. If we have no more turnip ghosts it is chieflyfrom the lack of turnips. 

VII. Omar and the Sacred Vine

A new morality has burst upon us with some violence in connection withthe problem of strong drink; and enthusiasts in the matter range fromthe man who is violently thrown out at 12. 30, to the lady who smashesAmerican bars with an axe. In these discussions it is almost alwaysfelt that one very wise and moderate position is to say that wine orsuch stuff should only be drunk as a medicine. With this I shouldventure to disagree with a peculiar ferocity. The one genuinelydangerous and immoral way of drinking wine is to drink it as amedicine. And for this reason, If a man drinks wine in order to obtainpleasure, he is trying to obtain something exceptional, something hedoes not expect every hour of the day, something which, unless he is alittle insane, he will not try to get every hour of the day. But if aman drinks wine in order to obtain health, he is trying to getsomething natural; something, that is, that he ought not to be without;something that he may find it difficult to reconcile himself to beingwithout. The man may not be seduced who has seen the ecstasy of beingecstatic; it is more dazzling to catch a glimpse of the ecstasy ofbeing ordinary. If there were a magic ointment, and we took it to astrong man, and said, "This will enable you to jump off the Monument, "doubtless he would jump off the Monument, but he would not jump off theMonument all day long to the delight of the City. But if we took it toa blind man, saying, "This will enable you to see, " he would be under aheavier temptation. It would be hard for him not to rub it on his eyeswhenever he heard the hoof of a noble horse or the birds singing atdaybreak. It is easy to deny one's self festivity; it is difficult todeny one's self normality. Hence comes the fact which every doctorknows, that it is often perilous to give alcohol to the sick even whenthey need it. I need hardly say that I do not mean that I think thegiving of alcohol to the sick for stimulus is necessarilyunjustifiable. But I do mean that giving it to the healthy for fun isthe proper use of it, and a great deal more consistent with health. 

The sound rule in the matter would appear to be like many other soundrules--a paradox. Drink because you are happy, but never because youare miserable. Never drink when you are wretched without it, or youwill be like the grey-faced gin-drinker in the slum; but drink when youwould be happy without it, and you will be like the laughing peasant ofItaly. Never drink because you need it, for this is rational drinking, and the way to death and hell. But drink because you do not need it, for this is irrational drinking, and the ancient health of the world. 

For more than thirty years the shadow and glory of a great Easternfigure has lain upon our English literature. Fitzgerald's translationof Omar Khayyam concentrated into an immortal poignancy all the darkand drifting hedonism of our time. Of the literary splendour of thatwork it would be merely banal to speak; in few other of the books ofmen has there been anything so combining the gay pugnacity of anepigram with the vague sadness of a song. But of its philosophical, ethical, and religious influence which has been almost as great as itsbrilliancy, I should like to say a word, and that word, I confess, oneof uncompromising hostility. There are a great many things which mightbe said against the spirit of the Rubaiyat, and against its prodigiousinfluence. But one matter of indictment towers ominously above therest--a genuine disgrace to it, a genuine calamity to us. This is theterrible blow that this great poem has struck against sociability andthe joy of life. Some one called Omar "the sad, glad old Persian. " Sadhe is; glad he is not, in any sense of the word whatever. He has been aworse foe to gladness than the Puritans. 

A pensive and graceful Oriental lies under the rose-tree with hiswine-pot and his scroll of poems. It may seem strange that any one'sthoughts should, at the moment of regarding him, fly back to the darkbedside where the doctor doles out brandy. It may seem stranger stillthat they should go back to the grey wastrel shaking with gin inHoundsditch. But a great philosophical unity links the three in an evilbond. Omar Khayyam's wine-bibbing is bad, not because it iswine-bibbing. It is bad, and very bad, because it is medicalwine-bibbing. It is the drinking of a man who drinks because he is nothappy. His is the wine that shuts out the universe, not the wine thatreveals it. It is not poetical drinking, which is joyous andinstinctive; it is rational drinking, which is as prosaic as aninvestment, as unsavoury as a dose of camomile. Whole heavens aboveit, from the point of view of sentiment, though not of style, rises thesplendour of some old English drinking-song--

 "Then pass the bowl, my comrades all, And let the zider vlow. "

For this song was caught up by happy men to express the worth of trulyworthy things, of brotherhood and garrulity, and the brief and kindlyleisure of the poor. Of course, the great part of the more stolidreproaches directed against the Omarite morality are as false andbabyish as such reproaches usually are. One critic, whose work I haveread, had the incredible foolishness to call Omar an atheist and amaterialist. It is almost impossible for an Oriental to be either; theEast understands metaphysics too well for that. Of course, the realobjection which a philosophical Christian would bring against thereligion of Omar, is not that he gives no place to God, it is that hegives too much place to God. His is that terrible theism which canimagine nothing else but deity, and which denies altogether theoutlines of human personality and human will. 

 "The ball no question makes of Ayes or Noes, But Here or There as strikes the Player goes; And He that tossed you down into the field, He knows about it all--he knows--he knows. "

A Christian thinker such as Augustine or Dante would object to thisbecause it ignores free-will, which is the valour and dignity of thesoul. The quarrel of the highest Christianity with this scepticism isnot in the least that the scepticism denies the existence of God; it isthat it denies the existence of man. 

In this cult of the pessimistic pleasure-seeker the Rubaiyat standsfirst in our time; but it does not stand alone. Many of the mostbrilliant intellects of our time have urged us to the sameself-conscious snatching at a rare delight. Walter Pater said that wewere all under sentence of death, and the only course was to enjoyexquisite moments simply for those moments' sake. The same lesson wastaught by the very powerful and very desolate philosophy of OscarWilde. It is the carpe diem religion; but the carpe diem religion isnot the religion of happy people, but of very unhappy people. Great joydoes, not gather the rosebuds while it may; its eyes are fixed on theimmortal rose which Dante saw. Great joy has in it the sense ofimmortality; the very splendour of youth is the sense that it has allspace to stretch its legs in. In all great comic literature, in"Tristram Shandy" or "Pickwick", there is this sense of space andincorruptibility; we feel the characters are deathless people in anendless tale. 

It is true enough, of course, that a pungent happiness comes chiefly incertain passing moments; but it is not true that we should think ofthem as passing, or enjoy them simply "for those moments' sake. " To dothis is to rationalize the happiness, and therefore to destroy it. Happiness is a mystery like religion, and should never be rationalized. Suppose a man experiences a really splendid moment of pleasure. I donot mean something connected with a bit of enamel, I mean somethingwith a violent happiness in it--an almost painful happiness. A man mayhave, for instance, a moment of ecstasy in first love, or a moment ofvictory in battle. The lover enjoys the moment, but precisely not forthe moment's sake. He enjoys it for the woman's sake, or his own sake. The warrior enjoys the moment, but not for the sake of the moment; heenjoys it for the sake of the flag. The cause which the flag stands formay be foolish and fleeting; the love may be calf-love, and last aweek. But the patriot thinks of the flag as eternal; the lover thinksof his love as something that cannot end. These moments are filledwith eternity; these moments are joyful because they do not seemmomentary. Once look at them as moments after Pater's manner, and theybecome as cold as Pater and his style. Man cannot love mortal things. He can only love immortal things for an instant. 

Pater's mistake is revealed in his most famous phrase. He asks us toburn with a hard, gem-like flame. Flames are never hard and nevergem-like--they cannot be handled or arranged. So human emotions arenever hard and never gem-like; they are always dangerous, like flames, to touch or even to examine. There is only one way in which ourpassions can become hard and gem-like, and that is by becoming as coldas gems. No blow then has ever been struck at the natural loves andlaughter of men so sterilizing as this carpe diem of the aesthetes. Forany kind of pleasure a totally different spirit is required; a certainshyness, a certain indeterminate hope, a certain boyish expectation. Purity and simplicity are essential to passions--yes even to evilpassions. Even vice demands a sort of virginity. 

Omar's (or Fitzgerald's) effect upon the other world we may let go, hishand upon this world has been heavy and paralyzing. The Puritans, as Ihave said, are far jollier than he. The new ascetics who follow Thoreauor Tolstoy are much livelier company; for, though the surrender ofstrong drink and such luxuries may strike us as an idle negation, itmay leave a man with innumerable natural pleasures, and, above all, with man's natural power of happiness. Thoreau could enjoy the sunrisewithout a cup of coffee. If Tolstoy cannot admire marriage, at leasthe is healthy enough to admire mud. Nature can be enjoyed without eventhe most natural luxuries. A good bush needs no wine. But neithernature nor wine nor anything else can be enjoyed if we have the wrongattitude towards happiness, and Omar (or Fitzgerald) did have the wrongattitude towards happiness. He and those he has influenced do not seethat if we are to be truly gay, we must believe that there is someeternal gaiety in the nature of things. We cannot enjoy thoroughly evena pas-de-quatre at a subscription dance unless we believe that thestars are dancing to the same tune. No one can be really hilarious butthe serious man. "Wine, " says the Scripture, "maketh glad the heart ofman, " but only of the man who has a heart. The thing called highspirits is possible only to the spiritual. Ultimately a man cannotrejoice in anything except the nature of things. Ultimately a man canenjoy nothing except religion. Once in the world's history men didbelieve that the stars were dancing to the tune of their temples, andthey danced as men have never danced since. With this old paganeudaemonism the sage of the Rubaiyat has quite as little to do as hehas with any Christian variety. He is no more a Bacchanal than he is asaint. Dionysus and his church was grounded on a serious joie-de-vivrelike that of Walt Whitman. Dionysus made wine, not a medicine, but asacrament. Jesus Christ also made wine, not a medicine, but asacrament. But Omar makes it, not a sacrament, but a medicine. Hefeasts because life is not joyful; he revels because he is not glad. "Drink, " he says, "for you know not whence you come nor why. Drink, foryou know not when you go nor where. Drink, because the stars are crueland the world as idle as a humming-top. Drink, because there is nothingworth trusting, nothing worth fighting for. Drink, because all thingsare lapsed in a base equality and an evil peace. " So he standsoffering us the cup in his hand. And at the high altar of Christianitystands another figure, in whose hand also is the cup of the vine. "Drink" he says "for the whole world is as red as this wine, with thecrimson of the love and wrath of God. Drink, for the trumpets areblowing for battle and this is the stirrup-cup. Drink, for this myblood of the new testament that is shed for you. Drink, for I know ofwhence you come and why. Drink, for I know of when you go and where. "

VIII. The Mildness of the Yellow Press

There is a great deal of protest made from one quarter or anothernowadays against the influence of that new journalism which isassociated with the names of Sir Alfred Harmsworth and Mr. Pearson. Butalmost everybody who attacks it attacks on the ground that it is verysensational, very violent and vulgar and startling. I am speaking in noaffected contrariety, but in the simplicity of a genuine personalimpression, when I say that this journalism offends as being notsensational or violent enough. The real vice is not that it isstartling, but that it is quite insupportably tame. The whole object isto keep carefully along a certain level of the expected and thecommonplace; it may be low, but it must take care also to be flat. Never by any chance in it is there any of that real plebeian pungencywhich can be heard from the ordinary cabman in the ordinary street. Wehave heard of a certain standard of decorum which demands that thingsshould be funny without being vulgar, but the standard of this decorumdemands that if things are vulgar they shall be vulgar without beingfunny. This journalism does not merely fail to exaggerate life--itpositively underrates it; and it has to do so because it is intendedfor the faint and languid recreation of men whom the fierceness ofmodern life has fatigued. This press is not the yellow press at all; itis the drab press. Sir Alfred Harmsworth must not address to the tiredclerk any observation more witty than the tired clerk might be able toaddress to Sir Alfred Harmsworth. It must not expose anybody (anybodywho is powerful, that is), it must not offend anybody, it must not evenplease anybody, too much. A general vague idea that in spite of allthis, our yellow press is sensational, arises from such externalaccidents as large type or lurid headlines. It is quite true that theseeditors print everything they possibly can in large capital letters. But they do this, not because it is startling, but because it issoothing. To people wholly weary or partly drunk in a dimly lightedtrain, it is a simplification and a comfort to have things presented inthis vast and obvious manner. The editors use this gigantic alphabet indealing with their readers, for exactly the same reason that parentsand governesses use a similar gigantic alphabet in teaching children tospell. The nursery authorities do not use an A as big as a horseshoe inorder to make the child jump; on the contrary, they use it to put thechild at his ease, to make things smoother and more evident. Of thesame character is the dim and quiet dame school which Sir AlfredHarmsworth and Mr. Pearson keep. All their sentiments arespelling-book sentiments--that is to say, they are sentiments withwhich the pupil is already respectfully familiar. All their wildestposters are leaves torn from a copy-book. 

Of real sensational journalism, as it exists in France, in Ireland, andin America, we have no trace in this country. When a journalist inIreland wishes to create a thrill, he creates a thrill worth talkingabout. He denounces a leading Irish member for corruption, or hecharges the whole police system with a wicked and definite conspiracy. When a French journalist desires a frisson there is a frisson; hediscovers, let us say, that the President of the Republic has murderedthree wives. Our yellow journalists invent quite as unscrupulously asthis; their moral condition is, as regards careful veracity, about thesame. But it is their mental calibre which happens to be such that theycan only invent calm and even reassuring things. The fictitious versionof the massacre of the envoys of Pekin was mendacious, but it was notinteresting, except to those who had private reasons for terror orsorrow. It was not connected with any bold and suggestive view of theChinese situation. It revealed only a vague idea that nothing could beimpressive except a great deal of blood. Real sensationalism, of whichI happen to be very fond, may be either moral or immoral. But even whenit is most immoral, it requires moral courage. For it is one of themost dangerous things on earth genuinely to surprise anybody. If youmake any sentient creature jump, you render it by no means improbablethat it will jump on you. But the leaders of this movement have nomoral courage or immoral courage; their whole method consists insaying, with large and elaborate emphasis, the things which everybodyelse says casually, and without remembering what they have said. Whenthey brace themselves up to attack anything, they never reach the pointof attacking anything which is large and real, and would resound withthe shock. They do not attack the army as men do in France, or thejudges as men do in Ireland, or the democracy itself as men did inEngland a hundred years ago. They attack something like the WarOffice--something, that is, which everybody attacks and nobody bothersto defend, something which is an old joke in fourth-rate comic papers. Just as a man shows he has a weak voice by straining it to shout, sothey show the hopelessly unsensational nature of their minds when theyreally try to be sensational. With the whole world full of big anddubious institutions, with the whole wickedness of civilization staringthem in the face, their idea of being bold and bright is to attack theWar Office. They might as well start a campaign against the weather, orform a secret society in order to make jokes about mothers-in-law. Noris it only from the point of view of particular amateurs of thesensational such as myself, that it is permissible to say, in the wordsof Cowper's Alexander Selkirk, that "their tameness is shocking to me. "The whole modern world is pining for a genuinely sensationaljournalism. This has been discovered by that very able and honestjournalist, Mr. Blatchford, who started his campaign againstChristianity, warned on all sides, I believe, that it would ruin hispaper, but who continued from an honourable sense of intellectualresponsibility. He discovered, however, that while he had undoubtedlyshocked his readers, he had also greatly advanced his newspaper. It wasbought--first, by all the people who agreed with him and wanted to readit; and secondly, by all the people who disagreed with him, and wantedto write him letters. Those letters were voluminous (I helped, I amglad to say, to swell their volume), and they were generally insertedwith a generous fulness. Thus was accidentally discovered (like thesteam-engine) the great journalistic maxim--that if an editor can onlymake people angry enough, they will write half his newspaper for himfor nothing. 

Some hold that such papers as these are scarcely the proper objects ofso serious a consideration; but that can scarcely be maintained from apolitical or ethical point of view. In this problem of the mildness andtameness of the Harmsworth mind there is mirrored the outlines of amuch larger problem which is akin to it. 

The Harmsworthian journalist begins with a worship of success andviolence, and ends in sheer timidity and mediocrity. But he is notalone in this, nor does he come by this fate merely because he happenspersonally to be stupid. Every man, however brave, who begins byworshipping violence, must end in mere timidity. Every man, howeverwise, who begins by worshipping success, must end in mere mediocrity. This strange and paradoxical fate is involved, not in the individual, but in the philosophy, in the point of view. It is not the folly of theman which brings about this necessary fall; it is his wisdom. Theworship of success is the only one out of all possible worships ofwhich this is true, that its followers are foredoomed to become slavesand cowards. A man may be a hero for the sake of Mrs. Gallup's ciphersor for the sake of human sacrifice, but not for the sake of success. For obviously a man may choose to fail because he loves Mrs. Gallup orhuman sacrifice; but he cannot choose to fail because he loves success. When the test of triumph is men's test of everything, they never endurelong enough to triumph at all. As long as matters are really hopeful, hope is a mere flattery or platitude; it is only when everything ishopeless that hope begins to be a strength at all. Like all theChristian virtues, it is as unreasonable as it is indispensable. 

It was through this fatal paradox in the nature of things that allthese modern adventurers come at last to a sort of tedium andacquiescence. They desired strength; and to them to desire strength wasto admire strength; to admire strength was simply to admire the statuquo. They thought that he who wished to be strong ought to respect thestrong. They did not realize the obvious verity that he who wishes tobe strong must despise the strong. They sought to be everything, tohave the whole force of the cosmos behind them, to have an energy thatwould drive the stars. But they did not realize the two greatfacts--first, that in the attempt to be everything the first and mostdifficult step is to be something; second, that the moment a man issomething, he is essentially defying everything. The lower animals, saythe men of science, fought their way up with a blind selfishness. Ifthis be so, the only real moral of it is that our unselfishness, if itis to triumph, must be equally blind. The mammoth did not put his headon one side and wonder whether mammoths were a little out of date. Mammoths were at least as much up to date as that individual mammothcould make them. The great elk did not say, "Cloven hoofs are very muchworn now. " He polished his own weapons for his own use. But in thereasoning animal there has arisen a more horrible danger, that he mayfail through perceiving his own failure. When modern sociologists talkof the necessity of accommodating one's self to the trend of the time, they forget that the trend of the time at its best consists entirely ofpeople who will not accommodate themselves to anything. At its worst itconsists of many millions of frightened creatures all accommodatingthemselves to a trend that is not there. And that is becoming more andmore the situation of modern England. Every man speaks of publicopinion, and means by public opinion, public opinion minus his opinion. Every man makes his contribution negative under the erroneousimpression that the next man's contribution is positive. Every mansurrenders his fancy to a general tone which is itself a surrender. Andover all the heartless and fatuous unity spreads this new and wearisomeand platitudinous press, incapable of invention, incapable of audacity, capable only of a servility all the more contemptible because it is noteven a servility to the strong. But all who begin with force andconquest will end in this. 

The chief characteristic of the "New journalism" is simply that it isbad journalism. It is beyond all comparison the most shapeless, careless, and colourless work done in our day. 

I read yesterday a sentence which should be written in letters of goldand adamant; it is the very motto of the new philosophy of Empire. Ifound it (as the reader has already eagerly guessed) in Pearson'sMagazine, while I was communing (soul to soul) with Mr. C. ArthurPearson, whose first and suppressed name I am afraid is Chilperic. Itoccurred in an article on the American Presidential Election. This isthe sentence, and every one should read it carefully, and roll it onthe tongue, till all the honey be tasted. 

"A little sound common sense often goes further with an audience ofAmerican working-men than much high-flown argument. A speaker who, ashe brought forward his points, hammered nails into a board, wonhundreds of votes for his side at the last Presidential Election. "

I do not wish to soil this perfect thing with comment; the words ofMercury are harsh after the songs of Apollo. But just think for amoment of the mind, the strange inscrutable mind, of the man who wrotethat, of the editor who approved it, of the people who are probablyimpressed by it, of the incredible American working-man, of whom, forall I know, it may be true. Think what their notion of "common sense"must be! It is delightful to realize that you and I are now able towin thousands of votes should we ever be engaged in a PresidentialElection, by doing something of this kind. For I suppose the nails andthe board are not essential to the exhibition of "common sense;" theremay be variations. We may read--

"A little common sense impresses American working-men more thanhigh-flown argument. A speaker who, as he made his points, pulledbuttons off his waistcoat, won thousands of votes for his side. " Or, "Sound common sense tells better in America than high-flown argument. Thus Senator Budge, who threw his false teeth in the air every time hemade an epigram, won the solid approval of American working-men. " Oragain, "The sound common sense of a gentleman from Earlswood, who stuckstraws in his hair during the progress of his speech, assured thevictory of Mr. Roosevelt. "

There are many other elements in this article on which I should love tolinger. But the matter which I wish to point out is that in thatsentence is perfectly revealed the whole truth of what ourChamberlainites, hustlers, bustlers, Empire-builders, and strong, silent men, really mean by "commonsense. " They mean knocking, withdeafening noise and dramatic effect, meaningless bits of iron into auseless bit of wood. A man goes on to an American platform and behaveslike a mountebank fool with a board and a hammer; well, I do not blamehim; I might even admire him. He may be a dashing and quite decentstrategist. He may be a fine romantic actor, like Burke flinging thedagger on the floor. He may even (for all I know) be a sublime mystic, profoundly impressed with the ancient meaning of the divine trade ofthe Carpenter, and offering to the people a parable in the form of aceremony. All I wish to indicate is the abyss of mental confusion inwhich such wild ritualism can be called "sound common sense. " And it isin that abyss of mental confusion, and in that alone, that the newImperialism lives and moves and has its being. The whole glory andgreatness of Mr. Chamberlain consists in this: that if a man hits theright nail on the head nobody cares where he hits it to or what itdoes. They care about the noise of the hammer, not about the silentdrip of the nail. Before and throughout the African war, Mr. Chamberlain was always knocking in nails, with ringing decisiveness. But when we ask, "But what have these nails held together? Where isyour carpentry? Where are your contented Outlanders? Where is yourfree South Africa? Where is your British prestige? What have yournails done?" then what answer is there? We must go back (with anaffectionate sigh) to our Pearson for the answer to the question ofwhat the nails have done: "The speaker who hammered nails into a boardwon thousands of votes. "

Now the whole of this passage is admirably characteristic of the newjournalism which Mr. Pearson represents, the new journalism which hasjust purchased the Standard. To take one instance out of hundreds, theincomparable man with the board and nails is described in the Pearson'sarticle as calling out (as he smote the symbolic nail), "Lie numberone. Nailed to the Mast! Nailed to the Mast!" In the whole officethere was apparently no compositor or office-boy to point out that wespeak of lies being nailed to the counter, and not to the mast. Nobodyin the office knew that Pearson's Magazine was falling into a staleIrish bull, which must be as old as St. Patrick. This is the real andessential tragedy of the sale of the Standard. It is not merely thatjournalism is victorious over literature. It is that bad journalism isvictorious over good journalism. 

It is not that one article which we consider costly and beautiful isbeing ousted by another kind of article which we consider common orunclean. It is that of the same article a worse quality is preferred toa better. If you like popular journalism (as I do), you will know thatPearson's Magazine is poor and weak popular journalism. You will knowit as certainly as you know bad butter. You will know as certainlythat it is poor popular journalism as you know that the Strand, in thegreat days of Sherlock Holmes, was good popular journalism. Mr. Pearsonhas been a monument of this enormous banality. About everything he saysand does there is something infinitely weak-minded. He clamours forhome trades and employs foreign ones to print his paper. When thisglaring fact is pointed out, he does not say that the thing was anoversight, like a sane man. He cuts it off with scissors, like a childof three. His very cunning is infantile. And like a child of three, he does not cut it quite off. In all human records I doubt if there issuch an example of a profound simplicity in deception. This is thesort of intelligence which now sits in the seat of the sane andhonourable old Tory journalism. If it were really the triumph of thetropical exuberance of the Yankee press, it would be vulgar, but stilltropical. But it is not. We are delivered over to the bramble, andfrom the meanest of the shrubs comes the fire upon the cedars ofLebanon. 

The only question now is how much longer the fiction will endure thatjournalists of this order represent public opinion. It may be doubtedwhether any honest and serious Tariff Reformer would for a momentmaintain that there was any majority for Tariff Reform in the countrycomparable to the ludicrous preponderance which money has given itamong the great dailies. The only inference is that for purposes ofreal public opinion the press is now a mere plutocratic oligarchy. Doubtless the public buys the wares of these men, for one reason oranother. But there is no more reason to suppose that the public admirestheir politics than that the public admires the delicate philosophy ofMr. Crosse or the darker and sterner creed of Mr. Blackwell. If thesemen are merely tradesmen, there is nothing to say except that there areplenty like them in the Battersea Park Road, and many much better. Butif they make any sort of attempt to be politicians, we can only pointout to them that they are not as yet even good journalists. 

IX. The Moods of Mr. George Moore

Mr. George Moore began his literary career by writing his personalconfessions; nor is there any harm in this if he had not continued themfor the remainder of his life. He is a man of genuinely forcible mindand of great command over a kind of rhetorical and fugitive convictionwhich excites and pleases. He is in a perpetual state of temporaryhonesty. He has admired all the most admirable modern eccentrics untilthey could stand it no longer. Everything he writes, it is to be fullyadmitted, has a genuine mental power. His account of his reason forleaving the Roman Catholic Church is possibly the most admirabletribute to that communion which has been written of late years. For thefact of the matter is, that the weakness which has rendered barren themany brilliancies of Mr. Moore is actually that weakness which theRoman Catholic Church is at its best in combating. Mr. Moore hatesCatholicism because it breaks up the house of looking-glasses in whichhe lives. Mr. Moore does not dislike so much being asked to believe inthe spiritual existence of miracles or sacraments, but he doesfundamentally dislike being asked to believe in the actual existence ofother people. Like his master Pater and all the aesthetes, his realquarrel with life is that it is not a dream that can be moulded by thedreamer. It is not the dogma of the reality of the other world thattroubles him, but the dogma of the reality of this world. 

The truth is that the tradition of Christianity (which is still theonly coherent ethic of Europe) rests on two or three paradoxes ormysteries which can easily be impugned in argument and as easilyjustified in life. One of them, for instance, is the paradox of hope orfaith--that the more hopeless is the situation the more hopeful must bethe man. Stevenson understood this, and consequently Mr. Moore cannotunderstand Stevenson. Another is the paradox of charity or chivalrythat the weaker a thing is the more it should be respected, that themore indefensible a thing is the more it should appeal to us for acertain kind of defence. Thackeray understood this, and therefore Mr. Moore does not understand Thackeray. Now, one of these very practicaland working mysteries in the Christian tradition, and one which theRoman Catholic Church, as I say, has done her best work in singlingout, is the conception of the sinfulness of pride. Pride is a weaknessin the character; it dries up laughter, it dries up wonder, it dries upchivalry and energy. The Christian tradition understands this;therefore Mr. Moore does not understand the Christian tradition. 

For the truth is much stranger even than it appears in the formaldoctrine of the sin of pride. It is not only true that humility is amuch wiser and more vigorous thing than pride. It is also true thatvanity is a much wiser and more vigorous thing than pride. Vanity issocial--it is almost a kind of comradeship; pride is solitary anduncivilized. Vanity is active; it desires the applause of infinitemultitudes; pride is passive, desiring only the applause of one person, which it already has. Vanity is humorous, and can enjoy the joke evenof itself; pride is dull, and cannot even smile. And the whole of thisdifference is the difference between Stevenson and Mr. George Moore, who, as he informs us, has "brushed Stevenson aside. " I do not knowwhere he has been brushed to, but wherever it is I fancy he is having agood time, because he had the wisdom to be vain, and not proud. Stevenson had a windy vanity; Mr. Moore has a dusty egoism. HenceStevenson could amuse himself as well as us with his vanity; while therichest effects of Mr. Moore's absurdity are hidden from his eyes. 

If we compare this solemn folly with the happy folly with whichStevenson belauds his own books and berates his own critics, we shallnot find it difficult to guess why it is that Stevenson at least founda final philosophy of some sort to live by, while Mr. Moore is alwayswalking the world looking for a new one. Stevenson had found that thesecret of life lies in laughter and humility. Self is the gorgon. Vanity sees it in the mirror of other men and lives. Pride studies itfor itself and is turned to stone. 

It is necessary to dwell on this defect in Mr. Moore, because it isreally the weakness of work which is not without its strength. Mr. Moore's egoism is not merely a moral weakness, it is a very constantand influential aesthetic weakness as well. We should really be muchmore interested in Mr. Moore if he were not quite so interested inhimself. We feel as if we were being shown through a gallery of reallyfine pictures, into each of which, by some useless and discordantconvention, the artist had represented the same figure in the sameattitude. "The Grand Canal with a distant view of Mr. Moore, " "Effectof Mr. Moore through a Scotch Mist, " "Mr. Moore by Firelight, " "Ruinsof Mr. Moore by Moonlight, " and so on, seems to be the endless series. He would no doubt reply that in such a book as this he intended toreveal himself. But the answer is that in such a book as this he doesnot succeed. One of the thousand objections to the sin of pride liesprecisely in this, that self-consciousness of necessity destroysself-revelation. A man who thinks a great deal about himself will tryto be many-sided, attempt a theatrical excellence at all points, willtry to be an encyclopaedia of culture, and his own real personalitywill be lost in that false universalism. Thinking about himself willlead to trying to be the universe; trying to be the universe will leadto ceasing to be anything. If, on the other hand, a man is sensibleenough to think only about the universe; he will think about it in hisown individual way. He will keep virgin the secret of God; he will seethe grass as no other man can see it, and look at a sun that no man hasever known. This fact is very practically brought out in Mr. Moore's"Confessions. " In reading them we do not feel the presence of aclean-cut personality like that of Thackeray and Matthew Arnold. Weonly read a number of quite clever and largely conflicting opinionswhich might be uttered by any clever person, but which we are calledupon to admire specifically, because they are uttered by Mr. Moore. Heis the only thread that connects Catholicism and Protestantism, realismand mysticism--he or rather his name. He is profoundly absorbed evenin views he no longer holds, and he expects us to be. And he intrudesthe capital "I" even where it need not be intruded--even where itweakens the force of a plain statement. Where another man would say, "It is a fine day, " Mr. Moore says, "Seen through my temperament, theday appeared fine. " Where another man would say "Milton has obviously afine style, " Mr. Moore would say, "As a stylist Milton had alwaysimpressed me. " The Nemesis of this self-centred spirit is that of beingtotally ineffectual. Mr. Moore has started many interesting crusades, but he has abandoned them before his disciples could begin. Even whenhe is on the side of the truth he is as fickle as the children offalsehood. Even when he has found reality he cannot find rest. OneIrish quality he has which no Irishman was ever without--pugnacity; andthat is certainly a great virtue, especially in the present age. But hehas not the tenacity of conviction which goes with the fighting spiritin a man like Bernard Shaw. His weakness of introspection andselfishness in all their glory cannot prevent him fighting; but theywill always prevent him winning. 

X. On Sandals and Simplicity

The great misfortune of the modern English is not at all that they aremore boastful than other people (they are not); it is that they areboastful about those particular things which nobody can boast ofwithout losing them. A Frenchman can be proud of being bold andlogical, and still remain bold and logical. A German can be proud ofbeing reflective and orderly, and still remain reflective and orderly. But an Englishman cannot be proud of being simple and direct, and stillremain simple and direct. In the matter of these strange virtues, toknow them is to kill them. A man may be conscious of being heroic orconscious of being divine, but he cannot (in spite of all theAnglo-Saxon poets) be conscious of being unconscious. 

Now, I do not think that it can be honestly denied that some portion ofthis impossibility attaches to a class very different in their ownopinion, at least, to the school of Anglo-Saxonism. I mean that schoolof the simple life, commonly associated with Tolstoy. If a perpetualtalk about one's own robustness leads to being less robust, it is evenmore true that a perpetual talking about one's own simplicity leads tobeing less simple. One great complaint, I think, must stand against themodern upholders of the simple life--the simple life in all its variedforms, from vegetarianism to the honourable consistency of theDoukhobors. This complaint against them stands, that they would make ussimple in the unimportant things, but complex in the important things. They would make us simple in the things that do not matter--that is, indiet, in costume, in etiquette, in economic system. But they would makeus complex in the things that do matter--in philosophy, in loyalty, inspiritual acceptance, and spiritual rejection. It does not so very muchmatter whether a man eats a grilled tomato or a plain tomato; it doesvery much matter whether he eats a plain tomato with a grilled mind. The only kind of simplicity worth preserving is the simplicity of theheart, the simplicity which accepts and enjoys. There may be areasonable doubt as to what system preserves this; there can surely beno doubt that a system of simplicity destroys it. There is moresimplicity in the man who eats caviar on impulse than in the man whoeats grape-nuts on principle. The chief error of these people is to befound in the very phrase to which they are most attached--"plain livingand high thinking. " These people do not stand in need of, will not beimproved by, plain living and high thinking. They stand in need of thecontrary. They would be improved by high living and plain thinking. Alittle high living (I say, having a full sense of responsibility, alittle high living) would teach them the force and meaning of the humanfestivities, of the banquet that has gone on from the beginning of theworld. It would teach them the historic fact that the artificial is, if anything, older than the natural. It would teach them that theloving-cup is as old as any hunger. It would teach them that ritualismis older than any religion. And a little plain thinking would teachthem how harsh and fanciful are the mass of their own ethics, how verycivilized and very complicated must be the brain of the Tolstoyan whoreally believes it to be evil to love one's country and wicked tostrike a blow. 

A man approaches, wearing sandals and simple raiment, a raw tomato heldfirmly in his right hand, and says, "The affections of family andcountry alike are hindrances to the fuller development of human love;"but the plain thinker will only answer him, with a wonder not untingedwith admiration, "What a great deal of trouble you must have taken inorder to feel like that. " High living will reject the tomato. Plainthinking will equally decisively reject the idea of the invariablesinfulness of war. High living will convince us that nothing is morematerialistic than to despise a pleasure as purely material. And plainthinking will convince us that nothing is more materialistic than toreserve our horror chiefly for material wounds. 

The only simplicity that matters is the simplicity of the heart. Ifthat be gone, it can be brought back by no turnips or cellularclothing; but only by tears and terror and the fires that are notquenched. If that remain, it matters very little if a few EarlyVictorian armchairs remain along with it. Let us put a complex entreeinto a simple old gentleman; let us not put a simple entree into acomplex old gentleman. So long as human society will leave myspiritual inside alone, I will allow it, with a comparative submission, to work its wild will with my physical interior. I will submit tocigars. I will meekly embrace a bottle of Burgundy. I will humblemyself to a hansom cab. If only by this means I may preserve to myselfthe virginity of the spirit, which enjoys with astonishment and fear. Ido not say that these are the only methods of preserving it. I inclineto the belief that there are others. But I will have nothing to dowith simplicity which lacks the fear, the astonishment, and the joyalike. I will have nothing to do with the devilish vision of a childwho is too simple to like toys. 

The child is, indeed, in these, and many other matters, the best guide. And in nothing is the child so righteously childlike, in nothing doeshe exhibit more accurately the sounder order of simplicity, than in thefact that he sees everything with a simple pleasure, even the complexthings. The false type of naturalness harps always on the distinctionbetween the natural and the artificial. The higher kind of naturalnessignores that distinction. To the child the tree and the lamp-post areas natural and as artificial as each other; or rather, neither of themare natural but both supernatural. For both are splendid andunexplained. The flower with which God crowns the one, and the flamewith which Sam the lamplighter crowns the other, are equally of thegold of fairy-tales. In the middle of the wildest fields the mostrustic child is, ten to one, playing at steam-engines. And the onlyspiritual or philosophical objection to steam-engines is not that menpay for them or work at them, or make them very ugly, or even that menare killed by them; but merely that men do not play at them. The evilis that the childish poetry of clockwork does not remain. The wrong isnot that engines are too much admired, but that they are not admiredenough. The sin is not that engines are mechanical, but that men aremechanical. 

In this matter, then, as in all the other matters treated in this book, our main conclusion is that it is a fundamental point of view, aphilosophy or religion which is needed, and not any change in habit orsocial routine. The things we need most for immediate practicalpurposes are all abstractions. We need a right view of the human lot, a right view of the human society; and if we were living eagerly andangrily in the enthusiasm of those things, we should, ipso facto, beliving simply in the genuine and spiritual sense. Desire and dangermake every one simple. And to those who talk to us with interferingeloquence about Jaeger and the pores of the skin, and about Plasmon andthe coats of the stomach, at them shall only be hurled the words thatare hurled at fops and gluttons, "Take no thought what ye shall eat orwhat ye shall drink, or wherewithal ye shall be clothed. For after allthese things do the Gentiles seek. But seek first the kingdom of Godand His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you. "Those amazing words are not only extraordinarily good, practicalpolitics; they are also superlatively good hygiene. The one supremeway of making all those processes go right, the processes of health, and strength, and grace, and beauty, the one and only way of makingcertain of their accuracy, is to think about something else. If a manis bent on climbing into the seventh heaven, he may be quite easy aboutthe pores of his skin. If he harnesses his waggon to a star, theprocess will have a most satisfactory effect upon the coats of hisstomach. For the thing called "taking thought, " the thing for whichthe best modern word is "rationalizing, " is in its nature, inapplicableto all plain and urgent things. Men take thought and ponderrationalistically, touching remote things--things that onlytheoretically matter, such as the transit of Venus. But only at theirperil can men rationalize about so practical a matter as health. 

XI Science and the Savages

A permanent disadvantage of the study of folk-lore and kindred subjectsis that the man of science can hardly be in the nature of things veryfrequently a man of the world. He is a student of nature; he isscarcely ever a student of human nature. And even where this difficultyis overcome, and he is in some sense a student of human nature, this isonly a very faint beginning of the painful progress towards beinghuman. For the study of primitive race and religion stands apart inone important respect from all, or nearly all, the ordinary scientificstudies. A man can understand astronomy only by being an astronomer; hecan understand entomology only by being an entomologist (or, perhaps, an insect); but he can understand a great deal of anthropology merelyby being a man. He is himself the animal which he studies. Hencearises the fact which strikes the eye everywhere in the records ofethnology and folk-lore--the fact that the same frigid and detachedspirit which leads to success in the study of astronomy or botany leadsto disaster in the study of mythology or human origins. It is necessaryto cease to be a man in order to do justice to a microbe; it is notnecessary to cease to be a man in order to do justice to men. Thatsame suppression of sympathies, that same waving away of intuitions orguess-work which make a man preternaturally clever in dealing with thestomach of a spider, will make him preternaturally stupid in dealingwith the heart of man. He is making himself inhuman in order tounderstand humanity. An ignorance of the other world is boasted by manymen of science; but in this matter their defect arises, not fromignorance of the other world, but from ignorance of this world. Forthe secrets about which anthropologists concern themselves can be bestlearnt, not from books or voyages, but from the ordinary commerce ofman with man. The secret of why some savage tribe worships monkeys orthe moon is not to be found even by travelling among those savages andtaking down their answers in a note-book, although the cleverest manmay pursue this course. The answer to the riddle is in England; it isin London; nay, it is in his own heart. When a man has discovered whymen in Bond Street wear black hats he will at the same moment havediscovered why men in Timbuctoo wear red feathers. The mystery in theheart of some savage war-dance should not be studied in books ofscientific travel; it should be studied at a subscription ball. If aman desires to find out the origins of religions, let him not go to theSandwich Islands; let him go to church. If a man wishes to know theorigin of human society, to know what society, philosophicallyspeaking, really is, let him not go into the British Museum; let him gointo society. 

This total misunderstanding of the real nature of ceremonial gives riseto the most awkward and dehumanized versions of the conduct of men inrude lands or ages. The man of science, not realizing that ceremonialis essentially a thing which is done without a reason, has to find areason for every sort of ceremonial, and, as might be supposed, thereason is generally a very absurd one--absurd because it originates notin the simple mind of the barbarian, but in the sophisticated mind ofthe professor. The teamed man will say, for instance, "The natives ofMumbojumbo Land believe that the dead man can eat and will require foodupon his journey to the other world. This is attested by the fact thatthey place food in the grave, and that any family not complying withthis rite is the object of the anger of the priests and the tribe. " Toany one acquainted with humanity this way of talking is topsy-turvy. Itis like saying, "The English in the twentieth century believed that adead man could smell. This is attested by the fact that they alwayscovered his grave with lilies, violets, or other flowers. Some priestlyand tribal terrors were evidently attached to the neglect of thisaction, as we have records of several old ladies who were very muchdisturbed in mind because their wreaths had not arrived in time for thefuneral. " It may be of course that savages put food with a dead manbecause they think that a dead man can eat, or weapons with a dead manbecause they think that a dead man can fight. But personally I do notbelieve that they think anything of the kind. I believe they put foodor weapons on the dead for the same reason that we put flowers, becauseit is an exceedingly natural and obvious thing to do. We do notunderstand, it is true, the emotion which makes us think it obvious andnatural; but that is because, like all the important emotions of humanexistence it is essentially irrational. We do not understand thesavage for the same reason that the savage does not understand himself. And the savage does not understand himself for the same reason that wedo not understand ourselves either. 

The obvious truth is that the moment any matter has passed through thehuman mind it is finally and for ever spoilt for all purposes ofscience. It has become a thing incurably mysterious and infinite; thismortal has put on immortality. Even what we call our material desiresare spiritual, because they are human. Science can analyse a pork-chop, and say how much of it is phosphorus and how much is protein; butscience cannot analyse any man's wish for a pork-chop, and say how muchof it is hunger, how much custom, how much nervous fancy, how much ahaunting love of the beautiful. The man's desire for the pork-chopremains literally as mystical and ethereal as his desire for heaven. All attempts, therefore, at a science of any human things, at a scienceof history, a science of folk-lore, a science of sociology, are bytheir nature not merely hopeless, but crazy. You can no more be certainin economic history that a man's desire for money was merely a desirefor money than you can be certain in hagiology that a saint's desirefor God was merely a desire for God. And this kind of vagueness in theprimary phenomena of the study is an absolutely final blow to anythingin the nature of a science. Men can construct a science with very fewinstruments, or with very plain instruments; but no one on earth couldconstruct a science with unreliable instruments. A man might work outthe whole of mathematics with a handful of pebbles, but not with ahandful of clay which was always falling apart into new fragments, andfalling together into new combinations. A man might measure heaven andearth with a reed, but not with a growing reed. 

As one of the enormous follies of folk-lore, let us take the case ofthe transmigration of stories, and the alleged unity of their source. Story after story the scientific mythologists have cut out of its placein history, and pinned side by side with similar stories in theirmuseum of fables. The process is industrious, it is fascinating, andthe whole of it rests on one of the plainest fallacies in the world. That a story has been told all over the place at some time or other, not only does not prove that it never really happened; it does not evenfaintly indicate or make slightly more probable that it never happened. That a large number of fishermen have falsely asserted that they havecaught a pike two feet long, does not in the least affect the questionof whether any one ever really did so. That numberless journalistsannounce a Franco-German war merely for money is no evidence one way orthe other upon the dark question of whether such a war ever occurred. Doubtless in a few hundred years the innumerable Franco-German warsthat did not happen will have cleared the scientific mind of any beliefin the legendary war of '70 which did. But that will be because iffolk-lore students remain at all, their nature will be unchanged; andtheir services to folk-lore will be still as they are at present, greater than they know. For in truth these men do something far moregodlike than studying legends; they create them. 

There are two kinds of stories which the scientists say cannot be true, because everybody tells them. The first class consists of the storieswhich are told everywhere, because they are somewhat odd or clever;there is nothing in the world to prevent their having happened tosomebody as an adventure any more than there is anything to preventtheir having occurred, as they certainly did occur, to somebody as anidea. But they are not likely to have happened to many people. Thesecond class of their "myths" consist of the stories that are toldeverywhere for the simple reason that they happen everywhere. Of thefirst class, for instance, we might take such an example as the storyof William Tell, now generally ranked among legends upon the soleground that it is found in the tales of other peoples. Now, it isobvious that this was told everywhere because whether true orfictitious it is what is called "a good story;" it is odd, exciting, and it has a climax. But to suggest that some such eccentric incidentcan never have happened in the whole history of archery, or that it didnot happen to any particular person of whom it is told, is starkimpudence. The idea of shooting at a mark attached to some valuable orbeloved person is an idea doubtless that might easily have occurred toany inventive poet. But it is also an idea that might easily occur toany boastful archer. It might be one of the fantastic caprices of somestory-teller. It might equally well be one of the fantastic caprices ofsome tyrant. It might occur first in real life and afterwards occur inlegends. Or it might just as well occur first in legends and afterwardsoccur in real life. If no apple has ever been shot off a boy's headfrom the beginning of the world, it may be done tomorrow morning, andby somebody who has never heard of William Tell. 

This type of tale, indeed, may be pretty fairly paralleled with theordinary anecdote terminating in a repartee or an Irish bull. Such aretort as the famous "je ne vois pas la necessite" we have all seenattributed to Talleyrand, to Voltaire, to Henri Quatre, to an anonymousjudge, and so on. But this variety does not in any way make it morelikely that the thing was never said at all. It is highly likely thatit was really said by somebody unknown. It is highly likely that it wasreally said by Talleyrand. In any case, it is not any more difficult tobelieve that the mot might have occurred to a man in conversation thanto a man writing memoirs. It might have occurred to any of the men Ihave mentioned. But there is this point of distinction about it, thatit is not likely to have occurred to all of them. And this is wherethe first class of so-called myth differs from the second to which Ihave previously referred. For there is a second class of incidentfound to be common to the stories of five or six heroes, say to Sigurd, to Hercules, to Rustem, to the Cid, and so on. And the peculiarity ofthis myth is that not only is it highly reasonable to imagine that itreally happened to one hero, but it is highly reasonable to imaginethat it really happened to all of them. Such a story, for instance, isthat of a great man having his strength swayed or thwarted by themysterious weakness of a woman. The anecdotal story, the story ofWilliam Tell, is as I have said, popular, because it is peculiar. Butthis kind of story, the story of Samson and Delilah of Arthur andGuinevere, is obviously popular because it is not peculiar. It ispopular as good, quiet fiction is popular, because it tells the truthabout people. If the ruin of Samson by a woman, and the ruin ofHercules by a woman, have a common legendary origin, it is gratifyingto know that we can also explain, as a fable, the ruin of Nelson by awoman and the ruin of Parnell by a woman. And, indeed, I have no doubtwhatever that, some centuries hence, the students of folk-lore willrefuse altogether to believe that Elizabeth Barrett eloped with RobertBrowning, and will prove their point up to the hilt by theunquestionable fact that the whole fiction of the period was full ofsuch elopements from end to end. 

Possibly the most pathetic of all the delusions of the modern studentsof primitive belief is the notion they have about the thing they callanthropomorphism. They believe that primitive men attributed phenomenato a god in human form in order to explain them, because his mind inits sullen limitation could not reach any further than his own clownishexistence. The thunder was called the voice of a man, the lightningthe eyes of a man, because by this explanation they were made morereasonable and comfortable. The final cure for all this kind ofphilosophy is to walk down a lane at night. Any one who does so willdiscover very quickly that men pictured something semi-human at theback of all things, not because such a thought was natural, but becauseit was supernatural; not because it made things more comprehensible, but because it made them a hundred times more incomprehensible andmysterious. For a man walking down a lane at night can see theconspicuous fact that as long as nature keeps to her own course, shehas no power with us at all. As long as a tree is a tree, it is atop-heavy monster with a hundred arms, a thousand tongues, and only oneleg. But so long as a tree is a tree, it does not frighten us at all. It begins to be something alien, to be something strange, only when itlooks like ourselves. When a tree really looks like a man our kneesknock under us. And when the whole universe looks like a man we fallon our faces. 

XII Paganism and Mr. Lowes Dickinson

Of the New Paganism (or neo-Paganism), as it was preached flamboyantlyby Mr. Swinburne or delicately by Walter Pater, there is no necessityto take any very grave account, except as a thing which left behind itincomparable exercises in the English language. The New Paganism is nolonger new, and it never at any time bore the smallest resemblance toPaganism. The ideas about the ancient civilization which it has leftloose in the public mind are certainly extraordinary enough. The term"pagan" is continually used in fiction and light literature as meaninga man without any religion, whereas a pagan was generally a man withabout half a dozen. The pagans, according to this notion, werecontinually crowning themselves with flowers and dancing about in anirresponsible state, whereas, if there were two things that the bestpagan civilization did honestly believe in, they were a rather toorigid dignity and a much too rigid responsibility. Pagans are depictedas above all things inebriate and lawless, whereas they were above allthings reasonable and respectable. They are praised as disobedient whenthey had only one great virtue--civic obedience. They are envied andadmired as shamelessly happy when they had only one great sin--despair. 

Mr. Lowes Dickinson, the most pregnant and provocative of recentwriters on this and similar subjects, is far too solid a man to havefallen into this old error of the mere anarchy of Paganism. In order tomake hay of that Hellenic enthusiasm which has as its ideal mereappetite and egotism, it is not necessary to know much philosophy, butmerely to know a little Greek. Mr. Lowes Dickinson knows a great dealof philosophy, and also a great deal of Greek, and his error, if errorhe has, is not that of the crude hedonist. But the contrast which heoffers between Christianity and Paganism in the matter of moralideals--a contrast which he states very ably in a paper called "Howlong halt ye?" which appeared in the Independent Review--does, I think, contain an error of a deeper kind. According to him, the ideal ofPaganism was not, indeed, a mere frenzy of lust and liberty andcaprice, but was an ideal of full and satisfied humanity. According tohim, the ideal of Christianity was the ideal of asceticism. When I saythat I think this idea wholly wrong as a matter of philosophy andhistory, I am not talking for the moment about any ideal Christianityof my own, or even of any primitive Christianity undefiled by afterevents. I am not, like so many modern Christian idealists, basing mycase upon certain things which Christ said. Neither am I, like so manyother Christian idealists, basing my case upon certain things thatChrist forgot to say. I take historic Christianity with all its sinsupon its head; I take it, as I would take Jacobinism, or Mormonism, orany other mixed or unpleasing human product, and I say that the meaningof its action was not to be found in asceticism. I say that its pointof departure from Paganism was not asceticism. I say that its point ofdifference with the modern world was not asceticism. I say that St. Simeon Stylites had not his main inspiration in asceticism. I say thatthe main Christian impulse cannot be described as asceticism, even inthe ascetics. 

Let me set about making the matter clear. There is one broad factabout the relations of Christianity and Paganism which is so simplethat many will smile at it, but which is so important that all modernsforget it. The primary fact about Christianity and Paganism is thatone came after the other. Mr. Lowes Dickinson speaks of them as ifthey were parallel ideals--even speaks as if Paganism were the newer ofthe two, and the more fitted for a new age. He suggests that the Paganideal will be the ultimate good of man; but if that is so, we must atleast ask with more curiosity than he allows for, why it was that manactually found his ultimate good on earth under the stars, and threw itaway again. It is this extraordinary enigma to which I propose toattempt an answer. 

There is only one thing in the modern world that has been face to facewith Paganism; there is only one thing in the modern world which inthat sense knows anything about Paganism: and that is Christianity. That fact is really the weak point in the whole of that hedonisticneo-Paganism of which I have spoken. All that genuinely remains of theancient hymns or the ancient dances of Europe, all that has honestlycome to us from the festivals of Phoebus or Pan, is to be found in thefestivals of the Christian Church. If any one wants to hold the end ofa chain which really goes back to the heathen mysteries, he had bettertake hold of a festoon of flowers at Easter or a string of sausages atChristmas. Everything else in the modern world is of Christian origin, even everything that seems most anti-Christian. The French Revolutionis of Christian origin. The newspaper is of Christian origin. Theanarchists are of Christian origin. Physical science is of Christianorigin. The attack on Christianity is of Christian origin. There isone thing, and one thing only, in existence at the present day whichcan in any sense accurately be said to be of pagan origin, and that isChristianity. 

The real difference between Paganism and Christianity is perfectlysummed up in the difference between the pagan, or natural, virtues, andthose three virtues of Christianity which the Church of Rome callsvirtues of grace. The pagan, or rational, virtues are such things asjustice and temperance, and Christianity has adopted them. The threemystical virtues which Christianity has not adopted, but invented, arefaith, hope, and charity. Now much easy and foolish Christian rhetoriccould easily be poured out upon those three words, but I desire toconfine myself to the two facts which are evident about them. Thefirst evident fact (in marked contrast to the delusion of the dancingpagan)--the first evident fact, I say, is that the pagan virtues, suchas justice and temperance, are the sad virtues, and that the mysticalvirtues of faith, hope, and charity are the gay and exuberant virtues. And the second evident fact, which is even more evident, is the factthat the pagan virtues are the reasonable virtues, and that theChristian virtues of faith, hope, and charity are in their essence asunreasonable as they can be. 

As the word "unreasonable" is open to misunderstanding, the matter maybe more accurately put by saying that each one of these Christian ormystical virtues involves a paradox in its own nature, and that this isnot true of any of the typically pagan or rationalist virtues. Justiceconsists in finding out a certain thing due to a certain man and givingit to him. Temperance consists in finding out the proper limit of aparticular indulgence and adhering to that. But charity meanspardoning what is unpardonable, or it is no virtue at all. Hope meanshoping when things are hopeless, or it is no virtue at all. And faithmeans believing the incredible, or it is no virtue at all. 

It is somewhat amusing, indeed, to notice the difference between thefate of these three paradoxes in the fashion of the modern mind. Charity is a fashionable virtue in our time; it is lit up by thegigantic firelight of Dickens. Hope is a fashionable virtue to-day;our attention has been arrested for it by the sudden and silver trumpetof Stevenson. But faith is unfashionable, and it is customary on everyside to cast against it the fact that it is a paradox. Everybodymockingly repeats the famous childish definition that faith is "thepower of believing that which we know to be untrue. " Yet it is not oneatom more paradoxical than hope or charity. Charity is the power ofdefending that which we know to be indefensible. Hope is the power ofbeing cheerful in circumstances which we know to be desperate. It istrue that there is a state of hope which belongs to bright prospectsand the morning; but that is not the virtue of hope. The virtue of hopeexists only in earthquake and, eclipse. It is true that there is athing crudely called charity, which means charity to the deservingpoor; but charity to the deserving is not charity at all, but justice. It is the undeserving who require it, and the ideal either does notexist at all, or exists wholly for them. For practical purposes it isat the hopeless moment that we require the hopeful man, and the virtueeither does not exist at all, or begins to exist at that moment. Exactly at the instant when hope ceases to be reasonable it begins tobe useful. Now the old pagan world went perfectly straightforward untilit discovered that going straightforward is an enormous mistake. It wasnobly and beautifully reasonable, and discovered in its death-pang thislasting and valuable truth, a heritage for the ages, thatreasonableness will not do. The pagan age was truly an Eden or goldenage, in this essential sense, that it is not to be recovered. And it isnot to be recovered in this sense again that, while we are certainlyjollier than the pagans, and much more right than the pagans, there isnot one of us who can, by the utmost stretch of energy, be so sensibleas the pagans. That naked innocence of the intellect cannot berecovered by any man after Christianity; and for this excellent reason, that every man after Christianity knows it to be misleading. Let metake an example, the first that occurs to the mind, of this impossibleplainness in the pagan point of view. The greatest tribute toChristianity in the modern world is Tennyson's "Ulysses. " The poetreads into the story of Ulysses the conception of an incurable desireto wander. But the real Ulysses does not desire to wander at all. Hedesires to get home. He displays his heroic and unconquerablequalities in resisting the misfortunes which baulk him; but that isall. There is no love of adventure for its own sake; that is aChristian product. There is no love of Penelope for her own sake; thatis a Christian product. Everything in that old world would appear tohave been clean and obvious. A good man was a good man; a bad man wasa bad man. For this reason they had no charity; for charity is areverent agnosticism towards the complexity of the soul. For thisreason they had no such thing as the art of fiction, the novel; for thenovel is a creation of the mystical idea of charity. For them apleasant landscape was pleasant, and an unpleasant landscapeunpleasant. Hence they had no idea of romance; for romance consists inthinking a thing more delightful because it is dangerous; it is aChristian idea. In a word, we cannot reconstruct or even imagine thebeautiful and astonishing pagan world. It was a world in which commonsense was really common. 

My general meaning touching the three virtues of which I have spokenwill now, I hope, be sufficiently clear. They are all threeparadoxical, they are all three practical, and they are all threeparadoxical because they are practical. It is the stress of ultimateneed, and a terrible knowledge of things as they are, which led men toset up these riddles, and to die for them. Whatever may be the meaningof the contradiction, it is the fact that the only kind of hope that isof any use in a battle is a hope that denies arithmetic. Whatever maybe the meaning of the contradiction, it is the fact that the only kindof charity which any weak spirit wants, or which any generous spiritfeels, is the charity which forgives the sins that are like scarlet. Whatever may be the meaning of faith, it must always mean a certaintyabout something we cannot prove. Thus, for instance, we believe byfaith in the existence of other people. 

But there is another Christian virtue, a virtue far more obviously andhistorically connected with Christianity, which will illustrate evenbetter the connection between paradox and practical necessity. Thisvirtue cannot be questioned in its capacity as a historical symbol;certainly Mr. Lowes Dickinson will not question it. It has been theboast of hundreds of the champions of Christianity. It has been thetaunt of hundreds of the opponents of Christianity. It is, in essence, the basis of Mr. Lowes Dickinson's whole distinction betweenChristianity and Paganism. I mean, of course, the virtue of humility. I admit, of course, most readily, that a great deal of false Easternhumility (that is, of strictly ascetic humility) mixed itself with themain stream of European Christianity. We must not forget that when wespeak of Christianity we are speaking of a whole continent for about athousand years. But of this virtue even more than of the other three, I would maintain the general proposition adopted above. Civilizationdiscovered Christian humility for the same urgent reason that itdiscovered faith and charity--that is, because Christian civilizationhad to discover it or die. 

The great psychological discovery of Paganism, which turned it intoChristianity, can be expressed with some accuracy in one phrase. Thepagan set out, with admirable sense, to enjoy himself. By the end ofhis civilization he had discovered that a man cannot enjoy himself andcontinue to enjoy anything else. Mr. Lowes Dickinson has pointed out inwords too excellent to need any further elucidation, the absurdshallowness of those who imagine that the pagan enjoyed himself only ina materialistic sense. Of course, he enjoyed himself, not onlyintellectually even, he enjoyed himself morally, he enjoyed himselfspiritually. But it was himself that he was enjoying; on the face ofit, a very natural thing to do. Now, the psychological discovery ismerely this, that whereas it had been supposed that the fullestpossible enjoyment is to be found by extending our ego to infinity, thetruth is that the fullest possible enjoyment is to be found by reducingour ego to zero. 

Humility is the thing which is for ever renewing the earth and thestars. It is humility, and not duty, which preserves the stars fromwrong, from the unpardonable wrong of casual resignation; it is throughhumility that the most ancient heavens for us are fresh and strong. Thecurse that came before history has laid on us all a tendency to beweary of wonders. If we saw the sun for the first time it would be themost fearful and beautiful of meteors. Now that we see it for thehundredth time we call it, in the hideous and blasphemous phrase ofWordsworth, "the light of common day. " We are inclined to increase ourclaims. We are inclined to demand six suns, to demand a blue sun, todemand a green sun. Humility is perpetually putting us back in theprimal darkness. There all light is lightning, startling andinstantaneous. Until we understand that original dark, in which we haveneither sight nor expectation, we can give no hearty and childlikepraise to the splendid sensationalism of things. The terms "pessimism"and "optimism, " like most modern terms, are unmeaning. But if they canbe used in any vague sense as meaning something, we may say that inthis great fact pessimism is the very basis of optimism. The man whodestroys himself creates the universe. To the humble man, and to thehumble man alone, the sun is really a sun; to the humble man, and tothe humble man alone, the sea is really a sea. When he looks at all thefaces in the street, he does not only realize that men are alive, herealizes with a dramatic pleasure that they are not dead. 

I have not spoken of another aspect of the discovery of humility as apsychological necessity, because it is more commonly insisted on, andis in itself more obvious. But it is equally clear that humility is apermanent necessity as a condition of effort and self-examination. Itis one of the deadly fallacies of Jingo politics that a nation isstronger for despising other nations. As a matter of fact, thestrongest nations are those, like Prussia or Japan, which began fromvery mean beginnings, but have not been too proud to sit at the feet ofthe foreigner and learn everything from him. Almost every obvious anddirect victory has been the victory of the plagiarist. This is, indeed, only a very paltry by-product of humility, but it is a product ofhumility, and, therefore, it is successful. Prussia had no Christianhumility in its internal arrangements; hence its internal arrangementswere miserable. But it had enough Christian humility slavishly to copyFrance (even down to Frederick the Great's poetry), and that which ithad the humility to copy it had ultimately the honour to conquer. Thecase of the Japanese is even more obvious; their only Christian andtheir only beautiful quality is that they have humbled themselves to beexalted. All this aspect of humility, however, as connected with thematter of effort and striving for a standard set above us, I dismiss ashaving been sufficiently pointed out by almost all idealistic writers. 

It may be worth while, however, to point out the interesting disparityin the matter of humility between the modern notion of the strong manand the actual records of strong men. Carlyle objected to thestatement that no man could be a hero to his valet. Every sympathy canbe extended towards him in the matter if he merely or mainly meant thatthe phrase was a disparagement of hero-worship. Hero-worship iscertainly a generous and human impulse; the hero may be faulty, but theworship can hardly be. It may be that no man would be a hero to hisvalet. But any man would be a valet to his hero. But in truth both theproverb itself and Carlyle's stricture upon it ignore the mostessential matter at issue. The ultimate psychological truth is notthat no man is a hero to his valet. The ultimate psychological truth, the foundation of Christianity, is that no man is a hero to himself. Cromwell, according to Carlyle, was a strong man. According toCromwell, he was a weak one. 

The weak point in the whole of Carlyle's case for aristocracy lies, indeed, in his most celebrated phrase. Carlyle said that men weremostly fools. Christianity, with a surer and more reverent realism, says that they are all fools. This doctrine is sometimes called thedoctrine of original sin. It may also be described as the doctrine ofthe equality of men. But the essential point of it is merely this, thatwhatever primary and far-reaching moral dangers affect any man, affectall men. All men can be criminals, if tempted; all men can be heroes, if inspired. And this doctrine does away altogether with Carlyle'spathetic belief (or any one else's pathetic belief) in "the wise few. "There are no wise few. Every aristocracy that has ever existed hasbehaved, in all essential points, exactly like a small mob. Everyoligarchy is merely a knot of men in the street--that is to say, it isvery jolly, but not infallible. And no oligarchies in the world'shistory have ever come off so badly in practical affairs as the veryproud oligarchies--the oligarchy of Poland, the oligarchy of Venice. And the armies that have most swiftly and suddenly broken their enemiesin pieces have been the religious armies--the Moslem Armies, forinstance, or the Puritan Armies. And a religious army may, by itsnature, be defined as an army in which every man is taught not to exaltbut to abase himself. Many modern Englishmen talk of themselves as thesturdy descendants of their sturdy Puritan fathers. As a fact, theywould run away from a cow. If you asked one of their Puritan fathers, if you asked Bunyan, for instance, whether he was sturdy, he would haveanswered, with tears, that he was as weak as water. And because ofthis he would have borne tortures. And this virtue of humility, whilebeing practical enough to win battles, will always be paradoxicalenough to puzzle pedants. It is at one with the virtue of charity inthis respect. Every generous person will admit that the one kind of sinwhich charity should cover is the sin which is inexcusable. And everygenerous person will equally agree that the one kind of pride which iswholly damnable is the pride of the man who has something to be proudof. The pride which, proportionally speaking, does not hurt thecharacter, is the pride in things which reflect no credit on the personat all. Thus it does a man no harm to be proud of his country, andcomparatively little harm to be proud of his remote ancestors. It doeshim more harm to be proud of having made money, because in that he hasa little more reason for pride. It does him more harm still to be proudof what is nobler than money--intellect. And it does him most harm ofall to value himself for the most valuable thing on earth--goodness. The man who is proud of what is really creditable to him is thePharisee, the man whom Christ Himself could not forbear to strike. 

My objection to Mr. Lowes Dickinson and the reassertors of the paganideal is, then, this. I accuse them of ignoring definite humandiscoveries in the moral world, discoveries as definite, though not asmaterial, as the discovery of the circulation of the blood. We cannotgo back to an ideal of reason and sanity. For mankind has discoveredthat reason does not lead to sanity. We cannot go back to an ideal ofpride and enjoyment. For mankind has discovered that pride does notlead to enjoyment. I do not know by what extraordinary mental accidentmodern writers so constantly connect the idea of progress with the ideaof independent thinking. Progress is obviously the antithesis ofindependent thinking. For under independent or individualisticthinking, every man starts at the beginning, and goes, in allprobability, just as far as his father before him. But if there reallybe anything of the nature of progress, it must mean, above all things, the careful study and assumption of the whole of the past. I accuseMr. Lowes Dickinson and his school of reaction in the only real sense. If he likes, let him ignore these great historic mysteries--the mysteryof charity, the mystery of chivalry, the mystery of faith. If he likes, let him ignore the plough or the printing-press. But if we do reviveand pursue the pagan ideal of a simple and rational self-completion weshall end--where Paganism ended. I do not mean that we shall end indestruction. I mean that we shall end in Christianity. 

XIII. Celts and Celtophiles

Science in the modern world has many uses; its chief use, however, isto provide long words to cover the errors of the rich. The word"kleptomania" is a vulgar example of what I mean. It is on a par withthat strange theory, always advanced when a wealthy or prominent personis in the dock, that exposure is more of a punishment for the rich thanfor the poor. Of course, the very reverse is the truth. Exposure ismore of a punishment for the poor than for the rich. The richer a manis the easier it is for him to be a tramp. The richer a man is theeasier it is for him to be popular and generally respected in theCannibal Islands. But the poorer a man is the more likely it is thathe will have to use his past life whenever he wants to get a bed forthe night. Honour is a luxury for aristocrats, but it is a necessityfor hall-porters. This is a secondary matter, but it is an example ofthe general proposition I offer--the proposition that an enormousamount of modern ingenuity is expended on finding defences for theindefensible conduct of the powerful. As I have said above, thesedefences generally exhibit themselves most emphatically in the form ofappeals to physical science. And of all the forms in which science, orpseudo-science, has come to the rescue of the rich and stupid, there isnone so singular as the singular invention of the theory of races. 

When a wealthy nation like the English discovers the perfectly patentfact that it is making a ludicrous mess of the government of a poorernation like the Irish, it pauses for a moment in consternation, andthen begins to talk about Celts and Teutons. As far as I canunderstand the theory, the Irish are Celts and the English are Teutons. Of course, the Irish are not Celts any more than the English areTeutons. I have not followed the ethnological discussion with muchenergy, but the last scientific conclusion which I read inclined on thewhole to the summary that the English were mainly Celtic and the Irishmainly Teutonic. But no man alive, with even the glimmering of a realscientific sense, would ever dream of applying the terms "Celtic" or"Teutonic" to either of them in any positive or useful sense. 

That sort of thing must be left to people who talk about theAnglo-Saxon race, and extend the expression to America. How much of theblood of the Angles and Saxons (whoever they were) there remains in ourmixed British, Roman, German, Dane, Norman, and Picard stock is amatter only interesting to wild antiquaries. And how much of thatdiluted blood can possibly remain in that roaring whirlpool of Americainto which a cataract of Swedes, Jews, Germans, Irishmen, and Italiansis perpetually pouring, is a matter only interesting to lunatics. Itwould have been wiser for the English governing class to have calledupon some other god. All other gods, however weak and warring, at leastboast of being constant. But science boasts of being in a flux forever; boasts of being unstable as water. 

And England and the English governing class never did call on thisabsurd deity of race until it seemed, for an instant, that they had noother god to call on. All the most genuine Englishmen in history wouldhave yawned or laughed in your face if you had begun to talk aboutAnglo-Saxons. If you had attempted to substitute the ideal of race forthe ideal of nationality, I really do not like to think what they wouldhave said. I certainly should not like to have been the officer ofNelson who suddenly discovered his French blood on the eve ofTrafalgar. I should not like to have been the Norfolk or Suffolkgentleman who had to expound to Admiral Blake by what demonstrable tiesof genealogy he was irrevocably bound to the Dutch. The truth of thewhole matter is very simple. Nationality exists, and has nothing in theworld to do with race. Nationality is a thing like a church or a secretsociety; it is a product of the human soul and will; it is a spiritualproduct. And there are men in the modern world who would think anythingand do anything rather than admit that anything could be a spiritualproduct. 

A nation, however, as it confronts the modern world, is a purelyspiritual product. Sometimes it has been born in independence, likeScotland. Sometimes it has been born in dependence, in subjugation, like Ireland. Sometimes it is a large thing cohering out of manysmaller things, like Italy. Sometimes it is a small thing breakingaway from larger things, like Poland. But in each and every case itsquality is purely spiritual, or, if you will, purely psychological. Itis a moment when five men become a sixth man. Every one knows it whohas ever founded a club. It is a moment when five places become oneplace. Every one must know it who has ever had to repel an invasion. Mr. Timothy Healy, the most serious intellect in the present House ofCommons, summed up nationality to perfection when he simply called itsomething for which people will die, As he excellently said in reply toLord Hugh Cecil, "No one, not even the noble lord, would die for themeridian of Greenwich. " And that is the great tribute to its purelypsychological character. It is idle to ask why Greenwich should notcohere in this spiritual manner while Athens or Sparta did. It is likeasking why a man falls in love with one woman and not with another. 

Now, of this great spiritual coherence, independent of externalcircumstances, or of race, or of any obvious physical thing, Ireland isthe most remarkable example. Rome conquered nations, but Ireland hasconquered races. The Norman has gone there and become Irish, theScotchman has gone there and become Irish, the Spaniard has gone thereand become Irish, even the bitter soldier of Cromwell has gone thereand become Irish. Ireland, which did not exist even politically, hasbeen stronger than all the races that existed scientifically. Thepurest Germanic blood, the purest Norman blood, the purest blood of thepassionate Scotch patriot, has not been so attractive as a nationwithout a flag. Ireland, unrecognized and oppressed, has easilyabsorbed races, as such trifles are easily absorbed. She has easilydisposed of physical science, as such superstitions are easily disposedof. Nationality in its weakness has been stronger than ethnology inits strength. Five triumphant races have been absorbed, have beendefeated by a defeated nationality. 

This being the true and strange glory of Ireland, it is impossible tohear without impatience of the attempt so constantly made among hermodern sympathizers to talk about Celts and Celticism. Who were theCelts? I defy anybody to say. Who are the Irish? I defy any one to beindifferent, or to pretend not to know. Mr. W. B. Yeats, the greatIrish genius who has appeared in our time, shows his own admirablepenetration in discarding altogether the argument from a Celtic race. But he does not wholly escape, and his followers hardly ever escape, the general objection to the Celtic argument. The tendency of thatargument is to represent the Irish or the Celts as a strange andseparate race, as a tribe of eccentrics in the modern world immersed indim legends and fruitless dreams. Its tendency is to exhibit the Irishas odd, because they see the fairies. Its trend is to make the Irishseem weird and wild because they sing old songs and join in strangedances. But this is quite an error; indeed, it is the opposite of thetruth. It is the English who are odd because they do not see thefairies. It is the inhabitants of Kensington who are weird and wildbecause they do not sing old songs and join in strange dances. In allthis the Irish are not in the least strange and separate, are not inthe least Celtic, as the word is commonly and popularly used. In allthis the Irish are simply an ordinary sensible nation, living the lifeof any other ordinary and sensible nation which has not been eithersodden with smoke or oppressed by money-lenders, or otherwise corruptedwith wealth and science. There is nothing Celtic about having legends. It is merely human. The Germans, who are (I suppose) Teutonic, havehundreds of legends, wherever it happens that the Germans are human. There is nothing Celtic about loving poetry; the English loved poetrymore, perhaps, than any other people before they came under the shadowof the chimney-pot and the shadow of the chimney-pot hat. It is notIreland which is mad and mystic; it is Manchester which is mad andmystic, which is incredible, which is a wild exception among humanthings. Ireland has no need to play the silly game of the science ofraces; Ireland has no need to pretend to be a tribe of visionariesapart. In the matter of visions, Ireland is more than a nation, it is amodel nation. 

XIV On Certain Modern Writers and the Institution of the Family

The family may fairly be considered, one would think, an ultimate humaninstitution. Every one would admit that it has been the main cell andcentral unit of almost all societies hitherto, except, indeed, suchsocieties as that of Lacedaemon, which went in for "efficiency, " andhas, therefore, perished, and left not a trace behind. Christianity, even enormous as was its revolution, did not alter this ancient andsavage sanctity; it merely reversed it. It did not deny the trinity offather, mother, and child. It merely read it backwards, making it runchild, mother, father. This it called, not the family, but the HolyFamily, for many things are made holy by being turned upside down. Butsome sages of our own decadence have made a serious attack on thefamily. They have impugned it, as I think wrongly; and its defendershave defended it, and defended it wrongly. The common defence of thefamily is that, amid the stress and fickleness of life, it is peaceful, pleasant, and at one. But there is another defence of the family whichis possible, and to me evident; this defence is that the family is notpeaceful and not pleasant and not at one. 

It is not fashionable to say much nowadays of the advantages of thesmall community. We are told that we must go in for large empires andlarge ideas. There is one advantage, however, in the small state, thecity, or the village, which only the wilfully blind can overlook. Theman who lives in a small community lives in a much larger world. Heknows much more of the fierce varieties and uncompromising divergencesof men. The reason is obvious. In a large community we can choose ourcompanions. In a small community our companions are chosen for us. Thus in all extensive and highly civilized societies groups come intoexistence founded upon what is called sympathy, and shut out the realworld more sharply than the gates of a monastery. There is nothingreally narrow about the clan; the thing which is really narrow is theclique. The men of the clan live together because they all wear thesame tartan or are all descended from the same sacred cow; but in theirsouls, by the divine luck of things, there will always be more coloursthan in any tartan. But the men of the clique live together becausethey have the same kind of soul, and their narrowness is a narrownessof spiritual coherence and contentment, like that which exists in hell. A big society exists in order to form cliques. A big society is asociety for the promotion of narrowness. It is a machinery for thepurpose of guarding the solitary and sensitive individual from allexperience of the bitter and bracing human compromises. It is, in themost literal sense of the words, a society for the prevention ofChristian knowledge. 

We can see this change, for instance, in the modern transformation ofthe thing called a club. When London was smaller, and the parts ofLondon more self-contained and parochial, the club was what it still isin villages, the opposite of what it is now in great cities. Then theclub was valued as a place where a man could be sociable. Now the clubis valued as a place where a man can be unsociable. The more theenlargement and elaboration of our civilization goes on the more theclub ceases to be a place where a man can have a noisy argument, andbecomes more and more a place where a man can have what is somewhatfantastically called a quiet chop. Its aim is to make a mancomfortable, and to make a man comfortable is to make him the oppositeof sociable. Sociability, like all good things, is full ofdiscomforts, dangers, and renunciations. The club tends to produce themost degraded of all combinations--the luxurious anchorite, the man whocombines the self-indulgence of Lucullus with the insane loneliness ofSt. Simeon Stylites. 

If we were to-morrow morning snowed up in the street in which we live, we should step suddenly into a much larger and much wilder world thanwe have ever known. And it is the whole effort of the typically modernperson to escape from the street in which he lives. First he inventsmodern hygiene and goes to Margate. Then he invents modern culture andgoes to Florence. Then he invents modern imperialism and goes toTimbuctoo. He goes to the fantastic borders of the earth. He pretendsto shoot tigers. He almost rides on a camel. And in all this he isstill essentially fleeing from the street in which he was born; and ofthis flight he is always ready with his own explanation. He says he isfleeing from his street because it is dull; he is lying. He is reallyfleeing from his street because it is a great deal too exciting. It isexciting because it is exacting; it is exacting because it is alive. Hecan visit Venice because to him the Venetians are only Venetians; thepeople in his own street are men. He can stare at the Chinese becausefor him the Chinese are a passive thing to be stared at; if he staresat the old lady in the next garden, she becomes active. He is forced toflee, in short, from the too stimulating society of his equals--of freemen, perverse, personal, deliberately different from himself. Thestreet in Brixton is too glowing and overpowering. He has to soothe andquiet himself among tigers and vultures, camels and crocodiles. Thesecreatures are indeed very different from himself. But they do not puttheir shape or colour or custom into a decisive intellectualcompetition with his own. They do not seek to destroy his principlesand assert their own; the stranger monsters of the suburban street doseek to do this. The camel does not contort his features into a finesneer because Mr. Robinson has not got a hump; the cultured gentlemanat No. 5 does exhibit a sneer because Robinson has not got a dado. Thevulture will not roar with laughter because a man does not fly; but themajor at No. 9 will roar with laughter because a man does not smoke. The complaint we commonly have to make of our neighbours is that theywill not, as we express it, mind their own business. We do not reallymean that they will not mind their own business. If our neighbours didnot mind their own business they would be asked abruptly for theirrent, and would rapidly cease to be our neighbours. What we really meanwhen we say that they cannot mind their own business is something muchdeeper. We do not dislike them because they have so little force andfire that they cannot be interested in themselves. We dislike thembecause they have so much force and fire that they can be interested inus as well. What we dread about our neighbours, in short, is not thenarrowness of their horizon, but their superb tendency to broaden it. And all aversions to ordinary humanity have this general character. They are not aversions to its feebleness (as is pretended), but to itsenergy. The misanthropes pretend that they despise humanity for itsweakness. As a matter of fact, they hate it for its strength. 

Of course, this shrinking from the brutal vivacity and brutal varietyof common men is a perfectly reasonable and excusable thing as long asit does not pretend to any point of superiority. It is when it callsitself aristocracy or aestheticism or a superiority to the bourgeoisiethat its inherent weakness has in justice to be pointed out. Fastidiousness is the most pardonable of vices; but it is the mostunpardonable of virtues. Nietzsche, who represents most prominentlythis pretentious claim of the fastidious, has a descriptionsomewhere--a very powerful description in the purely literary sense--ofthe disgust and disdain which consume him at the sight of the commonpeople with their common faces, their common voices, and their commonminds. As I have said, this attitude is almost beautiful if we mayregard it as pathetic. Nietzsche's aristocracy has about it all thesacredness that belongs to the weak. When he makes us feel that hecannot endure the innumerable faces, the incessant voices, theoverpowering omnipresence which belongs to the mob, he will have thesympathy of anybody who has ever been sick on a steamer or tired in acrowded omnibus. Every man has hated mankind when he was less than aman. Every man has had humanity in his eyes like a blinding fog, humanity in his nostrils like a suffocating smell. But when Nietzschehas the incredible lack of humour and lack of imagination to ask us tobelieve that his aristocracy is an aristocracy of strong muscles or anaristocracy of strong wills, it is necessary to point out the truth. Itis an aristocracy of weak nerves. 

We make our friends; we make our enemies; but God makes our next-doorneighbour. Hence he comes to us clad in all the careless terrors ofnature; he is as strange as the stars, as reckless and indifferent asthe rain. He is Man, the most terrible of the beasts. That is why theold religions and the old scriptural language showed so sharp a wisdomwhen they spoke, not of one's duty towards humanity, but one's dutytowards one's neighbour. The duty towards humanity may often take theform of some choice which is personal or even pleasurable. That dutymay be a hobby; it may even be a dissipation. We may work in the EastEnd because we are peculiarly fitted to work in the East End, orbecause we think we are; we may fight for the cause of internationalpeace because we are very fond of fighting. The most monstrousmartyrdom, the most repulsive experience, may be the result of choiceor a kind of taste. We may be so made as to be particularly fond oflunatics or specially interested in leprosy. We may love negroesbecause they are black or German Socialists because they are pedantic. But we have to love our neighbour because he is there--a much morealarming reason for a much more serious operation. He is the sample ofhumanity which is actually given us. Precisely because he may beanybody he is everybody. He is a symbol because he is an accident. 

Doubtless men flee from small environments into lands that are verydeadly. But this is natural enough; for they are not fleeing fromdeath. They are fleeing from life. And this principle applies to ringwithin ring of the social system of humanity. It is perfectlyreasonable that men should seek for some particular variety of thehuman type, so long as they are seeking for that variety of the humantype, and not for mere human variety. It is quite proper that a Britishdiplomatist should seek the society of Japanese generals, if what hewants is Japanese generals. But if what he wants is people differentfrom himself, he had much better stop at home and discuss religion withthe housemaid. It is quite reasonable that the village genius shouldcome up to conquer London if what he wants is to conquer London. Butif he wants to conquer something fundamentally and symbolically hostileand also very strong, he had much better remain where he is and have arow with the rector. The man in the suburban street is quite right ifhe goes to Ramsgate for the sake of Ramsgate--a difficult thing toimagine. But if, as he expresses it, he goes to Ramsgate "for achange, " then he would have a much more romantic and even melodramaticchange if he jumped over the wall into his neighbours garden. Theconsequences would be bracing in a sense far beyond the possibilitiesof Ramsgate hygiene. 

Now, exactly as this principle applies to the empire, to the nationwithin the empire, to the city within the nation, to the street withinthe city, so it applies to the home within the street. The institutionof the family is to be commended for precisely the same reasons thatthe institution of the nation, or the institution of the city, are inthis matter to be commended. It is a good thing for a man to live in afamily for the same reason that it is a good thing for a man to bebesieged in a city. It is a good thing for a man to live in a family inthe same sense that it is a beautiful and delightful thing for a man tobe snowed up in a street. They all force him to realize that life isnot a thing from outside, but a thing from inside. Above all, they allinsist upon the fact that life, if it be a truly stimulating andfascinating life, is a thing which, of its nature, exists in spite ofourselves. The modern writers who have suggested, in a more or lessopen manner, that the family is a bad institution, have generallyconfined themselves to suggesting, with much sharpness, bitterness, orpathos, that perhaps the family is not always very congenial. Of coursethe family is a good institution because it is uncongenial. It iswholesome precisely because it contains so many divergencies andvarieties. It is, as the sentimentalists say, like a little kingdom, and, like most other little kingdoms, is generally in a state ofsomething resembling anarchy. It is exactly because our brother Georgeis not interested in our religious difficulties, but is interested inthe Trocadero Restaurant, that the family has some of the bracingqualities of the commonwealth. It is precisely because our uncle Henrydoes not approve of the theatrical ambitions of our sister Sarah thatthe family is like humanity. The men and women who, for good reasonsand bad, revolt against the family, are, for good reasons and bad, simply revolting against mankind. Aunt Elizabeth is unreasonable, likemankind. Papa is excitable, like mankind Our youngest brother ismischievous, like mankind. Grandpapa is stupid, like the world; he isold, like the world. 

Those who wish, rightly or wrongly, to step out of all this, dodefinitely wish to step into a narrower world. They are dismayed andterrified by the largeness and variety of the family. Sarah wishes tofind a world wholly consisting of private theatricals; George wishes tothink the Trocadero a cosmos. I do not say, for a moment, that theflight to this narrower life may not be the right thing for theindividual, any more than I say the same thing about flight into amonastery. But I do say that anything is bad and artificial whichtends to make these people succumb to the strange delusion that theyare stepping into a world which is actually larger and more varied thantheir own. The best way that a man could test his readiness toencounter the common variety of mankind would be to climb down achimney into any house at random, and get on as well as possible withthe people inside. And that is essentially what each one of us did onthe day that he was born. 

This is, indeed, the sublime and special romance of the family. It isromantic because it is a toss-up. It is romantic because it iseverything that its enemies call it. It is romantic because it isarbitrary. It is romantic because it is there. So long as you havegroups of men chosen rationally, you have some special or sectarianatmosphere. It is when you have groups of men chosen irrationally thatyou have men. The element of adventure begins to exist; for anadventure is, by its nature, a thing that comes to us. It is a thingthat chooses us, not a thing that we choose. Falling in love has beenoften regarded as the supreme adventure, the supreme romantic accident. In so much as there is in it something outside ourselves, something ofa sort of merry fatalism, this is very true. Love does take us andtransfigure and torture us. It does break our hearts with anunbearable beauty, like the unbearable beauty of music. But in so faras we have certainly something to do with the matter; in so far as weare in some sense prepared to fall in love and in some sense jump intoit; in so far as we do to some extent choose and to some extent evenjudge--in all this falling in love is not truly romantic, is not trulyadventurous at all. In this degree the supreme adventure is notfalling in love. The supreme adventure is being born. There we do walksuddenly into a splendid and startling trap. There we do see somethingof which we have not dreamed before. Our father and mother do lie inwait for us and leap out on us, like brigands from a bush. Our uncleis a surprise. Our aunt is, in the beautiful common expression, a boltfrom the blue. When we step into the family, by the act of being born, we do step into a world which is incalculable, into a world which hasits own strange laws, into a world which could do without us, into aworld that we have not made. In other words, when we step into thefamily we step into a fairy-tale. 

This colour as of a fantastic narrative ought to cling to the familyand to our relations with it throughout life. Romance is the deepestthing in life; romance is deeper even than reality. For even ifreality could be proved to be misleading, it still could not be provedto be unimportant or unimpressive. Even if the facts are false, theyare still very strange. And this strangeness of life, this unexpectedand even perverse element of things as they fall out, remains incurablyinteresting. The circumstances we can regulate may become tame orpessimistic; but the "circumstances over which we have no control"remain god-like to those who, like Mr. Micawber, can call on them andrenew their strength. People wonder why the novel is the most popularform of literature; people wonder why it is read more than books ofscience or books of metaphysics. The reason is very simple; it ismerely that the novel is more true than they are. Life may sometimeslegitimately appear as a book of science. Life may sometimes appear, and with a much greater legitimacy, as a book of metaphysics. But lifeis always a novel. Our existence may cease to be a song; it may ceaseeven to be a beautiful lament. Our existence may not be an intelligiblejustice, or even a recognizable wrong. But our existence is still astory. In the fiery alphabet of every sunset is written, "to becontinued in our next. " If we have sufficient intellect, we can finisha philosophical and exact deduction, and be certain that we arefinishing it right. With the adequate brain-power we could finish anyscientific discovery, and be certain that we were finishing it right. But not with the most gigantic intellect could we finish the simplestor silliest story, and be certain that we were finishing it right. Thatis because a story has behind it, not merely intellect which is partlymechanical, but will, which is in its essence divine. The narrativewriter can send his hero to the gallows if he likes in the last chapterbut one. He can do it by the same divine caprice whereby he, theauthor, can go to the gallows himself, and to hell afterwards if hechooses. And the same civilization, the chivalric Europeancivilization which asserted freewill in the thirteenth century, produced the thing called "fiction" in the eighteenth. When ThomasAquinas asserted the spiritual liberty of man, he created all the badnovels in the circulating libraries. 

But in order that life should be a story or romance to us, it isnecessary that a great part of it, at any rate, should be settled forus without our permission. If we wish life to be a system, this may bea nuisance; but if we wish it to be a drama, it is an essential. Itmay often happen, no doubt, that a drama may be written by somebodyelse which we like very little. But we should like it still less if theauthor came before the curtain every hour or so, and forced on us thewhole trouble of inventing the next act. A man has control over manythings in his life; he has control over enough things to be the hero ofa novel. But if he had control over everything, there would be so muchhero that there would be no novel. And the reason why the lives of therich are at bottom so tame and uneventful is simply that they canchoose the events. They are dull because they are omnipotent. Theyfail to feel adventures because they can make the adventures. The thingwhich keeps life romantic and full of fiery possibilities is theexistence of these great plain limitations which force all of us tomeet the things we do not like or do not expect. It is vain for thesupercilious moderns to talk of being in uncongenial surroundings. Tobe in a romance is to be in uncongenial surroundings. To be born intothis earth is to be born into uncongenial surroundings, hence to beborn into a romance. Of all these great limitations and frameworkswhich fashion and create the poetry and variety of life, the family isthe most definite and important. Hence it is misunderstood by themoderns, who imagine that romance would exist most perfectly in acomplete state of what they call liberty. They think that if a manmakes a gesture it would be a startling and romantic matter that thesun should fall from the sky. But the startling and romantic thingabout the sun is that it does not fall from the sky. They are seekingunder every shape and form a world where there are no limitations--thatis, a world where there are no outlines; that is, a world where thereare no shapes. There is nothing baser than that infinity. They saythey wish to be, as strong as the universe, but they really wish thewhole universe as weak as themselves. 

XV On Smart Novelists and the Smart Set

In one sense, at any rate, it is more valuable to read bad literaturethan good literature. Good literature may tell us the mind of one man;but bad literature may tell us the mind of many men. A good novel tellsus the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth aboutits author. It does much more than that, it tells us the truth aboutits readers; and, oddly enough, it tells us this all the more the morecynical and immoral be the motive of its manufacture. The moredishonest a book is as a book the more honest it is as a publicdocument. A sincere novel exhibits the simplicity of one particularman; an insincere novel exhibits the simplicity of mankind. Thepedantic decisions and definable readjustments of man may be found inscrolls and statute books and scriptures; but men's basic assumptionsand everlasting energies are to be found in penny dreadfuls andhalfpenny novelettes. Thus a man, like many men of real culture in ourday, might learn from good literature nothing except the power toappreciate good literature. But from bad literature he might learn togovern empires and look over the map of mankind. 

There is one rather interesting example of this state of things inwhich the weaker literature is really the stronger and the stronger theweaker. It is the case of what may be called, for the sake of anapproximate description, the literature of aristocracy; or, if youprefer the description, the literature of snobbishness. Now if any onewishes to find a really effective and comprehensible and permanent casefor aristocracy well and sincerely stated, let him read, not the modernphilosophical conservatives, not even Nietzsche, let him read the BowBells Novelettes. Of the case of Nietzsche I am confessedly moredoubtful. Nietzsche and the Bow Bells Novelettes have both obviouslythe same fundamental character; they both worship the tall man withcurling moustaches and herculean bodily power, and they both worshiphim in a manner which is somewhat feminine and hysterical. Even here, however, the Novelette easily maintains its philosophical superiority, because it does attribute to the strong man those virtues which docommonly belong to him, such virtues as laziness and kindliness and arather reckless benevolence, and a great dislike of hurting the weak. Nietzsche, on the other hand, attributes to the strong man that scornagainst weakness which only exists among invalids. It is not, however, of the secondary merits of the great German philosopher, but of theprimary merits of the Bow Bells Novelettes, that it is my presentaffair to speak. The picture of aristocracy in the popular sentimentalnovelette seems to me very satisfactory as a permanent political andphilosophical guide. It may be inaccurate about details such as thetitle by which a baronet is addressed or the width of a mountain chasmwhich a baronet can conveniently leap, but it is not a bad descriptionof the general idea and intention of aristocracy as they exist in humanaffairs. The essential dream of aristocracy is magnificence and valour;and if the Family Herald Supplement sometimes distorts or exaggeratesthese things, at least, it does not fall short in them. It never errsby making the mountain chasm too narrow or the title of the baronetinsufficiently impressive. But above this sane reliable old literatureof snobbishness there has arisen in our time another kind of literatureof snobbishness which, with its much higher pretensions, seems to meworthy of very much less respect. Incidentally (if that matters), itis much better literature. But it is immeasurably worse philosophy, immeasurably worse ethics and politics, immeasurably worse vitalrendering of aristocracy and humanity as they really are. From suchbooks as those of which I wish now to speak we can discover what aclever man can do with the idea of aristocracy. But from the FamilyHerald Supplement literature we can learn what the idea of aristocracycan do with a man who is not clever. And when we know that we knowEnglish history. 

This new aristocratic fiction must have caught the attention ofeverybody who has read the best fiction for the last fifteen years. Itis that genuine or alleged literature of the Smart Set which representsthat set as distinguished, not only by smart dresses, but by smartsayings. To the bad baronet, to the good baronet, to the romantic andmisunderstood baronet who is supposed to be a bad baronet, but is agood baronet, this school has added a conception undreamed of in theformer years--the conception of an amusing baronet. The aristocrat isnot merely to be taller than mortal men and stronger and handsomer, heis also to be more witty. He is the long man with the short epigram. Many eminent, and deservedly eminent, modern novelists must accept someresponsibility for having supported this worst form of snobbishness--anintellectual snobbishness. The talented author of "Dodo" isresponsible for having in some sense created the fashion as a fashion. Mr. Hichens, in the "Green Carnation, " reaffirmed the strange idea thatyoung noblemen talk well; though his case had some vague biographicalfoundation, and in consequence an excuse. Mrs. Craigie is considerablyguilty in the matter, although, or rather because, she has combined thearistocratic note with a note of some moral and even religioussincerity. When you are saving a man's soul, even in a novel, it isindecent to mention that he is a gentleman. Nor can blame in thismatter be altogether removed from a man of much greater ability, and aman who has proved his possession of the highest of human instinct, theromantic instinct--I mean Mr. Anthony Hope. In a galloping, impossiblemelodrama like "The Prisoner of Zenda, " the blood of kings fanned anexcellent fantastic thread or theme. But the blood of kings is not athing that can be taken seriously. And when, for example, Mr. Hopedevotes so much serious and sympathetic study to the man calledTristram of Blent, a man who throughout burning boyhood thought ofnothing but a silly old estate, we feel even in Mr. Hope the hint ofthis excessive concern about the oligarchic idea. It is hard for anyordinary person to feel so much interest in a young man whose whole aimis to own the house of Blent at the time when every other young man isowning the stars. 

Mr. Hope, however, is a very mild case, and in him there is not only anelement of romance, but also a fine element of irony which warns usagainst taking all this elegance too seriously. Above all, he shows hissense in not making his noblemen so incredibly equipped with imprompturepartee. This habit of insisting on the wit of the wealthier classesis the last and most servile of all the servilities. It is, as I havesaid, immeasurably more contemptible than the snobbishness of thenovelette which describes the nobleman as smiling like an Apollo orriding a mad elephant. These may be exaggerations of beauty andcourage, but beauty and courage are the unconscious ideals ofaristocrats, even of stupid aristocrats. 

The nobleman of the novelette may not be sketched with any very closeor conscientious attention to the daily habits of noblemen. But he issomething more important than a reality; he is a practical ideal. Thegentleman of fiction may not copy the gentleman of real life; but thegentleman of real life is copying the gentleman of fiction. He may notbe particularly good-looking, but he would rather be good-looking thananything else; he may not have ridden on a mad elephant, but he rides apony as far as possible with an air as if he had. And, upon the whole, the upper class not only especially desire these qualities of beautyand courage, but in some degree, at any rate, especially possess them. Thus there is nothing really mean or sycophantic about the popularliterature which makes all its marquises seven feet high. It issnobbish, but it is not servile. Its exaggeration is based on anexuberant and honest admiration; its honest admiration is based uponsomething which is in some degree, at any rate, really there. TheEnglish lower classes do not fear the English upper classes in theleast; nobody could. They simply and freely and sentimentally worshipthem. The strength of the aristocracy is not in the aristocracy at all;it is in the slums. It is not in the House of Lords; it is not in theCivil Service; it is not in the Government offices; it is not even inthe huge and disproportionate monopoly of the English land. It is in acertain spirit. It is in the fact that when a navvy wishes to praise aman, it comes readily to his tongue to say that he has behaved like agentleman. From a democratic point of view he might as well say thathe had behaved like a viscount. The oligarchic character of the modernEnglish commonwealth does not rest, like many oligarchies, on thecruelty of the rich to the poor. It does not even rest on the kindnessof the rich to the poor. It rests on the perennial and unfailingkindness of the poor to the rich. 

The snobbishness of bad literature, then, is not servile; but thesnobbishness of good literature is servile. The old-fashionedhalfpenny romance where the duchesses sparkled with diamonds was notservile; but the new romance where they sparkle with epigrams isservile. For in thus attributing a special and startling degree ofintellect and conversational or controversial power to the upperclasses, we are attributing something which is not especially theirvirtue or even especially their aim. We are, in the words of Disraeli(who, being a genius and not a gentleman, has perhaps primarily toanswer for the introduction of this method of flattering the gentry), we are performing the essential function of flattery which isflattering the people for the qualities they have not got. Praise maybe gigantic and insane without having any quality of flattery so longas it is praise of something that is noticeably in existence. A manmay say that a giraffe's head strikes the stars, or that a whale fillsthe German Ocean, and still be only in a rather excited state about afavourite animal. But when he begins to congratulate the giraffe on hisfeathers, and the whale on the elegance of his legs, we find ourselvesconfronted with that social element which we call flattery. The middleand lower orders of London can sincerely, though not perhaps safely, admire the health and grace of the English aristocracy. And this forthe very simple reason that the aristocrats are, upon the whole, morehealthy and graceful than the poor. But they cannot honestly admire thewit of the aristocrats. And this for the simple reason that thearistocrats are not more witty than the poor, but a very great dealless so. A man does not hear, as in the smart novels, these gems ofverbal felicity dropped between diplomatists at dinner. Where hereally does hear them is between two omnibus conductors in a block inHolborn. The witty peer whose impromptus fill the books of Mrs. Craigie or Miss Fowler, would, as a matter of fact, be torn to shredsin the art of conversation by the first boot-black he had themisfortune to fall foul of. The poor are merely sentimental, and veryexcusably sentimental, if they praise the gentleman for having a readyhand and ready money. But they are strictly slaves and sycophants ifthey praise him for having a ready tongue. For that they have far morethemselves. 

The element of oligarchical sentiment in these novels, however, has, Ithink, another and subtler aspect, an aspect more difficult tounderstand and more worth understanding. The modern gentleman, particularly the modern English gentleman, has become so central andimportant in these books, and through them in the whole of our currentliterature and our current mode of thought, that certain qualities ofhis, whether original or recent, essential or accidental, have alteredthe quality of our English comedy. In particular, that stoical ideal, absurdly supposed to be the English ideal, has stiffened and chilledus. It is not the English ideal; but it is to some extent thearistocratic ideal; or it may be only the ideal of aristocracy in itsautumn or decay. The gentleman is a Stoic because he is a sort ofsavage, because he is filled with a great elemental fear that somestranger will speak to him. That is why a third-class carriage is acommunity, while a first-class carriage is a place of wild hermits. Butthis matter, which is difficult, I may be permitted to approach in amore circuitous way. 

The haunting element of ineffectualness which runs through so much ofthe witty and epigrammatic fiction fashionable during the last eight orten years, which runs through such works of a real though varyingingenuity as "Dodo, " or "Concerning Isabel Carnaby, " or even "SomeEmotions and a Moral, " may be expressed in various ways, but to most ofus I think it will ultimately amount to the same thing. This newfrivolity is inadequate because there is in it no strong sense of anunuttered joy. The men and women who exchange the repartees may notonly be hating each other, but hating even themselves. Any one of themmight be bankrupt that day, or sentenced to be shot the next. They arejoking, not because they are merry, but because they are not; out ofthe emptiness of the heart the mouth speaketh. Even when they talk purenonsense it is a careful nonsense--a nonsense of which they areeconomical, or, to use the perfect expression of Mr. W. S. Gilbert in"Patience, " it is such "precious nonsense. " Even when they becomelight-headed they do not become light-hearted. All those who have readanything of the rationalism of the moderns know that their Reason is asad thing. But even their unreason is sad. 

The causes of this incapacity are also not very difficult to indicate. The chief of all, of course, is that miserable fear of beingsentimental, which is the meanest of all the modern terrors--meanereven than the terror which produces hygiene. Everywhere the robust anduproarious humour has come from the men who were capable not merely ofsentimentalism, but a very silly sentimentalism. There has been nohumour so robust or uproarious as that of the sentimentalist Steele orthe sentimentalist Sterne or the sentimentalist Dickens. Thesecreatures who wept like women were the creatures who laughed like men. It is true that the humour of Micawber is good literature and that thepathos of little Nell is bad. But the kind of man who had the courageto write so badly in the one case is the kind of man who would have thecourage to write so well in the other. The same unconsciousness, thesame violent innocence, the same gigantesque scale of action whichbrought the Napoleon of Comedy his Jena brought him also his Moscow. And herein is especially shown the frigid and feeble limitations of ourmodern wits. They make violent efforts, they make heroic and almostpathetic efforts, but they cannot really write badly. There aremoments when we almost think that they are achieving the effect, butour hope shrivels to nothing the moment we compare their littlefailures with the enormous imbecilities of Byron or Shakespeare. 

For a hearty laugh it is necessary to have touched the heart. I do notknow why touching the heart should always be connected only with theidea of touching it to compassion or a sense of distress. The heart canbe touched to joy and triumph; the heart can be touched to amusement. But all our comedians are tragic comedians. These later fashionablewriters are so pessimistic in bone and marrow that they never seem ableto imagine the heart having any concern with mirth. When they speak ofthe heart, they always mean the pangs and disappointments of theemotional life. When they say that a man's heart is in the right place, they mean, apparently, that it is in his boots. Our ethical societiesunderstand fellowship, but they do not understand good fellowship. Similarly, our wits understand talk, but not what Dr. Johnson called agood talk. In order to have, like Dr. Johnson, a good talk, it isemphatically necessary to be, like Dr. Johnson, a good man--to havefriendship and honour and an abysmal tenderness. Above all, it isnecessary to be openly and indecently humane, to confess with fulnessall the primary pities and fears of Adam. Johnson was a clear-headedhumorous man, and therefore he did not mind talking seriously aboutreligion. Johnson was a brave man, one of the bravest that everwalked, and therefore he did not mind avowing to any one his consumingfear of death. 

The idea that there is something English in the repression of one'sfeelings is one of those ideas which no Englishman ever heard of untilEngland began to be governed exclusively by Scotchmen, Americans, andJews. At the best, the idea is a generalization from the Duke ofWellington--who was an Irishman. At the worst, it is a part of thatsilly Teutonism which knows as little about England as it does aboutanthropology, but which is always talking about Vikings. As a matter offact, the Vikings did not repress their feelings in the least. Theycried like babies and kissed each other like girls; in short, theyacted in that respect like Achilles and all strong heroes the childrenof the gods. And though the English nationality has probably not muchmore to do with the Vikings than the French nationality or the Irishnationality, the English have certainly been the children of theVikings in the matter of tears and kisses. It is not merely true thatall the most typically English men of letters, like Shakespeare andDickens, Richardson and Thackeray, were sentimentalists. It is alsotrue that all the most typically English men of action weresentimentalists, if possible, more sentimental. In the greatElizabethan age, when the English nation was finally hammered out, inthe great eighteenth century when the British Empire was being built upeverywhere, where in all these times, where was this symbolic stoicalEnglishman who dresses in drab and black and represses his feelings?Were all the Elizabethan palladins and pirates like that? Were any ofthem like that? Was Grenville concealing his emotions when he brokewine-glasses to pieces with his teeth and bit them till the bloodpoured down? Was Essex restraining his excitement when he threw his hatinto the sea? Did Raleigh think it sensible to answer the Spanish gunsonly, as Stevenson says, with a flourish of insulting trumpets? DidSydney ever miss an opportunity of making a theatrical remark in thewhole course of his life and death? Were even the Puritans Stoics? TheEnglish Puritans repressed a good deal, but even they were too Englishto repress their feelings. It was by a great miracle of geniusassuredly that Carlyle contrived to admire simultaneously two things soirreconcilably opposed as silence and Oliver Cromwell. Cromwell was thevery reverse of a strong, silent man. Cromwell was always talking, whenhe was not crying. Nobody, I suppose, will accuse the author of "GraceAbounding" of being ashamed of his feelings. Milton, indeed, it mightbe possible to represent as a Stoic; in some sense he was a Stoic, justas he was a prig and a polygamist and several other unpleasant andheathen things. But when we have passed that great and desolate name, which may really be counted an exception, we find the tradition ofEnglish emotionalism immediately resumed and unbrokenly continuous. Whatever may have been the moral beauty of the passions of Etheridgeand Dorset, Sedley and Buckingham, they cannot be accused of the faultof fastidiously concealing them. Charles the Second was very popularwith the English because, like all the jolly English kings, hedisplayed his passions. William the Dutchman was very unpopular withthe English because, not being an Englishman, he did hide his emotions. He was, in fact, precisely the ideal Englishman of our modern theory;and precisely for that reason all the real Englishmen loathed him likeleprosy. With the rise of the great England of the eighteenth century, we find this open and emotional tone still maintained in letters andpolitics, in arts and in arms. Perhaps the only quality which waspossessed in common by the great Fielding, and the great Richardson wasthat neither of them hid their feelings. Swift, indeed, was hard andlogical, because Swift was Irish. And when we pass to the soldiers andthe rulers, the patriots and the empire-builders of the eighteenthcentury, we find, as I have said, that they were, If possible, moreromantic than the romancers, more poetical than the poets. Chatham, who showed the world all his strength, showed the House of Commons allhis weakness. Wolfe walked about the room with a drawn sword callinghimself Caesar and Hannibal, and went to death with poetry in hismouth. Clive was a man of the same type as Cromwell or Bunyan, or, forthe matter of that, Johnson--that is, he was a strong, sensible manwith a kind of running spring of hysteria and melancholy in him. LikeJohnson, he was all the more healthy because he was morbid. The talesof all the admirals and adventurers of that England are full ofbraggadocio, of sentimentality, of splendid affectation. But it isscarcely necessary to multiply examples of the essentially romanticEnglishman when one example towers above them all. Mr. Rudyard Kiplinghas said complacently of the English, "We do not fall on the neck andkiss when we come together. " It is true that this ancient and universalcustom has vanished with the modern weakening of England. Sydney wouldhave thought nothing of kissing Spenser. But I willingly concede thatMr. Broderick would not be likely to kiss Mr. Arnold-Foster, if that beany proof of the increased manliness and military greatness of England. But the Englishman who does not show his feelings has not altogethergiven up the power of seeing something English in the great sea-hero ofthe Napoleonic war. You cannot break the legend of Nelson. And acrossthe sunset of that glory is written in flaming letters for ever thegreat English sentiment, "Kiss me, Hardy. "

This ideal of self-repression, then, is, whatever else it is, notEnglish. It is, perhaps, somewhat Oriental, it is slightly Prussian, but in the main it does not come, I think, from any racial or nationalsource. It is, as I have said, in some sense aristocratic; it comes notfrom a people, but from a class. Even aristocracy, I think, was notquite so stoical in the days when it was really strong. But whetherthis unemotional ideal be the genuine tradition of the gentleman, oronly one of the inventions of the modern gentleman (who may be calledthe decayed gentleman), it certainly has something to do with theunemotional quality in these society novels. From representingaristocrats as people who suppressed their feelings, it has been aneasy step to representing aristocrats as people who had no feelings tosuppress. Thus the modern oligarchist has made a virtue for theoligarchy of the hardness as well as the brightness of the diamond. Like a sonneteer addressing his lady in the seventeenth century, heseems to use the word "cold" almost as a eulogium, and the word"heartless" as a kind of compliment. Of course, in people so incurablykind-hearted and babyish as are the English gentry, it would beimpossible to create anything that can be called positive cruelty; soin these books they exhibit a sort of negative cruelty. They cannot becruel in acts, but they can be so in words. All this means one thing, and one thing only. It means that the living and invigorating ideal ofEngland must be looked for in the masses; it must be looked for whereDickens found it--Dickens among whose glories it was to be a humorist, to be a sentimentalist, to be an optimist, to be a poor man, to be anEnglishman, but the greatest of whose glories was that he saw allmankind in its amazing and tropical luxuriance, and did not even noticethe aristocracy; Dickens, the greatest of whose glories was that hecould not describe a gentleman. 

XVI On Mr. McCabe and a Divine Frivolity

A critic once remonstrated with me saying, with an air of indignantreasonableness, "If you must make jokes, at least you need not makethem on such serious subjects. " I replied with a natural simplicityand wonder, "About what other subjects can one make jokes exceptserious subjects?" It is quite useless to talk about profane jesting. All jesting is in its nature profane, in the sense that it must be thesudden realization that something which thinks itself solemn is not sovery solemn after all. If a joke is not a joke about religion ormorals, it is a joke about police-magistrates or scientific professorsor undergraduates dressed up as Queen Victoria. And people joke aboutthe police-magistrate more than they joke about the Pope, not becausethe police-magistrate is a more frivolous subject, but, on thecontrary, because the police-magistrate is a more serious subject thanthe Pope. The Bishop of Rome has no jurisdiction in this realm ofEngland; whereas the police-magistrate may bring his solemnity to bearquite suddenly upon us. Men make jokes about old scientificprofessors, even more than they make them about bishops--not becausescience is lighter than religion, but because science is always by itsnature more solemn and austere than religion. It is not I; it is noteven a particular class of journalists or jesters who make jokes aboutthe matters which are of most awful import; it is the whole human race. If there is one thing more than another which any one will admit whohas the smallest knowledge of the world, it is that men are alwaysspeaking gravely and earnestly and with the utmost possible care aboutthe things that are not important, but always talking frivolously aboutthe things that are. Men talk for hours with the faces of a college ofcardinals about things like golf, or tobacco, or waistcoats, or partypolitics. But all the most grave and dreadful things in the world arethe oldest jokes in the world--being married; being hanged. 

One gentleman, however, Mr. McCabe, has in this matter made to mesomething that almost amounts to a personal appeal; and as he happensto be a man for whose sincerity and intellectual virtue I have a highrespect, I do not feel inclined to let it pass without some attempt tosatisfy my critic in the matter. Mr. McCabe devotes a considerable partof the last essay in the collection called "Christianity andRationalism on Trial" to an objection, not to my thesis, but to mymethod, and a very friendly and dignified appeal to me to alter it. Iam much inclined to defend myself in this matter out of mere respectfor Mr. McCabe, and still more so out of mere respect for the truthwhich is, I think, in danger by his error, not only in this question, but in others. In order that there may be no injustice done in thematter, I will quote Mr. McCabe himself. "But before I follow Mr. Chesterton in some detail I would make a general observation on hismethod. He is as serious as I am in his ultimate purpose, and I respecthim for that. He knows, as I do, that humanity stands at a solemnparting of the ways. Towards some unknown goal it presses through theages, impelled by an overmastering desire of happiness. To-day ithesitates, lightheartedly enough, but every serious thinker knows howmomentous the decision may be. It is, apparently, deserting the pathof religion and entering upon the path of secularism. Will it loseitself in quagmires of sensuality down this new path, and pant and toilthrough years of civic and industrial anarchy, only to learn it hadlost the road, and must return to religion? Or will it find that atlast it is leaving the mists and the quagmires behind it; that it isascending the slope of the hill so long dimly discerned ahead, andmaking straight for the long-sought Utopia? This is the drama of ourtime, and every man and every woman should understand it. 

"Mr. Chesterton understands it. Further, he gives us credit forunderstanding it. He has nothing of that paltry meanness or strangedensity of so many of his colleagues, who put us down as aimlessiconoclasts or moral anarchists. He admits that we are waging athankless war for what we take to be Truth and Progress. He is doingthe same. But why, in the name of all that is reasonable, should we, when we are agreed on the momentousness of the issue either way, forthwith desert serious methods of conducting the controversy? Why, when the vital need of our time is to induce men and women to collecttheir thoughts occasionally, and be men and women--nay, to rememberthat they are really gods that hold the destinies of humanity on theirknees--why should we think that this kaleidoscopic play of phrases isinopportune? The ballets of the Alhambra, and the fireworks of theCrystal Palace, and Mr. Chesterton's Daily News articles, have theirplace in life. But how a serious social student can think of curing thethoughtlessness of our generation by strained paradoxes; of givingpeople a sane grasp of social problems by literary sleight-of-hand; ofsettling important questions by a reckless shower of rocket-metaphorsand inaccurate 'facts, ' and the substitution of imagination forjudgment, I cannot see. "

I quote this passage with a particular pleasure, because Mr. McCabecertainly cannot put too strongly the degree to which I give him andhis school credit for their complete sincerity and responsibility ofphilosophical attitude. I am quite certain that they mean every wordthey say. I also mean every word I say. But why is it that Mr. McCabehas some sort of mysterious hesitation about admitting that I meanevery word I say; why is it that he is not quite as certain of mymental responsibility as I am of his mental responsibility? If weattempt to answer the question directly and well, we shall, I think, have come to the root of the matter by the shortest cut. 

Mr. McCabe thinks that I am not serious but only funny, because Mr. McCabe thinks that funny is the opposite of serious. Funny is theopposite of not funny, and of nothing else. The question of whether aman expresses himself in a grotesque or laughable phraseology, or in astately and restrained phraseology, is not a question of motive or ofmoral state, it is a question of instinctive language andself-expression. Whether a man chooses to tell the truth in longsentences or short jokes is a problem analogous to whether he choosesto tell the truth in French or German. Whether a man preaches hisgospel grotesquely or gravely is merely like the question of whether hepreaches it in prose or verse. The question of whether Swift was funnyin his irony is quite another sort of question to the question ofwhether Swift was serious in his pessimism. Surely even Mr. McCabewould not maintain that the more funny "Gulliver" is in its method theless it can be sincere in its object. The truth is, as I have said, that in this sense the two qualities of fun and seriousness havenothing whatever to do with each other, they are no more comparablethan black and triangular. Mr. Bernard Shaw is funny and sincere. Mr. George Robey is funny and not sincere. Mr. McCabe is sincere and notfunny. The average Cabinet Minister is not sincere and not funny. 

In short, Mr. McCabe is under the influence of a primary fallacy whichI have found very common in men of the clerical type. Numbers ofclergymen have from time to time reproached me for making jokes aboutreligion; and they have almost always invoked the authority of thatvery sensible commandment which says, "Thou shalt not take the name ofthe Lord thy God in vain. " Of course, I pointed out that I was not inany conceivable sense taking the name in vain. To take a thing andmake a joke out of it is not to take it in vain. It is, on thecontrary, to take it and use it for an uncommonly good object. To usea thing in vain means to use it without use. But a joke may beexceedingly useful; it may contain the whole earthly sense, not tomention the whole heavenly sense, of a situation. And those who findin the Bible the commandment can find in the Bible any number of thejokes. In the same book in which God's name is fenced from being takenin vain, God himself overwhelms Job with a torrent of terriblelevities. The same book which says that God's name must not be takenvainly, talks easily and carelessly about God laughing and God winking. Evidently it is not here that we have to look for genuine examples ofwhat is meant by a vain use of the name. And it is not very difficultto see where we have really to look for it. The people (as I tactfullypointed out to them) who really take the name of the Lord in vain arethe clergymen themselves. The thing which is fundamentally and reallyfrivolous is not a careless joke. The thing which is fundamentally andreally frivolous is a careless solemnity. If Mr. McCabe really wishesto know what sort of guarantee of reality and solidity is afforded bythe mere act of what is called talking seriously, let him spend a happySunday in going the round of the pulpits. Or, better still, let himdrop in at the House of Commons or the House of Lords. Even Mr. McCabewould admit that these men are solemn--more solemn than I am. And evenMr. McCabe, I think, would admit that these men are frivolous--morefrivolous than I am. Why should Mr. McCabe be so eloquent about thedanger arising from fantastic and paradoxical writers? Why should he beso ardent in desiring grave and verbose writers? There are not so verymany fantastic and paradoxical writers. But there are a gigantic numberof grave and verbose writers; and it is by the efforts of the grave andverbose writers that everything that Mr. McCabe detests (and everythingthat I detest, for that matter) is kept in existence and energy. Howcan it have come about that a man as intelligent as Mr. McCabe canthink that paradox and jesting stop the way? It is solemnity that isstopping the way in every department of modern effort. It is his ownfavourite "serious methods;" it is his own favourite "momentousness;"it is his own favourite "judgment" which stops the way everywhere. Every man who has ever headed a deputation to a minister knows this. Every man who has ever written a letter to the Times knows it. Everyrich man who wishes to stop the mouths of the poor talks about"momentousness. " Every Cabinet minister who has not got an answersuddenly develops a "judgment. " Every sweater who uses vile methodsrecommends "serious methods. " I said a moment ago that sincerity hadnothing to do with solemnity, but I confess that I am not so certainthat I was right. In the modern world, at any rate, I am not so surethat I was right. In the modern world solemnity is the direct enemy ofsincerity. In the modern world sincerity is almost always on one side, and solemnity almost always on the other. The only answer possible tothe fierce and glad attack of sincerity is the miserable answer ofsolemnity. Let Mr. McCabe, or any one else who is much concerned thatwe should be grave in order to be sincere, simply imagine the scene insome government office in which Mr. Bernard Shaw should head aSocialist deputation to Mr. Austen Chamberlain. On which side would bethe solemnity? And on which the sincerity?

I am, indeed, delighted to discover that Mr. McCabe reckons Mr. Shawalong with me in his system of condemnation of frivolity. He said once, I believe, that he always wanted Mr. Shaw to label his paragraphsserious or comic. I do not know which paragraphs of Mr. Shaw areparagraphs to be labelled serious; but surely there can be no doubtthat this paragraph of Mr. McCabe's is one to be labelled comic. Healso says, in the article I am now discussing, that Mr. Shaw has thereputation of deliberately saying everything which his hearers do notexpect him to say. I need not labour the inconclusiveness and weaknessof this, because it has already been dealt with in my remarks on Mr. Bernard Shaw. Suffice it to say here that the only serious reason whichI can imagine inducing any one person to listen to any other is, thatthe first person looks to the second person with an ardent faith and afixed attention, expecting him to say what he does not expect him tosay. It may be a paradox, but that is because paradoxes are true. Itmay not be rational, but that is because rationalism is wrong. Butclearly it is quite true that whenever we go to hear a prophet orteacher we may or may not expect wit, we may or may not expecteloquence, but we do expect what we do not expect. We may not expectthe true, we may not even expect the wise, but we do expect theunexpected. If we do not expect the unexpected, why do we go there atall? If we expect the expected, why do we not sit at home and expect itby ourselves? If Mr. McCabe means merely this about Mr. Shaw, that healways has some unexpected application of his doctrine to give to thosewho listen to him, what he says is quite true, and to say it is only tosay that Mr. Shaw is an original man. But if he means that Mr. Shaw hasever professed or preached any doctrine but one, and that his own, thenwhat he says is not true. It is not my business to defend Mr. Shaw; ashas been seen already, I disagree with him altogether. But I do notmind, on his behalf offering in this matter a flat defiance to all hisordinary opponents, such as Mr. McCabe. I defy Mr. McCabe, or anybodyelse, to mention one single instance in which Mr. Shaw has, for thesake of wit or novelty, taken up any position which was not directlydeducible from the body of his doctrine as elsewhere expressed. I havebeen, I am happy to say, a tolerably close student of Mr. Shaw'sutterances, and I request Mr. McCabe, if he will not believe that Imean anything else, to believe that I mean this challenge. 

All this, however, is a parenthesis. The thing with which I am hereimmediately concerned is Mr. McCabe's appeal to me not to be sofrivolous. Let me return to the actual text of that appeal. There are, of course, a great many things that I might say about it in detail. ButI may start with saying that Mr. McCabe is in error in supposing thatthe danger which I anticipate from the disappearance of religion is theincrease of sensuality. On the contrary, I should be inclined toanticipate a decrease in sensuality, because I anticipate a decrease inlife. I do not think that under modern Western materialism we shouldhave anarchy. I doubt whether we should have enough individual valourand spirit even to have liberty. It is quite an old-fashioned fallacyto suppose that our objection to scepticism is that it removes thediscipline from life. Our objection to scepticism is that it removesthe motive power. Materialism is not a thing which destroys mererestraint. Materialism itself is the great restraint. The McCabeschool advocates a political liberty, but it denies spiritual liberty. That is, it abolishes the laws which could be broken, and substituteslaws that cannot. And that is the real slavery. 

The truth is that the scientific civilization in which Mr. McCabebelieves has one rather particular defect; it is perpetually tending todestroy that democracy or power of the ordinary man in which Mr. McCabealso believes. Science means specialism, and specialism meansoligarchy. If you once establish the habit of trusting particular mento produce particular results in physics or astronomy, you leave thedoor open for the equally natural demand that you should trustparticular men to do particular things in government and the coercingof men. If, you feel it to be reasonable that one beetle should be theonly study of one man, and that one man the only student of that onebeetle, it is surely a very harmless consequence to go on to say thatpolitics should be the only study of one man, and that one man the onlystudent of politics. As I have pointed out elsewhere in this book, theexpert is more aristocratic than the aristocrat, because the aristocratis only the man who lives well, while the expert is the man who knowsbetter. But if we look at the progress of our scientific civilizationwe see a gradual increase everywhere of the specialist over the popularfunction. Once men sang together round a table in chorus; now one mansings alone, for the absurd reason that he can sing better. Ifscientific civilization goes on (which is most improbable) only one manwill laugh, because he can laugh better than the rest. 

I do not know that I can express this more shortly than by taking as atext the single sentence of Mr. McCabe, which runs as follows: "Theballets of the Alhambra and the fireworks of the Crystal Palace and Mr. Chesterton's Daily News articles have their places in life. " I wishthat my articles had as noble a place as either of the other two thingsmentioned. But let us ask ourselves (in a spirit of love, as Mr. Chadband would say), what are the ballets of the Alhambra? The balletsof the Alhambra are institutions in which a particular selected row ofpersons in pink go through an operation known as dancing. Now, in allcommonwealths dominated by a religion--in the Christian commonwealthsof the Middle Ages and in many rude societies--this habit of dancingwas a common habit with everybody, and was not necessarily confined toa professional class. A person could dance without being a dancer; aperson could dance without being a specialist; a person could dancewithout being pink. And, in proportion as Mr. McCabe's scientificcivilization advances--that is, in proportion as religious civilization(or real civilization) decays--the more and more "well trained, " themore and more pink, become the people who do dance, and the more andmore numerous become the people who don't. Mr. McCabe may recognize anexample of what I mean in the gradual discrediting in society of theancient European waltz or dance with partners, and the substitution ofthat horrible and degrading oriental interlude which is known asskirt-dancing. That is the whole essence of decadence, the effacementof five people who do a thing for fun by one person who does it formoney. Now it follows, therefore, that when Mr. McCabe says that theballets of the Alhambra and my articles "have their place in life, " itought to be pointed out to him that he is doing his best to create aworld in which dancing, properly speaking, will have no place in lifeat all. He is, indeed, trying to create a world in which there will beno life for dancing to have a place in. The very fact that Mr. McCabethinks of dancing as a thing belonging to some hired women at theAlhambra is an illustration of the same principle by which he is ableto think of religion as a thing belonging to some hired men in whiteneckties. Both these things are things which should not be done for us, but by us. If Mr. McCabe were really religious he would be happy. Ifhe were really happy he would dance. 

Briefly, we may put the matter in this way. The main point of modernlife is not that the Alhambra ballet has its place in life. The mainpoint, the main enormous tragedy of modern life, is that Mr. McCabe hasnot his place in the Alhambra ballet. The joy of changing and gracefulposture, the joy of suiting the swing of music to the swing of limbs, the joy of whirling drapery, the joy of standing on one leg, --all theseshould belong by rights to Mr. McCabe and to me; in short, to theordinary healthy citizen. Probably we should not consent to go throughthese evolutions. But that is because we are miserable moderns andrationalists. We do not merely love ourselves more than we love duty;we actually love ourselves more than we love joy. 

When, therefore, Mr. McCabe says that he gives the Alhambra dances (andmy articles) their place in life, I think we are justified in pointingout that by the very nature of the case of his philosophy and of hisfavourite civilization he gives them a very inadequate place. For (if Imay pursue the too flattering parallel) Mr. McCabe thinks of theAlhambra and of my articles as two very odd and absurd things, whichsome special people do (probably for money) in order to amuse him. Butif he had ever felt himself the ancient, sublime, elemental, humaninstinct to dance, he would have discovered that dancing is not afrivolous thing at all, but a very serious thing. He would havediscovered that it is the one grave and chaste and decent method ofexpressing a certain class of emotions. And similarly, if he had everhad, as Mr. Shaw and I have had, the impulse to what he calls paradox, he would have discovered that paradox again is not a frivolous thing, but a very serious thing. He would have found that paradox simply meansa certain defiant joy which belongs to belief. I should regard anycivilization which was without a universal habit of uproarious dancingas being, from the full human point of view, a defective civilization. And I should regard any mind which had not got the habit in one form oranother of uproarious thinking as being, from the full human point ofview, a defective mind. It is vain for Mr. McCabe to say that a balletis a part of him. He should be part of a ballet, or else he is onlypart of a man. It is in vain for him to say that he is "not quarrellingwith the importation of humour into the controversy. " He ought himselfto be importing humour into every controversy; for unless a man is inpart a humorist, he is only in part a man. To sum up the whole mattervery simply, if Mr. McCabe asks me why I import frivolity into adiscussion of the nature of man, I answer, because frivolity is a partof the nature of man. If he asks me why I introduce what he callsparadoxes into a philosophical problem, I answer, because allphilosophical problems tend to become paradoxical. If he objects to mytreating of life riotously, I reply that life is a riot. And I saythat the Universe as I see it, at any rate, is very much more like thefireworks at the Crystal Palace than it is like his own philosophy. About the whole cosmos there is a tense and secret festivity--likepreparations for Guy Fawkes' day. Eternity is the eve of something. Inever look up at the stars without feeling that they are the fires of aschoolboy's rocket, fixed in their everlasting fall. 

XVII On the Wit of Whistler

That capable and ingenious writer, Mr. Arthur Symons, has included in abook of essays recently published, I believe, an apologia for "LondonNights, " in which he says that morality should be wholly subordinatedto art in criticism, and he uses the somewhat singular argument thatart or the worship of beauty is the same in all ages, while moralitydiffers in every period and in every respect. He appears to defy hiscritics or his readers to mention any permanent feature or quality inethics. This is surely a very curious example of that extravagant biasagainst morality which makes so many ultra-modern aesthetes as morbidand fanatical as any Eastern hermit. Unquestionably it is a verycommon phrase of modern intellectualism to say that the morality of oneage can be entirely different to the morality of another. And like agreat many other phrases of modern intellectualism, it means literallynothing at all. If the two moralities are entirely different, why doyou call them both moralities? It is as if a man said, "Camels invarious places are totally diverse; some have six legs, some have none, some have scales, some have feathers, some have horns, some have wings, some are green, some are triangular. There is no point which they havein common. " The ordinary man of sense would reply, "Then what makesyou call them all camels? What do you mean by a camel? How do you knowa camel when you see one?" Of course, there is a permanent substance ofmorality, as much as there is a permanent substance of art; to say thatis only to say that morality is morality, and that art is art. Anideal art critic would, no doubt, see the enduring beauty under everyschool; equally an ideal moralist would see the enduring ethic underevery code. But practically some of the best Englishmen that ever livedcould see nothing but filth and idolatry in the starry piety of theBrahmin. And it is equally true that practically the greatest group ofartists that the world has ever seen, the giants of the Renaissance, could see nothing but barbarism in the ethereal energy of Gothic. 

This bias against morality among the modern aesthetes is nothing verymuch paraded. And yet it is not really a bias against morality; it isa bias against other people's morality. It is generally founded on avery definite moral preference for a certain sort of life, pagan, plausible, humane. The modern aesthete, wishing us to believe that hevalues beauty more than conduct, reads Mallarme, and drinks absinthe ina tavern. But this is not only his favourite kind of beauty; it isalso his favourite kind of conduct. If he really wished us to believethat he cared for beauty only, he ought to go to nothing but Wesleyanschool treats, and paint the sunlight in the hair of the Wesleyanbabies. He ought to read nothing but very eloquent theological sermonsby old-fashioned Presbyterian divines. Here the lack of all possiblemoral sympathy would prove that his interest was purely verbal orpictorial, as it is; in all the books he reads and writes he clings tothe skirts of his own morality and his own immorality. The champion ofl'art pour l'art is always denouncing Ruskin for his moralizing. If hewere really a champion of l'art pour l'art, he would be alwaysinsisting on Ruskin for his style. 

The doctrine of the distinction between art and morality owes a greatpart of its success to art and morality being hopelessly mixed up inthe persons and performances of its greatest exponents. Of this luckycontradiction the very incarnation was Whistler. No man ever preachedthe impersonality of art so well; no man ever preached theimpersonality of art so personally. For him pictures had nothing to dowith the problems of character; but for all his fiercest admirers hischaracter was, as a matter of fact far more interesting than hispictures. He gloried in standing as an artist apart from right andwrong. But he succeeded by talking from morning till night about hisrights and about his wrongs. His talents were many, his virtues, itmust be confessed, not many, beyond that kindness to tried friends, onwhich many of his biographers insist, but which surely is a quality ofall sane men, of pirates and pickpockets; beyond this, his outstandingvirtues limit themselves chiefly to two admirable ones--courage and anabstract love of good work. Yet I fancy he won at last more by thosetwo virtues than by all his talents. A man must be something of amoralist if he is to preach, even if he is to preach unmorality. Professor Walter Raleigh, in his "In Memoriam: James McNeill Whistler, "insists, truly enough, on the strong streak of an eccentric honesty inmatters strictly pictorial, which ran through his complex and slightlyconfused character. "He would destroy any of his works rather thanleave a careless or inexpressive touch within the limits of the frame. He would begin again a hundred times over rather than attempt bypatching to make his work seem better than it was. "

No one will blame Professor Raleigh, who had to read a sort of funeraloration over Whistler at the opening of the Memorial Exhibition, if, finding himself in that position, he confined himself mostly to themerits and the stronger qualities of his subject. We should naturallygo to some other type of composition for a proper consideration of theweaknesses of Whistler. But these must never be omitted from our viewof him. Indeed, the truth is that it was not so much a question of theweaknesses of Whistler as of the intrinsic and primary weakness ofWhistler. He was one of those people who live up to their emotionalincomes, who are always taut and tingling with vanity. Hence he had nostrength to spare; hence he had no kindness, no geniality; forgeniality is almost definable as strength to spare. He had no god-likecarelessness; he never forgot himself; his whole life was, to use hisown expression, an arrangement. He went in for "the art of living"--amiserable trick. In a word, he was a great artist; but emphatically nota great man. In this connection I must differ strongly with ProfessorRaleigh upon what is, from a superficial literary point of view, one ofhis most effective points. He compares Whistler's laughter to thelaughter of another man who was a great man as well as a great artist. "His attitude to the public was exactly the attitude taken up by RobertBrowning, who suffered as long a period of neglect and mistake, inthose lines of 'The Ring and the Book'--

 "'Well, British Public, ye who like me not, (God love you!) and will have your proper laugh At the dark question; laugh it! I'd laugh first. '

"Mr. Whistler, " adds Professor Raleigh, "always laughed first. " Thetruth is, I believe, that Whistler never laughed at all. There was nolaughter in his nature; because there was no thoughtlessness andself-abandonment, no humility. I cannot understand anybody reading"The Gentle Art of Making Enemies" and thinking that there is anylaughter in the wit. His wit is a torture to him. He twists himselfinto arabesques of verbal felicity; he is full of a fierce carefulness;he is inspired with the complete seriousness of sincere malice. Hehurts himself to hurt his opponent. Browning did laugh, becauseBrowning did not care; Browning did not care, because Browning was agreat man. And when Browning said in brackets to the simple, sensiblepeople who did not like his books, "God love you!" he was not sneeringin the least. He was laughing--that is to say, he meant exactly what hesaid. 

There are three distinct classes of great satirists who are also greatmen--that is to say, three classes of men who can laugh at somethingwithout losing their souls. The satirist of the first type is the manwho, first of all enjoys himself, and then enjoys his enemies. In thissense he loves his enemy, and by a kind of exaggeration of Christianityhe loves his enemy the more the more he becomes an enemy. He has a sortof overwhelming and aggressive happiness in his assertion of anger; hiscurse is as human as a benediction. Of this type of satire the greatexample is Rabelais. This is the first typical example of satire, thesatire which is voluble, which is violent, which is indecent, but whichis not malicious. The satire of Whistler was not this. He was never inany of his controversies simply happy; the proof of it is that he nevertalked absolute nonsense. There is a second type of mind whichproduces satire with the quality of greatness. That is embodied in thesatirist whose passions are released and let go by some intolerablesense of wrong. He is maddened by the sense of men being maddened; histongue becomes an unruly member, and testifies against all mankind. Such a man was Swift, in whom the saeva indignatio was a bitterness toothers, because it was a bitterness to himself. Such a satiristWhistler was not. He did not laugh because he was happy, likeRabelais. But neither did he laugh because he was unhappy, like Swift. 

The third type of great satire is that in which he satirist is enabledto rise superior to his victim in the only serious sense whichsuperiority can bear, in that of pitying the sinner and respecting theman even while he satirises both. Such an achievement can be found ina thing like Pope's "Atticus" a poem in which the satirist feels thathe is satirising the weaknesses which belong specially to literarygenius. Consequently he takes a pleasure in pointing out his enemy'sstrength before he points out his weakness. That is, perhaps, thehighest and most honourable form of satire. That is not the satire ofWhistler. He is not full of a great sorrow for the wrong done to humannature; for him the wrong is altogether done to himself. 

He was not a great personality, because he thought so much abouthimself. And the case is stronger even than that. He was sometimes noteven a great artist, because he thought so much about art. Any manwith a vital knowledge of the human psychology ought to have the mostprofound suspicion of anybody who claims to be an artist, and talks agreat deal about art. Art is a right and human thing, like walking orsaying one's prayers; but the moment it begins to be talked about verysolemnly, a man may be fairly certain that the thing has come into acongestion and a kind of difficulty. 

The artistic temperament is a disease that afflicts amateurs. It is adisease which arises from men not having sufficient power of expressionto utter and get rid of the element of art in their being. It ishealthful to every sane man to utter the art within him; it isessential to every sane man to get rid of the art within him at allcosts. Artists of a large and wholesome vitality get rid of their arteasily, as they breathe easily, or perspire easily. But in artists ofless force, the thing becomes a pressure, and produces a definite pain, which is called the artistic temperament. Thus, very great artists areable to be ordinary men--men like Shakespeare or Browning. There aremany real tragedies of the artistic temperament, tragedies of vanity orviolence or fear. But the great tragedy of the artistic temperament isthat it cannot produce any art. 

Whistler could produce art; and in so far he was a great man. But hecould not forget art; and in so far he was only a man with the artistictemperament. There can be no stronger manifestation of the man who isa really great artist than the fact that he can dismiss the subject ofart; that he can, upon due occasion, wish art at the bottom of the sea. Similarly, we should always be much more inclined to trust a solicitorwho did not talk about conveyancing over the nuts and wine. What wereally desire of any man conducting any business is that the full forceof an ordinary man should be put into that particular study. We do notdesire that the full force of that study should be put into an ordinaryman. We do not in the least wish that our particular law-suit shouldpour its energy into our barrister's games with his children, or rideson his bicycle, or meditations on the morning star. But we do, as amatter of fact, desire that his games with his children, and his rideson his bicycle, and his meditations on the morning star should poursomething of their energy into our law-suit. We do desire that if hehas gained any especial lung development from the bicycle, or anybright and pleasing metaphors from the morning star, that the should beplaced at our disposal in that particular forensic controversy. In aword, we are very glad that he is an ordinary man, since that may helphim to be an exceptional lawyer. 

Whistler never ceased to be an artist. As Mr. Max Beerbohm pointed outin one of his extraordinarily sensible and sincere critiques, Whistlerreally regarded Whistler as his greatest work of art. The white lock, the single eyeglass, the remarkable hat--these were much dearer to himthan any nocturnes or arrangements that he ever threw off. He couldthrow off the nocturnes; for some mysterious reason he could not throwoff the hat. He never threw off from himself that disproportionateaccumulation of aestheticism which is the burden of the amateur. 

It need hardly be said that this is the real explanation of the thingwhich has puzzled so many dilettante critics, the problem of theextreme ordinariness of the behaviour of so many great geniuses inhistory. Their behaviour was so ordinary that it was not recorded;hence it was so ordinary that it seemed mysterious. Hence people saythat Bacon wrote Shakespeare. The modern artistic temperament cannotunderstand how a man who could write such lyrics as Shakespeare wrote, could be as keen as Shakespeare was on business transactions in alittle town in Warwickshire. The explanation is simple enough; it isthat Shakespeare had a real lyrical impulse, wrote a real lyric, and sogot rid of the impulse and went about his business. Being an artist didnot prevent him from being an ordinary man, any more than being asleeper at night or being a diner at dinner prevented him from being anordinary man. 

All very great teachers and leaders have had this habit of assumingtheir point of view to be one which was human and casual, one whichwould readily appeal to every passing man. If a man is genuinelysuperior to his fellows the first thing that he believes in is theequality of man. We can see this, for instance, in that strange andinnocent rationality with which Christ addressed any motley crowd thathappened to stand about Him. "What man of you having a hundred sheep, and losing one, would not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which was lost?" Or, again, "What man of you if hisson ask for bread will he give him a stone, or if he ask for a fishwill he give him a serpent?" This plainness, this almost prosaiccamaraderie, is the note of all very great minds. 

To very great minds the things on which men agree are so immeasurablymore important than the things on which they differ, that the latter, for all practical purposes, disappear. They have too much in them ofan ancient laughter even to endure to discuss the difference betweenthe hats of two men who were both born of a woman, or between thesubtly varied cultures of two men who have both to die. The first-rategreat man is equal with other men, like Shakespeare. The second-rategreat man is on his knees to other men, like Whitman. The third-rategreat man is superior to other men, like Whistler. 

XVIII The Fallacy of the Young Nation

To say that a man is an idealist is merely to say that he is a man;but, nevertheless, it might be possible to effect some validdistinction between one kind of idealist and another. One possibledistinction, for instance, could be effected by saying that humanity isdivided into conscious idealists and unconscious idealists. In asimilar way, humanity is divided into conscious ritualists andunconscious ritualists. The curious thing is, in that example as inothers, that it is the conscious ritualism which is comparativelysimple, the unconscious ritual which is really heavy and complicated. The ritual which is comparatively rude and straightforward is theritual which people call "ritualistic. " It consists of plain thingslike bread and wine and fire, and men falling on their faces. But theritual which is really complex, and many coloured, and elaborate, andneedlessly formal, is the ritual which people enact without knowing it. It consists not of plain things like wine and fire, but of reallypeculiar, and local, and exceptional, and ingenious things--things likedoor-mats, and door-knockers, and electric bells, and silk hats, andwhite ties, and shiny cards, and confetti. The truth is that the modernman scarcely ever gets back to very old and simple things except whenhe is performing some religious mummery. The modern man can hardly getaway from ritual except by entering a ritualistic church. In the caseof these old and mystical formalities we can at least say that theritual is not mere ritual; that the symbols employed are in most casessymbols which belong to a primary human poetry. The most ferociousopponent of the Christian ceremonials must admit that if Catholicismhad not instituted the bread and wine, somebody else would mostprobably have done so. Any one with a poetical instinct will admit thatto the ordinary human instinct bread symbolizes something which cannotvery easily be symbolized otherwise; that wine, to the ordinary humaninstinct, symbolizes something which cannot very easily be symbolizedotherwise. But white ties in the evening are ritual, and nothing elsebut ritual. No one would pretend that white ties in the evening areprimary and poetical. Nobody would maintain that the ordinary humaninstinct would in any age or country tend to symbolize the idea ofevening by a white necktie. Rather, the ordinary human instinct would, I imagine, tend to symbolize evening by cravats with some of thecolours of the sunset, not white neckties, but tawny or crimsonneckties--neckties of purple or olive, or some darkened gold. Mr. J. A. Kensit, for example, is under the impression that he is not aritualist. But the daily life of Mr. J. A. Kensit, like that of anyordinary modern man, is, as a matter of fact, one continual andcompressed catalogue of mystical mummery and flummery. To take oneinstance out of an inevitable hundred: I imagine that Mr. Kensit takesoff his hat to a lady; and what can be more solemn and absurd, considered in the abstract, than, symbolizing the existence of theother sex by taking off a portion of your clothing and waving it in theair? This, I repeat, is not a natural and primitive symbol, like fireor food. A man might just as well have to take off his waistcoat to alady; and if a man, by the social ritual of his civilization, had totake off his waistcoat to a lady, every chivalrous and sensible manwould take off his waistcoat to a lady. In short, Mr. Kensit, andthose who agree with him, may think, and quite sincerely think, thatmen give too much incense and ceremonial to their adoration of theother world. But nobody thinks that he can give too much incense andceremonial to the adoration of this world. All men, then, areritualists, but are either conscious or unconscious ritualists. Theconscious ritualists are generally satisfied with a few very simple andelementary signs; the unconscious ritualists are not satisfied withanything short of the whole of human life, being almost insanelyritualistic. The first is called a ritualist because he invents andremembers one rite; the other is called an anti-ritualist because heobeys and forgets a thousand. And a somewhat similar distinction tothis which I have drawn with some unavoidable length, between theconscious ritualist and the unconscious ritualist, exists between theconscious idealist and the unconscious idealist. It is idle to inveighagainst cynics and materialists--there are no cynics, there are nomaterialists. Every man is idealistic; only it so often happens thathe has the wrong ideal. Every man is incurably sentimental; but, unfortunately, it is so often a false sentiment. When we talk, forinstance, of some unscrupulous commercial figure, and say that he woulddo anything for money, we use quite an inaccurate expression, and weslander him very much. He would not do anything for money. He would dosome things for money; he would sell his soul for money, for instance;and, as Mirabeau humorously said, he would be quite wise "to take moneyfor muck. " He would oppress humanity for money; but then it happensthat humanity and the soul are not things that he believes in; they arenot his ideals. But he has his own dim and delicate ideals; and hewould not violate these for money. He would not drink out of thesoup-tureen, for money. He would not wear his coat-tails in front, formoney. He would not spread a report that he had softening of thebrain, for money. In the actual practice of life we find, in the matterof ideals, exactly what we have already found in the matter of ritual. We find that while there is a perfectly genuine danger of fanaticismfrom the men who have unworldly ideals, the permanent and urgent dangerof fanaticism is from the men who have worldly ideals. 

People who say that an ideal is a dangerous thing, that it deludes andintoxicates, are perfectly right. But the ideal which intoxicates mostis the least idealistic kind of ideal. The ideal which intoxicatesleast is the very ideal ideal; that sobers us suddenly, as all heightsand precipices and great distances do. Granted that it is a great evilto mistake a cloud for a cape; still, the cloud, which can be mosteasily mistaken for a cape, is the cloud that is nearest the earth. Similarly, we may grant that it may be dangerous to mistake an idealfor something practical. But we shall still point out that, in thisrespect, the most dangerous ideal of all is the ideal which looks alittle practical. It is difficult to attain a high ideal; consequently, it is almost impossible to persuade ourselves that we have attained it. But it is easy to attain a low ideal; consequently, it is easier stillto persuade ourselves that we have attained it when we have donenothing of the kind. To take a random example. It might be called ahigh ambition to wish to be an archangel; the man who entertained suchan ideal would very possibly exhibit asceticism, or even frenzy, butnot, I think, delusion. He would not think he was an archangel, and goabout flapping his hands under the impression that they were wings. Butsuppose that a sane man had a low ideal; suppose he wished to be agentleman. Any one who knows the world knows that in nine weeks hewould have persuaded himself that he was a gentleman; and this beingmanifestly not the case, the result will be very real and practicaldislocations and calamities in social life. It is not the wild idealswhich wreck the practical world; it is the tame ideals. 

The matter may, perhaps, be illustrated by a parallel from our modernpolitics. When men tell us that the old Liberal politicians of thetype of Gladstone cared only for ideals, of course, they are talkingnonsense--they cared for a great many other things, including votes. And when men tell us that modern politicians of the type of Mr. Chamberlain or, in another way, Lord Rosebery, care only for votes orfor material interest, then again they are talking nonsense--these mencare for ideals like all other men. But the real distinction which maybe drawn is this, that to the older politician the ideal was an ideal, and nothing else. To the new politician his dream is not only a gooddream, it is a reality. The old politician would have said, "It wouldbe a good thing if there were a Republican Federation dominating theworld. " But the modern politician does not say, "It would be a goodthing if there were a British Imperialism dominating the world. " Hesays, "It is a good thing that there is a British Imperialismdominating the world;" whereas clearly there is nothing of the kind. The old Liberal would say "There ought to be a good Irish government inIreland. " But the ordinary modern Unionist does not say, "There oughtto be a good English government in Ireland. " He says, "There is a goodEnglish government in Ireland;" which is absurd. In short, the modernpoliticians seem to think that a man becomes practical merely by makingassertions entirely about practical things. Apparently, a delusion doesnot matter as long as it is a materialistic delusion. Instinctivelymost of us feel that, as a practical matter, even the contrary is true. I certainly would much rather share my apartments with a gentleman whothought he was God than with a gentleman who thought he was agrasshopper. To be continually haunted by practical images andpractical problems, to be constantly thinking of things as actual, asurgent, as in process of completion--these things do not prove a man tobe practical; these things, indeed, are among the most ordinary signsof a lunatic. That our modern statesmen are materialistic is nothingagainst their being also morbid. Seeing angels in a vision may make aman a supernaturalist to excess. But merely seeing snakes in deliriumtremens does not make him a naturalist. 

And when we come actually to examine the main stock notions of ourmodern practical politicians, we find that those main stock notions aremainly delusions. A great many instances might be given of the fact. We might take, for example, the case of that strange class of notionswhich underlie the word "union, " and all the eulogies heaped upon it. Of course, union is no more a good thing in itself than separation is agood thing in itself. To have a party in favour of union and a partyin favour of separation is as absurd as to have a party in favour ofgoing upstairs and a party in favour of going downstairs. The questionis not whether we go up or down stairs, but where we are going to, andwhat we are going, for? Union is strength; union is also weakness. Itis a good thing to harness two horses to a cart; but it is not a goodthing to try and turn two hansom cabs into one four-wheeler. Turningten nations into one empire may happen to be as feasible as turning tenshillings into one half-sovereign. Also it may happen to be aspreposterous as turning ten terriers into one mastiff. The question inall cases is not a question of union or absence of union, but ofidentity or absence of identity. Owing to certain historical and moralcauses, two nations may be so united as upon the whole to help eachother. Thus England and Scotland pass their time in paying each othercompliments; but their energies and atmospheres run distinct andparallel, and consequently do not clash. Scotland continues to beeducated and Calvinistic; England continues to be uneducated and happy. But owing to certain other Moral and certain other political causes, two nations may be so united as only to hamper each other; their linesdo clash and do not run parallel. Thus, for instance, England andIreland are so united that the Irish can sometimes rule England, butcan never rule Ireland. The educational systems, including the lastEducation Act, are here, as in the case of Scotland, a very good testof the matter. The overwhelming majority of Irishmen believe in astrict Catholicism; the overwhelming majority of Englishmen believe ina vague Protestantism. The Irish party in the Parliament of Union isjust large enough to prevent the English education being indefinitelyProtestant, and just small enough to prevent the Irish education beingdefinitely Catholic. Here we have a state of things which no man in hissenses would ever dream of wishing to continue if he had not beenbewitched by the sentimentalism of the mere word "union. "

This example of union, however, is not the example which I propose totake of the ingrained futility and deception underlying all theassumptions of the modern practical politician. I wish to speakespecially of another and much more general delusion. It pervades theminds and speeches of all the practical men of all parties; and it is achildish blunder built upon a single false metaphor. I refer to theuniversal modern talk about young nations and new nations; aboutAmerica being young, about New Zealand being new. The whole thing is atrick of words. America is not young, New Zealand is not new. It is avery discussable question whether they are not both much older thanEngland or Ireland. 

Of course we may use the metaphor of youth about America or thecolonies, if we use it strictly as implying only a recent origin. Butif we use it (as we do use it) as implying vigour, or vivacity, orcrudity, or inexperience, or hope, or a long life before them or any ofthe romantic attributes of youth, then it is surely as clear asdaylight that we are duped by a stale figure of speech. We can easilysee the matter clearly by applying it to any other institution parallelto the institution of an independent nationality. If a club called "TheMilk and Soda League" (let us say) was set up yesterday, as I have nodoubt it was, then, of course, "The Milk and Soda League" is a youngclub in the sense that it was set up yesterday, but in no other sense. It may consist entirely of moribund old gentlemen. It may be moribunditself. We may call it a young club, in the light of the fact that itwas founded yesterday. We may also call it a very old club in thelight of the fact that it will most probably go bankrupt to-morrow. Allthis appears very obvious when we put it in this form. Any one whoadopted the young-community delusion with regard to a bank or abutcher's shop would be sent to an asylum. But the whole modernpolitical notion that America and the colonies must be very vigorousbecause they are very new, rests upon no better foundation. ThatAmerica was founded long after England does not make it even in thefaintest degree more probable that America will not perish a long timebefore England. That England existed before her colonies does not makeit any the less likely that she will exist after her colonies. Andwhen we look at the actual history of the world, we find that greatEuropean nations almost invariably have survived the vitality of theircolonies. When we look at the actual history of the world, we find, that if there is a thing that is born old and dies young, it is acolony. The Greek colonies went to pieces long before the Greekcivilization. The Spanish colonies have gone to pieces long before thenation of Spain--nor does there seem to be any reason to doubt thepossibility or even the probability of the conclusion that the colonialcivilization, which owes its origin to England, will be much brieferand much less vigorous than the civilization of England itself. TheEnglish nation will still be going the way of all European nations whenthe Anglo-Saxon race has gone the way of all fads. Now, of course, theinteresting question is, have we, in the case of America and thecolonies, any real evidence of a moral and intellectual youth asopposed to the indisputable triviality of a merely chronological youth?Consciously or unconsciously, we know that we have no such evidence, and consciously or unconsciously, therefore, we proceed to make it up. Of this pure and placid invention, a good example, for instance, can befound in a recent poem of Mr. Rudyard Kipling's. Speaking of theEnglish people and the South African War Mr. Kipling says that "wefawned on the younger nations for the men that could shoot and ride. "Some people considered this sentence insulting. All that I amconcerned with at present is the evident fact that it is not true. Thecolonies provided very useful volunteer troops, but they did notprovide the best troops, nor achieve the most successful exploits. Thebest work in the war on the English side was done, as might have beenexpected, by the best English regiments. The men who could shoot andride were not the enthusiastic corn merchants from Melbourne, any morethan they were the enthusiastic clerks from Cheapside. The men whocould shoot and ride were the men who had been taught to shoot and ridein the discipline of the standing army of a great European power. Ofcourse, the colonials are as brave and athletic as any other averagewhite men. Of course, they acquitted themselves with reasonable credit. All I have here to indicate is that, for the purposes of this theory ofthe new nation, it is necessary to maintain that the colonial forceswere more useful or more heroic than the gunners at Colenso or theFighting Fifth. And of this contention there is not, and never hasbeen, one stick or straw of evidence. 

A similar attempt is made, and with even less success, to represent theliterature of the colonies as something fresh and vigorous andimportant. The imperialist magazines are constantly springing upon ussome genius from Queensland or Canada, through whom we are expected tosmell the odours of the bush or the prairie. As a matter of fact, anyone who is even slightly interested in literature as such (and I, forone, confess that I am only slightly interested in literature as such), will freely admit that the stories of these geniuses smell of nothingbut printer's ink, and that not of first-rate quality. By a greateffort of Imperial imagination the generous English people reads intothese works a force and a novelty. But the force and the novelty arenot in the new writers; the force and the novelty are in the ancientheart of the English. Anybody who studies them impartially will knowthat the first-rate writers of the colonies are not even particularlynovel in their note and atmosphere, are not only not producing a newkind of good literature, but are not even in any particular senseproducing a new kind of bad literature. The first-rate writers of thenew countries are really almost exactly like the second-rate writers ofthe old countries. Of course they do feel the mystery of thewilderness, the mystery of the bush, for all simple and honest men feelthis in Melbourne, or Margate, or South St. Pancras. But when theywrite most sincerely and most successfully, it is not with a backgroundof the mystery of the bush, but with a background, expressed orassumed, of our own romantic cockney civilization. What really movestheir souls with a kindly terror is not the mystery of the wilderness, but the Mystery of a Hansom Cab. 

Of course there are some exceptions to this generalization. The onereally arresting exception is Olive Schreiner, and she is quite ascertainly an exception that proves the rule. Olive Schreiner is afierce, brilliant, and realistic novelist; but she is all thisprecisely because she is not English at all. Her tribal kinship is withthe country of Teniers and Maarten Maartens--that is, with a country ofrealists. Her literary kinship is with the pessimistic fiction of thecontinent; with the novelists whose very pity is cruel. OliveSchreiner is the one English colonial who is not conventional, for thesimple reason that South Africa is the one English colony which is notEnglish, and probably never will be. And, of course, there areindividual exceptions in a minor way. I remember in particular someAustralian tales by Mr. McIlwain which were really able and effective, and which, for that reason, I suppose, are not presented to the publicwith blasts of a trumpet. But my general contention if put before anyone with a love of letters, will not be disputed if it is understood. It is not the truth that the colonial civilization as a whole is givingus, or shows any signs of giving us, a literature which will startleand renovate our own. It may be a very good thing for us to have anaffectionate illusion in the matter; that is quite another affair. Thecolonies may have given England a new emotion; I only say that theyhave not given the world a new book. 

Touching these English colonies, I do not wish to be misunderstood. Ido not say of them or of America that they have not a future, or thatthey will not be great nations. I merely deny the whole establishedmodern expression about them. I deny that they are "destined" to afuture. I deny that they are "destined" to be great nations. I deny(of course) that any human thing is destined to be anything. All theabsurd physical metaphors, such as youth and age, living and dying, are, when applied to nations, but pseudo-scientific attempts to concealfrom men the awful liberty of their lonely souls. 

In the case of America, indeed, a warning to this effect is instant andessential. America, of course, like every other human thing, can inspiritual sense live or die as much as it chooses. But at the presentmoment the matter which America has very seriously to consider is nothow near it is to its birth and beginning, but how near it may be toits end. It is only a verbal question whether the Americancivilization is young; it may become a very practical and urgentquestion whether it is dying. When once we have cast aside, as weinevitably have after a moment's thought, the fanciful physicalmetaphor involved in the word "youth, " what serious evidence have wethat America is a fresh force and not a stale one? It has a great manypeople, like China; it has a great deal of money, like defeatedCarthage or dying Venice. It is full of bustle and excitability, likeAthens after its ruin, and all the Greek cities in their decline. Itis fond of new things; but the old are always fond of new things. Young men read chronicles, but old men read newspapers. It admiresstrength and good looks; it admires a big and barbaric beauty in itswomen, for instance; but so did Rome when the Goth was at the gates. All these are things quite compatible with fundamental tedium anddecay. There are three main shapes or symbols in which a nation canshow itself essentially glad and great--by the heroic in government, bythe heroic in arms, and by the heroic in art. Beyond government, whichis, as it were, the very shape and body of a nation, the mostsignificant thing about any citizen is his artistic attitude towards aholiday and his moral attitude towards a fight--that is, his way ofaccepting life and his way of accepting death. 

Subjected to these eternal tests, America does not appear by any meansas particularly fresh or untouched. She appears with all the weaknessand weariness of modern England or of any other Western power. In herpolitics she has broken up exactly as England has broken up, into abewildering opportunism and insincerity. In the matter of war and thenational attitude towards war, her resemblance to England is even moremanifest and melancholy. It may be said with rough accuracy that thereare three stages in the life of a strong people. First, it is a smallpower, and fights small powers. Then it is a great power, and fightsgreat powers. Then it is a great power, and fights small powers, butpretends that they are great powers, in order to rekindle the ashes ofits ancient emotion and vanity. After that, the next step is to becomea small power itself. England exhibited this symptom of decadence verybadly in the war with the Transvaal; but America exhibited it worse inthe war with Spain. There was exhibited more sharply and absurdly thananywhere else the ironic contrast between the very careless choice of astrong line and the very careful choice of a weak enemy. America addedto all her other late Roman or Byzantine elements the element of theCaracallan triumph, the triumph over nobody. 

But when we come to the last test of nationality, the test of art andletters, the case is almost terrible. The English colonies haveproduced no great artists; and that fact may prove that they are stillfull of silent possibilities and reserve force. But America hasproduced great artists. And that fact most certainly proves that sheis full of a fine futility and the end of all things. Whatever theAmerican men of genius are, they are not young gods making a youngworld. Is the art of Whistler a brave, barbaric art, happy andheadlong? Does Mr. Henry James infect us with the spirit of aschoolboy? No; the colonies have not spoken, and they are safe. Theirsilence may be the silence of the unborn. But out of America has comea sweet and startling cry, as unmistakable as the cry of a dying man. 

XIX Slum Novelists and the Slums

Odd ideas are entertained in our time about the real nature of thedoctrine of human fraternity. The real doctrine is something which wedo not, with all our modern humanitarianism, very clearly understand, much less very closely practise. There is nothing, for instance, particularly undemocratic about kicking your butler downstairs. It maybe wrong, but it is not unfraternal. In a certain sense, the blow orkick may be considered as a confession of equality: you are meetingyour butler body to body; you are almost according him the privilege ofthe duel. There is nothing, undemocratic, though there may besomething unreasonable, in expecting a great deal from the butler, andbeing filled with a kind of frenzy of surprise when he falls short ofthe divine stature. The thing which is really undemocratic andunfraternal is not to expect the butler to be more or less divine. Thething which is really undemocratic and unfraternal is to say, as somany modern humanitarians say, "Of course one must make allowances forthose on a lower plane. " All things considered indeed, it may be said, without undue exaggeration, that the really undemocratic andunfraternal thing is the common practice of not kicking the butlerdownstairs. 

It is only because such a vast section of the modern world is out ofsympathy with the serious democratic sentiment that this statement willseem to many to be lacking in seriousness. Democracy is notphilanthropy; it is not even altruism or social reform. Democracy isnot founded on pity for the common man; democracy is founded onreverence for the common man, or, if you will, even on fear of him. Itdoes not champion man because man is so miserable, but because man isso sublime. It does not object so much to the ordinary man being aslave as to his not being a king, for its dream is always the dream ofthe first Roman republic, a nation of kings. 

Next to a genuine republic, the most democratic thing in the world is ahereditary despotism. I mean a despotism in which there is absolutelyno trace whatever of any nonsense about intellect or special fitnessfor the post. Rational despotism--that is, selective despotism--isalways a curse to mankind, because with that you have the ordinary manmisunderstood and misgoverned by some prig who has no brotherly respectfor him at all. But irrational despotism is always democratic, becauseit is the ordinary man enthroned. The worst form of slavery is thatwhich is called Caesarism, or the choice of some bold or brilliant manas despot because he is suitable. For that means that men choose arepresentative, not because he represents them, but because he doesnot. Men trust an ordinary man like George III or William IV. Becausethey are themselves ordinary men and understand him. Men trust anordinary man because they trust themselves. But men trust a great manbecause they do not trust themselves. And hence the worship of greatmen always appears in times of weakness and cowardice; we never hear ofgreat men until the time when all other men are small. 

Hereditary despotism is, then, in essence and sentiment democraticbecause it chooses from mankind at random. If it does not declare thatevery man may rule, it declares the next most democratic thing; itdeclares that any man may rule. Hereditary aristocracy is a far worseand more dangerous thing, because the numbers and multiplicity of anaristocracy make it sometimes possible for it to figure as anaristocracy of intellect. Some of its members will presumably havebrains, and thus they, at any rate, will be an intellectual aristocracywithin the social one. They will rule the aristocracy by virtue oftheir intellect, and they will rule the country by virtue of theiraristocracy. Thus a double falsity will be set up, and millions of theimages of God, who, fortunately for their wives and families, areneither gentlemen nor clever men, will be represented by a man like Mr. Balfour or Mr. Wyndham, because he is too gentlemanly to be calledmerely clever, and just too clever to be called merely a gentleman. Buteven an hereditary aristocracy may exhibit, by a sort of accident, fromtime to time some of the basically democratic quality which belongs toa hereditary despotism. It is amusing to think how much conservativeingenuity has been wasted in the defence of the House of Lords by menwho were desperately endeavouring to prove that the House of Lordsconsisted of clever men. There is one really good defence of the Houseof Lords, though admirers of the peerage are strangely coy about usingit; and that is, that the House of Lords, in its full and properstrength, consists of stupid men. It really would be a plausibledefence of that otherwise indefensible body to point out that theclever men in the Commons, who owed their power to cleverness, ought inthe last resort to be checked by the average man in the Lords, who owedtheir power to accident. Of course, there would be many answers to sucha contention, as, for instance, that the House of Lords is largely nolonger a House of Lords, but a House of tradesmen and financiers, orthat the bulk of the commonplace nobility do not vote, and so leave thechamber to the prigs and the specialists and the mad old gentlemen withhobbies. But on some occasions the House of Lords, even under allthese disadvantages, is in some sense representative. When all thepeers flocked together to vote against Mr. Gladstone's second Home RuleBill, for instance, those who said that the peers represented theEnglish people, were perfectly right. All those dear old men whohappened to be born peers were at that moment, and upon that question, the precise counterpart of all the dear old men who happened to be bornpaupers or middle-class gentlemen. That mob of peers did reallyrepresent the English people--that is to say, it was honest, ignorant, vaguely excited, almost unanimous, and obviously wrong. Of course, rational democracy is better as an expression of the public will thanthe haphazard hereditary method. While we are about having any kind ofdemocracy, let it be rational democracy. But if we are to have anykind of oligarchy, let it be irrational oligarchy. Then at least weshall be ruled by men. 

But the thing which is really required for the proper working ofdemocracy is not merely the democratic system, or even the democraticphilosophy, but the democratic emotion. The democratic emotion, likemost elementary and indispensable things, is a thing difficult todescribe at any time. But it is peculiarly difficult to describe it inour enlightened age, for the simple reason that it is peculiarlydifficult to find it. It is a certain instinctive attitude which feelsthe things in which all men agree to be unspeakably important, and allthe things in which they differ (such as mere brains) to be almostunspeakably unimportant. The nearest approach to it in our ordinarylife would be the promptitude with which we should consider merehumanity in any circumstance of shock or death. We should say, after asomewhat disturbing discovery, "There is a dead man under the sofa. "We should not be likely to say, "There is a dead man of considerablepersonal refinement under the sofa. " We should say, "A woman has falleninto the water. " We should not say, "A highly educated woman hasfallen into the water. " Nobody would say, "There are the remains of aclear thinker in your back garden. " Nobody would say, "Unless you hurryup and stop him, a man with a very fine ear for music will have jumpedoff that cliff. " But this emotion, which all of us have in connectionwith such things as birth and death, is to some people native andconstant at all ordinary times and in all ordinary places. It wasnative to St. Francis of Assisi. It was native to Walt Whitman. Inthis strange and splendid degree it cannot be expected, perhaps, topervade a whole commonwealth or a whole civilization; but onecommonwealth may have it much more than another commonwealth, onecivilization much more than another civilization. No community, perhaps, ever had it so much as the early Franciscans. No community, perhaps, ever had it so little as ours. 

Everything in our age has, when carefully examined, this fundamentallyundemocratic quality. In religion and morals we should admit, in theabstract, that the sins of the educated classes were as great as, orperhaps greater than, the sins of the poor and ignorant. But inpractice the great difference between the mediaeval ethics and ours isthat ours concentrate attention on the sins which are the sins of theignorant, and practically deny that the sins which are the sins of theeducated are sins at all. We are always talking about the sin ofintemperate drinking, because it is quite obvious that the poor have itmore than the rich. But we are always denying that there is any suchthing as the sin of pride, because it would be quite obvious that therich have it more than the poor. We are always ready to make a saint orprophet of the educated man who goes into cottages to give a littlekindly advice to the uneducated. But the medieval idea of a saint orprophet was something quite different. The mediaeval saint or prophetwas an uneducated man who walked into grand houses to give a littlekindly advice to the educated. The old tyrants had enough insolence todespoil the poor, but they had not enough insolence to preach to them. It was the gentleman who oppressed the slums; but it was the slums thatadmonished the gentleman. And just as we are undemocratic in faith andmorals, so we are, by the very nature of our attitude in such matters, undemocratic in the tone of our practical politics. It is a sufficientproof that we are not an essentially democratic state that we arealways wondering what we shall do with the poor. If we were democrats, we should be wondering what the poor will do with us. With us thegoverning class is always saying to itself, "What laws shall we make?"In a purely democratic state it would be always saying, "What laws canwe obey?" A purely democratic state perhaps there has never been. Buteven the feudal ages were in practice thus far democratic, that everyfeudal potentate knew that any laws which he made would in allprobability return upon himself. His feathers might be cut off forbreaking a sumptuary law. His head might be cut off for high treason. But the modern laws are almost always laws made to affect the governedclass, but not the governing. We have public-house licensing laws, butnot sumptuary laws. That is to say, we have laws against the festivityand hospitality of the poor, but no laws against the festivity andhospitality of the rich. We have laws against blasphemy--that is, against a kind of coarse and offensive speaking in which nobody but arough and obscure man would be likely to indulge. But we have no lawsagainst heresy--that is, against the intellectual poisoning of thewhole people, in which only a prosperous and prominent man would belikely to be successful. The evil of aristocracy is not that itnecessarily leads to the infliction of bad things or the suffering ofsad ones; the evil of aristocracy is that it places everything in thehands of a class of people who can always inflict what they can neversuffer. Whether what they inflict is, in their intention, good or bad, they become equally frivolous. The case against the governing class ofmodern England is not in the least that it is selfish; if you like, youmay call the English oligarchs too fantastically unselfish. The caseagainst them simply is that when they legislate for all men, theyalways omit themselves. 

We are undemocratic, then, in our religion, as is proved by our effortsto "raise" the poor. We are undemocratic in our government, as isproved by our innocent attempt to govern them well. But above all weare undemocratic in our literature, as is proved by the torrent ofnovels about the poor and serious studies of the poor which pour fromour publishers every month. And the more "modern" the book is the morecertain it is to be devoid of democratic sentiment. 

A poor man is a man who has not got much money. This may seem a simpleand unnecessary description, but in the face of a great mass of modernfact and fiction, it seems very necessary indeed; most of our realistsand sociologists talk about a poor man as if he were an octopus or analligator. There is no more need to study the psychology of povertythan to study the psychology of bad temper, or the psychology ofvanity, or the psychology of animal spirits. A man ought to knowsomething of the emotions of an insulted man, not by being insulted, but simply by being a man. And he ought to know something of theemotions of a poor man, not by being poor, but simply by being a man. Therefore, in any writer who is describing poverty, my first objectionto him will be that he has studied his subject. A democrat would haveimagined it. 

A great many hard things have been said about religious slumming andpolitical or social slumming, but surely the most despicable of all isartistic slumming. The religious teacher is at least supposed to beinterested in the costermonger because he is a man; the politician isin some dim and perverted sense interested in the costermonger becausehe is a citizen; it is only the wretched writer who is interested inthe costermonger merely because he is a costermonger. Nevertheless, solong as he is merely seeking impressions, or in other words copy, histrade, though dull, is honest. But when he endeavours to represent thathe is describing the spiritual core of a costermonger, his dim vicesand his delicate virtues, then we must object that his claim ispreposterous; we must remind him that he is a journalist and nothingelse. He has far less psychological authority even than the foolishmissionary. For he is in the literal and derivative sense a journalist, while the missionary is an eternalist. The missionary at leastpretends to have a version of the man's lot for all time; thejournalist only pretends to have a version of it from day to day. Themissionary comes to tell the poor man that he is in the same conditionwith all men. The journalist comes to tell other people how differentthe poor man is from everybody else. 

If the modern novels about the slums, such as novels of Mr. ArthurMorrison, or the exceedingly able novels of Mr. Somerset Maugham, areintended to be sensational, I can only say that that is a noble andreasonable object, and that they attain it. A sensation, a shock tothe imagination, like the contact with cold water, is always a good andexhilarating thing; and, undoubtedly, men will always seek thissensation (among other forms) in the form of the study of the strangeantics of remote or alien peoples. In the twelfth century men obtainedthis sensation by reading about dog-headed men in Africa. In thetwentieth century they obtained it by reading about pig-headed Boers inAfrica. The men of the twentieth century were certainly, it must beadmitted, somewhat the more credulous of the two. For it is notrecorded of the men in the twelfth century that they organized asanguinary crusade solely for the purpose of altering the singularformation of the heads of the Africans. But it may be, and it may evenlegitimately be, that since all these monsters have faded from thepopular mythology, it is necessary to have in our fiction the image ofthe horrible and hairy East-ender, merely to keep alive in us a fearfuland childlike wonder at external peculiarities. But the Middle Ages(with a great deal more common sense than it would now be fashionableto admit) regarded natural history at bottom rather as a kind of joke;they regarded the soul as very important. Hence, while they had anatural history of dog-headed men, they did not profess to have apsychology of dog-headed men. They did not profess to mirror the mindof a dog-headed man, to share his tenderest secrets, or mount with hismost celestial musings. They did not write novels about the semi-caninecreature, attributing to him all the oldest morbidities and all thenewest fads. It is permissible to present men as monsters if we wish tomake the reader jump; and to make anybody jump is always a Christianact. But it is not permissible to present men as regarding themselvesas monsters, or as making themselves jump. To summarize, our slumfiction is quite defensible as aesthetic fiction; it is not defensibleas spiritual fact. 

One enormous obstacle stands in the way of its actuality. The men whowrite it, and the men who read it, are men of the middle classes or theupper classes; at least, of those who are loosely termed the educatedclasses. Hence, the fact that it is the life as the refined man seesit proves that it cannot be the life as the unrefined man lives it. Rich men write stories about poor men, and describe them as speakingwith a coarse, or heavy, or husky enunciation. But if poor men wrotenovels about you or me they would describe us as speaking with someabsurd shrill and affected voice, such as we only hear from a duchessin a three-act farce. The slum novelist gains his whole effect by thefact that some detail is strange to the reader; but that detail by thenature of the case cannot be strange in itself. It cannot be strange tothe soul which he is professing to study. The slum novelist gains hiseffects by describing the same grey mist as draping the dingy factoryand the dingy tavern. But to the man he is supposed to be studyingthere must be exactly the same difference between the factory and thetavern that there is to a middle-class man between a late night at theoffice and a supper at Pagani's. The slum novelist is content withpointing out that to the eye of his particular class a pickaxe looksdirty and a pewter pot looks dirty. But the man he is supposed to bestudying sees the difference between them exactly as a clerk sees thedifference between a ledger and an edition de luxe. The chiaroscuro ofthe life is inevitably lost; for to us the high lights and the shadowsare a light grey. But the high lights and the shadows are not a lightgrey in that life any more than in any other. The kind of man whocould really express the pleasures of the poor would be also the kindof man who could share them. In short, these books are not a record ofthe psychology of poverty. They are a record of the psychology ofwealth and culture when brought in contact with poverty. They are not adescription of the state of the slums. They are only a very dark anddreadful description of the state of the slummers. One might giveinnumerable examples of the essentially unsympathetic and unpopularquality of these realistic writers. But perhaps the simplest and mostobvious example with which we could conclude is the mere fact thatthese writers are realistic. The poor have many other vices, but, atleast, they are never realistic. The poor are melodramatic and romanticin grain; the poor all believe in high moral platitudes and copy-bookmaxims; probably this is the ultimate meaning of the great saying, "Blessed are the poor. " Blessed are the poor, for they are alwaysmaking life, or trying to make life like an Adelphi play. Someinnocent educationalists and philanthropists (for even philanthropistscan be innocent) have expressed a grave astonishment that the massesprefer shilling shockers to scientific treatises and melodramas toproblem plays. The reason is very simple. The realistic story iscertainly more artistic than the melodramatic story. If what youdesire is deft handling, delicate proportions, a unit of artisticatmosphere, the realistic story has a full advantage over themelodrama. In everything that is light and bright and ornamental therealistic story has a full advantage over the melodrama. But, atleast, the melodrama has one indisputable advantage over the realisticstory. The melodrama is much more like life. It is much more like man, and especially the poor man. It is very banal and very inartistic whena poor woman at the Adelphi says, "Do you think I will sell my ownchild?" But poor women in the Battersea High Road do say, "Do you thinkI will sell my own child?" They say it on every available occasion;you can hear a sort of murmur or babble of it all the way down thestreet. It is very stale and weak dramatic art (if that is all) whenthe workman confronts his master and says, "I'm a man. " But a workmandoes say "I'm a man" two or three times every day. In fact, it istedious, possibly, to hear poor men being melodramatic behind thefootlights; but that is because one can always hear them beingmelodramatic in the street outside. In short, melodrama, if it is dull, is dull because it is too accurate. Somewhat the same problem exists inthe case of stories about schoolboys. Mr. Kipling's "Stalky and Co. "is much more amusing (if you are talking about amusement) than the lateDean Farrar's "Eric; or, Little by Little. " But "Eric" is immeasurablymore like real school-life. For real school-life, real boyhood, is fullof the things of which Eric is full--priggishness, a crude piety, asilly sin, a weak but continual attempt at the heroic, in a word, melodrama. And if we wish to lay a firm basis for any efforts to helpthe poor, we must not become realistic and see them from the outside. We must become melodramatic, and see them from the inside. The novelistmust not take out his notebook and say, "I am an expert. " No; he mustimitate the workman in the Adelphi play. He must slap himself on thechest and say, "I am a man. "

XX. Concluding Remarks on the Importance of Orthodoxy

Whether the human mind can advance or not, is a question too littlediscussed, for nothing can be more dangerous than to found our socialphilosophy on any theory which is debatable but has not been debated. But if we assume, for the sake of argument, that there has been in thepast, or will be in the future, such a thing as a growth or improvementof the human mind itself, there still remains a very sharp objection tobe raised against the modern version of that improvement. The vice ofthe modern notion of mental progress is that it is always somethingconcerned with the breaking of bonds, the effacing of boundaries, thecasting away of dogmas. But if there be such a thing as mental growth, it must mean the growth into more and more definite convictions, intomore and more dogmas. The human brain is a machine for coming toconclusions; if it cannot come to conclusions it is rusty. When we hearof a man too clever to believe, we are hearing of something havingalmost the character of a contradiction in terms. It is like hearing ofa nail that was too good to hold down a carpet; or a bolt that was toostrong to keep a door shut. Man can hardly be defined, after thefashion of Carlyle, as an animal who makes tools; ants and beavers andmany other animals make tools, in the sense that they make anapparatus. Man can be defined as an animal that makes dogmas. As hepiles doctrine on doctrine and conclusion on conclusion in theformation of some tremendous scheme of philosophy and religion, he is, in the only legitimate sense of which the expression is capable, becoming more and more human. When he drops one doctrine after anotherin a refined scepticism, when he declines to tie himself to a system, when he says that he has outgrown definitions, when he says that hedisbelieves in finality, when, in his own imagination, he sits as God, holding no form of creed but contemplating all, then he is by that veryprocess sinking slowly backwards into the vagueness of the vagrantanimals and the unconsciousness of the grass. Trees have no dogmas. Turnips are singularly broad-minded. 

If then, I repeat, there is to be mental advance, it must be mentaladvance in the construction of a definite philosophy of life. And thatphilosophy of life must be right and the other philosophies wrong. Nowof all, or nearly all, the able modern writers whom I have brieflystudied in this book, this is especially and pleasingly true, that theydo each of them have a constructive and affirmative view, and that theydo take it seriously and ask us to take it seriously. There is nothingmerely sceptically progressive about Mr. Rudyard Kipling. There isnothing in the least broad minded about Mr. Bernard Shaw. The paganismof Mr. Lowes Dickinson is more grave than any Christianity. Even theopportunism of Mr. H. G. Wells is more dogmatic than the idealism ofanybody else. Somebody complained, I think, to Matthew Arnold that hewas getting as dogmatic as Carlyle. He replied, "That may be true; butyou overlook an obvious difference. I am dogmatic and right, andCarlyle is dogmatic and wrong. " The strong humour of the remark oughtnot to disguise from us its everlasting seriousness and common sense;no man ought to write at all, or even to speak at all, unless he thinksthat he is in truth and the other man in error. In similar style, Ihold that I am dogmatic and right, while Mr. Shaw is dogmatic andwrong. But my main point, at present, is to notice that the chiefamong these writers I have discussed do most sanely and courageouslyoffer themselves as dogmatists, as founders of a system. It may betrue that the thing in Mr. Shaw most interesting to me, is the factthat Mr. Shaw is wrong. But it is equally true that the thing in Mr. Shaw most interesting to himself, is the fact that Mr. Shaw is right. Mr. Shaw may have none with him but himself; but it is not for himselfhe cares. It is for the vast and universal church, of which he is theonly member. 

The two typical men of genius whom I have mentioned here, and withwhose names I have begun this book, are very symbolic, if only becausethey have shown that the fiercest dogmatists can make the best artists. In the fin de siecle atmosphere every one was crying out thatliterature should be free from all causes and all ethical creeds. Artwas to produce only exquisite workmanship, and it was especially thenote of those days to demand brilliant plays and brilliant shortstories. And when they got them, they got them from a couple ofmoralists. The best short stories were written by a man trying topreach Imperialism. The best plays were written by a man trying topreach Socialism. All the art of all the artists looked tiny andtedious beside the art which was a byproduct of propaganda. 

The reason, indeed, is very simple. A man cannot be wise enough to bea great artist without being wise enough to wish to be a philosopher. Aman cannot have the energy to produce good art without having theenergy to wish to pass beyond it. A small artist is content with art;a great artist is content with nothing except everything. So we findthat when real forces, good or bad, like Kipling and G. B. S. , enterour arena, they bring with them not only startling and arresting art, but very startling and arresting dogmas. And they care even more, anddesire us to care even more, about their startling and arresting dogmasthan about their startling and arresting art. Mr. Shaw is a gooddramatist, but what he desires more than anything else to be is a goodpolitician. Mr. Rudyard Kipling is by divine caprice and naturalgenius an unconventional poet; but what he desires more than anythingelse to be is a conventional poet. He desires to be the poet of hispeople, bone of their bone, and flesh of their flesh, understandingtheir origins, celebrating their destiny. He desires to be PoetLaureate, a most sensible and honourable and public-spirited desire. Having been given by the gods originality--that is, disagreement withothers--he desires divinely to agree with them. But the most strikinginstance of all, more striking, I think, even than either of these, isthe instance of Mr. H. G. Wells. He began in a sort of insane infancyof pure art. He began by making a new heaven and a new earth, with thesame irresponsible instinct by which men buy a new necktie orbutton-hole. He began by trifling with the stars and systems in orderto make ephemeral anecdotes; he killed the universe for a joke. He hassince become more and more serious, and has become, as men inevitablydo when they become more and more serious, more and more parochial. Hewas frivolous about the twilight of the gods; but he is serious aboutthe London omnibus. He was careless in "The Time Machine, " for thatdealt only with the destiny of all things; but he is careful, and evencautious, in "Mankind in the Making, " for that deals with the day afterto-morrow. He began with the end of the world, and that was easy. Nowhe has gone on to the beginning of the world, and that is difficult. But the main result of all this is the same as in the other cases. Themen who have really been the bold artists, the realistic artists, theuncompromising artists, are the men who have turned out, after all, tobe writing "with a purpose. " Suppose that any cool and cynicalart-critic, any art-critic fully impressed with the conviction thatartists were greatest when they were most purely artistic, suppose thata man who professed ably a humane aestheticism, as did Mr. MaxBeerbohm, or a cruel aestheticism, as did Mr. W. E. Henley, had casthis eye over the whole fictional literature which was recent in theyear 1895, and had been asked to select the three most vigorous andpromising and original artists and artistic works, he would, I think, most certainly have said that for a fine artistic audacity, for a realartistic delicacy, or for a whiff of true novelty in art, the thingsthat stood first were "Soldiers Three, " by a Mr. Rudyard Kipling; "Armsand the Man, " by a Mr. Bernard Shaw; and "The Time Machine, " by a mancalled Wells. And all these men have shown themselves ingrainedlydidactic. You may express the matter if you will by saying that if wewant doctrines we go to the great artists. But it is clear from thepsychology of the matter that this is not the true statement; the truestatement is that when we want any art tolerably brisk and bold we haveto go to the doctrinaires. 

In concluding this book, therefore, I would ask, first and foremost, that men such as these of whom I have spoken should not be insulted bybeing taken for artists. No man has any right whatever merely to enjoythe work of Mr. Bernard Shaw; he might as well enjoy the invasion ofhis country by the French. Mr. Shaw writes either to convince or toenrage us. No man has any business to be a Kiplingite without being apolitician, and an Imperialist politician. If a man is first with us, it should be because of what is first with him. If a man convinces usat all, it should be by his convictions. If we hate a poem of Kipling'sfrom political passion, we are hating it for the same reason that thepoet loved it; if we dislike him because of his opinions, we aredisliking him for the best of all possible reasons. If a man comes intoHyde Park to preach it is permissible to hoot him; but it isdiscourteous to applaud him as a performing bear. And an artist is onlya performing bear compared with the meanest man who fancies he hasanything to say. 

There is, indeed, one class of modern writers and thinkers who cannotaltogether be overlooked in this question, though there is no spacehere for a lengthy account of them, which, indeed, to confess thetruth, would consist chiefly of abuse. I mean those who get over allthese abysses and reconcile all these wars by talking about "aspects oftruth, " by saying that the art of Kipling represents one aspect of thetruth, and the art of William Watson another; the art of Mr. BernardShaw one aspect of the truth, and the art of Mr. Cunningham Grahameanother; the art of Mr. H. G. Wells one aspect, and the art of Mr. Coventry Patmore (say) another. I will only say here that this seems tome an evasion which has not even had the sense to disguise itselfingeniously in words. If we talk of a certain thing being an aspect oftruth, it is evident that we claim to know what is truth; just as, ifwe talk of the hind leg of a dog, we claim to know what is a dog. Unfortunately, the philosopher who talks about aspects of truthgenerally also asks, "What is truth?" Frequently even he denies theexistence of truth, or says it is inconceivable by the humanintelligence. How, then, can he recognize its aspects? I should notlike to be an artist who brought an architectural sketch to a builder, saying, "This is the south aspect of Sea-View Cottage. Sea-ViewCottage, of course, does not exist. " I should not even like very muchto have to explain, under such circumstances, that Sea-View Cottagemight exist, but was unthinkable by the human mind. Nor should I likeany better to be the bungling and absurd metaphysician who professed tobe able to see everywhere the aspects of a truth that is not there. Ofcourse, it is perfectly obvious that there are truths in Kipling, thatthere are truths in Shaw or Wells. But the degree to which we canperceive them depends strictly upon how far we have a definiteconception inside us of what is truth. It is ludicrous to suppose thatthe more sceptical we are the more we see good in everything. It isclear that the more we are certain what good is, the more we shall seegood in everything. 

I plead, then, that we should agree or disagree with these men. Iplead that we should agree with them at least in having an abstractbelief. But I know that there are current in the modern world manyvague objections to having an abstract belief, and I feel that we shallnot get any further until we have dealt with some of them. The firstobjection is easily stated. 

A common hesitation in our day touching the use of extreme convictionsis a sort of notion that extreme convictions specially upon cosmicmatters, have been responsible in the past for the thing which iscalled bigotry. But a very small amount of direct experience willdissipate this view. In real life the people who are most bigoted arethe people who have no convictions at all. The economists of theManchester school who disagree with Socialism take Socialism seriously. It is the young man in Bond Street, who does not know what socialismmeans much less whether he agrees with it, who is quite certain thatthese socialist fellows are making a fuss about nothing. The man whounderstands the Calvinist philosophy enough to agree with it mustunderstand the Catholic philosophy in order to disagree with it. It isthe vague modern who is not at all certain what is right who is mostcertain that Dante was wrong. The serious opponent of the Latin Churchin history, even in the act of showing that it produced great infamies, must know that it produced great saints. It is the hard-headedstockbroker, who knows no history and believes no religion, who is, nevertheless, perfectly convinced that all these priests are knaves. The Salvationist at the Marble Arch may be bigoted, but he is not toobigoted to yearn from a common human kinship after the dandy on churchparade. But the dandy on church parade is so bigoted that he does notin the least yearn after the Salvationist at the Marble Arch. Bigotrymay be roughly defined as the anger of men who have no opinions. It isthe resistance offered to definite ideas by that vague bulk of peoplewhose ideas are indefinite to excess. Bigotry may be called theappalling frenzy of the indifferent. This frenzy of the indifferent isin truth a terrible thing; it has made all monstrous and widelypervading persecutions. In this degree it was not the people who caredwho ever persecuted; the people who cared were not sufficientlynumerous. It was the people who did not care who filled the world withfire and oppression. It was the hands of the indifferent that lit thefaggots; it was the hands of the indifferent that turned the rack. There have come some persecutions out of the pain of a passionatecertainty; but these produced, not bigotry, but fanaticism--a verydifferent and a somewhat admirable thing. Bigotry in the main hasalways been the pervading omnipotence of those who do not care crushingout those who care in darkness and blood. 

There are people, however, who dig somewhat deeper than this into thepossible evils of dogma. It is felt by many that strong philosophicalconviction, while it does not (as they perceive) produce that sluggishand fundamentally frivolous condition which we call bigotry, doesproduce a certain concentration, exaggeration, and moral impatience, which we may agree to call fanaticism. They say, in brief, that ideasare dangerous things. In politics, for example, it is commonly urgedagainst a man like Mr. Balfour, or against a man like Mr. John Morley, that a wealth of ideas is dangerous. The true doctrine on this point, again, is surely not very difficult to state. Ideas are dangerous, butthe man to whom they are least dangerous is the man of ideas. He isacquainted with ideas, and moves among them like a lion-tamer. Ideasare dangerous, but the man to whom they are most dangerous is the manof no ideas. The man of no ideas will find the first idea fly to hishead like wine to the head of a teetotaller. It is a common error, Ithink, among the Radical idealists of my own party and period tosuggest that financiers and business men are a danger to the empirebecause they are so sordid or so materialistic. The truth is thatfinanciers and business men are a danger to the empire because they canbe sentimental about any sentiment, and idealistic about any ideal, anyideal that they find lying about. Just as a boy who has not known muchof women is apt too easily to take a woman for the woman, so thesepractical men, unaccustomed to causes, are always inclined to thinkthat if a thing is proved to be an ideal it is proved to be the ideal. Many, for example, avowedly followed Cecil Rhodes because he had avision. They might as well have followed him because he had a nose; aman without some kind of dream of perfection is quite as much of amonstrosity as a noseless man. People say of such a figure, in almostfeverish whispers, "He knows his own mind, " which is exactly likesaying in equally feverish whispers, "He blows his own nose. " Humannature simply cannot subsist without a hope and aim of some kind; asthe sanity of the Old Testament truly said, where there is no visionthe people perisheth. But it is precisely because an ideal isnecessary to man that the man without ideals is in permanent danger offanaticism. There is nothing which is so likely to leave a man open tothe sudden and irresistible inroad of an unbalanced vision as thecultivation of business habits. All of us know angular business men whothink that the earth is flat, or that Mr. Kruger was at the head of agreat military despotism, or that men are graminivorous, or that Baconwrote Shakespeare. Religious and philosophical beliefs are, indeed, asdangerous as fire, and nothing can take from them that beauty ofdanger. But there is only one way of really guarding ourselves againstthe excessive danger of them, and that is to be steeped in philosophyand soaked in religion. 

Briefly, then, we dismiss the two opposite dangers of bigotry andfanaticism, bigotry which is a too great vagueness and fanaticism whichis a too great concentration. We say that the cure for the bigot isbelief; we say that the cure for the idealist is ideas. To know thebest theories of existence and to choose the best from them (that is, to the best of our own strong conviction) appears to us the proper wayto be neither bigot nor fanatic, but something more firm than a bigotand more terrible than a fanatic, a man with a definite opinion. Butthat definite opinion must in this view begin with the basic matters ofhuman thought, and these must not be dismissed as irrelevant, asreligion, for instance, is too often in our days dismissed asirrelevant. Even if we think religion insoluble, we cannot think itirrelevant. Even if we ourselves have no view of the ultimate verities, we must feel that wherever such a view exists in a man it must be moreimportant than anything else in him. The instant that the thing ceasesto be the unknowable, it becomes the indispensable. There can be nodoubt, I think, that the idea does exist in our time that there issomething narrow or irrelevant or even mean about attacking a man'sreligion, or arguing from it in matters of politics or ethics. Therecan be quite as little doubt that such an accusation of narrowness isitself almost grotesquely narrow. To take an example from comparativelycurrent events: we all know that it was not uncommon for a man to beconsidered a scarecrow of bigotry and obscurantism because hedistrusted the Japanese, or lamented the rise of the Japanese, on theground that the Japanese were Pagans. Nobody would think that therewas anything antiquated or fanatical about distrusting a people becauseof some difference between them and us in practice or politicalmachinery. Nobody would think it bigoted to say of a people, "Idistrust their influence because they are Protectionists. " No onewould think it narrow to say, "I lament their rise because they areSocialists, or Manchester Individualists, or strong believers inmilitarism and conscription. " A difference of opinion about the natureof Parliaments matters very much; but a difference of opinion about thenature of sin does not matter at all. A difference of opinion aboutthe object of taxation matters very much; but a difference of opinionabout the object of human existence does not matter at all. We have aright to distrust a man who is in a different kind of municipality; butwe have no right to mistrust a man who is in a different kind ofcosmos. This sort of enlightenment is surely about the mostunenlightened that it is possible to imagine. To recur to the phrasewhich I employed earlier, this is tantamount to saying that everythingis important with the exception of everything. Religion is exactly thething which cannot be left out--because it includes everything. Themost absent-minded person cannot well pack his Gladstone-bag and leaveout the bag. We have a general view of existence, whether we like it ornot; it alters or, to speak more accurately, it creates and involveseverything we say or do, whether we like it or not. If we regard theCosmos as a dream, we regard the Fiscal Question as a dream. If weregard the Cosmos as a joke, we regard St. Paul's Cathedral as a joke. If everything is bad, then we must believe (if it be possible) thatbeer is bad; if everything be good, we are forced to the ratherfantastic conclusion that scientific philanthropy is good. Every manin the street must hold a metaphysical system, and hold it firmly. Thepossibility is that he may have held it so firmly and so long as tohave forgotten all about its existence. 

This latter situation is certainly possible; in fact, it is thesituation of the whole modern world. The modern world is filled withmen who hold dogmas so strongly that they do not even know that theyare dogmas. It may be said even that the modern world, as a corporatebody, holds certain dogmas so strongly that it does not know that theyare dogmas. It may be thought "dogmatic, " for instance, in somecircles accounted progressive, to assume the perfection or improvementof man in another world. But it is not thought "dogmatic" to assumethe perfection or improvement of man in this world; though that idea ofprogress is quite as unproved as the idea of immortality, and from arationalistic point of view quite as improbable. Progress happens to beone of our dogmas, and a dogma means a thing which is not thoughtdogmatic. Or, again, we see nothing "dogmatic" in the inspiring, butcertainly most startling, theory of physical science, that we shouldcollect facts for the sake of facts, even though they seem as uselessas sticks and straws. This is a great and suggestive idea, and itsutility may, if you will, be proving itself, but its utility is, in theabstract, quite as disputable as the utility of that calling on oraclesor consulting shrines which is also said to prove itself. Thus, becausewe are not in a civilization which believes strongly in oracles orsacred places, we see the full frenzy of those who killed themselves tofind the sepulchre of Christ. But being in a civilization which doesbelieve in this dogma of fact for facts' sake, we do not see the fullfrenzy of those who kill themselves to find the North Pole. I am notspeaking of a tenable ultimate utility which is true both of theCrusades and the polar explorations. I mean merely that we do see thesuperficial and aesthetic singularity, the startling quality, about theidea of men crossing a continent with armies to conquer the place wherea man died. But we do not see the aesthetic singularity and startlingquality of men dying in agonies to find a place where no man canlive--a place only interesting because it is supposed to be themeeting-place of some lines that do not exist. 

Let us, then, go upon a long journey and enter on a dreadful search. Let us, at least, dig and seek till we have discovered our ownopinions. The dogmas we really hold are far more fantastic, and, perhaps, far more beautiful than we think. In the course of theseessays I fear that I have spoken from time to time of rationalists andrationalism, and that in a disparaging sense. Being full of thatkindliness which should come at the end of everything, even of a book, I apologize to the rationalists even for calling them rationalists. There are no rationalists. We all believe fairy-tales, and live inthem. Some, with a sumptuous literary turn, believe in the existence ofthe lady clothed with the sun. Some, with a more rustic, elvishinstinct, like Mr. McCabe, believe merely in the impossible sun itself. Some hold the undemonstrable dogma of the existence of God; some theequally undemonstrable dogma of the existence of the man next door. 

Truths turn into dogmas the instant that they are disputed. Thus everyman who utters a doubt defines a religion. And the scepticism of ourtime does not really destroy the beliefs, rather it creates them; givesthem their limits and their plain and defiant shape. We who areLiberals once held Liberalism lightly as a truism. Now it has beendisputed, and we hold it fiercely as a faith. We who believe inpatriotism once thought patriotism to be reasonable, and thought littlemore about it. Now we know it to be unreasonable, and know it to beright. We who are Christians never knew the great philosophic commonsense which inheres in that mystery until the anti-Christian writerspointed it out to us. The great march of mental destruction will goon. Everything will be denied. Everything will become a creed. It isa reasonable position to deny the stones in the street; it will be areligious dogma to assert them. It is a rational thesis that we areall in a dream; it will be a mystical sanity to say that we are allawake. Fires will be kindled to testify that two and two make four. Swords will be drawn to prove that leaves are green in summer. We shallbe left defending, not only the incredible virtues and sanities ofhuman life, but something more incredible still, this huge impossibleuniverse which stares us in the face. We shall fight for visibleprodigies as if they were invisible. We shall look on the impossiblegrass and the skies with a strange courage. We shall be of those whohave seen and yet have believed. 

THE END