Decoration.
Ina letter to a young student in philology there are noble passages in which I truly sympathise. Hesays, among other things: “I wish you had less pleasure in satires, not excepting those of Horace. Turn to the works which elevate the heart, in which you contemplate great men and great events, and live in a higher world. Turn away from those which represent the mean and contemptible side of ordinary circumstances and degenerate days: they are not suitable for the young, who in ancient times would not have been suffered to have them in their hands. Homer, Æschylus, Sophocles, Pindar,—these are the poets for youth.” And again: “Do not read the ancient authors in order to make æsthetic reflections on them, but in order to drink in their spirit and to fill your soul with their thoughts; and in order to gain that by reading which you would have gained by reverently listening to the discourses of great men.”
We should turn to works of art with the same feeling.
On the whole, all my own educational experience has shown me the dangerous—in some cases fatal—effects on the childish intellect, where precocious criticism was encouraged, and where caricatures and ugly disproportioned figures, expressing vile or ridiculous emotions, were placed before the eyes of children, as a means of amusement.
If I were a legislator I would forbid travesties and ridiculous burlesques of Shakspeare’s finest and mostserious dramas to be acted in our theatres. That this has been done and recently (as in the case of the Merchant of Venice) seems to me a national disgrace.
Itis strange, confounding, to hear Niebuhr speak thus of Goethe:—
“I am inclined to think that Goethe is utterly destitute of susceptibility to impressions from the fine arts.”(!!) He afterwards does more justice to Goethe—certainly one of the profoundest critics in art who ever lived; although I am inclined to think that his was an educated perception rather than a natural sensibility. Niebuhr’s criticism on Goethe’s Italian travels,—on Goethe’s want of sympathy with the people,—his regarding the whole country and nation simply as a sort of bazaar of art and antiquities, an exhibition of beauty and a recreation for himself: his habit of surveying all moral and intellectual greatness, all that speaks to the heart, with a kind of patronising superiority, as if created for his use,—and finding amusement in the folly, degeneracy, and corruption of the people;—all this appears to me admirable, and so far I had strong sympathy with Niebuhr; for I well remember that in reading Goethe’s “Italianische Reise,” I had the same perception of the artless and the superficial in point of feeling, in the midst of so much that was fine andvaluable in criticism. It is well to be artistic in art, but not to walk about the worlden artiste, studying humanity, and the deepest human interests, as if they wereart.
Niebuhr afterwards says, in speaking of Rome, “I am sickened here of art, as I should be of sweetmeats instead of bread.” So itmustbe where art is separated wholly from morals.
Hespeaks of the “wretched superstition,” and the “utter incapacity for piety” in the people of the Roman States.
Superstition and the want of piety go together; and the combination is not peculiar to the Italians, nor to the Roman Catholic faith.
Inspeaking of the education of his son, he deprecates the learning by rote of hymns. “To a happy child, hymns deploring the misery of human life are without meaning.” (And worse.) “So likewise to a good child are those expressing self-accusation and contrition.” (He might have added, and self-applause.)
I am quite sure, from my own experience of children who have been allowed to learn penitentialpsalms and hymns, that they think of wickedness as a sort of thing which gives them self-importance.
“Onlywhat the mind takes in willingly can it assimilate with itself, and make its own, part of its life.”
A truism of the greatest value in education; but who thinks of it when cramming children’s minds with all sorts of distasteful heterogeneous things?
“Whenreflection has become too one-sided and too domineering over a deeply feeling heart, it is apt to lead us into errors in our treatment of others.”
And all that follows—very wise! for the want of this reflection leaves us stranded and wrecked through feeling and perception merely.
Verycurious and interesting, as a trait of character and feeling, is the passage in which he represents himself, in the dangerous confinement of his second wife, as praying to his first wife for succour. “In my terrible anxiety,” he says, “I prayed most earnestly, and entreated my Milly, too, for help. I comforted Gretchen by telling her that Milly would send help. When she was at the worst,she sighed out, ‘Ah, cannot your Amelia send me a blessing?’”
This is curious from a Protestant and a philosopher. It shows that there may be something nearly allied to our common nature in the Roman Catholic invocation to the saints, and to the souls of the dead.
Niebuhr, speaking of a lady (Madame von der Recke, I think,—the “Elise” of Goethe) who had patronised him, says, “I will receive roses and myrtles from female hands, but no laurels.”
This makes one smile; for most of the laurels which Niebuhr will receive in this country will be through female hands—through the admirable translation and arrangement of his life and letters by Susanna Winkworth.
Thefollowing I read with cordial agreement:—“While I am ready to adopt any well-grounded opinion” (regarding, I suppose, mere facts, or speculations as to things), “my inmost soul revolts against receiving the judgment of others respecting persons; and whenever I have done so I have bitterly repented of it.”
Hesays, “I cannot worship the abstraction of Virtue. She only charms me when she addresses herself to my heart, and speaks thus the love from which she springs. I really love nothing but what actually exists.”
Whatdoesactually exist to us but that which we believe in? and where we strongly love do we not believe sometimes in theunreal? is it notthenthe existing and the actual to us?
“Afacultyof a quite peculiar kind, and for which we have no word, is the recognition of the incomprehensible. It is something which distinguishes the seer from the ordinary learned man.”
But in religion this isfaith. Does Niebuhr admit this kind of faith, “the recognition of the incomprehensible,” in philosophy, and not in religion? for he often complains of the want in himself of any faith but an historic faith.
“Intimes of good fortune it is easy to appear great—nay, even to act greatly; but in misfortune very difficult. The greatest man will commit blunders in misfortune, because the want of proportion between his means and his ends progressively increases, and his inward strength is exhausted in fruitless efforts.”
This is true; but under all extremes of good orevil fortune we are apt to commit mistakes, because the tide of the mind does not flow equally, but rushes along impetuously in a flood, or brokenly and distractedly in a rocky channel, where its strength is exhausted in conflict and pain. The extreme pressure of circumstances will produce extremes of feeling in minds of a sensitive rather than a firm cast.
Thisnext passage is curious as a scholar’s opinion of “free trade” in the year 1810; though I believe the phrase “free trade” was not even invented at that time—certainly not in use in the statesman’s vocabulary.
“I presume you will admit that commerce is a good thing, and the first requisite in the life of any nation. It appears to me, that this much has now been palpably demonstrated, namely, that an advanced and complicated social condition like this in which we live can only be maintained by establishing mutual relationships between the most remote nations; and that the limitation of commerce would, like the sapping of a main pillar, inevitably occasion the fall of the whole edifice; and also that commerce is so essentially beneficial and in accordance with man’s nature, that the well-being of each nation is an advantage to all the nations that stand in connection with it.”
It is strange how long we have been (forty years, and more) in recognising these simple principles; and in Germany, where they were first enunciated, they are not recognised yet.
Decoration.
“Byhis wit and his talent, and more especially by his gift as an improvisatore, he rose so high that he exercised a great influence upon the people, and sometimes was more popular even than Demosthenes. With a shamelessness amounting to honesty, he bluntly told the people everything he felt and what all the populace felt with him. When hearing such a man the populace felt at their ease: he gave them the feeling that they might be wicked without being disgraced, and this excites with such people a feeling of gratitude. There is a remarkable passage in Plato, where he shows that those who deliver hollow speeches, without being in earnest, have no power or influence; whereas others, who are devoid of mental culture, but say in a straightforwardmanner what they think and feel, exercise great power. It was this which in the eighteenth century gave the materialist philosophy in France such enormous influence with the higher classes; for they were told there was no need to be ashamed of the vulgarest sensuality; formerly people had been ashamed, but now a man learned that he might be a brutal sensualist, provided he did not offend against elegant manners and social conventionalism. People rejoiced at hearing a man openly and honestly say what they themselves felt. Demades was a remarkable character. He was not a bad man; and I like him much better than Eschines.”
What an excuse, what a sanction is here for the demagogues who direct the worst passions of men to the worst and the most selfish purposes, and the most debasing consequences! Demades “not a bad man?” then whatisa bad man?
Decoration.
Decoration.
“Itwas not the pure knowledge of nature and universality, but it was the proud knowledge of good and evil, with an intent in man to give the law unto himself, which was the form of the first temptation.”
But, in this sense, the first temptation is only the type of the perpetual and ever-present temptation—the temptation into which we are to fall through necessity, that we may rise through love.
Hereis an excellent passage—a severe commentary on the unsound, un-christian, unphilosophical distinction between morals and politics in government:—
“Although men bred in learning are perhaps to seek in points of convenience and reasons of state and accommodations for the present, yet, on the other hand, to recompense this they are perfect in those same plain grounds of religion, justice, honour, and moral virtue which, if they be well and watchfully pursued, there will be seldom use of those other expedients, no more than of physic in a sound, well-directed body.”
“Now(in the time of Lord Bacon, that is,) now sciences are delivered to be believed and accepted, and not to be farther discovered; and therefore, sciences stand at a clog, and have done for many ages.”
In the present time, this is true only, or especially, of theology as an art, and divinity as a science; so made by the schoolmen of former ages, and not yet emancipated.
“Generallyhe perceived in men of devout simplicity this opinion, that the secrets of nature were the secrets of God, part of that glory into which man is not to press too boldly.”
God has placed no limits to the exercise of the intellect he has given us on this side of the grave.But not the less will he keep his own secrets from us. Has he not proved it? who has opened that door to the knowledge of a future being which it has pleased him to keep shut fast, though watched by hope and by faith?
TheChristian philosophy of these latter times appears to be foreshadowed in the following sentence, where he speaks of such as have ventured to deduce and confirm the truth of the Christian religion from the principles and authorities of philosophers: “Thus with great pomp and solemnity celebrating the intermarriage of faith and sense as a lawful conjunction, and soothing the minds of men with a pleasing variety of matter, though, at the same time, rashly and unequally intermixing things divine and things human.”
This last common-place distinction seems to me, however, unworthy of Bacon. It should be banished—utterly set aside. Things which are divine should be human, and things which are human, divine; not as a mixture, “a medley,” in the sense of Bacon’s words, but an interfusion; for nothing that we esteem divine can be anything to us but as we make itours,i. e.humanise it; and our humanity were a poor thing but for “the divinity that stirs within us.” We do injury to our own nature—we misconceive our relations to the Creator, to his universe, and to each other, so long as we separate and studiously keep wide apart thedivineand thehuman.
“Letno man, upon a weak conceit of sobriety or an ill-applied moderation, think or maintain that a man can search too far or be too well studied either in the book of God’s word or the book of God’s works.” Well advised! But then he goes on to warn men that they do not “unwisely mingle or confound their learnings together:” mischievous this contradistinction between God’s word and God’s works; since both, if emanating from him, must be equally true. And if there be one truth, then, to borrow his own words in another place, “the voice of nature will consent, whether the voice of man do so or not.”
Aproposto education—here is a good illustration: “Were it not better for a man in a fair room to set up one great light or branching candlestick of lights, than to go about with a rushlight into every dark corner?”
And here is another: “It is one thing to set forth what ground lieth unmanured, and another to correct ill husbandry in that whichismanured.”
“Itis without all controversy that learning doth make the minds of men gentle and generous, amiable, and pliant to government, whereas ignorance maketh them churlish, thwarting, and mutinous.”
“Animpatience of doubt and an unadvised haste to assertion without due and mature suspension of the judgment, is an error in the conduct of the understanding.”
“In contemplation, if a man begin with certainties he shall end in doubts, but if he will be content to begin with doubts he shall end in certainties.” Well said and profoundly true.
This is a celebrated and often-cited passage; an admitted principle in theory. I wish it were oftener applied in practice,—more especially in education. For it seems to me that in teaching children we ought not to be perpetually dogmatising. We ought not to be ever placing before them only the known and the definite; but to allow the unknown, the uncertain, the indefinite, to be suggested to their minds: it would do more for the growth of a truly religious feeling than all the catechisms of scientific facts and creeds of theological definitions that ever were taught in cut and dried question andanswer. Why should not the young candid mind be allowed to reflect on the unknown, as such? on the doubtful, as such—open to inquiry and liable to discussion? Why will teachers suppose that in confessing their own ignorance or admitting uncertainties they must diminish the respect of their pupils, or their faith in truth? I should say from my own experience that the effect is just the reverse. I remember, when a child, hearing a very celebrated man profess his ignorance on some particular subject, and I felt awe-struck—it gave me a perception of the infinite,—as when looking up at the starry sky. What we unadvisedly cram into a child’s mind in the same form it has taken in our own, does not always healthily or immediately assimilate; it dissolves away in doubts, or it hardens into prejudice, instead of mingling with the life as truth ought to do. It is the early and habitual surrendering of the mind to authority, which makes it afterwards so ready for deception of all kinds.
Hespeaks of “legends and narrations of miracles wrought by martyrs, hermits, monks, which, though they have had passage for a time by the ignorance of the people, the superstitious simplicity of some, and the politic toleration of others, holding them but as divine poesies; yet after a time theygrew up to be esteemed but as old wives’ fables, to the great scandal and detriment of religion.”
Very ambiguous, surely. Does he mean that it was to the great scandal and detriment of religion that they existed at all? or that they came to be regarded as old wives’ fables?
Hesays, farther on, “though truth and error are carefully to be separated, yet rarities and reports that seem incredible are not to be suppressed or denied to the memory of men.”
“For it is not yet known in what cases and how far effects attributed to superstition do participate of natural causes.”
“Tobe speculative with another man to the end to know how to work him or wind him, proceedeth from a heart that is double and cloven, and not entire and ingenuous; which, as in friendship, it is a want ofintegrity, so towards princes or superiors it is a want ofduty.” (No occasion, surely, for the distinction here drawn; inasmuch as the want of integrity involves the want ofeveryduty.)
Then he speaks of “the stooping to points of necessity and convenience and outward basenesses,” as to be accounted “submission to the occasion, not to theperson.” Vile distinction! an excuse to himself for his dedication to the King, and his flattery of Carr and Villiers.
OurEnglish Universities are only now beginning to show some sign (reluctant sign) of submitting to that re-examination which the great philosopher recommended two hundred and fifty years ago, when he says: “Inasmuch as most of the usages and orders of the universities were derived from more obscure times, it is the more requisite they be reexamined”—and more to the same purpose.
“Ifthat great Workmaster (God) had been of a human disposition, he would have cast the stars into some pleasant and beautiful works and orders like the frets in the roofs of houses; whereas, one can scarce find a posture in square or triangle or straight line amongst such an infinite number, so differing an harmony there is between the spirit of man and the spirit of nature.”
Perhaps if our human vision could be removed to a sufficient distance to contemplate the whole of what we now see in part, what appears disorder might appear beautiful order. The stars which now appear as if flung about at random, would perhaps beresolved into some exquisitely beautiful and regular edifice. The fly on the cornice, “whose feeble ray scarce spreads an inch around,” might as well discuss the proportions of the Parthenon as we the true figure and frame of God’s universe.
I remember seeing, through Lord Rosse’s telescope, one of those nebulæ which have hitherto appeared like small masses of vapour floating about in space. I saw it composed of thousands upon thousands of brilliant stars, and the effect to the eye—to mine at least—was as if I had had my hand full of diamonds, and suddenly unclosing it, and flinging them forth, they were dispersed as from a centre, in a kind of partly irregular, partly fan-like form; and I had a strange feeling of suspense and amazement while I looked, because they did not change their relative position, did not fall—though in act to fall—but seemed fixed in the very attitude of being flung forth into space;—it was most wondrous and beautiful to see!
Decoration.
Itis pleasant to me to think that Bacon’s stupendous intellect believed in the moral progress of human societies, because it is my own belief, and one that I would not for worlds resign. I indeed believe that each human being must here (or hereafter?) work out his own peculiar moral life: but also that the whole race has a progressive moral life: just as in our solar system every individual planet moves in its own orbit, while the whole system moves on together; we know not whither, we know not round what centre—“ma pur si muove!”
Yethe says in another place, with equal wit and sublimity, “Every obtaining of a desire hath ashowof advancement, as motion in a circle hath ashowof progression.” Perhaps our movement may bespiral? and every revolution may bring us nearer and nearer to some divine centre in which we may be absorbed at last?
Herefers in this following passage to that theory of the angelic existences which we see expressed in ancient symbolic Art, first by variation of colour only, and later, by variety of expression andform. He says,—“We find, as far as credit is to be given to the celestial hierarchy of that supposed Dionysius, the senator of Athens, that the first place or degree is given to the Angels of Love, which are called Seraphim; the second to the Angels of Light, which are termed Cherubim; and the third, and so following, to Thrones, Principalities, and the rest (which are all angels of power and ministry); so as the angels of knowledge and illumination are placed before the angels of office and domination.”
—But the Angels ofLoveare first and over all. In other words, we have here in due order of precedence, 1.Love, 2.Knowledge, 3.Power,—the angelic Trinity, which, in unity, is our idea ofGod.
Decoration.
Chateaubriandtells us that when his mother and sisters urged him to marry, he resisted strongly—hethought it too early; he says, with a peculiar naïveté, “Je ne me sentais aucune qualité de mari: toutes mes illusions étaient vivantes, rien n’était épuisé en moi, l’énergie même de mon existence avait doublé par mes courses,” &c.
So then the “existence épuisé” is to be kept for the wife! “la vie usée”—“la jeunesse abusée,” is good enough to make a husband! Chateaubriand, who in many passages of his book piques himself on his morality, seems quite unconscious that he has here given utterance to a sentiment the most profoundly immoral, the most fatal to both sexes, that even his immoral age had ever the effrontery to set forth.
“Il paraît qu’on n’apprend pas à mourir en tuant les autres.”
Nor do we learn to suffer by inflicting pain: nothing so patient as pity.
“Lecynisme des mœurs ramène dans la société, en annihilant le sens moral, une sorte de barbares; ces barbares de la civilisation, propres à détruire comme les Goths, n’ont pas la puissance de fonder comme eux; ceux-ci étaient les énormes enfants d’une nature vierge; ceux-là sont les avortons monstrueux d’une nature dépravée.”
We too often make the vulgar mistake that undisciplined or overgrown passions are a sign of strength; they are the signs of immaturity, of “enormous childhood.”—And the distinction (above) is well drawn and true. The real savage is that monstrous, malignant, abject thing, generated out of the rottenness and ferment of civilisation. And yet extremes meet: I remember seeing on the shores of Lake Huron some Indians of a distant tribe of Chippawas, who in appearance were just like those fearful abortions of humanity which crawl out of the darkness, filth, and ignorance of our great towns, just so miserable, so stupid, so cruel,—only, perhaps, lesswicked.
Chateaubriandwas always comparing himself with Lord Byron—he hints more than once, that Lord Byron owed some of his inspiration to the perusal of his works—more especially to Renée. In this he was altogether mistaken.
“Uneintelligence supérieure n’enfante pas le mal sans douleur, parceque ce n’est pas son fruit naturel, et qu’elle ne devait pas le porter.”
Madame de Coeslin(whom he describes as an impersonation of aristocraticmorgueand allthe pretension and prejudices of theancien régime), “lisant dans un journal la mort de plusieurs rois, elle ôta ses lunettes et dit en se mouchant, ‘Il y a donc uneépizootie sur ces bêtes à couronne!”
I once counted among my friends an elderly lady of high rank, who had spent the whole of a long life in intimacy with royal and princely personages. In three different courts she had filled offices of trust and offices of dignity. In referring to her experience she never either moralised or generalised; but her scorn of “ces bêtes à couronne,” was habitually expressed with just such a cool epigrammatic bluntness as that of Madame de Coeslin.
“L’aristocratiea trois âges successifs; l’âge des supériorités, l’âge des priviléges, l’âge des vanités; sortie du premier, elle dégénère dans le second et s’éteint dans le dernier.”
In Germany they are still in the first epoch. In England we seem to have arrived at the second. In France they are verging on the third.
Chateaubriandsays of himself:—
“Dans le premier moment d’une offense je la sens à peine; mais elle se grave dans ma mémoire; son souvenir au lieu de décroître, s’augmente avec letemps. Il dort dans mon cœur des mois, des années entières, puis il se réveille à la moindre circonstance avec une force nouvelle, et ma blessure devient plus vive que le prémier jour: mais si je ne pardonne point à mes ennemis je ne leur fais aucun mal; je suisrancunieret ne suis pointvindicatif.”
A very nice and true distinction in point of feeling and character, yet hardly to be expressed in English. We always attach the idea of malignity to the wordrancour, whereas the French wordsrancune,rancunier, express the relentless without the vengeful or malignant spirit.
Such characters make me turn pale, as I have done at sight of a tomb in which an offending wretch had been buried alive. There is in them always something acute and deep and indomitable in the internal and exciting emotion; slow, scrupulous, and timid in the external demonstration. Cordelia is such a character.
Chateaubriandsays of his friend Pelletrie,—“Il n’avait pas précisément des vices, mais il était rongé d’une vermine de petits défauts dont on ne pouvait l’épurer.” I know such a man; and if he had committed a murder every morning, and a highway robbery every night,—if he had killed his father and eaten him with any possible sauce, hecould not be more intolerable, more detestable than he is!
“Unhomme nous protège par ce qu’il vaut; une femme par ce que vous valez: voilà pourquoi de ces deux empires l’un est si odieux, l’autre si doux.”
Hesays of Madame Roland, “Elle avait du caractère plutôt que du génie; le premier peut donner le second, le second ne peut donner le premier.” What does the man mean? this is a mistake surely. What the French callcaractèrenever could give genius, nor genius,caractère.Au reste, I am not sure that Madame Roland—admirable creature!—had genius; but for talent, andcaractère—first rate.
“Soyonsdoux si nous voulons être regrettés. La hauteur du génie et les qualités supérieures ne sont pleurées que des anges.”
“Veillons bien sur notre caractère. Songeons que nous pouvons avec un attachement profond n’en pas moins empoisonner des jours que nous rachéterions au prix de tout notre sang. Quand nos amis sont descendus dans la tombe, quels moyens avonsnous de réparer nos torts? nos inutiles regrets, nos vains repentirs, sont ils un remède aux peines que nous leurs avons faites? Ils auraient mieux aimé de nous un sourire pendant leur vie que toutes nos larmes après leur mort.”
“L’amourest si bien la félicité qu’il est poursuivi de la chimère d’être toujours; il ne veut prononcer que des serments irrévocables; au défaut de ses joies, il cherche à éterniser ses douleurs; ange tombé, il parle encore le langage qu’il parlait au séjour incorruptible; son espérance est de ne cesser jamais. Dans sa double nature et dans sa double illusion, ici-bas il prétend se perpétuer par d’immortelles pensées et par des générations intarissables.”
Madame d’Houdetot, after the death of Saint Lambert, always before she went to bed used to rap three times with her slipper on the floor, saying,—“Bon soir, mon ami; bon soir, bon soir!”
So then, she thought of her lover as gonedown—notup?
Decoration.
Decoration.
Bishop Cumberlandfounds the law of God, as revealed in the Scriptures, upon the general law of nature. He does not attempt to found the laws of nature upon the Bible. “We believe,” he says, “in the truth of Scripture, because it promotes and illustrates the fundamental laws of nature in the government of the world.”
Then does the Bishop mean here that the Bible is not theWORDnor theWILLof God, but the exposition of theWORDand the record of theWILL, so far as either could be rendered communicable to human comprehension through the medium of human language and intelligence?
There is a striking passage in Bunsen’s Hippolytus, which may be considered with reference to this opinion of the Bishop.
He (Bunsen) says, that “what relates the historyof ‘the word of God’ in his humanity, and in this world, and what records its teachings, and warnings, and promises (that is, the Bible?) was mistaken for ‘the word of God’ itself, in its proper sense.”
Does he mean that we deem erroneously the collection of writings we call the Bible to be “the word of God;” whereas, in fact, it is “the history, the record of the word of God?” that is, of all that God has spoken to man—in various revelations—through human life—by human deeds?—because this is surely a most important and momentous distinction.
Accordingto Bishop Cumberland,benevolence, in its large sense,—that is, a regard for allGOOD, universal and particular,—is the primary law of nature; andjusticeis one form, and a secondary form, of this law: a moral virtue, not a law of nature,—if I understand his meaning rightly.
Then which would he placehighest, the law of nature or the moral law?
If you place them in contradistinction, then are we to conclude that the law of natureprecedesthe moral law, but that the moral lawsupersedesthe law of nature? Yet no law of nature (as I understand the word)canbe superseded, though the moral law may be based upon it, and in that sense may beaboveit.
Inthis following passage the Bishop seems to have anticipated what in more modern times has been called the “greatest happiness principle.” He says:—
“The good of all rational beings is a complex whole, being nothing but the aggregate of good enjoyed by each.” “We can only act in our proper spheres, labouring to do good, but this labour will be fruitless, or rather mischievous, if we do not keep in mind the higher gradations which terminate in universal benevolence. Thus, no man must seek his own pleasure or advantage otherwise than as his family permits; or provide for his family to the detriment of his country; or promote the good of his country at the expense of mankind; or serve mankind, if it were possible, without regard to the majesty of God.”
Paleydeems the recognition of a future state so essential that he even makes the definition of virtue to consist in this, that it is good performed for the sake of everlasting happiness. That is to say, he makes it a sort of bargain between God and man, a contract, or a covenant, instead of that obedience to a primal law, from which if we stray in will, we doso at the necessary expense of our happiness. Bishop Cumberland has no reference to this doctrine of Paley’s;—seems, indeed, to set it aside altogether, as contrary to the essence of virtue.
On the whole, this good Bishop appears to have treated ethics not as an ecclesiastic, but as Bacon treated natural philosophy;—the pervading spirit is the perpetual appeal to experience, and not to authority.
Decoration.
Comtemakes out three elements of progress, “les philosophes, les prolétaires, et les femmes;”—types of intellect, material activity, and sentiment.
From Woman, he says, is to proceed the preponderance of the social duties and affections over egotism and ambition. (La prépondérance de la sociabilité sur la personalité.) He adds:—“Ce sexe est certainement supérieure au notre quant à l’attribut leplus fondamentale de l’espèce humaine, la tendence de faire prévaloir lasociabilitésur lapersonalité.”
“S’ilne fallaitqu’aimercomme dans l’Utopie Chrétienne, sur une vie future affranchie de toute égoïste necessité matérielle, la femme régnerait; mais il faut surtoutagiretpenserpour combattre contre les rigueurs de notre vraie destinée: dès-lors l’homme doit commander malgré sa moindre moralité.”
“Malgré?” Sometimes man commandsbecauseof the “moindre moralité:”—it spares much time in scruples.
“L’influencefeminine devient l’auxiliaire indispensable de tout pouvoir spirituel, comme le moyen âge l’a tant montré.”
“Au moyen âge la Catholicisme occidentale ébaucha la systématisation de la puissance morale en superposant à l’ordre pratique une libre autorité spirituelle, habituellement secondée par les femmes.”
“LaForce, proprement dite, c’est ce qui régit les actes, sans régler les volontés.”
Herein lies a distinction between Force and Power; for Power, properly so called, does both.
Heinsists throughout on the predominance ofsociabilitéoverpersonalité—and what is that but the Christian law philosophised? and again, “Il n’y a de directement morale dans notre nature que l’amour.” Where did he get this, if not in the Epistle of St. John?
“Celui qui se croirait indépendant des autres dans ses affections, ses pensées, ou ses actes, ne pourrait même formuler un tel blasphème sans une contradiction immédiate—puisque son langage même ne lui appartient pas.”
Hesays that if the women regret the age of chivalry, it is not for the external homage then paid to them, but because “l’élément le plus moral de l’humanité” (woman, to wit), “doit préférer à tout autre le seul régime qui érigea directement en principe la préponderance de la morale sur la politique. Si elles regrettent leur douce influence antérieure, c’est surtout comme s’effaçant aujourd’hui sous un grossier égoïsme.
“Leurs vœux spontanés seconderont toujours les efforts directes des philosophes et des prolétaires pour transformer enfin les débats politiques en transactions sociales en faisant prévaloir lesdévoirssur lesdroits.”
This is admirable; for we are all inclined to think more about ourrights(and our wrongs too) than about ourduties.
“Sidonc aimer nous satisfait mieux que d’être aimé, cela constate la supériorité naturelle des affections désintéressées.”
Meaning—what is true—that the love we bear to another, much more fills the whole soul and is more a possession of an actuating principle, than the love of another for us:—but both are necessary to the complement of our moral life. The first is as the air we breathe; the last is as our daily bread.
Hesays that the only true and firm friendship is that between man and woman, because it is the only affection “exempte de toute concurrence actuelle ou possible.”
In this I am inclined to agree with him, and to regret that our conventional morality or immorality, and the too early severance of the two sexes in education, place men and women in such a relation to each other, socially, as to render such friendships difficult and rare.
“Envérité l’amour ne saurait être profond, s’il n’est pas pur.”
Christianity, he says, “a favorisé l’essor de la véritable passion, tandisque le polythéisme consacrait surtout les appétits.”
He is speaking here as teacher, philosopher, and legislator, not as poet or sentimentalist. Perhaps it will come to be recognised sooner or later, that what people are pleased to call theromanceof life is founded on the deepest and most immutable laws of our being, and that any system of ecclesiastical polity, or civil legislation, or moral philosophy, which takes no account of the primal instincts and affections, which are the springs of life and on which God made the continuation of his world to depend,mustof necessity fail.
I have just read a volume of Psychological Essays by one of the most celebrated of living surgeons, and closed the book with a feeling of amazement: a long life spent in physiological experiences, dissecting dead bodies, and mending broken bones, has then led him, at last, to some of the most obvious, most commonly known facts in mental philosophy? So some of our profound politicians, after a long life spent in governing and reforming men, may arrive,at last, at some of the commonest facts in social morals.
Hecontends for the indissolubility of marriage, and against divorce; and he thinks that educationshould be in the hands of women to the age of ten or twelve, “Afin que le cœur y prévale toujours sur l’esprit:” all very excellent principles, but supposing ahypotheticalsocial and moral state, from which we are as yet far removed. What he says, however, of the indissolubility of the marriage bond is so beautiful and eloquent, and so in accordance with my own moral theories, that I cannot help extracting it from a mass of heavy and sometimes unintelligible matter. He begins by laying it down as a principle that the “amélioration morale de l’homme constitue la principale mission de la femme,” and that “une telle destination indique aussitôt que le lien conjugal doit être unique et indissoluble, afin que les relations domestiques puissent acquérir la plénitude et la fixité qu’exige leur efficacité morale.” This, however, supposes the holiest and completest of all bonds to be sealed on terms of equality, not that the latter end of a man’s life,la vie usée et la jeunesse épuisée, are to be tacked on to the beginning of a woman’s fresh and innocent existence; for then influences are reversed, and instead of the amelioration of the masculine, we have the demoralisation of the feminine, nature. He supposes the possibility of circumstances which demand a personal separation, but even thensans permettre un nouveau mariage. In such a case his religion imposes on the innocent victim(whether man or woman) “une chasteté compatible d’ailleurs avec la plus profonde tendresse. Si cette condition lui semble rigoureuse, il doit l’accepter, d’abord, en vue de l’ordre général; puis, comme une juste conséquence de son erreur primitive.”
There would be much to say upon all this, if it were worth while to discuss a theory which it is not possible to reduce to general practice. We cannot imagine the possibility of a second marriage where the first, though perhaps unhappy or early ruptured, has been, not a personal relation only, but an interfusion of our moral being,—of the deepest impulses of life—with those of another;thesewe cannot have a second time to surrender to a second object;—but this might be left to Nature and her holy instincts to settle. However, he goes on in a strain of eloquence and dignity, quite unusual with him, to this effect:—“Ce n’est que par l’assurance d’une inaltérable perpetuité que les liens intimes peuvent acquérir la consistance et la plénitude indispensable à leur efficacité morale. La plus méprisable des sectes éphémères que suscita l’anarchie moderne (the Mormons, for instance?) me parait être celle qui voulut ériger l’inconstance en condition de bonheur.”.... “Entre deux êtres aussi complexes et aussi divers que l’homme et la femme, ce n’est pas trop de toute la vie pour se bien connaître et s’aimer dignement. Loin de taxer d’illusion la haute idée que deux vrais époux seforment souvent l’un de l’autre, je l’ai presque toujours attribuée à l’appréciation plus profonde que procure seule une pleine intimité, que d’ailleurs développe des qualités inconnues aux indifférents. On doit même regarder comme très-honorable pour notre espèce, cette grande estime que ses membres s’inspirent mutuellement quand ils s’étudient beaucoup.Car la haine et l’indifférence mériteraient seules le reproche d’aveuglement qu’une appréciation superficielle applique à l’amour.Il faut donc juger pleinement conforme à la nature humaine l’institution qui prolonge au-delà du tombeau l’indentification de deux dignes époux.”
He lays down as one of the primal instincts of human kind “l’homme doit nourrir la femme.” This may have been, as he says, a universalinstinct; perhaps it ought to be one of our social ordinations; perhaps it may be so at some future time; but we know that it is not a present fact; that the woman must in many cases maintain herself or perish, and she asks nothing more than to be allowed to do so.
However, I agree with Comte that the position of a woman, enriched and independent by her own labour, is anomalous and seldom happy. It is a remark I have heard somewhere, and it appears to me true, that there exists no being so hard, so keen, so calculating, so unscrupulous, so mercilessin money matters as the wife of a Parisian shopkeeper, where she holds the purse and manages the concern, as is generally the case.
Hereis a passage wherein he attacks that egotism which with many good people enters so largely into the notion of another world:—which Paley inculcated, and which Coleridge ridiculed, when he spoke of “thisworldliness,” and the “otherworldliness.”
“La sagesse sacerdotale, digne organe de l’instinct public, y avait intimement rattaché les principales obligations sociales à titre de condition indispensable du salut personnel: mais la récompense infinie promise ainsi à tous les sacrifices ne pouvait jamais permettre une affection pleinement désinteressée.”
This perpetual iteration of a system of future reward and punishment, as a principle of our religion and a motive of action, has in some sort demoralised Christianity; especially in minds where love is not a chief element, and which do not love Christ for his love’s sake, but for his power’s sake, and because judgment and punishment are supposed to be in his hand.
Puttingthe test of revelation out of the question, and dealing with the philosopher philosophically,the best refutation of Comte’s system is contained in the following criticism: it seems to me final.
“In limiting religion to the relations in which we stand to each other, and towardsHumanity, Comte omits one very important consideration. Even upon his own showing, thisHumanitycan only be thesupreme beingofourplanet, it cannot be theSupreme Beingof the Universe. Now, although in this our terrestrial sojourn, all we can distinctly know must be limited to the sphere of our planet; yet, standing on this ball and looking forth into infinitude, we know that it is but an atom of the infinitude, and that the humanity we worshiphere, cannot extend its dominionthere. If our relations to humanity may be systematised into a cultus, and made a religion as they have formerly been made a morality, and if the whole of our practical priesthood be limited to this religion, there will, nevertheless remain for us, outlying this terrestrial sphere,—the sphere of the infinite, in which our thoughts must wander, and our emotions will follow our thoughts; so that besides the religion of humanity there must ever be a religion of the Universe. Or, to bring this conception within ordinary language, there must ever remain the old distinctions betweenreligionandmorality, our relations to God, and our relations towards man. The only difference being, that in theoldtheology moral precepts were inculcated witha view to a celestial habitat; in thenew, the moral precepts are inculcated with a view to the general progress of the race.”—Westminster Review.
In fact the doctrine of the non-plurality of worlds as recently set forth by an eminent professor and D. D. would exactly harmonise with Comte’s “Culte du Positif,” as not merely limiting our sympathies to this one form of intellectual being, but our religious notions to this one habitable orb.
But to those who take other views, the argument above contains thephilosophicalobjection to Comte’ssystem, as such; and I repeat, that it seems to me unanswerable; but there are excellent things in his theory, notwithstanding;—things that make us pause and think. In some parts it is like Christianity with Christ, as apersonalité, omitted. For Christ the humanised divine, he substitutes an abstract deified humanity. 1854.