VII.
Lambkin’s Lecture on “Right”
Of the effects of Mr. Lambkin’s lectures, the greatest and (I venture to think) the most permanent are those that followed from his course onEthics. The late Dean of Heaving-on-the-Marsh (the Honourable Albert Nathan-Merivale, the first name adopted from his property in Rutland) told me upon one occasion that he owed the direction of his mind to those lectures (under Providence) more than to any other lectures he could remember.
Very much the same idea was conveyed to me, more or less, by the Bishop of Humbury, who turned to me in hall, only a year ago, with a peculiar look in his eyes, and (as I had mentioned Lambkin’s name) said suddenly, like a man who struggles with an emotion:[42]“Lambkin(!)[43]... did nothe give lectures in your hall ... on Ethics?” “Some,” I replied, “were given in the Hall, others in Lecture Room No. 2 over the glory-hole.” His lordship said nothing, but there was a world of thought and reminiscence in his eyes. May we not—knowing his lordship’s difficulties in matters of belief, and his final victory—ascribe something of this progressive and salutary influence to my dear friend?
On “Right”
[Being Lecture V. in a course of Eight, delivered, in the Autumn Term of 1878.]
[Being Lecture V. in a course of Eight, delivered, in the Autumn Term of 1878.]
We have now proceeded for a considerable distance in our journey towards the Solution. Of eight lectures, of which I had proposed to make so many milestones on the road, the fifth is reached, and now we are in measurable distance of the Great Answer; the Understanding of the Relations of the Particular to the Universal.
It is an easy, though a profitable task to wander in what the late Sir Reginald Hawke once called in a fine phrase “the flowery meads and bosky dells of PositiveKnowledge.” It is in the essence of any modern method of inquiry that we should be first sure of our facts, and it is on this account that all philosophical research worthy of the name must begin with the physical sciences. For the last few weeks I have illustrated my lectures with chemical experiments and occasionally with large coloured diagrams, which, especially to young people like yourselves have done not a little to enliven what might at first appear a very dull subject. It is therefore with happy, hopeful hearts, with sparkling eyes and eager appetite that we leave the physical entry-hall of knowledge to approach the delicious feast of metaphysics.
But here a difficulty confronts us. So far we have followed an historical development. We have studied the actions of savages and the gestures of young children; we have enquired concerning the habits of sleepwalkers, and have drawn our conclusions from the attitudes adopted in special manias. So far, then, we have been on safe ground. We have proceeded from the known to the unknown, and we have correlated Psychology,Sociology, Anatomy, Morphology, Physiology, Geography, and Theology (here Mr. Darkin of Vast, who had been ailing a long time, was carried out in a faint; Mr. Lambkin, being short-sighted, did not fully seize what had happened, and thinking that certain of his audience were leaving the Hall without permission, he became as nearly angry as was possible to such a man. He made a short speech on the decay of manners, and fell into several bitter epigrams. It is only just to say that, on learning the occasion of the interruption, he regretted the expression “strong meat for babes” which had escaped him at the time.)
So far so good. But there is something more. No one can proceed indefinitely in the study of Ethics without coming, sooner or later, upon the Conventional conception ofRight. I do not mean that this conception has any philosophic value. I should be the last to lay down for it those futile, empirical and dogmatic foundations which may satisfy narrow, deductive minds. But there it is, and as practical men with it we must deal. What isRight? Whence proceedsthis curious conglomeration of idealism, mysticism, empiricism, and fanaticism to which the name has been given?
It is impossible to say. It is the duty of the lecturer to set forth the scheme of truth: to make (as it were) a map or plan of Epistemology. He is not concerned to demonstrate a point; he is not bound to dispute the attitude of opponents. Let them fall of their own weight (Ruant mole suâ). It is mine to show that thingsmaybe thus or thus, and I will most steadily refuse to be drawn into sterile argument and profitless discussion with mere affirmations.
“The involute of progression is the subconscious evolution of the particular function.” No close reasoner will deny this. It is the final summing up of all that is meant by Development. It is the root formula of the nineteenth century that is now, alas! drawing to a close under our very eyes. Now to such a fundamental proposition I add a second. “The sentiment of right is the inversion of the subconscious function in its relation to the indeterminate ego.” This also I take to be admitted byall European philosophers in Germany. Now I will not go so far as to say that a major premiss when it is absolutely sound, followed by a minor equally sound, leads to a sure conclusion. God fulfils himself in many ways, and there are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy. But I take this tentatively: that if these two propositions are true (and we have the word of Herr Waldteufel,[44]who lives in the Woodstock Road, that it is true) then it follows conclusively that no certainty can be arrived at in these matters. I would especially recommend you on this point (here Mr. Lambkin changed his lecturing voice for a species of conversational, interested and familiar tone) to read the essay by the late Dr. Barton inShots at the Probable: you will also find the third chapter of Mr. Mendellsohn’sHistory of the Soulvery useful. Remember also, by the way, to consult the footnote on p. 343, of Renan’sAnti-Christ. The Master of St. Dives’Little Journeys in the Obviousis light and amusing, but instructive in its way.
There is a kind of attitude (this was Lambkin’s peroration, and he was justly proud of it) which destroys nothing but creates much: which transforms without metamorphosis, and which says “look at this, I have found truth!” but which dares not say “look away from that—it is untrue.”
Such is our aim. Let us make without unmaking and in this difficult question of the origin ofRight, the grand old Anglo-Saxon sense of “Ought,” let us humbly adopt as logicians, but grimly pursue as practical men some such maxim as what follows:
“Right came from nothing, it means nothing, it leads to nothing; with it we are nothing, but without it we are worse than nothing.”[45]
Next Thursday I shall deal with morality in international relations.